New Wave Film Evaluation

Introduction

After carrying out research on the French New Wave, I was given a brief to create my own new wave inspired film, taking into consideration the typical conventions used by filmmakers from the movement. I focused my research on one specific filmmaker, Jean-Luc Godard (who was one of the pioneers of the nouvelle vague), studying his three films A Woman Is A Woman, Contempt and My Life To Live. I aimed to incorporate the techniques he utilised throughout these three films, such as jump-cuts, long takes and hand held camera movement, as well as experimenting with using diegetic and non-diegetic sound in my own film.

My film follows the journey of a young male character, which throughout the narrative goes unnamed (Godard did not always name the characters in his films), travelling from a city to a small seaside town where he feels more free and comfortable. Whilst in the city there is a lot of ambient sound, which reflects the idea of my character feeling stressed and uncomfortable in the city. There were lots of shots of people, tall buildings, built up areas and busy traffic, which are to illustrate the point that in a large city, you may feel as though you are a number, rather than an individual. As he makes his way away from the city, less ambient noise can be heard and non-diegetic music begins playing, giving the audience a sense of comfort and relaxation.

Planning

Before making my own new wave inspired film, I had viewed the three Godard films that I mentioned before and carried out a lot of research on the techniques favoured by new wave filmmakers, which I felt gave me ample knowledge to create my own film in the new wave style. I created a mood board of visual influences taken from the films I had analysed so that I could go back to this if I was lacking inspiration, however I did not want to create an exact plan of every single shot I would take as I wanted my film to look spontaneous and unplanned, much like Alexandre Astruc said that filmmakers should do when he said ‘filmmakers should make use of their equipment spontaneously, flexibly and personally, as a writer uses a pen’.

Production and Improvements

I took a lot of visual inspiration from Godard’s films in the sense that I consciously tried to use similar techniques such as long takes that lasted a lot longer than they would in conventional film and hand-held camera movement so there is visible camera shake. I used a variety of shot types, from close-ups to establishing shots and mid-shots. I also experimented wherever possible with aperture, switching from shallow depth of field to a wide depth of field depending on the content of the shot. When filming, I hoped to compare and contrast the two locations that I used – Digbeth in Birmingham and Bridlington, a small seaside town in the North of England. I wanted to highlight the fact that Birmingham is a huge city with thousands of people, lots of busy traffic and tall buildings and built up areas, whilst Bridlington on the other hand is a tiny town by the sea where everyone seems to know each other and not much happens.

I found using hand-held camera movement particularly challenging indoors, especially in the arcade as the lighting was low key and therefore I had to use a slower shutter speed so any movement from me holding the camera was extremely noticeable and sometimes didn’t look very aesthetically pleasing. it was also difficult to control the grain/noise in the video when filming in this location too, and I had to use a rather high ISO due to the low-key lighting. Another thing is that I would have liked to have been more ambitious with camera movements because I used a wide variety of shot types, however only really used panning shots or static shots which made my film look less dynamic and interesting. I feel that, had I used more movements like tilts or zooms, my film would have looked much more spontaneous which is what I had envisaged for it. Whilst filming, I did shoot a lot of footage that I didn’t use because I didn’t feel as though it was particularly relevant, such as shots of the Birmingham Christmas market and a museum and art gallery that we visited afterwards.

Post-Production

In post-production I decided to add non-diegetic music, as I had seen in Godard’s ‘Contempt’ and ‘A woman is a woman’, where it drifts between non-diegetic music and diegetic sound. I chose an acoustic track of one of my favourite songs as it sounds quite relaxing, which links well with the subject matter of the film. Similar to in Godard’s new wave films, I utilised the jump cuts throughout to distort the sense of time in order to make it seem as though my character is enjoying himself so much in this small seaside town where he is free and relaxed that he doesn’t realise the presence of time so much anymore. It also draws attention to the fact that it is a film, rather than reality, which Godard was fond of doing in his films.  

Risk Assessment

During shoots on location, I ensured that I considered all of the necessary health and safety rules. I made sure that my equipment was clearly visible to passers by, my actor(s) and myself so as to avoid any trips or falls that may result in injury or damage of the equipment, as well as putting all of it away when it wasn't in use.