Director's Statement

Director Statement:

For my directing project, I have chosen to re-direct films directed by John Glen and have chosen to re-film and direct several scenes from 'The Living Daylights'. This film is part of the James Bond series of films that was released in the year of 1987. The three scenes I have chosen to film involve: Firstly, James Bond follows a woman named Kara onto a tram until she is taken away by the KGB and leaves behind a cello case. Secondly, Bond takes the cello case into a toilets and finds a gun inside it and determines it was full of blanks. Lastly, Kara returns home, Bond is already there and offers to take her away and escape from the KGB.

I chose to re-direct John Glen mostly because of my familiarity with Glen's works. He directed five James Bond films throughout the 1980s which starred both Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton.

The first major changes I have made involve the script for these scenes. Firstly, I have changed any mention of the KGB headquarters to the Police Headquarters. I have also added i certain lines such as the KGB/Police agent exchanging threats to Kara before taking her off of the bus and having Bond audibly say the word 'blanks' when he empties the blank rifle shells into his hands. I decided to do this because the events that take place on screen may not make sense to an audience that has not seen the rest of the film that the scenes are taken from. I figured that adding small pieces of expository dialogue would keep the viewers up to speed with the current events on screen. Other changes to the script also include name translation to English such as changing the name Jorge to George.  

For casting of James Bond, I had to search for an actor of an appropriate age to portray a character who had seen a great deal of action in the past. The actor I chose is Darren Hammock. He is of the appropriate age and is also the right build. I chose him because he is believable as someone who could easily blend into the background without causing too much suspicion. Further research into his acting capabilities also prove positive.

For the casting of Kara, the lead female character, I chose to cast Colette Redgrave. I chose Colette because she has a youthful look but also has a mature presence, something I felt the original actress lacked in some areas. She is also a professional in the acting and theatre industries so her acting capabilities are of a high standard.

Other casting, involving the KGB (which I have later changed to the standard Police) was given to local people of my own knowledge who fit the archetype of these types of character. I made sure that their acting capability was good although they have very minimal lines.

For locations, I chose to replace the tram car with a bus, for the obvious reasons that there are no trams running locally. I have chosen a specific double-decker bus from the array of buses supplied by a bus company to me as it looks old fashioned and dirty to give it the aesthetic of a transport that is used on a daily basis.

The second location takes place in a tilets actually situated in the bus yard which was supple by the bus company. This location is good for my film because it fits the overall setting and aesthetic of the scene. Also the location is rather small, meaning that the action would appear up-close and personal with the actors.




The third location will take place in a bedroom which I have chosen to use in my own house. I chose to do this to save on the costs and the hardships of acquiring another bedroom to use. I will also have a familiar space to work with, even if the floor space is limited. I will have to use different areas of the room to full effect to get the required shots.




When it comes to production design, the bus itself, I personally think, is fine. The interior isn't too clean and feels like it is being used on a daily basis. I will also try to acquire several people to be passengers on the bus so that it feels like it is just another working day. The location which I will need to dress to a higher standard is the bedroom. In the narrative of the scenes, Kara's home has been ransacked. I will need to pull out drawers and clothes from cupboards and throw them onto the floor, while also messing up the bed and pulling the covers off. I need to be careful of the limited floor space, however, I will have to be careful of my placement of the objects so that I do not decrease my moveable space which could effect the quality of the shots I need.




In terms of costume design, I have asked my Bond actor to wear a business suit and tie after researching Ian Fleming's original character, who prefers to dress smart while on business and does not like to wear bow ties. This choice is also inspired by Timothy Dalton's look in the film.

Kara's costume design, I wanted to be aesthetically similar to the costume design from the film where she is wearing a bigger overcoat for outdoor wear.

For sound design, I will need to record several buzz-tracks, most prominently for the movement of the bus. I will try to record the bus's travel at various speeds so I can audibly show that the bus is speeding up and slowing down from inside the bus. Other buzz tracks I will use are the workers in the bus depot. I will use these sounds to emphasise the bus depot as a working environment. I will even add extra sound effects manually if I am unable to get the right amount of atmospheric noise.


