Gestalt: Project

What is it about?
This project was focussed on the surreal and what is it in film that makes something surreal. We were shown some information on Gothic and Poetic Cinema - SURREALISM.

 This is an example of a surreal film, this is an image from the animated film "Corpse Bride" and it was directed by Tim Burton. Tim Burton is an american film director and specialises in dark quirky themes movies. He also directed Charlie and The Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeny Todd (2007) and Alice in Wonderland (2010), all featuring actor Johnny Depp.

They are all films that have a sense of dreams/nightmares and they all have the gothic colouring. Although you may think that Charlie in the chocolate factory would be a happy film like the first one, the way it is set and the colours that are used make it seem very harsh and gothic. One of his influences for his work was Edgar Allan Poe who is a Gothic story writer, who focussed on the questions of death and decomposition. Another is Stephen king, who wrote books based on horror, suspense. science fiction and fantasy fiction. The films that I have mentioned are based around horror and fantasy fiction mixed into one. I they are more of one than the other but they have hints of both in there. Sweeny Todd being more horror and Alice in Wonderland being more about fantasy. 


What did we do?

We went on a trip to Mount Edgecome in plymouth and this is where we filmed our dream sequence. The project is mad up of two parts the dream sequence being one and then the normal being the other.

Dream Sequence

The dream sequence had to be out of the ordinary and surreal and the example we were given was alice in wonderland so we decided to go with that. We thought about what the place looked like and we decided that our theme for this would be symmetry. We also thought about characters and how we could make it into a dream and story. In Alice and wonderland Alice is searching for this bunny that had all the answers, so we took that and made the dream into a chase. The dream sequence had to connect with our other sequence so we thought a chase would be good.

Filming:
Filming went really well, the idea changed quite a bit over the course of the day and as we saw things around us we thought "oh this would be good" and "what if we did this?" which was bound to happen while we are walking around a location we hadn't seen before. Over the course of the day if we saw something we thought would look good we would just film it anyway and then that way we didn't want to use it it didn't matter but if we did then at least it was there, if we just stuck to the script the whole time the project wouldn't have looked as good.
To give it more of a surrealist feelwe used a green screen and we filmed arms and legs doing robotic movements so that they can come out of the ground and move around.

Editing:
Editing for part of the sequence took hours. There is one part that was a lot of different effects and we wanted holes and legs coming out of the floor and people floating on hands.

Normal Life:

This sequence had only one rule... to follow the pace of the following film:

This scene shows a girl running in and out of different rooms trying to find something or someone. At the end of our sequence we had to have the girl hit her head. This idea connects to the dream sequence because in normal life she is scared and running away from something and looking for something, in the dream she is trying to find the bunny.

Filming:
Filming went really well, it was alot easier than the dream sequence and it was filmed in the order that it would be seen. We filmed a walk/scared run going up the stairs then into a room where the girl would pass out on the bed. For this sequence we had some coloured circles that we would post up on the wall and we decided to make them into a countdown. They were stuck around the house in really unobvious places, not really in your face but still there in the shot. They were featured in the main sequence and then we got short cutaways of hands on the railings and short snappy close ups.

Editing:
Because we filmed it in order it was really easy to edit. We took about 3 takes of each scene so all we really needed to do was choose, trim and then put it all together. I like that we did it this way because it saves a lot of time and effort at the end of the day.

Alice from Robert Marshall on Vimeo.

Conclusion:

I think the videos worked really well both seperately and together. I liked how they both turned out and also how it was all filmed. it was a really fun project to film and I think it was one of the best films we have made as a group. It was also one of the most complicated but that is what made it so interesting. 

Gestalt: Research

Nocturne: Cinema 16

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081245/plotsummary
Nocturne is about a woman who is sensitive to the light. At the beginning of the film we see a silouette against a window and we don't hear anything, a man then crashes through the window in a suit of some kind. She shields her eyes from the glass and then it cuts to a very dark shot. We can see odd colours and a flicker of white as the light shows her in a nightgown. After a montage of shots where she is on the floor and hiding and then eventually we hear her on the phone to a friend. She is talking about leaving and how she doesnt think she can do it, and her friend is desperately trying to convince her otherwise. At the end of the film we see her properly for the first time in the very early morning light with geese flying overhead.

