Evaluation - Rush

At the start of this project, I wanted to make a film which I would enjoy making. As my collaborative project was very large and required a lot of work in pre production, I needed this project to be something that I could do in my spare time. With this in mind, I decided to do an experimental non-fiction piece.

I struggled to come up with an idea in which I liked at the beginning of this semester. I had watched a lot of short films of the experimental genre and had generated lots of idea, but unfortunately, I did not wish to pursue any of these ideas and put my full commitment towards them. Eventually, I decided to pick the idea which I felt I would learn the most from and would challenge me the most.

The initial idea was based around the idea of viewing humans from a different perspective. I generally like to film outside, in nature and tend to stay away from cities and people in my films. This was a completely new area of filming for me. My cinematography style is usually based around colours and conventional city scape cinematography tends to be very dark, de-saturated and gritty. I knew from the beginning of this project, I would have to make the film my own and approach city cinematography from a different angle.

During my research for my film ‘Nocturne’, I had come across “miniature” time lapses. These were created using a tilt/shift lens shooting high angles in a city to give the illusion of the city looking miniature. I wanted to use this technique to show humans as “the masses”. This section of my film would be very impersonal and would exhibit humans almost as if they were ants. With this meaning in mind, I was able to develop my film further to become more than just a film with a quirky gimmick.

The miniature effect turned out to be a lot harder to achieve than I thought. I did not have a tilt/shift lens so decided to do the effect in post. After my first few tests, I knew that for the effect to work, I would have to restrict my cinematography a lot. For the effect to work, I could not have anything large in the foreground, I had to shoot at around a 45 degree angle, the objects in the image had to be roughly the same height, I had to shoot everything sharp with no depth of field, I had to be very high up and finally, as this was a time lapse, I had to be able to mount the camera in a steady position and shield it from the wind.

Shooting the miniature effect was, without a doubt, the hardest thing I have ever had to film. I shot the film as if I was a tourist. I made use of public land marks such as The Monument in London and tall car parks. This was due to the fact that to shoot high up in major cities, you have to pay a lot of money.

As my cinematography was very limited, I had to create a new style. I based all of my shots around the theme of lines. I would look at the lines, shapes and patterns buildings made and try and create a pattern if I was able to. A lot of the time I was unable to achieve this due to the limited areas I could place my camera. I also would look for colours (which proved very difficult to find in London on rainy days!).

To contrast the miniature section of my film, I decided to film peoples faces. I had wanted to do this for a while and now was the perfect opportunity. The videos I had watched which filmed people’s faces really opened my eyes. I really discovered that there is beauty in everyone if you just take the time to look and that this translates really well through this filming technique. This would prove to be the perfect contrast to my impersonal miniature section of the film.

Once I had established that I wanted this contrast, I knew transitioning would become a problem. I had shot a lot of footage at this point and had enough time to look through it all. Going back to my style of cinematography of using colours, I decided to match colours in my edit to make the transition between the contrasting styles.

Music was something which I felt let my last experimental film down. I wished to improve upon this for Rush so went in search for musicians on the internet. I knew I wanted music of the post-rock genre and I knew it had to have lots of good breaks in the song to match the contrasts in my visuals. I spent three full days listening to music and writing down the bands I liked. At the very end of the third day I finally found the perfect song for what I had imagined; miaou - scene of the sunrise. I emailed them at that moment and got their permission within a week.

I decided half way through the project to shoot at a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. This was to make my shots look more cinematic and really make Rush look more filmic. I want the audience to experience the film like they would in films such as Baracka and Koyannisqatsi so I felt this aspect ratio would aid that natural cinematic look. I was also able to re-frame some of my shots up or down slightly and do small pans during the time lapses, which also helped for the cinematic feel.

As I didn’t want the film look conventionally “gritty” and city-like, I graded the film which the saturation and contrast up. This created a more colourful version of the city and the people and suited my cinematography style a lot more.

During the shooting, I was very close to changing my idea and quitting the project. I had done four full days of shooting and was very disheartened by my results. I really pushed myself not to give up and keep working at the project to make it work. Now, I feel very happy with the result and am glad I stuck with the project. I have learnt that I have the determination to make a film work even when I feel the film is never gonna work. This was a big lesson for me to learn and I learnt it from probably the most challenging shoot I have ever done.

