The Jonathan Ross Show

(Various Directors, 2012)

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The studio for Jonathan Ross' show is by no means innovative, it works as a simple concept that has been used time and time again amongst similar programmes, the world over. It provides the basic presentation, performance and guest area, with space for an audience too. The guest area typically including the most simple of props, simply a desk for the presenter and your average 3-piece leather suite for the guests.

The set is outlined with curves, accentuated by the orange, strip-lighting that illuminates the multi-levels of rostra. The set wall is almost an “S” shape, housing each individual studio area in it's two-directional curve. The wall houses light panels that are illuminated in spots, with what resemble traffic-sign lights, again in orange. In yet another unoriginal part of the set, behind the desk area is a London night-time cityscape! This said, I like the set, it serves it's purpose!

Fresh Meat (S1EO2)

(Various Directors, 2011)

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Fresh Meat is the telling of six first-year university students who missed out on places in halls and so find themselves living together in a student house. The living space that they all share is very typically “student house” and I hate to use such a phrase! However, the furniture is mismatched and somewhat worn, sofas with throws and cushion strewn over them. Various sets of different coloured fairy lights hang around the room, which merges with the kitchen. The kitchen is a you would expect, with mismatched crockery and glasses stacked around the surfaces. Empty drink bottles are also dotted around. Space invaders stickers decorate the otherwise plain, dated kitchen cupboards.

The IT Crowd (S4EO2) “The Final Countdown”

(Graham Lineham, 2010)

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One of my favourite TV sets is the basement office of The IT crowd. It's fantastically “nerdy” and cluttered with an assortment of items. The walls are covered with graphic posters and cult imagery and every display surface is crammed with books, CD's, board games, memorabilia and models. Cupboards and other smooth surfaces are decorated with an array of stickers. Pieces of computer components are dotted around the set. The furniture is dated and mismatched, only adding to the cluttered and dis-organised feel of the whole IT department.

The Scarlet Empress

(Josef Von Sternberg, 1934)

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Starring Marlene Dietrich, The Scarlet Empress is a fantastic example of a director whose cinematography simply reflects that he is deeply in love with his leading lady. The way Sternberg presents Dietrich is beautiful, the camera is presented as though it loves her and the careful use of soft focus and precisely perfect lighting only accentuates her beauty.

The film is the story of Catherine II of Russia and features a great strangeness of design. We are introduced to young Sophia (who later becomes Catherine) and are shown her strict world as a child who is being brought up specifically to be used to bring her family more prosperity. Though strict, there is still an element of soft, playfulness and innocence to her world. As an impressionable young woman, she is convinced to travel to Russia to marry Duke Peter, son of the great Empress. Her ideas of romance are soon shattered when she discovers that the Duke is a simpleton. Now so far away from her home in Germany, the brute force and of Russia is upon her to bare an heir to the throne.

In Russia, the whole mood and tone of the film changes. Everything becomes so much more overpowering and the setting much more surreal and disturbing. Models and imagery from the bible feature heavily within the Russian palace, with exaggerated stone sculptures of religious figures, integrated within the furniture. The Empress, a harsh and cold ruler, has a mirror which is overshadowed by a stone representation of what I believe is Satan, or definitely some hellish beast. The décor is overcrowded, dense and Gothic and the ceilings appear to be very high- there's nothing soft about this environment.

There are several repetitions of imagery, specifically the ringing of bells and religious figures- and the distortion of such figures, i.e. when the Duke drills peep a hole through his mother's wall that cuts directly through the eye of Jesus. Again, the eye is used as symbolism for many things, specifically within the surrealist genre though.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

(F.W. Murnau, 1927)

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This film was one of the first to feature an abstract and surreal montage sequence as a way of storytelling. It used a combination of models, live action, photographs, animation and clever editing to create this madness of the city, the place for which a 1920's vamp is trying to tempt a married countryman to. The overlaying of imagery as well as the combination of two different pieces of music, creates a wild and almost hysterical short sequence.

