Film Making Experience - Essay Example

The reflection of my film making experience: A few days ago, I made a film with my unit. In this paper, I have shared my experience of film making. I have particularly talked about my weaknesses that I have realized after making the film. The following text discusses several important points that need to be taken care of while using the camera, writing the script, directing a film, taking the shots, and working with the team. Camera: I knew how to operate the camera but I was not very good in it. In order to improve my camera operating skills, I took the still camera exercise. In the very exercise, I was taught the function of reflected- and incident-light meters. I learnt how to measure the light by the light meter, and how to use the exposure and F stop for different purposes. I got to learn that the reflected-light meter does not always measure the light accurately because of the difference in reflectance and the result we thus get is underexposed. I learnt that when I attempt to take a photo of sunset, its brightness causes the reading of the light meter to become incorrect. This leads to the generation of an underexposed photo. In the still exercise, I realized that the camera’s aperture can be set as per the individual’s will. Setting of the aperture can be played with to generate stylish and artistic images. In the exercise, I found that one thing that is incredibly important for a director is the camera’s lenses. I was also taught the function of camera lenses. Learning the functionality of lenses was very interesting. One whole lecture was based on the filming exercise. During this exercise, I used a 50mm lens to get a medium close up, but the diameter of the lens decreased the depth of field and made the character isolated. Then I used a 12mm lens and took the camera closer to the character. This increased the depth of field and altered the composition of the shot altogether. As a result of this exercise, I learnt that different lenses can be used to produce different images, and can totally change the significance of the background in a picture. Lenses are thus of prime cinematographic value. Lenses play a big role in making the photography adorable and the director can use them according to his/her style. Although I have learnt quite a lot from the exercise, yet I have not sufficiently practiced what I have learnt. Before directing the movie in the first term, I had a clear idea of what lenses to use when and I had also written some notes regarding use of lenses for different kinds of shots. But during the practical work, it took me some time to choose the right lenses for taking shots in the field. This created mess and I felt that the actors realized that I was not quite competent in use of the camera. Originally, I had presumed that I new what lenses were suitable for use in various conditions, but when I checked the camera’s viewfinder, things happened contrary to my expectations. At one point, I wanted to use a 12mm lens for a shot, but on the spot, that lens proved to be too wrong to select for the shot because the effects it created totally ruined the image. I ended up checking different lenses for the shot, which spoke very badly of my competence in the use of camera in front of the actors and the crew. However, it was indeed, a great learning experience for me as I got to find out how different lenses could affect the shot. I need to practice a lot in order to make my actions consistent with my concepts. In order to enhance my knowledge and skill in the use of different kinds of lenses, I am particularly concentrating upon the literature about them. I believe that photographers develop their unique and individualistic style of filmmaking by playing with lenses. To carve out my own style of Film-making, I have started over from reading the experiences of famous photographers. Personal interviews published in news papers and magazines in which the photographers talk about the use of lenses for customizing the graphics according to the demand of the situation make a very good source of information. Not only that, I have started to analyze the quality of photography of different movie prints, and have become more critical in my evaluation of the cinematography. I tend to think what lens the photographer might have used for a particular scene and try to judge its role in generating the effect the scene maintains. I believe that these exercises are very thought provoking and sharpening, and thus need a lot of practicing in order to inculcate perfection in me. Of all the terms, the very first term of the exercise was quite beneficial in this knowledge area of photography. It made me learn a lot and recognize my weaknesses. Actors: I worked with a wide range of actors from kindergarten children to sexagenarians. Being a student, I require a lot of experience in order to excel in my field, so I am eager to practice almost everything and work with everybody. I have also gained experience in acting. That experience made it very easy to direct the actors confidently. I easily told them how to control their body language in order to make it consistent with the demand of the scene. This was the first time I was working with a child actor. These little actors were too difficult to convey the idea to. Directing them was an extremely difficult job. Because of their inability to comply with my instructions, I lost quite a lot of footage. I tried different techniques to make the little child understand what I required of her. At one