Comments of a documentary about earlier Nepal

The documentary was shot by my Portuguese relative. It was made for television programme about 20 years ago. It talked about the progress of building the bridge for tourism. Some flashbacks are used to show that some people were working for the government in 1953.

Comments of The Grandmaster

Yesterday I watched a film named The Grandmaster, which was directed by Kar-Wai Wong. The Grandmaster is a Hong Kong martial arts drama film based on the life story of the Wing Chun grand master Yip Man.

However, the most impressing part of this film is not Yip Man, but the charateristic of Gong Er, who is the daughter of an old and famous martial arts master. She has very strong personality which is tough, persistent and patient. Her father tends to beat others to become the leader of the field, however, he fails. To help her father and retain the reputation of her family, Gong Er fights the man who beat her father skillfully. It is worth noting that Gong Er is intelligent and aggressive. As time goes by, Master Gong grows older and older and is retrayed and killed by his most adorable apprentice. Gong Er is much too angry and sad and want to revenge for her father. Nevertheless, in tradition Chinese culture, married daughter is no longer a member of the original family. So Gong Er sacrifices her marriage and waits for several years to revenge. As she wishes, she successfully kills the man murdered her father, but she also suffers great harm and passes away after a few years. I greatly admire her spirit, it also reflects the spirit of other maters of martial arts. It is with the belief and faith that the martial arts have remained and developed for centuries.    

Comments of Notting Hill

Tonight I have seen the film named Notting Hill, it talked about a story of a ordinary person and a film star. The life of a simple bookshop owner changes when he meets the most famous film star in the world. They have experienced many roughs but finally they entered their marriage. The film was directed by Roger Michell in 1999.

Comments of Hungry Games 1

Yesterday I had seen the film named Hungry Games 1. The film is directed by Gary Ross and it talked about a game that let 24 people from different districts fight each other for survivals. Many difficulties are set by the controllers, nearly all of the contributors have experienced a lot of dangers and died, but finally the two from district 12 saved their lives and win the hungry game and they become a couple.

Scenes of the films are very beautiful, in my opinion, nearly all of them are shot in green screens and edited in post-production with Maya, 3D Max or After Effects.

the controllers are setting tigers to catch them 

the controllers are living who are failed the game and died 

Comments of Kill Your Darlings

Last week I have seen the suspense film named Kill Your Darlings, which was directed by John Krokidas, is talked about a student in University of Columbia in 1944. The man was warmed up with two people who were also the students of Columbia, finally they became homosexuality. One of them killed his dad......

I was confused about the story of this film and I couldn't have a good comprehension of it.

But as for something relevant to my research project is the flashbacks are used in this film for some times.

Interviewing in Roger's class in Broadway Cinema

Yesterday in Roger's class we had practiced how to interview a person. We used the Sony camera with memory cards and we interviewed everyone about cultural differences between Britain and their mother countries in our class. When talking about Britain we used English and we used our mother languages in talking about our own cultures. Roger adjusted the lights of the stage and make it a bit red, then we used two red-heads as a main light and a background light. We learned a lot in Cinema 1 in Broadway Cinema with Roger.

Homework from Roger: Different cultures

Last week, Roger let us to make a video about different cultures. This is the video of our group and it is the incomplete one because Jayne couldn't borrow the cameras so I will wait for her and finally I will make the final one later.

storyboard drawing

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Comments of Now you see me

Few days ago I have seen the film named Now you see me. It talked about a group of magicians who perform using magic to steal a lot of money from a Paris bank in America. After that they cheated and play tricks on the polices. There is a man follow the magicians and he wanted to uncover the secrets of their magics but failed that he was finally sent to the prison by polices. The film was directed by Louis Leterrier.

Comments of Iron Man III

Few days ago I had seen the film Iron Man 3, it talked about the man used the iron to conquer the world and fighting with others. The effects and the scenes are very good in this film. The stories in the Iron Man series are nearly the same, so just talking about the effects are useful.

script writing

          A KITCHEN IN THE FIRST FLOOR OF A HOUSE

          There is a stockpot remained on a hearth lonely in a kitchen

          with nobody. Accompanied with some black smoke going up.

          A ROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR WHICH IS DOOR OPENED

          A young lady is playing computer in the room with pajama.

          Her hair is in a mess. She is looked leisurely. Suddenly she

          began to smell around and feel something strange in the

          room.

          A KITCHEN IN THE FIRST FLOOR OF A HOUSE

          The black smoke is nearly filled up the whole kitchen and

          some smoke leaked out of the kitchen.

          THE CORRIDOR OF THE SECOND FLOOR

          The young lady go out the room, walk near the stairs and

          looked down, she suddenly shouted loudly. And then she move

          a bit backward and be frightened. It can be seen that the

          black smoke is going upstairs.

          A ROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR WHICH IS DOOR OPENED

          She rushed back to the room and closed the door strongly.

          She found her mobile phone in a hurry on her desk and phone

          the fire rescuing number.

                              THE FIRE RESCUING OPERATOR

                    Hello, how can I help you?

                              THE YOUNG LADY

                    Hello, there is a fire break up in

                    my house.

                              THE FIRE RESCUING OPERATOR

                    What's your address and postcode?

                              THE YOUNG LADY

                    My postcode is NG1...... Hello,

                    hello?

                         (No voice any more, maybe the

                         telephone line is broken by

                         the fire.)

          She opened the door again but found that there is amount of

          black smoke filled the corridor. So she closed the door

          again. Then she opened the window and shouted outside for

          help.

          OUTSIDE THE WINDOW

          She is loudly shouting for help. And one of her neighbor

          answered her and help her to call the rescue.

          A ROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR WHICH IS DOOR OPENED

          The young lady is gasping seriously and looked deeply

          frightened. She opened the door again, some black smoke

          leaked into her room and her shut the door immediately.

                         (the shot will observe the

                         face of the young lady so as

                         to describe she is

                         frightening.)

          

          ON THE GROUND FLOOR OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

          Some fire rescuers arrived and running upstairs from the

          ground floor to the top floor.

          ON THE MIDDLE FLOOR OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

          The fire rescuers still running but suddenly stopped because

          the fire hydrant is not long enough. And the leader swore

          some dirty words and he has no way to rescue the young lady

          because the house is on the top of the apartment.

          A ROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR WHICH IS DOOR OPENED

          The young lady is still gasping and begin to cry. She opened

          the window suddenly and she want to jump down. But it is too

          high for her otherwise she will die.

          

          

Comments of Walkabout

Last night I have seen the film called Walkabout, which was directed by Nicolas Roeg. It described a story about adventure. The sister and the brother were abandoned by the father in a bleak ground. The film recorded the whole progress of from how they were abandoned to finally they find the main road and waiting for rescue. At the middle of the film they met an aboriginal person and he led them to the main road. Finally he showed love to the sister but suffered her ignorance. After that the aboriginal killed himself by hanging on the tree. This is a drama film which was shot in 1971. The final of the film is the voice-over of the brother and it told us it is a memory of him and he couldn't come to the island again. And the final is very abstract that it is uneasy to understand because it is different to some original finals of films.

Final

short film idea

Fire, calling, running, rescuing, frightening

A few days ago, a fire hazard was broken out of the kitchen in the first floor of a house. At that time, just a young lady on the second floor of the house. She felt strange that there was some dark smoke went upstairs, so she tried to go downstairs to have a look, but when she looked downstairs, she found that the fire was burning the only way she can go downstairs and leave the house then she shouted. She wanted to run through the fire but she didn’t dare to. So she opened the window and called loudly to her neighbors but no one replied. She felt helpless that she rang the fire rescuing number but the telephone didn’t work. Then she wanted to jump down but it is too high that she couldn’t jump otherwise she will die. The fire was creeping up and she felt frightening. 

Comments of The Last Stand

Tonight I have seen a film called the Last Stand, which is directed by a Korean director Kim Jee-Woon. It talked about a process of the drug lord Cortex escaping from the United States to Mexico. The FBI has set up a lot of barricades but the Cortex broke them all and escaped away. But nearby the border of Mexico and U.S., he failed by the sheriff of the town who was performed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Cortex was finally caught by the U.S. police.

From this film I learned about some effects.

words effects

animation effects

Some fighting pictures

fighting 1

When failed, he was still struggling for going to Mexico, the shot was given to Cortex that crave in his eyes, a few seconds later the shot changed to the other side of the bridge--Mexico.

workshop of Roger

Last Friday, Roger had separated us into 2 groups of four people, our group's topic is talking about the different culture in different countries. Jayne is the director of us and she booked a studio to shoot because she want the picture in a studio-style. So when we were shooting, she put the red-head into pictures. At the beginning I felt a bit strange, but the light of the picture is OK. Roger said that the white screen is not clean enough and there is some dirty handprint on it. In the evening, my teammate Lee came to my house to shoot a series of shots about Chinese culture, actually just the picture of I was cooking. And now I am editing.

