shot list

Street view

Window shot

Laptop 1

Laptop2

Laptop O.T.H

Light

O.T.S

Draws 1

Draws2

Draws 3

Bed 1

\Monkey 1

Monkey 2

 Monkey 3

Monkey 4

Bed 2

Monkey 5

Light 2

Glass

Glass 2

Glass three

Glass bed

Absence of Satan

A beautiful woman screams at something unseen off camera. Paul Newman appears eating salad and soon the famous sequence of Paul Newman closing a car door cut with a helicopter takes place. Absence of Satan is probably one of George Barber's best Scratch works and is a deft reworking of cinematic narrative and cliché. 

In this film George Barber shows off his 'Scratch video' skills. Which came about in the mid 1980's in the UK. He found films and television programmes and cut them together to make a new meaning. Its done to a beat and has been referred to as the video version of DJ scratching which was commonly used in Hip-Hop music. I liked the way the clips  made sense and moved in a rhythm, this is something that I would have liked to put in my experimental film. I didn't quite understand the images on the boat, but neither the less it complimented the video scratching. 

The music

I used Garage band to produce some of the music that features in the film. I used various sounds such a pas and synth leads to create the atmospheric sound track.  I used the Oxygen 25 midi key board to play the sounds into garage band.

Other tracks were taken from youtube

Post-Production

In final cut we had troubles with some of the files but the finished product was a success. We used the slow motion , reverse with numerous transitions to create the feel of our film. Me and christie worked in a pair to edit the film as we were more experienced with Final Cut Pro.

The Idea

When our group first came together for a production meeting, we all had ideas of what films we wanted to make for the experimental.

Tom- A man who suffers with Bipolar and he has a split personality. He had the idea of two different actors portraying the same character, one being his dark character and the other being his normal and happy character. I thought it could be a great subject to explore but I wanted something that had all of our ideas in. the idea had a lot a potential because if we used first person view lights and abstract editing could be added to create a more emotive frame.

Cristie- he had a monkey that he thought would be great focal point for our film. But he didn’t have a storyline or firm idea of how we were going to use it to create something original. I liked the idea of the monkey as the main subject because not only did it seem like a great prop. It also intertwined with the idea I had.

My idea was to personify an object and give it human authority and presence. I came up with the concept of an Apple having a dominant presence.

The final idea was a merge of all of our ideas combining the idea of a mentally insane man who is being tormented by a puppet monkey. By doing this we have all had an equal part with in the initial production development stages of the experimental film. We were planning to use the Sony PD170 but all of them were booked out so we used the Sony Z1. We also planned to film in the dark and use household lights to light up the scenes. 

The Experimental Hand Out

Experimental film is separate from the studio system exploring how certain subjects and themes can be portrayed in film. The films are normally abstract and at times improvised to create a feel or atmosphere in a film. By reading this booklet about experimental films I have noticed elements of the art form within my own film production. Some films may be inspired by a poem; I think by experimental film taking poems and interpreting them with a visual aid it cause the audience to think about the words and the image and what they mean when they are both combined. Experimentalists don’t necessarily have to go out and film their own footage to create their film allot of them use footage from other sources i.e. (newsreels & video sharing sites like YouTube). When experimentalists affix this type of footage to their films they are free to twist facts or create a totally fictional story.

Another unique ways experimentalists explore different aspects of film is by using animation, strips. Using both narrative and non-narrative films experimental films can take a storyline in any direction. Sometimes an experimentalist’s film may not make any sense at all to the audience. It might just want to evoke certain emotions or highlight a subject or maybe even an object. Voiceovers and external sounds are used in experimental alot. In the handout it gives an example of a experimental film which explores the theme of religion, where a nun discovers her sexuality. This is a so called ‘Taboo’ subject and wouldn’t normally be put in conventional films.  Film is stretched to its limits when it comes to experimental films to the point where it can be offensive to some viewers. By putting to opposite themes into a film like Holiness and Erotica, in reality those themes bear no resemblance to each other and would never be put together. But that’s what makes it experimental hence the breaking of normal social barriers.  Compared to the experimental films mentioned my film would be seen as the ‘safe’ choice when it comes to content.

B.I.T. Plane

A critical aero-anthropological study of Silicon Valley USA. The Bureau of Inverse Technology, an information agency, deploys its model spy plane the BIT PLANE [wingspan 31"] on this mission deep into the glittering heart of the Silicon Valley, to investigate the progress of the Information Age.

In this experimental uses the personal view of the spy technology i.e.( the BIT Plane & spy bug). This puts the viewer a first hand experience of what the plane saw from the skies. Sounds from the radios and the engines in the spy plane is continually played throughout the film, this creates the atmosphere of the sky. Text is used to inform the audience of what the mission of the spy plane was.

The film has no structure, this helped it with it's effectiveness because it doesn't need a beginning or a end its objective was to inform. But I do think that it does loose some of its effectiveness by chopping up the text so much. The film met its goal but I felt that it could of been done more effectively by being more creative with the footage that was shown.