Battleship Potempkin

(Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

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The Steps sequence of Battleship Potempkin is universally one of the most famous pieces of storytelling at the start of Hollywood, and a prime example of editing to inform a narrative. As a silent film, it wonderfully portrays the change from sheer joy to hysteria, through the use of clever and well informed editing. Eisenstein cited that as a storyteller he was most influenced by Dickens and it's quite evident as his narrative is constructed in such a sophisticated way.

Spellbound

(Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)
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The famed “Dream” sequence is truly a view into Dali's paintings, translated into physicality. His collaboration with Hitchcock provides visual references to Un Chien Andalu, specifically with reference to the description of the character dreaming of eyes being sliced through. It's a very specific and surreal visual language that he has.

42^nd Street, Goldiggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, Fashions of 1934

(Busby Berkely, 1933)

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Former drill sergeant turned extravagant choreographer Busby Berkely, has been described as the first director to actually make the camera move and to truly involve his audience in his films. He made this look sophisticated and effortless, however it's fact that his background as a drill sergeant just meant that the cast would rehearse and rehearse until it was to his high standard!

Many of Berkely's films were pretty much the same, in terms of narrative, but in terms of innovative design, each film was as exciting as the next, each challenging the boundaries of camera work, choreography, set design, costume and what was socially acceptable. Many even featured songs with narrative subversion towards current events, one example of this being the number, My Forgotten Man, which was about the forgotten men of the first world war, amongst post-depression U.S.

Some of the issues tackled, and the way the chorus girls were presented, were seen, especially in 30's Britain, as impolite and improper, meaning that many of his films were banned in the U.K. as they evoked attitudes and ideology thought of as harmful to Britain's better interests.

One of Berkeley’s most recognisable examples of making the camera move then, is his signature shot in which he takes the camera between the bare legs of his line of chorus girls. The very same chorus girls whose costumes were more often than not, risqué. Their costumes made of a huge variety of different materials, including fur, leather, larvae and even, in one case, corsets made of tin. Noticeably, the girls were completely natural beauties, healthy and proportioned women as was desired of that time, unlike today's media-craving for stick-thin, “beautiful” people. Another signature use that Berkeley had for his chorus girls, was his kaleidoscopic aerial view of the women, in which they would use their bodies to create patterns and shapes in synchronisation, creating a beautiful yet, somewhat psychedelic effect.

The costumes were just as elaborate as the sets, which often had moving parts, various tiers and were on occasion integrated with floating pieces and even water. The sets formed part of Berkeley's various camera trickery, in which no post-production editing was ever used, just pure clever camera placing and optical illusions. Berkeley then, was a pure designer, whose glamorous and technical style has been imitated countless times since, but never captured. His surreal and innovative style paved the way for designers and directors alike.

Catfish

(Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost, 2010)

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Catfish is the somewhat worrying documentary following what starts out to be an innocent picture about, director, Ariel's brother Nev, but unfolds to be something completely unprecedented. The story is fantastic but most of all I enjoyed the way the information was presented to the audience. In today's consumer society and with social media being now, bigger than ever, I think that the way information was shown was a simple but clever- the perfect way to present things to the “Facebook generation”.

I refer to the landscape views, shown through the online satellite map, Google Earth, and the use of this tool's virtual pins to show the documentary's locations. Even the Universal logo at the start of the film is replaced by google's spinning earth, the text replaced with early computer type.

It also cleverly introduces new characters in the documentary through the, very familiar, Facebook tagging system, i.e. a mouse hovers over a face on screen and their name shows up. To highlight key information too, it is typed as we hear it being said, as if it were being entered onto a computer screen.

Handheld camera work throughout only amplifies that sense of this “facebook generation” in that everything is so instant and, in the sense of this documentary, we are to believe it's cinema verite, that these events are unfolding instantly, in this ever faster world. With another use of social technology, texts between characters are read to the audience to fill us in, to tell us what we need to know-- and quickly!

