Well yet again my blog turns up late. Last week felt like a pretty busy week but if I'm very honest with myself I'm not sure how busy it actually was.
Bare with me a moment and keep reading as I will explain that statement in due course. I am currently unemployed and pursuing, not just film and tv work but to some extent any job in general that will pay me some money to lubricate the wheels of life and keep them turning. I feel that whilst a job in film or tv would be most ideal (and most enjoyable in all honesty) I would also be happy to be employed and earning money to make my own projects with. My initial thinking was to get a relevant job when I first finished my Masters Degree at the end of 2010 and after a few months without much success the attitude of any job will do slipped in and having done a few part-time and temporary roles up until the start of 2012 this seemed to stop working too. I've been unemployed and on Job Seekers allowance for 8 months now. After 6-7 months I was losing motivation, something had to be wrong, I'm not exactly under qualified and yet I wasn't getting any responses let alone interviews. I was advised to go see a careers advisor, ironically an independent one when the Job Centre have there own.
This ladies name was Alison, she was a former Human Resources Administrator I believe. She helped in two ways...she helped to return a little of my motivation, encouraging me to look back towards the film and tv stuff and look in other associated areas as well to get back to working on editing my films as I would like them, getting them online, working on a blog and working on my site in general. I had felt a little guilty about this whilst being unemployed. I had developed an attitude that I should be looking for paid work ahead of all this. Of course this doesn't help my cause in terms of the pursuit of a career in film and tv. Alison also helped with my cv alot, getting it down to two pages and that's no small feet considering it was four pages before that!
The way this is done will vary for everyone but with mine I was able to break things down into time periods these being after my Business Information Technology Degree upto my Film Studies Degree and Whilst I was doing my Film Degrees. She also highlighted the need to emphasis the unpaid work I am doing so as to show that whilst I may be unemployed I'm not sitting around doing nothing. She also pointed me back at the Job Centre and their own Careers Advisor. I would recommend to everyone having any problems with jobs request to see their Careers Advisor.
This next step was even more motivational and was exactly what I needed, what I'd been missing in terms of guidance. Jackie, the Careers Advisor, helped me further with my cv and along with suggesting places to look for further guidance, for job roles and suggesting volunteering for non profit organisations (which I cam currently pursuing) guided me towards the concept of making my job search a full-time job. When she initially said this I was unsure what she meant and/or how to do this. I did have a time-table I worked too but it was just a few hours a week. This is where we get to my initial comment. She explained that whilst I need to do what is required in terms of job hunting for the Job Centre, ie what I had been doing I needed to also consider the stuff like writing a blog, working on my site, working on my editing for the shorts to go on my site and applying for the 'relevant' jobs as well as 'anything that pays' employment and so I drew myself up a 9-5, 5 days a week timetable that covers time for all of the above. I may not always work to my timetable but I always try to do a bit of something relating to it each day. To support that I might just be about on the right track finally I have been doing this for about a month now and last week I got my first interview and it was for a production job. It was for a producers role with a auction channel which whilst it's not where I hope to end up would be excellent and great experience! So keep for fingers crossed and touch any wood to hand...not that wood... :-S
Erm, well the points of this post...I guess to highlight to those in a similar situation there are others out there that understand. To encourage anyone struggling to get a job to get a meeting with the Job Centre Careers Advisor and maybe to offer a little advice myself so people can at least make a start before they see an advisor.
Well when I started this blog I thought I'd comment more on whats going on in the world however I think I've written enough. What I will say though is R.I.P Tony Scott. I am a huge fan of his brother Ridley Scott and he is probably the more 'famous' of the two however, as was pointed out by more than one person in the past week, Tony Scott is an excellent Director and has probably been more productive and at times more successful than Ridley making some awesome films along the way. Everyone knows Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop 2 and Crimson Tide. My own favourites are Spy Game, Man on Fire, The Taking of Pelham 123 and I recently saw Unstoppable which was pretty enjoyable. He certainly knows how to get a performance out of Denzel Washington, probably better than the one for which he won an Oscar in my opinion. Anyway I want to say I of course didn't know him and was surprised by how sad I was to hear of his death. My thoughts go out to his family and I can only hope that someday, if all goes well, I can be half as good a director as him.
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Thursday, 16 August 2012
A little bit of a cheating...or is that plagiarising?
I'm cheating a little this week, having said that I would write an analytical blog every other week in an attempt to do a bit of continuous learning I have decided to go back to my MA and post something from the course I did. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first and main one is that I have decided to postpone the blog post I was originally going to do which is to talk about http://www.rduk.tv and talk a little about how and what we do. The thought of doing this being fueled by the fact we receive many questions about it from other people who would like to do something similar from across the world. The second is that I have been a little bit busy to come up with a new idea and to do the research I would hope to on a new topic.
In a previous post I said I hadn't written a blog before. That's not entirely true...the following was an essay delivered in Blog form for the Narrative Construction module of my MA. We were able to pick any subject we wanted and through the course of the module I had noticed that a couple of web based shows seemed to have elements of formalism in them and I wanted to explore this further...sometimes the mind does odd things when you're studying!
