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Colour Grading - Film Adaptation

After the edit was finished, I did the colour grade for Memoirs of a Dog. It was a very interesting experience, as it was my first time using Da Vinci and I have very little experience colour grading. At first I was just trying to learn how to use the software, and when I got an idea of what I was doing I started to actually work on the film.

My main goal with the colour grading was to create a consistent look for the film through all the shots and through this, emphasise the style. I noticed that there was a lot of red in many of the props, so I decided to match the tone of these reds. I also tried to make our footage colourful and achieve a good level of brightness. It was a long process and it took a lot of effort, but I am really happy with the results, and I believe that the colour grade adds a lot to this film.

Below are some stills of the footage before and after the colour grade!

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The Edit - Film Adaptation

The editing for Memoirs of a Dog was done in one very intense week. It was quick because during preproduction we had already planned the edit, so it was just a matter of putting it together in the way that we had prearranged.

I was in Screen Academy all day every day during this week. I spent the first day transcoding, syncing sound, and organising and renaming the footage. After this I was able to start putting things together. As soon as I had a first cut, Sophie came in to have a look, and then I created a second cut applying the director’s feedback. We had to make some small changes to the script in some scenes to make the cuts work better, but this didn’t create any problems as we were able to add lines in the narration. Another problem that I had to solve was that at some point there were some things visible in the frame that didn’t belong to the world of the film. I solved this by adding a tracking effect, so the image would move its position in the screen cutting out what wasn’t supposed to be there, and this blended in with the movement of the camera to become unnoticeable.

Once I had a near-final cut, I showed it to the whole group for feedback, and the last few days were spent fine-tuning the cuts and making minor changes. We showed it to some people who were working on different projects to get the perspective of a fresh pair of eyes and it seems that we managed to convey the comedy of the story successfully, which is essential for this film. We finally called picture lock on the 3rd of April, giving plenty of time for sound design and colour grading. It was a fun film to edit and I’m really happy with how the edit turned out!

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Shoot day 2 - Film Adaptation

After a very busy 1st day shooting, our 2nd day was a lot lighter and easier. This day I was cinematographer on set again, and I felt a lot more confident after the experience of the day before.

The first thing we shot was a scene set in the street that consisted of a single long take. It proved a challenge as I had to pull focus while using the camera handheld, and if not done properly it could be very shaky. The light was also inconsistent as the sun kept moving from behind the clouds, so we had to stop several times due to big changes in light conditions. After many takes, we managed to get all of the details right, and we packed up and went back to Sophie’s flat. 

Here, we had a few tripod shots for a montage to do, so we set up and got all the shots we needed without any problems arising. This day I was also keeping a continuity log, which I find immensely useful as a guide for editing.

The shoot was generally successful and we got all the coverage we needed, so we went into post-production straight away!

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Shoot day 1 - Film Adaptation

The first day of shooting was intense but very productive, we shot (however many) 6 scenes in 3 different locations! We began our day picking up the equipment and transporting it to Braidburn Park, where we shot the last scene as well as some visuals for other parts of the film. This took the whole morning, as the scenes had to be carefully blocked to convey the movement of the dog while keeping the important visual elements in the frame. During this time I was in charge of the clapperboard and helping out with the camera equipment.

Afterwards, our cinematographer Amber had to leave due to illness so I took over the role. We moved over to my flat, where we shot the kitchen scenes. The trickiest part of this was that we had very little space to move and set up the lights, but we managed to organise it so that we could work as comfortably as possible.

During the whole shoot, I was also keeping a continuity log to make the edit easier.

Finally, we made it to our last location, Sophie’s flat, where we shot the living room scenes with the Husband. By then we were starting to lose the daylight quickly, so we decided to fully substitute it for artificial light recreating the sunlight. It was a challenge as I don’t have any previous experience with lights, but we were happy with the results. At about 9 pm we wrapped the first day of shooting and went home to rest for the next one!

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Script breakdown and shot list - Film Adaptation

In preparation for the shoot, we met up to do a general script breakdown. This proved to be very helpful, as it allowed us to create a shooting schedule according to the locations and actors needed for each scene. We also highlighted the props and costumes that we required.

