Link To Drama: Thanks For The Year

Thanks For The Year: https://vimeo.com/211667729

Acceptance And Self Confidence In Pudding Bowl And Rite

Acceptance And Self Confidence In Pudding Bowl And Rite 

By Tom Wilson

The influences of Pudding Bowl, by Vanessa Caswill, are apparent from its stylist opening shots and use of sound design. The heavy breathing coming from the girl resonates that of Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, 2006) which was released only a year before, and the stylised cinematography, capturing the almost dreamy appeal of 90s cinema, seems to mimic the colour palette and visual style of films by Jean-Pierre Jeunet such as Amelie and Delicatessen. But it's influences do not appear in just the visuals and sound design, but more prominently within it's chosen themes. Both Pudding Bowl, and the other film I intend to analyse Rite by Michael Pearce, focus on themes of acceptance and self-confidence, Pudding Bowl also focusing on beauty. These themes are also present in both Amelie and Little Miss Sunshine.

Pudding Bowl's opening scene creates an immediate atmosphere of acceptance and the desire to be. Jack (Tommy Knight), longs to be outside with his friends, but is unable to due to his strict mother. In order to both be with them, and likely impress them he ruins his sister's hair with glue. The cinematography in this scene also helps to amplify the desire to be accepted as the framing of Jack puts him central, alone, surrounded by the little furniture within their home. His friends are shot from behind a shut window, almost as if they're in a whole other world, together and laughing. The contrast between the Jack and his friends helps to further reinforce both Jack's longing to be outside and his desire to be one of the group, accepted. However, it is with Sophie Kingsley's character, Ivy, where the idea of acceptance is most apparent. The scene opens up with a close up of her character looking longingly at the beautiful women she's cutting out of magazines, similarly to Abigail Breslin's character Olive Hooper in Little Miss Sunshine as she watches the models on the television. Later, after her mother has cut her hair, she gazes at herself in the mirror as she tries to model herself of the women she sees in her magazines. These scenes help to highlight the central theme of the film, Ivy's self-confidence and desire to look like someone else, someone more beautiful. It is when we get to the final scene and we see into Ivy's consciousness, her desire to be thinner, without her glasses and chased by boys, that this theme is its most emphasised. While this scene is shrouded in dreamlike cinematography and accompanied by cheerful music, a sense of sadness is lingering as the audience realise she is not content unless she looks completely different. She wants to be accepted by society, and look as she is told she should look by these magazines. This contrasts with this films influences such as Little Miss Sunshine and Amelie, which is why it was my preferred film out of those we watched. The film masquerades it's sad themes with cheerful cinematography and music, Ivy laughing, just like Ivy masquerades her discontent with make up and her own imagination.

Similarly, my least favourite film of those we watched, Rite uses the same themes, but less generalised than Pudding Bowl. In Rite a son, Gary (Bradley Hall) has to deal with his violent father, Mike (Martin Herdman) who fails to accept him, or understand him. Unlike Pudding Bowl, Gary is content with his own identity, and is clearly confident about being both gay and as he describes it "alternative". He wears what he likes, and hangs out with his boyfriend. However, similarly to Pudding Bowl, Gary doesn't feel accepted. While in Pudding Bowl it was by society as a whole, Ivy not feeling like she looked how society wanted her to, Gary doesn't feel accepted by his father, who struggles to understand that he doesn't like football, and just wants to be with his friends. While Rite doesn't take any risks with cinematography, it does make good use of close ups, and crowded spaces, to create a feeling of claustrophobia. However, unlike Pudding Bowl, the cinematography doesn't help to add to the themes, it is merely the story that helps to highlight these. The acting in this short film also helps as the bond, or lack thereof, between the father and son feels realistic, and the violence that Mike displays doesn't feel out of place, rather we understand that he is in a tough place, and has a lot of anger built up within him.

Both films successfully touch on the themes of self confidence, identity and acceptance, just in slightly different ways. Pudding Bowl is not necessarily risk taking, but uses its cinematography and sound design in a clever and thoughtful way to help add to its themes. Rite doesn't do this as much, and as a result finishes without making too much of an impression, but does deal with these themes in a respectful manner.

