Can you tell a story on film without ever seeing an actor’s face? That’s the gyst of BodyLine Technique, an experimental on-camera storytelling technique developed by Higlet Films in which everything is shot from the neck down. Yes, you read that right. No faces. What would Sophie’s Choice be without Meryl Streep’s sad eye-emoting and lip-trembling? As an actress, filmmaker, and a woman, I was immediately fascinated. What can the body’s gestures say about a character’s state of mind? I asked Mary Higgins, co-creator, to explain the process of this innovative storytelling technique which Higlet Films has used in several online series so far, including their latest, Mind My Brains, Darling.
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Don’t lose your head: how BodyLine was born.
I didn’t set out to be an experimental filmmaker. The fact is that even while we were creating our videos, we didn’t really appreciated how radical they were until people who knew how filming should be done had a chance to look at our work and give some feedback.
BodyLine is a new filming technique that we’ve developed over the last three years. No faces are shown and it’s down to….wait! What? No faces are shown?!?
It seems counter-intuitive to remove the single most expressive part of the actor – how can emotion be conveyed? How can you tell who is speaking? How do you identify characters…? These are good questions and I hope I can answer them.
In the beginning…
Acting is not my favourite past time. I love film, TV, theatre and internet TV, and I have huge respect for actors. But I never wanted to be one. Writing, though – that is a whole other thing. I love writing and storytelling. Over the years I filled books and later hard drives with poems, half-finished stories, plays, reviews and random sentences.
When I started to blog in 2007, I was quickly hooked on webseries and started to write about Indie creators like Felicia Day, who were forging ahead and creating their own content.
I wrote my first webseries based in the Evil League of Evil Application Processing Office. Joss Whedon’s ‘Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog’ was the inspiration and the first three episodes wrote themselves quickly and painlessly.
It was a simple set up, little more than a monologue, but I wanted it to be more than just an audio track. With the limited resources I had – a broken laptop, a Macbook with a webcam and a home office – making it work was a challenge.
There was also the problem of who would be in it. There was only really me, and I struggled with the idea of being filmed for a variety of reasons. For one, the Internet is an unforgiving place to put video footage of yourself (just read YouTube comments on any video that has more than 100 views to confirm that) and for another, I just was not comfortable being on camera.
My desire to tell the story overtook my reservations, though, so I came up with a solution – to only show my hands, the computer keyboard and not show my face. And so BodyLine was born. Each short video was one take (I didn’t know how to edit) and it took so many attempts! Try saying “Evil League of Evil” quickly – I found it almost impossible
The episodes were well received and even won an award a few months later.
Some time later…
After writing a novel (actually, I wrote two novels but didn’t realise that until afterwards – editing is such sweet sorrow) and two non-fiction book proposals I was well and truly fed up with writing without reward. When I blogged and twittered there were people to talk to, ideas to exchange and fun to be had. Rejection emails and letters were so much electronic dust.
After talking to hubby Paul, we decided we really needed another webseries. We wanted to see if we could push the BodyLine idea further and had an idea for a short series. ‘Goodnight Princess’ started out as a comedy but over the rewrites the idea grew into something else.
This three-act, micro-shortform Internet play explores love, loss and silly voices, and really cuts to the heart of emotion. Originally released over three weeks, this is the omnibus:
It was a huge change from what we had done before but the feedback we had was amazing. Even now, a year later, people email to say they just watched it again and it still makes them cry.
Taking it further…
Of course, more is never enough. How far could we take BodyLine? Could we do a whole series with multiple characters? There was only one way to find out. ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’ came from an idea Paul had while vacuuming one day. What if being a zombie didn’t bar you from normal life? What if zombies (an obsession of his) were domesticated somehow, still part of their families?
Setting it in England in the 1970s seemed the obvious thing to do, even though we now live in Canada. We wanted it to have the feel of the 1970s British sitcoms we grew up with, full of innuendo, pratfalls and cups of tea. Writing and rewriting the scripts was hard work but nothing compared to filming. Although we were pretty sure we could pull it off, it wasn’t until we started filming the teasers that we realized how hard it might be. And even then, we really had no clue.
We ran a successful funding campaign on IndieGoGo, and raised enough to go into production. More than that, people loved the idea. The support was, and continues to be, amazing.
A Family Affair
Our children pitched in to help and they also star in the series. Season 1 has two guest stars, Josephine Hoy (http://twitter.com/#!/josephinehoy) and Alan Douglas (http://twitter.com/#!/alalcoolj), both of whom brought a tremendous amount to the production. We also had fantastic help from Megan Lynch (http://twitter.com/#!/may_gun), who allowed us use of her album ‘Songs The Brothers Warner Taught Me’, Efehan Elbi (http://twitter.com/#!/efehan), who produced the opening animation, Miles Moss, who leant his comic brains (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1813311/) and Jeremy Hodges (http://twitter.com/#!/Rampart_Design) who designed artwork. Louis Srygley (http://twitter.com/#!/osiramon), Executive Producer, was on hand to offer invaluable advice and feedback on production.
Set building, prop and costume acquisition and all the pre-production work was exciting. Making a house in your garage is actually fun. Lighting the set was hugely difficult (note: don’t use dark colours if possible because they eat all the light) but we overcame it with the use of multiple halogens (also not to be recommended if you film in the summer, which we didn’t).
We identified some big advantages of BodyLine:
• It allows the story to unfold without looking for someone you recognise.
• The body language and the dialogue of the actors drives the story.
• One actor can play many parts (good for low budget productions!) and prevents miscasting of actors in roles.
• Negates the need for make up and hair to be fussed over
• Simplifies lighting considerations
• Allows for more imagination from the viewer
• Dialogue can be recorded at a later date and overdubbed in or recorded during filming
BodyBlocked
When I put on Petunia’s dress and we did the first filming I was fairly mortified with the result. Not in terms of the story or film quality, but because I looked enormous. I had to steel myself before the shots because I was hypercritical and was bracing for negative comments. It was fairly miserable because I really wanted to do my best for the story but I did not want to be in that dress on screen.
We talked it over and Paul pointed out something so simple yet profound that it took away the sting. It was Petunia in that dress, not me. And if I didn’t get over it the series would not be made. Wise words, mate.
Over time it became easier, and certainly not having to worry about make up and hair was a huge help. I couldn’t let my issues be the reason it wasn’t made. Other people had invested time and money in it and there was no way I could let them down.
Filming in BodyLine gives bodies the focus of attention, but that actually helped in some ways. I play two characters, Petunia Worthington and Private Peabody, and their body language is completely different. I found I enjoyed acting more over time and I did feel the thrill I used to have when I took to the stage in student productions so many years ago. My seven-year-old niece asking me who played the part of Peabody was priceless.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.Finish it!
Completing and releasing the series has been a huge achievement. Recently we attended VCON in Vancouver and Geek Girl Con in Seattle. We held panels and screenings and received lots of feedback on our work. Some people could not get past the fact there were no heads, but most people were intrigued and everyone appreciated the fact they had not seen anything quite like it.
During the ‘Women in Webseries’ panel in Seattle, we screened promos from eight different webseries, including ‘Mind My Brains, Darling!’. It was a proud moment, indeed. But I didn’t lose my head.
Post Script
Since we finished filming my attitude to seeing myself on screen has changed. It’s complicated. But positive.
MARY HIGGINS
Higlet Films
