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FOUND FOOTAGE: THE FINALE - GOOD & BAD INFLUENCES - by Mr Biffo

21/7/2017

23 Comments

 
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We're now just a couple of days away from the filming of Mr Biffo's Found Footage: The Finale. We're deep into finishing the props, making an inventory of the hundreds of items we need to take with us, and breaking the shoot down into manageable chunks. The actors are learning their lines, and the crew are prepping.

As already stated, thanks to your generous support, we're setting our sights a little higher than the rest of the series.

In the way that Biffovision was a heady cocktail of all the TV shows I watched and loved as a kid, so the Finale will be a blend of influences - some profoundly silly, others less so. A lot of them come from the movies I watched as a teenager. Others from my post-pubescent fear of thermonuclear war, video games, and more recent world events.

Given that, for the most part, I'm approaching it instinctively,I thought it'd be an interesting exercise to see if I could identify the constituent parts that make up the Finale.

Reading this you might think we're making a multi-million dollar sci-fi movie - I wish - but it doesn't hurt to have lofty ambitions, even if we fall short. Which we will. But hopefully not catastrophically so.
TERMINATOR 2
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I loved The Terminator, but there's one shot in particular in Terminator 2 that has always stuck with me (not the one above). Also, something for which James Cameron is never really given credit for is how he manages to imbue his movies with heart.

​It might be manipulative, but it engages the audience, and gives them permission to become emotionally invested in the action. If you care about the characters, if you like them, you care more about what's happening on screen. 

I've really enjoyed the short films Neil Blompkamp has been releasing on YouTube over the past month or so, but more from a technical point of view than through any real emotional engagement. Found Footage: The Finale (title TBC) might only be 20-30 minutes long, but I've tried to give each of the main characters a story, and give you a reason to care about them.  
ALIENS
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When you see the Finale, Aliens will be the most overt reference. I even had the movie playing - one scene in particular - when I was putting together the shot list yesterday. I kept pausing it so that I could ensure we "homage" the beats perfectly. There's no point pretending that it's anything other than what it is.

Also, then banter between the Colonial Marines made them feel like real people, and the little hints that the base on LV426 had - until recently - been populated by real people, made it feel real. Work places aren't sterile; we decorate our cubicles and desks, and try to personalise them. I want to try and capture some of that.

The more familiar the world is - either through the way the characters interact, or via little background hints - the more we'll relate to it, no matter how mad and bizarre the action gets. Hopefully.
STAR WARS
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People sometimes forget that sci-fi never felt real before Star Wars. Sci-fi technology was always clean and sterile, the paint still looked fresh.

For me, more than the story, more than the special effects, it was George Lucas' "used universe" which had the most impact on me. It was the way everything had a layer of grime, the glimpses of machinery in the back of the shot - which never drew attention to itself, but which made the world(s) feel grounded. The way that everything looked as if it had been patched together, and was in danger of breaking down at any moment.

For Found Footage: The Finale I've spent a small fortune on this stuff called "Dirty Down", which is a range of water soluble sprays and dyes made for film and TV, which allow you to cover the set and props in various types of muck - from oil to rust to dust - as well as things like tractor compressors, oscilloscopes, old portable TVs...

I was studying the behind-the-scenes video of The Last Jedi that was released last week, and was amused to see - in one shot - the exact same prop as one I'd just bought from eBay. 

The other thing Star Wars did was to hint at backstory without feeling the need to go into massive detail. We all wanted to know about The Clone Wars, the fall of the Jedi, Jabba the Hutt...
OLD RUSSIAN SCI-FI MOVIES
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My favourite sequence from last year's Digifest videos is the mash-up of old Soviet ads and sci-fi movies. They have a particular aesthetic, which I've never really seen in Western movies.

These days, our science fiction tends to be influenced by anime, but I want a look which feels different to all that, otherwise it all just blends into one amorphous morass. Most short sci-fi movies I've seen either try to look like Aliens or Halo. Just because our budget is small, I didn't want us to go the obvious route with the art direction. 

I'll be mixing the Soviet feel in with my childhood obsession with the Cold War, and a trip I took with my dad to Chernobyl about ten years ago. Think a version of the Soviet Union where instead of Communism they have Capitalism. Imagine a Cold War fought between rival global mega corporations, which turns into a real conflict.

​What's a corporation to do when most of its consumer base has been wiped out by thermonuclear war?
BLADE RUNNER
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God knows what happened to Ridley Scott, but his early movies looked like nothing else.

Yes, the smokey, neon, backlit look has been ripped off endlessly, but what they did - by shrouding everything in shadows and smoke - somehow implied that the world (and budget) was bigger than it was. It was a look borne out of necessity, but it was profoundly effective.

