Television by Ida Frank: Development of Idea

Development of Idea

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"Meet the very few, the band of brothers and sisters, stepping into the urban world of united expressionism revealed thorugh art and creativity. In a glimpse we see rebellians, copers and people just like you and me, some labled, some not, consistently pulsating with rawness and passion."

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As the planning and preperation for the fiction adaptation unit has gone on, so has some of its structure and story changed and developed further. Beneath you will find a couple of raw footage images that each goes with a verse of the poem from the footage, non colour-corrected, accompanied by an explenation of the story I wish to tell through visual images adapting the poem, 100%.

First off to establish and introduce to the film we see construction sites, cranes and buildings, as well as we are on a train. The combination of cranes and construction of new builings, re-construction of old builings represents urban as well as a sense renewing. I wanted to convey the contrast and the massive impact construction has on us as people as well as on the planet and earth on which we construct upon. I feel that the train is a nice way to in a sense show movement, this can be connotated to the way of movement towars a new era, a more modern world, an understanding of what urban is and means, as well as arts. It is a nice way of leading and almost taking the audince with me into the short story I am trying to tell.

In the next verse we meet the "girl in the bathroom", she represents the broken, shattered or even depressed. She is in a state where, to her, the passion she had doesnt matter to her any more. Whatever happened to her to make her lose her spark could be several things, some of them could be that she was assulted, missunderstood or not appreciated.
This has led her to the point of where she is no longer completley herself anymore, she is about to give up. That is what makes her bathe with her clothes on, and smoke cigarettes. She is a picture of how society can put too much pressure on individuals, whereas she feels she is not pretty enough, she doesnt like herself and struggles to see herself in the mirror as well as to look at her own body - thereas also why she is bathing with clothes.
When it comes to the location, I chose the particualr bathroom because I felt it would be exactly what I wanted. I wanted a prestine, clean, pure and almost sterile in the sense white. Of representing the good, the clean slate every induvidual have before we are tinted, scarred and wise. I wanted this as a contrast, as the girl represents the dark, the lost, the overly tinted - where the colours and dark has started to transpire outside of the lines. Like when a kid colours outside the lines of the drawing in a colouring book. - I wanted her to wear a black t-shirt to represent her heavy mind, and contrast all the white and clean surfaces.
I also decided to cut down on the amount of footage I will be using in the final film, as the shoot with the flowers is a bit too much and quickly makes it too much of a cliche. (at least they became some cool snapshots)

The girl is the first person we see and meet as she is the first one we need to get attached to in a sense, I want the audience to feel the need to want to help her. She sits on the edge of the bathtub looking at a [The Sparkler: represents the spark and passion, of all the people we meet] burn up. At the very last she blows out her own spark, as to represent that she will forever be lost without the passion, and without the spark.

Location - Maidstone, Kent

In the following verse I chose to put in a contemporary dancer, whereas I wanted the dancer to reflect and represent everything going on in the "girl in the bathroom´s head. Therefore we have a cutback between the clips of the girl in the bathrub and the dancer moving around in this verse. I also wanted to present dance as a urban form of expressing oneself, as an artistic artform.
For this part I originally wanted to use smoke grenades as to achieve a cool and artistic look, as well as the smoke would represent the "girl in the bathroom´s" clouded mind. The smoke would have been white, as to show purity and the light not reaching through anymore. However, I found it to be a too big hassle to get permissions and contact fire departments as it would have been done in a very public place with loads of people. And, very sadly, decided to not go through with this idea.
Location wise, I was originally going to shoot these scenes in a walkpath tunnel on the southbank, but as we got there the amount of people out and about on a sunday, as well as a balloon stand had set up in the middle of the tunnel I had to re-think my choices. As the skaters I was, originally, going to film at the southbank skatepark did not want to be involved in the project, I thought filming the dancer there in stead would be a great idea. Mainly as dancers often are portrayed in clean and elegant evironments, I wanted to show the true spark and passion, visually through seeing the urban graffitti and street art on the walls.

Location - Southbank skatepark, London

In the next verse the audience meets a new person, which this time an artist, drawing beautiful mandals. I had the idea of displaying the work of the artist on strings of thread, representing how vulnerable you are as an artist/creative person. Your work is hanging on a line, so easy to bend, scratch or even cut in two by others, the risk of putting yourself out there and presenting your work - always with the risk of it being torn apart.
Still, you do those things as an artistc person, you make and create and try not to let yourself break. Which is what I try to portrait, how the passion and spark can be so intense, that the interest and passion you have for what you do weigh up for the fact that what you produce is at risk of breaking you.
In this part I wanted to go and find a very creative place, still with a sense of urban atmosphere. Therefore I ended up finding this really cool and quiet side street right by the busy and artsy markeds in Camden. I feel that Camden is a place that very well presents diversity, art and creativity, so what better place could there be than here for an artist?

