Lacan theory example - Grizzly Man:

"Lack" - Treadwell's desire to befriend/become a bear

An example of Lacan's notion of "lack" is the film text Grizzly Man, a documentary made in 2005 by Werner Herzog. The entire narrative of the text is about how a man, Timothy Treadwell, wanted and even believed that he had made friends with a tribe of grizzly bears in an Alaskan reserve. The physical representation of "lack", shown through Treadwell, is that he wanted to become friends with bears and even to an extent become one of them which is impossible - due to the massive differences between the human species and bears. 

In terms on technical signification in the film, the editing that has been used to create the narrative of the text also allows the director to encode and construct his own opinion into the text. Werner Herzog chose to encode clips from Treadwell's original footage (of which there is over 100 hours worth) and accompany it with contrasting clips of interviews that he filmed of/with his close friends and people who didn't know him personally - such as the mortician, rangers/agents who worked at the Alaskan reserve, and ecologist. This choice to edit clip of other interviewees, in itself, actually presents Lacan's notion of "lack" as each of the individuals being interviewed acts in a false manner with the presence of the camera in the room - particularly the lady introduced as Timothy Treadwell's ex girlfriend - who acts overtly fake and overly sympathetic towards both him and the lady he was killed with (his present girlfriend of the time). The music or non-diegetic sound that has been added in during the editing process (quite "happy" and almost relaxing guitar music), makes the clips feel more empathetic and also causes audience members to feel more sympathy and understanding towards Treadwell.

Psychoanalytical Film Theory - Lacan:

Mirror stage:
Jacques Lacan proposed that the mirror stage/phase was as stage of development between the ages of 6 to 18 months. In the early 1950s, Lacan had further developed his theory: as opposed to the mirror stage just being a moment in a baby/child's life, he believed that it represented a permanent (unreachable) ideal or a model of "imaginary order". 

Notion of "Lack":
"Desire is a relation of being to lack. The lack is the lack of being properly speaking. It is not the lack of 'this or that' but the lack of being whereby the being exists".
Lacan's notion of lack is similar to Freud's approach of the ID acting on a hedonistic/self-indulgent lifestyle, the superego acting on the moral principles and the "lack" (relating to the ego) which acts as an in between/balance. This theory/notion is shown and represented a great deal in films particularly through the protagonist of the text (for example: Blue Velvet - Lynch, Vertigo - Hitchcock)

"Fantasies have to be unrealistic because the moment, the second that you get what you seek, you don't, you can't want it anymore" - The Life of David Gale (2003). Essentially, we crave and strive for something that is forever out of reach. 

Freudian theory example - Deadpool:

Id - Deadpool
Ego - Negasonic Teenage Warhead
Superego - Colossus

Deadpool - Represents the id as he is constantly acting out and doing as he wants/desires.
Negasonic Teenage Warhead - Seems to be the middle ground between the two characters of Colossus and Deadpool, in some respects wanting to be more like Deadpool but refraining from doing so as she understands the moral consequences and instead agrees to balance out the id with the superego Colossus.
Colossus - Acts as the superego as he represents moral understanding and a more controlling nature, attempting to reign Deadpool in and make him act with more self-control.

A good example of the Freudian theory in Deadpool is during the first few minutes of the film, where Deadpool is trying to kill Francis but Colossus and NTW (Negasonic Teenage Warhead) are sitting behind him, Colossus currently lecturing Deadpool on why he shouldn't do it. In this scene, which takes place on a motorway bridge in New York City, all three of the Freudian trio (id, ego and superego) are present, visually representing each of their roles. Deadpool's attitude and language convey to the audience how he is driven purely by what he wants - showing aggression towards anyone who goes against him or tries to control him (like the superego Colossus does). The camera has been used in a series of mid-shots, causing the audience to see the situation from Deadpool's perspective as they are placed on the same level as him. 

Psychoanalytical Film Theory - Freud:

Sigmond Freud believed that "dreams are the royal road to the unconscious". (WEITER, 2004:195)
Characters in film texts reflect different aspects of a personality - and in some cases are given assigned roles because of their 'personal trait'. Much of Freud critical research was questioning his parents on their dreams - believing that making sense of them can lead to discovering someones true motivations. Film texts work on the same principles - organising and describing the narrative to find true meaning (Taxi Driver, for example) - as character are driven by something in their unconscious world/inside their head.

Film can, to a degree, be used to track down and unveil a universal understanding of our own thoughts and behaviours through identification and enjoyment of the text - the release mechanism of these id induced impulses.

ID - most primitive, irrational and emotional, selfish, concerned only with its own self-satisfaction, pleasure and instant gratification.
[KEY WORD: WANT]

EGO - reality principle, the ego tries to meet the basic needs of the id but also take into account the real world.
[KEY WORD: BALANCE]

SUPEREGO - based on moral principles.
[KEY WORDS: MORALS, COMPROMISE]

Health and Safety:

In the studio: I was adamant in to make sure that everyone in the studio was safe when I conducted my shoot in the studio. I was especially careful as to not leave various cables and wires around on the floor as a hazard for people to trip over and hurt themselves. When moving the lights around for the various set ups that I needed to demonstrate (Rembrandt, butterfly, etc), I made sure that the lights didn't get too hot or overheat - ensuring that no one in my group burnt themselves. 

