Critical Evaluation

With the final film I was, surprisingly, pleased. I felt I had to some extent achieved what I had set out to do; to make a film about a human being who is facing a crisis in their life, and for this to be believable to an audience. I say surprisingly because I felt, as did the rest of the crew, that filming was an extremely rocky road that was probably detrimental to any short coming in the final film.
The strengths of the film lie in the presentation of the character and his problem. The film takes an observational, unsentimental and un-dramtic approach in showing how the main character spirals out of control due to losing his career and then developing an eating disorder. Through the use of long takes and use of long shots and close-ups, the is made both realistic and believable, and emotionally honest and intimate. Rather than rush to extremes with the character's problem, it lets it develop in a natural way, creeping into different aspects of the character's life slowly but eventually. This also allowed for the audience to work their own way into the film, work out what was going on by themselves, rather than be force fed plot, and also to make their own minds up about what kind of person the character is. The films lighting and composition, which contribute greatly to the films mood, are also a high point for the film.

There are a number of weakness of the film which I would like to address. For a start, that fact the film had to be re-structured due to actors not being available meant that scenes such as the bed scene, the take away scene and the house mate scene felt a little disjointed and pushed in. As we didn't get to film scenes that would have better padded out the information concerning these scenes the feel rather like there is information missing.
The sound design, i.e. the minimal music that is in the film, was unfortunately a little quiet, which was surprising as we felt we had found the right level in the edit suite. This problem was most likely created because I felt that only absolute minimal sound would work the film and therefore insisted that the music be as low in volume as sensibly possible.


The main difference between planning and final film is the structure. The ending boxing scene is at the start, not just because of filming restrictions, but also because we felt in the edit we needed a much more dynamic opening.
Because we couldn't film everything we wanted to we also had to effectively delete a character that was only referred to, however this meant the main actress played the man's wife rather than someone who he met in the film and began seeing. This did not change the meaning and feeling of the film too much but did take away from the spiral out of control.


During the making of the film I think the biggest lesson I learnt was to never underestimate how little time you will have. The producer and I sat down countless times to produce time schedules for shoots and we always ran over, without fail. What this meant in the long run is that we wouldn't get everything filmed, in conjunction with the actors more or less giving up after two weeks. The main cause for ver running was the carful and intricate lighting plans that Ben and I implemented. However, we would both tell you, and I still would, that this time was more than well spent, and needed to be. The look of the film was of greatest importance to us and so much of the film's story was told through the lighting and composition set ups. Put simply, we didn't have enough time with the actors.

Another if we had enough time I would of type lesson, and there are tens of them from this production, would be to sit down with the actors as much as I possibly could. As it was I got to meet with James, the main actor, three times to sit down, discuss the film and it's direction and run through scenes, with me in the role of other characters. We would also discuss changes to the script, if James thought that lines could be changed so they had they same meaning, but would sound better coming from his mouth. Also would just discuss abstractly the film's 'meaning' and direction so it was understood why he was doing what.
Despite this though, I was repeatedly lead to think by James on set behaviour that he was un sure of what to do and had even neglected reading the script. I thought that if we were to get the film sorted in his head before going on set he could just turn and we could more or less role and he would be in the zone and right frame of mind to achieve what I wanted him to achieve with the role. This was just so far from the case.
For a start he was always having to check dialogue from the script which was very frustrating, especially when the whole crew was ready to go after rushing through a set-up.
The other occurrence of this type of event was when the both the actor and actress questioned the need for the 'smashing food' scene to be so physical, as if it came from nowhere, in reality and the script this was not the case as the scene was the culmination of the experiences the character had throughout the film, this was frustrating to say the least.
Any future project I will make sure to spend the maximum time possible with any actor or actress in order to make sure they fully understand what is expected of them, so much so that they wouldn't need to spend too much time on their own working out things.

As director and writer I was to a large extent the driving creative force behind the film. During the writing process I produced many different versions and drafts of scripts and bounce them off group members for opinion and feedback.
Then with the producer found actors and actress, which was not easy as two potential actresses dropped out before I even met them and it took at least week to contact James, never mind any other actors.
With Ben, the cinematographer I did floor and lighting plans and gave him ideas on what I wanted for the look of the film.
On set I did many jobs, including filling in for an extra who wasn't hired. Mostly though I moved the shoot along and gave direction when needed as I felt I had got everyone on the right wavelength before filming began, in terms of what was to be achieved and how.
The main problem was that a lot of the time I had to fill in for the producer or simply just get on with jobs that most would of that were his, such as getting locations, getting props lists, finding an actress, although with such a small production I think everyone probably does a bit of everything.

The films that inspired to make the film the way in which I did were Michelangelo Antonioni's 'L'eclisee' and 'Blow-up', Mike Leigh's 'Naked' and John Huston's 'Fat City'.

