Evaluation

My statement of intentions quite accurately sums up what I have achieved in the final production. I attempted to create a dark and haunting account of the Earth's downfall. I feel that I have ended up with a production that matches my aims to a certain degree.

My film could be interpreted to offer an alternate conclusion to the Cold War. The film successfully implies, with the line, "ideologies clashed", that the film focuses on the issues between communism and capitalism. The main problem I had with the theme of the film was communicating it to the audience. I had to make the over-surveillance of the society in my film clear, without making it intrusive. I did this by using shots of the CCTV camera turning throughout the film.

I also used an image of the Earth, whole, frequently flashing at the start of the film. This allowed the audience to get used to an unblemished Earth, making the scene of it being crushed more shocking.

The process of animating also came with a few problems. The initial one was finding the materials to make the objects: the TV, CCTV camera, remote and the Earth. I wanted to achieve some consistency and decided to use cardboard. However, it was not possible to use the same material to make the Earth. In the end I decided to paint a melon, this also had its advantages when shooting the 'crush' scene; I used the flesh of the melon to create the mess that the world created as it was crushed. It was even more fortunate that the inside of the melon was red. A colour associated with death and danger, two themes that ran throughout my film. This is one of the most important scenes in the film and I think it looked good in the end.

I found it equally difficult to maintain a constant light source in each scene. The solution to the issue was, although natural light adds a nice quality, only to use artificial lighting. I drew the curtains and in some cases blacked out the windows with tissue paper. That way I could use lamps to create consistent contrasts of light and dark. The juxtaposition of light and dark, chiaroscuro, is a technique I took from the German Expressionist genre.

Another huge problem I had, this time in the editing process, was finding suitable non-diagetic sound effects to accompany the images on the screen. At first I searched for a sequence of footsteps that were in time with the footsteps I had animated. I could only find some good sounds but none of them were in time with my animation. Although it took much longer than I had anticipated in the first place, I found a solution. I would manually cut each footstep out place them in perfect synchronization with the footage. This was time consuming but had a satisfying outcome.

I also had some issues in the process with editing the footage in time with the music. After trying unsuccessfully to do this just by looking at the sound waves I went to a session on using Final Cut. Mentioned in the talk was a way of marking the beat of music. If you listen to the audio track and tap ‘M’, the marker shortcut, to the beat you can easily snap the footage to each marker. I used this in my production. This technique helped, especially at the start, to create a dramatic and tense atmosphere. A feeling that completes my intentions in terms of the effect this film has on its audience.

I feel satisfied with my final production. It is chilling and makes the audience feel uncomfortable.

The Classic Hollywood Style

There were two elemental players in the emergence of the classic Hollywood style. They were both hugely affected by the same factors - Economic, social and practical - but tackled the issues in very different ways. There varying methods aided them in creating unique, memorable styles of film.

When the American and, subsequently, the global economies took a dramatic crash in 1929, all industry was affected. The economy was also damaged by the upcoming prospect of a war. Countries focused on and invested in building their armies. The budgets of films had to be cut and this called for drastic alterations to the filmmaking process. MGM Studios decided, with the cut budgets, to make expensive, quality films, just not many of them. This affected what aspects of the films they focused on when filming. MGM used many long, straight shots to incorporate the elaborate, well-made backgrounds (As in the Wizard of Oz). They maintained the themes of elegance and glamour by only hiring conventionally good-looking actors for the main roles. This helped to form one aspect what we know now as ‘the Hollywood Style’.

Another style that might be observed as a hollywood encouraged, was pioneered and developed by Warner Bro's Studios. They concluded, after the Wall Street Crash, to make a lot of low budget films. To keep the budgets as low as possible they had to use intuition that had not, previously, been necessary. They reused a lot of their sets and kept their actors on contracts. Warner used contemporary story lines, whereas MGM used a lot of fantasy stories. In order to give their films a certain degree of verisimilitude, Warner used many close ups and some experimental angles. By doing this they did not have to expose the low quality backgrounds they were using in their films.

All these factors contributed in setting up the format we now understand as a hollywood-unique style.

