ffresh 21st February 2013

The trailer for ffresh.

International Documentary

I began my 1st ffresh experience by attending International Documentary. I thought it would be a good idea to watch this because in my current Ideas & Concepts module I have to create a shot film which can be a documentary, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to watch the documentaries shown to influence me  or give me some ideas. I thought watching international documentaries would give me a board and wide variety of concepts and ideas. We watched two documentaries Bronsky which is a second year film by Konstrantin Seline and El Rey del Otro Cine (The Man Without a Camera) by Gabriela Ivette & Sandoval Torres. 

As Bronsky was an international documentary, the language in the film was not English but there was subtitles and this was hard to concntrate on the moving image as we had to read the subtitles to understand the narrative. However I found this hard and as a result I was confused to what the documentary was about. So 

I researched and found it was a portrait of a young writer Aleksandr Sarapow whose literary pseudonym is Bronski. I thought the documentary has some good shots and edited well. I like the fact it used J-cutting and it had good music during the film and end credits. I wasn't fond of the documentary as I couldn't understand the narrative. 

Again I had a similar problem with the second documentary however I could understand the narrative much more. The documentary was about Jorge Grajales who is considered as the guru of alternative cinema and how he dedicated his life to movie marathons, distributing and subtitling films in mexico. However his passion is threatened by an eye disease where he could lose his eye sight. I thought the start of the documentary was quite random where a man sat on a chair began talking and clips from some films where shown. Again I didn't like the film because of the language barrier.

ffresh works: Dream
The second programme I saw was the ffresh works: Dream, which I chose to see because again it featured short films so I thought it  would be beneficial to me to see example of short films to look at what other students have done and how their films could influence mine. I found this programme really helpful as I saw some really good films with some amazing effects, sound and narratives as well as some animation.
The first short film was called Momentum by Boris Seewald, about a guy called Patrick who begins talking about how a tortilla chip started him off dancing which took him to a moment of self-discovery. The films shows Patrick's passion for dance and even invites his mum to join. For me this was my favourite short film I saw in the Dream programme and throughout the day. I liked this film for its range of camera angles, good lighting, editing and non-diegetic sound. I saw that projectors where used to project images on the walls and a smoke machine was used which created suspense and added effect to the visuals. I really liked the end title credits. I thought they were really creative and didn't seem boring like most end title credits do. It really fascinated me and has influenced me to make me think about my credits and make them creative. I also noticed this film had a relationship between the music and visuals which I really love to see in films and music videos. This also made the film stand out to me. I liked that the narrative was different and very usual to other films.

The second was You Got Beautiful by Lauren Orme, which was a short animation documentary exploring the relationship between women and their bodies. I wasn't too keen on this animation as I thought the animations in the film were a little odd and I didn't really like them.
Orpheus, by James Button was the third short film we watched which is about a man who searches for his lover in a nightmare world. I liked the special effects that was in the film, for example the glass shattering and flying objects. I thought this made the film really effective and caught the viewers attention. I think a lot of time and effort was put into the making of the film and which I think was reflected.
The fourth film we saw was an animation called Odonata by Bryony Evans. It was about a creative in an isolated pond that discovers the world beyond the pond. I thought the visuals weren't amazing but they was good. However I think the music worked really well especially the sound of the dragonfly swooshing past the creature. I also thought the music was good in the ending where the creature discovers the new world.
The fifth film was Memorium by Fabrice Mathieu and is about a man and his journey into the afterlife. Fabrice Mathieu was inspired from the world created by the French artist Marc Giai-Miniet. I didn't like this short film, mainly because I didn't like the narrative. I thought the film was quite dull and didn't enjoy the journey of the man. in the afterlife. I thought the creatures in the film were weird and I wasn't to thrilled with the locations. However I did like the transitions between shots in the beginning and I thought the music of a heartbeat and flat lining was very effective as it built up tension and suspense.

