Treatment Sheet

PROGRAMME TITLE: ‘Untitled’

DIRECTOR/
CAMERA OPERATOR: Amy

DURATION: 2-3 Minutes

FORMAT: DV

AUDIO: A soundtrack will be played throughout the video whilst the footage is shown. I may decide to have a voiceover at certain points during the video depending on how well I think the video works with the soundtrack.

OUTLINE OF AUDIENCE:
Both males and females aged 30-50 of socio-economic group B^ (Those of a high working class). The target audience can relate to the premise of the video. A younger audience of youths would not benefit from this video as the rules do not necessarily apply to them. E.g. teenagers don’t generally do the same thing everyday as they are not yet in full time work.


OUTLINE OF STORY
The aim of the video is to highlight how many people do the same thing every day and fail to notice what there missing out on. The video will consist of the central character waking up, having breakfast, leaving for work, returning from work, having dinner then going to bed.


CHARACTERS:
There is only one central character which the camera follows throughout the video.

Experimental Video Assignment - Task 1 - Chapter 5

How might these works inspire your own work.

After viewing a range of different experimental videos, I have been introduced to many different techniques, some of which I could attempt to put into my own experimental video. Out of all the different videos I have watched, the technique which I found most interesting was in fact, "The Girl Chewing Gum". I found it interesting the way that at the beginning the audience believe the man is actually directing what is happening when in fact he is simply narrating what he sees. I enjoyed this film simply because it shows that we believe what we see more than what we are told. Near the end of the film when we realise that the man is a narrator, we still believe what we see on the screen in front of us, not what he is saying. I think this technique is clever in making the audience think about what they are hearing not just what the are wactching,

Experimental Video Assignment - Task 1 - Chapter 6

Audience, and audience interpretation of the work.

After viewing the different experimental videos, our group came up with a range of ideas to explain what they thought was the purpose of the films. Although people generally agreed on whether the films were craft or concept based, their individual thoughts on the work were much more varied. This was interesting as it showed how after viewing the same piece of work as a group, many people had completely different thoughts and opinions on the premise and concept of the work. I think it is important that we all have our own views on what we see as this allows us to look beyond the obvious and see what else we think might be going on in the film.

After viewing the mixture of experimental videos the class had mixed feelings about what they thought of the films. For example, some people found "Jan kounen" quite funny and amusing whereas others such as myself found it very riduclous and crude. On another note, some people found "Koyaanisqatski" quite interesting and managed to follow the story of it, however, some found it very confusing. The audience reactions can vary due to the individuals knowledge of the artist and their work. For example, someone who enjoys the work of John Smith, would posssibly find "The Girl Chewing Gum" incredibly interesting as they know the techniques this artist generally uses. Therefore, this shows how our knowledge of artists has an input into our thoughts of their pieces of work.

This shows how after watching the same videos, people don't necessarily have the same opinions about what they have seen.

Experimental Video Assignment - Task 1 - Chapter 2

The use of technology and techniques and styles.

The technology, techniques and styles within the following films; "The Girl Chewing Gum", "Koyaanisqatski" and "Jan Kounen" (by Gisele Kerozene) all differ in various ways. The films vary depending on when they were made as this reflects on what equipment would have been available at the time.

"Koyaanisqatski" has a very unique style as it consists of a large selection of clips which change at slow and extremely fast paces. Some clips are repeated to get the messasge across to the audience. This film was produced in 1983 so a lot of new equipment would have been available at the time. Also, a lot of money was available for the producers to experiment and try out new ideas to see if they worked well. This explains why this movie has a very different style and pace to it in contrast to "The Girl Chewing Gum".

"The Girl Chewing Gum" was produced in the 1970s' when technological equipment was limited and hard to access. Also, this film had a low budget so the producers couldn't afford to make lots of changes in post production as they had to make use of what they could afford. This explains why there are only two edits in the whole film. This film doesn't have many techniques used, most likely due to the financial situation and the time period. The style of the film is fairly simple as the majority is one long shot, only cutting to a different scene at the end. This was due to the lack of money and equipment available at the time.

"Jan Kounen" is a very unique film which is extremely different from the other two films.

