The final blog of 2009...definitely!

The penultimate academic week of 2009 began on Tuesday with a screening of This Film Is Not Yet Rated. This was a great documentary which I'm certain I've seen before, it was well-paced and Kirby Dick made for an excellent documentarian. I found the section on how sensitive the MPAA are to homosexual sex quite eye-opening. In this day and age when the world is (generally) accepting of someone's sexuality, why can't art be as well? I don't want to witness "tough" sex scenes in every film but sometimes, the story naturally gravitates that way.

Wednesday & Thursday were Zam's classes where we looked at comedy, good fun and then Thursday with Gav as we looked at the Balamory footage. Friday was a screening of many of our shorts. No offence to the others but Slag! and Little Clown stood out highest among the group, Melissa's Mail, The Golden Rule and Dust were pretty good, each being visual treats (I still love my tracking shot in Melissa's Mail). Suckerpunch came out far better than I had heard from others and it was nice to see a film I was part of, non-creatively, see finished.

The final Monday was our day editing Balamory and I soon realised any "performance" on the show, is crafted in the edit, since none of them seem to know what they are doing. Tuesday was all day with Zam and then a confidence boosting Richard tutorial over Skype, which took a few minutes to get used to but then I found a level of comfort with it. Doesn't beat face time though. The class with Zam was entertaining since we had to come up with a story that used a ticking clock scenario and myself, Ross and Luke struggled for most of the time, throwing out several ideas before finding one that we loved and could work with. The problem came when we came up with our idea a few hours after everyone else had settled on theirs. Luckily, we seemed to all know exactly what the idea was and could quickly work out the beats and Ross' storyboards certainly helped us when it came to presenting. I wish we had the budget to do a grad film in a space station!

Thursday was a short day with Cammy and Friday consisted of a screening of Gremlins, which led to Avatar and then our class Christmas dinner, which was great fun. A nice end to the year.

"That's not a place where I'm considered good-looking."
Mark Hoppus of Blink-182, on why he had never visited Kenya.

"I have become the monster you were intended to be."

A whole bunch of reviews, read on. I'll do TV stuff later.

FILM

A View To A Kill - I remember this being extremely poor and while it wasn't a total disaster, it's still pretty bad. Christopher Walken plays a very poor bad guy who tries to be manic but fails, Grace Jones plays the creepiest henchperson ever, a woman really shouldn't be able to hold a man over her head and Roger Moore is far too old to be playing Bond at this point. What's even funnier is that it feels like Roger Moore himself is barely in the film since he seems to replaced with a stuntman at every opportunity. The film plods along typically and manages to be just about watchable though the plot is a big fat cliche, even for it's time period. The one thing I did love though was the mine-set production design, comparable to the mine-set in The Temple Of Doom and the use of Cháteau de Chantilly created a certain 'wow' factor though sadly, not enough to save it. Possibly the worst of the fourteen I've revisited so far.
Dark City (Director's Cut) -Last year I caught the theatrical version of this on DVD and again, this is a director's cut which improves on the original. The transfer was much better than the theatrical version and Alex Proyas has taken out the voiceover which sort of gave the game away. Some of the acting is a little poor, Kiefer Sutherland's scientist character sounds like Stevie Kenarban with an additonal breath or two and Rufus Sewell seems to do nothing else besides stand and listen but Jennifer Connelly is as pretty as ever and Richard O'Brien knows exactly how to play creepy.

The film is a year older than The Matrix (which re-used some of the sets from Dark City)and for me, it looks much better, is always worthy of a re-watch and wasn't plagued by unforgettable (in a bad way) sequels. The visual effects are something else to write home about and look amazing, considering what has to be shown.

The film is visually inspired by German Expressionism, mainly Nosferatu and Metropolis which is obvious once you watch it but where better to borrow a look? In fact, as I was watching, I noticed many similarities between this and recent videogames such as Bioshock which seemed to borrow locations, location titles and almost the stranger in a strange art deco land. The gothic feel doesn't seem simply tacked on either, I could almost imagine there being many different stories to tell in the same city.

This is probably the only film that could sit alongside Blade Runner as a Sci-fi/noir but it doesn't quite reach the remarkability of that film though it certainly leaves a few images in your head. If you're at all interested in entirely new sci-fi fantasy worlds, this is one to put on some sort of list. Don't read up on it, just watch it.


Harry Brown - Michael Caine does Gran Torino and the film stays entertaining throughout, even though some of it, especially the junkie scene, was pretty harsh to watch. Certainly worthwhile.


Martyrs - A tough french horror which is almost the anti-Hostel, it has extended scenes of torture, none of which anyone will want to rewatch, ever. The story does have a good revenge throughline but ultimatly, I'm not sure what the film was supposed to be about or how it was supposed to make me feel and the director's interview confirmed that it isn't much more than a box of tricks really, which is disappointing since the film could have been much more resonant if it only had a little more thought put into it.


Paranormal Activity - (SPOILERS)The film that is apparently one of the scariest horror movies ever and I certainly was scared by the majority of it. Yes it was unsettling but all I could think of was the one droning noise that seemed to have been dragged and dropped into the edit. Personally, I'm not scared by lights going on and off in a hallway, I think it's too obvious to be scary. There were sections that I did think were well pulled off and I reckon that it's only my 'see it all before' attitude that stopped me from being scared. When Micah finds his wife outside, I was thinking it could have been really unsettling but it fell flat on it's face, for all the realism it tries to portray, still no character thinks to hit a lightswitch. The story plods along neatly enough but I thought it took far too long to get to anything at all creepy and even then, the tension was eased all too quickly.

There are a number of plotlines never tied up as well, the photograph, how Katie managed to become unpossessed before being repossessed and why the hell Micah didn't think to set a camera up outside of the room as well, since most of the action seemed to take place outside of the room. Also, what spectre wants to put keys on the floor? Then again, it is a work of fiction.