When I look at the picture it is very dark and it is hard to make out what most of the objects are. I think that this represents how she feels in not being able to go into the light so only seeing the outline or the highlights of the objects around her. There is a really good shot that looks a little bit like CCTV when she is on the floor and there are tissues flying over her, it has a bit of a "someone is watching you" feel to it. Although I think it works I don't particularly like this as it is hard to connect with what is going on and also because it is in French the subtitles can distract our vision from what is going on. We either miss what they are saying and it doesn't make sense or we miss what is happening in the shot.There are 3 characters in the film and only one in the shot and that is the girl, the other two are on the other end of the phone call. There is also a bird in the room, however it is dead, I feel this is either a symbol of death and neglect or fear. The girl is fearful of the light and it looks as if she has been locking herself away so neglecting the world outside of the four walls. The room is a mess from what we can see, she is feeling arrouund for stuff, knocking things over as if she is dizzy or loseing control, maybe going a little bit insane because she is so alone and scared.
I think that the underlying theme of the film is fear and pain, because she is on the phone saying that she doesnt want to leave and she cant go into the light while her friends are there convincing her otherwise. The darkness and the angle the camera is at shows how scared she is because she looks small and not easily seen. Another possible theme is dreams... the beginning of the film shows a man that smashes through the window so maybe that was a dream/nightmare and that is what scared her of the light and of leaving, maybe it is something that has happened and now given her a reccuring nightmare. Either way it is connected to her being afraid and it has kept her awake and also made her paranoid.
When the man comes crashing into the building it is a loud crash, the build up to that is slow and quiet to make the entrance seem more impressive. Through the rest of the film is just ambience of the room and then the phone call which is whispers and mumbling tones. I think that it really worked because hearing the hurt in her voice and not having anything else to distract her. At the end of the film when the birds fly over we hear the wind and the noise of the birds
Overall I thought the film was good, but it isnt really something I would watch. When I watched it I was confused at what was going on but when we discussed it as a group I started to understand the logic and the theme, why is it dark, all the things on the floor and the sounds.

Planning Sheets: Coffee Cup

COFFEE CUP
Shot list:

Storyboard:

Risk Assessment:

Treatment: 

Our Film "Ticket to anywhere" is a 2 minute short film about a man and a woman who are sitting in a car arguing about directions and ending up in the middle of no where. Eventually they park up and decide that they need to look at a map and we are left wondering if they ever got to their final destination. 


We open on a black screen with the words "Ticket to anywhere" in a bold white colour with two lines above and below the text, in a box style. It then suddenly cuts to a black and white scene that shows a couple driving along a road. It is an over the shoulder shot so we can see the back of the front seats and the road that the car is driving on.  The boy then start a conversation/argument about something that must have been talked about previously. The sound in the car is just the ambience and the vocals of the people. We then see different shots of outside of the car driving towards the camera and we see the surroundings so we can see how lost they really are. The it goes between over the shoulder shots and mid shots of the front of them where the camera seems to be stuck onto the dash board. We then see a long shot of them turning into an anonymous car park where they are still arguing. We then see the map get pulled out across the front of the car wind screen from the outside of the car while they are still arguing. Then there is a long shot of the car where we see hands flying everywhere and the map getting wrinkled around, at this point we cant hear anything that is being said but we can see the frustration. Then the camera glides in through the drivers window and we get to hear the argument again. The film finished with a long shot of the car and the ambience of the outside, and then cuts to black.

