Neoformalist Analysis of Man with a Movie Camera (1929) d. Dziga Vertov

    "The Man with a Movie Camera" is a silent Soviet documentary produced by

VUFKU and released in 1929. It may be included in a series of films known as "city

symphonies," where filmmakers used experimental film techniques to explore their

cities. “The Man with a Movie Camera'' captures Soviet Russia and Ukraine, filmed

in Moscow, Kyiv, and Odesa, in the 1920s. It takes place from sunrise to sunset,

presenting parallel narratives: one depicting a day in the life of a civilian, and the other

revealing the filmmaking process itself. Introduced as an "Excerpt from a camera

operator's diary," the film begins with title cards stating the filmmaker Dziga Vertov’s

cinematic manifesto:

    “This film is an experiment in cinematic communication of real events without the

help of intertitles. Without the help of a story. Without the help of theatre. This

experimental work aims at creating a truly international language of cinema based on its

absolute separation from the language of theatre and literature.”

    We will be conducting a neoformalist analysis of this film's cinematic style,

specifically its experimentation with and innovation of cinematic language by way of split

screens, Dutch angles, and close-ups. We will evaluate how they contribute to the film's

aesthetic and narrative while considering how Vertov's political ideology impacted his

sensibilities.

    One of the experimental techniques Vertov utilized in “The Man with the Movie

Camera” is the double exposure of the film to create a new and other-worldly multi-layered

image. This technique involves planning two images to impose over one another, filming

the first, rewinding the film, and then filming the second. During the film’s processing,

both images will appear. Vertov would use this technique to create split-screen images,

such as that in Figure 1. of two babies lying side by side in a nursery.

    This was an unconventional tactic for traditional filmmaking of the time, and

Vertov used it for various impacts, such as emphasizing the chaos and movement of a

scene, such as a city street. These two examples of split-screen also stand to reflect

Vertov’s Soviet ideals. The image of two babies lying side by side in a nursery

symbolizes the unity and collective spirit encouraged by Soviet ideology, while the

split-screen streets depict the brutality of capitalism, presenting them as difficult to

navigate, magically chaotic, and destined for conflict and/or impact.

Figure 1: Two swaddled infants appear next to one another, created by the double

exposure of the film, creating a split-screen effect. This image evokes the cyclical nature

of life and the city, drawing parallels between the growth of individuals and the city.

Figure 2: This split screen shows the double exposure of two angles of a busy street

scene. We see the city of the time and its inhabitants dodging cars and one another.

    Dutch angles were another unconventional yet enduring technique Vertov

experimented with to expand the storytelling capabilities of cinema in “Man with a Movie

Camera.” He employed Dutch angles to convey the psychology or perspective of the

viewer, tilting the camera off its horizontal axis to create a sense of disorientation or

unease. For instance, following a close-up of a person’s eye, the film transitions to

Dutch angles and moving shots of the city’s surroundings as observed by the eyes.

These angles disrupt the traditional visual grammar of filmmaking, prompting viewers to

engage intuitively with the scene and evoking emotional responses such as confusion

or anxiety. They also add visual interest to the scene, creating diagonal lines and

skewed compositions that draw attention to specific elements and create a sense of

imbalance.

Figure 3: A Dutch angle of a looming smokestack emitting black smoke cutting

diagonally across the screen, displaying its polluting domination of the environment.

Figure 4: An askew image of a city street, cars, and pedestrians moving quickly about

their business, the buildings, cobblestone streets, and cars blending surreally.

Close-up shots may surprise some to be considered innovative filmmaking

technique, because they are a fundamental part of cinematic language in modern times,

yet during Vertov’s time, the close-up was a new and incredibly powerful tool to draw

audiences intimately into the story. Close-up shots are a type of compositional framing

where the subject fills the majority of the frame and the audience can see it in

detail. Utilized commonly in modern cinema to bring the audience into the world of the

characters by showing their facial expressions or other details, Vertov experimented

with the close-up to include inanimate objects such as the camera’s lens itself. Close-up

shots revolutionized filmmaking during the '20s, when previously filming was often

restricted to wide, static shots due to the equipment and conditional requirements of

filming during the time.

