Contextual Studies | Mise en Scène (29th September 2016)

In our first full lecture on our contextual studies unit, we looked at mise en scène.

Mise en scène what we can see in a frame; it is the visual aspect of story-telling.  Its key elements are the setting, costume/makeup, lighting, and staging.

We looked at some classic examples of mise en scène, including Star Wars, which conforms to very straightforward archetypes of mise en scène, similar to classical Western convention, especially if we look at the use of costume; the protagonist wears white, whilst the antagonist wears black (the exception of course being the storm troopers, however this signifies that they are just foot soldiers, with the true evil lying with Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, who wear black).  The staging also gives the connotation of an authoritarian, and militaristic view toward the storm troopers, in parallel with the Rebel Alliance.

We also looked at some specific examples in Game of Thrones, including a scene between Tyrion and Cersei, which we were able to establish a lot about the setting from the use of lighting, and their socioeconomic background from the clothes they were wearing.  In another scene we looked at, the location and characters were almost polar opposites.  This scene followed Jon Snow as he attempts to rally men to travel north of the Wall on mission to Craster's Keep.  The lighting feels a lot colder, with uniform costume, suggesting a much more authoritarian nature to the scene than we saw in King's Landing with Cersei and Tyrion.

Overall, we summarised that mise en scène in drama typically relies on studio sets, costume and makeup being character-specific, the lighting is classically high-key, even if it emulates natural lighting as we see in Game of Thrones, and the staging is all specified by the director.  Mise en scène in documentary, on the other hand, classically utilises 'real' locations, and the costume and makeup is typically authentic, but can be directed.  The lighting is also traditionally 'natural', but is also often artificial or designed, similarly the staging is usually 'natural', but also often to the director's specifications.  This difference largely relates to the sense of realism needed for the documentary genre, where drama can take a more surreal approach depending on the subject matter.

Story-telling | 25 Word Pitch + Screenplay Details

The Way

After his mother fails to pick him up from school, a teenager must walk home late at night, but who else lurks in the darkness?

Genre:

The prominent genre of The Way will be drama, but it will also draw on themes of social realism, as does Soft, which I will take inspiration from in this regard.

Main Characters:

Nick

• Nick: An introverted sixteen year old boy who suffers from anxiety and only confides in his closest friends due to the distant relationship between him and his mother after his father passed away and the development of her alcoholism.  He is very wary of getting in trouble at school, hence why his school uniform is immaculate and he carries all his school books with him to avoid not having the right books on the right days.

Will

• Will: A scraggly homeless man, aged between 20 and 35, who is frequently drunk.  He is a lonely man, and does his best to make friends but he comes across as invasive and unpleasant, which can cause him to lash out, relating to his difficulty in trusting people, but he does try do the right thing where he can.  Will lost his wife before he lived on the streets which is why he turned to drink.

Secondary Characters:

Angela

• Angela: Nick's mother; an unknowingly neglectful mother, she pays little attention to Nick, as she believes he is able to look after himself like his father could.  She drinks a lot, which acts as a coping mechanism for the loss of her husband, but she hides this with her laid back attitude to parenting.

  

  The Gang

• Gang: Local hoodlums with no regard for other people's well-being.

Locations:

• The Way will begin outside Nick's school, and we will see parts of the surrounding neighbourhood, but the main location will be the alleyway that Will sleeps in, as their meeting will be the focal point of the screenplay.

Source Material:

• I was inspired to choose this subject matter from my own experiences from having to walk home in the dark from school some nights.
• The inspiration for the neglectful mother does not come from my own experiences thankfully, but the loss of a parent is something that has affected a number of people I know, each of them responding with differently.  Drinking can act as a way to cope with drastic changes such as this, so I felt I could explore this in The Way.

