OCA Assignment 1: Framing

For this assignment we had to produce a short sequence of no more than five shots, that tells a simple story using images alone.

Planning:

• Write a simple story:

Thoughts:
Given that I was on holiday in Spain, I wanted to take advantage of the location to shoot the sequence. Spent quite a lot of time mulling over ideas, and thinking back on what stories people had chosen for project 1. Many of them were fairy stories or nursery rhymes which are simple, sometimes moralistic and often have a bit of magic in them.

Story:
A rich greedy man hears about a sacred temple in South Spain called the 'Ermita of Terque', where all deserving wishes are guaranteed to be granted. He travels all the way, and pants up the steep hill in the little village expecting to be granted his wish of a million pounds.
On the way, he meets a poor girl in a cave who is begging for food. He throws a stone at her like a dog.
When he arrives at the temple, he says what he wants and holds out his hand for the money, but instead of money, an orange rolls out.
He looks at it in disgust and throws it down the hill. It lands in the lap of the cave girl, who is delighted to have received an orange.
Instantly, the orange transforms into bread and money, and she is never hungry again.

Storyboard:

 1. Shot is taken from eye-level angle to the girl. Shot starts looking down on man walking up the steps. When he gets to the girl he throws a stone at her and walks past the camera. The camera pans up the hill to the temple.
Need to show - the girl in her cave, her begging. The business man. The temple.

 2. Shot starts by looking down on the man walking up the last bit of hill towards the temple. He walks past the camera and on up to the temple, where he stands at the door asking for money.
Need to show - the business man demanding his wish.

 3. Low angle shot at the temple. He demands his wish and is rewarded an orange. He sits down in anger.
Need to show - the sign saying that all deserving wishes will be granted. The orange. His anger.

 4. He throws the orange in anger over the side of the hill. And begins walking back down.
Need to show - the orange going over.

5. Eye-level shot. The girl catches the orange and it is transformed into bread and money. She looks up at the temple in gratitude.
Need to show - it's the same orange. The transformation.










The sequence:

Here is the finished sequence:
OCA assignment: Ermita of Terque

Critical Evaluation:

It was great fun recording this, though I did need to use quite a bit of bribery to persuade Kani to act a cave girl! I was lucky in that the light and the colours of Spain were so brilliant!

Frame one:
I liked the shot of him walking up the steps, his suit out of place in the dusty village. As I followed him up the steps it is unclear whether we are on his side or not. The shot looks down on him until he reaches the girl. At this point, at eye-level he throws the stone at her. The shot stays with the girl which I think works, as though we have transferred allegiance to the girl.
I'm not sure whether the panning up to the temple is quite right. Perhaps I could have lingered slightly longer on the temple.

Frame two:
Here I have used the same technique of looking down on him walking up and then past the camera to the temple. I had wanted to give the impression of it being a long way up, but on reflection I think I should have utilised another angle to build on what we have begun to feel about the man. Perhaps I could have taken the shot from the temple and looked directly down on his head, or I could have done a close up of his feet on the gravel walking towards the temple.

Frame three:
The orange gets a bit lost in this! Partly because Dan put his foot out to stop it from rolling down the hill, which it did on the first take! But also because of the set up of the shot. Again, I think an angle that focused on the orange somehow - close up at ground level? with his feet and the orange appearing - would have been better. My problem was that I wanted to get the sign in as well, to explain what he was doing up there in the first place.

Frame four:
I like this shot - it's very clear what's happening, but again I wonder if it could be improved by using a different angle? In an ideal world, a high angle shot looking down on the man. Something to indicate that there is a higher being at work here!

Frame five:
Actually this is five and six - I only realised after we got back from Spain that I had zoomed in on the final shot of the girl with the food. Another lesson there!
I felt it was important to shoot the scene from a similar angle to the first shot to show that it's the same girl in the same cave. We tried it from that angle, but the orange kept on falling too far away and rolling down the steps! So it's a slightly different angle, which seems to work just as well in terms of making the story clear.

Overall, the sequence tells the story but on reflection the angles of the shots are very static and unimaginative. They don't play enough of a role in telling the story or in telling us about the characters. I think I need to experiment with very low angle and very high angle shots to get a feel for how the 'steepness' affects the mood of the piece. Also I had for some reason got it into my head that I needed to stick to a particular angle that I had chosen, but of course, that's not the case. So I think I need to try out mixing a variety of angles within a film.

