University of Bradford

As I was unsuccessful at getting into Bradford University last year, With this news I decided to get in contact with the tutor in charge of the course to see what I could do. I decided to do a extra year at college to get the points needed and because I got in contact with the tutor I was able to skip the interview process and was accepted within a week of sending aplication. Here is part of the emails, contact details are removed for privacy


Here is the official letter of confirmation:

University Research

I plan to do Film at University and here are some of the universities I have looked into.

Lincoln Unversityi: http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/course/ftvftvub/

BA (Hons) Film and Television (3 years)

University of Bradford:http://www.bradford.ac.uk/study/courses/view/?c=film-and-television-production-ba-4-years

BA (Hons) Film and Televison Production (4 years)

Group Presentation

We were told to do a presentation on topics related to our FMP, I was in a group of three and we did the presentation on Sound, Colour and Shape Theory. All the research we had done i found was very helpful in faring my idea for my FMP.  Such things about sound theory give me a idea to create some audio to effect people emotional state and also how to create chaos.
all research notes and links are here: https://padlet.com/eliciahibbard/m6ruvxf7bz3v

Included in this post is the presentation, of which I edited into a video, as thats what I'm good at. It was filmed and edited in one day.

FMP: Test 8

While I watching random video online, I found one that had the simple edit of citing footage to black to the song of a heart beat, Sadly I can't remember the video but i took that concept to make to panic. For this test footage, I hunted down footage of a hailstorm I was in. In which I found the experience to be total panic, people screaming, running for their life. Even tho it was just hail, I wanted to recreate the panic with this edit. I’ve used this in my final piece. This was my final test piece before I started to compile footage together. 

FMP: Test 7

With learning for to use after effects did some research I decided to get some footage from a film about the war and date it to what it would of been like. jitters in the footage, low quality radio audio, orange tinted film and low frame rate. I may of not used any of the my final piece but effects like the jittering i found to be great for my final piece.

FMP" Test 6

Test number 6 was my favourite. I took footage from a random intro of a youtube channel i watch and went to town to break it. audio, visual did and most importantly I used after effects. This was my first time using after effects and i learnt a lot doing it. Thanks to this piece I have improved my abilities. This piece did go into my final piece.

FMP: Test 5

For this test, i wanted to make a sad story with the intention to make you feel really sad. The video is done like it was a memorial video done to remember them in the end The result had people in tears and asking me about the girl in the video. my response " oh stock girl profile photo, she is fine". I also made a version of this with a joke ending but found tricking people would make it less likely to effect someone emotionally. This test made it self into the final piece and for those that had seen the joke footage,  were watching for a happy ending which never came.

FMP: Test 4

In this test, i wanted to create a short story using clips and images. In this case the president of america being killed and Germany celebrating. Simple edit funny result.

FMP: Test 3

With the result of test 2 being humour with 911 footage. i wanted to make something slightly creepy. I changed the the frame rate down to around 5 frames per second. I also made it black and white, then gave it a over exposure look. As i wanted to make it look dated.

FMP: Test 2

With this test, I took 911 footage and cut it with the Jeremy Kyle show's theme. I edited the footage to give it a cheesy show looks. The result of this had people crowding me to watch, yes i want to achieve this effect but maybe with less 911.

Centipede test for cosplay -Alternative miss world

When it came to making my centipede I had thought of making it so I could also use in my cosplay for Kaneki from Tokyo ghoul. With a event happening just after I had a huge event, I had to decide on what cosplay to do. With the Centipede all done, I decided it was time. I have gathered photos of me in costume before the event and during to show how it turned out.

The Centipede goes through the holes in costume located at the shoulders and wrapped around the armpit to secure it. 

The result of going to events had a lot of good feedback I have found lots of photos and I found out that night that on Instagram there was people posting photos of me with #find James, just shows I left a mark. Here below our some of the photos I found.

Because of all the feedback and people I met I have formed a group so that we could get in touch and also help thoses who want help making such things as a centipede of their own.

FMP: test 1

I am going to be uploading all my tests and ideas onto here. As a lot of my development of my ideas were done as i went on.I would spend each day by finding a new way to break the footage. here is my first test piece. This was my first attempt to turn something from innocent to creepy. This piece was later used for a second in my FMP.

Being Human: Idea Development

As I am need to go from four to three characters to follow the freud Trio. I had already decided that Simon was going to be the character I dropped but Simon's arm concept is fear. One of my favourite concepts, but looking at the other emotions fear is odd one out. As ID and the Super Ego are opposites of each other. This is why I decided that Kevin(Joy) should be the ID and Steven(Sadness) should be the Super Ego. This is because of Joy being the opposite of sadness. When it came to deciding whom was going to be the Ego, my chooses were Fear and Anger. Opposites of each other, but as the Ego is meant to resolve the conflicts between two the ID and Super Ego. I have chosen Rob (Anger), as when your angry you can still function and if you think of fear, someone that is scared/ fearful it can make you unable to function. Fight or flight, Anger would fight and Fear would run away. As The Ego is the leader I needed to choose a emotion that could take on this role.

