Drama Strand - Self Evaluation

Link to the final film: https://vimeo.com/94171299

Our final film, Cemetery Road, had a number of strengths and weaknesses with it. One of the more obvious weaknesses was the narrative pacing and transition from one shot to the next. This was partly due to the nature of the piece and script, but also due to our actor, Bobby, taking a while to complete each piece of action which, at the time on set, didn’t seem like a problem as it showed a realistic approach to the characters situation, but when viewing the film all together, it seemed as though there was a lot of time that could be cut out and make the film a bit more lively. This problem wasn’t helped by me as the editor, as I think I focused too heavily on continuity and keeping to the script too closely, instead of allowing myself to watch it from a narrative viewpoint and understand that in short fictional films, you can get away with not having perfect continuity all the time.

Example of focusing too much on continuity instead of pace.

This problem also meant that it took too long to ‘get in’ to certain scenes and significant elements in the narrative. The pictures above are good examples of this as it takes almost 20 seconds for the audience to actually see the card on the string. What I should have done here was been braver with the cut and made it tighter so the audience can engage with the narrative more. Cutting between scenes was also a weaker aspect of our film as it seemed as though they weren’t linked particularly well and jarred the narrative slightly. I followed the script on this as well and did a fade to black at the end of each scene like it said, but once again I think we could have been more creative and ambitious to find a work around on these.

I think that the sound was very empty and didn’t build much tension around significant events, especially around the first half of the film. Although this was partly due to lack of time on the sound edit, it did feel as though the film was missing something in the soundscape and we did try and fix that by adding sounds in around those parts, like the ringing sound for the reveal of the key, but I believe we needed a bit more attention on the area just to try and liven the film up a bit and make it more entertaining.

This being said however, the minimalist soundscape and slow pace of the film did work in our favor in some respects, as it allowed the audience to engage well with the character and his surroundings, as well as giving them time to comprehend what was actually happening in this complex, si-fi style narrative. Upon doing this, I also think it drew the audience into the world of the narrative more and allowed them to become more immersed in the film as a whole, as the more realistic style of editing and sound made it more believable to them.

Another reason that the audience could become absorbed in the narratives ‘world’ was the major strength of the art design and locations we used. Finding and using the physiotherapy clinic and the equipment in there was very strong as it was both unusual and unrecognizable to the majority of the audience making it believable enough to be used in the context of our film.

Example of location and art design.

The dream/flashback sequences we used to break up the first part of the film were also very effective as they were creative and different ways in which to explain the complex narrative we had. The use of sound in conjunction with these scenes also worked very well, as it was a different and richer soundscape which clearly distinguished it from the rest of the scene. This also allowed the audience to be transported into the character’s mind and experience what he is, which is regaining his memory for the first time.

Finally, the colour of the whole film and the way it was shot is also very powerful, as it has a distinctive style and visual tone the whole way through. The powerful red coat and use of red throughout is very symbolic for the danger the character faces in reliving his past as well as playing with the acting and giving off a sense of dazed isolation that the character is in.

Use of colour and costume design.

 After creating the synopsis the director, Chris, began to write up the script for Cemetery Avenue and when he finished we all reviewed it and gave him feedback. We all agreed that it was an ambitious project to be effective as a 10 minute film but the narrative was clever and entertaining so we began planning it. Both Ellen, the producer, and Chris worked very hard to pre-produce the film as best they could but we always struggled with actors and their availability. Even though they were doing this however, there was a lack of communication of this to the rest of the group so the rest of us didn’t know what was going on and if we could help in anyway. When we did start shooting however, we definitely communicated better and knew what we were doing on set and when. But, due to the actor’s availability, there were issues of not being able to have the right people at the right times on certain days which meant we had to work around that which ultimately caused issues when trying to stick with the shot list. Lighting also became an issue around this as when we were filming the same scenes at different days of the week, the colour and overall look of the shot was noticeably different.

What I have learnt working on this project is that we should always have regular group meetings so everyone in the group knows what is going on, even if it isn’t their responsibility to help, just so everyone is on the same wavelength and confusion can be avoided. I’ve also learnt that we should be more aware of location’s space and potential things that could affect the quality of the shoot such as background noise. This was a problem on the clinic shoot we did as we overestimated the size of the room due to not drawing up a detailed enough floor plan on the scout, as well as background noise from the street outside.

