Lecture Work
19/02/18 - Introduction
Areas we will cover
-Video installation
-Documentary - different styles
-16mm production
-Music videos
-Commercials
Mondays
9 - 12 - Lecture
1:30 - 4:30 - Production
Tuesdays
1:30 - 4:30 - Screening at the arts centre
5 - 7 - critique
Deadline: 21st May
Content and Form
6 major arts
-Sculpture
-Literature - Storytelling
-Music
-Painting
-Theatre - Dance
-Architecture
Form - Elements (Visual)
-Light
-Form
-Line
-Colour
-Space
Sculpture - Form, space, light
Painting - Line, colour
Theatre - Space
Architecture - Space, light
Time
Film is a time based media. All of the elements and arts are seen in film.
Hans Richter - Rhythmus 21
-Space, colour, time
Its abstract
Ballet Mécanique - Fernand Leger - 1924
-Fast editing, quick cuts
-Music hurts ears
Telling a story through actions and objects instead of dialogue. Cubist
Its taking a image and fragmenting it. Reducing everything into the form
elements.
Repetition. Can use images over and over again which you can’t do
in painting.
It overloads the senses. Intense. Hard to look at sometimes.
A fistful of dollars - Clint Eastwood
-Color, light, space
Composition of shot
Vast space - looks like it goes on forever. Endless mountains.
High key lighting.
Foreground, middle ground and background.
Class Task
Make a film with all the elements considered.
Have to use a tripod. No handheld. No sound. Under 3 minutes.
Visually get across the elements.
Shots from the film
26/02/18 - Telling the Truth
Documentary: A factual report. Film, TV, Radio
Who’s telling the fact? Who’s truth?
The Lumiere brothers - Leaving the Factory 1895
16 frames per second
Nanook of the North
First feature length documentary
When does fiction and documentary cross over?
Man with a movie camera - Dziga Vertov - 1929
Night Mail - 1936
John Grierson - Review of Nanook of the North 1926
He coined the term ‘Documentary’
“I look on cinema as a pulpit, and use it as a propagandist” - John Grierson
Synchronised sound - This reinvented documentaries. New era.
Direct Cinema
Observations, free, fly on the wall. Capture the subject without too much construction. Spontaneity. Unrehearsed situations.
Primary - 1960
JFK rallies the crowd
-Camera can now move freely around
-Observe the story, rather than tell
Considered the first direct cinema film
Cinema Verite
Knowing the camera is there. interviewer and interviewee are shown in the film. Sometimes other crew as well.
Coined by John Rouch
Chronicle of a Summer
Filmmaker engages with the subject. Louis Theroux, always on camera.
Authenticity. Seeing equipment and crew make it more authentic. Like we are part of the crew.
7 - 49 UP
Documentary over time.
Over 50 years. Every 7 years we see these people. Witnessing time.
1 - 100
People of all these ages saying how old they are to the camera.
Symmetry
Split screen showing the opposites.
Hell and back - 2011
5D camera
Tarnation - Jonathan Courette - 2003
‘Your greatest creation is the life you lead’
Autobiographical. Very intimate.
Hidden camera documentary?
-Big Brother
-Gogglebox
-Secret life of 4 year olds
The thin blue line - Errol Morris
-Interviews
-Reconstruction
-Archive - adds authenticity
Senna
-When is he going to die? This is all you think.
Almost all archive footage.
Once of the most famous people at the time, 1980’s.
Narrative story
Life in a day
-Footage by the world and all edited together. Symbolic.
Content
-Private life - Personal footage - Tarnation
-Public life - Archive footage - Senna
-Global life - Life in a day
Elephant Days - James Caddik
Crew of 2
Small crews enable flexibility. Intimate environment. Can get more honest responses from the subject.
Class Task
Crews of 4
Director
Sound
Camera
Subject
Interview one member of the crew about their childhood.
Multi camera set up?
Framing?
Lighting?
Shots from Film
05/03/18 - Doc/Narrative
Realism?
With editing you can create your own reality.
Naturalistic
How did the maysle brothers achieve this?
-Filmmakers in film
-Observe - constant footage
-Location - pre production, planning. They had to plan to be at the right place at the right time to capture the planning for the free concert, ect
-Subject/Performer - not pretending
-The edit
Types of docs
-Verite/direct/truth
-Public service (PSA) Ads. Audio visual language of ads. Ads send a message. Drunk driving, aeroplane safety.
-Nature docs - observational, history
-Mockumentary
-Self reflexive
-Experimental
Fiction Doc
Camera
Sound
Locations
Constant action Waiting
Scripted Unscripted
Actors - professional Non professional
These can all merge together
Punishment park - Peter Warkins - 1971
Mockumentary
Handheld camera
Interviews
Never something not going on. Some of the characters seemed fake. One dimensional.
Watkins merges all the doc styles.
Close up - Abbas Kiarostami - 1990
Director is in the film
Characters play themselves in the reenactment.
Kiaro sets up the meetings with the ‘fraud’ and his family
Kiaro gets them reenact the story. How he fakes his identity. The trial however, is real. Kiaro is more interested in the psychological aspect and finding out more about the characters. He made it poetic and touching.
He somehow manages to convince them to play themselves and re en act the story.
Class Task
Surveillance
Death
Visitor
Chase
Imposter
Pick one of these words and make a film based on one of these, covering fiction and documentary.