point, I wanted her to look sad, so I told her to think about something she had lost and that made her sad. To my surprise, she grinned while telling me that she lost her Barbie doll last week and that she was very sad about it. To me, she did not seem to be a bit worried about having lost the Barbie. The following day, I applied the trick Abbas Kiarostami used to direct the child actor in his film which I read about in the magazine. To make the child look as if he was thinking about the location of his friend’s home, Kiarostami asked the child to sum up some integers he told him. While the child was summing them up, Kiarostami shot the scene and the acting came out to be too natural and nice. When I asked the child actor who stood on the platform of train station to count some numbers, he gave an equally nice shot. Working with children made me learn a lot. Now when I have to work with children, I know quite a lot of ways in which I can direct them in a style that they feel comfortable with. I also learnt that children respond well to jokes. The director needs to develop trust and friendship with them in order to get the best out of them. Script: To make my scripts captivating and make them sound real, I derive the story from real life situations that are interesting and worth making a story out of. Once, I saw a middle aged woman on an airport who was sitting on a bench and was reading the newspaper. She had put spectacles on and was very deeply immersed in the reading. Meanwhile, a young teenager arrived there and sat close to her on the bench. The old woman became conscious. She looked the young boy in the face. The two of them exchanged looks. Having noticed that the young boy was observing her, she spared the reading and straightened her shoulders, and caressed her hair. Then, a pretty young girl arrived there and sat next to the boy. She attracted the boy towards her. The young boy turned around and passed her grin as a friendship offer, which the girl happily accepted, and returned the grin. This saddened the aged lady, and she again picked up the newspaper and started to read. I recapitulated the scene and decided to enrich the story with sentimental dialogue between the characters. It was a contrast between youth and old age and best qualified as the main theme of the story. I wrote the script for all the characters that made part of the scene, though I changed the theme to the journey of life. I decided to choose the train station as the location for shooting. Life has been portrayed as a journey by many famous Persian poets like Saadi, Runi and Hafiz, and that is how I wanted to project life in my film. I chose train station for shooting because train symbolizes journey. I decided to keep the middle aged woman as the main character of my script. In the beginning of the script, I tried to show her as a serious woman in reality. The reality transforms into fantasy as a little girl holding a balloon enters the station. Balloon symbolized fantasy. The balloon hits the newspaper which essentially means that the reality is overshadowed by the fantasy. Then, a young boy enters the station and the two exchange looks through the transparent balloon. The fantasy shatters back into reality as a young girl approaches them and hits the balloon. As soon as the young girl enters into the scene, she totally draws the young boy’s attention towards herself. An old woman enters the station as the next train approaches. Her old age symbolizes the last part of the journey of life. Finally, the little girl with the balloon enters the train and the train disappears far into the darkness. The idea that I tried to project through my film was that people’s fantasies and dreams drift away from them as they age. I derived the idea from a short documentary about dreams that I once saw. I knew that the concept was too intricate to project without the use of symbols, so I frequently incorporated symbols in my story. I also knew that not many people would be able to learn the theme of the story just by reading the script, so I decided to make a movie out of it, though I do confess that the story still remained too difficult to conceive. This was, for me, a tough experience, though I learnt a lot from the making of the film. One of my biggest mistakes was that I constructed the story from symbols and subtexts, when in fact, I should have gone the other way round. In order for the concept to be sound, the writer must first have a clear idea of the plot of the script at the outset. Symbols and subtexts are then derived from the story. I think that such a strong belief on symbolism that I had emerged from the culture to which I belong. Many artists in Iran use art to convey the message that they can not otherwise do verbally. They use symbols and subtexts as a means to express their thoughts and feelings about many sensitive matters and harsh realities of life. Symbolism in language is a fundamental part of the Iranian culture. Symbolism, no doubt is a strong and meaningful means of conveyance of idea but it should be used in the right place at the right time. By constructing the plot of the story from symbols, I made wrong use of them and this totally sapped the power of symbolism. I adopted a “self-censorship” approach towards making of the film as a precautionary measure because I did not want my film to be ruined by the censor board as each and every scene was purposeful and contributed to the construction of the story. I have decided to lessen the use of symbolism in my future writings. That does not, in