Directorial Techniques to Consider

Now that we have our initial ideas pinned down, it is important to begin considering the practical techniques we can actually use to convey those ideas. After listening to our pitch, our teacher provided us with some films that may be of interest to us. Among these were the films Apocalypto, for its ability to tell a story in a foreign language, even if watched without subtitles, and Dead Man's Shoes, for its distinctly British style in both a visual and narrative sense. 

Apocalypto
Apocalypto is an action epic made by Mel Gibson in 2006, which focuses on the story of one Mayan villager during the civilisation's demise. Although our aims in making a short film are pretty much polar-opposite to those of Gibson in his high-budget feature, Gibson does utilise techniques that we could also find useful. In our pitch, I explained that an important feature of our film would be an internal monologue of the protagonist. Because this monologue will dominate the film, we won't be including a great amount of diegetic dialogue. However, one of the main messages we want our film to carry is that 'selflessness often goes unrecognised,' and the lucidity of this message obviously depends upon the minor characters' reactions to the protagonist. If we are to keep the amount of dialogue to a minimum, and also illustrate the minor characters' ignorance of the protagonist's actions, then we must be efficient in visual storytelling.

This is where Apocalypto is relevant. All of the speech is in the Yucatec Maya language, and without subtitles, viewers such as Tom and I, who are far from fluent in the language, have to watch the film more closely to understand it. Viewing a film in this way makes the role of visuals in the storytelling much more apparent.

The excerpt below illustrates this well; even if it is muted, and the subtitles are ignored, the scene still makes sense. A story is told through the physical actions of the actors, the type of shot that captures them, and the way these shots are edited together. 



After watching the film with visual storytelling in mind, one thing that stood out to me was the abundance of eyeline matches. These are a staple in visual storytelling, because they exhibit the world of the film from a character's perspective, and provide justification for the way that character may act. Even if they are very short and subtle, they can convey important pieces of information. One example of a very subtle but important eyeline match can be seen at 2:54 in the video above; if it were not shown that the offering had been presented, then a factor of the negotiation between the two tribes would be lost, and the tribe of Jaguar Paw would seem much more easily persuaded. The fact that so much of the meaning of the scene would be changed by the omission of one shot illustrates the potency and importance of visual storytelling, and shows why it will be an important factor for Tom and I to consider during the production of our film.

Dead Man's Shoes
Dead Man's Shoes is a gritty independent thriller about a disaffected soldier who returns to his home town in the British midlands to take revenge on those who caused the death of his brother. As a film directed by Shane Meadows working with Warp Films, it works to most of the conventions of the vigilante/revenge thriller genre, but is set in a small town in the British midlands. Whilst the location initially seems incongruous, the beauty of Meadows' directing is in the way he can ground even the weirdest and wildest of events in reality through his use of characterisation and dialogue, so that they don't seem incongruous at all.

This aspect of Meadow's films can be seen in the below excerpt of Dead Man's Shoes. From 0:50 onwards, we see Meadows' interpretation of a conventional 'character stand-off'. Although we have many of the conventions of such a scene from a an old Western movie; namely two enemies sizing one-another up in quite a lengthy sequence to create a great amount of tension, Meadows manages to depict something that is quintessentially British. The characters are made to fit into both their location and the situation at hand; they look moderately intimidating as a gang, appear realistically unprosperous in the car they use and the way they dress, and seem quite uneducated in the way they ineloquently converse. At the same time, the protagonist, with whom the leader of the gang talks, is very unnerving in his arrogance, but without breaking the bounds of what is credible for such a person in his position. (This is all very much related to the concept of semiotics, which I introduced here on my AS blog)



Essentially, Meadows keeps his films sharp and interesting by providing the audience with a certain amount of social realism. Realism helps to captivate people, because they feel more willing to empathise and associate themselves with characters who could believably exist in this world. Realism will be a very important aspect of our short film, because whilst we are including surreal and ambiguous elements, we want the film to comment on the real world, and how real people interact. We will not be able to convey such a message unless the audience can conceivably relate the film to their own lives.