As the editor on this project, I have learnt that continuity isn’t the main focus of a short film, and that the narrative pacing is much more valuable to create an engaging narrative and an empathetic character. I have also learnt that just because we have filmed a shot, doesn’t mean that it has to be used in the final film even if it looks nice as more aesthetically pleasing shots may not have the same narrative value as a more common one. "Keep in mind that NOT cutting is an editorial decision, too, and it can be a powerful one." ^[1]

My role in the group was the editor and so for the first few weeks in the pre-production stage, I had very little impact on the film. I helped out where necessary and attended all group meetings but I didn’t want to become too involved with it as it could affect me having an as neutral as possible stance towards the film as I could when it came to the post-production process. What I mean by this is that if I had suggested certain ideas and tried to influence the film at that stage, when it came to editing it, I may be bias towards my own ideas more than any others.

When it came to the beginning of filming, I helped out with whatever I could on the sets by setting up lighting and equipment as well as dressing the set. When we were actually filming I helped with both the sound, by holding H4N while the sound recordist, Luke, held the boom, as well as the camera, by giving my opinions on the compositions they were using as well as if certain shots would cut well together in the edit.

Helping check compositions on set.

When it came to the edit, I firstly reviewed all the footage as soon as we got it to sift through all the different shots and takes we had, labelling them accordingly, and then collaborating with Chris to decide which one we would use and in what order they should go. After this I began to create an assembly of all the footage we had to create a rough look at what the film looks like when all the shots are lined up.  I progressed from this into a rough cut and eventually a fine cut where I trimmed individual clips down, structured the pacing of each scene as well as how to transition between one location or time to another in regards to the flashback sequences. I accomplished this with the use of effects and use of colour grading where possible to give the desired effect that the whole group was happy with.

As a group we worked well on every shoot and in the post-production stage, the only issues we had were with pre-production and a lack of communication around that stage but apart from that there were no issues that affected us in the long run.

I attended all but one of the seminars at the beginning of the year and did relevant and detailed research into the fictional drama genre with the help of the research in the seminars. We started by looking at the 3 act structure and how it is prominent in almost all short films, such as Jen Jonsson’s ‘A Changed Man’ (2003), as it is an effective way creating an engaging narrative. I also learnt about the techniques used to create empathy with characters and the importance of performance in that context such as the character of Baby in Emile Ardolino’s ‘Dirty Dancing’ (1987). This acquisition of knowledge has definitely helped my understanding and approach to making our own film as it has made me more aware of the subtle, yet effective techniques that can be used in films and editing, to make them more entertaining overall.

I have also conducted my own research into my role and what techniques I should be aware of as an editor, and how I should be approaching our film. "The primary reason we edit is to tell a particular story in our unique way: to guide the audience to see what we want them to see..." ^[1] This research has guided and advised me when applying myself to our own film and has ultimately made the editing process easier and more effective for myself and for the benefit of the group. "A vast amount of preparation, really, to arrive at the innocuously brief moment of decisive action: the cut... something that, appropriately enough, should look almost self-evidently simple and effortless, if it is even noticed at all." ^[2] This was always something to be considering when making the film, does this all seem natural and slick, or is it obvious that it is a constructed piece of film and not an immersive story. “Editorial alternation occurs because the cut is the accent or beat and th time between cuts is the unaccented alternate. The greater the visual contrast in the visual components from shot to shot, the stronger the beat produced by the cut.” ^[3] Due to the ‘look’ of our film in terms of colour and shot styles, this was something that I should have taken into consideration more when editing our film. The whole thing after the introduction of the bright red coat seems to be quite drab and uninteresting, which shouldn’t be the case especially around significant changes or reveals in the narrative. The dream sequences pulled this off effectively, especially the morgue scene which showed a real contrast in style, which is why I think it is probably the best scene in the film as it changes the very rhythm of it in an effective manner.

Overall, I am happy with the way our film turned out as I believe it has a good narrative, it looks good visually and with a solid performance from our main character, means that the audience can engage and enjoy it. I am also happy, for the most part, with my own contributions towards it and think that the only aspects we need to change as a group is to plan more thoroughly if we want to make an even better final product.

Bibliography

1.       Mick Hurbis-Cherrier (2007), Voice & Vision: A Creative Approach to Narrative Film and DV Production, Focal Press.

2.       Walter Murch (1988), In the Blink of an Eye, Viking Press.

3.       Bruce Block (2008), The Visual Story: Creating the Visual Structure of Film, TV and Digital Media, Focal Press.

Editing Process - Fine Cut

As I was on the fine cut stage of the edit now, all I had already structured the whole narrative and got every clip almost exactly where it should be so I started by exporting for Luke, the sound designer, to start working on his score for the film. After doing this I started by continuing where I left off with the rough cut which was testing out effects that could be used to connote the instability of the character John's memory. After a while of looking through them all and collaborating with the director, we settled on one that worked effectively and gave of the right connotations without being too over the top, called radial blur.

