It may be a little early to be thinking of this, but tonight I've been thinking a little about next years big project, the comedy sans dialogue.
While at a friends house tonight, my friend who is extremely passionate about opera, ballet and theater in general, showed me an excerpt from a ballet adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. I'd seen a ballet once before in my life (an amazing interpretation of The Nutcracker, with unbelievable set-pieces and costumes) and it really is an amazing experience. Aside from the dancing, there's a real element of acting involved, and unlike many silent films where over-acting is common, the acting I've seen in ballet is often understated but still extremely effective.
Here is the excerpt from the Alice in Wonderland Ballet that my friend showed me earlier. What I love is that the dancing, acting and music all join forces for different effects, in this case being one of humour. When we see the Queen of Hearts devouring a tart from one of her servants, her movement is completely ridiculous and the way the tart is just stuffed into her mouth and stays there for ages is just hilarious! Throughout the video she prances around and presents herself, to establish herself to the audience who her character is, and with this presentation of herself and her childish behaviour towards her servants, we get a true sense of what she is like.
I've always had an interest in ballet, and my favourite would have to be Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake'. It's not a comedy, in fact it's completely the opposite, but the whole spectacle and interpretations I've seen in broadcasted recordings really are truly stunning.
This is the prologue of Swan lake, where we see Odette fall under the spell of the evil wizard Rothbart. It's incredibly simple, like in the first video, the dancing, acting and music all combine to tell the story. It's powerful and dramatic, and the lack of dialogue in no way prevents the audience getting a coherent story.
This is my favourite excerpt from. I like the gloomy set-pieces that I've seen from this show, and this video showcases ballet's ability to combine the dance, music and acting to show character.
Overall I'd say this style of performance is a huge influence on my ideas and plans for how I want this future project to look, whether or not my colleagues agree with me is to be seen!!
Movies inspire me a lot, but there's a lot of different things that inspire me in different areas, e.g. visual style and writing. I'll list a few here and I'll most likely come back to them, but really... There are way too many to count!
Music and Musicians:
Music inspires most people, and it's no different for me. I have a pretty varied taste in music, so I like to listen to everything from female rappers like Azealia Banks, to indie-folk rock bands like Tegan and Sara (my favourite band of all time), to classic hard rock like Fleetwood Mac.
Tegan and Sara are openly gay Canadian twins who have been on the music scene for more than a decade. Their style is constantly evolving and they're always trying new styles and doing off-the-wall collaborations with popular producers like David Guetta. What I mostly love is their acoustic, low-production songs that focus on the lyrics and the guitar, particularly their song 'Walking with a Ghost'. I love to interpret songs in my own way and it'll usually inspire my writing. I interpret Walking with a Ghost as a one-sided relationship that keeps on going, 'I was walking with a ghost', i.e. you're in a relationship with someone who isn't really there, the feelings aren't real.
These real-life problems bring me back to another one of my big inspirations, Diablo Cody. She writes about things that she knows, and beefs them up with dry wit and black comedy. Tegan and Sara do the same thing, but beef up the stories with powerful vocals and beautiful acoustic guitar.
The personal style of musicians is another thing that inspires me so much. In Camera and Lighting we learned about how a picture can make someone come across to the viewer, and in every picture I see of my favourite artists.
This picture of one of my favourite singers and models, Sky Ferreira, taken by Terry Richardson (a rapist pig who shouldn't be given the publicity and adoration he gets from so many people), tells a lot about her. It shows her punk-esque style, and the stark lighting gives it a glossy feel, making her contemporary and modern, a modern punk. Her personal style is very interesting, and definitely inspires me for the styling of my films. She's very androgynous and 'shabby-chic', but still staying feminine with her long blonde hair and sharp, elfen features.
I love this video from her most recent EP. I didn't catch the name of the director, but the visual style is stunning, and combined with the gorgeous cinematography and moody, punk styling, it's one of my favourite music videos of all time.
Fleetwood Mac are another of my favourite bands. Stevie Nicks remains one of the coolest women on the rock scene, a title she has held since the Mac rose to prominence in the 70s with their hit album 'Rumours'. My Mum even said that she always wanted to be Stevie Nicks, she had this look that was mysterious, but seriously cool, demonstrated in this lovely picture of her.
Her style is almost like a 70s hippie witch, with her bead chains and lacey, flowing dresses. This persona is truly awe-inspiring, I love it.
TV and Anime:
I'm really into my anime and manga, and recently I've been watching some that have really inspired me in my writing. I love the Magical Girl genre in anime, which is essentially cute girls in cute costumes fighting evil monsters to save the world, but recently one series has come along that has revolutionized the genre and done beautiful things. This series is Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
Don't be fooled by the cute and colourful art-style, this series has a sharp bite. It follows the typical plot of a magical girl anime:
Cute girl encounters cute magical creature
Magical creature offers her magical powers so she can fight monsters
Evil threatens to destroy the city
It has a lot of stock characters too, a term used a lot in ancient Greek theatre, but what this series does is take the basic story, and give it a dark, psychological twist by questioning the morality behind wishes and what we really want in life. Like I said before, don't be fooled, this series has no qualms about killing off your favourite character and tearing your heart out!
