featuring elizabeth.

[thegatw]

 "It was very emotional. It kind of crept up on all of us. I just wanted to keep shooting that scene and hold on to it, but it had to end. Everybody clapped and I hugged everybody and then all of a sudden they had to go back to work, and I kind of faded off into the distance. “ - David Duchovny , June 2001.

[featuringelizabeth]

VISUAL ESSAY ~ SOFIA COPPOLA: TRAPPED OR PROTECTED BY ENNUI? (EXTENDED EDITION)

Final assessment for communication module on BA Film university course. Talks about Coppola’s beginnings, influences, trademarks, each for her films in regards to her character’s ennui and the patriarchal society in relation to her films.

[featuringelizabeth]

FINAL WRITING ASSESSMENT: Critique

The inspiration for this story came when I watching Veronica Mars and I wanted to do a story similar in style. However, I didn’t want it to just purely be a neo-noir story I wanted there to be some crossover with other genres. This led me to add the sci-fi element that I had originally. I was intrigued in doing two separate timelines, as it would be interesting to do that angle in my mind rather than a singular one. Using the separate timelines brought up some issues though, as they needed to be connected in some way and the most obvious way in doing that was including time travel – which I really did not want. Thus, I tried to connect it through both timelines following the exact same journey of discovering the aliens. This unfortunately, didn’t seem to work exactly either and the whole idea of aliens was becoming boring.

Whilst watching an episode of Game of Thrones, one of the characters said a line that really resonated with me – “the truth is either horrible or boring”. Now finding out the reality of something which is actually boring doesn’t make for a good story, so I choose to go with the former. I only had to think of something more horrible than there not being any alien experiments at all and it all being to do with time travel. At first I thought about humans on Earth being aliens and the government was trying to cover this up, but realised that it wouldn’t work. Thankfully I came upon a blog which posts stories about the supernatural, and one of the posts talked about Nazi experiments in Japan where they were trying to find this ‘kill switch’. Ergo, I decided to in the end have a cover up kind of story that were thought to be one thing but turned out to be much more disturbing.

When I went for a tutorial about my story, I was told that there was several plot holes in my story and I needed to sort them out. Such as there needing to be a clear antagonist, there maybe being an inside informant and to not kill off the people (they were originally a group of friends in college) in the present day timeline. After discussing this over with a friend, it became apparent that a person on the ‘inside’ needed to devolve information. With the plot twist at the end being that this person was the antagonist throughout. However, I still needed to connect the two storylines with something more than just the deceiving informant. This lead to the people in the storylines all being related and only separated by 60 years or so. The ending still needed to have a real punch in the face, so still using the ideas from the blog post on the Nazi experiments and the ‘kill switch’ it manifested itself into the scientists trying to a certain kind of gene from stem cells. Seeing as stem cells come from bone marrow or a foetus, it seemed that the two people who broke in would need to have their reproductive cells taken to create said stem cells. To make it even sicker (and to work better with the rest of the story), I decided that instead of the boy and girl just being friends and to get rid of any sexual elements I made them to be twins. With this working perfectly with the Nazi experiments done on twins.

The characters I wanted to create were four main ones. The informant would be appear to be helping everyone and no one suspects anything from him, though there are some subtle hints. With his main motivation behind these experiments being to remain youthful and effectively live on ‘forever’. Victor is supposed to be your typical noir anti-hero, even though you never find out what his own motives were for agreeing to investigate the ‘alien experiments’ it is supposed to establish that is hiding something himself. Kristian and Lara, or the twins as I like to refer to them are the key that allows Walter to finally get what he wants – and the background on their names is that I wanted them to have German names but not so German that they would look like it. Furthermore, Kristian adds a slightly ironic tone about religion into the story as well as having computer hacking skills (reminiscent of Mac from Veronica Mars). Originally I chose for the female twin to be called Ingrid, but I didn’t think that suited the character at all and changed it to Lara. So of course she had to be the badass character with a British accent (only joking, most of them have American accents). As I mentioned previously I included a lot of subtle touches and metaphors throughout. The first one being the funeral at the beginning, usually it is raining during a funeral but given that I located it in the San Francisco/Sacramento area it would probably be sunny, and to also already indicate to the audience that something already isn’t right. Even the title is the German translation of ‘Chalice’, from the biblical legend of the Holy Grail. 

