Psychoanalytical Film Project
Evaluation Unit 11
For Unit 11 we were tasked with researching and evaluating different psychoanalytical theories and how they are applied in the media of film. We looked into theories by Freud, Lacan and Mulvey, each of which have elements of each other in especially Mulvey. After looking how they are represented in mainstream films through their subtext, mese-en-scene or technical aspects like lighting we then had to create our own short film. In our film we had to focus on one psychoanalytical theory so I did mine on Freuds Id, Ego and Super Ego. I looked into the three theories and generated an idea for each of them before settling in order to see what I could represent best with my own skills and limitations. After the Idea of a man who is challenged by two other versions of himself in a house I knew that I could represent this well. The evidence of this is shown in my finished film product.
My idea of how I wanted to represent the three layers of consciousness was to use three levels of a house with a basement being the impulsive thoughts of the Id the ground floor being the wary Ego who is the floor which is accessed so therefore has the interaction with the outside and then the upstairs to be the realm of the Super Ego that rules above all holding high not only opinions of the other two states but also the morals that it imposes on the ego pulling the mind to rigidity and formality at the same time the Id demands the ego with its impulsive wants but the Ego is built upon the Id and a mind that cannot keep the Id in check will become pulled into impulsively and closed in upon its self. In my actual developing of the project however the space that I could acquire for filming did not have a basement but instead an attic making me still able to use the three floors in my creation. I also expanded my Idea basis included the realm of the outside which is another pulling force of the Ego as arguably it is the Ego that must face the pressures of outside and usually it is an outside cause or stimulus that would cause a break in a seemingly healthy mind. The three storied house comes from drawing inspiration from Psycho (1960 Alfred Hitchcock) in the Bates family home and from Fight Club (1999 David Fincher) where in the house in Paper Street has levels which representations of the Id Ego and Super Ego dwell.
The start of my film has an establishing shot of the outside of a house with the symbolic representation of the house being the home in which we inhabit so too with my film it is where the characters mind lives in all its elements and the door being the barrier which is only crossed by the camera and audience and the Ego. The camera zooms in on the door to which the shot becomes a close up on the letter box as it opens which leads into darkness but like a crack in the wall lets us peek into this world; which is what cinema is about seeing from one darkness into another, a created space. The opening works well in establishing that the house is where the action will be taken placed and its use is justified in giving the audience a place to apply their mind to. The next few shots have the use of camera looking up towards the highest level giving the space power through its low angles. this inspiration for the upstairs shots which represent the Super Ego were taken from a clip from Last Year at Marienbad (1961 Alain Resnais) where there is narration over the cameras sweeping pans, tilts and movement around statues in a garden, thus giving them a sense of personification, telling of their story and that as entities they are alive. I applied what I saw in this to give the upstairs a feeling of impressive power and a personality of its own mixing in some point of view shots of my Ego character to show in another way of him actively looking up towards the Super Ego for structure and guidance. The Booming voice over of the super Ego gives it is severity and power whilst the layered effect of a whispered track (created by adding reverb to the reversed form then flipping back for the ghostly effect) gives it an ethereal tone which is meant to lead the audience to believe that this entity does not exist wholly after trying to construct it into existence. The slight contradiction in representation of the Super Ego could be interpreted as showing further fracture of the subjects mind as it fades away or loses its power yet I intended for its presents to add a polysemic layer to the piece gifting the Super Ego a religious or if not god like property to it. How this has turned out in reflection is very well from my development stage where editing was a lot harder with only the response of the Ego but with the added layers of the nondiegetic voice over and calm if not spiritual music in the background gives the piece not only its deeper meaning but clears up its purpose to the audience. The voice tells the Ego what it must do within rules which it has also relayed it is an application of the Super Ego ruling over the Ego. A note on the dialogue between the Ego and Super Ego is that all we know of the Ego is he has "Failed" before and must go outside which I would hope infer that the Ego has fallen to the pressures of outside influence and has become fractured in his mind. We also hear at the end of the talking the rewarding side of the Super Ego which when tasks are performed within the rules there is a carrot instead of the stick giving the self a feeling of accomplishment.
After this first part the Ego character is shown in his decent of the stairs, through a series of hand held shots. It is key that this transition be shown as part of my application of the psychoanalytical theory as it has my Ego character shift in levels to go to that of the lower floor, the floor of the Id. After tracking the Ego to the start of the kitchen we see a change of miss-en-scene becoming more cluttered , busy and disorganised as the first sign of the Id. Technically I have chosen to film separate takes so that I can have my actor play both versions of him self and planned each of the dialogues to The camera angle is now at eye level between the Ego and Id having them face each other as he faces another element of him self. The characteristics of the Id are applied to my personification of the Id through its impulsive consuming of stuffs (specifically drink and cake), not caring because it doesn't effect him and breaking rules with no regard to them or breaking them when he wants a reaction.There are a list of 10 house rules in the background of mese-en-scene which are used as the rules that have been told by the Super Ego and likely placed by the Ego to dictate and remind of how to act. This is a religious subtext taken from Christianity's Ten Commandments and linked to representing the theory of the Id, Ego and Super Ego by many people who have mental problems find the structure in organised religion to be appealing and can function again to these rules, the most extreme of these becoming so reliant and rigid to these rules they become overly conservative and dangerous to those who challenge them. In my representation the rules are there but also there is the pull of the Id on which the Ego is faced with. The framing of my hand held shots in these show good use of the rule of thirds keeping my actors in the middle for most of it. I visually play with the positioning in a point of view shot of the Id coming off the kitchen counter and coming in line with the Ego's gesture towards the door. The reveal of the door and mentioning the rules is to have the consistent build up to explore the mysterious outside as well as to add some movement to what I felt was becoming too static. The next big shot which causes some jarring to the audience and is used to show the oddness and fear that the Ego has over the outside in the shot where there is a close up on his face with door in the background out of focus, the focus switches and we dip to black in transition.
I used a flash back in my film to show one of the events outside that might have damaged the characters mind. Out side was bright and windy when recorded but I added more ambient wind to make the audience see that the outside feels oppressive to him. There is a series of quick cuts edited to the walk along the gravel I created this through a few takes of the same journey from different angles. The walk then appears more natural my matching the bobbing of the camera and the sound of the crunching gravel underfoot. To achieve this i went through the clips frame by frame as I felt it important that the audience is not removed from the narrative here, saving that for the edit of the shot reverse shot. The wind the camera captured in its audio signal during these takes stopped me being able to sample of the gravel and create a clear walk so instead that was what gave me the idea to build upon it. The overall effect of keeping the wind in rather than use foley or acquire a sound of a website was not destroying of the film but did give it a more amateur low quality feel, none of this effects the clarity of my messages and application of psychoanalytical theory. A solution to any future problems of wind I could use a guard with the camera or when using an external microphone. There is manipulation of time and view whilst Ego views the outside influence to show that misinterpretation could cause damage to a damaged mind with the more close up exaggerated faces. The fade back inside with the Ego ending with "It's terrible!" is a reverse on Plato's Cave in which a person released from the cave to experience the outside world comes back and says how great it was, rather he (Ego) returns to warn that it is a terrible place.
When showing the rules again I bring back the motif I had for the Super Ego to show that it is his influence is there. The bringing back of this should link to the audiences memory of the film so far and hopefully get them to think more in depth. I then twist it into a descending audio sound as the Ego defends into frustration. The jump cuts employed during the editing of the Egos breakdown further shows that our main character is broken by the disjointed cuts and loud noise I edited from a piece of music slowed down periodically to be more grating. The Id had provoked the Ego into losing his temper which breaks a rule and brings the Ego to much more in line with the Id's philosophy. This caused the Ego to tentatively take what he didn't want or ask for by so letting him choose to be like the Id. The acting shows more of a "why not" attitude in the Ego so that is why he takes the juice triggering the wrath of the Super Ego. The Super Ego returns but with a lamenting sounding music track accompanying as he is quite severe after he has been "betrayed" it includes two shots of the Super Ego. The first long tracking shot running throughout the house up towards the realm of the Super Ego very loosely inspired by The Evil Dead (1981 Sam Raimi) after a discussion with the my actor during filming which I used. The second descending shot was inspired by Vertigo (1958 Alfred Hitchcock) on the stairs looking down but backwards looking up. The music ends after the defiant "No!" sounded by the Ego which I hope for many people will feel torn as to weather this is a triumph of feeing from rules or a swap to future chaos. I do not explore what happens further but instead taking two shots carefully cut and edited together of the Ego facing the Id through panning of a tripod. I recorded this shot with two separate pans of the camera stopping slightly more than the centre with the first giving me some overlap in the clips. I then in editing had the two shots placed one after another and went frame by frame to find the closest one to cut on to make the pan join smoothly. This was not exact and the two shots had slightly different colouring and framing; with subtle use of colour correction and a slight zoom with repositioning on the second clip, I had the shot that you see in the final product. This was a good use of editing and I decided to have the same actor face each other as a coming together go both parts of his characters subconscious where as before they were separated by shot reverse shot. I could have improved the shot by being aware of reflections (such as the one in the microwave), lighting and the ambient audio. I could have improved the edit by even more carefully editing the colour and therefore improving the visual transition between shots. The rules are now ripped up by the Id in a symbolic gesture to the audience that these rules will not contain him any more. With a fade out to a tilting shot of the house exterior we saw at the start I bring in an ominous note before the pavement is reached and it cuts to black. This edit was to give the audience a foreboding sense that just as the shot decedents into darkness so too may the psyche of the character.