Evaluation - At First Sight

The project began with just Anderson and I. We had come up with a few ideas but had not finalised anything by this point. Tim then joined our group and we continued in the ideas generation stage with me being the director, Tim being the producer and Anderson being the director of photography. We spent a lot of time going through a lot of ideas and it was at this point I knew that the group I was now working in was made up of very different film makers. I had to learn quickly to adjust to both person’s ideas and individual style. This was a difficult thing to achieve and it was something that took a lot of time.

As the director, I took it upon myself to be involved in as much of the project as possible. I made sure I wrote the scripts and did the storyboards so that I would have the best possible understanding of the film.

I had wanted to improve my script writing and story development for this project. I knew Tim was very good at this and I knew that I needed to get as much feedback as possible. I ended up writing 7 drafts of the script all of which had significant changes. I also gained a lot of feedback and I feel that the final draft of the script was very complete and a massive improvement on my previous dramas. During this stage of production, I learnt a lot about story structure and story development techniques.

Progress went very well during pre-production. We were ready for our first and most challenging shoot in which we had to create the illusion of an endlessly white room. Here I learnt the importance of vigorous testing. We were able to achieve this very difficult look due to the massive amount of testing and research we had done leading to this point.

After we had done this shoot, the group began to split and start working on our own projects and the design futures module. This began to snowball and sure enough we began to run out of time. Managing all 3 projects was becoming very difficult for myself and the group as we all had differing priorities. This caused a slump in our work rate for the film for a few weeks and our final shoot days were pushed back.

With our final shoot days pushed back, it turned out that our male actor would be unable to make any shoot dates before the deadline week. This meant we had to find a way to shoot around him. This really pushed my skills as a director as we had made a very complex story and it was up to me to work out a way to shoot the rest of the film without our actor with it still wrapping off all of the elements of the film. As stressful as this became for me, I was able to work out a way to shoot around the actor using techniques inspired by russian art house films and using the mise en scene we had already established earlier in the film.

During the shoots, I felt a lot more relaxed than I usually did. As a group we worked fantastic during the shoots. Tim focused on the organisation and took all of those pressures off of me and Anderson focused on making the shots look the best they could be. I was able to focus completely on the actress and the story telling aspects of the film. This was a new experience for me as usually I am worrying about the organisation and the cinematography as well as the direction. I learnt a lot about true direction during the shoots. At the beginning of each shoot, I had time to sit down with the actress and brief her on what general mood I want her to portray for each scene. When it came to doing the shots, I was able to refer back to our briefing session a lot of the time and this turned out to be a very successful technique. We all had a great trust in one another and this made for a smooth, fun and efficient production.

I learnt that being a director, you get asked a lot of questions. I had watched an interview with Spielburg where he had said that “The hardest thing about being a director is knowing what you want”. This proved to be a correct statement. I had to make sure that I always knew the story perfectly so that when I would get asked questions, I could answer without hesitation. I would force myself into a state where every decision that I made would be one with absolute certainty. However, I believe that I still need to develop my skill in knowing exactly what I want but I recognise that this is a technique that comes with a lot of experience.

The editing of this film was left very late and I feel that is where it’s downfall lies. There was not enough time to develop the sound to the level where I felt it needed to be. Tim, Anderson and I sacrificed sleep in the last week before deadline to make sure that we could get the film to a point where it met our high standards. This was a challenging time and it was important for all of us to keep motivated. Even under the stress, we were all able to keep spirits high and work at our hardest. This made me realise how far we had come as a group. By this point we learnt each others behaviors and were able to recognise when someone was feeling stressed. We had developed a fantastic working relationship and were able to keep ourselves motivated and get the work done.

Video Links

Here are the videos which relate to the written research in my file:

Chosen Song

Miaou - Scene of the Sunrise

Really great song by Miaou. It has great layers and really good breaks.

Scene of the Sunrise has several sections to it which I feel will match my films several sections. The more layered sections match time lapse footage really well, and the slower sections to the film will match the slow motion parts to my film.

I have emailed Miaou and gained their permission to use the song for my film which was really kind of them! I hope they will like the final film!

Possible Songs

Here are the all of the songs that I had shortlisted as possible songs for my film.

More Inspiration

I have been looking into using time lapse in order to tell some kind of story. In these videos, they have used time lapse photography techniques to tell a drama.

Winter Timelaps from Zbigniew Debicki on Vimeo.

