Pergatory

So here is my third and final film for my independent practice. I think I've learnt more doing this shoot than during any other simply because more went wrong.

Firstly there was a problem with the audio so we had to do a little overdubbing. This was on the shot of the questioning girl because you can hear the rain in the background and the opening shot because my voice (monogamous man in hat) was too quiet. We knew the rain would be a problem when it started spitting down but we had to get things done so we always knew were going to have to overdub. Still, it's a pain in the backside to overdub: lip syncing difficulty wise was the lesser of the two evils compared to making the new overdubbed audio sit well within the rest of the rest of it. I added a little echo effect on the questioning girl but it still sounds a little weird if you listen for it. I also had to search for a section of a take with a long enough area without dialogue to double up as a wildtrack in both instances where the audio was faulty. It was all o.k in the end but this experience has still hammered home the importance of getting the audio right on set. If it does go wrong one would need a fair amount of time and someone who knows what they're doing audio wise to really make sure the overdubbed audio doesn't sound weird.

We hadn't scripted the opening scene with the two men so James (the writer) and I scribbled down quickly what I needed to say, James improved his remaining lines.

The second issue we had was with editing. This is an issue I only became accustomed to after I made this mistake. I didn't ensure that the actors were in exactly the same position between certain successive shots. This meant that once in editng there were some continuity errors and certain shots looked jarring when cut together. Next time I work on any kind of project where this type of visual continuity has to be maintained, ensuring that we don't have this problem will be my main concern as far as watching for mistakes goes. In fact for my final major project I think I'll try and ensure I have a script supervisor to watch for these kinds of mistakes.

Lastly there was a little problem with camera noise on the white abyss scenes. We didn't have any gain on the camera and we lit the set perfectly well but there was still a little noise on the raw footage. After chatting to a few people it became apparent that this noise was just something the camera had ended up doing naturally but for a reason we couldn't put our fingers on. In the near future I'm going to sit down with the camera and work out why it makes the image noisy as I certainly won't put up with it for my final major project. Still in the final edit I added a little film grain to work with the noise and so I think I've gotten away with it.

Below is the edit of the abyss scene with the above mistakes as well as the final edit.

Crewing for Dave

Dave, fellow classmate and regular crew member, felt I would be appropriate to play the character in his film involving a man discovering that his camera has teleportation powers. The first shoot involved going to the seaside which as you can see involved using a track and dolly. More than anything though, despite there being no dialogue, this involved a degree of acting. Being told to show a variety of emotions by another director has given me more experience in interpreting how actors should respond in various situations. The remaining locations were equally interesting; a waterfall, and a street with a car driving at me were both excellent places to test my acting skills.

2012 Crewing

I did a little crewing for another shoot the other night, working as an AD. I also doubled up as a general runner, I looked after the actors and fetched all that was desired. My main task though was keeping time and reminding the director of how much he had per shot and also performing clapperboard duty. Although my role wasn't a creative one, I certainly managed to observe all kinds of creative decisions: how another director works with the actors, how other D.Ps light sets. This now gives me a more defined sense of what to do and what not to do.

Round in Circles

I did some crewing for my classmate Matt, who has D.P'd/co-directed a number of my shoots. This was a nice introduction to using curved track, as well as the lighting that goes with it. We turned off the main lights and set up six 800w redhead lights around the track all equally spaced then I walked around the track at a set distance from it, marked out by the masking tape. This was ultimately a test for a music video that Matt's planning on shooting at some point in the near future

Pot o' Gold

So here's the finished article for the outdoor shoot. I'm very pleased with the result and I've certainly learnt a few things...

For starters I've learnt that you can't be relying on the weather. The sun kept on appearing and reappearing from behind the clouds multiple times thus making the shot go from spring to winter. Thankfully the sun stayed out for the majority of our shots, plus I was able to brighten things up in post. Of course with a little more money and equipment one could solve these issues with lights and more advanced reflectors and silks e.t.c. For now though I'll just have to bear the above hazards in mind and be prepared to shoot as much footage as possible and hope I can fix any errors in post.

The second problem I had (once again) was the failure to foresee editing issues. There were a handful of shots that simply didn't cut together well. In pre-visualization of course everything looked fine. I can't really see any solution to this problem other than continuous practice: storyboarding, shooting and then editing all different types of shots over and over again. Learning by making mistakes and seeing what works seems to be the only way to solve this problem becuase other than a few basic staging rules there doesn't seem to be a formula for knowing what shots will cut together properly.

The final problem I had was with sound. This was due to background noise that we couldn't control. Of course when shooting we didn't think those noises would be an issue. This results in a jarring shift in the audio when cutting between certain shots. A background sound effect helped pad things out but there is still a vaguely noticeable problem. In future I will need to ensure that my boom operator is pointing his mike bang in the right direction and that there is no background noise.

