i got it

I'm finally 'getting' camera! This weekend I booked rooms for me to take kit out into and play about with and a fourth year came and helped me out. I really began to piece the notes and the equipment together and I enjoyed it! Getting the back focus right was hard but the satisfaction with understanding each step through the whole process was great.

I'm going to concentrate on lighting later on the week but I've covered each part of the tasks in detail up to doing the white balance (tripod, balancing the head, setting the VF and the monitor up etc).

I'm feeling much more confident about it all and I'm hoping to have the re-sit the week after next weekend as I've booked room throughout the week and for next weekend as well.

"The poor dope - he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool. "

Sunset Boulevard is … a horribly dark yet utterly compelling movie. I don't even really like it, at all, but I would still call it a classic. It's not because of bad acting that I don't like it or because of a weak plot or a rubbish set or even bad lines. It does very well in each part but for me the movie is still disturbingly unattractive. I think it's just down to personal taste: the black and white (it doesn't usually) puts me off - I'd love to see the world in Sunset in colour.

It's Gloria Swanson - she really hits a nerve and an uncomfortable one! Her performance is stunning in that she drags my mind and I into her mad world and I'm constantly repulsed by her character and her insane principles and clawed hands but at the same time admiring of her odd strength. The plot is very clever - I've watched it roughly three times - and I'm still impressed but I can never concentrate too much because I get the same sort of feeling as I do with Nesferatu - a sickly, uncomfortable feeling when faced with madness.

The ending sequence is great though, no doubt. And some moments are beautiful - like when Max tells Holden: "You see those offices up there? That was Madame's dressing room, the whole row. " It really smacks you in the face how adored she was and how she has been cast aside so cruelly - which is something we unwittingly encourage with our stars today. Anyway, when she descends those palace stairs - she is every inch the star and her power as an actress - Nora Desmond AND Gloria Swanson shines through in the most devastating way possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA

This is just so poetically beautiful and simple and so true. I love this - my new favourite piece of how film or a visual piece can change the way someone thinks!

I want to be the person behind the force that can make people stop, gape and then change the way the looked at something - just like I did here.

We can choose which way to act - the negative way or the positive way.

D

"I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it."t

There were no tears at all, in the end. The Lovely Bones ….. at the cinema I left feeling like it was a good movie. By the time I got home I was devastated. As Flick said, the movie meant so much to me and it was a bitter thing to see essential sub plots stripped from the movie. I'd love to meet Mr Jackson and demand some answers!

First up: Susie is raped in the book. Did they take this out so they could get a 12 certificate? If so, why even bother making the film? The book is horrifying but because of the way it is written, its poise means that the events are not morbid and a horrible chunk of grief that you have to wade through. Instead they are essential to the story because they show how Susie moves on, how she grows up in her Inbetween.

I did hyperventilate slightly when I saw the snow globe because the prelude to the book is just beautiful:

'Inside the snow globe on my father's desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, "Don't worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He is trapped in a perfect world."

Susie herself is trapped in her perfect world. I just didn't get the sense that there was a sense of character development for anyone. Near the end in the film, Susie does say that she has to 'let go' of her father but, for me, there had been no sense of her making a journey. Maybe I'm obsessing about the book and about making comparisons.

But I can't help but also wonder why on earth they took out potentially juicy sub-plots out?! For instance, Abigail (Susie's mother) doesn't just disappear and then come back, she actually has an affair with the Len, the chief detective. This, in the book anyhow, shows how the family break apart over time over Susie's death and then when she finally, finally returns the family begin to mend together.

Secondly, Lindsey doesn't just decide to go to his house - there is a crucial scene of understanding which passes between her and her father - they both know it is Mr Harvey but that there is not enough evidence. Their father can't do it, but she can.

I loved Grandma Lynn. I think it was brilliant how Susan Sarandon made her character full of fight and feisty love but her character's development was dropped very suddenly for most of the film, which is a shame because there is a lovely scene between her and Buckley.

The actors were amazing: Rachel Weisz, Mark Wahlberg, Saoirse Ronan…they all did an amazing job in trying to give their characters as much depth as possible but this was immediately counter acted by Peter Jackson's obsession with CGI. The movie was made empty by the lack of structure and by the amount of CGI all for it to qualify as a pretty, nice 12 film. I'm sorry, but the film would have worked so much better if Jackson had just let the simplicity of the story shine through. Of course, with the notion of two worlds: one of them a 'heaven' there has to be effects (the scene in Mr Harvey's bathroom is FANTASTIC and the rose blooming in Jack's hand is beautiful) but unfortunately they did not support anything, instead they were just Jackson showing off.

