Our Short Form Video and a short conclusion of it:

8/4/11

This is Group 4’s Short Form Video Production, hosted on YouTube:

Overall, I’m pretty happy with our piece despite the many technical problems we had during its production. I feel if we had more time we would have liked to have made multiple edits and chosen the best out of them, but circumstances aside I’m still pretty happy with the final piece. In an ideal world (if we were to re-do the project) I would have liked to have used a DSLR as not only would it have eliminated all the technical problems we had throughout, it would have also created an aesthetically much more pleasing overall piece. However, this is the final piece, and despite it being a little late, I feel it is an interesting take on our brief.

Short Form PostProduction.

8/4/11

To begin the postproduction stage, I started by making a basic offline edit to create a pace and general structure to the piece. As the online editing would seemingly be the most time consuming I felt I should get everything that didn’t involve grading, effects and after effects work done first so I could focus solely on that later. So as well as structuring the piece, experimenting with pace and shot choice to create a basic atmosphere that would compliment the piece, I also worked a lot with the audio. We planned all along to have little or no audio apart from a soundtrack that the video would be edited accordingly to, in order to create a certain surreal feel. I looked back at my initial brainstorm to see certain music artists I felt would work well with the theme of our video, and ended up using an assemblage of two ‘Boards of Canada’ songs and a song by a friend of mine, Elliot Hurst, who allowed me to use any of his music in my Uni projects. I felt the music should have two primary purposes, to create a surreal atmosphere and to differentiate between flashback and reality. The main ‘Boards of Canada’ song used fluctuates heavily throughout and I tried to use these changes in the song to portray the shifts between the character’s disoriented reality and the surreal flashbacks he has. A majority of the changes in the song are simply the way the song progresses, but there were a few points where I shifted to a different track briefly to make the changeover more apparent. The part of the audio where he is in the shop to when he leaves and falls into the bar flashback is the song by Elliot Hurst, and the flashback of him drunk on the beach in the early hours of the morning until the end is the second ‘BoC’ song. This is the audio timeline showing the different songs and how I transitioned between them:

When it came to the online edit a lot more time needed to be taken over the clips, specifically the after effect flashback shots, as each needed to be individually graded and/or edited and rendered. I will explain all the processes I used in the online editing stage:

• The Flashback Effect
• The Flashback Time-lapse
• The Time-Remap of the shop footage
• Grading + Vignette
• Motion Blurs
• The First Shot (Blur, Glow and other FX)

With the flashbacks we wanted to make them very clear and easy to differentiate between reality and flashback through both what was portrayed in them and through heavy postproduction (After Effects work). I partially followed the ‘CreativeCow’ flashback editing method (See early blog post) as I felt this was a fairly successful way of showing flashback. But specifically I felt that a blue/green tint would portray a dream-like state, the vertical fast blur would portray a distortion of reality and a slight fluctuation of exposure through an opacity modified black solid would create a slight feel of disorientation.

To make the effect (using the clock time-lapse sequence as an example (but I will elaborate of the time-lapse/masking process later)), in After Effects I first duplicated the footage layer and added the ‘Levels (individual controls)’ and ‘Exposure’ effect to both of the layers. I added a ‘Fast Blur’ effect to the above layer, made the blur vertical and modified the blur amount according to how much was necessary to make it seem like distortion. This is the example of that with the clock footage:

I then brought up the Green and Blue ‘Gamma’ and altered the arrow positioning on the Histogram (in the Levels effect) and upped the ‘Exposure’ and ‘Gamma Correction’ (in the Exposure effect). How much I altered these effects from one clip to another however, was entirely dependant on the footage, as the effect would differ heavily from one shot to another. So experimentation with the ‘Gamma’ and ‘Fast Blur’ was very necessary. This is the ‘Levels’ and ‘Exposure’ of the clock footage:

Then to add the finishing After Effects touch I added a black solid layer which I then added an expression (‘wiggle(4,20)’ for example) to in order to fluctuate its opacity between two low percentages, shifting the brightness of the clip randomly frame by frame. Once again the number chosen was entirely dependant on the clip as sometimes I would need the clip to be darker and other times not so dark. This is an example of the expression I used in the flashback clip where our main character realizes he has forgotten his phone and runs back to get it (4,14):

Overall, I think using these techniques throughout helped these sequences really portray their purpose and make them much more recognizable as flashbacks.

