La Pantera Negra

The first film I saw at the Edinburgh International Film Festival was La Pantera Negra, a 1950s Mexican film noir style picture. And out of all the films I saw at the festival, I think this is definitely the one that has been discussed the most with the four other people who watched it with me.

The film begins in a very interesting style. It initially has a dream-like sequence of the woman and two dogs in the picture above which turns out to be symbolic later on. The story then turns to the central protagonist, an alcoholic Mexican detective, apparently the best in the country. He receives a phone call from a man claiming to be God and is told if he accepts the case and goes on the hunt for La Pantera Negra, or The Black Panther, he will receive a large sum of money every day for the rest of his life. So far, I was really enjoying this film. It had some excellent cinematography and some of the shots were really great. The film noir style also seemed to suit it well and it reminded me of the style of Double Indemnity in a way. The story was appealing to me as well. A foreign detective case, mysterious phone calls and elusive names such as Black Panther, it seemed right up my street to be honest. And I was enjoying the film a lot, until this little beauty came along:

Probably in an instant a large number of people had been sucked out of the film. The appearance of a large plastic looking space ship in La Pantera Negra seemed to change the genre instantly from mystery film noir to low budget sci-fi. The story then proceeded down this line with the introduction of a lesbian martian. So as the plot became increasingly wacky and seemingly random, it became clear that the events were some kind of dream. I began to think it was the alcohol that was bringing these crazy events to the protagonist and that this was becoming the key message of the film.

But towards the end I started to enjoy it again more. All the different characters and events were starting to make slightly more sense and the symbolism became clearer. Themes of death and God and afterlife were very prominent towards the end and the imagery used throughout the film was gradually being explained. Kind of. And then the film ended and left us all very, very confused. I don't think there's one person who could come out after seeing La Pantera Negra for the first time and say they understood every single aspect of the symbolism. It was a very confusing film but there was something about it that I did enjoy and I had a strange desire to watch it again to see what I would take from it a second time round. It certainly had us all talking a lot about our own different interpretations of the symbolism and metaphors. Overall, I can't help feeling I enjoyed La Pantera Negra although I would like to have a word with the writer to find out what half the stuff actually means because it left us very confused people and there's only a certain amount of unexplained symbolism that films can get away with before they simply lose the audience completely.

End of Year Films - The Root of Love

So our end of year films have been completed, we've been to the film festival and it feels like the year is winding to a close now.

I was assigned the role of Lighting/DOP on Meg's film, The Root of Love. So for the first week or so I didn't have a great amount of work to do on the pre-production side and most of the work at this stage was done by our three producers in getting locations and actors etc. Auditions were set up with RSAMD students and Glasgow Acting Academy actors and at the end of the casting process, Meg decided on two actors for the lead roles. In the second week of pre-production, Meg and I then had a number of meetings to start constructing a shot list and storyboard for the film. This turned out to be a lot longer a process than we first expected as we tried to write down and draw different options for shots of every action in the script.

We had some production setbacks as well not long before we were due to film which made things quite difficult. Firstly, Silverburn shopping centre decided to wait over a week to inform us that they didn't want us to film there, despite Murray contacting them regularly about it. So we had to find another location only three or four days before we were due to film. Glasgow Fort was one of the locations that had responded very positively to us so when Silverburn gave us the knock back we decided to go on a visit to the Fort shopping centre that evening. After a walk around we discovered a hot dog vender directly across from a fruit market stall in a very spacious area - it appeared to be the perfect location for our film. So, thinking fate had given us a helping hand, we informed Glasgow Fort management that we would be filming on Sunday and Monday and they couldn't have been more helpful to us.

The next setback came on the morning before filming when we had a full crew meeting in Flick's flat. The lead male actor decided to cancel on us less than 24 hours before filming which turns out to be a bit of a production nightmare. So for the rest of the day, with 2 out of 3 of our producers at work, Meg and Kelsey spent their time frantically e mailing and phoning every actor they could get their hands on. Eventually, they managed to get their hands on someone for the role, an actor who had previously worked with some people in the class who were helping with Being Victor.

So on the Sunday morning we all woke up bright and early and met at the academy at 8:30. Murray's dad had kindly agreed to help taxi different crew members and kit to the location. When we arrived there, some of us started setting up the props and posters along with the smoothie table. Meg and I then started walking around the location discussing where each of our different shots would be. On set with us that day was a DFTV4 student, Gillian, who was there as a kind of directing mentor to Meg. This turned out to be a good help for myself and Meg who had probably gone a bit trigger happy with the whole shot list idea. Julie helped us decide that you don't really need about 4 different angles for every single action of the script and this is only necessary for the more important sequences. Overall, the first day was a great success and we were surprisingly good at keeping on schedule. In fact, the day wrapped at around 5 o'clock which is quite crazy. I can't think of any significant setbacks at all. In the morning just as we were setting up Amarillo starting blaring out of the shopping centre speakers which we realised would be a major problem for sound but after a jedi wave of Murray's hand they were more than happy to turn it off for the day. At the end of the day, Glasgow Fort even allowed us to store all the kit we wanted in different rooms over at the management centre.

The second day followed much of the same pattern as the first. The most noticeable difference was that we didn't have nearly as many people on set as all the extras and Gillian were not present. So that meant more pizza for all at lunchtime! We worked very efficiently today again and I feel we probably got better shots as well as we didn't feel under too much pressure from the time and we were more used to everything by this point. Just before lunch we had a small difficulty with putting a specific part of a scene into practice and we had to break for lunch to rethink what to do. We managed to pull our creative brains together and find a solution to the problem though, the only problem about this was it required me to stand in as an extra and pretend to fall into our actress with a hotdog and smear tomato sauce over her face. After about 12 takes I kind of felt like the guy out of Chewin' the Fat who can't act to save himself.

Overall, I think the two days' filming went very well and it was a great experience. Everyone worked really well together on and off set. I've had a look at Flick's rough cut off the footage and it all looks really good, can't wait to see the finished product now.

Star Suckers

Last week for our final Television and Society class of the year we got the treat of watching the movie documentary, Star Suckers. I thought this was a fantastic film. It was very cleverly written and meticulously researched. I don't think one of us came out of the class without having the "Oh my God" kind of reaction to it.

The film's main focus is the media and how society today is becoming increasingly obsessed with fame and celebrity lifestyles. One of the more shocking parts of the film showed a young 6-year-old boy from Los Angeles who had no other goal in life than to be a superstar. He had obviously been influenced from a very young age by his surroundings and he was pretty well developed for his age. In fact he was almost like a young extremely shrewd businessman as he knew exactly what was expected of him and what he would have to do to gain "success". Anyway, he went through many auditions and sold his image and became really popular and wealthy by doing different work for companies until one show he did that was a flop which resulted in him crying backstage as the production companies now had no interest in him. It was a really sad case because all through the show we had seen different points of his journey and experienced it from the start to probably the end. We saw in the middle the 10 hour car journeys he had to make with his supportive parents to other parts of the country for a five minute audition where he was asked if he was doing his homework on the journey. He replied he wasn't because it was boring and what he was doing was much more important. So we got a good look at how the "celebrity" industry used the image of the boy until he had passed his sell by date and became useless to them and as a result they presumably dropped him like a ton of bricks.

Another aspect of fame that the programme investigated was the cases of Wesley Autrey and John Smeaton. Wesley Autrey was a man who became instantly famous as a result of him rescuing a man who had fallen onto a subway track by jumping on top of him to prevent the train from hitting them. Obviously a very brave man but the film goes on to show how the immense power of the media was what made him so instantly famous.

The same kind of story happened with John Smeaton who, after the terrorist attack at Glasgow Airport, was given a regular column in The Sun and even stood for election as an independent candidate in Glasgow North-East. Using examples like this, Star Suckers shows how people have a strong and natural attraction to fame. Even if we don't realise it or don't particularly want it, we are all inadvertently influenced by celebrities and the media in our daily lives.

Another part of the film investigated newspaper journalism and how they will do almost anything to get a story. And in most cases they have little need for any sort of facts to substantiate their stories. Now you may think reading this that you know this already, of course the Daily Star and the like aren't renowned for their journalistic integrity. But at the same time as a society we still lap the stories up. We have become obsessed by gossip and celebrity lifestyle to the point where it doesn't matter if we know that Jordan hasn't decided to join NASA in a bid to forget Pete, we just feel a natural attraction to it and want to know more.

