Tuesday 28 June 2011

Review Mark 2 Is Online!

My second review for Trisickle has been published on their lovely shiny website. Yay! I really do need to get back into the swing of blogging about films again... the fickle internet won't wait for me!

http://www.trisickle.co.uk/2011/06/19/review-julias-eyes/

Urban Endings- On Shoots Other Than Mine

Once the first day of my shoot was over with, it was straight onto helping out on others. My role on all of them was pretty much the same, but I'll list them individually anyway... Despite them only being shot a few weeks ago, in film making terms, that's like a lifetime, and since I'm in the middle of editing the last fiddly bits of mine, it's easier for my mental wellbeing.

Amelie
Amelie and I had agreed to swap sound roles for our Urban Endings. and hers was my first shot at using the 744T mixer and recorder (otherwise known as "Graeme's kit"). I's met with Graeme to get some notes but hadn't actually got to use the kit practically. There were some initial problems with no sound coming through the cans, but I just switched the side they were plugged in to and everything was fine. There was no dialogue on the first day so I was just capturing atmos to make sure the takes synced up with the video, so there wasn't too much for me to try and keep up with. The biggest obstacle was the lack of space in the tiny shed-come-artists' studio, and the shots were quite complicated and involved reflections in mirrors, so I had to fit myself around this without getting in the way. Admittedly I did have to phone Graeme in a panic when nothing came through and everything was really quiet, but thankfully he managed to help and everything was resolved... I just had to turn the levels up as they sounded like they were recording quietly, which left me with a bit of a migraine at the end of the day... I hope this means it was resolved though!
The second day was much of the same, except we had baby chicks and a cat to pick up too. The chicks were no problem- I just recorded them chirping in their box. As soon as I put the boom mic in, they clustered around it and I found it really easy to record (as well as finding it totally cute). The cat was a bigger problem. For a start, it wouldn't move when we wanted it to, so I just had to keep following it, and even then it didn't make any noise when it walked. To make up for this, I thought ahead and recorded the sound of its tail wagging (do cats wag their tails? I'm a dog person, I talk in dog terms). I managed to record the dialogue we needed as well as some wild track, despite being in close proximity to Glasgow airport... those planes take a long time to get out of the way!

Lucy
Lucy's shoot was always going to be a tricky one for me. For a start, we weren't using the 744T (which I'd also used on Julie Dunn's shoot in between Amelie's and this). Instead, I was using the SQN Mini which I didn't feel as comfortable with. There was no separate recorder where I could see tracks as they were being recorded, and we were outside, in the forest, in the middle of the night. For whatever reason, I couldn't get a sound feed coming through but this was resolved in the morning... there were alot of cables and attachments to untangle and connect and re-connect to try and sort it out but it was resolved in the morning- we even managed to pick up wild track as well as a lengthy monologue (which was killer on my arms but a brilliant test of endurance). Everything seemed to have gone well until Lucy came to edit and we found out there wasn't any sound- and no explanation for where it went. It sounded as though it was coming through OK, everything looked as though it was working, but somehow there was nothing on the video. The film was shot on a 7D, which meant I had to connect the mixer directly into the camera, and so I'm not entirely sure about what went wrong. I was really disappointed, as I felt as though I'd let her down as well as shown myself up for not knowing what to do. Thankfully she managed to dub it in time, although I'm still unsure as to what happened in the first place.

Scott
Scott's shoot was in a farmhouse-type bulding off of a country road, which was initially dodgy for traffic noise, but I was back using the 744T and felt more confident about it after my knock during Lucy's shoot. Again, there was little to no dialogue, but there was fire... a pretty big fire, actually. It sounded really good, all crackly and I could even hear the wood and fake 'money' burning, which for me meant I was doing well. The only problem was that to get this sound I had to stand really close to the fire. It was contained to a bin and we had extinguishers and water at hand, but my God was it WARM. I'd had to put the wind guard on the boom as it was outside and there was traffic, but I kept getting paranoid that I was going to singe it in getting the sound I needed. Once we moved inside, all was well, and I was just recording movement etc, which I think I done well in getting.
I wasn't taking any chances this time around though, and made sure that I listened to the playback of each take, to ensure I'd gotten everything and I'd recorded what I needed. Thankfully it was all there, named and everything... phew!

I feel like I've grown alot in confidence at using the sound kit (well, the BIG one anyway). I was proud of myself when it worked, once I'd gotten over the problems with sound levels etc. It was tricky to boom op and keep an eye on levels at the same time but thankfully the minimal dialogue in each script made this alot easier for me. In saying that, since I was only doing sound roles, I felt like once I;d managed to do one, there wasn't too much of a challenge on others. Unlike, say, camera, where every shoot is different, the role of sound recording was pretty much the same on each shoot, so I don't feel I got to test myself very much. I still enjoyed it though, and it was nice to feel like I was good at doing something for a change (again, aside from Lucy's shoot). Overall it's an area I enjoyed working on... and after the initial crippling shoulder pain, my upper arm strength has improved no end!

Sunday 29 May 2011

Urban Endings- The Final Push

In 24 hours time I will be filming the first part of my Urban Endings project. "Panic" is an understatement. My work have rota'd me in to work tonight and I am desperately trying to get it covered or else I WILL spend the whole night on the verge of either bursting into tears or just staring blankly. I feel like I've done so much, but it's nowhere near enough, and feel completely underprepared despite doing nothing but try to organise the shoot.

My seemingly-perfect plan of asking a friend who studies Musical Theatre to be my leading actress now seems like the worst plan ever... trying to get her to reply to my messages is proving a bit impossible, I'm not entirely she realises how much is actually riding on it. Also, my never-ending lead actor problem just won't resolve itself... I was feeling particularly proud of myself on Friday; not only had I had a lengthy discussion with Galina about the location/look and what I wanted from the script, but I'd managed to hear back from not one but TWO locations for my second date. I opted for the latter, the Scottish Youth Hostel at the top of Kelvingrove Park, because we'd filmed there before, they were more than accomodating and also offered a really great rate on the room. As their check-in time is 2pm, they said we could use a room from 10-2 for £19, rather than charge us the full price for the room. It's only a short scene so we wouldn't need it for any longer than this.

It all seemed to be going swimmingly, especially after a successful prop hunting mission. My boyfriend and I went for a trek around the Barras (I needed him in case there was any heavy lifting involved), and we stumbled across a treasure trove of an antiques junkyard. I saw the perfect wooden travel case... thingie... and we carried it about the labyrinth of antiques looking for someone to give money to. I was all ready for some top-class bartering, and we eventually found a woman manning a jewellery stall. She told us to go across the courtyard and find a "man with a beard... that or just take it". We wandered into the courtyard, saw no sign of Man With Beard, and opted for the latter... and took it. Hardly the stuff of master criminals, but it felt like a coup anyway. And the best part was, I didn't even need to trundle it home as Thoughtful Boyfriend even took it back home to the west end with him.

So far, so good... until I tried to contact my already-on-a-shaky-nail actor and inform him of the new date. Unfortunately he can't do the 7th, so I tried to contact my friend who'd also promised me a leading man if I couldn't find another. Eventually I managed to get an answer via Facebook (how I loathe relying on flaky social networking), and so far all I've heard is "I'll text him and ask!"... Oh. Come. ON!!!!!!!! I'm battering through as much as I can today, although I'm not sure what else I can do. In all honesty, in as much as I'm looking forward to it, I just want it to be over so the stress will be over too. I can't wait to sit with my headphones on and edit away to my heart's content.

On the plus side, I did make the best use of the one afternoon of procrastination I allowed myself. I managed to scoop a second commission to write a film review for 'Trisickle', and not only went to see said film, but wrote the review for it and sent it in a whole week before the deadline. Hey, if all else fails, I can be a professional... I don't know... unpaid blogger?

Friday 27 May 2011

Urban Endings- New Developments

The last couple of days have seen alot of progress on my Urban Endings shoot- a) hurrah! and b) FINALLY!. After a failed attempt at crewing from my own class, I managed to get Galina and possibly Ross from 3rd year on board to be my camera crew. Also, I have a data wrangler in the form of Scott which means I can use the 5D (and not the 570 like I thought; I had worried I wasn't going to be able to get someone to DIT which would've meant I'd have had to do it the old fashioned tape/log & capture way).

Despite the new breakthroughs I'm still swaying about my lead actor. Me being me, I sent my request for 'Actors Wanted' around the Academy with the wrong date- rather than May 30th, I'd requested cast for a month later. D'oh! I didn't realise my mistake until an acting volunteer notified me on it. Apparently the end of the month changeover from one til the next confuses me. Alas, this means that my Academy volunteer (who is also in the opera) is not available until the evening of the 7th- which I think may be his only free day- although this means I might have to use to my second choice, a friend-of-a-friend who is hopefully free for both.

