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Research - Unit 13

Films

I decided to look at some films that create tension really well in a scene and one of them is Hush (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbTzZqmlWA), It uses lots of pans and focus pulls, the camera is also mainly smooth shots which I think contrasts with the nervousness and panic of the characters. I also noticed that there are a lot of ambient, subtle sounds that you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless you were looking for them. These are things like low rumbles and groans which subconsciously makes the audience feel tense and nervous. In terms of the lighting, the majority of the film is set at night time with no lights on in the house as the power has been cut off. Therefore the lighting has a blueish tone to it, this is to emulate the colour of the moonlight that would be naturally given off. Our idea for unit 13 is set at night time so this will be something i will take into consideration. 

I really like this shot from hush because it utilises shadows and depth with the wooden cabinet against the door. The movement of the shot is a very slow pan that matches with a very low rumble as the audio. This creates tension and makes the audience believe that the antagonist is on the other side of the door. However, this is actually a false sense of belief as shown in the next shot.

The next shot is a pan, the first picture is the beginning of the pan which shows a shadow of a hand banging against the window. The second picture shows the end of the pan which reveals the window and the hand banging on it. Firstly, i really like how this shot slowly reveals the source of the banging noise because it leaves the audience waiting even though they know what it is. What i have found from researching how tension works in films is that impatience creates tension, so the slow pan to the window creates tension because it makes the audience wait for something they know is there. Although this is the case, its not as they expected because the hand is limp and then reveals that the antagonist is holding up a dead body and using its hand to bang the window.

Finally, this shot is a close up shot of the woman dropping a hammer. Its a really nice way of showing the shock of the woman without using the bog standard close up face shot. I would like to take inspiration from this shot and create a similar one in my film.

  Another film I watched that creates tension in a similar way to our film is Kidnap (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Ht8VRPRvU).

I also looked a the film Insidious because it is one of my favourite films. 

Scene from Insidious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XabzeW-EBrE

In this scene there is lots of tension building up and as the character is talking about an experience with the villain in the story, there is a very slow pan on both the character talking and the character listening. This helps to draw the audience in and gets them really focused on the scene. He also shoots down a long hallway with eerie lighting which further adds atmosphere. The shot that I would like to try to recreate is the shot in the eerie hallway that pans slowly through to a bedroom where the door opens and it reveals a dark figure in the corner. I think one of the most important parts of getting this shot right is the lighting and having a steadycam to make the shot really smooth.

Also,  Here is a link to a video of cinematographers talking about lighting and shadow. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOMCtHHN3o)

Test shoots

After completing the project proposal we started thinking about how we want it to look and what shots should be in the scenes. 

The test shoot i did was a quick fight scene which i filmed and i wanted to focus on the camera movement and following the action in the scene. I also focused on the composition in the scene as well and I tried to show depth of field as much as I could. A problem that I had to face was that in the post production I noticed that two of the shots were too similar and it should've been shot all from one angle.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzejCru3h8Y)

I really like this shot because the row of chairs gives a nice depth of field and when the character knocks one of them down it creates a disturbance in what was a calm environment. I set up the chairs to allow this type of shot to be possible and the shot wouldn't have looked nearly as good if it was just one chair. However.

The next shot is from the other side of the chairs but is more or less the same angle so the cut didn't look right, so for next time I would do the next action in the fight from the same shot.

Script Lining

This is what script lining looks like. At the top of each line has the type of shot (CU means close up, etc.) and who the shot is pointing at. It also has two numbers above each line, the first is shot number and the second number is the number of takes it is. So above the first line in this picture it is the 23rd shot and it is take 5. The straight lines show when the shot is being shown on screen and the zigzag lines show when the shot will not be shown on screen.

Inspirations

The autopsy of Jane Doe

One of my recent inspirations in terms of cinematography is the film 'The autopsy of Jane Doe' and it is a thriller/horror and builds up tension really well. 

These are some of my inspirations for cinematography in the film that I want to include in my film. The first shot is a dark hallway with a low angle and a slight Dutch tilt shot. The tilt creates a sense of uneasiness and being slightly closer to the floor also allows more of the scene to be in shot creating a better depth of field.

Another shot I liked was this stairway shot which has the top and sides of the banister in shot but out of focus and the two characters in focus walking between the banisters. In this film the two characters are the ones running away but I think this shot would work just as well when the characters are the ones chasing and the chased person is already up the stairs.

Finally the last shot is a close up and POV shot looking under a door and a foot steps into shot. This is quite a classic shot that I have seen in many thrillers and horror films but it works especially well in this film. The way they do it is that the shot shown here is longed out with cuts of the person looking under the door, then back to the POV shot, then to the other characters face in the room, then back to the person's face who's looking under the door, and finally back to the POV shot where the foot comes in. It takes around 8 seconds to show this entire shot. However, the audience know that there is someone outside the door for a whole minute before the foot is shown and the only sound is Foley.

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Problem solving

When filming we came across quite a few problems. For example, one of the blinds didn’t work so we had to cover them with something and we tried it with a blue sheet. When filming it looked alright but when we put it all in the edit, we looked at it from a different perspective and we realised it looked really distracting and amateur. We also noticed that we didn’t put much effort into the mise-en-scene and there was a lot of clutter in the shots that we didn’t think would be that distracting so that resulted in us having to re-shoot most of the footage we filmed on the first day.

