Charlotte Bailey Y2 Media

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Unit 4 - Production Management

Originally for this unit I wanted to use a collar camera on my cat, and to set her loose for an hour and a half to just.. see where she’d go outside. I wanted to film the unknown, a world that no human would see, at least not from that height and angle, and not with the same intentions. However, when I tried to film it - I had issues with the camera itself, as it didn’t come with the correct recording card included. The collar itself as too big for my skinny little feline, and the camera was huge - my cat looked uneasy and clearly moved uncomfortably, and I thought that it would be cruel to put her through that for more than just the initial moment of trying it on. What I did instead, was I looked into recent events. There’s man-made disasters all over the world, but the Manchester arena bombing hit close to home. Then, with the Grenfell block fire, and the murder/stabbing in the last week, I thought it would be more appropriate to bring forth a meaningful message - one of unity and togetherness, in times such as these. I already had video footage from around a year ago that would fit this purpose - and the organic, spontaneous aspect of it felt more genuine than if I’d have tried to create something similar for myself. There were people from all over the world gathered together in the clips I took, and I’m glad I managed to capture the moment when I did.

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Experimental Video: ‘Imagine’ live in Ibiza town, August 2016. I wanted to portray a feeling of unity among people from all over the world - there were multiple nationalities in that crowd, some who didn’t speak English, some who did - regardless, everyone in the crowd around me joined in song, forgot about their worries and the world outside of that town for that moment in time. With all of the ‘chaos’ going on in the UK and all over the world right now, I wanted to create something surrounding unity and togetherness - and, I just so happened to have some video footage that would work. What I would change in future:  - Landscape video - Naturally I can’t go back and change things, the performance was spontaneous, I didn’t know it was going to happen, and it was also just under a year ago. Trying to recreate it for the sake of gathering landscape video footage rather than portrait would not be as organic.  * I recorded in portrait to be able to catch both the crowd and the fireworks in one shot, or at least to attempt to.  - Clearer Audio - Again, I can’t recreate this. But, there are points where the audio is so quiet that the song can no longer be heard, perhaps because not everyone knew the lyrics and as it was spontaneous not everyone was expected to know either.

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‘Cover In Your Report’

Past and current practice practitioners As I mentioned in my previous post, an early experimental film would be Ballet Mecanique which didn’t necessarily seem to have a main point of focus except unsettling the viewer. An example of a modern experimental film would be COLORS by Thomas Blanchard - https://youtu.be/VjnTS7JphVE which has a specific focus, and keeps to it throughout the entire video. I’m not sure which would be considered ‘better’, as they’re both experimenting, just with different mediums - paints and people, machines and colours. I’m not sure how people would judge the better or the worse in experimental video, because that is all they are - experiments. They don’t always have to have a meaning, and they won’t always either.

The use of technology and techniques Experimental video can come in many forms, through different medias. Because of the nature of experimental video, I believe that you could make a decent, insightful experimental video with meaning, or without, on any form of camera. I suppose animation could be included in experimental video, which might not include a camera at all. Example One: Experimental Film (with Homestar Runner)- They Might Be Giants (official video) TMBG ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUgMpG1I_o8 ) Whilst to me this just appears to be an animated music video, arguably that could be the experimental factor - the animator trying out new things to make the video in the first place, or perhaps someone trying out their animation skills to begin with as the ‘experiment’.  There are lots of animators on youtube, but not all of them title their videos as experimental. Is this really an experimental video, or just titled as such to perhaps fit the search category? That is how I found it after all. As I explained above, animation could be included in experimental video, but there is no camera involved. So there is no technology involved other than a computer used to animate, and perhaps a drawing tablet or software. Example Two: Time Displacement ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2MsDogV4g4 ) Whilst I cannot say what this was filmed with, due to the colour and the ‘jagged’ editing, it has been made to look older and filmed on a lot older technology than the time it was made. Black and white film is not necessarily as popular now in experimental film as it was in the past, mostly due to the fact that we can play with colour and alterations in that. Perhaps the experimental aspect of this video was not necessarily the concept, but the editing to make it look older than it is.

Narrative and non-narrative forms T - S H I R T - ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qcHbaABcE ) This experimental video follows a story. He designs the T-Shirt and then he makes it, simple as, although whilst including some rather detailed and interesting shots along the way. Whilst COLORS does not necessarily follow a story - it follows the patterns of colours as they move in liquid, but it doesn’t necessarily have a narrative - there’s no narration, no characters, no themes.