Other sound effects that I would wish to add are the sounds of Bond holding and unloading the gun in the toilets. Because I am unable to use a toy gun due to health and safety regulations, I am going to use the power of suggestion by not showing the gun and using sound effects as the camera shows the outside of the toilet cubicle.




I have researched some other directors such as Sam Mendes and Sam Raimi to see how they handle their cinematography. What I got from this research was that the directors use a lot of continuous shots to show the entirety of an action scene. These are especially prominent in Sam Mendes's works on Skyfall and Spectre with shots that last for several minutes and convey entire sequences.

 I would like to emulate these type of shots to avoid using quick cuts as I personally do not like uses of quick cuts and shaking cameras in films.




I would like to make the tone of my film to be quite sombre. I won't want to make the colour rich and bombastic like several other films in the James Bond series. I am actually trying to deter from the series as a whole and just treat the scenes like their own separate thriller story. The mood should be quite dark so I can emphasise the secretive and shadow-like activities of spies and their works. To do this, I would turn the saturation of the colour of the picture down slightly to give the picture this bleak and dark look. I will also create some music which reflects the mood of each scene. I'd plan to use low bass sounds in the background to emphasise character's moods and reflect on the spy genre as a whole.




In terms of editing, my film will not include fast edits. I wish to use a lot of long takes so that the action on screen is clearly shown without having to cut to the perspective of another character's POV or simply a different angle on the action. This editing style will be similar of those to Sam Mendes's and Sam Raimi's films and would stray from John Glen's simpler and more generic editing style.


Sound editing will also be very important also because of the nature of our assessment. I will have to find the right balance of sound level between each scene and lines of dialogue while also making sure than the sound fades and flows with the picture such as in scene transitions. editing of the music will be important as well as I will need to find the appropriate time to insert each audio cue.




Overall, I feel that my directorial decisions will be vastly different to that of John Glen's direction in these scenes. I believe that I will be able to give the film my own directorial style which can me recognised as my own like directors such as Sam Raimi.

Director Research: Tetsuro Araki

Tetsuro Araki is a Japanese director born in Sayama City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. He was born 5th November 1976.  Araki has worked on several well known Japanese television series. Most of these series have become popularized by American distribution and thus have been dubbed in English and are known to a vast number in several other countries in including Britain.

Although nearly all of his works appear in the animated form of the Japanese 'Anime', Araki's directing skills are clear throughout each of these series. On several series, Tetsuro Araki even contributes to the story boarding and key animating, contributing along with several other artists to make sure that his own vision is clear of how he wants to direct the series.

Akari's most notable TV contributions include being the series director on 'Black Lagoon' in 2006, 'Death Note' between 2006 and 2007 and 'Attack on Titan' in 2013. All three of these series have received much critical acclaim, both for the directing and the way the overall story is conveyed.

What is most surprising about Araki's directing is how diverse he can make the tone of each individual series. 'Black Lagoon' showcases a lot of comedy within what would otherwise be a seriously conveyed world. 'Attack on Titan', although slightly over-the-top at times, presents some very serious and often times harsh imagery. Perhaps most interesting is 'Death Note'. This series is grounded in reality. Although there are supernatural elements, this series feels like a real thriller that could easily work as live action. The tone is often times bleak but somehow there are very slight inserts of humour which allow an ease of tension, balancing the right level of intensity in this murder/ crime drama.

Most importantly, Araki takes time to develop each character. Some of his series last for as much as thirty episodes and each may focus on either one particular character to develop or on several to develop their relationship with each other at certain stages of events. Each character is always given a distinct personality and is then developed, sometimes into another during the course of a series.