Outside:
When I was out shooting in Birmingham in in the Nuneaton area, I made sure that all of the camera equipment was supervised so that non of the general public could harm themselves by falling over or bashing into the tripods (etc). The image bellow is of behind the scenes while me and a small group were out shooting Nuneaton. 

Different Types of Lighting:

There are numerous different types of lighting and lighting set ups that can be used to create a dramatic or interesting look in both photography and film texts. In my short video, shot in the photography studio, I tried out a few of these - which I am going to list below.




Rembrandt lighting is the style of lighting where one side of the face lit up and the otherwise is in darkness except for a triangle of light below the eye (as shown in the image opposite). 






Butterfly lighting is when the light source is above the camera, casting a shadow under the nose forming the shape of a butterfly. This particular style of lighting was very popular around when Hollywood began to produce a large amount of glamorous female stars.








Edge lighting is a slightly harder lighting effect to achieve as the light source has to be directly the other side to the side that the camera. However, it leads to a very dramatic and visually striking image.








Split lighting is a great deal similar to Rembrandt lighting, however there is only one side of the face illuminated causing the other side to be cast in a dark shadow.

Lighting Techniques:

This video shows the different types of lighting that can be used (except for High-key and low-key which have included photos of underneath). I found that it was fairly easy to achieve the different uses of high-key lighting and low-key lighting because altering the ISO camera setting made the example of the lighting style a great deal more evident in the video. Using the photography studio I was able to create most of the lighting techniques as the amount of unwanted light entering the image was greatly decreased. 

This video consists of a few of the lighting set ups that I used that are of a more experimental appearance, showing a further exploration of lighting techniques and the effect that they have on the video.

High Key Lighting | Low Key Lighting

Editing Techniques:

This video shows various different types of editing that can be used in film/moving image texts. It found that for this video, it was harder for me to find the textual examples of each editing types in existing film texts than it was to actually film and edit the pieces together with my own footage. I did for this video, however, decide to leave out some forms of editing (such as shot-reverse-shot) because I didn't want to reuse pieces of footage and confuse myself during the editing process. 

Contextual Study Evaluation:

For the research part of my contextual study unit, I feel as though I was able to source a good amount of information for the social, historical and political context. Although I could have used a great deal more research to include an explanation of the type of cinema and film productions of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s - 70s (when the New Wave movement was present), I believe that the amount of context and background information that I wrote - about the movement itself and the society it was produced in/for - is a sufficient amount when exploring and showcasing the point that I was researching in my essay. 

In terms of the reliability of the sources that I used for conducting research in my contextual study unit, I feel as though I used enough sources (including both books and websites) to verify each of the points and facts were correct before I wrote them into my essay. The fact that I used well acclaimed books on the wave, in addition to verifying each fact, meant that I feel as though I again a very wide and influenced understanding of the Czechoslovakian New Wave movement - and there is a very small change that the information I put into my contextual study essay is wrong/not historically accurate.

After I reviewed my first finished draft of the contextual study essay, I noticed a few flaws and, in addition, when it came to correcting them I chose to analyse a scene from each of the three texts that I had studied so that I furthered my own research into the New Wave movement and gave the points that I had made a more vivid and solid form of evidence - whilst also allowing me to explore the look and feel that the Czech New Wave film texts had.  

The part of the unit that I found the most difficult was when it came to analysing my chosen texts. This was due to the fact that I found it quite difficult to understand and interpret some aspects of the texts - particularly the meanings of each of them. 

Contextual Study Essay - altered:

A Contextual Research Essay investigating the Czechoslovakian New Wave movement

For my contextual studies essay, I will be exploring Czechoslovakian new wave cinema and the obscure ways in which the films are constructed while reflecting the society of the time. Through my research, I will also be looking at the impact that the society and political state had on the movement and Czechoslovakian cinema in general.

The three Czechoslovakian new wave texts that I have chosen to focus on particularly are: Daisies (1966), The Firemen's Ball (1967) and Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970). I have chosen these texts because I think that they are some of the most interesting and obscure texts of the Czech new wave movement.

Czechoslovakia in the 1940s was suffering the impact and aftermath of the second world war, meaning that there was a sudden influx in films being produced - although the control of the Soviet Union over the Czech government meant that all media content had to through public censorship checks before they could be fully released. During this time the Czech approach to society and creativity was forced to disappear and was replaced by the soviet cultural policies of the SU, however, in the following years Czechoslovakia started to gain recognition and the Czech film industry was given its first Academy Award (for A Shop on Main Street (1965) directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos). (HAMES, 2005)

Surrealism was a great influence to how the Czech film makers encoded, directed and produced their films. (OWENS, 2011) Due to the creative restriction laws in place (public censorship act) which lasted all the way through till the 1980s, a great deal of films that where created during this time were banned or restricted from being released before the film became readily available to the general public. Although, due to public demand, there was a slight relaxation on the law during the 1950’s to mid way through the 1960’s, there was still a great deal of film texts that were prohibited from being shown due to the openly “protesting Communist authoritarianism” (www.anothermag.com).

The 1966 new wave film Daisies, directed by Vera Chytilova, is a very obscure and controversial film in its portrayal of women who perform destructive pranks on society because they believe the world has gone rotten and so have they. This film text is known to be one of the most iconic films of the New Wave movement, presenting a very feministic view on the world accompanied with its overall negative view on society (specifically the communist society that was around in Czechoslovakia at the time. Due to the controversial nature of the text - openly slandering and speaking out against the Soviet Union and the communist/controlling reign of the state and country - it was immediately banned by the Czechoslovakian government.

