Lecture: The Treachery of Images

Summary:
This lecture focused on the more experimental versions of art and photography and the movement of surrealism from the 1900's. This being that artist began to take a more bizarre/dreamlike approach to their work to convey messages. More contemporary artist in actuality use this idea of surrealism in the sense that they use new and unusual methods to create art such as 'glitch art'; taking glitches from google earth and turning them into surreal versions of landscapes. The idea of this is to play into things like the uncanny valley; this being to create a response into the viewer that makes the art seem almost like the real but at the same time, slightly and possibly disturbingly off by a little.

Research: Non-diegetic sound for ending

This piece of music is a song that did not get published with the Mylo Xyloto album by Coldplay in 2011 but was used in their "Live 2012" film. It's a song that has a theme of reflection and self awareness as demonstrated in the "Live 2012" film. Listening to this made me picture a sense of tragedy or sadness; based on the slow rhythm and basic form of the piano notes.

 In my opinion, it could go really well for the ending when the police break in and see the painting and the protagonist unconscious. The music would make the audience think that combined with their shocked performance; they question if what they are doing is morally right. As a group, we aim to create a piece of music similar to this to use in our film.

Music is used in "Live 2012" film (starts from 1:10)

Pre-Production: Location Confirmed!

Location  was one of our hardest choices to  make. We needed something ideally run down, confine and cut off. Our first choice was down by the locks next to City Locks accommodation. However, we crossed that off as being too unsafe to get equipment and crew down there. We had considered using the film & animation classroom as there is a lot of white which is what we wanted to represent bland and no colour. But there was also the option to use my grandmother's garage which is not too far away in Mosley.

I have enquired and that location has been confirmed for us to  use. It appears fairly run down, is sealed off and has white walls. It ticks all the boxes and it allows us to set up our own set without the need for permissions or hassle. We shall commence filming there on 04/03/17.

Applying Theory to our short film

As a group, we have spit the visual components between us to further develop our film based on each one. I have been assigned line, shape, rhythm, space and movement:

Production Roles

Director - Alex
Story and Screenplay - Alex, Ellie, Fi, Oscar
Director of Photography - Oscar
Storyboard Artist - Fi, Oscar
Production Design - Fi
Visual Effects Artist - Ellie
Grip - Alex
Sound Design - Fi, Oscar
Script Supervisor - Ellie
Editing - Alex, Ellie

Theory: Visual Components Lecture Notes

Research: The Pleasantville Effect (Secondary Colour Correction)

Lynda.com Article:

• Secondary colour correction isolates "a range of colour, saturation and brightness values and make adjustments in only that range" 

- Kennedy, A (2014), Beyond Pleasantville and Sin City: Secondary Color Correction, https://www.lynda.com/articles/secondary-color-correction-sin-city

This article helped me to get a better understanding of what the Pleasantville effect actually is in technical terms. Thus, it helps me to explore the possibilities of using this effect in my short film.

Films that use the Pleasantville Effect:

Pleasantville:

Where the effect gets its name from. the use of colour in the film is limited as the protagonists enter the sit-com "Pleasantville" and more colour is added as more rules of the world they are in get broken. Colour is this form is used as a method of literally standing out from the world in which the characters are in.

This is highly useful for our short film as the protagonist does not belong in the world she is in. Her love of creation in a world where it is illegal confines her to the space of her own make shift art studio and so using colour to make her stand out as in Pleasantville is a highly effect use of contrast with this visual component.

Sin City:

A more obvious use of the Pleasantville effect in Sin City is to isolate the colour red and de-saturate all other colours to make the red much more outstanding when it meets the audience's eye. The director's may have chosen to do this as an emphasis on the colour of blood marking the foreshadowing of the violence of the film or to add on to emotions of anger and lust.

This way of using the effect can prove useful for highlighting the red of the blood in our short film. As the protagonsit is painting with her own blood, having red as the only saturated colour will make it much more horrific to the audiences eye; by the means of contrast in saturation of the visual component colour.