Behold, The Collective.

My latest film-making feat, known in its triology as 'The Collective'. Enjoy, and please post feedback.

'The Choice'

'The Chase'

'The Charity'

Justification

My idea for the DepicT project is to create a series of short films, each with independent issues but all holistically similar. The general theme, if I had to give the series one, would be that it is a crime drama, seen from the victim’s perspective, as well as that of the alleged perpetrator and the individual investigating the crime, something that I’m not entirely has been done before, at least not in the way I plan on creating it.

            In the beginning the series began as the final film on its own, being orbited by other, separate ideas to include in my pitch, and the advice I got for making that film, ‘The Chase’, was to cut the familial connection as my tutor believed that there would not be enough time to make it clear that the murdered girl was his daughter. I, myself, thought that this wouldn’t be a struggle, so, against my tutor’s recommendation, I began rewriting the story to strengthen the fact that the girl was his daughter, while at the same time fixing my other ideas to be pitched. I later realised that one of my ideas had a similar vibe, as if it was another chapter in this story. Once I realised this, the third, but chronologically first, film came to me.

            I like to think that the series possesses a contextual relevance as crime is a daily occurrence in any city on the planet, everyone will at some point be affected by crime, and everyone will at some point be accused of a crime. Anyone who does not believe this is either in denial of the  national and international crime rates or lives in a closely guarded bubble. For this series the crime is murder, which reduces the scope, as far less people will be affected by murder in their lifetime. However, as a species, we are fascinated by death; This observation is strengthened by various multicultural occurrences, hence the number of “CSI” and “Law & Order” type shows, not to mention Professor Gunther von Hagens’ frequent televised autopsies. Death is such a common occurrence that Mexico celebrates it annually as the Día de los Muertos or, “Day of the Dead”. Therefore contextually speaking, I believe that creating this series would draw an interest from various demographics.

            In terms of available resources, this shoot will be extremely low budget, as the only necessary props, such as a knife and fake blood, are already available to me at no cost, with the only foreseeable spending being that of the taxi fare between locations, which is unlikely to exceed £10. The actors will be informed of this, under the pretence that the series will  provide them with good exposure and will be a beneficial move in their career

            The expertise necessary to produce the series is something I already possess, as I am more than familiar with using both the Panasonic 151 and the Edirol R-09 having used both various times in the past. I will also be prepared for the post-production treatment in Adobe Premiere Pro, having experimented with the majority of Audio/Visual effects in the previous, ‘Projected Visual’, project. In terms of sound, I have thought of three tracks that would work well with each of the films. A jazz number, Nicholas Payton’s cover of Chinatown,  to accompany ‘The Choice’ which will give it a film noir feel. I’d like Hans Zimmer’s Mombasa, from the film Inception, to play alongside ‘The Chase’ and as for ‘The Charity’ I wanted to use something ethereal. I originally thought that Clair de Lune would be good but will probably use Max Richter’ Autumn Music instead. I have requested permission from all of the artists and am awaiting a response.

            In relation to time, I’d like to mention that this entire series could all be shot on the same day, permitting roof access for ‘The Chase’, and I imagine that editing will take, at maximum, one day per film, however I can see it being drastically less time than that. Therefore production time is estimated at between four and five days, which seems like an especially short time to create three short films, but I have no doubt that these predictions are feasible.

Projected Visuals Evaluation

I’ll admit I wasn’t too keen on this project. The Idea of it being fully abstract is what I think put me off, as I enjoy being narrative in my work, and so I suppose it was just an adjustment that meant working outside of my comfort zone. The song I wanted to use was the second track on the album, Which I nicknamed “Don’t Go” however it originally didn't work as well as I'd hoped so I dabbled around with tracks 1, 5 and 8. In the end I realised that none were quite right, so I tried “Don’t Go” again, and I actually found that, with what I wanted to attempt, I’d made the right choice from the start.