Introduction
The following blog post aims to examine the idea that whilst the introduction of the webisode is still in it’s relative infancy and by some being seen a progression of the medium and the way of communicating with a new possibly younger audience some of the techniques and ideas used in the creation show a awareness of the medium and the self that slip into being formalist in approach. At this point it should be stated that the webisode can take many formats and for this piece the emphasis is on webisodic drama as this is the area most relevant to the topic. This will be done by first examining the creation of the formalist idea and looking at one of its main exponents, Sergei Eisenstien and his most noted formalist film Battleship Potemkin. Moving on from this there is a a discussion on the creation of the webisode and discuss it in terms of formalism and how it does also show signs of the more traditional modes of television and film drama.
Formalism
The following is only a brief overview of Formalist film theory and the main points as to go into too much detail would take to much time and is simply redundant for the point of this work. Formalist film theory came into being in the 1920’s and largely found a home in Russian Montage cinema and one of it’s biggest proponents was the director and writer Sergei Eisenstien. Formalist film theory as with many film theories regards film as being an art form in itself. It does however contradict several of the other theories as it is very self-aware and sees film as a way of creating a new reality that only exists on the screen rather than any attempt to recreate the outside world. ‘…the screen as a pictorial frame within the which the filmmaker organizes his subjects into significant and signifying patterns…and new cinematic inventions…be used fir there formative rather than realistic potential’ (Dudley Andrews, J. 1976, Pg88-89). The narrative being created by bringing together of individual components of the film ie. camera, lighting, framing, lighting, music, shot selection in the creation of the narrative. Eisenstien has himself criticised other it film makers such Dziga Vertov for his claims to be representing reality in films such as Man and a Movie Camera as he claims that the director still constructs the shot and makes a choice about what is being seen by the audience. Another feature of formalist cinema is that there is often a social or political element to the film. The easiest way to highlight examples of formalist cinema would be to look at a film that is considered formalist, this film will be Eisentstien’s Battleship Potemkin. Below are two clips from the film. They have been chosen as they display several moments that typify the ideas of formalism.
Part 1 – Men and Maggots
First off it should be said that formalist films have a tendency towards having a social or political slant. ‘It is art’s task to make manifest the contradictions of being. To form equitable views by stirring up contradictions within the spectators minds, and to forge accurate intellectual concepts from the dynamic clash of opposing passions.’ (Leyda, J . 1977, Pg46). This is probably due to the time at which the theory was popularised and the events of the country where it became most popular this being Russia. Battleship Potemkin is no different. It is the story of the Russian revolution of 1905. The first sequence of the movies titled Men and Maggots sees several elements that could be said to be typical of formalism. The first revolves around characterisation. The characters in formalist rarely have names or given much in the way of development. In this sequence we are introduced to Valuneckuck however we never learn anything about him in terms of back story. This is due to the ‘everyman’ nature of characters, they are usually intended to be more symbolic of the wider population who were or are in a particular situation...in this case no so much the sailors as the working man. Part two sees elements of montage. All films are montage, as montage is simply the process of putting images in a continuous order, however formalism often plays about with montage to increase the audience awareness or greater reflect the emotion of the piece. For example the moment when the crew smashes the captains plate we see several shot’s that don’t actually follows as the crewman raises his arm and brings the plate down. He the next shot he has raised it again and again brings the plate down.
In the first clip there is also a moment in which Eisenstien shows off the way in which film can capture depth, another thing common to formalism is the desire to create moments which show films capability. The spatial metaphor of foregrounding has it’s temporal counterpart in the notion of rhythm which is, predictably enough, another central concept of the Formalists (Dudley Andrew, J. 1976, Pg 82-83). This is in the crew quarters when we see men hanging, at several levels and from the front of the shot too the back. A sailor moves through them to emphasise this fact.
Part 6 – The Odessa Steps
The third and fourth clips (changed to whole sequence in this blog) chosen shows one of the most important and most famous sequences of the film, The Odessa Steps. Again there is very little in the way of characterisation we see many characters all of whom seem somehow important as we are given close-ups of them as they welcome the sailors, however we never learn more about them. Again we have another moment where Eisenstien shows off what film is capable of, showing off the depth of the image, this time with the woman carrying her dead child up to the soldiers. They stand above her, on a higher step, their shadows stretching out. Several other moments of montage can be found in the fourth clip, the first being as the old woman in glasses is killed. There is a shot of the woman, cuts to a man swinging his sword in anger and cut back to the woman her glasses smashed and blood running down, individually they are not necessarily connected but put together have meaning. The second moment is as the guns of the warship fire on the Odessa theatre. There are three shots of the lions placed in order to make it look like the marble lion stands to protest the gunfire. All these are features common to formalism. It feels necessary to add to this a little about sound as it is something talked about later in the analysis of formalism in the webisode. Sound is not the most prominent feature of Battleship Potemkin but was also considered to be an important part of formalism. Not in the way it is with other film theory where it compliments the image and even tells the audience what emotion they should feel instead Formalist thinkers were in fact very wary of how sound was used, feeling music should not take away from the image or be used in a way as to tell the audience what they should be thinking. Having looked at several elements from a known formalist film it is now time to move on too the webisode and the discussion of how formalism is used.