Single Camera Drama: Films

Television Series: The Office

(All the different angles, small gestures are different)

This programme has two versions, American and British, i am focussing on the british. It is a Comedy Programme in the form of a documentary and was first broadcasted on BBC2 in 2001. It stars comedian and actor Ricky Gervais acting as the boss man who likes to think everyone listens to him but really he is just a push over. This programme was filmed in single camera because it needed the realistic feel to it, and it wouldnt have worked if it was filmed on a set. The camera is placed like a fly on the wall kind of effect, so it looks like the actors are trying to impress the "camera crew" of the documentary that is being made. The cutaways of the office and people working connect the different scenes really well and also they show a feel of time passing in the day. I think it is really clever how they managed to make it seem like there was more than one camera.. usually for a documentary there will be more than one camera because they dont want to miss anything and they want to get all the different angles of the spontanious things that could happen. The sound in the overall production is mainly just the ambience of the office with phones and printers and I think that way it gives more of a personal feel when we hear the awkward silences and the hushed tones that always happen in an office. I think the way they have edited it is really clever the way it snaps between shots like someone is looking at the conversations and someone else is in the room.

Television Series: Glee

(1.20: Britney Moving)
Glee is a new american drama that is about a group of teenagers that join the "Glee Club" which is the most humiliating club in McKinley High School. This school is real but doesnt exist in Lima Ohio where is it said to be in the drama. The production is primarily at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, CA, with cafeteria, outside hallway and football field scenes at Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo High School in Long Beach and gym scenes at Helen Bernstein High School in Los Angeles. I chose this scene because it has a few elements that prove that it was a single camera production.
1: it was filmed in a big open space
2: the range of shots (mid shots - extremem long shots... behind and infront of people)
3: positioning of some of the people...
... Glee is a tv programme made up of loads of different music videos, which is good because that way it looks a lot more interesting, however it can have its defaults because particularily in scenes like this. In the scene the set is covered with people and this is where mistakes can be noticed, the slight change in timing or movement, or even facial expression can either ruin or distract from the scene. In the video above, you can see that at 1 min 20 seconds, Britney (blonde girl) comes down the steps in the over the shoulder shot of kurt, then when we go into the close up of the boy in the uniform singing we see her do the exact same thing. I think this scene represents single camera exactly for that reason, because it is such an easy mistake to make. And I also love glee and the way it is filmed, which also helps.

Dance Film: Honey

(Small Space Lots of Cameras)

The film is about a 20 year old girl who dreams to be a professional dancer and has the heart to teach others how to get to the top. This scene is right at the beginning of the film and it is a dance routine filmed in the community centre on their block. The centre as you can see has a basketball court on the main floor then on the balcony is where Honey (Jessica Alba) runs her dance class. This space is very small and also very open so would not be able to have a massive camera crew in there. Also because it is a dance film there would need to be lots of interesting camera angles to make the audience think WOW THAT IS AWESOME!
With dance films you cant really change how you were standing or your movements, because you have rehearsed it to work the way it is filmed... which is good, because that way it looks like they have only danced it once and then done a clever "hidden camera" effect.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

What is Single Camera Drama?

What does it mean?

Single camera drama means that it is only shot with one camera (pretty simple really). It is used in soap operas and some television series.

What are the differences between multi camera technique, and single camera technique?

When a production company use more than one camera (multi camera), it is usually on a set with the three walls and then the cameras acting as the 4th wall, just like on a stage att he theater, the cameras will be the audience or the background. When single camera is used they can go into small rooms and shoot all around, it gives the fell of you actually being there, whereas in a programme like "Friends" you can see everything from one angle and that is it. You never really see the apartment from another angle. On some occasions they will use a camera that is over by the window but other than that you only ever see the action from the 4th wall.

You can see that all of the shots in multi camera are roughly the same. They will usually have one camera which focuses on the whole set and then they will assign the other cameras to either each character or they will assign them to a part of the set so that none of the action and reactions are missed.

                                                  In Multi Camera you can do a scene once and not have to worry that you missed something or you got the place where you were standing in the wrong place. With Single Camera you can quite often tell when something has been moved or they have done it after or before because hair will have moved, one moment they will hold something then they wont and then they will be again. It is clumsy mistakes like that which is why quite alot of tv shows use the 4th wall technique.  

 In High school musical 2 the final song "Everyday" sung by Troy and Gabriella was a good example of how single camera is used. Because there is alot of movement and the actors have to remember alot of things they sometimes forget which hands they used in the previous shoot...

First He is holding her hand in his right hand and the mic in his left...

...He then switches the mic to his other hand however...

...He forgets to do it when they did another take so he is moving the hand that had the mic in the shot before.

This sort of thng happens all the time and i didnt notice the first few times watching it, but i did notice when i was looking for it.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of the single camera technique?
The advantages of using single camera drama are that you can get so many more angles from the location and you can also get a more interesting angle. For example in "The Eye" (Jap version) in the Lift, There is no way you could get all those angles in there without doing it with only one camera. There were around 50 shots and all so small however it wouldnt of had the same effect if it wasnt done like that. the disadvantage of using single camera is that it can look very amateur sometimes. When there is a slight movement in a prop or even if the actors outfit/hair has moved people may not pick up on it straight away but some people will see these things and it can distract from what is actually happening in the scene. With single camera the editing is very short and snappy and when it is a very active scene it can work really well but when it is a slow easy going scene sometimes is can be very annoying. For example when the scene shows two angles shot seperately (such as an over the shoulder) you can pick up on the fact they were shot seperately.

What techniques can be used to give the impression that more than one camera is being used.  Can you give some examples?

There arent many techniques that are used to give the impression of Multi camera other than to do the scene more than once in the differnet angles. When watching a film, you would always asume that there is more than one camera because of all the different shots and how it ran together so well... every now and again there will be little things that make you think, well the mixed these two takes together because her hair is differne there than it is there, but you only notice that sort of thing if you are really looking for it. For example I never noticed that the microphone had switched hands the first 3 times I watched HSM but then I watched it the other day, after I knew all about this and I noticed it straight away. It is actually quite annoying now that I know about it because it distracts me from what is actually going on in the production. 

Floor Plans/Stage Set up...

Multi Camera Set: Typical News Room

this is the set up that a typical news room would have. it would have the desk and the sofa and all the props and then within the set would be cameras, there is a line that the cameras aren't aloud to cross obviously, just so that they don't get the other cameras in the shot but the line is usually set to each camera...

Multi Camera Set: Typical Comedy Set
This is the set up that a typical comedy set would look like, such as "friends". On a stage set like this there is usually a set line that you cant cross because that is the edge of the stage and it wont be crossed by the actors...

...This picture shows the friends cast thanking the studio audience after they have done a shoot. In the picture you can see the edge of the set and the tape that is down. The tape is the marker for each camera. 

Single Camera Set: Scene From "Get Carter" 1969

In this you can see that the cameras are all crossing over eachother and that is this was shot with all those cameras on set then it wouldnt work. That is one of the first give aways of single camera, that you can get so many close up angles and long shot ones all in one scene at all the different angles imaginable. The downside to this means that they had to do the scene 4 times, thats if it was perfect each time which is highly unlikely. This sort of camera work can take hours longer than a multi camera show. Which isn't good if they are doing a shoot outside because there is lighting and changes in surrounding sounds. This was filmed on a roof top and there are windows all around but you can ony really see the windows in two scenes, so they were probably filmed one after the other just incase it changed. When shooting a single camera drama you have to take all these things into account. 

Single Camera Set: Scene From "The Eye" Japanese Version

This scene was when the girl gets into the lift and she then sees a floating ghost of a man drifting around at the back of the space. The first give away that this was filmed in single camera is the fact it was filmed in a lift, and that sort of space can hardly fit 5 people in it let alone those 5 people with cameras and booms and all that jazz. I think the short shots and the close ups were what made it work overall, the angles were also very creative and added to the whole feel of it. Because it was a horror film, it helps to have the suspenseful close ups of the eyes, hands and the surroundings so having them all put in as a montage, along with the soundtrack of silence... it really did make it look and feel alot better. 

BOOK RESOURCES

R.Lindheim & R.Blum wrote the book "Inside Television Producing" in 1991 and it was published by Focal Press which are based in both London and Boston. 

They wrote this about single camera drama...

G.Millerson wote the book "The Technique of Television Production"and there were 11 editions. I looked at the 11th edition published in 1985 by Focal Press

He wrote this about single camera drama...

ONLINE RESOURCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-camera_setup

"The single-camera setup, or single-camera mode of production, is a method of shooting films and television programs. A single camera—either film or video—is employed on the set and each shot to make up a scene is taken individually..."

"In single-camera, if a scene cuts back and forth between actor A and actor B, the director will first point the camera towards A and shoot shots number 1, 3, 5, 7, and so on. Then they will point the camera toward B and do shots number 2, 4, 6, 8, and so on. In the post-production editing process, the shots will be assembled into their final order..."

"In television, single-camera is mostly reserved for prime-time dramas, made-for-tv movies, music videos and commercial advertisements..."





"In the case of situation comedies, which may potentially be shot in either multiple- or single-camera modes, it may be deemed preferable to use the single-camera technique especially if specific camera angles and camera movements for a feature film-like visual style are considered crucial to the success of the production, and if visual effects are to be frequently used..."

http://www.coursework.info/AS_and_A_Level/Drama/Theatre_Studies/The_Opportunities_and_ Limitations_of_Sin_L120907.html

"In the early days of film making the director would not have the choice of using the multi-camera setups and editing suites that we have today. He or she would have just one camera to shoot all the shots needed and then when it came to the editing process, all the shots would need to be selected, the different frames sliced apart, and spliced back together in the desired order. As you can imagine this was a time consuming process, and although this appeared to be a big limitation on some television genre's at the time such as sit-com and live broadcasts, it allowed the film industry to flourish. The use of the single camera drew the director into a more creative role leaving open the opportunity to work more closely with actors, and to get the best results from them..."

Coffee Cup: Project

"Ticket To Anywhere": Single Camera Drama

"Im a one man GPS... that voice on tom tom.. THATS ME!"


Men and women having an argument over directions, happens everyday and in our project. We had to create a scene from the everyday and we decided that a domestic argument is one of the most common everyday experiences.

After a lot of planning we finally came up with our idea and we had decided that we were going to shoot up at the ski slope. Driving around, it took a while to find a place to go but we eventually found a little dirt track right by the slope and we had permission to use that. 

The filming took a very long time just because we could only use one camera. and we had to keep going back and forth on this little lane. Because it took so long it also made us loose focus a little bit because we didn't have any main shot list or storyboard with us. I think that filming would have gone a lot smoother and quicker if we had better organisation. 

Shooting off site and somewhere quite far out meant that we couldnt really change much of our idea. However we did change some things, such as he driver wasn't a woman it was a man, because in practice it wasn't really working and we also fiddled with the script a little. 

When recording the sound we had a separate device so that it would be a better quality and would be a little bit more direct. We used a clapper board to sync the camera and the sound together so it would be easier in editing. 

The end film finished alot different to how we thought it would look from the storyboard, but that is only because we found it had to fit everything together to make it look smooth. Because the script was improvised only some of the speeches were the same and of the same speed to we could switch from shot to shot. We also took alot of the shots out because some of them just didnt look right. I like how it finished though, i thought it was very professional looking and it showed me how hard it can be to actually make a film with only one camera and have it all run smoothly. 

In one part (when it is gliding along the front of the car) you can see it is very dubbed, but i personally thought it fit and added something to the production. 

Coffee Cup from Tash Magor on Vimeo.

