Schedule of shoot days for the final film

Our groups producer, Ellen, wrote up a schedule for this weeks shooting days where we would be filming 5 times in the week which would hopefully give us enough time to shoot all the footage we needed for our 10 minute film.

The Schedule.

We hope to stick to this very closely so we can get as much done this week as possible, allowing for more time in the pre-production process as well as being able to incorporate any potential re-shoots that we may have to do. This week is going to be very busy and we will all have to be on top form if we are going to pull off finishing the whole filming in this one week, but I am looking forward to giving it my all and putting together a small assembly for the tutor Chris to look at by the end of it.

2nd Tutorial and Group Meeting

This week we caught up with Chris in a tutorial to discuss our development with the pre-production process for our 10 minute film. Last week we told him we would have the actors, locations and script ready for him to review along with advice about the risk assessments and any other part of the process. The script was the first thing we discussed:

 EXT. UNKNOWN STREET. DAY.

          JOHN, mid 40's, wears an incongruous red rain coat as he
          stumbles his way, dazed and confused, down a suburban
          street.

          A STRANGER, early 20’s and visibly distraught bumps into
          JOHN as he hastily walks past in the opposite direction.

          As they collide, the stranger holds an unusually prolonged
          glance, locking his empty eyes onto John's, until finally
          turning back in the direction he is walking.

          Following the stranger with his stare, John pauses, as the
          man trudges into the distance.

          Placing his hands in his pockets, John turns and continues
          on his path, stopping immediately pulling his hands back
          out.

          He stares puzzled down at the object in his hand. A business
          card reading: We Hope Your Scars Have Faded.

          John mouths the words.

          He flips the card and finds an address on the reverse side.
          Looking around him, as if searching for the answers in his
          surroundings, he checks his other pocket he finds a key.

          EXT. CEMETERY AVENUE. DUSK.

          Holding the card with one hand in front of his face like a
          map and grasping the key firmly in the other, John looks up
          at the closed door before him. He knocks.

          With no reply, he cautiously slots the key into the lock and
          twists. It turns with ease and he pushes down on the handle,
          opening the door.

          INT. JOHN'S HOUSE - DOORWAY. DUSK.

          John peers round the door gingerly.

                              JOHN
                    Hello? Hello? The door was
                    unlocked, I have a card with your
                    address on and..

          John walks into the seemingly empty house, only to have his
          stride interrupted when an object hanging from the ceiling
          bumps the side of his head attracting his gaze.

          A small card, identical to the previous, swings in front of
          his eyes. Snapping it off its restraint, John's eyes scan
          the words etched on its surface: Welcome Home.

          INT. JOHN'S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM. DUSK.

          John walks into the living room, card still in hand.
          Stopping abruptly like a rabbit in headlights, he stares,
          transfixed at an object on the fireplace in front of him.

          The photo frame holds a photo of a happy young girl and
          John, smiling in an embrace.

                                                    FLASHBACK TO:

          INT. JOHN’S CAR. DAY.

          John is driving his car on a sunny day. A YOUNG GIRL, (age
          depending on Bobby's daughter) happy and bright eyed, also
          laughing. The sequence is out of focus and the sound is
          muffled.

          Elgar's Enigma Variations plays on the radio and the young
          girl performs a silly dance for her father.

          BACK TO PRESENT

          John comes too, looking disturbed and confused.

                                                         FADE TO:

          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

                                                    FLASHBACK TO:

          INT. JOHN’S CAR. DAY.

          The same flashback as before unfolds, only this time the
          image is much more clear and his daughter's face is in full
          focus.

          BACK TO PRESENT

          Blinking wildly as if coming back from a terrible dream, the
          colour drains from John's face. He thrashes around the room,
          hands clasping his head, in unnatural motions. He seizes up
          once more

                                                    FLASHBACK TO:

          INT. MORGUE. DAY.

          John approaches a body covered in a white sheet on a table.
          He slowly pulls back the sheet and bursts into tears.
          Revealed is the same young girl from the car.

          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.

