A quick soul search about being back in Alta

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Well, so much for putting my hand up, confirming that I would keep up the blog after the last semester. I really ment it though, and I’m hoping that this entry will light a spark that motivates me to keep writing.

The last time I wrote, I was in Melbourne. The big and wonderful city that allows you to become anonymous, to disappear in the crowd as just another human being that doesn’t have to affect anyone around her. My situation is pretty different now. I’m back home in Alta, a city with a population of 18 000 people, and I am currently trying to figure out what to make of this place.

To explain my situation better, I’ll try to describe what it was like growing up here. Oh, and it might be like this anywhere, but this is at least where I think my Norway brain and Australia brain crashes.


Like I mentioned earlier, Alta is a small place. We are blessed with having nature at our doorstep, and politicians who constantly struggle to improve the living standard, which might lead to more people wanting to move to the district. The schools I’ve gone to are small, but not tiny; there were always kids around. However, you have few, if none, opportunities to interact with someone of your own choosing: that is, you are somehow limited to whoever surrounds you, without realising that there are people out there with all sorts of interests. In my case (and I assume this goes for others as well) this meant that in order to fit in with the “cool kids” I had to adapt, to alter my interests, and become someone who could be considered in the group. This became somewhat of an obsession; being part of the cool group. Although I envied the kids who broke away from the popularity ladder and focused on doing what they wanted, I didn’t manage to seperate myself from the thought that once I was popular, I would no longer be insecure, weak, and all the other features teenagers adapt to themselves. This went on until High School, where I finally started to develop a personality of my own.

However, the popularity ladder still mattered, and I started seeing it in a bigger scale. Outside of school it was still present: a bit more subtle, but you would notice it while walking in the city centre, that people had, if not a certain rank, at least a singificant status that would have to be acknowledged.

I guess, in my head, the whole city is constructed this way. It is so small that you can easily climb to the “top”, and the fact that it takes a small effort to impress less people, I guess it is tempting to do so. Before I left Alta I would claim that people knew who I was; I played on a handball team that did fairly well, I worked for the local tv-station, and I still tried to please everyone in order to not fall out of the accepted and popular zone.

One of the first things I noticed after coming from Melbourne, where I spent 1 and a half year being 100% myself, was that I instantly got the same feeling of having to fit in. Is it okay to wear this, or is it too different? Can I say that? Or will it make me the weird girl who no longer fits in? One thing that instantly got me thinking about this was all the attention around my nose ring. HOLY CRAP, how difficult is that to accept? I’ve received one positive comment, about 20 questions on whether it is real, and an unknown number of unapproving head shakes.

However, at least some things have changed. I don’t care to the same extent that I did. I’m not afraid to let people know I disagree, or to cut them off if they’re being assholes. It is a small change, but it means the world to me. So what if not everyone here likes me? No one can ever be loved by everyone. And if it doesn’t work for me here, there is without a doubt one place out there that will.

I think the part that worried me the most about coming home was whether I would still get along with my friends; after all, its been a long time since I’ve seen them consistently. I was thrilled to find that there is still a spot for me, although I’m not exactly the same as when I left. Then again, neither are they.

And thank God for that. What retards we were.

 

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Final submission

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And there it is, the last struggle of this subject. I’m not going to lie and say that its been all fun; when it comes to this final assignment it would be an exaggeration to say that there has been heaps of fun. The reason for this is not that it was a boring assignment; the idea and the process of making it is in theory very interesting and creative. However, when you’re handling 70-80 videos, and have to deal with software such as Final Cut Pro and Korsakow (which are both prone to create severe bullshit if you’re not cautious), it becomes pretty destructive for my already pained braincells.

BUT NOW IT’S SUBMITTED!
After some struggle we managed to get it up online (once again I have to give some credit to Adrian for not only saving our project, but also helping us with the upload), and seeing it as a whole made me realise how pleased I am with the result.

I’m about to faint from a lack of sleep, so I’m just going to let you judge for yourself.
Here’s the final project, the production portfolio, and the final essay.

Maybe, if I can find time for it, I’ll come back and do a better summary of the project and the process. However, I think most of it is already accounted for in the essay and in the portfolio.

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Stress and uncertainty

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Oh LAWD. I’m in a deep, musk smelling pit of despair. What do you do when you’ve seen your film so many times that you’re unable to see whether it is good or bad, which changes that could improve it, and what works and what doesn’t?

