Midterm

A man walks to a door, opens it, walks through, and sits down. 

That, in itself, is boring. There is no conflict, no character development, no suspense. Now, with the power of cinematography and modern post-production techniques, we can electrify this dreary sequence. By recording even this simple set of events multiple times, from multiple mildly interesting angles, cutting on the action, and editing it all together, coupled with some music, we can add energy and tension to a scene without disturbing, and probably even improving, continuity.

Cutting on action is important because it allows the audience to see a situation from many perspectives without them realizing their unnatural position. It's also a helpful strategy for cinematographers, as we can stitch together the best moments of many takes seamlessly. Even if we're not cutting up a naturally action-filled event such as a space battle, car chase, or fist fight, we can still improve the cinematic quality of everyday situations by taking advantage of their motion, as evidenced by this video.

In class, we spent four days, from Monday the 9th through Friday the 13th, excluding Wednesday, at and around the Itvfest Box Office helping out the organizers.

Outside of class, I served 5 shifts for 13 hours of my own time helping out the festival:

  -  Wednesday 10/11, 3-6 pm, Manchester Library

  -  Friday 10/13, 3-6 pm, Village Picture Shows

  -  Saturday 10/14, 11 am-1 pm, Factory Point Place

  -  Saturday 10/14, 1-6 pm, Village Picture Shows

In class, I felt that I frustratingly didn't have much to do. On Monday, I spent the time cutting strips of plastic with Hadley. On Tuesday, I helped to move some furniture in the building beside the box office and put together grab bags with Abby. On Thursday and Friday I, and most people I hope, did essentially nothing - I played Ethan, Alvaro, and Henry in Checkers.

After school however, I had things to do and I actually really enjoyed being there for the festival, especially at VPS. On Wednesday, I walked over to the library and unloaded and set up some (mismatched, ugly looking!) furniture with Josh and an Itvfest lady. GNAT people were at the location, and after the Itvfest lady ran out of things for us to do and Josh had to go, I talked to them about what they do and what equipment they use. A GNAT guy explained to me their computer and microphone issues and showed me the giant monitoring box they had set up.

I was supposed to work a shift on Thursday at VPS but was excused.

On Friday, I went with Abby and Hadley to control the computers in the projectionists' room at VPS. I got this system down pretty well and got to see some of the festival films, although unfortunately the sound of the monitors was down so low that I couldn't hear what the characters were saying, I could only see them. We watched 'Sox News', which, especially with volume, was pretty funny, and 'Public Housing Unit', which looked really intense. Just that and intermittent cleaning duties consisted my time there.

On Saturday, I at first went to Factory Point Place, where there were some panels being presented. I was unclear what I was doing at first, and spent the time standing there, smiling, opening doors, and answering people's questions (...mostly 'where is the bathroom?"). Then, I walked back to VPS. I was supposed to go to a VIP event at 1 pm but I wasn't too enthused to go, and when Henry told me that they turned him away because they didn't need volunteers there anyways, I was happy to skip going. I filled my time at VPS, mostly holding doors, crowd control (there was a lot of people for a 3:45 'HBO special'), answering questions, and cleaning after shows. Although the monitor volume was higher to the point where I could've watched the shows to their intended extent upstairs, the heat made it bad and I was glad to be outside for most of the time! I worked with Ethan, Rachel Kimball, and Joey downstairs, and I went into the theater to watch the last showing of 'Public Housing Unit' at the end, which I thought was pretty good. I cleaned, made sure everything was ok with the other remaining volunteers, and went home.

I was really excited to help out Itvfest and see what these independent filmmakers are capable of doing, so having little to do at parts wasn't fulfilling. Although I ultimately didn't watch too many pilots, I did enjoy being there and giving my service to a great festival. I'm glad I volunteered as long as I did.

So much! I joined this class, like so many others, wanting to know how great movies are made, and with every project I'm getting there. On Sunday, I watched "John Wick", and I was able to appreciate it on terms beyond the acting and the plot. As our hero John Wick, his friends, and his enemies fought it out in numerous settings, I couldn't help but imagine all the ever-present camerapeople and lights that were invisible to the common viewer, and intended to be as such. The next day in class, watching clips of Jackie Chan's movies and learning about cutting on action was also really helpful in furthering my understanding of the pacing of video editing: I could immediately see these concepts being applied in "John Wick".

Watching that clip from the TV show depicting backroom workers for a news station, and working through the News unit and learning the process of making news has also been really important for me. I don't like watching the news. I haven't cared for watching the news on TV since 2016, but I have gained an appreciation for the behind-the-scenes process that requires thought and skill far beyond what you sometimes see on the screen. 