          EXT. UNKNOWN STREET. MORNING.

          John walks up to the building infront of him. He looks up
          and takes a deep breath.

          INT. COMPANY RECEPTION. MORNING.

          John walks through the door into the waiting room. As he
          looks around he sees a woman sat on a chair crying
          hysterically.

          He approaches the counter.

          RECEPTIONIST, 20's, a walking cliche of a receptionist,
          talks on the phone disinterested in her surroundings.

                              JOHN
                    Excuse me?

          The receptionist sighs pointedly as she hangs up the phone.

                              RECEPTIONIST
                    Yes?

                              JOHN
                    I was wondering if you could help
                    me?

          She stares at John for a moment as if she recognizes him.

                              RECEPTIONIST
                    Daughter is it?

                              JOHN
                    Err yes. How..?

          She looks down and inwardly laughs before continuing.

                              RECEPTIONIST
                    Lucky guess, just take a seat and
                    fill in this form. We'll see to you
                    as quickly as we can.

          John opens his mouth to speak but stops as he is met by the
          receptionists lackadaisical stare as she picks up the phone
          once more.

                              RECEPTIONIST
                         (nonchalently)
                    Grief management, we help the pain
                    go away. Sarah speaking?

          He sits down in the waiting area and begins to fill out his
          forms.

          Just as he is about to finish, a DOCTOR, mid 40's, smart and
          clean shaven, wearing a tailored suit enters the room and
          calls out to the receptionist.

                              DOCTOR
                    Do we have a Miss..

          Before he has a chance to finish the receptionist coughs and
          beckons him over. The two mutedly interact and look over at
          John.

          The doctor straightens up and addresses the crying lady.
          Crouching down in front of her he places a caring hand on
          her shoulder.

                              DOCTOR
                    I'm terribly sorry about you're cat
                    Miss.. Jennings is it? But you'll
                    have to wait just a little bit
                    longer I'm afraid, okay? Thank you.

          The Doctor walks across the room to John and stretches out
          his manicured hand.

          John reciprocates and shakes it obligingly.

                              DOCTOR
                    Ah, John is it?

          He continues before giving John a chance to speak.

                              DOCTOR
                    We're all terribly sorry to hear
                    about your loss, John. I have a
                    daughter myself and can only
                    imagine the pain you must be
                    feeling. No father should have to
                    out live their child and all that
                    eh?

          John opens his mouth to speak once again and the Doctor
          interrupts.

                              DOCTOR
                    Exactly, walk with me John.

          The Doctor places a snake like arm round John's shoulders
          and ushers him towards the desk smiling like a cheshire cat.

                              RECEPTIONIST
                    Okay, with our returning customers
                    discount that comes to..

          The receptionist mumbles incoherently whilst pounding
          numbers into a calculator.

                              RECEPTIONIST
                    £249.99.

                              JOHN
                    Returning customer?

          She cuts him off.

                              RECEPTIONIST
                    Card or cash?

          John passes over a card and the receptionist swipes it.

          INT. OPERATION ROOM. DAY.

          John is sat in a chair with the doctor strapping him down.

                              DOCTOR
                    Now I'm sure youre very nervous but
                    believe me there's no need to be,
                    before you know it you'll be as
                    happy as Larry again. Sounds good
                    right?

                              JOHN
                    What are the straps for?

                              DOCTOR
                    Oh dont worry about then, we don't
                    want you hurting yourself now do
                    we? Just sit still and this will
                    all be over before you know it.

          The Doctor goes to the corner of the room to where a record
          player is sat and places the needle down, releasing soft
          piano music into the room.

          John's eyes begin to fill with tears, until suddenly a look
          of realization floods his face. He tries to sit up.

                              JOHN
                    Wait! Stop! I've changed my mind!

          The Doctor places a firm yet patronising hand on his
          shoulder, gently pushing him back down on the chair.

                              DOCTOR
                    I've heard this from you before,
                    John.

          He winks at John and clicks a switch that is on the wall.
          The shrill drum of a machine echos round the room.

