Rene's+Journal

Journal (2013.10.17) Today in class, our group was working on trying to shorten and finalize the script. I like our idea so far, it is about a superhero marriage counseling. I contribute as the cinematographer of the group by suggesting better transitions between scenes and dialogues. To make the transition more smooth and less awkward, since I was picturing the script visually in my mind, and creating my own "edited" version of the film so I can know what seems to work with the flow when the characters switches from dialogue to dialogue or place to place. This will also give me a better idea of what I should film, and what shots I should definitely included.

I like our plot, our location choice and so on, but the one thing I am very concerned about is how am I going to film this in a creative way. The film is heavily based on dialogue. Therefore there isn't really much aesthetic values I can add to it. Because usually very aesthetic and creative cinematography is carried out in films that have a deep meaning, horror movies, science fiction movies, or romantic movies. But not in comedy, and even worse, heavily dialogue based comedy films. Therefore I am struggling really hard to create a detailed shot list and a storyboard. I don’t want this to be a typical boring comedy film, where the cinematography of the film is heavily based on the switches and transition from close ups and medium shot. I want it to be creative, fun to watch, interesting and visually appealing, while not making it seem to weird and out of context.2

I am thinking about some of the films I watched for my genre investigation and my individual director project I did before for inspiration. I did Tim Burton and Chinese 5th generation genre. They all inspired me a lot, but they don’t really seem to fit in the context of a dialogue based comedy. However, I’m working on trying to use their aesthetic shot, and give them a little twist and a unique but different creative perspective to it. For example, in the opening sequence of “Farewell my Concubine” where the mother has the child on her back using a long tracking shot while she walks through the town. It is used to carry out the film by introducing the character, scene, and incentive of how did the kid end up in an opera school. I want to use it in a different way, by making the camera move in a circle. The movement involves all three people in the counseling room, the superhero couple and the marriage counselor. Maybe the circle movement can even be speeded later through editing. This will show the tedious and annoying moments of their argument. Making it annoying even for the audience. Going in continuous circles show how repetitive and meaningless their arguments are about. This is one idea I have, but I am not exactly sure how I can put this into context and how I can incorporate this in the film without making it seem too abrupt.

One strategy I decide to use is to look at some of the film textbooks Mr. Gran gave us, and then learn more creative ways of filming and see how I can incorporate these ideas into my film.

Journal (2013.10.25)

Our script is almost finalized, therefore I decided to start brainstorming a detailed shot list for our script. Before starting I decided to read some books related to cinematography. I took a look of a lot of books related to the usage of camera and how to create meaning with framing. But one book that really helped inspire me and taught me a lot go technical film terms was the book called "Grammar of Shot" by Thompson and Bowen. I learned a lot of new terms such as "shot-reverse-shot", "depth of field", "sharp focus", and "wide angel focal length shot". These are all professional cinematography terms that really helped me a lot. Also the book contained a lot of pictures illustrating different shots. By looking at those pictures it was able to inspire me to think about the lenses, the framing, and the focus i want to use. Then I realized that although for a comedy heavily dialogue based medium shots and close ups seems like the most logical and appropriate way to film, but there is still possibilities to play around with the focus of the lens, the framing, the depth of field. I can use a medium shot but frame to character at the end of the screen so it shows distance and isolation. Or I can focus on the background of the medium shot instead of the character, to show how the character's thoughts are ignored.

Therefore, after reading those books, I was able to came up with a very detailed shot list. I separated it into different scenes, and pictured it in my mind. At first I was worried, because I'm not so good of an artist, which means if I drew the storyboard, I might not be able to show the angles and the depth of field as well as the shift of focus. Which is why I decided to write a very detailed shot list, and only storyboard some of the really important scenes. Through reading the “Grammar of Shots”, it enabled me to express the shots I pictured in my head with clear and detailed film language. I was able to describe my scene with extreme detail, so I can know the exact picture I had when I first pictured and imagine the scene.