That is the essence of Araki's directorial style. Araki takes his time. Each shot is planned, whether still or kinetic. None of his directorial efforts feel rushed. This is an aspect that I feel I am inspired by when making my own films. Several of these efforts also do not seem glamorous, often the footage seems raw and realistic (when not dealing with supernatural elements), something I will also take from the series.

However, there are still several problems that Araki seems to convey several times through his directorial efforts. Firstly, because some characters are developed to such a high standard, several others who may only appear later on in the series appear very underdeveloped in comparison. Secondly, sometimes there can be a lot of exposition literally telling the audience what some character's motivation may be what what they are going to do next which sometimes breaks the atmosphere and can take viewers out of the drama. This would be something I would avoid, opting to show instead of telling. However, I only have a six or seven minute window to convey the story through either showing or hinting at certain plot-points so I need to be careful.

Most Notable TV directorial credits:
-Gungrave (2003)
-Black Lagoon (2006)
-Death Note (2006-2007)
-Guilty Crown (2011)
-Attack on Titan (2013)
-Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress (2016)

Production Prep: Production Design and Location Recce

My production design, for the most part, is fairly simple.

The first scene takes place on a moving bus. I have had a good look around each of the buses supplied by Farleigh coaches and have chosen a double-decker bus that has some wide floor space for the characters to walk back and forth and for the camera operator to have more room to manoeuvre and get the appropriate shots. The interior works fine as a working bus; it is not too clean and looks like it is a bus that is in use on a daily basis.

The second location is at the bus depot in the Hoo Marina in Rochester. For sound design purposes, to make the place sound like a working environment, I will have various sounds of hammering coming from the distance as if work is happening to off or being the camera. However, there may be several construction workers to provide ambient noise. The toilet compartment inside the bus depot is clean for the most part and I believe that I do not need to do too much to change the overall look. There is a notable dripping sound that can be used as ambient noise, however, so I shall try to utilise this.

The final location is a bedroom. To keep it simple for filming and location finding purposes, I chose to actually film in a bedroom in my own house. To dress the set, I am planning to make the room a complete mess, as if it has been searched from top to bottom and left in a state by those who have searched it. I will be throwing several items of clothing all over the floor and on the bed while pulling up the covers in the bed to make the room look like it had been ransacked. There isn't too much floor space around the bed so I will have to carefully position on and around the bed to achieve the appropriate shots that I need.

TV Theory 9th Febraury 2017

What do we mean by race?
-Skin Colour? (too reductive on spectrum! Not purely defined by genetics)
-Broadly, shared cultural identity, history and experience shaped by marginalisation/ exclusion.
-'The Other'- that which is alien/ different to homogenous group or culture.

Critical contexts:
-Ideology
-Hegemony
-Pluralism
-Meditation
-Reception Theory

Ideology
-A set of opinions, values, beliefs and assumptions constructed and presented by a media text.

Ideology and Hegemony
-Hegemony is a dominant ideology within society.
-In sitcom traditionally reflected in the 'nuclear family'.

Mediation and Representation
-What we see is not objective reality or truth, but firstly the filmmaker's version of reality: what they have mediated.

Reception Theory
-How we as the audience mediate texts, and the factors that might influence us.

A (very brief) history
-Dominant grouping is superior
-Other cultural groupings are 'inferior' by virtue of difference.
-Defined by crude stereotypes.

 Love Thy Neighbour (1972-76)
-Sitcom written by and for dominant society (HEGEMONY)
-Reflects manifestations of 'the other' and Freud's 'narcissism of minor differences'.

Black-ish (contemporary US sitcom)

-Sitcom written by and for pluralistic society: IDENTITY POLITICS.

Director Research: Martin Campbell

Martin Campbell is a film and television director born in New Zealand. He was born on 24th October 1943.
Campbell's first started his directing career as the director of 'The Sex Thief' in 1973. This film featured very graphic content and was actually censored in many countries, causing a rough start to Campbell's directing career. As the the decade went on, Campbell directed several episodes of the acclaimed British TV series 'The Professionals' between 1978 and 1980. This is one of the fisrt projects that would reflect on the types of espionage orientated films Campbell would become involved in during his later career.