Figure 5: A close-up view of the camera lens, occupying the entirety of the screen, with

the iris staring back at the audience from the center of the image. This composition

communicates the imposition of the "Kino-Eye" on the life being captured.

Figure 6: A close-up of an observer's shadowed eyes, everything else overexposed and

lacking detail, emphasizing their observation of the film’s scenes.

    Dziga Vertov's manifesto, titled "WE: VARIANT OF A MANIFESTO," outlines his

approach to filmmaking and his mission to reject cinematic conventions and experiment

with new forms of cinematic language. He advocates for the use of cinema as a tool for

social change and calls for a more objective and scientific portrayal of reality. At the

heart of his cinematic vision, Vertov celebrates rhythm and movement and embraces

the freedom modern technology awarded filmmakers to go out and adventure. His use

of split screens highlights the interconnectedness of individuals and societal elements.

Dutch angles disrupt traditional visual perspectives and challenge viewers' perceptions,

in line with Vertov's rejection of conventional storytelling techniques. Close-up shots

reflect Vertov's belief in the importance of capturing reality in a way other mediums of art

such as theatre and literature could not. Overall, Vertov's cinematic style realizes his

manifesto principles by pushing the boundaries of cinematic language and advocating

for a more objective and dynamic portrayal of reality.

Evolution of Cinematic Language: A Comparative Analysis of D.W. Griffith’s 'The Lonely Villa' and Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s 'Suspense'

David Wark Griffith’s The Lonely Villa (1909) and Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s Suspense (1913) benchmark the evolution of cinematic language. The Lonely Villa opens with a wide shot of three robbers, depicted as small figures positioned audience-left in a wide, proscenium frame. Behind them, a halo of bushes, and in the far background, a beautiful, large house.



Fig. 1: D.W. Griffith's The Lonely Villa (1909)

This opening shot sets the stage and is one of the few instances where the film experiments with a deep horizon for narrative effect.

The robbers case the home by having one of them pose as a delivery boy and delivering a letter to the husband that calls him elsewhere. Although the husband gives his wife and three daughters a gun before leaving, the robber is able to take the bullets without her noticing. The husband gives the delivery boy a disappointing tip and leaves, then the three robbers burst through the house's front door.

They attempt to get the wife and her daughters, overcoming several obstacles. The wife is able to call the husband, and he begins his journey to save them. There is then parallel editing between the scene at the home and the husband's journey. Ultimately, the husband is able to retrieve the police and save his family.

In Suspense, a maid quits and leaves the woman of the house to fend for herself during a home invasion by a traveler who finds the key to the house that the maid left under the mat. The wife is able to alert the husband and he returns home, encountering several roadblocks on his way, such as a boy he hits. Finally, the man is able to save his wife.

Advancements in cinematic language found in Suspense, compared to a similar story in The Lonely Villa, include utilizing image depth to create more interesting compositions; breaking away from static wide shots in the proscenium style; and the use of analytical editing.

In the context of mise-en-scène, shallow compositional depth refers to the arrangement of actors and production design at various distances from the camera to create a sense of depth in the image. Cinematography-wise, a shallow depth of field keeps only a narrow plane in focus, causing other elements in the frame to be blurred. This is achieved by using a wide aperture on the camera lens and is often used to emphasize the main subject or object of the shot.



Fig. 1: D.W. Griffith's The Lonely Villa (1909)

This frame displays a shallow compositional depth, it is flat. The wall and window establish the horizon, the children and then the father create visual layers. The entrance of the servants between the front and middle planes adds dynamism.



Fig. 1: Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s Suspense (1913)

This image utilizes image depth. It shows the backs of drivers' heads as they chase a car down a road we see winding into the distance.

