Rush 7: Bass Ackwards

 Bass Ackwards includes the use of montage and L-cutting in various scenes. In the very first scene and throughout the beginning, there is an interesting use of Linas's childhood footage being mixed in with the conversation between Linas and the girl, then cutting to a short montage of more vintage home movies of Linas as a child. The movie then sets up Linas's life through a montage of how he lives now. He gets woken up by one of the people he is staying with, he is shown filming a wedding video (which also uses montage, changing from Linas's camera's viewpoint to an outside eye), he quietly enters the house, phones his girlfriend and is caught masturbating on the toilet by the woman he is living with. He and the guy he is staying with play racquetball and have a chat in the sauna afterward where Linas is asked to move out. The next scene shows Linas setting up in a hotel room to meet his married girlfriend. All of these scenes are very short and are bound together to set up Linas's background for the movie. In about ten minutes, we understand what Linas's life has been like in the recent past and why certain incidents (getting kicked out, prompting him to work at an alpaca farm where he discovers the VW short bus) lead him to travel across country for the rest of the film.

Montage is such an easy yet effective way to set up a characters background in a short amount of time. Many films may not want to answer questions about a character at the very beginning of the film so they instead incorporate background throughout the film. Linas Phillips probably decided that Bass Ackwards would be better if we knew about Linas's life before he embarks on his journey. I think we needed to see how his life really wasn't going anywhere and it made sense for him to drive cross-country and pretty much roll with the punches as they come. It is somewhat similar to what we see in the Ulysses 2.0 script. Alex is seen working his construction job at the beginning and the idea that he deals pot is brought up, which he gets fired for. I'm not sure how these clips are being put together but I think it would be interesting to see a use of montage to possibly set up some of his background. Maybe it wouldn't work for the overall feel of the film to include a montage at the beginning so perhaps it could be used elsewhere.

Throughout Bass Ackwards, montage is also used to show Linas's long journey. There are many clips of him driving and visiting places, stopping and slowing down to show his interactions with specific people. This type of montage might be more appropriate for Ulysses 2.0. We could use it to clip in parts of the story that may not use dialogue but could still use telling visually. I'm not sure what these may be but maybe you or some of the other students have ideas.

A thing I found interesting from a costumer's viewpoint, was how Linas's red and cream-colored sweater showed up in various ways. We see it on Linas at the alpaca farm, Jim uses it as a pillow when he strangely enters Linus's van and proceeds to take a nap, and again on Linas through the rest of the film (like when he meets the mother-son duo and ends up eating & staying with them & playing with the boy). This technique of using a distinctive costume piece could also be used in Ulysses 2.0, maybe to set up time (like someone wearing  the same thing throughout the day) or character (a piece of clothing that someone wears repeatedly as a favorite item). That was just something I noticed and it may be something to discuss.

Rush 6: Citizen Lebowski Costume Ideas

I think the main thing to keep in mind (as we discussed) is coloring and style in the wardrobe. We wouldn't want to overwhelm the scene with bright colors or busy patterns but the actors also shouldn't fade into the background. We need to make sure the audience can recognize the age or status of the characters and how they might alter their appearance for certain situations. It's important to remember not to overly design any look so as to keep them looking natural and believable.

Prof. Carlyle should have a somewhat professional appearance in order to establish her rank. I don't necessarily see her as conservative but instead respectful of an office setting. Perhaps she wears a neutral (tan, grey, navy, etc) skirt or pant suit with a nice colorful blouse or an interesting top. Working at a design school, I think Prof. Carlyle would have some sort of flair, whether it's subtle or not so much. The color doesn't have to coordinate with the surrounding office but perhaps her style can be seen through the decor. Maybe we bring in some of "her" design work, or her students'. She might have an inspiration board or a collection to bring some sort of quirk to the office. I've seen many of the offices of our own professors at Cornish and every one of them have something unique about them. For example, Raymond Maxwell (in the Notions building H&S offices) covered his office walls with clocks, masks and all sorts of artifacts while John Wilson (on the 4th floor) hangs up images and keeps objects he likes, many incorporating humor. I would feel like a bit of a creep snapping pictures of their offices but both I walk by on a regular basis and you can get an idea of what you see through the windows.
I think Alex could go in a few directions. I'm not so sure if a personal style has been established for him yet but if it has, we could stick with that. I don't see him dressing up to visit the professor but he probably shouldn't look sloppy. He should bring in a more youthful look, maybe with a zip-up hoodie, casual shirt (t-shirt? button-up? plaid?), and jeans. Alex probably keeps it pretty simple so it wouldn't make sense to over think his outfit.