After analysing the script, Sophie and I created a shot list. As this is a very editing-heavy film, with several montages and many cuts to many different scenes, we kept in mind the edit while we thought about what shots to get, to make sure that everything would work well together. This made both the shoot and the edit a lot smoother, as we had a vision of what footage we needed and where each shot would be in the final film.

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Set design - Film Adaptation

We want Memoirs of a dog to be a highly stylised film, and this style has to reflect its timelessness as we don’t have a set time period for it. We went for props and decor that look vintage but are not necessarily dated. The set design also had to reflect the personalities of our characters. We have dog pictures and figures that the dog-obsessed wife owns. We also had some bottles of wine and cigarettes for her, the labels for which Hayley designed specifically for the film, as well as photographs of dogs and the family portrait. I organised some shelves that are visible in the scenes set in the kitchen to match the style of the rest of the decoration.

As for the costume design, we dressed the wife in elegant business clothes to emphasise her figure of the “boss”. I found the blazer that she wears in a charity shop, and thought it would be perfect for this character. The husband also dresses quite smart, but over his shirt and tie he wears a bright pink apron and cleaning gloves while he’s in the flat, as he is the one who cooks and cleans.

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The pitch - Film Adaptation

At the pitch I covered the areas of cinematography and editing. I explained what I had planned for the cinematography so far:

To recreate the point of view of the dog, we will use wide lenses, to reflect his wide field of vision, and a handheld camera, which will allow us to replicate the movement.

4:3 aspect ratio: there’s two reasons for this choice. The first one, that this aspect ratio would contribute to giving the film a vintage and old-time look. The second, that since we’re using very wide lenses, a narrower aspect ratio will make it easier to frame so that the important things that the dog is looking at are emphasised, as having less room at the sides will remove distractions.

The main points for the editing were:

We will use quick cuts that will emphasise the comedic beats of the narration, as well as the chaos of the dog’s train of thought.

Colour grading: we will go for colourful and pastel tones, also to add to the vintage look as well as the style.

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SCRIPT - Film Adaptation

The shooting version of the Script of Memoirs of a Dog (written by Hayley)

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Developing our idea - Film Adaptation

In our first production team meeting, our director Sophie pitched to us her idea to adapt the short story ‘Memoirs of a Yellow Dog’. We all liked the story and her vision for it, so we decided to go for it.

The week after, we met again to discuss different ideas and set the style and tone that we wanted for the film. These are a few points that we discussed:

Genre: the film will be a comedy, we will emphasise the humorous elements of the story and explore the techniques that will make the film funny.

Approach: the dog will never be on the screen to simplify the production, instead, the film will be shot as the pov of the dog. There will be a narration by the dog, inspired by American Psycho.

Visual inspiration: we will take inspiration from Wes Anderson’s films for the colour palette, framing, camera positions and set design. The film will be set in an undefined space and time period, and the set and costumes will be highly stylised to look old-fashioned.

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Critique Feedback Form: Representing the real

Name: Paula Sosa Martin

Project: TEL

Date of critique: 27/05/2022

Tutors: Sana Bilgrami, Joe Li, Tommy Sheridan

Verbatim transcript of feedback:

JOE - So well done, it’s one of the best films so far for today. I really liked the fact that you managed to present such an intimate character to the audience, I feel like I can connect to him. Also, you sort of surprised me, I thought somebody living on the street might be, you know, quite emotional, struggling, but he looks so confident and happy, determined, so this is really fresh.

I also liked the fact that you are spending all the screen time mostly on him because we are looking at him all the time, but he doesn’t look boring because you have different setting locations, walking voice over, to some very well arranged compared with some of the interviews we had this morning, you know it was one angle for two minutes, so I think this is very good. And, the other thing as well, I liked the use of close up, you were really introducing the characters to us by using the close up, his movements, his ears, whatever.

What I think could be missing, is really his, you introduce his personal background a little bit but not really that emotional background - his family, his personal life. He looks very confident and determined, but I assume there is also an emotional journey he has gone through, or the kind of moment he looks back to his past, and somehow I think that emotional feeling is somehow missing here, do you want to answer that?