I've been furiously emailing and scribbling down numbers for hostels to use on this date, including one which we've filmed in before, so hopefully this will yield some positive results. The prop store is currently unavailable so I'm having to source props & costumes myself... I'm going to be flying super-close to the deadline, but hey, I've always done well working at the last minute... I spent this morning discussing the script with Galina, and this afternoon will mostly be trying to arrange actors and buying props. Thankfully I have Saturday and Sunday off work, and was paid a small fortune (well... my bank balance is in the black anyway) and so my weekend will be traipsing around charity and junk shops seeing what I can find.

On the plus side, I've managed to score a few sound recording jobs on other shoots (although I may have to drop one if I can't secure the filming dates I have free for my own) plus an external shoot with Julie from last year's 4th years (again, as sound recordist- who knew they were in such high demand?). Then it's all edit, edit, edit until June 17th... Which, when you think about it, isn't so far away... The end is in sight! I just need to get through this weekend...

Wednesday 25 May 2011

The Eyes Have It


It's been so long since I saw an English language horror film that properly scared me. I watched Orphan on TV recently. I wanted to rinse my eyes out afterwards. It was cheap, shlocky and heavy-handed, with missing, unexplained plot points and a twist so ludicrous that I was almost angry when the film ended. "THAT was my payoff?", I scoffed, "I feel so cheated, I demand to see more of this shitty movie just for some closure!". You know what I watched afterwards to rectify it? HELLRAISER. Compared to Orphan, it was like a lost Orson Welles masterpiece.

By comparison, I've been consistently falling more and more in love with horrors of the Spanish/Latin American variety. I was introduced to it by Guillermo Del Toro, then watched the likes of [REC], The Orphanage and a series of Spanish horrors on BBC4, shamefully none of which I can remember the names of. The Orphanage, produced by Del Toro, is a beautifully shot, classic ghost story, held together largely by a storming central performance from Belen Rueda. I've never seen her in anything else, so when I heard of her new film Julia's Eyes (Los Ojos de Julia), I was very much intrigued.

Another Del Toro produced horror/thriller, Julia's Eyes concerns itself with the seen and unseen, what is there and what isn't, and well as the fallibility of our own physical sense of sight. Julia (Rueda) suffers from degenerative sight loss, which she is struggling to battle while investigating the apparent suicide of her twin sister Sara, who suffered the same disease. The mystery deepens with news of Sara's mysterious boyfriend, whom no one seems to recall. He is literally the 'invisible man'. A shadow. A blur on the radar. Which, naturally, makes him a little tricky to track down.

Rueda's central performance is commanding, believable and utterly compelling: the despair in her eyes as she loses her sight is palpable and I really felt her desperation as she races against time to solve the mystery. There were genuine scares, and the whole film is as tense as a knife-edge. Alot of shots from her point of view made it easy to literally 'see' through her eyes, and at other times the camera never lets her out of its sight.
There are twists and turns aplenty, but with anything, the pay-off feels a little less deserved than what it had been built to be. The 'monster revelation' is out of nowhere and the tenuous connection to the other characters seems a little forced. It's easy to join the dots between the characters once the reveal has been made, and the film does seem a little overlong after a certain point. There's alot of 'bumping around in the dark', and the climactic showdown lacks the ironic twist I was sure would come.
The journey to the end is what really matters, I felt, and there are properly genuine scares. The 'failing sight' angle means there are plenty of opportunities to make us believe that all is not as it appears, and that things can be mistaken. The film is beautifully shot, yet bleak, as confined in its vision as its central character and creeps along menacingly as the threat from the 'shadow man' could come out of anywhere. It didn't help that I recently had to get glasses for my manual-focus eyesight... I think this affected me on a more personal level. Overall though, this is a genuinely taught, creepy thriller, brilliantly acted and wonderfully constrained. As it's Spanish with subtitles, it may worryingly be a 'blink and you'll miss it' affair... it's a genuine shame, as for all its Hollywood-hokey trappings, this film deserves to be seen.

Tuesday 17 May 2011

Look, I Is Published Now!

Here's a link to a review I wrote of the movie Howl... who'd have thought that working away at my little blog would finally have payoff, huh?

http://www.trisickle.co.uk/2011/05/23/949/

Monday 16 May 2011

My First Spellbook, Or Musings Of A Sound Guy

This morning marked the end of my foray into this year's grad films. The kit was returned (after some confusion over who was meant to be returning it and when), whatever wasn't put back was given to the next group and my work was done. Sort of. It's been a strange couple of weeks, during which I've taken on roles I normally wouldn't have, angsted at what it is I'm supposed to be doing, discovered I have better upper-arm strength than I originally though and thought alot about what it'll be like when it's our turn next year.

I've often wondered if there's a certain 'formula' or type of film which is likely to get chosen over another script, but Gavin Laing's My First Spellbook completely disproved all of this. Children? Check. Filming in a school during school hours? Check. Special effects wizardry? Check. Giant hairy tarantula? Check and check again. When I first read the script I thought, if this can get chosen, nothing me and my slightly smaller imagination can write will seem outlandish at all.

In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure how much I was looking forward to the shoot. I've been feeling a little disheartened lately with regards to the course and feeling as though I haven't developed or gotten what I should have out of it. Whether that's just my own paranoia, I don't know, but my original choice of specialism was camera and I don't feel anywhere as up to speed on it as the others who are choosing it too. We'd all been assigned roles based on our specialist choices, and my original role was 'B' camera clapper/loader. I was ready to take it on head on, and even volunteered to go and muck out one of the locations, a derelict flat in Anniesland.

The next week, however, I was informed that the camera crew had swollen to nine people and there was a chance that some roles might be cut. I was offered the choice to stay on the camera crew, where my role was quite shaky, or boom op/sound assist, which no one else had volunteered to do, and they were apparently struggling for someone to fill the role. The 'A' camera clapper/loader was Amelie. If anyone was getting cut, it was going to be me. I opted for sound.

I thought I was going to be on set for the full two weeks, but then found out that I was only on 5/8 days. The boom op for the first week was there when I turned up on the Saturday, and there wasn't really anything for me to do. It was pretty disappointing, but hey, I picked myself up and threw myself into it on Monday. I wanted to show there was more I could do than stand outside in the rain and protect lights with an umbrella.

I'd camera opped on the scenes that half the class had shot with Peter Mackie Burns the week before, and it had re-invigorated my fondness for camera, so I wasn't entirely sure that I'd made the right decision, but there was nothing I could do about it. I was all ready for a camera job too- I'd even went and got my eyes tested and got glasses and everything, so that whatever I captured wouldn't be all blurry and soft. I couldn't wait for the chance to say "LOOK! It wasn't just me being incompetent! It was a disability all along!". Alas, the chance never came.

On Monday, the first scene was a musical number. I turned up with my own cans- Sennheiser ones, no less- and prepared myself for a baptism of fire. In the end, it wasn't too difficult. Like camera, you just have to follow the actors, but unlike camera, you have to be very careful not to get yourself in shot for even a second. Holding a boom in the air for extended periods of time was quite difficult at first but I got used to it. In the end, I even kind of enjoyed it. I don't take to things naturally and have to work hard to keep up, but I do work hard, and if there's anything needing done, I'll ask what I can do to help with it. By the second day, I was hoisting the boom mic above my head like I'd been doing it the whole time, relieed that I'd finally found a use of my gangly, overly-long arms. I knew I couldn't have spent my whole life trying to find sleeves that fit for nothing.

I liked the way the shoot was organised in terms of its timeframe. When children are involved, guidelines are much stricter and schedules must be adhered to alot more strictly. We were filming in a primary school while classes were on too, which put further constraints on our time. Last year, a typical day would involve waking up at 6 and crawling into bed round about 1am, for an intense but brief time period. This time around, we started at 10:30 and would wrap for the day around 5 o'clock, and it was stretched over 8 days. I found this alot more relaxing and a far better way to worl. I understand that shoots cost money, as do time and mistakes, but I don''t think a producer or AD barking about needing a shot before lunch is going to get it done any better. It's not going to get the best performance out of your actors, and it brings down the morale of everyone involved. It was nicer to feel like a human being working in a team, than a functioning mechanical part who was considered useless for not being able to capture a particularly tricky shot in record time.

