Short Film

SHORT FILM: Aims and Context

Aims and Context

• Documentary Short.
• Film/Script
• Short Film.
• People who have suffered from burns (or something similar) Male and female audience. Shown on Channel 4's Random Acts (late night short documentary - http://randomacts.channel4.com/#home). French New Wave style and characteristics. 

• Close ups throughout sequence of right side of young girl's face, low key lighting at beginning of sequence, changes to high key lighting near middle of sequence. Applied cinematography techniques from an independent drama.

• Issues: This is new to me as at AS I made a storyboard instead of film-never made a film before. New thing to me. Never edited a film before either.

• Influences: Kenneth Anger: variation of shots taken in his style (while Sarah is getting ready) and French New Wave, breaking fourth wall characteristic (when Sarah looks straight at camera for a second) 

Experimental Film Exam Response

Discuss some of the ways in which the film or video work you have studied for the topic requires a different kind of spectatorship for that which spectators bring to their mainstream film-going. [35]

Some of the ways an experimental film's spectatorship opinions differ from a mainstream's is mainly based on the fact that a mainstream film is a lot easier to watch in terms of the narrative and any other subliminal messages hidden in it. This is can certainly be seen in 'Un Chien Andalou', directed by Luis Bunuel in 1929. This is a very surrealist film, which was based on a dream that Bunuel and Salvador Dali, a surrealist artist, had about a man with a hand made up of ants. It could be argued that this film is very difficult to watch as parts of it are very disturbing, such as the beginning sequence where an eye is cut open with a knife. It has been stated that this is very hard to watch and makes audiences cringe as the human eye is a very important part of the human body so seeing it cut open makes us fear it happening to ourselves. I personally found this film very disturbing and weird because of these factors. Compared to a mainstream cinema film, such as '127 Hours', where similar things happen which strike a reaction like in 'Un Chien Andalou' (such as the protagonist cutting his own arm off due to it being trapped under a rock) this film, is very difficult to watch. A mainstream film is arguably a lot easier to watch than an experimental film due to it being watched in a cinema by a wider amount of people.

Another experimental film which may contain a different spectatorship view to a mainstream film, is 'Meshes Of The Afternoon', directed by Maya Deren in 1943. This surrealist film, based on the male's perceptions of females is a very surreal film. The film argues that the male opinions which state that women should say at home and be in the kitchen all day, is wrong, and this is shown in many ways including the director Maya Deren being female. As well as influencing other forms of film, such as Muse's music video Supermassive Black Hole, which could be considered as a short film, there have also been references to Meshes featured in films such as David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006). As an actress starts to adopt the persona of her character in a film, her world starts to become nightmarish and surreal is the main narrative of the film. However as David Lynch's films are very surreal this question may not refer to Meshes and the spectatorship views of these films.

An experimental film that has certainly got a different spectatorship view to a mainstream film is Kenneth Anger's 'Fireworks'. Made in 1947, the homoerotic underground film is about a young man being homosexual and getting beaten up for it. Some of the spectatorship views for this film may include references to the film being hard to watch as in the present, it is less common to hear about somebody being hurt due to their sexuality, whereas in the 1940's it was illegal to be homosexual. A mainstream film such as 'Brokeback Mountain' has very different spectatorship view as it is a film which was shown in cinemas, that features homosexuality, and was very successful as it won 3 Oscars and many other awards such as, Best Motion Picture - Drama at the Golden Globes. Audiences nowadays have a more open opinion on homosexuality as there are more people coming out everyday, and people are more acceptant of it, whereas 60 years ago when 'Fireworks' was made nobody would allow it.

The last experimental film that I am going to discuss is Chris Cunningham's "Rubber Johnny", a 6 minute short film in the style of a music video which could be seen as very weird. Whilst watching this film, I was very confused for the majority of it because it is unclear what is going on and there is no clear narrative. When you are watching this film you also get the sense of not wanting to watch it as you are unsure what is going on, however you are intrigued as to what is going to happen so you are unable to not watch it. Compared to a full-length mainstream film such as "Titanic" where is it clear what is going to happen, as it is based on a true story, "Rubber Johnny" has the element of surprise in terms of what it happening on screen.