While waiting for our final Korsakow film to finish snuing, I went down to the editing suites to see if I could make our film a little more attractive to look at. Based on the feedback we have gotten so far, I think it’s already pretty good; however, after seeing the amazing progress that other groups have made, I’m starting to get nervous about how our film will look in comparison to the others.

HOLD IT RIGHT THERE SUNNIVA!

I’ve been trying to teach myself how to avoid comparison to others; this applies to every aspect of my life, in film, assignments, popularity, sport, appearance etc. My mother always told me that nothing good comes out of this: I can only be myself, do my own things, and that is good enough. While I assume this is what all mothers are told to tell their kids as soon as the baby pops out at the hospital (or in the elevator for that matter), there is definitely some truth in it; if I constantly compare my things to what others make, how can I ever make something original and daring? And how can I ever imagine a career in such a competitive field if I don’t have faith in my own skills and work?

On the other hand, comparison can be extremely useful. It brings about ideas, and most importantly, it pushes you to improve something you had settled with because it was just about “good enough”. When I saw what some of the other students had managed to do in the editing suites I were blown away, it was absolutely shocking to see how good some of the films looked.

Has our film really changed that much since we did our first rough cut? Well of course it has. What I’m wondering is whether we’ve experimented enough, tried enough options to know that what we’ve settled for is actually the best option.

We have lowered the saturation, darkened the blacks and mids (and at instances we’ve lightened the highlights even further), added 8-point garbage matte on the clips, and it does look good. However, comparative demons are lurking in the back of my head; should we have desaturated the entire film completely, and maybe having red as the only visible colour? Did we try all the different structures to tell the story the best way?

Luckily there are still some days left where we can tighten it up and polish it even more. I really want to be able to feel confident when we show it at the screening, knowing that no matter what the reception is, I’ll be happy with the result and the process.

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Ediediediiiiting Piaff

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It’s gotten to the point where I’m unable to see if the film is good or not. I’ve stared at the screen fro hours, played it over and over, and I’m just so familiar with it that I feel like I can’t do anything to make it better.

However, I must say that adding the final track that we’re going to used helped.

I can’t get enough of it, it is magical. I haven’t personally checked the licensing of it, but Ian said he was sure that it could be used, and he’s normally right in most things. I’ll make sure that it is clear tomorrow.

There is something really amazing that happens when you add music to footage; there is a beat, a pace, and when those two match up it is alluringly beautiful. I have tried to keep this in mind when I’ve edited the film, and hopefully it will look match better than the last music we used (Robin mentioned when we got feedback on our fine cut that the music and the footage was just put together, and that it didn’t work together) last time.

I love editing, especially if it is a compilation where only footage and music is required; it is fun and easy to match the cuts to the beat. However, if you manage to match the movement within the frame to the beat as well, the result is so much better. In this film we’re also dealing with a voiceover, so there are four audio elements that is at play at all time; music, atmos, foley, and voiceover. When the music is at it’s most intense I’ve attempted to move the voiceover around it, so it wont be difficult to hear what is being said.

One of my favorite shows is the “A Game of Thrones” series; after seeing the first season (I think I finished it in 4 days) I read all the books (which took me about 3 months), and I’m completely lost in that universe. When the release of the second season slowly approached I started biting nails again, and then this short trailer came out:

YVYØGHVPODAÆP^KDAKB^K^FSKBPPFÅSBK

How good is it??

The editing in this clip combines all those four layers of audio, and it is completely breathtaking. Notice how the clips are matching the beat? And pay attention to the first shot of Arya; she looks up at the exact same time as the beat, which gives me chills all the way down to my toes.

Of course, Florence and the Machine deserves a medal for this wonderful piece of music. The editors have done a great job of fading the music down when something is being said, it goes almost unnoticed. We have been experimenting with changing the sound levels as the protagonist moves into different rooms, but it became a bit jumpy; we decided to play with keeping the music both diegetic and non diegetic. In “the real world” the rooms are on different levels in the house, but this won’t be evident for anyone watching it.

We are doing what we hope will be the final edit tomorrow, and I will be genuinely sorry about leaving the editing suites for the library; essays seems so pointless when there is so much magic that can be done.

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Come on brain!

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Holy potato. I’m even running out of good curse words, thats how tired my brain is.
I thought I had heaps of time a week ago, but then that week disappeared.. And now it’s just a week left until Korsakow is due!