The narrative of the film has been encoded with various creative and almost hypnotic or confusing types of editing, the most frequent of these being overlaying black and white clips of film with reds, blues and occasionally even a rainbow assortment of colour - giving a striking and almost childish/circus feel to the text. These outcomes were often due to the experimentation that the films editor - Miroslav Hajek - did on the reels of footage and occasionally the colours/editing effects weren't intended but they decided to keep them in the finished film as they ended up looking creative and interesting when spliced together during production. 

A particular scene in Daisies that shows how creative and obscure the editing in Czech New Wave films was, occurs towards the end of the film text when the two girls have accepted the fact that they, like the world, have become spoilt. The diegetic sound used throughout the scene - various trumpets used in an almost jazz type manner, making disjointed notes that do not flow together - is very distorted and escalates in speed as the clip progresses and the girls begin to “cut each other up”. This choice in music reflects the way Marie and Marie feel as the though the world has gone sour and is no longer beautiful or harmonious. In addition, it gives off the air of something that no longer makes sense - further tying into the idea that the two girls no longer understand their place in the world and cannot make sense of it other than to know it has become rotten/bad. The scene opens with the Marie I and Marie II in their apartment building, one laying down and the other cutting up the fabric of the mattress the first is laying on (moving on to aggravate her into a “play fight” as she cuts away part of the shirt the first Marie is wearing). After this brief entrance to the scene, the editing starts to become less natural and more striking and experimental. Accompanied with the added foley sound of the scissors snipping, the girls body parts become detached and appear in different areas of the screen to the rest of their body/the part thats intact. The cutting each other up escalates through to the end of the scene where they start chasing each other around the small apartment, the view becoming distorted and pieces of the collective camera view are shown as though they have been cut into tiny pieces with scissors and attempted to be placed back together. The key theme that can be seen throughout this scene is cutting and distortion - shown to the audience in a variety of different ways through the editing of the scene - linking to the main idea which powers the girls impulsive actions and also acting as a clear representation of the dissociation and way that the two Marie have cut away themselves from society and the rotten, corrupted and cut apart/destroyed world.

As well as the obscure, creative editing techniques used throughout the text, the actual narrative of the text speaks about two girls trying to understand the reason for their lives by destroying and upsetting the world around them in a series of societally destructive pranks. The majority of scenes throughout the film text are of the two girls (Marie and Marie) dinning out with different older male characters and then leaving them at the train station - essentially taking advantage of the mens kindness and desires to be married to a younger woman. The overall meaning of the film (“‘This film is dedicated to those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce,’ reminding us that rather than spend our time worrying about social transgressions we should instead be protesting Communist authoritarianism. While we might not be enduring the same oppression as 60s Czechoslovakia, Daisies' message is still relevant in modern times – we should pick our battles, focus on the things that matter and refuse to concede to arbitrary conventions; a lesson as relevant in 2015 as it ever was.“(www.anothermag.com)) and plot line, much like other New Wave film texts, is quite hard to gauge as there is essentially no exposition in the film - the New Wave movement was one in which directors treated their audience as people who understood common sense in narrative (a man walking out of his apartment door and leaves the building would have been  shown via a man going through the door and then outside the building rather than the ‘formulaic Hollywood’ way of showing which would have shown the entire journey the man had to get outside of his apartment building) and could decode the general meaning of the film - and lead to many audience members being confused by the film text but understanding that there was some kind of ‘moral message’ behind it.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders, directed by Jaromil Jires and released in 1970, is a very highly influenced surrealism text with a narrative about a young girl who escapes from reality in uncomfortably erotic dreams/fantasies. This film, unlike Daisies, is a striking and vivid example of how the surrealist movement or surrealism in general affected and influenced the Czechoslovakian New Wave. Despite Jires’s previous work, The Joke, being banned the production and release of Valerie and her Week of Wonders was fairly seamless as it fit simply into the horror genre. 

The editing types and objects/settings encoded in this film are very reflective of the sudden creative freedom that the directors and artists in Czechoslovakia had been given, along with the brief abolishment of the Public Censorship law in 1940s (HAMES, 2005). The very concept and narrative of the film - containing various uncomfortable and disturbing erotic fantasies - showcases just how extremely obscure Czechoslovakian film texts became due to their new freedom of speech and public displays. A great deal of the editing used in the scenes/colour pallets and encoding in the mise-en-scene creates a very pure angelic look when showing Valerie. The opening sequence of the film, lasting 2 minutes 26 seconds, has a large amount of artificial lens flare used after each short clip. This matches the aim of New Wave films because it breaks the conventions of mainstream texts of the day (especially Hollywood film texts) as it is a more obvious and possibly unaesthetically pleasing form of editing. The editing and overall appearance of the film creates a great deal of contrast in itself due to its very ambient and bright/aesthetic form compared to the dark and almost sexual horror that the narrative of the film conveys.

