Berlinale Film Festival

  I recently travelled to Berlin, for the Berlin Film Festival. It was a University organised trip, although some people decided to book separately. I wanted to go through Uni as they were organising trips to different locations, one of which being the Babelsberg Film Studio, located just outside the city.

  On the first day we went on a tour of Berlin, which I found the most interesting part of the whole trip. The tour guide was very good, and it was her last day working as a tour guide after being there for four years. She is currently writing a book about the History of Berlin. We was popular buildings and attractions such as the Reichstag and Brandenburg Gate, but also to other interesting places such as the Jewish Memorial, and Hitlers Bunker (we could not get into the bunker but she showed us where is was).

  The trip to Babelsberg was very interesting. Recent films such as Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds and Wes Anderson's Grand Budafest Hotel were filmed at these studios, so I was very exited to see how it all works. The tour started by being given a brief history on the studio's, as they were around at the same time as Hitler, and then we were shown the large studio spaces, where they build all of the sets, and finally we were shown the props and costumes building, which was the most interesting part, as they had the largest set of props in the world, thus winning a Guinness world record for the collection.

  After visiting Babelsberg Studios, we went straight to the box office to get tickets for a French Comedy film called Dans La Cour - translation 'In the Courtyard. This was a premier, so their was a red carpet, and the cast and crew were there. I had never been to a premier of this calibre so it was an exiting experience. I did not know what to expect from the film as I had never heard of it, or any of the crew, but I was pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed the film, it was hilarious, forcing me to laugh out loud, which is really difficult to do with a foreign language film. I will be sure to watch it again once it is released onto DVD. Unluckily, this was the only film I got to see whilst I was in Berlin as we were only there for two days, but the experience was fantastic and I look forward to going to Berlin again in the near future, hopefully next time for a little longer.

PEASANTS - RESEARCH

  For this short film, I decided to take a completely different approach to cinematography. As apposed to the smooth tripod work I planned to shoot with the fantasy film, with this I wanted to shoot it almost completely handheld. When I read the script, in my opinion the story was shouting out for gritty, imperfect cinematography, to fit the storyline. This is a style which I am very familiar with, and I style that I personally prefer, so it was good to be working on a story that would really benefit from this style. I planned to have lots of handheld movements, and shoot through doorways, windows, cracks in walls etc, to generate this voyueristic feel. For the research film, I decided to go for a more slapstick cinematography style, as me and Elliot felt that this fit the story at the time, but it did not work as well as we thought, also, the script for the grad film has much more subtle comedy, and a lot darker, and more drama driven.

  I started my research by looking at a cinematographer that I was formerly familiar with, being one of my favour DPs, Benoit Debie. Debie started his feature film career in France, where he shot a groundbreaking film Irreversible (Gaspar Noe, 2002). This film is known for its brave cinematography, consisting of really long takes and little editing. Instead Debie decided to follow the action, instead of cutting stereotypically and this made the film feel more real, which is what Gaspar Noe wanted along side his gritty/dark script.

  Debie's style is getting more and more recognisable, and he has created his own, unique look which I admire. His most recent work was for Harmony Korine's Springbreakers, which in my opinion is his best work. For my film Peasants I wish to use similar camera movements, but with a completely different colour palette to Springbreakers, which was very rich, vivid and vibrant, and instead go for a washed out, cold, de-saturated look.

  When researching colour schemes, the way Ben Kingsley's character, Don in Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2000) is lit throughout the film sprung to mind, as inspiration for how to light the Interviewer, who is seen as the Villain of the film. There is a specific scene that I would make this very present, and it is the first time that the Interviewer is seen in the film, and me and Elliot wanted to make him look as intimidating as possible through both the lighting, and how I shot it. 

  Another inspiration for the way the Interviewer would be shot was Don Corleone in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972). As Gordon Willis top lit Brando so that black pools covered his eyes, making him seem more daunting. This was the first time that this lighting method had been used in Hollywood. 

  I was heavily influenced by Ben Wheatley's films for the overall look of this film, especially his first feature, Down Terrace (which was made on a budget or 6 grand). Down Terrace (Ben Wheatley, 2009) was an inspiration for Peasants, in particular, for the scenes set in Joe & Pete's Squat. The lighting is very natural, using lots of daylight and little tungsten lighting. As the characters in my short film are in a squat, there is no electricity, therefore all the scenes in this location use daylight. I wanted to light each character slightly differently. The interviewer being lit low key, with one half of his face dark, and Joe to be lit High key as he is the protagonist, and the hero(ish) of the film. This mostly came down to the blocking and where I positioned the actors on set. 

HOLLOWAYS GARDEN - RESEARCH

  While in the pre-production stages of the short fantasy film, I carried out lots of research into the best ways to portray the story on screen. I looked at lots of fantasy films, including the works of Guillermo del Toro (Pans Labyrinth, The Devils Backbone, Cronos). Pans Labyrinth was a big inspiration for me when researching for Holloways Garden, they are similar in many ways, for example both are dark fantasies aimed at an older audience, and both have Labyrinth scenes. Although I took inspiration from this film, it was important that it didn't look too similar, especially the Labyrinth scenes, as I wanted to add my own personal style into the aesthetics. Pans Labyrinth is a brilliant example of what can be achieved without a heavy use of special effects, and how you can create tension through seeing little and using sound design to an advantage.