So it is due in a week, and I don’t want to do this anymore I’m up for the challenge! Let’s sum up our project a bit.

It isn’t going so fast, at least not on my part of the project. I’ve been assigned with handling the korsakow file, which ended up including adding all the videos, making the thumbnails (I’ll come back with a rant about this a bit later), and snuing the whole shebang. We have decided to do the keywords on wednesday together, so we all get a say in how it is going to look in the end.

Tangent: I WISH PEOPLE WHO CAN’T PLAY AN INSTRUMENT COULD PRACTICE IN A BASEMENT WITH SOUNDPROOF WALLS, CAUSE I’LL END UP IN JAIL IF THEY DON’T STOP STRUMMING THAT GUITAR WITH WHAT SOUNDS LIKE A DYING CAT.

Anyways. Thumbnails. Let me start of with introducing our interface.

Thats the design we have decided on. Our concept is The city is light, and we have been filming different parts of the city to show to show a variance in light (day/night, inside/outside). Since we’re having videos as thumbnails, we have decided to keep the thumbnails in black and white, so people will have to actually click into that specific video to see it in colour. The fact that we’ve cropped them also limits the view; it might make people curious to see what the whole video looks like.

Making these thumbnails turned out to be a pain in the ass, and if we somehow end up changing our minds about the design, I’m quitting the project; it has taken forever. I’m actually working with as I’m writing these blogposts.
I got some information from Adrian that got me started, but it almost exhausted my poor blonde braincells to figure it out in the end. I tried to find it online, but the solution was nowhere to be found, so I figured I’d be the kind soul to put the info out there.

This is what you do:

1. Make your videos and store them in a folder (duuuh).
2. Open final cut pro, and search for Compressor in the help section. Go to Send to Compressor
3. The program is opened, and you’ll see this:

4. Drag your files where it tells you to drag them (trust the software people!)

5. THEN comes the part I struggled with.. You have to add settings and a destination to the files. The easiest way to do this is to click on the + button in this window

Choose the folder you’ve already made for your thumbnails (yeah I know this should have been part of step one)
If you have more files in there and they are all selected, the destination will be added to all of them.

6. Now you have to set the destination for each individual file. Click inside the tab that has been created inside the file, and press Change Settings. 

I think you might be supposed to create a folder in the setting box, but I didn’t and it worked out really messy fine.

I didn’t have a picture of choosing a folder, but I did have another picture of how to get there! Anyways, when you press Change Settings you can just choose the Custom folder, that works fine.

7. After you’ve added the settings to a clip, you get some fancy options in the Inspector box. Go to the Geometry option inside the Inspector, and there you’re able to crop the file into a desired size.

Save as, give it a name. Proceed to the other files.

8. Then press Submit in the folder where all your files are.

(The reason I’m adding this picture is because I would probably still be confused if I read this for the first time. You’ll find the submit button at the bottom right corner)

It will then be moved here:

Aaaand as soon as it is finished loading you can find the new files in the folder you’ve directed them to. VOILA!

I’m still waiting on some videos from Scott, but hopefully we can start on the keywords soon.

Thats it for now, I’m going to smash some faces with a guitar bed.

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Participation

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Integrated Media 1 has come to an end (not the assignments of course, who am I kidding). It has been a very interesting ride; I’ve learned so much, but I have no idea how or when it happened. In the lecture we did self assessment, which is normally a part I hate; when it is done only orally everything is determined by what mark the first person give themselves. I guess the teachers have become aware of this, cause this time we were given sheets where we had to write down what we have done well, what we have learned to do better, and what we could have done better, as well as a final mark.

Despite the finality of writing your mark down before you say it in class, I felt the anxiety creeping up my neck as the first student gave herself a mark: PASS. Holy Poop! Talk about being self critical! I mean, if you’re attending most classes, do some blogposts, and hand in all the assignments, that is at least worth a credit. It doesn’t matter how bad your Korsakow film is (I have no idea of how her film turned out, this is just an example), the assessment is about whether you did it or not, and if you put a reasonable amount of time doing it. Anyway. I had already decided to give myself an HD. I don’t know how I could have participated more than what I have, and I felt that an HD was only fair. However, when I witnessed the overwhelming choir of D’s and C’s, I started doubting my choice; did I really deserve an HD? Lets see.  I know that the goals we made in the start of the semester is pretty redundant now, but I’ll have a look at how i’ve done following these guidelines.

