Silver Arts Award Portfolio

Sophia Kelly-Keegan - 17 - Using this blog, I will be documenting my progress in the BFI Film Academy.

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Filmmaking Guide Feedback

Feedback: http://bfifilmacademy4.weebly.com/feedback.html Summarise the feedback from others? What do you think about this feedback? The feedback was overall very positive, the only real criticisms being suggestions for minor improvements to make the guide more interactive. Do you agree – why? Do you disagree – why? I do agree that there could be interactive elements incorporated into the guide, for example like one person said, a video element giving a visual and audio representation or behind the scenes look. However, we didn’t have much time to incorporate this. </p> What parts worked well with the guide? The information was accurate and concise, many said it was informative also. </p> What parts worked less well? There could have been a slightly different easier to read font as one person pointed out and some sections weren’t quite as full as others. What would you do differently another time and why? I would make sure each section was fully completed and involve an interactive element of some sort to make it more enjoyable for the reader.

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Filmmaking Guide

https://madmagz.com/magazine/651450?utm_source=m3&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fuop Photo Page: http://bfifilmacademy4.weebly.com/filmmaking-guide-pics.html

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Unit 2 Personal Evaluation

What happened on the project? 

On this project, we created a filmmaking guide for anyone interested in film. This detailed all the different job roles available and what they require.

What was challenging about doing the project?

Gathering all the necessary information and making this as concise as possible, whilst also relatively entertaining for someone reading the guide.

Check back to your project plan...did anything different happen to what you originally planned? If so, what and why?

We did originally plan to create a more alternative guide, however we realised that we al have enough information to create a more formal guide and that our own experiences on the academy should be mentioned within it too.

What did you enjoy most about doing the project?

I enjoyed learning more in depth information about the role of production design as beforehand I was not aware of just how varied the role is.

What happened as a result of the project? Was there a product created? Did others learn new skills?

We have created our own filmmaking guide which I think is perfect for anyone deciding which role in film they are interested in and helping them to determine the skills they will need to fulfil this role.

What parts of your original project plan worked well? (E.g. timescale, resources etc.)

We have all found relevant and informative resources which have helped us to create detailed guides and have done so in the time frame we allotted for ourselves.

What have you learnt about... Leadership?

I have found that this is not as intimidating a role as I once expected and that it just requires you to be vocal and concise with your decisions.

Yourself?

I have found that I am more capable of leadership than I at first expected and that I am able to collect information and present it in an interesting way.

Planning?

I have learnt that a project like this needs to be planned beforehand, in order to make sure each relevant topic is being covered. 

Working well with others?

Teamwork is crucial to creating something like this, as you have to ensure everyone has a role they are satisfied with and that no information is being repeated in the different sections.

Communication?

Communicating with one another, like teamwork is essential to a project like this. You have to ensure the design and layout settled upon is fluent throughout the different sections. You also have to ensure you are communicating the information effectively to the reader.

The art form/activity involved?

I have learnt that creating a guide like this requires an extensive amount of research and that it is preferable to have a prior knowledge/experience of what you’re writing about beforehand.

Anything else?

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Arts Award Review

Name of person doing their arts challenge: Sophia Kelly-Keegan

Your name: Gabe Durk

Date: 12/12/15

What skills or activity have they demonstrated?

Good analytical knowledge of film that was relevantly applied to the conceptual aspects of the film.

How well did they do and why? 

Very well as they are competent and keen to develop their skills.

Any advice? Areas for development?

Keep up the good work. Be more vocal with your ideas next time.

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Unit 2 Questions

1) What is your main role in the project? What are you responsible for?

My main role in the project is to research and create two A4 pages explaining the role of production design in filmmaking and the skills required for this role, along with some tips to help anyone looking to pursue it.

2) Who else is working with you/helping? What are they responsible for?

Everyone on the BFI academy is working together to make this filmmaking guide, with each person writing their own section on an individual role from directing to sound production. 

3) What support might you need? Who might be able to help/in what way?

Ally and Rosie will help us delegate our roles; in order to gain the information needed I will be researching online and using my own prior knowledge of production design.

