New Wave Inspired Sequence
My brief was to create a New Wave cinema inspired short sequence around three minutes long and that in principle is what I have created. Overall I diverged from my brief focusing on internal struggles of young adults and instead of focusing on two characters and their relationship I created a montage sequence. This was because of a lack of actors that I could find willing to help me explore the ideas presented in the brief and a lack of organisation to my vision. With a plan I could have thought ahead with what shots I wanted and then created a piece closer to my brief but when it came to planning the location shoot to Leicester my ideas of recording the public, like at the start of public news pieces, made me think of how I could create a three minute montage instead. I would justify it in the sense of as it was only a sequence, the three minutes I had would be too ambitious to explore two characters and use enough New Wave features so by having a montage which could be apart of a wider film exploring the narrative. This change had a hard hit to the personal feeling that I wanted in my brief. When recording the public, it felt impersonal and I was more of an observer than one of them and I didn't start to feel the personality in those shots until editing and thinking about music. Speaking of music I decided not to use the ambient sounds that we took as at times the Zoom mic didn't record in some takes and there was a lot of wind sounding through recordings we did take. This could have be avoided and we could have acquired good sound samples as there was nothing wrong with the zoom mic, taking good indoor samples whilst we recorded in a coffee shop. To have solved these problems a foam covering over the microphone would have protected against the buffeting of the wind. In the case of non recording sound the lead going between the camera and the zoom mic could have been rechecked or recorded separately making sure the record button was pressed so that the microphone was recording.
Starting from the start of my sequence you have a minute of long shots taken on a bus as to get a tracking shot without our own dolly system. This reflects with my brief of using objects around to get interesting tracking shots as a way on low budget films to get these shots. I would say that I could have found more of a variety and perhaps whilst in Leicester found a shopping centre with an escalator perhaps. Being critical of the shots themselves, the shutter speed was low (at 1/25s and 1/60s) and caused blurring in the shots, whilst I personally like this effect as it reminds me of Wong Kar-Wai and his slowed down "Smudge" motion footage used in Chungking Express (1994) which looks blurred and slowed manipulated time. I believe a similar effect was reached by the bus traveling at different speeds rather than, slowed reprinted frames. Things that can be debated with the opening bus shots as to weather they help or not and can be considered a mistake. To make these shots more crisp I would shoot again with a higher shutter speed (1/500 or higher) but as that would make the images under exposed would then have to widen the aperture to f 5.5 or lower and maybe have to up the ISO (400, 800) which would increase noise and grain to my picture which I didn't want. The shots were all long takes and the way I have arranged them with minimal jump cuts, unlike Easy Rider (1969) which uses stylised jump cuts frequently, and used a minute of my time on it. I would like to think with the long time it creates a journey that with the music it does give it a reflective melancholic tone. The way that you can see the bus in the reflection of the streets distance the viewer, again, knowing that it is a film. I used a hand held camera (the Cannon 5D with magic lantern) which is linked to my brief as being New Wave as the portability of it made it possible to film cheaply on location rather than with large equipment in studio sets. After the bus sequence there is shot where the camera is stable by being rested not on a tripod but on a grey wall and focused in on people walking at the side of the frame whilst a van approaches before turning. The composition of this shot is not exactly following the rule of thirds and looks a little off, by bending the rules of cinema we can explore them which is part of what new wave directors liked to do. The using of the environment is new wave and deciding to do so was to get a stable shot with what was available. My central part of the sequence is a series of short flashes of scenes actually taken from the automatic balancing from the start of recording, whilst a mistake I made the choice to use the flashes to give an almost memorial feel to it. Within these shots there is one of people behind railings which is out of focus, whilst the effect adds to my feeling of fuzzy reflection like a half memory or the way the world can become out of focus when thinking, this shot is still technically wrong. To remedy this I could have chosen a higher f-stop to increase my depth of field (which would have led to less light coming through the smaller aperture) the best thing I should have tried was, whilst on manual focus, is to focus in on the subject better. The lens flares in this sequence are deliberate and are to distance the audience again from knowing theses images are coming from a camera but not ply that, in the day time sun it accentuates that fact giving a glittery view to the peace (lens flare used deliberately in new wave films such as Easy Rider 1969 and inspired this). This section is not as new wave as I'd like and it isn't until the lens flared shots that I believe it helps in distancing the audience. Creating this reflective feel in the piece and to take the audience out was in a way to get the viewer to reflect on themselves personally. The walking shadows are a creation of accident from when we were trying to get a shot up that end of the street as we had previously recorded the other. This mistake creates a haunting reflective feel which may be closer to experimental than new wave, this is an element that I would not exactly try and avoid but would like to watch more new wave films in order to get the balance between experimental and exploring ideas through known techniques. The dutch angled shot of a crowd walking in a strange unison I find to be a good one as to me it shows how strange our patterns are, it would have looked differently and have had much less of an effect if it was level due to highlighting the strangeness of our natural paterns. The transition between day and night is a great shot that I am proud of using the hand held camera in a way that it shows the movement of the camera man, I have created a walking shot. In transition from the day to night walking shot I used a straight cut at a frame that would continue the bounce of the cameras movement and the distancing done by that helps the audience get used to the new settings I had to use for shooting at night. I upped the ISO to 1600 and made where possible the lights out of focus to give glittering balls of light but by the process of a heightened ISO there is a lot more visible grain in the shots. I also made the aperture to a wide aperture and low f-stop at around 5.5 or less so as to let in more light at night and give more scope for playing with focus to get my desired effect within the shallow depth of field. My last three shots go from out of focus to in and back again, as I final part I used this to look interesting and make use of the ambient lighting which was more prominent in the night.