Using radial blur effect for a signifier of memory loss.

We liked this because it distorted the image in a way that it wasn't impossible to make out what the image actually was, but still made it hard to see any of the details within the image, much like when someone is struggling to remember the fine details of something. I used this effect over the first dream sequence at the start of the film, and then at the very end of the film when John is getting his memory wiped. To do this effect at the end, I had to keyframe it to show the progression of the 'treatment' and do it slowly enough so that the audience understood what was happening.

Keyframing radial blur effect.

I also needed to mask some of the set in the morgue scene to make it look like the body wasn't just on a bunch of tables lined up and to make it more like a surreal dream like sequence which is what it is supposed to be. To do this I used the spot colour correction effect and then the draw tool and just turned the contrast right down so the legs of the tables were no longer visible.

Shot before spot colour correction effect.

Shot after, showing the shape of mask effect.

Doing all of these effects on a big sequence like the one we have causes Media Composer to slow down and drop frames during playback which is very annoying and can cause misjudgement on the editors part, so I rendered the effects across the whole sequence to make it play back smoother and take the strain of the computers memory.

Rendering effects across the whole sequence to my hard drive.

The next major thing to do in the fine cut stage of editing is the colour grading and colour correction. This was going to be one of the bigger jobs on the fine cut as the sequence was still just under 10 minutes long and comprised of over 100 clips, most of which would need at least some colour correction done to them. I started from the beginning and used the colour correction mode on Media Composer to match the colour, brightness and contrast of each clip side by side.

Colour grading each clip side by side.

In the first sequence, all I did was turn up the contrast a bit to make the images look a bit more surreal to play with the dazed and confused performance and overall surrealism of the scene. In some of the scenes, due to multiple light sources or choice of exposure, there were certain areas that needed altering and others that didn't. To get around this I, once again, used the spot colour correction tool to draw an area around the spot that needed changing, and then used either the contrast, saturation or grade to normalise it with the rest of the shot.

Spot contrast alteration for over exposed sky. (before)

After altering the contrast slightly.

Shot before colour correction.

Drawing a mask around areas in need to colour correction.

Shot after saturation and colour correction alteration.

This process was very fiddly and took quite a bit of time to execute effectively so I was thankful that not all shots needed to be graded in this manner. The majority only needed some normalisation with the rest of the shots in the scene which was simple enough to do using the colour curves.

Using colour curves to make the whites and skin tones match.

After doing all this colour correction, the only thing to do was put the title sequence on using the title tool application in Media Composer.

Creating the title for our film.

Then I just had to wait for the soundtrack to be exported, sync it up in the sequence and export it ready for submission.

Final sequence without soundtrack.

Editing Process - Rough Cut

The main goal for this part of the edit was to trim down what we could to get the film under 10 minutes, as well as making the pace of the film flow more smoothly. I started by simply chopping up sections of clips we didn't need and tightening each clip to get rid of if the actor was waiting for a cue, or dead air/inhales before dialogue was delivered.

Cutting down, frame by frame, the clips in the sequence.

This was to make the film feel more refined and to make it into a more engaging piece by making each edit less obvious and more natural. However, even after I had done that, the film's length was still around 11 and a half minutes long which meant that we would have to start being very selective of which shots we actually showed within a scene.

Rough cut being over 11 minutes long.

After collaborating with the director, Chris, we decided it was best if we cut out the other character in the red coat that John bumps into in the first scene, completely to save time. We decided this because the shot where the two interact in the first scene was quite poor anyway as there are some obvious dolly tracks in shot, and also that it wasn't particularly relevant to John's story and more just context around the clinic which wasn't really that necessary to have. Even after doing this we were still over time, so myself and Chris had a long session in the edit suits where we decided to scrap certain shots over others in every scene, sacrificing some performance and continuity points for time. After reviewing these changes, we actually decided that it wasn't a problem and that the pace of the film had actually improved dramatically, making it not as long and slow and instead more engaging to watch.

Next we looked at some of the technical aspects of the edit such as some dodgy camera shots, as well as transitions between scenes. Our opening shot, a track of John walking past the Cemetery Avenue street sign, was very bumpy when compared to the rest of the shots in the scene so I decided to try and counteract that by using the Image stabilisation effect on Media Composer to make it less obvious.

Image stabilisation in action.

Image stabilisation rendering.

