A4: Reflection

The Studio (242 Words)

Amidst the continuing chaos and confusion of COVID-19, much of the world remains at a standstill. In these “lost years,” Deliberate Film has given me direction.

At the very beginning—when I first submitted the ballot indicating my studio preferences—I simply saw this studio as an opportunity to gain some experience by working on a series of small media projects.

While my initial interpretation was by no means wrong, it grossly understates the incredible learning experience I have had over the past 12 weeks.

Each week, we worked on something new, or reworked and improved upon a previous project. With every exercise, I felt myself growing.

Most notably, I have become much more methodical and organised, and this has had a significant impact on my overall efficiency—particularly in my edits.

At a fundamental level, Deliberate Film has changed the way I understand, appreciate, think about, and approach filmmaking.

Beyond its educational value, this studio has also rekindled my passion for production. Truth be told, Deliberate Film has been the highlight of my media studies thus far, and the course has greatly surpassed any and all expectations that I had leading up to it.

Prior to this semester, I was on the fence between moving on with a career or furthering my studies. This studio has inspired me to reach a resolute decision, and I will be striving towards the goal of enrolling in RMIT’s honours program next year. (Fingers crossed!)

 

My Work (1845 Words)

In my last blog post, I wrote about some of my preparation for Failed Mission. More specifically, I did a few test shoots and experimented with shot construction and colour grading.

I ultimately settled on a much darker and more intense colour grade than the ones seen in my earlier attempts. However, I am still not completely satisfied with the visual. Were I to continue working on this film, I would definitely push it further with masking.

Another thing I would like to adjust is the establishment of sounds in the cave. As suggested by Paul and my classmates in their film reviews, a subtle build up of noises from the lion (e.g. scratching or grunting) could make a world of difference and really improve the overall viewing experience.

With that said, here is the resulting video.

Failed Mission – ‘Film From Animatic’ Exercise

In the closing weeks, we were given the option to rework our existing films or select an entirely new script for production.

I ended up opting for the latter as I really wanted to experiment with lighting. Failed Mission was a film that played heavily on darkness, so I decided to head in the complete opposite direction with my final film.

For this reason, I was drawn to Who Are You—quite literally—like a moth to a flame. (In the original script, there is a scene that involves a character being blinded by the sun.)

I began by marking up the script—a new practice I gained from Deliberate Film that will absolutely carry on in all of my future filmmaking endeavours.

This provided me with a solid understanding of what I wanted the film to look and sound like early on in the production process.

I proceeded to break it down into several different markups that each focused on a particular aspect of the film. As an example, this is the shot markup I made that also functioned as a shot list on the day of filming.

Whilst working on the markups, I started to source for an optimal location. To my surprise, this was actually rather difficult.

I initially intended to film in Clementi Forest as I had come across various images online that greatly inspired me.

However, upon closer inspection with my own two feet, I discovered that it was less than ideal.

The more picturesque parts of the forest were totally out of the way (and muddy) and those that were readily accessible were simply unappealing.

I considered changing the setting completely—from a forest to a lake—and headed down to MacRitchie Reservoir.

On my first trip, I found a breathtaking location that seemed to fit the bill perfectly. However, when I returned with my relatively out of shape brother the next day, I realised that it was more breathtaking than I had anticipated.

In my excitement, I did not fully realise how far I had walked to reach this quiet corner of the reservoir. As my take on the script required my actor to sing, I decided against using this location.

Resultingly, I took proximity into deeper consideration. I vaguely recalled seeing a grassy patch somewhere in my neighbourhood and went out the next day in search of it.

When I found it, I noticed that the location was far too close to a nearby condominium. This meant that there were many undesirable noises that were fully audible and out of my control: (1) kids screaming; (2) pianos playing; (3) people laughing; (4) etc.

In hindsight, this was not really an issue as I ended up removing all the location audio from my final film. However, at the time, it prompted me to keep searching.

At this stage, my friend Jake got back to me and confirmed his availability for filming. I thus began to look for a location that would be convenient for him and stumbled upon a little-known park just a stone’s throw away from both of us.

Upon reaching Ming Teck Park Green, I was ecstatic.

This location was better than anything I had envisioned. My mind started to race with lots of new ideas, and I sat down for a while to write the Forest Song.

After some fine-tuning, I put together a guitar tab for myself and Jake to collaborate on. I also sent him a full demo of the song, which I have included here as a short 12 second sample. (The final song was transposed a few octaves lower to better suit his voice.)

Over the next week, I went out on several test shoots with my family. Each time, after reviewing the footage, I worked on improving the framing and gradually developed a sequence of shots that I was content with.

For example, I came up with the opening shot of the film on one of my test shoots when I saw a stranger’s motorcycle parked on the edge of the road.

In Failed Mission, I received a lot of great feedback from Paul and my peers. They pointed out that many of the shots I used were framed quite similarly, so I decided to experiment with a larger variety of wide and close-up shots in Who Are You.

(My brother Harold removing his invisible helmet.)

Initially, I wanted to include a shot of Jake trekking into the forest through his motorcycle’s windshield. However, on the day of the shoot, I realised that his bike did not actually have one attached to it.

This was in itself a learning experience for me. Although I did meet up with Jake and his bike prior to filming, I had not noticed this little detail.

In future, I will try to pay closer attention to the props I use in my films.

A key factor in my decision to use this park for filming was the 180-degree rule. I noticed that this tree perfectly divided its surroundings, with the forest and skyline taking prominence on either side.

