The Ego, id and Super Ego

A psychoanalytical theory which we have been researching is Freud's theory of the id, ego and superego, which is the three theoretical constructs of the psyche as defined by Freud. The id is the unorganised part of the personality that contains a humans basic, instinctual drives such as the libido which is the primary force of instinctual force that is unresponsive to the demands of reality, and it acts according to the pleasure principle which seeks to avoid pain or unpleasure caused by increases in instinctual tension. By definition the id is the "dark, inaccessible part of our personalities that contains mostly negative characteristics, it is approached with analogies: being called a chaos, a cauldron of seething excitations and energy reaching from the instincts, it has no organisation, produces no collective will and seeks only to bring about the satisfaction of instinctual needs in observance with the pleasure principle" the id can thus be seen as the instinctual, repressed part of our personalities.

The ego is in contrast to the id, the rational aspect of the psyche. The ego acts according to the reality principle, meaning it seeks to please the id's instinctual drives in realistic ways that benefit in the long term, Freud states that the ego "attempts to mediate between the id and reality, it is often obliged to cloak and suppress the unconscious demands of the id with its own preconscious rationalisations, to conceal the ids conflicts with reality". The ego comprises the organised part of the personality structure which includes defensive, perceptual, intellectual-cognitive and executive functions. The ego is where conscious awareness resides, although not all operations performed by the ego are conscious. Freud claims that the ego is a set of psychic functions such as judgement, tolerance, reality testing, defence, synthesis of information and memory.

According to Freud the super-ego is the part of the psyche that aims for perfection. It comprises that 

organised part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the ego's ideals, spiritual goals and the psychic agency (conscious) that prohibits the individuals fantasies, drives, feelings and actions. The super-ego is thought to be a type of conscious that punishes misbehaviour with feelings of guilt and anxiety. The super-ego works in contradiction to the id, it strives to behave in an appropriate manner whereas the id only wants instant self gratification. The super-ego controls our sense of right and wrong and guilt, it helps us fit into society by getting us to act in socially acceptable ways, due to this the super-egos demands oppose the id's which puts strain on the ego as it needs to reconcile the two. Freud's theory implies that the super-ego is the symbolic internalisation of the father figure and cultural regulations, The super-ego tends to stand in opposition to the id because of their conflicting objectives, and its aggressiveness towards the ego, the super-ego acts as the conscious maintaining our sense of morality and proscription from social taboo's.

Unit 11: Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalytical Film Theory

To begin the start of this unit we have been looking at Psychoanalytical theories that we could apply to cinema and film production, for starters we have been studying the basics of psychoanalytical theories from psychoanalyst's such as Sigmund Freud, Jaques Lacan, Laura Mulvey and also Slavoj Zizek. The theories we have intended to initially focus upon include Freud's theory of the id,ego and superego and the oedipus complex, Lacan's theory of the "Mirror Phase" and his theories on instinctual drives and desire, Similar to the themes in the children's story "The Missing Piece" where the desire to obtain something drives us forward but we constantly need something to desire in order to keep going. Also we will be looking into Mulvey's "Male Gaze" theory about women being the object of desire within cinema, and also Zizeks views on reality, subconscious desires, fantasies and the Psychoanalysis of cinema.

Some of the resources we could possibly use for research during this unit are films that have psychological themes which would allow for theories to be applied to them, films by directors such as Alfred Hitchcock who has made numerous psychological horror films which would good to study. Also more modern films such as Fight Club or the Matrix which draw focus on the theme of reality and the self. One other possibility for research is certain documentaries that explore psychological aspects of peoples lives, one example would be a documentary known as "Married to the Eiffel Tower" which follows a few people who have romantic feelings for inanimate objects and completely avoid or reject relationships with humans in favour of certain objects or structures, which could be interesting as it would most likely involve some psychological aspects behind this unusual aspect of these peoples lives. 

Also another search method I could undertake is to read more into these psychoanalysts theories, as further knowledge would help create a better understanding of what the theories are about, as well as making it easier to analyse a film and apply these theories to them. The end result of this research will be a short 5 minute film that could include one or all of these psychoanalytical theories, so a proper understanding of them would provide a better foundation to base my own ideas upon beforehand.

New Wave Film-Final Product

New Wave film from Lewis Mercer on Vimeo.

This is my "New Wave" film that I created from the footage we had gathered over the various different shooting sessions over the course of this unit, I tried to use various different New Wave techniques within this like quick cuts, innovative camera movements and lighting.

New Wave Footage -Bin Labelling

Before I could start work on my New Wave film the various footage I had gathered needed to be properly labelled and organised so that whilst editing it would be easier to find all of my footage and arrange it easily.

