Research and Planning- Inspiration

For my personal work -focusing on video- I decided to create something completely different that would allow me to expand by creativity and imagination in the world of film. With the recent release of the silent film "The Artist" and also the release of "Hugo" which is centred around Georges Melies and the history of film, it sparked the idea in my mind of doing similar to what the creators of "The Artist" did; make a film in the style of old silent cinema. I find Georges Melies' work extremely influential and plan to research his style, stories, and performance in his films.

Georges Melies

The Artist

Hugo












In addition, I also researched the animation of Terry Gilliam who did The Monty Python known for its bizarre, unique and artistic style that has a recognized cult following.

Preliminary Film- "The Meeting"

In order to follow the brief of displaying the 180 degree rule in our film, we were required to come up with a short narrative within which we would portray the rule. We realised that with the 180 degree rule, commonly there is two characters that are talking, the camera is required to stay within a 180 degree semi circle in order to not confuse the audience by making the characters appear in a different position which in turn heightens the realism which film aims to provide.

We decided we would need a minimum of 3 people in our group, 2 to act and 1 to film. The story/short narrative we came up with was that we would follow one character going up to another character, throwing a bag ambiguously at the feet of the other character-who does not know them or the contents of the bag-and then disappearing with no real explanation.

Through doing the preliminary exercise we recognised our mistakes which were; the fact that more dialogue was off camera than on, there were not enough close-up shots to establish character and the conversation was quite short. We will learn from these mistakes and show this by hopefully not making the same ones again in our official coursework that will follow on from this preliminary exercise.

Despite our mistakes however, we felt that nevertheless we portrayed the 180 degree correctly and therefore still achieved/answered the brief we were given.