Creative Project Realisation has given me a new set of
production skills that I have gained throughout the course of the first
semester. It has taught me the basics in new software that I was unfamiliar
with before and has allowed me to bring these skills into my research project
as well as in future films that I may want to display a specific visualisation
for.
My Major Research Project was a difficult experience to get
my head around at first however it really pushed me to the next level of
understanding the creative side behind the visual film. For example, at first my
initial proposal idea was more of a scripted idea than creative full of
difficult effects however after a tutorial with Susannah I realised that my
idea needed to be more visually stunning, therefore I changed it to a neo-noir
style action drama with lots of effects. The module helped me to think of a
film from a visual perspective rather than from a narrative perspective, which
is important for me, as my aim in the future is to direct film.
Beginning with the practice project was a great help for me
as I was able to gain an understanding of what I needed to aim to do for the
following major research project. We created a moodboard for the practice
project on Adobe Photoshop and compared it to the others made by different
people in my group; we quickly found that we all had separate images of the
film and had to work together to get the best image out of all our ideas. I
found this quite difficult as we had to compromise over different aspects of
the film. This was an example of visually realising the best path to take in a
story looking at what is realistic and what isn’t, this helped with my
producing skills in the end. I feel more able to look at what is possible in a
film now and maybe even look to do bigger things in my projects as I am someone
who constantly avoids ideas due to the restrictions they may bring when
creating the film.
The practice project was my first time ever using green
screen therefore I was not sure of what to expect in the postproduction stages.
As we only had a limited amount of time shooting and it was fully green
screened I struggled to keep up with what we had and this led to us missing a
shot. I feel that the shoot was not as organised as it should have been. For
example we did first rehearsals on the day of filming as well us creating the
costumes, this ate into our shooting time and the consequences of this were
that we left out a crucial shot in the sequence which made the edit a lot more
difficult. If I could have reshot this practice project I would have put a lot
more planning into the pre production stages and had a careful plan and list of
what we needed to get on the day so we could keep to a schedule.
Postproduction was a learning curve for me in the practice
project and helped assist my major research project very much when creating the
idea. It was the first time I had ever used both Adobe After Effects and
Autodesk Maya. The results of outing our piece into After Effects showed that
we had definitely made mistakes in the shooting stage. For example the lighting
wasn’t flat. I had put a dedolight under the table as it was casting a light
something that I thought would fix the problem in postproduction, however this
added to the problem due to the light being so yellow. If I were to redo this
project I would definitely think about other ways to flat light a green screen,
or create the shots so any shadow cast is out of shot.
Overall my practice project did not go the way that I had
hoped however I learnt a lot of new skills that I used to improve my major
project when in the research stages. My workshops helped to aid the skills I
needed to make my visualisation a reality for my final piece.
I began with inspiration from the Freudian theory of the
“Structure Model of Personality” (Cherry, 2012). This was a theory that
interested me as Freud discusses the way in which the ‘id’, ‘ego’ and
‘superego’ work together to ‘create complex human behaviours’ (Cherry, 2012).
It basically says that your id, an instinctive survival component of your
personality fight against your ego and superego to create a personality that is
within the social and behavioural boundaries that you have been raised with.
This seemed like a great starting point to develop my story as these opposing
forces could be created into characters as a kind of extreme duality in the
film. Therefore I began looking into thrillers, the genre is usually clear cut
as having a hero and a villain, the two quite different from each other. I specifically
looked into ‘Twist’ thrillers as this is a personal fascination of mine and fit
in well with the theory of the id fighting the ego and superego as a sort of
conscience battle. I researched many ‘Twist’ thriller films such as Shutter Island (Scorsese, 2010), Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) and Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960). Psycho was my main source of influence
in the ‘Twist’ thrillers as it was the first of its kind and one of the most
influential thrillers of our age. The film also has a lot of similarities of
the “Structural Model of Personality” (Cherry, 2012), for example Norman’s ego
and superego are so controlled by the way his mother brought him up that his id
has almost vanished and he has been transformed into an extremely mentally
scarred man. My final character has characteristics of Norman Bates, as I
wanted him to have a dangerous feel as though he is on the boundary of good and
bad. I think this is a good idea as when I developed my character the plotline
of the story flowed out from this as if it made perfect sense, therefore the
story world fits to the character instead of the other way around.
