Week 5: Eldon Booth and Elephant

Today, Eldon came in and talked to us about his work in film and his different approach to it in terms of genre - which he said was a mixture of experimental narrative films and docudrama/experimental doco. By the sounds of it, making films is an around-the-clock job, with Eldon recalling stories about how he would gather footage from real life events, set up acting workshops for amateur actors and so on.

He became interested in this style of filming after watching television shows like "World's Dumbest Criminals." He explained that in most shows such as these, they tend to have amateur camera handlers. But because there is so much spontaneous activity going on the camera tends to pan erratically and the image appears out of focus a majority of the time. In saying this however, reality tv and documentaries are probabaly the most attention-grabbing, as the subject is followed around we become aware of the fact that there is indeed a camera crew present and we're made to feel as though we are a part of it.

We were shown a few of his works, "Withdrawl" stood out the most to me. It was presented in the style of a split screen and the camera follows two men, (one younger, one elderly) during different stages of their lives and how certain issues had affected them both. Eldon had used a lot of long, continuous shots as the camera follows each actor. But being infuenced by these reality shows, the camera was hand held and it was shot in the persepective of somebody who was actually there. The camera shots range from extreme wide shots to close ups and the light source is provided by the sun/daylight and street lights so this contributes as a key factor to the piece being more of an  experimental documentary. He also mentioned that he and his friend wanted to use the old cheap VHS tape to shoot their video to create this illusion of reality.

"Five Good Reasons" is a good example of how Eldon wants to blur the line between fact and fiction. He had hired the actors to talk about an event that had taken place. In between there are shots of an actual car accident that took place in Papakura, with hoards of people flocking to the scene to have a look. I like his way of improvising, how he looks at a concept and decides to film something completely candid and work it into his films.

We also saw a quick teaser from his upcoming feature film, "Finding Honk." There are definitely cinematic moments in there that he should be proud of, like the scenes that had been filmed with a phantom camera. The phantom films at around 2000+ frames per second, which is around 80 times more than the original 24 frames per second and is one of the hardest cameras to gain access to in the world. I like how the intense build ups in anticipation for certain actions had been shot in slow-mo. Again, the camera handling is also quite unstable and somewhat random at times, Eldon said that he didn't really tell his camera operator what was happening most of the time so he would have to react the same way as the actors.

"Elephant" is a documentary/drama directed by Gus Van Sant that is based on the Columbine killings in America. I see how Van Sant had also done what Eldon had with Five Good Reasons, trying to blur the line between fact and fiction by taking real life events and putting them into a film context.The story reveals itself through the points of view of the high school students who may or may not have actually been there in real life. Just like Eldon's work on "Withdrawl," the light source is completely natural and the camera shots are also very long, there is a lot of walking (as the film/situation took place in a high school) so it is basically fixated on these subjects the entire time. Although the camera shows a smooth transition while following the subjects from the style of documentary to drama, there are times where the content within the frame shows a shallow depth of field to give momentum, like when one of the shooters is walking down the hallway towards the end of the movie. I prefer how Eldon had used slow motion in his movie, as opposed to this one. There are parts where Van Sant had also played with slow motion to emphasize on a particular action. Although it is a good method, I'm not too sure whether he used it at the right parts (boy playing with the dog, girl checking out football player) I personally would have preferred to have seen it at the most intense points of the movie.

"The Fourth Kind" is a mockumentary/science fiction film that also tries to blur the line between fact and fiction, it follows a psychologist whose patients have been haunted by the apparent encounters/abductions that were carried out by aliens. What was claimed to be a true story was actually a sham, which I think would've been the main contributor to their world wide failure. In most scenes, the movie was shown as a split screen, with the supposed real life footage being shown from the perspective of the psychologist's as well as the police who had been brought to the scene. On the other side we see the re-enactment of the events. I think the movie was quite well done, but apart from the documented footage, the rest of the scenes are shot in a cinematic style so the camera is less obtrusive.

"The Blairwitch Project" is another example of a mockumentary but the footage is very raw and shot in the style of a home video, with scenes in between of the subjects working on their documentary about the legend of the Blairwitch, a creature of supernatural origins who had supposedly kidnapped a group of children and killed them. We see the events unfold from the perspective of each subject in this film, as they all take turns at holding the camera. The camera handling is very amateur. There are plenty of establishing shots as the three friends trek through the woods and we see the camera follow them as they struggle to find a way out. But other than that, the shots are very shaky and out of focus, with very little use of clean cut camera angles used towards the end. Just like Eldon's piece "Withdrawl", the lighting is provided by the sun and also by torches, which I think creates that ominous mood and comes across as more believable.The movie is good, due to interviews they conduct with citizens who live in the area so they pull you into the story, making you think it's real.

http://io9.com/5397359/the-fourth-kind-is-a-hoax
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/09/the-fourth-kind-sleep-paralysis

http://www.blairwitch.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blair_Witch_Project