Tone is important to have in a film, especially for a short film since it has much less time to develop and explain the narrative. Tone is essentially the flavor of the film as it will give the audience an idea of what to expect from the film. Many element contribute to a film’s tone such as the camerawork, lighting, editing, the writing, the performances, the music, the color scheme, and so on. For my development on how to tackle this project, I feel that the TV show Louie is a good text for me to aspire to replicate. Since tonally I feel that the short film and the show are very similar it was an easy choice to make since I’m a fan of the show as well.

The tone of Louie is basically a comedy with an occasional dark tonal shift as there are moments in the show that can be funny as well as ones that make you question if the show is just using comedy to mask its darker elements. The camerawork for the show are mostly done without the use of rigs or tripods as the ‘shakiness’ of the camera gives a sense of instability both in the world the character lives in and his life in general. In terms of editing, continuity editing is used with a montage in some episodes. The color scheme seems to be a bit washed out but nothing too drastic as it aims to make the work a little but bleak and cold. The show has little to no original scores as mostly sound tracks are used ranging from indie rock to pop music, depending on the scene.

There is nothing extravagant about the camerawork, editing or any other elements as they are simple but they are simple for a reason. The show revolves around an ordinary, flawed man just trying to get by life, which is why these elements have to also reflect his ‘down to earth’ nature. I feel that this tone will go well with the proposed project as it is also a dark comedy that slowly develops more in the darker aspects more than comedy later on in the film.

DRAFT

The projected length of the short film is between 15-20 minutes so being a crew of six students making a film of this length in just a few weeks would be quite difficult. As a result we discussed some more definite end goals to aim for. These seemed like some realistic expectations. These are to complete 15-20 page script, a complete shooting script with shots and notes and two scenes. This means rather than make a rushed and poorly done film to its entirety, we will focus on two scenes carefully shot and meticulously edited. Despite not having to produce the completed film there are still quite a few challenges that we will encounter along the course of production. Some of these challenges include time constraints and availability as well as the editing faze more specifically the visual effects. Since we are on such a short deadline we must work as efficiently as possible to ensure that we achieve what we set out to do. We must also account that there will be times that all six of us will not be able to make it to every shoot as we all have other commitments besides this project. If we keep an open line of communication in the group we should be able to adapt to any situation change in regards to absence or if needs be we will reschedule. Since none of us are especially proficient in the visual effects department there are some doubts in regards to our abilities to actually achieve the visuals we aspire to create. The members that will be in charge of editing will be practicing with test footage and in the chase that they are unsuccessful so there is also a contingency plan.

shows to utilize this kind of visual effect. First I had a look at the film Zombieland, a 2009 horror comedy directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay written by Rhett Reese and Paul. This film has extensive use of these texts that interact sometimes interact with the action on screen. The texts are sometimes aligned with the background to appear that they are in the environment as their inclusion is not a jarring experience for the audience. There are other times where the texts themselves can be interacted with as there are scenes where a character would run through them and break them or have blood splatter on them. I would not go as far as make the text that interactive but I do want to make it feel as a intangible object that can be viewed from different perspectives.

The second text that I had a look at was the animated TV show Adventure Time created by Pendleton Ward. The particular episode I watched was the episode titled “A Glitch is a Glitch” which was written, story boarded, and directed by Irish filmmaker David O’Reilly. The reason for watching this episode was a scene where the main characters where talking to a character that didn’t speak English so there were subtitles. What made this screen unique was that the characters actually looked down at the text and cut to their perspective and the text was backwards. Not only did it make the scene very humorous as it took advantage of perspective it gave me some good ideas that might play well in our concept for the film.

Next on the list was the 2008 sci-fi show Fringe created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci. This show had extensive use of 3D text on screen that tells the audience the location that the characters are in. The way this show differed from the rest was that as the camera tracked the characters the perspective of the text also changed, giving the impression that it is planted at the exact spot. This is one method to go with having text not just on screen but actually appear to be present the same space as the characters. It would be interesting to try this technique for myself as it would help develop the skill required to make the test footage for the proposed film.

