January
Throughout this month I have been laying out my interests and possible creative paths to go down for my final project. I approached the project by the final products sections: my interests and aspirations, the genre, the subject and practicality of execution. Through this month I did research into the pathways of animation, stop motion, foreign cinema styles and storytelling.
06/01/20
Today we did an editing workshop where we combined clips to make it look like someone was in 2 places at once in the frame. This could be useful for me if I have a scene where someone is hallucinating or ‘chasing themselves’ like in the memory scenes from the film Oldboy.
13/01/20
Today we did a lighting workshop to do with interview 3 point lighting and composition. This would mainly inform any kind of documentary piece but the skills are transferable nonetheless as it taught me how to light a face to eliminate predominant shadows, which unless for a stylistic choice aren’t desirable.
29/01/20
Today we practised camera movement to convey style and emotions without any dialogue or characters. We decided to center our film around a car and I based the camera movements off of Pimp My Ride–esque displays of the cars features. This is good for my final project because I plan to use a lot of camera movements to give my short film an ethereal feel. It also helps create suspense around the reveals I want in terms of showing the locations the main character is in.
26/01/20
Today I attended Chinese New Year celebrations in the town center and found a few aspects very interesting.
First whilst watching the performance I noticed that the organizer was being interviewed. Although this doesn’t apply much to my final project, I still feel it is important to document and pay attention to as an example of non-fiction, real life applications of the skills that I have been learning throughout the course.
In terms of the mini “parade” before the performance I found the masked man quite interesting. I would like to research more into masks in Asian culture and whether that is something I could use in my film to obscure and add mystery to characters roles and identities.
The beginning of this performance is what I found most inspiring in terms of story. The dance starts with the dogs being awoken by red ink being placed on their forehead and eyes. I feel this symbolism is something I could potentially feature in my film. I have chosen this as a topic I want to want to research into and evidence of that will be shown in the research section of my pre-production.
Script writing
In this workshop we were given a treatment that we had to take and translate it into script format. I chose to do this by using the program CELTX along with professional script examples from our online learning resources. The example I chose was the peaky blinders pilot script. I chose this because I am very familiar with the show and episode so I could visualize and understand how the script influenced production, thus telling me what level of detail is necessary.
Example
Treatment
‘ Disciple
A narrow stream sparkles in the sun of a bright summer day. The flow of Sunday
drivers, steadily making their way to garden centers and cake sales provides the only
distraction to a group of bored adolescent lads.
Trevor is on his way to a repair a residential boiler. He struggles to spin the plastic lid
on his take-out coffee cup while maintaining a grip on the steering wheel of his works
van. “Twats” he sighs tiredly as his van passes the group of lads. They are making
obscene gestures towards him hoping to get a reaction. ‘
First attempt
This was my first attempt at interpreting the stories opening. The main thing to note is that I carried over the brackets around dialogue from the example to my script.
Revised
I proceeded to get feedback from my tutor on my script to check that the format and content were to a legible industry standard. In my revised version you can see I got rid of the brackets around the dialogue, this is because I was informed the brackets in the example were used to indicate the characters were speaking a different language to what the script is written in. This incite is useful as I may choose to write implying other languages as my film is heavily East Asian inspired.
11/03/20
I decided to borrow a college camera during one of my free lessons to experiment with depth of field/ focus and to see how I felt about using a DSLR to film over a JVC I would usually use. Overall, I felt that the DSLR was very uncomfortable to hold in comparison to the JVC and with no overly redeeming qualities I decided JVC cameras are the way to go for me personally.
COVID-19 update
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak college has been suspended and national lockdown has been introduced. This will mean that I will not be able to create a final piece as filming outside and working with crews will defy official government advise. Because of this I will aim to create another final piece in terms of a script that is formatted completely to industry standard. Hopefully this combined with extensive research, planning and a final evaluation will allow me to fully showcase my skills and growth over my two year study.
02/04/20
I reached out to two of my tutors for their opinions on a new idea I had concerning having my film in Korean. This idea came to me whilst reflecting on the conclusion of the short academic paper I wrote; it was on a case study about how well themes from eastern cultures translate into western interpretations (which is exactly what I am doing for my short film). I feel that for the themes to make sense in the films context it must be set in South Korea with Korean speakers. Even though at this current time the making of the film is not realistic the indication of the speaking of a foreign language will appear in the script as I will have to show that the language spoken is different from the one I am writing my material in. It will also inform my target audience as foreign films can be quite divisive and alienate a lot of western audiences who are not open to film they can’t immediately understand. I chose to email two of my tutors because one has a general overview of my project to date and conducted the script writing workshop referenced earlier in my log and the other marked my academic paper, meaning he has as much knowledge on the subject, how I view it and the examples as to why changing the language may be a necessary path for me to take. I also wanted two viewpoints on the matter to make sure any objective pitfalls reported by my tutors could be researched and worked around.
Following are the main points and questions lifted from one tutors response:
‘I recommend exploring the expected value of each according to your projected target audience. If your research suggests that English audiences will NOT engage with a foreign language film, perhaps lean towards English dialogue. However, it is certainly worth exploring how much of the East Asian theme(s) will be lost if your characters are all speaking English. Will this have any impact on the soul and message of your film?’
‘It is also fine for you to write the Script in English but to note that the Dialogue will be in Korean if that is your desire. In the example I posted to Moodle for Peaky Blinders you have already seen conventions of using brackets to indicate a translation in language will be required for character dialogue.’ – in reference to script writing workshop
From this advice I have decided to conduct further primary research into how western audiences, particularly people who have an interest in the film industry as that is who I aim to reach with my frequent symbolism and abstract story structures, respond to foreign film. Is it something they would be open to seeing? Are there certain points a foreign film has to hit for westerners to consider it an option? The second part of his research proposal is the subject that I covered in my essay and therefore will not be going too much further into it in this final unit, rather referring to the work I have already done.
06/04/20
For the past week the WordPress blog I upload all my work too has not allowed me to edit or upload. This is what I am faced with when attempting to edit any of my posts. I have tried creating a new page but that will not publish thus getting the same result. Due to this being an ongoing problem I have transferred all my work to date to Word documents on my college One Drive so I can continue to build on my previous work and share it with my tutors for feedback.
COVID-19 update
After a video tutorial session today I have gotten a few key pieces of information which will greatly effect what I work on for my quarantine period to deadline. So far I have putting all of my energy into doing as much as I can for my FMP, so doing more research, character write ups and a treatment meant to be followed by a script acting as a final piece. However the decision has been made to discontinue this final project and it will no longer be graded as a stand alone. Due to this massive decision it makes sense that I finish what I have in the works for my FMP project and then change my focus to expanding my general portfolio and working on my weaknesses.
27/04/20
After wrapping up my FMP work I think my two points of focus will be:
- creating an about me page for people to see when they first visit my blog which display my interests, strengths, weaknesses and aspirations
- reflecting on this years projects using post-grading teacher feedback and my hindsight from completing my two years
I feel this combination will allow me to showcase how much I’ve improved from starting the course after never having a media lesson to now finishing a 2 year UAL course.
Abbie's media projects 