Illustrated Report – Explorer (FILM503)
Ellinor Jane Lennie
Critical Explorer - https://vimeo.com/546561401
At the beginning of the module, the course was under the conditions of a pandemic
continuing from late March 2020. One of the things that changed because of the pandemic
was the way relationships on screen were filmed, especially for more intimate scenes. The
television show I chose to look at regarding intimacy and intimacy coordination in the
pandemic was BBC Three’s Normal People (2020), broadcast in late April of 2020, meaning
it saw release around a month after the national lockdown in the United Kingdom.
Throughout the show, there are many elements of intimacy between the two main characters
Connell and Marianne, which caused some controversy online due to the nature of the
relationships being depicted on a satellite channel typically viewed as quite tame
(Refinery29, 2020).
As well as giving an overview of intimacy coordination, and how it’s seen in the
context of Normal People, I also spoke about how the need for this kind of working in the
entertainment industry became more important after the #METOO movement in the wake of
the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault and rape case (The Guardian, 2020). As a result of
Weinstein’s (and several other executives and large names in the entertainment industry)
behaviour, many new rules have been brought in with regards to working in the film and
television industry to ensure that the same misdemeanours aren’t repeated. Weinstein’s case
set the precedent for a catalyst in the entertainment industry regarding the treatment of actors
and those wanting to get into roles within the sector, allowing for better treatment of
everyone involved.
When looking back at this essay film, I find it incredibly interesting to see how much
the situation in the United Kingdom has changed in the space of time since the release of
Normal People to the public, the second lockdown which was ongoing at the time I finalised
the film itself, and the current state of the United Kingdom, as well as it now being a year
since the release of the show itself (BBC Three, 2021). One of the things I did struggle with
for this piece was trying to get clips from the television show itself to illustrate my points
about the show through the essay film, as the show was broadcast in the UK on the BBC, and
clips became difficult to come by because of this. I had to attempt to combat this by screen
recording my BBC iPlayer app to use, as well as taking clips to use from Learning Online’s
Box of Broadcasts facility. While these both helped me to get the clips I needed to discuss the
, importance of the show itself, it also proved a struggle to do so without any lag or stuttering
in the clips. If I were to redo this in the future, I would hopefully be able to find better source
sites to use to get the clips needed without any stuttering, to make the film flow smoothly.
Another thing I am happy with in terms of changes I made from the initial final film to the
submitted piece was the amount of text used, as depicted in the below screenshots, to increase
accessibility of the film for audiences.
Creative Explorer - https://vimeo.com/510804800/ca6cd00007
For the Creative Explorer module, I wanted to push myself to try something new in terms of
learning a brand new skill, and thus decided to learn how to play guitar for the course, with
the intentions of potentially using this new-found skill to score my own or other’s films in the
future, making it easier to source and sustain music for use in future film projects rather than
having to draft in other musicians and possibly struggle to attain the right feel of the music
for the film itself. Owing to my time spent in online communities over the pandemic, I
decided to learn an original song by Twitch streamer and YouTuber Nihachu, entitled “5am
and I can’t sleep” (2020). This seemed like an easy enough song to learn as it made use of 4
basic chords on the guitar, repeated through the song and each of its verses. To best learn
how to play this song, I made use of a website called “Ultimate Guitar”, which features many
different songs and ways to play them, either the tabs or the chords depending on what is
desired by the user (2020). As
well as making use of this site, I
also used the original video by
Nihachu to ensure that the song
sounded right by ear alongside
the learning I was already
undertaking.
