There's really not much to say about the movie this week. After we finished filming last week we haven't really made any progress. Our plan was to et Eric to digitize our tape for us in class last thursday so we could hand it off to our editor and begin the last stage of the process. However, I had to run back across campus after class had started to pick up the camera from a group member who couldn't make the meeting, and that ended up putting us last in line for the digitization process. We ran out of time and didn't get done.

I've spent a good deal of time since then trying to work out how to get the footage digitized before next thursday (the next time Eric is available to digitize), but so far I haven't had any success. The camera does not like my computer, apparently. I couldn't even get them to reconize each other. The external hard drive must be in cahoots with the camera, because even though it said it was capturing it didn't capture the tape. I only found this out after spending twelve hours transfering the 90 gigabytes of files on the hard drive first to my home computer, which has the necessary firewire port but won't recognize the file type, and then from there to my laptop, which doesn't have firewire but can open the files. All in all, it was a less than productive experience.

Oh well. So it goes. Overall I'm very pleased with what we've accomplished, and I'm sure we'll get everything finished on schedule even with this setback. We'll just keep buggering on.

The burden is lifted

We finished shooting last Tuesday. Unless, Zeus forbid, we wind up missing a shot, we have finished production and entered the post-production phase of the project. I enjoyed the filming process, working with the actors and seeing a story I helped create turned into somethin tangible, but I can't say I'm particularly sorry to be done with it. It has not been a particularly relaxing activity. Between worrying about scheduling, natural lighting, weather, and all the rest, there was hardly any time to be concerned about what was actually going to be seen on screen. It didn't help that every single one of my other classes had a major assignment due the week we got the camera. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it. It just wasn't the walk in the park I thouht it might be.

Something that really surprised me (and I may have mentioned this before), is how long it actually takes to film a scene. My thinking was fifteen second shot = fifteen seconds filming. nuh-uh. Even ignoring the possibility of mistakes, you've ot to get multiple angles, and multiple takes of each angle in case there's something you missed when you were shooting. Dialogue adds another element, since you need to record each line said in multiple fashions to ensure you get it the way you want.

Overall I think I much prefer the pre-production process. The writing was more enjoyable to me than the shooting. When you write, you can have whatever you want to happen happen without having to worry about how to do it. When you're shooting, you actually have to work out the logistics. It's like the car crash I wrote into our script. It sounds cool on paper, but it was really difficult to shoot, and we ended up having to shoot around it without actually showing it. As great as it is to be able to write something and then realize it on screen, I think it probably feels even better to write something and then sit back and watch someone else realize it on the screen.

It Has Begun

We got the camera last night and spent a few hours shooting. We got three scenes done, which comes out to about 1/6 of the film, if my math's correct. Right now, I think the biggest problem we're going to have is scheduling. I think we may have spent as much time trying to figure out when everyone was available as we did filming.

Interesting story: We've only been filming for one day, and we've already had our first police run-in. It actually happened during the first scene we filmed. It was a death scene, of sorts, and we had our lead actor sprawled out in the grass, with the lead actress and most of our crew leaning over him. In hindsight, it probably wasn't a good idea to film that scene across the street from the police department without telling them. We were about halfway through the scene when two cops came running up to see what had happened. Apparently the dispatcher had seen us through the window and thought there had been an accident. They told us they were just about to call out an ambulance. (Actually, it would have been kind of cool if they had. It would have added some verisilimitude to the scene. But then we would have had to pay for it, which wouldn't be so cool.)

We actually shot my favorite scene last night. Y'know, it's one thing to write it and see it in your mind, but it's something else to actually see what you've written realized like this. It's a very powerful feeling, and I can feel my already over-inflated ego swelling even more. Between this, my "film as literature" class, and script frenzy, I'm thinking I'm going to start digging deeper into the whole process, and I might even consider doing a creative thesis.

Adaptation

So, last week I thought I had another commitment that would keep me from attending movie night, so I went ahead and rented Adaptation and watched it earlier in the week. As it turned out, I was able to make to class, so I ended up watching the film twice.

I'm glad I did.

This movie has so many different layers to it. I probably caught about fifty things on the second viewing that flew completely over my head the first time. For instance, the first time I watched it, the scene early on with Charlie at the restaurant with the producer had completely slipped my mind by halfway through the movie. The second time, knowing what happened later on, I realized that everything Charlie says he doesn't want to do in that conversation ends up happening later on in the second half of the film. Maybe I shouldn't say second half. It would probably be more appropriate to call it the post-workshop portion of the movie, since Charlie begins to write it differently after the writing workshop.

