I had the first showing just before Christmas, for my flatmate Sophie and our neighbour, Isabella
The verdict? It was very encouraging. They felt there was a film there.
Clearly the edit is still a mess. There is too much, too many shots. What I wanted to achieve was clear and then there was no development, just repetition.
Why is this encouraging? That I just needed to reveal the film there. It was matter of whittling away what is not and finding what is.
Discouraging? Sometimes they had difficulty understanding some of the simplest things, confusing the sister Natalie with the best friend Sophie, even though they look nothing alike. Here I have probably gone too close to the edge of the minimal with the narrative. This may be my biggest gap, something I may have to solve with some pickups or even some new scenes.
At this point I have not had to make any painful decisions. For the most part it has been about revealing what is there, not about choosing between this option or that option. That will happen soon I am sure.
Still, one question that both JC, Sophie and Isabella brought up: that we really don't know any of the other characters, that is the boyfriends Paul, Nick, the sister Natalie, or the friend Sophie. Now what do they mean? The other night I watched Bresson's Mouchette and there was a comment that we watched for 90 minutes and still didn't know anything about Mouchette. Now what they mean is in the conventional sense of character, actually meaning characteristics, that she likes oranges but not apples, wants to be a nurse when she grows up, etc. The character of Mouchette is revealed in action, and there was plenty of her action. Now I never wanted to show characteristics, I wanted to show action. So what does mean for my film? Is there enough of these people in action to reveal them? If not...?
I have since been busy, made some minor adjustments to the cuts in the first part, conflated some events in the second part, and done two or three reedits of the third segment. The edit I showed last week was 110 minutes. The latest edit is 96 minutes. I feel this is a lot stronger and clearer with a lot less. Now I have to find some new victims.
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
First cut
On Saturday evening I showed the the first edit to JC. I of course had been avoiding doing this, as I was afraid to look. I knew it would be a telling moment.
Of course I had seen the film in bits and pieces since I began editing back in October. But it is one thing to see bits and pieces on a computer screen, another to see the whole on a large screen.
It was the only way to know if we really have something.
So was it good? I have to say that I am now so close to it I am in no position to say. I think at best I could say it wasn't bad. There was nothing in it that I thought, 'that's no good'.
What was clear was that it is a film. It is one complete piece, this I was happy about.
On the practical level, the cutting worked. The way in which I conceived the edit was successful. I also had done enough work with the sound so that it didn't interfere with the edit. Rough sound can make it difficult to determine if this or that cut worked. The sound design was also fundamental to my concept of the film, so the no edit could ever be complete without at least some crude sound design.
Aesthetically, JC and I were happy that the original concept of the shooting style was very successful. That is, going from the longer to shorter lenses in Norway was very effective. We begin with the 25mm. The world is in fragments, closed and circumscribed. It is almost as if Claire had to fight to put herself together. By the time we come to the final segment, in Norway, we were using the 12mm. It is not that she has been successful in assembling herself, rather that she had given in to nature and dissolution. Here she is within the place, or absent. It doesn't matter one way or another. The view of the world is wide, almost as if the world could drift away.
The few scenes of drama? Dialogue? These worked very well.
And the many scenes of non-drama, where we watch Claire looking, searching? They were interesting, compelling to watch. I have to say that I was very happy with all the actors and their performances.
Less successful, because it still incomplete, was the layer of the story presented visually and with sound. This is the other Claire story. It still needs work and has been my fixation for the past few weeks. It is moving along slowly. Yesterday I was already making tweaks. It is like sculpting. Each day I am paring off one part, and adding another part. I need to shoot more test material and will probably do this over Christmas.
Now JC had some questions and observations. We don't know Claire in the conventional sense. There is little dialogue or drama. JC wondered if there was enough interaction between the characters to get to know them. I would say no, we don't know them this way, but of course I never intended this. I rejected drama, I was always interested in the way that cinema is able to achieve an emotional effect without resorting to tricks from the theatre. But have I accomplished this? If not, this would be my biggest problem.
Of course I had seen the film in bits and pieces since I began editing back in October. But it is one thing to see bits and pieces on a computer screen, another to see the whole on a large screen.
It was the only way to know if we really have something.
So was it good? I have to say that I am now so close to it I am in no position to say. I think at best I could say it wasn't bad. There was nothing in it that I thought, 'that's no good'.