Fight Club Exam Response

What does your chosen film reveal about the usefulness of one or more critical approaches you have applied?

The film that I have studied for this question is David Fincher's 1999 film, Fight Club, which features a certain critical approach that questions the masculinity of the male characters in the film. This critical approach allowed me to understand the narrative of the film more and the reasons as to why certain characters did certain things in the film. The film begins with the audience seeing the narrator, Jack, going to a pressure group that men who are experiencing testicular cancer go to for support. We see several men sitting in a circle talking about their feelings, located in an American gym. In the shot the audience can see an American flag on the wall, as well as a basketball court. This is one of factors of the crisis of masculinity, as these American men, which are usually perceived as manly, are ignoring their surroundings of the sports hall and talking in a circle, which could be considered as being the feminine way of dealing with this problem. It could be argued that to solve this problem, playing basketball like men would have worked, but in this sequence it shows that the males are giving into the testicular cancer and this is making them quite feminine. The males in this circle are wearing name badges, and this shows that they have no identity as it is in the process of being taken away. There is a specific character, named Bob, who has been a victim of this femininity, as he had testicular cancer and therefore had to have his testicles removed. Bob was given pills which contained oestrogen, and this caused him to grow a set of female breasts. It could be argued that Bob's name is a playful pun, as Bob is only one letter away from being the word, Boob. Bob later becomes a member of the Fight Club/Project Mayhem and this helps him to regain some of his masculinity, despite the breasts.

Stop Motion Experimental Film with Reflective Analysis

link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZeNxbkzogw

Reflective Analysis

Josh, Steph, Emily and I made a stop motion film about society and how it influences our lives. Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. We did this by having a white ball of play-doh being a person who gets squashed by society, shown by the hand flattening it, and it being tied up, with the string at the end of the sequence. Our film uses a lot of symbols in the form of the string and the play-doh, because this shows that humans can be 'morphed' and 'shaped' to do whatever society wants it to do. In total we took 250 images and this created about 44 seconds of film. If we were to do this again, we would need to take more images to make it longer and this would also allow us to put more symbolism in the sequence and make the message that we are trying to put across more clear. We found some parts difficult to film as we needed the sequence to look as fluent and real as possible. We also found coming up with ideas to symbolise our message quite difficult too, as they had to be possible to create. We attempted to create a variety of shots such as close ups and pans around the ball as this would be effective and make the sequence seem like it wasn't made up of images. We think that this stop motion sequence is very successful despite it's minor flaws such as lighting and fluidity.

Experimental Film Exam Response: Un Chien Andalou, Le Jetee and Meshes of the Afternoon

'Experimental Film requires a different kind of spectatorship.' Has this been your experience? [35]

Experimental films are full of strange mixtures of images, situations, words and expressions that may not tell a cohesive story but, in the end, don't have to in order to achieve an emotional goal. This type of film therefore requires the spectator to shift their conventional cinematic expectations to accommodate more radical narrative techniques, themes and meaning construction. 

Un Chien Andalou, the infamous 1929 surrealist short film from Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, attests to this. 
I think that this film was very strange in the terms of having no narrative, and this made it quite difficult to watch. After watching it for the second time, I then understood the constant use of repetition and the referral to the box and the ants in the male's hand. The themes of the film were religion, with the reference to the hole in the hand like Jesus, taboo topics with the nudity of the female character, and generally being about being in a dream-like state. This film makes you think about things featured in the film and makes you ask questions. Parts of the film are quite disturbing to watch such as the eye cutting scene and when the female's armpit hair ends up over the male character's mouth. The thought of your eye being severed by a blade makes me cringe and I find this difficult to watch. The title of the film makes no sense either once translated to English and this shows me that the film is going to be quite surreal and odd. I do like the film because it makes me experience different emotions and I like the surreal style. Some of the film explores the relationship between men and woman with men and woman dressed up as the opposite sex. This is meant to show that men don't understand women and this is also a theme in some of the other experimental films I have watched. I like the idea of having no diegetic sound because this then emphasises the film being an art form and visual medium. Parts of the film are quite shocking but over this is a very interesting film to watch.

