Broken Bubbles

So the shoot is complete. 120 slates in three days. Vague memories of awesome shots and electrifying performances set against a stunning backdrop. How much of that is really true, and how much is the result of my state of general confusion is hard to say. I have viewed barely any of the footage back - the exception being low-res imagery for the backplates when we were filming the greenscreen.

Let's try and take it in order.

So we got the set up on Tuesday, and from the moment I saw it, I was blown away. We had some minor issues with a wall that was about a meter shorter than we had anticipated, but an upended table blended in remarkably well and we were soon fussing around with the smaller things. At every point, I was trying to step back, re

strain the control-freak inside me, and let Luisa get on with her job. And she got on brilliantly. I want to say publicly that without Luisa, Broken Bubbles would have been a tenth of the film it has turned out to be. No matter how convincing the performances, if they were acted against a poor set, or a generic modern room, the film would have flopped disastrously. Thanks to Luisa's consistent dedication, we had a lifelike set, a spectacular array of props and beautiful set of costumes.

On Tuesday evening, we got the kit into the space, set the light

s, fired up the camera... and saw nothing. Apparently, fitted with a zoom lens, the RED is incapable of fully opening the aperture, resulting in a very poor sensitivity to low light. So we abandoned our Peppers and Dedos and started flooding the place with a 2K and 650s. Although it looked washed out to the eye, we achieved a pleasantly moody look on the RED with which

we were all generally happy.

Wednesday morning started with an attempt to set the general lighting set, and although I had hoped to have it done the night before, it wasn't long before it was ready and we were filming Slate 1, Take 1. From there, it was a marathon till Slate 120, Take X roughly 60 hours later. I was very grateful to David van der Zanden for the energetic, focussed and resolute way he kept us all to it. There were plenty moments of more light-hearted banter, but nowhere along the line did the production slip off the rails. Meanwhile, lunch was scheduled for the middle of the day, and although this slipped on Friday, we managed to get a proper break and the crew were happier as a result and worked harder.

There were many times I thought we wouldn't make it, and looking back, I am considerably surprised we did. The film should really have been filmed over four days. I appreciate that in the real world we might not be able to raise the budget for a four day RED shoot, but for the purposes of the film we had in fr

ont of us, with all the necessary complexities of greenscreen, of a fantasy setting, of an 11 page script and a crew working with equipment for the first or second time, a three-day-shoot seems unhelpful and cramping.

One of the first decisions we made in the pre-production process was to film by set-up rather than by scene. This I discovered to be remarkably confusing - far more so than it sounded on paper. It resulted in multiple minor panic attacks where I wondered if we had got a particular shot. Reassured by John, David and occasionally by Rhys, I am confident we have hardly missed anything, but at the time it caused me some consternation. However, this convoluted shooting order was vital in accomplishing the film over the time allotted.

We also decided to film the destruction sequence handheld, and everything else on the tripod. I wanted the chaotic movements to mirror Grabulous' mental breakdown. The subsequent post-apocalyptic scene was filmed in different lighting, with different camera positions. We wanted to illustrate the fact that Grabulous wakes as a new man. Everything is different. Whether this works in the edit, or whether it jars awkwardly remains to be seen.

Thursday afternoon was the scenes in Mugdock Park. This was a source of particular worry to me, especially as the weather was against us at the beginning. But we were particularly blessed as the rain melted away just as we were setting up for the first scene. By the evening, the sun had broken o

ut and the camera guys were almost jumping up and down on the spot looking at the glorious sunset on the monitor. There were issues: the midgies being number one, and the battery charging system being number two, but we did alright. It highlights the need for drivers on a shoot. It's not great when the make-up artist has to double up as Runner!

Friday afternoon was the green screen. Initially scheduled for all afternoon and evening, we squashed everything into 90 minutes. We run the risk that we have a poor special effect, but John, David and myself were all 100% agreed that it was more important to finish the workshop scenes and get a good story and a good performance, than to compromise for the sake of a special effect. At the worst, if the special effect is disastrous, we can adapt it with a re-shoot or an animated fairy. It's of much less consequence than the workshop scenes with the performances that go with it.

I was delighted with the way the whole team pulled together in the making of this. The camera team were tireless, Graeme ploughed thr

ough on a totally new piece of audio equipment, the art department never failed, Phil doubled his workload by being Producer and DIT after Gavin Rizza suddenly discovered he had been scheduled as DIT for the shoot and we suddenly discovered he was unavailable. In particular, the way the Heads of Department worked together was brilliant.

I especially enjoyed working with John as DoP. From the first meeting we had in pre-production where he showed me some of the pictures he had found as references, I knew we were on the same page. By the time of Thursday shooting, I was deliberately only watching the monitor during the technical rehearsal or first take. After that, I left John to watch the monitor and I tried to watch the actors in the flesh. It's easier to see the nuances of performance that way. I trusted John to know if the shot was good or needed a tweak. Our levels of communication developed to the point of me saying "You know, it's that one... with the thing" and John nodding confidently: "Oh yeah, yeah!" and heading off to set up the shot.

All in all, I've enjoyed every minute of it. It's made me more keen than ever to learn the craft of directing and it's a pleasure to work alongside such talented actors, artists and film-makers as those with which I am surrounded.

What do I believe?

I had some interesting chats over the EIFF weekend about life, the Universe and everything. I was particularly interested in the conclusions Ross has reached - an epiphany in a poky hostel room in Edinburgh - but also in some of the views of the others. I ended up going to a church in Edinburgh which I hadn’t been in for over ten years and one of the points made was that very few people really understand what Christianity is. Very few folk understand what it is I actually believe. I suppose this is probably true, as I certainly don’t feel comfortable talking at length about Christianity and my faith when I know it makes others feel uncomfortable or awkward.

But I reckon a blog would be impersonal enough to be safe!

So what do I believe?