Another problem we encountered in the first two days filming was that the lighting was very inconsistent, so there were some shots lighted nicely with a blue tone to it and others were really flat with no shadows and some were more of a red tone. As a group we have talked about it and have decided to keep all the shots a blue tone and use the light to create shadows and bring the eye of the audience to what is important, as opposed to lighting the entire room with the lights.

After seeing what we have done wrong we all agreed to re-shoot the first shot then put the camera on a tripod and film all the scenes again but all static shots on the tripod. We are going to do this because there is going to be a lot more movement as the intruders break in. So we want a nice contrast from static, calm shots to shaky, tense shots. It was lucky that we did re-shoot the part where the woman stabs one of the attackers because although it was good, on the re-shoot it looked even better.

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Here are some recce shots of the house we are filming at on the first day of the shoot.

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Production diary final project

Equipment we are planning to use:

Canon C100, tripod, 2 LED lights with lighting stands, shoulder mount, shotgun mic with boom pole and Marantz.

Day 1

On day one we filmed most of the shots with the baby in so that it was out of the way because babies are very unpredictable to film with. The opening scene was difficult to film in the way it was intended, we came across the problem that the baby was supposed to crawl on the floor but the baby has learnt to walk so that's all it does. So, we came up with the idea of filming the babies feet walking to the mother then she picks her up. I think the shot went alright but if we have time it would be nice to re-shoot. Other than that the filming on day 1 went pretty well, it was a little bit slower than expected but that's why we have started early so we have time to shoot on extra days. I shot with peaking on to make sure I had everything I wanted in crisp, clean focus.

Before we got to the location to film, we had to make some fake blood, so I looked up a recipe and it said to add a teaspoon of flour and red food colouring to a mixing bowl, then add a tablespoon of golden syrup. Then add two drops of blue food colouring and whisk until well blended. This recipe turned out very effective and looked pretty realistic.

Day 2

Day two went partly good and partly bad, there was a few arguments in terms of shots and that affected our time management so we couldn't film as much as we wanted. Also, some of the lighting wasn't realistic and it was inconsistent because half of it was lighted really well and the other half was lighted badly. One of our actors had to leave early so we were rushing to get all the shots with him done and because of the urgency, we didn't arrange the scene very well and this made everything untidy and not well composed. We tried to film the stabbing scene with fake blood and the shots looked good but with the composition all over the place it still needed to be re-shot.

Day 3

After discussing what went wrong on day two and what we needed to do today to make it better, we started to tidy up the scenes and get rid of anything distracting and not mess about at the start. So we started to re shoot the shots at the start and already they looked so much better. We also focused on the lighting a bit more and spent more time on getting it right, we got a nice shadow across the actress's face and we decided to keep the shadows travelling in the same direction. This gave the footage consistency and made it look clean and easier to edit. We had to re-shoot this part where the woman just stabbed an attacker and then she freaks out on the floor. It was a little frustrating that we couldn't use the shots we originally shot because she was sitting in a different place and it was better the first time. However, we managed with the second version cause it didn’t look bad. We decided to call it a day after we had filmed the part where the first attacker gets knocked unconscious. 

Day 4

On day four we needed to finish re-shooting the bad footage which was up to where the second attacker comes in and ends up getting stabbed. The shots looked so much better this time round because we cleaned the background, blacked out the natural light properly and wrote a shot list so we knew what to film. However, there is a part where the woman has a breakdown after stabbing the attacker and it looked better in the first shooting, we wanted to just use the first one but she was in a different place on the floor. We were able to manage with the second one because it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t as good. Apart from that all the other shots went really well and everything went to plan.

Day 5

This was the final day of filming and i think due to this, everyone in the team was a little stressed and there was a couple arguments. One was about where the woman should hide from the attacker, but because of the lack of time, we ended up sticking to the plan even if the other ideas were potentially better. In terms of filming, i personally think it went well and im happy with all the shots I did. I made the shots as cinematic as I could and tried to have a nice depth of field. I used a variety of shots, for example, there was a part where the attacker walks up the stairs which is an extreme close up, then it cuts to a mid shot of the woman, then back to the extreme close up, and finally back to the mid shot where it pans round into a long shot of the room. 

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This is my shot list so far, as the time goes on I will complete more of it.

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This is my timetable for when I am busy and when we figure out the dates for filming I will update it.

This is my updated calendar now that I have found out what days I will be filming and I've also put the dates I have done research and pre production planning.

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I really like this shot because the row of chairs gives a nice depth of field and when the character knocks one of them down it creates a disturbance in what was a calm environment. I set up the chairs to allow this type of shot to be possible and the shot wouldn't have looked nearly as good if it was just one chair. However, the next shot is from the other side of the chairs but is more or less the same angle so the cut didn't look right, so for next time I would do the next action in the fight from the same shot.

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This is the test shoot for a fight scene that I filmed for experimental research for the final major project.

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Unit 13 - Final Major Project

Calendar

I loaded up the calendar from moodle so I can note down the days I am not able to film. So far I am busy all Saturdays and Sundays because I have work. I will continue to update it as I find out when i’m unable to film.

