Alarm: One Minute Film – David Thomas

Over the past month or so I have been working on a one minute film. It is surprisingly hard to pull off. The time restriction is the thing that makes it so hard, sixty seconds is not a long time so its difficult to overcome overly ambitious narratives. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to draw out a storyboard, then realise as your adding up the seconds of each scene that its not going to fit. However it has been a good experience for me and became very rewarding.

I thought that instead of writing narrative in a traditional manner, I would base it entirely on a random sound. I went around with a sound recorder then later sketched some ideas from my imagination. It hit me how far away you can distance yourself from the real object if you are only given the sound. My best idea was listening to an alarm clock and sketching out a life resusitation machine. This became the device of my choice, so here it is.

Actors: Josh Webber (Patient/ Dreamer) & Ian Thomas (Man in Suit). Also a big thankyou to University Hospital of Wales

Negative Thoughts – Film

With most of my projects taking on a fairly cheerful and happy look, I decided to explore how you could visualise something more negative. In my case, I am using a mind as the ‘implied space’ and the words are negative thoughts. To gather the words, I picked out things I considered negative from conversations with people

Most of this is the result of projection experiments. The idea is that your thoughts are sort of dictated by memory and things being experienced. For me memory (in everyday life) comes in short bursts, experiences are projected through my eyes.

So that’s the concept. I originally photographed my projection experiments, but decided in the end it would work better as a mini-film piece. The sound is influenced by Eraserhead which used no music, instead relying on the sounds produced from the World around us. Music and sound is a strange thing, because it can totally change the concept of what you are watching. It was important for me to keep the sense of disorientation. In their case it was a very industrial dominated soundtrack, mine takes more from city life.

As far as future improvements and additions go, I may well make another version. Its been suggested that I use some digital effects, because its all been done in camera up until now.

Negatives Video – Youtube

List of Interesting/ Creative Films to Watch

I have been on a bit of a search for creative films. Not many come out today, so I have been looking to past films. If your interested in weird, creative or inspiring films then here are some I have come accross:

1. ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ – This film is major freaky. It was one of the most famous films to take on German Expressionism. It was filmed in 1920, so naturally there is music but no sound or dialogue. Anything spoken is presented as text in between clips. Very strange ideas such as painting surreal shadows into the actual set and building abstract looking props (and buildings).

2. ‘8½’ by Fellini (1963) – Fellini was a famous Italian Director. He was suffering from something known as ‘Directors Block’, so was out of ideas. Fellini then cleverly turned his problem on its head and made a film about a director who was suffering from Directors Block. The result was a film that many film critics see as one of the finest ever made.

3. ‘Run Lola Run’ by Tom Tykwer (1998) – This 1 hour+ film only represents 20 minutues. Its German, but you’ll recognize the main actress from the Bourne Identity films. Lola has 20 mins to save her boyfriend’s life. I won’t give any more away because it would spoil the film.

4. ‘The Science of Sleep’ (2006) – This is a film by French Director Michel Gondry. If you liked ‘Be Kind Rewind’ then oyu should watch more of his stuff. This film is quite good, it follows the life of a man who can’t tell the difference between reality and his dreams. The main character is pretty annoying to be honest, but if your after creative ideas watch this film.

5. Jean-Pierre Jeunet makes awsome films. Watch these films by him:
– Amélie
– Delicatessen
– The City of Lost Children

All of those films have excellent and unique style. He has also worked on American films (such as Alien: Resurrection) but I would recommend the projects he has done ‘more closer to home’.

6. Tim Burton makes good films with freaky and unique style. Search for a list of films by him and take your pick. I personally recommend Big Fish, it has a very nice storyline.

7. ‘Fargo’ (and more recently ‘No Country for Old Men’) by Joel and Ethan Coen are excellent films. Very heavily storyboarded and beautiful in style.

Thats it for now. If anybody reading knows any fitting films I might be interested in please post them in the comments, I would be very grateful!

I’ll update with some more review/ lists in the near future.

preparing to make funky new website

Its been a year since deleted the old website with all my work on.

Now its time to announce that my new website will soon be available: ManyWonderfulThings.co.uk

This time its going to be more of a place for you to spend some time at and enjoy rather than purely a work website. I intend to provide free comics, illustrated stuff, stories, animations, as well as tutorials for stuff I think people may find useful. Hopefully I can also put something there for you to have a chat with each other and with me. Maybe somewhere for you to have a doodle too!

If I get requests to I may also start thinking about selling some of the little books and stuff I make sometimes.

Oh and I’ll be putting my lovely songs such as the beloved ‘The Funky Doormat’ and ‘Jazz Potato’ up for you too, so keep an eye out and I’ll post up on my progress (and when it opens!)

Tell me if you think of any good ideas you’d like to see!

Film Workshop – The Godfather 4

For the past four weeks we have been doing a film workshop at University. Me and two others decided it would be fun to do another Godfather film, but make it more like a ‘how not to do’ take.

I created most of the used storyboards, so ended up directing a lot of it (which I enjoyed). There is still part of me saying that I enjoyed directing the actual photography rather than the actual film as a whole. Creating the storyboards and camera angles/ set ups were definitely the most engaging for me.

Working with Mitch Oram and Nick Stamp was also enjoyable. Together we helped solve the technical problems and produce the actual film’s ideas. I did however find it quite stressful directing the acting, which I have had no experience of dealing with before. Our main actor (Nick) has also never acted before, which made this part even more strenuous. I found the best way to direct our actor was to show him what we wanted rather than just say what we wanted.

Another lesson I ran into was: Don’t film at night! Its difficult to pull off and everybody is more tired than usual! If I ever have to again, I will film at noon and just make it look like night in the editing phase!

Anyway, here’s the film: