Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud was born to a middle class jewish family in 1856. His professional life at first wasn't a success at first. As a medical student he did things such as dissect eels to try and find their reproductive organs (unsuccessfully) and even promoted cocaine as a medical drug but that turned out to be a dangerous and addictive idea. Years later after this he founded the discipline that would make his name; the psychological medicine that he called psychoanalysis. This landmark study was his 1900 book "the interpretation of dreams" and was followed by many more afterwards.

Despite his success however he himself was often unhappy himself; even recording in some of his most strenuous research "the chief patient I am pre-occupied with, is myself". He suffered with anxieties and paranoia particularly about the year he would die. It has been led to believe that through his own frustrations, Freud achieved a series of great insights to the sources of human unhappiness. He proposed that humans are all driven by something called the pleasure principle; which inclines us towards easy,psychical and emotional rewards.

As infants humans are mostly driven by the pleasure principle as argued by freud. but if left to wander without any restraints it can lead to things such as eating too much or not doing any work or even go to such extremes as trying to sleep with members of your own family. Humans are supposed to adapt to something that freud called the reality principle; the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly, as opposed to acting on the pleasure principle. Though humans have to bow to the reality principle, Freud believed there were better or worst kind of adaptions. He called the troublesome ones neuroses.

Neuroses are the results of faulty negotiatians (or repression of) the pleasure principle. Freud described a conflict between 3 parts of the mind. The Id-driven by the pleasure principle, The superego;driven by the desire to follow the rules and do the right think according to society and the ego; which somehow has to accommodate between the other two. To understand more, freud advised to think back to the origins of neuroses in childhood.

When growing up humans go through something called the oral phase; where humans deal with feelings toward ingestion of eating.
 

Lacan

Lacan Theory

Jacques Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who came from a religious family but instead of following that religion he was an atheist, stopping believing in the ideals of god at a young age and instead became obsessed with philosophy and mathematics; even going on to study medicine and specialise in psychiatry at university. Lacan wrote many essays and published transcripts of the seminars he gave and presented his ideas in complex ways and and often used mathematical equations and diagrams to explain them. Lacan made some great understanding to the complexity of humans.

He was deeply interested in the ideal of children minds and even delved into what he called the mirror phase; the idea the first time a child recognises themselves in the mirror and having the moment of knowing its them. The mirror phase can be quite unsettling because the face in the mirror doesn't always look as we humans feel.

This concept meaning that on the inside we are full of many different things and have a wide stream of consciousness; made up of speeding thoughts, desires and images. As humans we're chaotic, ever-changing and ambivalent to the core. However on the outside we seem like stable entities with composed features that portray almost nothing about whats going on within. Theres only words to be able to describe how we feel but most of the time they fail to do justice to our real intentions.

In conclusion the image in the mirror is far more one dimensional than the entity that beholds it. This can lead to a problem that follows humans throughout life and not just stay in the childhood. As adults humans long for other to understand us in the deepest ways but Lacans theory prepares us to face the darker possibility that people you encounter will be stuck on the outside of us and assuming us to just be as you seem to the eye and nothing more. This can lead to humans changing who they are entirely by changing their appearance to appear one way other than what they really are on the outside. For example the whole fashion industry rides on this due to humans changing their external appearances, tinkering with what people see such as hair or the design of clothes in hopes that eventually we will be properly understood.

However Lacan's theory suggests a difficult and somewhat more mature move: that we accept that other people will never experience us the way we experience ourselves and that us as humans will be almost entirely misunderstood and therefore will in turn almost entirely misunderstand.

The Development of Editing (Technology and Theory)

Editing is a crucial part to moving image and without it a lot of films and media would be dragged out or lack the impact in which editing brings to the story being told through the media outlet. Editing is mostly used to immerse an audience in the media and make it so they the editing is done so well in continuity that the audience forget they are actually watching a movie but editing can also be used for certain genres as well. For example jump cuts can be used in the horror genre to create jittery looking footage and shock the audience with the jarring movement or help cause jump scares to the viewers.

Shutter Speed

shutter speed is controls how long the shutter is opening for when the frame rate is shooting its shots per second. due to this the shutter speed can also have an outcome on the exposure due to how much light it can let in. For the best results when using shutter speed it should always be double of what the frame rate is to allow the footage to not be overexposed.





Slow Shutter Speed









Normal Shutter Speed





Fast Shutter Speed

4 hour film challenge

In the 4 hour film challenge on the 27/9/18 the brief was to plan,film and edit a film based on unusual perspectives. Once completed we watched it through twice as a class and got group feedback from our peers.

Our classmates gave positive feedback about the range of shots we used, especially the pull focus shot being one liked amongst our peers. We were informed that the unusual perspective challenge was achieved due to the odd choice of giving a personality to an egg. We were told that though the range of camera shots were good that the editing could be tightened in some places such as the egg rolling across the floor as the footage somewhat jitters when played. Another point we could of improved upon as well is the use of less found audio and instead maybe try doing our own voiceover or own diegetic sound instead of fully relying on downloaded audio.

