The Geek Beat: Celluloid Saturday

Celluloid Saturdays: Let's recycle!


Welcome to The Geek Beat this week coming live to you, on tour from the crazy city of Hamburg, home of that meaty much-loved source of sustenance, the hamburger. And apparently the home of the kebab too if the proliferation of Greek purveyors of elephant legs is to be believed. First up, a big chunk of chewy gratitude to those of you that are checking back in on a weekly basis - After only three posts the blog has amassed over a thousand reads; decent going by anybody's standards. If you dig it, please retweet it to your friends and share the love.  

This entry marks a month since my first post and kind of solidifies the content of  The Geek Beat moving forwards: Once every four or five weeks (along with my partner-in-crime @shaune_gilbert) I'll be posting the RetrObituary - a review of the classic video games of yesteryear that celebrate their birthday in that month. In January's blog we remembered Space Invaders as it turned 35 and also drank a ten-year toast to Resident Evil 4 amongst others. Keep an eye open on Twitter for this month's upcoming celebrants. Also featuring monthly will be The Gutter, a comic book retrospective looking at some of the best and worst the medium has to offer. January's offering looked back at DC Comics' Before Watchmen prequel series; go check it out if you haven't already. 

At some point during the moon's long, lonely cycle through the cold, dark nights I'll update you on ANA, a comic book and film project that I'm heavily involved in. The first post only went live a few days ago but has already attracted a lot of attention (Thanks Neil Gaiman!) doubling my followers on Twitter and quadrupling the blog traffic to this site. The project really is in the very early stages so you've found us at the perfect time to help it grow into something amazing. Again, if you haven't already, find the post below and check it out. 

Which brings me finally onto today: Celluloid Saturday. Full disclosure up front: This week is a bit like one of those Simpsons episodes that retools old footage - I know, it's kind of cheating but needs must. As well as blogging and writing, I'm also a videographer trying to rise up through the ranks. It's a bit like that tower of opponents you'd have to scale on Mortal Kombat to be respected by the other kids in the arcade. Anyhow you got KO'd by the first opponent and you were getting hounded out of the video store, the sound of mocking laughter reverberating in your ears as you cursed yourself for spending your entire week's lunch money by midday Monday just trying to score a showdown with Reptile.

Ah, seeking the acceptance of your peers. It was more addictive than heroin.

Incidentally, I have a friend who once, back in the early nineties, walked into the local arcade, cool as you like, popped twenty pence into the Mortal Kombat cabinet - defeated all opponents with an degree of panache, got to The Pit (where Reptile resided), got the double flawless victory and fatality needed to unlock him, (Oh yes, this was back in the days when unlocking a new character didn't require your credit card details but instead some serious skills) before royally kicking his reptilian ass. Then, after humbly accepting his ten million points from the game, my buddy turned to a young kid who was watching, his youthful expression agape with awe, ruffled the youngster's hair (I may have made that part up) and said: "All yours buddy," (Or words to that effect) leaving the kid to take the reins of the game and presumably be inspired to go on and save humanity or something. 

My friend walked out of the arcade in triumph, a teenager reborn, forged in the fires of battle, the torch well and truly passed onto the next generation. I hopped after him, absolutely desperate for the toilet and knowing there was no way I was making it home. I'll always remember that day as being a landmark moment for the triumph of video game Good over video game Evil. That, and it was the first time I ever wet myself as a teenager in public. I have no idea why I'm telling you this.

Pardon the digression, the point I was trying to make is that I'm a busy guy - so for the time being Celluloid Saturday is going to be a feature exploring my forays into the world of video production but to lighten my load I'll be reprinting a series of blogs that I wrote a year and a half ago as I was first studying filmmaking and video production. 

It started off as a hobby for me, shooting stuff on my phone and then stitching it together using simple trailer makers in apps like iMovie. In fact, you can see one of my first movies here:

Dollars to donuts you don't get past the first thirty seconds

It wasn't good, I know. But I was just starting out, finding my way. To see where I am now, check out this video I recently shot (along with the talented @agejin24) for the supremely-talented Alexandra Jayne who you can also follow on Twitter @A_J_Music:

Ah, seeking the acceptance of your peers. Still more addictive than heroin

Better, right? I hope so at least. So as I'm often strapped for time, I thought it would be a great idea to recycle some of my early thoughts on filmmaking once a month for your potential edification. If timing allows I can also post some more examples of my stuff, new or old for your delectation dear reader. So here we go, weeks One and Two follow:

Week 1

So welcome to my first post recording what is sure to be a dizzying ascent to Spielberg-esque levels of filmmaking proficiency. In only seven weeks. Having attended my first class on Tuesday and then sat and expanded upon my notes on an overcast Saturday afternoon, my main impression so far is one of slight terror at just how much technical stuff there is to digest. When we sat in class and filled out forms that detailed the thing we liked most about filmmaking, like any would-be creator who wants to (in the words of the immortal Neil Gaiman) 'make good art', I wrote down that the most important thing to me was to be able to express myself. After spending a couple of hours sitting down and reading about how many elements go into simply considering the depth of field and focusing a shot correctly, I have come to the conclusion that self-expression may be some way further down the line than I originally thought! There are so many technical aspects to consider such as splitting focus, the effect on the size of the subject, increasing/decreasing the f-stop and so on, just to get an acceptable focus.

