Recommendation: I was attracted by KINO2011 opening film- The Poll Diaries.
The art direction quickly grabbed my attention. The skulls covered the room with gray and solemn atmosphere, somehow it not only looked like a display lab but it also represented the scene of secret and love -- Father's passion for specimen, scecret of POW, love of Oda.
It's not a single-line feature film but it depicts the story from Oda-the little girl's point of view and sometimes from three other men's and the mother's which show the contradiction between life and the war. And yes, it's doomed, the history and love story.
Generally in the lecture, Eunice demonstrated the history of music in films and cooperation between filmmakers and composers. Began with the introduction, she mentioned a point that composers had to understand the film, history of director and the genre before working on playing music for the film. For me, it is a really basic and important common sense. I believe that starting a movie requires being familiar with the direction and the partners first. As Eunice said, directors and composers worked together to inspire each other, and they used the shot and music to show their feelings of the story. So looking back to our work, for instance, a producer must follow the director’s and script writer’s work and get the idea of this project so that he can lead the team with the director to work toward what they expect. If the producer didn’t understand his team and the script, it would be hard to create the atmosphere of the team. My position, a designer, it is also necessary to keep good partnerships with the director and the art department, so we can throw the ideas and start with unrestrained and any possible concept. The goal is to fulfill the creation.
Afterward she talked about the history. By introducing some well-known musicians with their masterpieces and work experiences, it had a great impact on me. Now I realized that music occupied most of my interests. I used to play piano and violin and know the music theory, and I enjoyed the music in various art forms. While I was learning and being a choreographer, “feeling” and “analyzing” the music was spontaneous. When I am watching movies now, I always pay attention to the incidental music and it is spontaneous for me. I didn’t think about the process of creating music deeply until I worked in film and theater fields. Although our major and main duty is not about the music, there’s no denying that music enriches the atmosphere. Even when I am reading a story or a script, I can always have some melody in my brain, and it helps me to have a complete image of the plot. Not like words and paintings, musical language is so abstractive that the expression for the same plot can be far different, which Eunice played examples in a later lecture.
In addition, the feelings I have had are just related to some of Eunice’s points. She indicated that she got a lot of inspiration when working with other art forms. It gave me the idea that she applied her technique and perception on the other art work and made it become another art work. What have we done? Yes we are doing the same work but we have to keep improving the technique and sensibility of anything which enables us to approach the masterpieces.
Further, Eunice interpreted the main functions and technique of music in films and the developments in Hollywood. The points were clarified, for what I comprehended that music has been existed for functional purpose. It draws audiences’ emotion, introduces the setting and culture and separates the scenes. Music is not only a technical existence but also an artistic accompaniment. From the footage she showed, there were four different style of background music. There’s no one that is only matched the plot, but it depends on how musicians and audiences feel about the plot. Filmmakers had done what they wanted audience to see, and musicians took charge of creating the atmosphere and even changed the type of the film based on the melody and rhythm. People all had similar feelings of these types, however, no matter if they preferred to be affected in terms of psychology or enjoy more natural effects, the music and sound effect did stimulate our sense.
In terms of < A man with a camera>, Eunice stated more about the composing work. She emphasized that it was better to watch the film in a big screen, because watching it in a small screen might make us think less. In other words, it feels like that how much we think depends on how much we see. I also believe that we will get more and new ideas as we watch the film many times. Unless we can say that we completely comprehend the context, we can’t stop digging stuff from movies. After all, movie is a multiple technical creation and creation is infinite. That is what I have learned.
Although we seldom use this title “production designer” instead of art director or art designer in Asia film industry, it is essential to build a significant and good-to-use scene, and it requires a team work as well. What Ms. Jeannine Oppewall shared demonstrates the importance of designer’s work and partnership.
At the beginning she didn’t want to define the production designer and art director, instead, she gave many ideas about how the designer work and let us think by ourselves. She talked a lot about sensibility and rationality. It is really thought-provoking as my major is indeed scene design, and we know that designers are quite different from (fine art) artists; Ms. Oppewall emphasized this again that we were serving the script. From her “philosophy”, I learn more about the extra works she did during the film The Good Shepherd. Above all, some points I have already known are basic and crucial like collecting as many references as possible, thinking about color scheme and texture, and cooperating with other technic departments all the time. Moreover, Ms. Oppewall mentioned that since the character played by Matt Damon originally wanted to be a poet but finally worked in CIA, so she spent a lot of time searching the visual symbol that could represent the person and CIA’s characteristics. (Which she showed the ppt. afterward.) This gives me a huge impact that when we design anything, we need to keep creating and finding information from other fields especially those symbolize abstract meanings, not just thinking what types and symbols represent what features but understanding some historical legends.