The Abyss Storyboard and Shotlist

Here is a storyboard for the Abyss film. It would only really consist of four shots. A wide of the three players entering the space and sitting down - which for when the furniture vanishes will later cut to the same shot but without the furniture - a close up of the man, and a pair of O.T.R shots between the two women. Above is also the shotlist with the different shots in order. I also ended up tweaking the script a bit and devising two scenarios. The first being one woman asks a question and the other rants at her to have the man pipe up. The other being being the man asks the question and the two women have a go at him.

The Abyss

Although the outdoor shoot involves dialogue I'd like a little more practice in shooting dialogue scenes. I'd also like to try directing somebody else's script.

I asked my friend James who has been in a few of my films already to write me a short sketch that would involve three players and that would be set on an infinite white background as that backdrop is easily available to u;. i.e we wouldn't have to build a set.

Man : I went to purgatory the other day. There was this woman, (Cut to purgatory, infinite whiteness punctuated by a table and three chairs, man and 1^st woman appear) wait there were two women there, yea, there were two women. (third character pops into the scene, the first two acknowledge her but don’t treat her appearance as anything out of the ordinary)

1^st woman: How come there is furniture in purgatory

tables and chairs pop out of existence

2^nd woman: you idiot, as soon as you call into question something in an infinite abyss it ceases to exist,

1st woman looks confused

2^nd woman: You've brought to light the absurdity of it's existence and it has retreated back into nothingness.

Man: how come we are still wearing clothes?

women look at him in disdain, small smile forms on his face

cut to black,

the end.

Other than as a matter of convenience I wanted to shoot a sketch on an infinite white background because there are certain sketches i'd like to emulate that utilize such a backdrop. The above sketches are the kind of examples I was thinking of when I decided I wanted to shoot a sketch set on an infinite white background. What I like about both of these sketches is that due to the non existent backdrop, there is a slightly unnatural focus on the foreground players - all there is is the foreground - which I feel makes them seem all that bit more ridiculous.

Rainbow Storyboard

Here is the storyboard for my outdoor shoot. Like I mentioned earlier it involves a guy spying a rainbow and running towards it. He runs through trees and flower beads only to find a mildly attractive girl at the end of the rainbow.

Rainbow Recce

I did a little recce of the park where I plan on filming. I took a few photos and have also printed out a map from Google satellite so I can show where they are on the map. Some numbers may appear to be left out. I've done this deliberatly as I later felt they were unecessary.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I had been planning on doing an outdoor daytime shoot for a while seeing as it's an area I don't know a lot about. By doing it I'll gain new experience in shooting in difficult varying light conditions. I'll also most probably need to use some reflectors and flagging and I haven't done all that much with either so that'll be some more useful experience. Finally the film will also consist of a short bit of dialogue at the end so I'll get a chance to practice editing dialogue and recording wildtracks.

My idea involves a man seeing a rainbow in the distance, running after it with the view to getting to the end and meeting the anticlimax of a sort of attractive girl who's totally up for getting with him, it is the end of a rainbow after all! He initially feels a little dissatisfied but then he realises that he's got nothing better to do and the film ends with him disrobing. For added comic effect and for ease of casting we'll have a guy in obvious drag playing the part of the girl. It's basically commenting on how guys can be perfectly happy with "anticlimactic romance" and that they usually aren't as fussed as women would like them to be about idealistic "end of the rainbow" lovemaking.

The below music video is actually a music video I crewed on. The scene towards the start of the video involving the soldiers walking away from the battle scene is the kind of thing I'm looking to emulate: a journey across what looks like quite a distance.

Lens Tests

I thought I'd familiarise myself with lenses more so I took some out and had a play. I took out a 10-22mm lens and had a look at what it looks like at 10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm, 20mm and 22mm and compared depths of field between 10mm, 17mm, and 22mm. I also took out a 180mm lens to compare how that looks against the 6 wide lenses. I didn't take anything in the middle (50mm) as that is too close to normal vision and I felt that for now, learning the difference between wide and long lenses would be sufficient.

Mime debrief

Here is the finished product for "Dawn of Mime". Overall I'm pleased with the result. Not only have I put my lighting and tracking skills into practice but I have made a piece of work that I would happily place in an exhibition. I have done some tweaking in post to brighten it up a little as well as adding a vignette.

There are some things that need to be worked on.

Firstly my previsualisation skills need to be worked on. My rudimentary storyboards were not as helpful as they should have been as when it came to shooting it turned out that I had miss-judged compositions as well as how easily some shots would be obtained. The biggest culprit was the opening tracking shot which couldn't be obtained from low enough, hence our having to divert from the storyboard. Also when it came to editing I found usable shots scarce. This was simply a case of not shooting a enough of a wide variety. When I was storyboarding everything felt fine of course and I spent at least an afternoon on it all. Knowing what I know now, it looks like I'll have to be more thorough in my consideration of angles and composition.

