Friday, 11 December 2015
FICTION ADAPTATION: CRITICAL REFLECTION
For me this unit has been a highly technical I have worked a lot on post production with After effects and Photoshop. They have been really interesting helpful aspects that helped my final film and will give me a skill for the future especially with after effects. Whilst filming I made use of a projector to produce an interesting range of shots which allowed me also to show what the poem was talking about without cutting away from the scene. Its been quite an interesting unit which tested my idea of what an adaptation was through the essay and what I did with the film. I think I'd say I wasn't that faithful to the source material in the end, but that wasn't the goal of the project. I found it a really enjoyable process to try and find different and original ways to adapt this spoken word poem which had its own underlying themes of patriotism or possibly ant-patriotism and even racism. This unit went pretty well for me I haven't encountered many problems the only thing I would say is that I had some problems with exporting in the correct aspect ratio, I believe this is because of my use of After effects and photoshop and inexperience in changing formatting between them and premiere.
Thursday, 10 December 2015
FICTION ADAPTATION: GETTING TO GRIPS WITH AFTER EFFECTS
Prior to beginning this unit I had not used Adobe After-effects before so this was an entirely new experience for me. It was first brought to my attention during our montage workshop in which I was made aware of the 2.5d technique where you take a still photograph and through the use of photoshop and after-effects create a moving image. I came to discover that After-effects can be a great tool which I used more than one for my final Fiction film.
2.5d is something I explored for the workshop a few weeks ago and I found it to be very effective at bringing to life still images. It is like a completely alternative medium somewhere between photography and film. When it came to making my fiction I wanted to portray the phone boxes, but not in the standard point and shoot way. One of the first things I said to myself once I chose the poem Red Phone Boxes was that I wasn't going to use a real phone box in any of my film. This was purely from a stand point of being different and original.
Now to go along with the 2.5d I wanted to do something that would be surprising and unexpected visually and so I thought back to when I tried doing light photography a couple of years ago. I was inspired by the photos I had seen others do, an artist I looked at was Darren Pearson a.k.a Darius Twin who specialises in this type of work as an art form doing light paintings as they are called. Here are some examples of his work:
As seen above this technique has quite a range of possibilities which is why I decided it would be an interesting way to show my phone boxes without actually showing a phone box. I haven't seen this kind of thing in films or television so I thought that would give me even more of an original touch.
I think the results I created were quite succesfull as it demonstrates the same style as Pearson at a basic level. This also shows me that it is pretty easy to achieve if you know the right steps to take. This technique combined with 2.5d has produced some really interesting dynamic shots created from still photos with the help pf after-effects.
After doing these I wanted to create a short sequence at the start of my film in which you would be taken deep into the woods. So I took inspiration from the film which uses a technique called Fractal zoom or Infinite zoom shown below:
This clever technique is effective in moving through a setting quickly whilst taking in the surroundings, which is why I have taken on the challenge for my opening shot. I had to look into some tutorials on Youtube, but once I found out the simple steps my basic knowledge of After-effects did the rest. It is amazing what you can find on the internet to help you learn these techniques like this clip here which helped me learn the fractal zoom:
So I have to say the thing I have learn't most in this unit is how to use After-effects and I believe it can be a real big influence on my future work.
2.5d is something I explored for the workshop a few weeks ago and I found it to be very effective at bringing to life still images. It is like a completely alternative medium somewhere between photography and film. When it came to making my fiction I wanted to portray the phone boxes, but not in the standard point and shoot way. One of the first things I said to myself once I chose the poem Red Phone Boxes was that I wasn't going to use a real phone box in any of my film. This was purely from a stand point of being different and original.
Now to go along with the 2.5d I wanted to do something that would be surprising and unexpected visually and so I thought back to when I tried doing light photography a couple of years ago. I was inspired by the photos I had seen others do, an artist I looked at was Darren Pearson a.k.a Darius Twin who specialises in this type of work as an art form doing light paintings as they are called. Here are some examples of his work:
As seen above this technique has quite a range of possibilities which is why I decided it would be an interesting way to show my phone boxes without actually showing a phone box. I haven't seen this kind of thing in films or television so I thought that would give me even more of an original touch.
