MMJ V

 

With the development of science and technology, in today’s world, we can use our iPhone to shoot 4k video clips and cut into a beautiful low-budget cinematic film. However, the quality of the film characters’ on the image resolution, the subjects and themes determine the value of the film. “Splitscreen: A Love Story” was shot entirely on a Nokia N8 Mobile phone in 2011.This two minutes and twenty-five seconds’ film directed by James W Griffiths and produced by Kurban Kassam. Five years ago, the cell phone’s camera lens did not have the 4k quality or f 1.4 apertures, what they do have is the idea and the editing skills for this unusual love story.

It starts with an L-Cut.  We can hear the alarm sound before we see the title “Splitscreen: A Love Story.” The graphic title uses the effect of the alarm clock screen which matches perfectly with the alarm sound. It is smart and neat.At 0:07, the story starts with two evenly split screens, the female character is on the left, and the male character is on the right

In the following thirteen seconds, the videographer shot four different close-up shots of showerhead, egg, coffee and newspaper.Two split screens were edited perfectly to illustrate the character’s morning routine. At 0:23, the camera as the character’s point of view shows what they see while they are walking to the subway station. There are two color tones in this video separated by the screen; the left side is warmer and right side is colder. At 0:28, we realized the female charter is in Paris (Tolbiac Station), and the male character is in New York City (168 Street). At 0:29, the train arrived at the subway station; two different trains was edited perfectly as one matched shot.At 0:32, we can see the differences between the color on the left and right. More importantly, the picture is edited entirely as one neat screen. Every scene matched evenly and delicately, from graffiti to bridge to the subway station to taxi, etc. At 1:00, the most iconic cut/edit: a male from the right screen walks into the left screen, male with hat transited to the male with glasses.  

The camera continued to be the point of view presented two characters who were doing the exactly same thing in two different cities. At 1:22, we realized two characters of this love story is a plane. At 1:31, double-decker bus arrived on the same frame and edited evenly for the two split screens.In the next series of jump cuts, we realized two characters might meet up in London.

At 1:48, they are both walking on the same bridge, from one side to another. At 1:53, a vertical panning shot from maps to two character’s face, cameras continued to be the character’s point of view. Finally, this long-distance relationship couple met each other in London.The story ends with a medium shot of this couple smiled at each other on the bridge. At 1:59, film faded to black.

“Their smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace where the real world would never come.” A beautiful love story shot by Nokia N8. The whole story does not use any words, dialogue or narrative. It used two separate screens to illustrate the love story of a long-distance relationship couple finally met each other in London. It is simple and well executed.

The music video for Pentatonix’s version of the song “Hallelujah” is a beautiful example of visual techniques and sound mirroring one another, and working seamlessly together to convey a feeling. I noticed the repeated use of several cinematic techniques to support the smooth, sinewy movements of the song, particularly crossfades, graphic match cuts, motivated and unmotivated tracking shots, and the use of positive and negative action.

Before moving on to the camera techniques, however, I want to point out the use of muted, natural light. This white, almost dusty light provides a soft, heavenly aesthetic that sets the tone for the entire piece. The use of natural light to signal the end of the song, as we watch the sun set toward the last half (2:45), is a nice visual and conceptual conclusion, as well.

This piece opens with a motivated tracking shot of the first singer walking through the desert (:07), and we gradually meet the other singers through a series of graphic match cuts (:14, :17, :18, :24). However, the match cuts aren’t clean — they’re done using a crossfade technique that makes them less severe. This could run the risk of looking cheesy or amateur in many cases, but for this piece it works beautifully; it supports the fluidity of the music and we see this practice throughout the piece (1:32, 3:22, 4:08).

Motivated tracking shots are used frequently in the first two minutes, as the camera follows the walking movements of the singers. But at about the two-minute mark, the singers stop walking and the camera movements largely become unmotivated mounting moves (2:19, 2:27, 2:35). I particularly love the jump from subtle, medium-angle mounting moves to the faster, wide-angle move when the music crescendos (3:33). The camera movement at this point provides visual interest and, as is the theme throughout this piece, visually matches the sound of the music.

There are also several other points toward the end of the piece where this tactic is used effectively, and which also introduce negative and positive action to provide visual reinforcement for the intensification or softening of the music. For example, the unmotivated mounting move at 2:45 uses negative action as the music ascends, and positive action as the music mellows at 3:35. The same technique is seen at 3:35 and 4:20.