Learning agreement

School of Art and Design                                                                             2013/14

MA:	Learning Agreement

Name:

Ye Yuan

Course:

MA in Film Practice

Date:

26/11/2013

What is your subject of study?

My subject is learning about making the flashback and flash forward in films. Flashback is a technique in post-production as well as an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. For example, in the film Citizen Kane (1941), the story then revisits Kane’s life in a series of nonlinear flashbacks that could be confusing, but the facts needed to understand it are presented in the exposition (Block, 2008). In films, using flashbacost-production. k is to alert the audiences that the action shown is from the past. A crawl is a longer expositional statement about the upcoming story (Block, 2008). Flashforward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media. The flashforward is unthinkable in the classical narrative cinema, which seeks to retard the ending, emphasize communicativeness, and play down self-consciousness (Bordwell, 1985). So I am thinking about making research on the mental activities of characters in films, because many temporal disruptions are interesting and can bring audiences to many different backgrounds.

What is your research question?

How to use flashback or flash forward to display what actors or actresses are thinking by pictures?

Research aim(s):

1. Understanding of narrative and how flashbacks or flash-forwards are used to display different background informations to audiences in theories.

2. Having knowledge of effects in flashbacks and flash-forwards in films.

3. Understanding how to make flashbacks or flash-forwards in films.

4. Finding case studies about flashback or flash-forward in films

Research objectives(s):

What are the specific tangible project objectives?

Note: these are separate to what you personally need to learn in terms of skills and knowledge, see learning objectives below.

1.         Read more books and find out more about the kinds of flashbacks and flash-forwards in films.

2.         Watch more films which are contained flashbacks or flash-forwards.

3.         Learn from the case studies which are founded, try to understand why directors use flashbacks or flash-forwards here and the effects of them.

4.         Try to imitate what I learned from case studies and make films.

Rationale

·         What is the wider context of your project?

                     

Using flashbacks or flash-forwards to display character's mental activity can extend more spheres in films. One of the spheres is about narrative and stories structures in films. Things like flashbacks and flash-forwards bring audiences temporal disruption as well as take audiences to another point from the current one. These will affect the stories' development and narrative structure. Such as the narrative structure in television, the narratives present a special case compared with other narrative structures (Porter, et al., 2002). So, narrative theory can assist us to understand the intricacies of structure in narrative fiction. Most of the narratives structure follow a main line of events, actually, the story is the chronological succession that things will be happened or erupted in the end as the accumulation of the the successions. The narrative structure in documentaries are different from the television, there are two kinds of documentary narratives, one is classical, another is Postclassical. These two have in common is the mixing of documentary modes, in each, expository (voice-over), observational (handheld, silent), and interactive (talking head) formal devicess are combined in a short span of screen time, but in each, no cinematic punctuation marks the transition from on mode to another (Cagle, 2012). As for flashbacks or flash-forwards, it can be extended to documentaries as mentioned before, biography films as well, but also drama films. Flashback describes more past events which are relevant to nowadays; flash-forwards describes implications to some future events. Typically in films, flashback often functions to provide backstory in support of a main story line, being presented either as a continuous sequence or as a series of scenes showing only the crux of the backstory (Bae & Young, 2008).

·         How does the project relate to your previous experience/practice?

This project is related to my previous final practice in my BA learning. I have made a micro feature film in my final year, the film is talked about a couple's life. I used some flashbacks and flash-forwards to describe the main characters' psychological activities, I used flashbacks to describe the girl who was memorizing their happy and sweet life before they broke up. And flash-forwards were used to foresee some worse things which will be happened to the couple after their quarreling. These flashbacks and flash-forwards have many effects in my film, for example, some audiences showed empathy after seeing the flashbacks because these are similar to their experiences.

              

·         How does it relate to relevant current practices, debates and theory?

Flashbacks or flash-forwards are better used in displaying the characters’ mental activities, giving different backgrounds to audiences, memorizing the earlier events before the current and etc. As for flashbacks, which are said as functions to provide backstory in support of a main story line (Bae & Young, 2008). Like “Citizen Kane (1941)”, a biography film which is talking about Charles Kane’s whole life. The films used a lot of flashbacks to talk about his road of setting up the newspaper offices. When Kane’s colleagues memorizing the earlier events and thinking about them in current, the shot are changed to the picture of what they were doing in the time of the colleagues remembered immediately. It used flashbacks in order to support the main story line. Flashback is a narrative device that present story events out of temporal order, it describes some past events related to the present, typically in film media, flashback often functions to provide backstory in support of a main story line, being presented either as a continuous sequence or as a series of scenes showing only the crux of the backstory (Bae & Young, 2008). For example, flashback can depict a character’s recall of his or her own past events. As for flash-forward, it can present a character’s imaginations of possible outcomes.