Working with children wasn't as difficult as I'd anticipated too. The lead actress was a little chatterbox and often got quite easily distracted, but that's part of being a kid. I'd be the same if I had a week off school to go and make a film at that age! I was amazed at how naturally the kids took to being on set and took direction without too many major problems. I even managed to mind my language, go for most of the day without a cigarette or coffee and found out I have alot more patience than I thought I did- no mean feat

Before I knew it, the week was over. It's strange, how the first day is spent getting used to how everyone works, and it quickly becomes the norm, then before you know it, you're thrown back into real life again. I almost felt a twinge of sadness before realising this meant I had to start working on actual coursework again! I felt like a learned alot about a different section of film making I hadn't worked on before. It was tiring, and my arms were aching after the first couple of days, but it was good experience. While I may not have had the most 'creative' role, I did the job I was asked to do as best as I could. And I can't do much more than that really, can I?

Summative Statement (Term 2)

This is the final statement we had to make about our blogs from 2nd year of uni... If I've taken nothing else away from the whole experience (and most of the time, I feel like I haven't), at least I've shown I can write a little bit.



I thought I’d heard it all before with cinema history, domestic and foreign, silent and talkie. I dreaded having to see films like Metropolis again because my slightly-younger self hadn’t liked them. However, this term I’ve learned that I knew nowhere near as much as I thought.

Keeping up with blogging has been one area in which I’ve noticed a real difference. My blogs from this year read so differently to earlier posts: I know that I wasn’t looking at what was important in forming a good critical opinion.

Our assignment on production values really helped me to think more like this. We had to choose any film nominated for a 2008 Best Art Direction Oscar. I chose The Dark Knight, a much-viewed favourite. For once though, I had to look at it constructively. By taking it all apart and looking at components individually, I feel like I got a better understanding of the whole film.


It was also really good preparation for our research assignment. I didn’t feel as daunted by the prospect of research as I might have, because I knew what to look for (eventually). After changing from my question, I chose to analyse the opening scene of Natural Born Killers with relation to cinematography. It was by far the most challenging thing we’ve done this year. I even went to Glasgow University library on a few occasions, whereas before I’d have probably just researched online. I’m not saying that’ll be something I keep up, but I felt like I’d actually put the work in.


I tried to keep writing more thoroughly about what I watched at home, and one in particular was Inglourious Basterds. While I was researching it, I read about the influence of the French New Wave (or Nouvelle Vague) on Quentin Tarantino. Coincidentally, we’d gotten to post-war Europe in our classes on ‘world cinema’, which included watching Rome Open City and 400 Blows. Stylistically they’re so different to anything that had come out of Hollywood, and I noticed similarities in Tarantino’s work.

Another facet was British New Wave, something which really struck a chord. The films which came from it, like The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner, aren’t as ’famous’ as Godard or Truffaut. However, they have an urgency and vitality of their own. Or I imagine they would have, at the time.

The echoes of the final film, The Lives of Others, are still ringing in my ears. It was a beautiful example of modern German cinema: it proved there is no language barrier when a film is truly great. I’d previously watched Goodbye Lenin and Downfall, and I think there are a lot of really interesting films coming from the country now. Watching this film was, for me, the best note to end on. It put similar films into context, and having learning the history- of where they came from and what they represent- made the eventual viewing so much more satisfying

Tuesday 10 May 2011

This Film Is Bleak, Above All Things

I vaguely recall when I was in school, and following the publication of A Child Called It there was a brief 'boom' in the trend for 'professional victim' stories. In all honesty, they never really appealed to me. I didn't fancy the idea of reading about someone else's tragedy, or the horrific ordeals a young child had gone through at the hands of people who were supposed to care for them. There's enough of that all around us, I thought, why would I willingly read a book about it?

About five years ago, though, in my (cough) Kerrang!-reading days, there was one story which really struck me. I don't know if it was the story itself, or the enigmatic figure behind it. JT Leroy had become something of a cult celebrity victim, befriending alternative icons like Courtney Love, Billy Corgan, Shirley Manson and film maker Asia Argento. He was never seen in public without a blonde wig and dark glasses, and rarely spoke in public. His childhood was one of unimaginable suffering, but he'd come through it, writing about his experiences in both counter-culture and well-known magazines and winning over the celeb world with his triumph over adversity.
I found Leroy's story fascinating, especially as I'd just watched Gus van Sant's Elephant; the screenplay for which was accredited to Leroy. His books Sarah and The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things were added to my Must Read list. I then found out that the latter had been adapted into a film by Asia Argento, with whom I was a teeny bit obsessed at the time. It didn't have a huge run in cinemas- somewhat understandably, I guess- and I couldn't track down the DVD, and in the time it took me to hunt it down, JT Leroy had been exposed as a hoax. He was actually Laura Albert, and his story was in fact pure fiction. It had kind of soured the idea of watching the film for me- but after watching it, I'm glad for the character's sake that it wasn't real.

The film never relents in its depiction of the abuse suffered by 'Jeremiah'. The first scene shows him being ripped from the arms of his foster parents, who want to adopt him. His mother Sarah, a drug-addicted truck-stop prostitute, had him when she was 15, and has decided she wants him back. She bounces from one abusive relationship to the next, temporarily losing her son to her fundamentalist Christian parents after he is raped by her latest boyfriend. Drug abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse and vagrancy all become normal for Jeremiah, especially once he's back with Sarah. She forces him to grow his hair and dress as a girl, calling him Babydoll. Jeremiah apes his mothers' actions, turning tricks and seducing her boyfriends.
It sounds like grim viewing, and yeah, it's a hard slog. In as much as I was glad that the story was made up after all, I couldn't understand why someone would write a story like this. The characters fall into increasingly worsening circumstances and there is no hope, not even in the traditional 'drive into the horizon' ending. The cast is a jaw-dropping array of names and faces, who float in and out as the nomadic leads move from one lot to the next. Jeremy Renner, Peter Fonda, Marilyn Manson (!), Winona Ryder, Ben Foster, Michael Pitt all make an appearance. Not all huge names, but recognisable enough to know that the story must have had some clout. The performances are all good, with some outstanding. Peter Fonda's tyrannous Grandfather is religiously terrifying, Argento as Sarah is a hopelessly lost girl in the body of a snarling, feral junkie. The real revelation(s) though, are twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse. As 11-year-old Jeremiah, they portray him accepting his life as normal, emotionally detatched on the outside but with occasional flashes that show that there's still a sad little boy in there somewhere. And all this from the wee boys from Big Daddy and Friends? It's quite something.

The film's look is as ferocious and visceral as its subject matter, and there's no Hollywood sheen to it at all. Argento is clearly unafraid of taking risks, unsurprising given her pedigree. She is unflinching in how she portrays Sarah and Jeremiah's lives, and doesn't cave into smoothing out the rough hewn edges of the story. It is fast paced and characters are introduced with little to no backstory, although this isn't a criticism- in Jeremiah's eyes, this is how they appear. The editing, direction and story move along with speed, but they manage to cram in alot in its relatively short running time. At the same time, it doesn't feel forced, or rushed, and the pain in the leads' eyes show that there is a tragically emotional undertone to it after all. There is a pulpish trashiness to the look of the film, and although the at times it feels exploitative, it's does so as it is devoted to its source material.

Harrowing, relentless, nasty and cheap but with Hollywood clout that belies its relative obscurity, this is a film not to be taken lightly. I watched it after Dead Man's Shoes and I still felt a bit 'funny' the next day. It's rare I feel so affected by a film, but this one is a lingerer. Despite it being a hoax, it made me wonder. What with A Child Called It and other books of its ilk, it's worth remembering that there are probably real-life Jeremiahs out there. Ones who will never get the chance to be 'professional victims', because they have no way of escaping their lifestyles. And it's the ones without a voice, I think, that are the saddest of all.

Blogging About Blogging, Or It's Been A While And I'm A Bit Rusty At It

It's been a good long while since I last sat down to blog properly. We've been assessed formally on them, and so they've sort of (shamefully) fallen by the wayside. What's strange, though, is that I've actually sort of... missed it? I don't know whether it's the sort-of catharsis I feel when I've written something I think is good, or whether it's sharing what I think about films I like. Or don't like. I don't even know if it's the instant gratification of constructing something, decorating it with little pictures, captions, whatever, clicking 'publish' and- WHOOP!- there it is.

It's a bit of a mix of them all, really. They're all valid enough reasons. In all honesty though, the real reason is probablty one I wouldn't ever say out loud because I'm not entirely sure how true it is- and it's not something I say very often, if at all. I like blogging- and in fact, any kind of writing, even handwriting- is because I'm... gasp!... not terrible at it....?! I have been having somewhat of crisis these past couple of terms in uni. We have a year left and I don't really have all that much to show for it, in a practical film making sense. It started off innocently enough- there'd be the odd weekend shoot or some such that I couldn't make because I was off earning a not-so-pretty penny as a soul-whore for G1 (God, I hate them so much). After a while, it seemed to my paranoid head that I was falling behind.

