After brainstorming a few ideas with the group, I came up with the idea of the title 'Snowdrop', initially because of the colour of her dress. Also the snowdrop represents new beginnings (as it blooms in early Spring), much like the beginning of the character's escape, but also the colour having connotations of innocence and purity. The thing that struck me the most though, was a Romanian myth that uses Snowdrop symbolism: each year the sun took on the form of a young girl as it returned to warm the land in the spring. One year, Winter refused to let go of his stronghold on the earth and took the young girl hostage. A Hero soon appeared to rescue his love from the grips of winter. A battle ensued, and the girl was set free, but not before Hero was wounded. As the sun began to rise into the sky, Hero fell to the ground and drops of his blood stained the earth. Tiny snowdrops burst forth in celebration of the return of spring. This inspired me as it has elements of being restrained but also elements of being set free, which is very much in relation to the theme of our film. Overall, I have really enjoyed the experimental film module, probably more than any other module so far as I feel I have had more freedom to be creative and express my own ideas. I feel I have had a good team to work with who have all been enthusiastic and have contributed a lot to the process of making this film. I feel along the way some of my ideas didn't turn work out as planned but I am very happy with how the film is turning out. Experimental film is definitely one of my favourite types of film and I intend to work more in this area in the future.
After showing Lewis our latest version of the film, it was decided that only a few things needed changing, such as keeping most of the narrative as cut transitions but only the end sequence to have fade transitions to keep the movement flow better.
Other than that we just have to add the sound on. Jack R has edited most of the sound on ProTools and just needs to turn the volume up on the sound on Avid, once we put the sound over the timeline. After this, we should then have a finished film.
After starting the editing process and talking through our progress in the tutorial, we decided that sound should be a crucial, key element of the film that we could work on to really fit well with the photographic imagery to be effective to the audience. Agreeing that music would take the audience out of the film, we chose to work on the foley that would work most creatively against the silence. We had already recorded foley on the shoot day, but it was difficult to pick up on the mic properly with lack of materials to use and too much background noise. Therefore, we booked out the sound studio at the film school to use for a whole day session, to record as much as possible to play around with in the sound design. During this day we recorded the most obvious sounds which would have come from the main character and her surroundings, using Avid Pro Tools and Audacity. These included:
Footsteps - we tried out a few new ways to create this other than just actual footsteps, such as tapping wood or concrete. The best one we discovered was leather on wood, which sounded great when an echo was added.
Heavy breathing - here I stood quite close to the mic and simply breathed a few different ways to portray certain emotions to the audience which wouldn't be as obvious in still photographs, such as fear or confusion, which was achieved by changing the speed or depth of my breathing.
The razor - in the film the character picks up the razor and also drops it, and we wanted an exaggerated sound of the razor blade to emphasise its significance in the film. To do this we simply scraped a knife blade across the blade of the razor to get a nice metallic sound.
Elastic - a main part of the narrative is that the character cannot free herself from the restraint attached to her, but she can in fact stretch it, even if it takes a lot of effort. It is made of elastic, and so in the studio we simply recorded the sound of elastic being stretched, which made an exaggerated crunchy sound. This would be useful to emphasise the importance of her restraint.
Freeing herself - the protagonist uses the razor to cut the elastic rope from her, and so this is exactly what we recorded. We held it really close to the mic so that the sound would be loud and clear to play around with in the sound design.
Clothes rustling - as the character moves, so would the dress she is wearing. To create a more realistic effect of this happening to the audience, we recorded the sound of clothes rustling, which may be useful to us when editing sequences of movement together.
We also recorded some other sounds which may not be useful at all, but we thought it might be a good idea to experiment with them in post-production incase they created effective sounds that fit nicely with the foley to add more atmosphere to the film. These included paper ripping and blowing into a can.
As I am not an editor, there isn't much I can talk about in terms of the editing process as I'm not entirely sure how the software works. We chose to use Avid Media Composer to edit with as Jack S, who would be the main editor, works best on this program. As we had decided to use stills as opposed to video, the process was fairly simple - each frame could be edited in photoshop and then added to the timeline in the correct order, following our storyboard. First of all though we used the unedited photos just to create a rough cut in Avid, using the trim tool to change the shot lengths to adjust the pacing. From this we could get a rough idea of what the overall thing would look like. After showing this initial rough cut to Lewis, he gave us a few things to change in terms of pacing to make the film better. This included extending more dramatic shots but also keeping shots in the same part of a sequence at the same length so that they flow better. We also decided to cut out the sequence of the character dragging the sandbag as it didn't seem to work very well with the narrative.