The film was another lesson in how hype can be a bad thing for a film since I expected to have many sleepless nights afterwards. I didn't totally despise it, I would love to find out how some of it was shot (Katie being dragged from the room, the white paw prints) but I keep thinking it's an entirely unfulfilling film. The Blair Witch Project set a bar 10 years ago and the only found-footage horror to be on par with it is Rec and when I spoke with Ray on the shoot this week, I remembered how amazing it was and realised that I must rewatch it very soon. Rec (a news crew are the camera carriers in this one) uses it's format much better and unlike Paranormal Activity, or even The Blair Witch Project, the daytime isn't filled with tears and the night time filled with a scare, Rec is a constant onslaught. It also boasts in my mind one of the most intense closing sequences in any horror ever, which lasts at least 20 mins of Rec's 72 minute running time.

I think Paranormal Activity has arrived 10 years too late and the opening and closing credits don't make sense in a world where everyone is talking about how much it cost and director Oren Peli's next Area 51 project. At the dawn of (internet) time, an actual believablity could have been created.

For me, if you have never seen a horror movie, or you prefer to stay away from them, then of course this is going to be the scariest film ever in a world of dull remakes and repackages. Paranormal Activity had a great closing 5 minutes and simply because the scariest moments are those at the end, I think this is the reason it is being remember for being as scary as it is. The scream from downstairs provided the only jump for me but I believed the action in the final shot was going to happen much earlier. And on that point, won't she only have a VERY sore head afterwards?


The 400 Blows - Andy called it a masterpiece and it may well be, but like Citizen Kane, it has lost it's main strength, it's pioneering techniques, due to many films having "borrowed" them since. The film is actually fairly conventional by modern day standards and while sometimes on a Friday afternoon screening I'm fighting heavy eyelids, the film was gripping and even when it seemed to meander a little, I was still basking in the cinematography. A great film I'd watch again.

"Let me tell you something, you have not partied till you've partied
at dawn in complete silence with Buddhist monks."
Cameron Diaz

Short but exciting...

Monday began with Andy and finding out a lot more about how films are released. The documentary he showed us confirmed and informed things I had only a rough idea about earlier. The afternoon was another class with Richard, which turned out to be our final for this term, since Mr Smith is now off in LA. I don't have the facilities at home to skype so I'm going to have to sort that out, that process is going to be very odd!

Tuesday we watched Grey Gardens which was better than Salesmen but not as exceptional as it was hyped-up to be. Very nice idea for a documentary, though like Salesmen, it seemed to just get lost in the subjects telling stories that I really didn't care about. Respectable, but nothing I want to watch again.

Thursday was my next day in and we were working with actors which was great, though loosing Adam was a bit of a set back. Thankfully Ray stepped up and while it was a great experience, we didn't seem to get as much from it as the other group. It would have been nice to have the sit down with the actors and I learned the most from talking and listening to them during the extended lunch break. The main thing I got from it is give the actors room and allow them to be as creative as anyone else on set, though they should still know what you want from them, just allow them to find that path themselves.

Friday was a screening of The 400 Blows which I quite enjoyed, more in the other post.

"Gentlemen, do not underestimate the danger of the atom bomb.
It's dynamite."
Samuel Goldwyn

"All you can do is play along at life and hope that sometimes you get it right."

Andy's class on Monday was severely enjoyable, laying into Robert Flattinson (because he's, like, 2D), Gerard Butler and his chipmunk-ness and as usual a casual bringing up of Megan Fox. With regards to the stick insects of modern cinema, I think I'd like to treat them to a good KFC family bucket, Keira Knightley especially, I think she's trying for a size beyond Size Zero:Monday afternoon was perhaps my favourite Richard session so far. The reason being that we were all pitching our ideas and it was great to hear everyone giving constructive feedback on everyone else's ideas and really, there wasn't a bad one in the class. There were some I loved more than others, like Michael's which made me think that a horror could be done as a student film, albeit a quite expensive one. I also thought it was good to have some fresh eyes (or in this case, ears) to my own idea since myself and Richard like it but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be a great story. All feedback has been bounced off the idea and most of them have stuck. Thanks class! And of course Richard.

Tuesday was a short discussion with Andy and Adam on this week's scenes. I was glad to hear their intentions and I look forward to this coming week, it's quite exciting. I'm actually thinking of developing something outside of the course during next term to hopefully put any directing skills gained into practice. I didn't intend in becoming the prop master on the scenes but I guess creating a reminder list can sometimes send you in a certain direction. It was good fun having a right old rummage around the prop store though and thankfully we've found just about all of the props!

Thursday was a full day of Gav and while it wasn't as difficult to get through as I thought, the subject matter wasn't terribly exciting. It was good to learn how to customise and make ourselves comfortable with Avid since we will be spending extended time with it in the future. Also, as I noticed with camera last year, I see where I was going wrong when editing in Avid at college.

Friday opened for me with a performance of The Island Tapes, which I loved the concept of and it was a welcome break from my sometimes louder iPod tracks. Each of the musicians were particularly talented and someone mentioned afterwards that it was a modern day equivalent of silent movie-era type live accompaniement and I hope we get to take part in the planned cityscapes version.

After this I had my rummage in the prop store and then as darkness fell, my Adam tutorial which went quite well, even though we maybe began to get too sidetracked for a Friday evening.

I have a fair few reviews to post about, but they'll come along at some point.

"I think that gay marriage should be between
a man and a woman."
Arnold Schwarzenegger

Blogging a dead horse

Week 8 began with Andy's class, this time focussing on the star system which was a good class, though one of the key thoughts, that Brad Pitt is not a movie star, I'm sure has been raised before. Either that or I've already looked at his box office success. Of the Brad Pitt films I have watched (12 Monkeys, Seven, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, Inglourious Basterds), none of the flaws of the films are his performance, he is quite a diverse and talented actor but for some reason, doesn't attract big money. A real oddity. So does being a sex symbol really affect the box office returns? Apparently not.