This week we were tasked to adapt a script that a creative writing student has written. Our only constraint was that we had to film as closely to the script without the writer present. That made it a bit difficult since the script my group was given seemed a bit sudden as little to no explanation of the characters, their motivations and the world that they live in. Since that was all vague we interpreted as a dystopian society and the characters simply know as drone one and two were not literal drones but actually corporate business men. The shooting went relatively smoothly although due to time constraints where were not able to shoot the entire script. We ‘shot to edit’ so when it came to editing it was not too difficult to cut and arrange the footage that we shot. In the end I was pleased with the final product in terms of shot placement and tone although I could have probably tried to get better audio recording when at the shoot something I will consider for my next shoot. At the presentation of the clips it was interesting to hear the words of the writer to the script and what she had to say about or interpretation of the script. Perhaps not too surprising was the fact that she had a different vision in her mind but in the end it was not too far off. Now I see how important it is to have an open line of communication between a director and a writer as incidents like these will be eliminated if there is the writer on had to discuss the script with. Also not being able to make changes to the script itself was challenging as it didn’t become my vision but my interpretation of someone else’s vision.

https://drive.google.com/a/student.rmit.edu.au/file/d/0B4iXF6gqByUod1F5WXA4R3RZMUk/view

Synopsis:
A man and a woman are sitting across from each other at a small table in a dimly lit restaurant. They exchange pleasantries and laugh softly as they wait for the waitress with dessert. The waitress, SARA shows up with a grin from ear to ear as she presents the couple with their chocolate souffle. The couple now a regular the restaurant, feed each other the rich dessert as she women begins to chuckle from the embarrassment. Sara looks on dreaming of a day she will do the same with someone she loves until she suddenly spots a man staring through the restaurant window. Having noticed the same man time and time again observing the same couple, Sara decides to sum up all her courage and confront the man. As he sees the angry waitress approaching, the man runs into an alley way where he is chases down and tackled. The man cowardly asks her to stop as he introduced himself as KIRITO YAGAMI. He explains that he was simply admiring the relationship of that couple that happens to dine on his way back from work. Kirito’s romantic side was soon undermined by his next words as he began listing all his failures in life especially in the relationships. Sara stops the pathetic looking Kirito from his grovelling as she helps him back to his feet. She tidies him up as they walk out of the dark alley way. They stop at the restaurant door she takes out her note pad and pen and starts to write. Kirito looks on in confusion as she hands him the piece of paper. She tells him to call her when he’s free as she heads back inside. Kirito halts her as he is baffled by her and asks if it’s just pity. She replies with a smile, “I just like hopeless romantics”.

Reflection:
The character profiles and scenarios helped me to think about the direction I want to take the story as there are endless possibilities if I was to apply a bit of creative thinking to it. Even before I got to the synopsis I already had a somewhat developed idea that I could work with in my synopsis. The fact that I already have the basis of a narrative ready for me to use to expand upon is helpful whenever faced by the dreaded writer’s block. Personally didn’t find it too difficult to place my characters into a story as the prompt is just what it is, a prompt so I just us that as a launching pad for my ideas. I guess choosing a genre helped decide how I’m going to write the story as I would a horror story differently than a romantic comedy. Since these genres have many tropes and conventions attached to them, I actually try to avoid them as much as possible so in a way it did help me to go in a certain direction with my story. These exercises help me establish my character and the narrative they will be in and help decide if I want to commit to writing a screenplay about it. This is a great time saving device as there were times in the past where I would start writing a screenplay and would drop it because I feel it’s going nowhere or it just isn’t interesting anymore. This way I am assured that writing a screenplay for that particular story would not be a waste of time and effort. By having a synopsis I would have an outline of all the major points of the narrative so I can write towards a plot point rather than just writing aimlessly.

Last week we have filmed a ‘shoot to edit’ style scene and when it came to editing it made it easier to cut between shots and control the overall pace of the scene. What intrigues me now is the concept of ‘writing to edit’. It is true that when writing there are a few moments in a scene where I would imagine it being cut in certain way, but in the end that I feel that it would limit the job of the director and the editor. That being said, if I also have the roles of director and editor, I guess that would be permitted to ‘write to edit’.

I was in a similar position back in year 12 when I had to make a short film individually. At the time and even now I feel that making a film individually is extremely difficult feat. When writing I think I was a lot more specific when it came to the type of shot I wanted to use for which action since I had no one that I needed to get approval from. That allowed me to write thoroughly planned scenes that made it easier to shot and edit. However, I do feel that it eliminated any chance of spontaneity while film and editing as it was a very rigid and straight forward process from pre-production to post-production.