Proscenium style filming refers to setting the film frame to imitate what an audience member would see at a live theater performance, the edges of the stage replicated by the edges of the film.



Fig. 1: D.W. Griffith's The Long Villa (1909)

A frame showcasing the proscenium style, with a flat background and actors positioned to create depth, reminiscent of a theatrical stage setting.



Fig. 1: Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s Suspense (1913)

This example departs from the proscenium style, utilizing a deep depth of field to capture the servant leaving the house, as seen through the planks of the porch roof. This composition adds suspense and intrigue.

Suspense broke away from the static wide shots typical of the proscenium style by using a variety of experimental, yet intuitive camera frames and angles. One of its creative choices was to use eye-level shots, which created intimacy and realism by placing the audience on the same level as the characters. Low and high angle shots were also used to express power dynamics in the scene and between the characters.

Suspense also evolved analytical editing, which was the trend to construct the shots of a film in seamless and evocative ways, imitating the experience of witnessing something in real life. In real life you may enter a grocery store, see the place as a whole, narrow your focus to an aisle, a specific pile of fruit, and then each individual one as you select one. So does analytical editing use film language to narrow the audience's focus, and create other replications of the experience of existing and perceiving. It also emphasizes continuity to maintain the clarity of the narrative.



Fig. 1: D.W. Griffith's The Lonely Villa (1909)

These edge-frames illustrate editing techniques prior to the introduction of analytical editing, establishing shot to establishing shot.

Similar to The Lonely Villa there is parallel editing between the scenes at the home during the invasion and the husband returning in Suspense. One example that shows how the film is innovative is how they cover the driving of the car.





Fig. 1: Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s Suspense (1913)

These frames show matching action edits, the audience sees the husband hit a smoking boy on his way home in a MS and then the man helps the boy in a wide.



Fig. 1: Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s Suspense (1913)

This frame shows the introduction of a close up.



Fig. 1: Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley’s Suspense (1913)

The audience sees from the maid's perspective through a keyhole as the woman of the house rocks her baby, adding a voyeuristic vibe.

The Lonely Villa and Suspense are both significant markers in the history of the film medium. The Lonely Villa uses proscenium-like frames and creates a stage for the action, while Suspense evolves film language by breaking with the proscenium style framing, developing analytical editing, and choosing alternative camera angles and framing. These films continue to educate future filmmakers on the language of cinema.

Sex, Foreigners, Repression and Ultra-Violence: The “Monsters” of Bride of Frankenstein, Cat People, Psycho and Clockwork Orange

The “monsters” of the film’s Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935), Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942), Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) and Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) can be analyzed as allegorical characters representing a challenge to the dominant social definition of “normal” or “right and wrong” existing during their film’s creation. Because of the character’s inability to fit harmoniously within the structure of society, these “monsters” are a threat to the status quo. Although each character is a different manifestation of a “monster”, they are all similarly tortured by the unique traits that ostracize them from the average civilian in their respective film worlds.

The earliest of our selection of horror films deals with the sexual outsider. Created in the 1935 by James Whale, who faced the public’s perception of his own monstrosity as a homosexual during a time when sexuality was a social concern, controlled and manipulated by press, government, schools and religious institutions. Bride of Frankenstein shows an abnormal creature looking for companionship and being constantly rejected, in the end even by the bride created for him. As a homosexual living during a time when this was unacceptable, Whale faced his own dilemmas in finding love and the internalization of social disapproval. Frankenstein’s bride’s rejection of Frankenstein parallels this internalization, where a homosexual may turn against his own self and those who may be compatible with him because of socially defined abnormality of it.

German Expressionism influenced visual style of Bridge of Frankenstein, where the high contrasts of light and shadow in disorienting geometric shapes can be seen in older German silent films of the 20’s such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. This style lends itself to conveying the theme of the dapple ganger, not only present in the internal duality of the characters, but also the double meaning of the story itself. Half of the meaning of the film comes from the plot of the story, that being of a man-made monster brought to life and searching for companionship and rejected by “normal” people. The second being the underlying story, which parallels the social disapproval of homosexuals during the time and the pain it caused for those who where sexually attracted to their same gender.