With Richard we studied some smaller scenes like the unforgettable opening of Scream. The film has dated terribly and this was one of the films that I struggled to make it through without my hands covering my eyes back in the day. It still scared Galina though, which was quite funny. Richard also informed us that this coming week, we will be pitching our story ideas to the class. This should be fun.

On Tuesday, we watched My Fake Baby and the beginning of Evicted which I'm quite glad, didn't finish, I wasn't quite in the mood for a depression. My Fake Baby comments can be found in my previous post.

Wednesday began at 1 with a programme meeting which I think made us look like we despised the course, which obviously isn't true. Sometimes our class seems quite happy to suffer in silence but thankfully we got everything off our chests. In terms of technical, for some reason I spoke up but the words I said were more related to other peoples thoughts than my own. I feel fairly comfortable behind the camera, though as I've expressed before, I'm not yet confident with lighting and the camera additions, such as filters in the matte box. With the comments over the past few days though, I've come to terms with the idea that I just have to ask more questions when it comes to lighting and actively seek support which I have done in the past. I think a Ray tutorial post-scene shoots may be in order, even though I know that is not the focus of the exercise. I'm also now happy to accept that lighting will be something I'll learn a lot more of in term 2 and 3 and even more so if I decide on camera specialism. While it is pretty concrete that's the route I'll follow, I want to try my hand at producing, I think I'm organised and good enough at planning ahead to give it a reasonable stab. Who knows, I could end up having a last minute change of mind.

After the meeting it was quite reassuring to see the effect our comments had on both Ray and especially Adam later in the week. Adam mentioned that he can't imagine us not doing films, he said something along the lines of we would certainly be doing one though hopefully 2 or 3 or maybe even four. I understand the funding issue and would be happy to do scenes all year but at the same time, I think we may be even more stressed for our grad films if we don't have practice at our production roles this year. I was also quite shocked to find out that Adam and Andy will be our directors for the scenes and really, there are few better to teach us how to talk to actors. Our history with them also means we should be at ease to raise questions. While it would be quite chaotic, I would have liked to be present on Andy's day too, you can never learn too much. Maybe someone can record that session for me.

Zam's class was replaced with a screening of Salesman, thoughts are in my previous post.

Thursday was a great sound revision class with Cammy. I was quite annoyed though when some of the class seemed quite unwilling to engage as much as some of us who are fairly confident we won't be following the sound channel (yes, a pun). In my eyes, you never know what the future holds and if no work in my chosen field was available, I'd love to put myself forward for a sound recordist/boom op position if it meant getting valuable on-set experience.

Gav's class was decent enough but I'm finding it hard to pay attention during editing, maybe it's the DTU or maybe it's just because I'm sat in front of the computer but whatever it is, I'm dreading full editing days. As Adam said on Friday, we'd probably just end up 'zombified'. We'll see, though Gav constantly making light of what we're doing certainly eases me.

Friday started with an hour with Adam and then myself, Murdo, Phil and Graeme were off to film the Brodsky Quartet. I'm not into the classical musical scene (yes, shocking I know), but these guys were pretty good and were quite patient with us, though ideally, I'd have wanted to move the one member who seemed a bit of a diva. The lady (Jacqueline?) seemed especially nice and came over and introduced herself to each of us beforehand. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be, I suppose my multi-camera nerves are almost non-existant since no-one was looking at me, only at the performers. Some of the shots I reckon will be pretty useless though I think my nice focus pulls and intimate shots will help Gavin's edit. A great experience and I managed to even stay calm and collected when the battery went down, I know that a year ago that would have seemed like the end of the world. The directed study I did the night before helped me put in to practice timecode syncing, a technique I'll remember for the next multi-cam shoot.

RANT/THOUGHT?

This weeks 'star' class got me thinking that I have a problem with the term 'character actor'. Actors such as Robert DeNiro, Michael Douglas or Morgan Freeman are known as character actors. This (i think) refers to the actors playing similar, deep characters but where does the line between being typecast and being a character actor, get drawn. Plus, 99% of the time, actors are playing a character, so isn't everyone a character actor? Even blockbusters have characters with back stories, thoughts and processes so really, what is a character actor?

"Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children learning?.'"
George W. Bush

And of course Henry the horse dances the waltz...

Finally, time to do a reviews blog, faithful readers will be glad no doubt. There will be a rant or two but generally, I'm going to try and keep it small and specific, though I do have a lot to write about.

TV

Mad Men - This has been tagged with The Wire like praise and whilst I wasn't taken so much by The Wire (it apparently requires long term dedication before you can be rewarded, how can I cope with that? I was born in the 80's!), there was something I loved about Mad Men from the opening titles. Mainly, it's style.

The show plays it's time period perfectly and there are no modern day shows I can think of that can pull off the 60's.. It almost feels as if you could colour this black and white and most audiences would be hard pressed to tell it's a modern day show. The only problem I had was that the opening episode was not the best introduction to the characters, it almost felt as though I had came right in the middle of something. By the third episode though, I was quickly trying to find time to watch it. Every image in the show could be a beautiful photograph and after having recently stared for extended periods at a lighting plot for the Draper household in American Cinematographer, it doesn't seem to be a simple case of post-production grading.

Brass Eye - Having watched a fair few episodes of The IT Crowd, and loved Chris Morris' every second on-screen, I really wanted to see what he was up to beforehand. The show borders on Borat/Bruno sort of madness and taste and isn't for everyone but it's level of satire is unparralled by any other show before or since with most of the humour coming from an exaggeration of content and questions which would be asked in Panorama/World In Action sort of shows.

DOCUMENTARY

The Beatles Anthology - When it comes to music documentaries, there are few which are better. Recent re-releases and the Rock Band game has given The Beatles another cash injection as well as introducing a new generation to their boundary-pushing music. Recently, I watched Episode 5, which covers their career as they realise that their live performances are becoming poor, due to the number of women who come along to their gigs and only ever scream, apparently they couldn't hear themselves. In the 1960's it was also commonplace for bands to go onto shows like Top Of The Pops and many others and "perform" or rather, mime. In 1965, The Beatles needed more time to write and tour and so came up with the idea of having a "Promotional film", showing the band performing to a backing track usually of their new single.

