Sea Change
http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/sea_change
"Filmed on a caravan park at the end of the season, Sea Change reveals a landscape dramatically transformed by light and time, and resonating with the transience of human presence. The old caravans that fill the site are soon to be removed and crushed to make way for a new housing development, so the film also acts as a kind of document for an unusual place on the brink of disappearance."
With our poetic documentary, our overall goal it to a piece reminiscent of this work. Like the subject in Sea Change, Castle market's days are numbered and by making our documentary inside it gives us a chance to capture this unique location before it becomes a thing of the past.
We too will be using a track, albeit a much shorter one, in order to achieve fluid movement through the environment. The reason Sea Change works so well is because the makers have managed to capture the same scene in very contrasting lights and times of day. This throws up the first problem when trying to imitate the work, the fact Castle Market is indoors and in places underground, the light stays essentially the same throughout the day. The only changing factor is the footfall, however, in this dying market place the different from 9am to 6pm is so slight that if portrayed on film, I fear the message would be lost. The only way in which this would work is if we arrived around 5am to catch the traders setting up and then came back at closing time, to see it all winding down. This is what I feel we'll have to do if we want to produce something other than a film that simply relies on camera movement to classify it 'poetic.' I would feel the film would be much more of a success if it could be broken down into identifiable times of day.
The second limitation is that our track at full length is around six meters, not three hundred as it is in Sea Change. This means that unlike Sea Change, where the fades from one time frame to another blend seamlessly, our film will have to fade from not only a different time of day, but to a different location. I hoping that through the symmetry of the market aisles that this doesn't make the film feel too disjointed and if anything it actually be reminiscent of the chaotic and hectic feel of the market its self.
The soundtrack is interesting as it uses both recorded atmos of bird song and occasional barking dogs, layered with an eerie, echoing, almost musical track. The two combined create a sense of great emptiness, reminiscent of the large, flat, empty plain on which the caravan community are situated. There are elements of the sea played into the track too, the birds sound like sea gulls and the faint sound of waves/wind can be heard, also connoting the feeling of a great emptiness. What I take from this is the fact its important for the soundtrack to add too and match the themes of the work, in the case of my film, while at the begging when the market is being set up, while there will be noise, not so much as during peak opening hours and again. To resemble this, a suitable soundtrack would raise and fall as the market fills then empties.
Sea Change, 2005. Film. Directed by Rosie PEDLOW & Joe KING. UK: Folk Projects.
http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/sea_change
"Filmed on a caravan park at the end of the season, Sea Change reveals a landscape dramatically transformed by light and time, and resonating with the transience of human presence. The old caravans that fill the site are soon to be removed and crushed to make way for a new housing development, so the film also acts as a kind of document for an unusual place on the brink of disappearance."
With our poetic documentary, our overall goal it to a piece reminiscent of this work. Like the subject in Sea Change, Castle market's days are numbered and by making our documentary inside it gives us a chance to capture this unique location before it becomes a thing of the past.
We too will be using a track, albeit a much shorter one, in order to achieve fluid movement through the environment. The reason Sea Change works so well is because the makers have managed to capture the same scene in very contrasting lights and times of day. This throws up the first problem when trying to imitate the work, the fact Castle Market is indoors and in places underground, the light stays essentially the same throughout the day. The only changing factor is the footfall, however, in this dying market place the different from 9am to 6pm is so slight that if portrayed on film, I fear the message would be lost. The only way in which this would work is if we arrived around 5am to catch the traders setting up and then came back at closing time, to see it all winding down. This is what I feel we'll have to do if we want to produce something other than a film that simply relies on camera movement to classify it 'poetic.' I would feel the film would be much more of a success if it could be broken down into identifiable times of day.
The second limitation is that our track at full length is around six meters, not three hundred as it is in Sea Change. This means that unlike Sea Change, where the fades from one time frame to another blend seamlessly, our film will have to fade from not only a different time of day, but to a different location. I hoping that through the symmetry of the market aisles that this doesn't make the film feel too disjointed and if anything it actually be reminiscent of the chaotic and hectic feel of the market its self.
The soundtrack is interesting as it uses both recorded atmos of bird song and occasional barking dogs, layered with an eerie, echoing, almost musical track. The two combined create a sense of great emptiness, reminiscent of the large, flat, empty plain on which the caravan community are situated. There are elements of the sea played into the track too, the birds sound like sea gulls and the faint sound of waves/wind can be heard, also connoting the feeling of a great emptiness. What I take from this is the fact its important for the soundtrack to add too and match the themes of the work, in the case of my film, while at the begging when the market is being set up, while there will be noise, not so much as during peak opening hours and again. To resemble this, a suitable soundtrack would raise and fall as the market fills then empties.
Sea Change, 2005. Film. Directed by Rosie PEDLOW & Joe KING. UK: Folk Projects.
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