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. 

Dasies (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 film - Rough cut:

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