  1. Do the readings, make sure you understand them, and then write blogposts where you add your opinions and own research to each reading.
  2. Find relevant external sources online that can be applied to the course.
  3. Focus on creativity and experimentation to explore different options in the sketch videos.
  4. Make more videos than required, practice makes perfect!
  5. Interact with other students on their blogs and in class, give and receive critique
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That pretty much sums it up, and also gave a nice reference to a Wella commercial.- I’ve done all the readings, and thanks to the explanations we’ve been given in lectures and the stuff I have found on Adrians and other students blogs, I’ve managed to understand them.

- Online is alfa omega, not only in this course, but in general. I have become more aware of how to make do online, how to behave, etc. This has provided me with a lot of great resources and information.- Creativity and experimentation. Oh how this has evolved since we first started making the sketch videos. I admit it, in the start I wanted to make every single video into a masterpiece, polished in every way. Now, in the middle of our second Korsakow film, I am trying out new ways to film and make something whole out of little pieces. I have never done this before. i’m not sure if I like it yet, but I have definitely challenged myself to try.

- I’ve made so many videos. At the start of the semester I didn’t really know what they were for, but I saw it as a great opportunity to gain experience in filming and editing. This goal don’t really apply to this course, but it has been very good for me to film things as I see them, without a masterplan behind it.
- Interaction. Like Adrian said in the start of this semester, if we just wanted the quantitative knowledge we could just do an online course. At uni you have to interact to survive (a tad dramatic, but it’s basically a jungle out there. Make friends or die), and luckily I’m a social being. Interacting with people via their blogs has been a new and interesting experience, where you make contact through ideas and theory and practice.
However, these things has lost some importance through the duration of the course. The knowledge I feel is most relevant to this subject is very different from what I expected at the start of semester.
I’ll write down the things I found the most useful.
1. Making do. Use the things I have at hand to make my life easier, instead of limiting myself to only work if I have the “right” gear for it. Using the printer at university, borrowing the equipment to film something for my own practice, writing down stuff on my arm that I’ll use in a blogpost, or filming something amazing with my phone (ok, thats a lie, I don’t have a camera on my phone, but I’ve learned that I don’t need the fancy equipment to make something).
2. Tacit knowledge. After Adrians demonstrations of how to stand in a bar, I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget what tacit knowledge is, and the importance of it. It doesn’t matter that you’ve read hundreds of books on cinematography and cinematographers; you have to actually go out and do it, know where and when you’re going to use that knowledge. This has taught me that I don’t have to read essays anymore practice is just as important as theory, and the two needs to be combined.
3. THE HUMAN BRAIN (please go back and read the title again with the evil professor voice)
Repetition. Patterns. Gaps. This course has given me so much when it comes to structuring my work, and I’m hoping that I will be able to apply this when I film, write essays (and blogpost), etc.
We are pattern making animals. If something is just randomly thrown together, we will attempt to make a pattern so we can make sense of it. If I keep this in mind when I make movies and when I write, it allows me to expand and add things that I would have discarded earlier.
The gaps are probably the most interesting thing when it comes to making. Allowing the reader/viewer to work with you on the project, that is, add things to the gaps you deliberately put out there, the experience of reading/watching might be a whole new and thrilling journey through a work. I’m pretty sure this has something to do with why some fiction books are so captivating; there are gaps on every single page, allowing you to speculate, add images in your head, and so on. I have to remember that the reader is one of the most important parts in my work.
4. The internet and I.
The internet is not going away, and you might as well get familiar with it. Use it for everything it is worth, and learn how to behave when you’re online. The experience of getting an email from Sandi Sissel was something I would never have expected, but it made it clear to me how amazingly small the world has become. You just have to use the tools (in this case the internet) to its full potential, and you can go very far.
Last but not least I’d like to send a big thanks to Adrian. This subject turned out to be a lot of fun, and it has been one of the few subjects where I gradually have understood just about everything (thanks to your creative examples, like the roundabout with a path through it, or the bar leaning exercise). I’ve come to think of this subject as more of a lesson in life than it being purely academic.
I don’t know when or how it happened, but somehow I have learned to have more confidence in the things I do, and how I am, and for some reason I think it has something to do with this subject. Perhaps it is a combination of appreciating tacit knowledge, gaps, and making do. I no longer feel like everything I make had to be a masterpiece (of course, one day I hope to be able to make something really great), but I can just go out and make something, capture the moment, and that is enough. I’m enough, I don’t have to change to be accepted; I can do what I want, and with the amount of people living online these days there is a fair chance that someone will find my work in the cluster of things, and enjoy it for what it is.

