HopkinsCinemAddicts

Lost Time (Diana)

Production Journal #6

The first thing any film student learns in school is that film runs in normal time at 24 frames per second. Usually, people take that as a simple matter of fact...that the human eye cannot detect any flash of an image that runs at less than 24 frames per second. This idea is even further neglected when entering the realm of digital where frames don't tangibly exist. Capturing someone on film is like seeing the world in slow motion. Every single twitch and movement is precisely documented on individual celluloid frames. All of these fleeting moments that not even the eye can detect are preserved. For example, to the human eye a blink lasts less than 1 second, it's fast and often missed. When we blink ourselves, our vision is virtually uninterrupted. We live on knowing that there is a small fraction of a second of obstructed vision, this lost time goes by and we barely miss it. But on film, the progression of the eyelids closing is caught in individuals frames, therefore elongating the process. Film has the ability to divide movement into this kind of progression, while we can only see action as a unified entity. These undetectable fractions of a second are frozen on film, making them visually available to us. The lost time is found in the film and it presents to the viewer a new and otherwise unnoticed way of seeing things. How great is it that film can uniquely present us with the ability to capture the world as we know it as well as the world as we've never seen it? 

She senses that something is wrong.  

This idea of 24 frames per second became very real for me while putting together my last project. As described in my last post, I shot my project Panic on b&w 16mm. Inspired by the great Stan Brakhage, I decided to scratch onto my film to try and capture the emotion of panic. The scratches were to represent the evil negative energy of anxiety that wakes up my subject and drives her into a horrifying panic attack. The film follows the progression of this girl sensing a bad presence and eventually giving into hysteria; by the end of the short her mouth gapes open as she screams. The scratches pour out of her mouth and eventually take hold, overwhelming the frame and distorting her face. At the end shot, I scratched her entire face out; I wanted to show that the girl has completely lost herself in panic.

Still from Panic...the panic won this battle

The process of scratching is where the whole 24 frames per second concept hit me. It wasn't until I began that I realized what I was in for. In order for anyone to see what I was scratching, I'd have to scratch it in 24 times for it to appear for just 1 second. Throughout the process, my comprehension of time was completely lost. As I edited the film ran according to the speed of my arm spinning the spool. There was no sense of minutes our hours, I worried that I was miscalculating everything and that I was spending all my time putting together something as short as a 1 minute film (which still meant 1,140 individual frames for me to scratch). All I had to comfort me was the solid and reassuring fact of 24 frames per second. In the end, everything worked out. My film was longer than 1 minute (ended up being around 2 minutes and 30 seconds = estimate of 3,600 individually scratched frames!!!), and it gave the emotional effect that I wanted; it succeeded in raising the heart rate of my classmates. Once I get my film processed and transferred digitally, I will post it online. Till then, stay tuned for news on my next experiment which is supposed to be a sound project (unchartered territory for me). Until next time!

Diana.

Waltz with Bashir: life imitates art, calls for animation (Inhye)

Waltz with Bashir (2008) follows director/producer Ari Folman in his journey to rediscover his past from the 1982 Lebanon War. Initially, his pursuit is to confirm an ambiguous scene he witnessed as a soldier by interviewing veterans and interpreting their memories with a psychologist friend.  The film shifts from a series of personal recollections to a diplomatic appeal when each man’s account reveals the haphazardness of the soldiers, commanders, general public and war in general.