My second gripe, which is only really a minor one is to do with my lighting. I should have used less soft light and done more tests for this specific scene. This I think would have resulted in a more professional look. Of course this shoot was partly a test anyway and it's not like I could expect to get things perfect first time so that is why it is only a minor gripe. I have still learnt a lot and made a decent piece of work.

Now that I've just had my interim crit I have fresh information and ideas regarding my independent practice. I am in a position to look back on what I have learnt and take a view on what my next moves should be, i.e where the gaps need to be filled. So far I have acquired a basic knowledge of lighting and grip equipment. To compliment this I plan on making three more micro films, this includes completing my high speed idea. The two new films that I have in mind are an outdoor shoot and a scene set round a table with three players, i.e a typical dialogue scene.

I also plan on doing some lens tests. By this I simply mean comparing a variety of lenses so as to become familiar enough with them in order to be able to fluidly decide on the right lens for the job when working on set.

The Dawn of Mime

To piece together what I've learnt about lighting so far, I'm going to make a micro short. This one minute idea will combine the use of close-ups, hard and soft light, staging for three players and tracking skills.

After a little musing and tea drinking I came up with the following concept.

The proposed film - The Dawn of Mime - will be spoofing a scene from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It will involve three mimes inquisitively approaching a PS3 and then miming playing on it. The idea/joke is that it is the next stage in man's evolution; his ability to amuse himself without electricity. Below is a storyboard and lighting plan.

The first four images are of a setup that I quickly realised probably wouldn't work, due to the amount of space left for actors and the direction of the light so it basically starts all over again with the set of images on the second piece of paper. The first two images on this piece are actually part of one long tracking shot.

In the back of my mind I had this video as a guideline for a lighting style. As a music video I think it's absolutely awful; pretty boring and budget with no real eye-grabbing qualities. However its one positive feature is its clever lighting with what looks like just one keylight. This produces the very nice effect of strong chiaroscuro on the subject; they are well fashioned by light, showing clear tonal contrasts with smooth transitions from light to dark. This is probably why they chose this lighting technique for this video as they clearly had little budget so they thought they would use a simple and reliable technique to make a presentable piece of work in a flash.

Testing Big Things

Shot by shot by Steven D. Katz talks briefly about the crane and tracking shots.

Seeing as we rarely see the world from such angles the crane shot is the least naturalistic shot as it is capable of movement in many directions. This makes them inherently majestic and whatever the subject our attention is usually held. It is good as an establishing shot as it introduces us to the geography of the scene. On the other hand it can be used for very subjective shots too in that it can follow a walking subject closely. Seeing as it can move to pretty much any position, especially when placed on a track, it can be tempting for the director to make it slavishly follow the subject which is often unnecessary and can look clumsy. The crane can also come into use for when a director wants to achieve a quick succession of shots in different areas of the environment that would normally require multiple moves of a tripod.

The tracking shot is similar to the crane shot in that it can be used to follow a subject or explore space. Deciding on whether to use a tracking shot has a lot to do with the point of view of the scene and the appropriate emotional distance between the viewer and the subject.

Common tracking uses/principles:

• To introduce a subject or location: this works with both tracking into and out of a close up of the subject; an intimate view of a subject and it's environment can all be shown within one shot.
• To follow a moving subject, especially common when following a walking subject.
• Tracking towards or away from a subject to highlight the increasing or decreasing gravitas of the subject.
• Tracking around a subject: to draw attention away from the characters as individuals so that we will evaluate the situation as a whole.
• Combining an interior and exterior shot into one: this can work well when shooting through windows.
• The tracking camera intensifies our perception of space for any angle.
• When following subjects at fixed distances the angle of the shot doesn't change however if the camera approaches or retreats from the subject the angle of view may change.

When editing tracking shots remember:

• A tracking shot can be time consuming and the director can be put in a position of gambling the success of a scene on a single moving shot.
• A static shot can't be inserted easily into a tracking shot of the same action.
• Jump cuts appear less pronounced and jarring when made between tracking shots.
• Continuity is still dependent on the same types of compositional and editing strategies that promote smooth shot flow in a series of static shots.

I haven't really done any track and dolly work, let alone used a crane so a group of us (all with a similar amount of inexperience) decided to get some kit out and play around.

Here is an example of how the tracking shot is used to highlight the increasing gravitas of a scene. As you can see we did a fair few takes.

Here's a little playing around we did with the crane. We filmed a monologue. The idea is to slowly bring the viewer closer to the words and increase their attention to them. It later struck me that the words are a little rude so I had to get rid of them.

I think that the perfect example of how the tracking shot should be used is this one from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. A slow track pretty much by definition creates anticipation. That combined with the creepy music and the frantic sound of a typewriter (when does a typewriter not sound frantic?) creates one of the most iconiclly spooky shots in cinema. This sense of spook is added to by the pysical attributes of the scene; created by things like the beams in the ceiling and the slow revealing of either side of the other half of the room.

Big Batch of Tests

After spending so long reading and noting my book on lighting, I was eager to get on with actually trying out the techniques outlined. I got out a load of kit and had a play around. Below are the numbered lighting plans and their respective shots of fifteen different setups. I got two classmates to help me out.

I had at my disposal:

3 800w readheads.

1 kinoflow.

Sony XD cam and lens adapter with 50mm prime lens.

A large whiteboard to use as a reflector.

A projector screen to use as a reflector.

A tripod.

1. This was the first part of basic three point lighting; using just a keylight. This makes for a great deal of shadow on one side of the face especially seeing as I'm using hard light.

2. Now I added a fill on the other side of the face at a similar angle and distance, note the drop in shadow.

3. Now I've added a kicker (a backlight but to the side) to bring out some definition and to separate the subject from the background.

4. The following three are just like the first three but as close-ups.

5.

6.

7. The final one of this series uses just a backlight to provide a little glow on his hair and then I go on to lower it to directly behind his head so that it produces illumination from all around the back and sides.

8. This uses reflectors to create soft light that spreads wide. There is a key to the subject's left coming from a bounced readhead and a reflector on the right about a metre from the subject as well as fill coming from a bounced readhead on a large projector screen about five metres away on the other side.

9. This is exactly the same as before only now the whole setup is moved closer to the projector screen by about three meters, thus using the inverse square law to make the light to the subject's right more intense and thus provide more fill.

10. This is now much simpler, using only a readhead bounced off a reflector as a keylight.

11. This is the same as before but with bounced fill from a readhead off the projector screen about five metres away.

12. Next I started using the kino fluorescent light. Here it is about a meter from the subject's face at varying angles. As you can see this provides instant soft light that wraps around the subject.

13. Now we've added a practical on the other side, thus changing the key. However because the light isn't powerful enough, on camera a readhead about a meter away is needed to act as the real key. It is carefully placed to look as if the light is still coming from the practical. We also have some fill coming from the other side via a kino about a meter away.

14 + 15 . In these last two setups we've got a practical and a redhead providing the real key.

We later realised that it wasn't providing much light and actually made things look worse! The second setup adds a kino for some fill on the foreground.

High Speed Test

To test whether or not the toys would key out properly, as well as how they would look on camera, I did a little trial run with them and a couple of lights. Seeing as it was only a test we didn't bother to light the green-screen fully - it takes a lot of light to make things show up well on a high speed camera. This is why the toys are only properly visible in a small area, which is fine because that's the only area we were lighting properly anyway. It doesn't matter all that much as we can light it fully on the day and we now know that the toys will key out nicely when lit properly.

High Speed Idea

Because we're fortunate enough to have access to a high speed camera at our college, I thought it would be silly if I didn't try it out before I left. Seeing as the majority of subjects look cool when shot with the high speed camera, it's all too easy to just shoot any old thing for the sake of eye candy. I felt I should show a little more ability as a filmmaker and give this short film some kind of a story so here's the idea I had.

Boy drinking milkshake sees something out of the corner of his eye and turns and stares desiringly at subject.

Girl does likewise.

The two milkshakes drop simultaneously.

They kiss, whilst behind them kinder egg toys fly up and from beneath and fall back down.

O.k yes it still is eye candy but then that's what high speed filmmaking is all about. I had a large bag of kinder egg toys sitting in my room and so I thought they had to be used for something decent. If all goes well the toys should add a certain stylish comical campness to it all.

Staging For Three Players

Film Directing, Shot by Shot by Steven D. Katz goes on to discuss staging with three subjects.

With two subjects the only possible pattern is the "I" pattern. With an extra subject one can make the "A" and "L" patterns.

Here is an example of an A pattern. The two policemen being the two bottom corners of a letter A and the man they are questioning being the top. When the fourth player enters the scene the pattern changes. If the scene involved say one of the policemen alternating between talking with the man behind the counter and his fellow officer then the scene would be an L pattern.

Of course these patterns are rarely as clearly defined in most shots and as we can see below, what with the introduction of other players and the placement of the camera, there can be a fine line between A and L setups. So here are a few common stagings.

"L" pattern round the corner of a table

"L" pattern: two players in car, looking out towards one outside the car.

"A" pattern: two players facing one player on the other side of the table.

"A" pattern: three players, one on each side of a square table.

"A" pattern: one player is on a different level.