Experimental Film Handout

I've finally re-read the article and can attempt to analyse it. I have to admit that it was hard to read through all of the information on the film segments, because I felt I had a better understanding of experimental film from reading about the different forms.

The first thing it helped me realise, was that Avant-garde is another word for experimental film. I'd come across Avant-garde briefly when reading about film theory, but it never really clicked that it was experimental. It's another thing I can read up on, and maybe get ideas from the actual theory.

When it goes on to say about how the filmmaker may wish to express personal experiences in eccentric ways, it got me thinking about my own fears, which is what lead me to remember my nightmares that i've mentioned in my ideas' post.
It was interesting to see all the different examples of experimental films and their themes, and how diverse and open experimental can be. That they don't have to have a narrative, and can simply be images that convey a specific meaning.

I don't think we'll be trying to use experimental ways technically, because I still don't really know about lenses or any tricks with a camera. But it was interesting to read about, and we may be able to experiment with different length shots.

I think our project will be more similar to an abstract form. Our aim is to start out with 'tame' fears, ones that may not even register as a fear to most people, but then gradually work up to greater, more well known fears, that most people can recognise and maybe fear themselves on some level. I don't think this is exactly how abstracts work, and ours will probably not be anything like 'Ballet Mecanique', but we're hoping it will still end up as an experimental.

Shot List

Scene 1 (POV Whole Scene)

Shot 1 - CU Clock. Pan down to desk and paper, with hand.
Shot 2 - CU Clock.
Shot 3 - Quick pans around the room. Then quick pan to clock.
Shot 4 - CU Clock.
Shot 5 - Quick pans around the room and down to desk.
Shot 6 - XCU Clock.

Scene 2 (POV Whole Scene)

Shot 1 - Wide of sign and landscape. Hand held walk towards wall. Pan to see more of landscape. Tilt down to see street. Zoom slightly. ( All 1 shot.)

Scene 3 (POV Whole Scene)

Shot 1 - Wide as walk over bridge. Get people in background. Hand held walk towards middle of bridge. Pan and tilt to look down at water. Quick zoom onto splash. (All 1 shot.)

Scene 4 (POV Whole Scene)

Shot 1 - Wide of wood path. Hand held walk down path. Walk quicker, while pan around to see location. Pan quickly behind. Walk even quicker. Pan around more quickly. Stop walking. Pan to look behind. (All 1 shot.)

Scene 5 & 5A

Shot 1 - Wide of entrance
Shot 2 - Wide of church. Pan up to top (different angles)
Shot 3 - CU Gargoyle
Shot 4 - MS Angel Statue (different angles)
Shot 5 - MS Tree 1. Pan up
Shot 6 - CU Tree 2
Shot 7 - MS Tree 3 (different angle from 1)
Shot 8 - MS Tomb Hole (different angles)
Shot 9 - MS Grave 1
Shot 10 - MS Grave 2 (different angle from 1)
Shot 11 - CU Grave 3
Shot 12 - CU Grave 4 (different angle from 3)
Shot 13 - MS Open Grave. Zoom In
Shot 14 - Wide of graves

Scene 6

Shot 1 - Wide of shelves of dolls. Zoom In on doll facing camera
Shot 2 - Wide of shelves of dolls.
Shot 3 - MS dolls. Pan along to 1 doll
Shot 4 - Stop Motion shots of doll moving to face camera

Scenes in Black

Shot 1 - CU Balloon rising in and out of frame
Shot 2 - CU Balloon falling in and out of frame
Shot 3 - MS Hands grabbing towards camera
Shot 4 - CU White Mask
Shot 5 - LS/Wide of clown as it moves towards camera and out of frame
Shot 6 - LS/Wide as person clown comes back into frame and moves backwards to centre frame (same position as shot 5)
Shot 7 - MS Clown holding balloon
Shot 8 - XCU Balloon as is popped and clown is behind it


Animal Scene

Shot 1 - XCU Dog as snarling
Shot 2 - CU Dog growling
Shot 3 - MS Dog Barking
Shot 4 - Wide Dog running towards camera
Shot 5 - XCU Snake scales
Shot 6 - CU Snake head as tongue flicks out
Shot 7 - MS Snake lunges at camera
Shot 8 - Wide Snake attacks something (insect or air?)