any way, mean that there would be no symbolism in my future scripts. All I mean to say is that its use will be constructive. I shall derive symbols from the plot of the story. Many successful script writers like Alfred Hitchcock make frequent use of symbolism which makes their story even more engaging and entertaining. However, so far, I have not been able to construct a strong story without too much symbolism, and this is what I intend to work upon now. I started to read screenplays of good movies on a regular basis and also started practicing the story writing. I can not say that I have completely overcome my deficiencies as even now when I hold the pen, I tend to adopt a symbolic way to tell my story, though I can say that I have improved a lot. Actually, in the first term, I not only realized my weaknesses in writing, but also discovered several weaknesses in my character. Directing: I knew how to conduct the shooting. At times, I took the cinematographer to the tube station which was the shooting site and discussed with him how to go about shooting. One day before the shooting, it so happened that the tube station was closed because of the tube strike. We immediately had to find an on-ground tube station as lighting in the first term was disallowed. We were lucky enough to find one that was open during weekend. The shot list had to be adjusted accordingly because the new location lacked in good architecture and looks. Besides, we were running short of time so sparing the new station was not a worthy idea. Because of these factors, the scenes could not be as beautiful as I wanted them to be, though the experience added to my skills as I learnt practicing in tough circumstances. The platform had a long and dark corridor on one side and an open ground on the other, where trees had grown in a dense fashion. They made an excellent feature for creating the dramatic effect that I wanted to achieve. In the movie “Citizen Kane”, Kane and Emily are arguing about Kane’s criticism of the presidential office in public, but the underlying cause of their fight is their disturbed sexual life in the movie. In that shot, there is shown metal equipment in the background of Emily where as Kane is shot in the background of a wild planet. Here, metal equipment signifies the celibacy of Emily whereas the wild planet symbolizes the extreme sexual vigor of Kane. Thus, their backgrounds have been chosen for the shot in a meaningful way. Likewise, I wanted to take shots of the middle aged woman in the dark and cold atmosphere of the corridor on one side of the platform, and I planned to shoot the scenes of the boy with the background of the garden trees because such a background is consistent with the youth and joy of the boy. I wanted to display sexuality as one of the most fundamental factors that attracted the young boy towards the young girl in comparison to the middle aged woman. These ideas flashed in my mind suddenly as I arrived at the new location, and I decided to choose these backgrounds for the shots. I tried to use mobile as a Freudian devise in the film. I asked the young boy to play a game in his mobile with one hand and rub the second hand on his pant’s zip while trying to draw the middle- age woman’s attention towards him by engaging in an eye contact with her. I tried to show him as ‘the male character’ for he sees the relationship with opposite gender as a game. I thought that it could make a link about the child’s point of view about sexuality and the game. Actually, I wanted to show that the child sees the sexual relationship as a game. I derived this idea from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. In that movie, there is a scene in which Marion and Norman sit in a room with many stuffed trophy birds mounted on the walls. Norman tells Marion that he is fond of stuffing birds while rubbing his hand against the gentle part of his body. This action immediately speaks of his wild sexuality and violence. I used the same concept in my movie but it did not work out that well. I did that because I wanted to add more layer to the film but I think it was too much for a four minute movie. In such a short movie, use of so much subtext and layer was indeed unreasonable. I asked the audience to perceive too many things in just four minutes. This made the film so complicated that many viewers could not even understand its main plot. Michelangelo Antonioni has had a great influence on me as a film director. I usually, consciously or unconsciously, try to incorporate the elements of his movies into mine. One of the main themes in his movies revolves around the difference between genders in the modern era. Antonioni believes that the opposite genders use sex for different purposes. Quite often, male characters In Antonioni’s films avail sex as a means to break free of the restrictions of the world. For example, Sandro in L’avventura relieves his frustration through sex. This can be estimated from the fact that he forces Claudia into sex right after he has malevolently ruined the student’s sketch. He is frustrated with himself for loosing sight of his own architectural interest and for selling out for the sake of security and wealth. Rather than attempting to come to terms with his own failure, he attempts to annihilate his anguish in the arms of Claudia. Likewise, Giovanni in “La notte” tries to reverse and ignore his failure in his marriage by forcing himself on Lidia. For both men, as well as for Piero in “L’eclisse”, who frequently makes advances at Vittoria, the sexual arena