Serpent Trails – ‘Movie’ video transcript
Voice over
The Line campaign has developed these resources about respectful relationships.
(Michael Rowland filming himself in an interview style set up)
Michael
My name is Michael James Rowland and I’m a film and television director. And I’ve come here, I thought this would be a really good place to start our conversation with each other because this is… behind me, with all the kids, is the Festival Theatre which is where I used to work as a graphic designer up until the point where I decided that I wanted to get into film. As a graphic designer I’d make all the posters and that sort of thing for all of the theatre productions and I was seeing, I saw in the end I think 700 or 800 theatre productions while I was here so it was just a fantastic education. But on the side what I was doing was I was making little comic books and selling them in bookshops around town.
(Holds up a copy of one of his comic books)
I love pictures and I love stories and really that’s why I decided to make film and television my career because film and TV is sort of the natural meeting place for pictures, photography, acting, writing, music, a whole rangeof things that I really love.
(Scene changes to Michael driving in his car, still filming himself)
Michael
Okay so let’s say you’ve asked me ‘how do I make a movie?’ Well the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to lay out all the equipment that you need. Then I’m going to introduce to you the idea that drama is conflict. Then I’m going to look at, I’m going to give you an image of how a two-hander scene works. Then I want to tell you about the 180 degree rule. And then towards the end I’m going to show you a couple of examples of really simple scenes and I’m going to do this entire video using really cheap cameras and I’m going to do it all on my own to show you how easy it is. And to set the challenge, because I want to get you out there making movies with no excuses.
(Scene changes to Michael in his shed)
Michael
So we’re going to make a movie. And what do we need? Every job needs tools.
(Holds up a hammer)
This is a hammer, youdon’t need a hammer to make a movie. But you do need some things. So in the first instance you’re going to have to have an idea and a story to tell. To be able to communicate that to everyone who’s going to be involved in your film it’s really helpful if you write a script.
(Holds up a script)
The next thing you will need to make a movie is a camera. So this is a DSLR camera which I’m using for all of this stuff.
(Holds up the camera)
Apart from the very first shoot that I used my phone.
(Holds up phone)
Next thing you’ll need is a microphone. We want to capture the sound of people talking really close to it, get all the great nuances and their beautiful tone coming out of their chest with their words. The microphone I used when I was driving in the car was this one-
(Holds up lapel microphone)
-which is a little itsy-bitsy lapel microphone. What I’m using at the moment is this one.
(Bangs on overhead microphone)
You hear that? So I’ve stuck it up into the rafters here, got a shoelace and just tied it into the rafters so it’s nice and close to my mouth, lovely tone. The next thing we need is a computer to edit on.
(Holds up laptop computer)
Computers need to have an editing software program on them, a video editing software program. They’ve very common now and most computers have one for free on it. The thing that you should work out before you start shooting with your camera-
(Holds up camera with computer)
-is how you are going to get the pictures from the camera into the computer. So with this camera, it’s pretty straightforward, the video records onto a little card, that size, and when I’ve finished shooting I take that out of the camera and stick it into the side of the computer like that.
(Takes out memory card from camera and sticks it into the laptop computer)
And then the last thing that you’ll need is actors. That’s why god invented friends, to act in our films. Promise them glory, give them your script, tell them they look fantastic and call ‘action’.
(Scene changes to Michael at a football field holding an AFL football)
Michael
Alright so this idea that drama is conflict. What do I mean by that? So movies are made up of two things – plot andcharacter. Now plot is what happens. Boy meets girl, they fall in love. Boy meets girl, boy does girl wrong,she hunts him down. Boy meets girl, they team together to fight an alien invasion. So there are only so many plots in the world and they tend to get recycled a fair bit. We’ve all seen those movies. Character’s a lot more nuanced and a lot more interesting and ultimately it’s going to be much more unique to your film. And what I mean by character is… movies are full of scenarios where someone walks into a room wanting something. So, for example, someone’s really hungry, they walk into a room and they want to get an apple to eat. They go into the room and the problem is there’s only one apple and so someone else already has it. So character comes into play with what do they do next? They want something but they can’t have it. So are they going to charm the person? Are they going to be angry with the person? Are they going to try and bargain with the person? Are they going to try and bully the person? This is what we call character. It’s sort of the test. The conflict of wanting something and not being able to have it makes your truer-self bubble up to the surface. And we find this entertaining. We’ll sit and watch TV and movies for hours on end watching people not get what they want and sort of come up with strategies about how they’re going to get it. I think we find this fascinating because it calls to our own hearts. We recognise ourselves in those characters and in those actions and in the ways that they deal with not being able to get what they want. Or we are repulsed, like we are appalled that someone would make that choice, behave in that way. So character is revealed through conflict and that’s the real engine of films. Usually it’s under the dialogue. It’s called subtext and it’s the choice you’ll get to make with your films is what sort of character is this person when it says this line? You get to play around with this. But I’m just basically bringing it up because I recommend that you try to get people to kind of get in each other’s way. So as the actors say dialogue there’s another thing happening underneath that kinda never quite gets resolved until the end when the film is over.
Now I’m here at a football field because I want you to consider that sport operates in exactly the same way. There’s nothing inherently interesting about kicking a ball or running with a ball. What’s great about sport is that there’s only one ball and it’s a contest to get it. And out of that contest, on any given Saturday, heroes emerge, villainsemerge and it’s because this thing sort of gets handed around and people are thrown into contests and into conflict with each other and from that characters emerge and we invest in them. So film’s the same as sport apart from that they don’t have a ball, they have a dramatic intention which is kind of invisible but it functions pretty much the same way.