Yes, I just said the character was writing the movie. Adaptation blurs the line between reality and fiction as much as any movie I've seen. As I understand it, every one of the major characters, save for Donald, is actually a real person, but they are real people being played by actors and doing completely fictitious things. (I wonder how Susan Orleans felt about being portrayed as a drug addict and attempted murderer.) Nearly everything we see happen onscreen, we also see Charlie write, including the scenes of Charlie writing. In the post workshop portion, we don't actually see it being written, but we have seen the seeds planted for it in the writing workshop. Furthermore, Donald, an entirely fiction character, actually gets a writing credit in the opening titles. I had actually assumed he was a real person until Donna told us he wasn't.

The film seems to revel in pointing out that in movies reality is not always reality. Something that was brought up in class that I think nicely illustrates this point is the masturbation fantasy scenes. In the first one, with the waitress, there is no indication given at all that we are cutting from reality to fantasy. The restaurant scene just continues with no transition as we move from Charlie's real world interactions to his fantasy, and then it continues on as normal until Charlie wakes up. It's like the film is saying to us "Hey look, we can put anything we want up here and you won't know whether it's real or not." For the most part, we're always brought back to reality at some point, but at some point in the film, around the point Charlie asks Donald for help, I would say, we switch from 'reality' to 'fiction', and the story never snaps back.

But I've been writing like I think the film before that point actually portrays reality (and by reality I mean the reality of the world in the film, not our reality). I wouldn't actually say that's entirely true. The scenes with Charlie (prior to the point mentioned above) may actually be 'true' within the world of the film, but I would argue that the scenes with Susan are not. Every time we see Susan in the pre-workshop portion of the film, it's always bookended by scenes of Charlie either reading her book or talking about her or something she wrote. I think the indication we are supposed to get is that these scenes are Charlie's ideas of what Susan must be like, rather than what actually happened. But doesn't that contradict what I wrote in the last paragraph? Not really. We may not be given a clear, no-doubt-about-it sign that this isn't real, but I think the bookending of the scenes is meant to be an indication to us. Everything we need to know is there. We just have to see it.

Short Film Workshop

Our film projects are finally getting into full swing. I'm excited, but also a little nervous. There's so much I hadn't thought about, like getting permission to film at locations. Of course, I'm sure that isn't absolutely neccessary, but posting bail would probably be more of a hassle than just getting permission in the first place. Actually, I think we're going to be filming primarily around campus, which should cut down on the paperwork a bit.

Overall, things are coming together quite well. We've got a second draft of the script done, we've got the guitar, skull, and required lines incorporated, and we have our stars lined up. The only thing standing in our way is that blasted cheese grater.

One thing I hadn't thought about that could pose a slight problem is the soundtrack. It hadn't even crossed my mind that we'd have to get permission to use music in the film. (I should be ashamed, considering I work in a law office.) I think we've found a way around that though. We're going to use classical music (because when I'm not having delusions that I'm Hitchcock, I'm having delusions that I'm Kubrick). Copyright law protects all musical recordings, but the actual sheet music for classical music has entered public domain, so we ought to be able to find either public domain or creative commons licenses recordings.

Of course, I'm sure that once we jump that particular hurdle, something else will come up. Such is life.

Split personalities, Criticism of the literary variety, and other assorted ramblings

Sorry for the late post. I had two papers due this week, a test, and a Spanish oral interview, and I guess the blog just got lost in the shuffle.

Last week in class we watched Blow Out, directed by Brian de Palma. In case anyone's reading this who hasn't seen the movie, here's a brief summary: John Travolta plays a sound man for a sleazy movie studio. One night while he's out recording samples for a film, he records a car crash that kills the governor and rescues a girl from the car. Travolta's character believes that his recording, when combined with a film of the crash taken by a would-be blackmailer, proves that this was no accident. As he sets out to convince the police, John Lithgow tries to kill him and the girl he rescued.

I actually started writing this blog post last Thursday when I got home after class. I didn't publish it then because as I wrote about the movie, my feelings began to change about it. Before I go any farther, I'd like to share my first reactions to the film, recorded that night. They aren't my feelings any more, but they serve to illustrate a point I want to make. here they are:
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Quite a few things bothered me about the film. For one thing, the plot seemed far too contrived for me too accept. One coincidence is fine. I can accept that Travolta just happened to be at the bridge when the accident happened. But when you ask me to accept that not only was someone recording the sound, but someone else was at the same bridge, on the same night, photographing the accident, and that those photographs were taken at a rate that allowed them to be turned into a film that perfectly syncs with the sound, that's a few too many coincidences.