Ultimately I feel that a script should be flexible enough to allow for spontaneity and the unexpected as I have never made a project where everything written in the script has perfectly replicated. A script should be a guidebook for the production and post-production crew to refer to when making decisions about the film, instead of being treated like some sort of Holy Scripture. The process of making a film is constantly changing and evolving with every day, so there is no point in being held back by a script that was written up from day one.

Last week we were tasked with editing the footage we shot for the one page script that was written before hand. This was an interesting experience since whenever I was previously involved in a short film I had never done any editing myself. I have edited before but never the footage I shot myself. I was quite pleased that my group decided to shot a mater shot and then do other full takes just from different shots and angles. This allowed me the freedom to cut to my favored shots in any an order I see fit. Since the scene involved movement and the actors couldn’t deliver the exact lines in each take, it made it hard to preserve continuity but it was manageable and I think the end result didn’t suffer too much from this potential issue.

Like I said on my previous post, I do like long takes but only when done well. After having seen what my group filmed in the first week I am glad that we can shot to edit and then edit the actual footage. The clip that I edited last week is much more engaging and interesting as the long take was almost motionless for the majority of the scene and had some framing issues. When making short film I would hear other joking, saying things like “we’ll just fix it in post” but now I can see that there is some truth to those words as the imperfect raw footage can be polished and tweaked to form a scene where I have complete control over pacing and other important details. Since we have the option to add soundtracks and sound effect to the footage it allows us to further enhances the overall quality of the clip. Since I had complete control over the timing of the clip and soundtrack, I was able to match the musical cues with the actions on screen. I attempted to make it as polished as I could since we had to rotate with others but in the amount of time given I was able to almost finish a rough cut.

Since we did some editing in the tutorials this week, I thought that a bit of research on editing, more specifically continuity editing might be a good topic to write about this week.

After the first ever public screening of the Lumiere films in 1895, stage magician Georges Melies attempted to buy the Lumiere camera from them but he was refused as they seen him as potential competitor. Not to be discouraged, he bought an English made projector and using his mechanical background he created his own camera. In 1896 after making a few of his own films, he was shooting his new picture when suddenly the camera jammed as it was filming a bus. By the time the camera started operating again the bus was replaced by a hearse. When Melies developed the film he discovered that the bus he was filming suddenly turned into the hearse and unintentionally creating the first jump cut. He took full advantage of this new found technique as he used jump cuts in his film to make people appear and disappear, astounding audiences. He also developed other editing techniques such as the fade in and fade out, overlapping dissolves and stop motion photography.

Edwin S. Porter was another influential figure in the birth of modern editing, as his film The Great Train Robbery was the first film to cut straight between the scenes without the use of fades or dissolves as well as without letting the scene reaches its logical end. This was an important step as it showed that filmmakers were begging to see editing as a tool to compress time. This changed the vocabulary in cinema as well as instead of a being simply called a scene, thanks to Porter cinema moved further away from its theatrical roots with the word “shot” as now filmmakers started to see a film a series of shots edited together. However Porter only took editing so far so another pioneer needed to innovate even further.

This pioneer was none other than D.W. Griffiths as he took the cinema into the multi shot medium we now know today. One of his first inventions was the “cut in” used in The Greaser’s Gauntlet in 1908 as he cut from a medium long shot of a tree to a wide shot in the middle of the scene, to highlight the emotional exchange between two actors. Griffiths continued to experiment as he set up multiple camera set ups to play with various shot types. This in turn, created the term “continuity editing”, a cutting style that maintains a sense of continuous space and time. Through his multi camera set up he also discovered the “180 degree rule” which by keeping the camera on one side of the axis of action can eliminate any continuity problems of confusing geography when cutting from one angle to another. Yet another intention by Griffiths was the “cross-cutting” which allowed parallel cutting of two different scenes. With so many inventions, as controversial a figure as he may be, D.W. Griffiths was instrumental in the modern day editing techniques that we grew up with.

Bordwell, David, Kristin Thompson, and Jeremy Ashton. Film art: An introduction. Vol. 7. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.