Cinema isn't easy. Not only do you need to write a good story, have good actors, and have a fancy camera, you also need to consider the placement of the camera(s), the placement of lights, and placement of microphones, and put in hours upon hours of editing. It took a week of classes to finish editing a two-minute news story, I can't believe how much time it must take to edit the entirety of a two-hour feature film.

“What is that?”

“It’s a unicorn”

“Never seen one up close before”

“Beautiful”

“Get away, get away”

“I’m sorry”

The challenge is to create a short film using the above six lines of dialogue, in that order. I could see this working in the most literal sense (two characters in some fantasy world where unicorns exist, one character seeing one for the first time, scaring it away, the other character being upset...) but this film needs to be three minutes long. To stretch six lines, nineteen words, into a winning three-minute film while keeping the audience's interest will, I suspect, require an extremely creative visual-only adventure, using each line to establish a new section of that visual story, and probably not wasting lines on something the audience can already infer from the visuals. I wouldn't use an actual living unicorn, but rather an object that can be shown to mean a lot to a character, such as a toy or statuette. My film would begin with two characters in the vicinity of this unicorn and they would look as if there was conflict between them. One character would move to the unicorn as a new topic of conversation ("what is that?"), the other would say "it's a unicorn", and we would see a visual backstory of why this unicorn toy is important to the character, which could be something like her mother gave it to her before she died or something. The first character would be awed ("beautiful") before touching it and knocking it over or breaking it, to the distate of the second character, reigniting the tense air and conflict from the beginning, ("get away, get away!") and the film would end with an "I'm sorry". The "never seen one up close before" line is hard for me to place with it still making sense, so it could be worked into the backstory/flashback.

This was an interesting idea for a film, to say the least. It felt like it was put together by a group of Americans who wanted to try the craziest idea possible to win a contest, though, despite the German dialogue. The acting was perfect. The best and worst part of this film was, in my opinion, the plot: I can't imagine a more surprising and suspenseful way for anyone to turn the six lines in question into a short film. On the other hand, the enrallment factor seemed to be more important to the creators than historical accuracy. (Why did the boys enter the house? Why was an obviously Jewish girl being so careless and obviously Jewish, wearing an identifying arm band, in 1943 Germany?? Even if she survived, why was she living in her wartime safe house, 80 years later???) 

However, the area where the creators of "The Porcelain Unicorn" undisputably mastered was their camera and lighting work. The editing also made the story perfectly paced.

The story started in the present day, went back to 1943, and finished in the present day. It begins by showing an old man walking along a sidewalk with a box and a note in his arms. The man looks nervous as he walks up to a house. Closeups highlight the items he is carrying. Then, the camera turns toward a window, and suddenly we are transported back in time when three young boys, presumably one of them being the man, jump through it. The introductory scene is very important - it sets something up to the point where I don't believe the story would have the same dramatic effect if the film began with the boys and showed the man walking after the "I'm sorry". The man is shot at his level or from slightly below, giving the audience neither a sense of weakness or strength, just curiousity. The cut to history is coupled with a really unsettling sound: jarring and uncomfortable sounds were used throughout the film to great effect.

As I met the Nazi boy and the Jewish girl, I thought it was somewhat ridiculous but at the same time could appreciate the performance. This is where the required dialogue happens, the first line before the boy goes into the cabinet, the last line after, and the other four in between. During the dialogue, the camera stays on the right shoulder of the boy and the left shoulder of the girl the whole time, never switching, never confusing the audience, just like it should be done. I have mixed feelings about how the dialogue was used. For one thing, it was used in a less obvious way: "what is that?" did not refer to the unicorn, nor did "never seen one up close before" and "beautiful", which was very creative. "I'm sorry" was also not told to the girl, the unicorn's owner. The German translations weren't actually too interesting because it had to be that way to fit the plot. However, I think this film could have worked with no dialogue at all, and it felt a bit forced in for the purposes of the contest. For this reason, I think the crazy idea came first and the dialogue second.

In the final scene, the man begins to turn away before being stopped with a greeting from an old lady in the house, presumably the Jewish girl from earlier. They go inside, the man opens the box, and the lady sees her porcelain unicorn again. The nature of this scene, based on the context we now have, together with the amazing performance of the actors, especially the man, is strongly emotional.

I noticed that the lighting changed from bright in modern times, to dreary in the flashback, a darker time, before finishing on a brighter light. The most important scene, with the Nazi boy going into the hole behind the cabinet to follow the Jewish girl, was shown to be illuminated by only the boy's lighter and some sunlight through cracks in the wood, but being a student of cinematography I knew this wasn't the case, and the filmmakers pulled off the lighting of this scene perfectly.

I can easily see why this film won. I watched it a few times, and noticed something new every time, each time something that goes unnoticed by less astute viewers but covertly contributes to their experience, like the sounds, the angles, and the lights. I enjoyed the art that is "The Porcelain Unicorn". The creators should be proud.