We filmed the final shots of the film but found lots of the clips too dark. I tried adding a luma corrector to try and solve this problem and it did to an extent, but added a grain to the footage. I will need to discuss with the group wether we will re shoot the shots but it is difficult as the area is one that has little light and we need to note the continuity with previous shots before adding artificial light. In terms of the content of the shots, we felt it was successful, particularly the attempt to emulate police lights shining on the protagonists face.
Filming the fight scene was probably the most challenging part of the overall short film. This is because we needed to ensure that it was fast paced to create tension and emulate the emotions that would go through the character during a fight. One way we did this is by speeding up the clips slightly. This allowed for the impact to look more severe and added to the intensity of the scene. We had to make sure we only sped it up slightly because if the percentage was over 120% the footage started to look choppy. One way we could have overcome this was to film in 60 frames per second, however we were unsure whether the JVC camera had this ability. Fortunately, only a small percentage increase was required so the overall affect was successful in my opinion.
As films conventionally include the studios logos before the film, we decided to create our own. To do this we used After Effects, which is industry-standard in creating logos and compositions. Despite practicing with After Effects in AS, we found it difficult to understand and it took a while to get some ideas created. We decided to add an animated background with text that transitioned in, as we felt this was the most aesthetically pleasing. After exporting we decided to import it into Premiere, where we added a sound effect. When this was finalised we added it to the beginning of our short film.
We also used After Effects to create the title of our film for the Poster, as it allowed us to generate a smoke effect to go behind the text which we wanted. However, rather than exporting this as a .mov, we exported it as a .jpeg because it was inanimate.
As our production contained diegetic sound, we made sure that we used high quality equipment to record it. The JVC camera we used had an excellent microphone built in that was suitable. However, even after this there was still unwanted audio in the shots, particularly the outside ones, such as the wind. There was no way I could have prevented this during the filming, however in Adobe Premiere I could add sound effects to remove the unwanted noise.
I added a highpass filter to the outside shots so that the only sounds of a specific decibel reading can pass through. This meant that the sounds of the door opening was picked up but the wind in the background was not. As well as being more satisfying to listen too, it also helped each shot to flow, as the sound was consistent throughout, meaning that hopefully the continuous editing is unnoticeable. We decided to overlap the audio slightly with the jump cut to emphasize the sudden change and to create tension. This was very subtle but we thought it looked a lot better than it did previously and helped the shots flow despite the jump. After this I added soundtracks. Initially after adding the first soundtrack I felt that the ending was too abrupt. I tried to fade it out but it wasn't successful, so I decided to add an more ambient soundtrack to the end of it so that they overlapped seamlessly, and this also helped to build tension in the subsequent scene that showed the protagonist trying to find out what was outside. Once we filmed the later parts of the film, I noticed for many of the scenes the sound was left ear only. This made it unpleasant to listen to so I decided to try and fix this in Premiere. I found out that there was an audio effect called 'fill left' which meant that the audio from the left ear was replicated on the right side. We applied this to all of the scenes.
I am pleased with my feedback and the majority of my focus is going into making sure the ending is good, as the film so far is very mysterious and the tension created needs to build up to a suitable and satisfying end that thrills the audience.
Your web-log is evidencing progress and you are adding relevant planning documents such as the script and the storyboard to a proficient standard. Your edit shows promise and am expecting you to reach level 4 by Christmas.
Your short film has a clear progression of shots and the bars are effective in giving it a cinematic look. Shots are of a good quality and framing and composition are proficient showing excellent technical skill in use of the camera. Audio has been considered and a JVC camera has been used which shows ambition and an ability to use a more advanced camera.
Music is appropriate and builds tension ass does the length of shots. Feedback may indicate that shots are lengthy but this suits the style of the short film.
Music is copyright free as it is sourced from Incomputech so make this clear in your web-log or put it in the credits.
Document your creative journey
I don't think you need to overdub sound but maybe add some ambient sounds or effects.
The narrative is clear. Make sure that the story is not cliched. Be original and think of a twist at the end or defy expectations. I am intrigued as to how you will resolve the narrative. this is the key to level 4.