The scene where Frankenstein’s bride is awaken from the dead encapsulates this expressionistic style of Bride of Frankenstein. Frankenstein comes down the stairs into the lab wearing an all black suit; the patterning of illumination on the wall creates bands of light and dark, slanted and unmotivated by any sources, but creating a vertigo effect leading down into the lab of the scientist. A close up on Frankenstein as he searches for his bride illustrates heavy shadows on the ridges of his face. He discovered his bride and she is dressed in all white, more evenly lit and with a lightening streak of white in her hair. These elements continue throughout the film, where lighting is not always motivated by sources, but motivated by the psychological implications of the scene.

Realism steps behind design, which lends itself to creating the psychological and unseen reality of the characters. Because the subject is not of the common world and the underlying social commentary is also invisible, it is the psychological understanding the audience has of what the creature is undergoing that is important. The black and whites society creates defining what is “good” and what is “bad” only serve to disorient and alienate those who live in the greys and soft edges of acceptability and normalcy.

Irena Dubrovna Reed in Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 Cat People is an example of an outsider attempting to conform to the definition of normalcy in American society. Despite her best efforts, her character serves as the personification of the fear of foreigners influence on traditional America. She is a character who although attempting to fit into average America (settle down, marry an American, own a pet, repress her nature with therapy) is unable to deny the animalistic instincts of her country of origin. She enters the equation as a mysterious, exotic, and sexually desired woman who the lead male protagonist Oliver Reed falls in love with, despite the fact that there is the wholesome American girl Alice Moore who has interest in him.

During a post World War 2 time, when women were entering the work force and the dynamic of the family unit was undergoing change, the horror film takes on elements of the noir with Cat People. The film blends the Femme Fatale with the Monster and portrays female empowerment as the equivalent to female sexuality having dominance over men’s rationality. The female antagonist does not always consciously utilize this psychosexual element. It can reside as a dormant threat that can arise when men and society do not have full control over the woman. This is shown in Irena’s struggle and ultimate relent to the darkness of her “jealousy” over her husband’s relationship with Alice.

The scene where Irina stalks Alice down an alleyway after Alice has parted ways with Irina’s husband after work is suited for any noir film of the 40’s in style and pace. The scene begins after Alice and Irina’s husband leave a restaurant were the two were having coffee. Alice is evenly lit with hair lights giving her a hot edge, Irina is half in shadow half in light as she watches them from behind a bush. As we first enter the ally, Alice walks into the light as she travels down, while Irina walks into the shadow and the stalking begins. The suspense is built dominantly by the sound of high heels as the two women progress down the ally, we see the women walk through highlights and shadows. 

This set up is similar to the lighting set up from the Bride of Frankenstein scene described earlier in this essay, where we almost completely lose them in the darkness. We cut to shots of their feet, Irina’s moving quickly and definitely towards Alice. The footsteps stop and Alice walks completely into darkness, only her form is shown against the black background. She turns and looks and Irina has disappeared from behind her. Now alarmed, she begins to run and we come to close ups on her face looking back. This tactic of suspense building has become a staple of noir, thrillers and horror, building a paranoia in the audience and an unknowing as to where the monster is coming from.

This sense of paranoia of the unseen grows as we continue onto our next film Psycho. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960, it explores the unseen monster within us, in a hypothetical examination of how those around us create our mental instability and define our sense of right and wrong. Rather than a foreigner whose strangeness brings dangerous elements into the established order, Psycho looks at the dangerous element within the “normal” person, as seen in the characters Norman Bates and Lila Crane.

