Production Design Research: The Grand Budapest Hotel

Production design, also known as Art Directing, in Film is the process of bringing and portraying a visual element from the set into the camera. In other words, the concern is less involved with the camera itself. Production design involves costume design, props, effects, make-up, graphics, locations, research (more relevantly if it’s a period piece), lighting [which in this post I will omit] to help create a world that emphasizes the vision of the director, as well as also of course working in unison with the director of photography.

The term “Production design” was first made up by William Cameron Menzies, mainly in reference to his work in the visual aspects of the film, “Gone With The Wind” (1939) – since then, its role has remained just as important (if not become more-so) to film making as it can bring loads of extra depth not only to each shot, but to a character, and the film’s setting. One modern Director whose films have distinct style is Wes Anderson, whose equally important but lesser known collaboration is of that with Adam Stockhausen, who did Production Design for Wes Anderson’s last two films: “Moonrise Kingdom” (2012) and most recently, “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (2014) – and this post will focus on the elements of design used within the latter film.

The work that goes into the style and art of the film is apparent shot to shot, including the introduction of when the hotel itself is first displayed:

The titular hotel this movie takes place surrounding is displayed with a pink, almost ‘fantasy’ or ‘candy-like’ palette, and the remainder of the films and locations do their part to bring other and new looks and colours that work along with this.

However, during the opening we quickly see a flash forward:

Ignoring that the time period is given to us in appearing text at the bottom of the frame, we immediately through the design are able to see that years have passed, merely through the colours. In terms of research, Stockhausen said the biggest inspiration for the Hotel’s design was the Grandhotel Pupp:

… Based in the Czech Republic.

One especially curious part of the production design in The Grand Budapest Hotel is how often the settings allow for mere static or moving graphics, that could be created with Photoshop or After Effects, for example. See below an example, a later scene in the film which a large portion of that made a fun and unique chase scene in a beautiful environment:

The film itself from the very start lays itself up to be based upon a book that a girl is reading in dedication to the author – before this very story is told in its film form to us the audience, narrated by said author. As a result of this, throughout the film we are greeted with title cards that split the film into various chapters:

The entirety of the film is filled with many illustrations such as this one, and the story itself also includes many different forms of additional artistic talent such as sweet foods:

military and hotel costumes:

(Above I will refer to later as Figure A.)

(Figure B above)

and a fair amount of the story line surrounds a fictional painting known as “Boy with Apple.”

This shot of it, upon character M. Gustav investigating it, shows him trying to mirror the boy within the painting posing it, all the while Zero reveals and includes himself into the scene using a mirror  sitting next to the art piece – a good use of minimalist set design that greatly improved an already interesting shot.

Further viewing into the shots show that colour has been used (possibly to an additional sense during grading) in the production design so shots based outside at night are often filled with blue, while shots within the hotel are often pink:

(Figure C above)

And while colour is what stands out the most throughout the film; Also does shape. Many of the shots are posited with the rooms to allow the characters to be in the direct center of the shot and the focus off attention – such as Figures A, B and C.

This shot spirals inwards towards the characters who are running up (and thus outwards from the center of the frame.) The viewer is being guided in towards where the characters are, and without fail each time they stand out.

This frame appears during gunfire occurring from each side, and shows more design while also giving a strange depth to the frame – making a scene intended to be confusing (as many people are all shooting at each other like a miniature war out of nowhere) even more so, but in a way that’s still visually appealing with the shot.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• Fleming, V. (Director). (1939). Gone with the wind [Motion picture]. Turner entertainment/Warner Home Video.
• Anderson, W. (Director). (2012). Moonrise kingdom [Motion

  picture]. Tobis.
• Anderson, W. (Director). (2014). The Grand Budapest Hotel [Motion picture]. Menart Records].
• Art director Adam Stockhausen on creating the world of The Grand Budapest Hotel. (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from https://thedissolve.com/features/below-the-line/464-art-director-adam-stockhausen-on-creating-the-worl/
• By Angie McPherson, National Geographic PUBLISHED Tue Feb 24 18:03:00 EST 2015. (n.d.). Oscar-Winning Art Director on Creating the Grand Budapest Hotel. Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150223-oscars-grand-budapest-hotel-europe-culture/
• Explainer: What is production design? (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-production-design-24062
• How Designers Built The World Of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” By Hand. (2015, February 20). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042014/how-designers-built-the-world-of-the-grand-budapest-hotel-by-hand
• Production designer, theatre/television/film: Job description. (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://www.prospects.ac.uk/production_designer_theatre_television_film_job_description.htm
• The Believer – The Dreams of a Creative Begetter. (2011, March 1). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://www.believermag.com/issues/201103/?read=article_cairns

Lighting Research: Neo-noir, and Dark City.