Another aspect that stood out to me on first viewing was that of the humour in the film. Despite its overly dark tone and tense atmosphere, Dead Man's Shoes contains some very funny moments, which help to break up the intensity of the plot in order to keep the audience just comfortable enough to continue watching. Many such moments contribute to the social realism of the piece, as real life is very rarely serious for extended periods of time. I feel that this kind of humour has almost become a trademark of British cinema, and a good example of it can be seen at 2:10 in the above clip, where we cut to a shot of the gang, squashed into the back of the car, debating what their leader is and should be doing.

Another illustration of this kind of humour can be found in the following clip from Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smocking Barrels from 1:00 onwards, where Vinnie Jones' character tells his son off for swearing, despite bringing him along in his day-to-day work as a loan shark. In this context, comedy is created because, whilst the sentiment of the father in not wanting his son to swear is realistic, the situation they are in at the time is not. 



Whilst I personally like this kind of 'socially realistic' humour very much, I do not think it would work particularly well in our short film. The humour works well in Dead Man's Shoes because, as I mentioned earlier, it eases the intensity of the plot and balances with the dark tone. Our film, however, must be short. Therefore, if we were to include a similar comedy moment, it would form a much bigger portion of the overall piece, and would definitely interfere with our surreal, cerebral tone. If we are to include any such humour, it won't be anything significant enough to be described as a 'moment' as such, and could be something as simple as one character insulting another.  

In summary, the directorial techniques which we will now consider are:

• Visual storytelling - use of eyeline matches and other such shots to convey information with minimum dialogue.
• Social realism - use of mise-en-scene, costume, location and characterisation to add a sense of realism and captivate the audience.

Pitch: Ideas and Inspiration for a Short Film

Since my last post, where I explained my decision to make a short film for my A2 Media practical unit, I have also decided to work on the film with Tom Palmer, and together we have combined ideas and shared our inspiration to develop a succinct plan for our film and its subsidiary projects. Below is a video of Tom and I pitching our initial ideas to the class, and also sharing some useful information we have found about the creation, distribution and exhibition of short films.


Project Pitch from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

For further information on the visual inspiration for our short film, please follow this link to Tom's blog.

Choosing a Brief

Before the summer holidays, we were provided with a sheet of paper listing the various briefs we could undertake as our A2 production projects. Two immediately stood out, one involving the production of a music video and various other promotional materials for a band, and the other focusing on the production of a short film, along with some promotional materials linked to the film. Obviously, I cannot undertake both briefs, and I cannot mix or combine them in any way, so a decision must be made.

Music videos differ from other television and film products, because they can exist without a conventionally structured narrative. In the same way that music and lyrics doesn't have to tell a story to be classed as a song, music videos don't have to contain a conventionally structured narrative to be classed as music videos. By my definition, a basic narrative is a number of events, connected in some way, which function together to develop an idea. For me, it is the process of 'functioning together to develop an idea' that is most important to the definition, as it prevents connected events that make no alteration to an idea from being classed as a narrative. Almost all music videos contain this kind of narrative, but many still can't be said to contain a conventionally structured narrative, which I define as follows: a number of events, connected by character, location, or action, which function together in a lucid, logical way, usually with some kind of chronological ordering, to develop an idea. 

This video for Spiralling by Keane, for example, can be seen to contain a very basic narrative: there is a man sat in a chair watching some screens, there are marching robots, there is what seems to be a robotic woman also watching some screens, and at the end we are shown that the man bears resemblance to one of the marching robots. This is certainly a narrative, because from the contingency of the described events and the lyrics of the song, we can derive the message that modern life is confusing in its endless representations of representations. It seems to suggest that we turn ourselves into robot-like beings by consuming artifices as opposed to the experiences of 'real life'. The video does not, however, contain a conventionally structured narrative; it doesn't establish a sense of time and location, and whilst the events are connected in some ways (the presence of the screens), they don't function together in the same lucid, logical way that a television drama or blockbuster film does. Music videos generally connote basic messages and emotions through distinctive cinematography that works in conjunction with the music.The video below for Ulysses by Franz Ferdinand can be seen as another clear example of this trend.



So it is clear that there is a void between the material found in music videos, and that found in other media for film and television. It is within this void that the short film establishes itself. Generally, short films have a somewhat conventionally structured narrative, but because of their limited running time, they rely heavily on distinctive cinematography, and sometimes distinctive music and sound, to connote messages and emotions that enhance the basic story. 


Spider from Qoob TV on Vimeo.