Other TV credits include the thriller 'Edge of Darkness' in 1985.It revolved around a a policeman who had lost his daughter and tries to unravel the truth behind her death. Campbell later remade this into a film starring Mel Gibson in 2010.

Probably Campbells most famous contribution to film, however, is his work on directing two James Bond films, 'Goldeneye' in 1995 and 'Casino Royale' in 2006. He was in fact tne oldest director at the time of working on 'Casino Royale' to work on a Bond film. Both films were generally well received with 'Casino Royale' receiving much critical acclaim.

Strangely, Campbell's directorial offorts strayed from the mold of espionage thrillers when he stepped up to direct the two 'Zorro' films in both 1998 and 2005, both generally recieveing postive reviews. His fanatsy hero directing contributions continued with his work on 'Green Lantern' in 2011.

Many exampkes of Campbell's work included the use of practical effects, making certain spectacles and action scenes in his films that much more impressive. His use of raw imagery also appears to make a rougher image and more impact on moviegoers. This is where I am inspired by this director as I would would want my own film to have a rough look that hasn't been glamoured.

However, in more recent contributions, Campbell (and possibly the film studios) have had a over-reliance on CGI. It appears unnecessarily used in certain films to recreate props wich could easily ahve been created practically and even relies on CGI to create an entire costume for The Green Lantern in the 2011 film. Like most directors, Campbell has appered to have embraced the modern technology of cinema and overall, like many others, the directing may appear to some to be not up to their usual high standards. This is an aspect I do not wish to use in my directorial efforts.


Filmography:
The Sex Thief- 1973
Three For All- 1975
Eskimo Nell-1975
Intimate Games- 1976
Criminal Law- 1988
Defenseless- 1991
No Escape- 1994
Goldeneye- 1995
The Mask of Zorro- 1988
Vertical Limit- 2000
Beyond Borders- 2003
The Legend of Zorro- 2005
Casino Royale- 2006
Edge of Darkness- 2010
Green Lantern- 2011
The Foreigner- 2017

TV DRAMA 2: Death Note

Death Note is one of the most interesting dramas I have seen to date. Firstly, because it is in fact not live-action, but rather animated. However, despite the animated content, this is certainly not for kids and is pure drama all the way through. Secondly, it tackles so many ethical choices and morals and creates an incredible amount of tension with it's deceptively simple premise.

Directed by Tetsuro Araki, he series began airing in late 2006 and ended in mid 2007, spanning a total of thirty seven episodes, each lasting roughly twenty five minutes. it original aired in Japan but was dubbed and re-released later for English speaking audiences.

The story revolves around a young adult, Light (Japanese translated name, as will be the case for most names in this series) who is on top form, ready to take on the world when he stumbles upon a notebook which grants him the power to kill anyone just by writing their names in the book as long as he know's what they look like. Light decides to use the book as a hand of justice and takes it upon himself to systematically kill criminals and wanted felons around the world. However, these series of events have attracted the authorities and one particular specialised detective known only as L who wants to bring the killer down on charges of what many believe to be terrorism. This leads to Light trying to evade suspicion at whatever cost, even if it means killing those closest to him.

Despite the series being animated, it is has a very sombre tone and I personally found the overall plot to be quite tense throughout. The Japanese anime media overall to most audiences may be associated with loud, obnoxious characters screaming at giant creatures that magically come out of pods to fight against other loud and obnoxious characters. This, thankfully, is not the case with Death Note. Although the series has its mystical elements (thankfully sidelined throughout), the subject matter and the heap of moral choices that need to be made by each character lead this series into a medium which can be confidently determine as pure drama.

As the series goes on, more characters become involved, characters motives are suddenly changed, a lot of back-stabbing occurs and the stakes get gradually higher.