Overall, I am happy with what I have achieved and much prefer what the story became rather than what it started out to be. Personally, I would love to this being made into a movie but would prefer to direct and write the script myself. However, due to the negative connotations of the government, their association with Nazi experiments and the ironic religious metaphors I doubt that anyone in the film industry would want to touch this – especially Hollywood. This will probably end up being one of those stories that never make it to the big screen, or could be but poorly done with major changes. I will however, keep this story and maybe one day be able to produce it myself but this, I doubt won’t happen either.

[featuringelizabeth]

FINAL WRITING ASSESSMENT: Fontäne/Kelch

So I decided to write the split timeline alien noir piece. However, ultimately there are no aliens but it is still noir, or rather neo-noir. Overall though I am happyish with what happened with the end result and would have preferred to write a proper treatment of 8 -15 pages (mine is only 4) but then again I doubt many people on my course would have been able to manage that.

(Also I haven't quite decided on a title - it's either 'Fontäne', 'Kelch', 'Project Unidentified', 'Area X' etc. I would have called it 'Project X' but that's already a title to a completely different film)

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

                                                   KELCH 

                                         By Elizabeth Clarke

                                                                                                          2013

A funeral takes place on a sunny day in Northern California, a man and a woman in their early twenties stand out. Afterward, an older man seen lurking at the funeral introduces himself as an ‘old family friend’ and talks to them about their late father, briefly mentioning how their father never got over the disappearance of his own father when he was an infant, he comments on how much they look like their grandfather. At the wake it’s established the man and woman are twins not just siblings. What the old man said stays in their minds – over the next few days they go through their father’s things in his den, trying to find some information on their estranged grandfather.

                                                    1951

A man in his thirties (Victor) is walking around his office smoking a cigar; another man in his early twenties (Walter) smartly dressed bursts in. He explains that he is a young government employee and he believes that something shady is happening in a department he helps oversee. He suggests the possibility of extraterrestrials; this draws suspicion from the detective. Victor almost refuses to take the case, but is so intrigued by the young man’s passionate curiosity he agrees. When the younger man leaves, it becomes apparent that Victor has ulterior motives as he makes a phone call.  

                                                    2013

The twins (Kristian & Lara) visit the older man (Walter James) at his office; they try to get more information about their grandfather out of him. He tells them that he hired Victor to look into several unexplained disappearances in Los Angeles, but soon after arriving there he went missing himself. Walter appears upset by all this talk about Victor and his disappearance; he divulges that he stopped looking for Victor a long time ago but if they want to find out what happened to him he will help. He offers the twins a laptop that holds a lot of important information regarding Victor. Later, they discover that their dad had spent the majority of his early adult years searching for his father but the search went cold. They decide to pick up where their dad stopped and travel to L.A whilst they record this on their phones.

                                                    1951

 Victor meets up with Walter at a famous cocktail bar in downtown L.A; they order drinks, enjoy the entertainment and he informs Walter that he has found out the location of where these apparent ‘alien experiments’. The only problem is that he has trouble breaking into the place and needs Walter’s help to do so. He agrees that he’ll take care of it and will be in touch in a couple days. As promised Walter contacts Victor a few days later and gives him instructions on how to go ‘unnoticed’ at the underground facility.