How to Learn - reflections on a piece of work

Look back at a piece of work you have produced so far:

Alcoholic from an objective angle -

1. What did you set out to achieve?  to shoot a short film from a high angle of a man who is an alcoholic
2. How can you identify what you achieved? it's quite hard to objectively view whether the film works or not, though I can see it is a vast improvement on my earlier film. 
3. Did you achieve it? I struggled to keep the high angle consistent throughout the film, and having watched Vagg311's low angle film of his alcoholic I felt that in fact a low angle might have worked better - the threat being internal to the character rather than external to the situation. I found that mine ended up being comic rather than tragic.
4. What did you learn from this? consistency of angle is important. high angle can produce unexpected reactions (!) When I was editing, I found it worked better to cut the scene more than I had expected. The pan across was a little slow.

Further questions:

1. Is it better to struggle and improve your weaker areas or should you cut your losses and focus on your strengths?  I find that I tend to focus on my weaker areas, and whilst I do think it's important to pay attention to these, I would like to be able to identify and focus on my strengths. By knowing my strengths I will be able to carve out a 'filmic voice', and know what sort of films I like and am able to make.
2. How can you ever really know what your strengths and weaknesses are? Critical input from others is extremely useful, and subsequent reflection to assess whether that input is appropriate. This is, for me, a very good way of learning. Honesty from others is v. important.
3. How do you know what you need to know if you don't know what it is yet? By practicing, it is quite easy to see what works and what doesn't. Practice practice practice!
4. Who can you ask and where can you find out? Watch films, ask others on the course, tutor, and read up about it
5. How do you know if you have improved? When is it time to move on? By reflection, and by looking back at previous work. By assessing what you intended against what you have achieved. It's time to move on sooner rather than later!

Exercise: An objective POV

The exercise is to record the same scenario as the previous alcoholic one, but from an objective POV.
I decided to go for a high angle view, looking down on the alcoholic, I wanted to show the vulnerability of the character, his lack of control.

I decided beforehand what I would have that would distract him from his drink - his daughter calling him. I particularly liked Richard's telephone ringing in his first sequence, and thought that a family member calling could be quite poignant.

Storyboarding:

1) man opens his eyes, bleary. He focuses on something ahead of him












2) he struggles out of the sun lounger and goes towards the can of beer










3) he leans against the fence and picks up the can

4) he shakes the can, looks at it and is about to drink when there is a shout from indoors 'dad'. He looks but doesn't respond.









5) the shot goes to the door from where the shout came, and the girl shouts again.










6) Pan back to the man who still doesn't respond.

7) he looks to the mountain and then drinks.










Here is the finished film:

the alcoholic - an objective POV


Reflections:
I was a lot happier with this than with the first sequence. The light was a lot better (could be the glorious Spanish weather) - and the camera didn't keep going out of focus! The pace of it seemed to work better too, and I was happier with the distraction of his daughter calling him.

Things that could be improved.
Still struggling with the camera angles. I thought I was doing the whole film in high angle, but there are places where it seems to be almost eye level, even though I was standing on a chair. Because the angle is not consistent it feels a bit jumpy.

Other students' work:
I liked Paul's close up style of shooting the film, though at times I felt it could have been the subjective viewpoint. He also pointed out that a wide angle view might have worked better in places. Though I couldn't see Stuart's film (password protected) he also pointed out that the close up shots meant that we didn't see enough of Paul's character.
I particularly liked Vagg311's film. I like the use to the low angle - and he kept the low angle throughout which worked really effectively. I liked the way we saw the character from different viewpoints. This led to a feeling that we knew him from all angles.

Camera Angles

Exercise - to find examples of camera angles used to create atmosphere or alter the meaning of a scene or shot. Consider whether the angle affects:

1. viewpoint
2. releationship
3. status
4. suspense
5. mood

HIGH ANGLE SHOTS

High angle shots more the scene more dynamic and exciting than eye level shots. The character seems less powerful and significant, there may be some threat from a bigger force.

Subjective shot. From the point of view of the camera. Looking down on the the character in the shot. There is a suggestion of lower status in the character. He is swamped by newspapers, and there is an expectation of action. However, there is a mood of stalemate in this shot, through the stance of the character.

