Police 'House Safety' Film

2 Min Music Video Project

Interactive Cinema Wiki Definition

Interactive cinema tries to give the audience an active role in the showing of movies. The movie Kinoautomat by Czechoslovakian director Raduz Cincera presented in the Czech Pavilion inExpo '67 in Montreal is considered to be the first cinema-like interactive movie. The availability of computers for the display of interactive video has made it easier to create interactive movies.

Another newer definition of interactive cinema is a video game which is a hybrid between participation and viewing, giving the player - or viewer, as it were - a strong amount of control in the characters' decisions. A prominent pioneer of such a technique is the successful Hideo Kojima, whose gameplay often takes a priority to the storyline and long cutscenes. His gamePolicenauts, a point and click adventure game which has shootout sequences (that make use of the lightgun peripheral on the Sega Saturn version of the game), has a subtitle which reads "Interactive cinema" on the cover art of all versions of said game, which is an early example of a prominent game developer labelling their game as such. A recent incarnation of an idea similar to this one is Fahrenheit, (censored version released in US and Canada as "Indigo Prophecy") a game dubbed as "interactive cinema" by its France-based developer, Quantic Dream.

1992 saw the release of North America's first interactive motion picture, I'm Your Man. Certain Loews Theatres locations were retrofitted with controllers to allow audiences to vote on decisions made by the main character. Although initially touted as the first step toward virtual reality cinema, the experiment was a failure and the equipment was removed from theaters by 1994.

The Canadian-produced Late Fragment premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2007, and has been screened numerous times at special engagements, but was not released in theaters.

2 Min Music Video Project.

For my directing class next week I have to create a 2 min music video. I can choose whatever music track I please but the visuals need to be metaphoric and abstract. The must also contain the following 6 things -

• A tall space.
• Use of darkness.
• A glimpse.
• A visual crescendo.
• An opening. 
• Poetic roar. 

Not overly sure what to do. All the music I listen seem to require neon lights, cityscapes, karaoke and arcades! If only I could go to Tokyo I'd be fine.  

In Depth Email To Writers

I'm just posting this email on here because I feel it has some useful points that could be used at a latter date.

Okey, I've been doing a bit of thinking last night about the way we can go about writing this script. I've just tried explaining my thoughts to Hamish and failed miserably so I hope in written form you'll be able to make more sense of it. I'm not handing you anything regarding physical content of the film, by and large that will come from the diary, I'm just trying to maybe alter our perspective, maybe change our approach to the narrative. I hope by doing this we'll begin to think about other aspects of this story. 

Okey, I'm just going to throw in some bullet points. 

• The war starting is the cataclysmic event, the hook, what ever you want to call it. 
• A turning point in Len's life is him joining the army to fight in the war. 
• The war itself is the antagonist/conflict/barrier that Len must face.
• Len's overall goal is not to win, but to survive so he can continue to serve his country. 
• Len's special talent/attribute is his ability to draw. So he uses his talent to help achieve his goal and is what makes him an interesting subject to explore.  
• So, the next dramatic event in our story would be the build up to the battle at Vimy ridge and Len's contribution to that battle. 
• The resolution would be that the battle is won by the allied forces. 
• But the war still rages on. 

Please comment and challenge those statements, but at a basic level that list, at it's core, is the back bone to our film. 

Here's an example of how I think the story can begin, before a single image has even been shown on screen. 

"In 1914 X amount of brave men signed up to fight the great war. These are the recollections of one of those brave men."

"Smithy" (Smithie sp?) 

By doing this we're telling the audience exactly what the film is about, we are establishing a time and place, we're also introducing the character immediately.  

What comes next is up in the air as far as I can see. 

One option is we can straight away introduce Len the drawer, out in no mans land taking sketches. We don't really know anything about this guy other than he draws. He's good, he begins to draw sketches for plans that are used to help the allied forces. 

Or, we could introduce Len through his regiment. It would just give us a quick glance at his back story, give the audience an understanding of how he got to where he is, North France.  I'm not thinking lines upon lines of dialogue just a short little intro. Visually we could then see him sketching at his billet while on a short break from duty, a simple, calm, human moment. Maybe he's sketching a couple of soldiers, or a building. I'm talking seconds here, the above would take about a minute of the film. This is more of a biopic approach. The film would then naturally move to his work in the battlefield, then to vimy ridge. 

Or, if we wanted a docudrama approach, we immediately begin talking about war artists in general. We then move onto Len Smith, his work, the use of his work then vimy ridge. This approach would lead us to need two narrators (?). A narration to describe the generic use of of war artists for espionage purposes. Then the second narrator being Len Smith himself to add a more personal touch to things. The film will then lead to Vimy ridge. I think we're all in agreement that Vimy ridge is going to play an important role in the film whatever decision we choose. 

I think, if we break it down into a simple 3 act structure of some kind we have this -

1 act - Introducing Len.

2 act - Out in no mans land, drawing. The build up to Vimy Ridge. 