Location - Camden, London

For the following verse there was originally supposed to be skaters at Southbank skatepark, but as noen of them unfortunatley wanted to be a part of the project, even though I went to "House of Vans"- indoor skate house as well, I had no luck with finding a skater.
Originally I was also supposed to film a musician performing and reading out/singing the poem, but unfortunatly he dropped out on me on shooting day, and did never answer any emails, calls and I never heard from him again.
However when I was walking aorund Waterloo/Southbank to find House of Vans, I found this "underground" passage where there were several street artists creating graffitti/street art work.I found this very cool and got permission from one of the artists to film him as he worked.
He did not want to be filmed as in portrait like I had done with all the other people I had filmed, but I dont see that as a bad thing. I rather see it as a positive thing, because it is something that represents him as an artist in a bigger way, as well as the artform of street art itself.
In this part I originally wanted to use smoke grenades as to achieve a cool and artistic look, as well as the smoke would represent faith, confidence and stability. The smoke would have been blue, as it slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect, trying to "reach through" to the girl calm her down and show belief that everything will sort out. However, I found it to be a too big hassle to get permissions and contact fire departments as it would have been done in a very public place with loads of people. And therefore, very sadly, I decided to not go through with this idea.

Location - Waterloo / Southbank, London

Not as the last verse in the poem, but as the last verse we are introduced to someone new is mainly one guy performing parkour, also with his group of friends / parkour club members.
I chose to find a groupd doing parkour as I find it to be a very cool artform to express oneself, as well as it is a bit more high speed and action filled - compared to alot of the other arforms I display and protray in this piece.
I decided to shoot parkour in 25 fps as to be able to slow down the footage in post production, to be able to play around with the speed and look of the shoots, in post. I also tried out doing the matrix effect as an experiment, taking several shots of the same movement in a half circle / arch, which I think might look quite cool, different and artsy.

Location - Kings Cross neighbourhood, London & Tring

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ROUG CUT

At the rough cut stage, I only had half of the footage to show and present to Helen and Sam Creamer, as due to the dancers, musician and skaters dropping out. However I did put the whole sequence together in the right order with the poem I had recorded with my own voice with a zoom recorder, as well as I put in titles telling where the the footage would go once shot.

Feedback:

- Bathroom scene; too little light causing

low quality footage in some of the shots

- Batroom scene; "kill your darlings"- too much footage,

a bit overloaded. Quality over quantity.

- Bathroom scene; can quickly become to clishe, be aware of this.

- Bathroom scene; make sure to maintain the quality

from the sparkler shot throughout the rest of the film,

as well as in the new footage you are going to film.

- Helen; want to see the unity, diversity and etnisity

through seeing more different faces, old people. Scared we

will not meet enough people to represent the vast diversity.

- Sam; likes the sparkler idea, and idea in general.

- Looks really nice.

Have to work on:

- Getting good, high quality footage,

for the remaining shooting / filming.

- Creating unity through getting more faces,

and people in front of the camera.

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FINE CUT

At the fine cut stage I had retrived the rest of my footage, unfortunatley due to people dropping out and I had to re-hire equipment. I did not manage to film the very rest of the footage I needed before Sunday 11th of December, two days before the fine cut viewing + critical analysis hand in on hte following Tuesday. Therefore I did not have much fine cut for the viewing, Helen did suggest that I could change the viewing day. I felt confident enough in the footage and how the edit will turn out to show Helen and Sam the footage I had in order to get a pointer of the direction way I would need to go with it in the edit. - I did take in to consideration the feedback from the rough cut and had toned down the bathroom scene, cut out footage and tried to make it better. None of the footage was yet colour corrected at the fine cut point.

Feedback:

- Great footage, loads of variety

- Crisp and clear footage

- Bathroom scene; Still shots that

lowers the qualityand prodoction value.

- Make sure to pick out the best of the best shots,

in order to gain a high value production.

- Good idea regarding sound design, where

the sounds will not match the footage as in

order to contribute to contrast and underpin the

montage style going on.

Have to work with: