FA7036 - Notes on Montage
NOTES on ‘Montage & Sound’ Thursday 31st March 2016
Think ‘text’ as ultimately defining a message, whereas an image can be suggestive and interpreted in any number of ways.
Watch “La Jetee” (1962) by Chris Marker
Watch other films from the Reportage, Montage and Documentary Powerpoint
Watch the film by Noriko Okaku:
http://www.norikookaku.com/the_interpreter
https://vimeo.com/norikookaku
Consider an ‘old film’ effect and subtitles, describing the thoughts behind the caravan...
It is a story of sadness and closure
It expresses how I feel about ‘losing’ it
The ending does hint at ‘what’s to come’, i.e. a new lease of life, with the song from ‘HMS Pinafore’ echoing in the background
Don’t just ‘slap’ sound on – think about how it can evoke certain emotions/moods (consider this for the major project, coinciding with the singing/music)
Consider the effect of ‘dream-like’ rotoscoping, as with Waking Life (2001)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk2DeTet98o (trailer)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhalb0_waking-life_shortfilms (full film)
Can I ‘project’ such imagery behind the character animation of the major project film? Perhaps I can think of representation like this…
The puppet character – ‘me’ – is solid and life-like (I am sure of my existence, experiencing myself as reality)
The drawn characters – those of friends and family – are more impressionistic (they exist, but memories of them in the past are more faded – and I can only be sure that I, myself, exist in the reality that I know, because “I exist, therefore I am”)
The other memories are even more faded (objects, environments, events) because they no longer exist (only in memory)
Can the ‘unstable, anxious dream-like’ quality be adopted to nostalgic memories? Perhaps ‘absolute’ memories are more solidly drawn, while faded ones are more unstable
Maybe suggest emotion in the lighting too? Even characters’ faces can change colour using this technique (like in Paddington Bear)
How does the rotoscoping of the caravan affect the viewer’s feeling? What am I trying to evoke? A magical feeling – shapes, colours, movement
FURTHER NOTES on ‘Documentary & Representation’ Thursday 31st March 2016
Is my film – and the major project – an animated documentary? What defines such a ‘genre’?
‘Indexicality’ = footage to reference truths/facts within ‘expository’ (the most common) documentary, such as a footprint – revealing the existence of a being – without actually showing the being itself
‘Substitutive mimetic’ = footage (animated) to recreate things that could not otherwise be filmed, such as dinosaurs
‘Direct representation’ = clearly depicting what you want to say
‘Substitutive non-mimetic’ = footage that isn’t necessarily animated, but possibly from live action, in order to get a point across more clearly (for emphasis)
‘Expressive’ = more abstract
Knowledge is produced through discourse – so abstract imagery cannot create knowledge? Just a feeling? An impression?
“Aesthetic experience can be as meaningful as any kind of factual discussion”
‘Poetic mode’ = merging reality with abstract imagery to create a type of ‘documentary’ in its own right, such as Kucia’s Parada (1986):
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsla7_kucia-jerzy-parada-1986_creation
