first week back: class reflective.

As its fresh in my mind i think i will work back wards this week ,

so just watched the russian 1920's film Battleship Potemkin :

the relevance for watching this was for film history and editing, as this was one of the first films were a flair and attention were paid to the cut of the film , using very quick shots several being less than one second this being something unheard of at the time. I did enjoy the fact that this was a revolutionary idea at the time and as a piece of film history it was very important in seeing the development of the art, knowing how important the film was helped me enjoy it because you were always thinking wow look at that edit.

THURSDAY was our day of and i used that time to look over notes and write my two christmas blogs , i also went to see the film nine .

Nine is a film based on the broadway production, i had high hopes for this as i really enjoy chicago etc, it was very sexy and quite dark but overall was let down by bad songs. It was beautiful to watch tho with an old fashioned feeling, i'm not sure if it was filmed on film or digital but there were some black and white moments which had a really cool effect. I thought d.d Lewis's performance was amazing, he's quite sexy isn't he :)

WEDNESDAY was quite an interesting class on authorship , what was it and who has it ?

This class was mainly about television authorship as it is generally easier to decipher the authorship of a film , be it collaborative or a " harriet Steele production- film " etc.

This class was difficult for me to concentrate as there was incessant typing very near me so next time i need to sit away from the typer. Unfortunately i think i was one of the few who was concentrating more on concentrating instead of what andy was saying. we were in a new room that day as well which was a little weird.

I did take some notes but they lack information that probably would make them have some sense and order. I made a note at the bottom saying . You should understand this concept so bare it in mind ...... help full .

the second half of this lesson was so good!! we watched a tv show called the street which i really enjoyed, this has set the bar for me as it was so entertaining and thought provoking it was a piece of art and the Acting was band on the money.

TUESDAY - was on lighting, i really really enjoyed this class, I'm always itching to see what ray has in store for us as his classes last year were some of my favorites. The class was in this room at the top of the academy so getting kit up there was a bit of a faff but we need to get used to that as I'm sure on set we will be required to be moving kit around and some times distances.

Firstly we talked about how important health and safety is when using cables and that you must always tack down your cables , this was a given in my head but i felt i had a small advantage as i have used lighting in photography. it came quite a big shock to me however, when he began to show us the kit we would be using the lights were huge!! i think mainly because your using a constant light and not a short flash, even thought the lights were around the same watt's / ranging from 150 to the powerful lights that were 2k .

We went over the different types of lights we need on a set and went over how they effect the subject - which light to use when etc , there was a sort of family of lights ending with the smallest being shown to us, it was so cute a mummy light a daddy light and a we baby light i wanted to steel it :)

these had some cool names and the types of lights were easy to pick up , open faced : Blonde's and Redheads and the cute Dedo which uses a lens. Murray emailed me some simple but use full notes on these as well which have really enhanced my notes. Im not quite sure about what ray said on the plug system each having different strengths of electricity but i do understand the ideas on tungsten and really enjoyed the physical aspects of his class so overall really enjoyed this one and exited about learning more and in more detail .

MONDAY - first day back ooober tired faces but nice to see everyone again. \

This class was a short one , without a brake so it went really fast.

My notes are quite spars on this class as i found it easier to listen and take things in that way, this was good for concentration during the class however i found that after wards some of the information had gone missing. i took down a quote i really like about the film maker Melies

he specialized in the first type of special effects Chaplin said of him ,

" the alchemist of light "

i really liked that quote , it reminded me of my first day in photography class when my teacher told me to become a good photographer i needed to learn how to manipulate light.

Its amazing how quickly cinema spread across the world, ideas and facts like this kept the class interesting and not to heavy. we learnt about the first feature film , adventure's of the kelly grand which was made in 1903 .

however it was editing that created the possibility of plot and a greater way to tell stories.

This was again shown to us on friday with the Battleship Potemkin.

Overall this week has been a short one, but a good one for easing us back into academy life and away from holiday laziness, the general feeling is excitement to be back and ready to get going .

christmas holiday blog : focus on 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days.

i think unsurprisingly i have begun a love affair with all things eastern european, it began when i revisited "last resort" by Pawel Pawlikkowski and last night ( one night in the holidays- i wrote this on paper first. ) i watched - completely captivated from start to finish - the most wonderful piece of cinema called 4m3w2d. The film focuses on two girls and how they cope with their extremely unpleasant experience of an illegal abortion. Set in the twilight years of commy-era Romania the film in appearance remains a beauty to watch even thought the setting seems to scream decay and poverty, " directed with quite astonishing flair. " these kind words are know overstatement as this poignant 'masterpiece' really did leave me speechless and exited. thinking about the idea of authorship this film is really hard to tell, the direction is really amazing and there is a definite flare and style to it but the cinematography is stunning as well and above all this there is a beautiful script so the authorship is a real collaboration here .

Yes there is a difference between cinema and movies , Avatar this certainly was not but o'my god this blew my socks of just as much and got a whole different set of emotions tingling, this film had me and my two best friends literally shouting at the screen! that's a student studying medicine at Edinburgh and one studying english at Oxford plus a film student, all emotionally involved in the same film - this does not happen allot with us!

The acting in this could not have been more spot on - you feel the tension between the girls throughout the entire film and they hardly say a sentence to each other , any has since told us this is sometimes called finding the lens and these actresses certainly have mastered that technique.

i really enjoyed the maisoncen created in the film , the composition of every shot because every shot was stunning. My favorite being one were the main protagonist is in this gaudy bathroom , the shot is of the back of her head framed by these horrible blue tiles for about 4-5 seconds. Beautifully and very brilliantly thought out hots. Which however, slow these 'pause' moments may have been made the film work - in the silence it is for the audience to take in no words but thoughts and feelings the characters are going through.

To some extent an antithesis if you like would be my friend Eleanor who did enjoy the film yes but in the last 'pause' moment of the film spoke up and said , " why the boring silence " Well at that point in time i was to involved in the film to reply but later in discussion i had to say , because there were no words needed. it could have finished with some sort of closing sentence or remark but this film did not need it in fact i saw the final 'pause' as its own quiet applause and pat on the back because clearly it knew that it still had every audience member watching intently. i could not choose any words to finish it more poignantly. this harks back to the question asked of us by the infamous 'liz Lockhead' when she remarked that it was the audiences culture and you decide what the ; art, poetry, film , means for you . For Eleanor the silence didn't resonate she wanted something more - a definite ending - but ho can you have an ending when the film in essence was an experience, a beautifully observed character study.

christmas holiday blog

ah i don't want to sound like the christmas grinch or something but i hardly looked at the tv all christmas , how could i when the world out side had been replaced with my perfect wish for christmas - the country was vast and white and screaming " Harry come run on me "

So i found myself two nights into being home on the highest hill near by with 12 willing participants. Midnight sledging has two main drawbacks, one its much colder than in the day and two , you can't see sheep or rocks for that matter. We created a ramp out of snow and yes it was far superior in my opinion to anything that could have been on tv that night. Amazingly only one girl ended up in hospital......

Ok so enough of that i did enjoy a few good movies and a few very bad ones as well.

\

The good were : 4 months 3 weeks and 2 days which has a separate blog to follow.

Rage - a film by a director who should probably have been doing CPP instead but non the less very interesting and very different.

the not so good ( bad )

these were all watched in the same night , a night me and sheridan have most Christmases:

teeth

donkey punch

some generic dance thing i cant remember the name of

taken

Zach and Miri make a porno

awake

So for the most part i spent my holiday , on holiday relaxing listening to music and not really watching TV or Films.