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Welcome to DIRECT. This magazine is a token of the small contribution that we can make to the film and video industry and especially to those of you who are interested in video production directing and do not have the means to enroll at a film school.
Our contributing writers are:
Johnny Taute - Editor
You might even enjoy amateur video making or need some tips for a school project. We are the personnel from iLine Films, a production company in South Africa and we have walked the hard road of on the job training and reading books and magazines. i – LINE FILMS was founded by Johnny Taute in 2003, primarily to specialize in entertaining, informing and equipping the people of South Africa. The production company is situated in Pretoria, South Africa and delivers video productions for the Broadcast, Documentary and Corporate markets.
Dirk Pieters - Photography
i-Line Films delivers from concept to final mix and supplements the video facility with Photography as well. We deliver on the following Solutions: Pre production Script writing
Jean Pohl – Audio & Video
Productions for the Corporate, Training and Broadcast spheres Post production services Audio production Corporate & Magazine Photography Our production team is the main contributor to this magazine and we hope the articles inspire you to grow and learn more about the exciting world of video production.
Shani Kuhn – Video production & Editing
Contact info: www.iline.co.za
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In This issue: Visualization Production Design
VISUALIZATION
As a child you would sit or lie down on the eye-line (that is where we get our name i-Line films from) with your toy dolls, cars, guns, etc and that’s when you’ve seen the visual foundations of making movies. You were framing the stories you were acting as a filmmaker might, at eye-level with actors and props that moved all around you. Up close, your toys became alive and moving in your world that was both observed and experienced. The viewer’s sense that they are within the same spatial/temporal continuum as the film is described by filmmakers as “presence.” This illusion is the geometrical technique of portraying space to produce stories that are a reasonably truthful depiction of three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface because the camera shares the optical traits of human vision. But movies take the illusion further. Instead of just watching the pictures we are incorporated in the story as if it were real three-dimensional space with realistic sounds. The nearly perfect illusion of depth sets motion pictures apart from all other methods and today TV and Music videos scrounge a variety of techniques from avantgarde and experimental films and vice versa. Filmmakers who learn various framing and staging ideas
of a continuity style will have a better awareness of composition, editing techniques and threedimensional productions. Of course the 3D dimensions of the 80’s films are now refined and plays a majour influence in portraying the compositions of the frames. Visualization describes the creative development of turning thoughts into reality or makes the imaginary visible. Steven D. Katz writes “The promise is that we all have the power to decide our destiny, one image at a time, if we learn to channel our creative energies.” The writers seldom have a clear objective in mind when they begin writing, so visualization is essentially the exploration for a purpose rather than the attainment of a objective. It is very different when you image a scene in your mind’s eye than trying to duplicate it on film. When your inspirations emerge while you are labouring away, writing or editing a sequence, then your creative vigor is completely occupied in the process of visualization. Again Steven says “As I understand it, the imagination does not guide the hand, but is led by the hand when we have forgotten ourselves in the application of some craft. Once each stage of invention is committed to some substantial form, it is like a mirror revealing the imagination to itself. Suddenly, things we did not see 3
before become clear, or new possibilities emerge, and there is new material to work with. This twofold experience of imagining through craft, and the revelation at what has been created, is my understanding of visualization.” The vital aspects of visualization, the physical relationship with the medium and the chance to scrutinize and improve the story as it is produced, are tough because of the difficulty of telling the story correctly on film and more tricky for the narrative filmmaker whose work is financed and operates on a production schedule. Under these circumstances, visualization is limited to the script, which is not a graphic form. Visualization is the crossing point of Immediacy and Reflection. Immediacy means formulating the subject matter in an ordered sequence during the development stages. Assess your ideas as they take shape, try many combinations of ideas and compare them right away. Reflection is pondering on your drafts of the scripts, storyboards or rehearsals. Visualization include hands-on picture making in some tangible medium. Making ideas visible before they are put in front of the camera is a necessity. Steven D. Katz writes “The filmmaker who fills the blank page of a screenplay with a tightly composed scene may still be very far from knowing what shots will ultimately tell the story he is writing.” The storyboard’s frames are not necessarily the main benefit of visualization but when the staging
of a scene is previewed here and then improved, and then the storyboard has helped you to focus on the narrative again. Visualization is a way of coming up with new visual and narrative ideas before shooting begins and may help you find the dramatic center of the scene, or it may reveal a dishonest line of dialogue. You will be confronted with a range of choices that the script and storyboard did not attend to. The empty frame may scare you at first, but composing the frame is only the start of visualization. Each stage of the process requires commitment and the enthusiasm to be open to new thoughts as they appear as disconnected images or imperfect feelings to be discovered in the working process. Be aware of visual possibilities. Your visual memory will improve as you practice the art of filmmaking and it will become easier as your film grows day by day. There is no such thing as incorrect visualization, only options which leads to discovery, stages of thought, each leading to the next. Your film is not designed solely on paper and will change as soon as shooting commence. The process is completed when your film is and recognizing when to stop working on the film is as much a part of visualization as setting up the shots for a sequence. The reason for the visualization process is to help you create better sequences. Attempt to make every frame and sequence count as it is your soul responsibility as director.