Inspiration that I would take from this series is the way that it builds suspense. It takes its time to build characters and their motives and it is so much more effective when they are ultimately led to victory or their downfall. I would like my film to take its time unfolding events, something which I would find challenging given the six to seven minute gap. However, this is something which I would like to do.

Also, the series tends to use a rather muted colour palette. Certain key locations are desaturated and certain lighting effects create some overexposure in the the picture. Overexposure in this sense would usually deteriorate the quality of the picture but, used against the colour palette and at key sombre moments in the series, it creates a unique quality to the look of the series overall. I would perhaps like to utilise this look when it comes to dialogue heavy scenes in my own film.

However, the series does have a tendency to tell the audience what I certain character is going to do and what their motives and thoughts are at hat certain point in the series. I doesn't happen too often and these actions take place directly after the characters have just told the audience what will happen, often  leading to these moments of exposition being largely pointless. This is not something I'd wish to emulate as I believe I should be showing and not telling in my own project.

Production Prep: Casting

After a very long time of avoiding using Casting Call Pro to get my actors, instead opting to use known associates, I realised that perhaps this wasn't the way to carry this situation out. Many of the people that I'd chosen to play the key characters in my project either dropped out at the last minute because of other activities and some others were originally scheduled to do other things.

After getting in touch with local theatre companies and having no avail until much later in time, I was lucky enough to acquire my first actor while helping another student on their own film shoot.

The person I chose to play Bond is Darren Hammock. He was portraying Scottie in my fellow student's interpretation of the film 'Vertigo'. he was wearing a black suit an bowler hat and this immediately led me to asking him if he would play Bond after watching a small part of his performance. Darren Hammock is just the right build and looks mature enough to portray the role of Bond and extra research on his works determined that he had a good on-screen presence. He is also in the suitable age group to play Bond.

After eventually giving in to using Casting Call Pro, I immediately got several responses and eventually chose who would play the lead female role. The Actress's name is Colette Redgrave. She is a professional in the industries of acting and theatre work. I chose Colette to play Kara because she seemed to be a good match to the original actress in the film. She has a youthful look while also having a sense of maturity. Her acting capabilities, as to be expected from a professional, appear to be of a very high standard also.

Other roles, such as the man who takes Kara off of the bus and the cleaner in the toilets, are being portrayed by people who actually work in the Bus depot where most of my scenes will take take place. These roles only require one or two lines at maximum so I didn't try to hire any proper actors for these roles. I am confident about putting these people in these roles and they are all age appropriate.

Scheduling

I have chosen to film my film on Monday 13th February and perhaps even the day before as well on Sunday 12th February.

I had hoped to film for a longer amount of time, spreading the filming time over three days, meaning I would also film on Tuesday 14th February but unfortunately, an event at the TV studios clashed with my schedule. This meant that the studios needed to use all of the cameras so my filming time available was cut shorter than I would have liked. Despite this, I will try to do the best that I can with the shorter amount of time I have to create the film.

I would like to get as much done in each day as possible, with hopes of starting at around 10:30am/ 11:00am. The sessions of filming would then end between 3:00pm and 4:00pm. This will hopefully give me enough time to allow us to properly et up each shot with the right level of quality. The ending time will allow all crew, actors and other involved to go home and prepare for filming the next day.

TV DRAMA 1: London Spy

The first TV drama which I watched was a series on Netflix known as 'London Spy'. It was written by Tom Rob Smith and directed by Jakob Verbruggen. the series, as it stands, runs for a total of five episodes, all occurring in the year 2015.

The show depicts what James Bond's Quartermaster does on his days off. All jokes aside, Ben Whishaw stars as the protagonist, Daniel. He is down on his luck: drugs get taken, he lives in a shared home and only has the fatherly figure of Jim Broadbent to keep him out of trouble. That is until he meets a man named Alex whom he starts an small relationship with that grows over time. However, during a certain point in the first episode, Daniel realises that he hasn't seen Alex for a longer period of time than usual and investigations lead him to find Alex's dead body, mysteriously hidden in the attic of his apartment.