Objective shot. Here there is no-one else in the room, but the camera is looking down on the girl. It creates a tension, suggesting that something will happen to her that is beyond her control. Something from outside the window perhaps? We feel worried for her, and the mood is scary.

Subjective shot. The character is looking up at the camera character. Even though he has a gun he appears vulnerable, lower status. There is the suggestion of action from above and he is needing to defend himself.
















Here the character is looking down on action on the street. There is a sense that the camera is in the know about something about to happen to the people on the ground. Those on the ground seem more vulnerable.
















LOW ANGLE SHOTS

 In low angle shots the character seems more powerful, the sense of threat is more likely to come from within the scene, possibly from the characters themselves.


Here the three characters appear strong and contained, but the low angle gives a sense of threat from within the group itself - possibly from the dogs.












This school, shot from below, gives a sense of the sinister - evil, madness, horror? There is a mood of anticipation.








Here, the character is given a higher status by this low angle. He looks down on the audience, he preaches to them. His smile may not be altogether honest. There is an overbearing feel to the character.










In contrast to the high angle shot above of the man with the gun, this character with a knife is in control. There is a definite feel of danger from this character.










Likewise in this shot. The man with the gun is all powerful. Even the man with his back turned appears more powerful.









EYE-LEVEL SHOTS

At eye level, the scene seems quite 'normal'. The action is fairly flat and the angle itself gives very little away.


Here there is a sense of equilibrium - Of the two men belonging in the location. A stroll. A slow pace, a quiet discussion.










Again, the characters here are all at the same level - eye level - and there is no sense of threat. A song for pleasure.











At eye level, this character poses no threat, nor does he seem to be in danger from any outside force. Informative. A content mood.

Exercise: Shooting a Short Sequence - the alcoholic

This exercise was to shoot a short film as though I am an alcoholic:

First off - visualise the following sequence

• you look around your empty room
• nothing interests you
• you notice a bottle
• you hold the bottle and unscrew the lid
• something attracts your attention, you look round
• nothing happens
• you look back at the bottle and pour yourself a drink.

It sounded easy until I started!

I decided not to look at other students work before I started in case it influenced my way of thinking too much. That might have been a mistake. As I have looked at their sequences since and seen what I should have done! Oh well - it's all part of the learning!

We had to sketch out some basic storyboards

 1. my knees and hand on my knees, in an empty room. Note bare floorboards.

 2. There are curtains pinned up over the windows. So the room is dark, but there is a stream of light coming through into the empty room.

 3. Pan slowly across the room. Close up of floorboards as though counting time. Boredom.

 4. Follow the light to the other side of the room. Note v. empty room.

5. I'm not sure here what happens to the light. Camera moves up to the mantelpiece where there is a bottle of wine.
Reach over to get it.

6. Close up. You unscrew the lid.

 7. Something attracts your attention.

What? a bee buzzing agains the window?
the phone ringing?
it stops.










8. You pour a drink.
















This was much harder to shoot than I had expected. Very difficult to get the footage looking good. A combination of my lack of ability and technical issues!

1) I think I got a little bit hung up on the 'empty' room. I cleared out the railway carriage to shoot it, as this is the only relatively empty room in the place. Luckily it was  a bright sunny day, so I could get the lovely stripe of light coming in - though of course it makes a stripe through the door not the window! But to get the stripe being effective, I had to blacken all the windows which meant that the filming was problematic in places.

2) Getting the first image as a subjective view of me in the room meant pointing the camera over my shoulder on a very wobbly tripod in a very small space. This took a few takes, and I'm still not sure that it gives a subjective view.

3) The shot where I pan across the floorboards wasn't as effective as I had envisaged it would be! Perhaps i should have added a sound effect of a clock ticking or something to show time passing slowly.

4) When I filmed the light coming up the other side, the light did something quite beautiful though unintentional, in that the wall lit up as the shot approached the alcohol.

5) Timing. I had no idea how long to make the shots and ended up cutting whole shots in half or more, and speeding others up, as I had over estimated how long it should be!

6) the bottle of wine took several takes. I zoomed in too close at first. Even now I don't think the zoom works.