                                                   2013

As the twins reach Los Angeles, they try to retrace the last steps of Victor’s. Finding nothing, Kristian looks through the laptop and realises it holds numerous confidential government files. He doesn’t realise that his activity on the computer is being tracked (the webcam is on, but the light doesn’t turn on). Using his computer skills, he hacks into the Pentagon long enough to find out which facility Victor was attempting to break into before being caught. Lara visits a guy (Joe) she thinks that could help them get into the facility. When she meets Joe, he is unenthusiastic to help out unless she gives him something in return. She refuses to do anything for him, as she doesn’t owe him anything. This angers Joe; he reminds her of all the good memories they had together and how he bailed her out of jail not too long ago, this causing the tone to shift in the room. When one of his associates tries to take her to another room she manages to knock him unconscious, takes his gun and injuries another associate who attacks her. Joe is impressed and recalls her feistiness the main reason why he liked her. He agrees to help her and Kristian break into the facility if she comes back to work for him. She firmly rejects him; Joe laughs and says she’ll regret that she said that, as it is revealed that Kristian heard the whole incident.

                                                    1951

Dressed in a lab coat, Victor passes as a recently employed scientist at the facility thanks to the connections of Walter. The man giving him the tour around the facility tells him about this groundbreaking work that they are doing, but remains cryptic about its details. Whilst filling out some paperwork, the man is called away on an imperative matter; this leaves Victor to look through the facilities confidential files. He doesn’t realise that the man and a few other scientists from another room are watching him. Victor finds out what is happening in the facility, this clearly disturbs him and as he attempts to leave the man confronts him. The man questions Victor’s disturbance with his response being that he thinks what they do is disgusting and inhumane. The man fails to react to this; he smiles before Victor runs to leave and is knocked unconscious by one of the scientists.  

                                                    2013

Lara goes back to the motel room, where Kristian lectures her about getting into dangerous situations. She brushes off his protectiveness and changes the subject to their plan – she asks him how far he got with hacking. He says that he found the place they need to break into, but to get past the security might not be so easy. Lara reassures him that it’s taken care of, as Kristian questions what she means. Lara chooses to ignore him. A while later, the twins wait outside the facility. It looks like it has been abandoned for a long time. Lara easily get over the fence and cautiously waits until Kristian can give the all clear. He is furiously typing on the laptop and attempts to shut down the security. To his surprise it was a lot easier and quicker than it would usually be. He gives Lara the all clear and the code to unlock the door. When she gets through the door Kristian is right behind her and insists that he go with her. She angrily tells him he should go back and she’s fine on her own. Kristian doesn’t listen, so Lara reluctantly yields and the twins continue through the building.

                                  UNIDENTIFIED PLACE & TIME

Hazy and muffled sounds and visions have a group of people talking.

                                                     2013

The twins uncover further ground in the building, but it just looks desolate and unused for years. The place does look like it held people or something there for some time.

                                  UNIDENTIFIED PLACE & TIME

From someone’s perspective they see a group of people talking

                                                     2013

In one of the deserted offices, the twins search through the files and documents finding nothing but gibberish and blacked out words. In another room, the twins are being watched on a security camera. Two of the people who watch silently agree on something. The twins start to hear the sound of people talking and follow the sound to a door. Kristian attempts to open it, fails. Lara helps him and finally it opens. They stumble through and find an exact replica of the first facility but this one is clearly still in use. As they walk through they find amputated and mutated people, this obviously horrifies them. In the reflection a group of disgustingly ugly scientists come up behind them and kidnap them.

                                    UNIDENTIFIED PLACE & TIME

It is seen from the person’s perspective that the people talking are a group of scientists – they have distinct German accents. Once they realise that the person is awake they subdue them. The person who is subdued is Victor. Before he goes under he hears the scientists say that he is ‘the one’.

                                                     2013

Later they waken, at first similar to the unidentified time and place flashbacks, then it is revealed that they have both been strapped to a table. The scientists explain that they are obviously the grandchildren of Victor Braun; their eyes give it away. They tell the twins what they really do in this facility and have been happening for the past 65 years. That they have been doing experiments on people trying to find a gene that slows down aging to an impossible rate, these experiments have been happening since World War II in the concentration camps.

