It was a really stressful time, and we were all very low on enthusiasm at that point. I made a decision to get out and film and whatever we could salvage or get inspired by whilst were out from the footage we could use.
We split into two groups and Ben and I went ahead and explored Brick Lane, whilst Lily and Alex went around Shoreditch. Thinking that if we split and had more ground a to cover there's a likely chance we'd get inspired and come up with something.
As Ben and I wondered through Brick Lane we noticed that there a lot of niche and artistic coffee shops, cake shop, bagel places and curry houses. The famous strip inspired us to film the foods in the shop windows and people ordering eating and throwing away their food. After filming a few places and asking nicely to film people taking bites out of their lunch, we came across a clip of a woman cutting salt beef in the window which we thought was so beautiful. The movement of the beef, the skill of her experience and rapidness of cutting bagging and giving to the customer was so interesting. We reviewed the footage and immediately wanted to go down that route. We met with the other half to discuss and trade equipment, we explained that we'd come across and said we're going to carry on filming our foods around he east but for a concept were going to try and film something inside the bagel shop to go around the cutting of that salt beef.
A shot I got of some people eating their bagels outside the location.
So we went back to the shop and asked if we could film Ben ordering, purchasing and eating the salt beef bagel and we were given permission to film whatever we wanted and free to do so which was amazing. As Ben was eating the bagel I got close shots of the process, using soft focus and detailed close up to get depth. Also surrounding shots of others eating the bagels and gorging on the fatty meat. The meat filmed so beautifully, the oozing fats and oils and the messiness makes it an experience. I wanted to get little moment likes wiping on the hands and mouth, also at the end throwing the paper bag away to make it real and raw also relatable.
link to first draft of short film: vimeo.com/113927709
password is beef
The second edit of the short film: https://vimeo.com/118830383
We went out and filmed more footage and created a narrative of the journey.
I'm extremely happy with the outcome of our film, I think me and Ben worked great as a duo and were in sync the whole time. The film could be better, I think there's room for narrative or interaction with portraiture of locals at the bagel shop. if we had more time than a day I would of loved to ask questions and get information about the place the road (brick lane) and look out for locals and their behaviours. We would of still kept it as a main visual of the bagel shop. I've always loved film and I think this project ignited it again. I'm excited to inplement it into future projects and hopefully work close with alex from photography who I've become good friends with.