7) 'something catches your attention'. I wasn't sure what it was going to be that caught my attention and had decided to leave it up to the moment to decide. Sadly there was no bee as I had crazily hoped, and the ringing of the phone didn't feel quite right. My character as becoming a lonely person in an extremely empty house. The place felt as though someone had left, or died even, so I picked something up that I did actually find on the floor and chose that to be the thing that attracted attention  - a small heart wedged in the mantelpiece. This is undoubtedly NOT what a filmmaker is meant to do! Learning point - planning is v. important! I also added a final shot with the character holding the heart while drinking. (also not sure that was a good idea).

Technical problems:
1) the LIGHT!
2) tripod. too unstable, and fiddly to use.
3) blurring of the camera. Is this the camera or is this me?

Here is the video: 

http://vimeo.com/39067562

Other people's work:
I've managed to look at Paul's, Margaret's, Vagg311's and Richards sequences.
I especially like the way Paul & Vagg311 bring in the character of the alcholic - the shaking hands and quick, unstable moves. I like Paul's rushed panning around of the room before he focuses on the drink. I found Richard's phone ringing - and not being answered - very effective, and quite unnerving. I was impressed with the way everyone stuck so well to their storyboards.

Powerful emotive frames

Exercise: find 3 or 4 powerful, emotive frames. Write notes on what feeling you get from each picture and how the framing has contributed to it.

1. Happiness

I get a strong feeling of happiness at looking at this image. This is a subjective view of a happy girl amidst her paintings. As a viewer, we are head-height with her though it is a wide-shot. We can see the light in her eyes. She is looking up. We also see the paints in the foreground and her paintings in the background. She is engulfed in painting, in bright colours. There is also a sense of movement in the picture - of her laughter, so it feels like a very active image.



2. Sadness
This image is very different. It is a close-up of the girl's face and hand. The colours are just shades of black and grey. It is a very still image, - no movement. The girl is looking down, though we are at head height to her, as we were in the previous one. It gives me a feeling of sadness, though it would depend on the context. It could be fear. There is a strong sense of empathy evoked by this image. There is nothing in the background that we can see, only blackness, which adds to the sense of fear/loss/sadness. ie, we know nothing of what exists in this girl's life. Perhaps there is nothing.









3. Loneliness

 This is a wide-shot of a child in the corner of the room. We see his whole body, scrunched up in the corner, making him appear tiny. The artist has also, like the image above, used just shades of black and grey.  As a viewer we look down on him slightly, so that he appears even smaller. It is also a still shot, suggesting no movement in the boy. I found that my emotion was pity. I felt less involved in the picture, and wonder if that was because we are looking down on him, even though it's only slightly. This had the effect of exaggerating the sense of loneliness, in that even as a viewer, I wasn't there with him.




4. Psychotic

The feeling I get from this picture is fear. I found the picture on someone's blog and it was titled 'Mommie Dearest' which adds to the fear experienced by the picture. It is a mid-shot, of the mother's upper body. She is looking down at the camera . There are a few things in the background but they are unrecognisable, which adds to the chaos and psychotic feel of the image. The colours are dark and subtle. There is a lot of movement suggested in the piece by her open mouth and by the blurred thing in the foreground.

Exercise 3 - Visualisation. Reflections.

After doing this exercise, and looking at other students' work for this exercise, there are various things that I've noticed about using the subjective frame.

• close up subjective frames feel more intense, and help to put the viewer in the frame. They appear to give more of a sense of the character's emotions, and, by creating a connection between the viewer and the character,  maybe they allow for greater empathy in the viewer?
• In terms of atmosphere and tension, I find that the subjective frames, with a fairly close up shot of the character but with something happening in the background are especially effective. For example in my visualisation 1 with the man talking close up and with the shopper in the background, this seems to add tension, likewise in Visualisation 3 with the woman entering the room in the background. I'm not exactly sure why these add a sense of tension - is it because the main character in the shot is unaware of what is going on behind them? ie we have the intensity of the subjective viewpoint but with an incident happening behind them.
• I found the door opening sequence the hardest, possibly because in my visualisation I hadn't explored much more than the door before the man opened it! Looking at other students work, I like the way they look around at the garden or at the glass in the window etc. 

Exercise 3 - Visualisation. Having an illicit affair

Again, the subjective view. This time, it is an illicit affair!
1) you are alone having a passionate conversation with your loved one
2) A sudden sound in the background causes you to glance round.

