Signs of the Times...

Two weeks ago we watched Fritz Lang's Metropolis as I mentioned previously...

I now can't stop finding images that remind me of Metropolis! Im not just talking about C3P0 from Star Wars either. The first thing I saw was a 1916 postcard of 'the future New York', I saw this in a postcard book and was reminded so much of Metropolis. 

The Hugh Ferriss drawings of 1922, known as "The Four Stages" or "Evolution of the Set-back Building" are perhaps the most iconic and influential architectural images of the 1920s. They inspired other architects to understand the rules of New York's 1916 zoning law, not as a restriction, but as a principle for a new, modern skyscraper. He perfected the dramatic chiaroscuro technique that exaggerated the monumental qualities of structures, suppressing ornament and detail.This Vogue Cover was illustrated by Georges Lepape in 1927, Its very Art Deco and I think the buildings in the background look very stylistic of Metropolis. When this futuristic landscape became popular it changed our culture and effected everything from artists to fashion designers.This poster on the left is a vintage 1978 poster for The Water Engine by Paul Davis. As you can see the influence in design form Metropolis is basically completely copied. At least he had the decency to copy it badly!
Our next screening was Strike. A 1925 silent film made in the Soviet Union by Sergei Eisenstein. Last year Andy showed us Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. I found strike a lot harder to watch in comparison. I had no idea what the story was, I was very confused and when you feel like your lost it's hard to empathise with the worker that I take it you are supposed to be following during the film. So I thought this was a shame because I can't empathise with people when I don't know what's happening!All this aside the film did have many merits, although I didn't always know exactly what was going on in the story itself, the feelings came across well. I knew that there was no one protagonist, making it about the whole group, the masses, the unity came across well. For it's time I could appreciate the metaphorical editing. The notorious, built up cow slaughter scene wasn't pleasant but was in no way as bad as people had made out. Galina was more upset about the cruelty to cats (the hanging up by the tails really got her) and I was shocked by the throwing of the child off a balcony, too far.
Although I didn't find Strike too enjoyable it did make me think about the best propaganda to use to inspire feeling in people. I have a good book on propaganda posters and I was astounded by how the majority of the use the human hand as a metaphorical symbol. This was quite present during the course of the film also. A workers hand is as much a tool as their wrench and hammer. You can tell how much manual labour a person does just by examining the condition of their hands. In a more violent sense a hand is the bare tool used to kill someone, strangulation, or the fact that your hand has to hold the gun or whatever. People have always raised their hands to ask questions or to be selected. In propaganda the raising of your hand can be uses to show unity (a main theme in Strike) or power. It is a very emotive image that is simple enough to be effective.This poster is 'A hand has five fingers, with five fingers you can repel the enemy, vote five' it's a 1928 poster by John Heartfield.

This Gustav Klutsis propaganda poster I have shown you before but I think in terms of a good use of hands to show unity and force it does its job extremely effectively and is therefore worth me showing you again. The poster is called 'fulfilled plan, good work' as I have already mentioned, the direction and angles used in this particular poster are highly effective and influential. Influence would have been one of the highest priorities for poster artists during any time of political upset. When you need people to vote you have to influence them to think your way. People are extremely influential and knowing certain ways of manipulating through design would have been a big help especially during the wartime.
1941 poster 'It's our war' again the angle here is vital. When I see this image I feel as though I'm lying directly underneath this arm, I can fell the force that they are brandishing their hammer as I can see the muscles in the arm are tense and strong.
Here is Saul bass' poster design for the film Exodus. Its a good example of showing unity and the masses simply without having to literally show each and every person. Bass is a very unique graphic artist in that his style is simplistic, blocked out shapes and colour. He has a real talent for showing you a lots of things within maybe two or three very simple shapes.

To be honest the very first thing I thought of when I saw Metropolis was the Futurama landscape!

"Treating reality in a theatrical way..."

"The production designer supervises everything that is visual: sets, locations, props, co-ordinator of costume within the settings..."-Ken Adam

We had a full class with Andy on Production Design in the movies. This was absolutely great, a very important part of cinema. What is production design? This question was harder to answer than I thought it would be, It's everything you see on screen. Nothing shown in a shot will be there merely for "kicks." Everything will have been selected, carefully chosen, manufactured down to the last detail, it's all there for a purpose. Making Production Design a vital part of a films DNA, after all it's a visual industry.The movie West Side Story won the Art Direction Oscar in 1961. I think the film is incredibly rich in terms of colour and landscape. With the costumes for the Puerto Ricans and the americans presented so perfectly. The Puerto Rican costumes are so vivid they remind me of those vibrant bags of spices. This intense, passionate colour adds so much to their dances. Its all about collaboration and how each department comes together to produce the best movie possible.
The dark, sleeker costumes of the Puerto Ricans contrast heavily with the very bright 'Beach Boys' look of the Jets. It's incredibly 50's down to the last detail. Look at the cars! The Puerto Ricans are sporting Converse too! Although they do, of course wear the black classic ones.

The New York fire escape stairs will forever be connected to this movie because everyone remembers this scene between Maria and Tony. To take this great scene from Romeo and Juliet and change the balcony with the more modern, urban stairs was a great idea. New York City is almost another character in the movie, not simply a backdrop. The movie uses the city as the land of so much promise and opportunity. Only to find that it's overpopulated and crime ridden. 
The 1948 Oscar for a film with colour went to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 'Red Shoes'. Again this movie is very theatrical, glorious Technicolor epic that has really influenced generations of filmmakers, artists, and aspiring ballerinas. I would argue that it's Art direction has been a big factor in it's appeal.

After our Production Design class I got 'The Diary of Anne Frank' out of the RSAMD library. 

The film received three oscars in 1959. It won the award for best Art Direction, best cinematography and best supporting actress Shelly Winters. (who I was trying to place for the whole film, then I remembered I'd seen her in 'The Night of the Hunter' with Robert Mitchum, and my Buona sera Mrs Campbell, great movie!) Speaking of performance. Performance, performance, performance. I think Robert Mitchum in this 'The Night of the Hunter' is one of the scariest men I've ever seen on screen. I don't know why but his cool tone and hesitation creates so much suspense that I can hardly bare it. I love that feeling though so I do bare it, again and again.

Shelly Winters' Best Supporting Actress Oscar 

for 'The Diary of Anne Frank'

So back to my point! Here is a still I've selected from The Diary of Anne Frank. I had read the book when I was a lot younger and this summer I visited the annex when I was in Amsterdam. They have in their possession Shelly Winters' oscar from the film, which she dedicated to the museum. This was the first oscar I have ever seen. (Im not gonna lie I thought the face might be more detailed but exciting none the less!)  I chose this still because for me it was the cinematography and art direction at it's best. I think it's a beautiful scene between the two young lovers and the lines of sheets give you the sense of separation between them and the rest of the world. The colours (even though it's black and white) look very pure and innocent. As Anne and Peter have been in hiding for an important part of their adolescent years they are each others first love and there purity is shown so simply here through the use of Art direction.

I have already spoken about the master Ken Adam in my blog. In particular his production design in the James Bond movies. People don't always look at his other great masterpieces like 'Around The World In Eighty Days' a wonderful film for the senses. I've always thought the colour palette used here is really something. It just presents adventure, decadence, dreamlike bliss to the audience within a split second. With art direction you can say so much without need in the time it takes to talk. 

"A picture says a thousand words"

Again because of the nature of this particular movie. Colour is extremely important to show travel and the mix of cultures and adventure. The audience wants to also feel that they've been somewhere new and exciting.

"It's a wonderful world, if only you'd take the time to go around it" 

To sell the film to an audience you have to make many promises. The first promise might be the poster. This poster for 'Around The World In Eighty Days' is promising you a fun, gallivanting adventure. Come on a journey to fun new places that you might not have been to before! The actual movie will have to deliver what is being promised by the marketing design. In most films the Production Design has a big part to play in delivering the promise.

I found this still form the film 'The Apartment' I think in terms of Production Design it is a really successful way to present a dull, boring monotonous office. Just look at that! Jeez I would not want to work there!

Just look at all these angles working together to create a space that looks endless and so very daunting. Rows and rows of desks that disappear into the horizon, I really don't see the end! (thus the point I think!) Lines are good for this. A straight line is about the most boring thing your eye can see. Each is the same, shapes conjure up emotions in us that we unconsciously feel from experience. A good Production Designer will play on these emotions to unconsciously manipulate you, allowing you further into the world or characters feelings.
We spoke briefly on the film Amadeus (one of my mum's favorites!) The costumes and sets are just lovely. I think a lot of this was 'borrowed' (cough cough) and used as inspiration for Sophia Copolla's film 'Marie Antoinette'. The still I picked out just looks like a perfect little french cake or something, everything looks delicious and edible. Adding to that sense of decadence again.
We had spoken once before with Andy about scale in the movies. Lawrence of Arabia was one of his example for this. Scale and design are very closely related in films. Its the world that is being presented and therefore needs someone to come up with the look to get the scale right.
A quick re-cap on the rest of the week. We had the whole of Tuesday with Zam. His lessons are really interesting, thought provoking and he's very engaging, it's interesting because as he's teaching you can see how he would be as a director. We each wrote a treatment for our film scene and had to read each others out to the rest of the class.This was a really good exercise. It really got the brain thinking, we had to write the treatment as though we were the director and it was our film. It was funny listening to everyone reading out someone else's treatment. Almost everyone in our class has a very particular way of speaking and articulating something. Listening to Michael read Phil's passionate treatment of Lord of the rings or Luke reading Murdo's was really bizarre!-actually quite a good exercise for Richard's class when we spoke of how every human has their own vernacular and how this shows their character.

