YES, HELLO...

Experimental Film

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MURA MASA - WHAT IF I GO?

Screen Grab... For Text...

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MURA MASA - WHAT IF I GO?

This music video showcases some great experimentation with the camera and shot types, the narrative of young lovers is also something I will spin off with for my own piece...

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XAVIER DOLAN - LAURENCE ANYWAYS (FANDOR VIDEO ESSAY)

The Look of the film is really captured perfectly with this video essay. The story is also squeezed into this short time but tells the story at such a different pace when compared to the feature length film. However I think it does poetic justice to the film by showing off it’s most unique moments.

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AUDREY HEPBURN, SABRINA, 1954

Tennis Court... Shot Inspiration

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STEVE MCQUEEN - MR. BURBERRY CAMPAIGN

The man above is one of my favourite directors of all time and his features are all personal favourites. This new campaign McQueen has embarked on is exactly the type of inspiration for my own experimental fashion film I will be shooting soon. 

The most striking moments in the commercial are the hotel shots with looming corridors with the most cinematic lighting set up I’ve seen in a while. Also the interaction between the couple provokes a great narrative without words which is exactly I shall be going for

”Show it, Don’t tell it...”

[wearelucius]

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ANIMATION

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“NEW FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY” // PRESTEL // Compiled by Paul Sloman Another collection of photographs, more contemporary

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“STREET & STUDIO” // TATE // Edited by Ute Eskildsen

This compilation of photographs are just for reference on framing, lighting and location and studio based fashion photography. The images I chose above were the ones that really provoked a response from me. All of them felt to me to have a prior narrative to them, a set-up even for the viewer to place their own narrative onto it. Thats what drew me to them.

“photographers including Francis Alÿs, Diane Arbus, Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rineke Dijkstra, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Malick Sidibé, Paul Strand, James Van der Zee and Wolfgang Tillmans.”

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“KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS”

Anger’s short film explores subversion within sexuality and gender roles among white males in America around the time it was shot, also it focuses on the use of stereotypes within American culture. Immediately the mis-spelling of all three words in the title spell out the initials KKK, which is the abbreviation of the racist religious group the Klu-Klux-Klan. Anger has been known in other works to poke fun at groups such as them to poke fun at them. Also the two men in the piece are fetishised by the framing at Anger’s discretion along side the car.

For me the pieces subversion and statement is what draws me in to it. The film is supposed to make the audience question why the camera is lingering on certain shots of the car and the two men. It’s the message behind it that stayed with me.

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“DREAMERS”

One final one from the many winners I watched from the BFFF in 2015. “Dreamers” focuses on several young twenty somethings all from a low angle POV and them being surrounded by CGI induced corporate logos, skateboarding through a nondescript suburb of America. The piece is showing of a heightened view of what it’s like to be the modern youth of today. Yet again the idea is fairly simple when stripped back. The models are all shot is slow motion, very sweaty and all set to an expansive blue sky.

The CGI is a stand out in this piece and I’ll admit throughout it I didn’t think it was CGI until a certain shot in the middle of the film of a McDonalds logo which didn’t quite look realistic enough to me. However that being said the use of slow motion is the device that caught my eye and something I will be incorporating into my experimental work. Especially for the credits when the camera is super close up to the models faces the Slow-Mo really shows off the details in each models face. This camera technique has been used time and time again in fashion film but with subtle twists can be used in a new and fresh way. That’s something I will indeed be looking in to.

http://www.berlinfashionfilmfestival.net/awards/winners/

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“JUST A MINUTE”

This short film is another look into the winners at 2015′s BFFF awards. The piece is very simplistic in design and focuses solely on only Dakota Johnson’s character in her dressing room being called onto set, by an unknown male voice. The camera cuts around the dressing room and lingers on specific details around the room; an untouched grilled sandwich, some flowers and on Johnson’s features as well. The room feels larger than it is with the use of a large mirror at her dresser and for the entirety of the short the audience never leaves the room. But instead the audience is constantly gazing at Johnson’s then getting closer to the door where the male’s voice is coming from.The idea is very simple and tackles the phrase “Just a Minute” which to everyone who’s ever said that, doesn’t mean an exact minute.

The art direction is what kept me watching the short until the end. Plus the choice of shot within a very small room kept me interested. Simplicity yet again is what I’ve been looking for and this hits all the right notes. Sure the idea is simple but using only one location, one on screen actress and minimal dialogue, The piece live in it’s own world and is something I will keep in mind for the future.

http://www.berlinfashionfilmfestival.net/awards/winners/

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“SPRAWL II (MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS)”

The Technique above used in the “Arcade Fire” music video “Sprawl ii (Mountain Beyond Mountains)” is a device I’ve never seen used in any other form of film making. Director Vincent Morisset’s body of work features a lot of documentaries and interactive video work mainly based with using a computer of some sort and its in built camera, the “Arcade Fire” music video is no exception to this. Morisset and the band have worked together in the past and each music video has had different and interesting interactive qualities to it. However the one that I personally am drawn to is the one above. Simply because I want to know how they pulled off the technique and how they came about using it within the context of the video. The technique flashes two closely lit camera angles so that the subjects closer to the middle of frame stay relatively in the same spot and the edge of frame is moving more rapidly between the fast inter cutting.

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“THE LESS I KNOW THE BETTER”

Another film from “CANADA”, this time it being a music video for the Australian band “Tame Impala” with their track “The Less I Know The Better” a story about a high-school love triangle between a basketball jock, a cheerleader and the basketball team’s mascot Trevor the gorilla. 

Already being a fan of the band I had already seen the music video prior to knowing anything about “CANADA” and them being the production company behind it all. But looking into their back catalogue of short films, they really have their own stamp and feel to everything they produce whatever the film format may be. This I felt was much more narrative driven when compared to “CREME CARAMEL” but still uses the some of the same techniques, and some new ones, to motivate the story. The decision to go with the 4:3 aspect ratio immediately gives the story a certain retro throwback quality to the 90s and early 00s. The colour yet again is all highly saturated and pops on screen and finally the animation adds to the narrative in a whole new way that live action could not and the colours from the animation co exist with what schemes are being used for the live action.

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“CREME CARAMEL”

The directing collective known as “CANADA” operate primarily out of Barcelona and have been producing fashion film, music video and their own short film narratives etc. since 2008.This short fashion film is to show off a heterosexual view point through a male’s eyes and the sexual impulses that go along with it. The piece is heavily stylised with a throwback to the 1970s in it’s visual language. 

For me the instant attraction to the piece was the use of colour and art direction in order to tell the story. The interior design on the film constantly kept me looking round the apartment looking at all the hidden details and props surrounding the character. However when the voice over began to pick out the details of her the framing would be only focused on that particular detail keeping me interested in where the character was going to take the narrative. Plus the animation in this is very subtle at times but brash when it needed to be adding another story telling element, creating a very unique piece of film. Researching into the piece further I found that it was a winner at the Berlin Fashion Film Festival in 2015. A festival I will be looking at further within this blog...