Today we looked at the French Canadian film maker Robert Lepage and his film La face cachée de la lune (The Far Side Of The Moon). Whilst watching the film we focused particularly on Lepages' cinematography and composition, which he expertly used through the use of 'Graphic Matching' allowing the audience to flow fluidly from one scene to the next.....
BRIEF: Take an everyday, inanimate object and photograph it in an interesting way....
Narration is another good way to tell a story as it allows the audience to get an immediate bond with the main character and we are sometimes told of previous event which help to move the story along without taking up footage.
Narration takes place at the beginning of every episode of my favourite television show How I Met Your Mother :) In which the protagonist Ted Mosby is telling the story of how he met his children's mother whilst they sit on the sofa. Throughout the episode Teds narration helps to add either added information or comic relief.
However, although this is a a great narrative idea it would be impossible to create an audible narration as our brief to create a SILENT film : So an easy alternative could possibly be subtitles.
Having an awesome idea is all well and good, but if you don't tell the story right, you film could just become very flat and unengaging. Good and interesting story telling is key to consuming your audience into the world of your film.
IDEA 1: Reverse Chronology This is an extremely interesting way to tell your story as it allows the audience to see the ending, to later discover how the plot and characters began their journey. This narrative style was recently used in Gaspar Noé's Irréversible (2002), the technique is used so thoroughly that the end credits are not only shown at the beginning of the movie, but they roll down the screen, rather than upwards which we are accustom to. The 2004 film 5x2, directed by Francois Ozon, tells the story of a relationship between two people in five episodes using reverse chronology.I personally love this narrative style although it can be difficult in making the audience understand the plot and sometime it is is used flippantly without having any relevance.
Below is a clip i watch from a University student which i didn't understand why this style was used and i didn't particularly understand the video.
As the above is a music video, i believe that Coldplay's The Scientists may have been their inspiration. This video is AMAZING and as the video is shot in reverse, Chris Martin even had to sing the song in reverse while the song was played normally. Confusing?....just watch.....
The original concept of The Fall was presented in film form as we as a classed watched the 2006 film by Tarsem Singh. After being told to interpret the Fall in many different ways, it became quite hard not to think about it in the literal form of 'falling down' or 'in love'. So after analysing and taking the phrase apart, these were just some of my A2 Media ideas.....
IDEA 1 : FALL FROM GRACE.
'A fall from grace' is the common catchphrase that people use to describe someone of much respect/ authority who has somewhat let themselves and their morals go. I like the idea of this as the phrase applies to anyone in any situation.
IDEA 2: FALL OUT OF LOVE.
I hate the cliche of falling in love. BUT. as much as i tried, I kept coming back to the idea of love. But felt that falling IN love was a far to obvious, and so thought about the aspect of falling OUT of love by observing the period of when and how the passion and love dies within a relationship.
IDEA 3: FALLING OUT
Falling out with a friend is a common accurence and you often make up after a couple of days. But what if you fall out with the wrong person at the wrong time. They might not be as willing to forgive & forget. Falling out of luck is another common phrase which best describes comdey duos such as Delboy and Rodney in Only Fools and Horses or Laurel and Hardy in their classic 'piano falling down the stairs sketch.'
As a HUGGGEEEE CSI fan! (Vegas, NY & Miami of course) of course watch it every week. A few week ago i was watching this episode of CSI: NY when i noticed that the entire scene was silent ( t took me a while to notice lol). There was a scene prior to this clip which was also silent but had a more artistic approach as it cleverly showed the lives of three different neighbours through their window panes which created a 'picture frame' effect. The camera transitioned slowly and panned between each 'picture frame' . The smooth movement sometimes became unbalanced to reflect the tension within the frame. eg A teenage girl had snuck her boyfriend in to the apartment while her mother was at work. But the mother came home early and as 'we' are across the street we are able to see that the mother is coming up the stairs, but threw another window (daughter cant see). It is here where the camera moves restlessly between each frame. The music is also very chaotic and dramatic, which adds to the comedic effect of the scene.
In contrast, the music used for this clip is tense and earry as it reflects the sinister action going on within the frame (man poisoning the canary). Note how the camera shakes uneasily as the man begins to poison the bird.