 
Waltz with Bashir is a hand-drawn animated documentary with careful attention to details. Waltz with Bashir. Flickr Creative Commons.¹

The genre is an interesting hybrid of documentary and animation: actual people are represented in cartoon versions of themselves yet dialogue is intact. Visually, it’s bold, stylish and impressively meticulous.  Over 3,000 frames were hand-drawn with tactful consideration to various visual cues (shadows, motion parallax and fine texture details) reminding us of the incredible effort and patience often overlooked in animation. With visual language this captivating, it's not hard to forget this is an educational documentary: Folman learned from previous documentary projects that cartoon-izing interviewees makes them readily familiar and accessible, thus more engaging to the audience. ²

And to portray each man’s shell shock, only the flexibility of animation can cater to human memory’s distortion, an underlying theme in the film. Whereas Folman’s memory is elusive, his friends can explicitly recall every dog that was shot, dismembered body parts floating amidst demolition, or their escapist wet dreams. “War is like a very bad acid trip,” Folman said, and that “animation is the only way to tell this story, with memories, lost memories, dreams and the subconscious.”³ Here, it's clear Waltz with Bashir proves life does indeed imitate art.

What then sustain the integrity of documentary amidst the punchy animation are the real voice recordings. Actual testimonials anchor us in reality so no matter how embellished the stories seem, the weariness and vulnerability in each veteran’s voice remind us that war is impossible to exaggerate. Appropriately, the film ends with real footage of the Sabra and Shatila massacre aftermath that Folman himself witnessed: the camera pans slowly across stacks of dirty corpses yet can barely keep up with the hysterical women that follow. We see it all through Folman’s cartoon eyes, emphasizing the contrast between the fanciful, imaginative world to the real.

Although animation will indefinitely be known for the naïve, childish fables of Saturday mornings, it is perhaps that stigma of novelty and innocence that accounts for Waltz with Bashir’s ingenuity: we are not used to seeing explicit content in cartoon, making the scenes all the more compelling. Funnily enough, lavishly funded war dramas with Hollywood actors can rarely resist glamorized action scenes or romantic conflicts. Waltz with Bashir ultimately does not challenge the seriousness of war and gives animated films the last laugh.

Image Credits

¹"Waltz with Bashir poster." Flickr Creative Commons. Wolf Gang. 11 Nov. 2008.

Works Cited

²"Ari Folman: "Animation, or Not at All"" Interview by David D'Arcy. GreenCine. All Media Guide, 23 June 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <https://greencine.com/central/arifolman>.

³"Ari Folman Finds Freedom in Animation." Interview by Steve Erickson. Film and Video. Studio Daily, 18 Dec. 2008. Web. 23 Nov. 2009. <http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/currentissue/10304.html>.

 

Who needs a narrative...Not Stan Brakhage! (Diana)

Production Journal #5

"Let it be the feelings that bring about the events. Not the other way"

Robert Bresson, Notes on the Cinematographer

Still from my next project Panic

It's really easy to get caught up in a storyline. Narrative has become so important in films today that it's hard to imagine a film without one. There are very few films that come out of mainstream hollywood today that don't have a planned out traditional plot. Unfortunately, many movies end up sacrificing the most important aspects of film in order to put all emphasis on the narrative. The visuals end up suffering as a result of this. The shots only purpose is for the revealment of plot information. There is no room or need for a creative eye therefore destroying the visual importance of film. For me, visuals are the most important. In order for me to really like a film, it has to engage me visually. The shots need to be dynamic and thought out; they have to have more purpose than just giving plot information (which is what most Hollywood blockbusters do). I want to see more! I want beautiful shots that move me. 

Maybe the best idea is to throw away all narrative and focus on the visceral visual experience of watching a film. This is what many avant-garde film directors have decided to do and so this week in class, we reviewed the works of many of these greats. The director that called out the most to me was Stan Brakhage. I was especially impressed by his great ability to capture an emotion or feeling without entering the narrative realm. I found myself most attracted to his films; his amazing ability to capture these raw emotions is moving. He is also a true filmmaker; the physical film is very important. You see this through the way he physically manipulates the film; by his scratching and painting directly onto the celluloid. I found that through the lack of story line or plot Brakhage was able to better focus on capturing the emotions that inspire him. 

