'Thoughts that Burn' is our surrealist film project that first started its formation around late February and early March. We underwent a process of planning, filming and editing a film that was inspired by the works of the likes of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, as we closely studied and analysed both 'Un Chien Andalou' and 'L'Age d'Or', which are two of the most iconic and significant pieces of surrealist cinema ever created. Using these, as well as various other surrealist shorts made by amateur filmmakers like ourselves, we figured out the conventions of surrealism in order to allow our own short to be recognisable within the genre. One key convention of surrealist films is the inability to easily follow the central narrative, which is something that I feel we incorporated into Thoughts that Burn very nicely. Doing so, it allowed us to present a film that had no distinct meaning or message, instead allowing the viewer to create their own and discover what it means to them. We achieved this by exploring multiple settings and jumping to each one randomly, making it difficult for the spectator to follow the plot with ease, as they'll be in a school classroom, for example, and before they know it they'll be thrust into a kitchen where the protagonist is placing his hand inside a blender. Speaking of the latter sequence, we also intentionally planned out a lot of ‘moments’ within the film, before building scenes and motifs around them. The toast, brace position and elephant sequences being some of our first ideas as to what shocking or jarring imagery we wanted to present to our audience.This really allowed us to be able to focus on making it a mostly conventional surrealist film, as if our main attention was towards our narrative then we would’ve been telling a simple, paint-by-numbers story - which is the exact opposite of what surrealism does. We had imagery first, story second. The music used within our film is also very conventional of surrealism. Most notably due to the fact that we made sure that our film contained compositions that are mainly comprised of string instruments, as these are frequently featured in both Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or, not only because they feel timely for those films, but mainly as they add a feeling of discomfort and uncertainty, both being feelings that we wanted to convey. We also feel we managed to successfully create a dream like feeling through what we presented, which I think we best achieved through all of the absurd imagery and sequences within the film, most notably the blender and elephant scenes, as well as the fact that we constantly shifted settings, helping to make the film be as far from realism as possible. In terms of challenging the conventions of surrealism, we definitely had a more linear narrative than is present in other surrealist films. Such as in both Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or, the times and places change, making it very non-linear, whereas, while we change the setting quite a lot, each one transitions into one another, making it much easier to understand where we’ve ended up and how we’ve got there, also showing that some actions within the film have a lack of cause and effect, being example of our film challenging the typical conventions of surrealist cinema. Our most notable examples of how we best replicated a typical surrealist film are most likely the blender and elephant sequences. The blender sequence is probably, what I would say, the best moment in the film. I think it’s superbly edited and works best due to its shock and gore factor. This scene was achieved by filming two different shots. One shot was of the blender turning on and spinning rapidly, the other was of our main actor, Harry, placing his hand inside the blender. We then cropped each frame to fit one on top of the other, making it look as if he was really placing his hand inside an active blender, when he really wasn’t. This was done to avoid any injury as it could have been potentially incredibly dangerous if we did it without this method. The ‘blood' consisted of a mixture of maple syrup, flour and food colouring which we placed into the blender, making it look like the protagonist had actually blended his hand, when in fact his hand wasn’t really in there. This scene is very typical of surrealism, and it’s definitely one I’m most proud of. The elephant scene is also very conventional as it really helps to give a dream like feeling, as it’s not exactly part of everyday life to see an elephant at the top of a desolate road. It is both surprising and confusing, as there’s many different reasons for what an elephant would be doing. Our personal vision was that the elephant was the embodiment of memories, as it literally is the animal that represents memory (hence the phrase ‘an elephant never forgets’). The themes of the film that we wanted to explore were memory and death, however I feel we made sure anyone could make up their own interpretation.and didn’t try to force our own one onto the spectator. Again, this helps to act as being conventional for surrealist films as, while there is definitely a message that we wanted to get across, we made sure that you could easily come up with your own ideas and interpretations that were completely different from our own. Therefore, we definitely made sure that our film was mostly conventional and we made it vital to include several features that are frequently featured within iconic surrealist films and are known within the genre, however we also managed to challenge some of these conventions, so that we weren’t just stealing ideas from others, instead making our own, unique product that was inspired by the filmmakers who pioneered the surrealist movement.
