11:14

Just finished watching 11:14 which deals with essentially one big story that converges around 11:14pm, told from different perspectives. Each new perspective tells a new part to the story and in the end you feel that you've learnt the answer to all your questions. This is where I start to analyse the way that they used perspectives to tell the story...

I'll just jump in to what I noticed the most out of the entire film. From looking at the DVD case, you get the complete wrong genre of what this film is about. To me, I thought it would be some sort of drama thriller of some sort. Turns out it's a dark comedy which essentially means drama with a comedy approach.

The comedy of the whole film comes across mainly from the music, for example there is a scene where Patrick Swayze is dragging a dead body to his car boot and the fact there is comedic, light music playing means that you find it reasonably funny. It was this scene in fact where I first thought about the role that sound could play. I was thinking that if this scene was kept exactly the same way but played with more sinister music, you would have a completely different emotional connection to the scene. Now, I know sound is extremely vital to film and one without the other will give you something, well, kind of lame. But I never considered fully the possibility of it changing the whole genre. So there is definitely some research that can be conducted there that will help me in separating the genres of both Sam's and the parents perspectives.

In total, there are five different perspectives given with the final perspective being the one character that links everyone together and in turn explains most of the story. I have been thinking ever since I found a list of films that deal with telling different perspectives of the same story, what if I could do the same with The Wardrobe? Starting with the Parent's POV and mix it in with the odd shot of Sam to make the audience wonder what he is up to and then BAM, Sam's POV kicks in for the fight scene with the actual monster and the audience is left in the same position as the Parents. Now the issue is that it could be too close to the separate Parent's POV but just with bits of Sam thrown in. I prefer this idea at the moment because it's a little bit more meatier and is essentially the same story but with the main character being the parents. So with what i've been considering regarding sound, my current thought pattern is exploring ways to tell the same story in as many different styles as possible. Hmmm, sounds shit to be honest saying that and feels more like here's a few different edits I made but couldn't make my mind up which was best. If I just keep coming up with ideas, I can then hone on one. So the ideas are:

- Sam's POV
- Parent's POV
- Mike's Edit
- My Edit (which is the parent's as the main character)

Hmmmm, that may not be that bad but it definitely needs some consideration of some sort. Maike said is there any other films that I could add to it and i'm pretty sure that'd be difficult, so I may turn to the films i've worked on previously to see if I could play with perspective there. The easiest one is probably going to be Steve but i'd have to think quite a bit about it.

What I aim to do is watch a film everyday that deals with perspective, write about what I thought about the film and what it made me think about my project. That's probably what is defined as theoretical underpinning in the last blog, comparing examples to my current work and showing research. Maybe. I dunno. Tomorrow I will watch either An Inspector Calls or Pulp Fiction. I'm feeling Pulp Fiction. I'll watch an Inspector Calls on Wednesday and then Vantage Point on Thursday. By which point I should have a few other films like Melinda & Melinda to watch. This has actually been good help!

New Research Conducted...

As I was reminded in my last tutorial appointment, I should really take advantage of the current situation I find myself in where I have literally bugger all to do until Mike shoots his film next month by conducting all my research for my essay now so that i'm fully prepared for my essay. Makes total and utter logical sense but getting the motivation has been a little difficult. What with me living with undergrads, they are all finishing exams and moving out so realising I won't be living with these guys while celebrating leaving is sort of acting as a distraction. Today though, I had a bit of a brain melt down so I ended up going to bed stupidly early and that didn't last long but suddenly, I found myself willing to do work to act as a distraction. It was amazing, I somehow googled an extremely simple phrase and got all the answers I needed. I found films that dealt with stories telling different perspectives, books too and even reminded myself of one of my favourite plays that I read as a kid at school that told the story of one woman through different peoples encounters with her.

An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestly was also made in to a film starring Alastair Simm which I also loved so I have now set out to find a copy of it. An other film I found is called Vantage Point which tells the same story about 6 or 7 times, each time from a different characters point of view. By watching these films, hopefully I'll have an idea about how to go about what i'm aiming to do and maybe even think about merging my characters viewpoints in to one film like Vantage point. There is still a lot of thinking that is required regarding my project though, so I'll watch these films and update the blog. Tomorrow I think I will also attempt at finding books about telling stories in this sort of style. Anyway, the fact I managed to finish three blog posts shows my current dedication level. I should have breakdowns more often! :D

Boredom Converted to Research...