God exists - the infinite personal Spirit who is the author of all time and space, of all matter and energy, of mind and soul. God made the world in six days several thousand years ago. He formed Adam, the first man, and made him the steward or manager of the Universe. He formed Eve to be a wife for Adam and the two lived together in a full and free relationship with both each other and God. God gave them one law: don’t eat the fruit from one particular tree. The law was arguably a little random, but was a test of their obedience and loyalty to God. But becoming convinced that God was keeping something extra special from them, they ate the fruit of that tree and in doing so rebelled against God, broke away from his kingdom and declared themselves independent. They separated themselves from God.

As a result God - being truly just - had no choice but to put them under the curse of law-breakers. The Universe was also cursed with them and the full array of natural disasters, of violence in the animal kingdom, of poisonous plants, parasites, sickness and death is the result of this.

From these two, Adam and Eve, all the way down through our generations right to the present, we have all been tainted by the same mindset that Adam and Eve got. We naturally put ourselves first, distrust God and value others only for feelings they stir within us or for benefits they can bring to us.

None of us, by natural power, can ever make ourselves “good” in God’s sight. To make this point clearer, God gave rules (the 10 Commandments) as a guide to what moral perfection looks like: (Put God first; Never idolise another; Honour even the name of God; Honour one day a week for God; Honour your parents and all authority figures; Do not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie or desire another’s possessions). As Jesus pointed out, the commandments cover even our thoughts and fantasies, so nobody in the world is truly “good“, or can even be “good” for a day.

With all of us dirty and impure we are all equally unfit for Heaven and unfit to stand in God’s presence. Nothing is left for us after death but to be plunged into Hell. We know very little about Hell, but the metaphors in the Bible give us an idea (unquenchable fire, outer darkenss, the place of the eternal worm, of gnashing teeth and of torment). It is perfectly just for a soul to enter Hell. It would be perfectly just of God to throw the whole race of humanity into Hell. But God is not merely a just God: he is a God of love. He has not left us to perish.

Two thousand years ago Jesus was born in the Middle-East. He grew up, trained as a joiner, and eventually did a three year speaking tour of the Roman provinces of Judea and Galilee. This man was both fully human and fully divine. He lived in complete harmony with the laws of God but was put to death for his outrageous claims to be the Son of God. But this death was itself part of the plan - indeed the crowning part of the plan - for why he had come in the first place. This was the death of the only truly innocent life the world has ever seen.

In a way that is too deep to go into here, Jesus took the sin of the world on his shoulders as he died, and paid the price for it. If we accept him as our personal Saviour and King, that payment is extended to cover our sins also. If we don't bother with him, that payment will be required of us personally.

Three days after Jesus died, he rose again. There is very strong historical evidence that this is indeed the case. This is a guarantee to the rest of us that those who are in him will also be raised from the dead and will not end up being cursed to Hell but will go to Heaven after they die.

I realise I'm beginning to ramble. It's intensely difficult to compress down an entire way of viewing life and death into a couple of paragraphs. It's far better explained in the Bible... but there again, they've got a few more pages than I do! Either way - that's what I believe to be true. It's not just a story. It's as true as the fact that if you stand in the rain you get wet.

Breathing Room

Pulled on at last minute as a Sound Recordist for this film, I rather enjoyed the experience: the family atmosphere of camping out together on location is rather grand, and Gourock is a beautiful part of the world to which I had never been.

What did I learn? I got some elementary knowledge of a new piece of equipment: the solid state recorder. 100 top level menus, with multiple sub and sub-sub menus under each one mean that this machine will take a long time to master. Meanwhile I was very glad to get the opportunity to use it and try it out with Gavin Rizza as mentor on set. There also was a new model of mixer which I hadn’t worked with since my first class with Simon in first year. So that needed a lot of work to re-familiarise myself with its operations.

Sound guys get a raw deal: they are the only one on set for their department, while the pack of camera hounds eat all the pizza and grumble about the boom shadow being in shot. In particular one thing which irritates me is that after a scene is completed, and I need silence for a wildtrack, there are grumbles and general noises throughout. After a yell out, silence is maintained for about ten seconds. Then it is right back to larking around and general noisy behaviour. Either I get good sound at the time the camera is shooting (which isn’t always possible) or I substitute it with a wildtrack in the edit. If I can’t get clean wildtrack and I can’t get my boom close into the action then the sound for that action will be inevitably poor. I did allow my grumpy side to come to the fore on the third take of a recording of ambient sound. All three were ruined with chatter and after much remonstrating, I yelled angrily for them to Shut Up. This landed me with a red face when it turned out it was Graeme’s mother talking, newly arrived and unaware that I was recording. Another lesson learnt: no matter how provoked, never lose your temper. It does nobody any good.

Having had my rant, I do feel I got good sound, and was helped especially by Lauren on the third day of shooting where she volunteered to be my Boom Operator after a lack of jobs going in the Camera Department. I was particularly pleased with one set up where Lauren was on the balcony with the boom and I was in the garden with the mixer signalling where to point the mike. A wide shot with good quality sound: nice!

Meeting Actors

It's a new way of directing for me. I've never sat down before and chatted with actors about the characters they are playing.

However, under the influence of Zam and PMB, I thought I would give it a go, and I feel it has been very beneficial. I talked to Rhys for an hour, Laura for forty minutes and Adam for twenty. I started with asking some general questions about backstory, motives, aspirations, fears and relationships. I then moved on to going through the script scene by scene, asking questions to discuss what was going through the characters mind at each point. I had previously made up my own notes in the margin of my script and it was re-assuring to find out in discussion that the actors had the same view of the characters as I did.

I tried to keep it at a fairly even keel throughout. I think, however, with Rhys I concentrated too long on the generic questions and we had to stop our discussion half way through the script. I reckon I'd know for next time when it was time to move on to looking at the specific script.

A couple of times the actors would come up with something I hadn't thought of. I hoep that over the next couple of weeks we will be able to come up with more like that: exploring the characters together and hopefully finding the truth at the heart of this script.