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

(Robert Weine, 1920)

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Following the strange tale of a somnambulist who performs at fairs and around whom a strange series of murders occur. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a landscape of expressionism, complete with wonky and jagged sets, presented in a very theatrical way. The set for the fair, for example, could easily be a physical theatre stage, complete with it's own painted frame (like curtains) and it's canvas backgrounds.

The buildings in the foreground, as well as in the canvas background, appear very abstract, similarly in a way that much of the furniture featured in the film is highly impractical and stylised.

For the actual representation of murder, in true horror style, we see the actual act unfold as an exaggerated and stretched shadow against a wall. The film is widely considered to be one of the greatest silent-horrors ever made and the twist ending is said to be the first of it's kind. It's evident nowadays that director, Tim Burton, has likely taken heavy influence from Weine (though he denies knowing of the films existence until recent years!).

Zero de Conduite

(Jean Vigo, 1933)

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This title, that was banned in the UK until the 1970's, follows the lives of pupils at an all boys school who see their place of education as a dull, prison-like place. In this strict and regimented environment, the boys find several ways of rebelling against the school, along with the encouragement of new teacher, Huguet.

From the outset we witness the boys as rebellious, smoking cigars in the non-smoking carriage of the train in between showing each other their pranks and jokes. The dormitory of the school is a long, sterile room, resembling that of a hospital ward, with one curtain-enclosed area, in which a teacher sleeps. The narrow room is lined on each side, with a row of metal beds. In another classic act of rebellion, we witness the boys collected together, smoking in the toilets.

The teacher, Huguet, displays a similar view to the regimented environment and so acts, on numerous occasions, in a less than exemplary way. He steals possessions from the children whilst they are at break and then conducts his lessons through a visual chaos, in which the boys are scattered around the classroom. Some boys at desks, others on the desks, and others on shelves! The teacher is powerless amongst these boys, who display behaviour similar to that of wild animals. He also tries to outdo the boys' attempts at impressing each other by performing a handstand in the classroom, only with the use of clever filming, it appears he is stood on one hand, whilst using the other to draw! In another performance of editing “trickery”, one boy shows another a trick in which a ball disappears from his hand.

In a visual comparison to their lives at school, the kids home lives are dull and the impression is created that they'd rather be causing chaos, as they spend their time plotting revenge against the school's principal.

As well as this film being an obvious example of rebellion against a wider culture, an idea that was not to be be promoted at it's time of release (considering that this was the year the Nazis came to power), it also features the issue of homosexuality, by featuring an over-friendly relationship between two boys, one who appears to be very feminine, as he is favoured by another teacher who strokes the boys hair and tends to treat him very much like a girl. Again, homosexuality was outlawed in the UK until 1967, so this film succeeded in causing wide offence!

In a timeless scene, in which Vigo really plays with imagery, slow motion is used more effectively, I think, than almost any other film to date. We see a boy back-flip onto a chair, amongst the rest of the boys gathering in the dormitory, proceeding ahead like soldiers to war. Slow motion intensifies the determined efforts of these boys, about to fight their “dictators”, as they walk into a headwind of pillow feathers, holding their hand-made weapons proud. The scene is quasi-religious too, as the crowd carries a boy above their heads, on a chair. Also, they tie their sleeping teacher to his bed, displaying him upright, in a position that resembles Christ on the cross.

In the final scene, and in the boys' final push for freedom, they manage to escape by bunny hopping across the roof tops of Paris, only after causing more chaos and embarrassment to those trying to conduct order. Huguet, predictably the whole time, laughing along with the boys' antics! At no point in this film do you have any doubt that the audience are meant to be on any side but the boys', it suggests no respect towards order and heavy ruling, whilst remaining whimsical in a time when the world was still dealing with the effects of the 1931 depression.

Big Fish

(Tim Burton, 2003)

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The story of Edward Bloom, now an eccentric old man whose, once amazing, stories of his exaggerated life now become the source of unrest between him and his son, who has outgrown the fantasies and longs to know the plain truths. The film is constantly back and forth between “today” and Edward's exaggerated past.

