13/4/16 - Film Class

Today in class my partner, Rahul, was sick so my workflow was stinted, but I tried my best to still be efficient. I started our schedule, and started my production plan. I finished most of the Artistic Statement. Hopefully when he gets better we can figure out which times we can film, ask for the necessary permission, and complete our schedule.

Artistic Statement

Overview

Our bilingual documentary has a central theme of school life. Its thesis is that Western and Chinese education undoubtedly extremely different, but to what extent are the two different or even similar? It will aim to shed some light on a strand of this question by showcasing a day in the life of a local Chinese student in Hangzhou and an international student studying a year abroad in Hangzhou. It will be 5-7 minutes long, and juxtapose Chinese versus international culture.

What happens in a day in the life of a local student in Hangzhou? What happens in a day in the life of an international student studying abroad in Hangzhou? What are the similarities and differences between them? How does it influence their opinion on the importance of education for life and the future?

Purpose

Those are all questions our documentary will endeavour to answer. The answers will be split into a main part and shorter closing part. The first three questions will be in the main part, the two students’ stories intertwined closely based on similarities or chronological order. The main part will focus more on facts, although it will certainly contain opinion and surface-level thoughts. The shorter closing part will answer the fourth question, so it will focus more on deeper opinion and insight, or even critique.

Film Class Last Week and This Week: Grizzly Man + Interview Shots

This week we spent the whole lesson finishing watching the documentary Grizzly Man. We watched it for the last half of class last week as well. The first half of class last week was spent in groups of 3 practicing interview shots is a 2005 documentary film by German director Werner Herzog. It chronicles the life and death of bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell. The film includes some of Treadwell's own footage of his interactions with grizzly bears before 2003, and of interviews with people who knew, or were involved with Treadwell, as well as professionals dealing with wild bears. He and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and eaten by a grizzly bear in 2003. Treadwell's footage was found after his death. The bear that killed Treadwell and Huguenard was later encountered and killed by the group retrieving the remains of the victims.

This is the theatrical release poster.

          Albeit slow-paced, I think the documentary was really interesting and quite poignant. I think Treadwell's authentic footage was quite well-meshed with interviews and information about Timothy's life and death. Personally I think it was sort of "boring" as Xavier complained about publicly earlier, but I think just as the director Werner Herzog narrated over a human-less shot of leaves rustling in between Treadwell's takes, there's a certain beauty to the rawness, the slow-paced authenticity. Personally I'm both very intrigued but too scared to hear the audio of their actual death. I haven't seen an animal activist portrayed in such depth before, so it was a new experience for me seeing the views and motivation and human behind this fervent guardian of beasts.
        As a filmmaker, I think Timothy was quite opinionated on how he wanted his shots to appear and was relatively successful and achieving them, no matter of how many shots it took or the wild conditions (for example his eulogy to the dead fox, monologue shouting for rain and the events ensuing in the night like the tent caving, etc.) and mixed with Werner's clever filmmaking, the film was quite thoughtful. Werner's close-ups of the interviewees did make me uncomfortable at times, but I think that added to the uncomfortable atmosphere of Timothy's death. For example, the shot below was a self-initiated shot by Treadwell that I find interesting, and follows rule of thirds with Timothy in the foreground and the small bear playing in the background. I hope to include clever shots like this in my documentary.

This is a shot from a tripod in the opening scenes of the film.

Lesson - 5/12/15: Man on Wire pt. 1

Today in class in order to see more examples of well-made documentaries we watched the first hour to a a film called "Man on Wire", which is a 2008 British-American biographical documentary film directed by James Marsh. It chronicles Frenchman Philippe Petit's 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. I thought the way the story was told was both really immersive and clever, with smooth cut-aways from the dialogue of the people recounting the story seamlessly blended with the pictures and footage from the actual event many years ago and new re-enactments. I felt really captivated while watching it, especially at the Phillipe's passion and skill, and the cunning way he managed to pull off this unfeasible crime. I can't wait to continue watching it next lesson.

