Untitled from Patrick Hassall on Vimeo.

Objectives and La Ban

Following up on last weeks lectures I thought I'd apply these principles to our films Characters

The Man:

Overall objective: To find a connection with society, form some sort of temporary relationship which will cure his inner loneliness.

Actions: To attract some sort of sympathy by presenting his urn and talking about his dead mother or father (which is a lie or very manipulatiuve)

La Ban Principles:

heavy

soft

indirect

leaning more towards the slow side but hes is smart

The Bartender:

Overall/Scene Objective: To serve his customer, put up with what he has to say, go with the flow.

Actions: Listens, serves drinks and gives advise.

Beat: Where Bartender really starts to listen to the man and becomes more sympathetic, after just listening and not really being emotionally connected.

La Ban Principles:

neither heavy nor light but leaning slightly towards light

hard

direct

again leaning slightly towards slow but he is smart

The Hairdresser:

Overall/scene objective: To cut the man's hair and move on to her next customer

Actions: Cutting the man's hair and moire prentending to listen than actually listening, off in her own world.

Beat: Happens between shots, once hairdresser realises what The man is talking about she also becomes more sympathetic

La Ban Principles:

Light

Soft

Indirect

Slow

Reflection week

I understand that my reflection is meant to be my entire blog but I figure why not reflect on the semester so far anyway... Most importantly, My groups film is coming along nicely. We've completed our production portfolio and just have to put a few finishing touches on the pre prod. We've narrowed down our candidates for the acting roles from starnow (down from 65!) and are set for audtitions next week, which I am keenly anticipating! We have had what appear to be some quality actors that have applied, as well as those that we have deemed to have 'the right look.' I feel like casting makes up a large part of my role as director and let's be honest... I'm also excited for a bit of a power trip at the casting (but who wouldn't be). Second, I was happy, as discussed in earlier posts, about my synopsis which was heavily Larry David inspired... not surprising since Curb Your Enthusiasm was about all I was watching at the time! But I think I could have done better with my story idea, which I put significantly less time and effort in to. Last... reflecting on this god damn blog! I think I could have put more work in to it, but I have struggled to. In all honesty I hate having to write about myself and what I'm doing.. it feels overly narcissistic and quite unnecessary. Frankly I think the film project should be far more heavily weighted and the blog less so. I feel that reflecting on my work myself is far far less useful than having someone else look thorugh it and give a second opinion. However I guess it is something I have to do and I have been meaning to do Lenny in final cut for a few weeks. The problem though is that I don't have the time to stay an extra few hours at uni. I will attempt to do it during the easter break. So there it is.. . my reflection of what's gone down so far.

The Dead Hold the Key and The Big Lebowski

For the last week I have been thinking and jotting notes on what I think should be part of my directors statement and notes. After going through the script and coming up with some shots, I then watched 'The Big Lebowski' (Which Daan had talked about in class that day) which I believe to be similar to our film in several ways. The first of which are some aspects of Jeff Bridges' character the dude. These aspects don't have a lot to do with the dudes personality and mannerisms but, I think we can draw influence from what the Dude wears which help portray that he is a bit of a 'deadbeat'. The clothes are drab in appearance and are always plain, dull colours.

Secondly is the scene where The Dude and Walter are scattering Donnie's ashes. The mid shot camera helps display the humour involved by showing more detail of the characters faces and focusing more on dialogue. I think we can take aspects from this and use them in our 'throwing of the ashes' scene.

Finally, this is more of a generic technique, but I liked the use of camera angles, low and high, to represent the powerplay between characters. I think we can use this technique to display both that Jason is a bit pathetic (high angle) and that he is conniving and possibly more controlling the situation (low angle).

One more shooting technique I liked and think we could use to give a nice touch to our film would be the flooding of the screen at the end of a scene with one colour (in our case Jason's dad's ashes), then cutting to the next scene which starts by the frame being flooded with the same colour (again in our case, the hairdressers apron), I'm sure there is a name for this technique but I don't know what it is!

Sight vs Sound

Which is more important?

Both have their advantages and disadvantages to beeing seen or heard by themselves. Personally, i've always found sound to evoke more emotion than vision. For example, watch a horror film without sound and it becomes devoid of scariness. Listen to a horror films sound track and you may still have the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.

On the other hand, I find that a picture can set a scene in a much more effective way then a sound. This obviously, because you can actually see the scene and what it encompasses, wheareas with a sound-byte, you can only guess what is in the scene.

While both have their strengths, each will struggle to exist without the other in film. Without sound, the audience will become bored, the same as if there is too long without an image. As stated in the reading "Sight and Hearing", the sound and the image work together to create the film and do not have to be equal at all times. If there is a striking image, then have a far for subtle sound and with a more intense sound, have a subtler image as the two can clash. I would argue that this is correct for almost all film, bar a few scenes. An example of this would be in a horror or thriller film, when the cinematographer wants to shock the audience they may use an extreme image and an intense sound to cause the audience to jump out of their seats.

All in all I would argue that neither sound nor sight are superior, but both need to work together to create a final product worth consuming.

for the below post...

Sound: The Wilhelm Scream

The Wilhelm screen (as can be heard on the embedded video) is a classic example of an on screen sounds effect, made to seem as it is coming from one of the actors... or could be easily confused as a wild sound. It is often heard when a character is falling from a height, jumping out the ay of a car or a train, or even as it's name originated in 1953: being hit by a bow and arrow. The scream is something that can easily go unnoticed unless you are carefully listening or deconstructing the sound of a film.

Reflecting on reflecting: week 1

In all honesty there are very few, if any types of assignments i like less than reflective writing. I thus found it quite a monotonous task to read through a reading on reflection and conked out after a few pages. I've normally found that if I get a good enough idea, I will most likely remember it, or i'll just jot it down in a note, rather than keep a journal or blog. Also in terms of reflecting on how well I've done at something I've always found I would much rather discuss it and get another opinion than have to write down something and stew over it myself.

In terms of the lecture, it was good to have a recap and a summary on what the course is about. While it was relatively basic, it was good to have a refresher on the creating of a story, specifically for film. However, while it is all well and good to have a set of guidelines, such as making a 'bold choice' with one aspect of your character, I think someone can either come up with a good story or they can't. This isn't to say that once someone has an idea, the guidlines discussed in the lecture wouldn't improve the story (Or that i can come up with good ideas), but I don't beleive that a story created by just following the guidelines would be overly entertatining.