(Scene changes to Michael sitting in the grandstand at the football field holding the AFL football)
Michael
Alright so this idea that the ball is the drama. And it’s going back and forward between the actors as they try to get what they want but are being thwartedprobably by each other, sometimes by circumstances or a physical barrier.
(Michael moving the ball backwards and forwards in one hand)
This is a useful metaphor because it helps us understand where we want to be looking at a certain point in the story. Because we control where the audience looks in movies with the camera, in the same way that with sport we want to be on the ball, we want to be on the drama with movies. What we want to be seeing is the same as what we want to see with football. We want to be close to the football, we want to be close to the contest, we want to be in people’s faces to see their desire and to see their disappointment. And it’s the same with drama, as people try to get what they want and are thwarted by possibly the other actor we want to see their attempt, we want to see their strategy and converselywe want to see the other person’s reaction. And this is how we begin to construct a scene.
(Scene changes to Michael sitting at his desk at home with a pencil and paper)
Michael
Alright, so the 180 degree rule, what is it? It’s a rule that we use to figure out where we’re going to put the camera when we’re shooting a scene from a number of different positions and it goes something like this…
(Gets two human figurines and faces them against each other)
Two actors facing each other. We’ve already talked about how their dialogue goes back and forward between them like a ball. It’s not just their dialogue, it’s their eye contact, it’s the dramatic thing that’s happening between them.
(Bounces his pencil back and forward between the figurines)
So I want you to imagine that that line between them extends out of the back of their heads in either direction. And in fact, I’ll draw it for you.
(Draws a straight line and places the two figurines on it)
So there you are, we’ve got a big line that they’re on. Now, we’re going to construct our scene out of a big wide shot, a slightly tighter wide shot and two shots that basically start from the middle of the actor’s chest to the top of their head. I want you to imagine that this is the camera.
(Places a small jar at the far back corner of the piece of paper)
So for our big wide shot we’re going to shoot from the back here and then for our slightly tighter wide shot we’re going to shoot from here-
(Moves the jar slightly closer and diagonally in towards the figurines)
-and then we’re going to run the scene again and for our mid-shot on this actor, we’re going to position the camera so ultimately it’s going to be shooting over this actor’s shoulder to him-
(Places jar behind one figurine over its shoulder)
-and then we’re going to reposition the camera for here-
(Moves the jar to behind the other figurine and over its shoulder)
-run the scene again so that we’re shooting over the shoulder to this actor here. Or, we can shoot from this side-
(Moves the jar to the other far diagonal corner of the paper)
-and go for our super wide shot out here, move in a little closer for our slightly tighter wide shot here-
(Moves the jar to slightly closer and diagonally in towards the figurines)
-over the shoulder for our mid on this actor from here-
(Moves the jar behind the shoulder of one figurine)
-and over the shoulder for our mid on this actor here.
(Points to shoulder of other figurine)
So we’ve moved the camera four times and run the scene four times for those four shots. We can either shoot from this side of the line-
(Puts his hand on side of line closest to him)
-or on this side of the line.
(Puts his hands on side of line further away from him)
But we can’t shoot a scene from both sides of the line because if we do, when it comes to the edit, spatially it’ll look like sometimes the actors are talking to the back of each other’s heads. Now this is a rule that can be broken. But in the first instance, I suggest that you have a crack at constructing some scenes not breaking this rule and just see how good it makes you look.
(Scene changes to an indoor basketball court)
Michael
Alright so putting all those ideas together I went down to a basketball court with three young actors and we started working up a scene.
(Three young actors walk onto the basketball court and begin throwing a tennis ball between them)
I brought some tennis balls just to throw between the actors, get them used to looking at each other. By throwing the ball they get used to the physical actions of the scene, it’s a really good warm up. And I’m stepping through all the shots that are described, a super wide shot, a slightly tighter wide shot, and then into close ups. All the while I’m staying on one side of the line, I’ve got a rangeof movement, 180 degrees on this side of the line.
(Cuts through close up shots of each of the actors while they throw the ball between themselves)
So in the next sequence I’m going to show you how those shots edit together and flow. So we start with our super wide, same action, they walk in, they face off. So I’m cutting on the rhythm of the exchange.
(Wide shot of the basketball court and the actors walking in towards each other. When they get close the shot zooms in. The actors throw the ball between themselves and there are close up shots of each of the actors. As the actors walk away the shot becomes wider.)
So in the next sequences I’ve gotten rid of the tennis ball and replaced it with some lines.
(Wide shot of the basketball court and the actors walking in towards each other. When they get close the shot zooms in. The actors say a few lines and there are close up shots of each of the actors as they talk. As the actors walk away the shot becomes wider.)
I thought they did really well, I thought they had a bit of a thing going on there, it was great. I’ve just taken some music stings that come free with the program I’m editing on to just to play round with it a bit that way. It gives you an example of the kind of thing you can do next.
(Ominous sounding music as there is a wide shot of the basketball court and the actors walking in towards each other. When they get close the shot zooms in. The actors say a few lines and there are close up shots of each of the actors as they talk. As the actors walk away the shot becomes wider and the ominous music from the start plays again.)
(Scene changes to Michael’s house again)
Michael
Alright well there you go, film making made easy. Hopefully that was useful. The only thing I’d add to all of this would be no one ever became a better film maker by sitting around talking about it. So get your camera, get up and have a crack. And I look forward to seeing your efforts.
Voice over
Wanna have a go? Check out how to make a movie at theline.org.au/indigenous
1