PRACTICAL DV FILMMAKING

Practical DV FilmMaking

• Overview
• Inside video
• Films and how they work
• Pre-production
• Production tools
• Production aesthetics
• Post-production tools
• Post-production aesthetics
• Careers and distribution
• Mapping the industry
• Glossary of film and video terms

These can be less dogmatic, and more ambivalent, allowing the director to deal with conflicting meanings and opposing ideas. In straightforward genre films such as Armageddon, the theme

works without conflicting ideas. In this film, the idea of heroism and of a simple working man sacrificing his life for humankind is undiluted.

However, in other films, the themes are no less transparent but require more thought. In The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999), a series of suicides of young sisters leads us to think of themes such as the power of fundamentalist religion versus the need to grow freely into adulthood, or the strange voyeurism of the narrators who witness all but cannot intervene. And we also think about their para­doxical awe at the courage of the suicidal girls. None of it adds up to any coherent philosophy or rhetorical message, but it does give us lots to chew on after we leave the theatre.

For the filmmaker, the theme has to be approached in two ways for it to successfully make it onto the screen. First, it has to be identified early on as a core idea, so that it can become a motivating factor in each part of the script. To this extent, the themes need to be easily described, uncomplicated and to a degree universal as part of something we all relate to. But second, the filmmaker also needs to allow for themes to develop in unexpected ways. During development or even in shooting and editing, it is likely that other ideas will emerge that relate to the central ideas but were unforeseen. It is almost impossible to avoid this, as the collaborative process throws up new ideas, the lighting or camera pre­sents a further side to the ideas, and editing reveals other variations. In this way, a filmmaker can allow themes and ideas to float and collide within the film.

To take another good example, Todd Haynes's Far From Heaven (2002), mentioned earlier, uses a con­ventional appearance to throw up several ideas, all of which somehow go together but also collide in interesting ways. Set in 1957, it uses careful colour and design to suggest a technicolour period where values were uncomplicated and prejudices unchallenged, subliminally reminding us of film and TV of the time. Into this background, Cathy (Julianne Moore) uncovers the double life of her husband who is homosexual and,