S-11 FILM EXTRACT: Rob Cooper, Evaluation, Art Director
Friday 27 February 2009
Rob Cooper, Evaluation, Art Director
As an individual within the group I feel that the genre we chose to work in influenced the decisions I made greatly. I researched war films and studied the conventions displayed, hoping to incorporate the same techniques within our production. As Art Director, my job was to look at costumes, props, location and to a certain extent, editing. For example, we found that war films tend to have a slightly de-saturated filter (usually blue or green - see images 1&2), as seen in films such as ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and '. I feel that this genre gave me more ideas to incorporate into a production than any other genre would have done; this is because war films have a very unique look and to replicate this took quite a lot of effort. 1 Image 1 This is a screenshot from the film, 'Saving Private Ryan', 1998 (Steven Spielberg). It shows the effect I was going for; the green-blue filter effect applied. It works here as a better quality, highly saturated image would have given the film a less realistic and artificial appearance.Helps exaggerate mise-en-scene.
Image 2 This shot from 'Enemy At The Gates', 2001 (Jean-Jacques Annaud) also displays the mise-en-scene that we wanted to replicate in our production. It shows the muggy atmosphere with the green-blue filter effect.
Through my specific area of micro responsibility, I think that the narrative has been developed somewhat. I think that my area of the production is more successful in understanding the narrative then making obvious to the viewer of what the narrative actually is. The props and costumes (see images 3&4), for example, make it clear that the genre is war / conflict film, yet it doesn’t entirely explain the plot. This, along with the effects that I decided to put onto our production, the de-saturated filter; is effective as the appearance gives the impression of what the mood should be, and how it should be perceived. Therefore developing the plot somewhat.
Images 3, 4 & 5 Below are a few images showing the props and costumes we used, or very similar. These props and costumes helped make an appropriate mise-en-scene for our sequence.
In our group we worked together in order to develop the narrative; other group member’s objectives included creating a soundtrack, which after researching war film conventions, we matched quite well in my opinion. We found that many war films have slow-paced soundtracks, of which the tempo slightly picks up. I explained my ideas to the group member in charge of sound, and we managed to match the pace of the sequence to the soundtrack. (see video 1)
Video 1
This music was one of the main inspirations of our sequence; the 'Splinter Cell - Double Agent' soundtrack - a computer game. This soundtrack includes an ambient sound, yet has a slightly depressing element in that it is slow and not too upbeat. However, in our sequence we wanted a more upbeat and almost 'confident' sound, and so in Garageband created a more dramatic soundtrack that fit well into our chosen genre.
From classroom interactions we gathered feedback on how to improve, and parts that went well, meaning we were able to change our plans as we went (see image 5). It became clear to us that the areas in which we needed to improve were continuity, and minor details which would make the overall production more of a success. We also knew that we had to pay close attention to non-diagetic sound, and set about recording voice-overs to replace the dialogue (diagetic sound) that did not work successfully. We also worked with sound software, Garageband ,and created sounds made up of many different sounds put together in order to create realistic sound effects, such as gun shells bouncing off the ground. Together with Final Cut, we adapted the soundtrack to the sequence in order to make it work, and I feel that we did this successfully (see images...).
Image 6
This piece of sound is called Alternative Rock Bass. This piece plays nearly all the way through, and is one of the factors of the confident, upbeat sound.
There is a quiet drone that plays throughout, and a short drum roll plays continuously; this can be seen in many war films, and is present in the 'Splinter Cell - Double Agent' soundtrack.
@ 0:10 - gun shot sound; a composite of 2 or 3 sounds taken for Garageband, and reworked to sound like a realistic gun shot.
@ 0:27 onwards - guitar..
As the art director, I knew that my work would be likely to be the most apparent, as it was to do with appearance instead of something not so obvious, or something we cannot see such as the narrative. I wanted the audience to be able to notice my input into the sequence, yet keep it relatively subtle. Furthermore I wanted these changes to appeal to the audience, and for them to be familiar with the techniques, most likely from production films of the same genre.
Image 5
These are the feedback notes we received after all groups had viewed our work. The main criticisms we got were that there were too many fades that joined shots together, and that there were not enough close-ups. We then thought about this and realised that if we included more close-ups, this would in turn improve understanding of the film, and introduce props, costumes and characters much more effectively. However, we recieved a few compliments; the soundtrack appeared to be popular, proving our work with our influences effective. Also, the succesful build up of tension and the colouring of the filter was also noticed.
The feedback we received presented us with problems within the sequence as mentioned before. It was suggested to us by a few members of other groups that our sequence appeared to be a trailer, instead of a few scenes of a feature film. This could have been because of the music and the way it was structured around the footage, so we set about changing this. In my opinion, as a group too much time was taken getting the plot and order of scenes down, along with costumes, than the actual professional appearance of the sequence. This also had a knock on effect on the amount of time we had to edit, along with working the soundtrack around it. However, we received quite a few comments on the success of our production. For example, the soundtrack seemed to be popular, with people saying it fit in well to the genre. Also, the effort put into costumes was noticed and commented upon.
My technical skills have enabled me to make the creative choices I wanted to, and in my opinion, best suited the area I was assigned to. The editing we decided to do, required a certain amount of knowledge on editing software, but not a great amount as the work wasn’t too hard. The work required by me was to change levels and putting fades into the sequence to ‘tidy’ it up. I feel that art director was the area best suited for me, and allowed me to display my skills as best I could, given the assignment and mutual opinions of the group.
(Add screen grabs -timeline, stills from film, Garageband)