The Ambience Affair - Devil in the Detail from Souljacker on Vimeo.

There is a very Tim Burton stop motion style to the movement of the characters in the 2 music videos. It creates a very surreal image and is very interesting and engaging to watch a human move like that. I would like to test this movement out at some point soon to see if I can achieve something similar.

In the winter time lapse video, I like the sequences where the character is "still" and the rest of the world is moving, I could possibly experiment with this technique if I chose to go down this road in my solo project.

Initial Ideas

I have struggled to come up with any ideas I wish to pursue in this final semester. I came up with drama ideas, documentary ideas and experimental ideas. I was even considering making a music video. All of the ideas I had come up with I liked but didn't like enough to pursue them.

I want to create something which I will enjoy making and be happy with the result. I spent last evening looking through vimeo videos for inspiration and came across this video called Isenseven - TIMES.

This video is basically a montage of clips which a group of guys have filmed during their travels. The film doesn't say anything or aim for a deeper meaning but is very entertaining to watch.

Isenseven - TIMES from Vincent Urban on Vimeo.

I really love the combination of split screen and great cinematography along with really catchy music. The film is enjoyable because it's fun and expresses someones personal journey in an engaging way.

I showed this to my collab partner Tim and he said he most enjoyed the parts where the shots matched, otherwise it felt very jarring. I agree with this point and would look to experiment with matching different angles of a location/person in the same shot.

I also love the colours in some of the sequences as it makes the image as a whole very beautiful to watch.

Some of the transitions are really well done in this piece. Its nice when images seem to blend into other sequences and it is also good when one contrapuntal image appears and leads into another sequence.

New Projects - Ideas Generation

So far I have no real strong ideas which I want to pursue but I am being inspired by lots of different things. I'm just going to put a few clips of influence to see if they will spark any ideas:

more to come...

Initial 5D Tests

Here are the different 5D tests my peers and I have done before we began pre production.

A Walk in the Woods - A Lensbaby 5D Test (HD) from Andy Parker on Vimeo.

Daisy Gets Wet! from Andy Parker on Vimeo.

5D Mark ii Post Production Workflow

Here are the videos, in order, of the workflow I will be using.

They cover:

-Converting the H.264 files to .mov files using pro res to make the footage editable.

-Converting the footage from 30p to 25p

Canon 5dmkII workflow Part 1: Importing for edit from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

How to convert Canon 5dmk2 footage from 30p to 24p from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

The Orton Effect

After speaking with my mum about Photoshop effects, she told me about the Orton Effect. This effect is creates a blur in the image whilst keeping the sharpness of it. It is used to create a dreamy feel to the image. This would work very well for my poster and dvd cover.

Here is a video tutorial:

It's a very simple but effective method of creating the dream like look. I had originally tried to used a diffuser filter for my film to create that look but found it was too blurred. Using this effect, I can control how sharp I want the image to be making this a much more practical method.

Also, there is a group on flickr.com dedicated to this effect. There are some great pictures of forests done with the Orton effect. It seems to work great with forest scenes which is exactly what I will be trying to recreate.

Post Production - Sound Design update

After I finished my shoot, I put together an assemble edit. This has shown me a clear picture of what style my film has turned out to be.

The assemble edit indicated that a soundtrack would be required in order to further the story and help create that emotion in the audience.

I have managed to find a music composer who seems enthusiastic about the project and has made some great suggestions about the theme and style of the music piece.

We talked about the idea of giving the Spirit of the Forest her own music piece to help the audience identify when the character is near and to enhance her mystical look. We both showed interest in Hans Zimmers portrayal of the Joker in the Dark Knight. For this, Hans created a droning sound to unsettle the audience and to help introduce the character. Here, Hans explains his methods and reasoning behind the piece:

The music will help create the suspense I wish to create in the spirits scene.

I also asked for a score to be written for the final scene of my film. After watching my assemble edit, I felt that there wasn't an atmosphere of fear and this was something I wanted to create. I think that the music will help communicate to the audience that Ben is scared during this scene and bring a lot more meaning to the images.

For the general theme of the music, I have asked for it to be very ambient. The composer aims to use the sounds of the forest along with wind chimes to create a music piece almost representing the wind and the forest.

I sent him this theme from Zelda as a reference for the theme and style I wish to create.