3 act - Highlighting that his work was used during the battle, his work contributed to the victory. End credits explaining a brief history of what he did after the war etc.       

Thinking about it, now I'm just reading back what I've just wrote, I like the idea of opening the film in the billet, just chilling sketching. Its a good contrast, his sketches just for fun, for memories in a diary then suddenly out in no mans land drawing to help win the war, its a dramatic shift and it's interesting. I think if we choose this route we'll need to really hone in on exactly what parts of his diary we are going to use. We'll have to move time and space with a line or two or else we'll risk running over. 

More Music

30 Second Film Project

Ken Burns On Story

Ken Burns: On Story from Redglass Pictures on Vimeo.

Males Suicides Outline (rewrite)

Below is a bullet point outline of the film, there will be 3 lists, each one covering one of the characters. Then I'll attempt to merge the 3 lists into the timeline of the film.


Character 1. 19 year old student.

• We see the student looking despondent as his friends laugh and joke at a table in their local pub. 
• The student has a couple of empty beer glasses besides him, he's clearly been drinking faster than his friends. 
• He takes a long drag of his beer, empties the glass. 
• Something is said/ a friendly nudge from his friends suddenly causes the student to snap. 
• He gets up, angry, shouting at his friends, then leaves the pub. 
• Outside, the tirade continues for a little while, then the student begins to cry, he tries turning away to hide his face. Looking on, one of his friends hesitates slightly but then grabs his shoulder and embraces him. 
• Information cards? 
• We then see the student walking in the park, he passes the 16 year old school boy and the 24 year old with his girlfriend.

Character 2. 24 year old professional.

• We see the 24 year old in his car, upset, staring aimlessly through the window, silent and still. 
• The car is somewhere outside of the city, it's night and the rain is falling heavily. 
• At his side his mobile phone begins to ring, he ignores it. The caller ID is 'Molly' 
• Information cards?
• We then see the 24 year old with his girlfriend sat on a park bench chatting calmly. The 16 year old and 19 year old student are in the park also.

Character 3. 16 year old school boy.

• The school boy is sat in the dark, lit only by his computer screen, he looks tired, his hair is dishevelled and bags hang under his eyes. 
• We see him scrolling through Facebook, stopping at times to read a post or two. (or, maybe responding to a friends post - 'How is the studying coming along? I hear you've got to get a * grade to get into college' - 'Don't worry, I'm fine' ?) 
• At his side are a stack of school books, A level text books, screwed up paper lies on his desk.
• Information cards?
• We then see the school boy perched up against a tree in the park studying. The 19 year old passes him buy and the 24 year old sits with his girlfriend on the park bench.   

FILM TIMELINE. (revised version)

We see Jack, a 19 yr old student, looking despondent as his friends laugh and joke at a table in their local pub. 

Jack has a couple of empty beer glasses besides him, he's clearly been drinking faster than his friends.

Jack takes a long drag of his beer, empties the glass.

/cut

We see David, a 24 year old, in his car, upset, staring aimlessly through the window, silent and still. 

The car is somewhere outside of the city, it's night and the rain is falling heavily.

/cut

Alan, the 16 yr school boy, is sat in his bedroom in the dark, lit only by his computer screen, he looks tired, his hair is dishevelled and bags hang under his eyes. 

We see Alan scrolling through Facebook, stopping at times to read a post or two. (or, maybe responding to a friends post - 'How is the studying coming along? I hear you've got to get a * grade to get into college' - 'Don't worry, I'm fine'  or maybe not responding at all.)

/cut

/Display some information about male suicides.

/cut

Back in the pub with Jack, something is said/ a friendly nudge from his friends suddenly causes Jack to snap. 

Jack gets up, angry, shouting at his friends, then leaves the pub.

/cut

We're now back with David, at his side his mobile phone begins to ring, he ignores it. The caller ID is 'Molly'.

/cut

Now with Alan, at his side are a stack of school books, A level text books, screwed up paper lies on his desk.

/cut

Outside the pub with Jack, the shouting continues for a little while longer, then Jack begins to fight the urge to cry, he tries turning away to hide his face. Looking on, one of his friends hesitates slightly but then grabs his shoulder and embraces him. 

/cut
/Display some more information.

/cut

We potentially see all the characters again in a public space going about their day to day lives. We see David with Molly, we see Jack and we see Alan. (This isn't 100% confirmed yet). I want to use this scene to say that anyone can be suffering but you can't always see it, we've just seen 3 intimate moments where our characters have displayed signs of mental strain but in this scene we see them in a very objective way.  

/cut .

/Display - Time to talk. Time to listen. Time to Change. 

*If you need a point of reference to understand how the film will look and flow please watch the Cancer Research adverts. e.g; Mirrors. 

Royal Armouries Directors Package

Below is just going to be loads and loads of random stuff, links to websites, captions from articles, videos, sounds, anything relating to the Leonard Smith documentary. I'll date everything so I know when it was posted.

A link to The Great War Society. - 8/10/13