Salaryman 6 by Jake Knight

Salaryman 6 is a short drama about a man who forgets what he did the day before but goes to work goes home and lives a mundane life. He modifies his camera to take pictures automatically to discover what he did if he forgets again. After the realisation that all the pictures show the same daily tasks the character says "My life is rotating". In the end he is hit with a box which makes him forget what he did the day before thus creating a circular narrative.


I enjoyed this piece for many reasons, partly the subject matter of balancing work and life, and the mundanity of day to day things is an interesting topic and one that is often played upon. Salaryman 6 manages to tackle the subject in an interesting and unique way through the repetative actions of the alarm, train, work and convenience store. All of which are grey and white dull places and many of which have extreme angles or alterations in perspective. The hallway to work for example is a right angle and the corner of the hall splits the screen in two, 

As does the home building and subway some of which seem symmetrical

Another interesting visual is the office and the flats which seem to create the appearance of grids 

And my favourite shot shows the sheer number of people who are in the exact same situation 

All of these images along with the bland colour pallet are what make the life of the Salaryman seem so mundane and uninteresting and the cinematography so poignantly selling the point of the piece is what I like most about Salaryman 6.

Gasman By Lynn Ramsay

In CMPP a little while ago we watched some drama shorts this is one I will be analysing, Gasman by Lynn Ramsay a clip of it is here if you want a little look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP-XQPGE71s.


I enjoyed this short quite a lot, I liked the way the camera gave the audience a child's perspective, the close ups of peculiar things and snippits of information is what gave that feel most along with the focus that often shifted and became blurred. It turns out to be a child's realisation of a father with children in another family and the girls view of the other children mimics our view however an educated audience realises a few minutes before the girl that the children are her siblings and her realisation has an emotional impact on the audience. I really like the way the girl is the character the audience identifies with, it gives the short a unique feel.

Portrait Of Place filmed

Went to Edale on Thursday and got all of the filming for E-Dale filmed, it went really well, all of the prop set-up looked good and we managed to shoot some really picturesque landscapes which will work really well. Now to edit!

Portrait of Place update

Talked with Joe again today to finalise some details. We will be using props including: a mouse, a laptop, cables, blank CD's, phones, keyboards among other things.
Todat I have also been looking at a few ameture short silent films on youtube to see what does and doesnt work, firtstly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-UPZbIORQw
Told its message well with simple visuals however not interesting to watch and if that static camera was used for 3mins like our brief it would get boring fast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbRYAHoTJA8&feature=related
A funny little silent short that allows for some good use of camera and a little laugh however the short is a rather typical idea and no subplot is in the film.

Anyway the only real change in idea we have had is to make the technology seem less "accidentally dropped" and seem more like in the close ups there is a sense of place. To do this we will combine the single items like the laptop with a few techno wires and cd's to make it look like a "Small tech bubble in a widley naturalistic setting". I think this may go some way to solving our tutors issues with the idea. To communicate the point of technology not fitting into the setting we have to be carefull to make sure the Tech doesnt look like it belongs for example headphones on a branch although not their natural habitat are being placed somewhere they look good and that is the opposite of the idea of contrast that we want. However one possable idea comes to mind of a "snake" wire being cut against a laptop of "apple" to represent evil and the origonal sin. If a shot of Edale was cut before it would make it symbolise the perspective of Edale linking technology to sin, although there is no proof or specific hatred of technology to my knowlege in Edale the visual metaphore is a strong one and its suggestion fits the overall message. I will see what Joe thinks.

Swell Season

Swell season are an awesome band with the stars of Once an independent film about two artists that came out a few years ago. They have a new documentary coming out showing how the films success changed their lives and relationship it looks ace!

http://www.theswellseason.com/

Lifesize Zoetrope by Mark Simon Hewis

This is the last of the Experimental docs from my first CMPP that i will be doing. 


Life size Zoetrope is a short in which a group of people with flip boards ride a zoetrope (large spinning thing) and flip the pictures of the flip book and that shows a persons life from birth to death. It is narrated from first person by the character in the flip book. I don't have much to say about camera work in this short as it was fairly basic and still to accommodate the zoetrope my discussion of this really digs into whether it is documentary or not. Like many of the Docs we watched it is Experimental and pushes the boundaries of Documentary for sure but some may argue that the voice over confuses what is being documented. Some would say it was the experiance of the zoetrope but this is arguable because of the voice over. If it is the animated story told by a narrator that removes it from the documentary catagory as it is clearly a constucted story. I liked the story and the way is was animated as well as finding the honest down to earth voice over style interesting and amusing but it does confuse the whole Doc.... or not Doc.


But i think the whole range of Doc's were experimental to make us question how we as film makers and audiences perceive documentary and how we could make documentary of massive varying types and styles.

Strange Lights by Joe King and Rosie Pedlow

This is another one of the Docs from our first session.


