Production Journal

Production Journalà story board

We had to decide what our chase was going to be about, we had decided that it had to be funny so it would be more interesting, but my entire group was thinking what our plot was going to be about. I had a brilliant idea of doing it of a misunderstanding, so someone would throw a ball to another person, and she would think it was the other person who threw it on purpose, so she would start chasing her. I liked this idea a lot, although when I first said this idea some of my group liked it, but others didn’t. First it was frustrating that we couldn’t all agree, but then we convinced them and decided to do the chase about that.

We all got inspired and started to have great ideas of places we could film, and the passages we could do. We wrote them in a paper, but then again we started to fight, because some of us wanted to make different portals than others, or in a different order. Any of us agreed with each other and it was really frustrating, I didn’t felt as if any of us was hearing to each other, as we were all shouting. After a while of fighting we realised we weren’t doing anything so we started to hear to each other, and found that some of us had really great ideas. So we put all our ideas together and went to take the pictures of the places we were going to film.

Production Journal à shooting

It was our first day of shooting, we wanted to do the first scene which was on the field, but it was being used so we couldn’t shoot that scene. Some of us wanted to film it anyway in the field with the people that were there as background, but it was too complicated as they could interfere with our project. We went to the coliseum to make the second scene. Gema was the only one who appeared in this scene running. We had to move the camera so we could have Gema running through the coliseum, but we couldn’t do it properly as the camera moved too much and the shot wasn’t stable. As we didn’t had the right equipment because Sandro Calderon was using it, we managed to solve our problem by putting the camera on top of a table, so it only moved by the sides and we had more control over it. When we were shooting the field scene we had some problems with the actors, as some of them didn’t know how to act, so we had to film the same shot many times until she finally did it. We had a great scene done in the black room, when the two actors suddenly appeared in the room. To do this we first shot a scene that there was no one, and then without moving the camera we filmed it with the actors in the scene, so when editing we put the two scenes together it looked very good. For this we used the camera stand so it wouldn’t move. 

Lesson 34. Documentary Form

General question: What makes a film a documentary? 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_film

Give a brief definition:

Informs, real world, facts, explanations, events, documentaries are films

Feel real. Not imaginary things.

Super Size Me, Omnibus 174 - Jose Padilha 2002

Try to formulate three golden rules film audiences hold about documentaries?

1.  Events in the documentary must have happened

2.  Objective view point

3. Events shown on the films must continue on. The documentary you have made is part of the real world.

WATCH these 3 extracts from 3 different styles of documentary

Coalface (1935) dir: Alberto Cavalcanti

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7yExWQQjRw

Streetwise (1984) dir: Martin Bell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZERDYwSUgCE

A man with a movie camera (1928) – Dziga Vertov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22_KBgOxQL8

What is the content or theme of the documentary?

Coalface-  Coal industry and the people working in there.

Streetwise- lifes about people on the street, homeless.

Who do you think is the intended audience?

Coalface- adult white collar members. Educated audience

Streetwise- people that don’t live in the street.

Discuss the choice and sequence of images, portrayal of the characters and setting, use of diagetic and non-diagetic sound, type of narration used.

Coalface- non- diagetic sound. Characters are shown as generalized miners. Maps at the beginning, but it’s not clear were it is. The story is being told by an external narrator, educated, white male. Voice over, to focus more on what he is explaining. Omniscient narrator. Classic mode of documentary.

Streetwise- narrators are the same people of the streets. People wondering in the streets. Color mostly comes from the clothe of the people of the street. Diagetic sound, at the beginning the first voice was non diagetic. The voice just shows us, feels more honest. Good continuity editing.

What does this documentary style make you feel or think about the content?

If you are British you would feel patriotism, because of the great mines, achievement. Publicity for the whole business of mines, they only show the good things. At the end they show us a tree which represents nature, so it show us that they don’t pollute. It also shows us the houses of the workers, to show us that they have a good job.

Streetwise- depends on the viewer, some might want to change the life of the people that live there.

Why do you think these film techniques were chosen by the director?

What do you think is the overall message or aim of this documentary film?

Coalface- Romantic, workers work inside the earth and then they come out of there and we have a tree which represents nature. Poetic.

How would you describe this style documentary and why?

Coalface- Optimistic, romantic, informative, descriptive.