                                                         FADE IN:

          EXT. CEMETERY AVENUE. DUSK.

          John, looking dazed and confused, wearing a red coat walks
          down the street. He bumps into a man walking in the oposite
          direction wearing the same coat as him, catching his
          lingering stare as he passes.

                                                        FADE OUT:

Chris said he was really enjoyed the script and was looking forward to see how we managed to visualise the whole thing and progress from our 2 minute film. We also started to discuss the schedule with him as best as possible because we still didn't know all the specific dates and times, but we did know that we would be shooting most of next week and we hoped to get all the filming done. Obviously this depends on availability of actors as well as crew members, but our goal is to get the majority of filming done as soon as possible, to allow more time in the post-production stage unlike last time. This will also allow us to do any retakes that we may need, as well as allowing us to see what works and what doesn't so we can produce the best possible film.
For next week, we intend to show Chris our rushes from the week's shoot, as well as the finalised schedule, along with floor plans, shot lists and risk assessments. After the tutorial, we met as a group again to discuss what each individual needed to do in preparation for next week. For one of our locations, we were allowed to film there under the terms that we would film some short informercial style films for them that they could use on their website. We would be filming this tomorrow on Saturday 29th and editing it whenever we had the time.

1st Tutorial and Group Meeting

This week we had our first group tutorial with Chris where we went over our 2 minute character study film and he gave us written feedback from both himself and Chrissie who was the other tutor present at our screening.

The written feedback given on our 2 minute film.

The feedback was much as I expected it to be, with a lot of it mimicking the tutors verbal feedback after the screening last week. After getting this back, we discussed each part of it and went through the reasoning behind each point as well as our own opinions on the areas that were addressed. We all thought that the feedback was very fair and accurate, and that we would seek to improve these areas when we came about shooting for our final film, as well as if we had time, we would attempt to re-edit the 2 minute film to bump the grade up to a first if possible.

The second half of the tutorial was spent discussing what we would be doing as a group to begin planning and shooting for the final project in the upcoming week until the next tutorial. We decided that we would have the final script ready, most if not all the actors ready as well as a schedule for shooting. After discussing this with Chris and leaving the tutorial, we met as a group afterwards to discuss what each member could do to help this process. We also decided that we would try and have a rough shot list, floor plan and/or storyboard completed for the next weeks tutorial as well to try and manage time better than we did last time for the 2 minute film.
For next week, I have decided to re-edit the 2 minute film with Chris, and try and make it more clear in terms of narrative and coherence, as well as starting to do some research into editing techniques that I could apply to the final 10 minute film.

Production Folder for 2 Minute Character Study

Here are the pre-production materials and the production stills for the 2 minute character study.
First off the schedule for the two days in which we had to shoot the project along with a brief shot list that we needed to carry out on those days, corresponding to the availability of the actors.

We stuck to the schedule very effectively on the shoot, only changing the shot list in a few minor ways when we deemed it to be necessary to pick up shots we hadn't thought of.

The cinematographer Matt, worked with the director, Chris, to draw up a rough storyboard for the rest of the crew so we knew what we were doing and the sort of shots we wanted to maximise efficiency when on set due to the time limitations we were dealing with.

The storyboard did differ slightly to the actual shots we obtained in the end, due to some geographical issues, as well as us wanting to change the lighting in practice to get a more desirable effect. However it did serve as a great tool when we were setting up for shots in terms of lighting and where to set up the props and actors.

Matt also drew up a floor plan that we all went over to see the space we had to work with and know where the best places would be to frame each shot. It also served as a good document for the risk assessment in terms of fire exits and possible hazards.

Finally here are some production stills taken while on set showing us setting up and actually filming the scene.

As editor on this project, I worked with Chris and Matt on set to give my opinion on what shots would work together and would cut nicely, as well as any continuity issues or other foreseeable problems that would come up in the editing process. I also help set up the lighting and helped out where I could in terms of dressing the set. All in all the shoots both went well and that is reflected in the final 2 minute film.