A scene which shows the colour pallets and colour connotation use in Valerie and her Week of Wonders is when Eaglet has just saved her from the Constable (dressed as the Head Missionary) and they then watch him interact with the grandmother in the courtyard. There is a large amount of colour connotation in this scene, in a way presenting to the audience how Valerie feels about each character in it - For example: when the camera shows Eaglet holding Valerie and keeping her out of sight the colours are generally very warm and it appears (as the audience knows) to be daylight, however when the camera shows the activity happening in the square/Valerie’s Grandmother and the Reverend the colours used are a great deal more dark and dreary (in tones of dark blue, black and grey) and in a way that makes the scene look like it was shot at night or the late hours of the afternoon. In addition to the interesting and contrasting use of colour, this scene also contains a great deal of cut-ins and mismatched reaction shots whereas in most other New Wave texts (Czechoslovakian or otherwise) jump cuts tend to be used along with colour overlays instead of more “Formulaic Hollywood” techniques like cut-ins or cut-aways. The mismatched/ unaligned reaction shot do, however, link to the idea that New Wave directors tended to include mistakes in their film texts due to them generally not having enough money to correct it or re-film it. 

The narrative of Valerie and her Week of Wonders is very heavily structured on surrealism and sexual horror, making clear parallels to the original book which inspired and influenced the film text. In addition to the use of lens flares and angelic music (which contrasts the overall plot line of the film text), the narrative of Valerie and her Week of Wonders is about a young girl who starts her period and begins to have dreams of a fanciful world of vampires and murder, whilst a whole new world of mystery and wonder is opened up to her. Unlike Daisies, where audience member came away with varying but somewhat similar interpretations of the text, Jaromil Jires’s film leaves many audience members with a very confused diverse range of interpretations of what the film means - the only clear reading of the it being that the story is of a girl becoming a woman.

The 1967 film The Firemen’s Ball, directed by Milos Forman, is one of the few Czechoslovakian New Wave films (if not, one of the only films ever) that was banned “’permanently and forever’ by the Communist regime” when it was released to the general public (www.rogerebert.com). In contrast the other two film texts that I have studied, The Firemen’s Ball is a comedy which contains outward and obvious slander within its narrative that the structure of society (at the time) is corrupt and run by misogynistic older males - who in this case use their power to parade the “selected women” in front of their table - and about communism and the communist authority in general.

The encoded types of editing throughout this film are more reflective and tightly fitted with the original New Wave editing techniques, being mainly reliant on jump cuts to make the audience aware that they are watching a film. Where the other film texts use more obscure and creative editing types such as multiple colour overlays at one to create a rainbow effect (Daisies) and lens flares with overly bright and angelic colour schemes (Valerie and her Week of Wonders), Forman chose to keep the overall appearance of the film relatively “normal” and more like a typical Hollywood/mainstream film.

A scene which presents the controversial nature of the text the most vividly is the scene where one of the women is asked to remove her clothes in front of the room of Firemen/Officers and 7 other women who’ve been selected for the Miss Fire-Department position. There is very little editing used in this scene - making it appear visually much more like a Hollywood film text rather than one from the New Wave movement-, however, there are a few jump cuts (in amongst shot reverse shots) encoded while the woman is undressing. Unlike in Valerie and her Week of Wonders, the shot reverse shots match up with what the eye(s) are looking at making the film seem a little less disjointed and giving it a more refined overall appearance. The fact that the films narrative is easily understandable and flows fairly seamlessly (with the exception of the jump cuts added in to make the audience aware that they are watching a film/create dissociation) makes it appear a great deal more like a Hollywood or even “formulaic Hollywood” film than any of the other New Wave texts the I have looked at or studied. There is, however, evidence in the scene of mistakes being included in the final product, namely the girls at the back trying to refrain themselves from laughing at something. This “mistake” is, however, hardly noticeable - meaning that it appears less as a mistake and more as a subtle part of the scene that could have been cut out by one of the jump cuts that appear just before it.

In terms of narrative, The Firemen’s Ball is a relatively easy text to decode - the senior Officer of the fire department has chosen to retire and to commemorate/celebrate a ball is held in his honour with lottery prizes and his choice of woman as the Miss Fire-Department’s beauty contest. The meaning behind this film was simply to outline to the audience the communist world in which they lived was not sustainable or good. “The idea of relaxing and abandoning oneself to leisure – what Forman refers to as “fun” – in communist Czechoslovakia, in 1967, is essentially a tragic-comic contradiction, the true import and meaning of which will escape many viewers today. ‘Fun in communist Czechoslovakia’ is an oxymoron that Forman needed to recognise publicly.” (ww.sensesofcinema.com).

In conclusion, my research has shown that the main impact and core value of the Czechoslovakian New Wave movement was to express the Czech directors distaste of the communist society that they lived through (under the rule of the Soviet Union) and enlighten the audience as to how bad it was and the real negative effects that it had on society and their lives/people in general.

Bibliography:

Daisies. (1966). [Film] Czechoslovakia: Vera Chytilova.

Valerie and Her Week Of Wonders. (1970). [Film] Czechoslovakia: Jaromil Jires.

The Firemen’s Ball. (1967). [Film] Czechoslovakia: Milos Forman.

HAMES, P. (2005) The Czechoslovak New Wave. Second Edition. London: Wallflower Press.

OWEN, J L. (2011) Avant-Garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties. New York: Berghahn Books.

SINGER, O. (2015) ‘Lessons we can learn from Daisies’. An Other Magazine. [Online] (July) Available From: http://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/7525/lessons-to-learn-from-daisies.

EBERT, R. (2002) ‘The Firemen’s Ball movie review’. [Online] (August) Available From: http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-firemens-ball-1968.