            As I was so unfamiliar with this type of project I tried to gather research on what the audience themselves would expect and enjoy. To do this I attended underground Hip-hop shows in and around both Nottingham & certain parts of London, ranging from breakthrough acts around North-west London to bigger events in Elephant and Castle. Recurring motifs I found were the use of graffiti, riot footage and live footage of the audience in the back drops. All of these had various effects ranging between colour correction, image distortion and various mirroring effects to name but a few.

            Once I had collected this information I went in search of various local graffiti hotspots around Nottingham. I found Hyson Green was the best area for this, however, that was only one  of the three commonly found pieces of footage, and I wasn’t prepared to start a riot purely to gather footage of it. I decided instead to try me hand at some shutter-delay photography, which I’d seen used in the smaller events, such as ones in Nottingham. I hadn’t used this before though, so I made sure to take the camera out for a weekend to play about with the various different functions so that I would know what I was doing when I needed the photos taken.

            I decided to start with the shutter-delay work, as it was still getting dark around 5pm in February, so it would be less dangerous than walking around Nottingham with a £110 camera around my neck at 10pm in march. Once that was done I moved onto the graffiti portion of the project. The place I noticed with the most diverse collection of graffiti was the Skatepark in Hyson Green, so I began going there every few days to photograph the work there. I went every few days for a week and over that time a number of new pieces had gone up. The other place I gathered photos from was discovered on accident. I was on my way home from ASDA and stumbled across several different pieces of a different style behind the community centre. I luckily had a camera with me and took some shots of them.

            With that done all that was left was the editing process. I’d briefly done a run through of the editing tools in Premiere and decided to see what I could do with them. Before long I’d pieced them together in an order that I think best complemented the music, as well as images to fill the extra two minutes as requested by urban angels. Then I just added the effects to jazz the whole thing up. I started by using mirrors as they were what I had mainly practiced with, but soon found the colour correction tool and that quickly became my favourite.

            The only issues I had with the editing was that it was difficult to have each image unique, I didn’t like using the same combination of effects however it got to a point where I had no choice, all I wanted to do was keep the footage fresh. The main problem I encountered, however, was the repetitive clicking, dragging, and rearranging of images, edit tools and keyframes. I think that the final outcome is worth those few minor issues.

            The feedback I received was mostly positive too, which, given my first opinions of the project, was a pleasant surprise. One person said that it was “very professional” and a friend told me it “at some points perfectly connected to the music.” So at the end of this project I can happily say that I am pleased with the work I did, that it best reflects my ability when working on an abstract project such as this. It was a tough project at times, but by the end I enjoyed not only working on it, but the work that came out of it. I’d certainly do something like this again, however not for a while, I definitely want to get back to working on narrative projects as I believe that is where I am more talented in general.

Quick Idea Example

Just a rough idea of what I'd like to do, perhaps editting the sky to move as well but still early days and we'll see where it goes

3 Gust Concepts

Struggling to find the line between abstract and overly stylised, non-narrative garbage, but I think I may have something.
In no particular order, my ideas are as follows:

1. Whiteboard- Using a whiteboard follow the lyrics of the track, possibly including doodles decorating/following the text

2. Night/Day- Showcase city life at night photography but use a mask to change the night sky to daylight. (Perhaps include vice versa)

3. Hybrid- Showcase afforementioned stills interchanging with Whiteboard stills of final words in sentence blown up and decorated

These are just the initial ideas I have had, I am still unsure as to what track I may be using and trying to determine which one would be complemented most by either of the concepts .

More to come so watch this space.

Final Pitch

 Right, due to the last two weeks of failure i have devised two pitches, which i have titled "Safety Net" and "Ambition". Safety Net, the top image, will consist of an extreme close up of someone's eyes and whenever they blink you see through the eyes of a homeless person, be it digging through trash for food or a dark alleyway to sleep in.I've decided to also keep the voiceover of a homeless person's back story as that provided much of the gravitas in my previous failed pitches.