I loved parts of course. The mud and the blood running together was amazingly vivid and when Mr Harvey takes the safe to the sinkhole, the mud splashes with the weight and I thought that was visually great. The scene in which Tucci/Mr Harvey looks through the doll's house is plain creepy - you get this huge sense of the fact he is bigger, stronger, meaner than you when you see him looming in the door.

One last thing though…and I don't want to sound like a horrible, twisted, sick person but why didn't they show us the murder? There is a huge build up and then we are led to believe she got away for around 5 minutes, which is a huge waste of time in storytelling. (Which they do in other parts..wasting time I mean, when they re-use the scene with her on the bike again and again…and again!) Anyway, we don't see the murder and I think that lets the movie down: 'Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.'

Peter Jackson tried to contain and dress up this luminous, tragically heart-breaking story, by ironically stripping the story bare and empty and reducing it to CGI effects which really made me very sad and disappointed.

there are just no words....

Oh my god. And not in a good way. Well, we all had the camera summative assessment today and I majestically failed it.

The notes were amazing...what went wrong?! I didn't panic as much as I thought I might (that was my goal for today: 'Keep calm in the assessment. Don't panic!' But I still got confused. It started when the tripod bottom locks wouldn't lift all the way up, they kept sticking! The rest of the tripod business was fine and I balanced the tripod head okay.

However the issues really began with the monitor. That small thing really does my head in! But I finally got the bars up and set up the monitor (chroma, brightness check, the 'blue only' button, and contrast) and hit record for 30 seconds. I just hope I didn't go over Sam's bit (sorry Sam!)

Timecode? Pfft. I had it in the notes and I could see the buttons right there. I pressed the buttons and things start happening (or not happening) that are not supposed to! So I (as calmly as possible) left it and decided to go to the next step and hope that I could do the next part.

Which was back focus. Well, I missed that out entirely so we needn't dwell. (I did know though, if the camera was a J12 - it was - to have it 6ft away..)

There was no image on the camera because it was overexposed. So I tried the aperature (it was sitting on 8 so I moved it down to 1.8) but it still wasn't happy so it was onto the lights! The lights were strange. I understand 3 point lighting perfectly well but for some reason I had though the lights would be set up! No no no. Stands are a complicated business..

Do you know something? I would have really enjoyed the assessment if I had just known the smaller details. I did feel myself slowly (oh so slowly) BUT surely getting there, step by step, getting asked what I could change and working out the answer. Some parts I know, some parts I just draw a blank on but I do enjoy seeing the seperate parts and piecing them all together. I just pray I pass the resit. I know I can do better!

the box and me...

Wow. That is the word which instantly comes to mind when thinking about our black flatscreens!

I've learned a lot about television so far - whereas I always appreciated the enormous impact it has on us as a society and as individuals - I never had paid enough attention to how riveting and actually how clever soaps are and why they are this way. For example Corrie has a huge part of our nation glued to it even though it is only 22 minutes long!

Personal taste no longer clouds my judgement as much and I'm learning so much more about what different types of programmes can do, both old and new.

I really was surprised by the craftmanship of I Love Lucy. The humour can still be appreciated now and I loved seeing where it all started....the sketches nowadays remind me of I Love Lucy and also it showed me it doesn't matter how long ago it was as long as the jokes are kept simple it'll prove to be timeless.

The Street really really impressed me. It literally put my faith back into television and it showed me so clearly the genius of a being a showrunner. The results were very clear and in my opinion much better quality. The episode we watched moved me greatly and although it was an emotionally dark and heavy piece I liked the style. Each part (lighting, cinematography, acting) was handled with care and time thus creating a one off quality piece of drama. Nothing was cut back on or compromised which I noticed and that is what I'd like to see so much more of.

That said, there is far too much rubbish on the box! Mindless, gormless programmes are churned out and they stay on bobbing about like annoying driftwood even though the fish check it out sometimes, really aren't interested. But hey, that's what we're here for isn't it - to put and create quality tv that makes people sit up and scratch their heads - why didn't they think or see that before?