The story begins with the introduction of Lila Crane, an innocuous secretary who on the outside appears to be a submissive and normal citizen, who allows the potentially offensive sexual advances of one of her boss’s clients and maintains her position for her employer for 10 years. But her second side begins the film’s spiral into chaos, as her sensational liaisons with a man from another town lead her to steal 40,000$ from the offensive client and attempts to start a new life with her lover. Through her escape from her suburban town, Hitchcock leads us on a road of paranoia of all institutional figures, Lila’s boss, the police and even Lila herself who begins to doubt her actions and decides to turn herself in.

Psycho continues a psychosexual undercurrent, as Norman Bates’s monstrosities are linked to his repression. Norman Bates is depicted as a likeable and unremarkable character who runs the hotel of his mother, a woman whose mysterious rejection of outsiders and abuse towards Bates leads Lila into believing she has corrupted her son’s life. Lila attempts to encourage Bates to stand up for himself and separate his life from that of his mothers. Unknown to Lila, Bates has indeed stood up for himself by murdering his mother, but his mother’s influence has already permeated deeper into his psyche than even he knows.

Voyeurism and the invasion of a person’s life and mind are a large part of Psycho’s tactics. The audience comes from the public sphere, establishing shots of the town, to the intimate pillow talk of Lila and her lover inside their hotel room. Further we transgress the perceived safety of walls and invade Lila’s personal space, watching her along side Bates through a peephole while she is in the undressing. Finally in Lila’s most vulnerable, while she is showering, the audience takes the place of Bates with the point of view of her murderer. The film progresses deeper into the minds of the characters, as the mystery of the relationship between Norman Bate’s and his mother is revealed.

Meanwhile Hitchcock himself digs deeper into the consciousness of the audience, dictating their will as he directs the film. Hitchcock was a stylized director who, as with the previously mentioned first two films, was influenced by the German-European esthetic during his time working UFA and the editing practices of soviet montage. Hitchcock found ways to incorporate the spiral into his films, both visually and through his narrative spiral into the depths of insanity. For example during the middle climax of Psycho when Lila is murdered, we see the spiral of blood in the bathtub cut to a close up spiraling out of the pupil of her eye. This signifies the beginning of an inescapable dominoed fate, once the transgressional action has been taken.

Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange made in 1971 could be interpreted as a film built around a series of transgressional actions, to which society attempts to correct and in doing so further damns the individual struggling to find logic in a chaotic world. During a time of civil rights movements and struggles for equality between all classes, genders and races, Clockwork Orange examines the youth culture. It deals particularly with the extreme acts of violence that the youth could potentially release against their oppressors and previously defined notions of normalcy.  The film looks at the cause of these violent preoccupations, questioning where this violence comes from and who is the true victim in the fight for social dominance.

The main character Alex, a youth leader for a gang of droogs, enters industrial creations of society and physically violates the people residing there. The first violent encounter the audience witnesses begins when we see Alex and his droogs drinking at a milk bar amongst other youths before heading out for a bit of “ultra violence.” They find their first victim beneath a bridge, an older homeless man. Alex professes his hatred for the alcoholic waste that has reached middle age with nothing and standing for nothing, a potential allegory for how the youth reacted toward war veterans. Soldiers who have returned home physically and intellectually wounded from Korea and Vietnam and unable to continue as productive members of society.

It seems that aesthetically the world Alex inhabits has two realms. There is the side of the decaying past, such as under the bridge and the old opera house where Alex and his gang battle a rival gang in the midst of enjoying the rape of a young woman. Here reside the violent youth and the broken middle-aged, separate from society and warring against one another. The other is the sector of the wealthy, the modern house where Alex and his gang enter and violate a well off woman and her husband, as well as the institution that takes Alex and attempts to reprogram him to be civil. This is the sector of society that dominants the weak such as Alex and maintains the power, despite Alex’s attempts to disrupt it.

