Artists Who Base Their Work on Their Life

Hey Guys,

Artists have always based their work on either personal life or things that have happened close to them but there is a difference between basing your work on your life and completely immersing your life in your work.

Now, for a start let's define the role of an artist. I am not just talking about painters such as Van Gogh who immersed his life into his work. I'm also talking about artists as in singers, musicians, writers and even Directors.

An example of a singer who immersed their life into their work is Amy Winehouse. Now I know there is a lot of controversy over her music and the way she lived, and yes I get she made major mistakes that eventually led to her downfall, but this is what I'm trying to explain. We all have history, and a past: Let's say we've all made mistakes.

I'm not trying to put people off having their lives and work connect, it is a very powerful thing to do, but very dangerous at the same time, as Winehouse did you can start to take it too far and even start searching and creating trouble in your life to work with. In her first album she speaks about failed relationships and friendships, she also speaks of how she had a drug habit, in the second album she speaks of her demise and how she does search for trouble and how her problems became more serious. Then she fell dramatically and it killed her work, killed her visions and then finally, unfortunately killed her.

As I said I'm not trying to put people off basing their work on their lives, it's when their lives are then based on their work; and Amy Winehouse did try and turn her life around, she quit the drugs and although she did not do it the correct way and it was a little too late, she wrote the start of her first album based on the facts that she wanted to change and how she wanted to make herself better. The third 'Hidden Tracks' album is one of the most beautiful albums I've heard in quite some time and each time I hear it, by the end I am bound to be in tears, half of joy and half of upset and fear.

All artists, classing the role of a director as an artist, want to be able to effect people and make people who are suffering, or have suffered from the same problems as they are showing feel better, or make them think and of course, me wanting to be a director, I do want to add personal happenings of my life to my films. But how far do you take it? How much of your own life would you add? If you're too much involved then your life and work collide. Yet if you're not involved enough then it feels empty and has no meaning behind what is being portrayed.

A director whose old work used to be based a little bit on his life is Tim Burton, his themes use to be about main characters loneliness and they would always have some sort of resemblance toward Burton. He would use dark colours and spirals to simulate the downward spiral of a character. His work has changed as he has become more involved with his wife Helena Bonner-Carter and his work has become slightly more colourful, yet with little flashes of his old life and how he got to the way he is today.

So In a way basing your work on your life will get you more noticed than if you just work for the sake of it but it is when the life is based on the work, or the work and the life both get tangled and cause problems. The thing is, even if this does eventually happen, isn't it more the work that gets attention than the person? The work will live on forever, so if you base it on your life and give it a more personal touch then if you think about it, you will therefore metaphorically 'live forever' and isn't this what everyone wants? Not just artists.

Stay safe,

Matt

Can a Film Change Somebodies Views?

Hey Guys,

I have always been interested in film and how everything works. I've always loved the use of story-lines and cinematography and how a film can take us away from our own lives or makes us feel powerful but can films really change our views? Can a film make you sit down and think about what you believe in and make you think about them, or even change those beliefs all together?

 As you will know, there are a lot of different types of films, some are there to just entertain, and you don't need to be overly involved with them, such films as pure action films or comedies. These films that we know are just basically sit down, we watch and we don't need to take much in, or away from the experience. As my father likes to call them, they are 'remove brain' films.

These aren't the films that I want to focus on; they do not tend to affect us all that much. The films that can affect us are more the emotional dramas or the love stories, but also sometimes films that we would not expect to affect us do touch is in the most peculiar ways.

Now there is a difference between a film affecting us and a film changing our views. Neither of these are easy to do, as there is such a wide audience range and it is hard to affect each one individually. To effect or touch somebodies heart you have to have a theme or content that people understand or have been through themselves, or even a theme that people would hate to go through and are scared of, such things like love, life and death are very high in effecting people but is there other ways? Could people be affected by things that are not as obvious?

In respects of changing somebodies views, now this is a very different case. It is very difficult to turn round to somebody and say 'I think you should feel this way about this topic.' It does not work that way, you can't tell people how to feel or how to view things, all you can do is show them and hope they understand it the way you hoped.

An example of a film I studied once that changes views was Natural Born Killers, Directed by Oliver Stone. Now this film gets a lot of mixed reactions, and that is the point of the film. It was created to effect people and it makes them feel differently about the media, law enforcement and criminals. This film puts a spin on serial killers, making them into more of a hero figures as the media glorifies them and makes them into a respected couple who are mistreated by the corrupt law enforcement.

The question is though; does this film change your views? Well whilst watching it, you do feel for the couple and you do find yourself on the other side with the criminals, hoping that it will 'end well' for them. I would not say it fully changes your views forever though. Yes it makes you more wary of the press and of law enforcement, but many films do this.