I personally feel that we had many successes with our short film, Thoughts that Burn. Most notably, as I talked about in the previous paragraph, it definitely fits into the category of surrealism. We managed to create something far from realism that was inspired by the works of Luis Buñuel, David Lynch, etc. - and I think it really shows through what we managed to create within our final product. I am most proud of the blender scene, as I think it is so shocking and got such a great audience reaction when we first screened it. The way we managed to craft that sequence through the cinematography, editing, production, etc. all culminated to making arguably the best scene of the whole thing, and I think that is definitely the sequence that sticks in everyone’s head after the credits roll. I am also just really happy with how the film came out as a whole, it definitely matched a lot of what I envisioned as we were in pre-production, and so for the final product to be so close to what I had in mind is really great, especially as we currently have very little experience in filmmaking. Speaking of the pre-production stage, I think this was very successful overall. Having three of us allowed us to come up with more ideas had it just been two of us, and once we all came up with what we wanted to do, we were all very excited to just go out and make it. Writing a screenplay was also a mostly easy process, due to our consensus of what we wanted to make. The filming process was definitely the most difficult and time consuming. It was definitely a fun and rewarding experience, however our sets would sometimes contain members of the public, so waiting to be able to film was quite an annoyance, and making sure we got the best possible performance from Harry. Reshoots were very rarely needed, as I think maybe two or three shots had to be retaken. Editing was not too difficult either, as we all knew what we wanted and we had an experienced editor as part of our team, allowing us to perfectly create exactly what we wanted using our footage. I’m also very happy with my own work on the cinematography, I think we achieved some really great shots that worked really well in the final cut. The settings we used also worked very well, the forest we used felt empty and provided just the right atmosphere we needed, the kitchen and classrooms we used worked perfectly for the scenes as well, the road was very desolate and couldn’t have been more excellent for what we wanted to achieve. We were also very lucky for it to have snowed around the time of filming, as the snow in the final scene really added a lot to it, making it feel like some sort of white, empty void - something we definitely wanted. I think the biggest success was definitely the film’s editing, as I think a lot of what we wanted to do wouldn’t have been achieved, or not at least to the same level, had we not had such a good editor on board. While I’m mostly very happy with what we made, there are definitely some elements of the film that were not as successful. Most notably, the sequence involving the elephant. While I think it was a very good idea, it was a shame that it didn’t look very realistic in the final product. However, I don’t think it was horrible, it just could’ve been a lot better. I also feel we could’ve had a slightly better casting process, as we went more with who we thought looked the part, rather than actually auditioning anyone or judging their acting capabilities first. I think Harry was definitely serviceable and I never found him to be inherently bad, however there were aspects of his performance that I found to be lacking, and it often took a while to really achieve specific shots because we wanted to be certain that he got the exact performance from him that we wanted. The classroom scene was also quite a difficult scene to film, as Charlie, who played the bully in the film, wasn’t feeling incredibly confident in his abilities. Luckily though, we managed to eventually get him to deliver a competent portrayal, albeit not being exactly what we had in mind, and therefore I think potentially there could have been better fits for the role, meaning a more professional and in depth casting process will be something that will most definitely be done for our next project. The way social groups are presented and constructed within our film was not necessarily something we deeply considered or thought about, however there are definitely some ways to discuss how they are used and portrayed within the film. For example, the scene within the classroom could say quite a lot about school and education. School is somewhere you’re supposed to learn, form relationships with others and prepare for the world ahead of you. However, in contrast to this, the protagonist’s most prominent memory of school was the trauma he endured, the fact that he was taunted and abused verbally by an individual, instead of remembering friendships, learning or anything else highlights his real experience of school. There’s also assumptions that could be made about our portrayal about parenting, with what is presented being objectively negative. Similar to what I said about how school is presented, the protagonist’s strongest memory of his parents is them arguing and shouting at him, in contrast to parents being warm, supportive and important figures within your life. We did this to portray the idea that sometimes the negative moments in your life are often what you remember the most, and anything that’s positive is frequently pushed to the side to make way for emotions like sadness, anger, etc. I feel this was very well conveyed through our film and even though presenting ideologies regarding social groups was not really one of our main focuses when planning the film, I think many of our themes and much of what we did does actually shed some light on certain social groups. The events and themes of the films were always our primary focus during production, however I think much of what we planned certainly has undertones involving social groups that is easily interpreted. After we finished screening our