As for the time-lapse of the clock, we wanted to portray a passing of time while also portraying our character’s activities while it passed. Early on in pre-production we felt a time-lapse would be the best method for this, but when I came to it in post I realized that if you time-lapsed the clip (all 10 minutes of it), what was in the background was so fast that you could not make it out. So due to this I decided I should mask the time-lapsed clock onto the regular speed footage, in turn creating an audience understanding of both what the characters were doing (pre-drinking) whilst there being a portrayal of time passing by.

To achieve the effect I first sped the footage up as high as it would go in Final Cut, exported it into After effects, layered it above the original footage at a point where it was clear that our character was drinking, carefully masked out the background of the time-lapsed footage, feathering it slightly and making it seem like a single piece of footage where the clock is time-lapsing yet the background is normal. This is a screengrab of this masking before I added all the filters to make it seem like a flashback:

Another After Effects edited clip was that of inside the shop and how it was time remapped. There were two reasons for this: 1. The original clip was too long and needed to be cut down whilst still showing all the action that was taking place. And 2. I felt it would enhance the feel of disorientation within the piece. I made sure the remap was entirely relevant to the important parts of the clip; slowing down at the specific relevant points and speeding up at the trivial bits. This a screengrab of the graph Time-Remap that I used to create the speed alteration necessary (the line representing time, high being fast and low being normal speed):

To give the piece a more atmospheric feel I did a fair amount of online post in Final Cut too. Grading with the colour-corrector and adding vignette, glow and blur effects all too add to a feel of disorientation and surrealism, even to the After Effects flashback clips. These are screengrabs of some of these effects:

I also felt that as a lot of clips were sped up, adding a motion blur to them would strongly add the disoriented, dream-like feel. So throughout there are certain clips where the sped up footage has slight trails. This is a screengrab of the motion blur added to the sped-up café clip:

Finally, with the first clip we wanted to make it feel like our character was waking up heavily disoriented. So I felt the best way to portray this (other than the actors actions) would be to add a fade from black, a blur, contrast fluctuation and a glow that all gradually dissipate in time with the music as our character comes to. This is a screengrab of the keyframed processes of the effects:

This is a video showing the before and after of all aforementioned processes:

Technical Issues in both the Production and Postproduction stages of our piece and why they hindered our progress so heavily.

2/4/11

Before I go into detail about the postproduction stage of this unit, I feel it is important that I explain the huge amount of technical problems we had during and after filming and the role they played in postponing the production of the final piece.

Initially we planned to film the Exterior shots (Beach, café, etc; Day 3 on the call sheet) first on the 15^th of March, but due to a camera issue we were unable to do so. We’d booked a JVC for the week to give us easily enough time to shoot our whole piece. We had met Josh, our actor on the beach, set up and ready to shoot but despite doing test shots the previous day with the camera working fine, it came up with a tape error, supposedly meaning it was not recognizing the tape. Dec and I even went to buy emergency new tapes (costing me £13) to find that the issue was simply a fault of the camera. Once back at the equipment store our technician, unsure as to why this was happening, gave us another of the same model (The JVC GY-HD100U ProHD) for the rest of the week we had the previous JVC booked for, guaranteeing us that it would work for the next shoot we had planned two days later (Thursday the 17^th).

However, when it came to shooting on the Thursday, mid way through the camera came up with the warning message ‘Voltage Error’, meaning its power could not support itself. At the time though we had to find a way we could make it work and as it was a ‘Voltage Error’ I assumed plugging it into the mains would possibly rectify it. Fortunately, the camera had a mains lead and plugging it in worked, allowing us to film our entire indoor flashback scene as we had mains powerpoints throughout the house. Although, it also meant we could not shoot anything else that day (Exterior or Interior) as we did not have powerpoints we could plug the camera into, leaving us simply with the indoor shots filmed. To make matters even worse, later that day back at the store we found that, due to the Film Production students filming their FMPs, the two JVC’s (which both seemed to have to have technical issues) were the only available cameras until the 23^rd when there then would be no HD cameras available until the 30^th of March. Despite this, we had decided to plan a shoot for the 22^nd and as it was in Uni and relatively near the store (Dylan’s Bar) we felt we’d take a bit of a risk and use the first JVC (which had the tape error) as the technicians felt they had resolved the issues with it.

