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.