The Webisode
A webisode is a short episode be it of drama or documentary that is first shown on a website rather than on television. It is difficult to find much in the way of writing on the webisode as it is a relatively new medium and as the New York Times states ‘While a small number of writers, producers and actors are making a living with webisodes, they are still a long way from establishing the form alongside television and feature films.’ (Stelter, B. 2008). It is widely regarded that the first webisode appeared in 1995 in the form of a series called The Spot (Zakarin, S. 1995).
Webisodes continued to appear several becoming very popular amongst the internet audience but very few were aimed at bridging the gap between the internet and the mainstream. One that did however was the Star Wars: Clone Wars (Lucas, G. 2003) a mini series created to bridge the gap Between Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones (Lucas, G. 2002) and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (Lucas, G. 2005). Which was aired on the internet on it’s own website before being aired on television.
(no longer appears to be available on the internet)
This was not commonplace however and this did not change very much and there was certainly every intention to show it on television too be sure it reached as large an audience as possible so whether this is really a true webisode is open to debate. This site aims to examine drama’s that were made originally and specifically for the internet. The First ‘hit’ that was created solely for the internet was a webisodic drama called Lonelygirl15. ‘The Lonelygirl videos made their debut on YouTube in the summer of 2006. Initially, they reached millions of Internet surfers, introducing the concept of professionally produced webisodes to the public’ (Stelter, B. 2008).
Whilst one of the webisodes to be examined in more depth Sophia’s Diary (Bernado, N. 2003) actually came before this the success of lonelygirls was certainly more noticed within the industry and at which the webisode is beginning to move towards the type of webisodic drama examined in the next part of this website. This appears to have occurred during the writers’ strike of 2007. ‘When the Writers Guild of America strike stopped television production last fall and winter, Hollywood writers and producers rushed to create new scripted series for the Web, often called webisodes for lack of a more artful term. The strategy seemed simple: make money by going straight to the Internet.’ (Stelter, B. 2008).
Formalism in The Webisode
Before moving on to look at how Formalist ideas/techniques appear to have found here way into webisodic drama it must be noted this is not making a judgement on the quality of the pieces being analysed or indeed comparing them critically with the like of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. It is merely an analysis of how a new medium has drawn upon an old ideal in an attempt to reinvent and rejuvenate very much in the manner that formalism was originally intended. The webisodes to be examined as stated previously are Sophia’s Diary (Bernado, N. 2003) Quarterlife (Herskowitz, M & Zwick, E. 2007) Clarke and Micheal (Duke, C & Cera, M. 2007)
Sophia's Diary
(think this might be a video from the tv series, the web series no longer seems to exist)
From the very start there are elements of Formalism. A major feature of formalist films are that they are very self aware in there creation. The length of the piece is considerably shorter than normal, this would be due to the medium in which it finds itself, ie that of an embedded video on the internet and perhaps because it is aimed at this new and younger target audience who may not want to sit for half an hour and watch something. There are definite signs of it being self aware and aware of the medium that it is being delivered on. At the start of the webisode Sofia is talking directly to the camera, something itself that is uncommon in traditional forms of drama, the camera angle changes and it becomes apparent that she is talking to her webcam. There are moments of montage too, this is used when switching locations from Sofia’s home to the college. The use of handwriting on the image is also quite interesting, whilst not necessarily a feature of formalist film this is somewhat reminiscent of the use of inter-titles. More commonly used in films made in the silent era, but also used in Battleship Potemkin as headers between the individual sections of the film. The use of music would be quite in line with the ideas of formalist drama too. Formalists had mixed and somewhat confusing views on Music and sound, they are not against it but believed music should not be used to influence the audience’s mood or indeed tell them what they should be thinking.
Interestingly, whilst clearly a device to sell the product to the younger and newer audience, somewhat anti-art and anti-formalism the music used in Sofia’s Diary is far from fitting the emotion of the piece and is instead one of the latest popular chart tunes. Finally another element that appears to fit with the formalist ideal is that Sofia whilst being a more rounded character than the characters in formalist film, one feels more to do with modern expectations than anything else is meant to represent the every-teen. Someone that the audience can relate too and whom they feel can understand what they are going through or indeed, through the blog element that comes along with this type of medium allow them too talk problems over. It is worth noting that Sofia’s Diary was such a success it was turned into a television series on Channel Five, interestingly many of the elements that are seen in the early episodes of the webisodic version were removed to make it a more standard television drama.
