Working Progress

Working Progress

Tryouts

During the filming!

Documentation speech

The title of our piece is: Paralanguage which refers to the non-verbal elements of communication used to modify meaning and convey emotion. 


From the beginning we decided that language, communication and lights were something we wanted to collaborate and convey. This blog here shows the journey through everything that was considered, acheived, inspired and dismissed during this week. at first we were unsure whether to include hand gestures, colour, and even the setting of a bedroom for our film. However,  as a group we refined and together decided which techniques and layouts suited our intentions best.


Our film aims basically to be an ambiguous moment, where any viewer can universally understand a sense of distress between a couple. The filming creates the sensation that as the viewer we are present at the time and intrigued as to who, what, why and where these people are.  The language is french and is set for an english audience. All that can be seen is the corners of a room, lights flashing, and dimming in unison to the voices that are heard, as if the light dances to the music of the voices. Although aggressive and uncomfortable, there is something charming and enticing about the way in which the characters convert with the visuals.

Title info

Paralanguage refers to the non-verbal elements of communication used to modify meaning and convey emotion. Paralanguage may be expressed consciously or unconsciously, and it includes the pitch, volume, and, in some cases, intonation of speech. Sometimes the definition is restricted to vocally-produced sounds. The study of paralanguage is known asparalinguistics.

The finale concluded

The final filming was stressful, and involved a lot of our group tangling lamps and clicking till their arms wanted to fall off. Mario was a perfectionist, filming swirling and instructing us towards the ideal minute worth of film. Everyone was tired and overwhelmed by the efforts, and constant tryouts of hearing luna and nicolas in the recording screaming and fighting.

Despite it all... we got there. By the end of the day we had finished. All thats left now is the presentation.


I suppose to evaluate our piece, it seems we have investigated ideas, and branched to several diverse thought processes that have led us to create a minute version of paralanguage, two french people, man and woman most likely to be a couple, who convert, the rhythm of their voices and constant retaliation leads to a musical ambience. It starts calm, with lights relatively dimmed, just one lamp... by 29 seconds an argument arises, this is when two spot light lamps come in, clicking, and entwining in their shadows. 
The whole film is based on the light tone and shadows of the wall, it is only at the end when the camera swirls into the dimmer light bulb for several seconds to create a stronger dynamic contrast. 


Overall the aim of the video is to capture the audience in slight confusion and intuition to the fact their is an uncomfortable discussion, the fact it is in french and plays to a english audience is for the reason that as a team we intended for sound to be heard as pace and for sounds sake, with rhythm working in unison with the lights, to create a universal sensation of uneasiness. 
The way the camera feels hidden and images blur and distort is for the reason that we feel as a viewer part of the scene, hidden, discreet as if they are unaware of our presence. On the whole as humans, we are interested in discussions and conversations of other people if they are dramatic, so in this way we as the directors are allowing people to become intrigued and try and understand the ambiguity of this film,  yet understand at the same time remotely what is going on.


All together it feels that this week has been a success, despite being painful at times, tiring and huge amounts of patience, team efforts and disagreements. We have mutually created a rather abstract piece, and most certainly an achievement. Obviously if we had the chance to edit or had a longer brief the results may have been better or more interesting, yet I think we have done everything to make the best out of the project. 


Without trying to sound cliche, this week working in a group has brought myself and other team members closer, educated us, and given everyone a sense of purpose which as a whole pressures us to enjoy and seek approval from others, resulting in a fantastic finale. 


Well done everyone!

Paralanguage

Yesterday started off in the sound room which was hard and we didn't get exactly what we wanted but looking back at i think it's actually better than we thought. Things were a bit heavy and we were all a little deflated...

Alex came to talk to us and gave us some very positive feedback! He really liked the recordings but more importantly he liked the video that we thought looked like 'kidnapping video' he said it wasn't what he was expecting at all but said that we were onto something. he said everythinh that we wanted him to say! he liked the camera movement and how it gave a sense of the human without seeing a human. he also liked the sort of manicness of it all. the only thing he said was to think about the audience and it watching 1 min of flashing lights might get annoying.
We also tried out two lamps in the bathroom box room. it looked really good.


The title has been decided: 'Paralanguage.' 


So today its time for the final recording. Just refining the lighting, dynamics, location and movement, so it is more rewarding for the audience. we liked the idea of it feel disorientated.

So basically we are back on track!


The sample videos of what we did wont work on here... but here are examples by other artists of techniques we are interested in:

lense flare

blurred lights

Document in style

The beauty of the recording studio, setting the lights, dimming, recording... kooky and a little bit spooky

highs and lows

Flicks of the group in the process

Such babes

Recording of Audio

There are some great little bits of dialogue at these points. 