But the Fear's arm concept might still be used, for example a Tv report showing the first case of people having mutations. The person being chased down and loads of cameras on the person. This experience would make anyone scared, so for that person to have the Fear arm could work.

I am thinking to have the story not just told straight to the audience but for the audience to make out/ interpret the story for them selfs. I am wanting the characters having the mutations to be a secret to the audience at first with the maybe the Tv report being the first case the audience sees.

The mutation only effect those with a domermit Emotion. The reason for the mutations is due to a nuclear power plant having a meltdown and leaking into the water source. The way I'm going to tell the audience about how the mutation is spread is by having a Tv report saying " Scientists are still recommending the pubic to drink bottle water and to refrain from consuming water from the taps". The reason i want the report to include still is so that you can tell its been awhile.

I am thinking the film should be around 5 mins and be open ended. So that the film is like a Tv pilot, enough story to get you hocked but not too much so that it leaves you wanting more.

The film will be set in one room and will end when they decide to leave. But each character will have a different look due to the surrounding, lighting, effects and placement.  For example Kevin (joy) being sat by the window keeping the scene bright like his personality and having Steven being on the other side of the room were its darker. With the placement like this, I would think having Rob in the middle between them would be best. Preventing conflicts between Steven and Kevin, also to keep this Trio shown in a visual way.

Star Wars - research

In 1977 George Lucas released Star wars a new hope, the first in his space sage.  When George pitched his space sage,  FOX  and most people wondered how he would pull it off, considering nothing to this scale had been done at this point.

With all the effects George wanted he was having problems with finding a special effects company to help work on star wars. In the end George Lucas formed his own special effects company called "Industrial Light and Magic" This company was formed in 1975. ILM has since gone on to working on over 300 films, but it all started with Star wars. This had the most special effect for its time and had a lot of practical effects. In modern times would be a lot easier but this is where it all started. The sets would be built for everything scaled down to create these huge scenes.  For space battles the ships would of been made scaled down and filmed against a green screen or black background depending on its use. Original the imperial star destroyer in the opening scene was going to be 40 foot long but due to budgeting issue was scaled to around 4 foot. Stop motion was also used for stuff things as the AT AT walkers from the empire strikes back. For that scene they would have created a scaled down landscape and by hand made and moved the models. Not to mention the shots with cast members in cock pits and some scene would of been to scale. but these shots would of most likely been blended together. This trick is still used to this day but these days its CGI. But trick is to film the foreground and the background separately then overlay them.

L'age D'or- Research

L'age D'or another film written and directed by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali.

Compared to un Chien Andalou this film has more meaning but keeps to that surrealist style. the film is one hour long and had sound. In the sense of the film has non diegetic and diegetic sound, as it includes speaking and other sounds happening on shot but also has a soundtrack with it.

With the use of music and juxtaposition , it controls what people think and how you understand what your being shown. As what you see and hear must be important if it was shown in the first place. one scene i found used this to break the audience's proception was were a man is be dragged away but cuts to a small white dog barking before cutting back to the man. The man seems hopefully and the music reflects this, the man escapes and runs to the dog. Oh how lovely, but no he runs up and kicks it.

This kind of this is what I want to achieve in my own work, being able to trick the audience down a path and flip it on its head.

They also mess with proception of non diegetic and diegetic sound. one cent you hear a violin and then see a violin being kicked down a street.

When it come to me making my FMP i hope to achieve that what this did. a disjointed film that makes you think and feel.

Un Chien Andalou- research

Un Chien Andalou is a silent surrealist short film by the director Luis Bunuel and the surrealist artist Salvador Dali. The film was released in 1929 with a limited showing in Paris, which ran for eight months. The film doesn't have a plot and is disjointed. Luis Bunuel was a experimental film maker and came up with edit effect we still use to date. when it came to writing the script there was a simple rule that Dali and Bunuel followed and that was not to incorporate  any images or ideas that could give the audience a explanation. As they intended to create dream like sequences.

When it comes to music/ soundtracks it can affect the audience and cause the audience to interoperate the film differently. Un Chien Andalou by be a silent film due to its time period but it did have music. A gramophone was played to go long with the film.


The film was restored but had changes done for example the original was 16 and the restored version was 21 minutes long. This is because the restored version was slowed down to be in real time compared to the original which was sped up in places. The restored version also had different a score/ soundtrack, like a said above affect how the audience receives it. But the soundtrack for the restored version un intentionally give the film some meaning.