Statement of Intentions

I intend to create a three minute stop motion animation using iStopMotion and Final Cut Pro. My animation follows the Earth's downfall as a result of clashing ideologies and over surveillance. It begins as footsteps appear against a plain white background. Accompanied by nothing but silence and the sound of footsteps, and the screen flicking back and forth between an image of a CCTV camera. I want the film to

create a sense of the desperation and helplessness of living under an authoritarian regime.

After sitting down to watch the television, the main character - who represents the entire population - flicks through the channels. He flicks past BBC World News and Have I Got News For You, up to this point nothing seems unusual. He presses the '3' button on the remote and suddenly a sequence of him

appears on the television. At this point the audience should realise that he is being watched.

The narrator then explains the situation: a history of conflict and oppression, leading to potential Armageddon.

Stylistic consistency will be created by the makeshift theme that continues throughout the film. The CCTV camera, television and remote control are all made from cardboard. The Earth is a painted watermelon and the airplane is an Airfix model. This has many similarities with the Michel Gondry film, Be Kind Rewind, which is based around some friends t

hat make amateur remakes of Hollywood films. I believe that the fascination people have with stop motion animation is how can give life to inanimate objects. I want my film to make the audience amazed at the way a cardboard television can be made to display moving images.

The story of the film is also heavily influenced by George Orwell's 1984. 1984 follows one character, living under a regime of over surveillance, who hopes to defy the government and join a group that plot against it. The book concludes with the character beaten by the authorities and forced into submission.

I hope the song adds to the film's feeling of distress.

I want my production to be open to interpretation. The opening sequence will be ambiguous and allow the viewer to make up there mind on the message of the film. The ending is not clear and could tell the story of a possible alternative conclusion to the Cold War.

This is a collection of photographs I have taken. I have experimented with different angles and viewing points to create other moods. In the last photograph I was observing what style would be created when looking through a set of stairs.

Caravaggio
Born:
29 September 1571, Milan.
Lived:
Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily
How they influenced film:
His revolutionary use of light in his paintings influenced art movements, like German Expressionism, that still remain today. Martin Scorcese says he is deeply influenced by Caravaggio's work.


Rembrandt
Born:
July 15, 1606, Leiden, Netherlands.
Lived:
Amsterdam, Netherlands.
How they influenced film:
He is renowned for his use of Chiaroscuro which is a technique used a lot in abstract and expressionist films today. Chiaroscuro is the juxtaposition of light and dark.


Johannes Vermeer
Born:
31 October 1632(1632-10-31), Delft, Dutch Republic.
Lived:
Delft, Dutch Republic.
How they influenced film:
Vermeer often placed the characters in the scene quite a distance from where the audience looks in from. This gives the impression that you are Voyeur. This is a technique commonly used in Realist cinema.

Photos of the set

The first image shows the set in completely even lighting. The rest of the pictures were taken after a while of experimenting with different ideas.

We used a combination of flashing and continuous white and red light. The use of red light gave the set a feeling of danger and cast mysterious, almost abstract, shadows. We lengthened the exposure and customised the shutter speed. With a flashing light and a long shutter speed the effect was uneven light accross the whole set. With all these techniques used in the same image, our images are eerily atmospheric.

German Expressionism

Following the invention and mass production of the camera, the demand for photo-realistic art ended. People no longer wanted pictures that conveyed real life. Expressionism was a cultural movement that began in Germany in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Expressionists painted scenes, not in order to display what was actually there, but to show their feelings towards the scene. Some artists took the idea further: abstract expressionism was created. This was, as the name suggests, even more abstract and often took the form of patterns. Abstract expressionism left more to the viewers imagination.

German expressionism was a film movement that showed life in a dark, in some places depressing and mainly very strange light.

Attributes of German expressionism:

• Using very contrasting colours
• Using strange, dark plots, costumes and characters
  
• Straight lines and sharp angles
• Very dark shadows
• Dark, troubled characters
  

German expressionist films were often used as a distorted metaphor for current affairs. For example the film Metropolis displays distinct similarities between its plot and what was going on in communist Russia at around the same time.


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