I think the results I created were quite succesfull as it demonstrates the same style as Pearson at a basic level. This also shows me that it is pretty easy to achieve if you know the right steps to take. This technique combined with 2.5d has produced some really interesting dynamic shots created from still photos with the help pf after-effects.
After doing these I wanted to create a short sequence at the start of my film in which you would be taken deep into the woods. So I took inspiration from the film which uses a technique called Fractal zoom or Infinite zoom shown below:
This clever technique is effective in moving through a setting quickly whilst taking in the surroundings, which is why I have taken on the challenge for my opening shot. I had to look into some tutorials on Youtube, but once I found out the simple steps my basic knowledge of After-effects did the rest. It is amazing what you can find on the internet to help you learn these techniques like this clip here which helped me learn the fractal zoom:
So I have to say the thing I have learn't most in this unit is how to use After-effects and I believe it can be a real big influence on my future work.
Wednesday, 9 December 2015
FICTION ADAPTATION: BRITAIN CHANGE
The poem I am using Red Phone Boxes by Adam Kammerling:
Between Haywards Heath and Gatwick,
there's a trackside clearing deep in scrub
where thirty red phone boxes stand in an arc.
Their positioning, deliberate and deep in woods,
makes a Pagan ritual: red hoods, torches, prayers
to bygone England, a sacrifice of rabbit.
On Lewes Road in Brighton, a red phone box has been
nudged to death by a long, slow storm. 19 of 26 windows
smashed, chunks chewed out its frame, old conquest’s names
graff-tattooed on face and back. DIO, COST, MSG, ERKS.
Anti-fash stickers melt on its skin. At the box's top,
four waspish crowns glare out like weary compass points.
They don't know how their house got into such a state.
No one will ring their folks from this phone box,
pleading for a lift home from town. No one will make
emergency calls, no one will organise drug deals.
Children won't dial the operator, ask for McDonald’s delivered
to the bench up the street. The phone box thought itself
quite the host, but its stories dried up like we ran out
of coins. It remembers civilians queued, as it stood
proud red and British as 'sorry'. Baffled now
by Lewes Road, it can't understand the brightness of olives
in windows of the Turkish market, cannot pronounce 'baklava'.
It doesn't understand why people don't buy more crumpets!
Its skin is dirty, smudged with the 80's failures that won't wash out.
Walk past. You'll catch a whiff of whatever administrative alkalines
are eroding the NHS's base, border control trucks, ganging round
tube stops, dopplegänged high streets, town to town, the dog shit gag
of business and its flatline swagger. No one wants to stand inside that smell.
This phone box loiters on Lewes Road in the robes of pre-war Britain,
humming like it hasn't washed for sixty-five years. COST and ERKS
hang their names with 'fuck you' tacks, will not be condescended to,
will not be scrubbed out, they scorch this square of ground,
guard it with spray cans, till a new totem stands in its place.
And when we are dead and passed
into History's sideways wink, a young woman, snorkeling in an underwater
forest, between the ocean and the old airport, will find an arc of phone boxes
standing on the lake bed and remembering them from books she read
as a child, dive down to see those bones of ancient Britain up close and move amongst them like fish through pillars of pink coral.
Researching Phone Boxes and Britain during the 20th Century
The underlying theme of the poem Red Phone Boxes by Adam Kammerling is Britain and how it has been changing immeasurably in the past century. There have been many iterations of what we know as red phone boxes there have been more than 6 main designs that emerged throughout the 20th century beginning with the K1 in 1920. The most circulated model though is the K6 which is the one people recognise. This model was first introduced in 1936 designed by Giles Gilbert Scott it was a cheaper smaller model that took up less pavement space. This is the model that Kammerling was most likely talking about in his poem.