Ideas

After looking at some of last years final projects in Matt’s lesson, I’ve noticed that the most successful ones were simple and they took maybe two or three scenes/locations and explored them thoroughly. They also didn’t need many actors which is helpful in the long run as there isn’t as many people who will bail out on filming. Originally my group and I came up with an idea that was based around a detective trying to catch a serial killer who is actually a childhood friend of the detective. The story was going to end with the detective finding out that the cereal killer has murdered his wife. After thinking about it we realized that this story might be too long and complex to fit in a 10 minute film. So we were brainstorming ideas and we came up with this idea where there is a baby and a woman which appears to be the mother, there house gets attacked by a group of people, she kills them all accept one woman left who is crying and she says "we just wanted our baby back". This makes the audience realize that the whole time the woman who appears to be the mother has actually taken the baby and the attackers are fighting for their baby back. In terms of cinematography, I want to really push myself with the shots I'm creating. I want to use some really smooth pan shots and shots that will make the audience feel uneasy like a Dutch tilt shot.

Project Proposal

We now have the story set in stone and we know how it is going to go, so I was able to fill in my project proposal.

Rationale:

During this course I have learned lots about every aspect of filmmaking. I didn’t have any knowledge of how to use premier pro before starting the course and now I have edited plenty of projects so I can do most basic and intermediate effects with confidence. I had quite a lot of experience in camera work before starting the course as I had my own camera and I filmed a lot in my free time. However, I didn’t know anything about bigger cameras that were used on proper film sets. I have learnt how to use tripods, glide rails, Steadicams, and I’ve learnt how to do camera movements like dolly zooms. I haven’t done much directing but I did give it a go and I found that I prefer working with the director as either a camera operator or editor. I have learnt a lot about Foley and sound as well, it’s not one of my specialties but I know a lot about how it works. Taking all of this into consideration, I have chosen my specialty to be camera work/cinematography. This is because it is what I find the most enjoyable and the most rewarding. If I was to choose one area to pursue as a career it would be camera operator.

Project concept:

The concept of my project is that a woman has a baby and is caring for it, the audience are lead to believe that this woman is the mother of the baby but then the house gets attacked by 3 men and it appears that they want to kidnap the baby, the woman with the baby manages to kill the men one by one and as she is about to leave she sees another woman that was waiting outside and she is crying when she then says “we just wanted our baby back”. This tells us that the woman who was thought to be the mother is actually the one who kidnapped the baby.

some of the inspirations of this idea were the films Hush, Kidnap and Panic room. All of these films are thrillers and have really good ways of building tension. Also, most of these films have a strong female lead and this is something that played a part in the whole story as it is all about the mother protecting their baby.

  We are going to film all of it in a fairly old house with wooden floors so it will allow for more opportunities to make good Foley and create tension with creaky floorboards, doors, etc. However, there will be one establishing shot that will show the house in the middle of nowhere with a big field outside at sunset to look very visually pleasing. This projects concept has been made so it doesn’t require many actors or locations so it will be more achievable for me and I will be able to spend more time on making the cinematography and editing the best it can possibly be. I will be filming on the C100’s as they have a really nice cinematic effect. There will be some tripod shots so I will need to use one of those.

Evaluation:

A lot of how I will evaluate my work will be on my tumblr blog and constantly updating it. I will ask other people in my class and my teachers how my research and storyline is, what is good about it and how I can make it better. This will mean that I can consistently update my work and make it the best it can possibly be. By using questionnaires and pie charts it will help me evaluate my work even further. 

Bibliography:

Hush. (2016). [film] Directed by M. Flanagan. United States: Blumhouse Productions.

Kidnap. (2017). [film] Directed by L. Prieto. United Stated: Di Bonaventura Pictures.

Research

I decided to look at some films that create tension really well in a scene and one of them is Hush (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbTzZqmlWA), It uses lots of pans and focus pulls, the camera is also mainly smooth shots which I think contrasts with the nervousness and panic of the characters. I also noticed that there are a lot of ambient, subtle sounds that you wouldn’t necessarily notice unless you were looking for them.

Here is a link to a video of cinematographers talking about lighting and shadow. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhOMCtHHN3o)

Test shoots

After completing the project proposal we started thinking about how we want it to look and what shots should be in the scenes. We filmed two test shoots, one was a choreographed fight which is going to be the same choreography in our film. The scene starts with the actor in the foreground of the shot and a blurred out figure in the background. The actor then turns around to see the figure and then gets tackled by somebody else from the side. We then improvised with the setting we had to get to the point where the main actor is on the floor being strangled by the intruder. Then the actor grabs something from the floor and smashes it into the intruders head. In the main film they will probably smash a toy into the intruders head.

The next test shoot i did was another quick fight scene which i filmed and i wanted to focus on the camera movement and following the action in the scene. I also focused on the composition in the scene as well and I tried to show depth of field as much as I could. A problem that I had to face was that in the post production I noticed that two of the shots were too similar and it should've been shot all from one angle.

Script lining

While marking my script for the sound effects, I discovered something that cinematographers use to mark scripts and its called script lining. It basically shows the cinematographer what shots are going to look like and where they are going to be. It can look very confusing as there are a lot of symbols and lines.

Inspirations

One of my recent inspirations in terms of cinematography is the film 'The autopsy of Jane Doe' and it is a thriller/horror and builds up tension really well. One thing in particular that I liked about the cinematography is that it often cuts back to the same shot or angle which makes the audience expect something different to happen like a jump scare for example. As the audience are anticipating it to happen, often times nothing different happens, this throws off the audience and they get filled with tension, then the jump scare happens and the audience aren't expecting it. Also the sound in these scenes is usually just Foley like footsteps. This adds even more tension to the scene.

