Coursework - Evaluation (draft)

The course, moving image arts, has been extremely good fun. I really enjoyed making the video and learning more about film technology and the processes that you have to go through to make a piece of moving image. The flexibility of the course was a huge surprise to me and I have really enjoyed to literally be able to make any kind of video I like.

My final film has been a huge success. Technically, the film doesn't have very much to it; one camera angle, one object and the same lighting through the whole piece. I did this because the transitions between all the cuts and fades had to be almost invisible. Using influences from German expressionism and early 20th century art I created a music video for a song I produced over the previous summer.

The creative vision I pictured last summer is almost identical to the video I have created over the year. Of course, the idea has been adapted to and modified due to conversations with many people and advice from others. One major change was that I had not realised a story line was needed in the film. I then wrote some short sentences I believed worked with the formalistic and imaginative idea of the film. The three sentences where extremely poetic and comments I received tell that they thought about extraordinary things such as life and the meaning behind existence. The visual product I have now finished has far exceeded what people had though I was creating. People have described it as ‘trippy’ and almost too colourful to watch.

The reaction of my audience pleases me greatly. To contemplate deep meaning even exceeds what I thought my film would evoke. Not all comments have been positive, some complain that I have taken the easy route and not stretched myself in the making of this video but I completely disagree. The filming and editing process were extremely difficult. Many problems occurred and not all of which I could easily get around.

The initial problem occurred when filming. I had one weekend in which to film because I had only those days where I could keep the rostrum at home with me. As soon as we began filming, the camera ran out of battery and no mains supply lead was provided when we took the camera from school. Fortunately, my aunt who was helping me with the filming had a camera which we could use. The camera worked well and all was good until we had finished recording and tried to watch the video on the computer. My aunt remembered that the camera was from America and therefore in NTSC, not in PAL. So I had to wait about a week for her to transfer it to her computer and from there, convert it and give it to me. This put me back a week. Once the footage was on my hard drive, I took it to school and began working on it. After just one lesson with my footage, the school’s system broke down and I was unable to do any work on the computers for at least two weeks. During this time I worked on my story boards and finished my script.

From making this film and the process of developing it I have learnt many things. One of which is the ability to critically analyse films and review their attributes. This I found helpful when trying to think of ways of developing what you see on screen and also how to evoke the reaction you want from the audience. Before I began the course I had never used final cut pro ever, the only piece of film equipment I ever used was I movie, and that isn’t very stretching. Over the year I feel I am extremely proficient with the program and can quite comfortably edit footage. The ability to write and draw story boards we have worked on through both years ten and eleven and I can now draw accurate and proportionately correct images with correct language to describe the movements.

To conclude, I have greatly enjoyed this course and in making the film and I believe I have created something I did not think I could have eight months ago. I feel that as time progressed, I became more confident with the idea of making a film and stretched my ideas beyond the original confines of my mind and expanded on what I would normally do. The reward of knowing, I did this, I made this film is great and knowing I have the ability to create such things is a fun thing to be able to do. I am extremely proud of what I made and with the time I have put into this project I feel I have achieved.

Coursework - Final Film

Final Film - This is my final piece and the video i will be submitting for the moving image arts AS level.



enjoy!

Homework - Storyboards

The storyboards above reflect what i am doing for my final AS moving image peice. A colourful resemblence of what my final film will look like and the text explains most of what happens in the peice.

Homework - Script

As you have previously read, i am going to have a short story in the bridge section of my song. This will be read out in a very deep peaceful voice which I hope will add to the empasis on formalism.

Voice: Fase 1, the seed is planted when opposites attract. It takes the physical to create the physical; one action for another.

Voice: Fase 2, the flower blossoms to what appears to be a concrete surface. I.e. greed, racism, insanity… physical and social handicaps. These are the things that mould the flower. Red rose or black rose, no in between.

Voice: Fase 3, the judgement, if it were to fall apon you today, what rose would you be? The red rose, or the black?

Classwork - Pre-Production exercise

This is my Pre-Production exercise. In doing this I have been practicing and working out how to cut video to music. I was very fortunate with this song as it was exactly ten frames per beat of the music. I have also been practicing how to use final cut pro because i have no previouse experience with the program.

classwork - Mood Board

The Mood Board

The mood board you see on your right is a compilation of everything that has inspired me to create what I will be creating for the project.

classwork - Statement of intentions

Statement of intentions (draft)

My intention for the project is to create a formalist music video for the drum and bass track I made over the summer.

When in leeds with my family, I asked them to give me some idea's on what I could make my film about, here are some that i can remember.

• The boy in the striped pyjamas (prequil)
  
• Tramping (how to be a good tramp, top tramps. would of been fun but not exactly 'correct')
  
• stick figure fighting / dance (i would create a track, make them dance and fight to it using a pivot program)
  

Those are just a few of the idea's we came up with.

The last idea was the one i decided to take through and think more about.

Yesterday, i met up with my other aunt, she has created films before and knows a lot about the animation arty side of things. I told her about my idea and we began to elaborate on it . Using a record player to project my idea on to would be fun. We then thought about a completely new idea of making a track (the drum and bass track i have already made) and then film a record player spinning around with ink and paint and any other things that would stretch with a centrifugal force. I would then record this several times with blank circles and adding different colours and objects. To then put it in time with the music i would cut it every beat(170bpm) and change between different ink spattered record players, the odd cross fade and random image should help tell a story but my idea is to create a film with as little story line as possible to create the ultimate formalist effect.

These links proved useful when thinking of an idea -

• ROBERT BREER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHvYoaP5Od4
  
• OSKAR FISCHINGER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC4Nvsceg1A and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz9MlZA4LxY and a film inspired by him, can't remember who it is by: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etYgSaryuYs
  
• ERIC NILS HARALD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70qecjGdOYs
  
• ALLEN CARROLL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFG1O4bRSw
  
• CHUCK JONES: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGh97__-uLA this film won an Oscar (in 1965?).
  
• HARRY SMITH: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wYJ51nSXRQ
  
• LEN LYE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3y1offmJ4Y
  
• CALIFORNIA INSTITUTS OF ART AND DESIGN:
  
• http://film.calarts.edu/main/streaming/expanim20.html
  

I found that Oscar Fischinger came closest to the piece i wanted to achieve and his work with music was very inspiring. I am thinking about incorporating some of his work into my final product as a tribute to his work and dedication to the area. His work of making images flow in time was very inspiring and of course i don't have the talent to do what he has done but I would like to see a relation between my work and his.

Damien Hirst's spin painting also link to what i am intending to achieve. His idea of painting a picture then using a centrifugal force to let nature create its own image was very inspiring. He is possibly one of Britain's most famous artists and work like his 'shark in formaldehyde' is globally acknowledged.

To create quite an inspiring piece of work I am not only going to be cutting from image to image 3 times a second but also create a very vague story line with the use of images and short flashes of Oscar Fischinger's work. This, I hope, will make the audience think more about what they see than what the footage itself is telling them to think.

In the coming week I will be experimenting with different lighting, colours, speeds and images to see which things will work best and how I can best achieve what I would like to do.

My short film will hopefully fall under the category of extreme formalism. This is because what I intend to create is a swirl of colours, images, objects that almost directly links to both Damien Hirst's spin paintings and Oscar Fischinger's work.

After talking to my teacher and others that wish to remain anonymous, i have decided to give my piece of art some form of story line. As my piece of music has a 40 second break down in the middle i am going to tell the listener a story. My story is a about the growth of a rose and how everything that we do to the rose affects its outcome.