The style of Antonioni's film's is what I am inspired by in respect to his work. The way he blends formalism and realism is wonderful and makes for much more powerful film. He uses formal elements, i.e. lighting, composition, juxtaposition, sound, colour, but within a context that could be mistaken for realism, which makes them all the more powerful.
From 'Naked' I wanted, Ben specifically, to capture the feeling's of despair from the lighting, which seemed quite blanketed but grey in the interiors but incredibly moody in the interiors. This was much the case with 'Fat City' which is very well lit by Conrad Hall. Especially the bar scenes, in which Hall makes wonderful use of minimal light, to the effect of a somber and gloomy set, but still full of light.

When creating the film I always tried to keep in mind Eisenstein's formal elements, lighting, composition, edit, colour, sound, etc and to make sure each one was telling the audience at all times. I'm not if I quite achieved this challenging task but felt that I got a good way there. I also felt that the film achieved the realism aspect as there was nothing to explicitly break the fourth wall.

Ropes: The story of production.

Once pre-production was underway proper, my first port of call was discuss the look of the film with Ben and to also set Jonny on his way with getting locations, actors and props and other mise en scene type things.

I wanted to give the film a look which at once gave the audience a realistic and observational feeling and at the same time was giving the audience messages and signals about the character.
My main inspiration for this, as ever, was the work of Michelangelo Antonioni, specifically Blow-up, L'eclisse and L'avventura. These works effortlessly straddle the line between realism and formalism and it is for this reason I love them so much. To watch the films without really concentrating they are without any suspicion a slow paced film of absolute realism. However with a closer look, one can see that Antonioni is using every single element available to him to create a film rich with filmic language, that is not at all slow or hard to watch simply because of the amount of information being presented to you. In L'eclisse the opening shot is of some books with an arm leaning on them, this arm belong to a character who is dependent on intellectual knowledge and without it, will fall down. He his nervous and indecisive, he is almost clinging to his books. The a shot of a woman looking out of a window, she is longing to get out of the current situation, objectivized by the room, and into the world, the world behind the curtains. Then a shot of her moving and touching things through a picture frame, a window into the world, as if she is standing on the other side of some barrier, only able to stick a hand through to touch and feel ‘life’. Then another representation of life through a landscape painting that she longingly looks at. Shots of the man looking confused are intercut here. Then a striking shot of the woman’s legs, shown in contrast to legs of chairs and tables, the legs are also reflected in the marble floor. This reference is in keeping with the existential themes of the film. Then woman goes back the window and we see here reflected in the glass, like the marble floor shot. She then crumples herself in depression onto the sofa. This is the kind of story telling I wanted to achieve with Ropes.

I sent Ben off with some of Antonioni's films as well as Mike Leigh's Naked and John Huston's Fat City.
I wanted Ben to using the lighting schemes from both of these films which so honestly show the desperation of the characters involved. 

I wanted to use the same gym as we did with Bout, as i felt it's ruggedness and chracter were perfect in reflecting the kind of world the main character is living in. The ripped bags and torn posters all over the wall show the kind of emotionally tarnished and physically unstable condition the character will eventually develop throughout the film.

My house was chosen to shoot the domestic scenes more out of convenience than anything else.   The rooms are white, good for lighting and also spacious and therefore convenient to shoot in. Taking into considering the small amount of time we had to shoot, choosing my house was a necessity in reality, due to the amount of time it would save us.

James, the actor, was more or less a choice that had to be made, he was the only actor we could get in for an audition. After an actress pulled out due to health reasons, Hannah, a friend of james', was chosen to play the part of the girlfriend, which in turn turned out to be lucky, as she was a professional make-up artist who did the make up for the film as well.

Due to the availability of the actors, who both had full time jobs, filming time was tight, which was made worse by mine and Ben's meticulous lighting plans, which made time especially tight. 

Working with James was both a good and hard experience. James was quite enthusiatic about the role and was constantly questions about the character and we were able to build a person together out of the script.
During filming a tried to let James do his own thing, only interfering if something wasn't right or something in the script wasn't being achieved or if he wanted any advice with anything he should be doing. This happened often and it occurred to me and some of the other crew members that maybe James had not read the script enough, as I had through with him plenty of times what the film was about and what I expected of him in many senses. 
 

Due to time constraints some scenes, such as the take-away food one had to be rushed, using simple lighting and composition, which was soul destroying. The reason for this was the actors needed to get away and we were forced to rush set-ups and filming.
Shortly afterwards the actors told us that they would not be available for anymore filming. This meant we were forced to go to edit with what we had.

Ropes

Having finished Bout I set about writing a script for our ten minute film. Wanting to keep with the idea from the original story, and Bout, about how people need something in life, especially in modern times, to help the get on with life I again used a boxer who had been thrown of the circuit. I tried to change the profession or hobby of the character, perhaps just for the sake of change, as the idea would remain the same, but in the end though that the character of a boxer would be best suited to what we wanted to show and what we could achieve in such little time. The hobby/profession of boxing is seemingly quite well suited to filming making as it can exaggerate easily, through training and fighting, the trials and tribulations of a character visually.