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Year 2

Documentary research

On Vimeo I found a documentary called Roof Culture Asia. It is about a parkour and freerunning team from the UK who travelled to Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul for 6 weeks to try to push the limits of the sport and show the mental preparation of the dangerous stunts they perform.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/IKl2Yj3qqQs

The overall style of the documentary is a gritty, renegade sort of style with aggressive camera work and choppy edits. As I want to make a documentary similar to this, I will take inspiration from the style of it. However, I want my colour grading to be quite de-saturated and dark as it fits with the emotions of the documentary.

Another documentary by these people is one called 'parkour in the holy land'. It's about parkour and freerunning in Israel and Palestine and how it can help deal with the conflict between them. The edit and style of this documentary is the same as the other one and works very well for the topics they both cover.

The topic I want to cover in my documentary is why people do parkour and the different reasons people have for doing it.

1 minute documentary task: https://youtu.be/stB2I92T9hk

We were given a task to film and edit a 1 minute long documentary about one of the objects we were given. I chose to do it on a bench and the tough part for me was trying to tell a story without using dialogue. I based my idea on a person who walks up to a bench and starts jumping on it and doing flips. I made the transitions seemless and as if it was all connected. I also chose to leave to raw audio in as it added a sense of atmosphere, this was picked up on by the class when we showed our videos. They said I could've improved it by having music or properly recording foley which would have enhanced the atmosphere even further.

BECTU: https://www.bectu.org.uk/home

BECTU is a website for freelance jobs and if you join it, it shows you the pay rates of jobs in the film industry. If you show it to the company you're currently working for the will have to pay you the right amount of money.

I also signed up to Mandy.com and ShootingPeople.com which are websites where people say if they need a camera operator, editor, etc and you can apply for the jobs. Some are paid and some aren’t, but they’re all experience which is good.  

My role

The role I want to peruse further as a career is camera work and cinematography.

Camera Operators carry out the Director of Photography’s and Director’s instructions for shot composition and development. They are usually the first people to use the camera's eyepiece to assess how all the elements of performance, art direction, lighting, composition and camera movement come together to create the cinematic experience.

S.W.O.T analysis

Strengths - Some of my strengths in this role are that I have a DLSR camera so I can practice a lot and I have good knowledge of camera angles and movements. I also think I am pretty good with hand held camera work and focus pulls.

Weaknesses - My weaknesses are that I need to get used to filming on tripods and dolly shots because I mostly practice hand held and don't have much experience on the tripods.

Opportunities - On the creative skill set website it says a good starting point is basic stills photography which is good as I take a lot of pictures and find photography very fun. It helps to develop visual composition skills. Another thing I need to do that will help is getting to use the Canon C100 this year as it is a good cinematic camera and will be good experience.

In a lesson with Reg, we were given a task to make a film with a group of students in our class and I chose to be one of the two camera operators which was good experience for my role. I had to film on a tripod which is something I don't like, but after a while I got used to it. I think the experience really helped with getting to grips with the bigger camera.

This is my audience profile that I did for myself.

Today I made a short 1 minute video in class. We were supposed to film a suicide scene and we had specific props we could use. Also, one thing I found challenging was that we couldn't film handheld shots. This meant we had to set up each shot with the tripod differently. I think this went very well because we planned every shot properly and we were more organized so it may have been the most cinematic clip I've filmed.

Today I have looked at some potential songs to use in my documentary. I have chosen the genre of post-rock because it can fit in with cinematic b-roll and also action clips. Here are some songs I've found:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb6EXppv9wE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhhfk_1Pwhw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36AV7sLHjZw

Potential Locations - I want to film at spots around Colchester, Harwich, Chelmsford and Clacton. For example, Highwoods, Harwich beach, Clacton beach, Colchester skatepark and Colchester school of gymnastics.

On a freerunning channel I watch, they have recently made a documentary in a mockumentary style. It was edited very differently to the other documentaries I have research. There wasn't much action and it was very interview heavy. The music was subtle and not one of the main focuses. Here is the link to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Cg1v7jD-c

Production diary

On day one of filming I went to Highwoods with Katie to film some flips and B-roll. We shot clips that would be used as slow motion parts while people are being interviewed and we also shot some B-roll of trees and close ups of the leaves and stuff. One shot in particular that worked well was one Katie filmed, it was a shot of a seesaw but she was sitting back on it and sat forward while standing up to give a smooth panning effect. When I saw it I had the idea of tracking a title to it so the title will stay in one place on the screen and it would work really well for an opening shot. 

I went out with my mate Aidan who does freerunning too and we decided to film some runs and action clips for the documentary. I did this run and we made it quite vloggy and I was explaining how it was hard because there was sand making it slippery. We then filmed a few attempts and he was filming me between attempts and you could see a bit more of what I was feeling when doing it.

We went to film at Colchester school of gymnastics and I filmed some of my friends doing freerunning in the gym and then me and Katie set up the cameras on a tripod in the gym next door and recorded two interviews. They went pretty well but as there was still a few people in the gym the noise quality could have been better. Although it still wasn't terrible and now I can take this into consideration when filming my next interview. 

Next we went up to Chelmsford to film at an open gym session held by the freerunning team, ‘Team Kinetix’. We got a few clips which looked good, however they were a little dark so it was hard to colour grade them in editing. This was because the lighting in the gym wasn’t the greatest, this was also a problem when filming in the first gym. We could combat this by pushing the exposure up on the clips that were dark in post-production.

