At the heart of every movie is
performance; the interpretation of the words on the page into living
breathing characters. But how do you write for performance? How do
actors think? How do you construct a movie that actors can sink their
teeth into? Miranda Otto (Lord of the Rings, The Thin Red Line,
Cashmere Mafia) and Jeremy Sims (Fireflies) lend their views to this
episode, which explores the relationship between the script and
performer.
Who needs textbooks and seminars when you have online resources and presentations as good as those by David Tames of Kino-Eye?
David has made his amazingly detailed presentations on topics such as Web Video 2.0, Documentary Lighting and Interview Technique freely availible on his website. This set of presentation slides in PDF format are an absolutly invaluable resource for novice and pro video makers alike. Accompanying them is also some highly detailed notes and back up resources related to Video on the Web and Interviewing subjects. In particular David's presentation on lighting is virtualy the only textbook you'll ever need on the principles of low budget lighting.
It's amazing what you can find digging deep into the corporate portals of the major software developers.
I've written several times this month of quality resources on technical and creative elements of production that have been developed by the various creative software companies. This time it is again Adobe who seem to have taken their excellent detailed guides and curriculum learning documents and buried them deep in the metaphysical basement of their website.
'Foundations of Video Design and Production' is a complete curriculum guide open for implementation and adaptation in your particular learning environment. In their own words:
"The Digital Video project-based curriculum develops career and communication skills in video production, using Adobe tools. You can use the Digital Video curriculum in career and technical education courses as well as courses involving video use in academic courses. "
Now, of course Adobe wouldn't be developing such a detailed resource if there wasn't somethign in it for them. Creative software and hardwae developers learned long ago that drug dealers targeting young people were on to a proven winning formula for long term success - that if you 'hook' young people early with a 'taste' for your product they'll stay loyal addicts to you for life. Apple turned this into an art in the 1990's in Australia with their 'Apples for the Students' program where particpating supermarket shopping receipt dockets could be totally up and for every $100,000 odd dollars in receipts you could get a free Apple computer. Schools with enthusiastic parent groups leaped on the offer and just about sent Apple bankrupt in the short term but cemented loyal Mac-Junkies long term.
Evidently Adobe see similar value in designing such resources that inherently focus specifically on the use of Adobe software. But if you can peer through the proprietary haze, underneath is a sound pedagogical framework and a body of knowledge dealing with core creative technology ideas. This is driven by the association in developing the course with the International
Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Educational
Technology Standards (NETS) for Students (2007).
After quite a few years working in digital media education, production and research at the the Powerhouse Musuem of applied arts and sciences I am, as of today, taking up a new role as Head of Technological Arts at the International Film School, Sydney.
IFSS is a relatively new and dynamically exapnding instution, I am very excited by the chance to put in practice some of the broad spectrum of the ideas I have written about in the filmmaking manifesto Holistic Thinking - Integrated Making.
The school has a strong focus on screenwriting, directing and storytelling and to this I hope to bring a holistic apporach of integrated production process to make for self-sufficient, technologically empowered and forward-thinking filmmakers of the future. Filmmakers who think beyond traditional theatrical paradigms and are ready to embrace the myriad of possibilities for what filmmaking is and can be.
Head of IFSS, Duncan Thompson, speakes in this video about the culture of IFSS and what it represents.
Robert Rodriguez's 10 minute Film School lecture has become famous for its stright to the point, all-digital, get your hands dirty approach. And now its availible in video form - 2 parts with an additional '5 Minute Film SChool'. Whilst the values of a comprehensive, long-form, broad-ranging education should never be devalued or underestimated; there is none the less an enorumous strength to the self-sufficuency and pragamtaism of RR's approach.
Video Journalism, Education and Integrated Production
Its always a nice feeling when you discover that the bee in your bonet
often driving you to passionate outbursts is also a bee that
infests the bonets of others causing them similar
outbursts...