Overall I've sat up and noticed more myself about the thing that sits in our living rooms and almost every other room, quite innocously, until you switch it on! All those channels, all that potential. Really want to see TV grow and take the nation back by storm...

hello, hello!

Across The Nightingale Floor is really simple but it's proving a good read so far. The writing is slightly poetic, which I like, but I think I could have read it about three years ago..

EXCITING NEWS! I'm going to see The Lovely Bones on Tuesday (only after about three fourish years of waiting!) So so so excited…but I did read somewhere (sorry bit pathetic but I honestly can't remember where from) that it didn't translate well from the book..

If I feel like that's happened I may have to stomp over to Mr Jackson and hit him over the head with a 1940s telephone. I cannot stand anymore of this tragic scenario where a brilliant, excellent, beautiful, heart moving book gets made into a pile of absolutely nothing worthwhile with a big name stuck on it to get the big bucks. So here's hoping I come out of X-scape crying tears of joy at such a beautiful film and not tears of hot rage!

xo

pages and chapters

Don't you love it when you have a huge pile of new books and films to watch? I'm so excited. After sitting in the kitchen with a flatmate who I hardly ever talk to in the wee hours I've now got:

Irreversible, Gaspar Noe

Dead Or Alive, Miike Takashi

Lady Vengeance, Park Chan Wook

Against A Dark Background, Iain M. Banks

Whit, Iain Banks

Across The Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn

I'm also currently reading Screen Epiphanies, The Odyssey, Atonement, Q&A (the book behind Slumdog Millionaire) and Breakfast At Tiffany's but it seems my 8 year old self had a much greater skill for reading a gazillion books at the same time...

Still, I'm excited to have a new pile of books and films from Peacock because I haven't necessarily gone and picked them out with my own bias but have had them given to me and been demanded to read and watch them. I'll let you know how I get on!

Xo

“Simplicity and subtlety is beauty.”

This week has started off with a packed screenwriting class with Richard, who is back from LA for 3 days! I felt really happy to be in a group again and seeing and feeling all our minds whizzing about with ideas, all bouncing off each other. I really like seeing other people's approaches to the same idea: we made up a premise together and linked the crucial beats to form a strong structure in one exercise. Everyone has such different styles it's so interesting to see where we end up with an idea when working together face to face.

Today we looked at:

*Refresher: Structure & Theme

* Visual Storytelling

and we were meant to cover Dialogue too but we didn't have time.

Our creative synapses were set off with a simple exercise - the statues. Pairs went up and posed in a still image and we all came up with different scenarios with diverse characters. However it became clear that none of us were very clear or familiar with the meaning of theme anymore. There was a lot of: "I don't know!" and confused faces as we tried to justify acceptance and trust and things that are really devices and whatnot as themes!

I felt odd going back to square one and I didn't like how confused I suddenly felt when asked what the definition of theme was.

For the record it's:

*a message or statement of your beliefs

*what a story is really about

*what the protagonist learns during the course of the story

**X over Y.

A lot of the class was recapping but it was sorely needed as it helped me clarify things in my head and feel more confident about writing another script.

Richard asked us what we felt about the scripts we had just written. I was happy with my idea but I have a feeling that I wrote a screenplay that spills a little too much over the 5 minute time limit. I still think it could work however if I re-visit it because I don't feel it's impossible – I had an EPIC idea – but it would only fit a 60+ minute feature film.

With Visual Storytelling we discussed the importance of letting an image tell as much of a story over dialogue. As much as dialogue is important, film is essentially an art of images. The visuals we create on the screenplay provide us with the only way to externalise the internal story.

So basically today I had a good recap with the main points of structure and themes and I know now to go away and write more premises in my own time so to get better at working out appropriate themes. I also reminded myself that it's not all about the dialogue and that images can tell so much more. 3 Colours Blue reminded me of this in particular and I found Juliette Binoche's performance compelling – no words need to be spoken for us to understand and see her grief. All we need is to see the reflecting light of the blue glass shards on her face and her tight fist against her mouth to understand and empathise with the main character.

We were sent off after a long (and absolutely hilarious – I feel I can't explain well enough here – group storytelling + misunderstandings = claustrophobic submarine drivers!) day to write two premises. I'll tell you how mine went tomorrow.