Sasco Cards

'One of the many Sasco cards (filing cards assembled into a chart) from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Arthur C Clarke called Kubrick 'the Sasco Kid' in reference to his fondness for Sasco cards. The cards were used by the special effects department to plan filming and include details such as the direction models should be moved in. Together with the special effects reports and mat shot folders they reveal how the special effects were achieved. The colleciton includes; scripts; artworks; special effect records; and letters for example, from Arthur C Clarke.'

This story boarding technique will be a useful reference to try and peice together my found objects and create them into narratives.

Happy Birthday to me!

For my birthday I asked for the essential alfred Hitchcock collection as I had never seen Rear window before and wanted to watch it plus the others.

'The hero of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" is trapped in a wheelchair, and we're trapped, too - trapped inside his point of view, inside his lack of freedom and his limited options. When he passes his long days and nights by shamelessly maintaining a secret watch on his neighbors, we share his obsession. It's wrong, we know, to spy on others, but after all, aren't we always voyeurs when we go to the movies? Here's a film about a man who does on the screen what we do in the audience - look through a lens at the private lives of strangers...

This ties in nicely with my voyeuristic research I have compiled so far.

SCREAM - Analysis of camera, lighting and sound

Visual Analysis

The film I have decided to look at for my initial analysis is Scream. (Wes Craven 1996) I picked this film because it is one of my favourite, and one of the most famous horror films made in recent years. This is hugely down to its original script, interesting plot and excellent acting. I decided to choose this horror film for its opening voyeuristic scene. I also like the fact that scream plays with intertextuality to bring older more unbelievable horrors such as Nightmare on Elm street and Halloween into the story turning this modern day horror into a more realistic cinema experience. These types of cross layers are types narratives, which I would like to bring to my own crime narrative.

I am concentrating on the opening sequence because this is when the main character is being stalked and watched from outside the house. I am going to focus on the camera, lighting, sound and general mise-en-scene features and how they affect the film.

The opening shot is a close up of a ringing telephone as the camera pans up to Casey (Drew Barrymore) Reaching down to answer. A mysterious mans voice, which is now iconic of horror films, speaks to the blonde. Wes craven sets the scene by showing that the girl is alone in the big secluded house. The shot cuts to outside, there is total silence accept for the chirping of crickets which emphasises the girls isolation. The camera then pans down to an empty swing, still moving slightly; this creates suspense, as the audience doesn’t know who is outside.

The house inside is lighted bright in complete contrast to the darkness outside, this is the same contrast between the evil outside and the innocent blonde girl, who one stared in E.T. The darkness also adds to her vulnerability. Back inside the house, a shot of popcorn being made adds to the scenario with loud popping noises to make you jump. The phone goes again; this is the third phone call within the space of 1 minute and 10 seconds. A tracking shot follows Casey around a kitchen island to pick up the phone, the same mans voice speaks. Casey starts chatting to the man on the phone, and become flirtatious, close up shots of Casey are used to show the conversation becoming more intimate. These close up shots are clever in seducing the viewer into feeling emotionally involved with the character; this is a technique Craven uses throughout the film especially later on with the main character Sidney (Neve Campbell).

Mise-en-scene is used to direct the audience to possible sinister events to come. Craven uses iconography of a knife to make the audience feel worried, when Casey pulls a big kitchen knife out of its block and talks about the film Halloween to the killer. This makes the audience worried as they anticipate the events to come. Another tracking shot follows Casey from behind, down a dark hallway, into the living room obstructing part of the view. This obstruction is a technique that I have tried within my own surveillance filming as its makes the audience wonder what is going on. The use of the colour blue is very strong in the next scene, from the TV screen and the swimming pool outside. The colour blue is usually associated with calmness. Soon after Casey walks into the blue lighting, the disruption begins and you realise that the caller wants more than a conversation. He asks Casey for her name, and when she asks why, he says because he wants to know who he is looking at. The camera suddenly zooms into Casey’s worried expression and some quiet percussion music begins, and starts to get louder. A dog can also be heard barking outside, which makes you think someone is outside. Low-key lighting is used on the close up of Casey to highlight terror in her face. This gets the audiences attention and music makes you feel on edge. Casey looks out to window to see if she can see anyone, Craven then cuts to a POV shot which pans across the garden through the window stopping in intervals, in a jerky movement. This suddenly makes the scene feel realistic, as if you are in Casey’s position seeing exactly what she sees. Movement of the camera plays a big part in horror/ crime films as the more erratic the camera becomes, the more tense and jumpy you feel. This is something I need to take into consideration when filming, as it is tricky to get right. The use of lighting also helps create this tense atmosphere because the POV shot looking outside is very dark, which makes it hard to see. The audience also know that it is usually dark whenever a killer appears in horror films, so this makes you concentrate on the screen harder, so that when the killer comes into shot you get a bigger scare.

