PODCAST 'LA REVOLTOSA'

PODCAST. LA REVOLTOSA 

PODCAST BLOG 

1. SEMIOTICS

Let’s talk today about semiotics.

Semiotics is the study of the signs, symbols, colors, camera angles....

On one side we have the DENOTATION, which is the literal meaning of the sign, and from another side we have the CONNOTATION, which is the associated meaning of the sign.

For instance, we have the APPLE logo of APPLE. The Denotation of that sign will be an apple. The connotation of that sign will be technology, quality, iPhone, expensive....

The meaning we give to the signs depends on other factors like the cultural background, the religious background, the language.

Signs are polysemic, meaning, they have more than one meaning.

In films there are four categories of signs:

• Mise-on-scene (everything within the scene. Hair, makeup, props, actors...).
• Sound (music, sound effects –how the people sound- or even no sound).
• Camerawork (the composition, how the camera is framed, the angles, the movements).
• Editing (how can one clip move into the other).

Signs are selected for media producers to represent a particular meaning. That creates a huge influence on the audience.

A sign can become a myth. An example could be a bulldog which is an accepted sign for Churchill, at least in the British audience. We call this association: Naturalization

Today’s podcast is based in the video ‘Semiotics analysis for beginners! How to read signs in film. From Roland Barthes Media. Find this video in his channel THE MEDIA INSIDER on YouTube

1. WES ANDERSON

Today we will talk a bit about Wes Anderson and the Planimetric Composition. This episode is based on the ‘Why do Wes Anderson Movies look like that?’  video of the YouTube channel THOMAS FLIGHT.

Wes Anderson liked the look of the 1930 film King Kong.  You can notice a rippling effect on the fur. In his stop motion film, Fantastic Mister Fox. We find the same look. Wes Anderson used real fur to get that same look.

What makes something characteristically Wes Anderson? What is a Wes Anderson’s style?

It has been studied in several essays. According to those essays, they are:

Symmetry

Long lateral tracking shoots

Slow motion

...

Let’s focus today on one of those elements (which composes many of other elements of his style): Planimetric Composition. What is Planimetric Composition? Planimetric Composition is the orientation of elements of the scene (especially the background) as flat planes relative to the camera.

Wes Anderson has not invented the Planimetric Composition, but he uses it more than anyone else in film.

In films like THE DARJEELING LIMITED, and HOTEL BUDAPEST we find always the planimetric composition (which he has been using since the beginning of his career). The background of the shot is kept as a relatively flat plane.

In his films, characters usually occupy and move through flat planes within the scene that round parallel to the background.

Wes Anderson also uses something called Compass Points Editing. He uses it to maintain the planimetric composition as he moves the camera around and through scenes and when he edits in between different shots within a scene.

In Compass Point Editing, the camera only faces in four directions: North, South, West, and East. When the camera pans do it in 90 degrees increments and when the camera cuts it does it either in 90- or 180-degrees angle. The camera reminds perpendicular to the background.

Flat compositions look and feel constructed, that’s why is not used very much by other filmmakers. A flat composition feels subconscious.

1. WAYS OF SEEING by JOHN BERGER (BBC)

In this episode we will talk about diverse ways of seeing, how men see women and how women see men.

This episode is based on the video “Ways of seeing” Episode 2 (1972). Find it in Vimeo from THE CURATORS.

In European oil paintings it is quite common to find nudes. In this context the woman, is not naked (as how you would be when you would look at yourself in the mirror after having a shower). Nude is artistic. We do not see a naked woman in those paintings but an artistic drawing of the beauty of the woman.

It is interesting to note that these nudes were painted for the observer. In some oil paintings we can see the position of the naked woman is not a natural position but instead her body takes that position to be admired by the observer of the painting. Many of these nudes were painted as commissions. The painting was thought of with the commissioner in mind. In many of these paintings we find Cupid represented by a blond child which creates a huge contrast with the naked body of the woman.

This episode was filmed in 1972. Mr. John Berger showed this episode to some women as he wanted to have their opinions about the topic of this episode. The 70s were a period of freedom and liberation for the women. That is why her opinions are so marked by the idea of the liberation of the women of the time. One of the ladies discussing this episode remarks the voluptuosity of the women of the paintings, meaning that real women do not have those type of bodies (at the time, the body type of women was that of Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, or Jaclyn Smith from the “Charlie’s Angels” series). Watching this episode in 2022 brings another different way of seeing from that of 50 years ago. The way of seeing is not static, it changes with time, and it is influenced by the social changes in society.

1. NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND FILMS

In this episode, we will cover the role of modern technologies in the film industry. I wanted to talk about this topic in relation with the Short Film we filmed and edited in class.

Doing films has dramatically changed in the past few years and the reason behind that is:

1. New Technologies
2. Social Media

In today’s episode I will talk only about innovative technologies: In particular, smartphones and applications.