Have You Been Outside B from Luke Heritage on Vimeo.
ghost
The start of my film has an establishing shot of the outside of a house with the symbolic representation of the house being the home in which we inhabit so too with my film it is where the characters mind lives in all its elements and the door being the barrier which is only crossed by the camera and audience and the Ego. The camera zooms in on the door to which the shot becomes a close up on the letter box as it opens which leads into darkness but like a crack in the wall lets us peek into this world; which is what cinema is about seeing from one darkness into another, a created space. The opening works well in establishing that the house is where the action will be taken placed and its use is justified in giving the audience a place to apply their mind to. The next few shots have the use of camera looking up towards the highest level giving the space power through its low angles. this inspiration for the upstairs shots which represent the Super Ego were taken from a clip from Last Year at Marienbad (1961 Alain Resnais) where there is narration over the cameras sweeping pans, tilts and movement around statues in a garden, thus giving them a sense of personification, telling of their story and that as entities they are alive. I applied what I saw in this to give the upstairs a feeling of impressive power and a personality of its own mixing in some point of view shots of my Ego character to show in another way of him actively looking up towards the Super Ego for structure and guidance. The Booming voice over of the super Ego gives it is severity and power whilst the layered effect of a whispered track (created by adding reverb to the reversed form then flipping back for the ghostly effect) gives it an ethereal tone which is meant to lead the audience to believe that this entity does not exist wholly after trying to construct it into existence. The slight contradiction in representation of the Super Ego could be interpreted as showing further fracture of the subjects mind as it fades away or loses its power yet I intended for its presents to add a polysemic layer to the piece gifting the Super Ego a religious or if not god like property to it. How this has turned out in reflection is very well from my development stage where editing was a lot harder with only the response of the Ego but with the added layers of the nondiegetic voice over and calm if not spiritual music in the background gives the piece not only its deeper meaning but clears up its purpose to the audience. The voice tells the Ego what it must do within rules which it has also relayed it is an application of the Super Ego ruling over the Ego. A note on the dialogue between the Ego and Super Ego is that all we know of the Ego is he has "Failed" before and must go outside which I would hope infer that the Ego has fallen to the pressures of outside influence and has become fractured in his mind. We also hear at the end of the talking the rewarding side of the Super Ego which when tasks are performed within the rules there is a carrot instead of the stick giving the self a feeling of accomplishment.
After this first part the Ego character is shown in his decent of the stairs, through a series of hand held shots. It is key that this transition be shown as part of my application of the psychoanalytical theory as it has my Ego character shift in levels to go to that of the lower floor, the floor of the Id. After tracking the Ego to the start of the kitchen we see a change of miss-en-scene becoming more cluttered , busy and disorganised as the first sign of the Id. Technically I have chosen to film separate takes so that I can have my actor play both versions of him self and planned each of the dialogues to The camera angle is now at eye level between the Ego and Id having them face each other as he faces another element of him self. The characteristics of the Id are applied to my personification of the Id through its impulsive consuming of stuffs (specifically drink and cake), not caring because it doesn't effect him and breaking rules with no regard to them or breaking them when he wants a reaction.There are a list of 10 house rules in the background of mese-en-scene which are used as the rules that have been told by the Super Ego and likely placed by the Ego to dictate and remind of how to act. This is a religious subtext taken from Christianity's Ten Commandments and linked to representing the theory of the Id, Ego and Super Ego by many people who have mental problems find the structure in organised religion to be appealing and can function again to these rules, the most extreme of these becoming so reliant and rigid to these rules they become overly conservative and dangerous to those who challenge them. In my representation the rules are there but also there is the pull of the Id on which the Ego is faced with. The framing of my hand held shots in these show good use of the rule of thirds keeping my actors in the middle for most of it. I visually play with the positioning in a point of view shot of the Id coming off the kitchen counter and coming in line with the Ego's gesture towards the door. The reveal of the door and mentioning the rules is to have the consistent build up to explore the mysterious outside as well as to add some movement to what I felt was becoming too static. The next big shot which causes some jarring to the audience and is used to show the oddness and fear that the Ego has over the outside in the shot where there is a close up on his face with door in the background out of focus, the focus switches and we dip to black in transition.