Fortunately, when it came to shooting at the bar, the camera worked fine but due to the busy schedule of our actor we could not go on to film the exterior shots afterwards, leaving us then unable to shoot until there was a free camera again (the 30^th). We booked a Sony Z5 for the 30^th to shoot our exterior shots, as they seemed far more reliable and despite the fact we’d shot the rest of our footage on the JVCs this seemed like our best option.

But the technical problems didn’t stop there, if anything, that was almost just the beginning. From when we had first shot our footage on the JVC on the 17^th, I had been relentlessly trying to get the footage off the tape to no avail. We had not been told this prior to shooting, but apparently the JVCs were notorious for being difficult to capture footage off. We tried absolutely everything even with the help of our lecturer and technicians; capturing though the JVC Deck (which not computer would seem to recognize), through the camera (which not computer seemed to recognize either), using 5 different firewire cables, through a television, through 4 different softwares (iMovie, Final Cut, Adobe Premier and even Adobe After Effects) and combinations of all of these things, only for one to eventually work a day after the initial deadline, but I will elaborate on that later.

After a successful shoot on the Sony, 5 days before deadline due to no cameras being available, we then ran into ANOTHER technical issue regarding retrieving the footage from the Sony (which was supposedly going to work fine). Having still not managed to get the JVC footage off and now not managing to get the Sony footage off either (despite using the many techniques attempted with the JVC), we began worrying that we would not be able to get the footage off either of the tapes before the deadline. We (Phil and I) tried from the 31st until the day before deadline to get the footage off both tapes, eventually only managing to get the Sony footage off using the ridiculously drawn out method of using a different Sony Z5 camera which seemingly didn’t have a broken firewire port, using the firewire cable from the Sony deck and capturing through Final Cut. After speaking to Phil about our deadline and the countless technical issues we had had and were still having he felt it would be likely that we would get an extension.

So due to the fact that we could only get the Sony footage off a day before the deadline, I tried to make a basic edit using simply the exterior footage from the Sony that night to show the next day. But as it didn’t have the main shots necessary to tell the story it was nowhere near what we wanted it to be. Fortunately we were given the extension on the condition that the video is done by the end of the Easter holidays. This gave us two options, either re-shoot our interior shots, or continue trying to get the footage off the tape. We decided with the latter as we had out so much effort into shooting the interior footage that it would be a waste not to try some more methods of getting the footage off the tape. Also, our actor was not free until after the Easter holidays so we would have had to shoot the whole piece again as opposed to just the interior shoots.

So the next day after deadline we researched new ways we hadn’t yet tried in order to get the footage off the camera in the hope that they would be successful. One of these was using and S-Video to USB lead which would essentially record the footage as it played, as opposed to recording off the tape, resulting in the quality of the footage not being as high, thus not being HD, but it was a last resort and we felt it would be worth a try. However, not even that worked, as our cable was not Mac compatible. As a final effort to get this footage, I asked the technicians at the store if I could use the JVC with the voltage error to try and capture while it was plugged into the mains. This initially did not work but when I tried it with the firewire cable from the JVC Deck and though iMovie it finally worked! We let Phil know that we would be able to hand the video in as soon as the postproduction stage was complete (which hopefully wouldn’t take too long), took the footage the footage home and I hurriedly began on the postproduction stage.

Shooting the remainder/majority of our piece – Exterior shooting.

31/3/11

Today’s shooting was very successful and also concluded much quicker than we’d planned. We had a majority (if not all) of the exterior shots to shoot and managed to shoot them all within the space of a few hours. This is a screenshot of Day 3 on the call sheet – our schedule that we followed throughout the days filming:

An issue we ran into however was that, despite clearing it with the manager multiple times prior to filming, the shop attendant had a slight problem with us filming our P.O.V shots, etc inside the shop. After 5 minutes of us filming there he began to get agitated, asking us to be quicker, but fortunately after 10 minutes we had filmed all the necessary shots and we left. This should not have been a problem in the first place as the manager had given us the OK about filming both days before in person and a few hours before on the phone, but I assume a lack of communication between the manager and his staff resulted in the attendants reaction.

During this day we shot a fair amount of P.O.V shots, using both techniques learned in both our previous shoot and ones learned through watching the Peep Show documentary. This is a photo of us shooting the bottle/bin P.O.V shot:

Now all our shots are filmed and completed, I plan to capture all the footage and begin the postproduction stage.

