Experimental Film

Fisticuffs 
By Miranda Pennel - 2003 - http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/fisticuffs

This short film was particularly striking, as it appears to play with a few concepts, it seems to play with the temporal state, as the character keeps re-entering the bar like it is being replayed with a different outcome every time, this plays with the audiences preconception of time. The character encounters many different bar brawls, it mimics the sort of scene you might find in a dramatised western, and after a little bit of research I found this was intentional and the film was inspired by western films, so why? The film is quite surrealist and has a non linear structure, it does not take the expected approach to a man walking into a bar, as he is constantly caught amidst violence. It could be said that Pennel is making a connection between western bar brawls and a london pub because they both appear to have senseless booze filled violence all the time, and maybe the statement is that times don't really change, this is reinforced by the constant repetition of the scene, it could connote the repetition of basic human habits throughout history. The fight choreography is really well done, this probably has something to do with Miranda Pennel's background in dance. The fluid movements of the camera almost juxtapose the violence within the frame,



Ballet Mecanique
By Fernand Leger -1924 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SgsqmQJAq0

This film is truly abstract, the film pays homage to surrealism, and picasso's cubism one of the for-fronting surrealist artists of the time. The sounds within the piece are repetitive and disturbing, Shapes are used within the film to connote a mechanic industry sound, The non linear structure of the film makes it seem dreamlike, a common theme within surrealist film. One of the opening shots is a close up of lips smiling and then going back to normal over and over, this shot is extremely stylised and seems to show emotion in its basic form, almost showing that the smile is fake, it seems to play with the viewers association with a smile as a very real emotion, whilst also showing that because it is a film that the smile is not real. Much of the footage is mirrored in a kaleidoscopic way this shows many different angles of the same thing, possibly connoting the multi faceted view that the same image could represent for a person. The title suggests a fascination of mechanisation of the human form, a shot with wheels and cogs turning, is then quickly juxtaposed by a woman walking, this could be trying to show how the woman is walking through a series of complex movements within the human body, and it could be touching on that biology can be explained in terms of mechanics. In a later shot legs that aren't attached to a human body are moving in a way that suggests the hollywood 'Tiller girls' of the time, the film could be poking fun at conventional hollywood traits, exploring the peculiar movement that was so fashionable at the time. Whatever the intention of the piece it definitely is an interesting watch in terms of surrealism.

Sound, and Experimental Film.

22/11/12

I have been researching some ideas for what me and my partner Alice should be looking at in terms of themes for our sound piece, we came up with a few ideas, for example exploring language and faith, how people perceive reality, and explored internal monologues and private thoughts. In the end we decided to expand upon how people perceive reality, and we came up with the idea that technology is quite alien to some people in our culture today, everybody uses various types of technology every day, but only a fraction of us really understand how it works. 
This is where our idea came from for our sound piece. We started talking about the different ways a child might understand technology, for example the idea that it is still a very analogue system, with little working men inside your phones and computer and passing messages around, running up and down, all of this working to create what we see on our computers today, we expanded on this still by inverting the idea of a child to that of an old man, who may not understand technology either, and is struggling to get to grips with how it all works in this fast changing world. After our initial idea we found an advert for sony created by Wes Anderson, in this advert it uses stop motion animation to communicate a complex system of sending electronic messages to sony devices, i.e messages and emails but with tiny little robots physically sending the messages. We took inspiration for our own piece from this idea.

After our tutorial, we were given some pointers on what to watch to get an idea of what sounds we could be aiming to gather for our piece, we have decided that we are going to use all analogue sounds for our interior computer world. Sounds such as typewriters, hammers, steam powered machines running that evoke a feeling of an industrial age, our only problem was how to achieve these sounds. Sheffield has a rich history of steel manufacturing, and it was an industrial city, and within the city centre there is Kelham island industrial museum. We have thought about ringing up and asking if we can come down to take some sound recordings of the machines in action, as it seems almost perfect for what we are looking for, alternative options are to go into charity shops and look for old equipment and ask for permission to record the sounds, things we could be looking out for are old telephones with the spin dial, typewriters and anything else we can get our hands on. 

I am really excited to do this project as i feel it will work extremely well on its own as a sound piece, and with a experimental video to match, we have had a few ideas for our experimental video, but it may not essentially follow the narrative of the sound piece's intentional story line. We would however like to experiment with mixing captured footage and animation, possibly representing the reality of the technology, and the fantasy of the imagination.

Here are some of our original plans for our sound piece

05/12/12

After our initial plans for our experimental we set out to record the sound piece sound, we had created a shopping list of sounds that we needed which involved some searching around shops and the town centre for typewriters and mechanical clunking noises. We had to use our initiative as when we rang Kelham Island museum, they already had the BBC filming there on the same week which was unfortunate for us so we set about creating our own sounds for our piece. 
We were still struggling to find a way of making it sound as if the audience were going into the computer, we played around with light footsteps and a door opening and closing, as if somebody had metaphorically opened a door into the computer realm, but unfortunately it just sounded as if the person using the computer had just left the room. 
We then began playing with noises akin to wind, like whipping of the air that could be manipulated to sound as if you were being whisked down into the computer, we experimented with flicking a usb cable around, and then eventually whirring it round into a circle, which i feel gave a kind of vortex effect, we played with the reverb and panned the sound from left to right, and i feel that we have now created a sound that represents being pulled into a computer. 
The other sounds we collected included an old radio sounds, and a type writer, sound from a crowded area, a Steenbeck editing board, we also used a contact mic to record the inside of a computer when it turned on and off. I think one of our main problems is that we have collected so many sounds, with not enough structure for the narrative of the sound piece, we have the insides of the computer sounding much like and old factory, then we have the silence of a clock ticking, but we aren't entirely sure how to end the piece. Although I do feel that this may lend to the more experimental side of the project, as we do know what we want to achieve from the sound piece, which is a sense of space within the fantastical imagined world of a computer, but we will have to do quite a lot of experimenting to get it to its full potential.  
As for experimental video, we have had a few ideas, we have been toying with the idea of using animation to represent the inner computer, possibly using a circuit board for the set of the animation, or using a dolls house. We have considered using time lapses, and footage with effects on such as digital compositing of drawings onto a city scape. 



13/12/12

Here is a picture that was taken accidentally while filming our city scape time lapse, 

 We have now moved on to capturing the moving image, this is an early screen shot of the edit 

This is a photo of the set we will be using for the light experiment, we will be playing with time using the light from the window to show the passing of time.

This is a miniscule video exploring the effect created when pulling a camera out of focus on fairy lights, this is my idea for the beginning of the film, as the other worldly noise from the inside of the computer dies out, so do the lights. 

We have been filming most of our footage over the past few days, and we have decided not to use stop motion as we dont think we have enough time or resources to do it to the best of our abilities. Instead we have favoured time lapses with effects drawn over the footage, combined with footage of clocks and the dolls house light experiment, we are currently in the process of the final version of our sound piece, and we are editing together our existing footage, and still capturing some of the final pieces of footage, we are still looking for new inspiration for our video as we still have time to capture more before the deadline. We have concentrated more on capturing aesthetically pleasing shots, taking composition into consideration as we do not want the experimental film to be too narrative heavy as it may detract from our sound piece, we want to achieve the audience being able to listen to the piece without too much interference with moving objects in the frame. We have tried to use interesting lighting to the best of our abilities, I think the majority of our film is dimly lit, and is set at night time, this at first was by accident, but we have carried on the theme as we have now managed to get an almost temporal feel from day to night, and then night to day, it is still to be seen whether this will work as we desired in the final cut, but so far it seems to be looking good.