The next day after my meeting, I attended a post production meeting that really I didn't need to attend but it gave me an opportunity to meet the producer that is working with Mike on his film and the chance to go to the library. I had a list of books that, in retrospect, I should have read at the start of the year, one in particular that quite frankly I need to scan a LOT of pages from. So in essence, I started at the very beginning of editing.

I read a very very VERY basic book that has opened my eyes to WHY I make an editing decision and WHEN I should make a cut. This book I really should have read earlier as it's now made me look at films and TV shows in a whole new light. To save myself a ball ache in the future, i'm just going to Harvard Reference all the books I read now so I can just copy and paste. Wait! I lie, i'll start another a post that has them in and i'll just add to it as I read more books or watch more films. This book was Grammar of the Edit by Roy Thompson.

The other books I took a gander at didn't really help me out as much as I thought. One especially I thought it may be helpful as there was a chapter on perspective. Well, although it was on perspective, it was also a history book on film and dealt with the cameras perspective amongst the action and how it adheres to the 180 degree rule. So over all it didn't help me that much. There was some interesting bits of information on the history of film but nothing overly helpful. That book was Film Editing: History, Theory and Practice by Don Fairservice.

The other book I read I only really looked at one chapter because it was intriguing to me and kinda had nothing to do with this project. It was how Alfred Hitchcock experimented with editing in his films and I will agree that he was a smart director and editor. From a young age after visiting Universal Studios where they had a Hitchcock attraction inside a replica Bate's Mansion, which funnily enough was used in Psycho 3 I think, not that I've seen it though, only ever seen the original. Wait, i've gone off here. Yeah, they showed us how they filmed the famous shower scene and it left me amazed. The fact that if you watched it again, you'll notice that you never see the knife touch the skin. The fact that the shots were cut so quickly to reaction shots or result shots as i'll call them (e.g. the blood trickling down the plug hole) allowed the audience to draw the only obvious conclusion without showing too much. Anyway, this has bugger all to do with perspectives so let's move on, yeah?

This is Hard!

Ok, I don't feel as big an urge to post on here as I did for the XPP module. It may have something to do with the fact that this blog is for me and not for marks. Hopefully being bored at 00:15 and doing this first post means i'll get back in to the flow of typing out posts.

Ok, now it's 00:49. Damn.

Right, so I went in to my meeting with Maike with a few raw ideas and hoped that this would be a eye opener and I'd come out high with confidence knowing what I was going to do for my Masters project. Well, it turns out I should have done a lot of research over the Easter break. To be honest, the kick up the ass I got was much needed but I still feel it could have come before Easter like the Directors and Producers got. It kinda put weight to my argument that the Editors course is getting a little shunned.

Anyway, I went in with my idea of making film trailers out of my rushes from the films I worked on over the past 9 months. I suggested it and then we talked about Mike's film The Wardrobe. Maike then suggested editing Mike's film from different perspectives. Now that had been something i've been interested in for quite a while.

Last year at Glastonbury 2010, I watched the Chris Morris film, Four Lions. The film is about 5 extreme muslim terrorists who attempt to commit a terrorist attack. At the end of the film, despite some humorous moments, all terrorists set off bombs. Strangely, it's only when the last person explodes in Boots, I, and pretty much everyone i've spoke to about it, felt a sense of shock. Not at the mindless lack of humanity of the terrorists but the stark realisation that for the past 90 minutes or so, we as an audience have been rooting for terrorists, all for the reason that we were seeing it from only their point of view. That was the first time I fully understood the power of cinema. It showed me that the audience will invest in whatever main character that is given to them and will root for them no matter what their task is, be it world peace or world terror.

So mentioning looking at perspectives set excitement bells off in my head. I came out the meeting feeling pretty optimistic and felt like I knew what my project would be. I also kept the film trailers on the back burner as a back up plan.

I have no idea what i'm doing!!!

Dear Martyn,

Ok, so this is a personal blog for you and no one else. It's aim is to help you think things through and also help as a reference for your final critical analysis essay in August.

This is for you, Future Martyn!

Love,

Martyn from May 14th 2011