Week 5, Day 1 & 2

This term is seeming to fly by, week 5 already, unbelievable, doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself. Monday, cinema movements. Andy was talking about how then audience read the screen. Being interested in cinematography this class 'caught my eye.' (that was terrible, the pun I was talking about) We were learning about syntax filming, where the film has some sort of structured meaning instead of just shooting anything until the film ran out as they did in the early film days. We also looked at saccadic vision where the eyes roam over an image to compile a complete picture. There are many different cinematography elements like deep focus, shot selection, character positioning and so on which the film communicates an unconscious meaning to the audience. I found this class interesting and will apply these techniques when filming.

Tuesday, Factual programming. Ethics, a principled sensitivity to the right of others. My opinion, if information which does not add to what you are actually documenting about, then leave it out. If it absolutely needs to be mentioned, then mention it, it might put your life in jeopardy, but that's journalism for you. If it's completely unnecessary then leave it out. If the situation was extremely disgustingly inhumane then I would discuss it with the interviewee, make sure I had researched it deeply and yes if true I would mention it in my documentation. I believe I would have the right to document it, freedom of speech. I believe, the more controversial a documentation is the more audience you'd attract.

Week 4

Monday, Cinema Movements. In this session we delved into the world of soundscaping. Starting off with a class exercise where Andy handed each of the three groups a sentence describing a scene. We then had to list the sounds that might be heard for our specific scene. We created a rough assembly of a soundscape, listing many sounds. The sounds listed for each scene started to shape pictures in our heads.

We then went through some codes and conventions of sound.

I fully believe that sound has a lot of power and value in films, making uninteresting scenes a lot more dynamic and powerful adding to the characters mood and direction of story in terms of the audiences conscience.

Later in the day Richard was discussing with us how we can change the 3 act structure. I find breaking the three act structure extremely hard since it has been drilled into our heads for the past year. I think I need to be extremely knowledgeable and grounded in the 3 act structure before I go around changing it. Toward the end we broke down Timmy and Choreomania in terms of three act structure.

Tuesday, Factual programming. Andy went through some rudimentary interviewing techniques. Broke down in it's simplest form it comes down to What, Why, Where, When, How and Who. The five W's and a H. Andy also went through some of the do's and dont's of interviewing. After this session I understood that my documentary Sharp Art, back in Heyday's (that was a joke) was not up to spec. Though it's not my hearts desire, I'd like the opportunity to be involved in the making of a documentary again.

Thursday, editing with Gavin. We were introduced to Avid an alternative editing software in the academy. I have never used Avid before, I'm not much of an editor but I'm only familiar using Final Cut editing software. Avid is similar to Final Cut having most of the same tools and commands. In my opinion Final Cut is easier to use but in some ways Avid has better ways of doing things. If Avid and Final Cut were amalgamated it would make things more easier and official.

Friday, Adam and the class were reviewing our T.V review sheets for Teachers and Shameless, as a class effort we listed all the themes that fit into each of the episodes. We then cut the list down to five main themes. The whole purpose of the exercise was to see what the audience like to watch in terms of issues and a selling point of view. I enjoy these classes even though I see myself in the film industry rather than T.V these classes give a good template on how to go about making stories.
In the afternoon we watched 12 Angry Men directed by Sydney Lumet, please read the review on The Luke Reviews.

Week 2 & 3

Week 2 is non existent, I was riddled with the flu, according to a source from the web I had 7 symptoms of swine flu. The whole of the week seemed wasted though I did watch an interesting drama on Sky Arts, In Treatment from the people who brought you the sopranos as it said on the advertisement. Being a fan of The Sopranos that line caught my attention. In Treatment is a drama or maybe more of a play in some ways produced by HBO. HBO they always come up with the goods. We have Gabriel Byrne as a psychotherapist treating clients. It is as simple as that. Each character are all three dimensional, you can clearly see that the writers have took a lot of time to develop them from head to toe. This addictive drama hypnotises you for 25 minutes pulling you deeper and deeper in to each of the clients life taking place practically only in the one room. Boring you might say, surprisingly it's not. The stories right up to the dialogues is original (to a point) extremely realistic and engaging, dramatic at times but it works, making you emotionally yielding to the characters. This enlightened my creative senses and in a way brought a brand new passion to my premise ideas, though Richard did slate these ideas but that is a different story.



Week 3 was an exhausting return, with my immune system low it took me a while to get back in to academic operation. Monday started with cinema movements focusing on the art of editing looking at some of Sergei Eisenstein and Walter Murch's original and creative works. We looked at the theories of both men and came to the conclusion of that they both believe editing is constructive rather than a destructive one. Editing is more than just cutting images together, it's driving the story and the emotions of the audience.
For me, usually I shy a way from the editing process but Murch's rule of six has simplified the art of editing and has brought a new understanding of cutting.

The afternoon I had an intimate one on one with Richard. I explained my premise ideas but Richard liked the initial idea of them but realistically the premises were to shallow. He advised me to go back and develop the stories so they have a twist and deeper meaning. I'm sure I have mentioned before that I am passionate about writing and I know there is ideas waiting to be fulfilled. I explained to Richard my creative senses are easily stressed, it seems i have to come up with my own creative stimulating formula. READING/RESEARCHING that is my answer, which I need to do a lot more of.

Tuesday we had Zam all day, this class is becoming more and more refreshing giving an insight of directing which is my ultimatum goal. Zam as our lecturer is easy going and fresh. He is very understandable. In the morning we dissected a scene from The Godfather being one of my favourite films, I was shocked to find some flaws, minor if that. The flaws included a massive camera shake at the end of the scene and some terrible acting form the background extras. In the afternoon Zam went over storytelling structure and how important it is. A very long class but enjoyable.


Thursday was a day for sound, not one of my favourite subjects. Sound is extremely important but i think its one of they elements where you like or you don't, yes like Marmite. Our new lecturer went back over some of the basics last year, It was simple and more understandable than our last sound lecturer. He seemed to cover a lot but was easy to digest because we recalled our sound notes from last year.

Friday was screening time we watched a film called The Conversation written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. A review of the film will be on The Luke Reviews.

Week 1

We have been eased into our first term, there wasn't that many classes. On Wednesday we were introduced to our new lecturer in directing. Half of the class screened their favourite scene, then we described how it was influential to us, then as a class broke it down in terms of visual style, performance, pacing and music etc. Our lecturer was trying to figure out what our film tastes and perceptions were.

Friday the class attended a screening of Metropolis (1927) in the lecture theatre. This futuristic German Expressionist film was awe inspiring from the point of the creative architecture, unique designs as well as the clever use of special effects. The Story otherwise was hard to follow or indeed make any sense. The look of the film was no doubt a blueprint for other sci-fi's to follow.