This is most likely the model which Kammerling talks about being on Lewes road and in the arc of 30 phone boxes mentioned in the poem. This is therefore the one I had in mind when thinking in terms of time frame and how long the phone box might have been stood there on Lewes road. As this model was first produced in 1936 I have looked at this being the start point. So taking this into account there are big events that may have happened during the phone boxes tenure. World War II being the first major event, followed by such things as the Cold war, Suez Crisis, increased immigration, technologies meteoric change, the internet, the end of phone box usage al together. I imagine it would have started like the picture above and ended up today as this:
One of the big changes in Britain has been the increased immigration into the country from all over the world. This subject is touched on more than once in the poem which did lead me to believe there was possibly an anti-immigration type of reaction from the phone box. I have personified the phone box by making it a person instead of just an inanimate object. This does allow me a lot more room to work with, also gives an actor to try and play an inanimate object with emotional reactions. If I were to go down that route I could reference films like This is England or American History X which both show examples of people who are totally against immigration and welcoming different cultures.
However I do believe the poem is not anti-immigration or racist so I have got my actor to portray emotions more a kin to disbelief and confusion rather than negativity to the change.
I think reading through the poem the general feeling is one of sadness from the phone box as to what Britain has become in the past 80 years or so. The whole of Elizabeth II reign so far which has seen the most dramatic changes in what Britain means to us and to the rest of world. Loss of most of the once largest Empire on the plane has changed whether for the best or for the worse this is a matter of opinion, but all the while this phone box has looked on.
Between Haywards Heath and Gatwick,
there's a trackside clearing deep in scrub
where thirty red phone boxes stand in an arc.
Their positioning, deliberate and deep in woods,
makes a Pagan ritual: red hoods, torches, prayers
to bygone England, a sacrifice of rabbit.
On Lewes Road in Brighton, a red phone box has been
nudged to death by a long, slow storm. 19 of 26 windows
smashed, chunks chewed out its frame, old conquest’s names
graff-tattooed on face and back. DIO, COST, MSG, ERKS.
Anti-fash stickers melt on its skin. At the box's top,
four waspish crowns glare out like weary compass points.
They don't know how their house got into such a state.
No one will ring their folks from this phone box,
pleading for a lift home from town. No one will make
emergency calls, no one will organise drug deals.
Children won't dial the operator, ask for McDonald’s delivered
to the bench up the street. The phone box thought itself
quite the host, but its stories dried up like we ran out
of coins. It remembers civilians queued, as it stood
proud red and British as 'sorry'. Baffled now
by Lewes Road, it can't understand the brightness of olives
in windows of the Turkish market, cannot pronounce 'baklava'.
It doesn't understand why people don't buy more crumpets!
Its skin is dirty, smudged with the 80's failures that won't wash out.
Walk past. You'll catch a whiff of whatever administrative alkalines
are eroding the NHS's base, border control trucks, ganging round
tube stops, dopplegänged high streets, town to town, the dog shit gag
of business and its flatline swagger. No one wants to stand inside that smell.
This phone box loiters on Lewes Road in the robes of pre-war Britain,
humming like it hasn't washed for sixty-five years. COST and ERKS
hang their names with 'fuck you' tacks, will not be condescended to,
will not be scrubbed out, they scorch this square of ground,
guard it with spray cans, till a new totem stands in its place.
And when we are dead and passed
into History's sideways wink, a young woman, snorkeling in an underwater
forest, between the ocean and the old airport, will find an arc of phone boxes
standing on the lake bed and remembering them from books she read
as a child, dive down to see those bones of ancient Britain up close and move amongst them like fish through pillars of pink coral.
Researching Phone Boxes and Britain during the 20th Century
The underlying theme of the poem Red Phone Boxes by Adam Kammerling is Britain and how it has been changing immeasurably in the past century. There have been many iterations of what we know as red phone boxes there have been more than 6 main designs that emerged throughout the 20th century beginning with the K1 in 1920. The most circulated model though is the K6 which is the one people recognise. This model was first introduced in 1936 designed by Giles Gilbert Scott it was a cheaper smaller model that took up less pavement space. This is the model that Kammerling was most likely talking about in his poem.
 |
| K6 model phone box |
 |
| K6 looking slightly worse for wear |
I think reading through the poem the general feeling is one of sadness from the phone box as to what Britain has become in the past 80 years or so. The whole of Elizabeth II reign so far which has seen the most dramatic changes in what Britain means to us and to the rest of world. Loss of most of the once largest Empire on the plane has changed whether for the best or for the worse this is a matter of opinion, but all the while this phone box has looked on.
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