Final week: sound and music

For the first and only time during the Media Production Project module we've come up with something original, intriguing, easy and at the same time beautiful in its form. For the first time we've created something completely dialogue-independent. For the first time diegetic sound and music don't disturb the audience but peacefully accompany the visuals of the film instead. Sound and music simply help to create a fabulous world of vivid colours, at the same time strengthening oneiric atmosphere of the plot.

The main strength of Pretend to Be is definitely the script and the fact that it was the scriptwriter who acted in the film. Under these circumstances, the director could concentrate on telling the cinematographer what and how to do. Unfortunately, some major flaws occurred during filming (skewed horizontal and vertical lines in many shots) and inaccuracy in editing, however they disturb only those who are familiar with advanced film production.

Fortunately, the module's finally over. Although it taught me how to use Avid Media Composer more efficiently or how to work in a studio better, the things that I'm most happy about are of quite different nature. The end of the module most of all means no more disputes over scripts, childish behaviour of some of the members of the group or putting pride of an individual over the quality of group performance.  Thus what I gained from participating in the module is first of all almost unlimited patience, before any other technical skills I developed.

Week 7 cinematographer:An Event Horizon in a Clown's Life

It is final week and I believe we have finally created the film we have longed for. For me what ignited the spark we lacked so far is Egle's brilliant script. What is remarkable about it, in my view, is its simplicity and artistic essence which could be a base for many different and abstract interpretations.
Furthermore,  it is more like a theatrical impression than a firmly structured script. This gave us a strong confidence and on the day of filming where we fully concentrated on the image and were able to creatively work on the construction of mise-en-scene without being restrained by time.
It is an interesting fact that each member had a different understanding and interpretation of the script, this contributed a lot to the visual richness of the footage in terms of camera angles and staging and also to the  variety of colors we used.
As a group we generally thought that it is a film about friendship and the loss of a beloved one. While this is true I have a slightly different interpretation, which I believe could be the emotional core of our film. Personally I find ''Pretend To Be'' as a poetic miniature about the rigid irreversible nature of life, shown in a bitter satirical way through the eyes of an innocent clown. Such interpretation maybe sounds a bit pretentious - I know- but if we think of it- life has some points which cannot be reverted or undone. In ''Pretend To Be'' this is shown through the simple burst of the balloon. What provoked my interest after this point was the fact that the clown in an innocent childish way tries to fix the balloon and reblow it again (more clearly shown in the original script). The innocent misunderstanding of the clown enhances the bitter feel of the tragic ending.Still the ending could not be interpreted entirely as tragic since the clown hangs herself with a scarf from her colorful bag as if it is another crazy clown's trick and thus keeps the satire, dark comedy feel of the film.

Week 7: 'Pretend to Be'

Penumbra Pictures' latest production.

More comments from the authors will be published soon. Enjoy!

Week 6: British Social Realism

This time it was me who tried to write scripts for the production. Class Struggle came to life by merging two scripts based on the ideas preached by Social Realism. One of them - the first part of the film - was the workers' hatred of the upper class. The conflict between them was the girl who the worker wanted to date and who became the point of interest of the member of the upper class. Because the former himself was too weak to face the latter, he decided then to express his feelings to capitalism by burning the money - the thing that appears to be the focal point of any capitalist system. This part was another script I wrote for the Week 6 Assignment.

Why were the two merged into one? Initially, we were to make only the money burning script, however when we finally managed to set up the camera on location, the wind was so strong that it was impossible to set the money prints on fire. In order not to loose time, we haphazardly changed the plan and decided to film the other script instead. This is why the actors weren't prepared in terms of costumes. That of course influenced reception of the film and so the audience couldn't spot who was who. Once we've finished shooting the first script, the wind calmed down and we could carry on with the burning money script as we'd previously planned. All in all, had we been prepared for filming other scripts than only the one we chose previously, the final outcome of the shooting slot would've been clearer to the audience. And so the lesson of this week is to always be prepared for plan B.

Week 6: Money- The Root of All Evil ?

\This week's assignment was to create a short film within the frame of British Social Realism. After seeing our latest production I don't think that there is something particular we have achieved to be proud of. However, I believe that we perfectly understood the conventions of British Social Realism in terms of theme and cinematic representation (desaturated colors) and we managed to think of an interesting way to present these general ideas in a short time.
On the day of shooting the weather was very unfavorable which forced us to make spontaneous decisions on set and we changed the script. We decided to shoot an alternative script without prepared dialogue. I believe we managed pretty well in a situation like this since we had an idea what kind of characters we wanted to portray and the main idea we wanted to transfer. What we wanted the audience to see was mainly the strong difference between classes , the struggle of the main character from the low working class and the ''unjust'' and easy way the bourgeois manages to win the girl simply because of his materialistic wealth.
Perhaps the conveyance of these straightforward ideas was not straight enough. As an actor decided to completely improvise with the dialogue which I aimed to sound as if I am a man coming from a low working class who is constantly being suppressed by the structure of the capitalist system, unable to escape poverty. However, I don't think I sound convincing enough since I did not use words that would usually be used from a working class person and also it was the comment of the audience that the main character sounds more like someone who is dealing with depression.
I find that there is an even bigger problem with the rich character - he did not look like one , and also he does not sound like a rich person who maybe would sound more posh. Unfortunately, we did not notice these problems while shooting but like I mentioned everything was more of an improvisation than having something planed and the result in my opinion is acceptable.
What I am really happy with is the ending, since I believe it is a symbol and root of class struggle in any society- money. Money are today's direct or indirect base of everything we aim for, it is ironic how society praises so much something with an artificial value. The question is can we do without them ?