·         Why is the intended research significant? (So what?)

Flashbacks or flash-forwards are always used in films. Some feature films and biography films always use flashbacks to recall some memory of earlier events from current period time. And using flashbacks can display what the characters are currently thinking or recalling about. As for flash-forwards, some sci-fi may use them to forecast the possible events will be happened in future. In my opinion, the research is meaningful in films because nearly every film uses flashbacks or flash-forwards, many things can be worked out from the research.

·         How does this project relate to your plans for the future?

I will make some films in future with flashbacks or flash-forwards. It can help me to describe character’s mental activities. Moreover, the main story line can be backed by flashbacks and flash-forwards.

Methodology

·         Outline the research, creative and intellectual methods you will employ to develop your research project.

1.         Use positivism and interpretvism to make the research and comparison in displaying character’s mental activities with flashbacks or flash-forwards in films. I will find out and understanding the theory of how flashbacks or flash-forwards are used to display different background information to audiences.

2.         Watch different styles of films and make deeper analysis on them, then find out the effect of using flashbacks or flash-forwards in films.

3.         Find out some case studies about films with flashbacks or flash-forwards as the first step said, and I will search in a wide range that I can get more suggestions and find out many questions. Furthermore, I will solve and work out the questions on the network or by reading in libraries then do the practices with more theories.

4.         Try to make films with flashbacks or flash-forwards to achieve better to display more different backgrounds to audiences and what the characters are thinking about.

5.         Gather more suggestions from more audiences, then try my best to improve my skills and solve more problems in my films and make them as the best.

·         Identify ethical considerations where appropriate.

If I want to shoot a film, the thing that I need to get is the permission. Some of the areas like government buildings and some private working areas don’t allow others to take photos and shoot videos in it. In addition, I should get the permission a few days before shooting a film and make great preparation on how to arrange timetables. As for the equipment, I should prepare for them and try to use them the proficient the better before shooting. And the batteries should be fully recharged so as to prevent from low battery status when shooting.

Learning objectives

·         Link to your personal skills audit and development plan; identify the skills that you will develop and knowledge that you need to acquire. Match the objectives against the MA programme learning outcomes.

1.         To learn and explore how flashbacks or flash-forwards work in films

2.         To understand how flashbacks or flash-forwards are used to display different background informations to audiences.

3.         To imitate some methods of films when using flashbacks or flash-forwards in shooting my own films, and make deep comprehension in these methods then shoot in my own styles.

4.         To learn how to use different digital cameras like Nikon D90 and how to use the post-production softwares like Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Audition or Final Cut Pro.

Submissions (practical and/or written work)

·         Describe your intended body of work, including your reflective journal and the summative critical review

I will make research on how flashbacks and flash-forwards work on films, and understanding the theories of how flashbacks or flash-forwards display different backgrounds and give more information to audiences. And finish my project of how to display mental activities in films with flashbacks or flash-forwards. As for my reflective journals, I write comments of films nearly every day and make some learning notes on it.

My reflective journal URL: http://yuan0329a.blogspot.co.uk

·         Specify the audience and communication context for your project.

The audiences may prefer the biography or feature films, and we can communicate and learn together as a group in reality or online.

·         Describe how you intend to evaluate/ test project outcomes with your audience.

I will show the films to my audiences and make the explanations to them, and let them understand my outcomes of my project. And I will acquire the suggestions, questions and problems from my audiences then I should try my best to answer the questions from my audiences, solve the problems and learn from the suggestions from them.

Resource implications

·         List what resources are required within or outside of the University

Digital Cameras, Computers, Studios, Tripods, Recording devices, Monitors, Rails and Arms.

·         Identify other organisations or individuals involved that you will rely upon and describe what role they will have

I consider that some actors and actress are needed, and I will find some proper scenes for shooting.

References

Cite material using the Harvard System referenced in the previous sections.

John W., 2006, Film Director of Photography. Cited in Chris J., Genevieve J., 2006, London: The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook, pp.260-261.

Welsh, J 2011, 'Hollywood Incoherent: Narration in Seventies Cinema by Todd Berliner', Journal of American Culture, 34, 3, pp.204, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 27 November 2013.