By this point we have played around with the edit a bit and it looks really good. I like how the movement flows with the music and the interviews work well. However I noticed that the footage from the first gym we went to had a flicker on it, the same thing happens when you film a television screen. So I looked up ways to get rid of the flicker and the best one that was free was to add another layer of the same video on top but move it one frame back. This resulted in a slightly slower shutter speed but it did get rid of most of the flicker and it was very helpful. 

We finally recorded mine and Aidan’s interview and we had more time so in terms of what we were saying it was a lot better. Also the sound quality was improved from last time so we learned from our mistakes. However, I had the idea to film me talking with some of my videos playing on a computer screen in the background, but the computer behind us wasn’t working and we were unable to shoot it at any other places. So we had to just accept that it wouldn’t be on the screen as editing it in wouldn’t look good.

When editing I experimented with various effects and one of the clips at the start was quite long and it seemed like it needed something a little more visually pleasing. So I put an effect called lightening on the clip and used keyframes to keep it at my feet when I landed the flip. It was good but I thought it could look better, so I played around with the colour of the lightening and it turned out to be a mainly green colour with some red in it. I think this worked really well with the edit and music and everything.

Finally we got to the end of the documentary and I knew I wanted to use this part of my interview where I'm talking about why I made the documentary. So I put that in with this really ambient music and it worked really well. We had to cut the song and merge part of it together because its a slow song. My idea was to have a little outro with slow motion flips but we decided as a group that ending it with the interview was better.

Evaluation

My specific role was director, but I also did a bit of camera work and editing. This was my first time being a director for a big project so it was quite hard to keep everyone organised and it was also hard to portray what I had in my head to my group, but I think it went pretty well.

To look for inspiration, I researched different parkour and freerunning documentaries to compare them and see for myself what I thought worked well and what didn’t. I found that most parkour documentaries had fast paced action and choppy edits, they also had music that flowed with the movement which was something I wanted to include in mine. When I asked people whether they knew what parkour and freerunning was and I found out that it was mainly teenagers and young adults who would watch my documentary. I also looked at documentaries for other extreme sports as well to get a bigger range of ideas for my documentary. I looked at skateboarding and BMXing. These documentaries were all similar but with different vibes. I also noticed there was a lot of slow motion in on of them. I think that is something that would have made my documentary a little better and I definitely would add some of that in next time.

When we went out to film, it went really well and the shots looked just as I’d wanted to. Although, it wasn’t the best lighting in the gym but due to the weather, we had no choice so if I were going to make this documentary again I would make sure the weather was good before filming. The planning was something that could have been improved, as I’m used to spontaneously filming footage to make a freerunning video. Having said this though, the shots came out really well and we were able to fix the poor lighting in post-production by grading it and increasing the exposure.  

I found it quite difficult to direct at first because I didn’t have the entire documentary set out in my head, I only had bits and pieces of it in my mind and I’ve never tried to explain that to someone before. Also, the editor of my documentary wasn’t a parkour athlete and didn’t watch parkour videos so it was hard at first to get the right rhythm of the edit. However, as the time went on and we played around a bit, it became easier and worked really well. The grading looked quite cold and it gave a nice chilled out feel to the documentary. The effects were subtle, but just enough to be visually pleasing while still seeing what was going on in the shot. Also, the choice of music made everything flow just like I wanted when researching other documentaries. Something I would like to improve on is maintaining a high standard throughout the whole documentary in terms of the interviews. This is because at the start they didn’t flow as nicely as the last couple and this is because the more we edited, the better we got at it. If I could have kept up the quality of the last interview through the whole thing, it would have been better. I think one of the main reasons it looked and sounded better at the end was because we had as long as we wanted to do the interview whereas for the first few interviews we only had about 15 minutes.

To conclude, I think the documentary was very successful but still has lots of room for improvement. We started running out of time when trying to finish the edit so we couldn’t experiment as much as I’d liked, but the experimenting we did do was always successful. In terms of audience, I think it does appeal to the target audience and many of my friends that fall in the targeted age have watched it and enjoy it very much. Next time I am going to put more effort into the planning and preparation of the documentary as it wasn’t one of the strong points. Finally I would also like to film the interviews in a better location as there was a bit of noise in the background.

Unit 12: Specialist role.

My role that I have chosen is cinematographer/camera operator. for this unit I will do research of films that I like and find out about the camera operator and try to recreate the scene. So what is cinematography? Cinematography, also known as Direction of Photography, is the art of motion picture photography. A cinematographer is responsible for all the visual elements of a film, including lighting, composition, etc. Cinematographers are the closest collaborators with the director as they have a big impact on how the film will turn out. Everything from the depth of field to the type of lens used is up to the cinematographer.

I really like horror films and I've decided to look at the film Insidious that's directed by James Wan. The cinematographer of it is John R. Leonetti and he has also worked on the films Insidious chapter 2, The Conjuring, and Annabelle. From looking at these films you can tell that John is an amazing cinematographer who is great at creating atmosphere and tension in his shots.

