Costuming

Since costumes really show setting (time and place) of a scene (and the music nor language will tell the audience of setting, as the music is not particularly cultural and there is not much spoken language in the scene, basically just low ambiance) I must rely heavily on costume. 

The library required me to have all of the actors social distance and where masks for the whole shoot, so I needed to find a way to draw viewers' attention away from the masks, as it is not consistent with the setting and mood for the scene. To this end, I purchased 50 disposable face masks, 3-ply in tan, so it would meld better with skin tones and everyone's mask would be uniform. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CMQSZR7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The guard's mask be a black balaclava, as is more within his character and what Russians actually wear:

For the Guard's Costume:

I wanted to have the guard where a costume similar to this (showing he is a high-ranking officer):

I used my boyfriend's thick, wool, green coat from Old Navy and did some sewing for the red and gold epaulettes (bought red felt from Michael's and used some leftover gold fabric from my dressmaking hobby). I used red all-purpose thread for an initial hem in both the top stitch and the bobbin thread on the red felt and then used gold all-purpose thread for the hem on the gold fabric. At first, I tried using a gold paint pen for the gold stripes, but it was not a good color and it wasn't even, so I switched to the gold fabric strips and only used the gold paint pen for the lapels. I also added smaller gold brass buttons of the lapels and sewed larger gold brass buttons over the original green plastic buttons for the torso. 

I also borrowed a bronze belt buckle from my boyfriend to slide onto the actor's belt. 

From far away it just looks like a bronze-colored belt buckle and the axe could be interpreted as a hammer from the hammer and sickle. 

For the hat, I used my family's ushanka hat, but since it didn't have any fake valor, I had to purchase an officer hat emblem pin from Amazon: 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0012WI9L2/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I will attach this to the front of the black ushanka. 

When I was watching the Hunt for Red October, I saw this Russian naval officer with a similar ushanka to the one I will have my guard wear. 

The Russian naval officer with the ushanka in The Hunt for Red October had black gloves that he removed during a backward dolly shot moving down a hallway in the Russian submarine. I will want my KGB officers, Russian government authorities, and Soviet secret police to wear these same black gloves during the winter scenes of the movie (closer to the middle). I also love the white neck scarf. It looks like an ascot or puff tie. 

Since this prop is to be worn, I considered it part of the guard's costume. At the end of the opening scene, the guard will take out his walkie-talkie and call for reinforcements, as Novikof has out run him into the crowd. I found a pink walkie-talkie in my house, but, of course, pink would not do, so I painted it black with acrylic paint, being particularly sure not to get paint in the cracks that would render the object unusable. 

For Novikof's Costume:

My boyfriend happens to be a connoisseur of classic and vintage menswear, so I had him design Novikof's look based on his character and my suggestions. We had the actor, Garrett Shanley, come to American Thrift with us, and this is the costume we decided on:

We got brown slacks that were a bit lighter than the suit and waistcoat, but matched well. Garrett had his own patent leather dress shoes. We were cognizant of Novikof's (the character and the film) color scheme. 

I was also styling Novikof's costume off of what Eddie Redmayne wore in the Trial of the Chicago Seven:

https://www.danezon.com/product/the-trial-of-the-chicago-7-tom-hayden-blazer/

I found a link where you can buy the blazer type that Eddie Redmayne wore when he played Tom Hayden. 

I also borrowed my boyfriend's leather satchel. It was exactly what I pictured for the character to put his book into. The coloring matches Novikof's shoes and it's just the right size for Garrett's shoulder and waist. The belt buckles are bronze, which also match the other belt buckles in the scene. 

For Extra's Costumes:

I told the extras to wear clothing similar to this, as they are playing teenagers in Russia (and these are historical images of Russian teenagers in the 1980s):

(For more historical context, the reason that the images were mostly in black and white is that people couldn't afford the color as much. Most people [and the country itself] had a much lower standard of living than in the U.S.)