Another writer that enjoys genre flipping is Joss Whedon, known best for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of my favourite TV shows of all time. With 'Cabin in the Woods', he took the teen slasher flick, and completely turned it on it's head with some unbelievable twists and hilarious self-awareness
Joss also has a penchant for strong female characters, e.g. Buffy Summers, Echo from Dollhouse, and Black Widow of Avengers Assemble. Strong female characters are what I'm good at, and nearly all of my favourite characters are strong females.
Well, I think that's enough for now. I honestly could go on forever, but I shall continue this in a part 2 post where I will expand further on this influences!
Since doing my A-level in Moving Image Arts I've had my sights set on the director's chair, but since starting this HND and taking on a number of different roles, I've thought, maybe direction isn't all I'm interested in...
We had our practical assessmet last week and I was in charge of sound. I'd done sound the week before so I was confident enough in my ability to competently rig the sound and do levels etc. I rigged all talk-back headsets, and just as I was coming to the end, all proud of what I'd done, I realized I'd had them all hooked up to the wrong mic channel... Wonderful! Thankfully that was the only real slip-up and it was resolved quickly. Levels were done and I chose some great music to play over our VT. Sorted!
Sound isn't something I was always interested in, I'd thought it was tedious and I'd never had a lot of enthusiasm. But after watching films like David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, where sound is done to perfection, it really inspired me to take more of an interest in this field.
This clip from Anna Karenina demonstrates the wonderful sound that is found throughout the film. As Anna and Vronsky begin to dance, the theatre becomes a vacuum as sound slowly begins to disappear. We hear the swishing of ballgowns, the sumptuous score, and leading up to the lift, we are left with the heavy breathing of the two characters. Stunning.
This scene from David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has amazing sound. We hear the sounds of a bustling Stockholm subway, and it seems to cover everything in this industrial shrieking. We see Salander getting mugged and fighting back, and we can just about hear the sounds of her animalistic screaming and her fist meeting the face of the thief.
I've always loved music, and when I'm editing it's really something I look forward to when I get the chance to pick the best music there is for a scene. Editing is something I love to do aswell, which I feel ties in well with the sound. I love editing to a beat, which I did a lot in my A-level final film, which was a Fincher-inspired thriller with the style of Joe Wright. Editing is mundane when you have no music, but when you add the music in, the whole thing comes together beautifully and you just feel inspired.
We've been talking a lot about narrative formula in film studies lately, more specifically the Umberto Eco 'Bond' formula. I won't go into it too much, mostly because I've been living/breathing/eating/sleeping that formula for a long time now...
Anyway, one of my favourite teen movies of recent years, 'Easy A', came up with a code or a formula that should be followed when trying to make the ultimate teen movie (edit: I just googled teen movie formula and it's rubbish, don't do it). Here's a couple of good points I've picked out:
The main character has to be extremely dry and witty. They're an outsider in school, they don't conform to social norms, and they're thrust into the limelight somehow, or undergo a change in character (example: Mean Girls, Easy A, 10 Things I Hate About You)
The killer soundtrack. Music is everything in a teen movie. It needs to be a mix of current chart-toppers, classic rock tunes, and bands you've probably never heard of.
There needs to be a huge musical number for no real reason other than pure entertainment, classic examples include Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, 10 Things I Hate About You, Easy A and Mean Girls.
The script needs to be based on a classic piece of literature. This isn't the case with all teen movies, but in recent years it's definitely worked well. Good examples include Clueless, which is based on Jane Austen's 'Emma', 10 Things I Hate About You, which is based loosely on Shakespeare's 'Taming of the Shrew' and Easy A, which is jokingly based on 'The Scarlet Letter' by Nathaniel Hawke. The basis of an already existing story gives you a basic structure to work with and fill out with your own modern and contemporary ideas.
Aside from the light-hearted core of the film, there needs to be a serious tone when the character has an epiphany and loses sight of themselves. It shouldn't change the tone of the movie, as perfectly demonstrated in The Breakfast Club, Mean Girls and Easy A.
I do plan to follow this, and even though it's been done time and time again, it never stops being fresh and exciting. Exactly why I love this genre!
Rotten tomatoes is one of my favourite sites, I try not to focus too much on reviews but if I see something that's gotten good praise on their site, I'll more than likely check it out.
While browsing their main page, I noticed they had a list of the essential teen movies. Teen movies are what's really driving me creatively right now so I've listed the ones I haven't seen that interest me:
Elephant: A Gus Van Sant arthouse movie about a columbine-inspired high school shooting (Not the most tasteful right now with the recent shooting in the news however...)
Dazed and Confused: A cult classic that from what I've heard, carries the hallmarks of the perfect teen movie: a killer soundtrack, a strong ensemble cast, and a script that perfectly encapsulates school life.
