Thoughts on identity.

Identity. Identities. Changing, evolving, a collection of ideas and experiences that we carry around individually and collectively. When discussing identity especially in online spaces we talk about “baggage” and use it like a dirty word. Identity is baggage. The who I am, the why I am, the where I’ve been and where I want to go that we say with our clothing, our music, our vehicles and our hairstyles. The untucked shirt, the midriff top, the three piece suit, the statement heels, the team shirt, and the ankle-length coat in summer that all say whose opinions we care about.

Identity is overlooked, overused, abused and overflowing, with statements, with colour, and with tones. Signalling, shouting and serenading, you, me, them, us, the story of our culture, of our inspirations, our aspirations and our determination to broadcast it to others. Declaring to the world that we are part of a group and inviting others to join us, to reach out, to start a dialogue and connect. Because deep down we all need to belong to something. Something larger than ourselves that reminds us we are not alone. That we’re all in this together.

Film Basics part 3: Storyboards

Every good story that has ever been made into a good film was most likely broken down into storyboards. A storyboard for those of you who haven’t heard of them before are visual representations of shots from key visual moments of the story. While they are primarily a planning tool for the director, allowing them to organise shots in sequence, storyboards also allow the director to convey their vision of the film to other film professionals such as the producer/s, the cinematographer, and the production designer without shooting a single frame of video or film. With their cost being very little beyond the time the director, or a storyboard artist, takes to draw them, they are inexpensive and useful for evaluating which shots can be done and which shots are out of reach of the film’s budget. Time spent storyboarding the film will also help to identify any weak spots in the story and will save time on set that may have otherwise been spent experimenting with camera positions or blocking. While storyboards only show key moments, they should still be enough to easily follow the story visually from beginning to end.

Click the links below for examples of storyboards.

http://screencrush.com/movie-storyboards/

Here is a video comparison of storyboards to film.

https://vimeo.com/159148984

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYjA8xQHK7Q

Storyboards are more than worth the time you will put into them, and their value should not be underestimated.

Fury review

During the final days of WWII the desperate German forces fought hard, making Allied troops earn every metre of land they took. The price was high, especially so if you happened to be an outmatched and outgunned American tank commander. This is the premise of writer/director David Ayer‘s new film Fury.

Fury stars Brad Pitt as Sgt Collier, a veteran tank commander given  a perilous mission behind enemy lines. The mission is made more dangerous for his veteran crew with the introduction of a rookie soldier Pte Norman Ellison, (Logan Lerman) a replacement for a fallen squad member. Lerman gives a brilliant portrayal of a young man’s struggle to deal with the realities of war, death, and destruction thrust upon him. Fury is also the name given to the tank by it’s crew.

Sgt Collier’s task is not only to complete his mission, but to maintain the integrity of his crew, providing them with a sense of order while the chaos of war all around them seems like nothing but insanity.  Collier’s zen-like calmness is done well by Pitt and he says so much more about the character with his facial expressions than he does with the dialogue.

Every role in Fury is well cast by Ayer and it shows. Shia LaBeouf, gives a terrific performance as deeply religious soldier Boyd “Bible” Swan, at times supporting Sgt Collier in boosting morale of the crew. LaBeouf delivers this so well, you can see that Swan is unsure who needs the morale boost more, the crew, or perhaps just himself. Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal also add to the quality of the film’s acting talent, providing brilliant support to Pitt, Lerman, LaBeouf and each other.  

All of Fury’s crew deal with the horrors of war in their own ways, treading a fine line between keeping it together and losing it completely. As a former serviceman, the camaraderie was eerily familiar to my own experiences with military interpersonal dynamics and this was most likely something very important to the director Ayers, himself a former member of the US Navy.

The special effects and visual effects were excellent, in that they didn’t call attention to themselves. The only moment this occurred was when the air invasion squadrons fly overhead and they aren’t quite realistic enough. The sound design I found to be a little reserved, but this in no way detracted from the emotion, rather it heightened it. Those moments that would have been lost due to an overuse of volume were captured in a much more intimate way, wonderfully appropriate for this film.