The short film above, Spider by Nash Edgerton, is similar to television and film media as it has a conventional narrative that is structured chronologically. At the same time, there are many differences. Most strikingly, the events of the film, up until the last few moments, occur in real time, and yet they convey a story and a message that is a lot deeper. Also, the vast majority of the shots used are very intimate; being close in proximity to one character or another, and usually focusing on their facial expressions or the small actions they perform. There is no obvious non-diegetic sound in the film either; in moments without dialogue, viewers are left to listen to the sounds of passing traffic. Overall, these techniques give the viewer the feeling that they are also sat in the car with the characters, unseen and unnoticed, but able to watch and speculate in tension.

The film below, Strangers by Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv, whilst taking itself slightly more seriously than Spider, exhibits a very similar style of intimate cinematography, but is more overt with its use of sound. Whilst short films do contain a conventionally structured narrative, it is worth noting that it is still a very basic narrative; as a rule, short films revolve around a simple but distinct idea, and explore it with a small number of characters and without a great deal of dialogue. Both of the short films shown here can be seen to abide by this rule. 



Considering the respective factors of each medium, I think that I would prefer to work on a short film rather than a music video, because it seems less restricting in terms of content, with more freedom to create. The official specification for this brief is as follows:

10. A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two of the following three options:

• a poster for the film;
• a radio trailer for the film;
• a film magazine review page featuring the film.

Next, I will begin constructing basic ideas for the film and its subsidiary products, ready for pitching to the class.

Music Video Remake: Completion

Finally, here is the completed version of my music video remake as a purely preporatory task.


Music Video Remake from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

Music Video Remake: Editing

It has to be said that, as a music video remake, the editing process was different in many ways. Instead of creating something new and original, where artistic decisions could be made at all stages, I was replicating a pre-existent product; working to a predetermined model. In some ways, this made the editing easier, because I didn't have to decide what shots to use where; I just had to have the footage ready, and cut the shots together as shown in the original video. In others, the process was constraining, because there wasn't much freedom to stray from the path that the original video dictated.

The original shot.

The new footage, imitating the original shot.

Intuitively, I took advantage of multiple video tracks, running the original video above my own footage so that I could time the cuts between shots as accurately as possible. Essentially, I was reviewing the original video, and aligning my own footage to it to create the remake. Whilst it wasn't difficult to time the cuts correctly, timing the pace of the performance to the audio track was much more of a trial-and-error procedure. To get the pace as accurate as possible, I began by watching the footage with the audio track and estimating the phase difference between the two. I then moved the starting position of the footage the appropriate amout to compensate. As it gradually became clear that the audio and video track were close to being in-phase, I moved the starting position back and forth in smaller and smaller increments, until the video and audio track worked together well.

Music Video Remake: Production

Soon after completing my animatic, I set to work persuading peers to take part in my surreal audio-visual venture. Luckily, a college 'day-off' was fast approaching, so I took the opportunity and organised filming to take place on that day. Ideally, I would have filmed the remake on the school stage, or in a drama studio, to ensure that the mise-en-scene was as similar as possible to that of the actual video. However, because availability of volunteers was limited to a day without college, and because I wanted a space that was mine to control (without definite time-windows and lingering responsibilities), I decided to film in my back garden. 

After reviewing the placement of the band and the shots required, I chose an appropriate position for filming which had the least restrictions for both camera placement and on-screen action. It was also quite necessary that I filmed on one side of the garden to avoid capturing enormous changes in lighting throughout the day. Although this couldn't be avoided entirely because of sporadic cloud-cover, the position I chose did minimise the problem considerably.

I was aiming to film what I needed as quickly as possible so as not to waste the volunteers' time, so I used the planning skills I had developed during my AS Media production project. Essentially, I wanted to make sure that I filmed only what I needed, and filmed it well, so I transferred all of the illustrated frames from my animatic onto sheets of A3 paper in order of first appearance. I then wrote the time windows in which the shots are used beneath each frame. With a variety of static shots to recreate, this preparation enabled me to set up a shot, and then film all of the moments that it is used one after the other. This method not only saved time and effort in setting up shots, but ensured that each respective shot remained the same throughout the video. 

