Miseenscene final

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Mise-‐en-‐scene project by David Blackaller 0950490

Journal Date: 20th September 2011. Today the class had an introduction to our first project entitled, Mise-‐en-‐scene. The French term that translates as “in the scene” is used when describing attributes that create the atmosphere within a still or moving image. The aim of this short project is to analyse the work of photographers and to apply this analysis to help us develop our own short one-‐minute film. Objective to be completed for next lesson: research the work of up to five photographers and present to the class. Date: 27th September 2011. Over the past week I have been examining the work of a number of photographers and assessing what elements of their work I would like to use, as inspiration for my own piece of work. While studying the photographer’s work I will have to assess if it will be realistic to achieve in the time given, and with the equipment I have access to. Another consideration to take into account is location and props.

Tim page

The image above shows the repatriation of people after the Vietnam War, and shows an example of the work that photographer Tim Page is famous for. What

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caught my attention about this photograph was how light has been used to frame the rest of the image, presenting the image as being some form of inverted negative. The photograph, at first sight appears to be almost black and white, with only a hint of colour, most notably with the yellow of the bananas that are placed on the table between the two figures. The two silhouettes looking out at a pale blue sky, is a thought provoking aspect of the image that directs the viewers attention to where the photographer wants you to look. I feel that reproducing a short piece of work that reflects the look of this image would be achievable. Filming on a train could be achieved as long as the correct time to film could be organized. Lighting could be controlled through a combination of camera settings and postproduction.

Imogen Cunningham

Photographer Imogen Cunningham became most well known for her portraits of people and flowers. She also had a fascination with reflections and often used double exposures in some of her work. The somewhat ghostly look of her earlier work in particular is a product of the developing materials and methods

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available at the time, with the use of light sensitive platinum salts on paper, rather than the use of silver based materials that later became available. It’s this ghostly quality that drew my attention to the photograph in the first place, along with trying to decide what was happening between the two people. I feel that there is a very good opportunity here to build up a short narrative around this captured moment. Maybe the female in the image has died, after a tender exchange of past memories with her partner. We then find out that her partner has maybe been the cause of her death. The setting is a photographic backcloth that appears to have been shot in a studio. Lighting would be made easier and very controllable, avoiding the need for a location shoot.

Brassai

The photograph above formed part of a collection of work published in 1933 entitled Paris By Night by the Hungarian born photographer Gyula Halasz, better known as Brassai. The official description of the photograph is as follows:

A young prostitute, one of the tribe that roam the streets between the “Sebasto” (Boulevard de Sebastopol) and the old Beaubourg quarter, is standing at the angle of the Rue de la Reynie and Rue Quincampoix, a little street

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famed in the reign of Louis XV, as the headquarters of the eighteenth-‐century financier John Law. (Brassai,2011)

While Brassai worked as a journalist, he continued to practise painting, but became frustrated at being unable to capture the atmosphere of Paris by night in the way he wanted. In 1930 a friend of Brassai named Andre Kertesz persuaded him to try photography instead of painting. Using a 6x9 cm Voigtlander Bergheil glass plate camera and a tripod he started taking the photographs that have now made him famous. Later he would move on to using a Rolleiflex camera even after the introduction of the 35mm Leica, which had become popular with a lot of other photographers. The major technical problem that Brassai had to overcome was the absence of light. To overcome this he used very long exposures, which meant that his subjects had to remain perfectly still, to avoid any blurriness. It’s been reported that in keeping with the bohemian life style that artists were living in 1930’s Paris, that the photographer used cigarettes to measure the required exposure for his photographs. Lighting cheaper cigarettes would result in short exposures because it would burn quicker, while lighting more expensive American cigarettes would burn more slowly, resulting in a longer exposure time. Whether this is true or not is questionable, but Brassai did take advantage of the weather conditions of late night Paris and use them to his advantage. By using mist and fine rain in combination with the long exposures he was able to extend, and smooth out the limited tonal range of the photographic process at the time. As well as this he continued to use flash powder instead of using the more modern and newly available flash bulbs that other photographers had decided to use. After presenting my selection of photographs to the class and finding out more about the people that took them, I have decided to concentrate my efforts on the photograph by Brassai. I feel that I have made a connection in some way with his work and that it draws comparisons with Film Noir, which I also have an interest in. Brassi has managed to give his photographs an almost magical quality, using very little equipment and using what little light is available. If I can reproduce this in some way, I feel that it would provide an atmospheric backdrop to a short narrative. It would also allow me the chance to incorporate some of the cinematic aspects of Film Noir, the film genre that became popular in the 1940’s.

Film Noir An aspect of Brassai’s work that appealed to me was how it reminded of films of the 1940’s and 50’s. Known as Film Noir, which translates as film black. Films such as Night and the City (Dassin.J.1950) and Touch of Evil (Wells.O,1958) featured high contrast lighting, dark shadows and camera angles that became known as Dutch shots. These shots had the camera tilted at unusual angles were used to make scenes more dramatic, and to highlight tension.