I love how the producers of this piece consciously use particular cinematic techniques over and over again to visually augment what the audience is hearing. The movements of the camera and the transition between scenes are almost as lyrical as the music, compounding with the song to create a strong, consistent and compelling piece.

Musicians Saul and Ruby are pretty irresistible in this interview style New York Times Op-Doc piece, by filmmaker Joshua Weinstein.  The piece opens with an establishing shot of two men seated side by side, facing the camera in what feels like an interview setup. Saul introduces himself and his instrument.  The camera cuts to a close-up of his face, then pans down to a tight shot of the drum as he plays (0:16). The camera returns to both men, and the sequence repeats as Reuben introduces himself (0:20), the the camera cuts to close-ups of his accordion and his face. We return to the two seated in the interview, as they announce their band name, the Holocaust Survivor Band.

Through big grins, lots of motion and emotion, and rich detail shots as they play their instruments and tell their story,  this quirky duo practically bursts off the screen in the first 30 seconds. They are vibrant, I feel like I am there with them, engrossed in their story already.

At 0:50 the camera moves back to a wide scene-setting shot where we see both men playing together on a pier, a small audience watching them perform, with the cityscape in the background. The video flows between interview and scenes of the men performing, employing lots of L-Cuts (picture leading sound & sound leading picture) as we hear them narrate their story. A few techniques noted:

• Graphic matched cut at 1:00 from drumsticks going down to water crashing up below the pier.
• Unmotivated move at 1:32, camera pans across couple sitting at table.
• Fantastic close up at 1:47.
• Great detail at 1:55, fingers on keyboard.
• So much emotion, movement, joy throughout.
• B Roll motif (pier, birds, streaming dreamy sunlight and soft focus).
• Lots of tight shots & shallow depth of field.

At 2:32 the upbeat Klezmer music stops, the pacing slows, and the introduction of a quiet haunting soundtrack shifts to a more somber mood. The location also changes and we see medium and tight shots of Saul in a dark room (though we don’t see his face directly) as we hear him recollect his days in a concentration camp and of how music enhanced their days there. Light streams into the dark room with a dreamlike effect. At 3:14 an L-Cut (picture leads sound) shifts to similar scene of Reuben reflecting on the camps.

The closing scene begins at 3:58, as the two (using positive motion) walk toward us, on the pier, with their instruments, singing. The video ends with a joyful scene of the two playing music together.

The relationship between the two men, their joy for life and music, as well as their dark past, are very effectively woven into this visual story.

 

 

I discovered Food From Home series on Vimeo this week. It is a two minutes and fourteen seconds short film about Christine Ha, a chef, an author and the winner of MasterChef Season 3. It documents a real story about to preserve on film, to share Ha’s touching story about her mother’s cooking and passion behind recreating her dishes.  This short film was produced by Andrew Gooi, a filmmaker, and creator of Food Talkies.

In each of the Food From Home series, it begins with a four-second long “FOOD | TALKIES” title, a white plate spinning on a white background. Then the film fades to black and started the story about Christine Ha. The color tone of this film is warm. It highlights the family’s warmth and reflects the relationship between Ha and her mother. At 00:10, this film began with a soundtrack music and a blurry image of Ha cooking in the kitchen. Two seconds later, Ha as the main character starts talking about her mother’s cooking and her homemade Vietnamese food. Along with the audio, we can see different close-up shots of her hands cutting garlic, onions, and carrots.

There are three different audio layers in this film, Ha’s voice, soundtrack (starts at the beginning) and sound effects (cutting garlic, water boiling, deep-frying, etc.) At 00:20, film shifted from close-up to medium shot, we can see a clear, focused image of Ha in the kitchen making food. 

This story uses an A-Roll and B-roll technique to tell Ha’s story. A-roll is Christine as the chef making spring rolls in the kitchen.  B-roll as the supplemental footage intercut with the main shot, and it transitioned into the touching story of her mother’s cooking and her passion behind recreating her dishes. At 00:26, the film shows a face-to-face interview of Ha talking about how her parents came to the United States in 1975 as refugee right after the fall of Saigon, Vietnam. It uses parallel editing cuts between her interview to her process of making spring rolls. This film has a lot of close-up shots during Ha making the eggrolls, peeling, stuffing, dipping, etc.

