Blog 3: Production Notes

I really enjoyed working on our project where I interviewed Christine Kitson and then shot video of her and edited it all together to make one cohesive piece reflecting on her trials as a mishap prone child. My favorite part was the editing. I've used final cut before but never this in depth and I know the knowledge I've acquired is going to come in hand in my film making career. I wasn't necessarily pleased with the initial interview and maybe I would have done it over but there was a good reaction from the class to my audio so I'm happy with it. I don't think I suppose I'm a little more attentive to editing now when I watch a film. I think the project would benefit from our ability to film while we interviewed because its always nice to have a few shots of the actual interview. In a perfect world I would have really liked to get some of Chrisitnes home movies from when she was a kid but unfortunately it wasn't possible.

Childhood is Dangerous

Here is my completed project. Enjoy!

Blog Post #2: Sound-Image and Image-Image Relationships

For this blog assignment, I chose a clip from the film “The Science of Sleep” by Michel Gondry, in which the main character, Stephane, is dreaming. Sound plays a very important role throughout the film but particularly in this scene. As he falls asleep the music is lullaby-like and then switches to a fast punk rock when the dream takes an aggressive turn. One of my favorite things Gondry does in this moment is make dialogue unclear from the people other than Stephan. They merely mumble incoherently and even that is not exactly in synch with the image furthering the impression of being asleep. The images in this clip are unlike any other film, except maybe Gondry’s others. At almost all times we have an image within an image through the use of green screens and superimposition. We have a huge contrast of color when Stephan is dreaming, but also a big contrast in the kind of film used in foreground and background so even the contrast is contrasting. Gondry uses a handheld for most of the shots in the dream which makes it not only less organized but more personal. The cuts in the scene are pretty fast, as in a real dream one can never focus too long and the longest shot of the clip is in fast motion. As hard as it is too imagine with such a playful director as Gondry, his cuts are not so obvious. We are more into the scene than we are aware of his hand.

The Science of Sleep - Dream Sequence