Logline- The feeling of missing out weighs heavy on the soul.
Synopsis- After a death in the family, the man must work towards getting off the path of self-destruction.
For the research behind my experimental film please look into Experimental Media-> Experimental Research. In that section I talk about several different experimental methods and if I should incorporate them methods into my films. I also share my opinions on what I think about each technique and if it would work well in my film.
Evaluation // ORCA
My experimental film took several different paths from the original idea to where it has ended up. When I looked over my original plans for this film it felt too much like a conventional film. I wanted to change this. I started by taking a lot of parts out of the original storyboard (to streamline the film) and replaced them with iconography to show visual representation for the parts I had taken out. This is why at the end of the film the audience might not necessarily know exactly what happened. This is a deliberate choice and semi-inspired by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel 1928 film, Un Chien Andalou. This surreal/abstract film had a lot of small symbols within the film that could be interpreted differently by different viewers and by the end you could only guessed what you had just watched. Later on I will talk specifically talk about these changes and what connotations I meant to make within my film.
00:00->00:05- I really like to attempt to make my titles stand out in my films and ORCA is no difference. I set the title card to flash as I had been inspired by Gasper Noe's 'Enter The Void' (2010) title sequence. In Noe's film he had gone to an extreme with his introduction as that set the tone for the rest of the film. I had decided to tone it down a bit because I didn't want to give the audience an epileptic shock right off the bat and I had also used the flickering effect throughout my film to show a loosening grip on reality, so I thought I should start the effect in the pre-credits. I had chosen a dark red colour as I thought it had contrasted the black background, making the title card stand out more, furthermore, I would contrast the dark red (which could symbolise anger) with a similar white (symbolises purity) title card at the end of the film to show how the character has evolved in his mentality of the course of the film. I had also cut up a tiny part of a stand-up performance by Bill Hicks 'Reckless'. This was specifically placed here as he starts off with "Get this." inviting the audience to listen to the film followed by "Another true story, it's going to frighten you". This is to replace the overused 'Based on a true story' segment of films. Even though this is not based on a specific story, it is something that's very real in the world, depression after the loss of a family member.
00:06->00:29- I had chosen a generic background, the door to a front room, for this segment to show that the story, like previously mentioned, is a true story that happens around the world and therefore warrants a generic background. The point here is that the background could be replaced with anything as it's a story which can apply to many backgrounds. I wanted this shot to be done in a single shot as I had been inspired by how David Fincher uses camera movement. He tries to get the audience to focus on a character by imitating the movement of the character with the movement of the camera. Of course I am on a budget of nothing, so the effect isn't quite the same but I wanted the audience to be there with the character. I had chosen to cut up a segment of instrumentals from the song 'I, Manface' by Man Man (who are very experimental themselves) and looped it for all of the first third and final third of the film, this is in attempt to recreate the monotony of the life of the character. I had also used audio from 'Andy and His Grandmother' by writer and actor Andy Kaufman as in it [the part used] as it is self-referential to the genre of film. If you have audio describing the 3 acts of a play/film and your about to watch a film which has a distinct 3 parts to it then I feel that I am experimenting with the general genre of film.
00:30->00:45- This segment is solely to establish that the character is a alcoholic as a result of his depression. He stumbles back home with a near empty bottle of whiskey and finishes it off at home. I had chosen the character to 'collapse' into the corner of the room to make the character seem smaller in frame (as if the character is being absorbed by the walls of his house) as a visual metaphor of how the character is feeling at that moment in time. This is also accompanied with another segment of 'Andy and His Grandmother'. The reason that I chose this segment is that the laughter within the part is a stark contrast to what the character is feeling and that the track almost seems like a distant memory that the character replaying in his mind. I've briefly mentioned about the flickering effect before but I had used it here to signify the character going in and out of his excessive drinking. This is to put further emphasis on the theme of self-destruction throughout this film. If your constantly drinking yourself till you pass out most days then there is a clear issue with the state that your mind is in and I attempted to reflect this in this segment.
00:46->01:13- The character struggling to pick himself up is another reflection on what the character has done to himself as a result of his excessive drinking (the theme of self-destruction). The reason he turns off the light I will explain in the next segment. The transition from the camera being in one side of the room to the other is the first example to make the film as seamless as possible. I had the actor 'stumble' in front of the camera so I could make the cut as easy on the eyes as possible. I think we managed to pull it off quite well and how I edited it so the movement of the actor stumbling is almost at the same speed to which I tracking shot out from behind the wall. I also tried to get the 'Fincher-esque' camera movement by really trying to nail the speed of the camera to imitate the speed that the actor was moving at. The two parts I would particularly highlight where I think I did this best is the initial movement from behind the wall and when the character makes the movement down onto the sofa.