But, on a note that's more closely related to this class, the technical aspects of the film felt overdone. De Palma never let's you forget that you're watching a film. There are cheesy slow-mo shots, one (admittedly technically impressive) rotating shot, split-screens, and several extremely-high angle interior shots that break not only the forth wall, but also the ceiling. All these things would not be a problem, assuming there was some clear overall artistic vision for them. The problem is, I didn't see any clear artistic vision. The film seemed like it was just showing off. "Look at me! I know all these film techniques, and I'm going to show you I know them."

We discussed in clas the idea that de Palma might be trying to convey with this film the message that American film consumers will watch any old garbage, as seen in the sleazy studio that manages to stay in business. If that's the case, this film is a great example of the phenomenon. Cheap flash and glitter aren't a replacement for a good, solid film, and, as much as I like some of de Palma's movies, this just doesn't seem like a solid film, though I'd probably enjoy it more if I were just watching for diversion.
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That's the first draft. Obviously the film left me with a bad taste in my mouth. As I started to write all this though, I began to wonder if that was the point. Maybe when we said in class that de Palma didn't respect the audience he was making the film for we were wrong. Maybe he was making the film for an audience he respected enough to expect them to get a deeper meaning out of the film. This would not neccessarily be the movie-going audience as a whole. Let me explain.

I mentioned that de Palma never lets you forget that you're watching a film. Suppose that was done in order to get the viewer thinking about the art of film. It wasn't showing off, it was setting the stage. Since the viewer doesn't get sucked into the film in the same way they might otherwise, they are in a position to reflect on the nature of film, a subject that is at the root of the movie. The movie opens with a scene from an extremely sleazy horror film, but there is no indication for the first few minutes that this is actually a film within a film. By not framing the sleazy, cheesy film, de Palma lulls the audience into thinking that this just might be the actual film. By showing the audience that something this bad might actually be accepted as a real film, he makes the audience admit that it is more than just comic relief in the plot. This is key. Later, de Palma makes use of the same long first-person PoV shot that was used in the sleazy film, further blurring the lines between good and bad film.

Now that the stage is set, we get the message. Having thought some more, I don't neccessarily agree with what we said in class- that de Palma was criticizing audiences. I believe he was instead criticizing the media. I think a prime example of this in in a line that we used as evidence in class. Travolta's character says at one point in the film "No one wants to know about conspiracy any more." one has only to think briefly about this statement to realize how ridiculous it is. This film came out only half a decade after Watergate, a conspiracy that the American public certainly didn't try to ignore, and conspiracy theories about the Kennedys remained popular,a fact that de Palma was obviously aware of, since he references both the Jack Kennedy assasination and the Chappequidick incident in the movie. Also note that later in the movie, the newscaster (the real one, not the killer impersonating one) is interested in showing evidence of the conspiracy on the air. He would only do this if he believed there was a market for such a program. So we can see that the earlier quote is not actually a statement by the film-maker, but simply an in-character moment that is proven false both within and without the world of the film.

Another moment we discussed in class that I believe can be interpreted differently is the ending, when the news program is spreading false information about the events seen in the film. In class, we decided that this was intended to show that audiences didn't care if they got the truth, as long as they heard something comforting, such as that the killer was dead. However, the public had no way of knowing that what they were hearing was not the truth. Furthermore, Travolta's character, the character the audience is supposed to identify with, repeatedly attempts to get the truth out, even risking his own life to do so. I don't think de Palma would have made the audience identification character that dedicated to the truth if he intended to indict the audience for not caring about the truth.

I hope that made just a little sense.

When all else fails, stab 'em in the eyeball.

So for our film class, we've got make a short (3-5 minutes) film in groups of five. The genre assigned to my group was drama. I was pretty dissappointed with that at first, since most of the ideas I had thought of were better suited to comedy. I think now, however, we've got an idea we can run with. We also have to include several props, namely a skull, a cheese grater, and a guitar, a mime or clown (I'm leaning toward mime), and the lines "Why is this happening to me, on today of all days?" and "It would be best not to talk about that."

So during the brainstorming session in class we came up with a lot of ideas, but, again, they were primarily comedy. There was one idea, however, that I just couldn't get out of my head. Someone, I don't remember who, suggested a story about a girl stalking a boy. When we found out during the class that we had to produce a drama, we pretty much abandoned that idea. For some reason though, my brain wouldn't let go of the idea. I kept thinking about that girl. Who was she, and why was she following this guy? Over the weekend, I figured out the answer. (I'm not going to tell you here, other than that it's a rather surreal idea. You'll find out soon enough.) I proposed my idea and plot outline to the group and they all liked it. Sarah wrote a first draft and sent it to me, and I think things are looking very promising at the moment. We've already got the mime, the props, and one of the lines situated in the script, so we're not losing any time getting going. (I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you'd think to look for it.)

