My name is Maxime Curdy and media has always played a role in my life. I'm only 17 but it's not a stretch too far to say that my creativity and imagination has always led me down this path towards the media world where it would enable me to put that trait into use.
I've always looked at television programmes, films and even adverts, among others, analysing them and thinking why they wanted to create that effect and what I would have done instead, wishing that I had the know-how and resources to actually see this through. It's a dream to think that this support is within my reach.
I hope this blog will display my work effectively and showcase the potential that I possess. Still, like always, there is still much to learn and I'm eager to start.
Even from a young age, my imagination has always been a strong influence over what I do and how I do it. This led me to draw up comics (inspired around a cartoon series 'Avatar - The Last Airbender).
After watching 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Narnia', I began to be obsessed with the fantasy genre. I began building and painting miniature figurines, often being so entranced in what I was doing that I would be up for hours just painting. At the age of 6, I took it upon myself to try to replicate a short story like the 2 mentioned above and to this day I still have the copy and figurines.The images below are just a few example of hundreds.
The best thing about the story and painting however, was not the fact I wrote or painted it well, but the fact that I was proud that I did something about this creative urge I have and utilised it to create a product of which is completely me expressing myself. This satisfaction of completion has only gotten stronger throughout the years and even more so, the product has become better and better due to consistent improvement. One day, I will have the tools to create something that expresses myself completely.
But why media over writing? Well although I enjoy transforming idea into a product, I feel it can be best done over film for as the saying goes "pictures tell a thousand words". Pen and paper never seems to be enough for me for even after it being completed I want to develop it further where my ideas can literally move and speak for itself. Wouldn't it be amazing to see something and know that this all came from one little idea in your head?
When choosing my options for GCSE it didn't even occur to me not to take media, it was imperative that I pursued what I love to do. The lessons were fascinating and really grabbed my attention into further studying the media world.
Through years 10 and 11, the course was fairly expansive as we played around and learnt about Photoshop and editing films through the editing station, I-Movie. We studied film conventions, such as the use of sound to build tension, and stereotypes of the horror genre by which you'll often find a blonde woman that always dies.
My horror video took a twist off a hit game called 'The Scary Maze Game'. This game and the film involved a creature jumping out of a screen and scaring you. Obviously due to a lack of know-how and editing resources, we couldn't attempt CGI (computer generated imagery) to create the jumping out so we just used a sudden cut to black after seeing the monster appear for a second.
We also studied the various music styles. For example, it's clear that rap is revolved around sex and crime whereas rock is much more focused on the musical talent. This part of the course lead to the use of Photoshop when developing our own music CD covers, specifically made to fit the conventions of the music world and what we expect to see from an artist.
My Cover consisted of a real action photograph on the front cover and a computer drawn image at the back. I did that to show off my media skills and show to my target audience of teenagers that my artist is modern.
This little taster of what I could learn to do was just what I needed to know what I really wanted to do later on in life, eventually leading me to study media as an A-Level.
The AS course of media displays my capability to work with others and produce work to a standard that won us the 'Thursties' which is essentially a vote to see which group had the best work. A school Oscars ceremony if you will.
The image below shows all the winners of individual and group awards given in the 9th annual Thursties ceremony.
All my work can be found in the link below, showing individual and group work completed. This involves research, planning, story boarding and ideas, practice films, drafts and final films, and evaluations. http://scfinc.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Max
In the thriller film, props was definitely the biggest issue that we faced collectively as we couldn't get a hold of a Identical drip prop or a gun. Due to this I personally feel it ruins the scenes as it loses that seriousness and tension that is necessary in a thriller film. the IV drip looks custom made and childish and the gun has holes at the side (at which point was shown in a close-up) which didn't look realistic at all. So to improve this, my group and I would need to close down on finding props that looked effective and appropriate for the film and if not, be aware of the faults and avoid displaying the fault by focusing on it like we did with the close up of the gun.
Knowing what is in the background is very important and wasn't considered enough in my film. The idea was that the hostage was taken to an abandoned warehouse, however a car could be seen behind the protagonist. As was a road which doesn't connote the location as being abandoned. And lastly, in the opening credits the idea of the gun and photos was that the two shown were targets but in reality it just looked out of place with a gun placed on a fairly well kept table. This did not create the effect of it being intense that I wanted.
Moreover, it's worth noting that although handheld shots can be effective as it showed a dazed effect quite well in this scene, it is very easy for the actor to look directly at the camera which makes the scenario a little less believable as the audience can tell it's staged. When it comes to filming, no scene should be rushed.
One thing that does bother me immensely about the sound is the overlapping tracks playing in this scene. It seems poorly timed despite it being made like that on purpose. The idea behind this scene was that the narrator was speaking during the events of the film by which at this point, the protagonist gets abducted whilst reading this note. But listening now, it doesn't sound right and is confusing to follow. With this, I found that sometimes it's best to keep the sound as simple as possible, especially when it comes to dialogue. A well written and performed script is also necessary to which ours was rushed.
One thing that I also have to be aware of in sound is common sense, what I mean by this is that a road is going to carry some ambient sound which will be difficult to deal with. Further planning should be made to deal with these problems.
Lighting is also vital to create a certain atmosphere, which is key to a film of any genre. Where a horror film may be extremely dark and a comedy will be light, the tone the scene has to be thought out thoroughly. I personally feel that in this piece of work, my group and I failed in this as for a thriller film. Stereotypically a thriller film is a dark and intense film, therefore our lighting was too bright (even after editing) so tension was lost. A clear example of the film losing tension is the climax where the hostage is revealed, but as you can in the screenshot to the left, the light is completely shrouding the antagonist. This should have been redone as, firstly, the visuals are fairly poor so the audience can't see exactly what is going on well. And secondly, light connotes goodness to which doesn't suit the shot. The binary opposites are suggesting that the antagonist is actually good and the protagonist is actually bad which simply doesn't make sense. These things have to be considered more in my work.
This year I have taken it upon myself to leave my previous group and pursue my own individual ideas in the form of creating a band's profile under the name of 'The Young'. This was because in some areas, despite working well, I felt I could have done better, for example the script was rushed to meet production schedules.
Moreover, I am quite the ambitious person so the challenge of doing it all individually doesn't faze me, if anything I'm encouraged to show off exactly what I can do.
The link below shows off some of the work that I have done so far. The film itself is still under way however everything is planned in terms of location, props, characters, camera shots and a fair understanding of editing techniques that are under my sleeve, one being a simple black & white filter and slow- motion.
http://maxmusica2.blogspot.co.uk/
A big motivation to go forward with this path is my cousin, Kieran Budd who lives in New Zealand. As well as being my cousin, I look up to him and aim to become more like him in the future with what he does. He's established himself in the media world already and is has already received awards such as 'The Auckland Council Film-Maker award'.
He further went on to produce music videos, documentaries and even working on set behind a cooking channel with Annabel Langbein. https://vimeo.com/kieranbuddproductions
It's not only interesting watching my cousin grow more and more into this world but comforting, as I know that should I ever need expert advice, I will always have him in my pocket as an asset.
