FMP Practitioners

FMP -Theories & Relevant
Practitioners
-Josh Eastham
Bibliography in notes
section of each slide

Steven Soderbergh -Filmmaker
Despite the fact that his cinematic niche of psychological, crime, and heist thrillers differs greatly to the type of film that I am
making one of the main reasons I am looking at Steven Soderbergh is because of his film Unsane which was shot entirely on an
iPhone. I am interested in doing this is because I plan on shooting my FMP on my phone instead of using a DSLR camera. One of the
main reasons I want to do this is because my phone can shoot in a higher resolution, 4K then the DSLR camera's from college can. I
used it for some shots in my client project and I can tell the difference. Some of the shots from the camera have a lot of motion blur
on them especially tracking shots. This is perhaps my fault as I filmed in 1080p at 25fps, I decided that it would be a good idea to film
with these settings as I had read that is how films are shot to deliberatly add motion blur. However I think that with the lenses we
have and the export settings we use it doesn’t work so well with our projects.
Steven Soderbergh is an American film maker, born in 1963 Soderbergh discovered film making at a young age using Super
8 and 16 mm cameras. (1) He became the youngest person to win the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival at age 26.
One thing I would differ from however is his visual style. Soderbergh often emphasizes things like "wealthy urban settings, natural lighting, and fast-paced working
environments."(2) Whilst this is certainly interesting it is not something that I think will fit with my film. In terms of the lighting instead if it being natural I want it to
be representative of the theme of my film. For example I intend to have a cool blue color grading in some parts. I intend for this to represent the blue light that is
emitted from screens that disrupts the body's natural circadian rethemes. This further represents the wider theme of the dangers of tech specifically artificial
intelligence that is prevalent in my film. This is inspired to what the production designer Owen Paterson had done in The Matrix were the scenes set inside the
Matrix had a green tint to them in order to differentiate scenes set in the real world.(3) This was done to represent "the green tint commonly used on
early monochrome computer monitors"(4)
In terms of his personal beliefs on film, Soderbergh has stated that "The simplest way that I can describe it is that a movie is something you see, and cinema is
something that's made…. Cinema is a specificity of vision. It's an approach in which everything matters. It's the polar opposite of generic or arbitrary and the result is
as unique as a signature or a fingerprint. It isn't made by a committee, and it isn't made by a company, and it isn't made by the audience."(5) He also said that:
"[filmmakers] are always, in essence, at the beginning of infinity ... there is always another iteration ... always will be"
One thing I like about his film making is some of the metaphysical themes he focuses on. Some of the metaphysical things such as the idea of distorted reality,
shifting personal identities, morality and the human conditions are all themes that I find really interesting. I intend on including these types of themes In my
project by considering them when I not only write my script but also how I can show them visually. I want his styles to influence my work especially technically for
example I would like to have things like, audio that starts before the visuals, focus on character, long smooth follow shots and skipping conventional and
establishing shots.

Christopher Nolan Christopher Nolan is a British American film director and producer. He was born on the 30th July 1970 making him
48 years old. He Is perhaps best known for his non linear method of storytelling, a method that was used
predominantly throughout 2010's Inception. His initial success in indie films eventually gave him the opportunity
to work on much bigger budget productions such as The Dark Knight Trilogy. Like Soderberg, Nolan's films often
contain metaphysical themes as well as epistemological themes. He is also a big advocate for the use of practicle
special effects rather than CGI.
In his early life he began making films at age 7 borrowing his dads Super8 camera and filming his action figures. He
was primarily influenced by movies such as 2001 A Space Odyssey and Star Wars.(1) He ended up making a stop
motion homage to Star Wars called Space Wars. His uncle who worked at NASA building guidance systems for the
Apollo rockets sent him some launch footage which he included in his animation.(2)
His specific aesthetic style of film making is something that I want to take inspiration from. He is know for using urban settings with muted colors
and modern locations and architecture. He also used documentary style lighting and hand held camera work.(3) The reason I want to take
inspiration from this is because I think this style will best fit the tone of my film. For example the use of muted colors makes sure that there
aren’t any bright elements distracting the viewer which wouldn't fit the dystopian tone of my film. It will also do a good job of portraying the
emotionless future world that my characters live in. I would also like to focus on the use of a hand held camera attached to a gimbal in order to
get sleek tracking and movement shots throughout my film. This is done to represent the sleekness of modern technology that will be prevalent
in my film.
One thing Ironic about this is that Nolan prefers not to use a mobile phone or Email adress, he also prohibits the use of mobile phones on set
though that is understandable. (4) In terms of his views on the film industry he has long been critical of 3D films stating that shooting in the
required digital format does not offer the best quality film.(5) He is also is very vocal about the use of film stock believing it to be superior. He has
stated that "I am not committed to film out of nostalgia. I am in favor of any kind of technical innovation but it needs to exceed what has gone
before and so far nothing has exceeded anything that's come before"(6)