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Your creative team of DOP and editor will do their best work when you are contributing and setting high standards for design.
PRODUCTION DESIGN Whether or not you are the main visualizer of a movie, the development and execution of the visual arrangement is the responsibility of the production designer and his crew and even more so because of the common practice of shooting scenes out of sequence and these same crews might work on various projects simultaneously. In addition to designing the style of the sets, props and costumes, the production designer is closely involved with the shot flow and dynamic elements of film design as well. Production Illustrations Production teams are assembled for each film. Still, try to work with people you know and have worked well with in the past, and as the producer, permits production designers to assemble their own squad. Included in the team are the key positions of art director, prop stylist, draftsman, production illustrator and costume designer. Each member of the art department contributes illustrations that fall into three basic categories:
effects to establish a style and assist in visual direction. Most production sketches are fast illustrations, thumbnails or diagrams —whatever are needed to get an idea across quickly and can eventually be developed for more proper and accurate communication. Their purpose is to indicate the look and feel of sets, locations, costumes, etc. Therefore, color, lighting and style are more important than a technically exact physical description. Accompanying the illustrations can be the digital photos of the sets. This means determining the actual material and mechanical solutions needed for construction and describing them in dimensionally accurate line drawings. 2. Plans, Elevations and Projections (Architectural) are the highly technical sketches that give the exact specifications needed to manufacture whatever is depicted in the design illustrations. There are four basic types of architectural illustrations used in production design: the plan, the elevation, the section and the projection. The first three types of drawings are related views. Taken together they provide all the information the building crew needs to understand the construction of an object, building or set. Plan
1. Concept and Final Design Illustrations are used to describe all the elements for the production, including sets, props, costumes, makeup and special
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Elevation
Projection Plans, Sections and Elevations: A Plan is a top view of an object, looking down at a cross- section as though a knife had cut across the entire building and the uppermost half had been removed. A building plan can be a floor plan or site plan. In film it is normally a floor plan drawn to scale. A SECTION VIEW usually refers to a profile or side view of an article or building. ELEVATIONS are front and side views and they are included alongside plans and drawn to the same scale. Projection: Combine the Plan and Elevation drawings for a perspective drawing of how the finished set will appear to the camera for any combination of lens and camera positions. It is useful when false walls need to be erected in scenes where the walls need to be smashed or burnt. Scaled models are another visualizing tool borrowed from the field of architecture and are used to visualize the three-dimensional scale which the camera records rather than the two-dimensional
space that viewers will see on the screen. They are an excellent visual aid for determining staging and camera setups but also help with planning what behind the camera. Models are built in much material cardboard; foam, plaster board, balsa wood and modeling clay are the most common. Toy cars, helicopter and models are combined for some effects and staging as well. Of course the modern 3D programmes can be employed to all the work when an artist can render such a module for the creative team. 3. Continuity Sketches and Storyboards are chronological panels which describe the compositions the shots and their order in the scene. Storyboards are still in far greater use than is generally acknowledged. Directors do not set up the scenes on the set without planning and illustrations. You may, in fact, be the main visual architect of a film, but the invented-on-the-set description of the production process is largely false. Only in experimental and independent film can one find—the writer-director-cameramaneditors—and even then their working method should include a great deal of planning and careful preparation before shooting to avoid havoc. Of the various types of production illustrations, the storyboard is the most helpful means the filmmaker has for visualizing ideas and scenes.
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