Coffee Cup: Research

Coffee and Cigarettes: Somewhere in California

The theme of the film is absorption in the obsessions, joys, and addictions of life, and there are many common threads between vignettes (such as the Telsa coil, medical knowledge, the suggestion that coffee and cigarettes don't make for a healthy meal (generally lunch), cousins, The Lees (Cinqué, Joie, and a mention of Spike), delirium, miscommunication, musicians, industrial music, acknowledged fame, and the idea of drinking coffee before sleeping in order to have fast dreams). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_and_Cigarettes#Themes

Jim Jaramusch: Director

 "I'm behind my schedule because I wanted to shoot one or two each year, but I haven't shot any for four years now. The intention was to shoot short films that can exist as shorts independently, but when I put them all together, there are things that echo through them like the dialogue repeats; the situation is always the same, the way they're shot is very simple and the same - I have a master shot, if there's two characters, a two shot, singles on each, and an over-the-table overhead shot which I can use to edit their dialogue." http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/1999/nov/15/guardianinterviewsatbfisouthbank3

The film was released in 2004 and took 2 decades to make.  

The scene we watched was the third scene in the film featuring singers IGGY POP(left) and TOM WAITS(right).  The two men have met up for a coffee and to talk about their careers and what they are doing at the moment. They are also both trying to quit smoking so they then discuss it while having a fag. It is a very realistic scene and makes the audience feel awkward and also like a fly on the wall. They are sat in a diner and it comes across as quite late because it is very quiet and the actors seem tired. The scene is made up of 4 different shots that are very simple and there are no real cutaways. The only cutaway that I think would be there is when the camera is over the table and it creates a break as we watch them take their coffee have a drink and put it back. The scene lasts for around 10 minutes and i think this works because it feels like we are watching this conversation in real time, instead of skipping bits of speech to make different sentences. The pauses and the odd looks are really what make the piece work and make it awkward, which is what we are meant to feel. 

Butterface

This short film was directed by David McLaughlin and starred him and Margeux Dauquin. The film shows the awkwardness between two strangers when they sit on a train together, and the thoughts that may be running through their heads. We see a master shot of the two of them sat together on the train and then cutaways of what is passing by the train. The camera is on the train the whole time which I think is very good, because it is like some one else is sat there watching all this happen. All we hear is the ambience of the train and the voice over of the boy sitting down. This is a really good example of single camera but was effected by the location they chose. When the train had stopped and then the boy got up they had a cut of him in the toilets, when he returned you could see that they had done that in a few takes because the lighting had changed and so did the surrounding scenery. Also we can see that it was done in loads of different bits because when the camera has a close up of her face then pans round to see the passing scenery we can see that the direction changed, it is subtle but it still quite obvious.

Mise en Scene

What does "Mise En Scene" mean?
It means what is in the shot. This can include the layout, the objects, the people, the mood, the story... it is basically what the picture is telling us. We analysed 4 different scenes.

In this picture we can see a man and a woman sitting at a dining table. The time isnt obvious, neither is the reason why they are sat there so we had to look at the surroundings to create the story. 

They are both looking at eachother which represents comunication but the expression on their faces is not positive so we can asume there has been a fight or disagreement of some kind. When we look at what they are wearing we can guess what sort of year this is and what time of day it is, we guessed the year to be around 1980's and the time of day to be evening, because he is wearing a suit and looks tired also reading a newspaper to relax himself. She is wearing an apron which suggests she has been cooking but there is also a wine bottle on the table so we can then say that is it dinner time. When we look at the scene it seems to be split in thirds...

The man in one, the woman in another and the table is the centre of attention. This symbolises that they have some stuff that is keeping them apart. I think this is a really good way to show seperation and the positioning of everything just adds to the whole mood of the frame. 