Extra Information:

• The meeting in The Way will be the meeting between Nick and Will, which will lead to Nick sympathising with his mother's drink problem, as there is a parallel between Will and Angela in the sense that the have both lost someone and they both drink to deal with it.
• Nick will initially be angry with his mother, but seeing and talking to Will allows him to understand her better.
• In one scene, Nick will be attacked - this will come from one of my own experiences in which I had a rock thrown at my head, then mud shoved in my face whilst waiting outside my school - afterwards he comes across Will, whom he is initially frightened by, but they continue talking and find a mutual understanding.
• The screenplay will explore Nick's anxiety and his frustration toward his mother, which will change by the end of the screenplay.  We will also see the internal conflict of Will and Angela.

Workshop | Cameras 1: SWEFF (28th September 2016)

(Or, Sounds, White Balance, Exposure, Focus and Framing)

Today we were in the studio getting an introduction to the Sony PMW cameras we will be using throughout the course.

Jason and I trying to work our way around one of the rigs

We started off practicing with the camera focus, and zoom by tracking one of us walking toward the camera, and trying to maintain the clarity using the focus.  This proved a difficult challenge initially, but we more or less got the hang of it (still a lot of room for improvement though) - this as because we had to do three things at once, using only two hands, not to mention the level of precision required to maintain the focus, whilst tracking.

We also tested out some of the audio equipment, including a barrel microphone, boom pole and the 'dead wombat'.  It was interesting to see how drastically different speech can sound when recorded using a proper directional microphone; it really improves the quality of the video we were recording, which highlights the importance of effective sound engineering in TV production.


We also briefly looked at white balance, which I struggled with a little bit on account of my colour blindness, but the cameras allow for this to be carried out without too much hassle.

I enjoyed our first camera workshop, as it was a big step up from the low-budget equipment I am used to using, which will prove useful later on, but there is still a way to go before I would consider myself confident enough to shoot using these tools.

Story-telling | Watching Short Films: 'Soft' by Simon Ellis (26th September 2016)

In order to get a grasp of the sort of thing we will be producing, we looked at Soft, a short film by Simon Ellis, which won a plethora of awards including the grand prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

Despite being only 14 minutes long, Ellis does a terrific job of exploring a number of themes and establishes a complex relationship between the central characters.

One of the aspects of this film that makes this film so powerful is how realistic it feels, the dialogue is not complex, and the action is not all dramatically choreographed: it feels as if this could have happened exactly how Ellis wrote it.  Therefore this fits into the social realism/drama genre.

The setting is important in any moving picture, and Soft is no different.  It is set in a seemingly calm urban neighbourhood which adds to the theme of social division in the film.

Whilst most of the film follows the perspective of the father, the son seems to fill the role of the protagonist, as he undergoes the most change and comes out of his shell to fight back against the gang, as the father remains emasculated by the gang attacking him, and then by his son taking control of the situation.  The 'Asbo' (in the white tracksuit) is clearly the central antagonist, as he seems to lead the rest of the gang and takes centre stage with his signature dance after each attack.

There are multiple conflicts within the film, as well as the prominent violent conflict between the gang, and the father and son:

• There is conflict between the father and son, which we can tell routes back to before the film takes place, as the father seems to ignore the son after the gang attacks him, his overall tone seems somewhat antagonistic when speaking to his son, and the son frequently asking when his mother will return home, hinting that he would prefer to confide in her than his father.  This develops later on, when the gang arrives and they argue about whether or not to defend their home or ignore the problem, and the son questions the father's contradiction made earlier on that a man should defend himself.  There are more subtle hints at this domestic conflict at the start of the film when the father returns home as the son is about to walk down the stairs into the hallway, but he runs back to his bedroom when he realises that it his father - this is the first instance we see of a tension between father and son in Soft.

• This also links in with the internal conflict of the father as he must choose between facing his fears and standing up to the gang, and hiding at his home, which he justifies by claiming that they only want to provoke a reaction.  This insecurity is brought into play before the gang arrives at their house, and the father argues with his son saying that he should stand up for himself as he is a grown man, but once they are faced with the threat of the gang, he goes against what he was trying to teach his son and allows the fear to take over.  This ultimately leads to the son losing respect for his father.