The final touches need to be made for my films sound design. Various foley sounds need to be implemented and I also need an ambiance track to layer in throughout the piece. For this I plan to record different ambiance tracks from different areas of the forest and maybe add a subtle electronic hum to help create an unnerving feel in the audience.

Sound Design Research (post story development)

After focusing on the visuals for so long, I decided it would be best to put that same focus into sound design.

Sound design is something I have lacked in the past and I think it is something that lacks in a lot of student films.

However, I would not consider myself a great musician but I would know what kind of style I would like for my film.

I plan to get a musician involved during the post production stage but before I do this, I need to research the different types of music and sound design I feel would be appropriate for my film style.

I am currently on my 4th draft of my script and the story has developed into more of a dark fairytale. First of all, I will look at film soundtracks of similar style and mood to my film.

In Princess Mononoke, there are these little characters/spirits in the forest called Kodamas. I would like to do a homage to these characters in my film by creating a similar sound to what these characters create. Maybe I will use a similar sound for my Spirit of the Forest.

I also like the soundtrack at around 1:09 on this clip. Would be very nice for the more mysterious scenes in my film.

After my research on suspense, I felt that it would be best to keep the music ambient during most parts of my film. However, I have come across ambient music. This style of music would blend in very well to the natural sound I wish to create and could make my sound design very subtle but effective.

Using ambient sounds to create a soundtrack would be a great technique to use in my film and I wish to create something similar.

Back to Hitchcock, in the final scene of The Birds, there is a deathly silence to the scene. Apparently Hitchcock created this sound of silence using an electronic hum. In the book ' Hitchcock Truffaut' Hitchcock mentions "To describe a sound accurately, one has to imagine its equivalent in dialogue". He describes his sound of silence "It was a strange, artificial sound, which in the language of the birds might be saying, "We're not ready to attack you yet, but we're getting reading. We're like an engine that's purring and we may start off at any moment" All of this was suggested by a sound that's so low that you can't be sure whether you're actually hering it or only imagining it."

I can't find a clip of the scene online but I will put one up as soon as I do.

Building Suspense

During the last few weeks I have been looking into creating a story visually. My aim in this film is to create emotions of suspense, fear, laughter and sorrow.

To create suspense, I have been researching into the work of Alfred Hitchcock, named master of suspense. The key visual technique I have picked up on is his use of reaction shots and point on view shots. In this sequence in North by Northwest, you can see Hitchcock has used very long takes keeping the cinematography interesting enough so the audience does not get bored. Also, the sound design is very minimal and simple and creates a very tense atmosphere whilst the main character is waiting:

In these next clips, Hitchcock talks about the difference between suspense and mystery. The key

thing to note here is that to create suspense, you must give the audience information. He also

gives a great example of creating cinematic tension.

Hitchcock next talks about his lack of care for content and how his focus is on how he tells the

story. This next clip has been very influential for me during my storyboarding process as it has

motivated me to put a lot of my focus on creating the best way to tell a story through the use of

cinema.

Finally, Hitchcock talks about clever use of materials within a story. This really helps create a

very interesting and engaging film and is a great technique to keep your film original and

innovative.

Another comical insight to the mind of Hitchcock was that he called his actors 'cattle' suggesting

that they are just materials which need to be told what to do. I think this is an interesting way

of making sure film makers don't neglect the importance of actually directing actors and not

leaving the story in the hands of the actors.

Inspirations

As mentioned before, I am taking a lot of inspiration from the videos games, Zelda. The whole fantasy element of the games really tie in well with my film.

At this moment I am working on the design for the character The Spirit of the Forest. In the Zelda games there are several strange characters which I can take influence from.

The characters in these images are not so different from humans and could be achieved as a costume in real life. This is an important factor to realise when I am designing this character. It has to look realistic enough to not look tacky, yet at the same time, it must look like a strange, surreal spirit.

The characters movements are also very interesting to note. Zant's movement ranges from slow fluid movements to fast erratic movements. His long cloak conceals is body and makes his movements seem even stranger. Zant:

The skull kids movement is more cheeky. He acts more like a playful child which could be an interesting style for my spirit of the forest. Skull Kid:

In my script, I have mentioned a desire for the Spirit of the Forest to have it's own sound. Much similar to when the Joker appears in the Dark Knight. In Zelda, it is very common for characters to have their own soundtracks. Depending on what my character is going to look like will depend on which style of music I will require. Here is an example of the a character from Zelda's soundtrack.