One principle of film making that can completely impact each shot of a film is the lighting it contains – lighting adds a layer of mood and putting more or taking it away can have dramatic effects on the audience with the type of emotions a scene is trying to convey, giving extra characteristics to what would otherwise be a normal character standing in a scene, or even just to add some contrast to what might otherwise be an ‘every day’ framing.

One genre where lighting thrives within movie production is film noir, of which the term was first recognized in English by Charles Higham’s “Hollywood in the Forties” (1968.) The word noir itself is French meaning ‘black’, which makes the title all the more fitting for what film noir is about: creating a darker atmosphere where lighting can take pride not only in its appearance, but also its absence, to create a better sense of contrast and humanistic ‘darkness’ that supports the genre’s roots of being crime dramas and an exploration in humans, morally. The 1960s-70s began a new, ‘post modern’ movement of noir known as neo-noir that now brought this genre into the coloured format of film, while still allowing similar (but more modernized) themes and style.

One overlooked and somewhat recent example is the “Dark City” (1998) directed by Alex Proyas. To say that this film is neo-noir would be unspoken, as the entire film is filled with noir influence – it’s called Dark City for a reason: The entire city is always night time. It is also noticeable on viewing that lighting has been thought about a lot throughout the film’s production to make sure it gives off the correct feeling, but also keeps a level of realism to try and make this entirely fictionalized world Dark City takes place in to feel like not such an impossibility. Proyas himself, during Director’s Commentary of the film, said he wanted the film to feel like a documentary that had been filmed in a real world, with naturalistic lighting.

Even from the opening scene, the lighting in the room we’re greeted with is simply that of a swinging light in the middle of the room. With this swinging light, we see our character wake up in confusion from a bathtub and are never quite greeted with his face entirely lit up. The shot above, for example, completely brightens up one side of his face and body, while the other is left in complete darkness to create a huge sense of both contrast and mystery. This, along with the rest of the shot being relatively dim lit brings extra attention to the character.

This main protagonist, John Murdoch, is actually unsure of who he is upon this waking up. And he’s unsure of why the world is acting so strangely. He’s been framed for murder and is being chased, while also on a search for truth about himself – meanwhile every other main character believes they know who they are, and are instead influenced by his strange and confused impression on them. The lighting reflects this as, while most characters in Noir are generally darkened on one side of their face (as well as most throughout this film), John has been done so with more contrast as he is the most uncertain of himself as a person, whilst also the closest to uncovering the mystery of Dark City.

The antagonists of the film, Monster Skinned Humanoids with telekinetic powers, often go out of their way to stay hidden from the public eye of Dark City, and the lighting of each shot that contains them in this world are usually surrounded with darkness to give them a much more evil and clear, antagonistic tone.

Lighting is not all about contrast though, especially in neo-noir where colour is now a relevant and important aspect to the storytelling, and Dark City’s lighting takes advantage of this.

The “underworld” of Dark City where the antagonists live and use their telekinetic powers are lit up with various blue and green lights upon their otherwise whitened faces. This creates a greater contrast in colour between the rest of the film and scenes within their world, and so the lighting has made a difference to the way viewers will watch the film in the way that as soon as the scene switches to this location, the audience immediately knows that they’re somewhere different and unnatural – making the humanoids to be much more alien-like too.