Next after making these changes, as well as cutting out some shots that we didn't need, we did an export which Jack R was going to use to create the soundscape, while we finished editing the actual visuals. Jack S used photoshop to make the highlights and shadows more exaggerated to make the contrast more obvious, as well as getting rid of unnecessary things in the background such as lights and wires, and of course now the sandbag. Making the cloth on the table with the razor seem smoother was important too, as you could see all the obvious dust particles on it, which didn't look great. He also blackened out the hooded figures more to look more like silhouettes with backlighting, adding to the eerie effect. After editing every single photo we added the edited versions of the photos into the timeline in Avid in the same positioning as the original photos in the cut.
Although still debating whether to add in the gory hook bits into our film, we decided to create them anyway, just incase we could use them. We laid out the pigskin on a blank background and inserted the fish hooks through the skin; this was a difficult task as the skin was very tough, so we had to pierce holes in it first. Then we poured fake blood (a cheap bottle of vampire blood from the fancy dress shop) over the area to make it look realistic.
In the end we decided not to use these photos and videos as we wanted to keep the film very simple with only the black and white stills of the narrative. However, we figured these could come in the useful for something else in the future anyway.
The shoot day overall was a success - we got most of the footage we wanted and we definitely enjoyed doing it. Everyone contributed to the film effectively and suggested helpful ideas. Setting up was an important part of the process to make sure everything could get done efficiently. This involved blocking out the light from the windows on the doors in our location by sticking black card over them; underneath the doors also brought in unwanted light which we hadn't thought about before, and so improvised by putting bags of quavers along bottoms of the doors, which surprisingly worked. We only needed one lamp to get the lighting effect that we wanted, and so after setting this up with diffusion we simply moved it around the room with the camera to get the lighting right for each shot using a cross-lighting technique.
As fore-mentioned, I played the lead character, and wore the dress used in the test shoots. The only difference was I did it barefoot to make her seem like more of a traditional slave, but in this case a metaphorical one. I also wore less make-up so that it didn't distract from the rest of the imagery, as well as to look younger and more innocent. A few of our friends agreed to be extras in the film, to play the background shadowed figures, and they were also useful throughout the day as runners. They helped us set up the equipment and brought food to the set from the student union during the lunch break. In order to get the shots we needed we followed our initial storyboard and photographic storyboard, which acted as our shot list without having to write another one out, and shot on a DSLR, as this is best for photographs. As well as photographs, we did film some of it as video footage though, just incase we did want to experiment with moving image as well as still image in the edit. We managed to get most of it shot, however the last part of the narrative where the girl now wakes up in a black dress and cloak to match the others, wasn't shot very well, particularly in terms of lighting, because we had to rush filming towards the end as we had to hand the key back for the room. Despite this though, I think it could possibly look effective without this bit even in the narrative, but it can be decided in the edit.
Wim Wenders created a dance experimental documentary entitled 'Pina', which I was shown a trailer for in a specialist workshop class. I noticed a clip of a girl in a white dress on a rope, which is a very similar concept to my own film, and decided to research the dance and found it was from a piece called 'The Here and After'. The character runs around on the rope trying to get away from the restraint, to represent personal struggle. Later, a dark figure shovels a black soil substance onto her, ruining her pure white dress - the darker parts of life are taking over and she struggles to get away. This again represents how she is being controlled by the factors around her, which is very similar to the concept in our film. At first I was upset that our idea seemed to have already been done in a way, particularly visually and in theme, however it made me realise that this could be a big inspiration instead - it shows our narrative will work. Although some of the basic visual elements are similar, the location, cinematography, editing and sound will be very different anyway.
With shoot day approaching, we decided it would be best to start buying props that we would need for filming; it was a fairly simple task as we knew all the materials we needed could be bought in Leeds. We were still keen to try the idea of the hook being embedded in the skin, so we bought some pork rind from Morrisons (after a suggestion from a tattooist because it looks just like human skin in colour and texture), so that the hooks would never have to go near an actual person. We also bought some black card to cover the windows after discovering they let too much light in on the recce, and bought 8m of black cloth to make cloaks from for the extra characters.
We also looked up fishing shops in Leeds, so that we could find some useful large hooks to create the effect with the skin. We found a small shop, 'Tackle2U', which was perfect for what we needed and the salesman in the shop, interested in what we had to say about our film, said that we could even borrow further items from him for future films if we needed - a useful new contact to have.