The first episode, despite the name, has very little to do with spies at all. It features the kind of tropes that most British dramas lean towards. For example, the protagonist being down on his luck, looking into the far distance at nothing, staring at inanimate objects as if contemplating the very existence of life itself. The first half hour of the episode is filled with this which I personally think to be a bored, tired, overused and ultimately time-wasting trope. For some reason British dramas always have the protagonist in a dimly lit room doing nothing, everyone has to be in some depressed state. An american audience watching a British drama (like that would happen often) would most likely think that all Brits sit in the corner of their rooms crying to themselves. Like I said, I personally think it is over-used and really left me really uninterested in the story or character, partly because very little was being seen.

The story does start to pick up, however, after a few meetings between Daniel and Alex. The characters actually go to places, even to certain locations in Hoo, Kent which I can actually see from my bedroom window. This does pose a location error in which a short drive for both of the characters takes them all the way from the centre of London to the near Kingsnorth Power Station in Kent. a relationship starts to form between the two and Alex eventually meets with Daniel's fatherly figure as before mentioned. Jim Broadbent's performance here is akin to someone who seems protective of their kin, but will not save them if they put themselves down a self-destructive path.

The interesting thing about the character of Alex is that he appears to be rather a blank slate. He gives off a fake name and never lets Daniel know who he really is. This makes for an interesting dilemma in the first episode as Daniel has an obsession with someone but does't really know who he is.

The 'spy' aspect comes into play during the last ten minutes of the first episode when Alex's body is discovered and Daniel eventually finds out that Alex actually worked for the government, leading Daniel to steal clues from the investigation site and try to solve the mystery behind who Alex really was.

Overall, the series is slow to actually get to its feet as the life contemplating Ben Whishaw continues to mope around but we eventually get a somewhat intriguing mystery. In certain areas in particular, the atmosphere can be quite chilling.

In terms of how this links into my own project. I wanted to see how the atmosphere of a spy thriller would be handled. It turns out that the slow and steady route is the way to go for spy thrillers. However, when most of the slow parts appear to just be filler, this makes a lot of it quite bland. I would like to just get straight to the point in my own film.

Directing Research

During my research as to how John Glen directs his other films, I also watched several other directors and looked at how they directed their own films.

The first director I looked at was Sam Mendes. This director has worked on many successful films but mostly hit mainstream audiences with his direction of two James Bond films, 'Skyfall' and 'Spectre'. I mostly watched these two films to compare how one Bond director directs his film to another Bond director. During my viewing, I noticed that Mendes likes to just keep the camera rolling, letting audiences see the entirety of a scene rather than using quick cuts. We clearly see the action on screen which is not shown from several different angles. On particular scene in Skyfall uses lighting to cast two characters completely I shadow during a fight scene. Despite not being able to see the character's faces, we still get a sense of urgency in the struggle. The fight is y rough and is conveyed through one single, slowly zooming, shot until the end of the fight. I would love to utilise this type of directing in which I would show audiences an action in its entirety with one shot, rather than cutting to a different angle or a reaction shot/ close-ups on certain characters.

Another rather impressive continuous shot that Mendes used was the very first shot of Spectre. The continuous shot starts from a high angle, then starts to follow behind the characters into a building, up a lift, into one of the rooms and eventually onto the roof of that building. The entire shot follows the character's journey from point A to point B.

Mendes also chooses a very unique colour palette. A lot of the locations are either emphasised with the colour blue and the colour of gold. The colours are all very vibrant and glamourous, keeping in tone with the type of character that is being portrayed.


Another director which I looked at who I thought was very creative with his directing style was Sam Raimi, most notably for me in 'Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn'. Raimi also uses a lot of continuous shots like Mendes but ultimately uses them to depict a kinetic object in the film. There is a specific scene in Evil Dead 2 where the protagonist is being chased by an invisible presence (depicted by the camera as its POV). It chases him through a wooden cabin, crashing through doors and eve at one point through the rear and front windows of a car. I find these types of shots to be very creative and seem very difficult to pull off.