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Ann Veronica Janssen - States of Mind - yellowbluepink

Ann Veronica Janssen’s exhibition States of Mind, yellowbluepink, challenges us to question our understanding of consciousness by placing the viewer in to an entirely new atmosphere they have most likely not experienced before. Janssen’s work explores perception through the use of light and colour and in this piece colour is caught in a state of suspension and any sense of depth or surface around the viewer is masked. The viewer is placed in to a space in which they have no ‘real’ sense of the detail of their surroundings. The viewers automatically become active participants in this experiment, which looks at how we process perception and how we interact with our external environments.

Once you are in the space, everything you see is veiled by a cloud of mist, as you walk through the room the colours change and merge seamlessly around you and even the people around you can fade into the distance as you walk through the space. Your consciousness is certainly provoked as your eyesight and understanding of your whereabouts is completely thrown. There is certainly a therapeutic element to it as it almost feels like an isolation tank, with your general understanding of your whereabouts being stripped from you completely. It’s particularly satisfying watching figures disappear and reappear in the distance as they become immersed; they become a part of the viewers experience of the exhibition.

I think Janssen expects viewers to search for detail and depth within the space which when you inevitably don’t find (aside from the ceiling lights slightly above you) you submerge in to the experience and absorb the simple experience of seeing. Although this exhibition may not improve our understanding of our consciousness, it certainly causes us to both question it and, although seemingly contradictory to that, become at peace with it accepting our direct perception as it is. Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibition finding it to be slightly bewildering at first but therapeutic once I accepted the atmosphere. I also found it caused me to question my own conscious mind and everyday perception.

[heatherartsaward-blog]

I really enjoyed your reading your review, it sounds very interesting! I read that some people found that the exhibition was very gimmicky, would you agree?

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Thanks! I understand where you're coming from but personally I find the scale of the exhibition and the conceptual ideas behind it prevent it from becoming trivial.

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Arts Award Challenge

1) Were you able to meet your arts challenge? Yes, I helped create our short film “Verses” which I am satisfied with even though I would have done a couple things differently myself. I did take on the role of director in the process and found that I enjoyed it much more than I expected, managing successfully to put across my own vision to the people I was working with.

2) Did you have to change your action plan or your challenge in any way? If so what changed and why? We did have to alter aspects of our film along the way such as the heaviness of the plot we had chosen to begin with, we settled on a much simpler story, which we would be able to complete in time. Some artistic alterations were made on the days we were filming also, due to the location etc.

3) What went well for you and why? I think directing went well for me, it isn’t something I expected myself to enjoy at all but I managed to be quite precise with what I wanted hopefully achieving my desired artistic effect. I also enjoyed the film theory side of the process and found this really helped to broaden my cinematic knowledge.

4) What was more challenging and why? I found the editing process of making the film to be quite frustrating due to my own difficulty with the software, although I now have a better understanding of the importance of editing.

5) What have you learnt from doing your arts challenge? I have learnt a lot of new skills from the arts challenge! I’ve particularly enjoyed learning about the camera work, colour grading and general film theory. I have also learnt about my own capabilities and the sort of roles I am interested in pursuing when I go into film in the future.

6) What would you do differently another time? I would probably be a little more vocal, in order to ensure the process moves along quickly.

7) What arts challenge might you do next? I would like to make my own artist film, focusing on movement and the human form. This will go alongside my artwork I am currently doing and will put in to practice the skills I have learnt through this process.

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BFI Film Academy Professionals

Maggie Hoffgen is a lecturer of film at Salford University, as well as this she helps teach different film related courses at HOME and previously at Cornerhouse. Maggie has given us an overview of film history, focusing in on some specific, important movements. We started at the very early invention of cinema and how it has expanded to become what it is today. Film has lead off in to many experimental areas making it one of the vastest and most varied forms of art. Maggie has introduced me to some film movements I had previously not been aware of; I feel I now I have a better understanding of the origins of cinema and the effect this has had on cinema today.

John Grey is a freelance filmmaker with production credits in television, music videos, commercials short films and feature films. As he is a director himself he has helped us all to further understand what that role actually requires. We have been taught how to use the camera efficiently and how to set up the equipment that goes along with it. We have found out how to edit, colour grade and generally the meanings behind certain artistic decisions (the angles used etc) directors make. I have learnt about not only the basics of using a camera and the postproduction elements required when making a film, but also the skills and vision required to be a director.