After creating our test storyboard and having a tutorial about how it worked out, we decided on some major decisions: The actress My initial idea was to find an actress to star in our film, who would look petite and innocent with blonde hair. This would have fit with the theme of her being oppressed by society before she turns rebellious, and also the blonde hair would stand out against the black background. However we decided based on the opinion of our supervisor Lewis, that I would be able to pull of the role because I did quite well in the test shots. My black hair also fit with the dark tone of the film, and we could make this stand out using back lighting. This would also save time and possibly money (in terms of food and travel) if we don't have to find another actress; it may be easier to direct the film as well if I already know what i'm doing with my vision in mind. Costume Our original idea was to have the white dress to contrast against the black, which is something we have agreed worked out really well in the test shots. In the test we used a long sleeved frilly dress, which is not something I planned for the actual footage (I wanted something much plainer) but the test dress actually looked really good and so we have decided to keep it. Now that I am going to play the character in the film, I believe the long sleeves were a good idea to cover my tattoos, so that they don't distract from the imagery of the film. The lace and frills look quite Victorian in style, contributing the Gothic tone of the film, and the chain belt around the waist adds to the theme of restraint. Photographs Our first natural thought when making film is to use video footage, which is what we planned to do. However after looking at our photographic storyboard in the tutorial, we realised that the use of photographs actually told the story quite well alone, and at quite an effective flowing pace. We have therefore decided to seriously consider just shooting stills and making the film from them, not only because of the narrative works but because it's artistic and unusual way of presenting this narrative makes it quite eerie for the audience, again further adding to the tone.
Simplicity Talking through ideas in the tutorial, it was also apparent that with the use of photographs, and also due to lack of time perhaps, we couldn't necessarily create the gory melodramatic piece we wanted at the start. One of the reasons for this is it would possibly look like we were putting random things into our film for the sake of it, such as the gruesome hooks in the skin, the elements such as fire and water etc. when the simple idea of the girl struggling to reach her goal only by the rope restraint works well on its own. Therefore, this is what we should concentrate on instead, and keep the film as simple as possible as to keep the audience engaged without 'taking them out of the film'.
We went to the location we plan to shoot in, in order to do some test shots to see if our lighting and composition of shot ideas would work. As we don't have an actress and no final costume yet, I just put on a white dress in place of the actress for these tests. We were then able to make a photographic storyboard of what kind of shots we are expecting to get on the shoot day, and we were quite happy with the results. We put this together in video format so it was a clearer timeline for us to see visually. The only problems we encountered were slight issues with some lighting, however we only did the test shots with a headlamp and so the outcome will be much nicer with bigger redheads for example on the shoot day. The space we got to work in was brilliant in terms of size for the long shots, and the darkness that was in place when the lights were off, to get the effects we wanted in contrast with the white dress. From this we were able to realise what we would have to do on the shoot day, such as covering up some white wall fixures in the background, covering the windows on the doors, and perhaps putting some black fabric or paper on the floor to get a darker effect; however, we actually thought the way the floor looked was much better than we anticipated, and we might not necessarily need to cover it, depending on the shots we use. The lighting on the razor we used worked well - to get a full metal one was a good choice. Also the fact my black hair blended too much into the background suggested the fact we would probably be best with a blonde actress for the shoot as planned, or back-light the hair more.
Using the ideas we had come up with so far, we decided to create a storyboard that illustrated these ideas in a timeline of events. Jack drew a rough outline of the shots we wanted, as shown:
During a tutorial with Lewis, we agreed that some parts of the storyboard were a bit vague, such as the bit where the hook is cut out of the character's back, we need to show how this would be done with specific shots. Further development therefore would be possibly to do a photographic storyboard where we can test shots properly to make sure they work, and put them in a more accurate timeline.
Props play a very important role in this film because not only do they help tell the story but they symbolise the struggle of humanity, which is the point of the film.
Fish Hook
The fish hook will seemingly be in the flesh of the back of the main character, attached to some chord which is restraining her, not allowing her to move past a certain distance. This represents the way the world has power over people, social psychology being able to control the behaviour and restrictions of everyone, even so in a person's individual struggles in society, whether it's puberty, womanhood, homosexuality, race, etc. The fact it is a hook through the flesh is a metaphor for how it is painful mentally to be oppressed and 'hooked' in these ways, however also very painful to try and break away from this also. In order to do this we would need special effects make-up, and so I looked at a few tutorials online such as the one below:
Alternatively, we could do these scenes in more explicit detail as close-ups, where we could actually hook these things through actual skin to give a better effect, such as using pigskin like the realistic kind tattooists use for practice on, which can be found quite cheap online.