The clothing is starkly more casual than Novikof's creating more contrast between the main character and extras and further develop Novikof's characterization as different from others (reiterated in his motif, "Fooling Yourself by Styx"). 

Music in Film/Novikof Soundtrack and Score

Because I will have a soundtrack throughout the movie (and a score in the opening scene), I need to be able to choose the music that best fits the mood, pace, location, meaning etc. of the scene for which the song is playing. I will research different types of music in film and how each affects these aspects, so that I can affect the audience in the way I intend. 

When I was watching The Hunt for Red October, I listened to the score. Often there were the Soviet and socialist national anthems, using the music to further the setting and drive the Russian morale, ironic as the plan of the command for the Russian ship was to defect from Russia. There was also drones with beats, which added a tone of suspense. I will be having a similar beated score for the opening of Novikof. 

(Content and quotes from research: How Film Scores Play with Our Brains:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCpYbSz1KqE&list=PLooPCZA6h5vD1zd99SzpICc9NYM2pckAN&index=2&t=174s)

A film score is written specifically for what's happening on the screen, whereas a soundtrack contains music written independently and not specifically for the movie. Most movies have both. In early film, a piano player played music to the film being shown in realtime, and used music to further tell the story (for example, when the villain is on screen: a diminished minor chord, heroes: uplifting anthems, chase scenes: fast tempos, sad scenes: slow and somber). These early rules set the conventions for more modern films. Psycho's famous soundtrack uses nonlinear alarm sounds that instinctively unnerve and distress humans. In Jaws, the music builds anticipation before any danger is shown on screen. 

Aaron Copland, a famous film score maker, theorized that scores serve the screen in five ways: 

1. to create a more convincing atmosphere of time or place (many locations and times have their own conventional music, for example, western music for western movies)

2. to underline psychological refinements (unspoken thoughts or unseen dangers)

3. to build a sense of continuity (if the music between shots or scenes is the same, they are related to each other) (such as in montages or flashbacks)

4. to give a sense of finality (usually taking place at the end of the film or after a trial, psychologically linking the triumph to the scene on screen)

5. to fill silence (noted as the hardest film score to do because the audience shouldn't notice it)

Sometimes films used no music at all and that conveys message and tone better. 

How I am going to apply this:

The score I have chosen for the opening scene of Novikof has a driving beat, which is menacing and has elements of a chase scene and urgency. It also sounds a bit rock-like, which conveys the time of the 1980s. When the music picks up and the beat is a lot louder the scene gets more intense. I have mixed the soundtrack to get these louder parts where I want them during the scene and to add a no music part in the middle so the audience will focus on Novikof's breathing, pulling them in. The music sounds similar to music I have heard during intense political thrillers and action dramas, so it does fall along conventional lines. It also underlines the psychological refinements of danger and urgency behind Novikof's stress and run to the book and out of the library through crowds, an elevator, and down stairs. 

I made sure the music did not give a sense of finality, as it is the opening scene. The music does, however, add continuity, as some of my shots take place in the South Florida Bible College library and some are in the Alvin Sherman library, so the music links the two locations for the audience. 

Soundtrack to Novikof: (My Playlist on YouTube)

Grunge x Alternative Rock Type Beat - Benzin (prod. Erlax)

Coyote - Mako

Fooling Yourself - Styx

Everything She Wants (Instrumental) - Wham!

It's My Life (Instrumental) - Talk Talk

99 Red Balloons - Nena 

Протон 4 – Опережая Время

Артек Электроника – Шагая Сквозь Эпоху)

Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac

Гербарий – Синхронность Волн

Send Me an Angel - Real Life

Telephone Line (Partly Instrumental) - Electric Light Orchestra

Audio Production and Post Production: Russian Murmur - Library Ambiance

Because Novikof takes place in Moscow, Russia (USSR), everyone in the library should be speaking Russian, or at least speak with a Russian accent. I might have had to rely on the extras at the library speaking with Russian accents and hope they were realistic enough, but, luckily, I have a friend (Philip Khaskin) and his family who speak Russian and I asked if he and his family would send me audio clips of them having conversations that one might have in a library in Russian. 

