Fiction Adaptation - Actual Narrative

So after discussing quite heavily with Mike some concepts and my proposal, I felt that I didn't really need a character, and wanted to play with the visual aspects more so with this as I felt if I were to throw a character into the mix then it would restrict my creative abilities when it came to shooting. 

I knew though that I had to try and think of some kind of arc, in which atleast a basic narrative could be strung upon and that we all travelled on together, (the audience and the visuals) so that with this I could add lots more creativity into the visual imagery and focus more on that. 

Having spoke about the usage of smoke bombs and what they could signify, I wanted to blend them with another object metaphorically, which would be an indication of the passing and coming of life itself; Ash would be scattered, being captured to fall downwards, and then the smoke would rise, one entering the earth to be engulfed, and one being born into it, releasing itself freely. 

The smoke within the film is representative of many things, life being the main focus, but also as a visual gateway to loop in other key shots, like the flowing water. I wanted a natural, fluid an authentic feel to it as the poem to me comes across with an inherent tone of peacefulness, as its about coming to terms with tragedy.

Also throughout the piece, which was spoken briefly in my proposal, i wanted a running theme which would compliment the focus point which was the passing of life. I felt this kind of got lost through shooting it as I found it hard to grasp a strong concept that I could run with as I really did not want to put in a character. Possibly this was a mistake on my end, but I went with using strong imagery anyway, and continued the theme of the 'cycle of life', I had a few ideas rolling around in my head; flowers dying, fruit decaying, ice cubes melting. Due to practicality reasons and time constraints I went with ice cubes, I felt it captured in essence what I wanted to convey, I just need to make sure in the edit that I can achieve it. 

With the end of the sequence I want there to be some kind of new equilibrium, we've seen the scattered ashes, the dead put back into the earth, we've seen the rise of a potential new life/being with the smoke bomb, now with the ice cube, i'm thinking to reverse all the footage of it melting to take it back to its original form. Again i'm a bit apprehensive to see if this can be achieved effectively, but i'll just have to wait and see.   

THE STRUCTURE OF COMPOSITION/FILM 

BEGINNING - 
The death of life
Signified through the use of the flames and non-diegetic sound played simultaneously together. The fire is a clear indication to the passing of life, later on with the ashes being scattered and allowing that connection to be made from the first shot. 

MIDDLE - 
The beauty of life
Having a variety of extremely visually engaging, natural wildlife shots, i wanted to fill this section with the beauties of the every day life within this environment. This needed to encapsulate briefly some of the things the poem touched on, like the fields, the sun and the birds. I wanted to expand with things that you also associate with these environments and that's why i chose to get coverage of a river, and to bridge the shots of the river and the smoke bomb together for post production purposes. 


END - 
The birth/rebirth of new life/old life remaining
As the on going visual metaphor throughout the film had been the ice melting, which was to represent the inevitable death of a life, I wanted then to reverse the long and lengthy theme which had been shown throughout all of it staggered, to then be reversed rapidly, back to its original form and end it there. This was to indicate how the world is forever cyclical and what you may think has left this world, actually doesn't, it in fact remains, but potentially as something different, or something similar. 

Fiction Adaptation - Montage Editing Workshop

Seeing as i had not attended the Soviet montage workshop, i decided to do a bit of my own research on the topic. I found vast amounts of examples and reading tools on it and so i soaked up a lot. I did try an utilise what i had read an incorporate some of the editing styles into my work. 

I knew briefly what it was about as we had discussed the editing style last year theoretically with Louis Heaton. I love learning about new theories and styles, especially ones that have such a revolutionary impact in film, as this kind of editing definitely did and it changed many aspects of it. 

Soviet montage began roughly around 1917, amidst the Russian uprising against TSAR, the current ruling oppressive power force in Russia at the time (This was also whilst Russia was in complete disarray due to being heavily involved in WW1). 
The moscow film school - found 1919.
Films primary function, to make films in support of the Bolshevik political party, making news reels for propaganda purposes.

This brought about the Kuleshov effect, he began his own workshop, 'The Kuleshov Workshop'. Lenin loved the film 'Tolerance' (1916) an screened it all across Russia, the film was dissected heavily by Kuleshov an his co-workers, and started to reassemble the shots in different ways, to see what effect they had. 

This brought about the Kuleshov Effect - 
' The meaning of film was not only in spatial composition, but in the arrangement of shots.'
He termed the phrase 'Creative geography' meaning film can transcend space and time.

 Then came about Sergei Einstein, he developed Soviet montage through theory. Breaking confines of space and time to make film a unique language in itself. His debut film, Battleship Pometkin, was a huge success due to its editing and themes. He believed montage acted in the same way as a Marxist dialectic which is history being a perpetual context.                                             Synthesis  
                                                Thesis ->     <- Anti-thesis     
                                                     PROPAGANDA

The 5 methods of Montage editing - 

Metric Montage - 
Cutting based purely on the length of the shot. cutting to the beat.

Rhythmic Montage - 
Concerning rhythm of action in the shot, similar to metric, cutting in tempo with the action in the shot.

Tonal Montage - 
No concerned with time, but the tone of the shot. Lighting, shadows, shapes of frame. Cutting inbetween different aesthetics give tones of Marxist dialectic.

Over tonal Montage - 
Combines metric, rhythmic and tonal, an how they play against each other.

