For my one location I wanted to continue to experiment with film from the last brief of the first year of the course. I had the base idea of what I wanted to do (talked about in the research tab) so I tried to twist each part so that I can experiment with the conventional ways of telling a story. I wanted the story not to be directly clear to the audience as I felt everyone was going to make their one location brief feature a conventional story which is told directly to the audience.
I decided to call my one location film 'Everything Max Hates' as I had stumbled upon a video that talked about smoking in art and what it can mean. (Nerdwriter1, 2016). From this, I discovered about a book called 'Degenaration' written by Max Nordau in 1892. In it, Max criticises art that features certain aspects that he deems are immoral (such as smoking and drinking). I wanted to comment on his views by naming it 'Everything Max Hates' in jest. I feature the things Max protests against to hopefully convey the point that there is more to it than just these items being immoral.
General Feedback
We watched everyone's film on submission day and we each received feedback on our film from everyone. The general feedback I got from my film was that it was confusing, they wanted it to be longer and it had some exposure issues.
Confusing - This was kind of the point of my film, I wanted to have the base idea of my film told by symbolism and in part inferring from the audience so they can each have their own interpretation on what they just watched. If they did this then everyone would take something different away after watching it which is partly what I wanted to go for. I didn't want to make my film for anyone apart from myself so I didn't have to experience expectations on my own work from other people. The only expectations I had to deal with was my own and because I had a narrative and stylistic direction I wanted the film to go in then these expectations were easily managed. I didn't want to be in the middle of filming and start to worry what an audience would think of each shot cause as soon I do that then it starts to feel like it is not my own film and I didn't want that.
Longer - To respond to this criticism, I would ask how long would people want it? Because the film is very abstract, they wouldn't know when to end it. The usual indicator for a film to end is when the equilibrium of the world has been restored but when there hasn't been a disruption then when do you stop? I feel like the length of the film was just right, it had two halves which were similar in style but different enough to keep the audience engaged with the new visuals to absorb. If someone had said they wanted more of a particular scene then that would make more sense.
Exposure - The comment about how there was an issue on the exposure I feel was about the end of the time lapse of the apple. The issues , I believe added to the film. It's reminiscent of when atomic bombs drop and the environment flashes white, this same effect can be seen in my own film which add's to the theme of environmental decay and the general feeling that time is running out for you to act. Hence why the next shot is of the screen fading to white (connotations with passing on to the afterlife) and then the dictionary entry for 'Torschlussspanik'. This gives off the feeling that 'it' has all come to an end. I like to put this in the middle of my film to give the sense that anything that came after it is taking place in an 'afterlife' type setting. This explains why the sound design can be questioned at such parts as when the lighter gets turned on and a water effect can be heard. This can mean that sense is made even where there might not be any.
My Feedback
Overall. I really enjoyed making my film for the one location brief. It really allowed me to experiment with how to tell a story and the viewing experience in itself. I will break down my film, scene by scene so I can talk about each part individually (the good parts and the parts that next time I would do differently). After that I would talk about my film as a whole.
00:00->00:50- I wanted to experiment with time lapses and the connotations that come along with watching time past at a much greater rate than a person is normally used to. I thought the time lapse needed a focus point for the audience to witness the effect of the passing of time has on an object. I decided on an apple the night before when I had finished eaten one and had forgotten about it. Later, when I discovered it, as you might've guess, it was completely brown. I liked how rapidly the apple decayed and thought if you were to film the apple for 1 to 2 hours, then you will really able to witness how the decay first hand. I liked the symbolism that the decay had. Not wanting to sound pretentious, I felt like taking the film in a direction that would lead to self reflection. So having people watch something visibly decay, they might see their own lives in it. Like written in the research section for this film, I had looked at the architecture of Mussolini's party building and the unique front design to it. The repetitive 'Si' spread across the front acted as a very ominous reminder of the state of Italy at the time. The continuous use of 'Max' I used in a similar way. I wanted the feeling of something ominous/all en-cumbersome that's about to happen and I feel like it was used to decent effect. The audio clip of Joe Talbot (The front man for the best band in the world) of him commenting of the state that our society (KEXP, 2018) is now is also to create the point of how society has not changed since the time of Mussolini. The cynicism has always been there and still is now, We think a lot has changed but issue's people had faced before, people are still facing now.
00:51->01:02- I liked the effect that the sun had right at the last few seconds of the previous scene and I talked about this in the exposure part of the 'general feedback' part above this section. I had chosen to have a dictionary entry-esque sequence for the word 'Torschlusspanik' as I wanted it to feel like you have reached the after life (hence the slow fade to white) and for you to be greeted with a world that means about panicking about running out of time. This further illustrates the theme of self-reflection. People will realise that there have been points in their life when they have experienced this feeling. The environmental sounds(I recorded by hanging out my kitchen window early in the morning and again late in the night. In post, combining the two recordings ) that I carry on playing into this section also keeps the audience tethered to real life. This combination of the feeling that your conscious is still on earth even though things have ended can invoke the feeling of surrealism. Because of this, everything that the viewer witnesses after this may continue with the surrealism.
