Background Research

Background Research

I didn't know much about the history of the steelworks so decided to familiarise myself with its history, here were some notes that i made:

Green Screen Tutorial

Green Screen Tutorial

Nyle and I met up with Dom today to discuss the idea of working with a green screen for our experimental film. This was because we thought of the idea of projecting footage of a steelworks in the background to the dancer. After briefly learning how to set up and use the screen we concluded not to use it. It wouldn't of been big enough and it would of been extremely difficult to track the dancers movements in front of the screen and make it look like we weren't using one, and to track a moving object when this was the first time we would be working with one was a difficult ask.

Planning

Planning

Nyle and I met up to discuss what we were going to do for our experimental film to go alongside the sound piece named DubSteel which was close to being finished completely. The influence behind Nyle's piece was the steelworks as he used to work in that industry when he was younger. The sounds he used were of metal hitting the anvil for example and other metal noises, but then with a modern twist because it was made into a dubstep piece with things added on and layered over each other or repeated in a quick beat.

We came up with the idea of having something in the film that contrasted with the sounds the audience are hearing but also complimented the theme and so we thought of having a ballet dancer. This inspired us to change the music slightly by adding in some operatic-style singing. 

Steelworks are dull, grey, ominous and dangerous places full of hard manual labour and repetition; so because the dancer was going to be doing ballet we wondered how we too could make something so delicate also seem dangerous and therefore came up with the idea that we would use a fire dancer. 

Change of Plan

Change of Plan

Unforeseen circumstances meant that Jordan dropped out of the course and I was left on my own. As it happens,I bumped into Nyle in the corridor at university and he told me that his partner had also dropped out of the course so we came to the comclusion we would work together from then on.

We discussed each others ideas and decided to continue with his as he was further along with his sound piece. Due to Nyle's background in sound he had done quite a lot on his piece already so I only really got to chip in with ways I thought it could be improved.

John Hurt: Experimental Sound

John Hurt: Experimental Sound

I was only really concerned with the beginning sounds of this video and the interesting way sound was created. Something as simple as metal balls rolling around a metal tray with the addition of water creates what sounds a lot like thunder crashing and gives off an ominous effect. 

Edale

Edale

For production skills, we went on a shoot to Edale with a brief that stated a character called Sam went to Edale to escape their every day life in Sheffield and something happens to them there that changes them before they return to Sheffield.

Our group decided to go for an more unusual approach to the story; we decided that Edale was not an actual place, merely somewhere Sam had made up in her head because the character had mental issues. 

We used a zoom to record sounds while we were there - some atmospheric sounds and things like footsteps or the water in the stream, other more unusual sounds such as using the contact microphone on a metal wire. We also filmed a lot of close-ups on Sam to give the impression that the audience we in her head space, almost being intrusive.