Straight Razor
The use of a straight razor adds more pain to the narrative - it is what the character will use to cut the hooks out of her back, representing how again it is painful to try and be individual with the judgment of the world looking on you. However it also represents the goal, which is this freedom. The story involves the girl trying all that she can to reach this razor so that she can be free, further representing how someone would go to so much effort to simply be themselves, no matter what the sacrifice. We plan to use a plain silver metal one, so that no obvious logos are shown but also so that the shine coming from the whole razor and not just the blade will reflect nicely in the lighting we plan to use.
The Elements
Fire, Earth, Air and Water are considered the four elements that make up the earth in stories and ancient beliefs, and we thought we could use these as extra struggles for the character to represent that the world is seemingly against her. Obviously we can't bring these things into the set for the actress to try and fight through, for health and safety reasons, so this is where we thought the Kuleshov effect would be useful to simply show the audience that these things are of concern and edited in juxtaposition with the actress walking towards the blade, where we can shoot things like fire and water in a much smaller, controlled setting. We would literally only need a flame for fire and water pouring for water, but we thought we could still use air and earth safely. We could use a wind machine pushing against the actress to make it harder for her to walk forward, and sandbags for earth for the actress to pick up and try and walk with added weight. These things would also allow the actress to get more into character and show the struggle, because she is literally struggling herself.
Location plays a really important part in the film, as we have to find somewhere we can darken easily, and is quite a big space, that we can use for free, but also light the way we want. It was then Jack's idea of using the Student Union stage room, which is often a venue for music, market and nightclub events, because it seemed to fit this criteria. It even has a balcony incase we wanted to do any overhead shots.
We asked at the Student Union whether this would be possible, and they said that we have permission just as long as we give Jason, the stage manager, plenty of notice for when we want to book it for. We went on a recce, and decided that the space was perfect in terms of size, we would just have to alter a few things such as covering windows and maybe covering the floor to make it darker. It had plenty of necessities such as plug sockets for the lights, and lots of shadow when the lights were off. We all agreed that this was the place we wished to film, and plan to do some test shooting here and also the real footage in a few weeks time.
Costume is something we considered this week, as one of our main focus points so far is achievable visuals. As it stands we are still set on our idea of 'contrast' to represent how our protagonist is different to the other characters. Also using inspiration from German expressionism films as well as powerful visual films like 'Black Swan', I still very much like the idea of black vs white, where white is the colour our main character will wear to stand out from the dark background; this will also look beautiful visually, particularly if we also use things like blood to stand out against the protagonist also. White symbolism - innocence, purity, angelic, peace. These all show how the character doesn't conform to the dark and destructive world around her, which is the opposite of these things - a microcosm for the real world, which is the message of the film. White is also quite ghost-like, particularly if we use lose-fitting clothes that are quite spirit-like. This will add to the surreal nature of our film, further implying how metaphorical it is where the audience is supposed to interpret it more as a dream sequence. We are also thinking of using blood as a main point of production design in this film to represent the pain the character is going through. Blood would look best visually (as well as clearer to see against the black background) on white costume, which would also represent her downfall from innocence by breaking the rules. I was particularly inspired by Dorian and Lily's blood dance scene in Penny Dreadful for also showing this.
Dorian and Lily in 'Penny Dreadful'
Nina in Black Swan
Victor and Emily in 'Corpse Bride'
Where I wanted black figures in the background to contrast against the white character (and represent social conformity) I thought that hooded figures (almost like Harry Potter dementors or even the Grim Reaper) may be a good idea, to add an essence of mystery to them but also give them less of a direct personality, as the main focus is on the main character who is different to them.
The main thing we have developed in terms of our idea is the form of restraint on the character. We originally wanted marionette strings to make it look like she is a 'puppet to society'. However we figured this would be really difficult to do, especially when we don't really have anywhere to suspend the strings from. We were inspired by the election advert from 2014 that shoes some individuals struggling to reach a goal (the man) to place a hook on him so that he 'springs back' on the bungee chord (because he hasn't registered to vote). From this we thought we could also perhaps use a hook and some bungee for our character - it would be much simpler to do in terms of production design, and would still fit with the large hook idea inspired by Hellraiser. Also pulling against the bungee would add to the effort the character would need to have to 'pull away from the restraint'. This is a metaphor for how difficult it is to break away from the barriers the world has created to keep communities all following the same rules.