Rabbit and Dog

Thank you for putting me on a new and exciting path! It has been a great semester, and I’ll be keeping an eye on the blog for more lessons on life.
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Action in the editing suites

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Oh la la. Ready for action.
Before the tute on Tuesday, Ian and I organised our project. We named all the shots, made bins and sequences for the different scenes, made bins for the sound effects and the foley, etc.
Next time i’m in the suites I’m going to take a picture of it. My mum will never believe I created a system that organised.

Oh and BY THE WAY! It was Norway day yesterday! Here’s some pictures

Happy Norway day, juhuuu!

CONT’D
So when Sunniva, Ian and Ed sat down in the editing suites to pimp up our movie, everything was laid out perfectly. While Ed did some radiostuff Ian and I edited the sequences separately. We decided to give the nested sequences a go, and for a while it looked like it would work; it is clean and easy. It was good to look at every single sequence separately, finding the pace and the right length, and this part of the editing was indeed very clever. I feel like each individual scene has more to give now then when I smashed everything together in the rough cut.

However, when we put it all into the nested sequence it became messy. Yeah sure, it looks like a control freak has gone all in and left no room for mess and loose bits, but unfortunately my head isn’t put together that way. In the end we copied all the different shots in a sequence, and pasted it in a master sequence (so not the whole sequence as one chunk, but all the small bits). It is harder to edit this way because you have to keep all the small bits in mind when you move things around, but that’s the way I have to do it.

When we had structured it the way we wanted, we decided to add the voiceover. Ed, our scriptwriter, was in charge of placing the voiceover in the right spots; after trying out different approaches we settled on something all three were happy with.

For me it was important that not only did the voiceover sound good, but it also had to be paced right. If the pause was too short, it sounded rushed, and our assassin might appear nervous. If the pause was too long, the voiceover didn’t feel like a continuous piece; it becomes disturbing when it suddenly comes in after a long break of silence.

Ed made sure that the monologue matched the clips; for example, when Bryden says “It is possible to kill a man with bare hands”, you see “the marks” hands in a closeup, buttoning up his shirt. When he says “Hell, I’ve killed a man with a sharpened toothbrush”, the toothbrush is being placed in a cup.

When we were happy with the placement of the voiceover, we took on a most daunting task: Colour grading.

The amount of work I’ve done in this field so far has been minimal. I’m able to change the colours with the 3 point Colour Correction tool, but I rarely use it. I’ve also worked a little bit with Brightness and Contrast, but again, it is on very rare occasions.
However, in the lecture Paul showed some very useful tips on how to use Final Cut to its full (for second year students anyways) potential.

EIGHT POINT GARBAGE MATTE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!
I feel invincible! I can conquer the world with this tool!

It was pretty awesome. BUT! It did become a bit more complicated when we added it to shots where the camera is moving. It feels a bit like you’re looking through a telescope; the edges are rounded, feathered (like your peripheral vision would be if you were looking through binoculars). It could work against or for our purpose. After all, our protagonist is being watched, so it could function as a subliminal message about this. However, it might also just look disturbing and weird..

As soon as we started working with the colour correction I fell into an editing coma; I just couldn’t stop. Seeing the extreme transformation on our film was breathtaking; I suddenly saw the shot I had visualised in my head when we made the storyboard (okay, this isn’t completely true. I saw the shot in Se7en, a film by David Fincher. My point is, it looked so much more like it now!)
Dark and menacing, just like our voiceover.

We lowered the saturation, made the black range even darker, the mid tones became darker as well, and in some instances we pumped the whites up a bit.
In the lecture Paul talked about shot matching, at this became essential here; one type of colour grading might look amazing on one shot, but it has to match the other shots we have.

It is a tedious process. I’m as patient as I am organized. The redering is probably going to make me crazy. Which might be exactly what I need to become a successful film maker; after all, they’re all a bit crazy.

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Ooops. Delayed again..

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EDITING! Yes! My second most favorite thing when it comes to making movies.

I love the fact that I can make our movie into 10 different movies in the editing suites. I could simply change the order, and the story would be completely different. In this film we are sticking with the script, but there are still a lot of playing to be done. Here’s the notes from this weeks lecture. I’ve got a million excuses for being late, but none that will be considered valid.

