FMP- Camera Cranes and Where to Find Them

There is no one piece of equipment that will make a film amazing, nor make a great filmmaker. Instead, we use each but of equipment and method like puzzle pieces. On there own they are little use to anyone, but when brought together, they form the bigger picture. Adding weapons to your arsenal strengths and broadens your ability. Something that I have wanted to add to my personal armoury for a while is that of jib/crane shots.

This technic was pioneered in Hollywood during the nearly 1940s before homed in by late 1960s. It involves mounting a camera onto an apparatus which can drastically add height to a shot. Specially made equipment was soon produced, but was only available to big studios as they cost a small fortune. However, as time went on and filmmaking gear became more readily available, the price dropped significantly.

The purpose of a Jib is to had a vertical movement to the camera. This could be to get a high angle of a new location and then to dip into the action as the camera goes down to street level. It also has a native production value about it. The average viewer will associate a jib shot with larger productions, meaning it can make something with a small (or no) budget seem a lot larger scale.

Examples of Jib shots can be seen in almost every Hollywood film for the last 60 years. Famous examples include the opening scene in Touch of Evil (Orson Welles. 1958), High noon (Fred Zinnermann. 1952), Breaking News (Johnnie To. 2004) and The Stunt Man (Richard Rush. 1980). As you can see, the technic spands all genres and has a verity of uses.

I have a small experience with Jibs. On our last short film "Scribes" we used what is know as a pocket Jib to great effect. This is simply a smaller version of a larger Job. This was to achieve a birds eye view of are lead laying on the sofa. The birds eye shot is one that I am particularly keen on.

We have done some short tests with a larger Jib, the footage I shall include in my 3.1 - 3.2 vlog.

FMP- Puffing on Hot Air

Lets talk about cigarettes. Particularly cigarettes in film. Since the beginning of Hollywood, actors and actresses have been seen puffing away on tobacco. From pipes to smoking sticks to cigars these have formed a key part of film history. In fact movie stars were often sponsored  by tobacco companies to smoke their product in front of the camera and behind the scenes. Hell some of the most famous pictures in cinema are of stars smoking. For example Audrey Hepburn in every single promotional piece for the two time Oscar winning film "Breakfast at Tiffany's". 

However, there is something that has always puzzled me about this smoking Hollywood culture. And that is "What are they really smoking". No, I don't mean are they puffing away of illegal substances (although I am sure when stars do behind closed doors) rather is what you see on screen real or fake? For example what If you have an actor who doesn't smoke or an actress who was given up the habit and doesn't what to relapse?

Well for a long time it was industry standard to simply use real tobacco! In fact Clint Eastwood famously hated smoking, however for almost all his classic western roles he had to puff on a cigar, giving him that tough guy look. However, the taste of the slow burning, unfiltered tobacco often made him feel very ill, sometimes causing him to gag between takes. 

After it started to come out that smoking wasn't fantastic for your health, the industry realised that having an actor smoke 50 or more cigarettes a day wasn't doing great things for their health. This is also around the point where some celebs were trying to kick the habit. So in the place of tobacco cigarettes they began using herbal ones. These are free from both tobacco and nicotine. 

From a look point of view the two are Identical and would be impossible to tell apart both on and off screen. The TV show Mad men uses them on a regular bases for actors who don't smoke tobacco. John Hamm, in particular, was quoted as saying that he smoked 74 herbal cigarettes during the shooting of the pilot of Mad Men.

Following the genre of noir and the general attitude of 1950s America, all the characters in my film smoke. If they do not smoke tobacco we will either have to get herbal cigarettes, or come up with an alternative. For example, there are many only tutorials for making fake cigarettes for films. One example is using parsley to replace the tobacco. Tastes a little strange and burns faster than your average cigarette but looks the part. I will be trying a few methods to create the smoking look, I will either share my results in a follow up blogpost or in some kind of video format.

FMP- Reaching out

Being a filmmaker is all about expanding your skill set. Now there are many ways to do this, you can watch the masters of cinema and learn from them, read a book on certain technics or even be told how to do something by a much more experience filmmaker. All these things are good, but don't surpass the knowledge you gain from actually picking up a camera and doing it yourself, old fashioned trial and error.

As a budding filmmaker, there are many styles and techniques I am yet to use, that is why my FMP offers such a great opportunity to learn. I have also decided on a project which will require skills to produce a style I have never really tried to achieve, film noir. It is such a distractive style that there are countless things that I am going to need to research into and practise.

The first big one is lighting. In any production lighting is a corner stone, shoots are often planned to be in certain times of the day so they get the right light. With such a unique style as noir, you have to be very specific in how you light your scene. This is something that will require a ton of practise, both in the studio and in an outside environment.

The next thing to look at is black and white as well as selective colour. There are many ways to achieve a black and white look. Most cameras now allow you to shoot native in BnW in camera and sucking the colour out of a video is as easy as pulling down a slider in post. However, when shooting for back and white there are certain things that need to be addressed. It will be these issues and differences that I will need to research into to get the most organic feeling film.

Something which is less technical but still a key part of the film will be how can we get actors smoking cigarettes if they are either non-smokers or recovering from addiction. The last thing we want is someone who was previously addicted to start up again because of the film, that is a lawsuit waiting to happen. However, the noir genre demands smoke so one way or another we will get it. I want to find out what they use in Hollywood and experiment with perhaps doing something in post.

The big finally thing that I want to improve on is the camera movement. The genre of film noir has some signature angles and movements that I would love to be able to recreate. This will take time and effort but should really add to the overall project.