Another thing we developed was the idea of a goal. In order to have a narrative we figured that the character needs to have a clear end point where she is attempting to go to get away from the restraint. At first we thought she could walk away into the light, but that raises the issue of how she could get away from the chord. So we thought a tool to cut out the restraints that bind her would be useful. If we are to still use hooks then the character could be trying to force herself throughout the film towards the razor in order to cut herself free. If for some reason we can't make the special effects with the hooks work, then she could always just cut the chord with the razor. We thought putting the razor on a dramatically lit display table may be best to show the audience that this is obviously what she wants in her possession.
Our film has a particularly big focus on the idea of restraint - being held back from essentially doing what you want, due to the norms and laws put forward by the culture you belong to. Our initial idea was about portraying this through marionette strings being attached by hooks onto the characters. However, this might be quite hard to do visually, particularly on a small budget. Also, it might be quite hard for the actors to show genuine reactions to it. As discussed in our tutorial, we might be better considering other ways for the characters to be restrained, where the actors themselves would find it difficult to reach the goal of breaking away, which could result in more genuine reactions. I looked at the work of Matthew Barney, who did a project named 'drawing restraint', where he attempted to make artwork through drawing and painting whilst some kind of force was holding him back, such as bungee chords. We took inspiration from this, where we could consider giving the actor a task like this to represent the struggles that they have with the world they live in, which is something very achievable. Matthew Barney on the origins of 'Drawing Restraint'
Examples we came up with: - The path of the protagonist is somehow blocked when she is trying to reach the razor she will use to cut the restraints from her body. - The character is chained up and struggles against the chains to reach the light. - The protagonist experiences more negative force the further she moves from her original position, such as adding more weight for her to carry. (e.g. sandbags or something alike.) - Wading through water (water resistance). See clip from Under the Skin. - Air resistance or lack of oxygen (not sure how this would work). - Fire - the fire blocks her path and gets bigger. (we can achieve this easily using the montage editing technique) - Something repetitive that seems to never end (such as climbing endless stairs) to represent the endless routine in society.
(A video I made with fire when experimenting with editing technique)
After constantly deciding whether the piece should be a screendance or not, we realised that the issue we were trying to tackle related to the flow and movement of the film - how could we present it on screen to an audience that would keep them interested without movements from characters being too slow, rigid or less visually pleasing than the rest of the film, which is why we have considered dance.
However, during a tutorial we decided to consider editing techniques rather than just the way we would shoot it, as a way of keeping the audience hooked. For example, doing it in a montage format would break up the imagery in a way that wouldn't require very long shots and could make the film more spread across a time period. It would also allow us to use more shots of other things in the film to portray meaning and provoke emotive responses from an audience which would be harder to do through continuity editing if we were simply following the character around.
We looked at the work of Kuleshov, an editor who famously experimented with montage editing, who used it in a way to keep his films fluid and interesting, yet still obscure and arty (a bit like the look we ae going for).
We then tried our own version of the Kuleshov Experiment in relation to our own ideas and concepts using our own experimental shots. You can see it here:
Our initial idea came from a visual perspective - we knew what we wanted the film to look like, with a few ideas about theme. However we haven't really come up with a direct narrative for the idea of individual struggle. Some ideas we thought about in our tutorials were more personally directed ones from the character. However I have found a few examples of films that follow themes of oppression.
Black Mirror - Fifteen Million Merits
The second episode of Black Mirror (directed by Charlie Brooker) was something that inspired me greatly due to its message. The whole point of the episode is to show how the media industry controls our lives, and that if you're not famous or talented then you are forced to work in boring routine jobs to earn money just to live in order to go to work again: it is an endless cycle in which we aren't truly free. This is exactly the message I want to do this through more subtle, darker means. Also I want the idea of restraint to be more objective, and so the media is just one strand of what controls our lives everyday. The actual episode isn't currently available online but there is a link to a trailer for the whole series.
Metropolis
Metropolis is a German expressionist film directed by Fritz Lang which inspired me mostly because of the theme. the story is about capitalism and the division between classes. it is a silent film yet still shows how the working class are oppressed, and this is what I want to achieve in my film on a more objective level. However, after watching this, I realised that this could be one of the themes interpreted from my own film where this sort of division in society is a Marxist view on unfair control over society.