This is the relieved sensation I have
upon reading deeper into the work of foremost Video
Journalist exponent David Dunkley Gyima. His blog, the
Outernet, along with his comprehensive site Viewmagazine.tv delivers an impassioned
and informed persepctive NOT on what media production and
journalism Was or perhaps Is but everything it Can Be -
Flexible, Empowering, Dynamic, Lean, Mean, Hungry, Engaged,
Efficient, Bold and Independent. [likewise Cliff Etzel of
www.bluprojekt.com offers a wonderfully informed and bold
view on VJ culture]
David's writings cover the gamut
of relevant topics for independent media production and
investigative journalism but what catches my attention most
prevalently is his focus on the importance of Training and
Education; moreover of re-thinking many of the paradigms of
how such training has been traditionally delivered and
engaged.
His own video presentations on interview
technique point towards a very informed but flexible approach
to working as an independent media
producer.
Cinematic production is traditionally a linear progressive process - From script, to storyboard, to shoot, to edit to sound mix to delivery.
Subsequently, more often than not, we teach cinematic production following the same linear progression. At both secondary and tertiary levels we tend to examine in learning each element of production process in much the same order as a traditional production would function; script first, then camera, then post-production editing and sound. But is this really the best or most effective way to teach filmmaking?
The fundamental cornerstone of all engaged and effective learning is context. Communicating and teaching a concept in the abstract, disconnected from other ideas or process, is far more difficult than when the new concept is tangibly connected to other already understood ideas. Simile, metaphor and example are at the heart of good teach by their ability to construct context around a new idea.
It is here that we might see the underlying problem with teaching filmmaking process following in the same order as it is traditionally made; a distinct lack of context.
A screenplay is not a work if literature - its arguably not a writing discipline at all - rather it is a blueprint for production. A screenplay doesn't exist to be read and everything about its form, structure and tenets is designed specifically for facilitating production and visual interpretation. And so by its very nature you cannot effectively write a screenplay or even engage with the screenwriting process without an understanding of the process of shooting and making a movie. The screenplay, as a concept, is fundamentally out of context without that experience.
The shooting of a movie, the acquisition of the principle photography, is at the heart of what traditional filmmaking is - the staging of performance and the composition of shots. But on its own cinematography is just the acquisition of images. A movie doesn't become a movie until those images arranged, edited and sequenced. Without an experience and understanding of editing - what that process requires of the images it arranges - shooting is distinctly out of context. The process of shooting can only be comprehended fully in the knowledge of what is needed of, and what will be done to, the shots themselves.
The understanding of each part of the cinematic production process can only be contextualized by an understanding of the production components and processes that follow. Without that contextual knowledge processes such as script writing are rendered dislocated and abstracted.
In this light there is a strong argument to suggest that for a contextually underpinned learning of cinematic production concepts to take place, the components themselves should be learned in reverse order.
Starting students on a learning continuum about filmmaking that is grounded, empowering and contextualized should begin with editing and post production. Not only does this allow for the cinematic experience to be informed from an holistic and integrated perspective - one starts from the 'whole', the end phase where all components come together - but also builds the learning process on a self motivated model. A student thrown in at the editing phase will quickly and invariably realize the crucial importance of good cinematography and in particular coverage; thus they will become self directed towards and engagement with the camera from a contextualized position. As a student immerses themselves in the art of the camera and the acquisition of images they will quickly and invariably realize the need for a considered and articulate script. Here students will arrive finally at at the screenplay from a position of motivated need and contextual understanding where they understand holistically the broad functions the screenplay serves.
Just because cinema tends to work a prescribed linear segmented process flowing in one direction does not mean that you have to learn filmmaking in that same pre-ordained order.
Paul Lyzun has bee bravely tackling not just his own educational process but cinematic education in general. Paul has produced a series of 5 detailed podcasts that analyze the points I raised in the Filmmaking Manifesto I wrote serveal months ago and plays them against the educational institution he is currently studying at. He has at last come to the last in the series which is a look back at the ideas he has explored in the context of the Manifesto.
Pauls eagerness to explore the value of his own education and to question what it is that he is learning is to be commended and will, without question, result in his own skills and knowledge being far more developed than his eductaion on its own could produce.
This weekend I'll be at the Soundhouse Association national conference
and i was asked to speak on the topic of Students as Producers. More
than just another spin at the quickly establishing notion of consumer
co-creation, the idea of what it means to teach students of the Digital
Native holds particular interest and pertinent questions. heres soem of
thoughts I'll be kicking around....