In this scene we can see that there are three characters in a house and they are all of different ages and probrably all have different stories. When we looked at this image the first thing we saw was this girl in the foreground (front) looking right out into the audience. We then saw the little boy at the desk and then looking a little more carefully we saw the woman sitting in the room behind. The time of day is hard to tell but we can see that it isnt night time because there is light coming through the window and the boy is still dressed, however it looks like the girl in the front is in her pyjamas. We thought maybe she is tied up to the bed because she works for the lady that is sat in the background and she has been accused of stealing but actually it was the little boy. Another assumtion is that she isnt actually there at all and she is thinking about it. If you look at this carefully you can see there are three layers also but instead of in width it is in depth:

I think the way they have lit the characters is very clever, they have the light on each one and nothing else like they are the key point and we need to see everything that they are doing in the scene. Also I like how the front character is breaking the forth wall. When you are working on a set there are usually four built walls and then another wall made up by cameras and audience, well when the actor looks right at the camera or out into the audience that is called breaking the fourth wall, I think it helps us connect with the character. 

In this scene the character is looking at the bed. I instantly thought maybe a breakup, or someone had died or gone missing. She doesnt look happy and she is holding her stomache as if she is sad. However she is looking at the bed as if she is angry and dissapointed. This one doesnt have any different layers but it could have alot of different stories. It is hard to work out what kind of situation this character is in but I know that it isnt good. 

Once again this one isnt very easy to work out, we have alot of clue onto where they might be and who they might be but we dont really know what has happened to get them here and what there relationship is. Some people suggested they had just had sex and the many different convosations they could be having 

"why did i sleep with you?" 

"oh great your leaving" 

"well that was good, gotta get back to the wife" 

It looks like she is on the floor so maybe she is isnt very well off and is sleeping with people for money, maybe she is house sitting. It also looks like he is quite a rich powerful man with the suit and the way he is sat (a way a man is sat tells us alot about them) and she looks really quite annoyed. There is a backlight on the man from the window and there is also some light on her from the lamp behind her, they are both having a cigarette which also suggests the after-sex-smoke. He is trying to explain something to her but she doesnt really want to listen. 

Submarine Review

This film is about a boy called Oliver Tate, a welsh boy who has a mother and father and is an outsider in his school. It is a documentary on his life, We see basically everything that he is going through whether it be with voice overs or a montage of shots or even just acting out the scene.

"15-year-old Oliver Tate has two objectives: To lose his virginity before his next birthday, and to extinguish the flame between his mother and an ex-lover who has resurfaced in her life" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440292/

It was written and directed by Richard Ayoade (actor from IT Crowd) and it stars Craig roberts (Oliver) and Yasmin Paige (Jordana). The film was based on the crittically acclaimed novel by Joe Dunthorne, however the characters personalities were all a version that the director himself had created.

"I made Craig Roberts, who plays Oliver, copy my Welsh accent. I also forced him to memorise my entire life story. But that isn’t something specific to Submarine... Generally, I like to act out all the scenes from the film and have the actors copy me. If they can reproduce just 20 per cent of what I’m blasting out then we’ve got something pretty flippin’ special. I’m all over it like white on rice." http://www.bizarremag.com/entertainment/movies/10639/submarine.html

I think the way that pauses and silent moments were used was really clever. It made it feel a lot more real and on the spot instead of scripted and predictable like a lot of films do. As a rule, using silence in a film isnt really a good idea but they took the risk and I really think it worked. The use of volume is used alot to make it realistic, so sometimes they will mumble when they are annoyed or nervous, sometimes just blabber about nothing and the quick responses is just like they are having that convo for the 1st time it is wasnt rehearsed. I thought the music was very well fitted and worked well with the moments of silence that were also in there.

The use of montage in this is also very effective. When Oliver and Jordana are running around in the dark after announcing that they are going out, it was creative. I thought it showed the excitement and happiness that they felt and it also was a really good way of showing that the time was passing but also showed a development in the characters. In between different scenes there would be a fade to blue or red and then a title of the person that was being focussed on during the next few scenes, so JORDANA or GRAHAM. I didnt like how this was done because although it gave it a sort of humourous feel and the music that went with it was kindof deadly I personally thought it didn't fit with the overall feel of the film.