What was clear was that it is a film. It is one complete piece, this I was happy about.
On the practical level, the cutting worked. The way in which I conceived the edit was successful. I also had done enough work with the sound so that it didn't interfere with the edit. Rough sound can make it difficult to determine if this or that cut worked. The sound design was also fundamental to my concept of the film, so the no edit could ever be complete without at least some crude sound design.
Aesthetically, JC and I were happy that the original concept of the shooting style was very successful. That is, going from the longer to shorter lenses in Norway was very effective. We begin with the 25mm. The world is in fragments, closed and circumscribed. It is almost as if Claire had to fight to put herself together. By the time we come to the final segment, in Norway, we were using the 12mm. It is not that she has been successful in assembling herself, rather that she had given in to nature and dissolution. Here she is within the place, or absent. It doesn't matter one way or another. The view of the world is wide, almost as if the world could drift away.
The few scenes of drama? Dialogue? These worked very well.
And the many scenes of non-drama, where we watch Claire looking, searching? They were interesting, compelling to watch. I have to say that I was very happy with all the actors and their performances.
Less successful, because it still incomplete, was the layer of the story presented visually and with sound. This is the other Claire story. It still needs work and has been my fixation for the past few weeks. It is moving along slowly. Yesterday I was already making tweaks. It is like sculpting. Each day I am paring off one part, and adding another part. I need to shoot more test material and will probably do this over Christmas.
Now JC had some questions and observations. We don't know Claire in the conventional sense. There is little dialogue or drama. JC wondered if there was enough interaction between the characters to get to know them. I would say no, we don't know them this way, but of course I never intended this. I rejected drama, I was always interested in the way that cinema is able to achieve an emotional effect without resorting to tricks from the theatre. But have I accomplished this? If not, this would be my biggest problem.
Monday, December 15, 2008
True black versus Rothko
What a series of tangents this whole project takes me on.
So I have gone back and smoothed out the assembly edit and then reviewed it.
I have already described how I had written into my outline blackouts, breaks in the visual narrative at key moments. In the edit I created these blackouts and then...they didn't work. They broke the narrative, the flow. Did I lose my nerve? I began to think how they might develop the narrative.
First I added sound. I had been working with Roland to create another layer of meaning with the sound and the blackouts seemed to be a logical place to develop the sound design. But I found that sound alone was not adequate.
Then I began to look for means that the blackouts might be see as logical extensions of present images. For example scene 28. Claire is asleep, and is awoken by...? The scene began with a shot her asleep, awakes suddenly and turns on the light. I became interested in the abstraction of the image in the dark.
Then were a few influences.
In October I saw Un Lac, by Phillipe Grandrieux at the London Film Festival. A lot of this film impressed, but specifically the liminal images, inside a cabin in near darkness, the figures and objects just at the edge of perception. I made a literal connection between Claire's darkened bedroom and the idea of a semi-conscious searching or reception of the transcendental.
In November I watched Antonioni's Red Desert. In this Antonioni uses soft-focus to create colour abstractions. Grandrieux also made use of soft-focus extensively.
At the Tate Modern there was the Rothko exhibition. I was especially taken with the the Black-Form paintings, where Rothko layered a series of blacks and different coatings. What happens as you look into these? You might say that you are drawn into them, that they are a void, but they also push outward, they extend beyond the frame. They seem to pulse, move about.
I began to imagine that in these sequences I would develop a series of images from facts, objects in the location, for example Claire's bedroom, which become liminal by way of the lack of light and the soft-focus. I experimented by drawing and painting images in Photoshop, based on top of images from the shoot. So in a long-take of these images there should be sense of searching, grasping for what...always remains out of reach, at the threshold.
Soon it became clear that these sequences had nothing to do with the blackouts.
Now I don't know if I just lose my nerve? Or did I need to find out how the blackouts might work by first discovering how they would not?
However it came to me, I realised that the blackouts did not require sound or any logic, the blacks are true, negation, the absence of sound and image, no extensions to existing image, rather negation of the images. It should be expected that they break the flow. That is what they do. If they failed perhaps they were in the wrong place, or more likely that the place was wrong, that is the edit, the material around it was not strong enough.
I realised that what I had were two different ideas. The true blacks on the one hand and what I called the Rothko sequences on the other.
I don't certainly don't consider the work I did on the Rothko sequences a waste. On the contrary, as I come close to the first version of the edit I have begun to extend the development of these images.