I used a flash back in my film to show one of the events outside that might have damaged the characters mind. Out side was bright and windy when recorded but I added more ambient wind to make the audience see that the outside feels oppressive to him. There is a series of quick cuts edited to the walk along the gravel I created this through a few takes of the same journey from different angles. The walk then appears more natural my matching the bobbing of the camera and the sound of the crunching gravel underfoot. To achieve this i went through the clips frame by frame as I felt it important that the audience is not removed from the narrative here, saving that for the edit of the shot reverse shot. The wind the camera captured in its audio signal during these takes stopped me being able to sample of the gravel and create a clear walk so instead that was what gave me the idea to build upon it. The overall effect of keeping the wind in rather than use foley or acquire a sound of a website was not destroying of the film but did give it a more amateur low quality feel, none of this effects the clarity of my messages and application of psychoanalytical theory. A solution to any future problems of wind I could use a guard with the camera or when using an external microphone. There is manipulation of time and view whilst Ego views the outside influence to show that misinterpretation could cause damage to a damaged mind with the more close up exaggerated faces. The fade back inside with the Ego ending with "It's terrible!" is a reverse on Plato's Cave in which a person released from the cave to experience the outside world comes back and says how great it was, rather he (Ego) returns to warn that it is a terrible place.
When showing the rules again I bring back the motif I had for the Super Ego to show that it is his influence is there. The bringing back of this should link to the audiences memory of the film so far and hopefully get them to think more in depth. I then twist it into a descending audio sound as the Ego defends into frustration. The jump cuts employed during the editing of the Egos breakdown further shows that our main character is broken by the disjointed cuts and loud noise I edited from a piece of music slowed down periodically to be more grating. The Id had provoked the Ego into losing his temper which breaks a rule and brings the Ego to much more in line with the Id's philosophy. This caused the Ego to tentatively take what he didn't want or ask for by so letting him choose to be like the Id. The acting shows more of a "why not" attitude in the Ego so that is why he takes the juice triggering the wrath of the Super Ego. The Super Ego returns but with a lamenting sounding music track accompanying as he is quite severe after he has been "betrayed" it includes two shots of the Super Ego. The first long tracking shot running throughout the house up towards the realm of the Super Ego very loosely inspired by The Evil Dead (1981 Sam Raimi) after a discussion with the my actor during filming which I used. The second descending shot was inspired by Vertigo (1958 Alfred Hitchcock) on the stairs looking down but backwards looking up. The music ends after the defiant "No!" sounded by the Ego which I hope for many people will feel torn as to weather this is a triumph of feeing from rules or a swap to future chaos. I do not explore what happens further but instead taking two shots carefully cut and edited together of the Ego facing the Id through panning of a tripod. I recorded this shot with two separate pans of the camera stopping slightly more than the centre with the first giving me some overlap in the clips. I then in editing had the two shots placed one after another and went frame by frame to find the closest one to cut on to make the pan join smoothly. This was not exact and the two shots had slightly different colouring and framing; with subtle use of colour correction and a slight zoom with repositioning on the second clip, I had the shot that you see in the final product. This was a good use of editing and I decided to have the same actor face each other as a coming together go both parts of his characters subconscious where as before they were separated by shot reverse shot. I could have improved the shot by being aware of reflections (such as the one in the microwave), lighting and the ambient audio. I could have improved the edit by even more carefully editing the colour and therefore improving the visual transition between shots. The rules are now ripped up by the Id in a symbolic gesture to the audience that these rules will not contain him any more. With a fade out to a tilting shot of the house exterior we saw at the start I bring in an ominous note before the pavement is reached and it cuts to black. This edit was to give the audience a foreboding sense that just as the shot decedents into darkness so too may the psyche of the character.
Have You Been Outside B from Luke Heritage on Vimeo.
ghost
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