Scene Design

From the early stages of creating my idea, I have had a very clear image of what I want the film too look like.

As the film is more part of the fantasy genre, I decided to look at fantasy films, video games and art work to help forge the image in my mind into an achievable film look.

This first clip is a scene from the movie Twilight. The forest they use is very much like the one I had imagined in my mind. They have colour graded the scene blue to give it that cold, secluded feeling which really works well. The use of fog helps create that mystique in the forest and also helps add to the secluded feel of the scene.

I also looked at a scene from the N64 video game Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In this scene, I like bright green colours and also the large, bright floating pieces of dust. I have seen these floating particles in fantasy films before and they really help bring a magical feel to the set. I would like to incorporate these into my film but very subtly. I also love the sound in the scene. The footsteps are echoed, the ambience seems never ending and really makes it seem like they are alone in the very middle of the forest, which is exactly the mood I wish to create.

I have also come across a photographer on flickr.com who has created some fantastic images of a forest.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/haikus59/3408442567/

New Project - Drama

Third year has started and it's time to step up my game.

I have decided to do a drama for my first film, to make a change from the more documentary style I did for my last film.

Over the summer I knew I wanted to create a surreal drama. I am always eager to create something very different to what people normally see.

First I was very inspired by the music I started to listen to. Bands like "Empire of the Sun", "Temper Trap" and "Friendly Fires" all seemed to have this ethereal sound which is the mood I wish to create in my next film. "Empire of the Sun" especially have very unique videos with a style that I love. Here is one of their videos:

During this time, I was also playing the video game Zelda. As a film maker, I feel it is

important to draw inspiration from everywhere and I have always been inspired by this

particular game series.

Due to this inspiration, it seemed I had developed a strong desire to locate my film

in the forest. This location will be the starting point for my idea.

Update

A lot of research has been happening so I haven't been able to do this blog for quite some time.

Here is an update of what I have learnt:

- Shoot in the middle of nowhere as light pollution causes too many troubles on shoot.
- Be prepared to stay outside for a while, this includes bringing spare batteries!
- Low aperture is key (f2.8 works best)
- Do not have an exposure over 15 seconds as the video will not look smooth.
- White balance to incandescent to give the sky a blue colour
- Do plenty of test shots before you begin the time lapse to make sure composition, colour and exposure is how you want it.
- Mockmoon2000 suggests using 6 second exposures and layering the time lapses in adobe after effects with a composite (screen) on the layers to brighten up the image.
- Be aware, but do not be afraid, of noise.

I downloaded a program called star trails and had a play around with making a time lapse with it. I used the photos I had taken from someone's farm out in Cheadle.



I also obtained adobe after effects and I am currently in the process of looking how to export my time lapses in the smoothest and highest quality.

I plan to do 3 nights and days of shooting with the Nikon d3 this weekend and I will edit a draft version of the documentary by Tuesday. This is the make or break shoot for the film so wish me luck!

Interval Shooting Timer Test

My test shoot of the stars did not go as planned because the weather let me down, however I did get a chance to look at the peak district at night and it seems a suitable place to go for my shoot.

As I could not test the interval shooting timer on the stars, I decided to do a time lapse of Mark and Sorcha. Here is how the shoot turned out.

Update

Blogger isn't letting me upload photos for some reason which is annoying.

In our Outside the Box lecture, we watched a film called Baraka by Ron Fricke. This film was 104 minutes and was all done using the photographing time lapse technique I am using for my film. I for one could not keep full concentration throughout this film (as it was far too long) dispite the fact the cinematography and the use of the technique was masterful. 

The final sequence in the film is of the stars. I did some research and found out that Ron Fricke had specially designed equipment for this shoot enabling him to move the camera whilst it was timelapsing. The result is AMAZING and would be far out of my budget to achieve a similar effect. The shoot around 1:10 is really inspiring.

As good as this is in terms of cinematography, I don't believe it is necessary to have so much movement from the camera.

At the moment, I am looking into creating moving star trails and have had a bit of help from this guy.



I hope to have a test shoot tomorrow in which I can try creating a video with a smooth star time lapse and also enough photos to create a star trail time lapse.

At the moment I am developing shot ideas and structure to my documentary, as well as finding music influences.