Scene from Insidious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XabzeW-EBrE

In this scene there is lots of tension building up and as the character is talking about an experience with the villain in the story, there is a very slow pan on both the character talking and the character listening. This helps to draw the audience in and gets them really focused on the scene. He also shoots down a long hallway with eerie lighting which further adds atmosphere. The shot that I would like to try to recreate is the shot in the eerie hallway that pans slowly through to a bedroom where the door opens and it reveals a dark figure in the corner. I think one of the most important parts of getting this shot right is the lighting and having a steadycam to make the shot really smooth. 

I have done some research on different steadycams and gimbals to see what would be the best option for my shot and I think gimbals are the best option, however I wouldn't be able to use that as I don't think there is any available at college. So I think a normal steadycam with a dslr camera would work as it is lighter than the C100's so it will be easier to keep smooth. Also if it turns out a little bit shaky I can use warp stabilizer on premier pro as a backup.

Another cinematographer that I have found out about in my research is Bill Pope. He was the cinematographer behind The Matrix along with many other films like Spiderman 2. I really like the dynamic movements he uses with the camera, especially in the matrix. He work closely with director Edgar Wright and he was the cinematographer for Baby Driver.

Here is a link to a YouTube video where Bill is talking about how he shot Baby Driver:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BliAwD9odYo

He talks about listening to the soundtrack before filming and that Edgar Wright likes to cut to the beat a lot in his films which is something I really like about Bills cinematography. He also mentions that he often shoots in film because it keeps everyone on edge and it keeps everyone on their toes because you only have a certain time before the film runs out and it stops you from shooting pointless footage.

I think my style of cinematography is similar to Bills as I like to move the camera a lot to match the subject. Having said this it would be fun to try to recreate the scene from Edgar Wrights film 'Shaun of the Dead' where the protagonist is getting ready for work in the bathroom. The scene consists of fast choppy edits and quick camera pans.

Here is a YouTube clip with the scene in but it starts at 42 seconds in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTU2GDbnqa0 

You can see that the footage is cut very quickly and there is a lot of shots in a small amount of time and the sound is quite intense, the visuals combined with the sound gives the vibe of an intense montage.

I decided that I needed to do a bit more research on composition so I found this YouTube video which was very helpful and got me thinking about framing and camera movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvLQJReDhic

It talks about different ways to draw the audience in, for example, using a frame within the frame or by using leading lines. So in a scene, on of the key things is showing the audience which character has the most control and how much control they have. There are two different kinds of control, artificial control and primal control. Artificial control is done by using the aesthetics to show where we should be looking. Primal control shows what subject holds more weight in the narrative at that moment in time.

I did some contextual research on Edgar Wright's style and I found this video called 'How to do visual comedy' by a channel called 'Every frame a painting'. It talks about how lots of comedy films nowadays rely on just dialogue to tell the joke. However, Edgar Wright uses lots of camera movement to tell his jokes, along with how creative he chooses to make something leave or enter the frame.

Here is the link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FOzD4Sfgag

Scene re-creations: https://youtu.be/yZozS6tpvAA

Evaluation for scene re-creation 1

The first scene I wanted to re-create was from the film 'Insidious' and it was shot by John R. Leonetti. Its a shot where the camera slowly pans down a hallway and goes into a bedroom. I think my shot was ok but I didn't have any steady cams or equipment to help me keep the shot nice and smooth. However, I think I did well to improvise with what I had. I used the strap on the camera around my neck to push the camera out and give it a little bit more stability. I used my hallway at home and opened the doors to let light bleed through the hallway. Compared to the original, the style of movement is the same but the lighting is different and it is more steady in the original. However I still think I managed to create the same atmosphere and build tension in the same way.

Evaluation for scene re-creation 2

I filmed a small scene that was supposed to resemble an Edgar Wright style scene and I think it went really well. Originally I was worried about creating this style of scene because its a lot of the editing and sound that give it the Edgar Wright style. I made a scene where somebody was loading a gun but in the style of Edgar Wright and I used the technique of pushing in with the camera quite fast, while zooming in until the object is in focus. Then I just followed that same principle but followed the movement in the scene with the camera. It definitely made the scene look more dramatic and it is something I would like to incorporate into my camerawork. Although I will need to practice it a bit more because on the last shot, I couldn’t get the end of the gun in focus no matter how many tries it took, so next time I will improve on that.

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Evaluation for Phase 2

Our production was a follow up of our previous web drama called Phase 1, and I think it went really successfully. However we encountered a lot of problems while filming and editing. For example, half way through filming I fractured my ankle outside of college and was unable to act for a week. This meant we had to get another actor with a similar build as me and they had to wear my clothes and put a bandana over their face, and when I could act we got a shot of me putting the bandana on which would go before the scene. So I think we problem solved things really well and worked great as a team. In terms of production I was the editor and I think I did a good job at telling the story and creating the right atmosphere through colour grading, pacing, etc. When we presented the film to our class the things they said to improve on were the audio as it was quite quiet in some places and really loud in others. They also said for editing I could have stabilized some of the shaky clips and I could have colour graded it more evenly throughout so it didn't change so drastically from inside to outside. 

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Here is some pictures of us on set when we were filming our short tv Drama called 'The Wanderer'.