The cinematography was one point where I found fault. Fury is no Saving Private Ryan, and by that I mean, you won’t find lots of grand set pieces and sweeping wide shots. Most of the time the “wide” shots are quite close in and low down. I had the feeling they were trying to stay within a very small area during filming, perhaps due to budgetary considerations and at times this is distracting. I just want to look around at certain moments and Ayer does not give enough opportunity to do that.

On the whole it’s everything a good film should be, a good story well told, that makes you think about what it is to be human. Definitely worth a watch on the big screen. If you like what you’ve read please leave a comment.

Trailer

Film basics part 2: Identifying Shots

Unless you’re involved in creating film in some way, or you’re an avid self-taught film aficionado, identifying shots is probably not something you’re familiar with. Today we are looking at some examples to broaden your film vocabulary, giving a name to those shots you see in every film and for some of you perhaps even refresh your memory.

Shots are usually defined within nine parameters, with those being the Wide Shot (WS), Very Long Shot (VLS), Long Shot (LS), Mid Shot (MS), Medium Close-up (MCU), Close-up (CU), Big Close-up (BCU), and Extreme Close-up (ECU).

The wide shot is typically used to portray an environment, while including many people within the frame. This is often also known as an establishing shot. Such as this shot below from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

A wide shot can also be somewhat closer than this, such as this example below from Inception.

The very long shot could almost be considered a wide shot, however the distance isn’t quite as far in frame. The example below is also from Inception.

The long shot contains all of a person from head to toe but isn’t quite as far away as a VLS. Below is an example from Gravity.

Below is another LS from The Matrix.

A medium long shot usually puts the bottom of frame somewhere around the knees. As in the example below from Dark City.

The mid-shot puts bottom of frame around the middle of the person, as seen below in an example from Tron Legacy.

The medium close-up positions bottom of frame around chest height. The example below is from The Empire Strikes Back.

Close-up shots are even further in, framing primarily from the shoulders up. The example below is from The Empire Strikes Back.

Below is another close-up example, from The Matrix.

 

Next up is the big close-up or BCU. The whole face fills the frame from top to bottom. The example below is from Hero.

 

To finish off, last but not least is the extreme close-up. The ECU loses  parts of the face off the frame and places emphasis on the eyes. The example below is once again from Hero.

In several, if not all of these films more than one of these shots occurs within the same take due to camera tracking. It may start off as long-shot but finish up as a close-up, so think of these descriptions as a jumping off point.

You can see how much emotional impact an extreme close up has when you compare it to the wide shot. The reasons why a director chooses a specific shot comes down to what sort of emotions the director wants the audience to identify with during a particular scene.

Thanks for reading and if you like what you see, leave a comment.

Film basics part 1: Aspect ratio

Have you ever watched a film at home and wondered why you still get black bars above and below the picture on your “wide-screen” television? Today we look at the reason why.

Essentially the aspect ratio is the width of the frame divided by the height of the frame. See Empire’s story here for a more historical explanation.

Films have been presented in one wide-screen format or another for more than 60 years.  Sometimes they are even presented in more than one.  In Hollywood the preferred format for theatrical release at the moment is 1.85:1 or the wider ratio of 2.35:1 (also known as Super 35mm).  Sometimes the “:1” is left off the end of the ratio and you see only 1:85, or 2:35 and this is only because the writer chose not to include it.

When a film is more intimate and spends a fair portion of the story indoors, and/or up close, the filmmakers frequently choose 1.85:1.  If it is a film more likely to include sweeping vistas and landscapes, or plenty of exterior shots, the wider 2.35:1 is more popular because it allows for a wider format without the need for anamorphic lenses. Some examples include Captain America 2, Divergent, and The Amazing Spider-man 2.

As seen in the diagram below, 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 are wider than 16:9.  Since the width of the picture must always fit on your screen, with the corresponding height of the picture conforming to the aspect ratio of the film, there will be a lot of pixels on your screen that are not required to display an image and these dormant pixels are the black bars. These bars are sometimes referred to as the letterbox format.