Presently I have developed a language based on three or four colours.
White is an invasion, the exterior coming in, drawing Claire out.
White is images of light entering the flat, or clouds with the sun behind them, over-exposed.
Blue and brown are the interiors, the bedroom at night, they are present but not dynamic like the white images.
Green is the exterior, the location of fear, the world of nature. This past week, as I revised the final segment I began to see how the green images would form a part there.
If the first two segments are about Claire searching trying to construct an identity then the final segment is a realisation that identity in the face of nature is an indulgence. The extinction of identity. Here then I will explore the concept of Claire in the landscape, dissolving, smeared into the pine groves.
So I have gone back and smoothed out the assembly edit and then reviewed it.
I have already described how I had written into my outline blackouts, breaks in the visual narrative at key moments. In the edit I created these blackouts and then...they didn't work. They broke the narrative, the flow. Did I lose my nerve? I began to think how they might develop the narrative.
First I added sound. I had been working with Roland to create another layer of meaning with the sound and the blackouts seemed to be a logical place to develop the sound design. But I found that sound alone was not adequate.
Then I began to look for means that the blackouts might be see as logical extensions of present images. For example scene 28. Claire is asleep, and is awoken by...? The scene began with a shot her asleep, awakes suddenly and turns on the light. I became interested in the abstraction of the image in the dark.
Then were a few influences.
In October I saw Un Lac, by Phillipe Grandrieux at the London Film Festival. A lot of this film impressed, but specifically the liminal images, inside a cabin in near darkness, the figures and objects just at the edge of perception. I made a literal connection between Claire's darkened bedroom and the idea of a semi-conscious searching or reception of the transcendental.
In November I watched Antonioni's Red Desert. In this Antonioni uses soft-focus to create colour abstractions. Grandrieux also made use of soft-focus extensively.
At the Tate Modern there was the Rothko exhibition. I was especially taken with the the Black-Form paintings, where Rothko layered a series of blacks and different coatings. What happens as you look into these? You might say that you are drawn into them, that they are a void, but they also push outward, they extend beyond the frame. They seem to pulse, move about.
I began to imagine that in these sequences I would develop a series of images from facts, objects in the location, for example Claire's bedroom, which become liminal by way of the lack of light and the soft-focus. I experimented by drawing and painting images in Photoshop, based on top of images from the shoot. So in a long-take of these images there should be sense of searching, grasping for what...always remains out of reach, at the threshold.
Soon it became clear that these sequences had nothing to do with the blackouts.
Now I don't know if I just lose my nerve? Or did I need to find out how the blackouts might work by first discovering how they would not?
However it came to me, I realised that the blackouts did not require sound or any logic, the blacks are true, negation, the absence of sound and image, no extensions to existing image, rather negation of the images. It should be expected that they break the flow. That is what they do. If they failed perhaps they were in the wrong place, or more likely that the place was wrong, that is the edit, the material around it was not strong enough.
I realised that what I had were two different ideas. The true blacks on the one hand and what I called the Rothko sequences on the other.
I don't certainly don't consider the work I did on the Rothko sequences a waste. On the contrary, as I come close to the first version of the edit I have begun to extend the development of these images.
Presently I have developed a language based on three or four colours.
White is an invasion, the exterior coming in, drawing Claire out.
White is images of light entering the flat, or clouds with the sun behind them, over-exposed.
Blue and brown are the interiors, the bedroom at night, they are present but not dynamic like the white images.
Green is the exterior, the location of fear, the world of nature. This past week, as I revised the final segment I began to see how the green images would form a part there.
If the first two segments are about Claire searching trying to construct an identity then the final segment is a realisation that identity in the face of nature is an indulgence. The extinction of identity. Here then I will explore the concept of Claire in the landscape, dissolving, smeared into the pine groves.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Editing continues
So last Tuesday I finished the assembly edit of the film. What I mean is I assembled footage according to my shooting script, or outline really, since I don't use a script. There was no regard for pacing or feel in the assembly edit.
At the finish of the assembly the film looked like this:
Segment 1 = 31 minutes
Segment 2 = 43 minutes
Segment 3 = 36 minutes
Total length = 110 minutes.
(Actually the film is now longer as I have adding more material in the blackouts. See below).