The Technical And Aesthetic Approach Of Our Drama

The Technical And Aesthetic Approach Of Our Drama

Our primary goal for this piece is to create a film with a 90s theme and aesthetic. This will require a large amount of planning, as well as the collection of props such as posters, video tapes and clothes of the time. We also want to incorporate the musical scene of the time as the films main connection to the 90s; to do this we want to make reference to the death of Kurt Cobain, as well as reference other musical giants whether through posters, albums, or music videos. Through studying 90s cinema, we want to encapsulate the cinematography of the time, and portray this through the framing of our shots. However, I strongly believe that the majority of our 90s aesthetic will be created through the edit, using colour grading to mimic almost that of the time's cinema. I want to create a retro, 90s look through the use of purples, blues and yellows, using films such as Dazed And Confused (Richard Linklater, 1993) and The Big Lebowski (The Coen Brothers, 1998) as inspiration and a guideline. We would also like to create a VHS aesthetic too, using grainy effects, and perhaps effects such as static lines. I intend to research how to do this within Premiere Pro.

The Edit

The Progression Of Our Edit

By the time we had finished completing the drama, we had four edits. Each edit seemed to add a little more to both plot and the 90s aesthetic we were aiming for, but it wasn't until the third edit that any semblance of a plot properly emerged. I will break down the progression of our edits through a brief description of each one, as well as the emergence of a moderately coherent plot.

Edit 1

Our first edit was created with the intention of simply revealing it as a proof of concept, as opposed to anything presentable. This allowed us to receive any form of feedback from our teacher, which we could then apply later on. Each sequence had been edited to form complete scenes, and I had made minor changes to the colour correction in order to display our intentions in regards to creating a 90s aesthetic. Each scene was linked by a piece of text informing the viewer of what the following scene was going to be. It was at this point I realised that there was a lack of plot in our piece due to a heavy lack of footage. I began experimenting with different forms of narrative with the ambition of forming something coherent.
Link: https://vimeo.com/210191418

Edit 2

Our second edit was created as soon as we had received feedback on the first. I was not interested at this stage in completing the plot, but improving each scene individually. Because of this each scene was still accompanied by text, and the plot was nonsensical. However, it was in this edit that I began experimenting more with colour correction in order to achieve a retro, 90s aesthetic, adding a far darker and more vibrant purple glow to the piece. While the colours were too saturated, something I later changed, it was a vast improvement in our visuals, and brought us closer to what we had envisioned for our final piece.
Link: https://vimeo.com/211199769

Edit 3

Our third edit was a huge effort to both repair the broken and nonsensical plot, and improve on the effects and visuals. I tweaked the colour correction to lower the saturation, and added in lighting effects where they were needed. I learnt how to do transitions, and added in a simple one using key frames, channel blur and levels, thus replacing the text and creating more of a cinematic style. Someone in our group had suggested that we use a flashback narrative in order to fix our issue with plot. I went home and worked on this, using colour correction to help the viewer identity different time periods in the character's life, adding transitions to help alternate between past and present, and altering the sequence of scenes to show a progression in our main character. This added more of a plot than we previously had, and it became clear we were close to our final product.
Link: https://vimeo.com/211404771

Edit 4

Our final edit was created to incorporate the final footage Amy had shot. It added in a scene at the beginning to establish routine and the setting, which helped the plot flow smoothly. I replaced various shots I believed to be better, with their counterparts, and edited those to improve them, improving on the visuals. This applied most to a shot of a falling bed sheet, where the framing of the original covered up the lower half of the subjects body, meaning the sheet he had picked up was not visible. I replaced it with the other shot of the sheet falling, however this had hands holding the sheet up visible in the shot. I learnt how to cut these out, then proceeded to do so, thus improving the sequence. I also added in the shot of the music video playing on the TV to further emphasise the 90s theme. The colour grading was altered further until all of our crew were satisfied, and credits were added. The sound design was added in and we finally had our finished product.
Link: https://vimeo.com/211667729

Drama Production Stills & Log Sheet

Pitches For Documentary

The Pitches 

Pitch 1

Pitch 2

Pitch 3

Burnt Papers: A Short Documentary Link

https://vimeo.com/206126444

Editing The Documentary

How Did The Edit Go?