Thankfully, I did pick up some helpful little tips, both from the lesson and from online research to help get it right such as sharpen the focus on the most important features of the subject but make sure that the depth of field is great enough to compensate for subject movement without compromising the shot. I'm sure I read somewhere that the eyes are a good focus-point on a human subject. Another head-scratching moment came when I was reading about lenses. I was trying to figure out why on earth anyone would want to use a prime (fixed) lens when a zoom affords you so much more flexibility when shooting; surely the ability to alter the focal length of the lens is a winner every time? Well, maybe not. Apparently, altering the focal length is not without issues itself and can lead to compromised composition, flawed perspective, difficulties in focusing and capturing the shot. 

There's a great book that Scott (my course tutor) recommended to me that I'd advise anyone of you guys to pick up. It's called Television Production by Millerson and Owens. I have the 14th ed. and whilst it isn't the most detailed text in the world, it's super-comprehensive covering every part of the process but best of all? It makes sense to a noob like me! The prose is really simple and clear and there are loads of images and diagrams to illustrate their points. Something else I remember reading is that focusing is easier for long shots and harder for close ups; I don't know why but I always imagined that it would be the other way around. It would use a shallower depth of field but if you wanted to represent a greater space in focus then I suppose that would pose problems? 

 The one thing that I haven't looked at in too much detail yet is exposure although I plan to do so before Tuesday's class. Although I'm still a Rank 1 Noob in this area I now know enough to understand that the image of me above this blog is overexposed. (EDIT: I removed the image - it was a selfie and the world wasn't ready for it yet) The thought of going through what now seems like a crazily-detailed process to then realise that your shots are ruined because of exposure issues is another that fills me with trepidation. 

Anyway...

The purpose of this blog is to be self-reflective which I'm trying to be but I feel kind of like I'm waffling so I'll stop here before I develop full verbal diarrhea. Thanks for reading. I'm sure my next post will be improved after I've had a chance to see what you are all writing and do that instead. 

 Cheers. 

DC

  : )

 Oh also, has anyone started to think about the job type they want to focus on for their Assignment 2? I've been mulling it over all week, wishing that I was more interesting so that I knew others that were more interesting.Any ideas?

Week 2

So, welcome back to the second week of meditational musings and samurai-esque ponderous reflection that is the Random Thoughts from a Filmmaking Noob. This week I've found myself much more securely ensconced within my comfort zone as we focused on framing, composition and camera shots. 

Whereas last week some of the myriad aspects of shot preparation blew my tiny mind, I found this week's content way easier to synthesise. Whilst there were a few concepts that I was unfamiliar with such as the rule of thirds and macro-shots, ultimately it was all relatively simple to embed them within my existing understanding. In the case of the former it was kind of gratifying to realise that here was a concept I was already embracing (albeit in the limited video work I've already done), I just never knew that it had a name! Surely the sign of a natural auteur! Deconstructing images and teaching camera angles are sometimes part of my own day job so I was able to quickly move on past this to some deeper ideas regarding shot composition. And I made some pretty interesting findings:

Did you (consciously) know for instance, that your subconscious inherently interprets a subject to be stronger if it moves from left to right across your vision, rather than right to left? The same is true of an image where the subject moves vertically from top to bottom rather than up to down. I also spent some time looking at the effect of lines within a shot and the different compositional effects they can create such as vertical lines connoting power and/or dignity whereas horizontal lines can symbolise rest and serenity. Diagonal lines can connote dynamism, vitality or drama. On the subject of diagonal lines I also looked into the origins of the oft-discussed Dutch Angle shot and it turns out that it (allegedly) has nothing to do with the Dutch at all. The shot actually originated in Germany and was known as the Deutsch Angle; it first appeared in German Expressionist cinema in the 1920s although my first exposure to it was as a kid watching re-runs of the old sixties Batman show with Adam West where they'd use it all the time. Apparently the name of the shot simply became confused and ended up being known as Dutch rather than Deutsch. Also, if you cant the camera to a full 90 degrees it's called a Bavarian Angle.

A few other things that I picked up from wider reading considered the framing of the subject within the shot when the subject is moving; placing the subject smack in the middle of the shot is uninspired (and also doesn't sit we'll with the rule of thirds) so it can be more effective to leave space in front or behind the subject as they travel through the z-axis, kind of like the fixed camera interview shot that Scott showed us. Whether you choose to leave space behind or in front of the subject depends on the intended effect you desire. I also looked at how the choice of shot alters the time that it takes for the subject to move through the z; it wail take longer for the subject to move across the frame diagonally than it will for them to move horizontally; it follows then that moving full on towards the lens will take even longer. The illustration below probably explains it better than I can:

So anyway, that's a few of the things that I picked up and hope to use. The image above is from the excellent Television Production 14th Ed. by Millerson and Owen that I also plugged last week. Still haven't had a chance to see your blogs as yet but I'm hoping that we'll get a chance to do that soon.

I'm writing this on my iPad so no word count. Hopefully that's about right. Has anyone else noticed how Blogger reduces your beautifully structured, artfully paragraphed writing into one mushed-up brick of prose? If it does that again you'll just have to imagine the spaces.

See you soon.

DC

The Filmmaking Noob

Huh. Not sure why, but I seem to be stuck with the dark side here. Never mind. Thanks for checking out The Geek Beat this week. Next week will see the return of The RetrObituary. Follow me on Twitter for regular updates @VertigoDC.  Your Friend in Time, DC.