• A less prevalent conflict in Soft is another internal conflict within the gang, which is their boredom, possibly acting as the basis for their antisocial behaviour.  Ellis enforces this with the use of the cameraphone footage of their antics, suggesting that they have nothing better to do but to harass people and be nuisances in their community.

There is an abundance of themes present within Soft as well:

• Fatherhood, role-reversal and coming of age would seem to be the overarching themes of the film, as the role of the father is brought into question when his home and son are threatened, and when he is unable to step up, the roles of father and son are switched, as the son is able to take action and fight back against the gang.  We can see in the final scene that the father makes an attempt to take action, but the use of a wide angle lens distorts his attempt to appear powerful, and this ends quickly as the asbo easily puts an end to the father's attempt at courage.  This leads to the son taking control of the situation by coming out of the house and beating up the gang with a cricket bat, and despite the father trying to take back control of the situation by disabling the car alarm, we can see that the son is acting as the father conventionally should, by dropping the bat at the father's feet and closing the door behind him as he reenters the house, highlighting that he has changed, and come of age to compensate for his father's inability to do so.

The father tried to take control of the situation

• Fear and masculinity also play a large part in Soft, particularly in the character of the father.  His fear is brought to light as he is walking home from the cornershop and the camera tracks him on his way home, creating a sense of uneasiness about him, which is cemented as we see him shaking later on, and once the gang arrives at his house, we see him cower away and avoid any confrontation, despite his conversation with his son, claiming that his son is a grown man and should be able to defend himself.  This brings his masculinity into question when he does not defend himself, and the motif of the loose tie dangling after the gang has left embodies how he has lost what he claimed makes a man; the capacity to defend himself.

The motif of cricket is repeated throughout Soft

• There is also a running theme of social difference in the film, with the contrast between the gang, who we assume is from a lower class background due to the way they dress, their dialect and their antisocial behaviour, whilst the father and son seem to be more middle class, with an emphasis on the father's business attire, the change in location from the cornershop to a peaceful neighbourhood, and the recurring motif of cricket.  Throughout the film, Ellis gives us hints toward climax of the film - when the son uses the cricket bat to fight off the gang - at the beginning, when the father trips over the cricket bag, the cutbacks to the cricket bag, and a postcard on the fridge which highlights the significance of cricket in their lives.  This emphasises the importance of class in the story, as we see division between those of a lower social class, and those of a more middle class background, and in the end, the middle class takes control, perhaps commenting on class and suggesting that class is still an issue in today's Britain.

After discussing Soft at length, we then came up with a 25 word pitch for Soft, similar to the task last week, and as we must do for our own screenplays.  This is the pitch I came up with:

'A man must face his fears or risk losing the respect of his son as a gang attacks their home: will he make the right choice?'

I slipped above the word limit at 26 words, but my initial pitch included adjectives, such as 'violent gang', and I had included more detail , such as 'defending their home', but opted to remove them, so to leave more to the imagination of the potential audience and to avoid revealing too much of the plot.  Despite my belief that the son is the central protagonist, I chose to focus my pitch on the father, just as the film takes place from his perspective, and so I chose to make him the subject of the pitch, which also restricts how much of the plot I reveal, as the son changes the most in the film, as opposed to the father.

Watching Soft has given me a clearer picture of what I will be producing, and has also sparked some more potential ideas for my screenplay by reminding me of my own experiences with antisocial behaviour in the past.  I feel that Soft is a testament to the amount of depth and intrigue can be achieved through good writing and direction, despite being a fairly simple plot.

Story-telling | Screenplay Writing Workshop with Steve Coombes (26th September 2016)

Today we had our first lecture with screenwriter, Steve Coombes, which was a great opportunity to learn from a man with more than 27 years in the industry.  The purpose of this lecture was to begin understanding what goes into a making a screenplay, with overtones of what we would expect to see through Steve's own experiences in writing for shows such as Lovejoy, New Tricks, and Hustle.