Use of exhibition space to create meaning In 2011 I visited the Alice in Wonderland exhibition in the Tate Liverpool, and I specifically remember a projection of shaking text extracted from an ‘adult’ rendition of the tale, where Alice uses foul language and descriptions. Why I am discussing this is because it was included in the space, perhaps to fill up room, but it certainly drew the eye to it as it was ever so slightly moving, and so bold. There were lots of installations at that exhibition - paintings, sculptures, but that little piece of shaking text is the main thing that I remember - maybe because I was so young and the so-called ‘bad words’ lingered in my mind as an odd thing to include, but regardless, it made a lasting impression.

The relation of work to own ideas The COLORS video is probably most like my own idea from what I have seen. There are no people to focus on, just the visuals of colourful liquids, and the music involved.  I want to focus on the audio, of people singing from my holiday in Spain, in the streets of Ibiza town in unison - people from all over the world celebrating unity and their holidays away from home, or indeed their town of Ibiza should they be local. I took the footage as the fireworks were sent off, and I have lots of slow-motion footage that I want to put with it, to captivate the eyes while their singing holds the ears.  The subject of unity, in recent times with the MEN Arena bombing so close to home, rings very loud to me right now. I remember watching the footage and the news frequently, where normally I wouldn’t necessarily give terrorism more than a quick article read. It opened my eyes to how it really can happen to anyone, and the reaction of Manchester’s people was heartwarming. That gesture of unity was akin to the feeling I felt when I was in Ibiza town, with all of those happy people singing their hearts out to Imagine.

[ewalters]

U 35 Experimental... 5 June 2017 (U4 Prod. Mgmt.) Final Project at MCC...

U35/ LO1 What is experimental video? What’s the point of it? This task is about telling me what you think. Even if you don’t get them or like them, is there a space for them..?

This task is about you thinking about and exploring video production when removed from the constraints and conventions of mainstream media forms. It is about you reflecting upon the potential of video as a visual art form to evoke an emotional response or provoke a reaction? It is more sensory based; it is about your interpretation of some aspect of life that you can relate to in some way. Experimental art attempts to connect or incite viewer engagement, it cannot be right or wrong, it is about breaking rules we are used to in everyday visual media. It is ultimately about creating something that makes sense to you.

Create a portfolio (e.g. video/ audio clips of different types of experimental video, written blog) on the potential of video as an exhibition space as an art form.

Cover in your report

·      Past and current practice practitioners

·      The use of technology and techniques

·      Narrative and non-narrative forms

·      Use of exhibition space to create meaning

·      The relation of work to own ideas

SEE MY PREVIOUS POSTS (LINKS!) TO REFER TO…

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What is experimental video? Experimental video is, in essence, videos that might not necessarily ‘fit in’ with television shows, but provoke thought, emotion or a reaction regardless. Experimental film, experimental cinema or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms and alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_film ) An early Experimental Film would be ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrfibt6Bkwc ) Ballet Mecanique. In an instant it provokes an emotion in me, and that is.. well, uneasy to say the least. The fast-paced music paired with the long title scene and the strangely juxtaposed calm swing scene in its beginning was unsettling - I was waiting for something to happen. Following those scenes are a few clips of seemingly ‘random’ things - a woman’s toothy grin, a hat, the swing scene tipped on its head - it is all very disorienting. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at or for. The majority of this experimental film is unsettling, and honestly quite ‘creepy’. Whether or not that is the feeling that they wanted to get across, I don’t know - but I think part of that uneasy feeling is the fact that I can’t find any links between clips, other than the fact that most of the ‘people’ in it are women. Experimental Video Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkkVr2BN1sFSeW5ctXlbt3kLNQeJerws What’s the point of it? As previously mentioned: To provoke thought, emotion or a reaction regardless. I think that a lot of filmmaking is about getting a reaction out of your audience, though usually series tend to do that through their characters and how well they are received by their audience, or through the music used and the colours in scenes.  Experimental film can really go as far as it would like, as it isn’t usually going to be broadcast to an expecting television audience. If it isn’t to provoke a reaction or invoke an emotion, it could be to portray a ‘slice of life’ that isn’t necessarily anything you’d see on the day-to-day. Even if you don’t get them or like them, is there a space for them..? I like the fact that people can create experimental video - it is an outlet for films that don’t necessarily ‘fit in’ anywhere else. The fact that they are often called experimental art, I think, fits - it is an experimental space, somewhere where people can create diverse projects which don’t necessarily have to have too much of a meaning or a script, as long as they provide something different.