More general thoughts

So while the model was a big think this week, I tried hard to prevent it distracting me away from the key elements of the story. We now have a cast - in many ways the optimum cast. At first, this seemed perfect. But after the first rehearsal, I am realising that it can be a little harder to get a sense of "freshness" to a character when each is being played by the actor it was written for. I have given the actors some time to think about the part and will hopefully meet with them on Monday to discuss character. This is a far more cerebral way of approaching directing than anything I have used before. I'm getting influenced, no doubt, from Zam and PMB, as well as from a study I did into Ken Loach and his own directing style. I'm not sure I feel wholly comfortable with it, but hopefully it will work out well.

For a while, with Laura on Sole mates and Rhys on Breathing Room, I was concerned about getting good rehearsal time, but that issue seems to have lifted now, with Laura no longer on Sole Mates. I hope there will be no problems for Broken Bubbles similar to those experienced by Gavin in getting actors.

I am deliberately trying to pull my involvement back on the Art Department side. We are beginning to move away from the design stage into the "sourcing and making" stage, and I feel these guys need a bit of creative freedom, rather than having me micro-managing them. We had a second recce to the props store, to allow Luisa and John the chance to see the space and discuss the issues of constructed walls, camera positions, lamp positions and access routes.

We also have had a VFX meeting this week, where Gavin explained to the other HoDs how we intended to shoot the fairy. We came to some conclusions about super-fast movement, dangly legs, nonchalant hovering and reference models. All very exciting. Everyone except Gavin seems a little out of their depth, but life would be dull without a challenge. It's a shame Gavin will be in the US for both our Greenscreen test and our filming dates, but hopefully he can teach us well enough first.

Model-work

Over this week, the question has arisen as to why we are building a model for the workshop exterior. Would it not be easier to do the film without it? I realised this was something I needed to give a good bit of thought to, and came up with the following rationale.

From a story point of view, the exterior shots of the workshop do a number of different things.

1) They set the world in which the story takes place. With one shot, at a glance, the audience know that we are dealing with a different world or time-period. They know that within that world we are dealing with an erratic, impoverished man, largely cut-off from society, unconcerned about his material comforts. They also know from the first frame the sort of style this film will take them down, rather than piecing the style together in the first scene with Grabulous, when they could otherwise be concentrating on story and character.

2) They allow the audience a chance to breathe - to take a step back from the action, process what has been and prepare themselves for what has come. A cutaway of an object within the set would not allow the audience this breathing moment.

3) They punctuate the narrative in a distinct way that a cutaway would not do.

4) They link the constructed set and the Mugdock location by combining elements of both in the same composition. The audience are more likely to buy the link between the two scenes if they have a visual picture of the workshop as part of a larger world.

Given the need for the exterior scenes, it appears we have three options.

1) A model
2) A matt painting
3) A location

Option 3, while normally the best, requires us on this occasion to first find a suitable structure, then film it in three different lighting conditions.

Option 2, while notionally easier, is actually the harder option for TPA, having spoken to them. Luisa says she would need to do it an home in her spare time, which seems an unnecessary intrusion.

Option 1 is one I was very wary of. But Luisa has told me that none of the Art Dept assigned to the DFTV films would actually be doing the model. She has spoken to a TPA3 Props specialist called Gary. He is looking to move into film work, he has done models before, he has little to do once the TPA Grad Show finishes on Friday, and he has expressed interest in doing this. Phil has been to see Gary's models in the TPA GRad show and assures me they are of the highest quality. Steven has assured me that with a bit of care the lighting of the model is no different to the lighting of anything else and that he is happy to mentor John in whatever needs to be done. Gavin has assured me that if we light the model nicely it is a good deal easier to greenscreen an inanimate workshop than a moving fairy. Luisa tells me the cost for the model would be between £30 and £50. While money matters are not my decision, this did not seem outrageous to me.

It took me a long time to be convinced that the model was possible. Even now I am not sure it will work. But I look at this as a learning experience. If the modelwork fails, we will know the potential pitfalls for next year. But I have been assured that it will look good, that we can light it well and that we can greenscreen it well. It will not greatly take time away from anyone but Gary - who is not needed for any other role on the crews. So - I ask myself - what do we have to lose?

Could we do it without the exterior shots? Yes - we could take Close-Ups of the clock at different times. This would be satisfactory, and it may be good to shoot this as a back-up plan. But the story would be better served, I believe, by attempting the model.

John, Phil and myself have had a discussion about this, and I feel we are agreed that a model is the best way to solve this problem.

Fire up the Quattro

So it's time to take out the old blog, rusting quietly in the corner in true steampunk style. The cogs are beginning to slowly grind together and with a whistling jet of steam it rattles into life.

Directing Broken Bubbles has so far been a rather strange experience. Some of this is due to the unique situation of working with selected A3 actors. While there are good things about this: free access to a highly talented bunch, there is a downside too: you have to work with the people you've got. If you've written a part for Tinkerbell, and the only actress is better suited to Miss Trunchball you just have to make the best of a bad job! We have not yet met the actors - though I've worked out who they all are - so I'm hoping that there won't be any mismatches of quite such exaggerated proportions.

But I think what I've found hardest is working with an Executive Producer over my head. It's great practice for the industry, but it's hard to try to keep all the Exec's happy while still feeling that I'm the author of my film. I think the fact I'm on to Draft 15 says something about that - though even the number has ceased to be mine: the executives have named it Draft 11.1. I keep telling myself that we are all committed to making the best possible film given the circumstances, and it looks as though we finally have some agreement on the script so there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm looking forward to getting it locked down and being able to stop writing and start directing.

I am alarmed by the prospect of doing an 11 page script in 3 days, especially given the fact that the Greenscreen shots have to be shot twice, and have to be very carefully matched. Combined with the unknown quantity of the RED camera, I am going into this production with some big questions floating around as to the feasibility of attempting the shoot. Some very careful forward planning and some hyper-efficient shooting with a minimal shotlist go some way to alleviating my worries, but not perhaps far enough.

We aim to film all the scenes in the workshop as if they were one big scene. We will get all the shots from one camera angle for all the scenes, then move on to the next. My concern with using this hyper-efficient shooting schedule is that the performances will suffer. The actors will need to match performance in the reverse shot for a scene for which the original shots were taken perhaps the day before. Maybe a rigorous rehearsal process would get the performances consistent, but I fear freshness would be lost by over-rehearsing things.