Streetwise- Realistic, camera being used like an ordinary point of view,

Make notes on each of these ‘modes’ or styles of documentary developed by American documentary theorist Bill Nichols, who created a conceptual scheme which seeks to distinguish particular traits and conventions of various documentary film styles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_mode

Poetic = Definition and Examples

Expository = Definition and Examples

Observational = Definition and Examples

Reflexive = Definition and Examples

Performative/Participatory/Interactive = Definition and Examples

Which of these modes do you think is likely to give the most accurate picture of ‘real life’ and why?

Structure of a film review

  

Paragraph 1: Overall impression

• Make your general reaction to the film clear

I liked this film a lot as it was very unexpected as I didn’t know what was going to happen so it surprised me, specially the end. I would have never guessed that McMurphy was going to die and that he would cause all that scandal at the mental hospital. I also found it funny as it had a sense of humour which makes the movie more entertaining.

• Identify the following information:
• Title: One flew over the cukoos nest
• Genre: Dramatic comedy
• Director: Milos Forman
• Lead actors: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield
• Year of release: 1975

Paragraph 2: Plot summary

• Don’t explain every little detail
• Identify the premise (the scenario that drives the action). Is this convincing and engaging?

This movie is about a man that tries to escape from jail so he acts like he has mental problems so he would be send to the mental institution, thinking it would be easy to escape from the mental hospital but it’s not as easy as he thought it would be. In the mental institution he makes the other patients rebel and make it more entertaining and less boring than what it was, as they go out of the same routine and do things they would have never imagined doing like escaping from the clinic or making a party there and getting drunk. He becomes the leader of all the other patients of the clinic as they followed him in everything he did. At the end the nurses caught him, and because he was seen like a danger to the hospital they do a lobotomy. There is a rumour that he has escaped, but one of the patients discovers the truth and kills him so he wouldn’t loose his respect as all patients sow him like a hero.  I think this is convincing and engaging as it is a good story which is original and you don’t know what is going to happen. 

Paragraph 3: Acting

• How did the actors portray the key roles? How did they convey the lives of the characters?
• Did they fulfil your expectations? Were they believable characters?
• Refer to other films made by the main actors, and assess their performance in this one

The actors acted very well in this movie as they really got into their roll. The patients of the institution made me believe that they really had mental problems. The main character, jack Nicholson, did very well his roll of a criminal person who wanted things to be made his way, and that was to be free. The nurse Ratched also did very well her roll in the movie, she made me believe that she was a strong dominant nurse.

Paragraph 4: Film techniques

• Describe and assess the mise-en-shot and mise en scene (camera angles, editing, lighting, set production, costumes, etc.)
• Identify other notable successes/failures of the film – for example, the soundtrack, special effects, etc.
• Place this in the context of other films (ie compare and contrast to other films from the same genre/director/period)

This is a realism movie as it doesn’t have much editing and it looks real. The scenery looks real, as if it was filmed in a real hospital, as almost the entire movie is in the mental hospital. The scene when the patients escape to a boat, it is also filmed in a real boat in the sea. Costumes are depending on the characters roll but as most of them are patients they all wear the same uniform which is the hospitals clothe, and the nurses use a nurse uniform. The colours are bright as they are in a hospital and there is artificial light, and it is mostly white, which represents hospitals.

Paragraph 5: Themes

• Identify the message (s) of the film and how it is/they are conveyed
• Is this done effectively?
• Place this in the context of other films (ie compare and contrast to other films from the same genre/director/period)

This movie give us a message that woman are bad as they are put in the movie as terrifying figures that control men and don’t give them liberty, and are the reason of there problems and why they are in the mental hospital. The nurses are portrayed as the villains of the movie that don’t let these men have liberty, but capture them in a hospital. Also Bromden mother, although she doesn’t appear, is portrayed as if she had caused Bromden to have mental problems and be in that hospital, as he says that she put him down as well as his father so she would grow up emotionally. And that happens with many of the other patients mothers; they are described as the reason of their problems. At the end of the movie McMurphy is done a lobotomy by the nurses, taking out his complete freedom. The fact that woman are in charge of a hospital which only receives men, also portrays woman as bad influence who control men by taking their liberty.

Paragraph 6: Conclusion

• Justify your opinion of the film by ranking it alongside others that you may or may not have already mentioned
• Suggest to the reader that this may be a film to see/avoid

I really liked the movie, although the theme is not one of my favourites I thought it was well done and as it had some comedy it was more entertaining to watch. As it is an uncommon theme it is not predictable so you have no idea of what is going to happen, and the end is very unusual, because although McMurphy didn’t escape from the mental hospital as we expected he would do, he still escaped from a much unexpected way, by dying. As I enjoyed the movie I would recommend other people to watch it, specially adults, as I don’t think children would enjoy it.