Continuing in the same vein as the experimental film I made last year, I planned to make another film that explored the mechanics of film making, expose to it's audience how meaning is delivered to them and from which tools of film.
Last year's film took a film scene, written by myself, and placed an emphasis on one element of a number of chosen 'forms' of film i.e. lighting, colour, composition, mise en scene.
The film placed emphasis on each of the different forms as opposed to isolating them, which I think was perhaps a weakness in the film. By not completely isolating each form it was hard to appreciate them and their contribution to the creation of meaning in film. Other elements simply 'got in the way' and also created meaning. If I were to make this idea work I would need to try and isolate the forms completely.
Also, earlier in the semester my one minute film was of importance to this one, the film showed the setting up of a film shot, from the point of view of the camera used to shoot the film. In voice over the creative decisions were made.
All these ideas came from studying the work of Jacques Derrida and his deconstructionism. In his theories Derrida deconstructs theories, ideas and concepts to discover their fundamental foundations on which they create meaning. It is this method that I want to turn to in the approach to the film. I want to deconstruct a film scene scene to the point where the audience of the film can see the potential fundamental elements of any film scene and how meaning is formed from them.
I also looked into the films of John Smith, especially The Girl Chewing Gum (1976), Om (1978), The Kiss (1999). These films also take a deconstructionist approach to film, albeit with a more social-political stance. The Girl Chewing Gum explores how voice over contributes to the meaning of the images on the screen. Om explores the nature of peoples preconceptions with what they see on screen and subsequently subverts them, The Kiss does much the same thing.
When I came round to start the project I first looked at the previous film to see where I could improve but also to see what areas of this topic I had not explored.
I found that, as discussed before, in order to fully explore how the all the different forms of film create meaning by themselves and in unison with each other, I would need to try as best as I could to completely isolate them and either show them in abstraction or use them as building blocks and build a scene from the ground up, one form at a time. This second method seemed the best as once one element had been shown it can be taken for granted in the next section and the 'new' element can be observed as it is as well as in unison with the previous form(s).
Another thing we, now, in the group of two, had to decide was what the forms were. The idea of what they would be was most likely instilled into me from reading the theory texts of some of the notable formalist film theorists, such as Sergei Eisenstein and Bela Belazs. The elements/forms decided upon are these: location/time, mise en scene, lighting, acting, sound and editing. This order was decided upon by looking at the way, first a silent film may be constructed, then adding sound, and then finally, going beyond the single shot, editing.
We decided upon a 'breaking-up' scene, as in between a couple, because we are 'breaking-up' the scene.
We scripted the scene using lines such as "I don't understand" and "Why are you doing this?"-"to know" as subtle clues as to the nature of hide and seek meaning natures in the creation and understanding.
The elements and their characteristics were as follows:
location/time: modern/city/middle class house
mise en scene: boring art/lots of non-fiction books/clock/office chair
lighting: drab/isolating
acting: wooden/monotone/indifferent
sound: ticking clock
editing: simple 1 and 2
The girls part would mirror every part of this.
We also decided upon a voice over black, to show the creative decisions and conversations that go towards making the scene what it is. This is done over black and with the voices in isolation so that they can be nothing but the meaning of the conversation derived from the scene. Location sound was considered for these talks but it was thought that it could distract away from the conceptual idea process and infer something unwanted.
Filming and editing, as always, was a quick and clean process. The film was planned, we shot it and put it together as it was planned, simple.
I was very happy with the film, especially with the reaction of the university audience we screened in front of. The feedback was positive in line with our aims. People thought that it was interesting to see the forms built up until finally they were played the scene as it would be, in the conceptual film and that the film was effective in doing that. Ruby and I also felt this. We also felt successful the voiceover sections as it got people visualising what we were talking about and then being shown perhaps a different, subjective, interpretation of this.
If I were to do it again, and had longer perhaps, I would try and make the film even more detailed, try and deconstruct it even more, just as I did coming to this film from last year's and the One minute film made earlier this semester.