We decided it would be best to all collectively and creatively engage in the editing process in order to achieve
the vision we all wanted. While Baily did most of the actual editing, we all supported him in any way we could, meanwhile supporting each other. Baily showed us the various edits he had done, all of which were extremely impressive. He was able to teach me a few things about editing and the process as I had never edited a serious documentary before. While Baily edited the main footage, Amy edited together the B-roll in order to export and give to Baily for him to incorporate into the finished product. James worked on the audio, mainly altering the voice of one of our interviewees who wished to remain anonymous. He also finished off the transcribing which I supported him with. This, Baily found, was immensely helpful and shortened the editing time. I assisted in finding the quotes and statistics to appear in the documentary, and helped Amy in looking through all the B-roll footage. Pete worked on getting the audio and visuals synced up and then exported to Baily. This collaborative effort ensured that everyone was both working hard and passionately on the documentary, but also ensuring that we got it done efficiently and quickly. It was a quick, but enjoyable process. I was more than happy to help as I thoroughly enjoy editing, and I also wanted to help out our group after having been unable to attend some of the interviews.

The Archive: A Short Analysis

The Archive: A Short Analysis

The Archive is a short documentary by Sean Dunne and focuses on the lives of a man named Paul Mawhinney and his love of records. While the introduction of the documentary seems to focus more on the value of records, and Paul's collection, it quickly becomes and emotional story of how records are no longer valued. The director and his crew have gotten from their interviewees genuine human emotion and passion, making a heartfelt and soulful documentary.

The way the director approached creating this emotional documentary is very interesting. The composition of the documentary is relatively flat, and the colour pallet mainly consists of yellows or browns. This could be to represent the aging of records, like the yellowish covers we see on the shelves, but also to symbolise the records themselves. The documentary seems to move around like a record, starting from the value of his collection, to his sorrow of losing it, back to its value. It has been cleverly structured and constructed to create this feeling of the documentary almost being like a record played. This is complimented by the music, which sounds like an authentic record being played.
The sound design and recording for this documentary is superb. The interviews all sound clear, but most of all the choice of music, and the sound of the record player having finished creates an authentic and emotional atmosphere. Cleverly, the director chose music which starts of relatively cheery and fast paced, to slower and eventually somber sounding music. This was likely to convey the way that Paul himself feels, and the decline in the record business. This is further reinforced by the sound of the record having finished played at the end during the credits. This heightens this emotional feeling, but also could symbolise the idea of a decline.
The director also chose some visual cues to help emphasis the sadness behind the decline in records. For instance with the final few shots the lights switch off to the rhythm of the music, poetically stating it is the end of the song, but also the end of his archive. Furthermore, the final shot is of a checkout, and as the lights slowly turn off, the word "checkout" remains ingrained in our minds. Perhaps this clever composition was to insinuate this was both Paul and the record business "checking out".

This is a fantastic documentary that in such a brief period of time conveys the true emotions of someone who is so passionate about their love for records. This sort of passion and genuine emotion is something that I would like to have displayed in our documentary. There is a lot to take away from The Archive, the composition, the heavy use of the subject material (in this case every shot seems to have a record displayed in it), and best of all the choice of music. When to play it and when to stop it, and using it to create the right tone, and shift in tone is imperative.

Sync Sound Session

What I Learned In The Sync Sound Session.

One of the most important things that I learned in the sound session was the use of a clapper board. Having edited sound and footage before, and struggled to sync both together, it was imperative to take notes on the use of the clapper board. Clapping it at the beginning of the shoot, due to the nice, clear, crisp clap sound it makes, will make it easier to sync the audio and the footage together. This is especially useful for the documentary, as each interview will consist solely of talking, which, if synced badly, will stand out. If there is no clapper board available, however, we were taught we could clap with our hands, or knock the boom mic for the same effect.

Another integral part of the session was learning about the various different types of microphones, such as omni-directional, cardioid microphone and directional microphones. For our interviews it is clear that we must use a directional microphone such as a rifle microphone due to the fact that it is better for picking up dialogue as it blocks out all of the sound behind it. If pointed toward the subject, preferably from above, it will remove the noise pollution from outside or around the room, and clearly pick up the dialogue of the interviewee. However, using an omni-directional microphone such as a lavalier microphone would also be effective in picking up a clear voice regardless of whether
the subject is talking directly at or to the microphone itself. Both of these pieces of equipment will be used in our interviews.