Other shots include a series of tilted shots that change the perspective of certain objects, as though they were being travelled through by the unknown force. Raimi appears to break the rules of filmmaking and ultimately like the audience to become aware of the filmmaking at hand while still keeping viewers invested in the action on screen.

I would like to use creative shots like these, however, I would not like to make it plainly obvious that there is a filmmaker behind the camera letting the viewer know they are there. I wold like the audience to be invested rather than distracted from the film.

Both directors also choose a certain style, which I would like to create for my film. if I was to create my own style than he film I would make would be special to me and viewers would recognise that the film is mine.

Francois Truffaut Auteur Director

Francois Truffaut is a French film director whose works span form the years 1959 to his death in 1984. He was one of the first, most famous and most acclaimed directors whose films represented the French New Wave movement during the 1960s in French Cinema.

Francois Truffaut's films often focused on representations of existentialism. This means that the films feature characters who do not wish to abide by the rule of authority figures and such lead rebellious lives. These films often portrayed a characters goals of individual freedom which their protagonist would either eventually reach or fail in trying to reach under the hands of authority.

Examples of Francois Truffaut's films that present this are the acclaimed Antoine Doinel series including 'Les Quatre Cent Coups/ The 400 Blows' (1959), 'Baisers volés/ Stolen Kisses' (1968), 'Domicile conjugal/ Bed on Board' (1970) and 'L'Amour en fuite/ Love on the Run' (1979) which involved a young boy who rebels against both his parents and his teachers to lead his own life, each film presenting a certain time in his life. 

In the aforementioned 'The 400 Blows' (will refer to the English translation from now on), Antoine's life is a near copy of Truffaut's own childhood. This is where Francois Truffaut can be considered an auteur. Truffaut's childhood is reflected onto Antoine Doinel. For example, Francois Truffaut chose to not attend school in order to pursue his own goals and was also separate from his own parents, not being under their guidance as a child; instead he lived with other relatives. The film also comments on cinema being a good source of education. Truffaut is showing both his appreciation for cinema but also reflecting on how  he would often visit the cinema instead of going to school, sparking his own love of filmmaking.

Francois Truffaut's auteur traits feature in several other films of his. These films all present existentialist ideas which Truffaut himself believed in. There would always be a character that would act against those deemed or stereotypically portrayed as authority figures. 'Jules et Jim' (1962) for example, features a woman dominating two men, causing them to fight over each other. She also dresses up to look like a man at certain point in the film to protest against how society would have viewed how woman should be like or act in the 1960s.

Truffaut is most definitely an auteur due to his presenting of his own opinions and reflections on his won life through characters used to create an expanded view of his own ideology.

Visual reference material: Bond

I have used many visual references to visualise what a certain character would look like. This would include how they should dress.

The first character, being James Bond, was rather easy to visualise. Also, there were various source materials that I could use to visualise what the character would wear. However, I would like to visualise he original Ian Fleming character than the one portrayed in the films. It turns out that the Bond in Flemings original books does not like to wear bow-ties and would rather wear a standard tie with a suit while working.

This image shown above is the newspaper comic visualisation of the character Fleming described originally in his first book 'Casino Royale'. These were created before the films started being made the in early 1960s. We see that Bond is always wearing smart clothing an he does tend to wear smart overcoats.

Despite this, the Bond portrayed in the original film 'The Living Daylights' is actually quite similar to that of the originally character. Overall opinion of Timothy Dalton is that he is the closest interpretation of the original character of James Bond and thus chooses a similar style of clothing.

I found that Dalton has quite a fierce look in his eyes in certain photographs. He has a charming persona but he looks as if he would kill someone without batting an eye if need be. this is something which I would wish my actor portraying Bond to share.