George Carlin's Freakshow

george carlin’s freakshow a short film by stephanie kawan art direction 2

table of content introduction

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the idea the script meeting the actor generating ideas inspiration storyboard

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the work the shoot editing visual effects music and sound

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the short film conclusion

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introduction

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n collaboration with acting students we had to visualise one of the given scripts into a 60 second shirt film. The text was selected and prepared by the actors beforehand. For the implementation we had the film studio at our disposal, in which we were able to shoot against green screen. There were no further restrictions whatsoever, which allowed to generate a broad variety of ideas and several possibilities in post production.

I chose an excerpt of George Carlin’s last interview, since I was already familiar with him as a comedian and admired his work and socio critical thinking.

This booklet gives an insight into the work process and an explanation for my respective decisions.

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You know what, I say it this way:

when you’re born in this world you’re given a ticket to the freakshow;

and when you’re born in America,

you’re given a front row seat.

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the idea the script

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nd some of us get to sit there with notebooks; and I’m a notebook kind of a guy.

And I watch the freak show, and I got my notes, and I make up stuff about it and I talk about the freaks. And the freaks are all humans, and they’re like me and they’re all the same … we’re all the same.

I’m not better, I’m not different. I’m just apart now. I’m separate; I’m over here because I put myself out of the mix. I don’t have a stake in the outcome; I’m not a cheerleader for a given outcome.

Oh, they say that if you scratch a cynic you’ll find a disappointed idealist, and I would admit that somewhere underneath all of this there’s a little flicker of a flame of idealism, that would love to see it all change, but it can’t; it can’t happen that way. And, incremental change? It just seems that the pile of shit is too deep.

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meeting the actor

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hen I first met with my actor, I already had a rough idea of where I wanted to go in regards of general look and feel of the short film. So, I shared my ideas and even

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discussed other possibilites together. While I was fully aware of my role as an art director, I wanted this collaboration to be as equal as possible, therefore giving the actor the opportunity to express his own thoughts and feelings about the script and the final outcome. Since we shared the same admiration for George Carlin, it was pretty easy to find common ground and start to develop a few suitable ideas further.

generating ideas

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onsidering Carlin’s background and the time and state he was in while giving the interview, I wanted to highlight the more serious meaning behind his works. Being a critical thinker, he was sharing a personal opinion on humankind, Americans especially, and reflecting on his past life.

My approach was to represent the target audience he was referring to as being part of “the freakshow” and establish a sense of uniformity, so that the character played by the actor can easily be replaced. This was meant to give some sort of better identification for the audience and comprehension of the theme.

keywords uniform subtle subconscious dark serious deep thoughtful provocative

I did not want to the actor to be Carlin himself, but to honour his mind by reflecting on the things he has said and then thinking for myself, since this was a big topic in his life and overall critics. I also realised that I couldn’t just let the actor say the whole script, because I didn’t want him to be a copy, but more of an interpretation or even metaphor.

The mood had to be strong and carefully initiated to give the audience the most entertainment and provocative playground to reflect at the same time. I immediately was thinking of more of a darker colour palette and subtle animations to lead the viewer throughout the film.

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inspiration

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storyboard

the work the shoot

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efore the shoot took place, I also had to think about props, make-up and clothing for my actor. My idea was simple and most of the work was planned to be done in post production.

I pictured my actor in a dark suit and very natural. I didn’t want to represent any working class by choosing the suit, but rather highlight the idea of uniformity. That was basically all that had to be done, I didn’t need any additional props.

Looking back, I definitely should have prepared myself better to work in such a short time-frame, because we slightly overdrew the 30 minutes we were given to shoot and direct. It was a bit chaotic for me, but with a little more structure and thought about the shoot itself, I would’ve had no problems at all. Although it turned out the way I like it and pushes the character in the direction I want him to be, so that people can identify themselves or others more importantly, I should have used more makeup. Nevertheless, it fits the setting and mood of the film.

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editing

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fter receiving and reviewing the footage, I knew that I had to make some changes to my storyboard – whether it was the right approach and time to do so or not. I was working out a new plan, adding additional cut scenes and thinking of other visual effects that I could implement. Again, this would have been not the case, if I had been more prepared at the shoot, but this gave me the chance to rethink and reflect my original decisions again, on the other hand.

titles and credits were also done in premiere pro, including some transitional effects

The editing was done in Adobe Premiere Pro and took only a few hours. I had planned a lot of different cuts, so timing and composition was essential. The second half of the film was a bit more complicated for me and I struggled at one point with the transition of two clips and the respective visual effects. In the end, I spend a lot of time on solving this problem until I found a solution that was acceptable for me.

I was trying to create jump cuts and capture the actor in movement, if necessary. I wanted to have some diversity in angles and length of scenes to make the film more dynamic and sophisticated for the audience.

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visual effects

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he visual effects were influenced by the opening titles of a tv show named True Detective. I didn’t want to copy the overall style, but to use it as a reference for what can be done.

My main visual theme is double exposure, a technique that has been around in photography for several years. It means to overlay two different images to create one single image. I used this effect to connect my visuals with the audio to illustrate the meaning of the film.

I spent more than ten hours on the effects and watched a lot of online tutorials. I also had to use royalty free stock footage, that I looked for on the internet, due to lack of time. Originally, I wanted to produce the film with only my footage and nothing more.

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music and sound

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immediately knew that I wanted an ongoing soundtrack in the background to have a subconscious tension for the audience. I found two tracks on the internet that were quite similar and paid for them.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t really convinced with each of them alone, but overlaying both tracks did the trick in the end. I especially liked them because of the single piano sounds to which I was trying to sync several effects in the film.

The audio track of my actor had to be polished, as well. I reduced the background noise, adjusted the overall volume and added a little reverb to gain a more three dimensional feel.

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the short film conclusion

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fter all, I am quite happy with the outcome of this film, since this was my first time having done anything with motion design to this extent. Although, of course, there are several things I could have done better, but I will take these as my experience and learn from it. This project showed me, that with a lot of patience and online tutorials, it is rather easy to dive into the technical aspect of making a short film, the software itself. Creating visuals and editing the film were easy, but to organise yourself and create a concept for motion graphics was fairly new to me and a bit of a hassle in the beginning.

This project introduced me to a direction I haven’t considered going before. So for now, I hope to extend my knowledge in art direction further and develop stronger skills in motion design to add to my portfolio.

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student project George Carlin’s Freakshow Stephanie Kawan Edinburgh Napier University Art Direction 2 Iain Macdonald 2014