Porter, M, Larson, D, Harthcock, A,& Nellis, K 2002, 'Re(de)fining Narrative Events: Examining Television Narrative Structure', Journal of Popular Film & Television, 30, 1, pp. 23, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 27 November 2013.

CAGLE, C 2012, 'Postclassical Nonfiction: Narration in the Contemporary Documentary', Cinema Journal, 52, 1, pp. 45-65, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 27 November 2013.

Bae, B & Young, M, 2008, A Use of Flashback and Foreshadowing for Surprise Arousal in Narrative Using a Plan-Based Approach. USA: Interactive Storytelling, pp.156-167.

Movies:

Welles, O., 1941, ‘Citizen Kane’.

Bibliography

Cite essential background or contextual material using the Harvard System of referencing

Farn,E., Chen,L., and Liou,J., 2003, A new slow-motion replay extractor for soccer game videos. Taiwan: International Journal of Pattern Recognition and Articial Intelligence.17(8), pp.1467-1481.

John W., 2006, Film Director of Photography. Cited in Chris J., Genevieve J., 2006, London: The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook, pp.260-261.

Welsh, J 2011, 'Hollywood Incoherent: Narration in Seventies Cinema by Todd Berliner', Journal of American Culture, 34, 3, pp.204, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 27 November 2013.

Porter, M, Larson, D, Harthcock, A,& Nellis, K 2002, 'Re(de)fining Narrative Events: Examining Television Narrative Structure', Journal of Popular Film & Television, 30, 1, pp. 23, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 27 November 2013.

CAGLE, C 2012, 'Postclassical Nonfiction: Narration in the Contemporary Documentary', Cinema Journal, 52, 1, pp. 45-65, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 27 November 2013.

Bae, B & Young, M, 2008, A Use of Flashback and Foreshadowing for Surprise Arousal in Narrative Using a Plan-Based Approach. USA: Interactive Storytelling, pp.156-167.

Street, S 1996, 'Citizen Kane', History Today, 46, 3, p. 48, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 30 November 2013.

Movies:

Greengrass, P., 2013, ‘Captain Philips’.

Daniels, L., 2013, ‘the Butler’.

Chou, J., 2013, ‘the Rooftop’.

Black, S., 2013, ‘Iron Man 3’.

Håfström, M., 2013, ‘Escape Plan’.

Knight, S., 2013, ‘Hummingbird’.

 

Timetable

·         Outline your plan of action; give dates of developmental milestones linked to the PGC / PGD / MA stages; include personal tutorials and your vacations.

·         Identify a programme of events in which you intend to participate: lectures, exhibitions, tutorials, seminars, workshops, research visits, interviews, searches, on-line activities, etc.

Week 22 Write a short film screenplay. Write some journals of my work. Shoot a film

Week 23 Edit the short film and prepare the assessment(presentation)

Week 24-Week28 Read some books and see more films, then do some research on post-production skills and psychology theory.

Week 29-Week 32 I will choose some good films and try to understand how flashbacks or flash-forwards display different backgrounds in films.

Week 33-Week 34 Write two different type screenplays.  Explore what different skills we need to use in different type scripts.

Week 35 Choose one screenplay I wrote and film it.

Week 36 Edit the second short film.

Week 37-39 Do some shooting practice, explore how to present character’s emotion through flashbacks or flash-forwards.

Week 40-41 Read some books about shooting and editing. Watch some films and do research on shooting.

Week 42-45 Do some analysis work about other post-production skills.

Week 46 Write some screenplays to practice film skills learn from other directors.

Week 47-50 Cooperate with other directors to shoot my screenplays. Do shoot and edit film work. Write my summary document and prepare the last assessment. Deadline for the final assessment preparation.

Week 51 Assessment Week

Agreed as a viable programme of study

Signature of student:                                 Date:   

Signature supervisor:                           Date:

Include this document within your submission at the end of each stage (PGC / PGD / MA).

Interviewing my classmate (many days ago)

Many days ago, this was a homework from Deborah's class. It's a practicing of interviewing others with different depth of field.

Comments of Tiny Times 1.0

Tonight I have seen the Chinese drama film which named Tiny Times (First Edition). The film is mainly talking about four girls who were known each other from high school to the age they were working. They had experienced many things like quarrelling with boyfriends or break up.

In my opinion, the story is not clear enough in the film, but the scenes are magnificent and the lens are better used. At last, the slow-motion lens are used in the four ladies which are carrying the clothes for fashion show are running without high heels on the viaduct bridge. These slow-motion lens are what I want to make research on.