Strange lights was a really interesting extereamly experimental short documentary that showed time lapsed  (sped up), static shots of the sky at night and of camp-sites at night. The time lapsed effect made slow moving lights zoom and appear extra terrestrial. I believe the aim of the short was to appreciate the beauty in the night sky in the cloudy and clear nights. Some may find it boring as the sound isn't particulaly explanatory it is rather eerie with an occasional old style crackling radio call from a pilot seeing a strange light.The whole thing was rather strange but beautiful in its simplicity. The almost extra terrestrial lights and coloured clouds are what i liked the most about the whole thing which I say again was simple beautiful.

More CMPP assignment 1 ideas

Been thinking today about other ideas and one has sprouted from a comment/ idea of yesterdays, to keep cutting from thing to thing cross fading with the different things in the same position in shot. Rather than doing it still it could be a story revolving around a central character eg.
it starts with a medium close up shot with an item in a specific place, a person holding a pencil forward in the top left corner of the frame, then the cam tracks out and we see the rest of the image and the place, the cam pulls back to an MCU and the pencil is now bottom left and the main focus, CUT to the person doing something else with the subject ie a pint in the same place the pencil was track out again and pan around abit and then return to the pint with it in another corner. Cut to another shot of the person doing something with the object framed where the pint was ect ect ect.
We will decide what idea to  settle on shortly.

Portrait Of Place (CMPP Brief)

I am going to Edale to shoot a 3min silent film with a partner in one week after being given a very vague brief and the option do do anything as long as it has something to do with Portrait of Place and is filmed in Edale (which is a small country village nothing special, we googled it). I began working in a group of three and we brainstormed some ideas:
Idea 1!
Just a view of the landscapes and towns. However without sound the still or slow pan images might not be very interesting and it would be unchallenging to say the least. 
Idea 2!
My first initial idea was to do something with still or slow pan images like in idea one but with a symbolic meaning woven into the subtext like in most films. Still camera and visual wise not very interesting, back to the drawing board....
Idea 3
Begin the film with an extreme everything, extreme: close up, camera movements, editing, angles, colour. Then after doing a few crazy images begin to calm the images in all ways until the end of the short where the shot is still black and white ELS, a classic landscape shot. I liked this idea but I felt although it stretched filming and camera work talent it was uncreative and uninteresting. Soooo how could this be made more interesting??? My partners suggested cutting up the sequence and juxtaposing the close up with the far away to make it seem more abstract and experimental.
Idea 4!
To film small objects maybe 5 different small objects or ECU's of large objects and then do the technique from Idea 3 on each and then we have lots of different shots to juxtapose together. We then started thinking of objects to put in like tree bark in the woody areas and maybe rubbish or post boxes in the town section. We also decided after the crazily edited section we would show the whole process in order quickly to satisfy the viewers curiosity about what the ECU's were of.
Idea 5!
My partners then suggested we use something that at first would contrast the later image for example a pretty flower, then finally a pretty flower in a cemetery, that would make the audience think twice about the connotations of such common things. However we weren't sure if we were fulfilling the brief of Portrait of Place... That got me thinking...
Idea 6!
To use things that contrasted the town in general completely so what is the opposite of a quiet little countryside village with stone walls and free wildlife..... Then it struck me I could layer in some of my personal Sci Fi interests as well as possibly some political subtext by introducing technology as the contrasting element to Edale. I asked my group what they though and it seemed a good idea, new ideas and though spread from it, what technology to use and where would contrast the technology the most. An idea cam up a great one a title:

It seemed fitting and we were happy with our idea. 

However when we pitched it back to our lecturer it seemed to get lost in translation a little and his advice was to stick with the idea of contrast visually but the technology thing wasn't strongly anchored enough to make sense to a viewer. I personally would like viewers of this short to activley engage and try to figure out the link as through more thought I have begun a further stage of planning on this idea however taking into consideration the idea of soing some preliminary shooting aswell as trying to anchor the image further. He also suggested using colour as a contrast instead however until another idea is thought of I will be thinking of ways to use colour to enhance the contrast within the technology idea. I am going to research what extreme technological things we could use or even create that would seem real but again contrast the natural world even more. The feedback criticism has made me begin thinking on other areas of contrast but mainly just persuaded me to attempt to tell this loose meaning through images alone. Why? Because I think it is really fitting to use an opposite to what something is to show it in a light and although I don't know Edale the idea of the large landscapes washing out the small pieces of technology as they get duller and duller really seems like strong symbolic image and message to me...... Or it could be back to the drawing board, only time will tell.