Even now, you see the Blade Runner look in modern movies and video games.
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK
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One of my favourite movies ever. Our brilliant composer Christopher Jerden-Cooke has already worked up a version of the Found Footage theme, which sounds eerily like early John Carpenter mixed with Brad Fiedel and Vangelis - that will run over a big, expositional, Escape From New York-style opening animation. Also, Carpenter was another director who used shadows to hide the limits of his set and budget.
SPLIT
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I hated M.Night Shyamalan's Split, as I have done most of his movies since The Village. I mean, what the hell happened with him? His movies are so weird... but not in a good way. There's at least one scene in Split which looks as if it has been lifted straight from Tommy Wiseau's The Room, and the rest of it felt like a dirty old man stockpiling b-roll footage for his wank bank.

However, there's a certain similarity between the setting of Split and our location, so I'm going to steal one shot in particular; perhaps the only thing I liked about Split.
BRAZIL
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Pipes! Tubes! Wiring! That's mostly what I remember about Brazil - how the entire world seemed to be built on a foundation of pipes and tubing.

We're going to be dressing the set with a LOT of pipes and tubes next week. Also, that mix of sort of analogue, retro-futuristic technology. I hate the way every movie now has holographic screens and displays. I like my technology to be brutal and tactile. Big, chunky buttons, and flickering screens in 2:4 ratio with terrible resolution. 

You know what else bugs me about all modern sci-fi? Helmets with lights in the face masks, shining right into the actors' eyes. I toyed with doing the same in Found Footage, but couldn't get over how it draws attention to fact that it wouldn't be practical in reality - it'd dazzle the wearer - and is simply a way to light the actors' face. Plus, every movie does it - which is a good reason not to.
GEARS OF WAR
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The over-the-shoulder run-and-gun camera angle is something I want to see if we can get in the Finale. It really puts the player - or viewer - in the heart of the action. 
DAVID BOWIE'S BLACKSTAR 
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Aside from being a brilliant track, the video for David Bowie's Blackstar was creepy and mysterious and funny (hopefully intentionally so). It managed to offered unique, disturbing, images that were actually really simple - but compelling. I want me some of that.
DONALD TRUMP
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When Trump was elected, lots of people were complaining about having a Nazi in the White House, and blah blah. It got me thinking, though, about how the way his business used his name and his image, and how similar it was to Nazi propaganda. As awful as the man is, something he knows about is the power of branding.

​Indeed, the iconography of most big corporations and countries and organisations is often distilled down to a phrase or an icon - there's a direct parallel to be drawn between the Trump plastering his name on his planes and buildings, the Apple logo and the Swastika and the Hammer and Sickle, at least in terms of how a symbol can be worshipped by its followers.

​That's where the Xenoxxx Industries logo came from: a corporate symbol that blurs the line between capitalism and extremism. Everything is branded.
23 Comments
Rambunctious Rodney and the Flying Ants
21/7/2017 10:12:59 am

I only read the Terminator one because I don't want to spoil the surprises but my guess is it'll be the scene where Sarah Connor (if that's his real name) rams a mop bucket into the moustachioed chap that licked her face all weird like

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Kelvin "I know now why you cry" Green link
21/7/2017 05:43:52 pm

It's the thumbs-up. Got to be.

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Carlos Nightman
25/7/2017 05:20:04 pm

I've always loved the opening shot of LA traffic... no-one ever remembers it.

RichardM
21/7/2017 10:45:46 am

Exciting! I like that you haven't elaborated on exactly which shots so we can try and spot 'em. A good excuse to watch some of the films above again.

Can you tell us what the Return of the Jedi prop is, or is it a spoiler? Can't help but wonder if it's something that has been elaborated on endlessly in the Extended Universe, like all the other old tat lying around in the background in Star Wars (IG88, Bossk, Dengar, Gonk...). Cue fan fiction about your oscilloscope and how it contains the plans to the Death Star or something.

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Mr Biffo
21/7/2017 11:18:27 am

Nope! We had to get it made specially. You'll know it when you see it.

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Chris
21/7/2017 10:57:03 am

Dark shadows, smoke... I missed the bit of the campaign which said:
STRETCH GOAL 1: Less smoke! Our bigger budget means we don't need quite so much smoke to cover the cracks.
STRETCH GOAL 2: Less shadows! We will now (a) be able to afford electric lighting and (b) the set won't look quite so shoddy once we turn the lights up a notch (or maybe half a notch)

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Mr Biffo
21/7/2017 11:18:51 am

Ah, but I love smoke machines...!

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Chris
21/7/2017 12:14:26 pm

I'm not complaining, and the shadows and smoke give a bit of a "horror" edge to things as it's the perfect environment for monsters to jump out of...

I love chunky buttons and terrible resolution flickery screens too, and pipework. Basically any futuristic space station should look like it was built in the 1970s. By plumbers.

Mr Biffo
21/7/2017 12:55:05 pm

Totally agree! It was the best thing about Alien: Isolation.

Reversible Sedgewick
21/7/2017 11:52:04 am

This all sounds very exciting. Good luck with the shoot!

If I can ask a boring admin question... will the Patreon DVD reward have the whole shebang? Christmas special through to Finale? Or will there multiple versions of the DVDs floating about?

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Mr Biffo
21/7/2017 12:49:34 pm

It will indeed. Every DVD will be the same special edition DVD. In fact, we have a lovely man coming to thee shoot some behind-the-scenes stuff and interviews.