The first, was "Paperback Writer" and while The Beatles themselves aren't single-handedly responsible for creating the modern day music video, they are certainly the first major band to have one. The video itself doesn't have the breakneck pace of modern music videos, then again, the music itself isn't exactly breakneck either. A year previous to the "Paperback Writer" film release, Richard Lester directed them in A Hard Day's Night, which itself is considered must-see viewing for anyone interested in pop promo's, for me, this section is the must see:


My Fake Baby - A quite disturbing documentary, I was shocked constantly throughout and saw the woman who looked as if her grandson had died, as a mad woman, until at the end, we find out the grandson is alive and just in New Zealand. Then I realised the woman was clinically insane. The documentary was especially effective and is one of the few worthy of repeat viewing. Very well edited and much cleverer than audiences, who may tune out after a break or two, may give it credit for.


Salesman - This doc was quite difficult to follow, it may have been my old ears or it may well have been the room but I had a lot of difficulty hearing what was being said. Besides that, the "narrative" was decent and just about engaged me enough, though it picked up towards the end. The idea was much stronger than the execution and could have done with losing 10 or 20 minutes, which I put down to there being too many scenes of the men selling bibles.

FILM

Zombieland - A great little film with lots of one-liners and an addictively watchable Woody Harrelson and an interesting narration style from Jesse Eisenberg. Of all zombie movies, this seems to have the least but the film becomes more about the dynamic between the four leads and is a road movie disguised as a zom-com. Certainly one to watch, though I don't think it was quite funny enough (besides the cameo) to watch again.


Saw VI - The franchise continues and by the look of it, is not yet ready to end. It's returns may be dwindling but considering how much they cost to shoot, the series is still turning massive profits. Those money men at Twisted Pictures and Lionsgate are very smart folks. I can't sell this to anyone since like serial drama, the audience has to soon wane. If you didn't enjoy one you won't watch two and therefore won't watch three e.t.c. but I consider myself a fan and this episode, was stronger than the previous two. For me, the series isn't particularly scary or creepy or indeed shocking anymore and I can only compare it to something like Eastenders, except with more gore and less misery. It often pans out like a soap, with random relations turning up, characters coming back from the dead and lots of people shouting/screaming at each other. If you liked Saw V, you should see Saw VI, though I doubt anyone reading this is interested.


The Battle Of Algiers - I wish I could write more about this, I really don't remember much about it, but I do remember enjoying the riot sequences, I didn't love it, but also didn't really hate it. Maybe my memory is depreciating.


2012 - Roland Emmerich is destroying the world again and as much as it was entirely dumb, poorly written and is really a road movie with collapsing buildings, it is VERY entertaining and VERY funny. It may actually be my favourite Roland Emmerich film though that statement gets me thinking, Mr Emmerich's "style" isn't a million miles away from Michael Bay's "style" but if Michael Bay had made this, would I treat it differently? I think I have a lot more respect for Emmerich because of Independance Day, which was one of my favourite sci-fi films growing up. Anyway, if you like to see lots of things blow up, John Cusack be an amazing driver and then chased by fireballs and also see the funniest Russian in cinematic history, then you have to see this.
***********************
That's another reviews blog, hopefully I won't have as much to write about next time.

A Monday off and a great camera day makes Paul a something something...

Really good times this week, a Monday off and then Tuesday with only Andy's factual class where we touched on documentaries and the possibilities of us making some in the future.

Wednesday, like Monday, was a lax day and involved me turning up simply to record voiceover for The Golden Rule, which wasn't exactly my job.

Thursday was one of the best tech days ever, an entire day with camera add-on's and such. I knew bits and pieces but gained a decent amount of additional knowledge with regards to matte box filters and finally learning the proper way to get focus marks. The greatest part of the class was us all getting our chance to be either cable basher, grip, camera operator and focus puller. It may have taken a while for everyone to get their own chance but I think it was certainly worth it in the end. I hope that we have enough time and preperation for the forthcoming scenes since it seems we will be under a good bit of pressure, not a bad thing and I'm looking forward to be able to try something else and being taken out of my comfort zone.

Friday opened with a nice short class from Adam where we spoke further about Life On Mars and it's themes and devices. The class proved useful in seperating themes from devices but I also thought that some could be a bit of both. The week ended in a screening of The Battle of Algiers which was decent but not great.

I'm falling behind with reviews but they will all come in time...hopefully.

"I have a degree, but I prefer to pose half-naked in newspapers."
Myleene Klass

Falling behind...

This has been a long time coming but here's my next blog update, with photos from The Golden Rule courtesy of Petra, thank you!

Last Thursday, was a class with VL Derrick Ritchie, a professional gaffer. Derrick's advice and tips were useful and I was powering through notebook pages as he spoke. My questions probably didn't mean much to anyone else, or maybe even seemed insignificant to Derrick and Ray, but while I understand the 3-point lighting principle, I find it difficult to apply it to a smaller space. Case in point, The Golden Rule, interior scenes. We had no room for a backlight since the entire back wall was being shown in the shot, our key light worked fine, as did our fill, but I can't quite get my head around how to make light look like it is coming from a source, and still fulfilling the 3 point principle. I understand that 3 point lighting is basic and it can be manipulated to fit the room and purpose, but I don't think I know enough about gels and such to create a particular mood yet. I don't know how much we'll go into this during the year but I don't think doing it in an AGOS room or similar is going to help, I'd love to have Ray or one of the 4th years with much more experience than I, to shadow me or whoever else and advise the best way of creating a mood or simulate a source. One for next year maybe? Since I have so many questions which I think can only be solved from making mistakes and practical advice on-set, I found it hard to ask anymore questions than I did.

