External Client Project Mock Version

So to create a rough test version of the video I decided to take the images from the storyboard and have them accompany the track we'll be using. This is just a rough version so ignore the 8 seconds of notes that appear towards the end. Any feedback would be appreciated, enjoy.

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.

More Depict Ideas

Treatment for 90 second Depict entry - “The Chase”

Plot- The film begins in black, with a voiceover [ ”How did I get into this”]. The shot is wide, in the centre is a man, running, towards the camera. When he reaches the position of the camera he jumps over it, and the camera follows him continuing to run. There are multiple shots of him running, none are more than 2 seconds. {A shot following him running up forest road filmed from a car would work well here}The shots take place in a vast variety of locations, from an urban city to a forest. Eventually he jumps over a wall, runs into a back door and sprints up stairs. He reaches the roof, the camera pans around him panicking with nowhere to go. He stops, walks towards the edge of the building. There is a POV shot of the ground below. Then a noise while the camera is extremely focused on his eyes growing wide. The next shot is of the roof door’s handle turning.

Need to work on voiceover so long weekend in store

Depict Ideas

Treatment for 90 second Depict entry - “The Cop”

Plot-      The film begins with an extreme close-up of a man’s face, half of his face is outside of the shot. The other half of the frame displays heavy rain. [VOICEOVER BEGINS]The man is smoking a cigarette and appears not to have slept in days. He throws the cigarette down and stomps it out. The camera is behind him on the floor as he does this, and follows him walking off. The shot changes to an establishing shot. We can see him from across a canal. The next shot is over the shoulder, then stops following him to observe a newspaper in the water, the headline reads “Teen Murder” or something similar. [Until now the voiceover has been focused on the corruption in the city. Now the man speaks of a young girl forced into prostitution and killed for disobeying her handler]. The camera focuses on the man’s pensive face, and then moves to a photo in his hand. The photo is of a young girl, there is a bloody finger print on it. The shot fades into a flashback. It is all one shot, filmed over the man’s shoulder, following him getting out of his car, walking into a crime scene, seeing the girl, falling to his knees and vomiting violently. [It is now clear that he is addressing someone in his narrative] The next shot is a silhouette of the back of a man’s head. The camera pans to show the full body of our protagonist. He is holding a gun In his right hand. There is a police badge in the other. The scene fades to black.

[“Which do I use?”]

Showreel

Looks like I've made ground on the Context 2 project after a week of computers crashing whenever any form of progress had been made. My 1st edit is available to view here http://youtu.be/-S12ChUklM4 so give me some feedback to imprvoe it.

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.

Return to uni

Back after winter break and gonna jump in straight away with a new edit I did today, just some arbitrary shots taken around Nottingham City Centre. Had to do a little editing on them in photoshop just because i didn't like the way they came out, then with a little Premiere Pro magic made this, enjoy.

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.

"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.

First Context 2 Task

When I first thought about the existing "connections" I have to people in the multimedia industry I thought that it ended with my summer internship as a runner for Absolute Post, a Post-Production company based in Soho (http://absolutepost.co.uk/). But then I kept thinking and remembered that my aunt used to work for the BBC as a presenter/researcher. This could prove to be a useful source of contacts. Similarly my uncle is the Vice President & Chief Financial Officer for Electronic Arts's 'EA Sports' label. He's based over in Canada so its rare that I'd go over, however last time I went my brother and I tested a few of the games and met a large number of the designers, animators etc. One who stood out was Nick Gonzalez but everyone there was noteworthy. Apart from them I can't think of many more, however if I do I'll update this straight away.

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.

eXistenZ

This film officially wrinkled my brain for lack of better words, which I suppose was the intention of the director. However I doubt he intended for the film to be watched by university students capable of laughing at the slightest bit of deranged innuendo. Anyway, I'm not here to review the film, I'm here to discuss what the purpose of watching it was in terms of narrative, interactivity and convergence.

Narrative- The storyline is filled with plot twists, the largest of which is when the protagonists finish the "game" and leave eXistenZ to reveal that all of this was a different game, transCendenZ. This then rasies the question, how do we know that we're not in a game right now? When I left the lecture I immediately said to myself "40% Matrix, 50% Inception and 10% any film with Jude Law."

Interactivity- I think the best part of the film to express this would be when Allegra convinces Ted to keep playing, stating "There's nothing happening here. We're safe. It's boring." That's exactly why people play video games, because there's nothing better to do and they have the ability to take whoevers playing somewhere else, and I'm not saying they need to be as elaborate as the one in the film, when i was a kid I could play Crash Bandicoot for days and not get bored.

As for convergence I'm not entirely sure what it means...


Happy New Year!