Exercise 3 - visualisation. Knocking on a door

Subjective view again. This time knocking on a door.
1) You knock on the door
2) you wait
3) the door is opened

Exercise 3: Visualisation - man gesticulating

Using the SUBJECTIVE view.

This exercise is about framing. Identifying what to leave in and what to leave out of a frame.

We were asked to visualise a man talking to ut in a very animated way in a shop using their hands. I pictured him in a supermarket (Co-op) in one of the aisles. Here he is framed in different ways. 

Exercise 2. Building a story from 'The Response' by William Goscombe Joyn

In this exercise we were asked to choose a picture, then identify a series of smaller frames within the picture, to create a new story.

I was in Newcastle a few weeks ago and found this monument  - The Response - by William Goscombe John. It's a huge monument, and has lots of soldiers going off to war, saying goodbye to their families etc. I decided to use this as the basis of my exercise and took pictures framing individual parts of the 'story'.

I played around with the order of the pictures. At first I focused on the various individuals' stories of that day as the men were going to war.
Then I realised that it was just the beginning of a story rather than a narrative that follows through to an end.

So I linked the people to each other, and allowed the scenes to move on in time. The first three pictures, therefore, are from the day they leave for war, and pictures 4 and 5 are after the first battle.

The main character is probably Frank who doesn't go to war, but is called up at the end. It is Frank who I would want the viewers to identify with. I'm not sure, therefore, whether Frank, ought to be at the start in picture 1.

Exercise 1 - part two. 'Daughter' animation

Following my Cinderella story in 5 frames, I've been mulling over the process of producing these sequences of 5 pictures to tell a story. I've looked at other students work, some of which are very inspiring, beautifully drawn and very clear in their story. Clarity seems to be the key point in this - making sure that the viewers eyes are drawn to the main action and/or character in the scene. The ones that worked the best for me were a) those whose stories I was familiar with, b) the ones that were visually clear and c) those stories that had a consistency to them - eg following a character through to the end.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about a story of my own. My personal interest in creating digital films is primarily in creating poetry films/animations, as a backdrop to my poetry, so I began thinking along the lines of how to identify 5 frames of a poetry film. The problem I was up against was that there isn't such a strong narrative in the poetry. I chose a poem 'Daughter' that I wrote some time ago in Pembrokeshire. It is a poem describing a moment of realisation in my life. The text for the poem is at the bottom of the blog entry.

These are some of the sketches I did to explore what should go into each frame. And also to explore the themes, atmosphere, metaphors in the poem, and some idea of how I might go about do this in film.

I decided on a simple animation that focused on the mood of light-dark. I found some pictures on the web that showed a window with light shining into a dark room - these were a great help. I also had the idea of paint splashes when I went for a curry with my partner on Valentines Day. There was a painting on the wall that was just paint splashes, and was very effective. 

My final 5 images that tell the story are below. These are individual frames from the animation.

The animation is on vimeo. The link is here: Daughter

My main problem with this exercise was the fact that it had a very simple narrative. I'm not sure that the 'story' comes across very clearly. I also wished that I had made the pint a bit more pronounced, perhaps drawing it in ink. But I was pleased that - as a result of looking at other people's stories - I simplified the scene completely, and enlargened the beer glass, so that the beer glass became an embodiment of me, the only other thing in the picture apart from the window and eira looking in.

The actual realisation of the piece in animation was a lot more time consuming and frustrating than I planned (!). Issues like the paint drying very quickly, and the reflections of the light from the ink etc.. But great fun to do.

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

The text of the poem is here:

Daughter

For Eira

Old Point House, Angle

Until now, I didn’t know how dark it was inside.

It seemed a cosy place to have a pint. 

The seats are worn and wonky. Torn-up

beer mats wedged under table legs.

On the walls are curiosities, nets, an old clock

whose hands are slow. All the regulars

are talking shop.

You peer in now, nose to the glass,

your hands shield the sun’s glare, your 

smile as wide as the bay behind,

your eyes are a lighthouse beam 

scanning the shadows for me, 

rummaging amongst memorabilia 

for my shape.

And though I smile and wave

I’ve ghosted into dust.

You turn from the window, 

out of the frame

leaving me low-ceilinged 

and cluttered, staring 

at the square of light where you had been.