We began by looking at the basic timeline of events that leads up to a show or film being produced, starting with the pitch or logline, followed by the treatment, then bible, all before a first draft of the script is achieved.  After the redrafts of the initial script, then comes the shooting script, which must then be greenlit before making it to production.  The amount of hassle that goes into getting a show to the shooting script surprised me somewhat, as this would require so much time and willpower before a script has even been approved for production, which gave me an idea of how much work a writer in the TV or film industry bust have to go through.

Steve also touched upon the writers strike of the late 1980s, in which producers in the US looked toward British writers for producing content - this highlighted to me that writing can be a cutthroat environment, sometimes with little certainty as to how secure your job might be depending on the political environment of the companies you may be working for.

We were also made aware of how quickly the television industry is changing due to developments in technology and the accessibility of viewing platforms now available to us, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, as opposed to cable television.  Piracy is also shaping the future of television, as some people would much rather illegally download TV programmes and films that pay a subscription or license fee.

Moving on from the industry in general, we focused on a script for the opening scenes of American Beauty:

From this, we were able to see the developments in a draft of a script to the shooting script and we did this using the 5 'golden rules' of writing a screenplay.

1. Clarity in a screenplay is vital, as it is the foundation that holds the production together.  This led onto the idea that a pitch is on a 'need-to-know' basis, meaning that we should only divulge important information that will keep the audience interested - jump straight into the action and keep on jumping.
2. A moving picture story should be shown, and not told, which draws from the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said "what can be shown, cannot be said".  This is the rule that stuck out the most for me, and made me consider how I could transfer this into my screenplay through the use of dialogue and cinematography, as opposed to a narrator or the characters saying what is happening in a literal sense.  This is why flashbacks and voiceovers, if executed poorly, this can come across as a 'cheat' to get across a story.
3. A screenplay should be structured like a joke: the setup, the distraction, then the payoff.  This rule confused me initially but it does make a lot of sense now, as a good story subverts what the audience expects, just as a good joke does.
4. Know your ending.  This is a fairly straightforward rule, but that does not mean it is an important rule, as knowing the ending can give the story a sense of solidity - everything you write will be relevant to the ending of the story.
5. A good screenplay needs memorable moments.  Steve made a good point that, after watching a film or TV show, it's particular moments that people remember, not necessarily discussing the character development or the political nature of the political world within the show (although I do enjoy doing this with Game of Thrones).  Therefore, I will need to think about picking particular moments within my screenplay to make it memorable to my audience.

We could see a contrast between the earlier drafts of the American Beauty script and the final shooting script, which correlated with Steve's 'golden rules', the one that stood out the most was to show the story rather than tell it.  In the earlier draft, there is a news report which essentially just explained that the central character, Lester Burnham, has been killed and that his daughter and an accomplice are suspected of carrying out the murder.  The later version eliminates this, and we are left with hints as to what is happening, but also we saw a hint at the other conflicts within the story through the introduction of Lester's wife, daughter and neighbours.  Despite that this opening had a voiceover, I feel this is an example of where this device has been used effectively, and does not seem like cheating, as we are not just told the story, we still have a sufficient level of intrigue with the line

"I have lost something. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn't always feel this... sedated. But you know what? It's never too late to get it back."

This then tells us that this story is not simply about 'who killed Lester Burnham', but will show us an interesting journey, and not just filling in before getting to the destination.

I found Steve's first lecture particularly interesting, as he is clearly a man who knows the industry very well, and his experience in screenwriting will be very useful when it gets to drafting my own screenplay.

Story-telling | Story Workshop + Short Story Task (21st September 2016)

The first task for today was 'speed-pitching', in which we had to create a 25 (or fewer) word pitch and a title for a TV show or short film based on a news article in only 15 minutes.

