Before beginning on the production of my new ave film I planned where I would shoot footage to use in my film and how I would shoot it. Footage I used was filmed in 3 different locations including, Manchester City centre and art galleries around Manchester, the urban areas of Digbeth and finally certain areas of Bedworth. I used these areas in particular as I felt that they were able to give my film the gritty and urban feel that I was going for. Whilst filming in these locations I visited places within Digbeth and Manchester which were covered with graffiti and also visited Art galleries, this was so I was able to create a contrast between the 2 forms of Art in my film.
Digbeth
Whitworth Art Gallery
Bedworth (Car Wash)
Research/Influence-
Throughout my contextual study of New Waves 2 of my texts 'Easy Rider' and 'Midnight Cowboy' used trippy and psychedelic imagery which I found interesting. Due to this I decided to use this style of editing as an influence and use it to develop my film to look as psychedelic as possible. The particular sequence I used as an influence from Easy Rider is the LSD scene toward the end of the film where 4 characters take the drug and begin to trip, the overall imagery of the scene suddenly becomes psychedelic and trippy to fit in with the way the characters are feeling. The same thing happens in the sequence I was influenced by in the film Midnight Cowboy, where the 2 protagonists visit Andy Warhol's factory club which can also be viewed below.
Methods and Techniques-
From my initial camera and lighting tests that I carried out earlier on in the year I ensured that I improved on a number of different technical elements. One key technique in which I improved on was ensuring that all of my footage was in focus and that the image was not overly exposed. When I first carried out my initial camera and lighting tests exposure was a key problem and affected quite a lot of my footage. By handling the exposure and focusing correctly it ensured that my footage looked more professional and suitable for a client. I handled the exposure by ensuring that I had the correct aperture and ISO settings selected when I was shooting each part of my footage, something that i was not able to do very well in my initial camera and lightning tests.
In my final video I have a made a short film that appears trippy and psychedelic and includes footage filmed in places such as Manchester, Digbeth and Bedworth. Throughout the course of the film I try to showcase many new wave techniques as possible, these include jump cuts, psychedelic imagery, long takes and non digetic sound. I used these specific techniques to show that I used the period of the new waves as an influence when shooting footage and when editing footage.
I found out throughout my research that jump cuts were used a great deal in Jean Luc Godard's films and also in the texts which i focused my contextual study on, because of this I felt that it was essential to use jump cuts in my film. Psychedelic imagery was also a key part of my film, a lot of my film includes layered footage which gives off a sort of 'trippy vibe'. I used this because in the film midnight cowboy, there is a scene set in Andy Warhols factory club which uses a lot of colour over the top of film and different patterns masking the characters, therefore I felt that by including this in my film it would be a great way of incorporating specific techniques used within the New Wave into my film.
Updated Design Brief-
Although I generally stuck to that of my original design brief there was some parts of it in which I scrapped and new parts which I included. I decided to not film an actor standing in the same spot for 10 seconds whilst a time lapse was happening as I felt that it would not of fitted in well with my film and also it would of taken too long and interrupted my strict filming timetable. Although I filmed in both busy and not so busy parts of each city I only decided to include the footage filmed in not so busy parts e.g. the galleries of Manchester, the graffitied areas of Digbeth and a car wash in Bedworth. I did not include the footage filmed in busy areas as I did not think the quality of the videos looked high enough to feature in my film. A lot of my footage was left out of my film mainly due to the fact that I had filmed so much footage and I simply did not have enough time to edit al of the footage into the film.
Challenges I Faced-
Although I did not face many challenges or problems throughout the course of my New Wave Film production, one issue that i did have was that when editing my footage I discovered that a few of my clips did not render to the full size of the screen. However I was able to find a way around this and overcome the problem, I discovered that in Birtish New Wave films the images did not always fill the screen. I also used a scene in Midnight Cowboy as an influence to amend the issue. Visual evidence of this can be seen below.
Midnight Cowboy
My New Wave Film
The top image is a scene from midnight cowboy and below it is a part of my new wave film. Due to the clip not filling the screen I decided to leave the footage as it was, I did however duplicate the footage, stretch it, lower the opacity and have the duplicated footage playing over the top of the original as can be seen below. I saw this as an effective way of dealing with a problem. I ensure that all of my footage was labeled throughout the course of my production (as can be seen below) this was to ensure that I would not become confused as to what was what and to also ensure that everything was organised. By doing this I made sure that I was never spending valuable time looking for specific clips as I was able to look for the name of them and find them straight away.
Labelled Footage
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