Furthermore, there is a widely held belief in our society today that the route to fame and success comes through reality television shows. Star Suckers showed that there are actually courses and classes on how to be successful on reality shows such as Big Brother. In other words they actually teach people how to act in a certain controversial way, in order to be as "successful" on this type of show as possible. Another good example of this is how in British society today, a great number of people feel that shows such as Britain's Got Talent and The X Factor are the answer to quick and easy fame. "It can happen to anyone" is the kind of attitude that many people have. And going to the same school as the now world famous Subo did and living 5 minutes up the road from X Factor winner Leon Jackson, I realise that perhaps it can happen to anyone. But at the end of the day you're just selling your soul to the Simon Cowells of this world who will suck all the life out of you for their own profit then discard you when your talent is no longer worth anything to them. Quite a depressing thought, I know, but it's a clever business model nonetheless.

Candid Cabaret

A few weeks ago we were involved in the musical theatre Candid Cabaret productions at the Oran Mór. This involved filming the different cabaret performances by the postgraduate students from the academy.

I found it a really enjoyable and worthwhile experience. We were divided into different crews of five people for each night of filming. The first night I filmed was the first Sunday night. Although the performances didn't start till 7 o'clock we were at the location from about 2 o'clock to sort out the logistics of our filming. This allowed us to check the venue and see where we would place each of the five cameras. We had three Sony 570s which we decided would stay on the sticks and cover a wide shot, mid shot and close up from the wings. The other two cameras would be handheld, one for shots of the audience and their reactions and the other a kind of guerilla cam to go around and get various shots of the action on the stage.

The musical theatre students were also in the building from the afternoon to do sound checks and the like. And within minutes of them being there one student came over and introduced himself and had a chat with us which I thought was very nice. The acts themselves were also great. There was a lot of variety in them as well. Some were really funny and clever, some had slightly more serious themes but were still very entertaining.

Overall, I think filming the Candid Cabaret was a really good experience. It gave us all the chance to think on our feet and get used to rigging and de-rigging kit in and working in a professional environment. It also gave us a glimpse of what it would be like working on real projects like this in the industry in the future whilst also giving us the opportunity to see some brilliant performances.

Live And Let Die

I used to be a big James Bond fan when I was younger. I still have the whole video collection from Dr No right up to Tomorrow Never Dies and I used to be quite the wee James Bond geek when I think about it. However I kind of fell out of the loop after Pierce Brosnan's Die Another Day and I must admit I've not seen any of the more recent Daniel Craig films.

Recently though, I've had a bit of a craving to return to the films and see how I would react to them nowadays. So the other day when I had nothing better to do I went to the video cupboard and had a look to see what I wanted to watch. And for whatever reason I chose Roger Moore's debut Bond movie, Live And Let Die, made in 1973.

It was never one of my favourites really but it was quite good to watch it again with some of the knowledge I have now. One of the main things that struck me about the film that I wouldn't have noticed too much when I was younger was the amount of racism contained. The story takes place in New Orleans, Harlem and a fictional Caribbean island and as such there are a lot of black characters. The film was almost ridiculously stereotypical at some points I noticed though, with almost every black character being involved in the undercover ring of drugs smuggling. Obviously there's nothing wrong with having black villains in films but when it gets to the point that you don't doubt every single black person of being involved with the baddies you know there's something wrong. I did a bit of research into it, well I googled "Live and let die racism" and read a few of the different sites and articles about it and sure enough, Time Magazine blasted the film when it was released even calling Bond's new character a "racist pig".

I also read quite a bit about how the film was released at the time when blaxploitation films were very popular. And it seems that Live And Let Die was a kind of reversal of that genre where the white man had to come and save the world from the black gangsters and drug dealers. Some critics have even questioned whether the film was a direct reaction to the blaxploitation genre.

However, although there were clearly some issues with Live And Let Die I don't think you can extend this to the rest of the James Bond films as this seemed quite an exceptional case. It was quite coincidental though that I would choose to watch this particular film even though it had never been one of my favourites because it does relate to a lot that we have been learning in class about how different people are portrayed on screen.