SIMMONS, A. (2010) Senses of Cinema. [Online] (July) Available From: http://sensesofcinema.com/2010/cteq/the-firemens-ball.

SAMUALS, A J. (2016) ‘New Wave and Beyond: Czech cinematic classics’. The Culture Trip. [Online] (September) Available From: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/czech-republic/articles/new-wave-and-beyond-czech-cinematic-classics.

Contextual Study Essay:

A Contextual Research Essay investigating the Czechoslovakian New Wave movement

For my contextual studies essay, I will be exploring Czechoslovakian new wave cinema and the obscure ways in which the films are constructed while reflecting the society of the time. Through my research, I will also be looking at the impact that the society and political state had on the movement and Czechoslovakian cinema in general.

The three Czechoslovakian new wave texts that I have chosen to focus on particularly are: Daisies (1966), The Firemen's Ball (1967) and Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970). I have chosen these texts because I think that they are some of the most interesting and obscure texts of the Czech new wave movement.

Czechoslovakia in the 1940s was suffering the impact and aftermath of the second world war, meaning that there was a sudden influx in films being produced - although the control of the Soviet Union over the Czech government meant that all media content had to through public censorship checks before they could be fully released. During this time the Czech approach to society and creativity was forced to disappear and was replaced by the soviet cultural policies of the SU, however, in the following years Czechoslovak started to gain recognition and the Czech film industry was given its first Academy Award (for A Shop on Main Street (1965) directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos). (HAMES, 2005)

Surrealism was a great influence to how the Czech film makers encoded, directed and produced their films. (OWENS, 2011) Due to the creative restriction laws in place (public censorship act) which lasted all the way through till the 1980s, a great deal of films that where created during this time were banned or restricted from being released before the film became readily available to the general public. Although, due to public demand, there was a slight relaxation on the law during the 1950’s to mid way through the 1960’s, there was still a great deal of film texts that were prohibited from being shown due to the openly “protesting Communist authoritarianism” (www.anothermag.com).

The 1966 new wave film Daisies, directed by Vera Chytilova, is a very obscure and controversial film in its portrayal of women who perform destructive pranks on society because they believe the world has gone rotten and so have they. This film text is known to be one of the most iconic films of the New Wave movement, presenting a very feministic view on the world accompanied with its overall negative view on society (specifically the communist society that was around in Czechoslovakia at the time. Due to the controversial nature of the text - openly slandering and speaking out against the Soviet Union and the communist/controlling reign of the state and country - it was immediately banned by the Czechoslovakian government.

The narrative of the film has been encoded with various creative and almost hypnotic or confusing types of editing, the most frequent of these being overlaying black and white clips of film with reds, blues and occasionally even a rainbow assortment of colour - giving a striking and almost childish/circus feel to the text. These outcomes were often due to the experimentation that the films editor - Miroslav Hajek - did on the reels of footage and occasionally the colours/editing effects weren't intended but they decided to keep them in the finished film as they ended up looking creative and interesting when spliced together during production. 

As well as the obscure, creative editing techniques used throughout the text, the actual narrative of the text speaks about two girls trying to understand the reason for their lives by destroying and upsetting the world around them in a series of societally destructive pranks. The majority of scenes throughout the film text are of the two girls (Marie and Marie) dinning out with different older male characters and then leaving them at the train station - essentially taking advantage of the mens kindness and desires to be married to a younger woman. The overall meaning of the film (“‘This film is dedicated to those who get upset only over a stomped-upon bed of lettuce,’ reminding us that rather than spend our time worrying about social transgressions we should instead be protesting Communist authoritarianism. While we might not be enduring the same oppression as 60s Czechoslovakia, Daisies' message is still relevant in modern times – we should pick our battles, focus on the things that matter and refuse to concede to arbitrary conventions; a lesson as relevant in 2015 as it ever was.“(www.anothermag.com)) and plot line, much like other New Wave film texts, is quite hard to gauge as there is essentially no exposition in the film - the New Wave movement was one in which directors treated their audience as people who understood common sense in narrative (a man walking out of his apartment door and leaves the building would have been  shown via a man going through the door and then outside the building rather than the ‘formulaic Hollywood’ way of showing which would have shown the entire journey the man had to get outside of his apartment building) and could decode the general meaning of the film - and lead to many audience members being confused by the film text but understanding that there was some kind of ‘moral message’ behind it.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders, directed by Jaromil Jires and released in 1970, is a very highly influenced surrealism text with a narrative about a young girl who escapes from reality in uncomfortably erotic dreams/fantasies. This film, unlike Daisies, is a striking and vivid example of how the surrealist movement or surrealism in general affected and influenced the Czechoslovakian New Wave. Despite Jires’s previous work, The Joke, being banned the production and release of Valerie and her Week of Wonders was fairly seamless as it fit simply into the horror genre. 

The editing types and objects/settings encoded in this film are very reflective of the sudden creative freedom that the directors and artists in Czechoslovakia had been given, along with the brief abolishment of the Public Censorship law in 1940s (HAMES, 2005). The very concept and narrative of the film - containing various uncomfortable and disturbing erotic fantasies - showcases just how extremely obscure Czechoslovakian film texts became due to their new freedom of speech and public displays. A great deal of the editing used in the scenes/colour pallets and encoding in the mise-en-scene creates a very pure angelic look when showing Valerie. The opening sequence of the film, lasting 2 minutes 26 seconds, has a large amount of artificial lens flare used after each short clip. This matches the aim of New Wave films because it breaks the conventions of mainstream texts of the day (especially Hollywood film texts) as it is a more obvious and possibly unaesthetically pleasing form of editing. The editing and overall appearance of the film creates a great deal of contrast in itself due to its very ambient and bright/aesthetic form compared to the dark and almost sexual horror that the narrative of the film conveys.