As our course started spiralling towards specialisms, I just couldn't pick one- I'm still not sure. There isn't one where I feel I've had a huge amount of practise to confidently say "I can do this, and I can hold my own with everyone else". I've grown to love camera, but before discovering I needed glasses, my confidence was knocked slightly by horrible, out-of-focus footage and it taking me a little while longer than the rest to actually 'get' everything. But when it came to sitting down and writing stuff, it came easily to me. It's not that I was necessarily good at it, it just seemed easy. Ish. Sure, it takes me a while to sit down and actually write anything, but when I do, I do it until it's done. I can write at home, or on endless bus journeys, or if I have time to while away between uni and work. I was a teensy bit rattled by a pretty poor overall mark for my research assignment for uni, and my blog in general. After all, if I didn't get good marks for that, what did I have a chance at getting good marks for?!

I suppose I only really have myself to blame for my rubbish final essay, especially after an extended deadline. And another extended deadline. I feel like I let myself fall behind alot, and let stupid things from my outside life affect things in my academic life. Maybe it would've helped to write about it, rather than wallow and wait anxiously for my phone to beep. Who knows. I'm trying to catch up, so here's a first-in-a-while attempt... a comeback attempt? Does that work?! Whatever. I'm not even proof reading it. I think that's the point.

Thursday 24 February 2011

Catching The New Wave Tide...


In as much as I like films which are dark, fantastical, a window in the mind of their creator, or even something I can lose myself in for a couple of hours... having such an imagination is something afforded to few, and the ability to capture it is even rarer still. Also, such films tend to be somewhere I can go and hide and forget about the stresses of the day They don't tend to say much about how the creator feels about the state of the world, or the political or social climate in which they're made.

I think that's why I enjoy looking at the films of the 'New Wave' so much... (or Nouvelle Vague, if we're treading across the pond). There's an immediacy and urgency to them, a desire to shout and be heard, despite a lack of, say, formal education, a privileged background, a huge budget or even bankable stars. In fact, the new wave films of the mid-20th Century reflected exactly the opposite. They were made by a generation who had grown up in the rubble and ashes of WW2, and were living through the consequences- and boy, did they have alot to say about it.

The first movement to flourish in this environment was Italian neo-realism, which reflected a guerilla style of film making at its more desperate and extreme. Recycled news film reel, soldiers as extras and literally filming on the run showed a desire to capture things how they really were that had never been seen before. Films like The Bicycle Thieves and Rome Open City caused a ripple effect throughout Europe- in France, young upstarts like Truffaut and Godard flourished with work like 400 Blows and A Bout De Souffle, while the British New Wave made an impact thanks to The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner and Saturday Night, Sunday Morning.

Obviously there are far, far more examples, too many to list, but the point is- these films were bold and innovative, but they weren't saying anything new- not to the working classes. In a cinematic sense, yes, they were dealing with themes like poverty, unemployment, homelessness and desperation. For the disenfranchised in society, however, they were finally being portrayed in a way that didn't talk down to them. It gave them a voice in a way that they never had before. There was no fancy trickery, it was all done on a shoestring budget, with actors who didn't even look like Hollywood stars. They were real people, going through the motions of their everyday real lives.

The Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner struck a chord because it was a simple story, simply told, about a young man, Colin Smith, who can't abandon where he came from. After being banged up in Borstal, he's given every chance to redeem himself in a race against the local public school. Even the chance to show up the 'toffs' would still leave him on the side of the borstal governor- while it may be the lesser of two evils in his eyes, it's still an establishment. Running for him is an escape- he comes from a background where they run from the police, not run towards a pat on the back from bigwigs. Running is a solitary thing; it's not for prizes and it's not for bettering yourself.

It doesn't seem like a particularly bold thing to do, but it is... despite being shot with no special effects per se, there's a wonderful montage during the end of the run reflecting Colin's thoughts, of how he got to be where he is, and in trying to reform all he's really done is conform. He is representative of the generation of angry young men, and finds happiness in his own situation, rather than trying to better himself. I think it's a really compelling message- although probably not the most edge-of-your-seat stuff, it takes patience, and feels more relevant today than if I'd been watching it, at this age, ten years ago.

I think what I love most about the 'new wave' style of film making is its simplicity. There's no pretence, just a desire to show things as they really are. What's frightening is how much of a resonance I can see even now. With the country being hit so badly by recession, and literally everyone I know being affected by it in some way, could there be a need to bring back this style of film? British film making in the last decade or so has been dominated by the fluffy Richard Curtis rom-com style- notable exceptions like Shane Meadows stand out, but even so, This Is England was a reflection on times gone past- not what's happening now. Where are the voices who are going to show things as they really are? Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave and Trainspotting might have shown a cooler, edgier (albeit very 90s) side to British counter-culture were false snapshots of a surrealistic, sinister Scottish lifestyle... Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen was as close as I've seen recently to a British 'new wave', but even he has been around since the first tide. But in terms of there being an actual movement, an upsurge in voices shouting about what they feel is wrong with this lousy and country and what's going overlooked, there's nothing... not as far as I can see.

I think there's a definite need for film making to go back to a stripped down, socially conscious way of telling stories... for all the bloated CGI of expensive flops, or the blandly smiling faces of forgettable Hollywood romcoms, there are hundreds of far more interesting stories waiting to be told- but rather than being fantastical yarns or high concepts, they're all around us. I think it might be an area I'd like to explore- after all, like I've said before I'm far more comfortable walking around with a camera than I am with one on sticks. I think it's a way of getting closer and more personally acquainted with characters, telling simple but effective stories in a way that is visceral, compelling, but most of all honest. I think that's what the industry needs- far more than any special effects-ridden eyesore.

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Danse Macabre


A little obsession can be a good thing- to an extent. It's good to have something to focus on, to give us drive and motivation, to give us a reason to go out there and do things and- more importantly- achieve things. If you don't have drive to motivate you to do what you want- well then, what's the point? Some of the greatest works of art, literature and film have been born from the obsessive nature of their creators, and been all the better for it.

Then again, there is a very fine line. It's difficult to know at the time when you cross over from a passing interest, to a hobby/activity/whatever, into full-blown, all-consuming, passionate obsession at the expense of all else. The few times I've tipped over a little have had mixed results, but all have crashed and burned or fizzled out in their own time. I can't say I've ever achieved anything particularly great out of it... I can only hope my slightly-obsessive nature reaps such dividends as that of Darren Aronofsky. It's a theme that has recurred throughout all of his films disguised, at times, as love, career prowess, torment, addiction and loneliness. With his latest endeavour, Black Swan, he has truly outdone himself, his stars and any expectations I might have had about the film in the first place.

The film has been a huge international success so far. Made for $13 million, it has so far taken $171.4 million internationally (to date)- a long way from the humble successes of Pi (1998), Aronofsky's first feature after graduating from film school five years previously. I watched Pi when I was about 18, and didn't understand much of it, but I knew I loved it. It was everything I wanted to make. I followed this up quickly with Requiem For A Dream (2000). While it may have been a huge departure topically, and also not based on an original story, Aronofsky made it his own with a pulsating, urgent and somehow necessary visual style.

The Wrestler also portrayed a broken man at the end of his career, desperately lonely and trying to reconnect with a world that has cruelly rejected him. It was hailed as Mickey Rourke's big comeback (arguably I'd say this started with Marv in Sin City but hey), and I was intrigued when I read that Black Swan was intended as a 'companion piece'. I suppose it makes sense- professional wrestling sums up images of beefed-up men pumping themselves full of steroids and leaping off of turnbuckles, while ballet seemed the perfect girlie alternative- Natalie Portman's character denies herself even a lick of cake frosting and punishes herself with late-night practices that even her accompanying pianist walks out of. The drive, the desire and the isolation in trying to strive for perfection are all there. The determination and single-mindedness in trying to reach hyper-perfect physical peaks, whether it be through drugs or eating disorders, are exactly the same. The only difference is that Randy 'The Ram' Robinson is on his way out, while Nina Sayers (Portman) has just been given her first starring role.