As you can see, the theme of my week has been this idea of non-narrative. For my next project I was prompted to become inspired by these past great avant-garde filmmakers. I decided to honor Stan Brakhage and try to capture an emotion. I decided to try to capture the feeling of panic through film; to do this I used an actress and used some experimental camera techniques. I originally wanted to shoot in color. I wanted to experiment with color (as Brakhage did) and use it as an instrument for expressing an emotion. Unfortunately, I also wanted to scratch the physical film as well, but that was not going to be possible because that would require an extremely long and complicated process that I simply would not have time for in this 2 week deadline. So, I decided to shoot on black and white 16mm film which I could easily edit manually; good old scissor and tape holding the film together. I shot again on the old Arri-S camera. The shoot was difficult, but only because I was my own crew. It was difficult working the lights, using the heavy arri-s camera handheld, and directing my actress all at the same time. But I managed and the footage turned out relatively well. In terms of experimentation, I played with lighting and focus to represent the chaos and derealization one experiences when having a panic attack. I just got the film back, and will begin editing manually this weekend. I'm going to be adding scratches and perhaps coloring onto the film. For this project, I'm just going to let it all go.

 Stills from Panic: The slight defocus of the shot really throws things off and makes everything a little creepier; which is exactly what I wanted.

Next blog, I will try to include pictures of these same frames but with the scratches. Until next time.

Diana.

Organic, no additives (Inhye)

The storyline of The Celebration (1998) is simple. It centers around a wealthy Danish family celebrating its patriarch’s 60th birthday: Helge is enjoying his dinner party when his son, Christian, accuses him in front of all the guests of raping him and his twin sister, Linda (who recently committed suicide). When Helge later admits to his fault during a family breakfast, his eldest son Michael tells him to leave the table so the rest can finish their meal. The family is clearly is dysfunctional, but contextually The Celebration is subtly complex, leaving more grays than black and white. What we’re shown on screen is so candid we’ve become nuanced to the family’s situation, discouraging us from making hasty judgments.

Why? Because the camera is truly like an eye in The Celebration: sequences are undiluted and coarse, almost encroaching and nosy. The sense of uncomfortable intimacy can be attributed to the hand-held camera movement, the lack of special effects, and the tightness of the shots mimicking eye contact (long shots in The Celebration only serve to provide general scenic framework). The second-hand awkwardness is vicarious and we feel twinges of shock and subtle comedic relief, rather than bursts of them: realistically, the film borders voyeurism, not fabricated entertainment, and there is barely a trace of post-production. But this seemingly rudimentary approach to filmmaking is incredibly calculated.  In the Dogme 95 approach to filmmaking, everything must be painstakingly planned to avoid the need for post-production, cover-ups or cinematic gimmicks.

Its “Vow of Chastity”¹ states:

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed.
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the action takes place.
4. The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The final picture must be transferred to the Academy 35mm film, with an aspect ratio of 4:3, that is, not widescreen.
10. The director must not be credited.

Extracting poignancy from the mundane is Dogme 95's objective, maintaining that art does not have to rely on frills. Thus, not only does the filmmaker have to rely solely on the pedestrian for provocation, the audience is then given an unprocessed version of a story. These films can’t be watched passively: attention must persist or else we “fall behind,” risking appreciation for Dogme 95 entirely. Like in everyday life, in which we can be unsettled by the smallest deviations from the norm, The Celebration demands the same sensitivity: there is no “cheating,” like forewarning music or exaggerated shots to guide our expectations.

And obviously Dogme 95 has its limits. By its definition, it cannot film fantasy, imagination or history, all concepts cinema is characterized by, and in many ways, obliged, to depict. This strict doctrine exiles almost every popular filmmaker but it should not be considered as a backlash at or challenge to Hollywood. All films aim for the same goal of surprise, empathy and escapism: The Celebration goes to show that a narrative, a family affair, a deeper look into the less-dignified life can evoke all three.

 

Works Cited

¹"Dogme 95 -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 19 Nov. 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95>.