Anyway I'm just rambling now, so we'll see what happens.

Doritos / ECA

A quick blog on two projects I have been the Sound Recordist for recently. Both very different.

"A Different Kind of Love" was shot by students from the ECA. I noted the hugely different approach we have at the Academy to the way they film from ECA. Their focus was continually on the image. The sound was clearly a necessary evil, and the performances were neither developed or concentrated on. Everything was about the composition of the shot. A strong-willed DoP, a weaker Director and the absence of a 1st AD meant that we ended up with an average of about ten takes for even the simplest of shots. I very quickly grew to despise the phrase "One more for the camera". After all, what is the point of getting a repeat of a shot in which you change nothing. If there is a problem in the first shot, it will very probably still be there in the second identical shot. Nevertheless I got through it. I got some basic knowledge of how to operate a Marantz solid state recorder (very much a crash course in that I had to figure out the buttons by trial and error - cue lots of distortion). I was unable to find a way for the Marantz to accept a line signal coming from the mixer on an XLR cable, so I had to set the mixer output to Mic level, which is less good for signal-to-noise ratio but which at least allowed me to get some signal recorded!

"Doritos: Share" was a 30 second advert done last weekend. Due to a lack of actors (out of the five required we ended up with two) I had to act, as did the runner and the director. So I can add "hand out the window, boom back in the sunroof" to my list of awkward sound recording positions, especially when trying to act with the right half of me. Being Sound Rec and an actor is far from an ideal situation. For the wide shots, I had to prop the boom pole up, wedged between C-Stands, and hope for no sudden gusts of wind... Beyond that, I'm not sure I learned anything of note about sound during this shoot. We had to use 6 AA batteries for the SQN as the MP1 battery had been omitted from the kit request: these required replacing half way through the shoot.

Online Content

Although I appreciate these blogs are finished academically, I have found it useful to use them occasionally to think a topic through inside my own head. Although I try to make all my thought perfectly legible and logical, this musing is primarily for myself, in order to get my head round the concepts of 360 commissioning and online content.

The first thing to note is that “online” content need not be particularly different from any other type of content. The internet is a medium like any other, and is versatile enough to handle almost any kind of content we wish to upload to it. (It surely cannot be many years before there is a tactile element added to the internet, where we are able to “touch” and “feel” objects with a sensory glove. When that is combined with virtual reality goggles, we will truly be into the cyber age. Virtual environments will become the norm, starting with gimmicks and pornography, before filtering though into general entertainment, and social networking and eventually working its way into virtual committee meetings, business meetings, retail, education, and government.).

So what sort of “online” content can be provided to accompany a TV show or feature film?

Firstly, there is no real difference between online and broadcast. So we would have the episodes available to watch or download, either at a cost or for free. A realistic business plan would probably look to have either the watch/download costing a certain amount of money, or the payment of a certain amount of money to subscribe to the service.

Secondly, we could have information in a text and picture format considering key aspects of the series: the characters, the locations and the wider environment.

Third, we can have extra audio-visual content: stories surrounding and giving new insight on the main TV story. These can range from a variation on the “deleted scene” to something a little more deliberate.

Fourth, we can have games relating to the show: everything from quizzes to retro platform-style games.

Fifth and finally, we can provide merchandise for sale.

Ultimately however, this will all prove nothing more than a mild diversion and window dressing for the audience. The most popular sites on the web are those which the audience contribute to. So we have Youtube, Flickr and Facebook, as well as sites such as fanfiction.com where the public try their hand at creative writing. We also have the escapist phenomenon known as Second Life, where people create an avatar to represent them, design it as they wish and let it inhabit a certain envorinment and interact with the other avatars.

So how can we incorporate audience content into our website without ever surrendering control of the story, the characters and the core content of the show?

Some elements work better than others. The best selling point of Facebook is the monopoly it has on the internet. This is the kind of site which only works if it is the only one. All competition, like MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Friends Reunited and Google’s new network called “Buzz”, must be eliminated, preferably by the public simply abandoning these smaller networks. We all want to feel we are a part of a single global community and Facebook has a huge percentage of the global population as members, so setting up an alternative to Facebook is foolish. But we can work within the parameters set there: at the very least by establishing a Facebook group centred around our show and run in a semi-independent fashion by someone who appears to be a member of the public, and a huge fan, but is in actual fact, likely paid by the producers to keep the group active with continually changing content, updates, mailings and discussions.

Second Life is an intriguing one to emulate. Working best in a fantasy or sci-fi show, we can permit folk to create their own avatar which inhabits the world of the show. So to use my caveman premise, we can let the audience create their own caveman and explore the cave environment and interact with the other avatars they meet there. This is a massive thing to run and to keep interest up, so a games company would have to be drafted in to provide the interactive environment and provide continually new challenges for the gamer to overcome.

As long as it was strictly clear that we took no responsibility for the content uploaded, we could have a fan-fiction page available as part of the site, where users could upload their own stories about the characters and the environment. This has been very popular for many shows and films, especially Harry Potter (in the years when I used to peruse the site). Now Twilight has probably taken over as the top spot. But I have never seen this as a part of a film or show website. (Generally I have found the official websites to be very sparse in material and the fan-sites, to be bursting at the seams.)

The same could be applied to you tube and Flickr. Working within the confines of these sites, but embedded on pages in our own site, we could invite the public to upload their own material. We would moderate for relevance and appropriateness, but would have a huge disclaimer up about our lack of responsibility for the content.

We could of course have a message board with several threads for fans to gossip about the show: rumours of upcoming episodes, debate of motivations and characters in previous episodes. Again this would be moderated, but only for appropriate-ness. We would be committed to allowing all content derogatory to the show and all spoilers, as long as everyone was clear we had no responsibility over what was said.

So by the time we have implemented all of this, we have a very informative and interactive website, but the question of extra audio-visual material remains. What form should this take?

