Explain
the concept for your work, try to outline your idea clearly and concisely and
indicate where your influences and inspirations for this piece have come from?
Consider the intended audience for your work and consider how you would like
the project to be received; is there a particular age group or background for
example that the work is aimed at?
The documentary was based
concerned with finding out the people of Liverpool’s feelings towards the
docks, the river and the sea. We aimed to create a poetic piece that would
evoke memories for the older generation of Liverpudlians and would remind
people how Liverpool was built. We took a lot of influence from Of Time And The
City (Terrence Davies, 2008) this film showed the history of Liverpool by
using a lot of archive footage and old style music to create a really moving
piece of film that evoked memories. We took the archive and music influence
from this film but we were to base our film on the current people of
Liverpool’s knowledge of their history. We also took influence from Steel
Homes (Eva Weber, 2009) this film evokes emotion by matching up people’s
thoughts on their storage units that hold so many memories and beautifully
crafted cinematography. The film is a very poetic piece that doesn’t give
information rather than showing people feelings towards the subject. This is
what we want to do with our documentary. Our documentary is aimed at an older
generation amongst Liverpool, however I think that the younger generation
would also be interested in their history.
Our Drama is a short film that
deals with the effects of loss and the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
We didn’t want to create an overly obvious film about the physical and mental
effects on the person suffering the disease; more we wanted to make a film
that dealt with the effects on relationships and family. We wanted to have a
slow paced opening and ending to the film with an increasingly fast paced middle
section. The middle section would deal subtly with the physical and mental
side of the disease allowing the audience to make up their own mind. We took
inspiration from Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012) Amour follows an old couple as
the wife gets dementia, her husband has to deal with her and their marriage
is tested. I watched Emmanuelle Riva’s performance in the film to help me
direct our actress. We also took inspiration from Up (Pete Docter, Bob
Peterson, 2009) which follows an old man who has lost his wife and decided to
go on a journey, seeing as though our film has to be about a journey we took
note of the way in which the old man acts on his own, in quite an aggressive
way towards other, we used this aggressiveness in our script. We don’t
particularly have an age range for the film, I feel that it is more
appropriate for those who have family or friends suffering with dementia,
although I feel it is appropriate for others to watch to learn or to work out
what is going on.
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Give a detailed critical analysis
of the finished piece of work for this project, try to consider your work as a
member of an audience and recognise what has worked well and what has not been
as successful in your project. Try to be objective and weigh up the pros and
cons focusing on the positive outcomes as well as the areas that have room for
improvement. Reflect on what you would change if you could make the work
again?
The finished documentary
‘Undercurrents’ was not very successful. The opening was the most successful
part of the film. The opening evokes emotion by holding a long take of
Liverpool slowly becoming further away as the camera is on a boat, along with
a very minimalist piano cover of Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey. After this the film
seems to be a ‘mish-mash’ of different ideas without one particular
direction. One section of the film includes an interview with a man about his
feelings towards Liverpool, One section includes a man singing the song Ferry
‘Cross The Mersey and one section shows lots of archive footage. Another
massive problem with the film is that for whatever reason, after shooting,
all of the sound files were not backed up and we had to use in-camera sounds,
which were terrible and hardly usable. I feel that overall, the organisation
of roles and script for the film were very poor which lead to a very poor
film. If I were to make the work again, I would push myself for the role of
director more as the group without my knowing dropped me as director. I would
direct the film in a focussed direction (which I had planned before I was
dropped) rather than 3 or 4 semi-directions.
The Drama film ‘Perdre La Boule’
I feel was very successful. Perdre La Boule uses a well timed and filmed long
take throughout the first scene which allows the audience to be introduced to
the characters without using close ups. I feel that the film successfully
creates a journey in Eve’s head to self-acceptance of her illness rather than
blaming her daughter. I feel like the middle section of the film is the
weakest as we weren’t allowed longer time for the overall film. The section attempts to build pace without
it being overly obvious, however with only around one and a half minutes to
build this pace and successfully address the narrative, the pace wasn’t built
as steadily as I would have liked. However, in this scene tension is created
with the use of a harmonica sound that comes in and out of the mix. I feel
that my job of director was successful. I met up with Olivier (Producer) and
Ryan (Cinematographer) before the script was finished and we discussed shot
for the scenes and I feel like I directed well on shoots, the shots that we
had all decided on. As well as these shots, I directed other shots that had
not been planned as to increase coverage for the film. Overall I think that
the film was successful in dealing with how people deal with dementia and
loss.
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Describe the
process of making the work and your individual contribution. Did things work
out differently from the way you had visualised them at the planning stage? What production issues did
you encounter that caused problems during the creative process?
I feel that my contribution to
the Documentary was stumped as my role was changed without my knowing a few
days before the shoot, and I was only informed five minutes before the shoot.