01:03->01:21- The reason it starts with a door closing is to signify the closing of a chapter of a person's life. The person enters limbo (the bathroom) and must self reflect on their life to then move on from being stuck where they are. I had used another audio piece of Joe Talbot (again, the front man for the best band in the world) where he talks about there is no wrong in being vulnerable and that when you fall (when times get bad) you need to be open about these vulnerabilities so people can fully support you and catch you. I think this is a very important point to remember, especially in today's climate, where there is more support for people but the people in need have to be more open so they can receive the help that is out there. (Of course there are huge issues such as having a government that wants to get rid of public healthcare cause in reality they don't care about you). So I thought this was important to include in my film. To continue the idea of surrealism, I decided to play around with the sound design. This is why you hear a bag being zipped up when the light is being switched off and hear water when the lighter is being turned on.
01:22->01:32- I wanted to use a different medium than a narrator or someone speaking in scene to get the story across to the audience. I had decided to use an old tape player to act as this medium. I felt if I had used something modern like a phone then I would 'date' the film. I deliberately chose something that is old as the audience would think that was a there for a reason and that was the reason I chose it. This didn't have a deeper meaning it was just chosen to make it looked like it had a deeper meaning to the audience and therefore they could start forming ideas why I had it this way. Maybe it could be one reason? Maybe another? This difference in audience interpretations is something I wanted from my film. Even though the tape recorder was there to trick the audience into thinking there was a deeper meaning to it, the tape itself evolved into something with more meaning. As this film revolves around the idea of self reflection and looking back at your life, I wanted to give the feeling that the person in limbo, it's comparable to when you find an old cassette tape of a point in your past and you sit, absorbing the period in your life that you may or may not have forgotten. I had also chosen the cassette tape to be first revealed to the audience on a pile of lighters. This is in reference to what I have previously said about Max Nordau's opinion on the moral value's of art. Also, to continue the feeling of surrealism I was particular with the sound design. There is an absent of the sound that is expected from putting a cassette tape in a player. The one sound that I did choose to have was the 'click' sound when the cover was not actually from the device itself. When I was going through the process of recording my film, I went around the house with an audio recorder. I gathered a range of recordings that I could potentially use for the film. So to go back to the original point, the click sound was actually the a drip from the shower after I had turned it off. I thought this would be a nice touch at the most and at the smallest a slight self imposed challenge to see if I can catch the audience out and see if they notice the small details.
01:33->02:11- This was my favourite shot and was very much there for the sole purpose of inflating the balloon that is my film ego. The truck shot was completely done by hand. I pushed it along the floor, grabbed the bottle with one hand, jumped over the camera and pressed the play button on the player with the other hand and sat down all in one take. It took me 4 attempts and I felt like it was to great affect. It's hard to describe but the absence of sound to the scene before the music starts playing really gives the feeling that something is coming to an end. The choice was also very deliberate. Originally, I was going to have a short monologue played but due to logistics (the perfect cover up story) I decided against it. If it's not clear what the song is, it's a cover of 'True Love Will Find You In The End' by Daniel Johnston (heavypiano, 2019). It is a very pure and organic song which itself, is a journey of self-reflection and dealing with the future. There is something about the song that I find very important and feel the need to share it to people that may have not heard it. In post, I added a grainy/distortion effect on to it as the original was too 'clean'. At the end of the film I should've given credit to both the original version by Daniel Johnston and the cover I used for this film. It's good practise to do and even though it won't affect me at the moment, if I were to do bigger productions then I really should start doing it. I've talked about it more here.
02:12->02:23- The final clip was me paying homage to a really short video that I had found some time ago (My grandfather greeting us in one of his short films, late 1960s : OldSchoolCool, 2019). It was some footage that someone had found of their grandfather who had made a video for their family. I had found it really sweet and it stuck with me ever since first discovering it. I thought ending my film like this would be a strangely pure and different way to end a film. With me filming myself in the reflection in the window of my kitchen. It puts a face to a name that in normal films you might not get from just a conventional credit sequences.
Conclusion
I feel like this film went pretty much exactly how I wanted it to. I wanted the whole thing be up to an individuals interpretation and this did that. I also found out that I would like to work with other people in the future rather than just myself. This has been something I have learnt from working by myself for way to long. Even though it's not necessarily bad working without anyone else, it's more that I believe that in some areas in which I felt like I didn't do so well on (i.e. the audio and some of the camera work) could be potentially resolved through reaching out and asking for assistant.
I did experiment with trying out recording audio myself which I am semi happy with. This can be heard throughout and I feel like it made the film even more personal.
To look at the film as a whole I would say I did a good job with trying to make something experimental. There was plenty of examples of different filming techniques which allowed my to get experience in them, such as time lapses and working out to do a 'truck shot' without any additional equipment. Retrospectively, I liked how I managed to create something like I have done with very primitive techniques.
Bibliography
-heavypiano (2019) Daniel Johnston – True Love Will Find You in the End. Available at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y13H8OTZ0s -KEXP (2018) IDLES – Full Performance (Live on KEXP). Available at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sbbiv5iSiQ&t=1464s -Nerdwriter1 (2016) Edvard Munch: What A Cigarette Means. Available at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu2L7oA9QRg&t=79s -Reddit.com. 2019. My Grandfather Greeting Us In One Of His Short Films, Late 1960S : Oldschoolcool. [online] Available at: <https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/bw0vxd/my_grandfather_greeting_us_in_one_of_his_short/>.