This either falls into the category of information, in which case it is simply a film, or it presents something interactive, which is a game. A game can incorporate film and remain a game. A film cannot incorporate gaming elements without becoming a game. The best games allow the user complete control, and a game which only allows a user very limited control is very frustrating. It feels like a very rubbish game and a very rubbish film at the same time.

I’m scratching my brains trying to come up with something that is an interactive film, but is not a game, and the best I can do is a short film with a message board underneath to debate the issue that arose, or to provide a three minute film and ask for the public to film their own sequels. The best will win a prize. This, crucially, can have no bearing on the characters, plot or environment of the main series. The closest it can come is if a character has left the series, and we know he or she is never going to return, they can be thrown to the dogs (I.e. the public) and the public can decide their fate.

Anyway, I could blether on for ages, but there we have it. Some thoughts on online content.

Titus - An Analysis

Introduction
The film I have chosen to consider is Titus, directed by Julie Taymor. Made in 1999, it is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus: his most bloodthirsty play.

Dante Ferretti’s Production Design was awarded a Silver Ribbon by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists. In particular, the Costume Design by Milera Canonero was nominated for an Oscar.1 In her production notes, Taymor states “I wanted to blend and collide time, to create a singular period that juxtaposed elements of ancient barbaric ritual with familiar, contemporary attitude and style.”2 It is this deliberate mixture of assorted anachronisms which gives the city of Titus its unique environment.

Looking at elements within a five minute sequence, I am examining the visual references to fascism, and seeing how these meld seamlessly into the texture of the world Taymor and Feretti have created.

A Vision of Various Periods
Interviewed for www.talentdevelop.com, Canonero talks about the chronological setting for the film. "It's a reinvented vision of various periods. There are references to the 30s, the 40s, the 50s, but not historically or academically used… The film is a period in itself. Of course, I've been inspired by Roman and Etruscan historical references, but Julie wanted to create a world of its own, not one that ever existed."3

Here we have an example of the modern and ancient blend. The microphone is a Shure 55 model, popular in 1950’s America4, recalling the Presidential campaigns of Truman, Eisenhower and JFK. But it bears the sigil SPQR: Senatus Populusque Romanus. This was the logo of the Ancient Roman Empire, used along with the eagle as a document header, as a military standard and as a stamp on monuments of Imperial glory. It was revived again by Mussolini as a visual boost for his fascist regime which he termed the New Roman Empire.5 Underneath the SPQR logo, we have, in smaller letters, the word NEWS, with a clear allusion to the style of television news bulletins still prevalent today.

The costume worn by Marcus, the senator, is equally a blend of styles. He wears a single breasted suit, brilliantly white and very modern in its minimalist cut. However, over this is neatly thrown a white sash with a red band, clearly reminiscent of the bleached white toga candida worn only by the Senators of Ancient Rome, with its distinctive stripe of garnet running diagonally down from the shoulder.6

Saturninus

Saturninus’ faction has a clear parallel with fascism. The Mercedes in which Saturninus rides is identical to the transport favoured by Hitler when he was joining in marches. The parallels between the first picture above and the picture below are remarkable.

But Saturninus has added a bullet proof cage around himself and from this we can gain an insight into his character. Obviously hated enough to have survived a previous assassination attempt, Saturninus is cowardly and paranoid, hiding inside a glass box to protect himself from the people he seeks to rule. Looking for contemporary references, the clearest parallel seems to be with the Pope, who is famous for journeying in similarly modified transport7. Given that Titus is set in Rome, it is possible that Taymor is making a subtle dig at the Vatican paranoia.

The stance adopted by Saturninus when addressing the crowd is clearly modelled on Hitler addressing Germany at the Nuremberg Rallies.8 Saturninus himself wears a leather trench coat, black with huge lapels in a dynamic red colour. The trench coat was made popular after being issued to officers in World War One. Later, as Hollywood took it over, it projected the image of an intelligent hard-man. Especially in leather, the floor length trench coat gives an impression of elegant dominance.9 Saturninus’ sleek red and black coat has certainly not seen hard times and his use of it appears to be a deliberate statement of the image he would like to project.

Some of Saturninus’ followers are following his fashion - in the long shots we see a cohort of about ten men wearing black trench coats with the distinctive red lapels. We are reminded of a political uniform. Wearing a uniform while on a political march has been outlawed in the UK since 1936, because of its association with fascism.10

On the hood of the car, and on the front of each of the motorbikes, we have an ornamental wolf head. This motif of the wolf occurs again and again throughout the film, and is a reference to the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus. Legend has it they were raised by wolves.

The Set
Choosing a location for filming is as much a part of art direction as providing costumes and props and this scene is set against the backdrop of the EUR, once Mussolini’s government centre.11 Taymor describes it in her production notes: “[It] is referred to as the "square coliseum" because of its myriad arches. Built by Mussolini to recreate the glory of the ancient Roman Empire, this surreal -- almost futuristic architecture -- was a setting which perfectly embodied the concept for the film.”12

Banners and flags are a simple way to transform a location into a set. Here, black banners are hurled from the top storey in mourning for the passing of Caesar. Saturninus’ followers wave dynamic red and yellow flags, while Bassianus’ cohort have more gentle pale blue and white flags. Incidentally, these are the colours of the two rival football teams in modern day Rome: A.S. Roma and S.S. Lazio respectively.13

Conclusion
Combining many different styles and time periods may come across as a bit of a hotch potch, but it is clear that the periods and places referenced are not at random. Each has a parallel with the key elements of the film. Ancient Rome provides the original setting; Fascist Italy and Germany chimes with the attitudes and behavior of Emperor Saturnine and the contemporary references remind us that human nature has not changed and we are still capable of such brutality as any of our ancestors ever were.