You may have noticed that films shown on your local television station frequently, if not always, do not seem to be letterboxed, or are to a much lesser degree. This is because your station has trimmed the edges of the film using an editing program, to better fill your television. 2.35:1 the wider format,  is affected even more by this process of local editing.

In television the square format which was popular for decades, was known as 4:3,  and trying to make a rectangular film frame fit into a square frame was a big problem. This meant that a lot of films that were broadcast on television lost a lot of their composition so carefully thought about during the original filming for cinema, by the same re-editing process still carried out to some degree today. This is colloquially known as “pan and scan”.

Aspect ratio is not pixel ratio. This is an entirely different concept altogether. For a still camera it concerns the number of pixels captured within a frame, and for a television/monitor it is the number of pixels displayed on a screen.

 

Stay tuned for part two of film basics, coming soon.

 

 

Monday is the best day of the week. Seriously.

Everybody loves Friday. Admit it, you do right? It’s the same day, that comes before the evening, you can kick back and get started on your weekend. Assuming you don’t work weekends; though if you do, you should substitute your “Monday” in place of the usual one here. Fridays however, are lazy. They come after four other working days and do little to help your creativity. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they distract you. They tease you all day long with Friday evening, making your mind wander every so often. Hardly a productive day.

Somehow, Monday has been given a bum rap. There are songs about not liking Monday too, and this probably started for a lot of people in childhood. Your weekend ends as a child and of course Monday is the first day back at school. I remember not being a fan of school, and therefore by default not a fan of Monday.

As an adult it became a very similar thing with work. Monday was not my favourite day because it meant I had to go back to that place I wasn’t so fond of, just to put my nose to the grindstone again, and I’m betting a big proportion of you feel the same way. Studies have shown that Monday is the most popular day for suicide. Definitely not an achievement to be proud of.

What if you looked at it from a different point of view though? What if you think about those positive social interactions you have on Mondays, that come only from work or from school? Think about it for a moment. The best stories you hear are always about what someone did over the weekend, and that’s only ever told on a Monday. By Tuesday the shine of the weekend has worn off and we’re all back into work mode, rarely a time for great stories.

Mondays are also a reboot for your creativity and your motivation. You haven’t been stressed out from a previous day at work because it’s Monday, so you’re feeling the best you will feel all week.  A perfect time to start a new project, or to finish off an old one. Mondays from this point of view, are filled with promise and opportunity. It wasn’t until I had to describe what Mondays are to me, did this all fall together to make me realise that Monday really is the best day of the week.

Thanks for reading. If you’d like to see more, or be kept up to date, follow me here, or follow the links to my twitter.

There is no escaping Gravity’s pull

The pull of Gravity the film that is. Released here in Australia this past Thursday, Gravity stars Sandra Bullock as Dr Ryan Stone, George Clooney as astronaut Matt Kowalsky and is directed by Alfonso Cuarón, of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Children of Men, fame.

A tale of man vs the environment, only in this case, the environment is the stark, unforgiving, vacuum of space. What Jaws did for inspiring us to fear  sharks, Gravity will surely do for space. Never again will I dream of visiting the International Space Station, that’s for sure.

This visceral experience, because it can’t just be called a film, is a roller coaster ride of high’s and lows, just as every good hero’s journey should be. Don’t be surprised to find yourself breathing faster, just as Bullock’s character Dr. Stone does.

Gravity draws you in (no pun intended) until you feel you share her struggle, to survive what seems like insurmountable obstacles. At times you wouldn’t blame her for giving up, and then later you’ll desperately want her to succeed, if only so you can take a breather too. The acting is so authentic you’ll forget you’re watching two big stars and only see two astronauts.

Besides the wonderful performances of Bullock and Clooney, the cinematography is beautiful. The choice of lighting setup of an environment that doesn’t reflect light in the way we are used to within an atmosphere, seems spot-on. Even if most of us can only imagine what those conditions actually are, it feels like reality, not movie magic.  Speaking of reflections, you’ll love the amazing use of them here.