Quarterlife
Again in Quarterlife there is the self-awareness of the medium. Again as with Sofia’s Diary the episode opens with the central character Dylan talking to the camera and again there is a cut to a shot that shows that what the audience has seen is actually her video blog. A certain amount of the self-awareness slips into the story itself, referring to the moment which sees Danny and Jed pitching there idea to improve advertising to the owner of a Car Sales Showroom. They mention attempting to target a new audience and about ‘knowing your demographic’. Certain shots used are more reminiscent of documentary than drama, this would appear to be an attempt at creating reality, as if the audience are watching Dylan’s life unfold. Several aspects of Quarterlife point to the representation of the everyman element found in formalism. The name itself refers to twenty-something’s all of whom would feel they understood the problems Dylan was going through. To take this further there are a group of central characters, Dylan’s friends, ala Friends (Crane, D & Kauffman, M. 1994) which offers the audience several characters whose point of view on the world might mean something. Another aspect of Quarterlife that is reminiscent of formalism is again the presence of montage when introducing other characters in the first episode Dylan’s friends Deborah and Lisa. Again as with Sofia’s Diary, Quarterlife was very successful in it’s webisodic format and moved over to television. Like Sofia’s Diary many of these more formalist elements were abandoned for the television version and in truth start to lessen as the webisodic version develops.
Clark and Michael
Clark and Michael contains the least elements of formalism of the three webisodic dramas examined here. It certainly shows a level of self awareness as can be seen by the opening scene in which the audience witness Clark and Michael attempting to write the first scene of a script sounding very much like the events unfolding before the audiences eyes. In the process of Clark and Michael there is a definate attempt to create reality. It is shot in documentary style with a crew ‘paid for with their own money’ following Clark and Michael around. This would fit with formalisms idea of creating reality of the screen. Whilst offering this element of documentary, there seems to be a greater presence by the camera crew than even Clark and Michael are aware of as at the point they are visited by the neighbour despite this being a surprise visit for Clark and Michael a camera is strategically placed outside the door to catch their reactions. The other interesting element of Clark and Michael that offer a nod to formalist ideas is the lack of any non-diagetic music. There is music but it is all played via radio’s and so does not necessarily tell the audience the mood of the piece. Clark and Michael also had a good level of success but was not turned into a television series but also interestingly is less formalist and in terms of style and tone more like a certain type of television comedy drama that has developed of late such as Curb Your Enthusiasm (David, L. 2000) or Arrested Development (Hurwitz. M, 2003) amongst others.
Conclusions
It would seem fair to say that there are elements of formalism in some webisodic dramas however to what extent varies greatly leading to the conclusion that it is far from a conscious decision and perhaps makes them even more like traditional film and television where elements of the different types of film theory will slip in. It is far more likely that the decisions were made in production to attempt to re-invent the drama and give it a new twist to compliment the new format and new environment in which it is situated in with the desire to make it very different to those dramas found on the established medium of television and film. It can be seen that when the webisodes become popular and as they develop or indeed find there way onto the traditional medium of television there is something of a reversion to practices and interestingly, although not necessarily a symptom of this change, they find very little success outside of the webisode format. Add to that that the sales and marketing of the drama’s often takes up the standard practices of sales and marketing more in tune with the traditional formats of displaying drama.
Reference
Bernado, N. (2003), Sofia’s Diary, http://www.bebo.com/c/video?FlashBoxId=9381406600&, Date Accessed 20/12/2009
Dudley Andrew, J. (1976), The Major Film Theories; An Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Duke, C & Cera, M. (2007), Clark and Micheal, http://www.clarkandmichael.com/, Date Accessed 20/12/2009
Eisenstien, S in Essays in Film Theory; Film Form (ed. Leyda, J. 1977) New York, Harcourt Brace & Company.
Herskowitz, M & Zwick, E. (2007), Quarterlife, http://seeika.ning.com/page/quarterlife-part-1, Date Accessed 20/12/2009
Stelter, B. (2008), For WebTV a Handful of Hits but No Formula for Success, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/business/media/01webisodes.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all, Date Accessed 04/01/2010
In a previous post I said I hadn't written a blog before. That's not entirely true...the following was an essay delivered in Blog form for the Narrative Construction module of my MA. We were able to pick any subject we wanted and through the course of the module I had noticed that a couple of web based shows seemed to have elements of formalism in them and I wanted to explore this further...sometimes the mind does odd things when you're studying!
Introduction
The following blog post aims to examine the idea that whilst the introduction of the webisode is still in it’s relative infancy and by some being seen a progression of the medium and the way of communicating with a new possibly younger audience some of the techniques and ideas used in the creation show a awareness of the medium and the self that slip into being formalist in approach. At this point it should be stated that the webisode can take many formats and for this piece the emphasis is on webisodic drama as this is the area most relevant to the topic. This will be done by first examining the creation of the formalist idea and looking at one of its main exponents, Sergei Eisenstien and his most noted formalist film Battleship Potemkin. Moving on from this there is a a discussion on the creation of the webisode and discuss it in terms of formalism and how it does also show signs of the more traditional modes of television and film drama.