Throughout my research I quickly realised
that it was becoming dominated by the noir look derived from the use of my
setting, 1952 New York rooftops, I researched into the neo noir style and found
Sin City (Miller, 2005) and The Spirit (Miller, 2008) to be
extremely influential in the overall style of my piece, I even used the idea of
rendering all colours to black white and red that when researching seemed to be
fairly simple to achieve. The style I wanted was a gritty ‘novel adaptation’
neo noir look such as the Sin City and
The Spirit. The silhouetted figures
in the mist of a city gone to waste, a hell bent hero hailed in the desperate
times as the punisher of crime. I think these are two very distinctive styles
and because both films are mostly shot on green screen it is a lot easier to
control and locations could literally be drawn instead of found and controlled
in art direction. This is what I would do for my film to make a more visually
stunning world around the characters.
The characters are based off a lot of different
inspirations that I picked up throughout my research and planning stages, I did
a lot of planning on what I wanted Eddie Norman, my main character to look
like. I researched into the noir style and looked up Humphrey Bogart, one of
the most influential noir actors to this date. His 50’s
style private eye detective costumes and rugged exterior made him instantly
look like a man who is on the boundaries of good and bad. This is what I wanted
my character to look like even before researching into him therefore this
provided the perfect inspiration within the creation of the character
description, I researched his uniform then compared it with other uniforms from
neo noir style films instead as I wanted to give it more than just a typicality
to it. I decided to add in a red tie to make the connotations of this character
into danger, so the audience never really trusts him. This will make it all the
more interesting when the villain reveals who he is at the end.
Using the noir style means I could not ignore the
lighting set ups. Lighting is extremely important in noir style films as it
develops the extreme contrasts between dark and light emphasizing the duality
of the film. This is perfect for my film and is something that initially
attracted me to having a noir look; it gives a contrast that no other colour film can give and
the audience sees it as a distinctive style that can be related with such films
as Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) and Sin City (Miller, 2005).
Overall the development of my visual realization has
coincided well with my story, when it came to seeing how I could realistically
pull off such a surreal visual style it was my workshops in class that helped
me to feel more comfortable with working out how to actually going about
creating it. I resorted back to my workshop lesson in my blog for the green
screen keying part and for Maya for creating a backdrop. These two pieces of software
would allow me to create my unique style just the way I want it and would be a
lot more beneficial to use rather then an actual location due to the risk and
the lack of control I would have when I want my story world to be a specific
visual way. This is exactly how Frank Miller approached Sin City (Miller, 2005).
The soundtrack I chose is from Shutter Island (Scorsese, 2010) as it is
a great way to raise tension; the soundtrack gives off the impression of
inevitable hopelessness, something that both my short film and Shutter Island share. If I were to use
this soundtrack I would play it throughout the entire film. I think a
soundtrack within this film is important, as there is no dialogue throughout.
The soundtrack I have chosen has a lot of silent gaps throughout it and I think
this adds to the tension so would suit the style I aim for.
This Major practice project was an excellent
opportunity for me to learn about all the different approaches toward making a
visual style become a reality. This and the practice project allowed me to
experience new tools and gain new skills that I can use on different projects
as well as gaining an understanding in industry skills needed for the future. I
think overall my major project research, ‘Villain’ is a good idea as it is
tricky to create but not unrealistic when making the product a reality. I think
with enough time and equipment, I would be capable of creating this project the
way I want making a distinctive visual style that is similar to that of modern
neo noir films. If I were able to change anything within my project I would
have spent more time in the development of my style. I feel that I rushed my
research into genres and theories and focused too much on films as my
influence. This means that my idea was a little more cliché when comparing it
to other films, for example my character clothing is closely based on The Spirit (Miller, 2008) if I revisited
my character I would have created a more distinctive description that maybe
leads away from the conventional noir style. However I did try to avoid using too
much of the same film and did look into the conventions of the genre styles I
was aiming for.
Bibliography
Kendra Cherry; 2012; The Structural Model of Personality; http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/personalityelem.htm
Shutter Island; Martin Scorsese; 2010
Fight Club; David Fincher; 1999
Psycho; Hitchcock; 1960
Sin City; Frank Miller; 2005
The Spirit; Frank Miller; 2008
Vertigo; Alfred Hitchcock; 1958
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