At 1:01, Ha started talking about her mother who passed away because of cancer. It transitions to the second phase of making food. It slowly tells the audience how Ha learned to cook and why she learned to cook. The loss of her mother inspired her to recreates her mother’s dishes and flavors.

At 1:22, Ha explained what spring rolls mean to her, “guilty pleasure,” happy time with her family during her birthdays and Vietnamese’s New Year. Instead of building establish shots or wide shots, this film used tons and tons close-up shots to show the details of Ha making spring rolls.

At 1:35, we can see the detail shot of the oil and a slow-mo shot of  Ha lifting the eggroll from the oil. The shallow depth of field, music and the motion combined together perfectly.

At 1:45, we see the final product of spring rolls and Ha’s story toward the end, “Food of my mom is showing she cares about us and see the joy of food she produced in the kitchen.”

At 1:53, it transitioned to a medium shot to illustrated the family value means to Ha, “in the way of creating food in the kitchen with her, in a spirit.”

At 2:01, a close-up detail shot of the freshly fried spring roll. Then it fades to black as the ending.

Overall, Food From Home: Christine Ha is an intense and detail-oriented film. The director uses two minutes and fourteen seconds to illustrate a touching story behind Chef Christine Ha’s cooking and her passion behind recreating her dishes. Kakehashi: A Portrait of Chef Nobuo Fukuda is another fascinating piece made by Andrew Gooi.

If you are interested, you can find more :  https://vimeo.com/182023749

 

Born to be Mild from Aeon Video on Vimeo.

Andy Oxley’s “Born to Be Mild” provides plenty of identifiable examples of visual language for a documentary newbie like me. The 15-minute film is fun to view, and also funny because of Oxley’s five characters, all men who are proudly dull, and anything but ordinary.

I viewed seven or eight different short documentaries for this assignment, but I knew from the get-go the first film would be my subject. Between the montages, shot compositions, interview techniques, voiceover narration, music, ambient sound and more, Oxley and crew made it difficult for me to choose what to explore and blog about.

One thing I found in common with all five characters: Oxley places them in shots symbolic to their hobbies during their indirect interview. The man (at 6:35) who collects thousands of milk bottles – but he doesn’t drink the baby nourishment – is placed in front of his collection site. Another man (at 9:09) who collects bricks. In the shot, he sits in his garden where he describes how his collection has frustrated his wife.

Peter Willis is a Dull Man of the Year nominee for the Dull Men’s Club, and my favorite character. He’s interviewed (at 4:31) while sitting on a chair in the lower left third a wide shot on a grassy lot by a street. A sharp red mailbox in the distant right upper third of the frame next to a tree.

Oxley introduces Willis (beginning at 3:45) first with tight shots of his sandals and socks before a montage of medium shots that show the dull man taking photographs of red British mail boxes. Meanwhile the viewer hears music reminiscent of what you may hear in an old-school elevator.

His mission in life: get a snapshot of every single unique letter box. But he acknowledges he’s taken only about 2,500 photographs of the roughly 115,000. However, he’s a proud, card carrying member of the Letter Box Study Group, and membership has its privileges.

To accentuate that membership, Oxley creates (at 5:00) a very tight shot of Willis’ hand holding his one-year membership card. The card awards him access to the club’s database of all mail box locations.

“With the help of my son,” Willis says, “I have been able to get those references into my GPS unit, and we set it so it would give me an alarm, a little ding-a-ling warning, when I approach a post box.”

Meanwhile the viewer sees a montage of shots, including tight shot of the side Willis head inside moving car while he hunts for his prey. Another close-up of his GPS unit in the console of his car confirms to the viewer of the device’s importance.

“I rarely leave home without it,” he says with his eyes closed in a tight shot of his head with a blurry red mailbox in the background.

The overall message Oxley delivers is that these men enjoy the very slow and non-complicated aspects of life. Forget cell phones, fancy cars, traveling to exotic places and overall busy lives, Dull Men’s Club members say.

“I like to take in as much of where I’m going or what’s in front of me as I can,” Willis said.

Is the Dull Men’s Club a movement?

“No,” said one of the characters. “It’s not a movement. We like to stay put.”

Tony Hernandez
MMJ Foundations