Shooting – Bar flashback/P.O.V shots.

22/3/11

Overall our shooting at the bar was very successful. We got all the shots we needed and with relative ease. The P.O.V shots were very successful (some of my favourite shots filmed so far), but in the end required both the camera operator (Dec) and I as opposed to just Dec.

These are some photos taken from the shoot when we were attempting to create the P.O.V effect, using similar techniques to those of the makers of ‘Peep Show’:

Researching P.O.V shooting techniques.

18/3/11

Call sheet screen grab for day 2:

For our next scheduled shooting day (Day 2) we’ve got to master the idea of P.O.V camera work, as we intend to shoot the bar flashback shots which show our character buying and drinking a pint of beer. We must learn how best to emulate point of view and we felt to do this we should look into the making of the popular channel 4 sitcom; ‘Peep Show’, as this is heavily shot from the point of view perspective (the first series being shot entirely so).

To do this we got hold of the ‘Peep Show’ documentary (‘Peep Show and Tell’), which showed all about how they emulated character point of view through camera work and character positioning. These are some screen shots taken from the documentary:

The action to create the P.O.V look:

The final footage:

This technique will definitely help us with our P.O.V drinking shots.

Shooting – Interior shots (inside house) and camera issues.

17/3/11

Today we shot our first sequence of the flashback to inside the house getting ready to go out. Overall the shooting was very successful and all the shots necessary were filmed. The only issue was that mid shooting the camera came up with the warning message; ‘Voltage Error’. This was initially worrying but as it was a ‘Voltage Error’ I assumed it meant the camera’s power could not support itself, so I thought plugging it into the mains would possibly rectify it. Fortunately, this worked and we were able to film our entire scene easily. However, if this were on location, we would not have any option but to cancel shooting, as we wouldn’t have mains access or any other cameras.

As for shots, I feel our time-lapse shot was the most successful as it used strong macro focus and depth of field and would show both a passing of time and portrayal of narrative in a fairly creative way. We had a slight problem with the filming of the iPhone as it continually turned its screen off as we were trying to shoot it, but we got the necessary Close-Up shots in the end.

Beginning Production: Equipment Organisation, Actors, Shooting Schedule, Facebook Group, Etc.

11/3/11

We may have finished storyboarding, but in order to begin filming there is a lot of additional preproduction that has been and is to still be sorted. (Others in the group have been heavily focusing on some of these things while I have been focusing on my roles, hence why only now I am going into detail on my blog):

• Actors
• Facebook Group
• Shooting Permissions
• Production Schedule/Call Sheet
• Equipment organisation
• Risk Assessment

Firstly, as Adam was appointed the role of ‘casting director’, he has been spending a lot of time organising two male actors for the piece. These are four possibilities that he felt would work well in the video and why he felt that we should or possibly should not use them (this can be found on his blog):

 

‘CALUM MCINTOSH

Currently studying a BA (Hons) degree in Acting at The Arts University College of Bournemouth. Calum has been cast as the actor of our main character. In an previous discussion with Calum, he has mentioned that he likes to act in serious and emotional productions. One of his strength is his ability to express emotion without dialogue. So because of these reasons, I think he would be perfect for the role of our main character, the role is serious and requires various emotions to be shown to the camera, which he is fully capable of.

JOSH BARTON

Josh has been cast as Calum persuasive an overly encouraging mate. He is friends with Calum in real life so being to cast someone who has that chemistry with our main actor wasn’t much of a task. They were fantastic on our first set and really showed they have a history of being friends. Josh is on the same course as Calum and this is the first time he has acted in front of the camera, he is used to acting on stage.

MATT JOPLING

Also studying BA (Hons) In Acting at Bournemouth. Matt said that although he hasn’t done a lot of film work, he generally likes to act in role that consists of some comedy and even accents. He was also unavailable a lot of the time because of various projects and acting roles within University and elsewhere. Matt is also in a band (who are currently entered into a talent contest) so this may have clashed with our short form video. Although he does enjoy acting for realism, it was because of his other commitments in his band and other work that made him difficult to get hold of sometimes and therefore, we could not cast him for this role.

EUAN MACQUISTEN

Euan enjoys acting and has done for many years. He has not studied acting academically and only does so for his own amenity. Euan is on my course and is acting in several other short movies in different groups; it was because of this that I found he was not suitable for the roll. I will definitely consider him for other roles in the future.’