A typically Tim Burton scene is the scene in which young Edward Bloom takes the old, haunted road out of town. As you would expect, the trees tower over the dark, damp path, casting dark, crooked shadows across the dirt track. The screen is engulfed by winding, intertwined branches of deep browns and thick cobwebs. At the end of the track lies the town of Spectre, a town so perfect that “no one ever leaves”.

Spectre is like a suburb within the American south, wooden houses of pale grey, with their wooden porches. The road is a perfect green carpet of grass, inviting and fresh; so green in fact that it's almost overpowering. It is perfectly linear and the town's white church lies right at the end of the grass road, perfectly centred.

In the evening, Spectre appears equally inviting and visually warm. With warm white fairy lights draped between buildings, creating a blanket of lights above the dancing town's people. All the women dancing in long flowing cream and pastel dresses, all with equally flowing long hair. The ribbons in their hair providing the perfect finish to these “perfect” people in this perfect town. The whole town is so intense that it's almost scary, the spinning camera shot during the dancing sequence only seems to heighten the madness.

When Edward returns to Spectre, as an older man, the magic seems to have faded and the place has decayed. The whole town is dull and shut down. The wood, dull and decaying and the houses completely overtaken by weeds and ivy. Jenny's house particularly, lies at the end of the town, slanted and wonky, (very Tim Burton) the house completely claimed by vines.

Gimme Shelter

(Maysles Bros, 1970)
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A supposedly “cinema verite” account of The Rolling Stones' 1969 performace at the free Altamont concert, this rockumentary documents an event, widely acknowledged in the music world as “The end of the 60's”.

The feature-length documentary starts with The Stones being introduced as “the greatest rock and roll band in the world” and in the lead up to the Altamont concert footage, this is what we're influenced to believe. Jagger shown, almost as a god, provocatively parading himself in front of the thousands of screaming fans, amongst which the camera is often placed. With lots of low shots from the crowd, showing Jagger towering over us, most importantly at this point- in total control of the crowd, something that later he certainly doesn't have.

The film, released in 1970, a year after the events at Altamont, is shown being played to the band, as if they are watching with us and trying to recount the events. We see them react to things that they have already experienced first hand, but their presence guides us through the film, manipulating us to kind of feel on their side, as opposed to the Hell's Angels, who were hired as security for the event and seemingly sparked most of the trouble there.

In my favourite scene, we are shown a heavily edited performance of “Love in vain”, in which Jagger is shown superimposed upon himself several times. The use of slow motion highlights his complete and utter power as the ultimate rock icon of the time. There are lots of indulgent shots of Jagger dancing and performing, throughout which the crowd remain totally transfixed.

The sequence is completely red too, a colour that emotes a lot of different possible meanings; those of lust, danger and even the devil. Appropriately too, during performances of “Sympathy for the devil”, Jagger throws red confetti. Ironically later at the concert, it is during this song that he makes an appeal to the crowd to behave and sit down, going completely against the attitudes and behaviour that the song is promoting.

The phrase “cinema verite”, literally translated means cinema truth. During the entirity of this film, we are manipulated into believing this perfect dramatic narrative so that, like a work of fiction, the tension builds bit by bit and then explodes into an exciting and dramatic finish. While the events that we see on screen did happen, the order in which they appear is altered for dramatic build-up.

The only cinema truth in this film, as far as I'm aware, is the scene in which the band and there entourage are draped around a room listening to the playback of “wild horses”. A moment in this sequence that, to me, screams true rockstar quality, is the shot of Keith Richard's worn snake skin boot tapping along to the music. There's something about that moment that I just love.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(Tim Burton, 2007)
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Based on the Broadway musical, this is Tim Burton's adaptation of the age old tale of Sweeney Todd. Immediately, the film is recognisably Burton, with the obvious casting of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter.