I took these and layered them. I also tried to create a surround sound feel by having some of the recordings play in one ear at a specific volume and others in the other ear at different volumes. I will also alter the volumes and where they play in space depending on where the shot is taken from/where the main character is located. For example, outside, the recordings will be louder, have more layered and closer to Novikof as he is moving through a crowd of people speaking Russian at higher volumes. When he goes inside, however, I will lower the volume and pay closer attention to where the recording is played in space as it should be farther from him. I will also edit the recordings to have higher or lower reverb, etc. to sound like they are either outside or inside. 

Here, I layer all of the audio clips of the Russian murmuring and I change the direction of each of them with the dials. Some are more to the left and some are more to the right.  

Here I use the parametric equalizer to move the curves and make the it seem like the audio is recorded at close range and then far away for the outside and inside shots. 

I also added a lowpass to damped the sound. 

This is how I edited the sound recorded by some Russian speakers that I know personally. 

Runglish, Russian English, and "Latryllic"

Since I need to know specifically to phrases, words, typography and accents of Russians speaking English, I have researched extensively Runglish (the linguistic merging of English and Russian), the dialect of Russian English, and the fake mixture of the Cyrillic font as an English font. 

I also plan to take Russian in college to add to my research, so that I can write the script to Novikof accurately and cleverly. I want the phrases I write for my characters to be historically and culturally accurate as well as the accents I direct my actors to use. I can also hire a dialect coach for this end, but being able to tweak actors pronunciation on set myself would lower the hours and cost of the dialect coach. 

Linguistic Study of Runglish:

Runglish has been influenced by the American and British use of English, taking our filler words like “um” and “er.” It also took parts of American and British English’s lexis such as “so,” “and,” “but,” and other simple conjunctions that are so fundamental to English. Certain phrases using American and British English’s syntax have influenced Runglish like “fun to remember” and “as a human being is more than life itself.” This places an adverb before the infinitive verb it is modifying and a noun followed by a state of being verb and an adjective and a noun. According to NFKRZ, the YouTuber commenting on the video of Runglish, this is not Russian syntax, so clearly there is English influence. Speakers of Runglish often have Russian accents, as they get it by immigrating to an English-speaking location and slowly gain parts of the English lexis. There are many sounds, like the guttural character in Cyrillic “X” that are not found in English but Runglish speakers still use when saying English words.

Runglish fits in with Phase 1 of Sociolinguistic Conditions (“contact between STL and IDG serve utilitarian purposes, each group continues to communicate within their confines, and marginal bilingualism develops”). I did not rate them as in any higher phase because the heavily accented English interspersed with Russian is cannot constitute full bilingualism. The speakers also did come from Russia and only speaking Russia, so picking up a few words here and there is also marginal bilingualism but is still marginally as they can go as far as use some English syntaxes, even if not fully. The Russians use English when they need to in their new setting for utilitarian purposes but often sticks to Russian within their families or in Russian communities in the U.S., like in New York (little Russia).

Russian English:

People who live in Moscow (Mockba in Russian) are Moscovites and have a more "educated" stereotype from their speech.  

Sho - that (Ukranian, or Russian but uneducated, like the Southern accent in US, seen as redneck like from the village, backwoods-y)

Shto - that (Russian, Moscovites)

A lot of Hollywood speakers use this style, hard Ukrainian accent. This means that the characters I cast for the big budget version of Novikof will need to refrain from any Southern Russian accents when speaking, as they are all supposed to be from the big city, Moscow area. 

Text in this Power Point:

Russian English

The More Modern History of Russian English (Overview)

•Since Russia was very isolationist before the 20^th century

•most of its population was in small peasant villages 

•the country is geographically so large that many, especially when the country was poor and there wasn’t much access to travel

•hardly anyone at all spoke English. 