ffresh Fiction
I went along to ffresh Fiction because again it showed five short films that have been made by students, that I thought could give me ideas for the short film I will have to create in my assignment. These films were of different genres therefore I thought it would be useful to see a variety of genres, so I could get an idea of what genre our short film could be and maybe get some ideas. I thought most of the films were good that was worth me going to see.
The first short film was Not, by John Evans, Dewi Fon Evans, Martyn Hughes and Dan Hogg. The film follows a young mother of two Nia, who has a abusive relationship and her children watch her being beaten and bullied. The story is told through the eyes of her two daughters. The dialogue was Welsh so was unable to understand however there was a transcript in English. I found it hard to read the transcript and watch the moving image at the same time which I didn't like. The narrative was simple and straightforward so I didn't find the film that good.
The next film was Return To Black by Catherine Jones and Emil Kunda, about a boy did ballet however got threatened and bullied by a local gang to rob a haunted house. I didn't like the first part of the film I thought it had a bit of a boring storyline. However it got much better towards the end as there was a twist in the story as part of the gang is his sister who knocked him over and left him to die. I really liked this it made the film better as I found it boring at first. I think the music was really effective as it set a eerie atmosphere especially in the haunted house. My favourite part was when he got hit by the car. The music just build the right about of tension and made me jump.
Trail of Crimson by Victoria Rodway, Glen Biseker, Jon Ratigan and Georgina Careless was the third film we watched. The film was about a girl named Francesca who has a passion for art and meets a artist named Dante who is much older. Francesca becomes his latest model for his artwork and they become lovers, however Francesca discovers he is hiding a disturbing secret from her. She kills Dante knowing about his sinister desires, and it is later revealed he saw his death coming and is shown in a drawing out of his sketchbook. The film has a gothic fairy tale that explores the tradition of the active male gaze and passive female subject. I liked this film the most in the ffresh fiction session because I think it had a good narrative, there was depth in some shots, good camera angles, nice transitions between shots, I liked that the shots looked warm and I think a lot of effort was put into the location and props.
The fourth film we watched was True Repose by Oscar Garth, Luke Davies, Callum Baker, Francine Roberts and Samo Chandler. The story is about two brothers, one who looks back at the past when they were young boys. It then shows the brothers hope for a reunion and their quest to find true repose. I liked that memories in the film had a high exposure in the shots to reflect happy memories and the present day when he is old are in black and white. I liked this short film as it reflected happy memories and gave me a happy feeling.
The final short film we watched was Frankly by Louis Weinzweig and Steven Evans. This film was a dark comedy about a recovering alcholic Gareth, who is being followed by an imaginary clown called Frank. Frank tries tempting Louis with alcohol which stands as an obstacle for Louis to fight his addiction. I didn't particularly like the film, the narrative didn't interest me and it just seemed dark.

British Guide To Documentary/ Filmmaking: Jes Benstock Masterclass

Jes Benstock is the director of The British Guide to Showing Off, a documentary portrait of the Alternative Miss World pageant, planned by the renegade British artist Andrew Logan. He talked about his experiences in the film industry  how he made it into the industry and showed us clips of his earlier short documentaries The Holocaust Tourist and Orders Of Love and the pilot film for his current hybrid documentary project/happiness- the search continues...
I really enjoyed watching clips of Benstock's documentary about the Alternative Miss World pageant, I thought the documentary was funny but documented the Alternative Miss World pageant really well. I think I showed a range aspects of to do with the pageant.

I learn't a lot about filmmaking and documentary's from Benstock such as freedom is key in filmmaking which is accomplished easier with a small budget. With low budgets you can get great characters but you can find that people are shy of acting at first but begin to get used to the cameras after a while and they make great actors. There are some people that aren't themselves in front of cameras which some directors don't want and to cure that director Ero Morris (Film director) films people for 5 hours straight with no break. Filming this way has proven effective for Morris because after a while people stop acting and become themselves. A tip which Benstock shared to the audience was not to talk to the person your filming, be invisible so you don't bond with the person for your filming, because otherwise the person your filming will looks shifty in the documentary as they will be looking at the cameraman and the interviewer. Instead the person should concentrate on the interviewer so it looks like a one to one interview. This also means problems should be addressed to one person only so you should work as a democracy where the team needs to be lead. Working as a team/crew will be more creative as you can pool much more ideas together and develop on ideas. The final tip he gave us was to always film more, as you can never have enough footage. I think Benstock's guide was very beneficial to me because I will be creating documentary's in my second year, so I can take his advice on board and hopefully his tips will come in handy.