Formalism
The following is only a brief overview of Formalist film theory and the main points as to go into too much detail would take to much time and is simply redundant for the point of this work. Formalist film theory came into being in the 1920’s and largely found a home in Russian Montage cinema and one of it’s biggest proponents was the director and writer Sergei Eisenstien. Formalist film theory as with many film theories regards film as being an art form in itself. It does however contradict several of the other theories as it is very self-aware and sees film as a way of creating a new reality that only exists on the screen rather than any attempt to recreate the outside world. ‘…the screen as a pictorial frame within the which the filmmaker organizes his subjects into significant and signifying patterns…and new cinematic inventions…be used fir there formative rather than realistic potential’ (Dudley Andrews, J. 1976, Pg88-89). The narrative being created by bringing together of individual components of the film ie. camera, lighting, framing, lighting, music, shot selection in the creation of the narrative. Eisenstien has himself criticised other it film makers such Dziga Vertov for his claims to be representing reality in films such as Man and a Movie Camera as he claims that the director still constructs the shot and makes a choice about what is being seen by the audience. Another feature of formalist cinema is that there is often a social or political element to the film. The easiest way to highlight examples of formalist cinema would be to look at a film that is considered formalist, this film will be Eisentstien’s Battleship Potemkin. Below are two clips from the film. They have been chosen as they display several moments that typify the ideas of formalism.
First off it should be said that formalist films have a tendency towards having a social or political slant. ‘It is art’s task to make manifest the contradictions of being. To form equitable views by stirring up contradictions within the spectators minds, and to forge accurate intellectual concepts from the dynamic clash of opposing passions.’ (Leyda, J . 1977, Pg46). This is probably due to the time at which the theory was popularised and the events of the country where it became most popular this being Russia. Battleship Potemkin is no different. It is the story of the Russian revolution of 1905. The first sequence of the movies titled Men and Maggots sees several elements that could be said to be typical of formalism. The first revolves around characterisation. The characters in formalist rarely have names or given much in the way of development. In this sequence we are introduced to Valuneckuck however we never learn anything about him in terms of back story. This is due to the ‘everyman’ nature of characters, they are usually intended to be more symbolic of the wider population who were or are in a particular situation...in this case no so much the sailors as the working man. Part two sees elements of montage. All films are montage, as montage is simply the process of putting images in a continuous order, however formalism often plays about with montage to increase the audience awareness or greater reflect the emotion of the piece. For example the moment when the crew smashes the captains plate we see several shot’s that don’t actually follows as the crewman raises his arm and brings the plate down. He the next shot he has raised it again and again brings the plate down.
The shots are assembled by the editor in a pre-determined order in
such a way as to produce by the very sequence of frames a certain
intended effect, much as the fitter assembles the parts of a machine
so as to turn these disjointed parts into a power-producing, work
performing machine (Theory of the Film p.118) (Dudley Andrews, J.1976, Pg90)
In the first clip there is also a moment in which Eisenstien shows off the way in which film can capture depth, another thing common to formalism is the desire to create moments which show films capability. The spatial metaphor of foregrounding has it’s temporal counterpart in the notion of rhythm which is, predictably enough, another central concept of the Formalists (Dudley Andrew, J. 1976, Pg 82-83). This is in the crew quarters when we see men hanging, at several levels and from the front of the shot too the back. A sailor moves through them to emphasise this fact.
The third and fourth clips (changed to whole sequence in this blog) chosen shows one of the most important and most famous sequences of the film, The Odessa Steps. Again there is very little in the way of characterisation we see many characters all of whom seem somehow important as we are given close-ups of them as they welcome the sailors, however we never learn more about them. Again we have another moment where Eisenstien shows off what film is capable of, showing off the depth of the image, this time with the woman carrying her dead child up to the soldiers. They stand above her, on a higher step, their shadows stretching out. Several other moments of montage can be found in the fourth clip, the first being as the old woman in glasses is killed. There is a shot of the woman, cuts to a man swinging his sword in anger and cut back to the woman her glasses smashed and blood running down, individually they are not necessarily connected but put together have meaning. The second moment is as the guns of the warship fire on the Odessa theatre. There are three shots of the lions placed in order to make it look like the marble lion stands to protest the gunfire. All these are features common to formalism. It feels necessary to add to this a little about sound as it is something talked about later in the analysis of formalism in the webisode. Sound is not the most prominent feature of Battleship Potemkin but was also considered to be an important part of formalism. Not in the way it is with other film theory where it compliments the image and even tells the audience what emotion they should feel instead Formalist thinkers were in fact very wary of how sound was used, feeling music should not take away from the image or be used in a way as to tell the audience what they should be thinking. Having looked at several elements from a known formalist film it is now time to move on too the webisode and the discussion of how formalism is used.