Steven Spielberg
Spielberg is one of the most succesful film makers of all time and will likely be remembered as such. He is
considered a pioneer of the new hollywood era and is one of the most popular directors and producers in film
history. At the beginning of his career he was perhaps best known for his escapest style of film making that
featured ordinary characters coming into contact with extraordinary people or situation. Eventually his style
evolved as he transitioned into tackling more humanistic issues.
The themes of his films are often represented in the camera work that goes into them. For example films such
as Close Encounters, ET, Hook and The BFG have a prevelent theme of childlike wonder and faith. Those themes
are represented by the use of low height camera tracking shots. This has become somewhat of a Spielberg
trademark.
As a young child Spielberg was affected by his parents divorce and the absense of his father. This is a shown in his film making as he often
features young characters with some sort of tension in the parent-child relationship, sometimes the parents are completely ignorent all
together. Speaking about this in an article on The Huffington Post, the article states that;
"Steven Spielberg appeared on Sunday's edition of "60 Minutes" in support of the upcoming drama "Lincoln" and revealed how his
relationship with his father, Arnold, has driven his creativity over the last five decades and 27 films. "I did pin it on him," Spielberg told Lesley
Stahl about his parent's divorce, which occurred when the director was just 19. In films like "E.T." and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the
fathers leave their families behind, an unsubtle reference to how Spielberg felt after his parent's divorce. It was Spielberg's mother, Leah Adler,
however, who fell in love with her husband's friend and pursued the divorce. "I think I was just protecting her, because I was in love with her,"
Arnold Spielberg said when asked why he didn't set the record straight with his son. As it turns out, that wouldn't have mattered: Spielberg still
blamed his father even after the truth was revealed. It wasn't until Spielberg's wife, Kate Capshaw, urged a reconciliation, that Spielberg
reconnected with his father. That relationship has played out onscreen, in films like "War of the Worlds," "Catch Me If You Can" and the
upcoming "Lincoln"; the fathers are shown as complicated, tough, but ultimately loving and caring." (1)

Mark & Ross Duffer (The Duffer Brothers)
The twin Duffer brothers are American film makers, Television writers, directors and
producers. There work is influenced heavily by speilberg and some of his work from the
1980s. Most notibly the science fiction series Stranger Things which they created and
wrote together.
They both got into film making when they received a Hi8 video camera as a gift from their
parents. They studied at Chapmans University college of Film and Media arts. (1) After
directing and producing numerous short films they came up with their idea for Stranger
Things and began pitching their idea to several Networks were it got rejected by over 15 of
them. It wasn't untill they pitched it to Netflix that it got picked up. (2)
Not much detail is known about the Duffer Brothers as they are relatively new names in the film industry and Stranger Things has been their
only major success. My reasoning for looking at them is because I have already looked at spielberg and they have stated that they were
influenced by speilberg. It is interesting to look out how those influences manifest themselves in Stranger Things.
Since Stranger things is set in the 1980s it includes mamy references to 80s films some of them Spielbergs. Most prominantly ET. Stranger
Things mirrors many plot elements from ET. This informal article from GamesRadar.com talks about this. "The quintessential '80s sci-fi flick,
E.T. is a major influence on Stranger Things. Ever since the show’s first trailer appeared online, Stranger Things has been described as a love
letter to Steven Spielberg and for good reason. His 1982 classic sees a young boy named Elliot befriending an extra-terrestrial who has
become stranded on Earth. Doggedly pursued by government agents, elements of their story can be seen throughout Stranger Things. The
growing friendship between Mike and Eleven, her exploration of Mike’s house when she’s all alone, and even Eleven playing dress-up are
taken directly from the movie.
But what about that bike chase? Episode 7 sees Mike and the gang helping Eleven escape from the shadowy grip of Hawkins National
Laboratory, which leads them off on a thrilling bike chase that’s almost exactly like the one at the end of E.T. This time, their telekinetic friend
is a bit more violent in her approach - instead of levitating their bikes out of harm’s way, Eleven chooses to flip a Hawkins van that’s driving
right at them."(3)