The sound design and the score are equally as immersive as the cinematography. Many high stress moments are given extra power with the thriller genre style of musical emphasis. It’s this deliberate use of music that fills this otherwise endless silence of space. In all situations, sound is only heard when Stone is within a vessel containing air pressure.

This was a deliberate choice, and sound was only added to the trailer to make it seem more interesting to a casual viewer. Composer Steven Price’s  score is emotional, and masterfully compliments the visuals, as any good score should. I found myself thinking how much more enjoyable it was in comparison to the understated score from Oblivion.

The visual effects are truly magic in this film and they needed to be. Gravity was in development for several years until technology finally caught up to the imagination of writer/director Alfonso Cuarón. The effects budget is clearly seen on screen and this is actually a good thing. You won’t believe what fire does in zero gravity.

If there is something wrong about Gravity, for me, it is this. It really is a film that does deserve a cinema screen experience and when it’s had it’s run and moves on, I’ll be wishing I could see it that one more time the way it’s meant to be seen.

Thanks for reading. If you like what you’ve read feel free to follow the blog, or catch me on twitter. I look forward to your comments.

Future script material or social media fodder?

Big questions. My definition of a big question is, any question that can’t be answered without engaging in philosophical, or theoretical concepts. Think about that for a moment.

How would you answer to yourself, “Who am I”, and “Why am I here”? They are probably the two shortest, and yet still the biggest, questions that most of us consider at some point in our lives. Can we answer those questions honestly to ourselves, or are we so programmed that we can only regurgitate the answers we expect the society that we live in would want? Do we even know?

It was suggested on social media this week that my experiences of on-line dating would make an interesting and potentially funny read, and when I thought about it, I agreed. Yet when I started to consider exactly what I was exposing, and to whom, I began to think about the big questions.  Within those two questions are even more questions, such as, “why am I worried about sharing my private life”?” Why do I consider that sharing it, is a bad thing”? There must be some sort of repercussions I’m worried about surely? But from who, and why?

It’s this kind of thinking that seems to go in a circular motion away from and then back to, the two big questions. For me, the incorporation of my digital identity has become so intertwined with my answer to the big questions, that it leads me to thinking, maybe it’s just safer to use the experiences as future script material. Then I read what I just wrote here and think “have I just unmasked myself and do I need to revisit the big questions, again?”.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to your comments.

Oblivion, it’s all in the name

Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski’s latest outing Oblivion, starring Tom Cruise, is yet another visual delight. Kosinski described his choice of mixing colourful vistas with the colourless scenes of devastation as a “daytime science fiction movie“. In terms of mise-en-scene (visual genre content) he succeeds to the degree that you could take a shot from anywhere in the film and still know you’re in a sci-fi feature.

Film however, is not all about images, and a great film requires interesting characters, a good score, and a solid story. Here’s where the film falls a little. While Tom Cruise does a good job, there really isn’t that much time in the film to explore his, or any other character, even though the depth of talented actors playing the other roles was more than capable. Seriously though, when was the last time you went to a Cruise film and were hoping for lots of character exploration?

Morgan Freeman’s character is mainly explored through exposition, which is sadly used more than once in this film, including, unfortunately, at the opening. Exposition saves time and money, yes, but it’s not something the audience wants repeatedly in a film.

As for the score, it didn’t move me the way I want a score to. If you want to add some emotional depth to something faster than visuals, you need a good score to take you there. I found that it was understated much like this example.

Another reviewer claimed the story was a rip-off of plots and images from other films, and yes, it does seem similar, though surely it’s a direct consequence of sticking to specific genre conventions. A tale told before perhaps, but it’s told in a new way and isn’t that what you want out of any film?

 

Afterthoughts

When you begin the process of preparing to direct your first real film project and you want to plan how much time this will take you, double it. Being part of pre-production, post-production and then discussing distribution and festivals, is a very long time.

I’m sure the experienced directors pretty much know how long it takes, but when you’re starting out you begin to realise that some things take longer than you originally expected.

Also, never assume that everyone sees the big picture. Communication is vitally important and you should always ask for confirmation, even when you think it’s pretty obvious what you are trying to convey.