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Final project production diary

My main production for the final project is called Phase 2 and it’s a continuation of Phase 1 which we made for the short tv drama, I was the main character in it so for this one I am acting and then editing like last time. Due to our accessibility of locations we didn’t film in chronological order, we filmed the scene where I went out on a mission and was tackled by a character called Damon, this was filmed in Wrabness woods. The character Damon tells me he has been getting his memories back like my character has. So we recorded a small action scene and dialogue scene, along with some b-roll footage. The scenes went well but it was hard to film loads because it was raining, however that did add to the atmosphere of it. Another problem was that we forgot the script so we had to remember as much as we could and improvise the rest. Even though this happened I think it went really well. We’ve also had the problem that the person we spoke to about using the Colchester Football stadium for filming wouldn’t reply so we had to call up someone at Firstsite in Colchester and we will be filming some in there. 

Today we filmed the first scenes that show the secret government facility and what there plans are. All in all it went really well because the actors came and were really good considering they weren’t proper actors. We filmed a fight scene today where three characters were training and the scene turned out very successful. It looked really nice because the camera angles were pieced together with the fight in consideration. There was one shot that was really nice where it panned around one character and went into his back and then another shot that started where it came from the other characters back and panned around the same way. The camera appears to make a full circle and breaks the 180 degree rule without looking weird, so I’m really happy with that. I’m also really happy with how the edit is looking so far. I managed to put the first half of it in chronological order and is now starting to be pieced together. I was playing around with different effects for this part where there are scientists preparing a substance to be injected into the main character. I used an overlay and used key frames to change the scale and movement of the video, then I added an effect called turbulent displace which makes the video go distorted and it gives the impression that the substance is dangerous. I then found an effect called magnify which takes a small part of the video and magnifies it. I made the magnified bit a circle shape and moved it to the bottom of the syringe and as the liquid was sucked up by the syringe I used keyframes to make the magnified bit look like the liquid was pulsing and morphing inside the syringe. 

Today we filmed the first scene of the whole drama which was a very important part because we could now edit with the beginning in which is a lot easier. This was filmed at a house and it consisted of a POV which is from the view of a child and the mother walks in saying happy birthday and then gets shot by people breaking in and trying to capture the child. As it was all in one shot it took quite a few takes, because we had to get the timing of how long until the mother walks in and how long until she gets shot. Also we ended the shot with the flashlight of one of the shooters shining into the child's face so it faded to white in the edit as the title of the film comes up. I also tried an effect with the camera where the shutter speed was really low so it makes the motion in the shot blurry. I thought this might portray to the audience that the boy is confused or as another POV shot but from the mothers perspective on the floor. This would give the effect that she's dying and her life I fading away. We also filmed the next scene in the film and this scene was also important because the main character wakes up and writes in his diary as there is a voice over of what he is writing. I thought this was a very good way of explaining what the story is about to the audience without taking away from the atmosphere of the film. This scene is mostly close ups but I was able to make some good seamless cuts as he wakes up.

We were supposed to be filming one of the end scenes today but unfortunately over the weekend I fractured my ankle so I was unable to act and I was the main character. So we had to improvise and dressed another actor up who has a similar build to me in my clothes and put a bandana round his face. We will then film a shot of me putting the bandana on which will be put in before the scene. The footage looked less convincing to us as we knew it wasn't me, but I think to other people it looks real. When editing this scene it flowed really nicely and the cuts were easy. Although there was one section which looked good on its own with only a few clips together but with the whole thing it didn't flow and it was really hard to look good as I had to edit an arrow in with after effects because the shot had a character shooting an arrow at someone. On top of that the shot was shaky so it was harder to motion track in after effects. We made the decision as a group to scrap the scene and take it out because it wasn't important to the story and we needed to focus on getting it done. Other than that the edit is going well.   

On our second last filming day we filmed the very end scene where the main character is about to beat the villain but gets shot by someone he thought was his ally. We also filmed a small mission scene and both of these went smoothly. However, when editing the small mission scene together the clips were a bit too short in some places so I tried to have dramatic black pauses but it didn’t work so I ended up cutting it completely out. Also on the last scene some shots were out of focus but it was fixed in the edit by colour grading and cutting it to the bits that were in focus. I came across another problem when editing which was that when I walk through the door I was supposed to shoot a scientist who had an ally captured and then she runs away. However we forgot to film the initial shot of the scientist so it looks like I was shooting at nothing. We can fix this though by putting a sound of a body falling down so the audience know.

On the last filming day we had to shoot the scene where all the rebellious characters were coming up with a plan and we had to film the emotional scene. The first scene wasn't the best quality because there was dialogue and we had to use a cheap Rode mic. Although with the help of the soundtrack it doesn't sound as bad. It was really hard to act with a fractured ankle but I think it worked really well and was convincing in the edit. I really liked the shots we filmed in the house for the emotional scene because they were very cinematic and atmospheric. There was one shot in particular that I imagined in my head and I was standing at the top of the stairs and the window was in the center of the frame and I walked up the stairs and in front of the window so it was my silhouette. I really liked this shot as it fit in well with the emotions in the scene.

The last thing left to do was edit the whole thing together and it all flowed well but when we added the soundtrack it really tied it together and looked really good. However there was one thing I did which I think was one of the most important things in understanding the story. It was on the emotional scene and I put some b-roll footage of a drawing of the family of the main character and I also put the audio of the father saying his name and this makes the audience make a connection with the picture and the father's voice and they find out he just shot his dad and it really brings the story together.

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Final project research

My role in our production is the editor and the software that will be used is premier pro. As the production is set in a post-apocalyptic time, I want to make the colour grading give the effect of a world that’s been left and unkempt, the outside would be colour graded to look barren and like a wasteland. The inside scenes are in a secret government facility so it will be colour graded differently so it will look more cared for. For the outside I will concentrate on the red tones and inside will be more blue tones.