The intensity brought to the roles by both performers was much documented but since I've watched Black Swan more recently, I'll concentrate on that. (Also, it's an excuse to buy The Wrestler and watch it again in full). There's always huge hype surrounding something that the stars have gone through such physical exertion for, or transformed themselves in some way. Natalie Portman has famously lost 20lbs for the role of fragile, broken Nina, and trained full-time as a ballet dancer too. Even this perfectly exemplifies the notion of obsession, of being perfect for a part and committing fully to the task. He performance has been lauded with awards and nominations already, and rightly so. She is magnetic as the young dancer falling apart in her quest to be perfect, to live up to the expectations of her frighteningly over-bearing mother (Barbara Hershey) and sexually loquacious director Thomas (Vincent Cassel). It says alot when even Cassel's performance isn't being hailed as the stand-out, as he's usually the best thing in anything he appears in- have I mentioned how I sat through Ocean’s Twelve just for a glimpse? OBSESSION! Portman's Nina is the perfect White Swan in the ballet of Swan Lake, but she's considered too frail, uptight and virginal for the counterpart of the Black Swan (the White Swan's evil, dark side). No matter how hard she tries she just can't let herself go- until she meets Lily (Mila Kunis). Lily is free-spirited, free of self-consciousness, and dances how she wants to. She's dark, has a tattoo, smokes and even- gasp!- eats steak. She's everything Nina is not, and everything Nina thinks that she wants to be.
The performances are all uniformly excellent and the use of handheld cameras means we can get right up close and personal with every crack in the characters' veneer. I really love Aronofsky's style; despite his fondness for handheld it never looks cheap or a substitute for fancy camera trickery. Even when the dancers are, y'know, dancing, they're never really given the huge wide shots you would think they would be afforded- it feels like we're in the performance with them, through every painful step. It's a technique that works to great effect. Even when bulimic Nina is making herself sick in a tiny toilet cubicle, we're in there too. There's nothing of her that's left to our imagination. Everything about her is laid bare, making her character even more vulnerable, not only to other characters in the film but to us too.
The obsessive attention to detail also manifests itself in things in the film. The dancers' costumes in the ballet itself are sensational; the jewel in the crown being the Black Swan's costume. It highlights the grotesque strive for perfection and the excess of the ballet, and also the final transformation for both the Swan princess and Nina herself.


Another telling sign of this is the lack of reflective surfaces. In every scene throughout the film, while Nina is still struggling to let go, there is a mirror or reflective object of some form, until she is on stage and makes the transformation. This sums up the tying up of the themes of duality and conflict throughout the film, even though the results are somewhat tragic. The ending provides a perfect conclusion to the nature of extreme obsession and striving for perfection- it can't be maintained. And here we see that there has to be some sort of balance maintained. It's the perfect note to end on and leaves a disturbingly thought provoking mark.

I was only troubled by a few minor things within the film. For one which makes such a strong point about excess and succumbing to you dark side, I never felt it was as graphic or explicit as it could have been. There were some points where I felt it could've gone further than it did, more in depth, more... generally just more weird. After all, this is from the man who gave us Jared Leto with half an arm and a delusional mother in a psychiatric ward. Still, the film is so dense that it seems like quite a trivial point to make. I do feel for a film that's so concerned with characters pushing themselves to the brink, that it could have pushed itself that little bit further.

In saying that, the film achieves such near-perfection in so many areas that it's easy to forgive any nagging personal opinions. The look, the performances, the flourish with which everything is pulled off is really something spectacular. It'll haunt you, yeah, but for me that's part of the allure. If I could only harness a fraction of the dedication and imagination which Aronofsky imbues his work with, I'd be overjoyed with what I came up with. I can only watch and try to learn- at the very least, I'll learn that things can be taken too far and not always for good! Like all of Aronosfky's work so far, this is both a complex character piece and a thought-provoking psychological drama. It leans heavy towards the 'thriller' side more than his other work, and addresses both styles without ever being too close to being either. This balance, I think, complements the themes of duality and conflict perfectly. Aronofsky's stories are always complex, dark, deeply layered and rewarding. His characters don't aim low or have small ambitions- much like the man himself.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

It's Not Easy Being Green


Every once in a while, I decide to entertain myself in other ways than sitting in a dark room watching the works of people I'd like to emulate. When I was younger, I went to youth theatre for a good... oh, 6 years? I LOVED drama in school. In fact, my first application to the Academy when I was 17 was for the BA Acting course. I'd never dreamed that you could study acting, and it was all I'd ever wanted to do. Sadly, at the time (or so I remember), part of the audition involved singing and playing a piece froma musical. Singing and musical ability have never been strong points of mine, in as much as I always wanted to be good at them. I hugely admire the art of musical theatre, and before I was out of primary school I'd already seen Grease and Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.

Theatre going is an expensive habit though, and it fell by the wayside in recent years. When my mum suggested going to see a show in London for our birthdays, I couldn't think of any better way to spend it. The last time we were in London- also, the last time I was at the theatre, shamefully- we saw Chicago and Blood Brothers, and my mum was gunning for We Will Rock You. I love Queen, but I fancied something a bit different, and opted for Wicked. A few friends of mine who study musical theatre had said it was brilliant. In fact, even people who hadn't studied it said it was brilliant. I vaguely knew it was to do with The Wizard of Oz (my feelings on which I'd already made clear), but without that pesky Dorothy character. Like an older, risque version, a sort of superhero origin about the film's arch-villain- the Wicked Witch of the West.

I went into the theatre having decided to read nothing of the show, without even listening to any of the songs. I wanted to hear it for the first time when I was there. With Grease, I'd watched the film well over 50 times before I went anywhere near the Edinburgh Playhouse. When I saw Joseph, it was because we'd been practising the songs for our school Christmas show. I wanted to see and hear everything with this show completely unbiased, knowing nothing of what to expect. And boy, am I glad I didn't.

The first thing I noticed was the fabulous stage set-up. I'm fascinated by set design, whether it be for film, television or stage. Everywhere you looked on stage, there was some intricate little detail, tiny cogs setting up the huge overall effect. There were things to look at everywhere. The huge mechanical clockwork-type features gave me absolutely no idea of what to expect, but I was sure intrigued. Then the curtain rose and the show began...
It begins with the death of Elphaha, the Wicked Witch, and the appearance of Glinda the Good Witch to reassure the townspeople. When she is asked if she and Elphaba were friends, the story goes into flashback. We learn how a baby girl was born with green skin after her mother had a dalliance with a mysterious stranger. She is detested by her father, who sends her off to sorcery school when she's olde, along with his favourite child- the wheelchair-bound Nessa Rose. Their mother has long since passed away and Elphaha is made none more aware that she's only there to look after her sister. It's a time of great turmoil in Oz, a sort of magical holocaust, and the socially conscious Elphie is forced to bunk with social climber Galinda (or 'Glinda', as she's later known).

As it is revealed that Elphie is in posession of some pretty awesome powers, she realises that there's more to life than being a freakish outcast, beaten down for being different. Unfotunately, the world she lives in doesn't see it the same way. She and Galinda quickly become friends, however, and they go off in search of the Wizard himself- struggling with conspiracies, cover-ups and stifling social conditions at the same time.
The show is on for almost three hours, but honestly I never noticed the time drag at all. It flies by on the strength of the story alone. Given how I tried to avoid reading anything about it beforehand, I didn't even have a flip through the novel it's based on. It goes to show though, that even without the songs the story itself is enough to carry it- something which I wouldn't have imagined alot of shows like this could do.
The costumes are wonderful, and rightly so- considering the lavish production values of the film, and the fact that it's set in the magical land of Oz, they have to be something pretty special. They have to reflect the setting, and they share the same magically mechanical feel of the sets. The whole show had a very 'steampunk' feel to it, almost like the Shane Acker film '9' (not the singing, dancing Daniel Day-Lewis film Nine, ironically enough...)

And then there are the songs themselves... wow. Sometimes with musicals there can be alot of 'filler', little throwaway numbers and no real big show-stoppers. I felt this about Blood Brothers- the show was funny but there weren't any big, memorable songs. Not so with Wicked. The concluding song of the first act, Defying Gravity, made the hairs on my neck stand on end and I was mesmerised. The vocals are HUGE, but not in a 'showy' way. The cast were fantastic and never once hit a bum note. Not being up on my musical theatre, I wasn't familiar with any of the names, but I was blown away by all of them.
The songs actually served to further the story, rather than just be there because... y'know... it's a musical. There wasn't a single one which I felt dragged or hindered in any way, and as soon as I got home I liteally could not wait to listen to them again. Defying Gravity- what appears to be the signature sone from the show- is one that has had particular resonance with me the last few weeks and if it weren't for my seriously chronic vocal 'ability' I'd have been belting out the words along with it.

It's no surprise this show has won as many awards as it has, both in its run in New York and in London. It's been seen by over 2 million people, and in London alone there have been over 1,000 sold out matinees. That's not even including evening shows. A show doesn't have that kind of impact without there being something more than a little bit special about it. Even for those who don't have a particular interest in musical theatre, it HAS to be seen. I out aside my feelings about The Wizard of Oz and to be honest, completely forgot about the film. At the same time, it sets the groundwork for the film's story and skims over alot of it before tying it up neatly at the end. The problem with prequels is often the lack of suspense- if you've seen the original film, you know how a prequel will play out. You know where the characters will be at the start, and where they will end up. The genius of Wicked is that it's not only a prequel, but it goes further than that. It also runs parallel to the story of the film, and its conclusion is the same as the end of the film- but explains it further. It's alot to pack in, but like I said the time flies in. I was really disappointed when I realised it was getting near the end- I didn't want it to at all! While it's a difficult one to say "go and see", in the same way as you would a film, it's definitely a show I'd not only recommend, but insist upon other people seeing. It's huge, dazzling, unforgettable and soars above anything else I've ever seen.