What I really want to know is, if you can make a stunning film, which changes peoples' views, and makes them think. Now I'm not saying that some views are wrong and others are right, obviously everyone thinks differently, but what I want to know is if it is possible to watch a film and come out thinking 'maybe my view on this subject was not clear' I want to know whether you would go home after a film and think over what you saw and how it could affect your views and even yourself.

All directors and writers strive to affect the audience in many different ways. Each of them have probably also tried to change peoples' views and tried to make people think a certain way, the thing is I don't feel like you should be made to feel a way, I feel that if you show somebody something in a different light than they are used to, maybe that will affect something.

I guess, for now, I will just have to keep wondering, until I find a film that makes me change all my views or, hopefully even better, create something that effects people in more ways than one.

Stay Safe,

Matt Thom

A Few Film Ideas

Hey Guys,

Wanting to become a film director I have had a few ideas in the past as to what type of films I would like to create; some ideas are based on books, myths and ideas and others based loosely on moments that happened in my life and that I have worked with and edited.

These are some of my small ideas that I have had in the past and an example of my style:


The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

The book is narrated by Death, whom tells the story of a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany around The Second World War. Death tells the story of his involvement in this war and also tells the story of a young girl who is growing up and getting used to living with her foster parents and her neighbours after her mother leaves her. The young girl gets a habit of stealing books from those who deserve it and the story tells of what happens to her and those around her as the war becomes more serious.

I believe that this book should become a film due to the fact that that the book itself has some beautiful imagery and how it is narrated by Death whom explains vividly how his job works and the views he sees around him. I believed that it had an essence of a fantasy, or even fairy-tale style to it whilst it was still realistic and emotional enough to affect people from all ages.

Mysery - Own Story

This story is based on a young girl named Matilda Mysery Downes, Mysery for short, who lives in the 1920's. She is sat in an abandoned field of corn when something mysterious happens and she ends up in a mysterious time and place. She has no idea how she got here or what will happen but decides to explore and discover, she bumps into a friendly gentlemen who shows her around. He gets her use to the area so that she does not want to go back. The story tells of her becoming use to this new world and everything involved with her travels.

In the writing I have made it so that the future world is in colour and Mysery stays in grey-scale, giving it a great effect about her change of location and the fact that nobody will accept her for who she is. I wanted this to be the same in the film. I saw this story progress from a story of discovery in herself and her world and move towards more of a love story. It has hints of fantasy in it with the mystery behind how she got to this world

Back To Black - A story of Amy Winehouse's life

Somebody else will probably end up releasing this story before I even get to where I want to be, but I would love to release this myself.

My idea for her story was to mix both real clips and acted scenes together to create a realistic as possible film as possible. The idea was to have most of the action in a dark black or grey-scale and then having one or two items/objects in the scene in colour, the items of importance would then look highlighted. I wanted to show how Amy's based her music on life and how her music therefore effected and changed her life as she would try to better herself with creating new problems to overcome.

This story would show Amy as a hero in the end as her music and life had affected so many others and had changed peoples' lives.

Transformation - Own Story

This story is still under construction but the basis is that a middle aged, married man becomes addicted to cross dressing; he therefore ends up leading two separate lives. His two lives start to spiral out of control and he doesn't know which way to turn. This story is about how he accepts himself and how others view him in his two separate lives.


There are a few small ideas I've had for this on film but at the moment they have not been narrowed down and refined.

Bitter Shandy - Own Story

This story has not been completely thought out yet, but I have had a few visions and ideas.

Basically this story about an actor who gets in a relationship with an actress, Shandy, that he has been working with, they go away together. The story follows how their relationship falls apart and how the guys actions effect Shandy and what it causes her to do to save her life and how everything that happens is a chain reaction towards something else.

This film would break my normal style and be a mixture between fantasy and reality; it is a story of how their work seems to crash into the couples lives. The stories that they act out seem to happen to them in real life and cause things to get worse.

I have had other ideas for this, but they are being refined.

There are also other stories and films I would love to make, using such authors such as Roald Dahl books and Darren Shan, but at this moment I am focusing on writing these stories and perfecting them whilst also working on short films also.

I am also focusing on my studies and making sure I complete my masters in Directing for film.

Stay safe,

Matt

A Note to All

Hey Guys,

Quick note for you, so you know.

I had a Blogger account before this one and I did post some blogs on it.

Now unfortunately, due to me being stupid and losing my phone and also Google not replying back to me to let me back on my account, I've decided to create another Blogger.

Very annoyed that I have to do this, but it might turn out that this is better, let's see.

Well I hope you enjoy re-reading the blogs I have and the new blogs I have created.

We shall speak soon.

Stay safe.

Matt