Maya Deren

Maya Deren was born in the Ukraine in April 1917, as war broke out her family moved to the United States where she went to university. After Deren had left university she joined the European émigré art scene where she worked as a editorial assistant and photographer. It wasn't until her father died that she bought a camera a 16mm Bolex camera.

Meshes of the Afternoon was originally meant to be a silent film but Deren's third husband done the sound for it. Meshes of the Afternoon stared Deren and for me it is one of those films that ask the questions and make audiences really think about what they see and hear. 

As in my previous post on Abbas Kiarostami we talked about how we want to capture the essence of the child in the forest but what I am taking of Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon is the editing style I want the film to ask the questions about the child and the forest, will the audience relate to the child or will they question their own childhood, will it make the audience think that their own childhood wasn't all that great or make them question childhood. It may make them question there own children's childhood they may think the child is being destructive where they are only playing in there own world. 

Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami was born in 22nd of June 1940. There isn't much information on him between 1940 and 1970 on how he became interested in film making but in 1970 he made the short Bread and Alley which is one of the first shorts that I have been inspired by which is not a disney short film.

I love that he brings realism to his films and brings true life to his films. Not only a director but Kiarostami has also worked on films as an editor, screenwriter, art director and producer. I believe that Kiarostami let the child be his self to capture the essence and true nature of the child to capture this he would of left the camera on the child for a long time so the child would feel comfortable for example in The Bread and Alley the child is picking its nose as if the camera wasn't there.

Kiarostami is known for using children as main protagonists this is really interesting as we want to get the perception of a child's point of view in the forest.

Kiarostami's films are universal and doesn't  matter if there isn't dialogue or the dialogue is in another language you can still see and understand his work.

Car Trouble :'(

On Friday the 19th of April we planned to do a recce in Castlewellan Forest Park to see how everything would turn out and if we could go around it and see if there is anynice locations we could shoot but alas the big man in the sky had other plans and Joy's car broke down on the M1 of all places!

We have rechedualed for Monday the 29th of April to complete are recce and get something set in stone for the shoot date as we are coming up to the deadline for the ruff cut which is 16th of May so we are under a bit of pressure to get filming.

I was talking to joy about the recce on 29th of April I asked what do we want to capture in Castlewellan forest park and that the cinematography and the edit can come together so that we are both on the same page. Joy was talking about the perception of a child we discussed this and we have some exciting ideas which will be posted up soon so keep your eyes peeled.

Meshes of the Afternoon

Meshes Of The Afternoon is one of the strangest pieces of film I have ever watched. This film takes a few watches to understand. It has alot of repeating images with different chacters such as the girlfirend, but later on we see the a man which we are lead to believe is the boyfriend in the same image, this happens time and time and time again with different characters such as the grim reaper character. The story is like a broken record it keeps repeating until the characters become much clearer in the last repeating scene.

Meshes Of The Afternoon was made in 1943 by Maya Deren the editing in this short i believe this was a head of it times with all the strange shot and the editing techniques, with these brought together I feel that these made the film what it, instead of the audience questioning the film, the film was questioning the audience.

I'll post more about Maya Deren genus in the near future.

Here are some stills from Meshes Of The Afternoon and my views on them:

Here is the link to Meshes Of The Afternoon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S03Aw5HULU

Bread and Alley

The Bread and Alley is a very simple but effective film. The start of the film was very random but as you watch the film you come to understand it. This film is random with random passers by, I originally thought that the boy was in an nightmare where he couldn't escape but as the story developed I could see that the story is about the dog,  we see an old man then come by and the boy sees a light to get by the dog, as they walk down the alley the man turns of just before the dog. The boy then confronts the dog by throwing it a piece of bread, the dog was just hungry and is now following the dog for friendship and food as we come up the boys house his mother comes to the door, the dog is whimpering and the mother shuts the door in its face. As the dog lies down out side the gate another boy comes and the process starts again.

when we were lead to believe the story is about the boy I think its about the dog. I can remember my friends dog sat at the top of the stairs and to get by it you would always have to give him a biscuit. This film can be universally understood it doesn't matter what part of the world you are in. I hope to portray this in our own film.

This film was made in 1970 by Abbas Kiarostami i will talk more about him in future posts.

Here are some stills from Bread in Alley and my views on them:

This image portrays the childhood innocence and shows that we aren't just seeing acting but real life childhood innocence.

I love this still because it reminds me of the maze in Castlewellan I pictured this image just as a test shot as it shows being lost in ones self or a way of showing time traveling nicely from one scene to the next. Often we don't realise how quickly time passes and I feel this portrays this well.







Here is a link to Bread in Alley if you wish to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJBhL7EY4Kg

Our visit to Castlewellan Castle which is not really a castle :O

On Monday myself and Joy went to visit Castlewellan  Castle and the purpose of this was to find out if it would play a purpose in the shoot because the castle forms a big part of the parks history. When we arrived we were greeted by the people who live in Castle we were shown around the castle its self. The castle is now a Christan Conference Centre where local church groups, youth groups, people can stay an for the weekend. The Annseley family have lived in the castle from 1856, before that they lived in cottage nearer the lake and the outline can still be seen today. We are meeting with an historian to find out more about the Annseley Family and the estate later in the future.

We have also took some stills of the castle to see how well it would shoot and to capture stills of places of interest.

We are going up to the park when the weather is better for us to get some stills as we did in the Castlewellan  Castle.