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Types of Single Camera Drama

Series A series, in most terms, whether single camera drama or not, is an on-going ‘series’ of episodes. An example of a single camera drama series would be The Walking Dead. I can understand that there may be benefits to using single camera techniques with certain actors, as it lends them the opportunity to get ‘into’ the scene that they are portraying, without halts for camera movements or otherwise, as they will film from another angle thereafter if needs be. However, I can also see how this could affect continuity. If everything has to be done in one shot, when you move the camera to perhaps get an alternative shot, the actors might not be stood the same, or use the same actions, so it would be down to editors to make everything run through coherently in post. Serial One example of a Serial would be ‘The Crown’, a netflix series that was made to have a set list of episodes, longer than your average television show’s thirty-to-forty-five minutes.  The episodes are longer to not only split up the serial perhaps in timeline, in this case. Showing different parts of the story almost like the chapters of a book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWtnJjn6ng0 This Serial operates around true events, and events in history. Because of this, technically people should know how it would go - though, the point of a serial like this is to give people an alternative view, a more personal view into a historical figure, or a point in time, rather than just.. reading a newspaper from the time, or the opinions of outsiders. Single A single drama is a story that is written out to play in its completion in one sitting - be it an hour, or thereabouts. Often Single-Single camera dramas operate around real life, or real events, telling true stories that are ‘appropriate’ for their time of broadcast, for television. One example of a single drama would be Cyberbully (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4135218/) which actually centers around security issues that a lot of young people don’t necessarily take to heart - security issues that every young person has been warned about, and yet there are still some people dealing with the repercussions of not heeding that advice.

[throughwavesofstarlight]

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The Script The script writing process was rather fast, and ‘easy’ compared to what I had first imagined. I think that co-writing it with Owen made it a lot easier, as I had someone to bounce ideas off of, just as he did, and we were able to make a product that would be more interesting to not just one audience (one centered around my own preferences). There isn’t a lot of information given across in the script, and that is what I wanted to keep - that sense of mystery, danger, the unpredictable. However, there’s enough there - I think - for it to read coherently scene by scene, as if it all belongs in one piece, rather than it not patching up well enough as a script. The Process As a group we had to ‘audition’ our actors rather awkwardly, and when we tried to buy into choice by joining onto our class’ open audition, we fell short of luck. So, with two of the three actors we had auditioned we didn’t necessarily have the choice that I’d hoped for. One of our actors was on time, and in constant communication over emails, incredibly enthusiastic which made our process with him of filming and getting through costume information incredibly easy. Whilst, our other actor had no means of communicating with us outside of college hours, and regularly ‘forgot’ to turn up, or indeed just didn’t mention anything to us about whether or not she would be in attendance - this made things a lot harder on us, and in the end, as she was our main role, we had to cut a major scene out which - in this video above - you can tell it doesn’t quite match up. Our main source of action couldn’t be filmed. The Film The filming process - when our actors were present - went smoothly. Whilst one hadn’t quite learnt their lines, it didn’t take very long to get through the scenes and it was easy enough to direct them as to what to do, most likely because they both had experience in acting prior. It wasn’t like drawing blood from a stone to get them to pour emotion into it either, or fear. Tech worked up to standard, and I’m really happy with how our ‘final’ scene looks over all. In the edited video above it is clear that we had to miss out an important scene, due to a lack of enthusiasm from our ‘main’ actor, but I really do like how our darker last scene turned out. It was the scene which our script had more of a vision for, as it was not only the first scene but the last as well - the beginning and end of the story in one room.

[throughwavesofstarlight]

a little bit of research pt.II

MAYFLY -24 hour life span

the villains of the piece were given a banner of the wolf. the head then, took the name: Fenrir Vargr. (Wolf Wolf effectively . both taken from norse mythology. a little ‘on the nose’ maybe, but ) therefore, a small nod to a rivalry, is a small bear sitting on Mayfly’s desk, called Ayi (Aye-yee). One of the biggest rivals to the scandinavian conquests were the Ottoman empire (originating in Turkey.) therefore the bear is named Ayi, which is the turkish translation of the word “bear”. 

unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but the knock out chemical to be ‘used’ is Ether. there’ll be no real reference to this in the film, it’ll effectively seem like its chloroform, and there wont be any chemical agent used anyway 

musical selection: For a reasoning of the musical selections, click >>here<< for the actual selections, click any of the following artist - song titles, for their respective selection. // Thomas Azier - Ghost City // Ki:Theory - KITTY HAWK // Son Lux - Dangerous // 