is a place where they feel they still have complete control. I tried to use similar theme as one of the subtexts in my film. On the other hand, sexual intercourse has emotional significance for women in his movies. I have developed my film on the same concept. As soon as the boy gains the attention of the girl, he considers it his success and with a big smile on his face, gets immersed in the game on his mobile instead. The boy feels powerful until the girl starts to neglect him. He feels insecure as a result of that. In my four minute film, I have included all this which is too inconsistent with the length of the movie. A vast majority of the viewers simply overlooked all of these important points that essentially tells that I did not do my job properly. Antonioni often used distance between characters to reflect their loneliness and lack of association with one another. I also tried to use this mise-en-scene in some shots. For example, I used 12mm lens to show the distance between middle-age woman and young boy. Likewise, I used 25mm to bring them a bit closer as soon as the reality changed into fantasy. Again, as the fantasy changed back to reality, I used the 12mm lens. But I could not attain the intended effect in the picture because of the inappropriate location. To avoid causing inconvenience to the passengers, we had to resort to a very small portion of the platform. Accordingly, the required distance between characters could not be created. After taking a few shots, I decided to use single shot for each character. That was why in many shots in the film, separate shots for separate characters could be noticed. This was also one of the mise-en-scene that Antonioni and Bergman frequently made use of to emphasize upon the loneliness of characters. In most of the Antonioni’s movies, we see separate shots of individual characters. Also, when he took wider shots, he positioned the actors in such a way that none of them faced each other or looked in the same direction. Actually, there is a great shot in the “L’avventura” where all the characters sit on the rock together without facing one another. They are very tired after searching for the lost Anna. All of them look in different directions. Mike Nichols used a similar mise-en-scene for the first shot of “The graduate”. I also tried to use same mise-en-scene for the shot so that the characters belonging to different generation could all be accommodated in the same shot. But the required effect could not be achieved because of the time constraints. When Antonioni and Nichols used this mise-en-scene , their shots were long enough to easily convey the details to the viewers unlike mine that was even less than three second long. I wanted to enrich the film with all the ideas that I had so that every viewer would interpret different aspects differently. I remembered many great movies in which several layers and subtexts had been used. What I did not realize was that they were several hours long in duration. Occasionally, I found out that the details that I had incorporated in my shots were not consistent with the context of the film. For example, the details in the fantasy scene were quite realistic for the mood of that part of the story. Anyway, it was a great experience for me from which I learnt a lot. Working in the unit B: We were divided into different units for the task. In the beginning, we were strangers to one another. We had had arguments over certain matters. For example, I needed to shoot during weekends because I had to work with child actors and children could only be approached during weekend. Same was the case with a female member of our unit. Though, we were lucky enough to be granted permission from the school to shoot our movies on alternate weekends. With the passage of time, we got to understand one another well and worked in good team spirit. All members of my unit were very committed to the work. In order to avoid any inconveniences or delays later, we decided to schedule our shooting. Everyone acceded to the idea of making the schedule. Our unit had to make three movies in total. We assigned the responsibility of finding the location and selecting the actors for shooting to the respective director and producer of each movie. In order to achieve that, we divided the unit into three groups. Every two or three days, we sat together to discuss the progress of work. We conducted several meetings before the commencement of shooting. These meetings not only enabled us to organize our findings and share them with one another, but also served as a platform where we could remove our differences and develop friendly relationships with one another. Occasionally, we had misunderstandings that were removed as we talked with one another in the meetings. Overall, I loved the teamwork that we worked in throughout the shooting. Every one of us played his/her role to develop unity and avoid conflicts. All of us enjoyed making the film because of the friendly atmosphere that resulted from our mutual efforts. Everybody’s opinion was valued and respected in the decision making process. My roles in other two movies were “Second AC” and “First AD”. And I tried to do my best in these roles. Actually, working in different roles was a great experience and it helped me as a director to understand my crew and their situations better. I feel fortunate to have worked in the unit B and had great time working with all the members in this unit. In the course of shooting, we not only made our movies but also made very good friends. Read More