Friday 19 February 2010

Jean-Lluc Godard, Breathless




It was amazing how Goddard filmed it making it up as he went along - I think I'm right in saying that he wrote the script in a little notebook of his as the filming was ongoing. The actors didn't know what they were doing on each particular day because it just hadn't been planned.

The lighting (natural), improvised dialogue and plot, non linear narrative all make for a great looking movie.

I really like this one!!

Christopher Nolan - Momento




This is a great movie - using black and white sections to show the chronological order of the story and using colour sections that tell the story in reverse order. Great direction by Christopher Nolan.

Wednesday 17 February 2010

John Baldessari | Tristam Shandy Portfolio



John Baldessari | Tristam Shandy Portfolio

This is a link to John Baldessari's site as discussed in the first group session.

1st Group Session

Following on from our first group session to move our Semester 2 projects forward Tash (our Lecturer) recommended that I look at the work of: Chris Ware (already touched on in my Semester 1 project), Claire Tinsdale (a previous MA student who has worked with Cine Cameras), Carol Batton - (a local poet) and John Balderssari.

Over the coming days I will no doubt be posting my findings on the above and their influences.

I am also looking in more detail at Altered States of Mind (don't know if I can carry off - "being off my face" for the cause of research and a better outcome - I may test the theory in Amsterdam next weekend).

I will also be researching more on Story Telling Narratives.

Watch this space!!!

Band Heaven 17 enlists designers for anniversary tour | News | Design Week

Band Heaven 17 enlists designers for anniversary tour | News | Design Week

I was doing some research into a 15 credit module on my MA course when I came across this piece which was really relevant to my semester 1 project and covered synth-pop and in particular the work of "The Human League" - this article also ties in neatly with my Semester 2 project on visual cut ups and short movies.

Ian Marsh was a very important part of my Semester 1 report and it is ironic that he is now tapping into established designers to help visually represent the lyrics for the anniversary tour of Heaven 17.

Spooky!!!!

I can see an opportunity looming for me to take in the gig in Sheffield and film it at the same time??? - Where will I be on the 2nd March!!!

Tuesday 16 February 2010

Nosferatu (1922) - Full Movie

An all time classic - Bram Stoker adaptation from 1922.

Love the way the story is told by taking up the whole of the screen through large blocks of black with white text!

I am sure some influences will come out of this?

Monday 15 February 2010

SO WHAT IS SUPER 8?


Super 8 mm film (often simply called Super 8) is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format.

The film is nominally 8 mm wide, exactly the same as the older standard 8 mm film, and also has perforations on only one side. However, the dimensions of the perforations are smaller than those on older 8 mm film, which allowed the exposed area to be made larger. The Super 8 standard also specifically allocates the rebate opposite the perforations for an oxide stripe upon which sound can be magnetically recorded.

There are several different varieties of the film system used for shooting, but the final film in each case has the same dimensions. By far the most popular system was the Kodak system.

Launched in 1965, Super 8 film comes in plastic light-proof cartridges containing coaxial supply and take-up spools loaded with 50 feet of film. This was enough film for 2.5 minutes at the U.S. motion picture professional standard of 24 frames per second, and for 3 minutes and 20 seconds of continuous filming at 18 frames per second (upgraded from Standard 8 mm's 16 frame/s) for amateur use, for a total of approximately 3,600 frames per film cartridge. A 200-foot cartridge later became available which could be used in specifically designed cameras, but that Kodak cartridge is no longer produced. Super 8 film was typically a reversal stock. In the 1990s Pro-8 mm pioneered custom loading of several Super 8 stocks. Today Super 8 color negative film is available directly from Kodak for professional use and is typically transferred to video through the telecine process for use in television advertisement, music videos and other film projects.

TRAINS, PLANES & AUTOMOBILES

Another idea I am playing with is a film about the journey. This would be personal experiences of travel through all modes of transport, be it - car, plane, train and foot travel and the experiences faced when on a journey.

This could be a very interesting topic, but at the same time a very broad subject to make any sense of?

Just thinking out loud!!!!

POEMS - CUT UP METHOD

After discussing my project with my fellow piers and lecturers (not forgetting the external examiner - Ian Noble). I have chosen to use poems as a narrative to guide the viewer through my semester 2 project.

These poems will be again put through the "cut up" method and (hopefully) give an interesting twist to the outcomes?

I have been researching on themes for the use of poems and have come across some really interesting works from people such as: Wilfred Owen // Percy Bysshe Shelley // Samuel Taylor Coleridge // T. S. Eliot // Roger McGough // John Milton and Siegfried Sassoon.

A couple of their poems are listed below:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Percy Bysshe Shelley



Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge


A Square Dance
In Flanders fields in Northern France
They're all doing a brand new dance
It makes you happy and out of breath
And it's called the Dance of Death

Everybody stands in line
Everybody's feeling fine
We're all going to hop
1 - 2 - 3 and over the top

It's the dance designed to thrill
It's the mustard gas guadrille
A dance for men - girls have no say in it
For your partner is a bayonet

See how the dancers sway and run
To the rhythm of the gun
Swing your partner dos-y-doed
All around the shells explode

Honour your partner form a square
Smell the burning in the air
Over the barded wire kicking high
Men like shirts hung out to dry

If you fall that's no disgrace
Someone else will take your place
'Old soldiers never die. . .'
. . .Only young ones

In Flanders fields where mortars blaze
They're all going the latest craze
Khaki dancers out of breath
Doing the glorious Dance of Death
Doing the glorious (clap, clap) Dance of Death.

Roger McGough (b. 1937)