Myself and Sugini my DOP met to discuss visuals for Separation. She has already formulated a rough hot list based on pre-vis and previous conversations and research however I wanted us to use pre-light not only as pre-light but another chance for us to try out and refine the visuals even more to make them as strong and meaningful as possible for the shoot. We covered a lot of things I had though about in my last blog post however here are the main points of what we discussed and ideas she had:
- We had agreed that we want to put a lot more attention on the bridesmaid dress as we both think its one of our strongest visuals and also meaningful. We decided we need many more close ups of it in the shot list for the shoot and we need to do many takes of these so we can form many interesting shapes and patterns with the fabric by moving it around in and out of the water. We want a push and pull of the fabric so crumpling it and tightening it on the infinity table and then doing the same in water a lot more. We also discussed the possibility of putting powder (flour) very carefully on the dress so that when we do the unfolding of the dress shot its even stronger because it will appear as if dust is floating off of it. We will try and get many close ups of this powder floating in the air to make it seem even more dust like and therefore even more effective as a visual. Another interesting way to use the dress would be to put tricks of water on it and track them s they run down the dress as this will give us a chance to see lots more detail but this also reflects the strength of the dress visually. Before we shoot with the dress I am going to attempt to remove the last of an old nail polish stain as this red stain was giving other connotations away that aren't intended within my piece. We are also going to get the dress involved in the dance/movement section of this piece too as we want the different sections to link lot more and this will make it more tactile. Sugini has suggested the idea of getting my performer to actually try and put the dress on which I think will work really well as this make a strong visual and gives across the strong message of trying to relive memories.
- We then discussed the weakness I had noticed with the balloon shots. These shots are too sudden because there is not much build and then it pops so quickly and suddenly I'm just not sure if its effective. We discussed other objects we could use which would show more stress and we have decided to try out Sugini's suggestion of Slime which comes in many colours/types and can be squeezed and played with in your hands so much that it will defiantly show much more stress especially if we work in the same push and pull manor again. We spoke about showing the process of making this however I have decided this is too cliche as it will look like an instructional video instead. We also want to film the slime melting from a ball into a puddle on the table as this will match the fluidity of the water shots and can be sped up to make it seem really effective. There is also the possibility of getting magnetic slime so we can move it around with a magnet off screen so it seems like the slime has a life of its own and reflects the emotions like the water. We are going to borrow Sugini's sisters multiple types of slime for pre-light on Tuesday and see the kind of visuals we can create and if its really effective this will be added into the piece and I will purchase specific types of slime that will look best. A suggestion I had to replace the balloon was a stress ball which Sugini agrees with as this will take much more of a beating compared to a balloon before it pops. I am going to get a flour filled stress ball off the internet to try out in Tuesdays pre-light. Hopefully when it does pop it will look really effective as flour pours out. If it works well I will buy many more stress balls for the shoot.
- We then spoke about sunflowers and ideally we want to get real sunflowers. I am going to work on sourcing some however we may only be able to get them for the actual shoot due to the time of year and my budget. I will be getting fake sunflowers for the pre-light days however so we can try with these. If these work really well we will just continue with these in the actual shoot however if they don't we will know to order real ones for the official shoot days. We thought about things we could do and Sugini suggested we could spray water on the sunflowers to make them look dewy and even more effective. We also spoke about destroying the sunflowers in the water so that the petals float around in the water. Also if its possible we want to try some birds eye shots looking down into the tank to show the petals floating on top of the water. We could also work with multiple sunflowers like we do with he apples taking them away out the shot to show one by itself and this one is then the main focus and represents me. We then discussed the idea of putting coloured inks onto the petals of the sunflower, especially black, to let it bleed and make a really strong metaphor and visual. We also want to again have the sunflower as part of the dance/movement section so my performer can hold it and move it around her body to again link the sections more and make it more tactile.
-The ink approach as previously discussed is too cliche and so Sugini agrees with my idea of making it more aggressive and emotional so that it doesn't come across cliche and too pretty. I am going to only use one colour which originally I thought would be black but Sugini has suggested dark blue which may be really effective in the water so this we will try. Also as ink is expensive we thought about seeing how poster paint would work instead because this is water based and so should disperse similarly to ink in the tank. Again we will try this and see if it is effective and if not we will go back to the original ink approach.
- Neither of us liked how the coloured fake feathers looked in shot last time so we were going to cut the feathers out completely however we have decided it is because we need one really nice natural looking feather to better represent the feeling I want to show. For pre-light I will get white natural feathers and we are going to experiment with these on the table and in the water. IF they aren't effective still then this will be cut out. The performer can also use a feather in the dance/movement section to link them and make it tactile.
- When in the studio with the water tank we also want to try the facial submerged shots of myself with in the water tank from different angles to see if this works effectively. This may be a better more interesting but striking approach then just using a bathtub so we will try it in pre-light and then compare the bathtub and the tank approaches to see which is better to do in the official shoot. Sugini also mentioned only showing certain parts of my face at a time with this extreme close ups during these underwater sections so that its like giving pieces of the puzzle away so that its still slightly anonymous but anchored and I do really want to try this and see if that work better.
- Finally we discussed the body movement shots and she agrees with me about just sticking mainly to the torso/abdomen area as this is strongest and has most meaning to it due to reason I explained in my previous post. Sugini is going to make a list of shots to try working with the torso so we can see how these look in Mondays pre-light/rehearsal so we can refine this movement section. These will be shots such as - Spine curving & bending, tracking along spine, shoulder blades rolling & moving, Stomach tightening, hands moving around body, objects slowly guiding us round her body.
This meeting has been very successful. Over the weekend I will be sourcing all the new objects now needed to try these new ideas. I will also be briefing all the crew on the pre-light so they are aware of the plan. Also as there is so much to try on Tuesday I will be making a rough schedule for this pre-light to make sure we can try all the new ideas and objects in the time constraints.
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