I had already made all of my directing plans however; my role was changed to
Cinematographer. Luckily I had brought my own camera along for personal
reasons. I was no prepared to be recording all of the footage. However, after
this I did the best I could and I feel like I did a good job of recording the
footape to a high standard. I filmed a lot of ‘cutaways’ without direction
which I feel would have made the film a more focussed piece as they all had
similar looks to them, however not many of these shots were used in the final
edit. Things worked out very differently to how I had imagined them in the
planning stage, as I had planned an idea that would focus on childhood
stories from the older generation of Liverpool. It did not work out like this
in the final piece, it was a very un-focussed film. We encountered many
issues during production. Firstly the whole role mix up was a mess. After
filming, our editor and our producer had big differences that were seemingly
egotistic and we lost all of our sound recordings. These all hindered the
turn out of the film in negative ways.
The process of making Perdre La
Boule was very enjoyable. I feel that, as a team we worked very well together
and we were very organised. Everyone knew what they had to do in their
specific roles and everyone was available to help other people with their
role if help was needed. I feel like I did a good job of directing the film.
As I had helped Oliver write the script I had a good idea of how I wanted the
film to look before we had started planning shots properly. On the days of
the shoots, I directed the shots efficiently and I also directed extra shots
so that we had extra coverage. I feel that the film looked as I thought it
would during planning stage; this is down to everyone’s hard work and
understanding of the original concept. We had a couple of issues with actors
during the production process, we struggled to find an elderly actress and
when we did, after a number of postponements, she dropped out of the film altogether
which left us with limited options. We eventually found a younger actress and
altered the script. Although it worked out well in the end, I feel that the
film would have been more successful if we had secured an older actress.
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It is important to write in detail
about what you have learnt during the project both technically and creatively.
Outline specific skills you have developed because of making the work and new
methods or approaches you have experimented with.
I learnt a lot both technically and
creatively during the documentary making process. I learnt that it is
essential to back up files, although I had done this with my files, another
person’s mistake hindered the making of the film. Another thing I learnt is
that there needs to be sound communication within a group for a production to
be successful. I learnt that, an idea needs to be focussed and planned
thoroughly before shooting. I also feel like I learnt a fair bit about
filming on a DSLR camera as I was forced into using one last minute.
I feel like I learnt a lot
during the process of making Perdre La Boule as well. I took the mistakes
that had been made during the production of the documentary and learnt from
them and corrected them throughout the production of Perdre La Boule. From
the start we all contributed to the idea and the story, this is a good thing
to do as I feel it allows everyone to feel involved even if their role isn’t
key until the day of shooting. I also learnt that sticking to roles is very
important and leads to success of films. I learnt that actors can be very
difficult to work with and that they need to be secured as early as possible,
how it happened we didn’t suffer too much from this but we could have easily
suffered. As Ryan has quite a bit of experience with Cinematography, we used
lots of equipment that I had no experience with, such as a crane, a slider
and a steady cam. I learnt a lot watching him use these as they all have
their different uses and times that they need to be used. Overall, the most important
thing that I learnt is that good communication and group organisation is the
key to making a good film.
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Reflect on how you worked as part of a team. Did all members
contribute equally? What are your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to
teamwork? How can you improve your teamwork skills?
I don’t think that the group
worked well as a team during the documentary production. I don’t think all
members contributed equally. I felt that our director didn’t direct a single
thing. I felt that I had to make my complete mind up about all of the shots
that I was to record with no help or direction. I felt that during the
postproduction, the group were not working together at all, our producer took
the editing into his own hands as our editor wasn’t being efficient enough. I
feel that I am good at telling people what to do and taking their ideas into
consideration and I am good at being told what to do in a team. However, I
was not able to direct the group and I don’t feel like I was told what do
with the cinematography at all. I think that my weakness when it comes to
teamwork is not being able to voice my troubles when I feel like I am not
being included. I can improve my teamwork skills by concentrating on the
mistakes that have been made during this process and making sure that they
don’t go wrong in the next production.
I think that I worked well as
part of a team during the production of Perdre La Boule. As director, I was
able to have a mark on the film but also take other peoples ideas into
consideration. I feel that everyone contributed equally to this film,
everyone contributed to the original idea and everyone performed well within
their roles. Everybody included their own ideas into the film and I feel that
it was a group success. I think my main strengths during this production was
my organisation side of the film, although there were lots of complications
concerning actors, we were able to work things out. I also feel that I was
very organised when it came to shooting, I knew what we had to film, where
and when and I was able to tell people what they had to do. My main weakness
during this process was not fully understanding the processes that Ryan, our
cinematographer undertook when filming, had I asked him advice on using his camera,
I feel like I would be more confident using DSLR camera to film with in
future. Overall I think that the teamwork in this production was very strong
and organised.
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