Negotiated Project - Film Treatment

Friday 31st March 2017                              Negotiated Project                Kaz Rahman/Dom Deane

Treatment – The Secret Life of a Canvas

Influences from the short film “The secret life of a Foley artist”

Plot

A short 5-minute film about a lady who lives alone with a passion for painting and creative art. The film will be focused around how she decorates her canvas but play with the idea of using sound effects to manipulate the pictures on screen. The idea for bringing canvas paintings alive, an element of enigma as we never see the painters face or hear their voice, in turn leaving the viewers questionable as to why the painter is so silent.

Visual Style

Early 70-80's, Black and White – A referential clash between French New Wave and Film Noir – Light and Dark, Cinematography consists of a variety of different camera angles. Predominantly using over the shoulder shots, you never see the artists face, leaves an element of suspense.

Characters

A middle-aged woman who lives alone and locks herself away from the real world, she is silent but expresses her feelings through passion for her artwork.

Location 

An ambiguous locked away basement room

Sound

Ambiance on set and diegetic – Sound effects to match up with the artwork featured on screen - Music from Double Indemnity.

Negotiated Project - 29th March

Wednesday 29th March 2017                     Negotiated Project                Dom Deane/Kaz Rahman

Serealism in music 

My concepts

12 NOTES 

C        C#       D       D#        E          F          F#         G          G#         A           A#          B

Prime Order 1 

A        G#       C       C#        D         F#        A#         G           D#         B           E            F

Retrograde 1

F         E         B       D#       G          A#        F#        D           C#           C          G#         A

Inversion 5  

D        D#       B       A#       A          F          C#        E            G#          C           G           F# 

Retrograde Inversion

F#       G         C       G#      E          C#        F          A            A#           B           D#         D

Moving Narratives 2 - 29th March - BAFI202

Wednesday 29th March 2017                      Moving Narratives 2                       Kaz Rahman

Screening "In the mood for love"     Director Wong Kar Wai       Distributed: 2000

Music - Chilled and Relaxing (musical instruments)

The music played a massive part towards this film, the way that the track was repeated over and over gave a sense that the two lonely actors were falling in love or meeting up with each other throughout the piece. 

Cinematography (variety of camera angles, fast paced edit)

I loved the cinematography through the whole of this film, the editing pace and shots were really quick, I wouldn't say that there were really any establishing shots which gave the film a different narrative structure compared to the other films that we have watched, in fact at times I found it hard to follow what was going on. The colour palette was bright, vibrant, the colours consisted of a mixture for light and dark colours, again the mood for the film was re-enhanced through the choice of music tracks which helped bring the visuals to life.

Narrative structure

The narrative I found to be challenging at the start but further towards the films ending I feel like we got a sense for the character development, their lifestyles, the way that they found comfort in one another while there partners were away on business trips. I found some of the dialogue to be very repetitive, perhaps that was to do with the style of the filmmakers films. I still wonder whether or not that the two main actors even had other partners as we never saw them, only short clips of dialogue which was followed up with 10-20 sec clips of the actors on the dial up phones.

Moving Narratives 2 - 22nd March - BAFI202

Wednesday 22nd March 2017                          Moving Narratives 2                     Kaz Rahman

Screening "Taste of Cherry"                     Genre - Drama                    Director - Abbas Kiarostami

The film itself I found pretty haunting, the way that the main character "Mr Badii" is planning to kill himself but he needs someones help, he's on an adventure around the wasteland to discover the one for the job.

The narrative for this particular film made myself remember the story about the good samaritan, within the film itself I guess it could be argued that the man meets 5 characters along the way, "Mr Badii" the main character plans to kill himself but he wants an assistant to help and pour dirt over him. He first meets the man in the phone box who basically says back off or ill smash your face in, a young soldier in training who is scared off, a young international student who doesn't think killing yourself is the answer, the machines in the industrial site where we watch his sillouette get covered with dirt from the machines and finally he meets the taxidermist who agrees to help Mr Badii to kill himself.

There is a great sense of time throughout this film, the way the camera moves around the windy road, the jump cuts throughout the film, in particular once the international student disagrees to help Mr Badii he is dropped back off at the place of pickup, we are shown a mid shot from inside the door with the student in the frame, the door is shut and then we cut to a tracking shot of the car along the windy road, although we can hear the voice of an old man who later on we work out to be the taxidermist who offers his services to aid with the suicide of Mr Badii.

The colours within this film are predominantly dark for the scenes with Mr Badii, in particular the scene at the end as we watch Mr Badii enter into the dark hole that he has made for himself to lay at rest and kill himself. Bright light can be visually seen for the shots of the car as it travels up to the top of the hill where Mr Badii takes the three main actors to show them where he has dug this mysterious hole to lay in and die. Overall I would say there is a mixture of dark and light colours used to re-enhance the location for the film, the rough landscape, the cinematic style works well to enhance the culture within the film.

Sound is used cleverly, there is quite a lot of dialogue but I feel like music is somewhat minimalistic which builds up to the jazz piece at the end for the end scene which overall is self reflective. There are a lot of sound effects which help to bring the visuals alive, the loudest noises are within the industrial site and we can hear the dirt being poured into the quarry.

Moving Narratives BAFI202 - 15th March

Wednesday 15th March 2017                     Moving Narratives 2                 Kaz Rahman

Screening of Ashik Kerib

The film itself is a 1988 creation by the soviet German and Armenian filmmakers called Sergei Parajanov, Dodo Abashidze. The film shares a drama/romance genre and it shares the themes of Ukrainian, Armenian and Georgian culture respectively, its told in the way of folklore, using colour and music to drive the action throughout the film. 

Performance

The performance was very interpretive, it was dramatic and consisted of a spiritual and dancing theme, linking back to the culture which was reinhanced by the costume design that the actors all were wearing.

Editing

The editing style consisted of a slow pace which fitted to the music, once the beat changed the shots would fade in and out, the long shots would pan across the screen in time with the cultural track.

Cinematography

The film consisted of a range of camera angles and shots, I noticed that the shots portraying the lute player were predominantly wide angles which helped to show the surroundings and the landscape of where the film was set. The long shots gave a great sense of expanse as the audience could see into the distance, a great example when the lute player was crossing the water and the camera cuts to a long shot behind his head as we watch the horseman ride off into the distance, by not showing his face we try to understand what kind of facial expression that he is pulling, how he is feeling.

Moving Narratives 2 BAFI202 - 1st March

Wednesday 1st March 2017                             Moving Narrative 2                       Kaz Rahman

Screening - Badlands 1973

Director - Terrance Malik, its his first film that he created, contains a genre of crime drama.  The types of films that this film consists of fall into the categories of crime, romance, lust, I feel like it shares the same theme to that of "Rebel Without a Cause" as we follow a couple as they are on the run from the law.

I found the way that the characters interacted throughout the piece to be of great interest, especially towards the end when the main female lead character has had enough of running away with kit, he asks her to come with him yet again but she replies "no, I don't want too", its the first time within the film that we see the little girl disagree with her other half. This then is shortly followed by a pursuit chase in which kit gives up, surrendering himself over to the police. 

I almost feel like it follows the same theme to that of the american dream, especially once kit kills the father, she becomes very upset but quickly moves on with the love of her life as they both set out on a big killing spree in South Dakota badlands, in the 1950's a lot of people were killing time, the plot thickens like the cold blood that the James Deane lookalike lets loose whilst killing holly.