Being a keen sports fan this was something I hadn't seen before and really enjoyed, totally different to watching a normal football match but then again, it IS just a football match. It shows how simple it can be to change meaning through images using colour grading, and a particular type of shot type and framing, focusing the audiences attention. Also again there is contrast in the images a trademark of Khondji, adding to the feel of film and taking it away from a normal football match.
Friday 3 December 2010
The finished film, post production and evaluation
So heres the finished film:
Here I will document how I got here and what I did along the way
It's called "Contained" basically becasue the film starts of with a montage of dead plants and trees symbolic of the character who arrives towards the middle of the film. The character is holding a box throughout the film and only at the end do we see what is inside and it is ashes. The meaning behind the dead plant montage sequence at the start is to symbolise the death of something, and the shots of dead plants are often on their own composed within the image to show lownliness and an emptyness. The way they were shot also offered me some chance of colouring in post to make them appear contrast. Once the character walks into the scene you associate the meaning of the death and emptyness with him and make an assumption that he is carrying ashes. There is a downbeat feel to the film which I think worked well and I think I have achieved my aim at creating something I am proud of and that has meaning within the images.
Contained from Andy Stelmach on Vimeo.
Creating contrast and adding an orange tone to the film in post using Apple Color.
As you can see I lowered the blacks in the luma curve creating the contrasty feel to the images.
I also used the frame within a frame screen shot from Se7en and made my own shot like this:
The use of a box in the film was also influenced by the box at the end of Se7en that we assume contained Mills' wifes head.
Here I will document how I got here and what I did along the way
It's called "Contained" basically becasue the film starts of with a montage of dead plants and trees symbolic of the character who arrives towards the middle of the film. The character is holding a box throughout the film and only at the end do we see what is inside and it is ashes. The meaning behind the dead plant montage sequence at the start is to symbolise the death of something, and the shots of dead plants are often on their own composed within the image to show lownliness and an emptyness. The way they were shot also offered me some chance of colouring in post to make them appear contrast. Once the character walks into the scene you associate the meaning of the death and emptyness with him and make an assumption that he is carrying ashes. There is a downbeat feel to the film which I think worked well and I think I have achieved my aim at creating something I am proud of and that has meaning within the images.
Contained from Andy Stelmach on Vimeo.
Creating contrast and adding an orange tone to the film in post using Apple Color.
I also used the frame within a frame screen shot from Se7en and made my own shot like this:
My idea
So as the focus of my work has been on David Fincher in particular the film Se7en there were a number of ideas I thought I could have done. My initial thought was to do a scene with a few actors in a room with some narrative and use motivated lighting, like the scenes in Se7en where Somerset has dinner at Mills' house and also when Somerset meets to talk to Mills wife in a cafe. However I soon realised this was a little too adventourous and I wouldn't be able to write the script, get actors and some crew together.
I had a re-think, watched the film again and came up with a revised idea about using outdoor motivated lighting ridding the need for crew and and also shoot some natural light footage to meet the traditional style as asked in the brief. The idea also involved the one actor, no script and some locations to scout and a camera to choose to shoot with. A more realistic task.
Shambles - York
This is a very picturesque part of York and also very historic, (in case anyone is interested I will put a link with some information about the streert). It is a street and it is fairly narrow and would work well for the film. What is even better is that on a night time there is a lot of lighting from shop windows that have their lights left on when the shops are shut up. This would make a great location for the evening shoot and below is a picture of the Shambles in the evening.
The camera - Canon 550D
The Canon 550D is a cheaper alternative to the 7D, and possible a more attractive option also. There has been less issues with moiré from the 550D compared to the 7D yet it still has all the benefits that the 7D has great depth of field and ease of use for a "one man band such as myself". The 550 was designed by Canon for the film makers that cannot afford the £1000 plus price tag, and there were minimal changes from the 7D to the 550D in the movie mode. I think now the University has these in resources for us to use, I shall use the Canon 550D to shoot my final piece on.
Testing video
So before the shoot itself I decided to go and test the camera out and do scouting around York where I live. I had a few places in mind that would be good for the film but I also wanted to find somewhere new as well. The place I had already known was the Shambles one of the most historic streets in York and this would work well for the evening shoot as there are shops that more than often leave their lights when they shut up. As well as the orange lighting from the street I found a number of old alleyways around the city centre, some that had no lighting but there was one that had quite a bright light which lit up the alleyway making it perfect for the film. Some of the test footage ended up going in the final piece which I was pleased at getting right first time.