The only scene that is brightly lit is the final scene, in which John and the rest of the characters are finally freed and can now see the outside world, and there is now day-time and sun. While it doesn’t require much setting up, having a shot that’s truly lit naturally and bright compared to the bleak darkness of the rest of the film is finally, another good example of using lighting for storytelling. After all, finally seeing some colour and light adds a better sense of conclusion and ‘closure’ to the film Dark City.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

• 39 Things We Learned From the ‘Dark City’ Commentary. (2012, January 12). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/39-things-we-learned-from-the-dark-city-commentary-jkirk.php
• Ebert, R. (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://www.openculture.com/2014/02/roger-ebert-lists-the-10-essential-characteristics-of-noir-films.html
• Fay, J., & Nieland, J. (2010). Film noir: Hard-boiled modernity and the cultures of globalization. London: Routledge.
• Ideology and the Urban Experience in Alex Proyas Dark City. (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://www.academia.edu/3423974/Ideology_and_the_Urban_Experience_in_Alex_Proyas_Dark_City
• Learn the ‘Rules’ of Film Noir & How to Light It. (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://nofilmschool.com/2014/06/rules-of-film-noir-how-to-light-it
• Noir Lighting | film noir. (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://filmsnoir.net/film_noir/noir-lighting.html/
• The Elements of Neo-Noir – Geekcentricity. (2014, April 24). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://geekcentricity.com/the-elements-of-neo-noir/
• Top 10 Tips: Bond cinematographer Roger Deakins – BBC News. (n.d.). Retrieved August 26, 2015, from http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-26987466
• Higham, C., & Greenberg, J. (1968). Hollywood in the forties,. London: A. Zwemmer;.

1 Minute 1 Shot – Treatment and Reflection

Treatment:

So, for my one minute one shot film (which, the restrictions of this film were as the title says, the aim was to be about one minute and all take place within one shot)

Despite thinking through several ideas, the one I decided on is about a man drowning in work to be done, who finally decides to quit. The idea even changed over time, but I always had a relative idea of how I wanted to do it – I wanted to have him either sitting at a desk or table, filled with different papers and work on the table. He then, overwhelmed, gets up and decides to call his boss and say, “I quit” – while looking out the closed window and seeing the light outside.

The idea was to try and focus more on telling a story through production design, to have less said and told in terms of story and more just to show how much work he has to do through what’s in front of him. Otherwise, the idea might fall a bit flat, but I guess we’ll see.

Reflection:

So, I finally got my one minute one shot done – I decided to name it “Working Late.” To reflect on what I said, I ended up going with a table downstairs, as opposed to a desk in somebody’s room. I also decided that the film would be better to shoot at night to assume this is somebody who’s stayed up doing this work, who then walks outside after calling his boss, literally abandoning his work.

I shot this assignment on a C300, using an NTG2 directional microphone attached to it, and decided to use it as an opportunity to also play more with different lenses, knowing I would be a Director of Photography for our Short film. So, I borrowed out a Samyang “Cineprime kit” to get a bit of a hang of the point of using different lenses, which was a good learning experience. The biggest trouble I had that resulted in a lot of re-takes while shooting my film was focus pulling while also having the camera pan around and move a lot. However, I think the final turnout was decent enough – I basically achieved the film I was trying to make. It could have had more, but thinking about ideas had resulted in putting off this assignment for too long.

I also ended up having to colour grade this twice, as the first time my save went missing. Either way, the second time was after the short film so I had a bit better an idea what I was doing, but it didn’t feel like I could change much since I must have shot with too high an ISO or aperture on the night. My bad. I also noticed a flaw where you notice the phone being used isn’t actually on, all too late.

I have considered trying to re-shoot this one minute one shot with an actor who isn’t just my housemate, or even going about trying one of my less realistic one minute one shot ideas I had. But I guess we’ll see.

Narrative – Treatment and Reflection

Treatment:
The Narrative idea that our group decided on was one that I had wrote, which I have (unless I can think of a better one) named, “Stan and the Possible” and was about the concept of somebody mourning a loss and trying to come to terms with it, while being tempted by a devil-alluding character. It was only short and written (and cut down) to be a 2 minute scene, but I still wanted to have some kind of original-ish concept or strange, surreal element to it. I guess I won’t know until I see the final product, as I will have equal share to my group members to input with directing, D.O.P. lighting and sound for this assignment, but it should be interesting nonetheless.
The ‘catch’ behind this assignment will be to only show the character who is talking half of the time, through the use of the other character reacting or cutaways to other things. As a result of this, I wrote in mind of things that characters could be looking at or bring attention to, as well as trying to think about how the characters Stan and “Unknown” would be reacting through their back-and-forth dialog. Either way, it was my first time properly trying to write decent dialog (as I can’t say I’ve written too much in general) and so far it’s alright. I’ll reflect more on this once it’s done and I’ve actually worked with actors.

Reflection:
So, a couple things in terms of the dialog I decided I preferred to be slightly altered, which helped with the ‘dialog’ I dreaded about when writing. We did all the shooting over the course of a day and made sure to get plenty of coverage to use in order to have a variety to work with. I was aware I wouldn’t be needing to edit this but I would like to at one point regardless, but I will reflect over the day of filming. It was fun, and being after filming the Short Film I think I had a lot better idea what we had to do, and since it was a much shorter, single-scene script, it was mostly not too stressful and instead just fun.
To reflect on how I did on the day, I think I did a decent job. All of us had pretty equal input and generally found ourselves agreeable on most ideas anyway, and it was also a good chance to actually get to direct actors for myself which, at first I was a bit unsure about where to start, but I found the more I talked with the actors and we practiced, the more I realized what I wanted out of them and we learned what worked the most naturally. I feel like everything we shot matched the idea I was going for when I wrote the script down, so overall I’m pretty happy.

Short Film – Reflection

Over the course of two big days of filming, the short film we made, “Karma Suits Ya”, involved me as being it’s director of photography, as well as being the editor once filming was done. The process began involving me when it came to creating a shot list / schedule which I honestly had underestimated until now, but it’s probably a procedure I will try and follow from now on with filmmaking. Either way creating those, I bounced off the director, Natalie, who gave me some advice as to what she was after. We didn’t end up getting any locations we wanted, so shooting ended up at our very own college, SAE Qantm. Not having a location in mind made me mostly disregard the shot list, and instead go off the schedule (and subsequent call sheet) which I kept looking at to see where I was up to. Due to this process, we probably missed out on several good cutaway shots and coverage and I generally felt a level of pressure on myself not to take too long since I quickly learned it would be difficult to fit doing everything into the amount of time I believed it would take.

Things that I think I could have done better mostly include going off my original shot list, as well as having a bit more background experience with lighting and looking more into framing and its affect on storytelling (which I get the basics of, but I didn’t necessarily consider too much beyond the angle and size of the shot.) There were also scenes which I later on found to have soft focus on some of the shots, which raises a big point for me in the future to always check the focus with magnification, and also to generally have a monitor on set to have a bigger, clear view of what’s being recorded.

The editing process was borderline fun and borderline painful. I see the value of continuity sheets and taking my time to rename all of the files to their shot and take, as it saved me a lot of time in terms of going through the footage. Nonetheless, it wasn’t too much of a chore as I take some enjoyment in editing and also learned a lot about its process as well. The final thing I needed to do was colour grading which really I guess I only finished today. There might be more editing and grading that I might go back and do more of, but for now I’m considering my job ‘temporarily complete.’

Of course, all of this was a lot of fun and experience, and it’ll be exciting to try and make another short film in the future.

Sound Project – Treatment and Reflection

Treatment:
For university, I was given the task to create a short film which revolved entirely around sounds, with the exception of any kind of dialogue or music. The idea in summary I came up with was based around several sounds going on and slowly revealing what each sound was, but of course I kept trying to think how I could add more to the idea to make it as ‘full’ a story as possible, constantly adding more and more (and possibly too many) sounds that could be going on. The story revolves around an alcoholic who wakes up, hungover, before beginning the cycle all over again, all the while somebody outside is trying to get in, knocking on the door and sending messages.I wrote up a page of notes to help me figure out all the shots and sounds i’d have to record:

At this point I don’t have a title, but I’m sure i’ll come up with something.
I drew up a diagram to have a bit of an idea what the production design would be like in that dolly shot. My plan is to have different kinds of alcohol laid out all over the place, as well as things such as a tap running, a clock in the shot, and anything else I can think of on-set. Here’s to hoping this all goes well!
(-Thursday, 4th June.)

Reflection:
My assignment is now completely done and edited. Within Sony Vegas, most of the work I had to do editing was with audio fading and timing to make sure everything was loud enough at just the right time, so my project ended up looking like this:

I also used Audacity to apply an effect to the ‘beat’ playing through the headphones.

The camera I used is the Canon C100, with both using a dolly track and having some handheld shots.
To capture the audio needed for each shot, I used a combination of the sound recorded from the camera as well as using a H4N recorder to record different Foley sounds after the shoot.
The title I decided on was “Three hours earlier,” which also works to inform the audience.

