R.E.D.2 Influences

City of dreadful night

O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!
O battling in black floods without an ark!
     O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!
My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,
With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:
     Oh dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!

My heart is sick with anguish for your bale;
Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quail
     And perish in your perishing unblest.
And I have searched the highths and depths, the scope
Of all our universe, with desperate hope
     To find some solace for your wild unrest.

And now at last authentic word I bring,
Witnessed by every dead and living thing;
     Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:
There is no God; no Fiend with names divine
Made us and tortures us; if we must pine,
     It is to satiate no Being's gall.

It was the dark delusion of a dream,
That living Person conscious and supreme,
      Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;
Whom we must curse because the life he gave
Could not be buried in the quiet grave,
     Could not be killed by poison or the knife.

This little life is all we must endure,
The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,
     We fall asleep and never wake again;
Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,
Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh
     In earth, air, water, plants, and other men.

  James "B.V." Thomson 1870-73

I found the above poem after doing some research into quotations that I could use at the end of my film, I found that this poem resonates particularly with me, it's seems as though everything i wanted to say in the film is here in this text, what was even more striking was the date it was written.

I have been influenced by the Swedish band " Shining" whose lyrical content and conceptual ideas revolve around the idea of " suburban misery". I also liked the atmosphere that the scenes in the cities in "lost In Translation" and " Until The Light Takes Us" that was created.

R.E.D. 2 Influences

Here's some example of some of the work that I found helped to inspire and inform when I was first thinking about my project.

R.E.D. 2 Production

RED 2

Production

I Had the idea of shooting footage  around the city  at night time.  the reputation  that the Plymouth nightlife had acquired meant that I could find some interesting behaviour to display on screen. I  spent some time thinking about how I would want this film to look. I thought about the city lights and the atmosphere that various areas of the city could generate. I knew it was going to be very dark when I would get around to filming it, so I knew that I would have to use a camera which could generate some interesting and atmospheric scenery, some good lighting yet have  the details of the buildings  roads stand out and look dense. I wanted the "blacks" , the negative space, to have some aesthetic presence, so I picked the z1 Camera as I had some good experiences shooting with it before for similar conditions. I knew that when it came to the editing, I considered that it may give me more opportunities  to play with  effects and hopefully learn a few things than if I had used a DSLR which I feel tends to make the image look flat in "low-light" .

I actually shot the R.E.D. 2 footage the same day as the R.E.D. 1 footage, it was simply a case of wrapping one film and starting the next. My initial idea for the film was always to use lots of audio excerpts from  different sources but the idea with the footage was to find  certain things around Plymouth that people would find to be negative, I travelled round the poorest areas, I went round through the areas of the city centre where people would be drunk, I searched for any signs of police cars, ambulances, fire engines etc. I tried to pick out any derelict areas, any evidence of homeless people, anything that I could add to my film. The reason why was because I wanted to  present my own feelings when confronted with these things, all of which made me feel uneasy, resentful and fearful, I have always had a " love/hate " relationship with my home, I have experienced some of the best times in my life here but at the same time I have seen many things that I would wish to forget and some characters that I would go so far as to say that  I would ever socialise with them if I could help it. Unfortunately, or fortunately in a sense, there wasn't much to see, it seemed as though everybody was on their best behaviour. It was when I got home and I started to think about what I could put into the film to communicate my ideas that I struck on the notion of taking material from other sources and to use the footage from that night as point of reference from which the clips jump off from, in the context of the story, I wanted to portray a journey  around the city , where the clips would almost come from the driver is if he/she was reflecting on their feelings and anxieties.

 I wanted the clips to have some sort of synergy, some relation to each other and to the dialogue the other footage being used that could follow it, for example  I put together shots of brightly lit gambling establishments together that tempt people with the acquisition of monetary wealth and  underneath the dialogue talked about " how Jesus asks you to love him more than your parents " followed by the image of a dying child in Africa, limp in an adults arms, the idea was to show how we are so far removed from the reality of what is important in our lives and I was maybe presenting the notion that the worship and "need" for money  and fame has become almost a religious cult in it' s own perverse form. I could say that with the footage of the dying child I could be saying that this child is going through more suffering than most of us will ever endure, does the idea of god or money really mean anything to this individual at this time in their life?.

RED 2 Challenging my current practices

R.E.D 2

Challenging my current practice

When I looked at the assignment brief  I knew exactly  what RED 1 would be straight away and I knew that If there was any certain way to  ensure that RED2 does what it needed to do and that is to be everything that RED 1 isn't. I knew that I had to create something that  so far removed from what RED 1 was that you may wonder if I had made the film at all. This meant I had to go from conceiving a story with a beginning middle and end, working in locations and using actors to construct a  film with no actors , no locations and no sense of a conventional story.

Essentially looking back at my work, I haven't really "said" anything, there's something of a directorial identity to be seen but I there's nothing about my work that really makes a statement or comments on anything, My films may give the audience the impression that I like comedy, which I do, but there is nothing in my work which gives a portrayal of my world view. I decided to go for the darkest, bleakest subject matter I possibly could and use this film as a way of creating a mood, a feeling, a tone. I wanted this film to be anything but about a story or a conventional outcome.