Thursday afternoon and Friday morning was time dedicated to Zam, with us developing our simple stories and then knocking out the beats and then drawing storyboards. My drawing ability is beyond limited but Zam's simplification of showing basic eyelines and angles was helpful. Even though I would still prefer to photoboard just so no-one can mistake the fairly poor drawings, I at least now know the best way to tell a story in a short time.

After our screening of The Searchers, we rushed to pick up kit and then begin filming of The Golden Rule, Phil's FilmG entry. My countless hours of prep didn't exactly pay off for the interior footage, I feel I did my best, but it is still far below even a basic DoP level. It's all practice, and I am still learning but sometimes it's good for things to go wrong, to remind me that I can't get ahead of myself or pat myself on the back just yet. There are some sections I am happy with, such as the opening pan (though again, a bit of a lighting failure) but hopefully any visual weaknesses will be looked over if the story is strong.

Saturday started off very well and it made me glad that I have now permanently given up Saturdays at Asda. The international 'day of rest' is now the only day I work. Scene 6, the final scene, was the first we shot and it all went fairly well, some of the shots I felt came off better than I could imagine. Our luxury of time was quickly lost in the afternoon when not only were we running low on minutes, but also battery power. We often only had time for 1 take and I felt terrible about the outcome of both scene 4 and scene 2, feeling they were undershot. Our last hour, forced us to sacrifice the monitor due to lack of battery power and later, we were warming batteries with our armpits just to get the last few necessary shots. We would have had enough to edit the film together but sadly, thanks to dirty camera heads, we were forced to reshoot the following Saturday. This I didn't consider a loss, since we now had time to reshoot and get everything we needed and not have to rush. It went very well, scarily well in fact and fingers crossed that the footage is great, we don't have time to reshoot again. I will state though, I suggested weeks ago that we would need 2 weeks and in the end, we did.

Last Monday's class was with Andy, talking of genre theory. We looked at what makes a genre a genre, talking about iconic images, style, settings, narrative and character. It was all really interesting, though I'm not sure if I would consider Die Hard a western, though I would say that John McClane is an urban cowboy, the many references to it without the film backs this up. We also identified the pleasures of genre viewing and rounded out the class with a documentary on film noir. The classification of film noir, whether under style or genre seems to bother a few people but my thinking is that it is a genre, but with style.

Monday was rounded off with another Richard tutorial, this time with far less notes. Hopefully I can develop it all into a servicable script.

Tuesday only consisted of a trip to the Mitchell library which was fascinating. Finding documents of over 800 years of age in front of my eyes was certainly different, it'd be good to take another trip to the Mitchell just to wander around.

The rest of the week didn't have much of anything in it, besides an episode of Being Human (which I had watched before) and then Friday consisted of boothing and helping out in Richard's open day class. I also, always seem to get the talkers at the open day, or maybe it's just me.

The past few weeks have had many hours dedicated to The Golden Rule and I'm now glad that all I can do on it has been done. Let's hope we end up with a good film.

"I'm not smart enough to lie."
Ronald Reagan

"0118999 88199 9119725..3"

A quick catch-up on film/tv watching over the past week or so.

FILM

12 Angry Men - I didn't have high hopes, especially when moments before the film started, Andy told us that the film was almost entirely set in one room. I was pleasantly surprised though, when I soon got hooked to every glance, every angle and every line. Some of the best films seem to be born out of keeping the setup simple and usually only having a couple of performers but this relied on 12 strong performances to carry the film which it pulled off, with gusto. Henry Fonda was a name I was familiar with but I had yet to see a film with him. He was great on-screen and while I knew exactly where the film would end up from the second he chooses to go against the rest of the jury, I was hooked by every word from his mouth, like Yoda, only less green.

The script was obviously written for theatre but it never goes against it, especially when Sidney Lumet carves interesting surroundings from what could, in other hands, be a really dull room. I did begin to feel like I was locked in a stuffy room when the on-screen characters had quite odd sweat patches on their clothing. I would have to watch it again but I have a suspicion that Henry Fonda's jury member is the one who approaches the broken fan at the beginning. Could he be extremely clever and simply have manipulated the entire thing?

Such a great film and one I will watch again.


The Searchers - I'm far from the biggest fan of Westerns, but I really enjoyed this. John Wayne has always seemed a bit of a Sean Connery to me, he's always John Wayne no matter where you put him or what type of character he plays. In The Searchers, this didn't bother me. We seemed to have over analysed the opening scene and the relationship between Ethan and Martha was never taken any further since a little later Martha is killed or kidnapped. Like Andy said in Monday's class, it's almost unexplainable how it works but you know it does and theres a certain charm about it. For a film that was 2 hours long, I also felt it was very well paced and didn't drag or hang around at any point. There are two things I'd like to ask Andy about though, one of which is, for the night-time scenes, did they shoot day for night? It has a very odd quality about it but much more realistic than everything being awash with moonlight. Also, how did they shoot the tracking with horses shots, I don't imagine they had the fancy rigs and equipment that the industry has today, which probably means that the camera operator simply had to be ace at his job. Good fun and now I don't have such a strong dislike for Westerns.


The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - You can't hate Terry Gilliam, or at least you shouldn't. The man has forever had trouble with studios, the most infamous incident being Brazil, where Gilliam took out a full page ad in Variety, telling the studio exec to allow him to release his movie. Gilliam however, created buzz for the movie by showing it to film students without the studio's permission and when good word got around about his version of the film, the studio were forced to abandon their terrible "love conquers all" version and instead stick with Gilliam's vision of his dystopian world. The media have always said that Mr Gilliam is cursed, though in my eyes, no-one wants to take a chance on something that is truly original and execs aren't quite willing to let an imagination such as his, breathe. His films are always plagued with production difficulties as well and his latest, was the production which suffered most from the death of Heath Ledger. Those who think the film may narrativly suffer from this would be wrong to approach it with that mindset, since Gilliam, the master craftsman that he is, still manages to create a story which just about holds together.