The last one, Einstein's favourite
Intellectual or Ideological Montage - 
Where as the previous methods focused on inducing emotional  focused responses, this montage felt to express abstract ideas by creating relationships between opposing visual intellectual concepts. 

Fiction Adaptation - Experimental Film Feedback

As a collective group we watched our experimental films, and gave constructive feedback on them. Each one was different to the last screened and that was very refreshing as everyone had their own identity placed on screen.

(Hope - Experimental Film)

Feedback -

Having watched it back with the class, people initially thought the theme i had picked was Fear, and i can kind of see why. I didn't capture fully what was flowing through my mind at the time in which allowed the piece to develop into something that wasn't my true reflections of the concept i had. 

Mike enjoyed the piece, it had resemblances of Scandinavian TV drama's but ultimately lacked a plot, it felt quite vacuous and i felt that also watching it back.

Working on this project gave me some fresh ideas in terms of camera movement that i could incorporate into my final piece. It allowed me to test out some initial thought processes like the tracking in and out, and playing with just still pictures. It was also a chance taken to use the DSLR, which i found quite straight forward and comforting to use, a very nice camera to work with.  

Fiction Adaptation - Project Proposal

This is my project proposal with brief concepts about the poem and its origins. 

The context of this poem - 

Fry wrote this poem in 1932. She wrote the poem specifically for a young German Jewish girl named Margaret Schwarzkopf who lived with Frye and was worried about her mother who lived in Germany. Frye wrote the poem from the point of view of the girl’s mother in order to give hope and comfort to this young girl who had suffered so much. In 1939, the U.S Congress published her poem for the United Spanish War Veterans Memorial Service. The effect of the poem was monumental. It resonated with every reader who had ever lost a loved one. Thus, Frye became famous through this one small poem written with the intention of comforting a young girl overcome with grief. This poem not only offered comfort to the young girl for whom it was written, but also to millions of readers across the world.

Do not stand at my grave and weep By Mary Elizabeth Frye


Do not stand at my grave and weep:
 I am not there; I do not sleep.
 I am a thousand winds that blow,
 I am the diamond glints on snow,
 I am the sun on ripened grain, 
I am the gentle autumn rain. 
When you awaken in the morning’s hush 
I am the swift uplifting rush
 Of quiet birds in circling flight.
 I am the soft starshine at night.
 Do not stand at my grave and cry:
 I am not there; I did not die.

I got from the poem that life is continuous. 

No static shots.  

I want themes of reincarnation. 

Play with opacity.


My interpretation for this poem is that life in its self is forever in a progressive cycle. Death is not the end, the dead return and accompany the living. It offers relief and comfort to the reader, to overcome emotional obstacles and this would resonate with millions as death is something that everyone can empathise/relate with.  

1905, spent her life as a poet and housewife. Although she is now named among some of the most famous American poets, she never earned a dime for her poetry, and it is this solitary poem which gave her a name among the most renowned American poets. Frye claimed that if she took money for the poem, it would lose it’s value. She also never sought a copyright for the poem, claiming that although she penned the words, the poem was not hers. She claimed that it belonged to the world. 

Play with opacity? Have a lead a male/female, standing in a large open space, particularly a field. 

Fiction Adaptation - Experimental Film

So we were tasked with creating a short 2-3 minute sequence, which explored one of the following themes: Fear, Hope, Despair and Joy, shooting original footage which had been inspired by the camera movement and experimental workshops. 

I chose Hope, I didn't really have a great concept for it but I went with the initial idea and tried to be as abstract as possible. One of the main reasons was due to everyone deciding to pick the theme Fear, which I felt was possibly the easy option, thus resulting in me choosing something against the grain. 

(Experimental Film - Hope)

I'm not sure if what I was going for was captured, but in essence I still think it works as the music with some of the imagery compliments one another. The main concept I was trying to portray was an initial anxiety that Oliver had of the chairs, the chairs were representative of any initial obstacle/negative situation. But through self belief and hope in himself, Oliver was able to overcome the initial doubts that had plagued him. Thus the shots with the lights, signifying the battle and the self belief prevailing, then eventually the shots back to reality (Back in normal lecture room light) with close ups of him smiling. 

It was an intriguing workshop that I took a great deal away from, making me think more about what the movements could actually represent and be depicting. 

Fiction Adaptation - Camera Workshop

In this workshop with Fergus and Mike, we took out all the equipment and the objective of the workshop was to see how much emphasis and emotion can be brought about with the use of camera movement. 

Pieces of equipment used:

Track

Jib

Fig Rig

Handheld

Attempted shots:

Contrazoom

Tracking

Tilt up 

(Camera workshop edit)

I created this short sequence with some of the footage that was curated during the workshop. We tried every kind of shot, utilizing all of the apparatus that was on offer. I personally struggled with the contrazoom shot the most though, I found the challenge of having to focus and zoom out whilst pushing it on the track, hard to master. 

What I felt came out okay-ish was the jib shot, and a small tracking shot. I liked the fluidity the track shot can give, an emphasis on the character that could be derived from it if it was placed in a particular scenario of a narrative. It also obviously gives an extremely professional feel to it on a production level, which would add more to a narrative in every aspect.

Overall it was a productive workshop with many things being taken away and already applied to my own project in respect to my thought process/cognitions of my own poem adaptation.