Insect Scene

Shot 1 - XCU Spider 1
Shot 2 - CU Spider 2
Shot 3 - CU Spider 1 as runs
Shot 4 - CU Spider 2 as it eats something
Shot 5 - XCU Cockroaches
Shot 6 - CU Cockroaches eating something
Shot 7 - CU Cockroaches moving alot
Shot 8 - CU Worms wriggling
Shot 9 - XCU Slugs
Shot 10 - CU Slug moving with slime trail
Shot 11 - XCU Locusts
Shot 12 - CU Locusts moving
Shot 13 - CU of any other insects available

Want many different angles and as much footage as possible.

Script

Scene 1      INT     Classroom     Day    

B&W

It’s someone’s point of view while they look at a clock that shows 12:10. They look down to the board where the exam times are written.

Start – 11:30

End – 1:30

They look down at their desk and stare at the piece of paper, blank except for a name and the date. On the desk there are several pieces of scrunched up first attempts. They start to tap their pen, when they hear the ticking of the clock get louder.

                                                           CUT TO

The clock now reads 12:30. They nervously look around the room, but they are alone. The sound of their tapping gets faster and louder. The ticking stops. They look up to the clock to see that time is moving unnaturally quickly towards the finishing time. They widely look around and down at their still blank paper, rapidly tapping their pen that becomes extremely loud. They look back to the clock just as the time is about to reach 1:30.

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

A red balloon rises up and out of shot.

                                                           CUT TO

Scene 2   EXT   Car Park   Day

B&W

It’s the point of view of someone looking at a sign reading ‘TOP FLOOR’. They can see the view over the wall of the car park, and it shows how high up they are. They’re slightly wobbly as they walk towards the edge. They look over the wall and see the street below. Their vision gets blurry and they lean forward.

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

A red balloon falls down and out of view.

                                                           CUT TO

Scene 3    EXT    Bridge    DAY

B&W

Hear the sound of rushing water, then it’s the point of view of someone walking across a bridge. There’re not many people around, but no one is paying them any attention. They stop in the middle and look over the edge. The water sounds get louder and louder until a splash is heard and seen.

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

Repeat of the falling red balloon.

                                                           CUT TO

Scene 4   EXT   Woods   NIGHT

B&W

It’s the point of view of someone walking through the woods. The woods are quiet, except for a few birds. Then they hear sticks cracking, as if being stepped on. They look around but can’t see anything. They walk a bit faster, looking behind them and around along the way. They hear footsteps, but can’t tell where they’re coming from. They sound like they’re getting closer, and they quicken their pace even more. All sound suddenly stops, so do they. They slowly turn to look behind them.

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

A pair of hands grab towards the screen, as if trying to strangle someone.

                                                           CUT TO

Scene 5   EXT    Cemetery     Night

B&W (Except for the green mould on the graves)

This is where the pace starts to get quicker. There’re quick images from around the cemetery. There’s a church shown from different angles. There’re gargoyles and angel statues, with cracks and weeds growing over them. There’s a few different, creepy looking, trees also shown from several different angles. There’re crows squawking in the background. There’s the entrance that looks daunting, and entryways that look like tomb entrances.

                                                           CUT TO

Extreme close up of the same ticking clock from scene 1. However, it’s ticking slowly, until it stops. 

                                                           CUT TO

Back to the graveyard, there’re now images of different graves and gravestones that flash quicker than before. There’re open graves among them. There’s some kind of distorted sound in the background.

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

There’s a white mask, no eyes, that’s staring straight at the screen and then slowly tilts to the side, as if observing and considering something.

                                                           CUT TO

Scene 6   INT    Bedroom    DAY

There’s a full sized shelf, completely filled with porcelain dolls of all sizes and origins. They are all facing one way, until a closer look shows one looking straight at the screen.

OR

The dolls are all facing one way. While getting a closer look across the shelves and at each doll one of them suddenly turns to look at the screen on its own (stop-motion).

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

Back to the falling balloon in slow motion but cuts when it gets to the middle of the frame.

                                                           CUT TO

Flashes of different dogs, growling and barking, generally looking nasty, and of different snakes, hissing and flicking their tongues out, attacking something.

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

A toy clown, with a nasty smile on its face, moves towards the screen on its own. There’s the typical circus theme playing in the background. The clown moves close to the screen and disappears out of the light.

A person reappears from the same place, walking backwards in the same path the toy used. This person is dressed the same as the toy clown, as if the toy came to life. It moves back into the centre of the screen and smiles and laughs manically.

