In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968), music leads and determines the image. Is this the right balance of sound over image? Or should sound be the equal of image?…
Whatever your verdict, it’s worth checking out the opening of Kubrick’s film on Youtube by clicking on the image below. Is this the greatest movie opening ever made? You decide…
A common misunderstanding that can arise when we describe ourselves as a film or video production company is to assume that we are a camera for hire. In other words, that we turn up for conferences, bar mitzvah’s, or even funerals with a camera. This is not what we do!…
…We translate messages into film.
Most organizations or businesses have a strong message. In response to this, and in consultation with the organization at every stage, we design a film or video around the message.
How do we go about making the film?
There are 2 ways of constructing a film – One is based on the concept of Realism and the other on the concept of Expressionism.
The Realism way, which by the way accounts for most films on You Tube, is mostly dross.
Realism means going out with a camera and sound equipment, and with a little editing, putting a film together. Very little thought goes into the layers of communication required to create the story.
You see, every edit, every prop, every sound, counts in the telling of a story. And we all love a good story.
Expressionism is fundamental to the design that goes into a film to create a good story. To help you understand this, here’s a little bit of film history.
It was coined as a term during the 1930’s in Germany as a reaction by artists to the clash of political interests between the Weimar Republic and the rising popularity of the Socialist Party that eventually became the Nazi Party.
Expressionism was a method by which artists and filmmakers could express their feelings through subliminal portrayals of the political climate.
When artist intolerance in the political climate became too much for the expressionist filmmakers, most moved to Hollywood. Fritz Lang was one such filmmaker and so began the successful rise of the Hollywood film industry.
And that is the point. The commercial success of the Hollywood film is that they sell a dream or an aspiration. Hollywood has accurately been described by others as a huge advertising and marketing machine. And the core of its success is Expressionism. We have a vision. You have a story to tell. With the mass of mobile audio and video viewing platforms, faster broadband and wireless internet connections, a company can sell their message through a dream and an aspiration just like Hollywood. But, as with Hollywood, that message has to be refined through the medium of Expressionism. In other words through design, the scripting, storyboarding, sound design, screen content, and continually refining the message, we ensure each element has a part in telling its story.
We are proud to announce our association with Lipstikka, recently premiered in competition at the Berlin Film Festival . The following is an extract from the Berlin Film Festival website.
Lara is Palestinian. She left Ramallah thirteen years ago to begin a new life in London where she married Michael and had a child. She, her husband and her seven-year-old son James lead a pleasant, albeit somewhat dispassionate life in one of the city’s better districts. But there’s nothing a good slug of vodka won’t help her to cope with.
But then, one day Inam turns up at Lara’s front door. She is a childhood friend from Ramallah. No sooner does Inam surge into the apartment, ask Lara about her husband (currently out at work) and shower attention on Lara’s little boy than it becomes apparent that there is a certain tension between the two women. It’s not long before Lara realizes that everything she has created for herself is endangered by Inam’s brusque intrusion.
The two women share a secret. Back then, on the West Bank, the girlfriends shared a closeness borne out of their adolescent sexual experiences. One evening in 1994 during the Intifada, they ignored the curfew and headed out to the Jewish part of Jerusalem to see a film at a cinema. Two young Israeli soldiers who noticed them mistook them for Italian tourists. After the film they went out for a drink together. But something that began as a youthful prank took an unexpected turn. What really happened depends on the way each individual perceives those events. Your memory can play tricks on you. Especially when it concerns your deepest fears…
