Well Monday I was off so it consisted off me sleeping intill a ridiculous time in the afternoon, sleep always seems to win over anything else. That oh I'll just have another 10 minutes, that false belief soon turns in too an hour...two hours. Oh wells enough ramblings from me about my screwed up sleeping patterns.
Tuesday we came in to watch a screening of 'Not Yet Rated' and documentary by Kirby Dick. He sets out to expose the American Ratings Board. He sets out to try and see what this secretive board is made up off, and what its real goals and morals are that they are stamping these films with.
A large chunk of the film is following him with two lesbian detectives to try and track down these mythical board raters, with the goal of seeing who they really were. To see if they are these so called parents with children aged 5-17 like they so often boast about. I would like to say from the get-go during this investigation, I felt a little curious as to why he had chosen lesbian detectives. I felt like it was trying to push my view in a way that the MPAA were an anti-homosexual organisation. It does later confront this question by putting that very same question to some ex-board members. It is never really answered, but from what I gathered they turned up watched the movie had a discussion and left. How anyone could really get to know someone enough to make an informed judgement on wether someone is gay during that would be impossible.
I just felt like this was straying from the point Kirby was trying to make, It felt like a cheap swipe at the MPAA. I felt he could have addressed this question better by putting the question to the audience that the MPAA openly say they hire ordinary 'parents' to rate movies. This instantly to me says no homosexuals are chosen. That would be a question I would put to someone who worked their, or well to some sort of equality group to question the MPAA on.
We are also shown a number of interviews with his fellow directors who have been subject to the NC-17 stamp of the MPAA. All the films in question were given this stamp due to some sort of intimate sex scene. Here I felt like the MPAA were using their powers just a little too much, I did agree that some of the material may have been to much to not be given a NC-17. But a lot of the time it seemed like even holding the camera on their faces was unacceptable, this seemed like they were taking their jobs too seriously. They seem to have appointed themselves the moral guardians of the nation and in doing so are stopping a lot of provoking films getting through to the audiences.
Films that might change someones view on a certain subject matter, just because a group of parents don't feel and ease with is shouldn't be the only judge and jury on the matter. As soon as the MPAA started gloating that its parents judging these movies, this felt odd. Aren't parents the last people you should actively seek, yes they should have some sort of say on what their children see. But at the same time because they are parents they are going to be out of touch with what these films are saying about the culture they live in present day? It feels all a little demeaning for a group of parents to tell the nation as a whole what they can and cannot see. They are of course going to try and block their children seeing material 'they' wouldn't want their children to see. But to say no you can't have your film as an R because I wouldn't want my children seeing that, but your 'children should be young adults by that time and should be able to choose for themselves.
This is what the documentary is essentially made up from, interviews combined with the investigation to expose the raters. It did do a good job of keeping the documentary feeling like it was progressing and not becoming stale at any point. It definitely is a documentary you have to look at with your on head. It does become very one sided and times, with one point sticking out to me. When they espose the raters they made a point of showing what Political Party they belonged to. This brought back memories of Andy's class and the Nazi teacher with the sex offender husband. It really didn't need to show us that piece of information as it had nothing to do with the subject matter in hand.
Over all I think it was a good watch in the end. It did do what it set out to do and show that the MPAA is still really living in the past and is way overdue a shake up in the way it runs itself. It really does need to stop looking inwards and start looking out wards at the times they are living in. I feel its unfair to slap a NC-17 on someone and not explain why, not telling them what to cut or how to get around it. It just seems all so self defeating in the end. I do think it does loose track on keeping check of giving an evenly sided look at the MPAA. Although it would have been hard to do this as the MPAA would have no doubt turned down any interview.
So yes a good informative watch even if you do have to keep challenging for yourself what is being shown to you.
ZAM is Back!
So Zam is back in the ranks of RSAMD once again to pass on his knowledge of directing.
His first class consisted of looking at comedy as a genre. The question that was presented is what is funny? but more importantly how to make something funny. Zam showed us a number of clips from a broad range of comedy to look at and examine. He played the clip over and over again to show us what made up that clip and why is was funny. It all came down to timing in the end, that extra frame can mean the difference of something being funny and not.
The class were shown a broad range of different comedy genres, such as black comedy to dead-pan comedy, to look at what made each one uniquely funny. Zam did openly admit that comedy was an area that he was entirely comfortable with, and this did show as he didn't seem as excited about what he was talking about. This being said he did deliver the class in a very good manner and did get a lot of good pointers across such as timing. Something that wouldn't have instantly occurred to me if I was to think about comedy.
His next class was a class I don't think I have ever taken so many notes from. He again played clips from a number of movies covering mostly how to build tension, that ticking clock as he put it. The class showed us that in most scenes were tension is built it always almost has its ticking clock. From the Untouchables pram being pushed up the stairs combined with the clock to Aliens and the radar gun clicking away.
As the script I am writing fro Richard is a horror piece which I hope to build a lot of tension into, this was golden material for me. I found myself writing down ideas for my script as new ideas just kept rushing into my head. It has put the question to me, what is my ticking clock going to be? and also it showed me something I already knew a little about but didn't know why I knew it. If that makes any sense, and that is of course not showing for the longest time possible what is chasing them. Whats in someones head is always going to be more scarier to themselves and an individual. We all have our own fears and to give that canvas to the audience to project what they are scared of onto is something else I need to think about.
The class also showed me that its not the bang that is scary, its waiting for the bang that is scary. At some point during my script I am going to be presented with this, how long can I make the audience suffer for. How long can I feasibly hold onto that moment were something is going to happen and how long I can make them wait for it.
It was just an excellent class, one of the best this year for me personally I think.
Friday was time for the screening's, as me and Charlotte had spent so much time in the previous week editing away at it I was most anxious to see how it turned out. As we had spent so much time on so many little details I was afraid that we had become in some sort of way blinded by the littlest of details that we would have missed a bigger one. I was just scared that half way through we would hear 'And Cut!' or something similar.
This didn't happen so I could pull my t-shirt away from my face in anticipation of something going wrong.
From the screening it was clear to everyone I hope the level in which we have progressed from the first set of films to the film 'Little Clown' I think being sat down and watching them back to back was they only way of showing this too us. You can preach it all day long but to actually see it for ourselves in this medium was real shock to me. It was really night and day watching the difference between them.
It was also good to see the third year films as I have only seen them being cut. For all the films being really good in their own right, it did put that thought of 'We could do better' something which I have no doubt that the first years were thinking as well. This will all drive us to make better films in the future, a little competition is good. As with out it, we would get no where in life.
*rests fingers*
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