Even after doing this however, the image quality still wasn't amazing and I will have to discuss with the rest of the group if it is even worth keeping it in. Although it is an iconic shot, it isn't hugely relevant to the plot so we may decide not to use it and make our film look as visually professional as possible.
Another technical aspect that I had to do was the transitions in and out of scenes. To do this effectively I would have to really think about where to use effects and where to start fades working frame by frame. Myself and Chris decided that between normal scenes we would just use a simple fade in and fade out to connote the passing of time.

Fading in and out between scenes.

After trying this with the other scenes, we decided that it would be best to just do it on this cut and the last one, to show just a change of location where as in between the other scenes, we would use a fade out then just a cut back in to show an lapse in time. Also, when cutting in and out of the flashback scenes, I have decided to use a very rapid flash to white to make it more visually jarring to the audience, and let them know that this is an irregular thing, not just a change in location.

Quick dip to white transition for dream sequences.

Finally, I started playing around with effects to use when John sees a blurred image of his daughter in the first flashback, to show his lack of memory and the obscurity of the scene.

Testing out effects for signifier of memory loss.

Although this particular effect didn't work visually, I will show it to the rest of the group as an example of the sort of thing we are looking for, and get their opinions on what I should do.

The only things I really need to do now are mainly the colour grading of the whole film, which will be a big job as there are some quite bad discrepancies in shots within the same scene, and putting the final frame by frame changes to the edit.

Editing Process - Assembly

As we were shooting scenes in non-chronological order, creating a whole solid assembly would have to wait until we had finished shooting the whole thing, however, at the start of this week and the last, I imported and labelled what footage we had already recorded and started to work with it and assemble it into a series of scenes in the sequence.

Labelling and sorting footage.

 I used the same techniques as I did on the 2 minute film in terms of colour labelling the footage for the different takes we did so I knew when it came to lining the footage up and creating a sequence, which shot was best. I also split the footage up into different bins according to which scene they belonged to just to maximise the organisation and limit confusion when even more footage came in. Last Saturday after we had done 3 of the shoots, I started to create an assembly of all the footage we had so I wouldn't just be leaving it all until later on and be overloaded with work.

Assembly of the Cemetery Avenue shoot.

Last Saturday's assembly.

As I was creating the assemblies for each shoot, I was looking through all of the footage and making sure it was all good quality, and that it would all cut together smoothly. If there were certain areas that didn't work in my opinion, or if we were missing a shot out of a scene, then I would communicate this to my director and see if we needed to re-shoot anything, or just work around it by cutting it differently.
During this process, I worked very closely with the director, Chris, to have a second opinion on where I made cuts in the rushes, as well as which take to use and finally to make sure the film is coming out how he wanted it too. We used the shot lists we created to make the labelling process even easier by just naming the files by their scene, shot and take numbers.

All footage completely labelled.

I followed the shot list as best I could when creating the overall sequence for each scene to see if it worked the way it was planned on paper, or if there was anyway it could be improved. I wasn't worried with the pacing to begin with as all I was doing was putting a very roughly cut shot after shot into the sequence. Making each shot work with one another was a priority however, as if they didn't, the whole narrative would suffer and we may run out of time for re-shooting.

Cutting between shots and checking the smoothness and continuity.

As I began to end the assembly, I noticed a few things that would have to be addressed in the rough cut and fine cut stages. Firstly, the length of the final assembly was almost 14 minutes long, which was way over the designated time limit we had for the film.

Final assembly of all the scenes.

As this was almost certainly due to the pacing and rough nature of the sequence, we weren't overly concerned with this factor, however it was a very big thing to think about in the rough cut stage.
Another thing I noticed was that the acting, especially in the beginning of the film, was very slow and made the scenes quite boring to view. This is another problem with the pacing which I will address in the later stages of the editing process, but it did cause concern as it meant we would most likely have to cut out a number of shots that could damage the strength of the narrative, or cause continuity issues.
Finally, especially in the clinic scene, there are quite a few differences with colour and the difference in lighting. This could be a real problem as if it looks like shots in the same scene are filmed at different times, it could ruin the immersion into the narrative for the audience and make the film difficult and unpleasant to watch. This is an issue I will solve in the fine cut stages of the process where I will spend a lot of time working through each shot and colour grading it to hide these problems.

6th Shoot Day - Pick Up Shoot for House Scenes

Today, after our tutorial with Chris, we did a pick up shoot for the house scenes that needed to be re-shot to let the continuity match and the film to flow better. There wasn't a great deal to do for this shoot because we knew which compositions worked and where to set up so it was as simple as waiting for Bobby and getting on with it when he arrived. Our sound recordist Luke wasn't able to attend this shoot as he was working on another film, so I did the sound recording in his place. To make it easier to label, I asked the director Chris to read out the scene and shot number before the take so we could maximise efficiency in post-production.