Christmas With Dad (Conor McCormack)

This is another one of the Docs we watched in the second CMPP (creative media practice production).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p004r1f8
Christmas with dad started with idyllic warm Christmas lights and bells and ambiguous music that is a common melody throughout. The film then cuts to its prime content who first appears making excuses for not putting Christmas lights up in front of a dirty written on front door. This sets the tone for the first minute which fools the viewer into "pigeon holing" the father by showing him as TV watching, sport clothes wearing, emotionally stunted and grammatically incorrect. However that is quickly replaced by the image of a truly caring father. His honest answers throughout his interview show the father in an honourable light and you feel despite the fact you only get his single point of view he still seems completely genuine and seems to represent a loving family, however the one sided interview could be criticized as bias. The clips of the family life seem completely genuine and show a naturalistic view of the families life without anything necessary being hidden or anything unnecessary being kept out. After hearing the £2,000 spent simply on Christmas presents you have no doubt about the love the family shares despite bad and good. .The tone of the film goes somewhat downbeat after the father begins to talk about his struggling childhood and his impending hereditary blindness. Do we see anger, blame or any typical male ego cover up? No we simply see a slight jump cut to an upset father just wishing his sight holds out until he sees his child born exclaiming "that's just the way life is". I think the overall message of the film is not to judge people or families on face values and that is a message I think should be heard. The Doc on a whole is an emotional view of a relatively normal family portrayed sympathetically without stripping them of pride and if anything teaching us to respect people not just before we hear their stories.

Steel homes by Eva Webber

This short "documented" the use of steel storage containers to place your possessions in. There are two possible ways of reading the film, firstly as a cold harsh view of the Steel Homes represented by the detached often depressing voice overs coupled with cold steel lines and partitioned boxed up memories. This view is quite prominent and the view I first identified with the Doc however there is another way of seeing it. It is described by Webber as a look at "the fragmented nature of memories, set in the starkly beautiful aesthetic of our modern industrial world". This prompts a different view of a more positive representation of the Steel Homes in which people enjoy their nostalgic boxes. This is somewhat supported in some of the speech of the Steel Home users however I believe that to tell this message efficiently a more personal approach to the contents would have given it a more posative feeling. The camera work and composition throughout was excellent despite the cold colour pallet and harsh straight lines but again if the aim was to present the Steel Homes positivity it was counter productive. Overall I didn't much like the Doc as I felt it gave mixed messages toward what I thought was a fairly positive thing but it was still thought provoking and definitely what I expect from a documentary. 

Documentary and Experimental Documentary Short Films (30/09/11)

So nearly two weeks ago I had my fist Creative Media Practice Production seminar and the theme of the session was Documentary and Experimental approaches to documentary. This is basically my write up of that session. 


We began by trying to define Documentary in general which proved a little tricky, we thought however these phrases and words described Docs quite well: Informative, Factual, Minimalist (focusing on content rather than style), Interview, Realism, Context of time and place, Perceived and Portrayed as fact and story constructed by fact. We also identified several Genres within Documentary such as: Political, Wildlife, Social, Comedic, Mockumentary and more. We then saw some different approaches to short documentary that changed my opinion a little. The analysis of the Docs will be posted here shortly. 

"No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information." (2001 A Space Odyssey)

As a science fiction fan 2001 A Space Odyssey is a film I have always wanted to see unfortunately I was disappointed with the film when I finally saw it. On reflection however I'm really not sure how I feel about it. Stanley Kubrick is obviously a genius of a director and I cannot fault his often stunning unique imagination however I think the film is not for the general audience of today. The film on the surface lacks any real focus except to illustrate that despite intervention by evolutionary monoliths humans are still just apes. Another possible theme is the danger in scientific advancements such as Hal 9000 however it seems to have little coherence with the rest of the film. Some other small signs support this theory such as humans appearing lazy or stupid as they fall asleep on there computers that have made us redundant. So overall the focus of the film is difficult to pin down and I personally thought it was unsuccessful at dealing with its subject matter. I found the film very difficult to watch as it was painfully slow and lingered on almost every beautiful image just a little too long with only repetitive classical music to accompany and entertain the audience. I do however believe that I feel this way because of the bombardment of CG images and fast paced, high concept blockbusters that have dulled the images and the ambiguous story telling of 2001. The form of the film relates massively to its content and the introduction of the monoliths at such large intervals with such little explanation makes the film almost a mystery  and is one of the only reasons I as a struggling viewer managed to watch the film to the end. It is however typical of Kubrick to narrate and write a story in such a way that the audience has to become active to achieve pleasure and whilst this is something to be admired it seems that t has maybe gone too fa in this instance.


Kubrick's visual style and content are interesting but for today's audience not enough to grant the viewer pleasure. The film visually is a masterpiece, the form cut of the bone ad ship for one example is excellent. 2001 was surely as usually regarded a large contributor to the modern conventions of science fiction cinema as Kubrick stylistically altered what we knew to be a genre as he often does. Agood film to study however maybe not one for simple viewing,

"Its only just begun"

Hello anyone reading this! Welcome to what will basically be my work diary showing ideas about films and my personal view on whatever I watch! I should have set this up a little while ago ooops. That means I will be posting a lot over the next few days to catch up with the work I have all ready done. I hope you all enjoy and find something interesting within my filmic ramblings because in the words of Walt Disney "I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained"