-COLLABORATION –

Collaboration is ‘the action of working with someone to produce something. In the first semester of the year we had been exposed to collaboration work and how it could either uplift or pull down the success of your project. I couldn’t relate to anyone who speaks of the outcome of a good collaboration. However after working with the group I had this semester, I now understand the mass impact and influence a good group can have.

My group consisted of Alana, Jeyda, Daleen and myself. Some groups were made through friendships but with our group, friendships were formed through this group for our final assessment. We kicked off to a good start in the first few discussion of our final project. Firstly it was important that we all had the same vision when it came to the final product of the film to avoid a clash of creative vision. Thankfully the whole group was on the same page and all jumped on board to the concept we decided on. Secondly, each member had a fair share in contributing and sharing ideas, all of us also had very open minds towards exploring and experimenting ideas to make our film the best it could be. As a group we understood the importance of creating our project to be very visually aesthetic way but to not let that get in the way of it’s true meaning of the film. (i.e- having shots that we like and felt ‘looked pretty’ but had no contribution or relation to the meaning of the film)

Another important aspect of a good collaboration is making sure there is equal workload delegated to each member during the pre and post production process. This key to collaboration was really emphasized in this group. Each and every single member played an important part in the process of creating our film. The strength of our teamwork was really shown when we began officially shooting our film. On the day of shooting, it was clear that we all respected each others creative input to the film, this is because we did a rotation of taking turns to play different roles in the process. Each member got to direct and operate the camera. At the time of our shooting process, some members due to scheduling and personal matters could not be there for it. However instead of using their circumstances as an excuse to not do work, compromise was made and they contributed in more post production work.

In post production work, the excitement and feedback we received from each other was very encouraging. We met frequently to ensure we had the right communication and visual goal for how we wanted the end product of the film to look and feel like. We had two locations for this film and before presenting out first draft, we had to roughly edit the clips. Collaboration was shown here as we split the group in half and 2 members edited one location and the second location by the other 2. We constantly asked each other for tips, feedback to see how we could make it look better and portray it’s meaning without losing the flow of the film.

In conclusion, I now understand the importance of good collaboration. Throughout this entire process we ensured each other that the friendship and teamwork will be one to carry into the future. We regularly emphasized how much we enjoyed working together and that we were all very proud with how our work turned out.

DAY 1-OFFICIAL SHOOT

Our first official shoot was at Jeyda’s house. It was a very fun day as we just had so much fun shooting together. The experience of figuring how to achieve the shots we wanted and excel in the process of doing so was very exciting. Based on the storyboard, we had a rough idea of the angles and camera movements however through trying to achieve it we had a few couple stumbles here and there. There is 2 shots in particular that we are very proud of that took us almost almost an hour to achieve.

The two shots shown above is two wide angled, tracking shots the the character, one around the back of her and another one moving towards her from the back. We knew form the start that a dolly or any camera equipment besides a tripod and the camera itself was out of our reach nor did we want to hassle to get it.

The process of creating these two shots was my ultimate favourite part of the day. At the end of it, we felt so proud and excited to edit the shots to our liking such as the speed, colour grade and etc. The clip above is the final product of the shots.

Below a behind the scenes look of how the two shots were taken.

I clearly remember the excitement we had after we overcame this obstacle of getting the shot we wanted, the ideas just kept flowing in. We kept in mind the idea of ‘shooting to edit’ which really helped us in a sense that we shot only what we thought would fit the vibe and be a contribution in projecting the meaning of the poem (not just ‘shooting the shit out of it’ quote Paul)

Things I feel we could have improved on:

• We had too many pull focus shots , but luckily we considered the timing and how we could edit/cut it if we did not want the shot as a pull focus.
• Too many of the same shots, next time more of a range in actions/angles
• Not as much camera movement as we should’ve incorporated, too many stationary shots.
• We figured we would add music in the background and not add in the raw audio from the clips, therefore during the shoot we talked a bit too much in the background giving us no option but to cut out the audio.
• Not much of a range in shots, mostly same shot repeated.

FIRST TEST SHOOT!

After narrowing it down to our two final locations we began test shoots.As a group we created a rough storyboard of the shots we hoped to achieve.The first test shoot was in Macedon, one of our 2 final locations. We had to limit ourselves to how far we were going to explore the location as it is a massive space.

We took shots of every part of the location that we thought could play a role in flow of the film. We traced our steps as to which we would imagine ourselves as the character and the director going thru the location and the actions we wanted to be shot. Moreover as the lighting won’t definitely be the same on the day of our official shoot, we still played around with the lighting and tested the angles in which the lighting would enhance the shot.

