For the first week back after the holidays as a challenge for the start of the term, we had to go off and create a purely factual film that lasts about 3 minutes but involves no actors at all.
We worked in groups of a minimum of 5 and my groups idea was to interview people about what Christmas means to them but we’d leave out the question from the final edit so the viewer had to guess what they were being asked. I did something similar on my ND course last year. The project was called “Give them enough rope”.
We were only allowed to use the kit provided which unfortunately was all faulty, or “faluty” which the misspelled sticker would have you believe. The firewire and audio were broken so after running back to college for a new DV and experiencing multiple technical errors, we had to change the idea due to the short deadline.
I was an editor with Richard so we received the new footage. The final idea shows shots of scenery as well as shots of the place where the shots of scenery is taken from.
BA Hons and FD Film
www.benkday.webs.com – My homepage, the place to find the home movies you won't find here
28 Days Later Foley Evaluation
Working in a group of three, we investigated the foley and sound designers of the movie ’28 Days Later’. We would then analyse their styles throughout their other work so we could correctly add audio to one of the opening scenes of the movie and keep it true to their styles.
We split up who we’d analyse between us. Whilst my group members looked at the foley artist and soundtrack designer, I looked at the films sound designer Glenn Freemantle. According to the Internet Movie DataBase, he’s worked on over a hundred box office movies as a sound designer. I chose to analyse a movie he’s worked on called “127 hours”. In it a mans arm is trapped under a rock for the majority of the movie. Good tension and emotion is created by choosing to have absolutely no wild track on certain scenes. Absolute silence will be accompanied by the sound of the main character struggling franticly to free himself. This use of silence is also evident in 28 Days Later and is very effective at creating a lonely yet dangerous post-apocalyptic world.
After deciding upon the core sound effects we’d use for the foley recording, we set off with a video camera and recorder to get them done. In editing, the audio was imported and synced to their corresponding videos. The videos of the sounds being recorded were placed at the corners of the screen for a separate export to be used as a making of video.
Originally the project was very silent. With no wild track, only the actions of the actor would be heard; identical to Glenn Freemantle’s style. Upon watching our clip on external devices we found that the sounds had quite loud ambience therefor making the transition between them and silence too obvious. Because of this we decided to add a wild track throughout the clip, which helped greatly and blended to the foley sounds.
Bodies; Difference; Postcolonialism
I’ll be analysing the social stereotypes and norms of how different cultures see gender, age, bodies and race, and what behaviour they expect from different groups of society.I’ll also be looking at how the perfect stereotype changes throughout the world.
Breaking down a stereotype, we have its meaning, identity and power. In my opinion the core of a stereotype is the groups behaviour and what they wear – It is my belief that their clothes are the first giveaway of which group that person fits into.
Some examples of stereotypes are goths, who supposedly wear long black leather coats, have pale painted faces and black makeup everywhere that it’s possible. Emo’s are similar as they also wear black but leave out the leather trench coats. Their hair must be long, straightened and black and they only wear black screamo band shirts. A very different stereotype from the last two would be chavs with their all white tracksuits and bling. Stereotypes of sexuality will tell you that gay men all have lisps and are extremely camp. Gender stereotypes play a part too as until recently women were seen as victims, but now male identities are being studied.
I think these groups are created through a mixture of fear or experience, but is unfair to individuals who may simply resemble a negative stereotype.
Through an article on the website “www.simplypsychology.org”, the writer also shares my opinion; “One advantage of a stereotype is that it enables us to respond rapidly to situations because we may have had a similar experience before. One disadvantage is that it makes us ignore differences between individuals; therefore we think things about people that might not be true (i.e. make generalizations).”
These sides of the different stereotypes are fairly true, as only a walk around the city would reveal; though with every stereotype comes their extremes, like saying goth’s worship Satan, emo’s self-harm or chavs carry knives because they struggle to pay for all five of their children. Some stereotypes are racist and their existence is politically denied. An Arabic person will be seen as a threat because of the media impact on terrorists and wars abroad.
