The trip to the British Film Institute today was extremely useful in providing tips for creating and planning our film opening as well as an interesting talk from actor and director Dexter Fletcher giving an overview of the industry and challenges he faced when working on his own films. One of the key pieces of advice I took away from today in regard to the media coursework, is to pay attention to the use of sound both diegetic and non diegetic which I will do a separate blog post on. For our own film opening, the concept of continuity will be even more crucial with the continuous frantic changing of shots to convey the state of mind of the protagonist. To enhance the effect of this, our lighting will need to be of a similar hue and intensity throughout. In spite of this, as mentioned in my previous blog post, the use of black screens interjected between the action to display our title sequence will heighten the desired emotional intensity of our opening. Fletcher said that he gave much less concentration to the titles themselves as he wanted the focus to be with the establishing narrative and character introductions. This is a conclusion we have also come to in the sense that though we have made a conscious decision with the placing of our titles in relevance to the style and genre of the opening, our two minutes are heavily character driven.
One of the three film openings shown by Fletcher was Wild Bill, which after looking into further I think draws similarities to the vision we have of setting and style of our film opening in particular. The film, made in 2011, opens following the protagonist Wild Bill but then cuts to two brothers in an East London flat.This is demonstrated in the still below with the main character and his youngest son.
As mentioned in my Art of the Title blog post, I think that the style of the text in the title sequence of the film Drive could be used in our film opening. After watching back the footage we have so far for our opening, we decided that the use of black screens alternating between the action within the two minutes would work the best as oppose to accompanying the footage.The pink colour and seemingly "girly" type font used in drive, connoting femininity, could act as a clear contradiction to the topic of our film. As well as this, in a sense the innocent style text would suggest a false plot to the audience almost tricking them. By doing so, this would emphasise the drama and draw focus to the action of our film opening.
The director and writer of the film, Damien Chazelle was initially unable to gain funding for the release of Whiplash so he instead turned it into a short film and entered his work into the Sundance Film Festival in 2013. The film won the Short Film Jury Award, and as a consequence he gained funding with an eventual budget of an $3.3 million. "I think it's a great film to open up Sundance because we made it in 19 days, and they edited it in nine weeks, which is unheard of. So, it took a lot of grit and hard work to get us here," Miles Teller told The Hollywood Reporter at the film's after party. Whiplash was released in the USA on October 10th 2014 and 16th January 2015 in the UK. In the opening weekend it accumulated $135,888. Grossed nearly $50 million worldwide.
I first watched the film shortly after its UK release in 2015, and my first thought was that I'd never seen such tension or anticipation in a film not associated with the horror genre. Use of straight cuts between shots in quick succession and parallel editing enhance the tension provided by Miles Teller's and J K Simmons' performances. This is demonstrated perfectly in the short clip above. An establishing shot of the stage, cutting to an over the shoulder shot of Simmons' character Fletcher in the foreground, pausing for a second before focus is given to Andrew on the drums in spite of the clearly clenched fist dominating about a third of the shot. All of this occurs in the first five seconds of the scene, capturing the rapid pace of the film accompanied by the drums reoccurring presence. Lights dim, but neither character alters their position or expression leaving the audience waiting, as the drums continue. A low angle shot of Andrew is followed by one of my favourite shots, a tracking POV shot of the drum set where it seems the camera can't quite keep up then cutting to a birds eye view of the drum set. Similar close ups are repeated throughout the film to capture the emotional intensity that drives this film. From the point of around 1:40 minutes in the clip, the choice to have no other sound but the drums for a short while, with no enhanced sound of breath or reaction from ensemble aids the camera work in illustrating Andrew's determination and focus the story thrives on.
Aside from the camera work, the very message of the story is what makes it one of my favourites. No, its not a light hearted easy watch but that's what I love about it. It challenges the concept of the American Dream, channelling this idea through the character of Fletcher. He enforces the idea that it takes a lot to be great, beyond skill you require luck. In the setting of a school filled with an abundance of talented students Teller's character is pushed to the edge in order to see himself succeed.Andrew encapsulates the idea of passion, continuously hindered by the words and spitefulness of Fletcher. By doing so Chazelle makes it very easy for the audience to identify with the topic of the film, taking an immediate almost furious dislike to J K Simmons' character. My favourite quote from the film reads "I'd rather die drunk, broke at 34 and have people at a dinner table talk about me than live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody remembered who I was"
Similarly to Whiplash, Damien Chazelle's upcoming film La La Land tells a story driven by the ambition of its two protagonists, a jazz pianist and an aspiring actress. The film has received five star reviews and especially following an advanced screenings at the BFI film festival 2016, a hype has been created around the its upcoming release. The film is set to be released in the USA on December 16th 2016 and January 13th 2017 in the UK. As shown in the poster below, Chazelle's newest project has received not only astounding reviews but also multiple wins, creating high expectations for the awaiting audiences and success at events such as the Oscars. Many have said it's set to dominate such award ceremonies in the year to come.
Following the success of the first series staring James Nesbitt, the BBC has recently aired the second series which focuses on the detective Julien Baptiste and the case of Alice Webster. Initially, the series caused confusion due to the format of the editing and storytelling. Use of continuous flashback and flash forward relies on the attention and intelligence of the audience to understand the storyline and piece information together. A variety of establishing shots and lingering close ups infer things to the audience to remember for later in the eight episode series. Cool toned lighting with blue hues establish a mysterious, sad tone for the programme which at the beginning of the series only draws even further focus to the yellow camper van amongst a deserted landscape. The opening of the series immediately conjures up a variety of questions for the audience. My favourite aspect of the opening is the seemingly hand held tracking shot from behind the protagonist Alice. The shots cut between her at the time of her kidnap and when she has managed to escape. In a forest, the exploration of depth of field, with trees in the foreground allows the clips are edited together at points where Alice's character goes briefly out of sight then re emerges as her grown up self. It appears that there are two stories, with corruption at the heart of both and gradually the two are seen to overlap with the key characters of Henry Reed and Brigadier Stone shown below. Following episode four, however, I am worried that the storyline with become too far fetched and distract from it's emotional intensity.