References

1 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120866/awards (16-01-10)

2 http://www.foxsearchlight.com/titus/film.html (16-01-10)

3 http://talentdevelop.com/interviews/Page1047.html (16-01-10)

4 http://www.oaktreeent.com/microphones.htm (23-01-10)

5 http://www.spqrtravel.com/spqr_meaning.htm (16-01-10)

6 http://www.classicsunveiled.com/romel/html/clothmen.html (16-01-10)

7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popemobile (23-01-10)

8 http://www.bild.bundesarchiv.de/archives/barchpic/search/_1265285115/ (30-01-10)

9 “Men’s Fashion in the Twentieth Century” Maria Costantino BT Batsford Ltd 1997 p71

10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Order_Act_1936 (16-01-10)

11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esposizione_Universale_Roma (16-01-10)

12 http://www.foxsearchlight.com/titus/film.html (16-01-10)

13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby_della_Capitale (16-01-10)

Hitchcock and Truffaut

I have just finished a book of conversations between Hitchcock and Frances Truffaut, mentioned by Andy in one of the classes. I found it really interesting to read.

Truffaut is obviously a huge admirer of Hitchcock's work, and as they look at all the films Hitchcock made up to "Torn Curtain", his enthusiasm certainly seems to melt Hitchcock's sometimes gruff exterior. The book is framed as a dialogue, with the words transcribed directly from conversations had between the two film-makers. This lends itself to some entertaining moments where Truffaut irritates Hitchcock, or Hitchcock insults Truffaut or some other aside which (for some reason) amuses me.

I found Hitchcock's view of the New Wave interesting. He denounces neo-realism (or "the Italians") as being unable to tell a story, uninterested in structure and poor at climactic moments and especially the endings of films. He is more ambiguous about the New Wave, possibly with Truffaut (one of their main proponents) being in the room with him. He says he does not understand their dismissal of story structure: his own films are carefully constructed to maximise the impact on the audience. The drifting, apparently aimless style of the New Wave seems to be at odds with Hitchcock's precision. He also has little time for Realism at all: if you want to portray real life, he says, make documentaries. Hitchcock prefers dreamlike settings, nightmarish archetypes and voyeuristic fantasies.

He also made some other interesting points.

It is not necessary for the film to make logical sense. As long as it seems to roughly make sense on a first viewing, all that matters is that the audience are swept up in the emotion and tension of each scene.

The stronger the villain, the stronger the film. A stupid villain produces a stupid film; a weak villain a weak film and a predictable villain provides a predictable film.

An audience prefer to have a star as a protagonist because they already feel they know him (or her) without the character having to be comprehensively set up. Where Hitchcock used Cary Grant and James Stewart, the same would apply today to most big names. Even if it's Johnny Depp playing a role different from any he's ever done before, we still are more likely to warm to him than if it was somebody we had never seen before.

The job of the director is to tell things visually. Don't use dialogue if the images can say it for you. Use dialogue as a mask for what is really going on in a scene. Very rarely have the character say what they mean, especially at moments of emotional stress.

There was a lot more, but time and space constrain me. Well worth a read though!

Week Beginning 1/2

Monday was a time for us all to give presentations on our analysis of various scenes. I've very much enjoyed doing this assignment, and delving into the art direction of Titus has been both eye-opening and inspirational.

Tuesday was a meeting amongst the class to look at extra-curricular projects which we might be looking at. Almost everyone had ideas, and most of these I thought were good ideas. I'm hoping that when the shortlist for the end-of-year scripts are announced later today, it will give us all (and especially those of us who don't have to continue in development) added impetus to work on these projects.

After this we had a meeting on our documentaries, where we were chided for our lack of progress. However, we did, finally, decide on who was in which group and we have started taking a couple of steps int he right direction.

Wednesday was, for me, a full day filming with the BBC. Sounds exalted, but in reality, it was either a case of watching someone else - and not a very experienced someone else at that - or else manning a camera on mastershot, which didn't require much (if any) fiddling!

Thursday was deadline day for both Ray's essay and Richard's script. It was also an afternoon with John Yorke, looking at online content. I think I have an obvious aversion to online content, as intuitively I think of grainy, pixellated images the size of a postage stamp. This of course is not the case, but when combined with the lack of any feasible business model is not inspiring. This (I suppose) is a key issue with the Internet in its totality. Why would you pay for something, when you can get it for free? We get our news for free on BBC News website and others. We get our music for free on Spotify and others. We get our video clips for free on youtube, our TV free on iPlayer, our books free on GoogleBooks, our information free on wikipedia, our phonecalls free on Skype. It just goes on. And meanwhile, we end up devaluing all these services and taking them for granted. Why would we pay for these things, when we can get them for free?

Friday was a class on Directing, very useful. We looked at the casting process from briefs to auditions. One of the key things is the use of improv in auditions, the importance of giving the actor the script first and ensuring they have read it, and the benefits of having more than one actor in at a time.

At the weekend I was at a Christian Arts conference, called Interface, meeting up with artists from all disciplines: sculpture to fashion, songwriting to mechanical design. We looked at questions like "What is Art?" "Why is it important?" "Does it need to be justified?" and "How can we use our Art to bring glory to God?". One of the speakers was Norman Stone, director of "Man Dancin'" and various other TV and film dramas. He was particularly interesting to hear, and I also met up with two other film makers from the East Coast. Given that film is far more collaborative than most art forms, it is particularly exciting for me to meet new film-makers, and I'm always looking for more people I can work with.

Week Beginning 25/1

The Week began with a look at British social realism. I've just read a quote from Francois Truffaut who says "There is something about England that's anti-cinematic... To put it bluntly, isn't there a certain incompatibility between the terms 'cinema' and 'Britain'?... Considering the high intellectual level in England, and in the light of her great writers and poets, isn't it rather curious that in the seventy years since cinema came into being, the only two British film-makers whose works have stood the test of time are Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock?"

Certainly I feel he's being a little French about the whole thing, but he maybe has a point. Since then, you could arguably add Richard Attenborough, Ridley Scott and David Lean but the key thing about all these directors is that they made their name during their career in America. It seems as though trying to make movies outside America, and certainly trying to produce a film in the UK seems to lend itself to failure. Perhaps downbeat, and there are excpetions of course, but to me it seems that if you want to be a prolific film-maker, you have to live and work in the US. Ken Loach would be the counter-example, but in my opinion, his films don't stand in the same league as those made by the other directors above.