After I finished my detailed shot list, I showed it to my crew and they all liked the idea I had. Although I am still worried that some of the shots might be a bit bizarre if it is actually shot. Therefore I might still need to practice and try it a few times before I actually decide to use those kind of shots.

Also after I wrote my 4 page detailed shot list, I sketch two scenes for the storyboard so my crew can get a simple visualization of the shots I have in mind. I hope through my test run and drawing out the scene, I would be able to picture and design the shots that best suits our film.

Journal (2013.10.31)

While I was puzzled of how to shoot a dialogue creatively, I found a book that was very inspiring and helpful. It's "Master Shots" by Kenworthy. I had a lot of creative ways of filming argument and dialogue scenes that I found very intriguing. For example the way it uses a track dolly, to create an aesthetic and fun view of making a semi circle around the arguing characters in order to created tension and a sense of urgency. This inspired me of thinking is it possible to use a track dolly. After confirming with my teacher, I realized I have access to a track dolly. This helps a lot, and it might give me more possibilities to explore the ways of filming this dialogue in a more creative and exciting way.

I've also searched up a few basic tutorial where introduces different angles, framing, lenses, and lighting used to film simple dialogues. The video introduced the rule of thirds, showing how to frame the characters in a particular corner of the rule of thirds framing to create an aesthetic view for it. Also, through the videos, I learned some basic information about the differences between lenses. Such as 35mm and 100mm. The different feeling and the intimacy between the characters gradually changes through using different lenses. How it creates a drastically different feeling and atmosphere to the conversation. It changes the position the characters are in because they can be shot seeing in great distance, or in close distance to show intimacy. Therefore I think through the videos, it inspired me to get different lenses to show the change in the relationship between the superheros. shot. Also, given the advantage of our setting in an office near IFC with a great view of the bund outside the window, it got me thinking in what ways can I film the scene while capturing the beautiful scenery outside. I found an article teaching me how to light the window in the way where the window doesn't reflect what's happening in the room. However, it uses butterfly reflectors, which is impossible for me to do. Then I found some window flies or stickers that can reduce the reflection of the windows. I decided to buy it on taobao. I want to do so because I want to capture the scenery outside during the scene where the superhero's are fighting and Diamond Man is worried about the explosion outside. I want to coordinate with the editor so we can add in after effects of explosions on the scenery I have captured.

Journal 4 (2013.11.06)

I explored some other resources that my peers had provided. The resource further talks and examines the different usage of film lenses, and how the depth of field and the framing of the shots gives out different atmosphere and indicates different relationship between the characters within the shot. Currently one of my ways to increase the dynamic of the shots is to use different millimeter lenses to create different atmosphere and indicated the changes within the two character's relationship throughout the film. By using larger millimeter lenses, it makes the characters seems closer psychologically and physically. Therefore, this inspired me that maybe I can either progress with larger lenses throughout the conversation of the film, or just constantly switch between a few lenses to indicated how their relationship changes drastically throughout the incidents within the marriage counseling session. It also taught me a lot about aperture and exposures.

Then I explored a research link about using cinematography's composition to create meaning. The quote:
 * “ Creating meaningful compositions works in the same way; the framing of your shots should reflect your understanding of the story in a way that conveys your perspective, your values, your idiosyncrasies, your vision.” **

inspired me to think about filming my film from the perspectives of the audience. It got me thinking, how can I film my film, in such way that if I were the audience, I will be able to recognize and relate to the different usage of camera angels and lighting. I have to consider what is the dominant in the frame in comparison of the relationship between the characters. To think accordingly of what the audience will get, what message will they acknowledge from my cinematic film choices I've decided to use.