LEWIS - We never really thought about going speaking to any family or people that he knows closely, just other people that he knows from the punk group that he was in but yeah, that did help.

SANA - Did you speak to him about his family?

LEWIS - We did initially, we didn’t record any of it, this was just a chance to get to know him, getting comfortable with us, but I don’t think we decided to take it anywhere, no.

JOE - Yes, Sana or Tommy?

SANA - Go ahead Tommy.

TOMMY - Yeah so I wanted to draw to your attention because there’s some things this film did very differently from other films today, I was interested in your take on it, working. So first, won’t dwell on it, no music throughout like, musics at the end. I really noticed that, I really noticed I was with him.

Second, change of scenery, and the fact that these interviews went with him, in different places, and the fact that, for groups who struggled because they had one camera and one angle, and you couldn’t cut and you always had to put cutaways on the cut. If you think about it here, they were following him around and they were sort of building the thread of his speech from different interviews, in different moments, but they were making a conceptual connection between this sentence he said at this point and this sentence he said at that point. It helps that he probably went on rants and went over the same things over and over, several times in different ways, so it allows you to make that connection, but notice how, it was next to no cutaways, and the ones that were were him rolling a cigarette and walking around, so that’s how I feel this film stood out to the others. There was very, he’s just a guy walking around the Meadows, he is homeless so that’s relevant, but there was no cutaways, no, very little archives and still we felt we were following it, you know, we never had this jump cut feeling that we had in some of the other films. Those are the things to notice that were different from the films today.

Things that were similar to the films today, like non-stop talking, there were times when he said quite powerful things and I wanted some, I just wanted to see him walking around spinning his cane, you know at the pavilion or something like that while I digest what he’s just said and so, yeah watch him roll a cigarette without him talking, with him, you know sit somewhere or chat to the guy at the coffee box. Even if we don’t hear what they’re saying, without him talking over it, because, and in that respect there’s like the, the killing your babies phase in the edit where you’re like, everything is interesting that he has to say but, even though the conflict you expected didn’t turn out to be a conflict that he truly experiences, in the edit stage you still have to have a clear idea - what is the centre of conflict that I am talking about within this film, so that everything is at the service of that story, and we don’t need to, you know, I found he dropped in the Covid hoax, you know, proved that people didn’t have to be and I’m glad you didn’t go into all the conspiracy theory stuff that he brought up, but yeah.

Him talking about, for example, society, homelessness, billionaires, and, you know, could be a central theme for him as he’s a lot to say about it, and I love the punk scene, but somehow we introduced it and then we talk about something else but then you do link back to it at the end so I guess that was quite rescuing, or at the end or later when he says ‘oh that’s what it means to be punk and this is..,’. So, I thought it was quite neatly edited in terms of content, you had a lot of material and you did a lot of clear paper editing, I reckon like you figured out how things could connect, so that was very effective, I just would’ve liked even more silence which would’ve meant sacrificing even more lines that you were found of, but it would’ve given even more space for the really good ones I think.

SANA - So my feedback is pretty much identical, so, it’s literally, I just, I loved the character and I loved your film and I just think, if you could just have a few pauses. And I wanted to see him complete the action of rolling, exactly what Tommy just said, and I’m not gonna say the same thing.

 *Joe interrupts however it is unintelligible*

Or completed the action of, you know, or watched him twiddle that thing without, that’s exactly my feedback yeah, because I didn’t mind all these, you know you kind of jump around and that’s his character, that’s the way he speaks so you're, that style, served building his character for me so that’s fine, and all that worked really nicely.

There are a few things in there that I wanted to know more about like Joe, you know he talks about his childhood, and then there’s this huge jump to him being arrested and getting sent to prison, when you create a gap like that, you’ve done really well so I’m not being, I just, you know, I want to know more, you know, you can’t have this huge, massive gap, and what do you do then, how do you address that? I guess you just have to ask those questions. But yeah, I really enjoyed that, again yeah, just desperately filming, I mean, I’d really encourage you to go back and re-edit, create some pauses, and create some observational sequences, where we just observe him without him speaking.