Tuesday was a tutorial with Adam looking at developing my TV series idea a bit further. I am happy with the way it is going, and am looking forward to taking it further, and writing part of the first episode.

In the afternoon we were given out the briefs for documentaries which we are going to be engaged in. I think the idea of doing a documentary freaks me out a bit as they are so much harder to do well than drama. Its a different kind of film-making, and frankly I don't think its what I'm going to prove to be very good at. The documentaries I prefer are those educational ones which are unashamedly trying to teach you something scientific, historical or philosophical. These rely on talking heads, with illustrations, dramatic reconstructions, anecdotal relief and usually a bit of foreign travel to spice it up. Telling a story by visual language sound to me like it will end up either being sledge-hammer style metaphor or ridiculously subtle, pretentious twaddle.

Wednesday was a class with Zam, exploring some of the locations we had discovered around Glasgow. We looked at the practicalities of filming in various places and how a different look could be got simply by filming round the corner.

Thursday was a tutorial with Richard - for which I was 10 minutes late. I got some very detailed notes and hope to make another redraft tomorrow. Very pleased with the way my script has turned out so far, though if it ever is commissioned, the producers will try to shoot me.

Friday was a screening of The Seventh Seal. I have seen this movie before and I think blogged on it, so I won't make a separate posting for it again. Suffice to say it remains one of the most insightful, thought-provoking films I have seen. There is a lot of dialogue, which Richard wouldn't like, but which I think you need when you are dealing with such philosophical ideas. The metaphors come piled one on top of another, and it would be fascinating to analyse a scene from it. All done with beautiful photography and moments of great humour, this is one of my favourite films.

The afternoon was a class with Abigail, where we all got a row for not taking our assignment seriously enough. Personally I thought the script we were working from was the most boring script I've read since the last one she gave us out. I feel it would be vastly more enjoyable and engaging for us if we were doing production breakdowns of some of the scripts we had written last year. Rather, we have been handed out a script which has been written out very poorly. It is little wonder we are less than enthused for our task when it is clear that whoever transcribed the script from which we are working was equally un-enthused. They didn't even take the time to proof read it or attempt to format it.

Week Beginning 18/1

Monday was a class on the French New Wave. It seems to me I have less of an understanding of exactly what this is than I do of, say, Italian Neo-Realism or British Social Realism. I have decided to add a couple of Jean Luc Godard's films to my list, as the only New Wave film I have seen is the 400 blows, and bearing in mind how influential it has been it is difficult to actually isolate these characteristics which were new in this New Wave.

Tuesday was a look at documentary again, with this time a practical exercise: taking the story of a teacher's suicide and trying to find the story that resonates with us all. I found that it was something none of us considered at the first pass, and that much time was spent considering the details of the event itself before we realised that the key story here was about dis-satisfaction with life and a search for something more. Or, as the Bible might say "What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?"

Wednesday was a day off, so spent on our essays and on pre-production for "Communication Breakdown": Dionysios upcoming film.

Thursday was supposedly a day of technical, but it was cancelled due to editshare being down. We spent the day working on essays.

Friday was a viewing of This is England, followed by a massive assignment given out by Abigail...

Cultural Horizons

So my cultural horizons have been expanded in two significant directions this last week. First I have seen an opera for the first time. Secondly I have read cover to cover "Men's Fashion in the Twentieth Century" and discovered a whole new topic I have never considered before.

The opera was three and a quarter hours long, and was vast in scope. I lost track of who was who and what was going on somewhere about a third into the first act and never regained it until the very end where there was a huge choral piece about how Russia would never be conquered.

It was a form of music I was completely unfamiliar with. The bar structure appeared to change frequently (2 beats, 3, beats, 4 beats in the bar). There were no repeated phrases and the vocals did not seem to work on a clear meter: rather it felt like prose squashed up and extended to fit in with the current bar structure. It was certainly an experience, and recognising several students helped to pass the time when I didn't have a clue what was going on.

I was reading the fashion book in an attempt to discover what men were wearing in Mussolini's Italy as part of my assignment for Andy. But as it happens, the author of the book did not consider the fascist style to be worthy of bringing to our attention. Nevertheless, I found myself drawn in very quickly into the book, reading about the styles, from the top hat and tails "uniform" at the turn of the century, down to the fragmented nature of post-modern society. There have been fashions - particular cuts, shapes and sillhouette's popular down through the decades - but the thing I find most interesting is how much more difficult the authors were finding it to capture the mood of clothing fashion in the 80s and 90s than they did in the earlier years. It seems that with the seasonal changes in fashion and the in built obsolescence that the fashion industry perpetuates have made us all far less stable in our choices of clothes. We will now experiment and try out different styles, each trying to find our own look. The key thing seems to be individuality, while before the key concept was conformity to a norm. This is something I quite like, for clothes can reveal so much about a persons character, or at least the character they imagine themselves to be. Of course, the more unusual images are only available to the more affluent member of society, but even the poorer of us have a tendancy to create our own identity with accessories and styles.

It's always intriguing to come across something which I've never looked into before, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.

Week Beginning 11th January

First week back at the academy and we are promised that our feet will not hit the ground. We've heard that every term so far, but given the three assignments handed out this week (the "quiet" week) it might possibly turn out to be true!

Monday was a class on Neo Realism. In fact the whole week has been Realist themed. I never considered myself a fan of realism, seeing them as largely dull, slow moving, and above all utterly depressing. But when Andy was telling us how even Avatar has been influenced by Realism, I began to understand what an impact the movement has had. We do look for believability in films, even in fantasy films. One of the key things I like in Lord of the Rings is their attempt to create a "real" fantasy world. The Art Direction is, in that sense, very "realist". Certainly in comparison to Ray Harryhausen pictures I can see the development in the fantasy genre. The same applies with special effects. We are looking for something that looks real, not something that merely is a symbol for the thing represented. That is why the stop-motion animation monsters of the aforementioned Harryhausen flicks look so underwhelming, and why people complain about the poor SFX in a film if they are anything but state-of-the-art. It also goes partly towards explaining the ubiquitous aversion to over-use of CGI.