Thursday 17 February 2011

Lip Dub

There's something quite incredible in watching work come together. From conception, to development, to planning and executing something, no matter what area it's in, there's nothing quite like seeing the finished product of alot of hard work.

Away back in first year, we were given the task of coming up with a collaboration between our class and TPA. It seemed like a fairly huge undertaking, especially considering how many more of TPA there were than us! I was in Murray's group when he suggested the idea of LipDub and I was immediately excited. The original idea came from a group of students in Germany who filmed themselves miming along to a song as the camera followed them around in one continuous take, showing off the students and university life.

The only stipulation was that there could be no edit points or cuts. There were a few other guidelines, like 'pick a well known song', so that everyone knew the words. It couldn't have been better timed- this year saw the 60th anniversary of the school of drama, and what better way to tell this to the world than by showing how all of the departments have come together to celebrate?

We had a few meetings between the two classes with Murray directing the whole thing and the rest of us allocated roles within production, art direction and potentially AD'ing. First of all though, we had to get the go-ahead from Adam, Andy and Ros, our respective department heads and then... THE PRINCIPAL HIMSELF. A group of us pitched it using powerpoints and a shakily-presented speech written by myself (I'm not good at public speaking) and.... it worked! Hurrah! After this came numerous production meetings to decide on a route, song, who was going to be involved, and most importantly when it was going to happen. Sadly (at the time), we couldn't get it done before the end of first year and the Big Event was postponed until last weekend.

I hadn't had much of a hand in anything to do with the LipDub since, really, there wasn't much to be done. TPA took care of costumes, props, stage setting and the all-important pyros and it looked incredible. How someone could make such fantastic costumes out of drawer liners, newspapers and broken umbrellas is beyond me. The way in which they moved the stage and reset at the drop of a hat was quite awe-inspiring and made me feel more than a little guilty at it taking me so long to learn how to de-rig a camera in record time.

The onset of some kind of stress-induced flu and an increase in shifts in work meant I missed rehearsals on Saturday, and dragged my sorry carcass to the Big Show on Sunday out the nut on cold & flu pills, determined to see the result of what we'd planned so long ago. I was hella nervous that I was going to be in trouble for missing rehearsal and that I was going to be resigned to some background role and wouldn't be a part of it at all. Worse still, I was worried I was going to be thrown headlong into some dance routine I had no clue of, and that I was going to be the one who forgot the words, stumbled over a wrong dance step, tripped, wore the wrong thing or collapsed in an exhausted fluey heap.

My fears were alleviated when I got to the Academy- yes, we had to dance, but it was with fellow classmates, and everything had been planned with total precision. We had enough rehearsals for me to pick everything up quickly enough and before long I was getting right into the spirit of it. I didn't have the hardest job. All I had to do was mime and dance. Stressing about this would have totally undermined all the hard work that the creative teams and camera crew had come up with over the past year. I even channelled my inner Black Swan in the ballet studio- albeit a clumsier, stiffer version with no dance training and only barely managing to get my leg on the bar.

The only thing I can think to compare it to was Delhi- us film types running about trying to hold our own with dancers and musical theatre types. We may have been knackered and unused to it but it was the most fun way I could have spent a Sunday afternoon in uni. The atmosphere and good mood when the pyros finally worked after a perfect take was electric- you could've felt it in the rafters. Considering we only had two attempts of the pyros, the pressure was on and we had to make every step perfect, but it came together beautifully. I was really proud of Murray and the rest of the team for managing to pull it off and- dare I say it- felt a hint of 'school spirit' in doing so. It brought out my competitive nature- ours was going to be the best, because we could make it the best. I can't wait to see the finished product... I know I'm going to cringe so hard if I catch a glimpse of myself dancing and miming like a twat to "Mr Brightside" but hey... what's the point in being embarrassed of contributing to something the world is going to see? In a similar vein as Delhi, I may have been out of my comfort zone and initially felt way over my head, but the nature of collaboration is that everyone supports each other. And I make no apologies for my none-more-white freestyling.

Urban Endings

For the last however many years, the tradition on our course has been that everyone submits a script and a couple are chosen for an end of year film. We made two last year, for which our class was divided into two groups and we were all allocated roles. On top of working on grad films and second year's end of term films, they were an incredible learning curve, and I really think that the best way to learn professional practice is to be thrown in at the deep end and be made to fend for ourselves.

This year though, things are being done a little differently. As opposed to one person getting to direct and the rest of us being given jobs accordingly, we're all getting a chance to conceive, produce and direct a two-minute short. The brief? It has to be the final two minutes of a film. Two locations at most, at least one line of dialogue, and a maximum of three characters. On paper it looks relatively simple.. In fact, no, it doesn't. Upon hearing it at first it sounds relatively simple. Now that we're being given the brief it's gone from "oh, that sounds pretty interesting!" to "OH GOD, I AM ONLY BARELY COMPETENT AT EVERYTHING ELSE NEVER MIND A SATISFYING ENDING".

Endings have always given me some trouble. I have a Shyamalamalamam-esque fondness for the good old-fashioned 'twist' ending, although I'm fully aware of how badly it can be executed. For every time I've seen a properly satisfying, conclusive yet still shocking 'twist', there are scores of clunking, obvious twists thrown in to instigate deliberate shock value- or, worse, thrown in just for the sake of a twist ending. It's especially difficult when trying to come up with an ending and THEN follow it up with a beginning and a middle.

I've chosen to do mine on one of my ideas which I'd sent to Richard. It was an idea Richard seemed to quite like and that I'd begun to develop, but was far from having an ending for. The ending is the crucial moment, the one last chance to leave your audience breathless, to make them feel like the two hours or so they've spent invested in your plot, story and characters has been worthwhile. It's the difference between a good film and a truly great, memorable work. Even ignoring the 'twist' ending, even if there isn't one, there still has to be a conclusion of some form- whether it be a cathartic one or one which leaves the audience asking questions. Since we had a mere weekend to come up with our pitches for the brief, I sent one which I'd already worked on and in my opinion it already seems kind of rushed. I've already come up with a couple more I think would be more suitable, or interesting... But in terms of applying the tactic to screenwriting in general, I think it's a valuable way of looking at things. Since endings have always been a sticking point for me, it might be something I apply to further scripts which I have to come up with... and it's always helpful to come up with new ways of writing. After all, how do you know what works for you if you don't try it? There's more than just one way to write, same as with anything really.

I'm actually really looking forward to the project, mild panic attacks and confidence taking a knock aside. In all honesty, I know I haven't been as focused on my school work as I should have been in the last couple of weeks. But something strange has come out of it... a new desire to show what I can do. Shooting someone else's script with shots and set-ups done according to their vision is one thing, but it's something else to execute a piece of work that's entirely your own. It's a chance, I think, for me to finally say: "hey! Fuck you! This is what I can do". I'm not the most proficiently technical person in the class, but I have an imagination in there somewhere. I always thought my background in studying film history and art was irrelevant after starting the course (apart from being slightly ahead in our CCS classes with Andy), but I think this could be the chance to put what I've learned to good use. It's one thing to be technically skilled, it's another to know all the theoretical and historical context of what you do, and it's a different beast altogether to tie all this together and come up with something that is entirely your own. Here's hoping this new-found determination lasts, and I can finally prove that I didn't just get into the course by sneaking in through the side door.

Monday 7 February 2011

Happy Holidays, You Basterds


There is truly no greater joy than sharing a film you love with someone who has never seen it before- or at least there isn't for a rampant cinephile like me. Much debate has gone on over the merits of Quentin Tarantino in class (I've resigned myself to the fact that Andy and I are at a stalemate, and that one time he referred to him as 'a great director' will forever remain the most thrilling of small victories). Even I reckon that his contribution to the Grindhouse double bill was the weaker of the two, and I wasn't as huge a fan of Kill Bill in retrospect as I was at the time. Still, this is the man who gave us Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, (the criminally overlooked) Jackie Brown and, of course, wrote the story for my favourite film of all time. As well as having a hand in Sin City, From Dusk Til Dawn and True Romance. He's, like, untouchable.