River's Edge: A movie about the discovery of a girl's corpse in a small american town. It's about teenagers, and it does sound interesting so I'll definitely give it a go.
Christiane F.: A cult classic from Germany with child prostitution, drug addiction and David Bowie, who both appears in the film as himself, and composes the soundtrack. Brilliant!
Say Anything: Another classic of the genre. Cameron Crowe is one of my favourite directors, I've lost count of the amount of times I've watched Almost Famous. Classic boy-meets-girl romeo-juliet-forbidden-love story.
I'll watch each of these and post my thoughts, I feel inspired just by reading about these movies.
I was asked to look into a few different scriptwriters who I admire. A few came to mind, but a woman who I have always admired in this field is Diablo Cody.
Diablo Cody is best known for penning the script for the teen dramedy 'Juno', which is one of my favourite films of all time. The script is full of razor-sharp wit, brilliant one-liners, ridiculous situations and odd-ball characters. Aside from the comedic aspects of the story, Diablo incorporates basic human drama that really grounds the story.
Another film that she penned was one of my favourite films of last year, 'Young Adult', where she reunites with Juno director Jason Reitman. Young Adult is is a pitch black comedy with the same dry humour that I loved about Juno. Like in Juno, Diablo cements the humourous story with some serious issues and human drama. She does this beautifully in the party scene, with a really hard-hitting revelation from Mavis the main character, but still keeps a darkly comedic edge towards the end.
Basically, I want to write like Diablo Cody. We share a similar sense of humour, but I want to be able to write about things that I know. I'm not the most knowledgeable on teen pregnancy or mid-life crisis', but I've got a cornucopia of weird experiences that I would love to put onto paper!
One of my favourite directors, korean director Park Chan-Wook (famous for the likes of Oldboy, Thirst and I'm a Cyborg) is releasing his first ever english language film, and i can't be more excited. The poster and the overall look of the film looks deliciously gothic with immaculate framing, cinematography ranging from icy cold to warm and gold, and what looks to be an award-worthy performance from Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska.
The psychological drama aspect of this film is something that really inspires me, not only that but the technical mastery that Park Chan-Wook brings to all his films. I don't see this as a box-office smash, but more of a cult movie in the making. Chan-Wook isn't known for blockbusters, preferring to feature in his films medical vampires and mental patients who believe themselves to be cyborgs.
Check out the stunning trailer. March 2013 can't come soon enough! A shot I'm freaking out about is the shot of India's uncle slipping off her sneaker, and replacing it with a shiny stiletto, with the other sneaker still on her other foot, symbolising India's transition to womanhood, while also demonstrating Chan-Wook's unbelievable framing and camera work.
We took a week out from normal classes to take part in this employability week at the fancy new campus in North Belfast.
I was actually pretty excited for it, it'd be a chance to meet new people and get a chance to look around the new building I've heard so much about. I was hoping the whole week would be relevant to what I'm studying, but it turned out to be the opposite...
Instead of learning about things that would help us with our subjects and employability in our chosen fields, we basically did a lot of team-building with people from polar opposite courses to ours. Sure, meeting new people was all well and grand but the people I worked with in particular had little enthusiasm and I won't lie, I was finding it hard to dig deep for some enthusiasm too.
This might sound really silly, but a one-hour lunch-break seems pretty ridiculous when in my class I'm used to a good two hours plus to go for a dander around the town, or in my case, spend too much money on DVDs which in one way, it's healthy because it's a dose of inspiration, but on the other hand I'm spending too much money...
But now let's get back on topic. I'd been feeling ill most of the week, which was partly an excuse to take time off but at the same time I was feeling completely rubbish, so I wasn't completely up to taking part in team-building activities, e.g. building towers out of paper, or trying to create an advertisement scheme for a beauty parlour (what did this have to do with my course? I asked myself that question quite a lot over the course of the week)
I guess I enjoyed the last day I was in, because I got to take inspiration for advertising from a few films and celebrities that I like, namely the film 'Lolita' and Dita Von Teese. Overall, I didn't enjoy the experience. I would have so much rather have been in normal classes.
A little late to the party, but yes here is the first post on my blog.
I'm Aidan. I'm 19, and I'm a first year student currently taking a HND in Creative Media Production (Moving Image) at Belfast Metropolitan College. I've had a life-long interest in film but only over the past two years have I began to see it as a potential career. I clearly remember as a kid spending days upon days of watching certain films like Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Jumanji, Titanic, and many more. As a kid I loved the magical spectacle that these films had shown, but as I got older, I began to appreciate the darker edge they had hidden between the lines.
Basically, I would love to direct and write films. Here are a few people who are inspiring me on these two fronts:
Sofia Coppola
Diablo Cody
Jason Reitman
Zach Braff
Tina Fey
Will Gluck
I'll be going into a lot of different things that inspire me, from music to real-life people. But this is a start!