Cinematography Technology Testing footage from Andy Stelmach on Vimeo.
Overall the test footage was very useful for testing the low light capabilities of the 550D, with ISO settings being changed and also the white balance settings. The ISO setting testing showed that 400 ISO was the best general setting for low light meaning anthing under was too dark and had no colour information in it and anything above 400 ISO e.g. 800 produced too much grain. The AWB Shade setting was wonderful, it was exactly what was needed for what I wanted to produce and meant I was shooting for grade limiting the amount of tampering to be done in post prodcution. I'm glad I did the test footage as I find out things I needed to know before I shot the film, which if I hadn't have known would have left me looking at a re-shoot which is never a pleasing sight.
More examples of style within Se7en
Here below are a host of screenshots taken when I watched the film again, I could have taken more but these are the slect few I thought were most telling of David's style. There are examples of contrast, motivated lighting in different colours, shallow depth of field and silhouettes
Other trademarks of Finchers style are to ask moral questions within a film, Se7en is a prime example of this, he also often ends his films with a downbeat ending like in Se7en, this is something I could encorporate in my film.
Quote from David Fincher:
"I have a philosophy about the two extremes of filmmaking. The first is the "Kubrick way," where you're at the end of an alley in which four guys are kicking the shit out of a wino. Hopefully, the audience members will know that such a scenario is morally wrong, even though it's not presented as if the viewer is the one being beaten up; it's more as if you're witnessing an event. Inversely, there's the "Spielberg way," where you're dropped into the middle of the action and you're going to live the experience vicariously - not only through what's happening, but through the emotional flow of what people are saying. It's a much more involved style. I find myself attracted to both styles at different times, but mostly I'm interested in just presenting something and letting people decide for themselves what they want to look at."
Proves the point (I made back in another post as well) that Finchers style of film making is that it asks questions of the audience on a higher level than most films but doesn't give you the answers, your left to decide for yourself. Maybe I could leave me film with a question unanswered, through narrative (even though we aren't marked on it, make a film more enjoying to watch) and images.
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| contrast and Depth of field |
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| Motivated lighting not always just white |
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| again with green this time adds a certain feeeling to the scene |
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| and again, visually nice on the eye as well |
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| more traditional composition used to show how empty John Doe's "bench" is |
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| Contrast and depth of field |
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| I really like this, frame through a frame with some shallow depth of field |
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| Backlighting |
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| Contrast |
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| Silhouettes |
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| Contrast |
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| Narrow focus shot, again I like this |
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| Lkie this image, very contrasty, graded slightly and has a really shallow depth of field |
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| and again an image wiht lots of contrast |
Quote from David Fincher:
"I have a philosophy about the two extremes of filmmaking. The first is the "Kubrick way," where you're at the end of an alley in which four guys are kicking the shit out of a wino. Hopefully, the audience members will know that such a scenario is morally wrong, even though it's not presented as if the viewer is the one being beaten up; it's more as if you're witnessing an event. Inversely, there's the "Spielberg way," where you're dropped into the middle of the action and you're going to live the experience vicariously - not only through what's happening, but through the emotional flow of what people are saying. It's a much more involved style. I find myself attracted to both styles at different times, but mostly I'm interested in just presenting something and letting people decide for themselves what they want to look at."
Proves the point (I made back in another post as well) that Finchers style of film making is that it asks questions of the audience on a higher level than most films but doesn't give you the answers, your left to decide for yourself. Maybe I could leave me film with a question unanswered, through narrative (even though we aren't marked on it, make a film more enjoying to watch) and images.
"Leave Nothing"
Leave nothing was the tile of an advert Fincher made for Nike in 2008.
Se7en
Director: David Fincher
DOP: Darius Khondji
The film Se7en for me was a hidden gem, I'm glad I had seen when I had because a couple of years back I might not have appreciated as much as I would and do now.
So onto analysing the film, one reason I think the film is so good is that there are so many ways to read the ending and so much for discussion. Who wins in the end? Mills for ending John Doe's life or was it Doe for escaping consequences and ruining numeous lives?
The film really does make you question your own morals, especially the ending, would you kill Doe? It is probably the most tense ending to a film I've seen for a while, yet you knew as soon as the lawayer was dictating terems that this was the beginning of the end for someone.