The Webisode
A webisode is a short episode be it of drama or documentary that is first shown on a website rather than on television. It is difficult to find much in the way of writing on the webisode as it is a relatively new medium and as the New York Times states ‘While a small number of writers, producers and actors are making a living with webisodes, they are still a long way from establishing the form alongside television and feature films.’ (Stelter, B. 2008). It is widely regarded that the first webisode appeared in 1995 in the form of a series called The Spot (Zakarin, S. 1995).
Webisodes continued to appear several becoming very popular amongst the internet audience but very few were aimed at bridging the gap between the internet and the mainstream. One that did however was the Star Wars: Clone Wars (Lucas, G. 2003) a mini series created to bridge the gap Between Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones (Lucas, G. 2002) and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (Lucas, G. 2005). Which was aired on the internet on it’s own website before being aired on television.
This was not commonplace however and this did not change very much and there was certainly every intention to show it on television too be sure it reached as large an audience as possible so whether this is really a true webisode is open to debate. This site aims to examine drama’s that were made originally and specifically for the internet. The First ‘hit’ that was created solely for the internet was a webisodic drama called Lonelygirl15. ‘The Lonelygirl videos made their debut on YouTube in the summer of 2006. Initially, they reached millions of Internet surfers, introducing the concept of professionally produced webisodes to the public’ (Stelter, B. 2008).
Lonelygirl15
Whilst one of the webisodes to be examined in more depth Sophia’s Diary (Bernado, N. 2003) actually came before this the success of lonelygirls was certainly more noticed within the industry and at which the webisode is beginning to move towards the type of webisodic drama examined in the next part of this website. This appears to have occurred during the writers’ strike of 2007. ‘When the Writers Guild of America strike stopped television production last fall and winter, Hollywood writers and producers rushed to create new scripted series for the Web, often called webisodes for lack of a more artful term. The strategy seemed simple: make money by going straight to the Internet.’ (Stelter, B. 2008).
Formalism in The Webisode
Before moving on to look at how Formalist ideas/techniques appear to have found here way into webisodic drama it must be noted this is not making a judgement on the quality of the pieces being analysed or indeed comparing them critically with the like of Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. It is merely an analysis of how a new medium has drawn upon an old ideal in an attempt to reinvent and rejuvenate very much in the manner that formalism was originally intended. The webisodes to be examined as stated previously are Sophia’s Diary (Bernado, N. 2003) Quarterlife (Herskowitz, M & Zwick, E. 2007) Clarke and Micheal (Duke, C & Cera, M. 2007)
(think this might be a video from the tv series, the web series no longer seems to exist)
From the very start there are elements of Formalism. A major feature of formalist films are that they are very self aware in there creation. The length of the piece is considerably shorter than normal, this would be due to the medium in which it finds itself, ie that of an embedded video on the internet and perhaps because it is aimed at this new and younger target audience who may not want to sit for half an hour and watch something. There are definite signs of it being self aware and aware of the medium that it is being delivered on. At the start of the webisode Sofia is talking directly to the camera, something itself that is uncommon in traditional forms of drama, the camera angle changes and it becomes apparent that she is talking to her webcam. There are moments of montage too, this is used when switching locations from Sofia’s home to the college. The use of handwriting on the image is also quite interesting, whilst not necessarily a feature of formalist film this is somewhat reminiscent of the use of inter-titles. More commonly used in films made in the silent era, but also used in Battleship Potemkin as headers between the individual sections of the film. The use of music would be quite in line with the ideas of formalist drama too. Formalists had mixed and somewhat confusing views on Music and sound, they are not against it but believed music should not be used to influence the audience’s mood or indeed tell them what they should be thinking.
‘To use sound in this way may well destroy the culture of montage,
for every adhesion of sound to visual piece increases it’s inertia as a
montage piece and increases the independence of meaning…Only a
contraptual use of sound in relation to the visual montage piece will
afford a new potentiality of montage development and perfection.’
(Dudley Andrew, J. 1976 ).
Interestingly, whilst clearly a device to sell the product to the younger and newer audience, somewhat anti-art and anti-formalism the music used in Sofia’s Diary is far from fitting the emotion of the piece and is instead one of the latest popular chart tunes. Finally another element that appears to fit with the formalist ideal is that Sofia whilst being a more rounded character than the characters in formalist film, one feels more to do with modern expectations than anything else is meant to represent the every-teen. Someone that the audience can relate too and whom they feel can understand what they are going through or indeed, through the blog element that comes along with this type of medium allow them too talk problems over. It is worth noting that Sofia’s Diary was such a success it was turned into a television series on Channel Five, interestingly many of the elements that are seen in the early episodes of the webisodic version were removed to make it a more standard television drama.