This film uses stop frame animation which consists of 25 frames per second. This totals up to 6,000 photos for the entire 3 minute film. This technique consists of taking photos of every stage in the movie, a hard task which would have taken an extremely long time to put together in post production. The audio is all non-diegetic, the sound was inputed in post production, as there is no noise on stop frame animation. The technology and techniques used in this film are very important as this is a craft based movie and the aim of it was simply for the producers to show off what they can do. This film was created in 1989, later than the first two films, this explains how the producers had access to such advanced technology.

Those are the different types of technology and techniques used in the above three films.

Experimental Video Assigment - Task 1 - Chapter 3

Narrative and non-narrative structures.

The following films, "Koyaanisqatski", "Telling Lies" and "The Girl Chewing Gum" all vary in their structure.

"Koyaanisqatski" doesn't have a straight forward structure as there is no significant beginning-middle-end. The whole film is one long story which changes slightly when the pace of the film speeds up and then down again. However, the beginning and end of this film is the same as it begins with cave drawings on walls and ends this same way. Also, the film starts with the word "Koyaanisqatski" being chanted and this happens at one stage during the film before ending this same way. This means it could be argued that there is a narrative structure in this film but I don't see a significant structure to this film as it looks like one long string of clips to me and nothing more.

"Telling Lies" has a similar structure to "koyaanisqatski". It does have some kind of narrative structure as it begins with a phone call in which we learn what has happened, it then continues to other peoples' views on the subject and it then ends with a final phone call. This kind of represents a beginning-middle-end. However, as new people call the central character, he has to retell some parts of the story which sort of takes the audience back to the beginning again. This, goes against the narrative structure of the story.

"The Girl Chewing Gum" has a structure similar to "Koyaanisqatski" as no significant event really happens in this film to suggest that it is not in the middle of the story. However, the audience does find out more as the film progresses which suggests this could potentially be a narrative structure. The majority of the film is one long scene with only two edits in the whole film. This doesn't highlight a change from the beginning to the middle. The only way the audience knows there are coming towards the end of the film is the fact that the scene changes from the street, where all the action has taken place, to an empty field. This move from the middle to the end is the only kind of structure in the film but even so, we don't really know where the middle starts, only where it finishes.

Those are the different structures of the three experimental videos, "Koyaanisqatski", "Telling Lies" and "The Girl Chewing Gum".

Experimental Video Assignment - Task 1 - Chapter 1

Discuss both past and current artists and works.

Experimental videos, both past and present, have a range of similarities and differences between them.

"Telling Lies" by Simon Ellis (2001), "1001 Nights" (1998) by Jananne Ai-Ani and "Koyaanisqatski" by Godfrey Reggio (1982) all have similarites between them in which all three experimental films lack significant effects which are usuaslly associated with film.

Both "Telling Lies" and "1001 Nights" don't actually have any audio other than the diegetic sounds including the sound of a phone ringing (repeatedly throughout "Telling Lies") and the womens' dialogue in "1001 Nights".However, it could be argued that the dialogue and sounds in "Telling Lies" is actually non-diegetic as the voices and sounds are coming from outside of the frame. There is no soundtrack to these films as both videos are dialogue based. Also, these two films don't have any special effects, the only visual images on screen are the different coloured text in "Telling Lies" and the head and shoulders of four women in "1001 Nights". Both have the same plain black background. Also, both "Telling Lies" and "1001 Nights" are purely concept based.

"Koyaanisqatski" on the other hand has a difference with the other two films as it has a soundtrack which is played throughout the film. The pace of the soundtrack varies depending on the speed at which the clips change (E.g. It starts with a slow backing track as the clips take a while to change, it then speeds up when the clips change very frequently in a matter of seconds). Overall, the work fits in with the pace of the soundtrack. Also there is only one word of dialogue, "Koyaanisqatski", which is chanted repeatedly at different stages throughout the film. This films' audio is non-diegtic and the focus of the film is the visual imagery. This film, unlike the other two, is craft based.

Those are some similarities and differences between "Telling Lies", "1001 Nights" and "Koyaanisqatski".