When I found out about Inglourious Basterds, alot of things were running through my mind. Like, will it be good old fashioned Tarantino on form? Will it be another self-indulgent, "I really don't need the money" effort? Is it supposed to be spelled like that? Watching and re-watching the film since getting it on DVD last year.. the year before... 2009?... has only served to confirm my belief that this film is NOT Tarantino back on form, but on a compeltely new form altogether. The opening scene, in which Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) interrogates French dairy farmer Msr. LaPadite (Denis Menochet) about the Jewish family hiding under his floorboards is a gripping and unbearably tense start to what quickly chops and changes straight into Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), aka Aldo the Apache, and his merciless band of Jewish-American soldiers known as 'the Basterds'. The difference between the two chapters is quite unreal, as is the story of Shoshanna Dreyfuss (Melanie Laurent), a cinema owner who was part of the family under Msr. LaPadite's floor- and the only survivor. Then there's the story of British officer Archie Willcox (Michael Fassbender) and his dangerous liason with German double agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger)- who happens to be not only a spy for the Allied side, but the biggest movie star in Germany.

Every story, every facet of it, involves characters plotting their own form of revenge in some way. It's alot to get your head around but the culminative chapter in the cinema ties it all together and the result is a glorious mess of rewritten history. That it is divided into chapters is typically QT and helps the running time fly by, as we trangress from one story into the next and see how they all fit together. The actual scenes themselves are notably long- while they may feature fast cuts when we get to action sequences, the actual locations themselves are very few. It allows the film and its ambition to feel a bit more 'contained'.

One thing which struck me the most was the way the film looked... It shows a progression in Tarantino's work, in that it doesn't look like a Tarantino film. Shot by long-time Olver Stone collaborator and all-round genius Robert Richardson (who also shot Kill Bill 1 & 2), it looks gloriously cinematic... as obvious as that may sound... and looks fitting of its time but with a subtle hint of modernity. According to Richardson, “It’s at times playful, at times brutal, at times wildly humorous". What appealed to me is that there is nothing CG about the film- AT ALL. Given my snobbish disdain for 'fixing things in post', Inglourious Basterds was developed as a 'purely chemical film', with 'no digital intermediate'. Tarantino's insistence that nothing of the film would rely on new technology was a gamble that paid off in dividends. The scalping scenes, even the *SPOILER ALERT* huge explosion at the end, were all to be done on camera. Sadly, Richardson and Tarantino found that the digital era had seen an erosion in chemical labs sympathetic to old school styles of film making.

Still, there are instances in which the black and white footage- which had been intended to take up a much larger proportion of the film- work well. Nation's Pride, the film-within-a-film, was supposed to have been shot in the early 1940s and the stock looking footage fits its period well. The film wears its influences on its sleeve in terms of stylistic reference. Each chapter has its own unique look, which might make it sound somewhat disjointed but actually works well as its subtle enough to only enhance what we're watching, rather than distract/detract from it. The opening chapter was to have a Sergio Leone, 'once upon a time in the west' look to it. The 'French' section of the film reflects the French New Wave and mixes pulp with propaganda. Tarantino-esque nuances still find their way in too, like our introduction to German-enlisted Basterd Hugo Stiglitz.



The sound is terrible, and it cuts a few seconds off of the end, but you get the gist- it's pure Tarantino, complete with badass voiceover by Samuel L Jackson in full Jackie Brown blaxploitation mode. It's this mixture of recognisable director's traits, bold mixing of technology and things being seen through a different (and more mature) eye than his earlier works that make this film what it is. The fact that QT also used his long-time editor Sally Menke helps maintain much of his own idiosyncracies with regards to pacing and cuts etc, as well as moving his work out of the 1990s.

Of course, given our last few weeks working with actors, the performances are crucial too. Christoph Waltz is, for me, the undeniable standout of the whole thing- a smarmy, self-righteous, interminably clever, charming creep; he is frightening in that we always know that he knows something... we just don't know what. Waltz'z Oscar for Best Supporting Actor saw a triumphant air-punch from me when I watched the ceremony, and it's even more amazing given the company that he is in.
Denis Minochet as Msr. LaPadite is not someone I've seen before but he is outstanding as he breaks down in front of Landa the 'Jew Hunter' and sacrifices his old neighbours to sprae his own family. Brad Pitt is CLEARLY having a blast as Aldo the Apache, and his over the top performance never seems to far-reaching or out of place. He's the natural leader of the Basterds, and is ably supported by surprise choice Eli Roth. Control of the scene ably flits from one character to the next and, depsite feeling a little dense at times, we'd feel short-changed if it were the opposite.

This film is Tarantino all over, but not at the same time... It's as focused as Death Proof was a glorious B-movie mess; the titular characters are barely introduced singularly; the opening sequence is a 20-minute conversation... every time we think the film is going in one direction it jerks into the other. Which is pretty much typical from a director who gave us a heist movie in which we don't actually see any of the heist itself, yes? The final line, for me, summed up how I felt about the film, especially after watching it repeatedly- and it's also sneakily how I suspect Tarantino feels about the film himself. When Lt Raine is craving a Swastika into Hans Landa's forehead- his favourite punishment for those he decides to let live- he comments confidently:
"You know somethin', Utivich? I think this just might be my masterpiece"
I can't disagree with that.

Sunday 6 February 2011

A Learning Curve, And Being Way Off Course

Thank heavens for Sundays... if it weren't for them I wouldn't have any days off at all. Between classes, shoots, lugging kit, work... sometimes I feel as if I'm trying to live multiple lives at once. It's exhausting, sure, but sitting blogging while listening to some Cure is my new favourite way to reflect and such. And what a couple of weeks it's been!

We had our first classes with more new tutors in the last few weeks. First up was Zam Salim, who taught us about the principles of directing and working from a 'vision'. On our first day, we had to bring in a film which inspires us, show a scene to the class and explain what we liked about it and why. Since my film for Andy's assignment is Natural Born Killers (no eye-rolling please), I decided to show the opening scene. I really loved seeing everyone's choices... they were all so different, some I was aware of, some I'd seen, some I'd never even heard of. We also had to prepare a director's treatment to present to the class based on these films, as if they hadn't yet been made. This was really interesting- looking at what sort of things went into making up even a short scene, what things had to be taken into consideration, and how some films even get made in the first place. I especially liked kidding on to be Oliver Stone- turns out I know far more about the production of NBK than I thought I did!

Zam's classes really me with looking at films in different ways and in breaking them down, which fed into the work we're doing for Andy. Making up my director's treatment made my presentation on the Wednesday ALOT easier... well, perhaps 'easier' isn't the right word, but I had a tonne of research at least. Despite my better efforts, and attempts to drop some shifts in work, I turned up about a minute after the door was closed, even though I'd been in uni since 9am... medicating my own insomnia works for getting me to sleep, sure, but it doesn't make the waking up part any easier. In my zombie-like state I felt nothing my a sudden lurch in my stomach when I ran in behind everyone else, especially since personal-life things had been more than a bit rubbish that week and I was having severe trouble concentrating. Still, I needn't have worried too much. If anything, I'd OVER-prepared and tried to cram too much in, but after the Q&A and an email discussion with Andy, I managed to narrow down what I was going to focus on for my essay. Now to get writing! *cracks knuckles*

The following week we had classes with Peter Mackie Burns (hereafter known as PMB), with whom we learned how to work with actors. It's a strange thing, but I'd never really considered it... I mean, I knew if I were ever to direct I'd be working with actors- otherwise there's be no film- but I hadn't really thought about the practicalities of it. It reminded me alot of my days in youth theatre, looking at things like blocking and staging. Other things made me look more closely at the role of cinematographer- cheating angles and positions, framing and arranging shots in sequence that would cut easily, rather than just shooting a bunch of pretty individual shots. We had two classes in which we read over a script (the one we were going to shoot scenes from) and then the next week was all about rehearsing. Some scheduling conflicts meant I went from 3 shoots to FIVE... three assisting and two as Director of Photography/'focus wrangler'. Camera assisting was easy-peasy... mostly it involved marking up tapes, recording timecodes, holding a reflector at odd angles (thank you, residual Delhi training) and singing to the camera so it didn't feel frightened at being outside in the cold.

It also involved alot of sitting and waiting... something which a DoP or camera op certainly never gets to do. On Tuesday, I found out that Paul- who was originally meant to be directing, who I had rehearsed with and everything- was ill, and had been replaced by Dilara. Which meant there was no time for rehearsals and we had to be there an hour earlier than intended. Also, while I do enjoy a nice frame and a pretty picture, I have ALOT to revise on lenses, lights, filters and all the other little technical bits that go with putting together a shot. At one point in the afternoon my arm actually broke out into a rash and looked as though it had been clawed at by a mountain lion. We had no end of trouble with outside light too, especially as we didn't have any... y'know... other lights. Still, we eventually wrapped and me, my migraine and my half-gnawed arm shuffled home for a little sleep.