The concept of the 'pro-active public', what Axel Bruns as termed the PROD-USER;
the driver of consumer-driven content, has quickly one of those
concept-statements bandied about with casual nonchalance but which most
often escapes a real and tangible understanding.
The observation
of the effects of evolving technology on 'how' we do things is only one
part of the equation and too often this is where our critical thinking
stops. What is much more profound than the means is the impetus to
engage the means.
What prompts the engagement with producing? What is the mindset of those that produce? How do our expectations and values change as a result of the producing? And how do we teach those who make no distinction between 'produce' and 'producing'?
The
real power and strength of the Prod-User generation is Not that
everyone can be a creative producer but, rather, that there is the
broad, popular, social and cultural perception that they CAN produce...
The perception of possibility and accessibility to production is
exponentially greater in social value than the specific worth of the
content that is produced.
A community, a society, a country
who's preset default is can rather than a factory setting of cant is
exponentially an empowered and dynamic one regardless of the 'quality'
of that which is created, be it great or mediocre.
[Read More]
In writing the cinema education manifesto - holistic thinking/integrated making - some months ago I had hoped that it may in some small way prompt some thinking amoung students and educators. What was unexpected however was the four part detailed analysis and application of the manifesto by video production student Paul Lyzun
Paul has now completed the 4-part podcast series that articulately and insightfully explores each concept in the manifesto and moreover applies it to the particular institution where he is studying. More than just the usual podcast fare of freestyling ill-considered vocal stumblings, Paul's podcast series is an an exercise in conceptual investigation of its own right that in many ways extends the ideas of the manifesto into new and dynamic areas and observations.
If you have any interest in media education either as a student or teacher then a listen the the whole series is well worth the time. And indeed Paul's analysis is not yet over. A final instalment over viewing the process of applying the manifesto is still to come.
To traditional media industries and the educational institutions that support them, new cinematic forms present large and substantial challenges to traditional thinking. Many such institutions are slow and even reticent to adapt and embrace. However it seems some at the Australian Film TV and Radio School (AFTRS) are fully immersing themselves in the discussion of the implications and possibilities. This blog The New Black provides a wealth of links, excerpts and ideas the convergence between new media, old media and media education. Well worth a peruse.
I have written before about Paul Lyzun, the Video Student Guy who is providing a week by peak podcast exegesis of is educational experience learning the art and craft of movie making. Aside from his own weekly podcast covering those things he has learned, thought and explored Paul is also applying the ideas in Holistic Thinking-Integrated Making: the manifesto I wrote some months back concerning the nature of cinematic education, to the institution at which he is studying the centre for digital arts at Boston Uni.
Paul's latest podcast concerning the manifesto looks at Multi-channel and Spatial sound Screen studies Working with clearly defined obstructions Working Lo-Fi but High-Concept
As an educator involved in not just teaching the conceptualization and production of cinematic media but also designing courses and education programs that attempt to engage more fully with everything cinematic media can be, its often very easy (somewhat ironically) to become divorced from the learning process itself. In other words, spending so long as the teacher focused on the teaching that you lose an intimate sense of what it is to be learner and the process of learning.
I stumbled across this blog site, called Video Student Guy, which i have found enormously fascinating as a way to see in detail the journey-like process of learning through the direct eyes (or, rather, the podcast voice) of a student. The author is a student at the Centre for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston Universityand he posts a very regular podcast on-line detailing what he has learnt that week both technical and conceptual his thoughts, ideas and even philosophical musings on the moving image and the process of learning how to create it.
The truth is much of the author's perspectives on the media production industry are very naive and ill-informed. But this is absolutely not a criticism, instead rather its actually the point! The power of the podcasts from week to week is the steady evolution of the author's ideas, knowledge and perspectives. Seeing how they grow, mature, expand and evolve is watching the learning process in action.
The blog really is a superb example of the empowerment of self-reflective learning; I have no doubt in believing that the blog's author will gain far more form his education as a result of making the blog and indeed may well learn more form his own blogging analysis than he will from the classes themselves. Perhaps not immediately but certainly in the long term.
In the meantime I already feel a better educator from being able to step outside the teaching box every now and then to watch, from a students perspective, the process of learning about the moving image.
I was once asked to look at the philosophy of creation versus
re-creation. Is it composition when you let a machine grind a few loops
into a timeline and spit them back to you ? Is this OK for video makers
who need such a quick fix? Is this OK for students who want to learn
understand the nuts and bolts of communicating through music?