7 seconds, Luna's laugh

12 secs, Luna repition.

23.5 secs, Luna repition.

28 secs, Nicolas na,na,na...

36.4 - 37secs Luna repition.

38 secs, run of muttering ending in KA!

Presentation Pitch

Decision

A room. One light in a living area. A sparse living area. French voices argue convert, and occasionally overlap. One dimmer lights up the room, as if it is a flash (perhaps involve another colour.) You never see the lamp itself, you just see the light. The voices dance with the light and imitate each other.

Paralanguage Call Sheet

Call Sheet 26/01/11

9.15-10.15am- Everyone meet in Long Space
9.30- 11-30am- booked sound room
Experiment- Lights, colour possibilities,
Mario- Director/ Camera man
Laura- Producer/ light technician
Rachel- Documenter/ light technician
Luna- Set Director/ Camera lender

Equipment
Rachel’s Mac book
Luna’s camera
The college sound room facilities
Light effect material

(10.30-12.30am- graphic design practice talk)

11.30- 12.30am- Work review LongSpace, All in attendance.
12.30-1.30- Lunch
1.30- onwards- create new plan.

prototype play

Totally quick, and done within seconds, but a quick concept to show as a visual idea. Needs more dynamic with the voice, and this time using french rather than french and greek.

Luna's bedroom visuals

Pitching of idea

"With this film we aim to communicate the importance of tone and inflection in the understanding of speech. The dialogue throughout the film will be spoken entirely in French. We will do this in the hope that most of the audience will not be able to understand the meaning of the words and so focus of the speech as a sound.

Throughout the minute the dialogue will progress through a number of tones, from friendly to angry. Although the audience may not understand the words we hope that they will be able to track this progression through the tone of the speakers.

The visuals will be in place to reenforce the audio. Lights will brighten and fade in unison to the speech. The faces of the speakers will not be seen, by simplifying and dehumanisy the visuals the audiences attention is purely on the rhythm of the speech.

We also would like to involve camera movement in the film. Using the film Irreversible as reference we think that this method would add a flow to the film and also help us to track a progress from beginning to end."

Lalande's storyboard

Dimmer tryouts

Laura's:

Experimenting with lights and dimming techniques.

Hollywood Mummy Clip:

Lights

filming ideas and references

Filming references

Pi Subway Scene

Shining scene

Alexander Sorkurov Russian Ark HD

Untitled Tracking Shot (Taxi Driver) [Excerpt


Photographic Techniques

Lens flare is the light scattered in lens systems through generally unwanted image formation mechanisms, such as internal reflection and scattering from material inhomogeneities in the lens. These mechanisms differ from the intended image formation mechanism that depends on refraction of the image rays. Flare manifests itself in two ways: firstly as a haze across the image, making the image look "washed out" by reducing contrast and color saturation (adding light to dark image regions, and adding white to saturated regions, reducing their saturation), and secondly as visible artifacts.
Low-key lighting


Low-key lighting is a style of lighting for photography, film or television. It is a necessary element in creating a chiaroscuroeffect. Traditional photographic lighting, three-point lighting uses a key light, a fill light, and a back light for illumination. Low-key lighting often uses only one key light, optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector.

idea developed

This interests us by the way the clip is filmed, the movement and flow. The style of filming and moving around the figure could be used if we film around the hands when the light shines on them.


irreversible opening

Taking interest in hand gestures

Considering using lights to illuminate hand gestures. Hand gestures are universal, despite diversity in language.

Beriut French Section of song 'Nantes'

Even though the viewer may not understand the content of our film idea, the fluidity of the french language and the way something is said can be intriguing. For example this part of an english song by Beruit.

Annie Hall Subtitled

Annie Hall Subtitled Balcony Scene


The video wouldn't work on here, but this link shows a scene from 'Annie Hall.'
By visually reading the subtitles the concentration on what is actually being said and understood seems to fade. In a similar way to this, we want to try and entice the viewer visually, and use sound for sounds sake, rather than for meaning.


Within our idea, the reason for using the french language for a english viewer is to distort their understanding, yet still be aware to some extent what is going on due to the visuals, pace, volume, body language or light.

Fantasia First Few seconds

The first few seconds of this fantasia live clip could be something to think about, perhaps this kind of effect with bright lights and the language could be considered. The way the lights respond to the sound is similar to the idea we were thinking. Fantasia is a cool place to find visual excitement. The ambiguity of this if it was with two foreign voices could be interesting.

Weekend thoughts and Inspiration

Dominic Harris Balloons, great use of colour and light, bright vivid colour schemes could be considered in the filming of lights for our film. Last image has a nice perspective also there is something nice about abstract, quite ambiguous images (found on fubiz.com)