There were a lot of POV shots when he was talking to people. There was 1st person when he was with jordana and 3rd person over the shoulder shots when he talks to his parents in his room. Also when he went to the evening show to spy on his mum there was a shot looking through the door when his mum was leaving the room so it was like it was us looking through the window. The use of handheld was very clever here too. When a silent moment between Jordana and Oliver came and they were looking straight at eachother to kiss, the camera would go right in front of them and give us the point of view of the other person. Shows us the emotion of how they are feeling and what they are thinking through their eyes.

Overall i liked the film, the moments of silence were what really got my attention because they just added the reality feel to the whole piece. When Oliver looked out of the window or when he was lying on the

The Waiting Room: Project

We had to create a film that was based around a minute but the actual film is longer than a minute. Taking a time and making it longer with out pausing it.
When someone is waiting to see a doctor or go into the dentist's chair they will look at the clock and think that time is going really slowly because they just wanna get it over and done with, well that was the effect that we had to create.
Our idea was pretty solid and didn't really change much but we were trying to create a background story with one scene which was very complicated. We were going to be...
- Waiting for a phone call
- from a friend
- who had just murdered someone
- but it was also the police
- and we had the weapon and didn't know what to do
- Phone would ring and then BLACKOUT
THEN
- Girls had witnessed a murder
- waiting for a phone call
- scared
- phone rings BLACKOUT
FINALLY
- Girls witness murder
- murderur sees them and ties them up
- they were passed out and had injuries
- timer is set on phone for one minute
- girls wake up, struggle
- murderer comes back and BLACKOUT

Evaluation...
I think the filming went really well and the idea was quite creative. We used low lighting and a black backdrop to add effect and we also used very close shots to add to the emotion of the piece.
Editing was fairly easy, because of the way we filmed it there wasn't much that needed doing other than putting it all together in such a way that it would be effective. The only thing that was changed in filming is when Ellie shot up, a few frames were taken out to make her wake up a little more suddenly.
In Raging Bull the sound for the punches was done by what sounds like fruit dropping from a fair height so basically done separately. We had to create the sound track with different objects than were using in the actual film.
Overall I think that our film worked out pretty well and I like the finished product. If I was going to change anything it would have been the ketchup we used in the actual filming, but that isn't really anything major.
Audience reviews said that it was very dark and seemed like something that would be seen in a film. They liked how at the end there was no gun shot but the cocking of the gun was really good, it made them wonder what will happen or what has happened. There was no bad feedback which I was really pleased with.

Eye Witness from Tash Magor on Vimeo.

The Waiting Room: Research

Raging Bull: Time Slowed Down
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wwItkoapuA
In the class we watched a scene from Raging bull where the two characters (Jake LaMotta & Sugar ray Robinson) were in the boxing ring in their 13th round. This is a really good example to show how speed and volume can effect an audience because it is a very fast and intense sport. At the beggining of the clip we see a slow motion movement to get to the middle of the ring before the fight, I think this shows how the fighter feels just before and how it is like everything has slowed right down and then it all come back to normal. As the image is sped up the volume also increases which I think makes the audience feel like they are the fighter because they are seeing AND hearing the stuff as the fighter on screen.
After the first intense fight we see that the black man (Sugar ray) takes a step back and then everything is quiet, this gives a dramatic build up to whatever comes next, because of the expression and the way that the camera is angled it once again puts us in the boxers shoes "what is gonna happen next? how long do i wait?" getting us excited and nervous.
I think the way they put some shots in real time and some of the bigger hits in slow motion really gave it that extra something for the screen, made the audience stop and see what was happening instead of the end result. We saw the blood slowly spew from his eyes and nose and we saw the expressions as he was hit around the face and i think that is why it looked so good. If the shot was just all real time it wouldnt have given us the feeling of shock or excitement that it did.

Click: Time Sped Up
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2a8k2BGxlQ
This film is about a man who gets a remote that controls his life. He can pause slow down and skip events in his life. This film is based around nearly a month in his life however it shows his whole life from when he got the remote. The film is pretty much all about how he has fast forwarded through his life and missed things which have  made a huge impact on his further life.