Jason Wood is the artistic director of film at HOME and is a professor of film at Manchester Metropolitan University. He helps to decide which films get shown each week and organizes HOME’s quite unique seasons. I found out from Jason more about how HOME choose which films to show and how important it is to them to show films that are unique and often won’t be shown elsewhere nearby. Whilst blockbusters are still shown at HOME, they are selected carefully and always offer some sort of artistic credibility. For example, the new James Bond film Spectre, it may not be the most artistic of films but it has economic viability and is very important to British culture and society. By showing these more popular films, it allows HOME to screen seasons featuring more challenging cinema that may not be very popular but still deserves to be shown.

Joe Nattrass is a sound technician and works on various projects operating the boom mic on set, as well as sound mixing in post production. Joe taught us all how to operate the boom mic on set and how to keep track of each recording we make. As well as this, he taught us how to mix sound in postproduction particularly how you can alter the levels of the recordings and the music used in order to make it sound more realistic to the film. We learnt about Foley, the strange ways in which sounds can be recreated and how these are added in in post. I feel like I now understand the importance of sound in film and just how much it can alter the realism of a film.

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Filmmaking As a Career

Filmmaking requires a large team of people, especially as the tiniest detail can make a massive difference to the overall feel of a film. Although the director is the one that dictates the final vision for the film and has most creative control, it is not without the input and help of other crew members such as the DOP (director of photography) and the camera operators, amongst others. The producer is responsible for the organisation of the whole process, overlooking everyone’s roles and timekeeping especially. There are multiple people that go in to recording the sound on set and in postproduction, like the boom operator and the sound recordist. An assistant director works alongside the director, ensuring their demands are met on set. In postproduction, there is the editor who, with the director’s help, decides on the final look and pace of the film with not only the choice of clips but also the colour grading applied afterwards too.

In order to become a filmmaker, you can take several academic and non-academic routes. You can obviously study film at university, depending on the university you choose you could end up focusing more on theory or the practical side of film making – most courses offer some of both. There are also apprenticeships available, especially at places like Media City where you can work alongside and learn from experts at the BBC or ITV. There are also obviously programmes like the BFI have provided, as well as courses within HOME made especially for young people too.

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Ann Veronica Janssen - States of Mind - yellowbluepink

Ann Veronica Janssen’s exhibition States of Mind, yellowbluepink, challenges us to question our understanding of consciousness by placing the viewer in to an entirely new atmosphere they have most likely not experienced before. Janssen’s work explores perception through the use of light and colour and in this piece colour is caught in a state of suspension and any sense of depth or surface around the viewer is masked. The viewer is placed in to a space in which they have no ‘real’ sense of the detail of their surroundings. The viewers automatically become active participants in this experiment, which looks at how we process perception and how we interact with our external environments.

Once you are in the space, everything you see is veiled by a cloud of mist, as you walk through the room the colours change and merge seamlessly around you and even the people around you can fade into the distance as you walk through the space. Your consciousness is certainly provoked as your eyesight and understanding of your whereabouts is completely thrown. There is certainly a therapeutic element to it as it almost feels like an isolation tank, with your general understanding of your whereabouts being stripped from you completely. It’s particularly satisfying watching figures disappear and reappear in the distance as they become immersed; they become a part of the viewers experience of the exhibition.

I think Janssen expects viewers to search for detail and depth within the space which when you inevitably don’t find (aside from the ceiling lights slightly above you) you submerge in to the experience and absorb the simple experience of seeing. Although this exhibition may not improve our understanding of our consciousness, it certainly causes us to both question it and, although seemingly contradictory to that, become at peace with it accepting our direct perception as it is. Overall, I really enjoyed the exhibition finding it to be slightly bewildering at first but therapeutic once I accepted the atmosphere. I also found it caused me to question my own conscious mind and everyday perception.

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Arts Award Challenge

Arts Award Challenge -

I have decided that my arts award challenge will be to not only to help create a film I am satisfied with artistically but to also try out something new. I would possibly like to try directing as this is something I don’t have any experience in. I would like to see how I would function in such an important role and whether I could accurately communicate my personal vision to the people I’m working with.

How will you know that you have achieved your arts challenge? What will success look like?

Success would be being satisfied and proud of the end product we create as a team and being able to see clearly see my personal contribution to it.

