Co-op Project

These are a few pictures of the Co-op Hall during demolition. In its best days it was a dance hall. Its most popular days were seen in the 1960s when nights were put on for teenagers on a Friday and Saturday. The hall has had some very big music names play there such as The Beatles, The Kinks, The who and even The Rolling Stones. The Hall took a massive downfall after one horrible night where a crush happend on the one set of stairs in the building where 4 people died, after that the Hall was never the same. The Documentary that I am doing my promotional video for is about this building that people thought was a listed building until it got demolished out of the blue. The documentary is funded by the National Lottery and is being made to capture the memories of the people that used to go there, work and even play there.

Co-op Hall first interview

These are photos that I took at our shoot yesterday. We were interviewing an old couple that used to go to the Co op Hall in the 1960s. During the day whilst preparing for the shoot we encountered some problems. First of all we were going to do the interview in the studio with a white screen for a background but we discovered that it was too loud in the studio to film as it was next door to the art room and people were making a lot of noise sawing wood. To overcome this problem we searched for another quiet location, we decided on using the upstairs of the library as it would be silent in there. We took all the equipment such as the lights and white screen down there and we had another problem! The white screen collapsed and unraveled, so running out of time we decided to scrap the indoor filming and do it outside as it was a nice day. Once we had gone to various locations to find a good outdoors place to film, we decided to film where the old college hall was. This location turned out to be very fitting for the interview as Joe (interviewee) used to come the college and also had an old photo of his class standing in the same location.

Filming and Audio Equipment

Now we had decided on the location we had to think about how we would film them, what cameras we would use and also what angles we would film them from. For this we decided to use two cameras, a Cannon 600d and a Cannon 5d, We set them both up on tripods and positioned the 5d at a straight angle to the front of the interviewee and the 600d to the right of them at a close up shot. By doing this we could capture there actions, gestures etc from two different angles and also this gives us a good amount of footage to edit cutaways into the final product. We also recorded our own sound using two different microphones. One was a zoom mic which we used as our external mic and the other was an external mic that we plugged into the camera so that we would not have to sync the two together.

Overall I would say that the shoot went well but there were some mistakes such as what equipment and different locations that we will learn from for next time. I feel like we got some really good footage and got the interviewees to answer some really good questions, and I hope that we get to do more of them and help towards the Co-op Hall documentary project even more.

Promotional video conventions

Promotional Videos

Recently we watched a few different promotional videos. We analysed them to see what the typical conventions for a good promotional video are.

Some of the conventions are …

Interviews with either staff or customers (shows two sides of the story)

Establishing shots of place or building

Purpose (Purpose of the Promotional video)

Montages of different footage

Diegetic/ Non Diegetic sounds

Voice over / narration

Names and roles shown through use of on screen graphics.

Framing in interviews is critical to show the building /place behind or next to the person.

Gives you all the information you need in the video

Fitting music, etc If it is a “fun” video use light hearted and feel good music.

Make sure it is aimed towards different age groups

Make sure it meets the audiences needs

Promotional Videos For Analysis

Regent Canalside - Camden Development Promotional Video from Captive8 Media on Vimeo.

 

Click to view

          

FINAL DOCUMENTARY

          

The Machinist

                                                                
 The Machinist

The first film we watched to start our psychoanalytical research was "The Machinist". This is directed by Brad Anderson and the protagonist " Trevor Reznik" is played excellently by Christian Bale. The films narrative is that Trevor suffers from chronic insomnia, so bad that at the factory he works at he ends up causing a man to loose his arm in an engineering machine. In the film Trevor meets a man called Ivan that he has never seen at the factory before but he begins to be obsessed with who this character is. This deals with Lacans theory of obsession and it later turns out that Ivan is nothing more than a figment of Trevors' imagination. Ivan was constructed because Trevor couldn't come to terms with a terrible act he had committed. As the mind protects itself from pain, Trevor is not aware of this but is compelled to uncover the mystery. This is very similar to the film Fight Clubs narrative as "Tyler Durden" turns out to be a figure of the protagonists imagination.

The other theory to apply to this film is "The Id, Ego and super ego". This is a theory by Freud and the "Id" is the " dark inaccessible part of our personality" the "Ego seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bring grief" and the "Super Ego is the organized part of the personality structure that also deals with the Egos ideals". This theory is applied to The Machinist because "Ivan" is "Trevors" "Id", this is because we later find out in the story that "Trevor" was in fact involved in a car accident which resulted in the death of a young child. This is a memory which he had repressed as he thought of himself as a monster, this is shown through "Ivan" who is made to look beastly looking with his deformed hand and his strange teeth.

Trevors' insomnia had caused this repressed memory to come out in a negative representation. By doing this Anderson shows how by repressing emotions and memory's then they resurface in destructive and malevolent manifestations. This is similar to Fight Club as "Tyler Durden" is the "ideal" of the protagonist, which comes from the "Super Ego"trying to please the "Ego".

'Vertigo': Analysis

The first film we watched for our psychoanalytical research was Vertigo directed by "Alfred Hitchcock". The film is a psychological thriller which revolves around a retired detective "John Ferguson" or "Scotty" who has a crippling fear of heights, having to come out of retirement to follow a mans wife as she is acting strange. We later find out that the woman "Madeline" is acting strange because she has, supposedly, been possessed by an Ancestor from the 1800's. John starts to take care of Madeline after she attempts to kill herself which really starts the psychoanalytical narrative as John then becomes obsessed with her. The narrative is driven by John's desire to be with Madeline and his obsession of following her, this is because he is trying to find his missing piece which turns out to be Madeline. Here I can also apply Freuds' take on " The big O and the missing piece" as through the entire film this is what John becomes obsessed with discovering. At the end of the film it takes a big twist as the man who employed John to stalk his wife is trying to frame him for the murder of Madeline but we find out at the end that she is still alive and living a secret life.

The film explores psychoanalytical themes of obsession and desire as it focuses upon Scotty's fascination for Madeline. This becomes a 'drive' which leads to his complete immersion in seeking to possess the female character. He's completely unaware of the influence she has on his personality and this is represented in the choice of camera angles and framing for many of the scenes. When Scotty follows Madeline to the art gallery we as an audience track Scotty's point of view and become emotionally involved with his need. Hitchcock chooses to keep the viewer visually dependent upon Scotty's observation of Madeline and we develop a similar interest in her character. Scotty's obsession dominates the narrative at the expense of any real reality and he builds up a picture of the character as some sort of ego ideal. It's at this moment that his desire overwhelms his rational thought processes and thrusts him (and the viewer) into a quest to attain his goal. The non-diegetic score at this point also makes the audience feel intrigue and suspicion, even though it is Scotty's desire which is the real drive.

Cinematically Hitchcock has shown that the thirst for desire consumes an individual and fulfils what Lacan would call 'lack'. Madeline fills the void that Scotty has, even though he is unaware that he had one. His vertigo is therefore a plot representation of something he tries to avoid.