Credits Part I

Aphelion - Writer/Director/Producer

My end-of-year assignment in my final year of A-Level Moving Image Arts was to make a 5-7 minute film on whatever we wanted. I decided, having previously only dabbled in Gothic horror/fantasy so I wanted to try something a bit 'edgier', and opted to write my first ever 'Spy thriller'. It's the story of a private investigator, we follow her as she trains and completes tasks such as hacking and taking pictures for her unknown employer. For an unknown reason, she is hunted down and an attempt is made on her life, but only ends up with her assailant being shot. She goes off the radar and that is the last we see of her.
I took on all roles for the production, and I'm quite happy with the final product. As soon as I get a copy of it from my old teacher then I'll have it up online for you to see. I was heavily influenced by the work of David Fincher, Cindy Sherman and Joe Wright, particularly his film 'Hanna'.

Heed the Warning - Camera/Writer

A non-serious 15 second film that myself and three others in my class put together in our first year during class. It's a morality tale of a young man who finds that ignoring the warning signs on elevator doors could end up with some big changes...
I enjoyed this because I got to refresh my camera skills using a Canon 550d SLR.

Wildflower Way - Co-Director/Producer/Camera

A long-time collaborator of mine, Anya, found a local band, The Vals, on gumtree looking for film-makers to shoot a promotional film for their latest album 'Wildflower Way'. Myself, Anya and Matt our friend from college shot a live set for the band in Queens University and followed it up with interviews in Botanic Gardens. I shot using my own Nikon D5000.

Time for a revival

Decided it was better to haul my writing blogging over to this already-pretty-good blog I made last year! Bear with me while I fix it up make it look like something an aspiring writer would use!

Genre-breaking... what?!

(A quick note, I apologize for the lack of posts, I have been snowed under with work and as a result this blog has suffered too much neglect!)
I posted before about the teen-comedy genre, something that I'm extremely passionate about, a passion that I carried on into my script. Genre-breaking is a term which I came across while watching reviews on youtube for one of my favourite animes, 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'.

Genre-breaking is essentially, the deconstruction of a genre, deconstruction being...

 "a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language that emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression."

That's a bit of a mouthful... So basically, using Madoka Magica as an example, you pull apart the Magical Girl genre until you have its bare bones, the essence, what makes this genre the genre that it is. You'll find stock characters, plot elements and a basic overall story. You investigate these before putting it all back together into something of your own creation.
The Magical Girl genre, to anyone who is less informed about anime sub-culture, is a decades-old genre that involves adolescent girls being gifted with magical powers to defeat evil, while trying to deal with the stresses of everyday life, so basically it's Japan's answer to the US juggernauts of DC and Marvel.
The video above deconstructs the genre into several points that can be found throughout the Magical Girl genre, they are as follows:

• Cute magical creature reveals itself to the protagonist and offers/grants them the ability to transform into a magical girl and combat evil.
• Stock characters (a term originating in ancient Greek theatre) are present such as the (often blue-haired) best friend, the clumsy and meek protagonist, big sister/mentor figure, tough tomboyish figure and the mysterious, deadpan character with unclear motives.
• Main character has an important magical destiny that only they can fulfill, something which a lot of the characters including the protagonist cannot comprehend.

After looking over these points, it's a lot like the narrative theories that I've been studying in film studies and script-writing, e.g. 'Monomyth' and 'The Hero of a Thousand Faces', so it's really interesting and useful to see how these theories are used in genres, not just in mainstream, but all over the world. Now coming back to the teen comedy genre, I used the formula that I posted a while back to give me something to build on for my script, and to my surprise I think it worked quite well! My script has been put forward to be made in class, something which I didn't expect at all. It's far from perfect, but it's something that's given me a lot more motivation!

Miyazaki's Philosophy

Silence is golden

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!!

Inspiration and stuff

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!

Aside from directing...

I'd love to direct.

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.