I am satisfied with the way the Mis en Scene ended up in this film. The everyday, messy indoor sets combined with the props such as alcohol and cigarettes created a believable, natural feel. I did not get to explore as many possibilities as I originally intended, but on reflection I believe that in this case, less turned out to be more.
Nathan and I spent a lesson discussing the different characters in the band, to work out both the scripting, and so that I could think about their costume and set design. This discussion was also influenced by what Chris Ramsden had suggested the previous lesson.
The guitarist is the sensible character – his clothes were to be the most casual and ordinary, and I chose for him to be shot in a room on his own, with his chair to camera left. The lead singer was shot on camera right, also on his own, but this time outside, to distinguish him as an outsider in the group. Keeping the guitarist on the left and the lead singer on the right is intended to help visualise the power struggle between them, and establish the guitarist as in a stronger position. I drew this idea from the 180 degree rule, most clearly used in Westerns. I wanted the bassist and drummer on a sofa together so that the two could work as a double act, and because they are both stuck in the middle of the power struggle. Nathan's home provided the sets. The lead singer's clothes were simple when he was interviewed outside; this was so that he could contrast strongly with his appearance in rehearsal and performance shots, which we never filmed in the end. However, this is simply part of a full film, and these sides of his character would have been shown in the full feature.
My plans for the other band members' costumes had been also been different. Originally, the bassist was going to be female and stoned, in grungey, cheap clothing – short tartan skirt, boots, female denim waistcoat over a netting shirt etc, with messy hair and old eyeliner. Naturally this changed drastically because of casting and the direction that the character was taken in when filming, and what would've been quite a throw-away character became a talkative and useful one, as well as amusing. I was therefore happy with this change.
The drummer was also originally different. I wanted to dress him inn a dressing gown and hat, to set him aside as more casual yet more unusual than the rest. The hat remained but the dressing gown was refused by the actor when it came to shooting – I was unhappy about this.. Also, originally the drummer was going to hardly speak (which was kept) except to make seemingly sage remarks by saying obscure famous quotes that made little sense in the context. This was inspired by the Garbage Man on Dilbert and the stereotype of drummers being the oddity in a band that was highlighted in the interview about drummers in Spinal Tap. I picked some quotes for him from http://www.quotegarden.com, but again, the actor did not want to do this when it came to filming. Luckily the bassist had become a more talkative character, and so the drummer's input was less missed.
When we were planning to have shots of the band rehearsing and performing, i was going to arrange a stage space etc. In rehearsals I planned for Eddie to wear his performance gear whilst the rest of them were casual (and drummer, again, in dressing gown and hat). This was to show his more avid dedicated to the band. Performance clothes were all going to vary – Eddie's was going to be loud and ridiculous, inspired by some hideous combination of Ziggy Stardust and Aerosmith,. The drummer was going to be more Sex Pistols and the guitarist, laid back 70s. The varying clothes were going to show the division in the band.
Some of the props that we did use were to establish the characters - for example, the guitarist had his guitar, and the drummer had drum sticks stuck between cushions on the sofa. This wasn't done for every character to keep an illusion of realism. I was going to make a band Logo and some albums, but we had to shoot our main footage before I could do this, and we decided we didn't want or need them. The Mood Board was an idea from early on, though the result may not have been successful. I think that was an illustration that in a documentary style piece, less turns out to be much more, and on reflection I am glad that we kept the movie and the Mis en Scene as simple as we did.
The other task i was involved with was the editing. Chris was in charge of it and did a fantastic job, and was also good at accepting a lot of input from Nathan and I. We also all co-wrote the summaries of the people's lives since the band.
My group aims to make a roughly 1- 2 ½ minute extract from a Rocku-Mockumentary about a failing band. The extract will be either at the end or near the end of the documentary, and will be covering the tensions within the band due to the power struggle between the lead singer and the lead guitarist. The band will be discussing the tensions, their disillusionment with the lead singer, and their future options if the band falls apart. As Art Director, I will be thinking about the sorts of costumes and sets that the film will need to create a realistic appearance, and also to convey the characters of the band members. I shall also aim to arrange for instruments and a stage space in case we wish to shoot the band performing, or any other props or space we may need, as well as possibly creating a band logo or an album etc., depending on what we decide we'll wish to use. I hope to present the band as fairly normal, not-quite-with-it guys with leanings towards the rock look. In interviews their clothes will all be fairly normal – however, in any rehearsal or performance footage, they will appear in their on-stage “Rocker” clothes.
Chris Ramsden, Editor. Film Extract Evaluation - Zebra Voltage
Chris Ramsden, Editor - Evaluation
For this project I was in group S-09 with Nathan Ives (Cinematographer), Alice Instone-Brewer (Mise en scène) and Chris Readman (Sound Design). I took up the role of Editor. Our film was a comedy mock rockumentary about the ups and downs of an unsigned rock band. This was my original idea from the pitch stage; I thought this would be a good genre to work in because of the conveniences associated with making a film that appears to be non-fiction. The choice of genre eliminated the need for any particularly difficult camerawork, editing or mise en scene in the part of the film we produced.
The subgenre we worked in greatly affected our decisions in the mise en scène, camera, sound, we worked in. The most obvious features that indicate genre in our piece are the camera and editing, the camerawork being simple medium shot interviews and the editing being non naturalistic, non linear montage editing.
The best known example of the genre we worked in is This Is Spinal Tap (Rob Reiner, 1984.) Even though I came up with the idea of working in this genre I hadn’t actually seen Spinal Tap until after putting together the rough cut, this helped somewhat as it was a shining example of the genre. Seeing as I hadn’t watched TIST until late into the project I based ideas for cinematography and editing on the TV series The Office: USA. In The Office, medium shot interviews with characters are often used to elaborate or explain situations, as well as for comic effect.
Here is an example of this interview technique. In this clip Steve Carell, playing Michael Scott (the office manager and US counterpart of David Brent from the UK version) explains the rules of calling shotgun.
Due to my role as editor a lot of responsibility surrounding the shape of the story was under my control. The juxtaposition of footage combined with titles and sound in our piece clearly shows that our extract comes from the end of the film. I was sure to cut together footage of different characters talking about each other in a way that highlights the troubles of the band whilst simultaneously creating comedy. Although we wanted parts of our extract to be funny we were also sure not to ruin the seriousness of the extract.
As editor I knew that I would have to work closely with the rest of the group so that each person’s work could be presented in the end product. Alice was sure to use appropriate props and locations, the presence of music equipment in interviews was a small but effective way of indicating the roles of band members. Another good decision was to have Eddie being interviewed outside, in contrast to his band mates who were all interviewed indoors, this was done to show that Eddie is an outsider from the rest of the group.
As both Chris and me were working in post-production we had to blend the video and audio together well to create the right effect. Chris created both of the songs we used in Garage Band, one piece was a melancholic guitar piece (used as background music for all of the clip excluding the titles.) The other piece was made to be a song supposedly created by Rik and Pete from Zebra Voltage after leaving the band. Using this piece over titles explaining what happened to the band members after they parted ways mirrored real documentaries and added to the sense of the band members lives being divided into 2 parts, life during Zebra Voltage and life after, hence emphasizing the theme of broken dreams that persists throughout the film.
From the outset members of the group tweaked and discussed ideas relating to their speciality as well as contributing to ideas for narrative and characters. One change we made was doing away with an establishing shot at the very start of the sequence as we deemed it to be unnecessary. Another major change was the decision to make our sequence the very end of the film, originally we though this scene would be near to the end and not the film’s finale, we then changed our minds in post production and decided that the scene would make a good ending, we then added the text explaining where the band members went next, a classic convention in real documentaries often parodied in mockumentaries.
In response to our rough cut some people said that we should reduce the amount of screen time given to Rik and Pete, we followed their advice, deciding that cutting out parts of Rik and Pete and replacing them with Eddie would make the narrative stronger as well as making Eddie feel like a constant presence. Another criticism of the rough cut was that the “phase sheet” (a physical representation of the band’s misdirection) felt out of place as it is unexplained, however, it would feature earlier in the film, meaning that it would make sense.
For our film extract project I took up the role of the cinematographer. This meant that I was in charge of planning shots and filming. The extract was towards the end of the film where the band is being questioned about the events that had happened and their feelings towards the band.
With the genre we chose, a fake documentary film about a band. Our biggest inspiration was the film 'This is Spinal Tap' which is also a mockumentary about a band. It's comical like we've tried to make our extract. In 'This is Spinal Tap' it is also a story of failure between the band, but at the end they resolve their differences and become famous in Japan. This influenced our story of failure. Another influence of ours was the television series 'The Office'. This was because of the way it's shot. It used a very natural recording feel to it but also had points where characters would talk to the camera, these moments are what we tried to use. The camera work is normally that of a shaky nature and earlier in the film it would have been shot in a 'fly on the wall' style because it’s normally capturing reality. With our documentary genre though it was different because ours was a mockumentary. So the footage I was shooting wasn’t real life, but the camera work had to pass off that it was a real life documentary. So I decided to hold the camera with my hand, like if it were being filmed out on location rather than in a set up environment, where you’d be able to capture what you needed in the shot.
Using my area of micro responsibility, which was being the cinematographer, I thought it wise to tell the story of our short section via an interview type method with someone behind the camera. Although in fact it was me asking the questions behind the camera. I asked each band member roughly the same question in the knowledge that they would all answer differently, adding to their characters and the over all story.
I knew that with shooting the questions in that order it would help the editor tell the story by editing their answers to the same question one after another making more sense. These were done by long, one shot takes. The footage I took gave our sound man inspiration as to what direction the background music would be. Since the band members all were upset and talking about some sad issues within the story. He was able to make a sad background track that added to the feeling of loss for the failing band, making the viewer understand easier. The art director already knew what kind of look she wanted the band to have, so she asked my friends, who were playing the band members, to dress in a rock and roll way. She also asked them to bring along instruments and other things of that nature.
With the week we were meant to be planning our project I found myself on my own because my group had fallen sick. This left me in a bit of a predicament and we only got a bit of planning done. By the end of the planning week you were expected to be taking the camera away to shoot the footage for your rough cut. Not knowing what to do I took my groups camera and tripod and filmed my friends who kindly acted for me. This decision was mostly spontaneous but some good footage was achieved. After that weekend of filming my group was unaware of the footage I had procured, but they liked it and worked with it all the same creating the final project mostly out of that footage.
Our initial feedback we got from the audience was that they felt that with the camera work, they liked the fact that the camera being head height. They said that it felt like a low budget documentary, which was the feel we were going for. Every group commented on strong performances from the actors in the piece, which really came back positive towards how they were captured on film.
Overall the film extract came out extremely well. What I would take away from doing this project is the fact that I could have had some varied shots or followed someone around while filming them just to add more to my contribution rather than just the few shots I used.
This extract from the film this is Spinal Tap pretty much use the type of shots I use in our extract. (Without the credits of course)