Tomato Masterclass

After lunch we went to see the Tomato Masterclass. Tomato is a collective of artists, designers, musicians and writers who first gained a wide amount of attention with their distinctive title sequence for Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. In the masterclass Dylan Kendle was there to talk to us. Kendle is a London based creative and a member of the design collective and over the last 20 years has worked massively in moving image and print. His output is to build the disciplines of advertising, branding, music and film. In the session he talked to us about the process and collaboration and showed recent examples of Tomato's work.

Dylan Kendle started off by started off by saying he his in the studio everyday and that you should practice the imperfect. He showed us some other Tomato's work which some of it is included in the video above. One of the examples we watched at the class was a Japanese music video called Waterfall. The music video was a visual remix about precipitation that came from the idea of concrete poetry. Thought the video had good visual and looked usual to what you would expect in a normal music video. We saw other examples on what Tomato had created such a camera-less photography, Article 27, Smirnoff advert which was really good visually and another music video for Underworld. The music video looked good with the flowers blossoming and dying but it didn't fit the genre of the song and was repetitive so it cos boring after a short while. I thought the work that Tomato created was stunning and got me thinking that I should be more creative with my title sequences in my film work. I should play around with the setting and not just use the basic templates in Final Cut.  Although I thought this class was more directed at graphic's and animation I learn't to be more creative with titles and text in my films.

The Mill Masterclass

The last programme I went to, was The Mill Masterclass, from attending this session I learn't in the first five minutes that visual effects make a film a blockbuster and that from 10% to 50% of visuals effects contribute to a film budget. The Mill is a world-renowned and Oscar winning VFX company recognised for creating seamless visual effects. The Mill has worked on recent films including: Snow White and the Huntsman,Les Misérables, Merlin,Doctor Who, Call of Duty and the Old Spice adverts. They also do commercials and music videos. They are based in London although they have other offices in York, LA and last week they opened an office in Chicago  and been running for 20 years. Their work has been seen by millions of people across the world. For the Masterclass Suraj Odedra was there to talk to us and show us his recent advert for KIA that he has been working on at The Mill. I found this Masterclass very interesting as the work produced by The Mill was amazing. It all looked breathtaking. Below is a show-reel of the Mill's work.

First we was shown three adverts that Suraj Odedra had picked out as his favourites from The Mill. We watched a Guinness advert that was about a cloud saving people, an Audi advert that was animation and featured a humming bird and finally a advert for The Guarden which was my favourite and had a three little pigs narrative. 

Suraj Odedra then went on to talk about the KIA Recommendations advert he had recently been involved with in December 2012. The project was turned around in four and an half weeks which wasn't very long. The advert features a car in insulation space and a keyboard wall that represents customers reviews. The advert is shown below. We was talked through the steps that Odedra took in order to make the advert. The process of the projects includes: the idea coming from the agency, Odedra and crew work in post production and reference images, he then pitches the idea to the agency, if they like it he sends it to the production company and agency, he storyboards, previz, does research and development, begins the shoot, the offline editing, CG, and the look development to create the advert. I thought this advert was good and looked really effective as it has an unique advert compared to others. It was very interesting to see each of the stages that the advert was and problems that arised and how they were solved. I really left that this talk was useful to me and my course as some of the aspects such as pitching ideas, storyboarding, adding effects, team working, filming and carrying out research and development is what I have to do. So I have gained an insight to how a company goes about creating their productions. Odedra also shared tips about the industry by saying you should show you have an creative eye in your showreel and that you are expected to focus on one thing in film really well. It was useful for me to hear that being said because it did not know that and hopefully throughout my course I can pick on an area that I can do really well and like doing.