Starting from the start of my sequence you have a minute of long shots taken on a bus as to get a tracking shot without our own dolly system. This reflects with my brief of using objects around to get interesting tracking shots as a way on low budget films to get these shots. I would say that I could have found more of a variety and perhaps whilst in Leicester found a shopping centre with an escalator perhaps. Being critical of the shots themselves, the shutter speed was low (at 1/25s and 1/60s) and caused blurring in the shots, whilst I personally like this effect as it reminds me of Wong Kar-Wai and his slowed down "Smudge" motion footage used in Chungking Express (1994) which looks blurred and slowed manipulated time. I believe a similar effect was reached by the bus traveling at different speeds rather than, slowed reprinted frames. Things that can be debated with the opening bus shots as to weather they help or not and can be considered a mistake. To make these shots more crisp I would shoot again with a higher shutter speed (1/500 or higher) but as that would make the images under exposed would then have to widen the aperture to f 5.5 or lower and maybe have to up the ISO (400, 800) which would increase noise and grain to my picture which I didn't want. The shots were all long takes and the way I have arranged them with minimal jump cuts, unlike Easy Rider (1969) which uses stylised jump cuts frequently, and used a minute of my time on it. I would like to think with the long time it creates a journey that with the music it does give it a reflective melancholic tone. The way that you can see the bus in the reflection of the streets distance the viewer, again, knowing that it is a film. I used a hand held camera (the Cannon 5D with magic lantern) which is linked to my brief as being New Wave as the portability of it made it possible to film cheaply on location rather than with large equipment in studio sets. After the bus sequence there is shot where the camera is stable by being rested not on a tripod but on a grey wall and focused in on people walking at the side of the frame whilst a van approaches before turning. The composition of this shot is not exactly following the rule of thirds and looks a little off, by bending the rules of cinema we can explore them which is part of what new wave directors liked to do. The using of the environment is new wave and deciding to do so was to get a stable shot with what was available. My central part of the sequence is a series of short flashes of scenes actually taken from the automatic balancing from the start of recording, whilst a mistake I made the choice to use the flashes to give an almost memorial feel to it. Within these shots there is one of people behind railings which is out of focus, whilst the effect adds to my feeling of fuzzy reflection like a half memory or the way the world can become out of focus when thinking, this shot is still technically wrong. To remedy this I could have chosen a higher f-stop to increase my depth of field (which would have led to less light coming through the smaller aperture) the best thing I should have tried was, whilst on manual focus, is to focus in on the subject better. The lens flares in this sequence are deliberate and are to distance the audience again from knowing theses images are coming from a camera but not ply that, in the day time sun it accentuates that fact giving a glittery view to the peace (lens flare used deliberately in new wave films such as Easy Rider 1969 and inspired this). This section is not as new wave as I'd like and it isn't until the lens flared shots that I believe it helps in distancing the audience. Creating this reflective feel in the piece and to take the audience out was in a way to get the viewer to reflect on themselves personally. The walking shadows are a creation of accident from when we were trying to get a shot up that end of the street as we had previously recorded the other. This mistake creates a haunting reflective feel which may be closer to experimental than new wave, this is an element that I would not exactly try and avoid but would like to watch more new wave films in order to get the balance between experimental and exploring ideas through known techniques. The dutch angled shot of a crowd walking in a strange unison I find to be a good one as to me it shows how strange our patterns are, it would have looked differently and have had much less of an effect if it was level due to highlighting the strangeness of our natural paterns. The transition between day and night is a great shot that I am proud of using the hand held camera in a way that it shows the movement of the camera man, I have created a walking shot. In transition from the day to night walking shot I used a straight cut at a frame that would continue the bounce of the cameras movement and the distancing done by that helps the audience get used to the new settings I had to use for shooting at night. I upped the ISO to 1600 and made where possible the lights out of focus to give glittering balls of light but by the process of a heightened ISO there is a lot more visible grain in the shots. I also made the aperture to a wide aperture and low f-stop at around 5.5 or less so as to let in more light at night and give more scope for playing with focus to get my desired effect within the shallow depth of field. My last three shots go from out of focus to in and back again, as I final part I used this to look interesting and make use of the ambient lighting which was more prominent in the night.
This above is my completed project based on my brief to create a New Wave cinema styled piece with music whilst below is the draft without. The non-diegetic music gives a different feel to each of the parts in the montage giving the first parts a sense of slight urgency and force in its passage as this is where we must travel and we will travel, pushing on as we must. The final part then has a more quiet inspection of the surroundings as everything that scurries now has its own tale yet its own interest in you.
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