Maybe I had chosen to try and hide behind absurdist humour and  not reveal my ideas, in fear that they may upset or disgust others, My intention is never to purposefully upset people, I don't think that should ever be a goal with art, but I almost wanted to present something that would almost be an amplifier for my darkest, bleakest, most nihilistic  thoughts.  I literally wanted to show something that was said something about me  and how I see the world when I see it at its worst. As far as I was concerned it needed to be the inversion of RED 1, that was how I understood the brief. I had to actually challenge myself and my practices and as dramatic as it sounds, I had to challenge myself  If I was ever to come out the other end as a better film-maker.

I would have to primarily rely on editing equipment for me to make my film and I knew that If I was going to make the film that I had in my head I needed to sit in the edit suite for as long as it took to create the images that I wanted. I almost need to push myself in situations where there is no other outcome, otherwise I would just back away. Although I did capture some footage from a car passenger window the exact same day as when I shot the footage for RED 1, Most of my media would be from other sources,  mostly from the internet, and from films that I had seen before, where the dialogue or images struck me as being important. I decided to re-appropriate the footage that I picked and the audio  and that I would mix them together and against each other in such a way that the audience would be trapped and almost oppressed by it. I knew to do this successfully that I would need to learn how to edit correctly and precisely, every cut should be important and intentional, because that's where the message , the heart of the film resides, If I failed to cut , even a frame , the way I wanted to, I would feel like I had failed.

R.E.D. 1 Research Materials

R.E.D.1

Research Materials

As the first part of this project was about looking at my current practice I looked back at all my films and tried to identify the things about them that I liked and that I considered said something about me as a film- maker. I also took a look at the script-writing research that I had conducted as part of my " Film Arts Specialism" module last year 

http://notsuprman.tumblr.com/post/37342973339/

http://notsuprman.tumblr.com/post/40428645333

http://notsuprman.tumblr.com/post/41210117785

I also looked into films which had utilized short shooting schedules in limited locations.

I did some research into the equipment to make sure that I used the most appropriate camera for the shoot. i used a 600D because I find it fairly labour saving and mobile, you can view what you have just shot and then erase takes even then the battery life and memory space should allow for a lot of takes and extra footage if needed, I was more concerned about the script and the performances of the actors than communicating a visual style, so I used what was I considered the best camera for the job.

R.E.D. 1 Post- Production

R.E.D. 1

Post- Production 

Robbie was kind enough to help me through the editing process with me, in fact it has become a habit of mine to enlist the help of someone else to  do the work and for me to oversee and give directions, Robbie has had a lot of experience with editing and the accompanying technology  so the process was a very smooth one relatively free from stress, I did take over the reins a little bit towards the end of the process more out of necessity than anything else as Robbie was working on his own film elsewhere. I generally find editing the most laborious  aspect of the production, technology in general tends to frustrate me and I am always afraid that the computer will suddenly shut down and I will lose all my work.

During this process I was able to learn a couple of things that were able to help me finish the credits for the film and also make an accompanying " gag reel ". I felt a bit frustrated that I had not retained the information about the edit suites and how to use them as so many other of my peers had done and I really felt that I needed to start learning how to use them properly soon or I felt that it could be to my detriment, for example: there were several instances during the editing process where I could not export the files correctly, due to me not setting up the projects appropriately.

Overall  I felt what was positive about the project were all the aspects of my practices which I had already developed, I just felt that they were stronger on this film than before, I think that my control and my idea of what the film should be made for a short, enjoyable shoot. Although the post - production yet again highlighted the weaknesses  that I developed in my working methods and they had become ever more apparent, this was something that I was to address and confront in the second part of my project, R.E.D. 2.

RED 1 Production

R.E.D. 1

Production 

 I wanted to try and  keep the production to a single day, as I wanted as much time as possible to edit the film.  I had everyone involved in the film meet me at my house where I was able to present the script to the crew members although my principal actor, Martin, had already been sent the script

the easiest thing for me to do was to shoot the scenes in sequence rather than hop back and forth. I understand the benefits of shooting that way on a bigger  and longer production schedule, but since that this was just a short few scenes, I felt it would be best to just go though the scenes step by step.  I  found myself paying particular attention to Martin  as he had no prior acting experience, I tried to communicate exactly what I was after in the performance without pressuring him too much to get it right on the first take. Initially he was very nervous and uncomfortable, he struggled with the material, I had to get a few  re-takes at the start. As we got further into the shoot, he relaxed and found his feet, to the point where some exchanges only required one take.

Unfortunately there was a minor equipment problem as the multi-directional microphone  wasn't working, thankfully the weather was mild with little wind, so as long as  the shots were fairly tight I could get Ciaran,  who was in charge of sound , to keep the zoom  sound recorder fairly close to Martin and myself.  Robbie was operating the camera on the shoot, I had never worked with him before, he made some good suggestions as far as staging  the scenes and finding where to get the best shots. Towards the end he was wanting more and more takes to work with but I was insisting that we get exactly what  was necessary as we were starting to lose the light.

Thankfully I got exactly what I wanted on the day and I certainly enjoyed shooting the film,  I really felt "at home" working this way, It was evident  that I really enjoyed being able to make something that was both simple independent of any  academic requirements, meaning that I didn't have to  create a film in a certain style  or using a method that was decided by my superiors. I understand how this freedom can paradoxically intimidate other film-makers but I really enjoyed it.