The next shot cuts to a close up of Casey’s hand locking the door as she hangs up on the man. This makes the audience feel reassured for a moment. The next shot shows the popcorn, which has expanded and looks like it is about to catch on fire, making the audience worried, as a fire looks inevitable. The shot cuts back to the dark hallway where the phone rings again before she can get back to the kitchen. She answers but doesn’t want to talk to him so hangs up quickly. The camera tracks backwards, into the kitchen where the phone goes again. The call this times gets nasty you know someone is definitely watching her. An extreme close up shot is used to empathise this, and you can see that Casey is petrified. A tracking shot quickly follows Casey down the hallway as she runs to lock the doors. The non-dietetic tense background music becomes apparent when you know the killer is near. Another erratic POV shot looking out the door window is used to seem like Casey’s eyes looking for the man. Casey is still on the phone to the man and tells him she is about to call the police. He tells her that they would never make it in time because they are in the middle of no where, which empathises the remoteness to make the audience feel alone and scared, just like she does. The lighting has become very dark as the man terrorises the girl on the phone. She is becoming more hysterical and doesn’t know what to do. Craven uses sound cleverly to scare the audience, as for the high pitch noise of the phone at unexpected moments and the doorbell being rung as if it’s a game of knock down ginger, making it all seem like a sick joke to the audience.

Casey screams to the man that her boyfriend (Steve) will back soon so her better leave, the music is becoming more intense then he mentions her boyfriends name and the music stops and the camera pans into her worried face. The audience should start to eel like there on a roller coaster of emotions with the music going up and down making it tense and jumpy. The killer tells Casey to look outside, and more POV shots are used to show Steve tied up outside. You still haven’t seen what the killer looks like yet so the whole time Craven is building suspense with the music, lighting and clever camera shots. Steve gets killed by a device, which splits him in half, and close up shots show Steve’s intestines ripped out.

The costume and setting are crucial to the film as they define the genre as Horror and give the film interest and suspense. Casey’s house is mentioned by the killer as being miles from any other house, which makes her feel cut off from help. The ghost face Halloween costume is also part of the iconography, as we see it reoccur throughout the film. These visual short hands tell the audience that it is a horror film. The first time we see the killer is after Steve had been killed and the killer breaks into the house. A POV shot slowly walks backwards as we see Casey heading for a side door. There is no music at this point until the masked killer runs past at the other side of the house. A quick blast of high-pitched music is used to scare you. Casey makes it outside, making the audience think she is safe. This is then empathised with a shot of her parent’s car in the distance. As she tries to get away, an extreme close up shot showing the mask properly, appears at the window. Casey screams which makes the audience jump. Casey runs towards her parent’s car, which has got closer. At this point the audience are on the edge of their seats screaming at the screen, hoping Casey gets away. A shot of her parent’s car drives past her without her being noticed. The killer then jumps through a window and pounces onto Casey. As they both get up a slow motion shot is used and the music becomes faster and higher pitched until the climax at the stabbing. This background music is parallel because we expect to hear this scary music before a killing takes place. Cast falls to the ground screaming in pain as the camera focuses on the blood she is losing.

Craven teases the audience when Casey goes to pull off the killers mask before he finished her off, because before you can see who the killer is, the camera pans away so you can’t identify him. This makes the viewer want to carry on watching to find out who the killer is and why these two seemingly innocent teenagers have been brutally murdered.