By manipulating the position of Jake and the camera relative to the tree, I realised that I could slowly direct the audience’s attention away from the skyline and towards the forest as the film progressed.

During my test shoots, I encountered some seriously vicious ants. Thus, I wrote in a picnic mat scene and covered it in a single take. This was largely inspired by several of my classmates’ Make The Bed Exercises from week 2 of our studio.

With the visuals mostly accounted for, I turned my attention to the audial aspects of the film. As mentioned above, I ultimately removed all location sounds from the edit.

At first, I planned to utilise a ZOOM recorder to capture the audio. (I had considered filming a different version of the script that introduced Jake as a popular content creator who was recording a live performance for his fans—one of whom would follow him into the forest.)

However, despite many attempts during the test shoots, I was unable to make the dialogue or guitar audio levels more audible than that of the ever-present birdsong. Here is a short clip of some guitar playing that should provide you with a better idea of this challenge.

In light of this, I determined that the audio equipment I had at hand was suboptimal and decided to recreate the sounds in post. This was something I had done in Failed Mission, as location sound was made unusable by the rumbling of the waterfall.

This made for a fairly elaborate edit that I worked on in multiple stages.

With my knowledge from working on the Sound Animatics Exercise, I decided to split up the soundscape into 3 different layers, the first of which encompassed foley and sound effects.

This was undeniably the most time-consuming part of the edit. I tried to make every footstep (or pawstep) feel as realistic as possible, employing Adobe Premiere Pro’s ‘Pitch Shifter’ effect and gain controls extensively.

To ensure that there were no random audio pops, I added 2-12 frame fades on both ends of each clip.

The atmos layer was a lot simpler. In retrospect, I could definitely enhance it by building additional tracks with wind or insect noises.

I added the voiceover layer nearer to the end of the edit. This was admittedly ill-advised, but I was left with no other option. We had originally agreed to record the dialogue at my place. However, due to the sudden re-emergence of local COVID-19 cases, Singapore tightened its restrictions and we were unable to follow through with this.

If I were to rework the film, this is where I would start.

The final film was put together using the assembly method I have been developing throughout Deliberate Film. This was taught early on in the studio and it is something that I find incredibly useful. (I have even started to apply this to projects outside of our studio assignments.)

In addition to this overarching methodology, I have acquired the habit of breaking up my edits into smaller and more manageable sections. For example, the film features a POV shot that I worked on separately from the main edit.

The shot—which is actually 2 shots that I pieced together—builds on an idea that was suggested to me in one of the consultations with Paul.

I tried to make it look like we were seeing through the character’s eyes and created a blinking effect by adding a mask.

This was yet another thing that I gained from our studio. Prior to this, I had never attempted a moving mask.

Although I was content with its shape, I felt that something was missing and searched the web for some inspiration. I eventually came across a music video by Maroon 5 that made use of this effect in its opening shot.

I noticed then that the eye actually defocuses slightly when it shuts, so I keyframed the ‘Fast Blur’ effect on the video layer itself. This made for a more convincing effect that I am pretty pleased with. Still, if I were to reshoot this, I would probably allow the camera to linger longer on Harold as he points to the side in this shot.

I filmed Who Are You with a Cine4 picture profile as it was shot under very bright sunlight. This allowed me to shoot at a lower ISO of 200 as opposed to the 800 that the usual S-Log2 would restrict me to. This is why the original footage appears fairly grey and washed out.

After a preliminary colour grade, I felt that the grass was too visually distracting.

I tried out heavier colour grades and settled on a version that shifted the focus away from the grass and back to Jake.

However, it does appear very yellow/warm and I am still undecided on how I feel about it. For what its worth, I do believe that it emphasises the theme of sunlight that drew me into making this film in the first place.

With all that said, here is my take on Who Are You—an unfinished amalgamation of everything I have learnt from Deliberate Film.

Who Are You – ‘Final Film’ Exercise

 

Our Collaboration (323 Words)

Throughout the semester, Deliberate Film has provided me with many opportunities to collaborate with some truly amazing people.

In my first blog post, I set a few goals for myself to achieve in the studio—one of which was to forge new friendships.

Given the online nature of our classes, you may expect that I was unable to find any success on this front. However, a good number of our virtual collaborations have been surprisingly intimate.

On multiple occasions, we quite literally opened up our homes to each other—allowing unfamiliar eyes to peer into our lives and personal spaces. These activities were remarkably effective as icebreakers, giving me a strong sense of what my fellow classmates’ personalities were like and vice versa.

From our time together, I have unexpectedly found a couple of kindred spirits who I will definitely seek to work with in future. (I learnt that 1 of my classmates has actually taken the exact same classes as myself over the last 2 semesters—an uncanny but clear indication of shared interests.)

Our online collaborations also included several thought-provoking class discussions and feedback sessions. These often involved film viewings and reviews that offered new perspectives for our own experimentation—monumental experiences that unquestionably helped in the shaping of our films.

I also had the chance to collaborate with a talented musician. In truth, Jake is an online friend who I have only ever met once in my life. (We have, however, spent countless hours playing video games together late into the early hours of the morning.)

Were it not for Who Are You, I would never have had the experience of working with him, nor would I have tried to write a song for someone else to sing.

Deliberate Film has been a refreshing breath of fresh air in this surreal period of isolation. To Paul and my peers, thank you, take care and may our paths cross again.

Cheers!

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