To inspire my film and look more into the music and documentary genre, I decided to watch 'Whiplash' (Damien Chazelle, 2014)

Review: 

Whiplash follows the story of young drummer, Andrew, a hopeful drumming superstar who enrols at a music school where he hopes to be one of the greats, like Buddy Rich (Numerous references to his work). He meets Terrence Fletcher, a strict music instructor who pushes Andrew to breaking point to show his full potential as a jazz drummer. The film follows Andrew and Terrence's relationship, which changes throughout the film, switching from a mutual respect of each other, to violent confrontations. This results in Andrew snitching on his own instructor to get him fired, which he does successfully. The film spans several different small-stories, for instance the break-up of the short lived relationship between Andrew and Nicole because he wants to pursue his musical dreams, the confrontations between his family who do not take his drumming career seriously and a car crash incident which stops Andrew from playing a music recital.

Two favourite scenes:

Scene 1:

Drum Solo scene

The drum solo performance towards the end of Whiplash has to be a personal favorite moment in the film. The performance shows the passion that Andrew has, being intimidated by Terrence and embarrassed by him because of the change in song performance. Terrence tested Andrew's patience and passion for drumming by putting him through situations to test his tolerance to rejection and the real, harsh reality. Through fast-paced editing techniques, varying camera angles and sensational acting by J.K. Simmons (Instructor) and Miles Teller (Andrew), the scene brilliantly portrayed both characters in the way in which they had been made out to be throughout the film, and showed the strange bond the two characters had between one another.


Scene 2: 

Drum-off scene;

This scene is probably one of the darkest parts of the film through the sheer agony on each characters face, trying to play the right drum fill in order to get the part in the band. Terrence, the instructor, pushes each of them to their breaking point, eventually pushing Andrew so far that his hand starts to bleed from the grip of the drum sticks.  The humorous elements in the scene add to the horror of what is actually happening, for example at the end when Terrence says "You wanna clean the blood off of my drum set" to one of the other students and when Terrence starts throwing instruments at Andrew whilst he plays, which is a reference to an earlier scene when Terrence and Andrew have a conversation about how another teacher hit a drummer in the head with a cymbal to get him to play the right drum fill. Again all of the actors performances were brilliant in portraying actual distress and physical harm because of the speed in which they were being made to play at.


Final thoughts

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the film. I was extremely impressed by the performances of J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller's characters, which for me really brought out the narrative of the film in a dark, sinister way, which is something I did not expect. The film itself was an experience that makes you feel genuine distress and concern for Miles Teller's character and forces you to have a love/hate relationship with J.K. Simmons character. The narrative itself is quite simplistic however its the performances of the characters which adds to the complexity of the idea, making the audience go through a rollercoaster of emotions, hoping that after everything, Andrew gets the success he well and truly deserves. The film inspires me to not hold back when it comes down to the darker side of the story which I may stumble across when researching and making my documentary film. I highly recommend the film.

Due to both my film ideas being music documentaries I decided to take out some documentary films and books from the library as inspiration for my film and to further my knowledge of documentary film making.

Reuben's "What happens in Aldershot, stays in Aldershot"

Reuben's short music documentary piece shows the life of a underground rock band trying to make it in an ever-growing harsh industry. The film follows the bands touring schedule, personal lives and their time in the studio blended with humorous elements . The film incorporates experimental elements such as fast-cutting editing techniques and experimentation with colour. What I like about the film is the personal elements to it. I enjoy the fact that the effort was made to show not only the musical side of the band, but also the personal side, focusing on everyday life rather than the band itself for example when Jamie Lenman (Vocalist) buys a life-size Dalek and when Jon (Bassist) is working in Waitrose. The inclusion of the bands fans gave an insight into what the music means to them and how it has effected their lives which is something I would like to include in my film. 

Personal favourite moment from the film. 

When brainstorming ideas I though about the previous project I had made, for instance the R.A.M. documentary film I made based around students opinions of moving to university and being away from home. The first project I made was a portrait film based on a local florist, which was informative in showing the flower-making process.

Screenshots from Castle Street Flowers Ltd

Screenshot from R.A.M. film. 

Through my passion for music and interest in documentary film-making I came up with two main ideas that I would like to pursue further, one of which I will discuss in this post.

First film idea

Origin of the Iron

My first idea is a music documentary piece based around the ex-members of Iron Maiden and their lives during and after their time in the band. The film will show an insight into the music industry from the mid 1970s all the way through to the present day through a mixture of visual elements such as archive footage, posters and photos and a voice over of the ex-members of the band, which will help share their lives and will enlighten the viewer with the positives and negatives of being in a band. The name of the piece is based around a compilation album that was recently released called 'Origins of Iron', involving ex-iron maiden members' work after their time in Iron Maiden.




Second film idea 

W.A.S.A.P?