Aside from colour grading, I will make all the action scenes fast and choppy and when the scenes are slow paced I will make it dramatic and slow, but still interesting by using establishing shots and focus pulls at the right time.

In terms of the setting I want to create, the game ‘The Last Of Us’ and the film ‘I am Legend’ are inspirations for the locations and atmosphere. Michael. J. Bassett, the director of the film ‘Silent Hill: Revelations’ along with many other directors of horror films have inspired me and helped me with the style of film.

Also, for the inside settings with the government, the film iRobot has inspired me in the editing and how the setting is slightly futuristic. As I want to make the action scenes fast and choppy, the film Kingsman has a very similar style of editing the fight scenes as how I want to.These are all inspirations for the editing style I want to create for our film.

As I am acting and doing stunts, I researched the film mad max because they’re stunts are real and it was interesting to learn about. Here is the video I watched:

While I was editing I found that it was quite hard to portray a flashback and make it look good so I was doing some research about how to create a good flashback. I found that putting a small dip to white at the start and end of the flashback helps distinct the change from present day to flashback, along with a change in colour grading, which I made more blue, it gave the effect of taking place in a different time.

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Carl's cinematography task

"What is the ‘composition’ of a shot and why is it important?- It is the things that make up a shot, it includes things like the camera angle, the mise en scene, and everything in the frame. What is the Rule of Thirds?- It is a 3x3 grid and the rule is that the focus of the shot shouldn't be directly in the centre, it should instead be to one of the sides. " "What is a symmetrical shot? A shot that is equally balanced in the frame. What is colour temperature? Measured in degrees kelvin, the two colour lightings are outdoor lighting and tungsten light. Why is it important when using cameras in different locations? To get the highest quality shot possible. "" What is the white balance and why do you need to do it in each new location? It tells the camera what you want to be white and evens the whole shot out and each location is different so that's why you need to set the white balance every time. What is manual focus? When you focus the camera yourself instead of doing it automatically. Using the Panasonic cameras set up a step by step illustrated guide to using manual focus. What is depth of field? Why is it important? Give an example. What is a focal point? Why is it important? Give an example. " " What is ‘Mise en scene’? Give an example. It translates to 'what's in the scene' and an example is maybe a fire extinguisher, a light, a table and the actor. What is ‘Three Point Lighting’? Where you have three lights pointing at an object, these are a key light which is to the side, a fill light at the front and a backlight at the back. What is the ‘180 degree rule’? It is a cinematography guideline that states that two characters in a scene should maintain the same left/right relationship to one another. "

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Final project proposal

Name: "George Hanton " Project Title: " Phase 2 " Section 1: Rationale; what have you learnt this year that will help you with this project? Summarise the skills you have acquired and how you could use them here? (Approx. 100 words) "This year I have learnt a lot about how the production of a film works, and what it actually takes to make one. More specifically, my skills in editing has improved as I have more knowledge of premier pro and after effects. In the final project I could use these new skills to make the edit look clean and make the colour grading nice. As I'm the editor for this project, the after effects skills will be very useful but I also learnt a lot about cameras and filming on different ones. I also learnt about white balancing and that helps in the filming side of the production. In the second production I am Director and all the pre production and planning that I've done over the year will help with this role as I need to make sure my team knows what the story is. Also when you are making a high quality production, it's important to get the planning sorted and storyboards should be completed. " Section 2: Project Concept? (approx. 200 words) "Set in an apocalyptic time, the world has been overtaken by zombies. However, a secret government facility has been the ones behind the apocalypse, and now they're killing the survivors if they find out they're behind it. They're goal is to see how the human race copes in an apocalypse. For inspiration, I looked at the editor Mark Day, who edited the Harry Potter movies, and editor Eddie Hamilton who edited the movie Kingsman. The style of editing is very after affects heavy in Mark Day's case, it has lots of surreal effects and fancy portals. Eddie Hamilton in the movie Kingsman, edits the film very choppy, and he enhances the significant characters in the action. For the second production, the psychological thriller follows a man who is in an accident that kills his family and leaves him in a coma. During this time he is stuck in limbo, the place between living and the afterlife. He fights his inner demons and meets a character that shows him the way out. However, when he wakes up from his coma he finds out that the other character was the one who caused the accident. Inspiration for this idea was from the video game, Limbo, which is a puzzle game and the character is stuck in limbo. I also took inspiration from the movie Silent Hill, which is a psychological horror. Also aspects of the film Inception were taken into consideration when thinking of the idea. Mainly the part where they have to go back into the dream. " Section 3: How will you evaluate? What methods will you use? (approx. 50 words) "I will evaluate both of the productions by regularly updating my tumblr blog with research and how the production goes as it's happening. I will make a production diary to show this. It will also include pictures of behind the scenes and recce shots. " Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format) "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010) [film] David Yates. USA: Warner Bros. Kingsman (2014) [film] Matthew Vaughn. USA: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Avatar (2009) [film] James Cameron. USA: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Silent hill: Revelations (2009) [film] Michael J. Bassett. USA: TriStar Pictures Playdead 2010 [game] limbo "

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These are some recce shots of the Beacon Hill Fort where the second film will be shot and some scenes in the main film will be shot here.