Probably the biggest limitation I faced in remaking the video was in terms of accuracy was that of the props. The closest I could get to a real instrument was a small electric keyboard, so improvisation was required. Drumsticks became screwdrivers, guitars morphed into spades and tennis rackets, a metal safe became a cardboard box, chains turned to rope, and the miniature motorbike was swapped for a child's pedal bike. Still, this didn't matter too much, because the substitute props were chosen for their similarity in shape, proportion and utility to the real thing. As a result, the shots and performance were hardly affected. 

To ensure that everyone was performing in time, I hooked up a laptop to some speakers nearby, and played the original music video whilst filming. This allowed the volunteers to pretend to play their 'instruments' at the correct pace, so that I could time it to the audio track during editing. Seeing as only I was familiar with the video and the song, it was necessary that I mimed the lyrics. In order to allow myself to set-up the shot and also be in it, I asked a volunteer of the same approximate height to pose as me in the shot as I aligned the camera. After pressing record and swapping places in the shot, the same volunteer then played the video on the laptop at a suitable point for the rest of us to mime along to. This was the process used throughout the day, but not for certain shots involving the sabotage of the safe/box, where the timing of the performance wasn't particularly important.

The solutions for the ascent and descent of the safe/box were very much ad hoc. Essentially, we used an extending pole provided by a volunteer to hold a rope which was tied to the box. This way, a volunteer could hold the box in position whilst the performance was being filmed, and when it came to dropping the box, the rope could be fed through the loop at the end of the pole, allowing the box to fall vertically. I placed some items in the box before sealing it up to ensure that the box actually would fall instead of blowing to the side in the wind (which is rather uncharacteristic of a safe).

Admittedly, there are some glaring errors in continuity both between the original video and the remake, and just within the remake. Some examples of the former are

• The guitarist is holding his guitar the wrong way. This was a simple mistake that went unnoticed for a while, and when it was noticed, I judged it not to be worth filming the affected sections again.

• The vocalist is often stood to the wrong side of the frame. This mistake was entirely of my own making, caused by a misinterpretation of what the camera was filming; in the shots where I was miming directly to the camera, I fully rotated the preview screen so that I could set-up the shot, and forgot to compensate for the fact that the preview adjusts to mirror the image it receives.

Some examples of the latter are:

• The pole holding the safe/box suspended changes sides. It was unavoidable that the pole would be captured within the frame, but I also failed to foresee a problem in where the volunteer holding the pole was standing, so the pole does change from being on the right to being on the left, and then back again.

• The blue coil of rope being tugged by the pedal bike fully unwinds, only for the following shot to show it unwinding once more. This problem was unavoidable, simply because I didn't have enough rope for the coil to continue unwinding as the bike moved further and further away.

 All in all, I found the production of the piece to be a very enjoyable and worthwhile experience, and I would like to thank Alex Branson, Daniel Knights, Toby Barrett, Tom Palmer and Martin Campbell for their extremely skillful 'pretend-play' performances and their invaluable assistance in the arts of button-pushing, knot-tying and rope-pulling.

Animatics: Planning a Music Video Remake

Now having presented our information to the class, our task has been extended. We have been told to select a minute-long excerpt of our chosen video to remake, shot-for-shot, as accurately as possible. 

To get us into the habit of recognising and replicating shots and angels, we were introduced to animatics. In filmmaking, animatics are used as an optional stage of pre-production planning that clarifies the vision projected by the storyboard. Essentially, animatics are very basic projections of how the finished film will look; they tend to use illustrated or computer generated graphics with very little or no movement to show the angle, position and composition of each shot. The main benefit of stringing them together in the form of video is that the timing of cuts, and transitions can be conveyed in real-time, as it is intended to be in the final product. Sounds, or descriptions of sounds, can also be overlayed with the images, to give viewers a true sense of how the film should turn out. Overall, animatics are used because they can convey a lot of information in a way that is definitely more intuitive than storyboards; instead of imagining the film in their head, filmmakers can actually watch a very basic outline of it. 

As an example, here is a link to an official animatic for a music video, and here is a link to the actual music video, so that you can see the way in which an animatic conveys the intentions for tone, pacing and look with only basic preparatory illustrations.



To help us plan our music video remakes, we have been advised to produce our own animatics in a kind of reverse-engineering process. Above is the animatic I produced, and in creating it, I certainly feel that I have gained a better understanding of the shots used in the music video, and the frames I have drawn out on post-it-notes should prove helpful when it comes to shooting the actual remake.