LEO - Yeah I thought it was really good, it was very cleverly shot and edited, cause I really liked the way that clearly you brought together these interviews from like many different places in town, but you cut them together really really well so, as the film goes, it felt very natural, the progression of his speech, but also visually it keeps moving around, so it gives the idea of this person like, obviously being related to the town, to the environment the way he moves around.

One thing that stood out to me, I’m not sure if that’s what you meant with the sound mixing, is that there are very obvious gaps where the volume just dips in between like sentence and sentence, almost as if there is no sound whatsoever in those moments. You should always aim to colour those gaps with ideally some room tone but like ambient noise that you’ve recorded on set, and then it will smooth out the little differences in between sentences.

I will also suggest, props for not having wall to wall music, I was a bit worried at the beginning but then it faded out, and I think it’s a great example of why music works but you can’t have it wall to wall, because you started with punk scene, you have punk music, and then it fades out and in the calm and the silence, he talks about like going to prison, and that makes the moment even more emotional, even more potent because, by comparison, of what came before it is really strong.

The one thing I would suggest is you could’ve been a bit bolder into having the music in the first half, is it punk music, is it like, loud, violent and angry, then have it like very loud and violent. Maybe rely less on him talking, and more on just listening to music, or, separate more distinctly the bits where he’s talking and the bits just where you can hear music so that, when the music comes in, you can actually enjoy it and really blast it up. Other than that, I thought it was very well made.

TOMMY - The archive was amazing, and was used without him talking in the background, that was really strong. I’m sure you guys noticed how much you were paying attention with those photos, since he wasn’t talking and that was all you had to work with was the images, so you were looking at the corners of the images, the hairstyles and the hands and what was happening because you weren’t trying to listen and look at the same time. But yeah.

LEO - Do we have time for..?

TOMMY - Quick observations?

DAVIDE - I just wanted to say that, like, about the editing, like I liked the fact that you moved around continuously cause I feel like you mirror kind of like his homelessness on like a metaphorical level. But yeah, that’s just my opinion.

TOMMY - Totally agree, moving around metaphorically.

POPPY - I actually really like how it was just him, I feel like it would’ve been interesting to meet his friends but I think it would’ve been actually just a bit too much, and I actually liked how it was self-contained and it felt more natural, you know. It’s just, it’s him, it’s about his perspective on life, and so I feel like introducing another character would’ve just been a bit too much to deal with, so I like how you didn’t do that and how you just stuck with him and it was about him.

SANA - And if you did film another punk then what I would have wanted would have been a conversation between them so that he’s still very much the centre of the film.

TOMMY - Any other ones?

KUSHAL- I loved the journey of the cigarette, like I felt like that was a special journey within itself like, *laughing* No, I'm serious! Like yeah, he started rolling and then he was talking about him then he was more rolling it and then he was putting it in his, I think that was awesome.

TOMMY - I think that��s, him rolling the cigarette, talk about, you know, not having a redundancy between visual narration and audio narration. Just him rolling the cigarette tells us he’s disabled, or the walking stick, be careful about redundancy because there are things that I feel are, people enjoy intruding and understanding from what they’re watching without being spoon fed cause, that, generally the films we respect less are those Hollywood films, the ones that are giving us every piece of information, but it’s a minor comment.

SANA - Fantastic! Okay, thank you very much!

Main points gleaned from feedback:

Good that most of the screen time is on him, makes it personal

Good use of cutaways where he is still the protagonist of the frame

Good use of changes of locations to make the interviews feel more dynamic and avoid the shots becoming boring

Not having music all the time was a good decision

Good use of archive with no voiceover

Edit well planned and well edited together for the amount of content it was

Add ambient noise in sound gaps

We should have included more of his emotional background - speak about his family, his childhood…

In the edit, more pauses and observational moments where he is not speaking and we just see him doing things

The music at the beginning should have been bolder, focus on the music while it’s playing instead of it being background noise

Reflection:

A lot of the feedback was about the editing, which I was in charge of, and I am very happy with the things that were said. Many details were appreciated, such as how the location is changing constantly, and it was nice to hear that people liked it. I agree with the lecturers that we should have had more silent moments. I think that, since we had a limit of 5 minutes, but so much that we wanted to include in the documentary, it was a matter of trying to put in as many things as possible, but upon reflection, it would have been much more effective to cut down the interview and leave moments for observation. 

