I drew out a storyboard in reasonable detail and after recording a primitive voice-over of the dialogue spoken by myself and my brother put it together into an Animatic to give me a better idea of the project. As a sequence of shots it’s not looking too bad but I’m starting to fear for length as I’m currently running 45 seconds over.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
The Script
Writing the script was definately the first priority on a film so heavy in dialougue. A lot was taken directly from the short story but in order to make it more exciting and easier to film a lot of changes had to be made too.
As an example here's the first page of the short story comapred to the first page of the script:
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As an example here's the first page of the short story comapred to the first page of the script:
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Analysis of a Proffesional Product- My Wrongs 8245-8249 & 117
My Wrongs, directed by Chris Morris and produced by Warp, I consider a wonderful example of a successful short film. It takes a quite abstract idea and through stylising and tight narrative structure turns it into something comprehendible within the restricting boundaries of ten minutes.
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First take its distinctive visual style. Every shot is sharply in focus to draw the audience’s attention to specific information most specifically the central character and his limited perceptions of the world around him as he breaks down. The idea of seeing from the point of view of a man mentally unstable is then re-enforced by the jumpy camera style which jerkily zooms in and out. Every shot is a little shaky and loosely framed. Morris also chooses to avoid wide-angles to keep his audience very close to the protagonist and the dog at all times.
.bmp)
The mise-en-scene also helps connect the audience to its central character though it is naturalistic in editing the contrast appears to be heightened which gives it a looser connection with reality and helps enforce the idea of not so much seeing through someone else’s eyes but being trapped in someone else’s head. The protagonists appearance has also taken some thought. He is dressed in a shabby jacket and jeans and his hair is unwashed, contrasted to the neat almost shiny dog and the clean almost sterile looking house he’s been asked to sit it looks like he could have been pulled in off the streets and so when he does break down and end up loitering at the park shouting at ducks he looks less out of place there than in Imigen’s house. .bmp)
Sound is especially interesting. The music is not so much music but surreal, eerie drawn out notes and similar, even the tone on the answer machine is distorted into one of them so that it becomes like a sound of feedback or similar on the unfortunate protagonists life itself. Then there is the narration, less narration than internal monologue in fact an idea again re-enforced when we are able to hear first the dog and then the baby talk..bmp)
But the neat flowing narrative is what I find most inspiring about this film. Each scene flows effortlessly into the next via the internal monologue and the central point of a man walking a dog. Even the bizarre flashback to our narrator’s childhood mid-way through the film seems graceful after the audience have already been introduced to the concept of the talking dog the talking mouse follows naturally and through minimal dialogue provides us with a key back-story. What I like most though is the ending, after a film like this it’s particularly hard to finish it and leave the audience entirely satisfied but Morris does it as he finally pulls back into a wide-shot to show the protagonist shouting at the ducks relieving the audience and releasing them from the madness.
.bmp)
The full film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgvTApLkC3Y
.bmp)
First take its distinctive visual style. Every shot is sharply in focus to draw the audience’s attention to specific information most specifically the central character and his limited perceptions of the world around him as he breaks down. The idea of seeing from the point of view of a man mentally unstable is then re-enforced by the jumpy camera style which jerkily zooms in and out. Every shot is a little shaky and loosely framed. Morris also chooses to avoid wide-angles to keep his audience very close to the protagonist and the dog at all times..bmp)
The mise-en-scene also helps connect the audience to its central character though it is naturalistic in editing the contrast appears to be heightened which gives it a looser connection with reality and helps enforce the idea of not so much seeing through someone else’s eyes but being trapped in someone else’s head. The protagonists appearance has also taken some thought. He is dressed in a shabby jacket and jeans and his hair is unwashed, contrasted to the neat almost shiny dog and the clean almost sterile looking house he’s been asked to sit it looks like he could have been pulled in off the streets and so when he does break down and end up loitering at the park shouting at ducks he looks less out of place there than in Imigen’s house. .bmp)
Sound is especially interesting. The music is not so much music but surreal, eerie drawn out notes and similar, even the tone on the answer machine is distorted into one of them so that it becomes like a sound of feedback or similar on the unfortunate protagonists life itself. Then there is the narration, less narration than internal monologue in fact an idea again re-enforced when we are able to hear first the dog and then the baby talk.
.bmp)
But the neat flowing narrative is what I find most inspiring about this film. Each scene flows effortlessly into the next via the internal monologue and the central point of a man walking a dog. Even the bizarre flashback to our narrator’s childhood mid-way through the film seems graceful after the audience have already been introduced to the concept of the talking dog the talking mouse follows naturally and through minimal dialogue provides us with a key back-story. What I like most though is the ending, after a film like this it’s particularly hard to finish it and leave the audience entirely satisfied but Morris does it as he finally pulls back into a wide-shot to show the protagonist shouting at the ducks relieving the audience and releasing them from the madness.
.bmp)
The full film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgvTApLkC3Y
Feedback on the Pitch
Fortunatley most of the points made were on the presentation itself rather than specifically the film but there was a sense of scepticism that my project might be over-ambitious. However the main points were:
- It needs to be made very clear that it's a short film (I have now ammended this by saying so on the title slide)
- Visual elements need to be better explained
- The target audience needs to be developed more specifically
- There should be visual examples of the running fish metaphor connected to the title
- It needs to be made very clear that it's a short film (I have now ammended this by saying so on the title slide)
- Visual elements need to be better explained
- The target audience needs to be developed more specifically
- There should be visual examples of the running fish metaphor connected to the title
Monday, 20 September 2010
The Pitch
I asked permission from a close friend (Katie Bray) to use her short story as a basis for my film and with her permission came up with the basis outlined in this pitch:
Fishing for Affection- Pitch
View more presentations from xanthezyoung.
Further Skills Development
Over the summer I made a second video to focus my skills further and experiment with visual style. It turned into an eight minute short film the highlights of which I show here:
My main focus’ were:
• Extreme Close-ups
• Focus shifts
• Tracking shots and camera movement
• Slow Motion
• Reverse
I also worked particularly hard on the sound editing. For a demonstration of this the full film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MipXVaUVVb4
My main focus’ were:
• Extreme Close-ups
• Focus shifts
• Tracking shots and camera movement
• Slow Motion
• Reverse
I also worked particularly hard on the sound editing. For a demonstration of this the full film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MipXVaUVVb4
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