Their grandfather, Victor was discovered to possibly be one of these people who had this rare gene, so they lured him here so they could experiment on him also and to fully determine if he had the gene. He did, but they were unable to get enough stem cells from him that would last long enough. In between the years they kidnapped people that no one would care about, trying to recreate Victor’s genes but this only lead to numerous failed experiments which the twins saw when they first entered. So they needed to use one of Victor’s close relatives, unfortunately their late father wouldn’t do but then when they found out about the twins being convinced they thought they had another chance. However, the person running this operation decided against taking them as foetuses but to instead to wait until after they finished adolescence. They determined that it’d be better to use the twins reproduction cells to create incestuous foetuses and use their stem cells, with this thing possessing the right gene and they’ll be able to continue their operation for an unlimited amount of time.

The twins don’t know how to react. Lara reacts with anger and sheer determination that they will be discovered and people will look for them. The scientists inform her that no one will be looking, as in a couple of days they will be involved in an accident which will leave their bodies so charred and unidentifiable that everyone will have to believe it is them. Kristian quietly processes all the information and realises that if he sends the video they are still recording then it’ll get out what is happening at the facility. He emails the video to someone before they are both subdued.

In an airy and sunny office somewhere, a man is on the phone. On the other end, Joe is talking to the man and tells him that last he heard Lara was planning to enter the facility. Kristian would probably come along given her history with getting herself into dangerous situations, so he’s probably with her to protect her. Back at the office, the laptop on the desk makes a sound. The person in the chair spins round and opens a new email. Attached to the email is a video, they watch it and it turns out to be the video Kristian sent. It’s revealed that Walter is watching the video. A women dressed in a lab coat enters the office from another room and asks Walter if he is ready for another dose. He smirks and says that it won’t be anymore. As she injects it into his bloodstream, the wrinkles on his face disappear. The woman makes an off-handed comment about him looking really good for someone his age. Walter laughs and says “Yes, my age”.

[featuringelizabeth]

REVIEW OF VIDEO

WE FINALLY DID IT! HAZZAR!

It only took up 6 weeks of my life and caused a higher than average amount of stress. Seriously though, I wanted to talk about the good and bad parts of the video.

THE GOOD:

The voice acting is perfect, and even though Tomi accidently burped on the take I ended up using it worked perfectly. The titles were straight talking but the fade ins allowed them to not bombard the audience. The colour correction and audio mixing I think was done well, especially the colour correction of the first shots as in the raw footage they had a yellow tint to them. 

THE BAD: 

Some of the footage didn't work well with other shots, but were too important to scrap. The moving shots (incl. crane, dolly and panning) were all shaky at one point, thus were unable to be slowed down to give it the effect we wanted. 

So that's all I wanted to say about the video and the only thing left to do is the presentation on Friday. Eeek!

[featuringelizabeth]

YOU ARE NOT ALONE - RAPE CRISIS HELPLINE CAMPAIGN VIDEO

Elizabeth Clarke - Writer, Director, Editor

Niña Shaw - Producer, Lighting Operator

Tomi Sunmonu - The Girl

Joel Macklin - DoP

Ineta Muzikevičiūtė - Audio Technician

Courtney Thompson - Runner

Charlotte Clarke - Titles

[featuringelizabeth]

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Final screenshots of the editing/titles.

[featuringelizabeth]

The logo at the top is the original logo for the Rape Crisis helpline, and the bottom logo is the one altered for our campaign.

(Also a thank you to my sister, Charlotte Clarke for quickly taking time out of her busy schedule to do the altered logo.)

[featuringelizabeth]

Screenshots of titles at the end.

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Screenshots of the editing.

[featuringelizabeth]

ANCHOR EXTRA THICK SQUIRTY CREAM ADVERT

Starring Neena Obhrai & Niña Shaw

Direction and Lighting by Adrien Dupagne

Written, Produced and Sound Engineering done by Elizabeth Clarke (ME!)

Cinematography by Joel Macklin

Editing by Niña Shaw

Set Design, Script Supervising and Clapper done by Hanan Coumal

[featuringelizabeth]

TRANSNATIONAL CINEMA

LECTURE/SCREENING

For the last week of screenings we watched Wong Kar-Wai's 'Chungking Express'. I think a lot of people didn't actually enjoy the film, whereas I did once I finally understood what was happening.