It is key that the sound recordings are perfectly made. Should something interrupt a recording such as a car passing by or a person walking into the room, the recording should be made again. We must be prepared to rerecord some of the interview, and ask the interviewee to repeat themselves. This is because while we could easily cut away from a bad shot, a bad piece of audio could ruin the whole documentary.

Camera Treatment For Cannabis Documentary

Treatment for documentary

We want to create a short, five to six minute documentary about people from Sheffield's personal experience with cannabis in a time where the debate on legalisation has reached its peak. This documentary will consist of various interviews with interviewees arranged by our producer. We will use small segments of the visual footage of these interviews as our imagery, however, the basis of our sound and audio will be the audio from these interviews. We will use a lot of B-roll footage, inter cutting to it throughout each interview to visualise what they are discussing. We will also cut to various quotes or facts regarding the topic of cannabis, focusing mainly on its medical properties and what it has done to help people medically.

All of the footage, interviews and B-roll, will be shot on DSLRs with 18-55mm lenses. This is because these are reliable cameras, and we have access to a multitude of them. We will set up two cameras per interview, one in front of the subject getting a mid shot of the interviewee. The second camera will be set up to get both a mid shot from the side, but also to film detail such as hands. If the interviewee wishes to remain anonymous we will use close up shots of the sides of their head, leaving out any recognisable features. We wish to respect the anonymity of our subjects, especially considering the taboo nature of the subject.

For the B-roll footage we want to break away from the stigma and taboo around cannabis and have people openly smoke it on camera. For this we will have to use people who would be both comfortable smoking cannabis, but also openly on camera. This will be arranged before we shoot. We also want footage of someone rolling a joint, and of the effects of people being high. For the latter a close up would be effective, get all the detailed features of their face. This also applies to people smoking it. However for the rolling of a joint, a shot from above the subject rolling it would be effective showing maximum detail.

Stills From Documentary

Interviewee In First Interview
Mid Front Shot

B-Roll Footage After First Interview

Third Interviewee
Close Up Detail Shot

B-Roll Footage After Third Interview

Second Interview, Pete Recording Sound, Joel Interviewing

Canon DSLRs 18-55mm Lens

Log Sheet - Cannabis Documentary

Camera Man – Log Sheet – Tom Wilson – Cannabis Documentary

Interview 1 and Cutaway Footage Log Sheet

Interviewee Mid Front Shot #1

Interviewee Mid Front Shot #2

Interviewee Mid Front Shot #3

Interviewee Mid Side Shot #1

Interviewee Mid Side Shot #2

Interviewee Mid Side Shot #3

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #1

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #2

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #3

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #4

Joel Smoke Rings

Joint

Joel Smoking #1

Joel Smoking #2

Joel Smoking Close Up #1

Joel Smoking Close Up #2

Joel Smoking Close Up #3

Joel Smoking Close Up #4

Joel Laughing Close Up

Bubble Blowing #1

Bubble Blowing #2

Bubble Blowing #3
Bubble Blowing #4

Bubble Blowing #5 (Camera Man In Shot)

Bubble Blowing #6

Bubble Blowing Look Up

Ashtray Close Up Shot #1

Ashtray Close Up Shot #2

Ashtray Close Up Shot #3

Ashtray Close Up Shot #4

Ashtray Close Up Shot #5

Ashtray Close Up Shot #6

8 Minute Ensemble

Joels Friend Smoking #1 (Woman)

Joels Friend Smoking #2 (Woman)

Joels Friend Smoking #3 (Woman, Close Up Hand)

Joels Friend Smoking #4 (Woman)

Joels Friend Smoking #5 (Man)