Like with Alex in the office scene, it would be nice to establish some sort of personal style to the crew. This will most likely depend on what the actor's individual style is but I notice that many of the actors at our school have very similar styles, with welcome variations of course. It's most important to keep the actors looking like regular college students that didn't have to think extremely hard about what clothes they would put on that day. As art school attendees, a couple of them might have more quirk than others and more color & pattern might come into play so that could be fun to work into their looks.

With the pitch scene, the characters should look a little nicer, assuming this pitch is a somewhat serious presentation. They should dress as they would as if going to an interview or audition, simple yet professional. They shouldn't look like they tried too hard but they still need to look put-together if they are presenting their idea to the class. I can see the girls in nice skirts or pants with a simple button-up blouse or sweater top. The boys would be similar with slacks and button-up shirts. Colors should be kept neutral or more subdued. (Navy, tan, gray, black, burgundy, etc.)

For all the costuming, we would of course have to work with what people already have, which would determine color and shape. However, I feel that my design ideas are simple enough that most of the actors would be able to pull something from their own wardrobes to work. If possible, I would like to see everyone's options for the particular scene and decide from there how their looks develop.

Quiz for Week of March 7-12

The film I chose to watch is The Puffy Chair directed by Jay Duplass. I chose this because I thought it would be interesting to see more of Duplass's work and the story sounded interesting. The movie stuck to the mumblecore style with the rougher filming style and realistic dialogue. I find it so interesting how powerful silences can be, something I never really noticed until I started this class. This one and all the other mumblecore films I've seen so far seem to play up the awkwardness that exists in real life. These films feel like you're just watching unedited excerpts of the characters lives, which can be a bit boring or slow sometimes but in the end, the point of the story does come across.

There is a scene in The Puffy Chair about ten minutes in where the main character (Josh) and his girlfriend (Emily) visit Josh's brother (Rhett) on their road trip that is the main part of the film. The scene uses a lot of changes in depth of field, playing with perspective. The three are sitting in a circle talking, eating and watching the film Josh's brother made. It focuses on the people as they talk as well as on the television playing the film, as if it's another person in the group. This technique is used throughout the film and it seems to emphasize the DIY aspect to mumblecore. The scenes aren't cut up to display different people talking but they instead leave the camera rolling and change the focus according to who is talking at the time. It also adds to the feeling that we are experiencing a moment in these people's lives and not just watching a scripted film.

Rush 5: Coming Back Home

I would like to explore how to combine to use of perspective and montage in the scene from my childhood. Since the scene would take place in my grandparents' garden, I could use a technique similar to that used in My Effortless Brilliance when they are on the cougar hunt. In MEB, they show varying depths-of-field when the guys are walking through the woods, sometimes focusing on tiny parts of plants, other times bringing the distant men into focus. In my own garden scene, I can see somewhat of a montage of clips that range in focus, with a group of us children always in the background. As far as sound goes, I would like our voices to overlap the images, like in the beginning of MEB, with my voice triggering the start of the story and therefore bringing the focus to the group of children. I would also bring the use of montage back in during the parts where I elaborate on my stories; these would be shown through almost dream-like sequences, maybe with overlapping still pictures or stop-motion clips instead of real-time film.

This is easier to picture in my head than it is to explain it through words. If I find images to aid me, I will post them later.

Rush 4: Surprise Yourself

From The 400 Blows, I chose how Antoine got himself mixed up in a somewhat elaborate lie, starting with waking up late for school, and his friend convincing him to play hooky with him. The two explore the town, going to various places, including a carnival when Antoine rides a barrel ride. He then faces his teacher the next day and tells him he misses school because his mother died, an unnecessary exaggeration that gets him in even more trouble. I selected this sequence of scenes because it connects to the metal puzzle seen in My Effortless Brilliance, which relates to the metal puzzles I used to play with at my grandparents' house.