The second location is Jeyda’s (one of the group members) house, specifically her living room but on the day of our official shoot we ended up doing some filming in her garden. We did not have a test shoot for this unfortunately due to individual scheduling and also because we were only planning to shoot 1 minute out of the 3 of the film at this location therefore we felt like it was okay to not have a test shoot.

However my favourite part of the test shoot process was when we came together as a group, sat down in the edit suite and went thru clip by clip analysing what we could improve on for when we have our official shoot. Pinpointing the little things like framing, angles, lighting, action shots and movement of the camera.

 

For our final assessment we aimed to create a cinematic non scripted film that had that dark but meaningful concept to it. A few constraints we implied on this film was that it would only be shot with natural lighting and consists of only one character. Our initial idea was inspired by a short film called SALT by Ollie Ritchie, a you-tuber.

 S (stress), A (adventure), L (love), T (time).

We were intrigued by the idea of each alphabet standing for an individual word with it’s own meaning and still managing to bring it together as a whole film without losing it’s meaning. With that concept in mind, we went with the word FEAR and tried to make it our own however we struggled massively with having each alphabet stand for a word that when put in a whole film would connect but unfortunately failed to do so. We brainstormed for a couple of days and came to a conclusion that since we did not want it to be scripted that we needed some sort of guide.

After thorough discussion we finalized that our final film would be based on a poem. We searched through tons of poems to find one that we felt we could achieve in visually creating it and projecting it’s meaning to the audience. We finalized a poem that was by Elizabeth Jennings that is basically about a girl who is mourning over the death of people she does not even know and grieving at the fact that she does not have anyone to grieve for. Moreover with the constraint of having one character, we figured it would be cool to take the audiences through this character’s journey of grief and lost in an aesthetically pleasing way.

 

By Elizabeth Jennings 

 

 

At this particular time I have no one

Particular person to grieve for though there must

Be many, many unknown ones going to dust

Slowly, not remembered for what they have done

Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve

Being impartial, unable to deceive.

How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,

And, by that gives my grief purity,

An important person quite apart from me

Or one obscure who drifted down alone.

Both or all I remember , have a place.

For these I never encountered face to face.

Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out

Wishing to give these classical response,

 

No epitaph, no poppy and no rose

From me, and certainly no wish to learn about

The way they lived or died. In the earth or fire

They are gone. Simply because they were human,

I admire.

 

I have never willingly by choice watched a film that was made in the 60’s, not for any specific reason but I guess I never appreciated films in that sense before starting this course. However when thinking of a scene to deconstruct, I thought of a movie that I was pretty much forced to watch in a film class but it definitely left an impression on me, Alfred Hitchcock’s movie ‘Psycho’. Like I said, I never really appreciated filmmaking till recently therefore I decided to deconstruct a scene from a movie I did not pay much attention to and see what hints, film techniques I can pick up on.

 

First and foremost, at the time this movie was being filmed, black and white films were almost halfway out the door so it seemed like Alfred was willing to take the risk and shoot the entire film in black and white . Based on my research his intention for doing this was because it was said to be his goriest film yet in terms of the famous bloody shower murder scene and that it might be too much for the audience. That will be the scene I will be deconstructing in this reflection. In my opinion I feel that the black and white effect sets the tone of the film and to the mystery and curiosity of the film aside from the acting which created this slow, ‘what is about to happen’ feel. The b&w was very harsh and abrasive on the eye, so it gives the audience that uncomfortable feeling, waiting for something to happen.

 

In this shower scene where the main character Marion (played by Janet Leigh) is murdered, I will be deconstructing it in terms of 3 aspect, sound and camera angle. Firstly is sound, at the start of the scene as the character is getting into the shower there is no background music of some sort, it is quiet with some non-diegetic sound that eventually builds up to a slow pace music that you can sense the tension building up. As she turns on the shower, the music stops and all you can hear is the sound of the shower. After a couple of shots of her taking a shower, an intense fast paced high pitched typical thriller genre music is played scaring the audience with the piercing noise which goes on throughout the stabbing on top of the screaming of the character. The music eventually dies down slowly as well as the screaming to signify the state of the character. The scene ends with just the sound of the shower still running leaving that suspense for the audience, questioning who, where, why and what happens now that the main character has been cut off. Fun fact the stabbing sound effect was actually created by plunging a knife into a melon.

 

Moreover, moving onto the camera angles. Judging by the angles that this scene was shot from, the scene was most probably filmed in a set built specifically for this scene. It was clear in several shots as the character was taking a shower, for example, there is a mid shot of the character with the camera positioned below the shower head and water flowing over the camera onto the middle of the frame where the character is. This shot shows that the cameraman must have been positioned in the wall or from that perspective, this is seen in the shot when the killer appears from behind the curtain. The camera is positioned in front of the character with the killer slowly fading in whilst he walks closer in the background, the equipment could not have fit in the shower to get that angle so they definitely placed the camera equipment in replace of a fourth wall. It zooms in to the shadow of the killer as he get’s closer to emphasize the focus of this scene to the audience. When the killer pulls the curtain open, he is seen as a silhouette with a knife in his hand to show he is about to kill her. As she screams the camera shows a close up of her mouth to emphasize that she is reaction. Following the stabbing every attempt the killer takes to stab her, the camera rapidly shifts back and forth between the killer and her reaction going up to almost 77 different angles throughout the whole scene. The editing really played a part in setting the pace, as during the murdering shots the cuts were really fast and post murder it slowed down.

Below are some shots mentioned in this deconstruction.

The camera positioned below the shower head.

The camera position on place of the wall with the silhouette of the killer fading in from behind.

The silhouette shot of the killer, achieved using the fluorescent light behind.

1. ORIGINAL TEST SHOT

This was one of the test shots taken for our final project located in Macedon.

 

2.  I tried enhancing the shot by increasing the saturation and lowering the temperature just to bring out the colors of the sky and the trees a bit more. This is because in the original shot the colours looked more dull and low in contrast therefore I wanted to try and enhance those colours. However I think I may have over done it a little as it is becoming more clear as I am writing this that the colours look somewhat fake. I would maybe tone is down a little to ensure the colours look more natural.

 

3. My vision for this edit was a more winter, cold feel as the first two was more of warm colours. It was quite a struggle to bring that idea to live as I wanted to keep some colour in it by not lowering the vibrance or saturation too much. However by decreasing the temperature it did exactly that. I experimented with the highlight and exposure to attempt that white snow landscape look. Overall I think it is not all that great but

 

 

4. This would be my favorite edit for this series. I added a fade filter as the base to give the shot a more gloomy emo look and adjusting the saturation and temperature making sure it suits the look really helped set the tone to the shot. This shot incorporates a lot of nature and when I associate moody with nature, I think gloomy, low exposure but still having a pop of color in it and not necessarily making it black and white which is what I tried to do with this shot.

1. This is a mid shot of me was taken by a classmate for the pull focus exercise. There is not much depth in the shot and I feel like maybe the exposure or white balance could be increased by a little to make the shot more lively which unless she was going for a more moody vibe then it works. That is particularly why I wanted to experiment colour grading on this shot.

 

2. My first attempt at enhancing the colours in this shot by increasing the exposure and highlight. However looking at it now, I may have over done it as the bottom half of the background is blinding in a sense that it does not look natural. You can see it on the two coloured seats on each side of me, the edges are sharp between the white and the colour making it look a little photoshopped in my opinion. Maybe next time I would tone it down with the highlight and whites.

 

     3.  Often seen in french films such as the movie ‘Amelie’, this bronze tone I was experimenting with gives the viewers a sense of warmth, comfort and romance. Warming the mids and highs is what we react to, although I’ve always thought bluer tinted shadows might be best that can break the mood (more for action movies i guess). I worked on increasing the temperature to the warmer side, and exploring the colour wheels, adjusting the mid tones, shadows and highlights.

 

inspired by :

4. For my last exploration for this shot, I was inspired by the photo above which was a scene from The Matrix of Keanu Reeves character ‘Neo’ escaping from work. While watching the scene it felt very suspenseful and intense which I feel the tinge of green really brought out. I played around with the colour wheel, testing out the midtones, shadows and highlights using different shades of greens and exposures. Out of all 3 I favor this the most, the lighting, the mood the vibe all comes together and just works.

1. Reshoot script (4b)

• In the same groups as the previous week, our task this week was to reshoot the same script but this time we had to switch producorial and technical roles. As I was the first AD in the last exercise I decided to take on the role as the camera operator. Whilst writing this reflection, I realised that I should have worked on the audio or maybe take on the acting. This is because, being behind the camera or just directing the actors and crew are more in my comfort zone, for some reason I have this fear of working on sound/audio as well as on camera. However it would have been a better idea to step out of my comfort zone and be able to reflect on this exercise in more depth and in a different perspective.