Also the quote:

It got me to further think about how to use different framing, angles, technical shots in order to convey the mood, atmosphere, message that I want the audience to get. Because one problem I think I have right now is that I might think this shot creates tension and suspicion. However, the audience might not think so or get the same atmosphere. Therefore I think it is important for me to re-organize my shots in a more logical and reasonable way.
 * “You cannot simply assume that your audience will automatically infer those connotations whenever you use this angle, unless the context in your story supports it.” **

Sources: http://jakehumblesyr3.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/cinematography-research/ http://vimeo.com/videoschool/lesson/114/behind-the-glass-part-1-an-introduction-to-lenses

Journal 5 (2013.11.27) I am the cinematographer of this project. There were a lot of problems and challenges I have before I even started the project, such as deciding how to shoot a dialogue scene creatively. One thing that was also challenging was that the fact how we structured the film where it only happened in one location, one room. And the fact that the characters don’t even really moves around or takes on any rigorous actions. During the film day, we got there at 6am to check out the location. I went there to test out different camera’s and angles. One horrible thing is that the huge window that replaces two of the walls causes a lot of lighting problems. It either makes the character over exposed when the sun passes by, or under exposed and too dark when it’s cloudy. I had to adjust the ISO in order to make the shot look more normal. But this ended up causing some of the shots to seem overexposed. On the screen, after I verified with both the director and the editor, the exposure seemed perfectly fine. Because I wanted to make the background and characters seem more white so it will be more unrealistic, since the characters are superhero’s, I was trying to make the lighting seem like the world that the characters are in is different from ours. It is more simplistic and futuristic, therefore I wanted to make everything seem bright and unnatural. However, this resulted in some of the shots being a bit over exposed, and we had to figure out how to soften the shots a bit. There were also a few close ups that had discontinuity problems, where sometimes there were random objects hiding in the back.

The first filming day was disastrous because the time management wasn’t so well. However, I was glad we had a bad first day, because afterwards, I knew what I had to do in order to improve. The next time we filmed, I brought two cameras, and decided to use different lenses to shoot at the same time. Because we only had 4 hours, therefore I wanted to be more efficient. And before we filmed, I planned out a list of the shots I need, and what shots are we able to do simultaneously. Sometimes in order to create deep space in the shot, we had to move the furniture around a lot to create that sort of framing. I’ve used a lot of wise angle shots and micro lens close ups, which had really good quality shots and framing that I am proud of. I also used the idea of a vertigo shot, inspired by the Korean film “My Sassy Girl” and Tim Burton’s “Big Fish”. Both used different lenses in a creative way, and I was so inspired that I used a wide-angle lens to do a vertigo shot to indicate the realization of the marriage counselor. I thought it was really effective, because if was able to separate the counselor from the background, and it felt like the audience was able to go into the marriage counselor’s mind, and it emphasizes on her shock and revelation. Also I used a tracking shot from Diamond Man to the pearl tower. I had to try that a few times in order to get the right height level. But the shot was successful because the past few times I tried it, the lighting outside was just horrible and I couldn't get the window to not reflect. However, at that time, it was lucky because there was no reflection on the window at all, which made that shot beautiful. I believe it would look even more amazing when the special effects are added to the pearl tower where it shows that it is under attack. I was satisfied because that shot made it easier for the editor, and the audience will be able to sea the attack and the character’s reaction in the same shot without making the lighting in door too dark or out door as too bright. Also there was one shot that was inspired by “My Sassy Girl” as well was the hand held motion from shifting the camera from framing one character to a quick shake pan to the character beside her. It almost looks like the scene was edited, where fast motion is added in between. I choose to do that because I wanted to show their tedious arguments, to emphasize on the back and forth dialogue that they have and to further create a sense of urgent and tension within the scene.

Overall we had got all the basic shots we needed. One big problem was that the time we planned to film was from 4pm to 8pm and the lighting outside changed drastically. That is a problem we’re still trying to work out. We decided to schedule another film day where we could fix some of the shots we have, and also to add in more time for me to try to take on more creative and dynamic shots so the film will seem more aesthetic. Generally, I have learned quite a lot during our filming day, what was valuable were the hands on and on set experienced I gained from the past filming days. I believe after that, I am able to figure out more efficient and creative ways to film this film.