Who or what will you need to help you achieve your challenge?

In order to achieve this challenge I will need the general resources to make the film like the camera equipment as well as the collaborate effort of everyone involved!

How will you record your progress? How will you show you are working towards the challenge?

In order to record my progress, I will photograph various stages of the process and take notes which I will then post about here!

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Questions #1

1) What filmmaking skills do you already have or feel confident in?

Visually, I think I have an understanding of the composition of shots and the significance of the different camera angles used. I feel I have the ability to develop a story and have a reasonable amount of skill when it comes to scriptwriting too.

2) What filmmaking skills do you not feel confident in or what would you like to develop/try out?

I would like to develop my actual camera and editing skills mostly and learn about the way in which to set up a camera, as well as the various details of the equipment often used.

3) Write down some ideas for possible filmmaking challenges you could set yourself throughout your time on the BFI Film Academy with reference to the question above.

I would like to experience the different roles on set, seeing whether I would like to take on the role of a director or whether I’m generally more interested in art direction or scriptwriting. Directing is something I particularly want to find out if I have the necessary skills for. I think to expand my knowledge of this I need to watch more classic films as well as more short films, to see the similarities and differences in the way they are both made.

4) What things might you need to consider when setting your challenges? E.g - help/support/personal restrictions.

I will ensure I spend my time wisely, trying out each role equally. As well as this I will put forth my own on going research and make sure I seek guidance on learning how to use the camera equipment.

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Practical Filmmaking (10/10/15)

In this session we learnt some techniques that we can use in order to develop our ideas. As well as some basic information about short films.

Morning Pages - This is where you allow yourself to relax each morning, daydream and then you write 3 pages of whatever you like. This essentially reduces hesitancy whilst writing and increases your free thinking, allowing you to explore other creative ideas having cleared your mind beforehand.

Basic Short Film types -

The ‘twist’ - this is a short film with a simple concept which then has a point of conflict or indeed a ‘twist’, which breaks it’s own rules and usually ends with a surprise.

Condensed - this is a short film which takes from the narrative of a full film but is a more condensed version.

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Film History (7/10/15)

Our knowledge of film history is not as specific as our knowledge of the history of art or literature, this is partly due to the ever expanding nature of film. 

Early Development in France -

The very first official film screening took place in France and apparently simultaneous to this one took place in Berlin.

The Lumière Brothers were responsible for the first public screening in France, marking the official start to film. The films they made were short documentaries, filmed with the camera in only one static position and no editing. Despite the seemingly simple nature of these films, conscious decisions were made that continue to affect filmmakers today. For example, in “Arrivé d’un Train” (1895), they made the decision to place the camera at an angle that allowed the audience to see both the train and the platform and to today most shots of a train are similar to this. Their films are an example of documentary realism, one of the two early strands of filmmaking.

George Meliès created what was essentially the very first sci-fi film “Voyage à Travers L’impossible” (1904) This made use of editing, special effects and had a narrative. This shows a rapid development in filmmaking skills from the Lumière brothers and is an example of the second strand of filmmaking which developed which is formalist, this made use of special effects and was often fantasy as opposed to reality.

Pathe and Gourmant dominated the film distribution in France and took advantage of vertical integration (meaning they owned everything from production to exhibition - making as much profit as possible) 

Early Development in UK -

Early pioneers seized at the commercial opportunity of film.

Robert William Paul not only created films like “The Chess Dispute” (1907) which makes use of early comedy techniques, but also invented a camera and built some of the very first studios in the UK. 

Cecil Hepworth exhibited a clear development of narrative in her film “Rescued by Rover” (1905) as well as a creation of protagonists and antagonists. She also used a varying range of shots which repeated themselves and followed on from one another clearly, which became continuity editing.

Further Development -

In 1908 there were 3 film companies and by 1910, there were over 200. This shows the rapid development of film at this tim, as well as this films became longer and technique developed.

Transferring films from Europe to America was not so difficult at this time due to the films being silent as this meant there was no language barrier to overcome.

In the US, Edwin S Porter was one of the main filmmakers. He is seen as being responsible for inventing narrative films and generally refining narrative. For example in his film “Great Train Robbery” (1903) he used crosscutting which further developed an audience’s ability to follow films clearly as well as adding new depths to the story he presented.