Tuesday was looking at documentaries, and how they are every bit as much of a construct as a drama. They need a beginning, a middle and an end. In this sense, they are very close to realism, and ultimately they are a "lie for the greater understanding of truth". I'm not sure I'm very happy with that use of the word "lie". It reminds me of once hearing a panel of respectable gentlemen telling their audience that fiction is dangerous to read. It is, they claimed, all lies. Well, it is only lies if someone is deceived into thinking it is truth. The novel is not a lie for the writer and the reader both make the assumption right at the beginning that the work is a fiction. There is no deceit involved if the novel is approached as a novel. It is when a novel claims to be factual (e.g. Da Vinci Code) or when a film claims to be found footage (e.g. Paranormal Activity) that they have entered murky territory. Personally I don't understand how people can be stupid enough to think that a novel is a factual book, or that a feature film has been recovered from a police vault, but apparently people are more stupid than I imagine!

Anyway - I've gone off on another rant, and not sure I've come to any definite conclusions. Suffice to say, I don't think documentary will ever be my "thing". It sounds vastly difficult to accomplish and I've rarely enjoyed factual programmes. The exceptions would be wildlife documentaries, the odd scientific investigation and I also enjoyed the one episode of "Stephen Fry in America" that I watched. Had it been a different host I probably wouldn't have liked it.

Wednesday was a full day. Our Wednesday morning of self-directed study / sleeping was gone, but the class was intriguing enough that I wasn't upset to have lost out on the extra couple of hours in bed. Directing class with Zam. We finished the work we had done before Christmas on action films by storyboarding an action sequence. Storyboarding is probably a very useful tool for would-be directors. It is like making the movie, but without all the production hassle! I wish I could draw a bit better!

From this, we quickly moved onto Social Realism, my least favourite genre after Rom-Coms. Looking at everything from Bicycle Thieves to Kes, the most intriguing in my opinion was "F is for Fake", being semi-documentary in style. Probably worth a watch. We were looking at the directing methods for realist films. It seems to rely largely on holding information about the scene back from actors, to make their reactions as natural as possible. It also relies on using non-professionals as actors, preferably natural "performers" who can just "be" rather than "act". The importance of casting was emphasised. In the past I have tended to cast with whoever was available, rather than having a wide range of options open to me. I suppose more and more options become available with more money.

Thursday was a screening of two episodes of The Street, followed by the handing out of a rather ambiguous essay question from Ray. The Street I found to be one of the most depressing things I have ever seen. I had been a bit depressed before arriving, having had far too little sleep the night before, but watching these characters making bad decision after bad decision for an hour until they were utterly ruined and broken was emotional torture. If I had had any control over what I was watching I would have turned it off 20 times over. The fact that it was perfectly acted and engagingly shot only made it all the more horrific. Such a bleak view of life is, as far as I am concerned, as far removed from reality as the glossiest Hollywood movie. These things happen occasionally, but not often. Admittedly more often than people bursting into song in the style of Singing in the Rain, but the point still stand. The vast majority of people experience ups and downs, good years and bad years, times of joy, sorrow and contentment. I do not think there is anything "worthy" in telling people life is worse than it actually is. It is not realism, it is pessimism. It is probably a more accurate depiction of the unregenerate human soul than the naive idea that we are "all good people deep down", but there has to be some balance. I can't understand why anyone would watch this show.

Friday was a screening of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Another realist film, coupled with a watch of Ae Fond Kiss in my flat on Thursday night. Time for a Hollywood fantasy, I think!

Twin Peaks

Over Christmas I set myself to watch the first season of Twin Peaks, a 7 x 45 minute American TV series directed and created by David Lynch.

Lynch seems to be one of these mythical directors that every film student loves. Personally I haven't seen that much of his work and this was the first of them I enjoyed. The Elephant Man was just so-so and Dune was so bad it was good: which isn't the standard anyone should be aspiring to!

But with Twin Peaks, Lynch seems to have created something rather special. When the beautiful student Laura Palmer is found dead, wrapped in plastic, in the sleepy town of Twin Peaks in the state of Washington, a chain of event is set in motion which carries us through the whole first series and apparently right into the second.

The town is host to a vast number of bizzare and quirky characters, ranging from eyepath-wearing Nadine, desperate to patent her inventions; to the sultry student Audrey Horne, the classic femme fatale; via the Log Lady, who never goes anywhere without carrying her baby log.

The character who is our link: the one who, like us, is a stranger getting to know these people, is one of the most engaging characters I've seen on screen. An FBI agent sent in to take over the investigation, we automatically assume he will be the grim, hyper-efficient bully we are familiar with from so many other shows, who will rub everyone up the wrong way. In contrary, he immediately makes good friends with the Sherrif and there is barely the smallest wrankle of tension between them all the way through. Our expectations are further shattered when Agent Cooper turns out to be one of the most upbeat, cheerful and essentially happy characters in the show. We are so used to hard-bitten, grim, gruff detectives, suffering from depression, unable to hold down a relationship, respected but unloved, that to see a "happy detective" is so unusual as to draw us in totally.

The murder of Laura Palmer, so crucial at the beginning, proves to only be one story among several. With several different individuals in the community taking it upon themselves to investigate privately, and with everyone in the town keeping at least one secret and double crossing someone somewhere along the lines, this becomes hugely complex very quickly and for that, it is gripping.

The quirky view of reality, with nothing quite being as it seems, reminds me almost of Alice in Wonderland. "We're all a little bit mad here" says the Mad Hatter, and certainly that is true of Twin Peaks. Apparently in the second season, which the library does not stock, things get even wierder, with demon possession, people rising from the dead, doppelgangers and soul-suckers. But in season one, the supernatural element is only hinted at. One character receives visions, and Agent Cooper claims some dubious skills he picked up from Tibet.

Hugely entertaining, both funny, intriguing, tragic, gripping and insightful, I consdier Twin Peaks to be probably the best TV show I have seen. The message of the series is easily summed up in one line, a paraphrase of something one of the characters says. "The secrets we keep destroy all our hopes of happiness"