The History of Russian English

1876: The Christian Bible was fully translated into Russian

Biblical names, were somewhat altered (transliterated)  in the Russian version, but much of the names remained and affected the Russian language so much that there were new baby naming  trends. 

(ex- Zavid, Elyashiv, and Abram)

“King George” became “Georg” and “King James” became “Iakov”.

1920s: Lenin’s Soviet Tourism (aka Proletarian Tourism)

In order to educate about communism during vacation, Soviets were allowed both “active tourism” and “productive rest.” The All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, VOKS, was formed for foreign visitors, touring the country’s industrial plants, dams, and factories. The mix between the two groups brought Russian words about industry and the factors of production. 

Mid 1950s - Mid 1980s: Porous Empire: Foreign Visitors and the Post Stalin Soviet State (during Novikof)

Millions of foreigners visited the USSR between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s including Americans. The workers were expected to be watched, but not watch them. The foreigners were meant, again, to believe that the USSR was a “worker’s paradise” and that the laborers couldn’t be bothered to stop their work. Many did, however, and when found, were punished by the Soviet police. The Russians adopted some popular vacation words first though.  

Starting in the 1960s:

The English “h” (breathy) was pronounced with the fricative “g” (sonorous). This came from the Northern Russians (ex- Muscovites) made fun of those who do this. The accent is more Ukrainian and what the Americans would call “redneck.” When Nikita Khrushchev came to power, since he came from the South, he made the accent look better.  

1953-1964: 

American Media gives Russia many names and terms. 

The worldwide, American-made anti-war era of the 60s gave Russia (through the media exploding from the space race) terms like “hippie,” and ”Jimi Hendrix.”

Modern English Video Games:

Video games that are popular worldwide are mostly from America, or are at

least English, with English voice acting. They also appeal to younger generations, and according to our studies in child language acquisition, the younger one learns a language, the more likely they are to retain it. 

Video game streaming perpetuates profanity, known as “raging.” Young Russians playing with others around the world online pick up on this language. 

Adaptation and Incorporation of Russian in Russian English

•The Russian Language leans toward more sonorous sounds, so voiced consonants instead of breathy sounds. 

•The hard “r” in American Englishes and the hard “g” sounds show up (even more than in American English) in Russian English often. 

Kachru's Circle Model

These categorizations are based on a country’s types of spread, patterns of acquisition, range of functional domains, and societal penetration of the language. 

Russia is placed the Expanding Circle. 

In Russia, English has no administrative status, but its recognized as a lingua franca and is often taught as a foreign language in schools. 

Most of Russian culture taken place outside of English circles, more propagated by the high level of involvement of the government, whose language is entirely Russian.

Russia is “norm-dependent.” It must rely on native-English-speaking countries for their norms. 

“th” and “i” Pronunciations

•“Th” in “think” is pronounced “s.” For example, “I think it’s really nice,” would be “I sink it’s really nice.”

•“Th” in “this” can be pronounced “d,” like “dis.” 

•“Th” in “this” can also be pronounced “z.” 

More Key Pronunciations

The short i in ”this” is pronounced “ee” For example, “This is supposed to,” is “zeece is supposed to.”

•Rolling their ”r”s. “Great” becomes “g(rolled r)eat.” The American “r” is a “hard r.”

•The tongue tip for “d”s and “t”s is lighter and farther back in the mouth for American English speakers that it is for Russian English speakers. They would pronounce “Too Day” with very dental sounds and a slight pause between each syllable, but Americans are much lazier and merge the syllables for “tahday.” Overall, Russian English is much less “lazy,” carefully pronouncing their “t”s and “d”s.  

•Russian English also includes “goose fronting,” meaning when saying ”today,” they really pronounce the “oo” sound. Some American Englishes do not, such as Southern English (pronounced as a “back vowel,” fully in the back of the mouth with the lip open, but not so rounded as goose fronting.)