Puzzle Close Up

Smoke Rising

Joint Paper

Interview 2 Log Sheet

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #1

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #2

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #3

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #4

Interview 3 Log Sheet

Test Footage #1

Test Footage #2

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #1

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #2

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #3

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #4

Interviewee Wide Front Shot #5

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #1

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #2

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #3

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #4

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #5

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #6

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #7

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #8

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #9

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #10

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #11

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #12

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #13

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #14

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #15

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #16

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #17

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #18

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #19

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #20

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #21

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #22

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #23

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #24

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #25

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #26

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #27

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #28

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #29

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #30

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #31

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #32

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #33

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #34

Interviewee Close Up Detail Shot #35

Cutaway Log Sheet

Candle Close Up #1 (Brighter Light)

Candle Close Up #2 (Brighter Light)

Candle Close Up #3 (Darker Light)

Candle Close Up #4 (Darker Light)

Candle Close Up #5 (Darker Light)

Candle Close Up #6 (Darker Light)

Candle Blown Out Close Up

Spinning Close Up Cannabis #1

Spinning Close Up Cannabis #2

Spinning Close Up Cannabis #3

Poster Close Up

Making A Joint (2 Minutes)

Joel Smoking Close Up Side (Tripod In Shot)

Joint In Ashtray (With Polaroid) Close Up (Above)

Joint In Ashtray (With Polaroid) Close Up (Level)

Blurry Polaroid On Table #1

Blurry Polaroid On Table #2

Stop Motion Shot (2 Minutes)

Pipe And Bong Close Up #1

Pipe And Bong Close Up #2

Bong Close Up Front #1

Bong Close Up Front #2

Bong Close Up Front #3

Bong Close Up Front #4

Bong Close Up Above #1

Bong Close Up Above #2

Bong Wide Above #1

Bong Wide Above #2

Joel Smoking Bong Close Up

Red Curtain Shot Close Up #1

Red Curtain Shot Close Up #2

Red Curtain Shot Close Up #3

Red Curtain Shot Close Up #4

Red Curtain Shot Close Up #5

Red Curtain Shot Close Up #6

Candles Wide Shot

Pipe Smoking Side Close Up #1

Pipe Smoking Side Close Up #2

Pipe Close Up #1

Pipe Close Up #2

Pipe Close Up #3

Smoke On Wall (Failed) #1

Smoke On Wall (Failed) #2

Smoke On Wall (Failed) #3

Smoke On Wall (Failed) #4

Smoke On Wall (Failed) #5

Smoke On Wall (Failed) #6

Smoke On Wall (Failed) #7

Ring Smoke On Wall #1

Ring Smoke On Wall #2

Ring Smoke On Wall #3

Ring Smoke On Wall #4

Ring Smoke On Wall #5

Setting Up Lights

Putting Out Joint On Polaroid (Table)

Putting Out Joint On Polaroid (Close Up, In Hand)

Inspiration For Camera Work On Documentary

Inspirations

Our producer had a good selection of material to influence or help inspire the composition of the shots, as well as the way to structure our documentary. During our second seminar, after we had pitched our intial idea to our group, myself and our director Amy Smith discussed various camera techniques, and creative ways of displaying visually the use of cannabis. I decided to see what the documentary was like, and would let that help shape my and the director's ideas when it came to filming. The documentary of choice was Brett Harvey's 2014 "Culture High". The two hour long documentary (available on netflix and youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA9Q6nDVR3s) was extremely informative, but incredibly lacking in terms of interesting visual composition and ideas. Visually it was very similar to an average documentary, featuring bland ariel shots of New York city, and unfortunately reused shots of cannabis throughout. I want to shoot a more visually interesting documentary, that captures both the feeling of being high, but also the paranoia that surrounds the use of cannabis. An example of an idea I had discussed with our director was to attach a GoPro to a spliff. We discussed the practicality of this as the GoPro would be too heavy for a spliff. Our producer mentioned how we could attach it to a pipe of some sort, something that would be able to hold the weight of the GoPro.

Vision For The Documentary

After having filmed the first interview we decided to get footage of people smoking cannabis. We believed this would be a more powerful image than just various shots of interviewees. After having collected this footage I volunteered to transcribe the interview having experience in that field. I also, for my own entertainment and with no expectations of using it in the final cut, edited together a small piece with music in the background. This encapsulates my vision for a experimental, and surreal look, the camera work done by myself and the director who was present on the shoot.

The edit is available here: https://vimeo.com/203711350