So through Adam’s work we now have a main character (Calum Mcintosh) and a supporting character (Josh Barton) who have both agreed to be part of our film.

On February the 20^th I felt that a good way for all of us to keep in contact with each other regarding the film, was to create a Facebook group, as this was the most practical means of communication between us all. It was a free means of messaging everyone else in the group about progress, issues, plans, etc, which we all used regularly. After a week or so it became the primary way that we keep kept in contact about the piece. These are some screen grabs of messages that were posted up that give a good example of us utilizing this medium of communication:

 

Before we shoot, we must be certain that some locations are OK to film at and that we are not violating anybodies privacy, intruding on anybodies businesses or violating any laws. As Sam is our producer, he took the role of making sure this would not be a problem. He contacted the restaurant and café we plan to film at, asking them if it was possible and letting them know of any times and dates of filming. These are some of his messages on the facebook page regarding filming at the café/restaurant and shop:

 

As we are now almost completely ready to shoot, I felt it would be a good idea to fill out the call sheet for exactly what and when we would be shooting for the group to use as reference. The first sequence we will be filming is the interior flashback scene, where our main character is at home with his friend, pre-drinking, getting ready to go out and then leaving. This will be shot at Tommy’s house, which is easily accessible and will work very well with what we are shooting due to the way the house is set out (long corridors, lounge room, etc). This is a still of the filled-in call sheet for the first shoot (Some additional information has been added):

 

In order to shoot, we needed to organize shooting equipment. Dec and I shared this role and went to the store in order to book equipment for the days of filming. Initially we wanted to use a DSLR but as we are only first years and because they were fully booked we could not. So we settled for the possibility of another camera that shot in HD. We told our technician Jason that a few of our shots would be either interior or fairly low light and that the Sony Z5’s may not create the desired effect in these contexts, so we were given an induction to the JVC GY-HD100U ProHD as it is slightly more complex than the Sonys. Once we had this brief induction we rented the camera for the planned days of shooting.

Finally, we had to fill in a risk assessment form before we began shooting and hand it into the technicians. As Sam was producer, he took on this role. Once this was complete and since everything else in pre-production is also done, we are now ready for the production stage on Thursday.

Pre-Production – Production meeting and second talk with Tony – Ending our Short Form.

1/3/11

Our group felt it would be a good idea to have a secondary talk with our lecturer Tony regarding the progression of our narrative and conclusion to the piece.

He looked at our storyboard sheets and a lot of our pre-production work and felt the idea was generally good, but just needed some developing around the ending. We discussed the idea of a twist that would intrigue or possibly take the viewer by surprise, as this seemed the most effective way of concluding the story.

After talking together, we felt we should play on the idea that our character has perhaps not just lost a day, but has been missing for a long period of time and is only having flashbacks of the last day he remembers. This could lead to some narrative ambiguity regarding what has happened to our character and whether or not he may have passed away.

One way we felt we could portray this is through his phone, and how towards the very end he starts receiving multiple texts asking where he is and showing that he may have been missing for a long time. We could then conclude this with a final shot of his phone cutting out, signifying that he may have passed away.

Another way we could do this is through the use of a newspaper headline, stating that our character has been missing for a long time and/or is possibly presumed deceased. Our character may come across the newspaper article/headline and realise what has happened. The final shot (like the previous idea) could be the newspaper closing, portraying the same thing as the mobile phone cutting out.

We will develop this ending and choose our idea over the next few days, but overall we feel this will be the most effective way of concluding our piece.

Further Short Form Pre-Production – Call Sheet template.

22/2/11

Before we begin filming we must have a call sheet so we know our exact shooting schedule and have everyone’s contact details for each day. Without this we will be far too unorganised and risk unsuccessful shooting. For influence I looked at the call sheets that our lecturer Tony posted up on the course blog, these gave me a strong idea of what would be needed on our own call sheet. This is the link to these call sheets: http://shortform.fdadigitalmediaproduction.com/2011/02/22/film-crew-procedure/

This is a template I made for our call sheet. So far I have added contact details for our crew and actors, a structure for shooting days and what these days will consist of and what we plan to film on our first days shooting, all ready for when we begin:

I plan to fill this in as we progress with preproduction, with everything filled in before shooting so we are ready for it.