Here's what we came up with:

1. Big budget thriller featuring a big Hollywood star
• We found a questionably reliable news article from The Sun about a tweet sent by a university student after her body had been found burned and dismembered, and a gym instructor had already been prosecuted for the crime.
• Our pitch was: A gym instructor, played by TOM CRUISE is charged with dismembering a student, but a tweet from beyond the grave suggests there's more to the story.
2. British comedy series for a late night channel
• This one was not too difficult but we were given the example of Channel 4, which is notorious for its edgy and sometimes controversial subject matters.  We found an article about a black pastor, who was killed by a US police officer as the officer thought the pastor was reaching for a gun.
• We twisted the story a considerable amount, as if the officer had moved to the UK, focusing on the struggle to cope with our gun regulations: A US cop struggles to conform to British arms regulations, already guilty of tazing a black pastor.  We also came up with the name Norfolk Five-O.
3. Low budget short film shot in a council estate
• This pitch was the most difficult, as we were faced with a limitation of being low-budget, and on a specific set, however we were free to decide on the genre, ours being a drama.  The article we used was about a young boy who died after participating in a recent playground game called 'the passing-out game'.
• We decided to dramatise this slightly, focusing on the community that the boy left behind: A small community struggles with the loss of a young boy, but they find solace by uniting against the social media fad that caused it.

This was a useful task to do as we were restricted by how much of the plot we could give away in the pitch, and having to entice potential producers to fund future work, all within 25 words.  This will become useful in the near future when it comes to pitching for my screenplay.

Later on, for our second task, we were in groups of three and were given a random location and two characters so we could draft a story, plot, and descriptions of the characters.  We were given 'FOREST' as a location, and the two characters were a 'SOLDIER' and a 'PHOTOGRAPHER', which was an odd combination and made the task quite challenging, as we struggled to decide on the circumstances that the two would meet in a forest.  However, after deciding on the names of the characters (the SOLDIER was called Sgt. Rajesh, and the PHOTOGRAPHER, Oakley Quake) and refining the setting (Bornea Forest), we were able to come up with three basic ideas:

1. OAKLEY enters forest with his dog, when suddenly his dog starts barking. Knowing his dog well, he realises he must not be alone, and whilst taking pictures he notices a figure in one of the trees, but looks up to find nobody there.
2. SGT RAJESH is over watching the process of deforestation. OAKLEY is an avid campaigner for the conservation of wildlife in the forest... But does RAJESH agree with the way the forest is treated?
3. OAKLEY goes on a walk for inspiration, and comes across a military veteran, SGT RAJESH, suffering from PTSD, and he shares his story.

Whilst I would have preferred to focus on the characterisation side of the story, choosing the third idea which would have enabled us to explore SGT RAJESH in a psychoanalytical way, as a group we continued with the second idea - here is a description of the characters we came up with, and an outline of the plot for this task:

Characters

SGT RAJESH

     A soldier; he is a short and stern looking man who appears unclean from his time on duty in the jungle; he has cataracts in one eye, which is the reason for his torment by THE GENERAL, and their relationship is not a pleasant one; he is only a soldier to feed his family, and does not share the same disregard of nature as THE GENERAL.

OAKLEY QUAKE

     A photographer and wildlife conservationist; he is tall, thin and has an unkempt beard; he is passionate about putting an end to the deforestation project being led by THE GENERAL, and will do what he can to fight it, but avoids violence at all costs.

THE GENERAL

     A fat, pompous poacher with little regard for those beneath him on the social ladder; he wears a stereotypical safari hat and prefers not to get his hands dirty.

(We decided we could explore the character of the soldier further if we introduced his superior, who added to his motivation to sympathise with the photographer's cause, as THE GENERAL is shown to act very harshly toward SGT RAJESH.)

Story Outline

A soldier is on duty on the outskirts of the Borneo Forrest maintaining the flow of work within the area, as he is approached by THE GENERAL.  The soldier stands straight in the presence of this man as he is aware this man must be a figure of authority. "Sgt" "Sir! "

"See much today?" The sergeant sniggers in offence of his eye. "Something wrong?" Replies the official. "The name is Rajesh isn't it?" "Yes s...!" 