• It is quite obvious the location we filmed at is not exact to the script which was based in a bar but with time and location constraints, I feel like the location we chose worked really well in terms of lighting. Besides it being a little too bright with that that blinding white patch of light on the left hand side of the frame, I feel like the white balance and exposure was adjusted to the right amount. However I felt like the communication within the group was very weak. As a group a few of us had some good ideas to contribute to the film but were not taken into consideration. The director was not quite sure of her vision or the direction of the shots which resulted in only getting a few shots of the same thing in the same angle which was a mid shot from the front of both actors sitting on the steps.
• I would have personally like to practice and challenge my editing skills by incorporating different angles and more shots to have explored with such as an individual close up or mid shot of each actor during their respective lines. Shooting from the other person’s perspective would have been good to try as well. We did not have much time but it will definitely try to be more efficient as a group and have a clearer direction of our shots.
• ( could not find file in drive for this exercise, all based on what I remember)

 

2) Focus pull exercise

• I personally found this exercise a lot of fun to experiment with as I have never practised focus pulls before even though I feel like i could have done so much better in terms of angles, pull outs and just framing my shot. Was not in the right mind set that day and reflecting on my shot is quite disappointing. Instead of zooming in to focus I should have pulled the focus out (duh!!). The lighting and location however I feel worked nicely with a little colour grading could really set the mood and enhance the shot. We worked in our respective final project groups for this exercise.The technique of manipulating the focus really added depth of field to the shots and it was really cool to see how it was presented in different ways through each member’s ideas.
• I am determined to experiment and explore this technique further in my test shots as well as future projects. Possibly having 2 characters in the shot starting with a close up of the person further back and then zooming out whilst switching the focus to the person closer to the camera (if that made sense) It would be good to explore this technique with dialog to really set where the attention should be shined on.

 

1. ORIGINAL

This is the original still clip taken from the pull focus exercise in week 7a. I feel like the lighting and framing of this shot works well together and Jeyda’s expression really brought character/mood to the shot. In every edit, I tried presenting and expressing how I felt every time I re watched this shot.

 

2. COLOUR CORRECTION

For this edit, I just attempted to enhance the shot a little by bringing up the exposure but trying not to over do it , increasing the contrast to bring out different colors in the shot. For example the contrast between her striking maroon head coverings, black and grey clothing and neutral background colour worked well in my opinion. This was just a trial to brighten up the shot and make her face glow more especially with her engaging facial expression in the shot to really capture the audience attention .

 

3. DREAMY/ FLASHBACK

I attempted going for a more dream like flashback scene in this edit because to me it suits well with her action in this shot. The whole ‘looking back at the camera’ feel went hand in hand with the blurred background with a soft pink tint to just bring that focus onto the character. I explored the pen tool of blurring the background out, played around with the tinting to create that soft mood with lowering the highlight so there won’t be any sharp edges in the frame. When I re watched this I thought of a dream, most of the time dreams are blur but you will remember a small aspect of it which was what inspired this shot. Inspired by the photo below.

 

3. FRENCH MOVIE INSPIRED

I tried again going in with the bronze, warm romantic look and I feel like it works so much better with this shot. Her facial expression really engages the audience and the warm bronze tone really compliments it. The exposure and white balance was not that much of a struggle as the lighting at this location was originally good to begin with just increased it by 2 points maybe.

 

WEEK 8 PRESENTATION REFLECTION

In Memory of Anyone Unknown To Me

By Elizabeth Jennings

At this particular time I have no one

Particular person to grieve for, though there must

Be many, many unknown ones going to dust

Slowly, not remembered for what they have done

Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve

Being impartial, unable to deceive.

How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,

And, by that fact gives my grief purity,

An important person quite apart from me

Or one obscure who drifted down alone.

Both or all I remember, have a place.

For these I never encountered face to face.

Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out

Wishing to give these classical repose,

No epitaph, no poppy and no rose

From me, and certainly no wish to learn about

The way they lived or died. In earth or fire

They are gone. Simply because they were human, I admire.

 

Description 

For our final project we are going for an experimental short film that explores the techniques and skills learnt throughout the semester using the poem above as an inspiration. From the lighting, different range of angles and shots, sound (atmos) and colour grading.

Inspiration

• kiarostami
• sweeping landscapes
• colour palletes

Experimental Ideas

• mediative moody shots
• using a poem to set the tone and guide/inspire our shot ideas
• shooting in both indoor and outdoor  ( to experiment lighting and colour)
• 3 locations
• different angles
• camera movement (tracking/panning/still)
• pull focus technique exploring shadow depth of field
• surreal/dense soundscape
• 1 or 2 characters on screen (showing absence/loneliness – ref to the poem)
• possibly adding text on screen to set deep tone

 

Over the next few weeks of filming and editing, I am excited to experiment on all these techniques and concepts and seeing them come to live.