The problem with the film, isn't Heath Ledger's death since his friends (Colin Farrell, Jude Law and an only-on-screen-for-five-minutes, Johnny Depp) step in whenever his character passes through to the mirror universe. The problem seems to come from the confusing and somewhat unexplained facts about what is happening. Though it may just be that the plot is so simple yet I expected it to be much more complicated.

The film looks very pretty as well, I was constantly looking forward to our next journey to the mirror universe, since it is all so colourful and bright and dream-like. As usual, Gilliam's use of those fish-eye like lenses adds an additional otherworld-ly quality to his films.

In short, I loved the film and want to see it again, though if you can look past the small narrative faults, you could find one of the most original and visually interesting films of the year so far.

TV

Dr Who (Season 2) - I'm a fairly late adopter of Dr Who and those around me (Gavin) have avoided spoilers meaning I can just about see the show with fresh eyes each time. This series had some absolute crackers, for me, the Cybermen two-parter, series finale and The Girl In The Fireplace being my favourite. My only problem still lies with the monster/planet/old Dr Who baddie of the week formula. It obviously works but I think in the fairly recent advent of serial shows, I have been spoiled and rewarded for remembering subtle little call backs to earlier episodes or seasons. Don't get me wrong, Dr Who still has this though some episodes could probably be lifted into any other season of the show. Then again, if the show was as heavily serialised as other shows I love, it may well loose it's charm and most importantly, it's audience.

Still, the show continues to break my expectations of British Sci-fi and indeed budget. David Tennant is also one of the most likable protagonists on my TV radar and is definitely the main driving force of the show, playing humour and drama like a true megastar. I'll certainly be continuing to watch the Doctor in his adventures, looking forward to that day when I actually do catch up with it all and having another show to geek-out over.


I still have to blog about Mad Men, but I'm scared in case I can't stop raving about it.

"Don't believe every thing you read, especially The Mirror."

Monday was perhaps one of my favourite classes of the year so far with Andy, dealing with framing, deep focus and saccadic vision. While bits and pieces I had picked up through filming, piecing it all together was very entertaining. I wasn't the best at reading The Searchers since I still have difficulty deconstructing a film, especially one that I have yet to see. Before starting the class, I reminded Phil what we would be studying that day and I said that hopefully we can implement some of what we learn in the shotlist for The Golden Rule, Phil's entry for FilmG on which I have drawn the hefty task of DoP. I think we have implemented some of it but not forcefully, rather subconciously. I doubt we'll reach the lofty heights of feature films but hey, you've got to walk before you run and we're still at the crawling stage.

One thing occured to me in class, and I may try it with a few opening scenes to films to see if my theory is correct, but in general, modern films do not take enough time to setup or even often tell the story. It's a problem I have with the idea of the MTV generation and modern day editing, everyone wants to get in and out as soon as possible and no-one takes the time to just enjoy the moment and hold a shot or use a tripod anymore. I imagine that in the future there will be a reaction to this and everyone may want to return to slower paced storytelling. I feel like a tired old record since I've made this point several times on here but since joining the academy, I've found respect for directors and editors letting the actors drive the scene and not solely the editing. Some films we've viewed have been quite badly paced or difficult to follow but I think that like fashion (which I am a dedicated follower of), all the best trends return and I think young directors should be looking backwards to make their mark, not poorly attempting to set trends or be entirely original. Maybe just like there are only so many stories that can be told, there are only so many ways a film can be shot.

I really wish we could have more classes on this and I'm not sure if Ray would touch on it if I decide to definetly choose camera next year. Thankfully, I'm going to have a bit more time in the next couple of weeks to hopefully watch some of Andy's recommended viewing films. I'm also thinking the Sidney Lumet book is one I must pick up, especially after digging around a little and finding out that 12 Angry Men was his stonking feature film debut!

Also, after it was raised in the class, I decided to cover my bottom and check out the resources tab on moodle. It turns out that Andy has wrote masses of stuff on there, which I think will work on my iPod, which could be some valuable reading, though, where are last years articles?

(All of this was written much earlier in the week, a rest of the week post coming soon.)

"It's dull from beginning to end, but it's loaded with entertainment."
Michael Curtiz, film director.

No! Not the bees!

On Thursday, we had a somewhat welcome return to Gav's class, though we are still waiting on the results of our tests from around this time last year. I did wonder where our post-production class was going this year since we seemed to learn as much as we could last year on Final Cut but now that AVID has been thrown into the mix, it's like starting at the beginning again. I enjoyed the class, but I think I much prefer to just mess about with things in editing rather than actually cut for a purpose. Any and all editing experience I have had in the past seems to get really frustrating when sound has to be dealt with since no matter what I had to work with, I could never find something even close to what I wanted. With the better facilities and options at the academy (stable and up-to-date AVID is an improvement) I could maybe eventually warm to editing but it's not what I have in my mind at this moment in time. Especially since this week I took quite a large step towards the camera department: purchasing my own slate.

On Friday, we had Adam's class and we watched an episode of Life On Mars, a show I have watched twice through. The second time I watched it, I realised that it certainly has universal appeal, since I was watching it with my 60 year old parents who were, oddly, the age I am now in 1973. The rest of the class had us discussing themes in the Adam way, which are much easier than the Richard way but seem to be things you can notice on the surface, rather than an underlying meaning or purpose which Richard pushes for.

Friday afternoon was also the deadline for half of the class with Richard's developed ideas. I'm very happy with how my script idea has progressed. I understood Richard's notes more than usual and found myself drastically changing the route and feel of the story without losing the core premise. Though since Richard really likes it, my mind has ran ahead of itself and I've already started to think of elements of production, which I know I shouldn't. I don't want to be one of these people who if they don't get a script picked up, go out of their way to shoot it outside the curriculum only to find that it doesn't work.

