September
On the 9th of September we started back to college after the Summer holidays. On these first few classes we went through what experimental is about, marking schemes and dates of when assignments are due in. I brainstormed what will my experimental video be about and why. After I decide on one idea I will look into styles of directing and the art style of some of my favorite directors, cinematographers and films.
These are some notes of ideas I was thinking of for my video. I was looking into a few different types of ideas but my favorite idea is ‘the idea of perfection’.
22nd October – Presentations
On the 22nd of October we were pitching our plan/idea for our video to the class. After choosing my idea and doing some research I created my pitch. I am going to pitch a video called ‘Normal Like Me’. My idea is about a girl who is starting her day in a very messy and unorganized way. While the video will show her lying around and being a slob, the voiceover (who is also her) is going to be narrating her life the complete opposite.
I like how Scorsese uses sound in ‘Shutter Island’ to create tension and suspense. I am going to only use the voiceover and some sound effects to do the same thing. I also looked at ‘Psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock because I really like the shower curtain scene as its a crazy thought that there would be a killer behind the shower curtain, but one that resonates with people so much that we all can’t help but check behind our shower curtains.
I also looked at ‘The Devil wears Prada’ and ‘American Psycho’ as two more influences. In the opening scene of ‘The Devil wears Prada’, it shows two women getting ready for the same job but in completely different ways. In ‘American Psycho’ it shows the main character getting ready in a very perfect and almost robotic way, with a voiceover describing what he is doing and explaining his morning routine. These two scenes are similar to my video concept so I liked seeing how it’s done in other films. H
The meaning behind my video is going to be, to show how you never know how someone really is, no matter how they try and portray themselves. This idea came from the idea of people lying on their CV’s and it went on from there.
29th October – Mid Term
The week after the presentations we had our halloween break. I wrote my narrative script for the voice over this week and planned out the scenes of what I’ll be shooting also. I could of done more work this week and was hoping to do more than I ended up doing.
This is the script I made and emailed to Lara to make sure she has a clear understanding of what I need her to do and what my film is about.
5th & 12th November
These two Tuesdays I wasn’t in for the Experimental Video class. I fell behind on my filming work as we were all under a lot of pressure with assignments due and I was struggling with my time keeping, trying to get everything done. In this time though I shot all my initial footage and got the audio for the voiceover fully recorded by Lara on a zoom microphone. I was annoyed at myself that I didn’t attend these two classes but I also didn’t have as much work to show as I would of liked to have to show so I used the time to try and get more done.
19th November
This is the first class that I was back into after the Mid-Term. I showed Paul my footage that I took and he liked some shots but over all it was too orthodox and not well shot & lit. I was slightly disappointed but in myself as I knew that it wasn’t my best work. I did really like the few shots that he also liked though.
After my discussion with Paul, I had a bit of a turn around with my film idea. Instead of having a voiceover I am going to have music with possibly bits of ‘real life’ sounds. I also am going to base it around some of my initial good shots e.g. close ups and reflection of light on the face.
While I had some research done, there wasn’t enough. Before I start to shoot my next lot of footage I did some more research into filmmakers, and looked at famous scenes from movies. As my Hitchcock scene was so familiar, but with my own take, I looked into ‘borrowing’ other scenes, shots and techniques from other classics like ‘The Shining’, ‘Vertigo’ and ‘The Exorcist’. I also am hoping to attempt to do a dolly zoom like in ‘Jaws’. I want to do this while also it relating back to a revised version of my films meaning.
The film is going to show the life of the modern young person. In the film we will see a girl who seems to live her life through the screen. She is constantly looking at the screen that she started to feel like she is living in the movies she’s watching. The close ups have nearly a ‘Brain washing’ effect. She then wakes up, bolt upright as a subtly nod to ‘The Exorcist’ as she has a brief moment of realization that perhaps she’s not living in movie and theres no one waiting behind her shower curtain, or a man climbing the stairs with an axe ready to break down her door.
Unfortunately that realization is short lived as she will go back to putting on her face and a smile for the camera to post on her social media about a life she is not living.
Here is some links to inspirations and research:
26th November
This week I had my new shots taken and showed them to Paul. While he likes the look of them, he’s finding it hard to see my idea without me explaining it because I haven’t started ending together the shots I’m planning to use or haven’t added any effects or started color grading yet. This is the next step for me to do so that I can see my idea coming together and too see if I’ll need to film any extra shots or change anything.
3rd December
This was our last official class with meeting times for Experimental Video. I edited together some of my video and where I’d be taking it. Paul could see where I was going with it and liked the look of it but I didn’t have the other films I was taking inspiration from done enough yet. I also hadn’t filmed the dolly zoom I was hoping to do so I made a plan of one more day of shooting to get those final bits done.
10th December
This week I have all my shots filmed and edited together. I also chose my music for the film and unfortunately it is licensed so I won’t be uploading it to youtube with this music over it but I really love how it sounds over the film so I’m going to submit it with the music in it. I will change to a possibly similar music style when uploading. I also color graded it yesterday and picked a blue/dark hued light style over it as I think that, that ‘blue’ feeling is showed also through the light. All that I have left to do now is render my final product and submit it along with my documentation.
Katie's Experimental Video Blog 