I had the idea that in my documentary I wanted to have quotes sparingly placed throughout the run time of my film. A problem arose when trying to pick what fonts I wanted to use and how I was going to use them. In my 'Bristol' film, I felt that the fonts I had picked had a negative impact on the quality of my film. However, someone had introduced me to Jean Luc Godard and his use of typography. Large titles all over the screen. So I had managed to track down a website that had released an homage to Godard, celebrating the 80th birthday of the director, via a font style very similar to the ones used in his films. I had chosen this fonts as it feels like it had been heavily influenced from European art. This is appropriate for my film as it is entirely filmed in Barcelona. Website; http://www.carvalho-bernau.com/jlg/
0 Comments
Bristol from Charlie Parry on Vimeo.
This is the 1st film I made on the UCW Film and Media Arts course. As I knew I wanted to make a city symphony-type film for my documentary brief. This was all shot in one day with no planning... It was also heavily raining.
What I thought I did well on this film is the sound. There was an old man doing karaoke in the city centre of Bristol and I thought it lent itself well to the general feel you get from watching it. The whole thing gives very raw vibes for example, the not always still camera shots and the general grimy look of the city. I also attempted to try and match up the sound to the cuts of the shots, this is particularly visible in the first shot with the title coming into frame as soon as the song properly starts and helps the pacing of this quite short film. The part I thought I could improve on is try to be more consistent with the colour grading, the shot of people walking (17 seconds) and the final shot of the graffiti saying 'Welcome to Bristol' kinda look out of place compared to the other shots. The people walking lacks vibrancy in the colours and the 'Welcome to Bristol' graffiti shot feels a bit too dark compared to the other shots. Another fault I found is the font I chose for my title. 'Bristol' looks a bit to formal which makes it look out of place in the film and not really what I was going for. What I learnt from filming this short documentary is what to look out for when shooting a city symphony, try and find little quirks in the environment that transforms a film from being a power point presentation-like travel guide to a city into an actual, interesting city symphony. I also tried to play around with the editing. In the scene with the people walking, I intercut with shots of a surveillance camera to give the message off that we are being constantly watched (i.e. Big Brother). An investigation into the history of the death squads that carried out the mass killings of accused communist in Indonesia in the 1960's. The film raised ethical questions as it was filmed from the point of view of the people that actually carried out the executions and that these people had become celebrated members of the nation due to their acts. The film came off as a celebration of what happened and as a result of the film, turned the main characters in the film, Anwar Congo and Herman Koto, into movie stars in Indonesia.
Anwar and Herman were tasked with recreating what happened in the 1960's through the medium of film by the director of the Act of Killing, Joshua Oppenheimer. Cinema had played a big part in the culture of Indonesia, for example, gangsters in Indonesia were inspired by gangster films that had been imported from around the world. Strangely what they had created had some great uses of colours and cinematography which can leave a weird feeling onto the audience (You watch a snippet of what they have made that is played intermittently throughout the film). It's weird as the use of vibrant colours with a backdrop of some picturesque Indonesia scenery but all this is offset as you know the history behind the people who are directing this mini film within the documentary. Dziga Vertov, the director of Man with a Movie Camera, and Walter Ruttman, director of Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis, pioneered the sub genre of documentary known as 'City Symphony'. In a time where cinema was limited but patriotism was high, a film celebrating the identity of a city/nation was going to do well. An easy to understand but smartly shot film was going to go far with all demographics of cinema goers. The genre of City Symphony came about with the advancement of technology regarding movie camera. Film camera were once large equipment that usually required the crew to film using inside sets due to the immobility of the cameras, but as technology advanced, this equipment became lighter in weight. This allowed people like Dziga Vertov to take his camera out into the city to film every day life. Dziga Vertov cleverly used a women waking up and going through her morning routine to represent a city 'waking up'.For example, clips of the woman getting ready were played in between shots of things like the trams workers starting their shift. |
About this sectionFairly short entries of films (mainly documentaries) I've watched to inspire me for me the one I'm making myself. Archives |