This is my footage from the first shoot we did, I labelled the folder its all in "New Wave footage 1"

These next 2 screenshots are from the second shoot where I labelled all of my footage and also labelled the folder "New Wave footage 2"

These next 2 shots are screens of the final folder full of footage which I labelled "New Wave footage 3"

 

These screenshots show all of my footage after it was labelled and organized in order for me to easily find it whilst I'm editing my new wave film.

Future Shoots: Planning

We decided that we needed to shoot more footage in the future and we needed a way to plan everything, we found that email between each other seemed like the best way of communicating outside of the workplace. We decided that we should plan ahead for any shots or footage we might need in the future so we used email to try and plan out what we should do e.g. looking at any events or function see could film that may help us.

This is an email I received informing me about certain events that would be taking place in the near future that we could use as an opportunity to gain some more footage.

This is my reply to the first initial email about future film shoots during one of these events, in which we could use to our advantage since we could get some decent footage from any of them.

This is one of the email attachments from the email which clearly explains some of the attraction sat one of these particular events, it seemed like a good idea to try out one of these events if we could to hopefully get some appropriate footage.

This second attachment is an event which we discussed together before we decided to try and use these events to gain some more footage that we could make use of, since the event would be at night we could get some decent footage of perhaps fireworks or a least some brightly lit areas.

The third and final attachment is another event which seemed to be appropriate for our purposes as it would be taking place at night, so it wold give us the chance to film some brightly lit areas and the chance to practice some camera techniques as well, although we could only have the possibility of going to one of these events if we were able to plan accordingly and rent out equipment, as well as arranging transport and meeting places, along with a set list of the tasks we would want to accomplish whilst there.

This email is a reminder to everyone about the trip to oxford concerning the equipment we would need to take with us in order to film what we needed, this was sent a day or two before our actual trip so we at least some time to prepare.

Shutter Speed:Footage

During the course of filming we realised that we could most likely get some good looking tracking shots for use in our New Wave films so we decided to film from a car window whilst it was moving around various locations, although this presented a problem as we would need to first alter the cameras shutter speed before filming otherwise the footage would be too out of focus due to motion blur, so the first thing that was needed was to alter the cameras settings.



This footage shows a tracking shot from a moving car with the shutter speed set at 1/100s which is too slow as while the car is moving everything becomes distorted and blurred, the aperture was set at f/22 while the ISO was set at 1200 so everything was in focus, and the shutter speed was set at a speed that would allow an appropriate amount of light into the camera, however this caused the camera to capture the car movement at a slower rate causing this motion blur to occur.



This footage however shows the movement from the car more clearly, this is due to the cameras shutter speed being changed to a quicker rate of about 1/500s which captured the movement more clearly, also the other settings had not been altered so the ISO was still at about 1200, and the aperture at f/22 so everything was captured in focus and enough light was able to be absorbed by the camera to provide a bright look o the footage.

This footage could also be seen as new wave since it is using innovative camera movements to establish a tracking shot, using a cheap inexpensive and moderately effective method that requires almost no budget and it does show the local area where most of our footage takes place.

Lighting Techniques: Low Key Lighting

Low Key lighting is used and is most effective when only a single light source is present within a shot be it either overhead, eye level or at a low angle, it can create different effects on the subject. One of its main aspects is that the light casts a great deal of shadow across the subject, which can generate different connotations of the subject, such as the light source being on one side of them at eye level, casting half of their features in shadow would make them appear mysterious or intimidating. Low key lighting is often used in Noir films but also in New Wave films because as it only uses one light source it is a cost effective way of lighting a scene and effects such as Rembrandt or Edge lighting can be applied using only one small light source.

The pieces of footage below are  examples of our use of low key lighting.


Continuity 2 from Lewis Mercer on Vimeo.

This footage uses low key light as only a small light source is used to highlight the subject, the light source itself was in fact the light from a mobile phone which only created a small amount of light, a wide aperture of f/2.8 was used with an aperture of at least 800 since we were using a very small light source we didn't want the footage to be underexposed, this footage falls into conventions of new wave because it is using a very cheap form of lighting which is inventive as due to the small area we could most likely not accommodate large studio lights.



Edge light ex from Lewis Mercer on Vimeo.

This footage on the other hand uses a large light source but is very limited as we controlled the amount of light using "barn doors" attached to the light so we could decrease or increase the amount of light that hit the subject, This footage was shot using an ISO of 800 and an aperture of at least f/16 as we were using a larger light source so more light would be entering the cameras sensors, this form of lighting known as Edge lighting was used in New Wave films as a cheap way of creating studio like light effects on a budget as it is a technique that requires only one light source which would be appropriate to a filmmaker with little or no budget.