film to the class, we handed out a questionnaire to everyone who was present to give us feedback on our film. It contained five questions, the first asking for an overall rating out of five so that we can get a quick idea of what they thought of the film, the second asking what elements of the film they felt typically worked as part of a conventional surrealist film. Thirdly, we asked what they thought didn’t work as well for a conventional surrealist film, with the next question asking if they thought overall it worked as a surrealist film and then finally if they felt the performances were convincing or not, as it was something we were personally unsure of and felt would cause people’s opinions to sway. In response to the first question asking for a rating out of five, we found that the results gave us a calculated average of a 4.2 out of 5 score. This indicates that the audience had a very positive outlook overall, showing that we had a great success with the film and that people responded to it very well. There were also several elements of the film that many felt were conventional of surrealist films, most notably the hand in blender sequence as well as the lack of cause and effect, with a large amount of praise going towards the editing of the short film. For the third question, many responded that there wasn’t really anything that didn’t work, however one person said they didn’t like the classroom scene, two people said they didn’t think the film had a message (however we had one in our heads when making the film, so perhaps it was just difficult to allow everyone to come up with an interpretation), two people said the music as well as the elephant, which I discussed about not being something I was too proud of, and one person said Harry’s performance, something we were also not too sure about. This shows that there were certainly some elements that some people weren’t fans of, but there were definitely more elements that people felt did work. In response to the fourth question we had seven people saying that they felt it worked as a surrealist film and just three people saying it sort of worked as a surrealist film, with no one saying that it didn’t work at all. Finally, the final question had five recorded questions saying that the performances were convincing, one person saying they were sort of convincing, three responses saying that they did not find them convincing, and one without a response. This shows that we were right to not be too confident in the performances, as a fair amount of people were also not too sure on whether or not they were convincing. Overall, we definitely had a mostly positive reaction to the film, as evident through the average score of 4.2 out of 5, however the fact people said certain elements did not work, such as portraying a clearer message, as well as the performances not being too convincing, does show that there is certainly plenty of room for us to improve. I think that the most important thing I have learned through the process of making the film was definitely auditioning and casting. A more comprehensive casting process could've been done, as we went more in favour of who we best envisioned in the role, rather than judging their acting abilities or experience. I also learned about the level of patience that was required when filming, as there were often times that either actors were not too sure about what they should do in the scene or our ability to film was prevented due to unavoidable circumstances. This was often somewhat frustrating, however I felt we dealt with it in the best ways possible as we were always kind and considerate towards our cast and did our best to guide them through the scenes. Pedestrians causing filming to cease was something that couldn’t really be avoided, so all we did was just be calm and wait, which was definitely the best thing to do in the situation and to not let ourselves get worked up as it could’ve been compromising to the whole production. Better time management was also something that we learned throughout the process, as sometimes we underestimated how long filming would take given these unavoidable circumstances, and so we sometimes had to go back to locations on different days in order to get scenes fully finished. In future I will definitely make sure to have a more comprehensive casting and auditioning process, as well as allowing much more time for filming as there are either unforeseeable things that get in the way that prohibit filming or sometimes more time is needed with cast to allow them to give their best possible performance. Looking back at the appointment task I feel I have learnt quite a lot in comparison. First of all we did not have quite the same level of planning for that task, and so I think The Appointment was a lot worse of for that reason. The level of planning for Thoughts that Burn made it so much better, as it allowed us to come up with certain ideas and elements, whereas with The Appointment we sort of made it up as we went along and kept changing lots of elements while filming, but with this film we came up with everything before we started rolling, so every individual shot was carefully planned out. I think The Appointment task also involved too many people at once, as there were five of us and we were all pitching ideas and it was rare we all agreed on doing the same thing, so when it was just three of us it meant that if we wanted to pitch ideas it was more likely we would come to some level of agreement, instead of us all butting heads. I also think I’ve improved through cinematography as in The Appointment task the cinematography was pretty much all tracking shots, pans, close-ups or medium shots. However, with Thoughts that Burn we used a much wider range of shots and I think we did our very best to use as many shot types as we can and to make the sure the camerawork was as interesting as possible. Overall, I think I have definitely improved by planning a lot more and putting so much more thought into each and every element of the film, as well as using a wider range in terms of cinematography.