2 Minute Character Study - Screening and Feedback

We screened our film on Thursday to the whole group and the tutors to get formative feedback as well as a chance to see everyone else's film and see the quality that everyone was producing at. Everyone else's films were very good, all with an element of comedy in them which was interesting as well as entertaining to watch as not many of our course have done comedies before so it was a nice change.
When we screen our film, I noticed there were some unpolished elements to it in terms of the edit as well as sound, but this was to be expected considering we only finished the film on the same day as the screening, a few hours before hand. The colour was also a bit of a disappointment, as it looked fine on Media Composer and on the mac when I exported it, however when we played it on the projector in the screening, it looked very red, especially on the male characters face which was annoying. Whether this was due to the projector or to the actual colour correction I applied on it is something to look into when re-editing it.
The feedback we got from the tutors was surprisingly mainly positive; they really enjoyed how we portrayed the emotion of grief across to the audience, as well as how this was constructed around the narrative and they also liked the experimental and ambitious style that the film was made in, both in terms of lighting, cinematography, narrative and the edit. This being said, they also agreed that it was unpolished in some areas, mainly being that the coherence of the film is shaky in some areas and the metaphors within the film are initially hard to understand at first. This is because of the 2 minute limit we had on the film not allowing us to explore and let the audience dwell on the imagery long enough, and instead having to use jump cuts to progress the narrative, instead of the longer shots we originally intended to use.
All in all, I am pleasantly surprised in the reception of our film by the rest of the group and our tutors, as I was very nervous and unsure on how the ambiguity of it would be interoperated and absorbed by them. I am pleased that the film has turned out the way it has, especially due to the time restraints we were given in the post-production side of the film and I look forward to applying what we have learnt in the final 5-10 minute piece.

2 Minute Character Study - Editing Process - Fine Cut

The rough cut was a good starting point to allow me to continue cutting down the footage, and start to move more away from the shot list and storyboard structure, and more on to what subjectively looked best where. The fine cut allowed me to start moving clips frame by frame in order to get each shot as tight as it could be and allow the narrative to flow as smoothly as possible. After doing this and tweaking some of the shots a bit, we were still at around 3 minutes long for the final film. This meant that we had to decide how to shorten down the rest to make it fit into 2 minutes and in the end, we decided to go with something a bit different and experimental. This was to use jump cuts in certain shots, especially around the male character losing his mind, to connote a sense of damage and dream like unrealism to the film which works in conjunction with the record player skipping/jumping and the use of the string.

Creating quick jump cut sequences to connote losing of mind.

After doing this, the film was still slightly over time, so we decided to cut out one or two shots that transitioned the narrative in the middle of the sequence, and replace them with a fade in and out from black. Although this was done simply to get the time limit down, we can justify its use as being to show the inconsistency of the male's mind and how his emotions can change.

Using carefully timed fades with considered durations.

After finishing the whole sequence and cutting it down to size, I started to address some of the issues with certain shots, be it the lighting, continuity errors or colour. I started by masking certain areas out in shots that you could see some of the background in, much like I did in the rough cut, however here I used a different effect and even used keyframing in it to track with these background anomalies.

Keyframing mask effect.

As you can see, the Spot Colour Correction effect allowed the masking to be much more accurate than the previous effect I used, as well as applying the effect to a filler above the series of clips so that it didn't alter the video directly itself.
After masking all the clips that needed it, I began the final run through of the sequence and began to colour correct certain shots. The main issue I had was that the actor's face was very red in quite a few shots, so I had to turn this down as much as possible without effecting anything else in the shot. I did this by using the Curves tab in the colour correction mode and moving the red curve more towards the blue, to try and cancel out some of the reds in his face.

Colour correcting areas of the film.

After completing this, the fine cut was done and I exported and sent the copy over to Luke our sound designer, so he could sync up any remaining sound that needed moving after any slight re-jigs which he could then send back to me for the final export ready for the presentation. Throughout the fine cut and rough cut, I've been sending over my work for Luke so he could continue the soundtrack for the film whilst we worked, and sync up any sound that needed to be synced as we go along. This is because of the limited time frame we, as a post-production team, have been allowed to work with, so neither of us further hinders the work of the other by waiting around for the final fine cut to be ready.