I really enjoyed analysis this opening scene to screen as I have never completely focused on a small section of film before and watched it time and time again to really concentrate on the camera, lighting and sound. This is going to help me greatly for things to concentrate on when making my own films. I also really like the surveillance/ voyeuristic qualities to this opening scene.

My Evidence Wall

I have started to put together my own evidence wall of found objects from the site. I am going to carry on collecting items over the next few weeks and start to form narratives and story board from my imagination. I would like to create a linked narrative where different objects link to different characters who link together. I like the Idea of combining Reality and Fantasy, from the fantasy on screen to the reality off screen.

Mike Nelson - Creating a story from objects.

Coral Reef is a labyrinth of 15 small rooms, created in 2000. It has dingy corridors between the rooms, mostly in a state of disrepair, conjuring up the impression of people having moved in, made them their temporary home, left very little impression on the space other than one or two belongings left behind and then moved on leaving very little to recognise the fact that they were there at all.

You get to wander around the rooms as an observer and really do feel like you’re outside of their world, looking in on a snapshot of their life. You get hints of each story from props and found objects – enough to know that there is a story to tell, but not enough to make any real sense of what it could be. It creates an impression of the story but nothing more.

I love that just by observing these lone objects you start to create stories in your head and piece different segments together to create a narrative.

Here is what the Tate have to say about it:

“To enter Mike Nelson’s The Coral Reef is to enter a parallel world. Rooms, doors, passageways, all bear traces of habitation and decay. Different, often conflicting, ideologies or belief systems are presented through these traces. The implied occupants of Nelson’s world appear to be detached from the political and economic centre, left to exist at the margins of globalised, capitalist society. The work’s title alludes to this collection of complex, fragile belief systems that form an obscured layer – a coral reef – beneath the ‘ocean surface’ of prevailing orthodoxies.”

ONEDOTZERO

Last week I went to the ONEDOTZERO-ADVENTURES in motion festival 2010 at the BFI at the south bank.

This was a continued exploration of ondotzero's fascination with the city via an eclectic series of filimic responses to urban environments and fast paced city living. As we accelerate towards becoming nations of super cities, this years selection presents and questions utopian desires, bringing a sense of adventure, hope and positivity about our shared future world.

Initial found objects

Mosaic Investigation Wall

I would like to create my own Forensics investigtion wall with all the items that I find on site. A combination of notes, drawings, photos, maps, and objects in evidence bags, are pinned to the wall, with strings linking some of them to specific dates.

Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle is an artist who I have been looking at in detail, as she is fascinated by the interface between our public lives and our private selves. This has led her to investigate patterns of behaviour using techniques akin to those of a private investigator, a psychologist, or a forensic scientist. All skills which I am also learning.

Calle's very first work involved following strangers around Paris. Calle had been abroad for a number of years and the idea behind this surveillance was initially an attempt to reacquaint herself with the city. However, she soon discovered that observing the behaviour and actions of these strangers provided information with which to construct their identities.

Having found the address book of one Pierre D, Calle photocopied the contents before returning it to its owner. Calle then visited and interviewed the people listed, in order to build up a profile of its owner from their descriptions and anecdotes. The results were published in Liberation. At around the same time Calle herself became the willing subject of such investigations. In 1981 at Calle's request, her mother hired a private detective to follow her daughter, photograph her in secret and record her every movement. It was, in Calle's words, an attempt 'to provide photographic evidence of my own existence'.

Peeping Tom

MUST GO SEE THIS WHEN RE RE-RELEASED 19TH NOVEMBER...

The 1960 film which scandalised British critics and all but ended the career of director Michael Powell has been digitally restored for a 50th anniversary release at cinemas and on Blu-ray.

Over the years Peeping Tom has had its reputation was gradually restored with enthusiastic supporters such as Martin Scorsese and is now regarded as a classic of the era.

An unsettling exploration of voyeurism and violence, it is the story of a disturbed photographer (Karl Heinz Boehm) who films women before murdering them in order to study their reactions to death.

Although tame by today’s standards, the film still has a creepy power, placing the audience in the position of the killer.

It is also an interesting study in psychology as the motives of the killer are firlmy rooted in his troubled upbringing by a cruel psychologist father (intriguingly played by Powell himself).

It came out the same year as Psycho and has often been compared with Alfred Hitchcock’s landmark film.