Around the World in Eighty Days Title sequence by Saul Bass

So this weeks been very invaluable to us. We had our first sound class with Cam. He's a very good teacher and actually made sound class not suicide worthy. 

"As production designer one always depends a great deal on the efficiency of the art department, and it's effectiveness as a team"

-Ken Adam

And we're back!

RSAMD round two take it away...

Back to Academy life! Screenings, premises, blogging and the dreaded Moooodle!-which at this rate will have replaced tutors altogether by the year 2011...with its lack of pictures and ugly layout.  (unlike this lovely Metropolis poster, which really shows the tone of the films plot rather well with such few images)

We are now 2nd years but altogether not much has changed. We have an additional, much needed class with Zam Salim to teach us all the different aspects of directing and in particular how to get the best performance out of an actor. In ways like this, I feel that we are really moving forward. Even the most amazing Academy films I have watched were always let down on performance. Something which really needed to be addressed in our learning and now has. 

Other aspects of the course haven't changed much, we're still watching awesome power points brought to us by Andy! And had our first class, which consisted of researching everything we could find about...Andy Dougan! This amused me, "Did you know that Andy Dougan keeps a packet of biscuits hidden in his drawer?" Which biscuits? Ginger nuts of course. You learn something new everyday!

Our first screening was not of russian cinema but of Fritz lang's Metropolis.
I would like to mention how surprised I was by this film. I had heard alot about it (as im sure everyone has) but I was always told to watch it for the production design and style. i didn't expect Metropolis to have such a clear narritive, it was easy to get drawn into this future world and really feel for the workers. No doubt helped by the absolutely amazing production design and costumes. I could see how much Metropolis would have influenced up and coming filmmakers. From C3PO to Bladerunner, graphic novel references (perhaps the idea that in Gotham City the richer you are the higher you are in the buildings, the slums were at the lowest level of the city just like Metropolis) Again in the movie The 5th Element the future world has been built upwards towards the sky and the slums reside at the bottom. The whole idea of how architecture will shape our landscape, when we run out of space on the earths surface, which we will. The only thing we can do will be to build taller building towards the sky and eventually no light will get to the earths surface.

The city design that has shaped our idea of 'the future'

Making it unsuitable for living. This whole idea of the future we now think of would have come from stories, paintings and films like Metropolis. I could even see hints of inspiration for Matt Groening's Futurama in there at times. It's funny how we think of the Metropolis' style of 'Future' as what the future will look like. 

Its really scandalous!!!

No-one has seen the future so there is no reason why it should look this way but we are so culturally influenced by what we see in the media that when and image is repeated and used over and over again we instantly think of that image when someone says "what do you think the future world will look like?" the majority of young children at school would draw you a scene straight out of this movie. With the tall skyscraper buildings, lots of machines/technology. As a production designer they would first look at how the world has thus far and from there you can creatively judge where we 'could' be going in terms or architecture, vehicles, appliances etc. 

Of course in real life a production designer has the job of coming up with a product that has the right mix of being technically good at it's purpose and having a pleasing aesthetic design, how it looks, feels. These two things combined are the key. However in the movies you don't need the product to actually work effectively so the designer can have much more fun experimenting with the look and style. 

This is shown effectively in Metropolis, the poor mans job of tending to that big wheel with light bulbs at each segment for example. We have no idea technically what this object is for, but we understand the meaning and urgency behind its purpose. If the worker stops it will malfunction, the design is clocklike so we get the impression that the worker has been there for hours and the job is tedious because the object is a circle, and circles have no end. All these things are presented to us just from the set design. I thought it was all very amazing, especially when I think of the time it was made. The hand drawn animation and special effects in particular.
Im excited about the work we're going to be covering this year, its looking good so far thats for sure! In particular I'm excited about the news that we have another field trip coming up! Oh yeah! It'll be hard to beat our beloved Panopticon however.

Anyway enough Metropolis!-I forgot to mention that I saw Harry Potter And the Half Blood Prince over the summer! As you all know it was a truely amazing film!

The new theme park will be opening in Orlando in 2010, hopefully that will be next year's Academy field trip sorted..!