Smartphones are a masterpiece of technical engineering. Smartphones have incredibly good cameras and microphones incorporated which allows them to be used as a handy camera. For instance, while we were shooting the short film, my group had a problem with the camera, and to carry on filming we used our phones. Modern phones can shoot in 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD). But not only that, but the quality of their microphones is also very high. Their quality and their size make them ideal to film at any time.

Not only have smartphones changed the way we do films now, but applications play a very important role in this change. Very user-friendly applications for editing are available for most smartphones, making the process of editing something extremely simple.

And that is the reason for the increase of the number of creators and creations. Nowadays most people film something on their phones. Not everyone edits their films but that does not change the fact that most people use their phones as cameras for filming rather than only taking pictures (or simply talking).

And that is one of the reasons behind the creation of the film Festivals for films filmed exclusively on phones, film festivals like Cinephone International Short Film Festival, Toronto Smartphone Film Festival (TSFF), Mobil Film Festival (MFF) and Smartphone Flick Fest (SF3).

1. NEW SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE FILMS

Today we will cover the role that social media has played in the distribution of films and in the creation of films.

This topic is related to the topic New Technologies and Film.

Smartphones have changed the film world completely. They are a masterpiece of technical engineering. With a smartphone we can shoot a video HD or even UHD, we can stream, we can edit. And we have all of that in a small device that fits our hand.

The Internet and particularly social media have a massive impact on the world of the film industry: how we make films, the style of films and how the audience consumes films.

Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo, TikTok, Twitch and now Facebook live too have revolutionized the way we make films, and we consume them. Gary Vaynerchuck in his book Crushing It! Talks about these social media platforms and the advantages entrepreneurs can gain from them. These formats, in particular platforms like Instagram and TikTok have changed the tempo of the films. For instance, films are much shorter and faster with quick changes in between different takes. The users of these platforms are used to receiving quick information, that’s why videos that do not follow that quick pace will not be popular.

These platforms are also a way to broadcast your films, your creations. Before the arrival of these platforms, creators encounter many difficulties showing their films. The options were mostly limited to Film Festivals. But now you can upload a film and be seen by thousands of people within seconds of you uploading it.

1. SHOOTING A SHORT MOVIE

In this episode we will cover the process of creating a short film: We will see the steps we took to shoot the short film we did for this class.

We did a brainstorming session. We brought ideas of what we could film and in between everyone we decided we would make a short film with two stories: THE REAL WORLD AND THE WORLD OF THE ABSURD. Our teacher Tristan had the idea of two couples. One that was lucky in love and another couple that was not that lucky.

We set the ideas on a storyboard and worked from that.

We then moved to the class to do some voice warm up (hitting pitches, hitting only the vowels or at another time only the consonants, singing, doing some voice projection exercises). After the warmup we move into a little improv. Tristan wrote the names of the characters on a piece of paper, each of us took one piece of paper with the name written on it and had to walk as that character. We had to look at each other while doing this exercise. At one point Tristan asked us to copy the walk of one of us. It was a very revealing exercise as our attention was completely focused on the others and their movements while keeping our own walking.

Then we shot the two stories with two different groups and magic came at the time of editing. In my group we had some issues with the camera, that is why we ended up shooting with our phones. The same day of the shooting, a version of what we did was up in Instagram. That is just another proof of how social media has changed the way we use and perceive films.

During the phase of editing, the version of the world I filmed with my group changed. After seeing the full footage of our world and the footage of the other world I decided to make a different story. A story about love. Love that sometimes makes you happy and sometimes makes you cry. The magic behind love. I connected both stories by adding the presence of a phone: using an exchange of messages. The audience can then understand what is happening and why are the changes that are taking place in the film.

www.azaharadoradolaguna.com

BIBLIOGRAPHY*

Auburn, David. Proof. FSG Adult, 2001

Bogart, Anne and Tina Landau. The Viewpoints Guide to Viewpoints and Composition. Theatre Communications Group. New York, 2005

Chekov, Michael. To the Actor on the technique of acting. London. Routledge, 2002

Chubbuck, Ivana. The Power of the Actor. The Chubbuck Technique. Penguin Random House. New York, 2005

Donnellan, Declan. The Actor and the Target. Nic Hern Books, 2005

Freeman, John. Approaches to Actor Training: International Perspectives. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019

Grotowski, Jerzy. Towards a poor theatre. Methuen Drama, 1968

Kelly, Dennis. Girls and Boys. Oberon Books, 2018

Meisner, Sanford, and Dennis Longwell. Sanford Meisner on acting. A Vintage Original. New York, 1987

Merlin, Bella. The complete Stanislavsky Toolkit. Nick Hern Books. London, 2007

Vaynerchuk, Gary. Crushing it! How Great Entrepreneurs build their business and influence – and how you can, too. Harper Business. 2018

Wangh, Stephen. An Acrobat on the Heart: a physical approach to acting inspired by the work of Jerzy Grotowski. A Vintage Original. New York, 2020

*The Bibliography is from Acting for Stage and Acting for Screen.

*This is a project for my MA in Acting for Stage and Screen at UEL, London (2021)