Shots used:
-mid shot
-close up
-pull focus
-long shot
-low angle
-extreme close up

In this clip of Easy Rider (1969) a multitude of shots are used and a majority of them look like they were shot by an amateur. this is shown by the low amount of lighting if any at all, its a departure from usual hollywood movies from the era. The lighting used in the scene emphasises the day to day lives of the characters, tedious, monotonous and boring. 

The scene itself is a example of the time period it was set in,with the late 60's and 70;s being the peak of drug use. The clip starts with a four shot of the four characters to both establish who the scene revolves around and show their activities of taking LSD and drinking. The clip also contains panning up shots of a building with a trash lens flair on creating a blinding effect on the viewer to maybe give connotations of ones view upon taking LSD as your vision differs during it. The sunlight also shows the high-key lighting that is set throughout the scene from the natural light of the sun. A close up shot is also used in the clip where the male us hugging the statue; which symbolises him having a mental break-down over the suicide of his mother, to show the emotion on his face as he is in emotional turmoil. 

There is a scene that slowly cuts to a shot with high-key lighting, the camera shifts upwards toward the light which shows us the mood of the hippies thats changed from dull and boring to pure ecstasy. It uses the new editing techniques such as the way the camera stands still at first and does not move, which was not common occurrence for films of the time period, to the way it flips back and forth in the latter half of the scene. The fast jump-cuts of the scene is used to show what its like to experience being on LSD.

Shot Types:

-mid-shot
-long-shot
-close-up
-four-shot
-fish eye
-360 worm view

Angles:
-low angle on decayed building


Lighting Techniques:
-high key lighting
-over exposure

Editing:
-jump-cuts
-fast
-blurred together

Sound:
-non diegetic sound in background that amplifies and repeats itself
-starts of low and gets louder and louder
-diegetic of women reading a bible

Pull Focus Shot:
A pull focus shot is where the subject in front of the camera is focused whilst the background is blurred until the focus slowly shifts and the subject behind is in focus whilst the previously focused subject in the forefront is now blurred instead. These shots are commonly used in scenes where a gun is fired, with the barrel of the gun being in focus before slowly pulling focus to whoever fired the shot to build suspense and have the audience wondering who fired the gun for a short time before being hit with the realisation of who actually did it. In my shown shot I used the pull focus to simply show a transition of the shot from the tree to the tomb in the graveyard behind it.

Mid-Shot:
A shot that is often used when people on screen or characters on screen; commonly from the waist up, for dialogue sequences so viewers can pick up on gestures and body movement that shows how a character is feeling or what kind of character they are, mid-shots allow a lot to be shown in the mise-en-scene all whilst being still being able to capture emotion. They are also used to show a small space or setting where background mise-on-scene can be shown off. In my shot shown below I used the mid-shot to show the setting of the graveyard that could start a shot before a character enters the scene to be ready to show their posture and gestures.







Close-Up:
Close up shot are used to show emotion in more depth than a mid shot; usually focusing on a characters face to impact a viewer with the emotion the character is feeling. They can also be used on objects or items significant to the plot of the story, either showing the items importance or giving the viewer privilege of the objects significance that the characters themselves may not be aware of yet. In the shot I took I used a close-up to show the significance of the flowers being in a graveyard, showing their connotations of grieving or death of a loved one.






Extreme Close Up:
An extreme close up is used to convey emotion like a close up but in a more overwhelming way by doing close ups of things such as just the eye or even the lips to show connotations of lips being sexual objects. They are commonly used in horror movies to show emotion in a drastic way and even make viewers feel uncomfortable at the lack of boundaries and intimacy. My shot of an extreme close-up shows the significance of the death of someone which in certain medias could pose as exposition to the viewers of characters death or sorrow that a characters is feeling internally over the loss of said loved one.





High Angle:
A high angle shot is often used in scenarios to show the power of a character and how much they are in control in that current situation of the shot. It is commonly used with adults and children-showing that children are stereotypically weaker than adults and that they hold no power over those older than them. In my mid-shot I was aiming for a sort of God like connotation, that the angle is from a powerful beings point of view of them looking down on what they have created or rule over.





Tracking Shot:
Tracking shots are where the camera moves as a scene or real life situation is happening. The camera is commonly placed on tracks to give the shot a steady element to it and a common thing its used in is chasing scenes like tracking along a train to capture it in motion or in car chases. The camera can also be handheld to increase the sense of verisimilitude as it tracks the movement in shots; mostly in the social realism or drama genre . My tracking shot was to show the day to day workings of students as they focus on getting through their education and trying the make the most of the 'drab' situation they see themselves in.





Panning:
A panning shot is where the camera stays still but twists to the left or right or tilts up or down to show the environment or an interaction between two characters. It can also be used if its a one shot piece of media to transition into the next scene. My panning shot shown is to show the surroundings of where the piece of media is being set until a character of focus enters the shot.

Bibliography

Jorgan Leth:





French New Wave:
-The history of the French New Wave-Richard Neupert
-Masculine Singular:French New Wave-Genevive Sellier




Lacans Mirror Stage:
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