Again in Quarterlife there is the self-awareness of the medium. Again as with Sofia’s Diary the episode opens with the central character Dylan talking to the camera and again there is a cut to a shot that shows that what the audience has seen is actually her video blog. A certain amount of the self-awareness slips into the story itself, referring to the moment which sees Danny and Jed pitching there idea to improve advertising to the owner of a Car Sales Showroom. They mention attempting to target a new audience and about ‘knowing your demographic’. Certain shots used are more reminiscent of documentary than drama, this would appear to be an attempt at creating reality, as if the audience are watching Dylan’s life unfold. Several aspects of Quarterlife point to the representation of the everyman element found in formalism. The name itself refers to twenty-something’s all of whom would feel they understood the problems Dylan was going through. To take this further there are a group of central characters, Dylan’s friends, ala Friends (Crane, D & Kauffman, M. 1994) which offers the audience several characters whose point of view on the world might mean something. Another aspect of Quarterlife that is reminiscent of formalism is again the presence of montage when introducing other characters in the first episode Dylan’s friends Deborah and Lisa. Again as with Sofia’s Diary, Quarterlife was very successful in it’s webisodic format and moved over to television. Like Sofia’s Diary many of these more formalist elements were abandoned for the television version and in truth start to lessen as the webisodic version develops.
Clark and Michael contains the least elements of formalism of the three webisodic dramas examined here. It certainly shows a level of self awareness as can be seen by the opening scene in which the audience witness Clark and Michael attempting to write the first scene of a script sounding very much like the events unfolding before the audiences eyes. In the process of Clark and Michael there is a definate attempt to create reality. It is shot in documentary style with a crew ‘paid for with their own money’ following Clark and Michael around. This would fit with formalisms idea of creating reality of the screen. Whilst offering this element of documentary, there seems to be a greater presence by the camera crew than even Clark and Michael are aware of as at the point they are visited by the neighbour despite this being a surprise visit for Clark and Michael a camera is strategically placed outside the door to catch their reactions. The other interesting element of Clark and Michael that offer a nod to formalist ideas is the lack of any non-diagetic music. There is music but it is all played via radio’s and so does not necessarily tell the audience the mood of the piece. Clark and Michael also had a good level of success but was not turned into a television series but also interestingly is less formalist and in terms of style and tone more like a certain type of television comedy drama that has developed of late such as Curb Your Enthusiasm (David, L. 2000) or Arrested Development (Hurwitz. M, 2003) amongst others.
Conclusions
It would seem fair to say that there are elements of formalism in some webisodic dramas however to what extent varies greatly leading to the conclusion that it is far from a conscious decision and perhaps makes them even more like traditional film and television where elements of the different types of film theory will slip in. It is far more likely that the decisions were made in production to attempt to re-invent the drama and give it a new twist to compliment the new format and new environment in which it is situated in with the desire to make it very different to those dramas found on the established medium of television and film. It can be seen that when the webisodes become popular and as they develop or indeed find there way onto the traditional medium of television there is something of a reversion to practices and interestingly, although not necessarily a symptom of this change, they find very little success outside of the webisode format. Add to that that the sales and marketing of the drama’s often takes up the standard practices of sales and marketing more in tune with the traditional formats of displaying drama.
Reference
Bernado, N. (2003), Sofia’s Diary, http://www.bebo.com/c/video?FlashBoxId=9381406600&, Date Accessed 20/12/2009
Dudley Andrew, J. (1976), The Major Film Theories; An Introduction, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Duke, C & Cera, M. (2007), Clark and Micheal, http://www.clarkandmichael.com/, Date Accessed 20/12/2009
Eisenstien, S in Essays in Film Theory; Film Form (ed. Leyda, J. 1977) New York, Harcourt Brace & Company.
Herskowitz, M & Zwick, E. (2007), Quarterlife, http://seeika.ning.com/page/quarterlife-part-1, Date Accessed 20/12/2009
Stelter, B. (2008), For WebTV a Handful of Hits but No Formula for Success, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/business/media/01webisodes.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all, Date Accessed 04/01/2010
Monday, 13 August 2012
...everybody's got one...and now so have I!
This is the first entry of a blog I have been intending to start for the last 2 years...well 2 years and 4 days as I was initially going to start for sure, without fail, on Thursday afternoon...so here we are on Monday morning! There are many reasons it has taken me as long as it has, non of which are really worthwhile but have somehow been quite crippling. The main ones have been: 1.What to write about and 2. The overwhelming thought of who am I that anyone should really care what I have to say.
Well, the fact that everyone who wants to be in, around or associated with media, film or television seem to have a blog (hence the title of my own) and the constant suggestion and advice that it's something that I really should do has finally led me to this point. With all the people who are writing blogs that really have very little to say except regurgitate magazine articles and other peoples opinions or just ramble on about what they ate or drank that week I feel I have it in me to create a blog that's at least as interesting as a number of those that exist already. I'm at a point where I've had a few interesting life and employment experiences and I believe become more aware of certain aspects of life and the industry that I had no interest in or just didn't register with me...erm...lets say previously, as I am wary of saying when I was younger. Anyway onto what I shall write about. My intention is to write an entry every Thursday, one week it will be a more analytical/informative piece on film/television theory in the hopes of improving myself as well as perhaps helping others learn something new. The following week it will be more of a diary entry, about whats been going on with me personally. Don't worry it's not going to be what I ate or drank, well unless it is something really exceptional...I am a big fan of food! You would probably guess as much to look at me...it kinda shows! These 'diary' entries will be about whats happening with me professionally and also thoughts about the things going on in the world in general. Yup, after what I said, I am going to have unsubstantiated ideas and opinions but I will make it clear they are just that, my ideas and opinions.