Moreover, although I am happy with how we managed to connect the many things he speaks about, I also agree that we should have had a clearer focus and that maybe we covered too many themes. About including more emotional aspects of his life and asking him about his family, this is never something we considered for the film, since we didn’t think it was relevant (what we were interested in was the punk and anarchist aspect of his life), however, it would be interesting to consider how we could have included that in the film and how that would have changed the narrative.

Action plan:

For future films, I will keep in mind that changing locations is a good way to avoid having to use irrelevant cutaways and to keep your subject on screen. I will also make sure that the focus of the film is very clear and that we stick to it in every part of the process, both the group members and the subject. In regards to the editing, I will consider having silence after impactful moments to let the audience digest what’s happened before moving on to something else. Lastly, especially after listening to the feedback for other groups compared to ours, I will keep in mind that music is not necessary throughout the film if the content is interesting enough, and that it’s better to use it wisely to create an effect than just putting it on the background from start to finish.

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Film Narrative 2: shoot photos

Here are some photos I took on film during the shoot that I finally got developed.

There is an accidental double exposure on two of them but that's just part of the fun (I guess)!

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Film Narrative 2: Critical Reflection

After all these months making our film, I can safely say that I am very happy with it. Working with my production group was a great experience that came along with both challenging and rewarding moments, and many, many lessons. I was writer and editor for ‘What’s for dinner?’, which I have written about in detail in other blog posts (writing: https://paulpfiction.tumblr.com/post/679811996411117568/film-narrative-2-writing-the-script / editing: https://paulpfiction.tumblr.com/post/682795220900954112/editing-the-film-film-narrative-2 )

During this trimester, we had a few tutorials that were very important for this film. The first one was a tutorial with Kate where she helped us shape our film and build our character. Before the tutorial, our main character was quite flat, and she encouraged us to develop his personality, and give him flaws and a motive. This is where we came up with the boss, who we used to show how David puts up with the bad things and doesn’t dare to stand up for himself. Moreover, Kate helped us set the tone for our film. The initial idea was to make our film mysterious and surreal, but when she heard the idea, she thought that the phone call had a humorous element to it, so we decided to follow that path and give our film a comedic feel to it. I think this worked really well. As the writer, this is the tutorial that I found the most helpful, but we also had other sessions with Demelza and Zoe where we discussed different aspects of our film. Demelza encouraged us to find symbolism for our film, and although it was good to consider that option, we decided not to go with it. We did however discuss how David's outburst reflects standing up against authority figures. In the tutorial with Zoe, we focused on the use of sound in our film, and how it could help our narrative. She suggested having some sort of sound coming from the hall when the door opens that happens at the beginning and the end of the film, which I thought was a great idea, but sadly we didn’t have enough footage to make it work. In general, I am very happy that we had these tutorials and could benefit from the thoughts of our lecturers.

When the film was playing at the crit, I was happy to hear people laughing during the moments that were meant to be funny. When we received our feedback, everyone agreed that we were successful in making our film humorous. We were also told that we set up the world of the film really well, which made the audience go with whatever happened in the film. I think this was partly achieved through our use of light and colour, which we were also told was good.

Regarding sound, the feedback was that it was used well to contribute to the world and the story, but that we could have used it better to help maintain the narrative clear. This is what Zoe was speaking about in the tutorial, and I regret not working a bit harder to incorporate her advice into the film. In fact, the clarity of the narrative seemed to be the main problem with our film. Multiple lectures commented on how they were not sure what happens when the film jumps back in time, whether this incident was a one-time thing or it happens every night, or even if he was imagining everything. I think since everyone in the group had a very clear idea of what happens in the film, we didn’t notice that some things were a bit confusing. Maybe we could have fixed it using better set design, sound clues, or rewriting the phone conversation that David has with his wife, to include more subtle information about the story.

Another issue was the visual continuity in some cuts. I knew that this was going to happen when I first looked through the footage, as I realised that it would be difficult to assemble the film because of changes between shots that didn’t work, or small moments that we hadn’t covered. I did the best I could with what I had, and I am quite proud of the edit, but I understand that some of the cuts create a bit of confusion because of the visual elements of the shots. I think we could have avoided this by watching the footage at the end of the shoot day, and, if we had noticed this problem earlier, scheduling a second shoot day to fix it.