Although Alex is shown throughout the film as the perpetrator of ultra violence and consequently the obvious villain, there is the complexity of what is taking place against him, the traditional violence of the status quo. Although there is the veneer of civilization for the wealthy and institutional who take action to “cure” Alex of his mental disturbances, the way that they do this is brutal and in it’s own right deeply inhumane. Where as Alex physically assaults his victims, “civilization” assaults Alex’s mind, forcing his eyes to remain open to violent images while corrupting the only human element he had left, his appreciation of music. This brings up the question to if there is any party which has not given into their brutality in this scenario.

Through the process of living alongside the characters Alex, Norman Bates, Irena and Frankenstein, the audience is given privy to the experience of an outsider, an entity they may never have thought to consider as anything but a threat, if encountered in their everyday life. But rather than an automatic dismissal or simple demonization of the other, horror films present an avenue to psychosocial understanding for the average person. Perhaps even prompting those attempting to create order in society, to loosen their grip on normal and become a bit more open to the unusual. Although it may be too idealistic to expect acceptance or sympathy from the audience, although it is definitely possible, perhaps audiences can at least view differences as less black and white and potentially entertaining.

An Exercise in Directing - 2014 Juliet: Women, Sex and Judgment

Link of Film to be added after editing! Please return to watch. 

For my final project for Theater 20: Introduction to Performance project under the instruction of UCLA's Brendan Hartnett I worked with 3 of the girls in the class: Sharmini Thiagarajan, Sami Zarett, SangEun Park (Ann), along with Kasia Ratajczak who I know through UCLA's James Bridges Theater and is majoring in English. We explored the topic of female sexuality, using Romeo and Juliet as a premise to explore female and male expectations of orgasm when engaged in a romantic situation, females response to asserting herself sexually, the different world views of women in relation to their sexuality and the dynamic of female friend groups and roommates. Each of the characters has a very specific world-view and interacts with each of the other characters in a specific way, which was fun to watch as it arose naturally once the actresses had stepped into the psyches of their characters and began reacting naturally, prompted by how they felt their characters would to the situations.

Personally I was motivated to do this project because it seemed a good opportunity to explore  the social ramifications surrounding women’s sexual development, as well as to try to sift through some of the reasoning behind those expectations. It was ultimately an attempt to get the audience to refocus on the freedom a woman has to decide for herself what she would like to do; by presenting as many perspectives as we could portray within 5 minutes. Without rejecting any one point of view, we created characters who fulfilled 3 prevalent attitudes towards female sexuality and allowed for the neutral participant Jamie to consider as many options on how to act as possible and choosing the one that best suited the her.  Ultimately she choses to pursue reciprocal orgasm by being sexually assertive, but she doesn’t discredit any of the other girls sexual positions. 

            During preproduction, once the script was completed and we were sifting through developing the characters, it helped me to keep in mind what was taught to us in our theater class. We needed to figure out the goals of each of the characters in the scene and what actions were taking place between them as they dealt with the material being expressed in their dialogue. We needed to give them actions that expressed their internal processes and to play with blocking to find which ways we could accentuate the emotional build up during the story in a way that felt natural, not only to the audience but to the actresses, so that they could build their own internal worlds with external support.

Kasia’s character Mona is a highly sexual, uninhibited and engaging character. She doesn’t keep within her comfort zone and she pushes the other girls to step outside of theirs as well, at times to the point of aggressiveness. She is a liberating influence and each of the other characters react to her personality in their own way. She is the story's antagonist in a way, in Mona’s attempts to try to empower the other girls to assert their passions and desires, she pushes against them. We gave her the activity of sitting on the table and leaning over it when imparting her sexual wisdom to Jamie. The table became an icon for a second body, which Mona is sexually engaging with and illustrating example through.

Sami’s character Britney is Mona’s counter balance and reacts defensively to her, due to her feelings of being morally threatened by Mona's sacrilegious attitude towards the sanctity of sex. She holds tight to the idea of eternal and monogomous love. With Sami’s performance the wounds that have been inflicted upon her character by others, due to her idealistic nature, really came through. We gave her actions to express her character; she drinks laxative tea and plays with her gold bracelet instead of making eye contact and engaging with the other girls while speaking to them. She is hiding behind her mask of perfection, her adherence to social norms of what the good life is, is alluded to standing between her finding out what would actually make her feel happy and free.