The movie poster to "Man on Wire"

Class 1/12/2015

Today we had our first lesson on documentaries. We watched one of the first documentaries ever made called Nanook of the North released in the 1920's which followed the "rule of third's" and was about the life of an Eskimo clan. Then Zhu Laoshi showed us a documentary called the Lift filmed in around 2001 about people that came and went from a lift in an apartment block in Britain. Documentaries aren't as staged as fictional movies, but still staged in the way that they have to research and choose what goes into your documentary to make it more interesting. To me the Lift seemed very raw and innovative, but Zhu Laoshi told us much about it was staged, for example the maker of the film Marc Isaacs brought in a fly into the lift to have something as a cutaway tool, and chose the people to be featured before actually going and filming.

(Left) The original movie poster for Nanook of the North

(Right) One of the people featured in Lift

Reflection on Film

This lesson our film was due, and we watched 2/4 of our class's groups' films. The last few lessons my group spent the whole lesson in . We edited our film and also took note of what sound effects we are missing. We fixed some minor flaws, such as the timing of the dialogue, and we also finished recording the missing sounds. We spent some extra time after class to complete our film.

28/9/2015 Class

Motifs

Motifs are repeated ideas, images or patterns to add to the theme of the film. There are three steps of finding motifs:

1. Identify the recurring pattern
2. Track the pattern
3. Choose meaning from pattern

Example: The music in Jaws when the shark would appear.

Rush Hour 3 Funny scene Transcription

• Sliding Door
• Patting orange man's chest

CT: Woah, damn. I'm sorry man, I thought this was the bathroom.

• Lifting CT by his collar
• Footsteps

CT: Lee, I got a big problem here. This boy’s on steroids. He got a head like bare buns.

• Throwing a person
• Impact of falling, sliding across floor
• Footsteps of Jackie Chan

JC: Carter, are you ok?

• Footsteps of Orange man

(During footsteps) CT: Lee, Lee! Get him Lee!

• Thump of large foot on chest/hand
• Grunting from JC + CT
• Kicking sound
• Thump against wooden wall
• Wooden pieces falling from the wall to floor
• CT standing up

CT: Lee! Let’s get the hell outta he- *step*

• Orange man stepping on CT's foot

CT: Ah! My bunions!

• Crunching
• Foot sliding against floor
• Orange man grabs CT's head
• CT punching the air, fabric moving, grunting
• Impact of two arms
• Kicking sound
• Shirt fabric moving
• Grunting

CT: “Hey man, let me go! I love Chinese people!”

• Throwing a person sound
• Crash, impact, sliding

(Right after CT impact) JC: Wait!

• Arm impact sound
• Jacket being pulled off
• JC falls, slides on ground
• Jacket thump on ground, thrown by Orange man
• Heavy footsteps of Orange man
• Orange man grabs JC's legs, slides him, then throws
• JC impacts on ground (no sliding)
• CT grabs JC's arm (fabric)

CT: How do you say “surrender” in Chinese?

• Footsteps from Orange man
• Grunting & Screaming from CT
• Standing up and stumbling over
• Metallic noise (picking up a weapon)

CT: “Imma slice you up like a giant California roll!”

• Grunting
• Swinging of the weapon

Orange man: Funny-a black man.

• Thunk of weapon being blocked by the hand of the Orange man
• Metallic shaking
• Impact of Tucker on wall
• Bamboo clattering on floor
• Nunchucks & chains wooshing
• Impact of nunchuck hard part against face
• Grunt of pain from CT
• Kids laughing
• CT grabbing wooden thing

CT: “Unbelievable!”

• Grunting + Impact sounds of bamboo to body parts
• Swinging noises of JC and CT against Orange man, blocking sounds
• JC & CT grab the same stick, grunt and pull each end

CT: “Let go!”

• Orange man picks the stick up, grunts, JC and CT screaming “Let me go! I’m sarry man!”
• Kids laughing
• Whooshing sounds from the fast movement
• Door opens

Mi：“够了！”

• Orange man lets go, two bodies hit the floor subsequently (almost at same time)
• Grunting from JC and CT
• Wooshing of swinging bamboo, soft impact against hand

Mi：“立正！“

• Shuffling sounds from kids congregating

Mi：”敬礼！“

• Fist against palm sound of many people+Bowing of many people

Yu: “May I herp you?” (heavy Chinese accent)

• CT heavy footsteps getting up, shuffling over to sensei, heavy breathing

CT: “We’ll be asking the questions, old man! Who are you?”