The next storyboard is not much of a storyboard as embedding images in paint is damn near impossible and my laptop refuses to run photoshop. This idea is much the same, only more ambitious, innovative, creative and every other adjective its predecessors missed. The idea, suggested by Karl, was to have the close-up on the eyes but, rather than switch scenes, embed the alley/trash/feet footage into the eyes and truly see through the eyes of a homeless person, again keeping the voiceover. This was my initial idea, however when I went about trying this I wasn't exactly sure how to go about doing it and couldn't find anywhere online suggesting a solution. This is when I developed the safety net idea, just in case this one falls through.

The New Idea

After the failure of last weeks pitch I decided to abandon the Original idea and go with my second choice and modify it slightly.

The idea was to have the advert shot at the level of a homeless person, comparing the differences. The new idea is to have a 1st person time lapse from the perspective of the homeless person, with a voiceover, if possible performed by a homeless person, if not then an actor, reading on of the stories framework have.

I've decided, based on the 151s battery life & memory capacity, to shoot this roughly 30 minutes before dusk, so as to incorporate the sunset and give the greater impression of time passing. If not I was planning on shooting at rush hour on a busy street, to get the biggest crowd as possible to show the extent to which homeless people are ignored by the vast majority.

I was  planning on shooting it one of three ways:

A- Camera tilted up to show faces

B- Camera deliberately tilted in a way that doesn't capture faces

C- Camera not at all tilted so as to film from the waist down

With A the idea is showing the faces of the people who ignore homeless people, and showing how many of them there are. Many people see homeless people as faceless urchins on the street, however they see the people who ignore them.

B is shot in a way that does not show faces, to make the crowd the faceless entity and emphasise the girth of the crowd.

I liked C as a shot as it shows the level at which the homeless are put on, as a lower being. With the camera filming mostly feet it will show the contrast between the crowd moving around their day to day lives and how a homeless person may be in one place for whole hours of the day.

I plan on talking to framework to see if one of the people they help would like to tell his story for the voiceover, and if they are unhappy recording then i will get an actor for the voiceover instead.

"Say Something Political" 1st storyboard

This is the basic skeleton for my advert. I've thought about doing it various different ways, this is an odd hybrid of them. Idea one was to shoot it in black & white until the 8th frame, after then it will be colour. I know its cheesy but so are most of my ideas. Example, the second idea is partially visible here, with the introduction of physical words such as "hope" to give a nice effect. This all stemmed from my original idea which had neither.

My "What In Tarnation" Site Of The Day

Whilst strolling throught the interwebs i happened across an interactive film in my journeys. Made by Chris Milk this film is a music video for Arcade Fire's 'We Used To Wait'. Not being sure how to explain it all i can do is ask you to close all your other browsers, stop what you are doing and set phasers to stunned... that came across a little nerdy, but nonetheless, click, watch, enjoy...

http://thewildernessdowntown.com/

Take off your socks...

Otherwise this video will knock them off for you.

http://gizmodo.com/5847467/is-this-the-most-amazing-time-lapse-video-yet

A Start on The Context 2 Coursework

Today has been a productive day, filmed all our MALac scenes, did research into my network and kept the momentum long enough to research the moving image presence of the Midlands. I had heard about the Bang! short film festival last year but hadn't paid enough attention to it, and may be something I'll be interested in next year.

Another film festival I'd been told about last year was Mayhem. I was really interested in this festival but couldn't make the dates. This year I definately plan on going, if not for the entire event then at least a day or two. It seems like a great way of meeting people in the industry as well as seeing some great work from the horror genre.

Its a shame that the deadline date for the LSFF (London Short Film Festival) happens to be today, but such is life. However, planning for the final project is under way, with an actress showing interest and an actor very keen to make an appearance. I have high hopes for this year.

1st DP3 Post

This is just a few shots of my basement, a location I thought may be useful when filming 'MALac'. The ceiling is very low and there's not much space but it could be possible to make it work.

Main room, for shooting.

If we don't mind the squeeze it could work nicely, may even give us some impromptu close ups.