01:14->01:36- This part is why I previously talked about the actor turning off the light. As I was extremely limited to what equipment I could use for my film I had decided that to try and imitate the lighting that is given off by the T.V. I had to improvise. I had gotten the person that was helping me out with lighting to turn the brightness all the way up on his phone, then aim the screen at the actors face and move the phone in a circular motion to give a more 'live' feeling from the lighting. The main lights had to be off because we need the light given off the phone to be as visible as possible. In editing I had put a gradual slow zoom into the character so it feels that you are going into the head of the character. This leads on nicely to the montage of clips I had put together from well known films. For the montage, I had used the films (in order); -The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) -No Country For Old Men (Ethan and Joel Cohen, 2007) -Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) -Akira (Katsuhrio Otomo, 1988) -The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) -Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980) -The Godfather II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974) The one thing I found all in coming with the clips I had used was that they all depicted destruction (keeping with the theme of self destruction) In The Shining, the main character has reached finally gone past the tipping of sanity and is hunting down his wife. In No Country, the main character is being tracked down by the hit man that you see on screen, In Dr Strangelove, I used the iconic scene of the atom bomb being dropped which leads on to the next frame from Akira of the bomb being dropped on Tokyo. The Godfather shows Al Pacino's character taking out someone. Raging Bull showed someone give up on what they worked really hard on which was match cut the a shot from the second Godfather. I had chosen to loop all these clips, gradually increasing in speed, to give a sense that the character is losing grip on his life and could be starting to lose his sanity. Once again I used some Andy Kaufman audio, where he is talking about a "crazy world' which paired up the montage of film clips gives off the feeling that the world that the character is living in is also a crazy one where anything can happen and that he can't control it.
01:37->01:51- This is the first break in music where it goes from the original 5 second loop from the song 'I, Manface' to 'Frank's Dawn Chorus' from the film 'Frank', I had to have the change here to signify a change in time, hence the clock moving backwards. This takes the audience back to before the incident that led him to where he is currently. This section is to give a bit of backstory to the character as when I had initially showed this film, I hadn't finished the middle segment (I only had the 1st and 3rd/last segment with a flickering 'Intermission' title between the two segments) and the feedback that I received was that people didn't really understand what was going on at all. So I wanted to reveal more to the audience to help them out a little with understanding with what is going on. This is also why I had the shot of going into the hole in the wall, it's almost like a wormhole where you can go through and travel in time. I also wanted the shot to end in black to allow a seamless transition into the next scene.
01:52->02:03- I wanted the pace of the film to be pretty consistent and that's why, where I could, would try to use movement in my transitions. I used it before in the '00:46->01:13' segment and I used to here again with the camera zooming into the hole in the wall and then coming out of the 'Get Well Soon' card. I like this type of editing as it makes the movement through the story as easy as possible. If the scene before had started of the shot of the hole but didn't zoom, while in this shot the camera was already in the over the shoulder shot then the cut would feel unnatural and stand out in a bad way. Another reason this would also look out of place is the difference in colours used in the difference shot. Going from a damp-like green low key lit to a mixture of orange and blue high key lit shot then that change would be something the brain would focus on that as it is quite a change. But I want the audience to focus on what is happening rather than how it is looking, for this part. With the black-screen in between it acting as a bridge from one scene to the other so the change in frame is not jarring. I also did a pull focus shot and timed the change in focus at the speed that the character was writing in the card. This was done in effort to continue the style of the camera following the character around.
02:04->02:43- I wanted to have another single take shot, similar to the one that started the film, here to keep up with the style of movement within film. I feel this shot came off better than I expected as the movement and the flow of the camera really allows the audience to be in the room with the character. However, if I were to do this shot again I would have properly sorted out the lighting for when the character enters the front room. The orange that is given off by the main light feels like it 'cheapens' the scene. I would try and go for a colder colour in the scene like there was in the kitchen. I decided against having a ringing sound effect as that is the style I was going for throughout the film. I didn't want to have a ringing sound effect as it would ruin what I wanted for this film. As you watch my film you know what you are getting, a series of clips with hypnotic (or repetitive if you feel that way) instrumental and the occasional small piece of archive audio on top of that. If there was suddenly a ringing sound then it would take you out of the experience of watching film. I used the flickering effect once again. Normally a film would have the audio of whats being said through the phone however I decided against that for the reason talked about before. It would break the style of what I wanted for the film. The literal words 'danger of death' paired with the reaction of the character gives enough to the audience so they understand what is going on with the phone call.