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We have now successfully finished filming the whole of the short film, after around 5 hours of filming in total. There wasn't too much difficulty with filming, however just a few shots did need to be re-shot and there were some that needed retakes on the day as it took a few to get it perfectly right as we envisioned it. The filming process wasn't too difficulty as the cast was very easy to work with and we had a shared vision of what we wanted to film, as well as the fact that there weren't really any problems with the sets, production or equipment.
From now on we just need to put everything that we have shot and decide which shots will stay in the final product and which will be removed entirely. Then, we will edit all of the right shots together and make sure they are all chronological narratively so that we have a completely finished film. Attached is the proposed shot list for the our short surrealist film:
We have based it on what we assume will be the best looking shots and will convey what we want to present towards the spectator. We have a strong range of shot types as we hope to have a large variety of visuals to keep the spectator from becoming bored from looking at the same shot types over and over again. We hope to have a total of seven different scenes in the film and we believe that each scene is integral to our narrative. Within each scene are numerous amounts of shots to keep displaying lots of exciting visuals to the spectator. Some items from the shot list may be removed from the final cut of the film in case we feel it doesn't quite work in hindsight.
We now have a completely finished storyboard and a definitive idea of how each sequence and scene will be ordered and laid out for the final product. We all have a very clear and shared vision in our heads of how this film will end up and what we want it to be as a whole.
We have also begun writing up a screenplay so that we have a more detailed and explained version of what we have drawn out with our storyboard. So far we have written around two and a half pages, and we will likely finish it off tomorrow, where we hope to end up with a length of around 3 or more pages in total, to make sure that the film surpasses an overall length of 3 minutes, which is the minimum that we would like the film to be. We have also come up with a title, 'Thoughts That Burn', as we feel it encapsulates the thoughts we are trying to put across and matches with the overall themes of the short film as a whole. We have now come up with several unique ideas for our short film which will be beneficial for the film, as we believe them to be very good and original concepts which haven't been seen in a lot of conventional surrealist films.
We have thus put many of these ideas into a storyboard, and we have got a storyboard of around the opening minute of the film, and we will add more ideas later once we have figured out the chronology of them and how we want to order each element of the film. Once we have done that we will then write up a screenplay as well as a shot list. We have began planning our own surrealist short films, with ours attempting to explore the idea of memories and how they can sometimes be deceitful and not entirely how you remember them. We will be incorporating elements of surrealist films, as well as using several filming locations and cast members.
