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‘12 MINUTES OF NOVEMBER’ is set in the English countryside on a Suffolk farm. The Film documents a short insight into the lives of one couple and their surroundings, building up a story of old age, time passing and place. Having built up a home and life together over forty years, this film shows a small snippet of their everyday life; how they work together, relax together and most importantly how they support one another. The title gives the viewer an immediate sense that this is just a brief moment of something much bigger. The dialogue throughout the film is snippets taken from a conversation between the couple as they sat around the table. The conversation covers current time, reminiscing about previous times, and ends with prospects of future time. Essentially the twelve minutes presented to the viewers could be seen as totally irrelevant in the scale of their lives together, but that’s exactly what the film intends to highlight and is it’s reason for it’s existence. It’s the simple intimate moments captured that intend to touch and captivate the viewer. It’s a very real portrayal of love and life, something many people will be able to relate to.

Minor project, watch in HD 1080p

"It's not about one thing, it's about all kinds of stuff to do with how we live life and times goes by, there are fulfilled people, happy people, lonely people- all sorts of stuff"

12 minutes of Novemebr

After two trips filming and several possible edits, looking back through the film and also previous films i've made this tittle seemed appropriate. '5 Minutes forgotten' my last film was designed to create a small world within those few minutes you’re engaged and watching. Suggesting how throw away our moments and memories can be."How long does our immediate experience last until it disappears into our memory?" I felt it was a successful piece however it only touched on the outside of some of my thoughts on intimacy, touch, memory. '12 minutes of November' seems a progressive step forward, similarly dealing with intimacy however stylistically on a more polished level filming in HD and also exposing real people. 12 minutes is the running time, it gives the viewer an idea of time and place.

Highlighted in my proposal is to capture intimacy of a couple within an everyday situation "A slice of life". After forty years together it appears the most intimate and comforting moments are those where they just sit together in silence, in this scene Alan turns to Mel and says "How are you, are you ok?" and she just smiles back. It's an important moment for the film as it addresses the idea of ' it's what isn't happening that is happening'.

Whilst filming the couple they spent a lot of time looking and talking about their geese. As they live on a very isolated farm and therefore are quite detached from a lot of things it appeared to be the very simple things that entertained them and sparked up conversation. The geese themselves spend the day as a pair and follow one another around, similar to Mel and Alan the couple.

Second trip filming, I've taken on board the comments to include more of the characters faces. I asked them to look slightly above the camera rather than directly into the lens to create a less confrontational feel.

A still from the time lapse that starts the film, running time 2 minutes. Gradually the sun rises through through the window into the kitchen. A scene that comes into play later on in the film. The decanters symbolise a passing of time (a present bought for their anniversary) they stand proud as a pair in the window as the clouds pass and times moves on.

Minor Crit feedback

After showing my first rough edit in the Minor Crit, it became clear the film currently had a feeling of distance and viewers were struggling to connect with the characters. This would be mainly due to my choice of camera angles and positioning. Several shots had cut off heads and faces retracting from my original idea of capturing intimate everyday parts of relationships. Leaving the film 70% representing place and time and 30% people and intimacy. Admittedly as i already know the characters and what they look like, I've not been aware of the lack of face shots, this being a big limitation on the first shoot Although place wasn't something I highlighted in my proposal it's essential for building up a feeling of space and home as it's a huge part of the 40 years the couple has spent together. The next step is to re visit and continue filming to build the currently lacking elements of the film.

first edit

My initial ideas for this piece formed when I read a quote one for my followers tweeted “deeply romantic but completely unerotic friendships are usually my forte.” Although this was seen on a form of social networking and twitter is now used as a place where people continuously share feelings and situations. I’m not currently concerned about raising that point or basing the concept around twitter. Instead I want to work with this quote and how it is applied in different relationships. An example of this is I imagine a very static well composed shot of two people doing something very ordinary like sitting on a sofa. If I were to film this situation over a period of time different levels of intimacy between these two people would arise even if it were just a brush of the hands. I’m interested in how this space could become the comfort zone and totally the character’s space. A space where they share feelings and offload emotion, similar to twitter I guess.

The obvious choice to represent this intense friendship on screen would be to film two females, however I will be filming a married couple living in the Suffolk countryside. Happily married for 40 years and with 4 grown up children. They live in a beautiful countryside house a perfect set and filmic space. I’ll have the task of creating this feeling of past time and love but importantly the acts of friendship. I don’t wish to go into the space of their home knowing exactly what I want to capture but strategically place the camera and sound recorders in order to capture their everyday as naturally as possible. Once I see a structure forming I can begin to get creative with what I shoot, it’s important to say I currently don’t see this as solely a documentation piece. I picture a very cinematic set up and stylistic approach to this piece. So I’ll be heavily focusing on lighting and tracking shots whilst mainly filming in HD using a canon 7D. The choice of camera may change if I feel it’s not creating the desired affect. A selective editing process will be crucial in order to create a more dramatized documentary.

I will to take inspiration from Mike Leigh’s perfectly composed shots in ‘High hopes’ and more recently his ‘Another year’ similarly wanting to capture “a slice of life”. Shirley and Cyril’s relationship in ‘High hopes’ is a prime example of how an on screen relationship can create comfort in the viewer and is very much what I assume to be a realistic portrayal of ‘love’. For example the bedroom scene where Shirley helps Cyril take off his shoes and socks. This is I consider a very motherly act but we as viewers are aware they are in a relationship and are in a bedroom on a bed, we’re almost waiting for the next stage of intimacy however this never progresses. It’s the simplicity of this physical act and the decision not to take the scene further to intercourse that intrigues me. Mike Leigh achieves ‘the less is more’ extremely well and that is something I aim for.

stills from first shoot

Release Date: 25 June 2010 Genre: Drama Cast: Christos Stergioglou, Michelle Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis, Anna Kalaitzidou Direct...

stylistic inspiration, Dogtooth.

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