02:44->02:46- I needed a close up shot of the hand dropping the card to draw attention to it [the card] for the next shot. This scene was not the finest piece of editing as I felt the cut to the extreme close up breaks up the flow of the film (the momentum that I had got from the smoother transition that I had used previously). I made this mistake earlier in the 00:35->00:45 segment when it was another close up shot of the bottle cap hitting the ground. In hindsight, I would get rid of the bottle cap shot and spend more time on this shot. The film is currently minutes long but I would like it to feel much shorter as so the audience can't complain that it drags. If a film is abstract and feels like it is going on for too long it makes it extra hard to concentrate/work out what is going on.
02:47->03:22- This is the iconography I was talking about at the beginning. I could have filmed a funeral type set up, I could have got footage of the characters decline after the death of his grandma but I decided to change this and go for representations for these things. The funeral is replaced with a crow taking flight. Crows have connotations with loss/death so I thought this would be a good exchange. Instead of the decline in mental health I had used a sign in the sea saying 'Danger Sinking Mud'. As the slide into depression can often be described as a constant sinking feeling that you get stuck in, so the character is sinking into the lifestyle that is displayed at the beginning. I went for this style in attempt to separate this film from more conventional films. For this and the next section I had decided to change the audio to something more sombre ('Broken' from the Frank Soundtrack) to reflect the change in atmosphere in the film. With this new music I am able to also edit to the beat of the music so I can build expectation within the audience. If I start off by cutting on the beat, then the audience will start to expect that every clip from then on will last the same amount of time (At a stretch it can be compared to Pavlov's dog experiment). This then allows me to subtly subvert the expectations by changing up the length of a clip, hence, why for the shot of the sign in the sea it skips a beat and cuts on the next one. Furthermore, how I can then have the close/medium shot of the tree to be even longer. The audience expects it to cut away at every beat but it doesn't. The symbolism of the massive cross on the side of the building also has a very literal meaning in that the character basically uses faith as a way to get over the death of his grandmother and hence why the cut to black and then the start of the final third of the film. I'm not saying it is as easy as that but everyone takes different paths for recovery and this character just took the path of faith.
03:23->04:04- I feature the use of black to create a smooth transition from one shot to the other once again. As I had raised the theme of using religion I wanted the final scenes to resemble someone being baptized and that is why I decided to film at the beach. Furthermore, I also wanted to film during the golden hour to try and capture 'god rays' to continue the theme of religion. In this shot I had put in a clip of Alan Watts talking about living in the current moment and living for it which I think is a good way to introduce a scene that shows a person attempting to make a change in their life and not living in the past. I also use a snippet from 'Max Headroom' to give a more abstract feeling to the film as the idea of Max Headroom itself was quite unconventional.
04:05->04:37- This shot starts off at as a close up of the character's face but ends up as an extreme long shot of the clouds. This is the part where I wanted to get the god rays on camera (as it's Weston the God rays weren't as spectacular as they could be) and I thought managing to change the focus of the shot from the character to the rays without cutting is adds a certain aesthetic to the film, personally is also visually impressive. I also use the same Alan Watts but this time he's talking about self improvement. This is a contrast from earlier where themes of self-destruction were common. This displays that the character has been involved in a character arc. He has made a development from where he was at the beginning of the film and this is just one of those signs that this has happened. The camera losing 'interest' in the character is a deliberate action I did. If, throughout the film, I've made a particular effort to imitate the movement of the character and then suddenly that disappears then you are aware that something has changed. This is another sign of development within the character.
04:38->05:04- The final change in music appears in the last segment of the film. The song 'Van Helsing Boombox' finishes off the scene. Another single continuous shot also finishes the film off. Like last segment, it starts off as a with a close-up and finishes off with the character in the distance. The act of the character taking off his heavy dark jacket to reveal a white shirt. This is to continue the theme of religion in the film. It's like a visual metaphor of the character releasing himself from his past and moving forwards in life. He drops the jacket and walks off into the distance a freer man. 05:05->05:20- Credits.