The narrative of Valerie and her Week of Wonders is very heavily structured on surrealism and sexual horror, making clear parallels to the original book which inspired and influenced the film text. In addition to the use of lens flares and angelic music (which contrasts the overall plot line of the film text), the narrative of Valerie and her Week of Wonders is about a young girl who starts her period and begins to have dreams of a fanciful world of vampires and murder, whilst a whole new world of mystery and wonder is opened up to her. Unlike Daisies, where audience member came away with varying but somewhat similar interpretations of the text, Jaromil Jires’s film leaves many audience members with a very confused diverse range of interpretations of what the film means - the only clear reading of the it being that the story is of a girl becoming a woman.

The 1967 film The Firemen’s Ball, directed by Milos Forman, is one of the few Czechoslovakian New Wave films (if not, on elf the only films ever) that was banned “’permanently and forever’ by the Communist regime” when it was released to the general public (www.rogerebert.com). In contrast the other two film texts that I have studied, The Firemen’s Ball is a comedy which contains outward and obvious slander within its narrative that the structure of society (at the time) is corrupt and run by misogynistic older males - who in this case use their power to parade the “selected women” in front of their table - and about communism and the communist authority in general.

The encoded types of editing throughout this film are more reflective and tightly fitted with the original New Wave editing techniques, being mainly reliant on jump cuts to make the audience aware that they are watching a film. Where the other film texts use more obscure and creative editing types such as multiple colour overlays at one to create a rainbow effect (Daisies) and lens flares with overly bright and angelic colour schemes (Valerie and her Week of Wonders), Forman chose to keep the overall appearance of the film relatively “normal” and more like a typical Hollywood/mainstream film.

In terms of narrative, The Firemen’s Ball is a relatively easy text to decode - the senior Officer of the fire department has chosen to retire and to commemorate/celebrate a ball is held in his honour with lottery prizes and his choice of woman as the Miss Fire-Department’s beauty contest. The meaning behind this film was simply to outline to the audience the communist world in which they lived was not sustainable or good. “The idea of relaxing and abandoning oneself to leisure – what Forman refers to as “fun” – in communist Czechoslovakia, in 1967, is essentially a tragic-comic contradiction, the true import and meaning of which will escape many viewers today. ‘Fun in communist Czechoslovakia’ is an oxymoron that Forman needed to recognise publicly.” (ww.sensesofcinema.com).

In conclusion, my research has shown that the main impact and core value of the Czechoslovakian New Wave movement was to express the Czech directors distaste of the communist society that they lived through (under the rule of the Soviet Union) and enlighten the audience as to how bad it was and the real negative effects that it had on society and their lives/people in general.

Contextual Essay - Progress:

For my contextual studies essay, I will be exploring Czechoslovakian new wave cinema and the obscure ways in which the texts are constructed while reflecting the society of the time. Through my research, I will also be looking at the impact that the society and political state had on the movement and Czechoslovakian cinema in general.

The three Czechoslovakian new wave texts that I have chosen to focus on particularly are: Dasies (1966), The Firemen's Ball (1967) and Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970). I have chosen these texts because I think that they are some of the most interesting and obscure texts of the Czech new wave movement.

Czechoslovakia in the 1940s was suffering the impact and aftermath of the second world war, meaning that there was a sudden influx in films being produced - although the control of the Soviet Union over the Czech government meant that all media content had to through public censorship checks before they could be fully released. During this time the Czech approach to society and creativity was forced to disappear and was replaced by the soviet cultural policies of the SU, however, in the following years Czechoslovak started to gain recognition and the Czech film industry was given its first Academy Award (for A Shop on Main Street (1965) directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos). (HAMES, 2005)

Surrealism was a great influence to how the Czech film makers encoded, directed and produced their texts. (OWENS, 2011)

The 1966 new wave film Dasies, directed by Vera Chytilova, is a very obscure and controversial text in its portrayal of women who seemingly have no purpose to their lives and export the manners and kindness/love and admiration so that they can eat or dine and continue to live their care free lives. This text is known to be a strong example of surrealist cinema and coming from a director who's won awards and respect for producing feminist works its a very strange and confusing text. 

The narrative of the text has been encoded with various creative and almost hypnotic or confusing types of editing, including overlaying black and white clips of film with reds, blues and occasionally even a rainbow assortment of colour over top. These outcomes were often due to the experimentation that the films editor did on the reels of footage, occasionally the colours and effects weren't intended but they decided to keep them in the finished text as they ended up looking creative and interesting when spliced together during production. 

Shot Types:

This video presents the different types camera shot, including: establishing shot, mid shot and extreme close up. Using different shot types accompanied with aperture can create a range of different emotions for the audience to decode - such as long shot with a shallow depth of field can allow the audience to gain the reading that the subject/character in the scene feels isolated where as an extreme close up with a low aperture could show that the character is scared. 