 

Audio and colour correction is definitely going to improve your film.

My boss at the local tv station in Norway went to sound school (directly translated from Norwegian. I know it probably has another name, but you get the idea), and although he started working with TV, audio has always been closest to his heart. “Good sound can fix bad footage, good footage can’t save bad audio” is something I’ve heard him say numerous times. And oh what a pain it was. I had to be extremely picky with everything I made, and he would always find something that wasn’t right, and I would have to fix it.

Such a pain. But what a valuable lesson! Now I’m starting to realise the importance, and I’m not looking forward to making the soundscape in our film; it’s going to be a big job.

A useful trick! Just as it is helpful to look at how the visual edit works by turning the sound of and just looking, try listening to your edit with eyes closed. I bet 50 dollars that you’ll hear “bad” sounds that you didn’t notice before.

Important to look at the film as it is shown infront of an audience. You get technically nervous, hyperconscious of everything.
Screening is a preview. Then go to the edit suites, recut it after getting comments, then try to submit it to a festival.

Reflection is key to your work, informing and improving your work as a filmmaker. 
Yihaa. I guess that is what I’m supposed to do now. I’ll do it soon. After I finished this. I promise.

Sound editing
Choose a scene:
- whose listening
- whose talking
- analyse the rhythm
- the space
- the pauses
- the talking over (interrupting)
- the atmos
- sound fx
- the music

AHA! Here’s a free layout on HOW to do a reflection. Gah we’re so spoiled.

Look at other work an see how the audio is put together.

Here’s something I didn’t know: If you want to elongate on time – don’t cut in action. A wide shot would take less time than a lof of close ups.

Complex sound scape that you don’t notice. Atmos, foley, cars, fridge noises.
Audio needs to peak at -6 to -10.
Use Audio Mixer in Final Cut to change the different sounds separately

freemusicarchive.org

Look at all your shots, and make sure they match. Of course, light changes from different location, but unless it is the purpose of the film, you don’t want the light and the colours to change dramatically.

Second level is make the image more punchy, larger than life, filmic, less video.

Yes. Yep. Ja. Jepp. That’s exactly what our film has been missing. It is a cool story, well shot and well lit, but it is very.. normal. If we want the footage to match the dark, dramatic story, we have to do some changes.

Many ways to do this: blacken the blacks. Saturate the colours or de saturare. Make it cooler, warmer.

Do it in small bursts. Don’t spend too much time on it.
Set up a separate sequence.
Don’t apply to all till the end.
Paste attributes.

Use vignette to spot out actors? Contradicts the resistance of use of shallow depth of field
Eight Point Garbage Matte… Click on the points and drag them where you want them.

Copy clip that has the setttings you want. Then go into next sequence, mark the clips you want to ass the attributes to. Then go Edit, then Paste attributes, and choose the attributes you want.

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HERPDERP!

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Before I even start this post I’d like to take a moment to appreciate what this lovely meme lady is holding in her hands; the horror series Goosebumps. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the first multilinear narrative (boyah Integrated Media!) I ever encountered. In one of the books I read you were able to choose different solutions to a problem, for example: You’re trapped in a hole filled with vicious man eating rats. What do you want to do? 1. Climb into the sewer and hope they don’t follow you. 2. Eat the rats. 3. Push your friend so the rats will be busy eating him while you escape.
You would then, after choosing, get a page number to go to, and the story continued from there.
Of course, it didn’t last forever. I went back and tried all the different solutions, and after 5 or 6 goes I had tried every possible outcome. However, it was a completely new way of reading for me. I was part of it!

Anyways. The reason I chose to start this post with that picture is because I’m pretty sure thats what I looked like as I walked out of the cinema today. At least I felt like that.
The movie that made me this excited is King of Devils Island.  
ERMERGERD!
I know I might be slightly biased and blow this movie out of proportions since it is from Norway, but so be it. It is without a doubt one of the best films I’ve seen this year (I’m guessing I’ve seen at least 40 movies so far), on every level.
The way the characters are built is one of the most impressive elements; We have Erling, a newly arrived inmate of the island, who appears to be a dumb, violent brute. As the story unfolds, we realise that he is indeed a violent boy, but his heart is in the right place; he pushes the other boys to stand up against the unfair treatment they receive.
The governor, played by the amazing Stellan Skarsgård, is also a bit of a puzzle; we keep thinking that he has a good side, that he will eventually see the situation from the boys point of view.