I am a bit sad about a couple of errors I overlooked at the time of shooting (because I’d consider myself good when it comes to stuff like ‘continuity’ etc.) but it only gives me more incentive to be more on the look-out in the future. I also wish that I messed a bit more with lighting, as there is a clear change in colour temperature throughout the film due to some hallways being darker.

Overall, I’m proud of the film I made, and it’s helped me to explore storytelling without just through dialogue, which I have done in the past through the use of coloured lighting and ‘atmospheric’ music so it was interesting to approach this through mere sound effects. It also served me an opportunity to think about more creative, movement-oriented shots, and generally just getting used to moving a camera more smoothly.
(-Sunday, 7th June.)

We’ve started up (again)

Here begins me blogging regularly.

Anything I make and publicly release I’ll put on this blog, as well as trying to do a blog or so once a week (but once again, we’ll see how I hold to that.)

You can find stuff I’ve made at my YouTube channel

http://youtube.com/juliancheese

but it has a lot of work i’m not so proud of anymore, either.

I also have the occasional music on Soundcloud

And for now, here’s some movies I watched lately and enjoyed:
A Serious Man, Ex Machina, Minority Report.

(The latter two are Sci-fi, I wouldn’t know how to begin describing the first.)

Reflection of a Hopeful Screenwriter

What have I done since my last blog post?

Well, I’ve been messing with ableton and writing scripts, but I’m yet to have something more complete i’d be proud to show.

For what it’s worth, i’m starting to grasp a better idea of the kind of things I want to make, and even trying to build up different potential ways I could make them. But for Film, there are many things i’m finding stop me from just going ahead and making something dumb; Mostly being that it’s hard to actually turn my ideas I like into scripts I like. I’m not great at stories, or dialogue. Over the years my ‘scripts’ have mostly been a result of* just writing zero-act stories where all the characters are just placeholders for absurd situations or one-liners, but now I feel like I’ve moved beyond that and want to actually create characters that are relatable and/or interesting, and have their lines truly motivated by who the character is, as well as some sort of important journey with a message behind it worth watching my (short) film for.

So, I drew up a chart I don’t have on me about the genres I want to explore, and what in those genres would interest me to make something about. The genres I mainly pointed to were Comedy, Drama, Sci-fi and Surrealism. It’s helped me a bit better.

Anyway, yeah. I need to write something already.

-Julian

Trying to blog

Going to try blog at least once a week. [Here’s to forgetting]

I set myself this task for the sake of not only being able to share anything creative i’m doing in one area, but also reflect upon anything that’s on my mind somewhere external.

So to warn any that read this, be prepared for the following:

• Films / Videos I make
• Music I make
• Crappy images I draw
• Terrible 3 AM jokes
• Depressing 4 AM rants
• Dumb photos of things (like maybe even my face if I feel like jerking off my ego)
• Maybe some film reviews

You might see none of these things though.

Some key facts about me though; I’m Julian. Born in ’96, and it soon came to me that above most things I loved to make up ideas, and create things. I’ve wasted much paper drawing terribly as a kid, and soon enough learned to draw in a very simple cartoon style using Flash, making animations I’d put on my youtube channel. There’s no use denying I still mess with flash every now and then but very little compared to how much I used to. I also went through a year’s worth of a games design degree and found that not to be my cup of tea either; The truth is through animation and games design all I really saw was my want to tell a story, not too concerned about the aesthetic of it all. But with film-making (which I am currently studying) I can actually see the appeal of good directing, editing and writing.

My interests lie in film, TV and music and little else. In terms of film, I enjoy many films, maybe I should make a list. Some directors I admire include Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, The Coen Brothers, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Robert Altman, and I suppose David Fincher, Martin Scorsese and Todd Solondz. The latest films I enjoyed the shit out of are Birdman and Oldboy.

As for music, my taste is mostly made up of Hip-hop, ambient / ‘IDM’ electronic and maybe a taste of prog-rock, folk, and random 80s hits to keep an open mind. To name some of my favourites would be Boards of Canada, Madlib, Odd Nosdam, cLOUDDEAD, The Avalanches, J Dilla, Dan Deacon, Prefuse 73, Animal Collective, Flying Lotus, MF DOOM, Death Grips and DJ Shadow. To summarise what i’ve listened to recently I’d point to the first 2.

Anyway, I think this is plenty for a first post.