Final video fine cut assembly.

Overall, I am relatively pleased with the edit and the final film, however, we all do agree that without the 2 minute cut off point and more consideration into this when planning the shots, the film would be a lot stronger and less ambiguous. We have discussed that it might be useful making an alternative version of the film without any time boundaries on it just to see what it could have looked like, and if it would have been better or worse that the film we submitted.

2 Minute Character Study - Editing Process - Rough Cut

After last nights shoot, we have almost all the footage we need for the final film and we only have to film one more scene on Wednesday evening where we will obtain all shots involving the teddies and the male characters reaction to losing his mind. After we filmed all of the footage, I began with the same importing and labelling process as before, and started to filter out the best clips that we could use that corresponded to the shot list and storyboard. Due to our location issues, where we filmed in the end wasn't exactly the best possible place as it had lights in the background no matter where we framed certain shots so I had to mask these up in the edit.

Using Spot Colour effect to mask unwanted lighting in shot.

Another way I used the masking effect was when we wanted to show more isolation and a sense of emptiness in a shot where the male character hugs his daughter in a wide shot. The original shot was mediocer in connoting this, but with the mask made it just a little bit more effective as it showed absolute black around the two characters, as well as masking some of the flare from the keno behind them.

Wide shot before masking effect.

Wide shot after masking effect.

To keep continuity and the flow of the film, a jump cut pan sequence we wanted to use didn't pan in the correct direction, or at least the best take of the shot didn't, so I used the motion effect editor effect to reverse one take that panned in the wrong direction which made the sequence much more effective.

Using Motion Effect Editor effect to reverse a shot.

After using these effects and others I finished the film's sequence, keeping as close as I possibly could to the shot list and storyboard under the directors guidance. Unfortunately, this sequence was 3 and a half minutes long which we would lose a lot of marks for due to the brief being only allowing a 2 minute film. This meant the director and myself had a discussion on how we could bring down the time, without making the film lose quality and narrative impact.

Original Rough Cut sequence.

As this was only the rough cut, I knew that the sequence wasn't cut as crisp as it could be as there were many individual clips that could be shortened and brought in at different places. However, even when knowing this I was still worried that even after doing this, we would still be well over the strict 2 minute time limit. After a fairly lengthy discussion, we decided that it might be best if we either cut out a scene completely or cut out some of the weaker shots within all the scenes and risk losing some continuity. I will try both possible resolutions in the fine cut, after tightening up the edit the best I can.

2 Minute Character Study - Editing Process - Assembly

Our first shoot day was on Tuesday 11th where we would be filming as much as we could in the afternoon without any of the actors being present, then later in the day around 8ish with both actors where we would be filming all the shots needed with the daughter involved.
As soon as we finished the afternoon shoot, I started using Mpeg streamclip to apply the Apple Pro Res (HQ) codec to the footage to make it run smoother and maintain its quality when using it in the edit. After this, I began to import the footage into the editing software I will be using for this project, AVID Media Composer. I then began the process of sorting through the footage, labelling it with regards to the composition and content, getting rid of any out-takes or non-usable footage and using the shot list to organise it in terms of narrative.

Labelling the first shoots footage.

After going through all of the first shoots' footage, I started colour labelling the shots that, in my opinion, were the best takes that we obtained, and I started collaborating with the cinematographer and the director for their opinions on my decisions.

Using colour labelling for quality of shots.

Next, I started to put these shots into the timeline to begin to visualise the narrative and, once again, I discussed each shot's position in the sequence with the director, to ensure he was happy as we went along. I followed the shot list as best I could for this sequence, but due to locations and timing, some of the shots were slightly different and so a bit of improvisation from myself and the director allowed us to construct the sequence.

1st Shoot Assembly.

After helping out with the set up of the second shoot in the evening, I did the same thing as before with the new footage and created a rough assembly for the new shots.

After 2nd shoot, assembly.

