TREATMENT

Working Title:  Motion
Length:   5 – 10 minutes
Crew:  Myles Chimutanda, Chris Kelly and Oscar Bernstein


Short synopsis:

The film is about a dancer battling himself. The dance will be hip-hop with a mix of street and breakdance.



Mid-Length synopsis/outline:

It starts off with him walking and dancing at the same time. He then bumps into himself (a reflection of himself) and it becomes a dance competition on whose better but we never know whose better.


Analysis of approach (500 words):

The dancer will dance backwards and I will reverse it in postproduction to make him or her go forward. I want to focus more on the style and movement of the dance. I have chosen two locations to film in. The first location is alongside a graffiti wall where he will meet his opposite and the other location is a tunnel. I will use slow motion and time-lapse effect to create different paces within the film. I will also use the Go Pro camera to get different angles that are interesting and will experiment with different shots (close ups and wide shots). I’m thinking of having it in black and white but will try different colours and low saturations and see which one works well. The sound will mostly be affected by the dance moves but I want a variety of sounds ranging from fast beats, vocals, metal bashing, soothing sounds and soft melodies. I might make the sound design first and have the dancer dance to it but I find this to be hard. The editing will have a split screen effect but the division line will not be visible.

The main influences for this piece are:

Vanishing Points by Marites Carino : http://www.tentacletribe.com/vanishing-points-dance-film-2013/

Choros by Michael Langan: http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2013/02/05/choros/

EDITING

The editing for this film was very hard. I had problems trying to make it look interesting and different and changing the pace of the film. As I began changing the colour and inverting the shots, I began to see different methods of editing it.

In the image above, I over-layed to two videos together and made one negative. The idea was to create a dark feeling with different colours of from black to green and red. I used the 24 colour wheel to guide me in the colour correction.

Each colour creates a different mood and I constantly experimented with a range of colours. I tried creating a hypnotic effect using the ink but had complications in doing that. In order to create such an effect I need to use adobe after effects and I'm not good in using that software.

This is different type of effect that Oscar was able to do. It created a chaotic moment within the film and changes the rhythm which is good.

PLAN B

I have had complications in finding a dancer for my film. I have looked at the SHU dance society, University of Sheffield dance society and non of them are available. I got in touch with some local dance studios within Sheffield and the dancers are busy because of Christmas as they have performances going on. I have sent a request on star now for dancers but got no response.

From this I have talked to the rest of the group and we started thinking of a different idea to do. The idea will be almost similar to the dance idea but in a different concept. The other plan was also to do something similar to Oscar's idea and try and combine it with mine.

The idea I have in mind is to use a biker. He will be cycling and will use the go pro to capture the footage. This is similar to what chris kelly presented as a source of inspiration for his 1 minute piece. I have asked him if its possible to do it but it might be too late because we don't have a lot of time and Oscar does not like doing bikes. Never the less I went and did a trial to see if the idea was possible to do.

This is Chris Lowe and I filmed him riding his bike and mounted a go pro on his chest to get a different angle. The idea was that there were two bikers who look identical and it ends up becoming a race. One has a red hat and the other has a helmet.

After doing this, I have found out that idea is not working.  The concept has no direction and visually its not interesting.

I watched a couple of videos on YouTube about ink and I have found it interesting. Its like liquid dancing in liquid and the results create a tranquil effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_okcNVZqqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPO0N6OgT1A

Before fully committing to this idea I wanted to see how it works to the brief. We were given obstructions to follow and would this concept work. These are things I looked at:

• The film can be more than 5 minutes long
• Its got 1 object which is the ink
• The location is in front of any white background. The ink will be poured in a jar of water.
• Its non linear
• Chris is doing the sound design for it
• Breaking the fourth wall: it does this emotionally by combining colour, movement and sound together.

We have discussed the roles and Oscar is doing the filming, Chris is doing the sound design and I'm editing.

1 MINUTE FILM

I'm having doubts about my dancer in terms of when his available to perform. I'm considering to take the role as the dancer but I don't like looking at myself when i dance. So i would pre fare if i wasn't visible in the film.

The best way to hide myself and still be present is by using shadows & silhouettes . Shadows are a good way to hide myself but not the dance.  

From the shadows I began to think about colour and how it would change the mood of the film. Thinking about colour reminded me of disco lights I saw at a Halloween party. I like the colours of disco lights as they have a variation of colours but I don't want it to look like a club night. 

I thought of lights that glowed in the dark and glow sticks came into mind. I bought small glow sticks and taped them to body and danced in the dark. I started with a few glow sticks and the more I placed on my body the more interesting it became. 

For this piece, I was playing the music on my phone. It made me consider to either make my own soundtrack and have it play in the background to which I would dance to. I could use this idea of creating sound for my main piece by creating a sound track first and have the dancer dance to it but it might be tricking depending on what kind of dancer I have.

I have learnt a few things from this one minute exercise. It helped me think of different ways to present my subject like in an abstract way. This piece has influenced me in my main project to

work around my dancer. Filming at night under a street lamp, this gives a shadow/silhouette effect and depending on the dancers availability I could use this style of the glow sticks.