Setting up shots and recording sound.

Due to this only being a small shoot, there weren't many production stills taken, however, we did get everything we needed and now I, as the editor, will finally be able to put all the shots in chronological order so we can get a rough cut ready for our tutor to view over the Easter holiday and make sure we are on track.

5th Shoot Day - 2nd House shoot

Today we tried to shoot all the footage for the rest of the scenes in the house to complete our filming and get on with the post production of our film. This was once again quite a lengthy shoot as we had around 3 scenes to film, including some pick up shots we wanted to get from the second shoot we did where we filmed a few shots at my house that now wouldn't work with the rest of the film. The shots we would be filming today would cover these scenes in the script:

 INT. JOHN'S HOUSE. DAY.

          John, looking drained and confused is sat hunched on a sofa.
          The doors knocks and he answers.

          John opens the door but finds no one on the other side. In
          the background the stranger from before can be seen
          wandering past wearing the same red coat as John before.

          Confused, John looks around and notices a box on the
          doorstep. Cautiously he picks it up and carries it inside.
          He places it down in the living room and opens it, inside he
          finds another business card that reads: Sometimes Scares
          Aren't Meant To Fade. As well as a record.

          He places the record on a player and touches the needle down
          carefully. Elgar's Enigma Variations begins to play and
          visibly calmed by the music John slumps into the sofa again.

          Suddenly John seizes up and bolts upright. His breathing
          intensifies as he closes his eyes 

INT. JOHN'S HOUSE. MORNING.

          John is sat hunched over on the sofa, his eyes red and puffy
          from crying. The sound of the postman pushing mail through
          the letterbox shreaks through the silence of the house.

          Wearily, John stands up and trudges to the door to fetch
          them. He re-enters the room sifting through the pointless
          letters and bills, until he gets to a mysterious
          advertisement leaflet.

          In big green letters on the front it reads NAME OF COMPANY

          Underneath in slightly smaller font, there is a paragraph
          reading: Grief Management. To Help The Pain Go Away.

          In the bottom right hand corner there is an address.

          As John leaves he drops the leaflet, it falls face down
          revealing that the company wipes its customers' memories. 

We arrived at my house around 3 ish to set up early prior to Bobby arriving at 4:30, so we could figure out what compositions would look best where, as well as what, if any, lighting set ups we might need. On this shoot I did the same as normal by helping out with the lighting and set up of the room, give my opinions on the compositions as well as giving a hand with the sound if anyone needed it.

Setting up shots and directing actors.

Setting up lights when necessary.

Actor in location.

Set up of crew during takes.

The shoot today went very well with the shots we managed to collect, however, we noticed some continuity errors that would be a problem in the final film from other shoots so we decided to do one final pick up shoot this week that would hopefully be the final time we needed to film anything so we could focus entirely on the post production of our film.

4th Shoot Day - Grief Management Clinic Scene

Today we completed the last shoot day of the week at the Sheffield Physiotherapy Clinic on Ecclesall Road for the final half of the script. This shoot was going to be an all day job as we had a very large portion of the script to cover, so we got to the clinic at 9 in the morning and scheduled till 5 to guarantee we would be able to get all we needed. The problem we had initially was that we would have different actors turning up at different times, so we would have to film around their availability which once again meant that we wouldn't be able to film the whole scene in chronological order. When we got there we had 1 hour to set up and decide what shots we would do first so we could start thinking of where to set up lights and have actors.

Setting up lighting prior to shoot.

Setting up camera angles prior to shoot.

When the actors got there, we instantly started to get on with the shots, with me helping with setting up lighting as usual, as well as giving my opinion on the compositions Matt set up, one thing that bogged us down to start with though was the space in which we had to film in, in our floor plans we had anticipated the room to be bigger, with more space behind the desk. This made setting up some over the shoulder shots of the receptionist difficult and took up more time than we wanted. Also we didn't anticipate the amount of retakes we may have to do for the actors to get used to the script and deliver their lines right.
In today's shoot, we got a lot of footage that we wanted and the majority of it looks good, however, reviewing some of it throughout the day, we realised that some shots needed doing again to keep with the continuity of the rest of them so we started re-shooting throughout the day

Chris directing actors on location.

Checking compositions.

Checking compositions

Helping other members of the group out when they needed it.

In today's shoot, we got a lot of footage that we wanted and the majority of it looks good, however, reviewing some of it throughout the day, we realised that some shots needed doing again to keep with the continuity of the rest of them so we started re-shooting when we found the time in the day.