There are a few shot types that I missed out due to loosing some of the footage (establishing shot and extreme close up), however, the clips that I do have in the view are very good in the way that they are examples of the shot types. The high angle shot is a very nice example of the type of composition that can be used along with the shot type (as well as being a good example of the technique). 

New Wave Short Film:

This video is my finished New wave short film, shot in Birmingham using a range of different new wave editing and shot techniques. For this finished piece, I decided to add in non-diegetic sound so that I didn't have to worry about the natural sound picked up by the camera and, in addition, the use of music enabled me to figure out more structure of where I was going to place my jump cuts and other new wave style edits. 

Although I am happy with how the overall appearance of the video came out and the way in which it presents/uses a variety of new wave editing techniques, I feel as though it turned out to be more of a music video than a new wave short film. This is because of how the jumps cuts and colour overlays match up almost perfectly with each of the beats or changes in music - I think that the lack of narrative also makes this video look a great deal more like a music video that an a contextual exploration of the new wave and the ways in which it challenged and changed film making through its rule breaking and lack of exposition for its audience. 

In addition, I feel as though rather than using the same editing techniques throughout the video, it would have made a stronger example/had a stronger link to the new wave cinema if there had have been a wider range of techniques (both editing and narrative/content wise) used. The ways in which I used jump cuts could also have been more effective if I had made the transitions between scenes/locations more sporadic and disjointed as it would have forced the audience to be aware that they are watching a video/short film - fitting the aim for new wave texts more. 

My choice of music for this new wave short film, I feel, works quite well as it does not detract from the content or footage being shown on the screen. The lyrics of the song do not fully match up/reflect the "narrative" of the film as well, meaning that there is a further reflection of the new wave style to break normal film text conventions and create an obscure final product. 

Daisies (1966):

The 1966 new wave film Dasies, directed by Vera Chytilova, is a very obscure and controversial text in its portrayal of women who seemingly have no purpose to their lives and export the manners and kindness/love and admiration so that they can eat or dine and continue to live their care free lives. This text is known to be a strong example of surrealist cinema and coming from a director who's won awards and respect for producing feminist works its a very strange and confusing text. 

The narrative of the text has been encoded with various creative and almost hypnotic or confusing types of editing, including overlaying black and white clips of film with reds, blues and occasionally even a rainbow assortment of colour over top. These outcomes were often due to the experimentation that the films editor did on the reels of footage, occasionally the colours and effects weren't intended but they decided to keep them in the finished text as they ended up looking creative and interesting when spliced together during production. 


Bibliography:
 HAMES, P (2005) ) The Czechoslovak New Wave. Second Edition. London: Wallflower Press

 https://screenproject1400.wordpress.com/2013/11/12/vera-chytilovas-daisies-czechoslovakia-1966/ 

New Wave Draft:

This is my first draft/rough cut of my new wave short film, including no narrative or sound. I chose to make this so that I could work out the clips that I wanted to use in my film and the different types of editing techniques I will use (mainly the jump cuts). 

Labelling and Organising:

I chose to label and organise each of my clips of footage so that it was easy for me to sort through them and pick out the best ones/the ones which demonstrated different and certain shot types. Choosing to name the footage like this meant that it was easy to find the shots/clips that I wanted when I was editing and putting together my short new wave film. In addition to the names, my decision to view the shots like a list meant that I could also look at the settings of each piece of footage and the duration - meaning that it was easier to work out where to cut each clip. 

As well as renaming all of my footage, I decided to label each of them with a different colour/groups of colour depending on what shot type it was. This means that I can see which clips are the same type of shot rather than what the shot contains/the subject of it. 

New Wave Design Brief:

Having researched range of new waves and beginning to analyse three Czech new wave texts, I have chosen that when creating my own short new wave film I will try to draw upon a variety of techniques from a range of new wave films and follow the new wave idea/concept of breaking the formulaic Hollywood rules for film making- mainly the most common conventions such as: jump cuts, colour overlays, lack of narrative and obscure camera movements. I am going to keep the length of my short film around 3-5 minutes long as I think that will give me ample time to exercise a range of new wave techniques without dragging on too long. 

My plan is to compile a wide variety of shots from a large number of locations that I visit in the Birmingham city area. This should make it easy for me to edit in numerous  new wave techniques such as jump cuts and colour overlays. I aim to use mainly, if not completely, non-diegetic in my short film so that I don’t have to worry about the diegetic sound picked up by the camera when filming around Birmingham.  The use of putting the film to music means that I can add some structure to the jumps cuts that I put in as I can aline them with beats/changes in the song. 

For lighting and camera settings, I will be using natural (and unpredictable) lighting and keeping the footage hand held - fitting in with the new wave aim to break typical Hollywood film making conventions and rules.  I am going to try to keep the exposure correct, however, I feel as though changing the shutter speed could mean that the overall effect of the footage and video could be more creative and obscure. In terms of shot types, I’m going to try and use a wide variety of different types of camera shots and angels, meaning that the final cut of the film will have numerous different  shots and views rather than just one single camera shot/angle. 