Thursday involved camera assisting again twice, once for Murdo and again for Gavin. The lousy tornado weather didn't help matters any but everything seemed to run smoothly and thankfully the day didn't feel as heinously long as anticipated. Friday, however, was my second shot at DoP'ing and again the memory blanks and standing feeling like a proper lemon not knowing the answers to any questions came back in spades. Once shooting started I was fine though- and even managed to help solve a tricky problem of cheating 'being in a cupboard'. (hint- thank you again Delhi training for my shoulders of steel). I really love the look of a handheld - or shoulder mounted- camera, and I find it far easier to follow actors' expressions and movements when I don't have a pesky tripod in the way. It helped that the whole week was a learning curve for the actors too, so we all felt a little bit out of our depths.

Overall then, an exhausting week, one in which I didn't see much of my bed and ended it looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. Still, the shoots all ran on time, we managed to pull everything together despite difficulties in pretty much every area and we came out of it still close as ever. AND in getting involved with the actors, managed to branch out into other areas of the Academy too. I've spent the last couple of days indulging in lie-ins, y'know, just because I can... I like to think I'm storing my energy up for the next round. I'm really looking forward to adapting what I've learned into the Urban Endings brief. Hopefully my obscure angles and ridiculous attempts at timecode from the Photoboard shoot will have resolved themselves too...?

Monday 17 January 2011

Bat's Entertainment!

I've been steadily making my way through my unexpected Christmas DVD bonanza over the last few weeks, and for once have actually been grateful for my annual flu week (between Christmas Day and Hogmanay, every year like clockwork) as it's given me a chance to laze on the sofa and binge without feeling slightly guilty for doing nothing else.
Sadly repulsed by the thought of food (so many leftovers went to waste...), I could only indulge in a purely cinematic fashion. In the same way that I'd go for some tasty stodge to get me through a nasty sniffle, I went for comfort-watching and opted to watch my old childhood sickday favourites- Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1991).

I make no secret of how much of a Batgeek I am- I have tickets to the live show in August- but I lost my faith once Joel Schumacher took over at the helm and pretty much laid waste to the series with the hyper-camp, neon Batman Forever and the...just...aaawwwwful... Batman & Robin. I was 10 when a film first made me want to leave the cinema. It's like realising that Santa isn't real- not all films you see in the cinema are wonderful like when you were a child. Still, my passion was reignited by continuing to watch the superior Batman: The Animated Series and later, Christopher Nolan's re-imagining of the series with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Much has been made of how Nolan's efforts saw the transition of comic book films into real, legitimate cinema- no doubt largely in part to his reputation, skill and spot-on casting. For me though, there will only be one Batman who brings back childhood memories and reminds me of how much I loved it in the first place, and that's Michael Keaton. Apparently many people disagreed at the time due to Keaton's previous persona as a comic actor- when the casting was announced, Warner Bros. received 50,000 letters of complaint from comic book fans. In fact, it was so controversial that even Bob Kane (the CREATOR of Batman) himself protested against Keaton.
To be fair, you can see where they might have had a problem. Batman is the Dark Knight- a superhero who doesn't need superpowers; merely a mind-boggling array of gadgetry and sheer brute strength. According to the original script, Bruce Wayne was supposed to have "muscles on top of muscles and scarred from nightly combat".




The top two pictures suggest a man who's clearly seen his share of action and knows his way around a workout room, whereas poor Michael Keaton looks sort of middle-management and has a distinct lack of chin. Not only that, but even when in Batsuit he's upstaged at every turn by his arch-nemeses (The Joker and The Penguin respectively), who camp it up with epic scenery-chewing turns that mean Batman is literally only there as a love interest for female leads and because... y'know... you need to have a good guy in it at some point.

It's this humanisation of villains that Bob Kane also sought to voice his concerns about, claiming that while Tim Burton had a 'great vision', he was too consumed with "characterization of the villains, and the scenic backgrounds, that at times he forgets about the story line". It's a complaint that has often been made of Burton; that's he's more of an outstanding set designer than a director. I find this ridiculous; in as much as his films are beautifully designed they also have alot of heart. His choice to cast Keaton was based on the fact that Batman should be an 'everyman'- after all, wouldn't Bruce Wayne's frequent disappearances from high society functions be kind of suspicious if he looked like he'd been hitting the 'roids?

Additionally, films such as the Superman series, Flash Gordon and even the original Adam West Batman series had been very cartoonish in style, with bright colours and all-American ideals. Burton's films offered more psychological depth, a darker edge and a grittiness that suggests that even superhero crime fighters have flaws. The emphasis in Batman on the Joker's performance is surely down to Jack Nicholson himself- a larger than life character, renowned for being a legendary actor in his own time. By the time Batman was released, he was practically a veteran. As for the sequel, well, Christopher Walken is the archetypal creepy-bad-guy... in order to give him a well-rounded part you have to get in depth with his character, and his character is bad. Simple as. As for the Penguin, his rise to fame and then notoriety is central to the basic plot of Batman Returns. It's almost like his origin story, only it skips out the first few years and catches the viewer up with them when he introduces himself to Gotham. How then, could you make a film about a villain's rise to power without giving him proper characterisation?

With regards to set design, there is no doubting Burton's skill and awe-inspiring (well, for me anyway) creative talent to imagine the most mind-bending worlds, beautifully and darkly realised. They fit the characters of his films, too. The town of Sleepy Hollow was actually built from the ground up, and the spooky, ominous mists surrounding the 19th century small town went perfectly hand in hand with the tone of Washington Irving's story. In the same way, the Gotham City of Batman and Batman Returns. The 1989 Batman was shot at Pinewood Studios, so as to escape the American press; and with a $5.5 million budget, production designer Anton Furst, together with Burton, mixed deliberately clashing styles of architecture to make Gotham City as ugly and bleak a 'Metropolis' as had ever been seen.

^^ The Gotham City set at Pinewood Studios
The most obvious influence for Gotham City is Fritz Lang's Metropolis, with the stark industrialist sets lending a bleak and ironic play on the film's title. Also, there are remnants of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, as well as the original concept sketches by Bob Kane himself. This is a world where you can really believe that crooks and villains would fester and flourish, to wreak havoc on the honest, hardworking folks. I found a quote from Furst which for me really conjured up an image of the thought process and logic behind the designs. He stated, "I thought we'd go back to the turn of the century; and imagine what New York might have become had there been no planning permission, and no concern about the quality of life for people in the city". There is absolutely nothing computer generated about this version of Gotham, which appeals to everything I love about the idea of creating sets and designing new worlds. You can almost imagine a sort of hi-tech, modern day Gangs of New York version of the city, or one which doesn't look dissimilar to Ichabod Crane's New York in Sleepy Hollow.

The sequel follows similarly, but is more expansive- the inspiration here was Fascist, World's Fair and Russian architecture, with a healthy dose of German Expressionism thrown in for good measure. The mix of styles really pulls together well. Since this film involves the story of the Penguin, it shows a Gotham that exists not only in skyscrapers and the streets but way below ground too. Here though, Furst was replaced by Bo Welch whom Burton collaborated with on Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. The similarities to Burton's other work is more obvious with Batman Returns than the original, and it has alot more of a 'quirkiness' to it befitting of his usual style.
With all of the painstaking effort made to deliver a world so uniquely and perfectly realised, it's easy to laud Burton for being so concerned with the look of the film. But it's this look which gives the films their haunting and poetic tone befitting of the characters and storylines. Just look what happens when the colour palette is amped up and everything is spray painted neon...

Pictured above- the death of childhood.

Everything that I loved about the original Batman films came down to the dark heart of it all, which was ripped out by the third and fourth 'efforts'. Burton gave us the wide-eyed Vicki Vale and the sultry Selena Kyle; Joel Schumacher gave us Nicole 'everything she says sounds like she's out of breath' Kidman- who, really, was just a poor man's Kim Basinger- and frumpy dumpy Alicia Silverstone, who hit her peak in two Aerosmith videos and Clueless, and should've stayed there. But I'm digressing, so I'll get back to the point.

Some things may change as you get older- things you like, things you don't, what inspires you or what doesn't. It's only when you go back and look at things in a different, or more 'grown up' way, that you fully appreciate the things you loved when all you had was childlike wonder. Looking into the films in a more (I hate to say it cuz it sounds so pretentious) 'specialised' way really did give me a greater appreciation for them. Being able to recognise influences, to know how they fought against adverse fan-reactions and understanding the profound impact they had on similiar films of the genre just compounds everything I love about Batman, and indeed Tim Burton, and only adds to the experience I had watching it as a wee yin. I love that I can watch these films when I'm feeling rubbish and ill and want something comfortably familiar, or alternatively if I'm feeling like watching something stimulating and hugely influential to me.

In saying that, I will add that there's one thing Christopher Nolan had that Burton didn't... any ideas what it could be.....?