FMP- Baby steps into Production

                                 

                                                       

So, all the research is done and the theory is complete. So now what? Well, it's time to see how what I have learned will effect my film and then how I intend to processed tentatively into production. So first lets look at the obvious one. I want my film to fall into the noir/neo-noir genre. So what am I going to have to do to get the desired genre? Well, a main thing will be nailing the lighting. The genre has such Iconic lighting that getting it wrong simply isn't an option. Also, the tone of the film has to be dark, dripping in drama and intriuge like all good noir should. It was also clear from my research that certain camera angles are often used in noir. One personal favorite is the low-angle. This is used to make a character look larger than he or she is to make them seem more powerful or intimidating. This is used all the time in classic noir, making heroes more heroic and villains more villainous.

So that's style covered, but what about props? From my primary research, it's obvious that getting things that fit the 1950s time frame will be really important. Everything from costumes to cars to sets need to throw you back 60 years. It should be obivious that we are in the past just from the props, sets and clothing. I want to try and avoid the whole text on screen telling the the year thing.

Regrading characters, from looking at real life examples they need to be brutal and ruthless. They need to play with peoples lives like they are just pawns on a chessboard. Cause after all, that's how they few them, means to an need. As the film takes place just after WW2, people are hardened to death as it became just part of life.

With everything taken into consideration I know exactly what I need to do to continue this project. First will be completing the script, making sure we capture that era and also the brutal nature of the criminal world. Next will be doing camera and lighting tests to really nail down that iconic look. Finally we will be sorted props (clothes, cars etc) that fit into are 1950s time frame, as well as doing casting and location scouting.

FMP- Research conclusions

Drawing conclusions from research is key to getting the most out of what you have been looking into. It's from your conclusion that you know the next steps to take and it's no different for me. As part of my unit 13 I have been looking into things to help further the development of my idea, a short Noir gangster film based in 1950s America. I wanted to get an idea, not just of the history of gang culture, but also the history of the film Noir genre. I also wanted to see what people thought of when it came to building a belivable 1950s America.

So what did I learn. Well, firstly lets look at gangsters. I looked into the history of gangster ism in America, focusing on events happening after the 1900s. This included prohibition and the world wars. For my research it is very clear that these men were brutal in there quest for power. One example that I highlighted was the Valentines day massacre where six mob associates and a mechanic of the North Side Irish gang led by Bugs Moran were put up against and wall and shot. This highlighted for the cut throat nature of the shady underbelly that was the criminal underworld of 1900 America.

The next thing I looked into was the Noir film genre. What I learnt from looking into this part of film history was really the key elements that were needed for a film to qualify to be Noir. It needs to be dark with every shot oozing of shade and the night. Also, there are some set conventions for how people in the film should look. For example, men should be suit wearing, clean cut, trilby toting manly men who smoke 3 packets a day. Finally, films focus on more dark themes, those being murder, sex and drugs. 

The most interesting part of my research came from my primary questionnaire. This is where I asked people what they thought was key into creating a real feeling 1950s environment. Unsurprisingly, it was clear that all 3 elements, those being vehicles, sets and clothing are key in making the feel we want.

So, all things considered, it is clear now how to proceed, but that will all be highlighted in my next blog post.

FMP- Secondary Research

Along side my primary research I also conducted some secondary. I went about this by using the internet to dive a little deeper into not just the noir genre, but also gang culture in 1950s america and how these two elements can come together to help my FMP.

Film Noir

First things first, what is film noir? "A French term meaning "black film," or film of the night, inspired by classic crime novels" (Ebert R. 1995). The genre was the one of the first to make the audience know that the story was most likely to not have a happy ending. Sets and environments were all designed to "...reek of the night, of shadows, of alleys, of the back doors of fancy places, of apartment buildings with a high turnover rate, of taxi drivers and bartenders who have seen it all." (Ebert R. 1995)

There is a lot of tropes which come with the noir genre. One of the biggest has to be 
cigarettes. "Everybody in film noir is always smoking, as if to say, 'On top of everything else, I've been assigned to get through three packs today.' The best smoking movie of all time is "Out of the Past," in which Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas smoke furiously at each other. At one point Mitchum enters a room, Douglas extends a pack and says, "Cigarette?" and Mitchum, holding up this hand, says, "Smoking."."

Noir also has a very strict dress code:

"For women: low necklines, floppy hats, mascara, lipstick, dressing rooms, boudoirs, calling the doorman by his first name, high heels, red dresses, elbowlength gloves, mixing drinks, having gangsters as boyfriends, having soft spots for alcoholic private eyes, wanting a lot of someone else's women, sprawling dead on the floor with every limb meticulously arranged and every hair in place.

"For men: fedoras, suits and ties, shabby residential hotels with a neon sign blinking through the window, buying yourself a drink out of the office bottle, cars with running boards, all-night diners, protecting kids who shouldn't be playing with the big guys, being on first-name terms with homicide cops, knowing a lot of people whose descriptions end in "ies," such as bookies, newsies, junkies, alkys, jockeys and cabbies." (Ebert R. 1995)

The final key puzzle pieces to the Film noir were "women who would just as soon kill you as love you, and vice versa".  Movies are also shot in black and white or made to look like they are. A film that includes some colour is normally moved into the neo-noir.

1950s American Crime Culture

Although organised crime has always been present in the western world, it wasn't till the early 1900s when prohibition swept the united states that crime groups starting making a lot of money, and therefor grew into crime empires. They would smuggle alcohol over the boarder from Mexico and sell it in under ground clubs and "speak-easies". By the time prohibition was lifted, crime organisations were worth more than more big business, meaning they had all the money and resources they needed.

Then came the second world war. The young men that returned from the violence were trained killing machines, with no problem with doing dirty jobs. This gave crime empires a lot of fresh meat. This membership surge meant that criminals now had small armies at there disposal. In turn, violence between rival gangs grew with events like the Valentine day massacres highlighting the brutal nature of the this shady under belly.