The film starts off with mechanical, silhouetted imagery. Everything appears through a dark filter, as if to accentuate the dirt and darkness of life in Victorian London. Todd's (Depp) face appears ghostly light, grey amongst the blacks and blues of the mysterious, shadowy, gleaming wet cobbled streets of London. A single noir-esque light casts across the street.

The flashback scenes, in which times were evidently better, the imagery is visually much more crisp, brighter and full of colour, as if to be emitting a warm glow. The crisp, clean whites; so different to the, almost underworld, visual qualities of the rest of the film. Similarly in the flashback to Judge Turpin's party, a masked ball, the surroundings are visually luxurious, filled with reds and golds, feathers, velvet and candles. The imagery becomes visibly overpowering and increasingly decadent as the pace of the scene rapidly increases and acquires a sense of urgency. Characters, abundant with masks of mythical creatures, surround the frame, bringing about a rush of colour and emotion.

Back to the Victorian London of the primary narrative, the colours darken and dampen again. In Lovett's pie shop, complete with it's dusty net curtains that, appropriately (in a Tim Burton film!) appear like cobwebs, flour and dust appears to coat every surface, completely blanketing the dark wooden furniture, absolutely none of which shines. Each surface too, literally crawling with cockroaches.

A set I'm particularly fond of in this film is the actual barber's attic. It's dusty wooden floorboards, lit by a single hazy light from the roof window. Other parts of the single room are hidden by the shadows and the furniture is minimal. The dull, broken mirror provides only fragmented reflections, a true reflection of the characters' personalities.

As Lovett fantasizes of a life away from the city with Todd, her ideas are expressed with essentially warm colours. As she wishes for a life by the sea, the colours used are typically nautical, pale blues and whites, represented by worn beach huts and deckchairs. The fantasy scenes are visually inviting, you feel the warmth in Lovett's desire for family life, in her desire for colour, away from the darkness of London.

Metropolis
(Fritz Lang, 1927)
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Metropolis is the futuristic story of a working and upper class divide. It houses the classic tale of an upper class man, Freder Frederson, who falls in love with a working class woman, the preacher, Maria.

Set somewhere in the future, Metropolis truly is a masterpiece of visual forsight, with sets of Chicago skyscrapers, when actually skyscrapers didn't appear until at least 30 years after the film's release. With visions of modern travel too- Monorail, trains, planes, all envisaged in this 1927, sci-fi that has influenced so many other films since. The film begs the question; how could the director have had such a vision of a future, that to a 2011 audience, is so actual and current?

The narrative is predictable now, however to a 1927 audience, it would have been innovative and exciting. At times the film seems a little fragmented but this is due to the fact that physically, some parts of the film were lost to the deterioration of celluloid. The film's look is very industrial and advanced, mixing imagery of neon-illuminated skyscrapers and flashing signs with imagery of whirring cogs and steaming pipes. The set makes use of a lot of strong forms; very linear buildings, especially within the working-class area and more adventurous designs within the cityscape, exploring curvature and much less the use of the straight line.

The music is very dominating, menacing at times. It works very well with the very much “German” imagery of the regimented workers in linear formation, and definitely heightens the sense of the looming “below”, where the workers spend their gruelling shifts. Contrast between light and dark is very widely used throughout the film, often adding an almost film-noir aspect to the film; a single light shining upon the desperate woman as the elongated shadow of a madman nears.

In keeping with it's futuristic and visionary theme, the film even explores the possibilities of robotics, making this then, the textbook for all sci-fi films that would follow it's 1927 release. All of the sub-categories explored in Metropolis can be found countless times over in films from the same genre. Personally, I was surprised with the complexity of the editing in this film. At times there are several images all super imposed and layered together and, during a scene demonstrating Freder's delirium following illness, the pace of the cuts between imagery is remarkable! It's very successful in creating a menacing and almost disturbing tone, using the fast pace to highlight the uprising of Maria's (The Machine Man's) hysteria and overwhelming control over the sheep of society.