So if you’re not a stereotype, what are you? You’re considered normal. But only through media will you have a chance of being “perfect”. Through media hype and a little help from camera angles, lighting and Photoshop, you can be no less than western perfection. However being “perfect” is a full stereotype of its own, for both men and woman. It’s a stereotype that changes through time, and the world in it’s different cultures.
Ofcourse, each stereotype has their own idea of perfection, but cultures share their own universal ideas. In the west, the perfect modern woman is perceived to be tall, thin, generously sized in her breasts, and heavily tanned, with the perfect man being tall, tanned, short or no hair with a beard and a huge set of muscles and a tough attitude, a true example of masculinity. 20 years ago, the ideal female was pale as if she’d never seen the sun. In the east, the ideal Asian woman for them is skinny, smaller than the western, and strictly somewhere between 18 to 24.
The ideal Asian man is the greatest contrast from the western standards as he is skinny, pale and has long hair. Like you’d expect from western culture, it also helps to give him a suit, but he due to the other elements, he may now look unlike what you’d expect to see in a fragrance add.
Mise en scène
Mise en scène is a term that originated in the theatre. In a filmic meaning, it is everything the director has at his disposal and arrangement of everything on set to create an atmosphere and telling of a story. It is a French word that translates to “Placing on stage”.
Through this technique, the director can truly express his film as an art rather than just a science.
The term can apply to everything that comprises the shot including camera angles, lighting, objects/actors on set and even through subtly referencing other films. It also relates to how the director can draw our attention immediately to the point he chooses. For example which colours are the strongest, what’s in focus and what isn’t, juxtaposition of actors/objects and depth of field.
Mise en scène can allow people to analyse and see meaning in films that the director may never have intended. For example, I found an example of mise en scène online at http://www.frontroomcinema.com and it talks about this picture below.
It states that: “when Vincent Gallo shot this scene is Buffalo 66 he chose the muted colours, the framing, the position of each actors bodies, the objects on each bedside table all in an attempt to shed some light on the inner workings of these two characters without the need for some terrible clichéd dialogue”.
As I do agree with that analysis, I do have an opinion that films can often be over analysed where the director just may have thought a shot “looked good” or “served it’s purpose”.
I do however agree with the great depth of mise en scène in “The Shining”. The movie is full of subtle hidden meanings and references.
Audio research
For my foley project, I’ve decided to research into the crew behind our groups chosen clip. Our project is to add foley from scratch to a scene from the movie ’28 Days Later’.
The sound designer of ’28 Days Later’, Glenn Freemantle, had the same job for ‘127 hours’ according to the Internet Movie Data Base. Both movies use complete silence during intense moments. For example, in ‘127 Hours’, while the main character is relentlessly trying to free himself from the rock and is panicking, not a single ambient sound can be heard. This stays true to most of the scenes in the films, where the characters are the only sauce of audio. I think it creates a contrast between the peaceful silent world and the loud and worried characters. This technique works well in ’28 Days later’ to express the silent yet zombie infested world of the post apocalypse.
Schedule
We found the schedule a helpful tool to organise ourselves and make sure everything stuck to plan.
Non-Place
Non-place refers to places of transience that don’t hold enough significance to be regarded as “places”.
For example; stairs, or a hallway. You pass through these places, crossing people along the way. They mearly help you reach another destination, and are never a destination of their own nor do they leave an impression.
One of my favourite film examples of non-place is “Buried”. This is a 2010 movie directed by Rodrigo Cortes and clearly takes inspiration from the movie “Phonebooth”, another Non-place movie. In both these films, a person is forced to stay completely alone in a non-place for the entirety of the movie. Thus making the non-place, a very good actual place. Setting a film around a Non-Place is a good idea in my opinion as it’s definitely rare to Hollywood movies.
BA Hons and FD Film 