As I'd raised to either Andy or Adam last year, not everyone will get a chance to direct if they want to since the course doesn't really have enough room for it to happen, but I think I would much rather have a stronger course than 12 weeks of everyone making their individual film, like we did at college. It is however difficult to organise people outside of academy hours, most of the time not everyone is able to due to work commitments but sometimes, it feels like some simply don't want to. I get annoyed by this a little, I understand if someone doesn't like the script or doesn't agree with the subject matter but I try to see every bit of experience as good experience. Whether it be being thrown into the deep end and having to essentially, co-direct with a crazy New Zealand person you have met only hours before, filming a local panto with minimal lighting or shooting some very odd CPP performances. I don't mind going out of my way to help people since I imagine that one day, someone may need to go out of their way for me. It's like if you are going out drinking and doing rounds, always buy the first, because then everyone knows they owe you a drink, whether they get you one back or not. Sort of.

Anyway, less ranting, more media:

So me and a few others in the class found this clip particularly hilarious over the past few days. I'm posting it here for anyone interested in having a giggle at some pretty terrible acting from an A-List star. While all individual clips are quite funny, look at 1:40, the awful CGI bees and Nick Cage.

My film/tv review post is going to be a little later in order to fill it up a little but it may be quite interesting, since on Monday, I'm going to see Taking Woodstock at a fairly early preview. The odd thing is, of the two I've watched all the way through (Crouching Tiger, Hulk), I have enjoyed exactly 0% of them, should be fun.

"Sometimes when I'm flying over the Alps, I think,
'That's like all the cocaine I sniffed.'"
Elton John

"Have you heard the tapes? We're guaranteed a record deal, our stuff is that good."

A busy week for myself and some others, what with my idea for Richard needing tarted up and also work finally beginning on Phil's FilmG script. Thankfully, filming has been pushed back to next weekend which gives us much more valuable prep time. Having today (Wednesday) off, made me think of doing a mid-week blog, rather than doing a full week one later.

Monday started off with another early rise for me, when I had to drive the van for the 4th years again, seriously, when are these kids gonna grow up? The day made allowed me to work in a few different roles: driver/runner, sound designer, scriptwriter then Director of Photography, not many courses would offer this. Not all in a professional capacity but it's great to have this variety and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

The first class was Andy's Cinema Movements this time focussing on sound design which had a lovely little party game attached which not surprisingly, did waken me up somewhat. Maybe we should start class half an hour earlier each Monday just to do something like this! Then again, maybe I should retract that statement knowing how powerful a soapbox these blogs can be. In the class I saw my first ever clip of The English Patient, it looked decent enough and when broken down, the sound design was pretty amazing but only one thing cycled through my head: Does Willem Dafoe only ever pick roles that cause his character lots of physical pain and/or death? Masochist!

Richard's class wasn't the tense affair it can often be, this class had some terribly bad knock-knock jokes as well as some decent yet mental ones. A structure class was necessary though I didn't realise it until midway through when so many things that were said, seemed to affect my main idea for Richard.

Tuesday gave us Andy's factual class which focussed on interviews and the class had almost an infinite amount of great tips. I seem to have entirely forgotten about documentaries and while I do watch a few, mostly film ones, the idea of a short documentary sounds quite fun. Whether I could ever come up with an interesting enough topic is something else. Andy's endless reserve of interviewing anecdotes was also entertaining, they always make me giggle!

More later in the week.

"I am many things. I am an animal. I am a convicted rapist,
a hell-raiser, a loving father, a semi-good husband.
You don't really know me."
Mike Tyson

"I do not like the cone of shame."

It's a bad day when you have a backlog of films you want to see at the cinema. I managed to tick two boxes this week, but at the sacrifice of TV that I must get to watching. There was however, some much needed Dr Who, which I'll blog about when I finish Series 2. I'm not blogging about Flashforward this week because there isn't much I can say besides GRAPHS, BLOODY GRAPHS!

FILM

Pandorum - My hopes began high, months and months ago, then were dashed when I heard early reviews so when I approached the film with very low expectations, I was shocked when I got a good feeling about it in the opening minutes. It channels Event Horizon and Alien but manages to distinguish itself quite clearly with much grittier, darker visuals. Anyone who has played the recent Dead Space game, will see similarities but since the game was only released late last year, I doubt they ripped it off. The only problem I have is with shaky-cam insanity again. I had no idea of geography or even if they were really fighting, the score told me they were fighting but the visuals didn't seem to. Ben Foster continues his one-to-watch streak and Dennis Quaid plays the deepest character I've ever saw him play, which isn't really saying much but at least he avoided the cheese factor of The Day After Tomorrow or (C)G.I. Joe. A great little film with some good twists which will have me return to it on DVD. Let's just forget that Paul W.S. Anderson has his name on it.


The Conversation - I don't feel there is much I can say, since I found the film so difficult to follow and once I was taken out of the film, it really wouldn't let me back in. I look forward to learning more about the sound design which I could at least take from the film as being well done. I only really remember two things about the film, the somewhat gripping opening shot and a scene which contains Gene Hackman (HACK-MAAAAN!!!, South Park anyone?), Harrison Ford, Robert Duvall and a rottweiler yet somehow felt dull.


Up - Pixar's latest and very close to being their greatest. Everyone talks of the opening montage which takes you on a better emotional journey than 95% of any other films but for me, I found one of the closing scenes much more upsetting. I won't spoil it for anyone but feel free to ask me. I have one major problem with the baddie, though it's a mere timeline thing, again feel free to ask me. I've spoken to a few folk about the film and I've came to the conclusion that this is the best film I've seen in 3D. Not only is it the least pokey of the recent 3D crowd, but I was so caught up in the story, I didn't feel like I was wearing glasses most of the time. Now that's immersion. An amazing supporting cast including some talking dogs raise the film to repeat worthy heights and despite it's out-there premise, the film becomes on some level one of the most relatable and human stories in animation.

*************

I can't take credit for this (thanks Dionisis) but I thought I would post what is perhaps the man-liest man-fest you could ever manage, a sort of trailer from the forthcoming action star showcase The Expendables. I challenge you to watch this and not at least smirk. The trailer has been very shoddily cobbled together but I really don't think that distracts from the glory of what exists:

The Expendables Promo

It's tagline should be: Stuff. Will. Blow. Up.