                                                           CUT TO

BLACK

The same clown is now holding the red balloon while smiling manically towards the screen.

                                                           CUT TO


Balloon fills frame, it is popped and clown is behind it still smiling manically.


                                                                                                                                             CUT TO 

By now the pace has increased dramatically. There’s flashing images of different insects moving; spiders, cockroaches, locusts, slugs, worms, centipedes, etc. They’re most disturbing looking insects that can be found, using close ups of different limbs and having them attacking things, moving quickly, etc. Then gradually images that have been shown previously start to overlap, as well as the sounds. The cuts get quicker and the sounds get louder, until everything is practically unrecognisable, then it goes black, with a little reverberation of sound.

END

All scenes will include audio of the interviews we will record of people’s fears. They will go from complete sentences to gradually getting cut up as the pace increases. Then at the end there will simply be the single word of the thing they fear, overlapping with all of the other sounds.   

Treatment

Our project will consist of images and sounds that represent and/or invoke people's fears. Using interviews that we will record of a number of different people, will be the basis of our film. The idea is to use just snippets and cut up bits of each interview, that could then be repeated and just heavily edited to change pitch etc, to make it as uncortable and experimental as possible. We will then use ambient sounds and other recordings like creepy laughter etc to overlap with the interviews. They will increase in volume and overlapping throughout the film until a crescendo of sound and images at the end. It's the same with the images, they will start out a steady pace, just clearly showing each fear, and then will start to overlap the images near the end. Our aim is to invoke at least some fear in our audience, or at least an uncomfotable feeling, and to show people's different fears and see their reactions to them.

First Shoot

Today we starting shooting ^_^ We decided to start with something simple so we did our Height scene from John Lewis's Car Park. We got quite a few different takes so hopefully we'll be able to use most of them. Here's what it looked like height wise.

We then went to Uni to use a classroom for our exam scene. That took awhile because I found it difficult to get a decent shot of the camera panning down and zooming out at the same time. Gave up in the end and did them seperately but it should still be useable.

Hauschka - Jeff Desom (2008)

On a completely different note this film seemed to have a slightly melancholy theme. I enjoyed its visuals a lot, I think they're absolutely beautiful and really invoked a strong emotion from me when I first watched it, but I can't even say what that emotion was myself. But I think that might have been a main aim of the filmmaker. I mean I'm sure there is some deeper meaning to it, but i'm still not great at interpreting art type films. It's interesting to try and work out how they filmed it, although i'm sure it was pretty obvious to most of the people in class. I also think the music is beautiful and adds to the depressed feel of the piece.

Fisticuffs - Miranda Pennell (2003)

http://www.mirandapennell.com/lr_fist.html

This was another comedy, and another favourite that I really enjoyed watching. I'm actually really fascinated by the camera work in this film. How everyone appears on screen, but it was obviously filmed as separate shots and edited together. And the tracking back and forth. I just think it's another really clever idea and tecnically incredible. I'd like to learn how to do that sometime during this course.

Telling Lies - Simon Ellis (2000)

This film was an encouraging change from the other experimentals we were shown. A comedy told entirely through text and audio. It was a really cool, simple yet clever, idea to show the difference of what people are saying to what they actual mean or are thinking. It also reminded that experimentals don't just have to be serious they can be told in any way, genre, form, etc. It's something to keep in mind, to possibly incorporate text into our film. I really enjoyed it and think it's my favourite from the selection we were shown ^_^

Planning

We decided that each of us should come up with ideas/storyboards/etc, to get a better idea of what we could shoot. However, because I seriously can't draw I've written down scene ideas, some from when we've brainstormed together and some that I've thought of later on.

First Class with Martine

So Martine showed us a wide range of experimental films today, some better than others. I really enjoyed the comedic ones, and it's nice to know that experimental really can cover anything, including comedy, because the ones I'd seen so far we're all very serious or 'arty', which I'm not very good at.

The one that lasted 18 minutes, was a interesting idea, but definately shouldn't be that long. It was very difficult to watch all the way through, since there was little movement. Some of the twitches were funny the first time round, but they were repeated too often.

I'm going to post some of the others we were shown that I liked and try to analyse them properly.

But overall, this session really helped to get ideas of different shots and effects we could use. Also that we can use scratch footage, which may become useful if we can't capture all of the fears that we want by ourselves.

More Fear Ideas

Here are some more fears that we could try.

