Lee Miller

When looking for inspiration I came across the photographer Lee Miller. I thought that her work was very interesting and really liked the way she incorporated shadows into her shots, as director I felt that we could create some very interesting cinematography using some of Lee Millers techniques.

Lee Miller (April 23, 1907 – July 21, 1977)  was an American surrealist photographer. Born in New York in 1907, she was a successful fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris where she became an established fashion and fine art photographer.

When looking through Lee Millers work the photos below really stood out to me. I really liked the use of shadows and thought that it was very effective. We decided to take inspiration from Lee Miller's work within our own production as we liked the fact her photos portrayed mystery through the use of shadows, taking inspiration from Lee Miller helped us to produce visually appealing scenes in an interesting and edgy way.

Examples of Lee Miller's photography

Bedroom scene in 'Flight'

TheObserver Article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/14/british-film-lord-smith-review-brand-promotion

I came across this interesting article when researching ways to promote my production Flight. This article  explains plans to try and ''promote British brands to compete with the cachet of French cinema and Hollywood''

British film has always struggled to compete with the big blockbuster films, with many productions falling under the radar. However British film has proved it can provide the film industry with commercially successful products such as An Education, Trainspotting and most recently The King's Speech which took $414 million in 2010. 

The ideas put forward to help British Film include ''setting up an annual British film week or series of special film days that would highlight the UK's strong back catalogue of homegrown hits'' and ''proposing a system that allows the profits from successful films to be fed back into the industry'' Such a scheme would see a percentage of box-office receipts paid back into the lottery fund in cases where producers had received an initial grant.

I personally feel that British film does need to be marketed better. At the moment the British film industry is regarded as a ''cottage industry'' due to its small scale productions. If these ideas were to work then we would see a significant rise in successful British films and audiences watching them. British film may finally be able to compete with Hollywood and gain the recognition it deserves.

During Filming

Wednesday 14th December 2011
Today filming started later than scheduled with us finally starting to record at 1:30pm, this was because we received a reply email from the leisure centre saying that the dance studio was only free Wednesday from 1:15pm until 2:00pm. All filming within the dance studio went smoothly and we ended up with some good footage, the only issue we had was that we realized the music coming from Leanne's iPod (as we edited the footage) would skip parts, this means we shall have to re-record the music and add it as a soundtrack on top. We then moved on to shooting the scene at my house. We had to move fast as the light was beginning to darken and we wanted to get some good footage of Leanne by the window. Jack managed to get some really nice shots and even managed to get some bonus footage when he noticed shadows which appeared on my bedroom wall which we then played around with. My favorite shot which Jack managed to capture is the shot of Leanne's shadow on the wall moving around (pictured below), I feel this shot is really effective and visually appealing. We didn't get as much completed as we hoped within the bedroom scene as the light went pretty quickly meaning we shall have to reschedule another time. We also didn't get to film the outside location scenes as we ran out of time, to keep up with our schedule we are planning on filming this within the next week or so.

Wednesday 21st December 2011
Filming today commenced later than expected at around 5pm. We hadn't really thought about the lighting and presumed that around 4pm would be okay to film in as its still reasonably light, however, as filming started later than planned we found it really hard to film the rope walk scenes as the footage was all really dark. Aside from the lighting problem Jack managed to get some really nice shots of lights from cars, trains and streetlamps in the dark which we can incorporate into our film. My favorite scene from today's shoot was the footage of the glinting car lights in the distance, I found this shot to be very visually appealing. The other problem which occurred during the shoot today is that we found the public toilets to be closed as it was late, due to this we shall have to film again after Christmas. I think that we did get quite a lot of footage today considering we had lots of problems during this shoot.

Wednesday 12th January 2012
After school we headed straight to the dance studio to film our dance sequence. Jack managed to film a variety of shots in the studio but after reviewing the footage I have decided that we shall re-shoot another day as when reviewing the footage I found that most of it was quite shaky, as we want the first part of our film to be smooth and have a polished feel about it we may need to re-shoot with a tripod. We then went to our outside location at around 3:15pm and filmed more of the rope walk scene, this time we chose to film at an earlier time so that it wasn't too dark. We found that the lighting was perfect this time when Jack came to film as all of our footage had a beautiful purple/blue tinge to it. My favorite shot from today's shoot was the shot of Leanne sitting with her back to the camera on a bench, we just see her silhouette and the purple sky suggesting that the character is deep in thought and also portraying the sense of mystery. I am very happy with the amount of footage we managed to capture today even though re-shooting is needed.