During the presentation, Ms. Oppewall explained every process and experiences. I saw a lot of draft and models and also elaborate schematic construction drawing, and they reminded me of the work I did in theater that I haven’t met the equal hard tasks in movie works. I believe that they had a good partnership while working in group, and her works also remind me that the basis is so important that can affect the rest of schedule. Well, I believe that I am absolutely going to enhance my ability to make work list completely in the future by learning her “elaborate” attitude, and that will help me to keep this good and necessary habit.
The followings are some main points she talked about and presented.
△ From “H.M.S. Pinafore,” Yale Theater to Deer Island Lodge and cabin, there are hand draft, site plans and some construction budget. We realize how the art department groups work together and distribute tasks, and everyone should follow the schedule because it may change every day, so they will know how much time to set everything down. This is what we are lack of now.
△ London Underground and Street, Berlin Chapel and street, CIA offices The most precious thing I’ve gotten is “learning during the research”. Ms. Oppewall not only said “more research” one time, we have to know what and how people in the pictures were doing and we have to be familiar with our research. She gave an example which was a German sign (meaning Berlin remains German) on the wall after the war in reference, and they would like to build a real post-war scene so she thought the sign would make the scene more realistic and meaningful. Also, I really admire this whole part for the combination between construction (scene) and models building and animation. From the ruined buildings to the women picking Styrofoam- bricks, it almost depicts the similar atmosphere as the history; that can be attributed to enough (maybe not flawless but well-done) preparation and manipulation. In addition to the details, I also understand that when art designers are scouring locations, we not only focus on the suitable atmosphere but we need to consider working spaces and the background, as well as camera movement. How do we care about this stuff? “Communication.”
△ Edward’s House, Safe House Even the rooms in the same house or the same person’s rooms in different places, the furniture and decoration still follow the characters and the environment. Take the wallpapers for the example, in the living room and adults’ room, wallpapers tend to be more classical while in kid’s room, it is a simple pattern with cute symbol. And it is light at home but it is drak or brown-er at secret house.
By the end, she talked more personal experiences and emotional effects. I obtained many professional ideas to let me know how a (super) large project did and the ways Ms. Oppewall created. She also noticed us that crews should give information to the team every work day and kept discussing with other coworkers to make sure that things wouldn’t be wrong. Like every film maker says, communication is the major important premises. Besides improving the skills, keeping the sensibility always makes we think and create. I was extremely encouraged.
From the trailer
"A strange figure moves gracefully like a praying manits through changing natural landscapes... a river, a wood, and finally a field where a deadly confrontation awaits."
This is what I like the most during the whole "DANCE & Animation II."
The "figure's" movement and the atmosphere are completely shown to audiences.
Shots are shown clear arrangement of ideas.
Not until after the movie did I know that it is a multi-award winning film.
No wonder.
There are still some good "images" and video experiments.
"Seaweed", "SURFACE: A film from underneath", "Reading the body".....
I really love it probably because I've done movie-work for three years and I used to be a dancer.
Well, after the dance video festival, I am more sure that one of reasons that I dedicate my life to movies just because I love too many stuff from dance, drama, literature to film and design.
And for me, MOVIE is the only way to grasp these.
Also, movies have infinite creativities, so do film workers.
The footage was shown by Shu Kei. It's really coincident that I've had a similar idea before I watched it, but....it's not about domestic violence. :D
--
(The scene is in a theater, where some crews are working and actors are doing rehearsal.) It's a reading room; there's a desk and a chair, and book shelves are behind the chair. A man is sitting on a chair and writing stuff. A woman is wiping shelves. W: (give the coffee) Don't you want to take a rest ? You've been studying for five hours.. M: I can't. There will be much delay. W: But you slept only two hours everyday.. that doesn't work.... M: (ignore) all rite, please put those books back to the shelf. [lines are not done] After working for a coulp of minutes, The man reads a long line of a poem(or ?), and then passes out. The woman goes forward right away. She is worried and asks for help. (A burst of applause comes from the front side.)
A guy who is the stage manager yells a break time to everyone.
The woman wakes the man but finds out that he is truely dead.
-- The idea came from my experience when I was working in theatre, as well as making films. Many of crews worked overtime too much, I think it's a downside if the tasks are not resonable that may cause more problems.....