The connection between the lie in 400 and my experience with metal puzzles is a little difficult to make. However, the idea of elaborate lying is much more easy to relate to. Antoine lies about his mother being dead in order to not get punished for skipping school, an offense that probably wouldn't have gotten him in so much trouble if he had said something a bit less extreme. Antoine's life at home is obviously conflicted in itself. He sleeps in a hallway/closet and doesn't receive much love. He and his father get along nicely but they also don't spend a whole lot of time together. The relationship between Antoine and his mother seems very disturbed, so it wasn't surprising that he decided to "kill her off" in a sense. Antoine's lie and troubles at school very much reflects how he is treated at home; it makes sense that he acts out.

As a kid, I would spend time at my grandparents' house and they would set-up play-dates for my brother and I with kids from around the neighborhood. Since we didn't visit more than once or twice a year, the play-dates never turned into any sort of friendship. I used to make up pretty detailed stories about my life when I met new people that I knew I wouldn't see very frequently. Nothing was ever harmful or totally unbelievable, they just weren't entirely truthful. I don't remember all of them but I know there was a storyline of my mom being some sort of model (she was really pretty) and my dad was a world a traveler & explorer (he did travel a lot for his job). In addition to these tales, I also tended to blame a lot of things on my little brother. I wasn't as big as a trouble-maker as he was so it was easy to swindle everyone into thinking he did anything bad I may have done. Plus, I was older and wiser.

I suppose I could say I came from a broken home, with my parents divorcing when I was five. However, I don't know if I actually see it as that. Broken is such a negative word and although there were many rough points in my childhood, I never had it that bad. I know that the specific story I shared above was derived from the vision I had of my parents: my mom being this beautiful person who took care of me and my dad who I saw twice a month that occasionally brought us gifts from around the world. Like Antoine, I took my relationship with my parents and elaborated on it.

For an autobiographical film, I would probably choose to focus on the stories I would create about my life. I can see a scene showing my brother and I playing (possibly with the metal puzzles) with some children as I tell them about our fabulous lives. We would be in my grandparents' garden and I would probably incorporate dream-like sequences showing the "memories" I created. I see a contrast happening between reality and the elaborated, perhaps in a way that a child would see it in their mind (more fantastical than needed.) I could actually see much of the film incorporating these types of scenes, showing what I thought was my ideal world and the ways I would achieve it through the telling of my stories.

Rush 3: Short Circuits(again)

My original link was from the metal puzzle seen in My Effortless Brilliance connecting to the metal puzzles I used to play with at my grandparents' house. In The 400 Blows, Antoine wakes up late and is convinced to skip school with his friend, which then prompts him to lie the next day about why he was gone. Instead of saying he was ill, he tells the teacher that his mother died, making the lie much bigger than it needed to be. He gets himself into a somewhat elaborate hoax that he must keep going or get into a whole heap of trouble. His parents soon find out and Antoine later runs away from home, trying to figure out his next move. This relates to those metal puzzles in the way that if you make a wrong move in the path to solving the puzzle, you might throw off the whole thing. Antoine works his way into an intricate puzzle and must then find a way to get himself out and separate the metaphorical metal pieces.

Rush 2: Short Circuits

In My Effortless Brilliance, Eric finds the metal puzzle in Dylan's cabin. He doesn't really try to solve it; he mostly jumbles it around and randomly hangs it on a ceiling hook. It comes up later when the men are drinking but not much is said about the puzzle. When I was a kid, I used to spend a chunk of my time at my grandparent's house. After having 6 children throughout the 60s and 70s, they acquired a lot of toys, most of which they passed on. For some reason though, they kept a few select things for their forthcoming grandchildren to play with. Among the wooden blocks and classic storybooks were a collection of metal puzzles. In my younger years, I ignored the puzzles and went for the books, but as I got older, I became more interested in these confusing metal scraps. I remember spending a few days going through each puzzle, figuring it out, and moving on to the next one. I repeated this process until I had memorized how the puzzles were solved and would then move on to something different. I only remembered the solutions for a short time afterward and since I only visited my grandparents about once every year, these puzzles always seemed fairly new to me. Even now, I love figuring out these puzzles; there is just something so satisfying when the pieces come apart and go back together with ease.