Monday 23rd January 2012

Wednesday 8th February 2012
Today we re-filmed the dance studio sequence as we didn't like the footage we filmed previously. We filmed in the schools multipurpose room between the hours of 1:15pm and 2:00pm. We decided to think about why the first sequence didn't work beforehand to save us time. We came up with a few reasons such as: the camera footage was shaky, we didn't like the costume, it felt rushed and we then came up with ideas on how to improve this. I then designed a new costume for Leanne and Jack filmed the whole sequence in one place on a tripod, our reasoning for doing this was that during editing I could cut between different shots to emphasize a long time period. I felt that today's shoot went really well and we managed to capture a lot of footage, only thing I particularly liked was how the shot was very symmetrical which made all the footage look professional. The one thing I would change if i were to do this sequence again is to change the lighting, I originally wanted to have spotlight over Sophie but couldn't get hold of a bright enough one to film with, having a bright light over Sophie would suggest that she is being pressured and put on the spot and I feel our film would have benefited by having this type of lighting.

Filming Schedule

Wednesday 14th December 2011

We are going to try and film the majority of our first draft today. Hopefully we shall be able to film a bit of the dance studio scene along with the whole bedroom and street scenes today between the hours of 11:20am and 5pm. This will leave us with only the ballet studio and public toilet scenes to film which we can do at a later stage.

Wednesday 21st December 2011

As we were unable to film the street and public toilet scene last week we are going to try and complete them today. We will be filming just after it gets dark, 4pm, till about 6pm. Once this is completed then we will only need to film the rest of the ballet studio scene to complete. As we are using outside locations I am now going to check the weather forecast for Wednesday.

As you can see from above the weather forecast should be okay to film in. We've missed the 'drizzle' which is predicted to happen in the morning and during the hours of 4 and 6 is predicted ''grey/white cloud''. We hoped that the weather would be slightly dark and cloudy to add a slight mysterious and eerie atmosphere when filming on the rope walk.

Wednesday 12th January 2012
Today we plan on filming the entire ballet scene in the school dance room and also the rest of the street scene. We plan on doing this from 1:30pm until 4pm. If we manage to get all of this done it means that the only thing left to film will be the public toilet sequence.
As we are using outside locations I have checked the whether forecast below:

As you can see from the weather forecast above there is going to be light cloud/sun during our required filming hours, this will make it suitable weather for filming.

Monday 23rd January 2012
After school on Monday (3:30pm) we have decided to film the public toilet scene and also the outside scene where the receiving of the drug happens. We have decided to use the public toilets in sandwich and an ally way near school as our locations. Filming should only take around an hour or so to complete. I have checked the weather forecasts for Monday and 'light cloud' was scheduled, this means that the weather will be suitable for filming in.

Wednesday 8th February 2012

Looking back at our footage for improvements we have decided to re-shoot the ballet scene. This is our chosen re-filming date. We will be using the multipurpose room between the hours of 1:15pm - 2:00pm.

Editing

Editing is a very important part of our production, it is an art of storytelling. Editing can be used to bring emotion out in an actor's performance, create a point of view on certain events, guide the telling and pace of a story and many other things. As editor of our film I have decided to look at other productions and what editing techniques they have used.

Sherlock

I really liked the way Sherlock have used slow/fast paced footage within their film. This is particularly effective within the forest running scene (0:10 - 0:30). This allows the audience to focus on specific events which happen and emphasize the urgency. The mix of slow and fast paced footage adds tension and makes the footage very interesting and engaging to watch. For our production, Flight, I hope to take inspiration from Sherlock and within the last part of Flight I want to slow some clips down (particularly the receiving of the drugs) to emphasize the moment. I also then want to have a series of stop motion fast scenes to give the sense of wrongdoing.

Fish Tank

Within Fish Tank they use very long sequences without any jump cuts or editing. This is very different to the Sherlock film which uses many face paced cuts and different paced sequences. The way fish tank uses minimal editing adds to the realism of the production as the audience actually feel part of the film. I really like the way the camera just follows Mia around without changing angle or cutting as the audience really feel part of the action. I hope to take inspiration from Fish Tank in regards to editing also as I really like how it gives the production as sense of realism which is what we hope to do within Flight.

