New Wave Brief

After studying the French New Wave and looking at Jean-Luc Godard's films, I have decided that for my own personal new wave film, I am going to capture the everyday and the ordinary, as this is a common theme in the movement and particularly in Godard's work. I plan to capture a day in the life of a person that I find particularly interesting and that I am close to, in the way that Godard used actors and actresses that he was familiar with or found interesting (the actress that he used in the vast majority of his early films, Anna Karina, was his wife for several years). My film is going to be fairly short, around 5 minutes long, and will follow an non-linear narrative about a person exploring a place that they've never visited before. My film is going to take place in a small seaside town called Bridlington, which is a place that I myself have never visited before so the footage that I take whilst there will be spontaneous and candid, which will make for a more interesting film. I intend to draw inspiration from the three films that I analysed for my contextual study, taking into careful consideration the camera techniques that are used and the rules that are purposely broken in order to make a visually exciting film. 

I plan to use predominantly diegetic sound, which is sound whose source is visible on screen, however I may add some non-diegetic music at various points in the film as Godard does in Une Femme Est Une Femme. I also intend to experiment with using both a tripod and with hand held camera movement, and incorporate some very long takes, sometimes lasting minutes, which Godard was fond of doing. My light source will be natural ambient light and therefore, will differ from high key to low key depending on the time of day at which I film. I have chosen natural lighting specifically because it echoes the idea of realism behind the new wave movement which is something that I hope to recreate in my own film.

In regards to editing the clips that will make up my new wave film, I am going to use a lot of jump cuts. This is because Godard was well-known for his extensive use of jump-cuts, particularly in his film 'Breathless'. I may also repeat some of the footage throughout the film, focussing specifically on important aspects of the film to emphasise their significance. 

When considering the equipment I am going to use, I need to think about what kind of lens would best suit the footage I want to make. I am going to be shooting on a Canon EOS 700D camera. In addition to using my DSLR camera, I may also use my phone camera to film some footage, as I'll be attending a concert whilst in Bridlington and will be unable to take my 700D in with me. I think that this may create an interesting contrast to the better quality DSLR images, and may make the jump cuts look more effective.

In regards to technical settings, I plan to make sure that all of my footage is correctly exposed; playing close attention to the relationship between ISO, shutter speed and aperture. I'm hoping to achieve footage with a relatively low ISO to avoid the presence of grain and noise, a shutter speed of 1/50 s to correspond with my frames per second (1/24) and a variety of different apertures to add depth to my footage. In scenes where I might show a landscape setting or a location where there are lots of people or subjects to look at, I will use a wide depth of field and in scenes where I will be filming close ups of people or objects I will use a shallower depth of field to direct the focus onto that specific subject. 

French Cinema - Lanzoni (Auter Theory)

Vivre Sa Vie Editing Video

Museum Project (Session 3)

During our third visit to the museum, we began to build our sets, props and characters. We were split into three groups and each group were assigned a set. Then we went off in our groups and began to brainstorm our ideas for the set that we had been given. The group that I had been put in had been assigned the 'Little Brother's Bedroom/Landing', so we thought of various ways in which we could decorate and furnish his bedroom and then started moulding furniture out of plasticine and wood, and making the wallpaper.

Shutter Speed Experiments

Shutter Speed and Frame Rate


Frame Rate = the number of frames captured by the camera per second.

Shutter Speed = Duration of the time each frame is exposed to light.

The standard setting for your shutter speed should be double your frame rate, or as close as possible. For example: 24p at 1/50. 

Frame Rate vs. Shutter Speed from Story & Heart on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/138261651

1/30 

For these videos, I shot on the standard kit lens (18-55mm). I used a shutter speed of 1/30 on a tripod, which is relatively slow and we can see a fair amount of motion blur when the subjects are moving. 

18-55mm kit lens 1:30 from Frankie Smith on Vimeo.

1:30 s from Frankie Smith on Vimeo.

1/100

I shot these videos on a 18-55mm standard kit lens. 

18-55mm kit lens 1:100 from Frankie Smith on Vimeo.

1:100 from Frankie Smith on Vimeo.

Reflection

I think that my videos were relatively effective, although I can definitely room for improvement. The videos were all exposed correctly, however in the videos with the cars as subjects, the tripod is slightly wonky which does not look aesthetically pleasing. 

Studio Lighting/Lighting

Rembrandt

Rembrandt lighting is made up of one light source on one side of the face and a triangle of light on the other side of the face, below the eye called a chiaroscuro. The light source must be at a 45 degree angle to the subject and slightly higher than the subject.

Butterfly

Butterfly lighting was popular in the 1930s with Hollywood movie star portrait photographers. It is characterised by the butterfly shaped shadow below the nose and is produced by placing the light source above the face (between 25 and 70 degrees) and in line with the direction that the face is pointing. 

Edge/Split 

With split lighting, half of the face is lit and the other half is shadow.  It is produced by placing the light source to the right or the left of the face. 

High-Key

High Key is when there is a low amount of contrast and a large light source, often this is natural sunlight.  There are often no shadows or very few shadows and the majority of the tones in the image/video are in the highlight region. 

Low-Key 

Low key lighting is when there is a high amount of contrast and a small light source, which creates predominantly dark tones and a very dramatic looking video/image. 

Use of Shadows

In this video I was experimenting with the use of shadow and light in my images. I used a dark cupboard, and opened the door, allowing a pattern of light to form on the wall. This looked really interesting and effective as we are not able to tell exactly what is creating the pattern on the wall. 

Editing Analysis - Vivre Sa Vie

Find a short scene from your new wave film, question why the editor chose to cut when they did. Annotate your video and put it on your blog.