The idea of distortions of images come from a continuing nightmare I had as a child. There wasn't really any images that I can remember, but just the feeling of disorientation and dizzyness that always upset me. Also I had a recurring nightmare about tarantulas, they weren't really doing anything but I remember that the close up image of them used to just keep repeating itself and it really freaked me out. So I think that would be a good thing to add; repeated flash images of the more disturbing fears like the insects.

Experimental Film - 6 Doors

I found this while researching experimental films on Youtube. This is a project done by university students (probably with a similar brief too). I really enjoyed this piece, I think the idea is brilliant and really well done. They've used interesting camera work, especially when trying to go through the doors. Their use of colour is really vibrant and expressive. And using the shapes to explain the connection between the doors and a rubix cube was really effective.

I'm hoping ours can be as imaginative as this, and i'm really hoping we can experiment with different camera angles and lighting, it'll be the first time I've used the lighting in a project, since we'd been shown how to use them in our workshops with Dom.

Inspirations

Well i'm a big fan of horror so it's quite easy for me to come up with your average fears. Although the down side to that is that it would probably be way too cliche. Here are some of my favourites and what scared me the most. Plus some of my fears as well.

This scene really disturbed me when I first saw it.





I really like Halloween, although it doesn't scare me as a film, I think it would creep me out if a random guy in a mask was stalking me.

I don't like spiders, I wouldn't say they are a phobia, I can get rid of them if I have to, but they still freak me out.

I would say that my actual phobia is wasps. I had a traumatic experience when I was young and i've hated them ever since. The weird thing is that i've never actually been stung, sometimes I think I wouldn't fear them as much if I had.

These terrified me as a child.



First Meeting

I met with Emma and Stella today and we brainstormed a few ideas. Stella had come up with an idea of a merry-go-round, but a broken down one, which somehow led on to fears and phobias. So we brainstormed some more and each came up with a mind map:

  

Experimental Project Initial Ideas - Poems

I don't really know anything about poetry and the only poets I really know of are Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. I really liked Poe's 'The Raven' so I had a closer search and look at his poems on the internet.

I'm not really great at understanding poems, so most of the ideas I got from Poe's poems were from the title or from a line out of a poem.

'A Dream Within A Dream' - Dreams are always an endless supply of images and unique ideas, and anything can happen in them, so the concept of a dream within a dream just seemed really cool and something I could work with. It's something you could just go crazy with because dreams often don't make sense so I thought it could be a good opportunity to really experiment with different images and sounds.

'The Conqueror worm' - There's a section from this poem that created an image in mind of people, walking around but like they're held up with strings. Simply passing the days according to someone else's will. Now I know, realistically, that we wouldn't be able to pull off something like this with the limited time we have. But I found the idea interesting and might keep it in mind for an independent project later in life. The extract is:

'Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!'


'The Raven' - I know this poem is probably overused by now, but I still really enjoy it. (Despite the first time I heard it being from a Simpsons episode). I would love to be able to come up with my own interpretation of this one day, but in a really unique, weird way, but I can't think of anything at the moment. Although i'm pretty sure it would be able to last for 5 minutes just reading out the poem alone.


From reading these poems, and a few more I've realised that we will most probably choose a word or object to film, simply because they would be easier to think of ideas for. However, I would like to attempt to do a film based from one of these poems one day.

Experimental Project Initial Ideas - Word/Object

After getting this brief I admit I was a bit apprehensive. I've never watched any experimental films and I didn't really know what they were. However, reading the handout, and a bit of extra help from the internet, I realised that the possibilities are endless and that we could have some real fun with this project.

Today was my first brainstorming attempt for this project, and I was trying to think of words that could give me inspiration for a film. Here's a few that I came up with and the basic ideas to go with them:

Photograph - You can tell many stories from a single photograph; why was it taken? what made them do it? what events could have happened after or during?

Blanket - There are different meanings and uses of blankets, I could explore them, maybe follow a blanket's journey from each different owner.

Numbers/Amount - This word just gave me vague images of using different things, objects or people or animals, to count. Not sure how we'd make it interesting enough to last for 5 minutes though.

Windows - Pretty obvious, would be looking at the lives of different people through their windows, or could be the window to their souls.

Key - A key to unlock many doors, what could be behind them?

I thought of others, but they all seemed to sound a bit too cliche, but I was hoping that when discussing with Emma and Stella we'd be able to come up with decent ideas between us.