Me and Jack both worked very closely together during editing to ensure that his vision (as cinematographer) and mine merged together to create our final production.

Colour Consideration

When editing the footage which we recorded over the Christmas holidays I noticed that a lot of the footage was different colours (due to the constant change in lighting). This particularly occurred in the bedroom scenes. For example:

Shot one

Shot two

As editor I had to decide what colour footage I liked better, the warmer or colder toned one.
I noticed that throughout Fish Tank Arnold uses warm tones. For example, the following clip:

I have also decided to use the warmer toned footage.
I feel that the warm tones connote safety and this is what we wanted to achieve in Sophie's bedroom. We wanted the scene to look warm and comfortable and we wanted the audience to recognize her bedroom is where Sophie felt the most safe. I feel that the warm tones also give off a homely feel which we wanted to have within our bedroom location.

NOTE: As our footage was all a variety of different colour I am going to use the tools available to me in Abode Premiere Pro (our editing software) to make sure that all the clips I use are the same orangey colour as the one above.

Above is a print screen of me changing the colours of our footage within Premier using the brightness and contrast options.

Sight and Sound Magazine

Sight and Sound magazine is an international film magazine which is read by film critics and academics all across the nation. Inside the magazine is information including:

• Informed and independent film news
• In-depth interviews with leading filmmakers
• Retrospective articles vividly bringing film history to life
• Reviews of every new cinema release

Sight and Sound magazine offers readers pages packed full of information ranging from in depth film articles to interviews with top filmmakers. This magazine mainly appeals to film critics and academics rather than the general public as each page of this magazine is packed full of information, the pages do not include many pictures or features unlike popular film magazines such as Empire and Total Film.
(My Sight and Sound review can be found here).

Sight and Sound magazine is published by the British Film Institute (BFI) monthly. 

The British Film Institute is the government backed lead agency for film in the UK, founded in 2000. They ensure that the economic, cultural and educational aspects of film are effectively represented at home and abroad. Their key aim is to promote the UK film industry abroad. The support from the British Film Institute helps develop new film makers, fund exciting new British films and gets a wider choice of films to audiences throughout the UK.

Lighting

While filming our production we had to take into account the lighting which we were going to use throughout. Lighting is key part of the mise-en-scene (Mise-en-scene refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement). Lighting can really effect the way a scene is perceived and is used to create certain atmospheres, for example, in horror films dark lighting is often used to add tension and mystery. Lighting can also emphasize a mood, distance, time or day or night and heighten a situation.

Each of our four locations will have different lighting to help us create certain atmospheres.

Dance Studio
We plan on using bright lights during the dance studio sequence as I feel this will heighten the sense of pressure we are trying to portray during these scene. The bright lights will hopefully make Sophie look like she is being put on the spot and in a way being forced to dance. We are also using bright lights during this sequence so the audience can draw parallels between this opening sequence and the dark street scene further along in our production. As you can see from the screen shot below, in this sequence from Black Swan they use artificial lighting to make the main character stand out and puts them on the spot.

Bedroom
Within the bedroom scene we are going to use natural lighting. We wanted to the bedroom scene to look natural and connote safety and warmth. We wanted Sophie's bedroom to be the only place she feels like she can go and feel safe and be happy. I really liked the shot in Fish Tank (below) in which they use a lens flare to liven up one of their window shots, I would really like to try and recreate this effect within the bedroom scene as I feel this will be very visually pleasing, enhance our footage and add interest to an otherwise simple shot.

Street
Within the street scene we are also going to use natural lighting. As we are filming in the evening this sequence is going to be quite dark, giving our production a sense of mystery and danger. We want to use dark lighting within this sequence to represent Sophie turning to a dangerous hedonistic lifestyle. Darkness also connotes fear and emptiness which are some of the emotions Sophie would be feeling. When researching film inspirations I was really drawn to the sequence in Ed Sheeran's - A Team (screen shot below) of the dark location with the bright car lights in the background, I found this very visually appealing. This is the type of effect we hope to try and achieve within Flight.

Public Toilets
Within the toilet scene we plan on having bright artificial lighting to emphasize and heighten the situation, which path should Sophie take? Bright lights, like the first sequence, will put Sophie on the spot. As the audience can see everything that's going on in the shot this will also add tension and draw the audience into the action.