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Nick
21/7/2017 01:19:54 pm

Yippee, this is all very exciting. Good luck with the shoot.

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Mr Biffo
21/7/2017 01:51:08 pm

Cheers, Nick!

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Jol
21/7/2017 03:35:17 pm

Phwoar. All this retro sci-fi hype for MBFF:TF has me salivating for the finished product. This sort of thing is most definitely my jam. There's something very appealing about the analogue futurism depicted in a lot of these movies - probably the fact the kind of crappy, broken down aesthetic makes it feel much more real than the clean shiny look of, say the Star Wars prequels.

If the finale ends up having a synthy retro-wave style soundtrack I'll probably explode with glee. Or at least be quite happy! So yeah good luck and all that jazz.

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Paulvw
21/7/2017 07:08:40 pm

Wow. Good on you. Hope it all goes well. Really looking forward to seeing it.

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Sean Buckingham
21/7/2017 10:34:54 pm

Excellent list of films there. You could substitute Brazil for any of Terry Gilliam's futuristic visions - 12 Monkeys or Zero Theorem both have a similar look which is typical Gilliam.
I'm hoping to see some Gilliam-esque wonky camera angles in the finale now.
Also, I lost count how many times I watched Escape from New York on rented vhs when I was younger. Such a great film.

Looking forward to it. I'm sure it won't disappoint.

Seam

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Matthew Long
22/7/2017 12:30:55 am

"...looks as if it has been lifted straight from Tommy Wiseau's The Room, and the rest of it felt like a dirty old man stockpiling b-roll footage for his wank bank..."

Now there's a quote for the DVD cover! I hope the Split PR people read that 'review'.

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Elvo
23/7/2017 11:20:14 pm

So what was the particular scene in T2?

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David W
26/7/2017 02:35:54 pm

Nude Arnie.

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Mr Friend
24/7/2017 02:30:33 pm

Hi guys, Mr Friend here - your stand-in chum for an otherwise-indisposed Biffo!

I was just thinking about videogames, namely the current trend in challenging games. Do you applaud this new direction, or do you long for the days of just 'shutting off' and 'relaxing' and 'ting'?

It seems to me that a lot of 'vintage' games have no real 'value' outside of their challenge - nobody is playing Pitfall for the views, or Pacman for the dizzying 'high' produced by chomping multiple pills - we either play to finish the game, or we are all chasing those 'high' 'scores'.

A few niche titles aside, do you think we will ever return to the 'champs delight' (high score) method of game design? Or is such a tawdry and meaningless signifier rightly 'banished' to the 'pit' of 'the past'?

Have a great week, start each day with a smile and try your hardest to be the best you can be!

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Jol
25/7/2017 12:55:28 pm

Hello Mr Friend! I don't know if anyone else will respond or even read this but here's my 'effort':

Don't challenging / relaxing games co-exist right now? For every Souls game that forces you to git gud (or if my current newbie expidition through DS2 is anything to go by: grind*) you've got a Diablo 3, which is a (time consuming) piece of piss. I don't really see the whole git gud 'scene' as a trend running through all games, it's more of a reaction to the relative simplicity / perceived hand holding in the combat mechanics of some AAA titles. Such hand holding / simplicity is however a necessity with large open world games, or they'd take even longer than they do already.

As for which I prefer: depends on my mood. The relaxing ones can sometimes get a bit boring (also my most favouritist relaxing game is Pixel Junk Eden and it's not on the PS4: sort it out Sony)

I'd argue that high score focused / completion focused games also co-exist, but the high score games are now multiplayer, with direct competition between players for topping the score boards. I don't know how good every game is at recording individual scores so you could, for example, bring up the global scoreboard for a given map; Destiny didn't do this at all afaik (in game at least), maybe Battlefield / CoD do?

I'd love to start each day with a smile, but I've got a dog with whom I have frequent disagreements over when I'm getting out of bed. Today I mixed it up by starting with a sigh; a sigh at the realisation that despite being sick I was going to have to drag my arse into work because deadlines don't care about my health.

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Mr Friend
25/7/2017 03:55:37 pm

Salient points Jol my dude! I would be tempted to suggest that for every high effort game like Souls there's an equally placid game like ABZU, but that seems too convenient, and just false, frankly. Rock on Jol!

Nikolay Yeriomin link
27/7/2017 02:05:14 am

Wow! I seldom see any director putting up a good list of movies and stuff that inspired him/her for a certain film of his/hers. Everyone is probably afraid that it will make people think they're unoriginal... While to a certain point without inspiration from other media any movie, series etc. is hardly possible.

What I find especially intriguing about this list is the fact that it is a bit similar to mine ones. When I'm all over new idea I always narrow down a few inspirations for the style, technical aspects etc. It makes inspiration actually take shape and not run everywhere screaming like a wild untamed animal or a vocalist of Sensorium Girlybox (sorry for a shoehorned reference, I just can't resist making something like that in my first comment here).

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