Now I have never thought that shortening a film is any virtue in and of itself. Milos Foreman told a great story about editing one of his films for a studio. He showed them a version at 115 minutes. Too long, make it shorter. He went away and cut 10 minutes out of it. Still too long. He got it down to 95 minutes. Still too long, shorter. Well he didn't know what to do. He couldn't see how he could make any shorter. He went back to the editing suite and thought and thought. He added three minutes to the film and presented it to the studio. Yes, that's better. You see, shorter is better?
So, I am not going about this edit thinking that the film must shorter, I am going about thinking it must simpler and clearer and that may mean making it shorter. At 110 minutes the film is too long.
This past Saturday I started going through the assembly and tried to cut with some sense of pace, and necessity. I have been most happy cutting dialogue from certain scenes, which seems less and less useful when you see all the bits put together. It is almost as if a I have this toy constructed in my hands. It is held together with all sort of bits and pieces and it works, but it would work better without some of those bits. How many bits and pieces can I get rid of? That is what this whole process is about.
Right now the cutting is relatively pain free. Cutting away extra bits has meant that scenes are smoother and make more sense. Other scenes just work better at a certain length. Some scenes were intended to feel a certain pace and cutting brings this out. Some of the dialogue scenes were deliberately extended so that I could decide in the edit parts I wanted to use.
But before long I know this easy bit will be over and some hard decisions will need to made. Is this scene necessary? Is it necessary to explain this or that? Is that character necessary?
Between last Tuesday and last Saturday I have been preoccupied with another problem, the blackouts. I think I have already posted on the subject (http://tidalbarrier.blogspot.com/2007/10/blackouts-and-7th-draft.html) previously. I had decided that I needed to find a relationship between the blackouts and images within the narrative. I would like to post separately on this subject, as I have a lot to talk about. For now suffice to say that I have been very much inspired by Phillipe Grandrieux and his new film, Un Lac, which was part of the London Film Festival (http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/lake). If you have not seen it please call the ICA and nag them to distribute the film.
My other influence has been Rothko, and the exhibit at the Tate Modern. More on all of this soon.
At the finish of the assembly the film looked like this:
Segment 1 = 31 minutes
Segment 2 = 43 minutes
Segment 3 = 36 minutes
Total length = 110 minutes.
(Actually the film is now longer as I have adding more material in the blackouts. See below).
Now I have never thought that shortening a film is any virtue in and of itself. Milos Foreman told a great story about editing one of his films for a studio. He showed them a version at 115 minutes. Too long, make it shorter. He went away and cut 10 minutes out of it. Still too long. He got it down to 95 minutes. Still too long, shorter. Well he didn't know what to do. He couldn't see how he could make any shorter. He went back to the editing suite and thought and thought. He added three minutes to the film and presented it to the studio. Yes, that's better. You see, shorter is better?
So, I am not going about this edit thinking that the film must shorter, I am going about thinking it must simpler and clearer and that may mean making it shorter. At 110 minutes the film is too long.
This past Saturday I started going through the assembly and tried to cut with some sense of pace, and necessity. I have been most happy cutting dialogue from certain scenes, which seems less and less useful when you see all the bits put together. It is almost as if a I have this toy constructed in my hands. It is held together with all sort of bits and pieces and it works, but it would work better without some of those bits. How many bits and pieces can I get rid of? That is what this whole process is about.
Right now the cutting is relatively pain free. Cutting away extra bits has meant that scenes are smoother and make more sense. Other scenes just work better at a certain length. Some scenes were intended to feel a certain pace and cutting brings this out. Some of the dialogue scenes were deliberately extended so that I could decide in the edit parts I wanted to use.
But before long I know this easy bit will be over and some hard decisions will need to made. Is this scene necessary? Is it necessary to explain this or that? Is that character necessary?
Between last Tuesday and last Saturday I have been preoccupied with another problem, the blackouts. I think I have already posted on the subject (http://tidalbarrier.blogspot.com/2007/10/blackouts-and-7th-draft.html) previously. I had decided that I needed to find a relationship between the blackouts and images within the narrative. I would like to post separately on this subject, as I have a lot to talk about. For now suffice to say that I have been very much inspired by Phillipe Grandrieux and his new film, Un Lac, which was part of the London Film Festival (http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/lake). If you have not seen it please call the ICA and nag them to distribute the film.
My other influence has been Rothko, and the exhibit at the Tate Modern. More on all of this soon.
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