80 years since the film was released and yet most people have seen some of film. Most people won't know the film. But its due to a scene in which a woman has her eye cut open with a razor blade, which was done by editing the footage of the woman and a dead pig getting its eye cut. A very shocking scene which keeps people talking about it, true nowadays we are exposed to a lot more but this was the first to do it, plus that was still a real eye.

By watching you can tell its Dali's work, as the film has a scene that has the iconic image of Dali with his had covered in ants. Dali used ants in his work to symbolise decay and decomposition.

This image below is part of dali's most recognised piece of work called "The Persistence of Memory" but most will know what your talking about if you say melting clock painting.

Alien Contextual

I'm going to be looking at Ridley Scotts' Alien(1979). When it comes to films there are more that one persons artistic licence at work. To list a few the Script writer, Director, Concept artist, Costume Designer and Editors, The list goes on.

I choose to look at Alien because it first links to my Being Human project, secondly its a great example of story coming to life thanks to the directer ( Ridley Scott) and concept artist (H.R. Giger).

Thanks to Giger for designing the iconic Alien we know and love today. Giger is the person that came up with the original concept art for the alien and sets.

 

The screen writer's O'Bannon and Giger shared a common influence in HP Lovecraft. Due to the timescale of production and the budget, Giger would get upset due to the limitations he had, for example he wanted to make separate pieces for inside the Alien spacecraft but sadly due to the budget, they had to reuse pieces in different angles to create different areas. Giger's Alien manifested from his own nightmares. Giger may be not with us but his legacy life on with Giger's Alien still as scary as it was when it was first shown and still seen a lot of in present day. For example Alien isolation and Mortal Kombat X. 

Ridley Scott Directed Alien and I believe he recreated Horror as a genre, with the way it was filmed. The Alien not being shown till much later in the film with only showing parts of alien and only for spilt seconds. Keeping the mystery and tension, The film keeps to the horror setting by having mostly dark scenes, using these scenes to their advantage.  

But with the use of close ups and cuts done to give us slow terrifying scenes and jumpscares. But Ridley Scott Delieves on both and to this day yes its aged but still great by today standards. But the mistakes you see today were over looked due to the horror on screen, back before you could pause. 

 For example you can see the blood pipe in the chest burster scene. the pipe would of been used to pump al the blood out. 

When it comes to film making I am wanting to follow some of the techniques of story telling Ridley Scott does. Like the way he doesn't show the alien fully to later. In my project I am wanted to keep the mutantions hidden till later.

Being Human: Digital Arm Concepts

I have farer developed my designs, I am yet to narrow the characters down to three but here are the arm concepts for them.
Joy's concept, a blade that resembles light. To note the mutations are all formed from a material harder then steel.

The arms have a passive state of a regular arm but can be triggered into to its weapon state by the user's emotions.

sadness' concept, The arm looks as it is flowing like water. As the arm can move like liquid metal.

Fear's concept, razor sharp claws with spikes running all the way along the arm as defences.

Being Human: Arm concepts

I have chosen the designs  I am wanting to farer develop, I have drawn up larger versions of the design like I have done before with anger.

For sadness I choose this design as i thought it looked free flowing like water and I think it could be used well as a defence. I think of sadness as failing so that i wanted to create a design that can protect those around them. 

For Joys design, I thought the other design was too basic and didn't think it could useful. So I went with the sword arm design as I think of knights fighting to fight to protect what they care about.















 For Fear the design I choose i felt it represented what fear is all about, being in a spiked shell. Trying to escape and aggressive if approached.

Being Human: First character Concepts

I have done rough concept drawing using my chosen arm concepts, but because I've done that i have four character. I will be narrowing down to three so that I can make the characters a Freud Trio. The designs are based roughly of myself.
The Main character is called Rob, he is represents anger and Ego. The leader of the group

Rob's Best friend Steven, he represents Sadness and Super Ego. despite being sadness the word of reason

The third wheel Simon, He represents Fear and most likely the character I shall be dropping as he doesn't fit into the Freud Trio. 

The friend you can always relay on Kevin, he represents Joy and ID. Kevin and Steven may not always get along (due to ID and Super Ego conflicting) but friends to the end.

Being Human: First Arm concepts

With the use of Plutchik's wheel of emotions, i have used the links of the colours to the emotion I am trying to materialise. For example Sadness is blue, Anger red and Fear is green.
These are my first concepts on what the arms could look like. I will narrow down the designs to one per emotion, to then farer its design, like I've done for anger already. There is a bigger concept drawing of anger which i did before my digital concept which shall be on the bottom of this post.
My next step is to draw up the digital versions.