Key Pronunciations Due to Spelling

•Because of spelling, words like “police,” while Americans would say “pohleese,” Russian English speakers would say “polis.” 

•“H” in “help” is pronounced with as a “guttural,” meaning from the throat, because it is transliterated from the “x” in Cyrillic to English. (Found in Khabarovsk), but its English form comes from the sound in the English word “loch.” 

•Transliteration: a swapping of letters when changing words from one alphabet system to another. 

•Most typically though, the “h” in “help” or “Hamlet” (as it doesn’t exist in Russian) is pronounced “g,” so ”Harry Potter” is then “Garry Potter” and “Hitler” is “Gitler.”

Notice:

•“t”s in “tickled” are very pronounced, dental, and the tongue hits at the front of the mouth, right on the back of the teeth. 

•“th” in “that” is pronounced “dat.”

•“i” in “it” is pronounced “eet.”

•“h” is pronounced in the back of the throat as a guttural. This is due to the transliteration issues from the English Latin alphabet to the Cyrillic alphabet. 

•“r” in “brought” is rolled. 

•“s” in ”his” is pronounced “z.”

•“i” in “police” is pronounced “i,” like “polis” as opposed to “poleece”

"Latryllic":

I created this term as a blend between "Latin" (as in the Latin alphabet) and "Cyrillic" (the Russian alphabet). 

(Content and some quotes from research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHDoJiFV2hU&t=305s)

Faux Cyrillic or pseudo Russian text is all over the internet, showing setting and culture, but also ingratiating English so English-reading audiences can understand it. This upsets many Russians, (like Roman from NFKRZ) and is inauthentic, but since it does effectively achieve its goal and my audience is English-speaking, I will use it for the ending graphic text over the automatic sliding doors at the Alvin Sherman library to show the movie's title. 

People use characters from the Russian alphabet in order to type latin words. In the "Borat" example, the "A" looking letter is actually pronounced "D," so it should really be read "Bordt." The backwards "R" in Cyrillic is actually the word "ja," so backwards "R"ussia is actually pronounced "ja-ussia." Many Russian YouTubers use this method, however, because their audience is English-reading and they expect it. It can be done tastefully if not excessively, so using this only for my original title graphic (and not the book cover or my logo-the other text in the opening) is acceptable. 

When I watched the Bourne Identity for further research on spycraft and direction, I saw this shot:

The Latin version of his name is written on the passport as "Foma Kiniaev," but in Cyrillic, the name is written as "Aschef Lshtshfum," so I will have to be sure not to use this on any key plot-furthering documents that are actually important to get correct, like one of the main characters passports. I can apply this to Novikof when Vladimir Vetrov has offical spy documents to send to Reagan. The documents should really be written in Cyrillic if they are not imporant for the audience to read (or are written in correct Cyrillic, but there are permanent subtitles explaining what they mean, often done when a few lines are said in a movie meant for an English-speaking audience in a different language, for example the Bourne Identity:

)

The mistake in Cyrillic transliteration happened because the filmmakers simply (supposedly) used a Cyrillic and Latin keyboard and typed out "Foma Kiniaev" as they would in English. Since keyboards have their letters structured in a way that is easiest for those typing the language to type (such as most used letters near the center, typed by the index and middle fingers, and the less used letters around the perimeter of the keyboard) the letters most typed in Cyrillic are not necessarily those most typed in Latin alphabets, hence the mis-transliteration. 

I should, however, be cognizant of this issue to an extent, as Cyrillic-reading audiences will be upset or not enjoy the movie as much as if the text was accurate. There are also different, added characters to other languages written in Cyrillic, (like Serbian with this symbol:, Ukrainian with this symbol:) so I have to be sure I use only the symbols from Russian for the movie. 

Some of the symbols in Cyrillic are silent, so this "Latryllic" word:

, since the character that looks like "b" is actually silent and the character that looks like "A" is pronounced "D" is actually pronounced just "D." I need to make sure that I at least don't use any silent characters in my original graphic for Novikof's main title.