Well?. It?s a great question and one that goes beyond the notions of
simple re-mix culture I?ve discussed in other lectures. I would start
with the assertion that re-mixing is an act of pure-creation that is as
old as human evolution and innate to human existence. Indeed it could
well be argued in philosophical terms that human beings are completely
incapable of creation from nothing. We are entirely unable to imagine
that which does not, or isn?t drawn from, what already exists and our
experience of that existence. For example, describe for me a new colour
that doesn?t already exist in the spectrum without using names or terms
related to already existing colours. It?s not possible. The notion of
creation from ?nothing? is the genesis well-spring from which human
culture has crafted and created (pardon the pun) notions of an
omnipotent and omnipresent god or deity. Indeed it might well be argued
that a ?God? Creates, Man re-Mixes and therein lies the distinct
position or mortality.
But I would subsequently argue that our established notions of
creativity are flawed in their common understanding of an act of
bringing forth ?something? from whence there was ?nothing?. That this
notion of creativity is not useful or indeed functional.
[Read More]
A Thirteen-point manifesto for educating creators of cinema and the institutions that teach them.
[After three scrappy attempts to collate these ideas here lies the final Manifesto]
The paradigms have shifted. The great wheels of perspective and process
have turned and re-aligned themselves. They haven't done it alone. The
cogs have moved with the binaural pressure of technology and
expectation. The technology has given media makers new ways to create
and new means to deliver. On their own these might not be enough to
shift the paradigm of understanding and conceptualization over but with
new means of creation and new channels of delivery comes new and
evolved expectations of the viewer. An audience that has an
increasingly sophisticated visuality and an ever broadening complex of
psychological tools for comprehension.
And here the great turning of the wheels grind and shudder, for whilst
the tools have evolved, and the viewer has evolved in their
expectations of what the tools can make; the conceptual underpinnings
of the institutions of cinematic teaching have not. The hierarchical,
segmented, linear, sequential and stratified paradigms of cinematic
assembly and comprehension still form the spine of teaching and
learning about cinematic making ? embodied into the bedrock of the
institutions seemingly unshakable and unquestioned.
But, to persist with these engrained modes is inherently problematic
and walks the path of failing the media makers of the future. There is
no doubt that, in spite of these inflexible short-sighted pedagogical
approaches at odds with the direction of cinema, media makers will
always find their way forward into new cinematic possibilities driven
by technologically. But what the future of media production requires is
not more creators who know how to wield the tools but more creators who
can wield the tools with an intellectual and conceptual deftness that
prevents a diminishing of technology to its lowest, common, cinematic
denominator.
Give any young person a software video editing system and their first
product will invariably be a pastiche of every video effect, transition
and digital hyperbole the system can offer. This is not just immaturity
but rather a natural process that must be embraced. One must 'get it
out of their system' before they can embrace a more sophisticated mode
and process. Before they can wield the tool with finesse and greater
emotional dexterity they must first feel its weight and wield it in
earnest clumsiness.
But whilst the institutions that provide the foundation for shaping new
media makers continue to be built from traditional and antiquated
production and theoretical structures - structures fundamentally at
odds with contemporary and evolving expectations and sensibilities - we
in effect, create cinematic practitioners that leave their education
and enter into creative lives still having not had the chance to get
the digital hyperbole 'out of their system'. A generation of immature
cinematic creators still dazzled by the power of the digital rather
than intellectually and tangibly skilled in manipulating and shaping
the digital into more meaningful forms.
In this light I present a thirteen-point manifesto for repositioning
the education of creators of cinema and the institutions that teach
them. Thirteen key areas that all media makers of the future must
conceptually comprehend and tangibly be able to wield. Thirteen key
areas that all students should be versed in and knowledgeable of. Not
in substitution of established cinematic concepts but in compliment to
them - The layer doesn't supplant the sequence; it enhances it. The
composited image doesn't dilute the cut it expands its context. The
animated doesn't overtake the power of the still. The virtual doesn't
discount the real, it emphasises and questions it.
Here then I propose 13 elements, perspectives, cocnepts and approaches for building better cinematic artists of the future.
[Read More]
