12

I am obsessed with this video. Another example of the types  of film that I want to shoot. I love the juxtaposition between fixed and moving shots. Also looks really great in complete black and white, something I wouldn't really usually consider doing but it's so effective here.


N.Y. Adorned “Tradition” from Evan Owen Dennis on Vimeo.

11

I.Love.Sofia.Coppola. Love her. She is basically everything I want to be. An actress, an artist, a director, a designer...she approaches all of her creative endeavours with the knowledge and perspective of all the different industries she is involved in. Her films are about art. And fashion. And stories. And photography. And so many other things. Lost In Translation or The Virgin Suicides, for example- while they are both incredible stories (particularly the former), what I remember of them is the visuals. THAT shot of Scarlett Johanssen lying on her side in the see through underwear. The iridescent, frantic glow of Tokyo. The eerily beautiful vision of the Lisbon sisters, all blonde and in pale colours through white washed filters.

Lost In Translation 

The Virgin Suicides

While there are many people in this course who are incredible at editing films together seamlessly, or are genius' in sound work, or can write the most outrageous narratives, I believe that my strengths lie in the overall creative vision of a piece. I want the work I produce to look a certain way- through the eyes of a curator or photographer. I think that I can help make this film really beautiful looking, visually stimulating and artistic.

10

There were a lot of useful tips in the Working With Actors lecture this week. As I am used to being on the acting side of the camera, I have some idea about how the relationship works and how important effective communication is to produce the team's vision. However, while I know how I liked to be treated as an actor, I never really thought about the strategies a director/crew needs to apply to make this happen. I kind of thought they just...did it. But no. Clearly the directors I have worked with previously have massaged my ego well enough to think that the success of my performance was all me.

But in retrospect, I now realise that I was being subtly coaxed and unknowingly coached on my performance. Words like"soft","sharp", light", "heavy", "fast", "slow", are all very useful parts of the directors vocabulary to convey a sense of character or mood to an actor. Similarly, giving the actors Overall Objectives and Scene Objectives give the actors a sense of purpose, history and future. It was also especially important to me- as a DOP- to know that capturing the change of "beat"- or the change in emotion/direction of an actor is extremely important to a scene- and can often be the main point of interest.

Considering both of the actors that we will be using for our film are acting friends of mine, I already will feel very comfortable directing them. However our main challenge I guess will be remaining professional and efficient on set at all times, and I think that the lecture this week providing me with an insight of how to do this.

9

I hate the name Lenny. I'm not sure what kind of damaging suppressed memory lives deep down in my psyche that makes me detest it so much for no reason. I just don't like what it stands for. It's fundamental values. However, I have been able to overcome this crippling dislike for the sake of work- and to be honest I am actually quite proud of the result. While I have edited films before, this is actually the first time I have edited together dialogue between two people. Since we obviously shot each dialogue scene from different angles the biggest problem doing this was maintaining continuity. Whilst I was still sorting out camera issues Evelyn is still mastering sound etc. there are definitely parts that could have looked a lot better- but over all I think what we were able to produce was quite good. PS apologies for video quality, I think that we had an issue when compressing to upload to YouTube.


What was great about this exercise was that we were able to really come together as a team and fulfil our individual roles. Considering I have never used one of those camera before, I am very happy with how I have progressed. Similarly I was really happy with how everyone in our group assumed their roles without any problem- John was great on set in directing actors and talking with me (the DOP) about the different shots he wanted; Celine was fantastic at organising us all, making sure we used the correct terminology and keeping us on schedule; and Evelyn worked well with the sound equipment, ultimately producing something that we all contributed to equally. This was a fantastic group exercise to prepare us for the real shoot.

8

Here is where we're at. 

LOCATION

There is a cafe on little lonsdale called thousandpoundpend that I tend to frequent on a regular basis, and i feel like it would be the perfect location for the main setting of our piece. It is a large converted warehouse space, with many tables, chairs, couches etc. for filming to take place. The back half also functions as a gallery, so I think they will be quite happy for us to shoot there, especially as the space is so large I don't think our being there would impact on their trade. 

I also have a friend who lives in a lovely apartment in Southbank who has said she will be happy to let us use her place for any inside scenes. It is on the 46th floor and all of the walls are floor to ceiling windows, so I think we will be able to get some great shots there. 

CAST

So far we have a girl confirmed who is the main character in our piece, so all we need now is our leading man. I'm going to put an ad up on StarNow this week so hopefully that will yield some results.... 

Otherwise we are pretty on track with things. We have pretty much developed the script, located some appropriate loyalty free music, drawn up the story board and delegated all of the other tasks to be completed by Monday. In our next meeting we will be going to the locations and hopefully hiring out the camera so I can get a feel for it/the way I want it to look. 

I'm looking forward to actually getting started and making some measurable progress! 

6

So we have finally started to make some good progress in our Film/TV short film project. Although on submission the script we had developed was critiqued as a little boring, I have confidence that the interest in this piece will come from its visual and aural qualities. Maybe it's the Sofia Coppola in me that favours simple stories with seemingly little point...but as the DP I have a strong vision in my head as to how this film will look. Mind you, perhaps we should take inspiration from John's Western style script and introduce A Man With The Name Of Geoff. Or a shooting scene in the middle of Swanston St. Or at least a donkey.

Having seen many short films before, I have never appreciated the difficulty of creating and cramming a story into such a brief space of time, whilst still keeping the piece polished and professional looking. As we have both taken our plot lines from the same synopsis, I'm very much looking forward seeing Kieran, Annie, Verity and Hannah's short film, because they have taken a completely different angle with regards to the mood of the piece. While we have chosen a more dramatic approach, their comedic take on the same material will likely produce very interesting results to compare and contrast. Maybe I'm just not very funny? I think I would do a terrible job at trying to make that work into a comedy. I guess we'll see how we go...

5

Ok. I get it. You feel neglected. But please believe me when I say it's not you, it's me. You're great. I'm just at a place in my life where I'm finding it hard to commit...but don't worry. I'm going to make it up to you, starting now.