Carrie
Carrie (directed by Brian De Palma) is also a film that inspired me (particularly the original), as it demonstrates another problem of individual struggle and also oppression. In this case it is religion and also parental control that keeps Carrie behaving the way she does, which is another idea for what my film idea could be interpreted as a metaphor for - it is sometimes the things more personal and closer to home that take our total freedom away from us.
A Mother's Touch is a film entered into a horror film competition 'The Fear' by Studio Lambert for BBC3, by an amateur filmmaker. It inspired me mostly because of the lighting - the black and white contrast created an eerie atmosphere from the background almost being like 'nothingness', whilst the focus on the character was highly exaggerated. The blue filter made it look cold and quite spooky, which added to the dark tone of the film. This really fit with my initial idea of contrast, as well as the idea of control and restraint being made into something beautifully visual (where in this film they have the use of a cage in their production design).
Black Swan
Black Swan, a 2010 film directed by Darren Aronofsky, is a psychological thriller about a ballet dancer's struggles to control her psyche, with a constant metaphorical battle between her id and superego. Again it is about restraint, which is why it inspired me, but it is the restraint of her superego (in this case her mother), keeping her from giving in to her temptations which turns her insane. I think the idea of personal restraint makes the theme more powerful because it makes the character more vulnerable and the film more emotive, which could be a useful thought for my own film.
I was most inspired by the opening sequence due to its light and dark imagery. The characters are in a black room - the only light is a spotlight on the dancers. This shows how the world doesn't really exist, it is more dreamlike. Nina wears a white dress - she is innocent, but the character in black is tempting her to the dark side. This is similar to my idea in that she is struggling to get away from a form of oppression from the individual path she follows. Therefore again, I was inspired by these visuals for the light and dark contrast and also the blank dark space as a background to make the world less real and more metaphorical.
Under the Skin
Under the skin (directed by Jonathan Glazer) inspired me in a narrative way in the sense that 'female' is different from everyone else, however it was more the visuals in one scene that inspired me. In the surreal part where she lures a man into a surreal place, the space is black and blank, to show how it isn't the real world, which is an effect I want to create as a metaphor. The male character walks essentially 'through the floor', submerging as if in water. I thought this might be an interesting effect to create as it could show how the feeling of 'drowning' could be almost like the feeling of being 'drowned in society' in the way you have no room to be free (due to laws and norms and morals etc). Using the elements in this way could be interesting to experiment with.
Hellraiser
Hellraiser the film itself (directed by Clive Barker) didn't inspire me as much - I didn't want to create a horror film. However I was inspired by one particular scene: Frank gets torn apart by hooks which are attached to chains. I thought this could be an interesting way to portray the idea of restraint if I am wanting a particularly visual piece, where hooks in flesh could be a graphic representation of what it feels like to be oppressed by society: chained up like a prisoner to society's norms and laws, but it is painful to break away and be individual because you will be condemned. If I was to stick to the marionette idea, the strings or chains could be in the flesh via hooks to have more of a shock impact on the audience.
As a filmmaker myself I feel it's important to add a personal touch to the films that I make, and more importantly for this module 'experimental film' considering this is my favourite type of filmmaking. This is because it allows me to explore different themes and concepts and apply them in an abstract way as opposed to a simple timeline of obvious events like that of a drama film. As a lover of art, I feel that experimental film allows me to add an artistic visual aspect to a film, and present the narrative or themes through visual symbolism to an audience to interpret themselves, much like that of physical art like paintings. From the point of view of an audience member I feel it is fulfilling to work out something for myself from a film than have it simply given to me, and so I feel this is the angle I want to take. The only problem with this is, not all audiences feel this way or like this kind of film, and so i still need to find a way to make my film captivating and gripping for a larger number of people.
Experimental Film Idea
For my actual idea, which I created with Jack Stockdale, I decided I wanted something very visual that would look beautiful to the audience, with a strong concept that people can relate to. We came up with the idea of oppression in society - the way people are controlled, manipulated and shaped by society's norms, where it would be an individual struggle to break the norms and dare to be different. One major thing we considered was using a large contrast between light and dark to demonstrate this, as well as the use of marionette strings attached to the characters as a metaphor for this restraint. The Crew Alexandra Haley - Producer / Director Jack Stockdale - Cinematographer / Director Jack Riley - Sound Recordist / Sound Design Liam Benson - 1st AD