In the scenes in which Brigitte Helm plays her main character's double, known as The Machine Man, I find her acting really quite disturbing; her movement very disjointed and unnatural. I was initially wary of Metropolis, but ultimately I enjoyed it, it's interesting to see how so many films since this have drawn influence from it, whether that be through editing or actual content. I understand that although I've seen a similar storyline so many times before this, Metropolis, in it's day, was truly innovative and Lang was very much ahead of his time in terms of narrative and content.

The Assassination of Jesse James (By the coward Robert Ford)
(Andrew Dominik, 2007)

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The assassination of Jesse James is the story of Robert Ford, a 19 year old who idolises Jesse, but who later is branded a coward for killing one of America's most loved criminals. Set in 1881, the film is a recount of the last few months of James' life and the events that followed his death.

The story is told by a narrator whose voice is always accompanied by childlike, soothing and almost haunting music- like that found in a musical jewellery box. The film is often in slow motion as the narrator speaks. He talks of Jesse like a legend, and his image appears on screen amongst a haze of blurred edges, like some sort of mythological being, tinges of red and blue surrounding the image like a 3D filter creating a very surreal and detached effect.

The colours of the opening scene are very washed out, lots of white, pale brown and grey; the long grass a dry, muted gold. The first scene creates a sense of mystery around Jesse James, the tall, linear, dry white trees surrounding The James Gang, towering above them like columns of withered marble. The key word for the majority of scenes that follow seems to be the word dry. Everything drained of water, colour and health, maybe reflecting The James Gang as a whole- tired and dry, many members now dead or too old to partake in any more criminal activity.

The scene continues at night time, showing the robbers waiting in the trees aside the railway line, waiting for the train to reach their previously set block. The screen is pitch black until we see the train approaching, the lights flooding the trees with bright white light, revealing their pale dryness once again. The shadows from these dry columns cast over the masked horrors, silently waiting in the trees. Their makeshift masks of cloth and sack, equally as dry-looking as their setting.

Once on the train, the setting is very different. Inside the mail carriage the lighting is very dark, lots of polished dark wood surfaces and panels. The main colour appears to be brown- the dark wood and the lighter brown for the package wrapping paper. The James Gang appear very out of place here, their somewhat tatty, itchy-looking clothes, much less at home on this train than amongst the dry trees. The layout of the train is very narrow and linear. Each carriage very long and thin. The mail carriage particularly linear, with it's wooden panels, windows and bars/railings. Following this scene, there is a substantial shift in tone and colour. The heavy rain, bringing with it, tones of midnight blue, deep purples and black.

The difference between Jesse James and Robert Ford is considerable. The way each man composes themselves is difference enough; James composed and still, quiet but still an overwhelming presence. And Ford, awkward and fidgety in disbelief of being so close to his childhood hero. Ford also still so young, rocks contently in his chair, grinning.

Throughout the film there are several shots of long, dry grass. Lot's of browns and muted yellows amongst a lot of framing within the camera frame, (shots filmed through frames, e.g. Windows, door frames, bars, etc.)

In a later scene, filmed in the house of Ed Miller, (one of the James gang), the mise-en-scene is very cluttered and run down, a house that has been left to gradually decay. The curtains merely rags of cloth, damaged furnishings scattered amongst the ruins of this broken home- as broken as Miller who knows his fate as Jesse appears at his home. “Insomnia stained his eye sockets like soot”- an accurate observation of the house as well as the man who exists in it. The scene is very washed out, pale and pasty. The home is very tired and again dry, sunlight beams through the one small window, casting light onto the dust that blankets the room. The scenery surrounding the house is equally run down, the dry grass overgrown, the wooden panels deteriorating, the fence broken and in a state of decay. The sky, an overcast sheet of grey, over the once white, wooden house that now sits quietly dying, paint peeling from it's tired panels. I like the whole decaying effect, I think there's a real beauty in the natural wear and tear of life.