Deciding what I want to create / where the inspiration at?

The first thing that popped into my mind when approaching this project was that I don't just want to make nice images by being creative and technical. I also want to make sure these images are interesting, no matter how well you light and pan someone filling out tax returns the final result is still boring to look at. So firstly I started thinking about what I could film that is interesting; back home in Wales I have a group of friends that still skateboard on a regular basis. I started thinking this would be an interesting thing to film. They are also good friends and I am hoping they will be willing to let me film them doing all sort of weird and hopefully interesting things. So firstly my basic idea is a short skate film with less focus on the skill of the skaters but more on how shots are lit and filmed.

I had been toying for a while of the idea of filming my friends at night and doing roll-by shots (this is when another skater rolls along with the person he's shooting) with an LED light attached to the hot shoe on my Rebel T2i camera. But then in a lecture recently I was shown a clip from a film I already knew and loved called "Submarine" (Richard Ayoade's first feature film). This is the clip:

Segment from "Submarine"

The magic happens at 1.02. It made me think if I want to film at night using a light why don't I make my subject become the light and then when they skate around whatever area we choose they will light up areas around them and add elements of surprise drama to an otherwise simple film. So as you can see in this clip they are running with a flare, I will also have my performers doing this but they will be skating rather than running and they will be on long boards which allow for very smooth seamless motion. I have a few dark locations already in mind from where I live on the North Wales coast. Underground car parks, unlit roads and the promenade.

From this video I also came up with another idea of using cheap light to my advantage. I will buy an LED strip light and tape it to the bottom of a board and see what kinds of effects it creates. This clip also reminds me of something else I love and want to utilise for my film; the creative use of bokeh. Ever since I noticed bokeh in films and photography I picked up that it's one of my favourite things a lens can do. I haven't experimented much with bokeh but what I have found is that it works best at night with strong yet distant lights behind your subject who must be close and in focus. This was taken with my old 50mm lens which broke (I have replaced it):

As you can see on the top of every circle/pentagon there is a little speck, that was because the lens had a scratch on the inside which was annoyingly not mentioned on ebay! Anyway I have a new 50mm now as I said so my bokeh will be even better. In this example though those lights were just distant streetlamps, I want to achieve this beautiful bokeh effect with moving lights. Like in the film "Kids" by Larry Clark in this section when Telly finally gets his girl:

Screenshot from "Kids"

I couldn't find a clip of this on line so I took this screenshot, anyway if you cannot tell there are moving car lights there and the closer the camera gets to the couple the bigger the bokeh becomes, it creates a great effect needed for a climatic moment for the main character.

Larry Clark isn't just a film director, he is also a photographer who garnered quite a lot of fame with his critically acclaimed photography book "Tulsa". I bought the book a while ago and after just having looked through it again it is a very disturbing work but nevertheless the way he captures his figures is amazing. I want to go to a similar look for the segments in my film which won't be skating although probably not in black and white. He makes the subject he is photographing very prominent in his photos. He lights the parts of the subject he wants attention drawn to for example in this photo this woman has been beaten and her face with the black eye is lit brighter than the rest and just the top of her arm which is also bruised:

Scan from "Tulsa"

The same happens in this shot which is the aftermath of one of Clark's friends shooting amphetamine into his leg, the light is focused on the leg:

Scan from "Tulsa"

The way the man's face is lit only highlights certain parts of his face and makes him look almost demonic.

I was hoping in this film I could have a segment in which I would create a cinematic theme using still shots. The inspiration for this came from the music video for Mount Kimbie's "Before I move off". Here is the video:

"Mount Kimbie - Before I Move Off"

I just know that I have lots of photographs that could add some great juxtaposition to the film with the right editing techniques. It would also be interesting to perhaps not have a segment like this but just have occasions where still images pop up like in the brilliant HBO television series "How to Make it in America":

Opening titles from "How To Make It In America"

As you can see it gives the footage a "fresh" sort of feeling, it's an old technique but used correctly it seems very modern. As I mentioned earlier I am very keen on using strange light sources for my film rather than just electronic lights. I have always wanted to film people with a flickering light on their face, like that from a swimming pool or a fire, I'll choose a fire since it's cheaper and I don't need to get my camera near water! If I make an open fire I am hoping there is somewhere I can find to do this in an urban sort of area like in this Röyksopp video:

"Röyksopp - The Drug"

The section I want you to see is at 3:48, the rest of the video is brilliant however and really puts a weird spin on  post-apocalyptic fiction. I may take more inspiration from this video. This part of my film may involve some guerilla film making I think!

That is enough inspiration for today, next I will post feature films which include skating in them, I have a few in mind. I will also show you some ideas I have gained from my favourite artist Zdzisław Beksiński. I will then show you the equipment I will be filming with and upload some test shots. Thanks for reading!