Onot the cinematography in the film: The theme of contrast is one that runs throughout the entirety of the film, and in most of finchers films. For example there are numerous scenes in buildings and apartments with boarded up windows, no lighting in the rooms but maybe for a torch or a crack of light through a window, making a contrasted image. Maybe the contrast in the imagery in the film is the line thin between how far people will go for what they belive in.
Physically, the use of low lighting in these situations is to create tension and a sense of unease, which provides a brilliant base for the plot of . Also the use of heavy rain is common throughout the film, this doesn't mean anything by itself but with the other images with the film, its a metaphor of the downbeat atmosphere of life in the city in those times.
Going into the cinematography in depth, on numerous occasions there are some brilliant uses of shallow depth of field, for example when Mills is holding the gun towards John Doe in the end scene and also ironically when John Doe holds the gun to Mills head earlier on.
This is a tool used by Darius to control the audience, their focus and emotions. The shallow depth of field attracts the audience to what is in focus and draws the eye and engages them within the film. A point to add however the use of shallow depth of field is also a narative technique becasue without the shallow depth of field in the scene where John Doe lets Mills live, we would have seen his face ruining the suspense for the rest of the film.
You could easily go as far to say that David Fincher is an auteur, he has his own visual style, and this is clear within many of his films, Se7en, Fight Club and even in his adverts, like the Nike one.
Overall the cinematography from Khondji, painting the darkness and the vision of Fincher are coupled well and it is no suprise this film was so widely loved.
Inspiration
Watching as many films as possible over the years is something most people do, but having developed great passion for more than just passively watching a film has kept me motivated to where I am now. At the cinema I always stay behind to see who the cinematographer was, who the editor was and I’m often browsing IMDb to see what the technical specs of film, that cameras were used and what film was used.
I don’t think I’ve seen many films shot on Fuji film, most seem to be Kodak, maybe a preference for the teal and orange grading in Hollywood. I also saw Panavision a lot of times and looked into them a little to find their prime lenses are more expensive to rent for a day than a 50mm prime for a 550D outright, crazy.
I think I probably annoy some people when I’m watching a film, especially my girlfriend; most of the time as well as enjoying a film, I’m constantly thinking how things are shot, track, jib, green screen, set extensions in AE and things like that. I really need to get my own camera soon, my list of films I want to make and things to try out is getting larger by the week.
Yeah I’m a sucker for a visually great movie, take Avatar, The Dark Knight or Transformers, boasting some amazingly crisp images and with some vivid styles, colour grading and picturesque locations, they're a pleasure to watch even if the plots are often mainstream.
Part of me wishes I had the money for a Blu-Ray player drive for my PC because buying DVD’s today makes me feel a little cheated knowing someone is enjoying a better quality picture. Shooting my cinematography was aslways going to be shot HD, I can't see me wanting to go back to SD.
As well as enjoying some visually great films, there are also some great films that take you on a journey of perspective, seeing things from another angle thus asking questions of you, mainly left unanswered as in many of David Fincher’s films.
David, a director I have widely followed since I stumbled upon him a few years ago reading an article on the internet. This was where I found that I had seen many of his widely known films, Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002), The Game (1997), Zodiac (2007) and Alien 3 (1992). This was strange for me because I hadn’t known when watching them, they from the same director, I guess it proves he has his own style and is somewhat an autuer. Having liked all of his films, I decided to venture into his other films such as Se7en (1995) and more recently The curious case of Benjamin Button (2008) about which i had mixed feelings. I absolutely loved Se7en though, its so stylised its verging on art.
However I still think the titles of the days of the week a bit patronising, I know it is important to the atmosphere of the ending that it is emphasized that Pitt was new to the city cop life and he was only here for the 7 days but Fincher’s work usually attracts an above average (maybe now with the exception of “The Social Network” I am still to see) we can work out the transitions between day and night.
Ever since I’ve followed David’s his work, looked into his background and where he started out with, I’ve become accustomed to expecting most films I watch to have a similar style and be created with such depth as his. He started out shooting music videos and making adverts before his big break on his first feature length film which, Alien 3 (1992), which seemed, maybe unfairly, a little standard but it was probably was controlled more by the producers, conforming the film to the franchise as you would expect. This point is obvious listening to the audio to the trailer below “3 times the suspense” etc. However there were some glimpses in the trailer of Fincher today for example motivated lighting, contrast imagery and shallow depth of field along a wall, all below.