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Objective to be completed for next lesson: conduct a recce in London and shoot some test footage to present to class. Date: 29th September 2011. Spent the day finding suitable locations in and around London that I may be able to use for my project. Due to the photograph that I have chosen, and the period that it was taken I am limited to where I can shoot. Visited locations along the Embankment and around Westminster, as I felt that these might have the type of buildings that would best reflect what were in my reference photographs. Lighting was my biggest concern, or rather the amount and type of light that would be in my film. I would be shooting at night or possibly late evening (if I choose to adjust the cameras aperture to simulate night).

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Date: 1st October 2011. Made arrangements with talent to film some test footage in London at St James Park on Sunday 2nd October 2011. Will start filming at approximately 8pm when lighting conditions should be correct and streetlights will be on. Being a Sunday there should not be to many people walking around that area at that time. Date: 2nd October 2011. Spent the evening filming test shots in London at St James Park. Found the area to be very atmospheric and that the low lighting was not as bad as I thought it would be, in fact the older and more traditional type of street lamps proved to be a bonus. Most of the filming took place along Horse Guards Road and King Charles Street. The image below shows a screen shot taken from Google maps, which was used to help plan the evening’s shoot.

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The images below show stills taken from some of the test footage shot on the 2nd October 2011.

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Equipment taken: Panasonic HDC-‐HS700 High Defenition camcorder. Nikon D90 SLR Tripod Notepad and pen Map taken from Google Date: 3rd October 2011. Spent today reviewing and editing a rough cut of the test footage shot the previous evening, ready for tomorrows presentation to the class. Footage was imported into Final Cut Express for editing, and then exported as movie files into After Effects for colour correction.

The screen shot above shows test footage being colour corrected in After Effects.

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After reviewing the colour corrected footage I would say that I am quite happy with the results, although there are some things that will need to be taken into consideration for the final shoot. The first thing that I noticed was that there was a limit to how far the contrast and brightness of the image could be pushed. Secondly, trying to add noise to imitate film grain seemed to detract from watching the footage. Thirdly, by having the camera set to record in full auto mode caused too much colour and brightness inconsistencies between each shot/scenes. Date: 4th October 2011. Presented the test footage to the class and had some positive feedback. Points that were raised related to how dark some of the shots were and that to much detail was getting lost in the shadows. It was also suggested that I reduced the amount of camera movement, instead locking the camera off and having the talent enter and exit the scene as required. It was also agreed that the footage would look better without noise being added, especially if it was going to be a distraction. Objective to be completed for next lesson: complete sequence concept and storyboard. Date: 6th October 2011.

Sequence concept/script The short sequence follows the arrival of a female character into central London, after she has made arrangements with a mysterious stranger. Unknown to her the mysterious stranger has no intention in meeting her, but instead only intends to observe her from a distance. The female character waits, stepping in and out of the shadows cast by a nearby lamplight; until finally she feels that there is something wrong. Feeling threatened, she leaves and we are left wondering what the mysterious stranger decides what to do next… Date: 11th October 2011. Today the class had a review of everybody’s work so far. We presented our concepts for storyboards and gave our thoughts of how we were progressing. I did not have any more footage to show this week, as the person that I’m using in my film was working. I have arranged for final filming to be completed on Sunday 16th October, which will give me time to show an almost completed film at our next class. This will leave me another week to make any alterations before final hand in of the project that is on the 25th October. Objective to be completed for next lesson: To have a almost completed cut of the film ready for critical review by the class.

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Date: 16th October 2011. The evening was spent re-‐filming in London. Some alterations had to be made to the storyboards, as some of the shots did not work the way that I had hoped. Also this time the camera settings were set on manual rather than full auto, to help improve the over all picture quality. This included setting the white balance, making sure the aperture was open as much as possible to allow as much light in; and to manually set the focus to stop any shifting between foreground and background. All shots were locked off using a tripod, which helped with creating the new shots that I wanted to try. Equipment taken: Panasonic HDC-‐HS700 High Defenition camcorder. Nikon D90 SLR Tripod Notepad and pen Map taken from Google Date: 17th October 2011. Today was spent re-‐editing the new footage from last nights shoot ready for showing to the class tomorrow. I have noticed that by setting the camera to manual has made a big improvement to the picture quality of the raw footage. Apart from desaturating the colour image to black and white, very few other adjustments had to be made. The run time for the film is currently twice as long as requested and will require another edit, which will be done after the viewing tomorrow. Also there is currently no sound on the film, as this to will have to be remixed.

The screen shot above shows editing being completed in Final Cut Express.

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Date: 18th October 2011. Today is the last day that the class will meet before the hand in of this project, so it was important to get as much feed back as possible. Over all the feedback that I received was very positive. It was agreed that the running time needed to be reduced and which scenes could be shortened or removed altogether. Luckily I had already placed the scenes that I thought were to long on a separate time line, so their removal should not be that difficult. The only other alteration that was recommended to me was to alter the brightness and contrast of one of the scenes that seemed a bit to bright when compared to the others. Date: 21st October 2011. The day was spent re-‐editing the film’s runtime down to the required 1 minute, making a few colour adjustments and remixing the sound. When mixing the sound, I tried to keep the left and right channels consistent through out the film, and did my best to make sure that it provided the right atmosphere. Once this was completed I then checked what settings the website Vimeo required people to use when uploading projects to their servers. I then exported the completed film from Final Cut Express and uploaded to http://vimeo.com/30900092

The screen shot above shows sound tracks being edited in Final Cut Express.