Mark & Ross Duffer (The Duffer Brothers)
Another large source of inspiration for the Duffer Brothers was Steven King. They even went
as far as to use the same font ITC BENGUIT that had been used on King's 1980s book covers
for the title sequance of Stranger Things. This is one thing that they have been influenced
by that has in turn influenced me. In the first year of college when we did a video rotation I
produced a short horror film that used the same font as the titles. In my production
documents I talk about how I was directly inspired by Stranger Things. You can see Kings
inspiration elsewere. The same article on GamesRadar also talks about how the duffer
brothers were inspired by films like Stand By Me.
It’s another coming-of-age classic. Not content with lifting characters straight from The Goonies, it looks as though Stranger Things also
borrowed from Stephen King’s Stand By Me. The similarities are obvious - a group of four childhood friends (led by Wil Wheaton of Star Trek
fame) set off to find the body of a missing boy.
This tale of adventure and camaraderie is clearly embedded in Stranger Things. In fact, the film was such a huge influence on the show that its
creators, the Duffer Brothers, got their potential young actors to recite lines from the movie during their auditions. Obviously, that paid off -
the chemistry between Mike, Dustin and Lucas (and Will before his disappearance) is completely natural. But the similarities go way beyond
themes of childhood friendship. Stranger Things features scenes with Mike and his pals hanging out at a local junkyard - exactly like Stand By
Me. There’s even a shot of our heroes wandering along a train track. But this time around, the body they find at the quarry isn’t exactly what
they were expecting.(3)
One downside to being heavily influenced and including references to these influences in your work is that it is difficult to find out what
someones own personal style of film making is. Unfortunatly with the Duffer Brothers this shows. Since they havn't had any other major
success other than Stranger Things every article that talks about there filming styles references Stranger Things and its influences. I am
unable to find anything out about their personal philosophies and beliefs about film compared to other more established directors. Whilst
they have stated that they were influenced by Spielberg it would be wrong to assume that they share his wider beliefs and philosophies
about film as I can't find any factual evidence to back that up.

Real world inspiration
Since my film focuses around the dangers of Artificial Intelligence and it’s primary message is to warn people of these dangers the theme is very relevant in our modern world and as a
result there are many things I can take inspiration from. One thing I am often struck by is the thoughts and opinions of notable and established people in the science and technology
industry especially when they warn about its dangers. It is because they are established people that I worry there comments may have weight to them and that it actually might be a very
real threat.
For me a notable example would be Professor Steven Hawkins comments on
the dangers of A.I that he made in 2014. Speaking to a BBC journalist he said
“"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the
human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever
increasing rate,“ (1)
This idea that Humans would eventually loose control of there creations is an
old one and has been explored many times in works of fiction. In modern day
however this idea is becoming more and more relevant. In 2017 Facebook had
to deactivate an A.I experiment it was running because two robots began
speaking in their own language only they could understand. A UK Robotics
Professor Kevin Warwick said: “This is an incredibly important milestone, but
anyone who thinks this is not dangerous has got their head in the sand.
“We do not know what these bots are saying. Once you have a bot that has
the ability to do something physically, particularly military bots, this could be
lethal”. (2)
Billionaire CEO and Cofounder of TESLA and SpaceX Elon Musk has also had a
few choice words to say on the matter. Speaking at a Tech conference he said
“Mark my words — A.I. is far more dangerous than nukes It’s capable of vastly
more than almost anyone knows and the rate of improvement is exponential.”
Despite this other notable people such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
and Harvard professor Steven Pinker have criticized Musk calling his talk fear
mongering. (3)
The irony of this is that Elon Musk actually co founded an A.I company called OpenAI which aims to
develop friendly AI in such a way as to benefit humanity as a whole. Acknowledging this Musk stated that
“there is always some risk that in actually trying to advance (friendly) AI we may create the thing we are
concerned about”; nonetheless, the best defense is “to empower as many people as possible to have AI. If
everyone has AI powers, then there's not any one person or a small set of individuals who can have AI
superpower.” (4)
When creating the plot for my film it was my idea to bring all these ideas and themes together and
explore them in my film. For example the main antagonist is an artificial intelligence software called
C.A..L.L.I which was created by a company in order to help benefit the daily lives of people. (Much like the
company OpenAI) Things start out great for my main character who has volunteered himself as a test
subject for the project but things start to go wrong once it becomes apparent that the A.I. can’t correctly
process complex human emotions. It starts to take control in a way it believes is best but will actually have
disastrous consequences.
This has all been inspired by the warnings and comments of individuals such as Steven Hawkings and Elon
and some others who’s opinions have a lot of credibility.