My second idea, W.A.S.A.P (Who are Sam Apple Pie?, loosely inspired by the Arctic Monkeys' EP "Who the F*ck are Arctic Monkeys) is a music documentary piece based around my father's band 'Sam Apple Pie' (Originated from an old badge my dad used to wear with an apple pie on it). The film will predominantly follow the journey my father went through throughout his time in the band. The film will show an insight into the east London music scene at the time, spanning the musical genres of the 60s/70s, what it was like to grow up in the 60s/70s and the rise and fall of the band. My father, now a taxi driver, hates his job and still wishes to fulfil his dream again of performing music again, which will be one of the main themes of the film. Sam Apple Pie had quite a following in the east-London area during the 60s/70s, with fans to this day regularly uploading content of the band, for example live performances and album tracks with short reviews. The film will use a mixture of filmed footage, interviews, archive footage and voice over work with the incorporation of fans opinions and stories of the band (Through Skype, face-to-face conversations, emails and phone calls).

Overall I am really pleased with the way in which the film came out. I feel that the Fields and Frames classes really taught me to push the boundaries of film and come up with something completely new and out of my comfort zone. Being someone who isn't very technologically skilled, I found it interesting to experiment more in premiere with visual effects and also experimenting with the camera through techniques such as Pixillation. I thoroughly enjoyed the Film Scratching workshop and was happy with the way in which the scratching came out. I feel its interesting to look back at the history of Film and technology and see where it all started in comparison to today, where everything has become so technological and advanced to the point where we forget about the roots of Film and technology.

I felt proud of the way in which I had set up my two screens in G03 and it looked the way I wanted it to. What I found particularly difficult was getting both screens to play in sync due to the older screen playing from the first frame and the other screen playing from the moment I paused it at the very beginning. To get over this difficultly next time, I will create a small count down at the beginning to allow time to pause both and get them correctly in sync. From the comments I recieved from Rosie, Kathleen and Vicky, I understood where I could have gone with the piece to improve it. The difficulties I had with the sound of the second screen was reflected in the comments I recieved. To improve the piece I would make my own soundscape or use just pholy sounds to make it seem more realistic rather than forcing a certain mood of nostalgic which the music I chose gave. To improve my second screen further, which was the screen which received the most critical feedback, I would include a more visually interesting look, which I gave to my first screen through the use of scratching and colour (shown below).

My Two-Screen installation. 

Still from the first screen of my film. 

If I was to make any further improvements to the film, I would've recorded more voice over sounds and other footage of a bigger variety of people. In addition to this I would've made sure I had a rough edit done before I went to my tutorials to get a more developed feedback from Vicky, Rosie and Owen.

Problems I found during the making of my film was that I lost some footage that I feel would have improved the piece. For example, I lost several videos I made in the film cutting rooms, however it wasn't until after my film was made and timings were set did I find the film scratchings I created. This taught me to back up all of my files onto an external hard drive so I don't lose any footage next time and to double check all of the folders on my computer in case it shows up.

I also enjoyed seeing other groups works, for example Lauren, Mollie, Laura and Katherine's shoot was interesting to be a part of (Even if I was just Caterer!). It was interesting to get pointers for timings of my shoot, as their group organised the day well with what will be shot within a certain time frame.

Once I got all the footage I needed, I went into Premiere and began organising my files (As shown below).

Screen 1

I began by importing all of the old footage I'm going to edit (Train Arriving and Screen Tests replication). Im beginning the film with a old film countdown, which is made easily in Premiere by selecting New > Universal Counting Leader. This additionally adds the sound bleeps for each number.

I then put all the film marking overlays over the footage I filmed, and made each clip black and white. I then imported my film scratching I made in the Fields and Frames Film Workshop we had with Vicky. I overlaid this over the footage I filmed and set it as 'Overlay' and changed the opacity to a lower percentage. 

Found film texture overlay. 

Film Scratching over my own footage. 

For my first screen I lastly added a noise video effect to make the footage fade to noise gradually and stay that way on the screen until the second screen finishes. To make sure this is accurate and both screens work in alliance, I timed each screen to the exact second, so that the films both run fluidly. 

For the sound on this screen, I used a Parametric EQ to increase the higher frequencies, as typically this is what old voice recordings consisted of, lacking in lower frequencies. I depicted sentences from the voice over recordings I did of several people which I felt spoke the best about the development of film and technology. 

Adobe Audition Screenshot.

I lastly imported my recordings of scratching to add over my film to make the sound seem older and more interesting to listen to. 

Screen 2

For my second screen, being the television which is more modern and up to date, I decided to use a pause screen rather that old television static, due to the technological advancement of technology, being that we can now pause whenever we please, whereas before it was impossible to do so. I began with a pause screen which will then go to a cursor moving and clicking the play button. This will then begin the film. Previously I had already exported all of my Pixillation work, which meant I could simply import the work into my timeline, along with the PhotoBooth recordings. Similarly, I depicted parts of the voice recordings I did which I felt best described new technology and the way in which film has changed. I did not change the audio for this screen, as this is the screen where everything is of widescreen resolution, HD and clear, in comparison to the other screen, which is of standard definition and lower video and sound quality. I decided to include a humorous ending of peoples reaction to PhotoBooth, being a new visual technology. I finally added the pause button being pressed again to end the film. 

Screenshot of the final frame of the film.