Week 6: 'Class Struggle' - interpretation of British Social Realism

This is our latest production - an interpretation of British Social Realism. 

More comments from the authors soon!

Week 6: Research into British Social Realism

This week's assignment's quite tricky, especially for international students. The trick's not to confuse Social Realism with Socialist Realism, the dominant (= the only allowed) style of art behind the Iron Curtain. Both of them occurred in roughly the same time (starting in 1930s, Social Realism was as an artistic response to Great Depression. Socialist Realism was a feature of the USSR under Stalin from 1934 on), both of them concerned working class, however in different way. The former has to do with a worker facing the capitalist system, especially its inequalities streaming from class division of society and other flaws of capitalism. The latter was involved in glorification of labour and working class. 

Socialist Realism had its own set of rules which artists had to obey and a special Committee had to accept a work of art as worth showing, in other words it decided if something is art or not. Thus, in order to have their work accepted for public display, anti-communist artists had to use the guidelines of Socialist Realism in such a way, so that only after deep analysis the true and intended meaning could be decoded.

Having said this, what strikes me in British Social Realism is straightforwardness of the films. In contrast to Andrzej Wajda's Man of Marble (1977), Promised Land (1975), Ash and Diamond (1958) or Kanal (1957), the films I have watched to prepare for this week's assignment [Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), Jack Clayton's Room at the Top (1959) or Peter Cattaneo's The Full Monty (1997)] weren't that intellectually demanding so far as decoding of their meaning is concerned. Hence, it'll be difficult not to simply copy one of the scenes appearing in at least one of the films. It's highly probable, though, that the films I happened to find in the library (unfortunately I couldn't find any of Mike Leigh's films) aren't ones of the finest pieces of British Social Realism and so the film that we as a group will make on Monday won't be that tightly connected to the ideas of the era.

Week 5: ''Listen'' a twist of reality

Before the day of filming I believed that ''Listen'' had the potential to be one of our finest pictures so far in terms of storytelling, sound and visual style. However, due to some unfortunate circumstances on the day of filming we could not develop the full potential of our latest production. First our actor did not learn his lines by heart which resulted in a lot of jump cuts (which fortunately can be tied to the nature of the narrative) and less variety of shots.Secondly we could not make full use of lights, since one of our lights went out during the middle of filming.

Apart from the difficulties we had , I am very fascinated with the idea we had of ,,Listen'' and despite of the fact that we did not reach our full potential I think that our latest production is great. I assume others that considered  ''Listen'' a fail would wonder why. Well,  I believe the manipulation of image and sound is in perfect relation with the narrative and the visual information in the plot is presented in a such a way that is perfect for a successful twist.
In my view,the success of twist movies depends on careful manipulation of plot information- there is a fine line between revealing too much and too little. In other words in order for the twist to be effective the audience has to be tricked to construct a false fabula based on the information presented in the plot. After the spectator is aware of the twist he/she realizes the incompleteness of the audiovisual information in the plot and finds that the key to the correct story has always been in the plot. One of the main reasons, however, why the audience is unable to see it on the first place is because the information that is essential to the true fabula is subjectively presented.
In listen we arranged the lighting in such way so that it only illuminates completely the boxer. Most of the time the imaginary coach is shadowed and his face is never lit like the boxer's face.
As a cinematographer I aimed to keep the coach out of focus. This in my opinion was very important for the hidden internal focalization we wanted to achieve. In ''Listen'' the main character's experiences are presented subjectively or in other words his experience is internally focalized. Internal focalization is entirely subject to the character's way of perceiving whose account of reality could always be distorted and deficient and thus completely alter the audience experience of time,space and chain of causality. Usually internal focalization is presented through a lot of close ups and abstract point of view shots. However, the use of  more objective camera angles in our production (for example use of long shots) makes the audience believe that they are watching an objectively presented narration or in other words that what the main character is seeing and hearing is real.
This is why light and focus are major factors that represent the main character distorted perception of reality. Last but not the least the jump cuts in my opinion represented the deranged notion of time and space of the main character.

Week 5: director's comments

This week's debrief was really interesting so far as our production is concerned. The feedback from the tutors was scarce if not absent. However, looking at the audience's reaction, the film was quite effective. Especially when taking into consideration all the obstacles I had to cope with. 

First of all, the only talking actor didn't learn the lines. This resulted in recording each of the shot for 10 minutes, so that Coach could read the script and act as we went on. What's more, I received the script only an hour before actual shooting on Monday, so I had very limited time to think how to stage the film, where Coach should put emphasis on, what parts are more important than the others. Last but not least, there were only two (including me) out of five members of the group taking active part (=present) throughout the whole process of editing. And then some of them were complaining about the editing itself.

One of few comments of the tutors was to try to go away from on screen realism as far as possible, so as to let cinema work its magic. I can't agree with it more, for this is exactly how I perceive the art of moving images. Unfortunately, not everyone in Penumbra Pictures is convinced to this interpretation of film making which results in the majority of the films we've already shot and put together. Hopefully, their perception will change during the course of a few remaining weeks of Media Production Project module.

Week 5: 'Listen'

The latest Penumbra Pictures production. Enjoy! More comments from the authors soon!