The story itself is quite extraordinary. Knowing that it is based on real events (from 1915), it becomes even more absorbing.

The cinematography is stunning. Again, it might be a common thing for homesick Norwegians to get such a kick out of slow pans showing the frozen landscape of mid winter Norway. Belen and I both agreed that we could almost smell the season as we watched.
The frequent use of depth of field is also a bonus. I know some people don’t like this (Paul), but I think it really brings out the object the cinematographer wants us to focus on.

They have managed to create a mood and feel of “the old days” by the use of lighting (and probably some decent colour grading). Why is it that this type of light connotate the past?

Perhaps it has something to do with how we are able to see the actual past today; low saturated images, or even black and white.
The whole movie is very blue, from the landscape to the uniforms the boys are wearing.

I really wouldn’t mind writing more about this movie, but I’m beaten and I’m going to bed. Definitely watching this one again.

 

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Lecture week 11

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OH MY GOD I can’t believe that it’s week eleven already!!
I’m slightly stressed and freaked out.. But I’ll be fine.

Alright! Todays lecture:

Sequences. 

Korsakow: duration and viewing.
When does it end? When have I viewed it long enough to get it?

Imagine all the different possibilities with these images! They have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but our brain works in a way that we will try to make a pattern no matter how random the images are.

The less a fragment narrates, the more possibilities of connection it has (think of Lego bricks). This is the model of the blog. We are applying the same logic to film making in a Korsakow film.

This is important to think about for our project. The different videos shouldn’t contain separate stories; they should constitute a whole.

Our videos shouldn’t have a predetermined shape. If you get a new lego brick, which resemble a face, you’re going to use it as a face. A old lego brick can become anything if you use your imagination.

A shot has always been a lego brick. You can join it to anything.

Oh my god I loved that metaphor! GO ADRIAN!

Grammar defines what logically should come next. This does not apply in sound and film.

In Korsakow users have more agency. To decide what to do, what it means, what particular connections and patterns might mean – even what patterns exist.

Users define how long your film is. Not you. (think about this when you make every individual clip! Make them entertaining or pleasing to watch so they don’t grow tired! Not too long. )

Hard media is when you use a computer to make something solid. Dvd, book etc. FIXED.

In the software, it is soft, unfixed.
Affordances that computers make available.

We have control in word: everything is possible, paper is unlimited, corrections, etc. We take it for granted. Also in editing; imagine editing using a Steinbeck. Actually cutting the film. You cant do dissolves, layer tracks, you can’t visualise what you’ve done. We have no idea of how easy we have it.

Digital affordances, so we want to preserve the soft after we publish them? Korsakow can’t be turned into a movie to show on tv. It isn’t a Korsakow film if it is linear.
Wikipedia is another example of soft media. Everything is open to re-editing.

Quick time. Soft video environment. Instead of showing a jpeg 25 frames per second, it is just one whole frame. Small size. Frame rate.
Important thing: each one is an object, always stays an object.

This is soft video – video is made up of tracks that stay separate

Bergen clouds: video that can only work on a computer. Ambient. Not telling a story. No beginning, middle or end. What type of movie is it when the user can change the frame rate and load other things? (Really liked this one. Got a bit homesick from seeing the snow)

Objects stay objects after publication.

Separate movies to the film? Like a webpage. The files live somewhere else, and they are loaded into the project.

Danish snow! Yay!

Propositions. Work makes claims. Video without frame rate. Still a video.
It is a collage between the relations of how you put things together. Is Danish Snow a text? It allows the user to play.

What proposition (one is ample) do you think your own korsakow film project is making? How do you describe this?

Hm. Is this a trick question? I guess we’re trying to propose a city made up of light. However, this might not be what the reader interprets it as.. Perhaps they just see it as a bunch of different lights, missing the fact that we are trying to describe the city..

The two biggest things to take from IM1 are:

To have a sense and some understanding about what it means and feels like to make and be inside of multilinear media.

You need to be in the environment to understand the work. You need to have an answer. Those who work successfully in these environments have immersed themselves in it.

Threshold meanings/concept. You deeply and fundamentally understand something better. When students get that, they’re a filmmaker. Important concepts, you’re lucky if you have one in each subject.

Understand that when you make something, how you make it, the body is a proposition. Not what you think it is about; its about what the work says about itself. 

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