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Ghost City - I originally chose this song to be a more ambient piece of background audio, and for only parts of it without too many lyrics to be used. It will be used to set the scene, and the slow pace will match the camera movements. KITTY HAWK - When choosing this song, I took to a remix over the original as it was more atmospheric, and quieter. The original, to me, sounds more like it would belong in a more intense battle scene. The remix works a lot better for what we are trying to produce, and the pace of it means that we can linger on shots without it looking too odd - whereas, if we used the remix it would look more natural if we used fast paced cuts. Dangerous - When proposing this song I’d initially hoped for it to be a part of the last scene. That might still become the case, however it would also work as a final note - credit music, or a post-credit scene. As our main character dies, the lyrics match the scene, but it also fits the main villain as well.

[throughwavesofstarlight]

et voila. a production schedule

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Equipment Hire Form.docx

a resource/equipment hire form for Mayfly.

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Mayfly

Scene 1 Location: nondescript dark room, spotlight illuminating one spot on the floor. Mayfly is laying semi sprawled, propped up on his arm, looking out into the darkness. There’s a faint glimmer of a man’s shoes propped up by feet to one side of him, though the body is mostly consumed in shad...

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The script co-wrote by myself and Owen, stemming from my original idea.

[throughwavesofstarlight]

Hazard Assessment.docx

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Actors agreements/consent forms

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I was there ~

[mrowenthornton]

Made some masks for a production. The wolves are coming.

[ewalters]

Team ‘Mayfly’ collaboratively discussing shooting script and deciding on appropriate shots in preparation for filming.

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Shooting Script + Shot decisions

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Backing the Proposal

24 Originally when looking into a concept to write, I scoured my memory for past programmes that I’d enjoyed, and that I feel had a good running. I always found that 24 was an interesting concept, playing with time in its episodes to cover 24 one-hour long episodes over the season to portray a day in time. Originally I’d wanted to do something similar, but..- knowing that I’d not have that long to film, I chose to take that number of hours and delve into something else. I looked into animals with the shortest lifespans, and one of those being an insect by the name of a ‘Mayfly’. That would become the name for my concept, though..- as for the contents? None the wiser.

Thriller/Crime Traits Following these surveys that my co-writer (@throughwavesofstarlight) had built up:

It was apparent that out of those asked, Crime, Thriller and Comedy had been favourites. This would mean that it would only be logical to follow suit with this if we wanted our concept to be successful. Common traits of Thriller would be: Suspense and excitement Urban/Suburban Location Investigation The hero is they key Violence Police/Government Rationality Injustice Hero isolated Common traits of Crime would be: Far-fetched Alcohol/Illegal substances Weaponry (Guns, etc) Protagonist is usually male

Visuals Whenever I think of film concepts, or TV show concepts, I immediately flock to visuals first. What I’d like to have my audience see, perhaps to make it more memorable for them. I did a graphics project a few years back, where I used Wintercroft masks and decorated them to be ‘different’ business cards. Since I knew that they covered the face, I thought it could be quite a nice visual for the villains of my concept to be faceless, and perhaps very similar to one-another to maybe suggest a hivemind. One of my favourite masks was always the wolf, because it was one of the few which used negative space for details. For a thriller, it would make sense as well because it is a more vicious looking creature, with sharp teeth and a potentially violent nature.

Naming Characters Now, because of the ‘Mayfly’ being the name of the concept, I’d planned to have that be the name of the main character. Either a moniker, or indeed their actual sur/first name. Because I’d planned to use the wolves for the bruisers of the enemy, my co-writer began looking into wolf mythology. One of the most famous mythological wolves would be Fenrir, so we chose that as a first name for him, and simply took Vargr as a surname, which is linked to Fenrir as well. The bruisers should remain as nameless as they are faceless.

Target Audiences Because of the nature of a thriller, I know that violence is definitely a theme. Crime as well centers around violence and potentially gore, so my audience would have to be old enough to be supervised at the very least, meaning that it would have to be aimed at young adults or teenagers at the very least. The lack established plot that’s revealed to the characters in a lot of thrillers might aim themselves better to the younger audiences, perhaps those more inclined to sit through more conceptual pieces like this.

Audio I might look into visuals when I start to create, but given the concept that I’ve chosen, I started looking into what sort of music I could use.  For suspense building I thought I could use Ki:Theory’s Kitty Hawk, or maybe Thomas Azier’s Ghostcity, but..- once the script has been written, it would make more sense to start digging in proper.