As the director, it's my job to establish the overall feel of the film while we're shooting, so that my editor has a good base to build on. My hope is to create something that is a little suspenseful, a little dreamlike, and a little fun. The whole crew is great and very creative, so I have no doubt we'll be able to achieve whatever we decide to go for. There is one shot in the script however that I'm a little unsure about (and that's my fault, because it was in my outline), and that scene involves someone being hit by a car. Since we don't have access to a lot of special effects technology, and so far I haven't been able to find a willing stuntman (even after I promised to pay the hospital bill), we'll have to use some tricky cuts, POV shots, and the like in order to achieve the scene. I think it's within our abilities, but it's going to require a lot of planning, especially when compared to the rest of the film, which is pretty straightforward, cinematographically speaking. I think that one will be fun to figure out.

Regarding the title of this post, I'm not planning to have anyone stabbed in the eye in this film. I get queasy far too easily for that. I'm actually referring to "Spider", the short film we watched in class. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdj9vMH4BfQ&feature=related) It sets the standard for shocker endings. Not my favorite short film ever, but I can't deny that it's very good.

I guess that's it for now. See you next week.

Film Techniques

In this class so far, we have discussed a wide variety of film techniques. In spite of the fact that I am totally and completely intimidated by the upcoming film project, I think there are some techniques that are within our reach for this project.

Lighting effects, I suspect, will be some of the easiest. I know a little about photography, so I have some experience working with shadows, oversaturation, etc. I particularly like the harsh feel that can be achieved with undersaturation. This is something that was used to great effect in The Godfather. That's one of my favorite movies, so I'll probably draw on it for inspiration. Other lighting techniques that I think would be within the reach of our group are lighting from below (for a creepy effect) and from behind (for a shadowed, otherworldly effect). I also like the effect created by black-and-white photography. I've used it in several still compositions, and I think I could probably use it to good effect in our film.

Sound is another important part of the film, and it's the area where I feel less confident. Unlike major film productions, we don't have the time or equipment to custom-mix every possible sound we need. Techniques that we've discussed that I do feel confident working with include sound-bridges between scenes and voice-overs.

As far as composition, transtitions, and other effects, there are several that I think are within our reach. A montage, like the dinner scene in Citizen Kane, seems like it wouldn't be that hard to accomplish, assuming we could get the sound-bridges to work, and since it compresses a large amount of information into a short period of time, it could be effective in a short film. I also like the use variations in depth of field, as seen in Sunset Boulevard. The Kuleshov effect, using a shot bookended by reaction shots to create the sense of a particular emotino, also seems like something we can pull off, and might ease some problems of framing that we might otherwise encounter.

"The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of"

For me, the above quote from The Maltese Falcon, when taken in context, illustrates exactly what film noir is all about. If you’re not familiar with The Maltese Falcon, here’s a brief summary to give you that context. [Warning: 60-year-old spoilers follow] The story follows Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), a private detective. Spade and his partner take a case tailing a man, and by the next morning the partner is dead. Spade looks deeper into the case, and finds that the girl who hired them (Brigid O’Shaughnessy, played by Mary Astor) is not who she says she is. She’s actually part of a gang of criminals (including Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo and Sydney Greenstreet as Kaspar Gutman), who are working to find an invaluable antique statuette of a black bird, the Maltese Falcon, which they stole and then had stolen from them. After being assaulted, suspect by the police of murdering his partner, and nearly dying, Spade manages to track down the bird. When he examines it, Spade discovers the statue is actually a worthless fake, made of lead. The real Maltese Falcon is still in the possession of its last owner. At the end of the film, after Spade brings in the police and they arrest the gang, a cop points to the Falcon and asks, “What’s that?” Spade answers “The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.” It’s a very Romantic line when taken out of context, as I’ve often seen it, but when you look at the story that leads up to it, the line is a perfect encapsulation of the pessimism and darkness of Film Noir. Spade goes through hell to get the Falcon, and it turns out to be worthless. This is the stuff of dreams? It is if you believe that dreams themselves are usually worthless and not worth fighting for.