Czech New Wave - Historical/Social Context:

Czechoslovakia in the 1940s was suffering the impact and aftermath of the second world war, meaning that there was a sudden influx in films being produced - although the control of the Soviet Union over the Czech government meant that all media content had to through public censorship checks before they could be fully released. During this time the Czech approach to society and creativity was forced to disappear and was replaced by the soviet cultural policies of the SU, however, in the following years Czechoslovak started to gain recognition and the Czech film industry was given its first Academy Award (for A Shop on Main Street (1965) directed by Jan Kadar and Elmar Klos). (HAMES, 2005)

Surrealism was a great influence to how the Czech film makers encoded, directed and produced their texts. (OWENS, 2011)

References:
 Hames, P. (2005) The Czechoslovak New Wave. Second Edition. London: Wallflower Press

 Owens, J. (2011) Avant-Garde to New Wave: Czechoslovakian cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties. New York: Berghahn Books

 http://www.newwavefilm.com/international/czech-new-wave.shtml

Essay Texts (Czeck New Wave):

The Firemen's Ball - Milos Forman

For my contextual studies essay, I will be exploring Czechoslovakian new wave cinema and the obscure ways in which the texts are constructed while reflecting the society of the time. Through my research, I will also be looking at the impact that the society and political state had on the movement and Czechoslovakian cinema in general.

The three Czechoslovakian new wave texts that I have chosen to focus on particularly are: Dasies (1966), The Firemen's Ball (1967) and Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970). I have chosen these texts because I think that they are some of the most interesting and obscure texts of the Czech new wave movement. 

Daisies - Vera Chytilova / Valeries and her Week of Wonders - Jaromil Jires

Czech New Wave:

As previously mentioned, the main influence for the Czech new wave was the political and creative freedom that they were given towards the end of 1960s, liberating film makers and other artist and allowing them to create works which contained controversial imagery and spoke about/mentioned taboo topics - before this liberation, all texts (from newspapers and radio to television and cultural event organisation) had to be sent through the public domain before publishing. 

Lasting from the 1960s till the early 1970s, a great deal of creative and obscure texts, including films, were produced and displayed for the public and creators enjoyment. Some of the major figures of the Czech new wave movement were: Milos Forman - who produced one of the first Czech new wave texts that helped launch the movement, Milan Kundera, Vera Chytilova and directing the director team of Jan Kadar and Elmar Clos - who ended up wining Czechoslovakia's first Oscar in 1965 for the film A Shop on the High Street. 

History of the New Wave/The French New Wave:

The French new wave is the style of film making that broke Hollywoods rules and inspired a new way of film making that has carried through to the present day. As an artistic movement that changed the way Hollywood saw film making - choosing to use natural environments rather than studio sets - it gave the directors a great deal more freedom when it came to shooting their films and has been remembered as a great influence much like cubism and surrealism. This style of film making meant that the craft was opened up to many young, aspiring film makers and other amateurs - the French new wave was a cultural revolution. 

The new wave movement showed and reflected the change in lifestyle that was happening during the 1960s and how society was evolving. It took normal peoples lives and put them into cinema, being centred around young people, youth and a something new/a new life. 

Shutter Speed Practice:

To investigate and practice using shutter speed, I chose to shoot three videos at different shutter speeds (1/30, 1/50 and 1/60). When it came to shooting the videos, however, I decided that it would be more effective to show a  very high shutter speed as it would be a clearer exploration of the effect of shutter speed on the quality and visuals of the video. This video is shot at shutter speed 1/30, meaning that there is a slight motion blur and the aperture I used had o be very low so as to not over expose it. 

To achieve this effect, I chose to use the following camera settings: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/30, 25fps, and aperture 5.8ff. When shooting at such a slow shutter speed, I found that it was difficult to make out the detail of the water and the over look of the video was quite dull. 

This scene shot highlights what I mean and shows that the slow shutter speed increases the amount of motion blur and makes the water appear as though it is a smooth continuous stream. I do feel that my choice to shoot a garden hose/water was good though as it means that the full effect of shutter speed on film is evident. 

For this video, I shot at shutter speed 1/50 so that the visual appearance of the water would be closer to that which humans see with there naked eye. The shutter speed should always be double the number of the frame rate, for example: if you're shooting at a frame rate of 25fps you should shoot with a shutter speed of 1/50. This means that although the appearance of the water is still smooth, it is what people see with their natural eye - this is also the type of frame rate to shutter speed ratio that most directors and film makers use.

To achieve this effect, I used the following settings: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/50, 25fps, and aperture 7. Because I was shooting at a higher shutter speed, I had to change the aperture to allow less light into the camera and prevent it getting over exposed, however, this meant that I had to refocus the camera.

This scene shot shows that the higher the shutter speed, the less motion blur there is. It also shows the trouble I had when it came to refocusing the camera, however, that could also just be a little amount of motion blur from the garden hose moving as it was hand held.

This final video shows the effect of the shutter speed on the footage at both 1/100 and 1/400. The stream of water presented at this shutter speed shows that there is no visible continuous stream and instead the individual droplets of water and details are clearer. 

To achieve these effects, I first set my camera to: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/100, 25fps, and aperture 10; and then to: ISO 200, shutter speed 1/400, 25fps, and aperture 10. As these two shutter speed are quite high, the details are very clear but the exposure also made the lighting a great deal crisper, meaning that it looks more like a photograph or unreal that the other two videos do. Because of this unnatural looking appearance that shooting at such a high shutter speed gives, directors and film makers usually elect not to use it.

These two screen shots show how much detail is visible at high shutter speeds - because there is such a high shutter speed there is very little motion blur. I found that it was a great deal more difficult to focus the camera when using these high shutter speeds because I had to focus on the individual droplets rather than on a constant stream like with the slower shutter speeds.