About our group, I am very happy with how we worked together. Everyone was involved and enthusiastic about our film. We divided the roles very early on and everyone stuck with theirs while still contributing to the overall creative vision for the film. We also had good communication throughout the whole process. I can’t think of anything I would change about the way our group worked, and I would be very happy to work with all the members of my group again.

In future projects, I will keep in mind the things that didn’t work for this film to avoid repeating the same mistakes. I’ll make sure not to assume that everything in a film is clearly understandable just because I know what happens. Also, I will put much more thought into sound, as it was an aspect of film that I didn’t really consider before, but after this trimester, I have learned how important it is. This has also been proven by watching other groups’ films during the crit, since bad sound seemed to be a reoccurring problem and some films could have been much better with better sound. It has been a wonderful project and, although some things could have been improved, I am very happy with the result and with all of the knowledge that I have gained from making mistakes.

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WHAT'S FOR DINNER? - Film Narrative 2 second trimester fiction project

Group A2

Director: Krisztian Kajtar

Producer: Finlay Hearton

DoP: Michael Hood

Writer/Editor: Paula Sosa Martín

Sound: Hazel George

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Fiction project crit: Film Narrative 2

After months of working hard to create our films, today was finally the last step in the process: sharing them with people. Our film went first in the crit, which is always a bit scary, but I was very confident with it and then happy with the response we got. Our feedback was very helpful: some of the things that were mentioned I was already expecting, but in general it was very nice to hear everyone’s insight on our film, how they viewed it and how they thought it could be improved.

Also, it was very nice to watch all of the other films. I think that the quality of the films has improved considerably since the last trimester, which was very exciting to see, and I enjoyed the originality and creativity with which this project was approached by everyone. :)

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Documentary crit: Representing the real

Today was finally crit day!!

It was a very long day but everyone’s films were really worth watching. There were some that I particularly enjoyed, such as group 13’s film about the man in the little shop which was heartwarming and very well made, group 15’s that felt very personal and real, or group 4’s penguin film that was a very good laugh.

Watching what everyone has been working on for the past few months was very exciting, and it was clear that all the groups put a lot of work into their projects. Also, I feel like the response to our film was quite good and I am very happy with the feedback we received, especially about the editing, which I was in charge of, so I was very proud when good things were said. :)

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Editing our documentary - Representing the real

To be honest, the editing of this film was slightly chaotic. There was some confusion as to who was editing the film, which in the end wasn’t that terrible, since, as a result, everyone in the group ended up participating in the editing process. In our first session, we looked over all our footage and found the more relevant bits and what we wanted to include. During this session, we also made an outline to guide the editing and the order of things. Then, Krisztian went to Screen Academy and did all the syncing and transcoding, which I was grateful for when I went in to edit and found that all that tedious process was complete.

Krisztian and I had an editing session where we both worked together, and in a few hours we managed to get a rough cut of the first half of the film. After this, Krisztian had to go home and I continued editing on my own. I went in the day after (and the day after, and the day after) and finished everything up. I ended up changing many of the things we did on the first day, but I think we could’ve only known that that would be necessary after getting a bit further ahead on the edit.

For some reason, I find editing documentary much easier than fiction, but this film proved to be a challenge, though one of the good ones. We had a lot of footage and in our interviews we went over many different subjects, so some things had to be cut out, and these decisions were difficult ones to make. However, I managed to find a narrative line in our many topics which I think makes sense, and now it’s time to pass it on to Lewis to complete the sound design for our film to be finished.

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Documentary tutorial - Representing the real

Shortly after we finished shooting, we had a tutorial where Krisztian and I showed Leo our footage. As we went through it and explained what we had got and how we were planning to use it in the film, he gave us his advice on what he thought would be best for our film. He emphasised that we should make good use of our archive footage (we have some photos of the Marchmont Punks from the 80s), and to be careful with using too much of the interview coverage, as it can be boring to only listen to our character speaking. We will definitely keep his advice in mind when editing.