Coming soon, Analysis of "Se7en"
I don’t think I’ve seen many films shot on Fuji film, most seem to be Kodak, maybe a preference for the teal and orange grading in Hollywood. I also saw Panavision a lot of times and looked into them a little to find their prime lenses are more expensive to rent for a day than a 50mm prime for a 550D outright, crazy.
I think I probably annoy some people when I’m watching a film, especially my girlfriend; most of the time as well as enjoying a film, I’m constantly thinking how things are shot, track, jib, green screen, set extensions in AE and things like that. I really need to get my own camera soon, my list of films I want to make and things to try out is getting larger by the week.
Yeah I’m a sucker for a visually great movie, take Avatar, The Dark Knight or Transformers, boasting some amazingly crisp images and with some vivid styles, colour grading and picturesque locations, they're a pleasure to watch even if the plots are often mainstream.
Part of me wishes I had the money for a Blu-Ray player drive for my PC because buying DVD’s today makes me feel a little cheated knowing someone is enjoying a better quality picture. Shooting my cinematography was aslways going to be shot HD, I can't see me wanting to go back to SD.
As well as enjoying some visually great films, there are also some great films that take you on a journey of perspective, seeing things from another angle thus asking questions of you, mainly left unanswered as in many of David Fincher’s films.
David, a director I have widely followed since I stumbled upon him a few years ago reading an article on the internet. This was where I found that I had seen many of his widely known films, Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002), The Game (1997), Zodiac (2007) and Alien 3 (1992). This was strange for me because I hadn’t known when watching them, they from the same director, I guess it proves he has his own style and is somewhat an autuer. Having liked all of his films, I decided to venture into his other films such as Se7en (1995) and more recently The curious case of Benjamin Button (2008) about which i had mixed feelings. I absolutely loved Se7en though, its so stylised its verging on art.
However I still think the titles of the days of the week a bit patronising, I know it is important to the atmosphere of the ending that it is emphasized that Pitt was new to the city cop life and he was only here for the 7 days but Fincher’s work usually attracts an above average (maybe now with the exception of “The Social Network” I am still to see) we can work out the transitions between day and night.
Ever since I’ve followed David’s his work, looked into his background and where he started out with, I’ve become accustomed to expecting most films I watch to have a similar style and be created with such depth as his. He started out shooting music videos and making adverts before his big break on his first feature length film which, Alien 3 (1992), which seemed, maybe unfairly, a little standard but it was probably was controlled more by the producers, conforming the film to the franchise as you would expect. This point is obvious listening to the audio to the trailer below “3 times the suspense” etc. However there were some glimpses in the trailer of Fincher today for example motivated lighting, contrast imagery and shallow depth of field along a wall, all below.
Coming soon, Analysis of "Se7en"
“How to make films” - The Guardian
This was a little booklet I picked up from the Guardian over the weekend I shot my Anonymous me project in October. I thought with the booklet being a freebie in a newspaper it was going to be fairly basic and generic with no useful information for me I didn't already know, it did however contain soom interesting couple of pages about cinematography.
Attached are some scanned in images of the booklet.
The quote "painting with light" I would definitely agree with, hopefully undertaking this module I will develop some skills with lighting, framing, different lenses and colour grading techniques.
I found the mini masterclass on page 32 quite interesting, it was a lot more useful for me than the opening page which was fairly introductory. It was also more personal, and I enjoyed that, for example, reading about Ryan Gilbey talking about hiding in a postmans cart while being pulled along to create a unique dolly shot, quite ingenious!
Also the interview with Ben Davis was intriguing, especially the last question where he talks about risking his life for shot for Golden Eye being 100 feet in the air on a 50 year old cherrypicker rocking from side to side! I guess this just shows that you dont need the latest Zacuto gear to get a great shot.
Monday 18 October 2010
Summer research continued.
So as well as looking into the Red one, I also decided to look at DSLR cameras that were also becoming a popular choice for some short films. The camera that took my eye and had heard most about was the Canon 7D, which unbeknown to me, we can use this year (if it is ever available!).