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The screen shot above shows my completed film after it has been uploaded to the Vimeo website.

Critical review

To conclude this project I would say that I am happy with the completed film, and now feel more confident about how to manage a project in a restricted time period. I enjoyed completing the research part of the project, finding out how other artists produce their work and the creative thinking behind them. What surprised me was how the visual aesthetic of an artists work is influenced sometimes by the lack of resources, or the limitations of their equipment. Sometimes these restrictions work in a positive way and allow more creative work is produced, such as that of Brassai. He was forced to work within the limitations of his equipment that he had at the time, using light and weather conditions to create his visual aesthetic. Although even when more modern equipment and materials became available, Brassai continued using the same techniques and equipment, to keep the look of his work consistent.

It’s this aesthetic that I tried to recreate in my own project, and to some extent I feel that I have succeeded. What I did discover is that whatever medium is being used, it still has its limits. Trying to imitate the look of an old format using high definition video, especially at night introduced its own artefacts. Blocking or banding replaces film grain, and detail is lost in low light conditions. In some ways film grain looks more pleasing on the eye and adds character to an image, but after trying to replicate film grain in my film, I decided against it. The grain looked false and was distracting as it animated throughout the film. The

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solution to this problem was to turn all the auto settings on the camcorder off, and use manual settings instead.

A combination of this and careful planning while filming, which took into consideration available street lighting, produced an image with a nice tonal range and just a small amount of grain. Given more time I would like to experiment with adding slightly more grain, but as it stands, I’m pleased with the final outcome. I also only had to change the brightness and contrast settings on 2 shots, which looked slightly bright when compared to the rest of the film. In some ways I feel this has led me to working in a similar way that Brassai had done. By using only the light available at the time and using manual camera settings.

Sound was also an important aspect of this project, and considering the running time of one minute I decided against trying to use music. Trying to fit a piece of music into such a short running time would have required it to be heavily edited, and in my opinion would have sounded out of place. Instead I spent some time separating the background sound tracks from the footage recorded throughout the shoot. I then re-‐edited the sounds, consisting of traffic, people, trains and general city noise into a soundtrack that would not overpower the visuals, but hopefully add to the atmosphere.

Overall this project has been a good learning experience for me and I have had the chance to put into practice production and preproduction skills that I have been taught over the past few years. Lessons I have learnt from this project will now be used in my final major projects.

Bibliography

Brassai. (2011) Brassai. Paris : Flammarion,S.A. Fallis, G (2011) Brassai. Available at: http://www.utata.org/salon/20496.php (Accessed: 27th September 2011). Mann, M. (1970) Imogen Cunninham: Phatographs. United States : University of Washington Press. Prodan Romanian Cultural Foundation (2005) Brassai. Available at: http://www.romanianculture.org/personalities/Brassai.htm (Accessed: 27th September 2011). Page, T (2001) The Mindful Moment, London : Thames and Hudson.

Filmography Night and the City (1950) Jules Dassin [DVD]. London: BFI. Touch of Evil (1958) Orson Welles [DVD]. Los Angeles: Universal.

Scene

london_skyline

Duration

10:00

Panel

1

Duration

10:00

Action Notes

pan down over a dark london skyline

Notes

wide shot

Scene

passing_train

Duration

10:00

Panel

1

Duration

10:00

Action Notes

locked camera. passing train from right to left

Notes

wide shot

Scene

lamp_post

Duration

10:00

Panel

1

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

wide shot. walking towards camera

Notes

camera locked

Film noir scrip1 Page 1/4

ToonBoom Storyboard Evaluation

Scene

lamp_post

Duration

10:00

Panel

2

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

waiting at lamp pos, wide shot

Scene

lamp_post_waiting

Duration

10:00

Panel

1

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

medium shot, looking at watch

Scene

lamp_post_waiting

Duration

10:00

Panel

2

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

POV looking at watch



Scene

strange_approching

Duration

15:00

Panel

1

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

medium shot, of a strangers feet walking

Scene

strange_approching

Duration

15:00

Panel

2

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

POV of stranger, tracking shot

Scene

strange_approching

Duration

15:00

Panel

3

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

wide shot. the stranger casts a deep shadow on a near by wall. watching the waiting female as she stands under a nearby lamp post.



Scene

close_up_eyes

Duration

05:00

Panel

1

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

Dolly in, to close up of females eyes

Scene

looks_at_watch

Duration

05:00

Panel

1

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

medium shot of female looking at watch. She becomes nervous and exits the scene screen left.

Scene

walking_away

Duration

05:00

Panel

1

Duration

05:00

Action Notes

wide shot. female walks away down a shadow lit street. Fade out to black



Miseenscene final

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Transcript of Miseenscene final