Chris Marker became known internationally for the short film La Jetée (1962). It tells of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel by using a series of filmed photographs developed as a photomontage of varying pace, with limited narration and sound effects. I think that this film is a very good example of experimental film because it is a completely different style and it's one that I've never seen before. As a fan of science fiction films, I can see the relationship that modern day sci-fi has to La Jetée and I can also see similar themes such as having no way of changing time due to the paradox. This theme can also be seen in films such as Terminator. There is a narrative to this story and this is something which is not common in experimental films. The film relates to time and in some parts it looks like a time lapse, as if the male lead is dreaming about time travel instead of participating in it. There is a non-diegetic voice over featured in this film to narrate what is happening in the photographs. The photographs that make up the film symbolise that time doesn't move and memories, which is the fuel for the time travel, are simply just mental photos. The film explores dreaming versus  reality and this makes you question whether things are real. This is mentioned during the narration when he says 'real birds, real cats'. La Jetée also relates to the film Minority Report, featuring Tom Cruise with the reference to the covering of the eyes. There is the small section of the film where the woman blinks and because the film is made up of images, I wondered whether I actually saw it. This challenges my perceptions and this is the impact I think the filmmaker wanted to create and it confused me slightly. In the film, the male protagonist sees his own death as a young boy due to the paradox and this has certainly influenced modern sci-fi films because I have seen a similar narrative before watching this. Technical skills in this film include dissolves and fading as well as panning and zooming into and around the images. This makes the film seem more like a motion film instead of being made up of still frames. In total, I like this film because it has very clever ways of portraying the themes and it is an early sci-fi film, which is my favourite genre of film.

Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a work that maintains all of the mystery, tranquility, unpredictability, and personal attachment that is ever present within the world of dreams. I think that this film is very well made and I understood quite a lot of it, despite it being experimental. The main theme for this film is to show woman's perceptions of men's interpretations of the female gender. This is shown by a black figure, which is seen throughout the film, who has a mirror for a face. This is a symbol for the female's perception as this figure represents men. As this film was made by a female director, feminism is a huge factor in this film. In the 1940's, female directors weren't really seen, as they were ideally 'stay-at-home mothers'. Maya Deren decided to then make this film with these themes to speak out on behalf of women. I think that the non-diegetic sound in this film is very annoying and this made the film very difficult to watch. The music is made up of somebody tapping a drum in different tempos and a slightly annoying wind instrument. It is quite high-pitched and this is what gives discomfort while watching this film. Another theme of this film is sleeping and being in a dream-like state. This is what attracted me to like the film, as I like things based on dreams. There is a fade of an image, with a shot of Deren's eye closing, which represents the process of falling asleep. Then, a time-lapse of Deren asleep follows and this shows that dreams don't really have a concept of time. A knife and a key are two recurring objects in this film and this relates to the theme. The knife represents a dagger on the male's perceptions of women, and these perceptions involve the 'mother' role, which typically involves keys to look after the home. After thinking about these representations once I watched the film, I really liked the whole idea of using subtle objects like this to replace other messages being portrayed in the film. Meshes of the Afternoon has gone on to inspire music video's such as Muse's Supermassive Black Hole, which involves similar figures with mirrors for faces. In total, I really like this film because I agree with the themes and the feminist issues, and I think that the symbolism in the sequence is very effective.

Short Film (La Haine style) with Reflective Analysis

Our short film was based around the film La Haine, which is an urban story that we have bee studying. We chose to base it around this because it was easy to recreate similar shots used in the film. Our sequence featured a variety of shots such as long shots, mid shots and the occasional close up. We wanted to show the pointless activities that the people living in the projects undertook on a day-to-day basis. To add to this we used a had-held camera to make some shots look as if it were a documentary. We also used a point of view shot from the perspective of Rebecca, to make it look like she was watching Emily and myself. We used three females instead of three males to make our film diverse from La Haine.