“Uh, Clint,” I hear you saying, “We watched Sunset Boulevard, not The Maltese Falcon. Why’d you make me read all that?” The answer, dear reader, is that these same themes are at work in Sunset Boulevard. In fact, you could say that Sunset Boulevard is all about dreams. Joe dreams of making it big in Hollywood, Norma Desmond dreams of a triumphant return to film, Max dreams of making the love of his life happy, and Betty dreams of moving up from reader to screenwriter. And of course, all their dreams come true, right?

Oh.

By the end of the film, Joe is dead, Norma Desmond is on her way to the loony bin, Max can do nothing for her, and without Joe, and Betty probably gave up hope of finishing their script. That’s four lives, the lives of all the main characters, ruined. And why were they ruined? Because Norma Desmond couldn’t let go of her dream, and instead made it realer than reality in her mind.

Reality and unreality are also explored in Sunset Boulevard. From the start, the viewer is presented with two worlds: the glamorous, ritzy, Hollywood ideal, which Joe dreams of, and the hardscrabble reality in which he lives. Excluding the initial scene of Joe’s body floating in the pool, the hardscrabble world is what we are shown for the first fifteen minutes or so, and therefore our suspension of disbelief adapts to this world, making it seem like reality to us. Because of this, the shift in tone when Joe arrives at Norma Desmond’s house strikes us as odd in a way it might not have if we were exposed to it right out of the gate. (Of course, the dead chimp helps too.)

As we stay in Norma’s world for a while, much longer than we were in Joe’s world, in fact, we become accustomed to it. That is not to say that we begin to see her as “normal”, of course, since the suspense in the film hinges on the fact that Norma is insane. However, our sense of reality within the world of the film becomes accustomed to the lonely house with the constant sense of foreboding.

This goes on for so long that when we finally return to the “real world”, Artie’s New Year’s party, there is a sense of unreality to it. This sense is aided by a certain unrealness in the staging. There are more people at the party than would reasonably be expected, and other smaller touches, like punch made from cough drops and Joe and Betty’s exaggerated dialogue add to the effect. While Norma’s mansion was shown in wide shots with long depth of field, the party has a much shallower depth of field for the most part, which might create a feeling that something is missing. (“It was the pictures that got small.”) Through all these small touches, the viewer is sucked into Norma’s mind, so that although we may not support her actions, we can at least sympathize with her.

If you’re reading this, that means that you’ve either managed to slog through the entire post, in which case I applaud your tenacity, or else you’ve cheated and skipped to the end, in which case, Shame On You. In closing, it would seem that Sunset Boulevard is a film about the pointlessness of dreams and the shifting nature of personal reality. I’ll leave you with the thought that when Betty speaks of her dreams of being an actress being shattered, she says “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Initial Thoughts

I'm not a huge film buff. I don't make a point of seeing all the new releases, and I only see two or three movies a year in the theater. I am, however, extremely interested the medium from an artistic and literary perspective, and I love Old Movies. I'm fascinated by the history of movies and movie-making, so last Thursday's class was of great interest to me.
I think the most surprising part of the class to me was George Melias and his film "The Conjurer". The special effects were far more effective than I would have expected in that old a film. They weren't Avatar quality, of course, but they weren't anything to turn up your nose at either. They would have looked especially effective, I suspect, to an audience that didn't know much about film-making, stop-motion, and the like. But just because you know how the trick is done doesn't mean you shouldn't be impressed by the skill with which it was performed.
I'm going to go against the current here and say that I was also intrigued by the Lumiere brothers and their films like "train arriving at a station" (I suspect I have the title wrong). "What!" I hear you saying. "How could you possibly find that interesting?" Sure ,it had no plot, no cool effects, no real artistic value. I'll concede that. By conventional standards it was boring. I'm interested in history though, especially the Victorian period. The most frustrating thing to me about researching the period is how few visual references there are as far as normal, everyday life is concerned. Photographs were for the most part taken only of significant events, since they were still relatively expensive to develop. So the existance of a visual record of everyday life in the period that I had never heard of before was very exciting to me. but then, I'm easily excitable. I was also surprised by how smoothly the picture moved in all these old films. The stereotype of old movies is that they seem to flicker, like the subject was lit only by a strobe light.
I think the most astounding thing I realized, though, was just how much things like camera angle and movement affect the feel of a film. Watching the early films like "The Conjurer" and "Life of an American Fireman", which had no camera movement at all within a scene, and then seeing "By a Waterfall" and "Suits: The Musical", it was amazing what a difference there was. The camera movement adds a sense of immediacy and liveliness that was missing from the earlier films. I'm really looking forward to finding out what else I'm overlooking and taking for granted when I watch movies.