  I realised that the Labyrinth scene would be very difficult to pull off with such low budget, as we could not build a plausible set with the money/time we had. Therefore we came up with the idea that the audience see little, only Victoria as she holds the lantern and walks around the Labyrinth, and then the rest would be built into the sound design, ie hearing her voice echo to trick the scale of the labyrinth and make her feel more alone, and hearing monsters and other scary sounds. We are using Victoria's mind as a way of getting round this, as we will generate different fears in the different stages of the Labyrinth, putting the audience in the shoe's of Victoria, as they will be guessing what is around them as much as Victoria. Again, sound design will play a big part in this.

  http://vimeo.com/43912784

This short film is a prefect example of what can be achieved through lighting and sound design on a low budget. The film is clearly done in a studio, we aim to do a similar thing with the labyrinth scenes in Holloways Garden.

  As I had never filmed underwater before, I did some research to figure out the best way to do it on a low budget, and watched lots of different films/videos that have underwater sequences to work out how I wanted the sequence to look. I watched the XX - Chained music video, and loved how the bubbles looked and how the shards of light cut through the water.

  It was suggested that I use a GoPro camera for this shoot as they are simple to use and waterproof, but I do not like the aesthetic that a GoPro produces, and it would not fit with the rest of the film, therefore I used my Canon 6D, which I had used for the rest of the film, and used an underwater case. It is possible for DSLR cameras to over heat when underwater and in a cheap case such as the one I used, so therefore we did not have much filming time as I did not want to risk it.

  I needed a way to light Victoria in the labyrinth, that would move with her, as a static light would ruin the illusion of the lantern giving the light. and it would also reveal the surroundings which we did not want to do. I researched ways in doing this, and the best way on a cheap budget was to use a Chinese lantern, with a tungsten bulb inside, and then walk alongside the camera with this light, thus giving the illusion of the lantern giving the light. I also bought a dimmer kit to attach to the bulb, meaning that I could manually dim the bulb whilst filming, emulating the flicker of the lantern.

 

Rehearsals & Test shoots

  We went down to the studio space in Levenshume to do some rehersals, and test shoots at the same time. My main goal here was to test the lantern in the studio to check if it worked the way I wanted it to. Here are some stills from the lighting tests...

  Here are some stills from the Rehearsals...

Hartheim - Music Video

  I spent my bank holiday sunday working on a music video for indie band 'Hartheim' for their song 'Welcome to Hartheim'. The crew were very familiar to me, consisting of Jack Bottomley as Director, Paddy McGowan as DOP and Sooz Hynes producing. The crew was small for this shoot, and I was Assisting Paddy with camera and lighting. The lighting setup was quite complex, but once it was perfected we only had small adjustments from shot to shot so wasn't too much hard work. There was a lot to get through but we managed it, just 1 hour over our schedule (which is rare).

Kodak Commercial

  I took part in a student competition entry for Kodak, which consisted of creating a 30 second commercial for Butlins, using 16mm film only. Luckily my University (MMU) backed out project, allowing us to hire equipment including an SR3 Rig and a set of Ziess Super speed lenses. I was lighting gaffer on the project, and there was some tricky lighting set-ups to pull off, especially as non of us had ever worked with 16mm film before.

  The project director was Steve Pilling, and his idea with the project was to project the feel of Butlins, but without showing Butlins itself. The idea was specific towards the themed weekends that they put on, being it 60's, 70's Disco, or 80's weekend, and the idea that these people who go on these holidays go back to their jobs with part of the holiday still with them. For example, a girl who has returned from the 70's weekend is working in a supermarket at the checkouts, with her disco shoe's still on.

  The image above was taken from the first scene that we filmed. It was shot in Chorlton in a store but as we could only manage to hire the space for an hour, early morning when it was dark outside, we had to emulate daylight spilling into the market. We did this by putting two HMI lights outside shining in, through diffusion frames to that the light spread, then had a kino as fill and used a pocket par as a backlight.

Working with 16mm was a really good experience and I learnt a lot on this shoot. It teaches disapline and organisation because you are limited on film reel and it costs so much money so therefore you are forced to 

Underwater Shoot (Holloways Garden)

  On saturday we filmed the underwater sequence for the ending of the film. We filmed at Levenshume Swimming Pool, in pool 2 where we had an hours slot, from 1pm until 2pm. I used my Canon 6D, with a waterproof case. The case was difficult to use, and I could not change any of the settings, or focus, after putting my camera into it, therefore I had to pre set everything, including the focus, and then guess the distance once under the water, as it was difficult to see the screen as well. We had to sign forms to use the pool, but the staff were very friendly and helpful. They allowed us to turn the house lights on and then I added 1 redhead which I aimed directly into the pool.

  This simple lighting setup looked really good on camera. I had to keep the shots dark so that it was not evident where we were filming. Beth put black cloth onto the wall of the pool as well to cover up the side of the pool which helped. The actually shooting was very difficult but I managed to get some decent footage which should be able to be cut up and integrated into the film.