Both deal with a disturbed protagonist, feature groundbreaking depictions of violence and make the audience complicit voyeurs to the onscreen action.

The UK press were scandalised by both films, but whereas the US success of Psycho ensured a swift reappraisal and enormous financial success, Powell’s film effectively ended his career.

Elements of the media had harboured suspicions about the innovative films of Powell and his partner Emeric Pressburger, and with Peeping Tom they had a field day, denouncing it as perverted and sick.

Fifty years on the film has been digitally restored for release on Blu-ray and will also get a theatrical run at selected UK cinemas.

Forensic Photography

Why is The Scene Photographed?

The crime scene is photographed to minimise the risk of conflicting statements and - if there is a corpse at the scene - it too will be photographed post mortem so that a record of how the body was found, what position it was found in, and the nature of its mortal injuries can be documented for later inspection.

In many cases photographic evidence is very important for both the prosecution and defence counsels. It is also used as a means of displaying the nature of a crime scene to officers of an investigative team who were not able to attend. The means in which crime scenes are photographed are such that the most intricate of details can be recorded for future reference. There are many different types of lens, camera and indeed light that can be used for this procedure and even night vision photography is used in certain scenarios.Advances in modern technology have also meant that a crime scene can not only be photographed but also recorded as video to represent an accurate depiction of what was happening at the time; this can be useful in criminal proceedings and subsequent court cases.

How Forensic Photography is Used

A forensic photographer will often use numbered indicators, which are also height indicators and these are placed next to pieces of evidence before they are photographed. This is used to portray height, distance and radius especially if the crime scene is outside or in a very enclosed space. These numbered markers are also used to cross reference the evidence against any reports made and often find themselves known as 'exhibits' in subsequent court proceedings.Crime scene photographs are also used - not only as a means of evidence - but also as a blueprint for reconstructing a scene or event at a later stage. These reconstructive events can be used as a means of jogging the memories of passers-by who may have been witness to an event or saw a perpetrator without realising they had.

Photography is also used to catalogue the series of events, which occur from the time a corpse is found - and removed from a crime scene - and taken for autopsy. The autopsy itself is photographed so that all relevant details as to the procedure can be recorded and that all visible wounds are catalogued. All photographs or video taken at a crime scene are indelibly time and date stamped.

Creating a Narrative...

For my next piece of research I want to take a step back from stalking, and look at survelliance in a different way. I want to start to create a narrative from the site. From the people I watch, to the items I find, to the things I see. This analysis will give me a better insight into site and the unexpected moments happening all around. I want to start looking into forensics to create a story. This type of surveillance will allow be to get away from creating a cheesy stalker film which I am over conscious about.

Private eye.

As I couldnt do filming at my site due to weather conditions, I decided to continue practicing my surveillance skills, and stalking without getting caught. I like that part of the view is obstructed so that it looks like a secret camera.

Celebrity and the Public Gaze

Forensics

Forensics and Survelieance go hand in hand. I am now interested in looking at forensic evidence as its embeded in the landscape and has a story to tell. I am going to to use surveillance in a different way to try and create a story from what I find on site.

Questions I want to ask myself: who's surveying and who's being surveyed ?

Unexpected.

I have been concentrating on using photography to capture images of people unexpectedly, in a surveillance/ stalker way. I like this paparazzi style photography as you get immediate reactions and its not staged. Unexpected moments are usually the best to capture.

Unexpected

Getting Caught

Vodka and Red Shoes

Stalking Katy Perry

Becoming Paparazzi.... For one night I became a real life pap. It was all staged but none the less it was fun. I got some great shots of 'Katy Perry', chasing her through soho and into a cab. It was a real stalker feeling. People were watching and staring, as I shouting 'KATY... KATY' down the streets.

(My First) Stop Motion Stalking

Stop motion (also known as stop action or frame-by-frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Motion animation using clay is called clay animation or clay-mation.

When creating a stalker / cctv style footage stop motion works really well as it almost feels like a chase. The split seconds missed in between each frame add to the suspense. I would like to recreate this at night, with lighting, and try and instal some motion sensored lights to my chosen area of the site. However I need to be careful not to start making a cheesy horror film.