As our film is a thriller, we felt that it's darker themes meant that the colours would have to suit it. We decided to reduce the intensity of the colour, as we wanted to emphasize the protagonist's emotions of both isolation and fear. We did this by adding... We also decided to increase the contrast, as we wanted the shadows to be more harsh to unnerve the viewer.
Our film was filmed with a 16:9 aspect ratio, however after further
research into the thriller genre, we found out that the conventional
aspect ratio was an anamorphic 2.39:1. Therefore we decided to change it
in post production.There is not a concrete method of changing aspect ratios in Premiere, but it can be done a variety of different ways. One method we looked at is cropping the video 12.5% on the top and bottom. Although this is easy to do and works effectively, it prevented us from framing the shot afterwards, and the head of the subject was often cut off. We decided to try a different method, which was to add two separate black colour matte's on the above video layers, This meant that the below layers weren't affected and, as a result, we could re-position the shot so that it contained the subject. Also, as this was in a separate layer, it could be dragged across the duration of the film, so it did not have to be repeated for each shot, which would have been the case for cropping.
We began by importing all of the clips into premiere pro and placed the clips we intended to use onto the timeline in chronological order. There was a lot of clips that were considered unusable, but some shots had multiple successes and therefore we had to choose the best one. We picked favourites and decided to keep the backups for later on in the editing stage when sound is added so that we can see which shot fits better. We then watched the clips through and used the razor tool to cut them appropriately. We had a couple of match on action shots that we needed to cut specifically to show that both shots are continuous and flow. There was one jump cut in our film and we wanted to emphasize this by slightly overlapping the sound, which is loud and keeps the viewer on edge.
For the second day of filming, we had to re-shoot the shots that were unusable on day 1. We started filming much earlier, which gave us much more time to prepare and ultimately film the scenes. This day was successful and we got a large portion of the filming done, however it began to rain and so we decided to stop shooting so that no equipment was damaged and also for continuity, as the rain would not have appeared earlier on in the film.
We began filming using the JVC Camera. We used this because it had good automatic settings that would stay consistent from shot to shot, which is important for continuity. With continuity in mind, we noticed that the ovens had a time on them, and that it would change between shots. Fortunately, none of the shots in the storyboard required them to be in camera, and this problem did not trouble us. We decided to film near to sunset, as this had the most visually appealing lighting and helped to set the tone for the film, however an issue we had is that we began filming too late and so we only got to shot 8 before it started to get darker. We tried to avoid it being dark as it can cause lots of reflections, particularly as the set had lots of windows, and also we did not test how well the camera performs in low lighting conditions. This was the only issue we had with filming and everything else went as planned, so we are going to shoot again next week, after checking what footage is usable and what we need to re-shoot. We are going to start filming a lot earlier this time, so we have plenty of time to get the footage recorded.
HAZARDS
& CONTROLS: Fire (fire alarm), Tripping (don’t film
in rain), Malfunctioning Equipment (don’t film in rain).
Activity Title:
Filming the short film.
Activity Description:
To go on Location to film the short film.
List those managing this Activity and their competence:
Joe Hinton – Director
Connor
Hanlon – Actor, Costume Designer, Producer
Samantha
Bowles – Producer
Reiss
Hall - Actor
Who & how many are at risk from this Activity?
Joe Hinton, Connor
Hanlon, Samantha Bowles, Reiss Hall – 4.
Hazards
How could someone become hurt or made ill
Control measures
How are you going to prevent this from happening?
Tripping
over equipment.
Organise filming
equipment and place in safe location whilst not in use. Ensure member of team
is present with equipment at all times to ensure they are safe.
Fire
at Location
Ensure Fire alarm is in working order at house
location.
Rain
in outside shots:
Crew
could slip on wet surface
Equipment
could get wet and malfunction.
Stop filming in rain. Only film in overcast
conditions.
Risk Level: After your controls have been applied what is
your assessment of the risk level of this activity?
We filmed the final shots of the film but found lots of the clips too dark. I tried adding a luma corrector to try and solve this problem and it did to an extent, but added a grain to the footage. I will need to discuss with the group wether we will re shoot the shots but it is difficult as the area is one that has little light and we need to note the continuity with previous shots before adding artificial light. In terms of the content of the shots, we felt it was successful, particularly the attempt to emulate police lights shining on the protagonists face.