Research for 2 Minute Character Study - Dream Sequences

As the editor of this project, it's my role to create a sequence out of the footage that we record on set and turn it into a comprehendable and entertaining film. As the film we want to create out of this 2 minute character study is a dream like sequence that shows the emotion of grief, I have done some research into ways that other films have done this successfully so that I might be able to adapt some of the conventions used in them into our own film, as well as to gain more knowledge on an experimental film form that I am not too familiar with.

My first piece of research was on a scene in a film called Woman in Chains/"La Prisonnière" (1968) by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

This dream sequence also depicts negative emotions like our film intends to, but in a slightly more abstract and ambiguous way as it uses a lot more visual metaphors and media generations to alter and warp images to create emotion. The media generations such as this one:

are used quite frequently as visual metaphors for denoting inside a camera lens but also connoting a spiralling of anxiety or pain, which when used in conjunction with flashing images of a woman chained up and a man taking pictures of her, makes a very interesting and somewhat uncomfortable sequence to watch. Having said this, it is also very clear what is occurring within the scene due to this juxtaposition of the flashing images, as the audience is somewhat drawn in to the mind of the two characters and gets an abstract view on the situation. This relates to our film in the sense that we are also using abstract visual  metaphors to connote emotions of pain and grief but in a slightly different manner. We will be using string as a replacement for other objects of significance to show the characters loss of control of the situation he is in as well as of his own mental state and how this effects him emotionally. We want to show the audience that a second character, his daughter, has died and all the other objects that are shown in the film bring up memories of her to him until he finally remembers her but then is taken away and replaced with this metaphor of loss and corruption. What I have learnt from the scene in Woman in Chains is that you don't need a smooth and clear sequence of shots to show the audience what is occurring narratively in a piece as experimental and ambiguous as ours, and I will use the flashing images and jump cuts used in this film as a convention in ours to show the distortion and uncertainty that the character himself is feeling.

The second dream sequence I looked at was from a film called Blood and Roses/"Et mourir de plasir" (1960) by Roger Vadim.

I looked at this scene because the use of colour in it is very powerful and effective at driving the narrative as well as showing significance of certain actions within the scene. The scene starts out in colour with the main character within the scene wearing bright red lipstick laying in bed asleep. Then as the start of the dream begins, the colour is drained out completely for the rest of the scene apart from the red of blood being shown throughout. This is to show the significance of terror and death within the scene and make the impact of the blood more shocking as it is the most noticeable thing within the frame whenever present. This relates to our film, as the lighting and colour is a major aspect of the connotations we want to be obvious to drive the narrative as well as giving the audience a good understanding of what relevance each object has within the film. We want to use a red filter for the lights to show a sense of dread and danger, which will carry on throughout the piece until the end where the light will be more white and more natural, to give the sense of the fragility of the main character, over the loss of his daughter.

The codes and conventions used within both theses scenes will help me when it comes to editing our film as I already have a strong idea as to what works well and what would work for our film, through the analysis and consideration of these scenes.

Pre-production Issues

Even though we have had a solid idea and plan for our 2 minute character study film, as well as our 10 minute final film, for a while, over the past two weeks we have been having a huge problem with our locations and mainly actors. Our producer, Ellen, has been working very hard with getting into contact with actors, locations and scheduling a shoot day for our 2 minute film. However, on three separate occasions now we have had actors pulling out on the day due to illness or other availability issues, as well as just losing contact with them. This means that the locations Ellen has booked for us go to waste as we have no one to fill the positions of the actors and therefore nothing to shoot.
Although this isn't my area and role within the group to sort these things out, I do sympathise with Ellen as there is nothing we can do about this apart from trying to re-schedule and carry on with what we have. The issue now is that we still haven't filmed anything and with the deadline fast approaching it will be the post-production side of the film that will have to be rushed, meaning both myself and Luke (sound recordist/designer) will have to really rush to produce a final film and we may lose quality in this area.
I hope that we will be able to not let these setbacks affect the quality of our final film too badly, and not lose the hope and motivation we will need to get this ambitious film to be a professional standard piece.