SYNOPSIS: Two stories, two lovelorn cops, two objects of desire: one a big-time heroin dealer in deep trouble with her boss after the cargo disappears, the other a seriously flaky take-out waitress who inadvertently gets hold of the keys to her admirer's apartment, all shot in a breathless kaleidoscope of color and hand-held camera work to create a mesmerizing portrait of Hong Kong in the 1990s.

The lecture was mostly about Hong Kong Cinema. Here are some facts about Hong Kong, the place/country/kingdom?

Ø  Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997

Ø  Until the 1990s, the third biggest film producer in the world (after the US and India).

Ø Became renown in the 1970s due to martial arts films.

Ø  In 1980s Hong Kong action films gained cult following.

Ø  In 1990s and 2000s directors and actors became transnational stars.

In 1990s and 2000s directors and actors became transnational stars. 

One of the most famous stars to have come out of Hong Kong Cinema was Bruce Lee (1940-73) and what made him so popular in Western Cinema.

“To the West, Lee is narcissist hero who makes Asian culture more accessible. To the East, he is nationalistic hero who has internationalized some aspects of Asian culture.”

Fit/muscular version of Chinese masculinity; Intersected with popularity of low budget action films of the period (i.e. Blaxploitation); Icon of the “kung-Fu craze” in the west, which peaked at 1973; Embodies image of the underdog overcoming all odds.

JOHN WOO's Heroic Films

Key Films: A Better Tomorrow (1986); The Killer (1989); Bullet in the Head (1991); Hard Boiled (1992)

Draw on Wuxia (martial arts hero) tradition in Chinese culture.

 "Wuxia Hero: does not serve the ruling elite, nor – like the western chivalric tradition – a woman. His heroism is based on loyalty to family (especially his father) and to his male friends, or ‘brothers’"

Features: Male weepies; Balletic action sequences; Also heavily influenced by Hollywood cinema; Now prominent in the US industry.

WONG KAR-WAI:

Key Films: As Tears Go By (1988); Days of Being Wild (1990); Chungking Express (1994); Fallen Angels (1995); Happy Together (1997); In the Mood for Love (2000); 2046 (2004)

Features: Provides an art slant on traditional genres; Wong has “come to signify a cool, post-modern sensibility in world cinema”; Explores the relationships between past and present; Influenced by French new wave;Themes - time, history, identity

SEMINAR 

When we came back after Easter break, we didn't discuss any films and ended up doing a quiz that tested whether we had learnt anything over the past year. When really any test or whatever that requires us to remember what we've learnt, actually tests our memories not the knowledge we have gained.

[featuringelizabeth]

AUDIO

AUDIO IS DONE!

But lets get into the details.

We attempted to record the wildtrack on Monday, however the wind was so violent that day, that we didn't get much usable sound. Luckily though, we were able to reschedule the audio for earlier today with Tomi Sunmonu being the voice of the girl and Ineta Muzikevičiūtė as the audio technician.

Surprisingly the audio only took 30 minutes to do and now all that is left to do is the editing - which I am not looking forward to.

[featuringelizabeth]

REVISED SCRIPT FOR RAPE CRISIS CAMPAIGN

[featuringelizabeth]

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY

We shot the footage for our campaign last night/early this morning. It took us an hour to do one simple crane shot, with it taking about 3 hours in total (we started at 10pm and finished at 1am). Annoyingly enough there were quite a few people walking about during shooting, forcing us to wait for them to be out of shot.

Here are some pictures of us or actually me on set directing:

(We were trying to use the trolley as a make-shift dolly, this didn't work out in the end.)

I want to say a massive thanks to Joel Macklin for doing the cinematographer and me saving you from the spikey bushes whilst doing one of the dolly shots. Also, a thank you to Courtney Thompson who was our resident homeless person/runner/ door holder on set.

Next up is the audio and the editing!

[featuringelizabeth]

SHOOTING DAY

Unfortunately, our producer Niña is currently sick with some kind of disease so we can't shot today. Thus we're doing principal photography on Sunday instead.

On the bright side, there will be less crowd control on a Sunday evening than there would be on a Friday evening.