Myself, Murch and Megan!

A week that was a little lighter at the academy though only in terms of how many classes, not really content. The week kicked off with kit return from last weekends Dramaworks "How To Be A TV Presenter Shoot". Some of the kids were hilarious but terrible time-management forced the last hour to become chaotic, a woman with one foot in the industry should have known better. The kit return meant I had to wake up at 6am, though after hearing that Ray had turned up (and woke up) earlier to check in kit for an ex-grad student shoot, I didn't feel so bad. I was then left with some fabulous time to mull things over before Andy's class.

Editing theory was much deeper than I originally thought, my interest in pursuing it as a career has all but faded but great editing is something to be admired. Eisenstein and Murch are true geniuses and should be heralded as such. The clip from The Pawnbroker was particularly striking and having watched several films use the same technique, it's effect is somewhat lost on me but I find it reassuring that an editor made such a remarkable leap at a time of what I would generally call, slow-burn storytelling.

Monday afternoon was a cards-on-the-table session with Richard and an excellent one at that. The entire time allotted focussed on just one idea and he told me that even though he had two pages of notes, I shouldn't think that this was a bad thing, infact, it was the opposite. I found myself opening up to Richard about my recent idea hardship and he was very accepting of it and said I should focus on my main idea unless I really struggle with it. The idea was described as having "light at the end of the tunnel" which for me, reassured the faith I had recently lost in my writing.

Tuesday's class of Zam was again somewhat flawless. The treatments were good to hear but I think I could have said a bit more about my own film. I don't know what else to say about Zam's class, sometimes visiting lecturers seem to be a bit of a hit and miss but thankfully this year everything seems to have been corrected in that sense. I'm looking forward to this class developing.

Wednesday was a day "off" and I took advantage of the afternoon, seeing as actual days off don't exist for me right now. There was also a fun program meeting, where Andy told the 1st years (with my permission) about my "obsession" with Megan Fox. I don't know if I'd call it an obsession...

...more a keen interest.

Thursday was a day of sound with new visitor Cammy Mercer, not related to Cammy from the Street Fighter games, who was played by Kylie Minogue in that terrible movie. While I wouldn't want to "publicly" bad mouth a previous lecturer, I actually understood what Cammy meant when he explained things. He started teaching us from the ground up which was great and he seemed to give us more credit and be much easier to speak to than our previous sound lecturer. Some of us should maybe ease off the enthusiastic pedal though. I don't think we're all suddenly changing to sound but at least we all now have a much better general understanding. Though Cammy did come up with a classic line that our sound department will be constantly reminded of; They should be heard and not seen.

Friday has just a screening of The Conversation, which I know nothing about and that's the way I like it, some of the best films I've watched have came from total surprise. (This was written before we watched it, review in my next post.)

A weekend of working lies ahead, along with a couple of things I have to tie up assignment wise.

"I was there when I said it."
Murray Walker, Motor Racing Commentator

..."It's pride."

The academy is narrowing my time for lots of TV/Film, not that I'm complaining, just that I have to carefully balance time like spinning plates, returning to Asda next week will throw me another challenge. I've not reviewed Mad Men yet since I've only watched two episodes but in short: It's awesome!

FILM

Fame (09) - As you'll know I'm not a musical fan, though I have found a certain respect for a few over the past year, New Fame was not one of them.

(Somehow, I managed to delete the rest of my Fame rant, possibly for the best so instead I'll just post my annoyance in bullet-point form.)

• Very little character development.
• Nothing particularly cinematic about it.
• If the kids are so talented, why can't a shot be held for more than a few seconds? Back in the day you wouldn't edit around Bruce Lee's talent so why should you do it now?
• The only way we could actually tell that the students were moving from year to year was through the beautifully obvious titles. Maybe they should have just told the story through the final year and flashed-back to the audition process.
• Just some plot-holes: What happened to the film kid? Or how did the band get back together?
• The films perhaps biggest crime? A criminally under-used Kelsey Grammer, the man really shouldn't be sitting quitely in a bar situation.

Toy Story 3D - I know the original inside out and so would know exactly what made the film better in 3D. Nothing really did, though this is more how 3D films should be, not jump-y and poke-y but just 3D that looks cool but doesn't distract.


Strike! - Another Eisenstein film and somehow far more incomprehensible to our class than Battleship Potemkin. While it may be incomprehensible, it was never boring and in fact, was often unintentionally funny. I understand the gist of it but some confusing sections such as the people who were kind of like animals and bewildering cat smacking and baby throwing detracted too far from any narrative.

TV

Flashforward (White To Play) - There's something that draws me instantly to remotely interesting Sci-fi premises, partly because I love Sci-fi but also partly because Sci-fi seems to be the one genre that even major networks and studios are still uncertain of. The premise for Flashforward seems to actually tread old ground, feeling a little similar to the soon cancelled then renewed then cancelled Jericho, minus the end goal Flashforward has. The main difference between the two is that Jericho had some fairly grounded characters while Flashforward seems to suffer from characters who forget about family and are only interested in furthering the story. Take for example, in the season opener. Joseph Feinnes quickly calls his wife after the disaster and his wife tells him not to worry about his daughter, the babysitter says she can stay with her. Now, if that were me, I think I would forget about the global catastrophe and focus on my family being ok, though David S. Goyer is a comic book writer so maybe he just doesn't do reality.

On this weeks episode, we find out that their daughter has had a terrible flashforward, but instead of having their child tell them what it is, they decide to leave her alone and let her tell them little things scene by scene, never the best way to overcome your problems. Even in serial dramas, there is usually some sort of formula for every episode, for example in Lost, one character would be the focus of an episode while the main story would still progress around them. In Flashforward, there seem to be just random plot points that pop up on the computer systems. It's still early days though and I'll be seeing the season through no matter what, but the show has created a paradox that may be difficult to justify: If you see the future and follow clues in the future to help you get there, then will the future still be the future you saw?