Our surrealist film will take place in several locations, such as a classroom, a house, a field, and perhaps several other locations as we take the spectator through several moments in the protagonist's life. The film will require lots of editing as we plan to switch between several locations quite quickly, as well as several cast members as we want to show many individuals that would be present to this person's life. We have in mind who we want to play our protagonist, as well as a vague idea of who we will cast as extras or other important characters to the film. Many key features of surrealist cinema will be put into our film. For example, we plan to have lots of shocking and disturbing imagery, with many of these already envisioned by us. We also plan to have a non-linear structure as we will visit many moments of his life in a random order, making the film seem very dream like in nature, another key feature of surrealism.
This film follows many conventions of the surrealist genre. Most notably, this short film is incredibly dream like as it is very much within a nightmare, with many scary moments occurring throughout, which are very obviously inspired by the tropes of classic horror movies.This also proves that the film contains several moments of shocking and disturbing visuals, enough to confuse and disorientate the spectator of the film. The film also uses quite creepy sounds and music that build to a louder volume as the film goes on, almost ending up as white noise, which really helps to add an extra layer of a spooky atmosphere and allows the film to be sold as a horror more than anything else.
This then leads into my main complaint of the film, which is that while it certainly contains conventions of surrealism, it feels much more like a horror film. The film uses lots of elements from horror films as well as music and camera work that makes presents an incredibly creepy atmosphere, which accompanies some rather cheap jump scares (e.g. the random man under the stairs) that don't really add an awful lot of depth to the film, meaning there isn't much to be found beneath the surface. There also isn't any real theme that the film is presenting, it just seems to be within a nightmare, which again cements it as more of a horror film than anything else. Overall, I like this film very much for what it is, however I don't think it constitutes as solely a surrealist film, as many of the elements are blatantly taken from horror films, such as some awful jump scares and creepy music that gives the film a spooky and sinister atmosphere.
a narrative that's relatively easy to follow and keep up with, there are many different interpretations that can be had with it. Personally, I think it is about mental health and how inside our brain it almost becomes dark, and we are almost unable to communicate with the outside world as our mind is taken over by things we don't want to be there. I also think that's why it's titled 'Reality', because it depicts the realities of mental health by using these absurd images that are so prominent in the surrealism genre. But that's just my interpretation, I'm sure there are many others that can be taken away form the film.
There are a few moments in the film that are poorly edited, with some very noticeable special effects, and the music feels a little disjointed at times (but perhaps that was purposeful) which took me out of the film at times, but it uses surrealism very well through it's absurd and shocking imagery, as well it's hidden meanings that can be interpreted.
However, the film does not seemingly have a clear message, and I would consider this a big flaw of the movie. The film just acts as a series of random and odd images that don't carry any weight or contain anything beneath the surface. Every good surrealist film should carry some sort of message, otherwise there's nothing being conveyed to the spectator other than randomness for practically no reason, the best surrealist films ofthe 1920s and 30s contained messages and meanings that could be conveyed through the imagery on screen, and this is part of the reason they are so iconic and considered some of the best of this creative movement. Overall, I don't like Microwavable very much, as I feel it lacks any depth and meaning, and it's just a series of random and shocking images for seemingly no reason.
random direction like many other surrealist films, as the spectator can easily follow the character's journey through the film, likely due to the chronological timeline that the film contains. This doesn't necessarily bad, but it just means that it doesn't follow everything that would be conventional of surrealist cinema.
The film, however, does have many events that are absurd or dream-like in nature, for example when the protagonist walks through a door, and suddenly the whole building is gone and he has ended up by a beach, or when the protagonist sees a hooded figure alone in a room who ends up being himself. The film is also shot on 16mm black and white, which adds a somewhat grainy and old fashioned, very much in a similar style of similar French films that were made during the 1920s and 1930s, such as Un Chien Andalou and L'Age D'or Overall, I think this film is very good. Shooting it on 16mm definitely works in the film's favour and gives it a refined and timely feel, and accompanies some gorgeous cinematography and creative imagery. However, the film does contain a narrative that's quite easy to follow, meaning that it isn't entirely dream-like, and so it isn't entirely typical of surrealist cinema. |
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April 2018
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