Yu: “Yu.”

CT: “No, not me, you!”

Yu: “Yes, I am Yu.”

CT: “Just answer the damn questions, who are you?”

Yu: “I have tord you.”

CT: “Are you deaf?!”

Yu: “No, Yu is blind.”

CT: “I’m not blind, you blind.”

Yu: “That is what I just said!”

CT: “You just said what?”

Yu: “I did not say what, I said Yu!”

CT: “That’s what I’m asking you!”

Yu: “And Yu is answering.”

CT: “Shut up! You!” *points to other Chinese man in black shirt*

Yu: “Yes?”

CT: *points at sensei* “Not you!” *points at other man* “Him! What’s your name?”

Mi: “Me?”

CT: “Yes you!”
Mi: “I am Mi.”

Yu: “He is Mi, and I am Yu.”

CT: “And I’m about to whop your old ass because I’m sick of playing games. You? Me? *while saying Me points at self* Everybody’s ass *turns around and waves* Around here! Him?

JC: “Carter... “

CT: “Imma kick his ass, I’m sick of this!”

• Soft footsteps of JC towards CT
• Grabbing sounds of JC on CT
• Shuffling away of them both

--Scene--

Fourth Lesson - 22/9/2015

In class we reviewed the elements of foley again: Ambience, Music, Sound Effects, and Dialogue. Today we focused on Sound Effects. We found out the difference what diegetic and non-diegetic sound was and the difference between them.

Third Lesson - 17/9/15

Today in class to introduce us to foley Zhu Laoshi split us into 4 groups of 4 and gave us a few sounds to attempt to replicate. My groupmates were Rahul, Max, and Tavis. and our sounds were footsteps, a neck snapping, and a door creaking.

Second Lesson - 12/9/15

Second Lesson - 12/915

Today Zhu Laoshi wanted to show us a film called "Hunger" so we would get an idea of foley, however after complaints from the class we watched "The Incredibles" instead because it was an animated film, and therefore was all foley. During the film we took notes about the sound effects that stood out to us and how we thought it was made. This was fun because The Incredibles is one of my childhood favorites, and it was new and refreshing to watch it through a filmmaker's perspective. I realized how much work and effort must have gone into it, and how ahead of its time as it was released in 2004- 11 years ago! It once again reinforced my opinion on how much sound contributes to a film.

Edna Mode, a character from the Incredibles

Original Movie Poster for The Incredibles

First Lesson - 9/9/15: Intro to Foley

First Lesson - 9/9/2015

Today was our first lesson, and Zhu Laoshi walked us through the elements of sound in film: ambience, dialogue, sound effects, ambience, and music. She told us for our first unit we would be working on "foley", which is basically the addition of recorded sound effects after the shooting of a film.

Zhu Laoshi then played us her documentary without the visuals, and we just listened to the sound and tried to guess and visualize what was happening. It started with the sound of birds cawing, which immediately made me think that the film was set in a farm, and the sounds of flowing water and crunching of leaves, and further bird caws only reinforced that belief. There were also the sounds of mumbling dialogue of a woman and mean which was quite unintelligible. There were also wooden clacking sounds that none of us could identify. Then we watched the film again with the visuals, and we were proven to have guessed relatively accurately. It was at a farm in the Irish/Scottish countryside, in the home of a middle-aged German couple. They were almost entirely self-sufficient, and had little to no use of electricity. The unknown wooden clacking sounds turned out to be a loom (an olden device used to weave fabrics), which is hardly found nowadays. Sound can emphasize or lessen the effect of certain actions or emotions of the characters. Even silence has an effect and can contribute to the atmosphere (as seen in the quiet countryside in Zhu Laoshi's film). Sound can also make films more realistic and interesting, and therefore is extremely important to film.