This being my first entry I guess I should go on to tell you more about me. I have been a fan of film from as early as I can remember. My first memory of the cinema is hiding behind the seat from Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness in Legend at The Odeon in Sutton Coldfield. I guess it's a little ironic that that film and Ridley Scott in general are amongst my favourites these days. I was even watching foreign cinema at a very young age due to my dad's interest, these being mainly Chinese and Hong Kong cinema such as Chinese Ghost Story. However I never considered trying to get into film or tv myself as it always seemed like something someone else did and at the point when you start thinking about careers IT and computing was the way to go and so I did. However by the age of twenty six, after four years of not really getting anywhere, it became apparent I needed to make a drastic change. At this point I took time to consider where to go next and decided to aim for something I had more of an interest in. This led me to considering my interest in animals and nature or film...only considering the possibility of writing for film magazines or the equivalent as far as film went. So back to University I went to study film and whilst doing that I started to enjoy the practical aspects and being exposed to more and more films I felt I could do something in the industry itself. So after a degree and a masters, yes yes I know you don't need either to make films but I was there with the intention of learning what I could and having a safe environment to screw things up. So having been through that, here I am doing what relevant work I can, mostly for free, including filming Roller Derby and live streaming it for http://www.rduk.tv, making my own short films, when i have the funds, and generally working whatever jobs I need to to get by...well when I can get a job! I guess in terms of film I am one of the many bona fide geeks that seem to be becoming more and more involved in film as a huge fan of sci fi, horror and fantasy in films, books and comics...so expect more than a few references to those areas in the future of this blog, heck I may and probably will even devote whole posts to them, hmm a review day might be an idea...anyway I hope you enjoy what I write and watch this space!
Well, the fact that everyone who wants to be in, around or associated with media, film or television seem to have a blog (hence the title of my own) and the constant suggestion and advice that it's something that I really should do has finally led me to this point. With all the people who are writing blogs that really have very little to say except regurgitate magazine articles and other peoples opinions or just ramble on about what they ate or drank that week I feel I have it in me to create a blog that's at least as interesting as a number of those that exist already. I'm at a point where I've had a few interesting life and employment experiences and I believe become more aware of certain aspects of life and the industry that I had no interest in or just didn't register with me...erm...lets say previously, as I am wary of saying when I was younger. Anyway onto what I shall write about. My intention is to write an entry every Thursday, one week it will be a more analytical/informative piece on film/television theory in the hopes of improving myself as well as perhaps helping others learn something new. The following week it will be more of a diary entry, about whats been going on with me personally. Don't worry it's not going to be what I ate or drank, well unless it is something really exceptional...I am a big fan of food! You would probably guess as much to look at me...it kinda shows! These 'diary' entries will be about whats happening with me professionally and also thoughts about the things going on in the world in general. Yup, after what I said, I am going to have unsubstantiated ideas and opinions but I will make it clear they are just that, my ideas and opinions.
This being my first entry I guess I should go on to tell you more about me. I have been a fan of film from as early as I can remember. My first memory of the cinema is hiding behind the seat from Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness in Legend at The Odeon in Sutton Coldfield. I guess it's a little ironic that that film and Ridley Scott in general are amongst my favourites these days. I was even watching foreign cinema at a very young age due to my dad's interest, these being mainly Chinese and Hong Kong cinema such as Chinese Ghost Story. However I never considered trying to get into film or tv myself as it always seemed like something someone else did and at the point when you start thinking about careers IT and computing was the way to go and so I did. However by the age of twenty six, after four years of not really getting anywhere, it became apparent I needed to make a drastic change. At this point I took time to consider where to go next and decided to aim for something I had more of an interest in. This led me to considering my interest in animals and nature or film...only considering the possibility of writing for film magazines or the equivalent as far as film went. So back to University I went to study film and whilst doing that I started to enjoy the practical aspects and being exposed to more and more films I felt I could do something in the industry itself. So after a degree and a masters, yes yes I know you don't need either to make films but I was there with the intention of learning what I could and having a safe environment to screw things up. So having been through that, here I am doing what relevant work I can, mostly for free, including filming Roller Derby and live streaming it for http://www.rduk.tv, making my own short films, when i have the funds, and generally working whatever jobs I need to to get by...well when I can get a job! I guess in terms of film I am one of the many bona fide geeks that seem to be becoming more and more involved in film as a huge fan of sci fi, horror and fantasy in films, books and comics...so expect more than a few references to those areas in the future of this blog, heck I may and probably will even devote whole posts to them, hmm a review day might be an idea...anyway I hope you enjoy what I write and watch this space!
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