In the distance, OAKLEY casually wonders along camera in hand notices a conversation between a soldier and his official, he quickly snaps a photo of the pair.

Noticing a flash the pair turn to face OAKLEY. "And who might you be?" exclaims THE GENERAL.  Startled by the brash voice of this bear like man, the young man quickly turns and darts for the forest; THE GENERAL orders SGT RAJESH to chase after the man.

RAJESH makes haste for OAKLEY, catching up with him in a clearing, and aiming his weapon at him.  There is a tense moment between the two, as OAKLEY pleads for his life, and explains his opposition to the deforestation project carried out by THE GENERAL.  RAJESH is conflicted, and so he allows OAKLEY to escape, and OAKLEY darts off into the forest, dropping his camera in the process.

Shortly after, in the distance, RAJESH hears shouting, and then short bursts of gunfire.  RAJESH runs toward the commotion and discovers THE GENERAL has shot and killed an orangutan, and OAKLEY.  RAJESH is shocked - later on that night, he slips away from the encampment with OAKLEY's camera, vowing to never work for anyone like THE GENERAL again.

This task was a difficult one, not only because of the creative differences one can encounter working with others, but also because of the obscurity of the characters and location in relation to one another.  Despite this, we were able to overcome these challenges, and come up with a basic outline of a potential screenplay, and this will be valuable experience for when it comes to creating my own screenplay.

Story-telling | The Brief (19th September 2016)

Today we were given the brief for our first unit, 'Story-telling', which will involve creating a ten-page screenplay, either the first two minutes of what we have written, or a trailer, as well as keeping a journal for our research.  We were also given a starting point of 'The Meeting', and should focus on one main location and the meeting of two characters, but other small locations and minor characters could be introduced as well.

This made it clear that the focus of this unit was leaning toward the writing side of TV production, which sparked my interest, as most of my experience at the moment lies in editing and post-production, rather than creative writing.  Despite this, I am looking forward to writing my first screenplay, and my English A Level should mean I'm not going in completely blind, but that doesn't mean this is going to be a walk in the park.

Given the choice between a comedy, drama, or thriller, I was immediately torn between comedy and thriller, but that's the not necessarily the best way to look at it - in this instance, it would work better if I develop ideas about the story and plot before working out the tone, and genre of my screenplay.

I have had several very basic ideas so far looking at the potential meeting of two people:

• "Tinder match gone wrong"
• This came to me whilst re-watching Black Mirror recently, which focuses on the impact of modern technology and social media, and the potential dangers of it in our lives.  This could take the shape of a dark thriller, with the meeting going wrong in a sinister way, or could also take a comical route with more light-hearted issues arising from a Tinder date.
• "Meeting with a counsellor"
• Mental health is something that I take very seriously, and so expressing this through my screenplay could work out well with my own experiences, and the experiences of people I know.  This could take the shape of a drama or thriller, exploring the characters in a high level of depth due to the potentially complex nature of why the character is seeing a counsellor.
• "Family reunion"
• This idea is my most basic, but this means it could go a number of directions, whether it is a comedy, drama, or thriller, and I could draw from meetings with my own family members.
• "Videogame meeting"

• For some reason, this came to me on the train to London a few days ago, I'm not sure how or why but I quite liked it.  As with my first idea, this would focus on the impact of modern technology, but this would explore online multiplayer gaming, which I am very familiar with.  Several people I know have met their best friends through a game they played online, but there is also a risk surrounding people you meet online, as they may not always be what you expect, which could work for both a drama, or a thriller, depending on the outcome of this meeting.

I still have time to think about and refine my ideas before submitting a pitch for my screenplay, who knows, the idea I settle with could be completely different with my initial thoughts, but I think I am off to a good start in my thought process.

Introducing Me | UCA TV Production Summer Project