Work That has inspired me
I have watched many films and TV shows over the years that has inspired my to want to create this project. The most recent of which are
the characters of J.A.R.V.I.S and ULTRON from the Marvel Cinematic Universe as they embody the type of A.I that we are trying to create
today. J.A.R.V.I.S is an A.I created by the character of Tony Stark. Whilst his initial job seems to be a smart system for Tony’s house
throughout the MCU films we see him assisting in Tony’s engineering projects as well as the creation and operation of Tony’s Iron Man
suit. The character Is voiced by Paul Bettany and although the character has no physical body Bettany does an incredible job of
portraying a Friendly A.I that exhibits a genuine care for the humans he serves and assists. (This is similar to what the company OpenAI
seem to be attempting to do in real life.) By contrast the character of Ultron is the opposite of J.A.R.V.I.S. Like A.I in many other works of
fiction he was created to keep the peace and benefit humanity but ended up turning rogue after realising humans are the biggest threat
to the Earth. It is a classic example of the “I must protect the earth by destroying the humans who are destroying the earth“ cliché that
films such as the Terminator franchise relied on with the concept of Skynet.
Ultron J.A.R.V.I.S User Interface
Another example of Fiction that has inspired me would be the 2003 Re Imagined series of Battlestar Galactica as that focuses on the theme of A.I rising up against its creators. The plot of the series is that Humans are an
advanced spacefaring civilisation that live on 12 colony planets. They eventually create the Cylons artificial intelligent robots that were created to serve humanity. However they evolved, revolted and fought a war against their
creators. With an armistice eventually being declared they withdraw into deep space. The series picks up 40 years after the Cylon war and reveals the Cylons have evolved into biological bodies and have slowly been infiltrating
the 12 colonies with the humans believing they have had no contact with them for 40 years. Suddenly they arrive at the colonies and launch a massive attack completely destroying the human fleet as well as launching nuclear
weapons at the planets effectively wiping out the entire human race save for a group of about 50,000 survivors. The series details the story of the survivors as they fight the Cylons for their very survival and there search for a
mythical planet called Earth which they hoped to colonise.
I think watching this series was what initially incited my fear of A.I as the series arc as a whole is a very human and character driven story that explores very deep human themes. It explored themes such as: War, post traumatic
stress, politics, religion, morality, terrorism, paranoia as well as detailed the social, physical, moral and phycological impact of surviving a genocide. Its plot and story are mostly driven by these themes and a lot of the time it only
uses science fiction as a backdrop. This makes the series feel very grounded and real which had a great impact on me as a viewer as you realise that something like this could maybe happen one day. The thing about the idea of
A.I destroying it’s creators that I find really striking is that it is our own stupidity as a species is the cause of our own undoing. This differs to perhaps other works of apocalyptic fiction were the end of humanity comes from
something such as a virus, Alien Invasion or an extinction level event. At least these events are caused by outside influences and are not of our own doing. This is what makes the idea of A.I scary to me. This idea of humanity
destroying itself with its own stupidity is something that has also inspired me greatly. This links to more real world and larger themes such as nuclear weapons and the cold war.
Cold war events like the Cuban Missile Crisis just show how dangerously stupid we can be as a species. It shows that it doesn’t take much to push us over the edge and that one day it could actually happen. If you look at
humanity from an outsiders perspective you would see a race that is dangerous and primitive. Primitive not in a technological sense but in a existential, philosophical way of thinking. We kill each other because our we can’t
learn to live with each others ideologies. We fight like savage animals over the Earths resources or land instead of putting our heads together to find a better solution when it has always been proven that there is one. It pains me
that our technological progress has mostly been born out of necessity due to some kind of war or conflict and not for the greater good of humanity as a whole. It’s usually just been to find new ways of killing people. It is my
hope that in my film I will hopefully be able to convince people to look at the world from the bigger picture and for them to stop and think about there own stupidity. Astronauts have reported experiencing this type of conscious
shift in awareness when they look down at Earth from Space. They call this the Overview Effect and It is the experience of seeing first hand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood “to be a tiny, fragile
ball of life, hanging in the void, shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere.” From space, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important and we see ourselves as a singular race rather
then one that is divided into nations. Once we see this, we see the bigger picture and our own human nature begins to change. Perhaps then humanity will become united as a species and be less likely to destroy itself.
Whilst I think it would be impossible for me to produce a film that directly references and portrays these larger themes due to the logistical and physical limitations of producing a student short film on practically no budget. It is
important to me that the film is inspired and perhaps linked to them through the theme of Artificial intelligence. This gives the viewer something familiar to relate to and can perhaps act as a warning to people of the dangers of
A.I which would people as a whole consider the serious dangers it poses to humanity.

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