Sharmini’s character Jamie is the Juliet of our story, bringing all these female perspectives out of the wood-works. In our tale she is a loving character who accepts the various impassioned opinions of the other characters with open consideration and acceptance. She does not react to any opinion in agreeance or rejection, but rather applies their notions to her own situation, finding what suits and feels true to her and what doesn’t. For her character it was important that she remained neutral and open, she is the character in which the audience experiences the situation. She was given the activity of maintaining connectiveness to whatever woman was speaking through eye contact and attention. She does not change her facial expressions or voice at any time to convey any sort of judgement towards any of the perspectives being expressed, she is non judgmental and in the end she gets what she wants. 

Ann is the sage of our story, the character that brings a level of rationality and wisdom to the conflict. She is alone on the couch and her activity is studying, to establish her interest in knowledge and understanding. Her character is one with the dynamic of women, but also she is outside of it. She offers her input into the conversation like a word bubble of a fortune cookie and then steps out again. Only twice is her input responded to, once to say that she is right from Britney and once to say “well I’m no Juliet” from Jamie. Even then it is like the dialogue being spoken by Ann could have just as well been in the women’s head, since even when they respond to it they are not engaging with her.

We had three meetings where the script was developed, during this time the actresses read over their lines and the author Kasia took into consideration their execution and feedback so that we could better trim the excess verbiage and colloquialize the dialogue, tailoring it to the unique personalities of the characters. This was very helpful when it came to us shooting it, because it kept each character from falling into a mirror of the others, which is something that was happening during the first draft of the script when the girls were rehearsing together. Their energy would transfer and soon it was difficult to decipher one character’s motivations and attitude from the other. Line readings also helped girls maintain character mergence  because they had to work alone and did not have the influence of any of the actresses. 

We ran through the entire piece several times in wide shots to cover where they were moving in the space and to get them comfortable with their performances. It was difficult because they were not all off book, which was my fault for not stressing it as important, but as long as we had a rough estimate of when things where happening and where we were able to go into the closer coverage. I have not begun the editing process yet, so I am not sure how much I will be able to get away with in this type of shooting style, but it will be a learning experience. Thank goodness for Chelsi Johnston stepping in as AC and her notes to keep me on track. For Jamie and Kasia’s parts, because it was so dependent upon each of them reacting to the other, we did cross coverage and had the girls go through their entire interaction.

For Ann and Sami whose characters are more isolated less interactive personalities, we gave them line readings. Ann was especially a challenge because of our language barrier, she is a student from Korea studying at UCLA for the summer. But ultimately her accent and composure when using the English language, allowed for her character to maintain an air of aloofness and foreignness for American audiences. Of course in the American culture, her asian influence lended itself to an association of eastern wisdom and orientalism. Sami developed on her own a very deep and soulful take on her character and maintained it in a genuine performance, which is very difficult to get out of non-actors when they attempt a dramatic piece. Of course Sami is not a non-actor and her level of professionalism stood out to all of the members of our film crew.

The process of this project was much more focused on performance than I have had experience with in my other projects. Unfortunately I had to spend a good amount of time managing the cameras, because we had very little time to do preproduction, but thanks to the two camera men Marcus Chan and AndrewRosenstein's ability to go with the flow and get the best they could get, we got away with it. Also thanks to Priscila Alegria Nunez and a  visit from our instructor who graciously took over as sound mixer, we have quality audio for the project. Because the other actresses and I went through the Theater 20 course together, we had developed a understanding and language that allowed us to go further and develop better our work together. The experience not only provided me with new useful tools to work with actors, but also a deeper understanding of the demands and stress an actor must learn to overcome to excel at their craft.