The Canon 7D only shoots 12 minutes of film footage in one take due to European law stating that 12 minutes is the boundary between being a stills camera and a video camera apparently. So with that cleared up, the 7D houses an 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor and shoots full HD. It writes onto an SD card, (in case anyone is using the 7D get a good quality card, it’s been said that a cheap SD card may drop frames)
Anyway after a bit of research and watching the making of some short films shot with the 7D, there are a few downfalls to it, without going into too much depth, one of the main downfalls people have mentioned is that, sometimes the camera picks up what is called moiré, an artefact of an image which is highly unattractive. It is an aliasing problem, where a pattern (of lines parallel to more lines) can appear on the screen making an image appear with green and purple lines over it. This is common with walls, bricks, mesh on fences and that sort of stuff.
Here is a basic video of the 7D with moiré, overexposed so it is more visible
7D Bricks Moire from Barry Green on Vimeo.
Below, however is a video of another Canon 7D with moiré (on the roof), but this time, stephen v2 seems to have a theory, where the moiré disappears when the camera tilts. So possibly if you really didn’t want any moiré, you could canter your shots to a level where the moiré isn’t visible and then re-orientate your shots in post. So there is a few things to think about if I want to use the 7D for my project.
Canon 7D Moire Dutch angle test from stephen v2 on Vimeo.
So overall, the 7D is an amazing camera, and can shoot some great vibrant images but you have to be able to use it correctly, because mistakes with it are going to be clearly visible.
The Canon 7D only shoots 12 minutes of film footage in one take due to European law stating that 12 minutes is the boundary between being a stills camera and a video camera apparently. So with that cleared up, the 7D houses an 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor and shoots full HD. It writes onto an SD card, (in case anyone is using the 7D get a good quality card, it’s been said that a cheap SD card may drop frames)
Anyway after a bit of research and watching the making of some short films shot with the 7D, there are a few downfalls to it, without going into too much depth, one of the main downfalls people have mentioned is that, sometimes the camera picks up what is called moiré, an artefact of an image which is highly unattractive. It is an aliasing problem, where a pattern (of lines parallel to more lines) can appear on the screen making an image appear with green and purple lines over it. This is common with walls, bricks, mesh on fences and that sort of stuff.
Here is a basic video of the 7D with moiré, overexposed so it is more visible
7D Bricks Moire from Barry Green on Vimeo.
Below, however is a video of another Canon 7D with moiré (on the roof), but this time, stephen v2 seems to have a theory, where the moiré disappears when the camera tilts. So possibly if you really didn’t want any moiré, you could canter your shots to a level where the moiré isn’t visible and then re-orientate your shots in post. So there is a few things to think about if I want to use the 7D for my project.
Canon 7D Moire Dutch angle test from stephen v2 on Vimeo.
So overall, the 7D is an amazing camera, and can shoot some great vibrant images but you have to be able to use it correctly, because mistakes with it are going to be clearly visible.
Tuesday 12 October 2010
Summer research
Over the summer as well as uploading a short video for the summer assignment I also researched into the technology behind certain cameras and their strengths and weaknesses. This stemmed from a brief discussion/debate I had with a friend who studies the same course at another University. The discussion subsequently motivated me to look into certain cameras, in particular the Red One. The Red One, has been the first choice for many directors recently shooting large budget productions, for example Green Zone, The Informant, Gamer, The book of Eli and more. One of the main reasons for the camera being so popular is down to it having a 4K resolution, creating a visually stunning picture.
Having found a video (which is below) on YouTube of the red one in action I was amazed at how detailed and crisp it looked, even with it being compressed on YouTube. I can only imagine what it would look like raw!
One question I ask myself, is the Red One an invention one step ahead of the competition or are the rest behind the technology curve?
(More summer research to be continued)
(More summer research to be continued)
Introduction
This blog is for my Cinematography module, detailing all the research processes for my final video piece. With everyone having to do a blog, we could see what other people on the module were researching, so we could learn off each other and comment and share opinions etc. so feel free to comment. The blog itself will include diagrams, screenshots, articles from magazines and the internet, research about technical aspects of cinematography such as types of lighting, camera hardware, videos used for research and inspiration and also critical analyses of films and their cinematography style e.g. lighting or sound.
My personal aim for the module is to create a piece that I would be happy for anyone to watch and enjoy, a piece that consists of well thought out, perfectly framed, exposed meaningful images. I will conduct tests and thorough research to help achieve this aim.
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