Editing: PROBLEM SOLVED!

Yes, that's right, the problem I ranted and raved about all last night has been solved.

After getting a good night's sleep, and thinking over the technician's suggestions, I was able to pop up to the media room this lunchtime with the method of solution at the front of my mind.

Opening the original Final Cut project, I imported one of yesterday's more successful exports, and used this to replace the expanding footage that was causing the problem. Using the exported version of the shot meant that the footage would be able to be cropped, because the footage itself was no longer expanding. After tweaking the measurement of the crop and making some last minute adjustments to the sound levels in places, the film was finally ready for export.

Although the export worked, the visual quality of it is not fantastic, so I may speak with the technician again on Monday to see if there is any way we can improve it.

Editing: THE PROBLEM OF THE EXPANDING FOOTAGE

After months of hard work, Tom and I have finally reached the point where are subsiduary products are complete, and we are ready to export our short film! 

Or, at least, that's what we thought this morning.

After waiting the best part of an hour whilst Final Cut exported our film as a .mov file, it was with some annoyance that I discovered that, due to our use of digital zoom in a key part of the film, the aspect ratio of the exported file had encountered some complications. 

The footage at original size - how we want it all to look.

The footage having scaled up, expanding out into the letterboxing lines.

We had produced the effect of a digital zoom by setting keyframes to gradually scale up the footage at that particular point in the film, but a by product of this was that the footage broke out of the size-boundaries of all the other footage, effectively moving into the area otherwise occupied by the black 'letterboxing' lines. 

At the time, we didn't think this technique would bring us many problems; we assumed that, on export, the resolution of the film would revert back to that which we filmed in: 1280x720, or '720p HD', with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Unfortunately, in actuality, Final Cut wanted to export the film with a 4:3 aspect ratio. With this aspect ratio, the 'letterboxing' lines at the top and bottom were present throughout the film, apart from at the moment when digital zoom was used, where the footage could actually be seen to scale up; the edge of the footage expanding out into these spaces, eventually filling the entire frame, and then disappearing again to reveal the original 'letterboxed' footage.

Things were beginning to grate. Alas, I persevered.

It made sense to look deeper into the export settings, to see if the film could be forced to crop down into a 1280x720 frame. There was an option to select 1280x720 as the resolution for the exported file, so this is what I did. I was pleasantly surprised when the progress bar popped up in a small window which read '2 minutes' for the time remaining, but that pleasantness soon turned to agrivation as the estimated completion time rocketed up to 'about an hour.' 

Oh, the joys of edititng. 

After finding some useful tasks to fill this time, such as helping Tom to take feedback on the subsiduary products and working on my evaluation Prezi, I returned to the computer to discover that the exported file was indeed of the resolution 1280x720. The footage itself, however, was not. The 'letterboxing' lines remained, and the entire video had been compressed vertically - or stretched horizontally, whichever you prefer - in order to fit a 1280x720 frame.

Okay, now things are getting annoying.

Stuck for answers, Tom and I consulted the technician, explaining our problem, and our futile attempts to solve it. We were provided with some brilliant suggestions, but all brought the possiblity of further disadvantages, such as a loss of quality through repeated exports. Adamant that there would be another, simpler solution, I returned to Final Cut to examine the export settings once again. 

EUREKA! 

In the window where a resolution of 1280x720 could be selected, I had found a tick-box labelled 'Control aspect ratio', which came with a drop-down list with the option to 'Crop' the film. Hopeful that this was our final solution, I set all of the options to 'best' to ensure the highest quality result, and then clicked export. 

Another hour or so to fill with other productive things. 

Disappointingly, the film had been cropped closer to what we wanted, but not all the way. Although they were much smaller, the 'letterboxing' lines at the top and bottom were still present, and the problem footage could still be seen expanding into these black areas.

By this time, it was close to 3:00pm, and I still needed lunch, so it was time to give things a break.

Unfortunately, it seems that there isn't a lot more we can do to solve the problem; we can only really make the scaling of the problem footage less noticeable by cropping the film to reduce the thickness of the 'letterboxing' lines that the footage expands into. Because we want to export tomorrow, and with export times being what they are, we can't afford to spend time tweaking settings, because we have other lessons to attend, so this is the solution we will have to settle for. 

If we do succeed in solving 'THE PROBLEM OF THE EXPANDING FOOTAGE', I will, of course, post the details here, but until then, I have other work to do...

Internal Monologue Script

Recently, most of the time I allocate for Media Studies has been spent on filming and editing the actual footage for our short film, so I haven't been able to post regularly.

As we reach the end of the filmmaking process, however, things have slowed down ever so slightly, so I've found the time to make this post about the internal monologue that will feature in our film. 

Below is the full internal monologue, and below that is an explanation of how and why it was written. Just like our shot lists, it was not written in the way an actual film script would have been, because this would have required much undue effort; Tom and I aren't selling the scripts, we merely need to record our ideas for our own later use, in a way which we can both understand and interpret quickly and easily. The bold writing is the spoken monologue itself, and the accompanying italics are notes to show where the line should be placed in the film.

Internal monologue

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From the very beginning of the process, Tom and I wanted the audience to be able to hear the protagonist's thoughts non-diegeticly, via an internal monologue. We wanted the character to seem both enigmatic and realistic, speaking in phrases that revealed the depth of his thought, but without providing specific detailing, or a definite context. The lack of detail would also add to the realism of the words as the character's own thoughts; when we think to ourselves, we rarely think in a way that would make a great amount of detailed sense if another person were to hear it spoken aloud.

We also wanted the film to have a certain message hidden within the mystery, so when writing the monologue, I tried to make every line a covert, inexplicit reference to some philosophical concept, or some dilemma of thought. For example, the line 'And you can't control circumstance, so you work with what you have,' alludes to the conflicting concepts of determinism and free-will, and the following line: 'Acting, not because you must, but because you can: doing, not because that's who you want to be, but because that's who you are,' touches on Aristotle's teleological interpretation of morality in Nicomachean Ethics (350 BCE), which is more explicitly mentioned in the teacher's dialogue during Scene 3.

Having only five-minutes of space for the entire film, I was also conscious of the need to be concise, and express as much as I could in as few words as possible. In other words, the monologue needed to be epigrammatic throughout. This was no more important than in the final lines of the monologue, where I wanted to leave viewers with something that would stick in their mind; that they would continue to think about after the film has finished. The final lines, shown below, address the viewer directly for maximum impact: 

'Don't lie to yourself about these things; justice is only a dream.

Have the conviction to accept this, and you'll take the world one step closer to that sleep.' 

With 'selflessness' the defining characteristic of our protagonist, the themes of 'justice': of what is fair and what is right, should be implicit throughout our film, and to explicitly mention 'justice' at the end should punctuate the film nicely.

As Tom and I have waded deeper and deeper into the production of our film, it has become increasingly surreal, and I wanted to acknowledge that at the end of the film with the mention of 'dreams,' just as I mentioned the theme of 'justice.' What this acknowledgement should do is assure the audience that, whilst the film isn't necessarily realistic by any means, that is no reason to not take heed of its moral sentiments.

Of course, I say all this now, but once we have recorded the monologue being spoken and added it to our footage, it may be too long, too melodramatic, or it simply may not fit the film. We may end up using every single line, or only a few, or somewhere in-between; there is really no way of knowing until Tom and I actually watch it for ourselves to see what works and what doesn't.

Writing Reviews

A while ago, I created a potential layout for our subsidiary task of a magazine review page, but since then, using the results of our audience research and having analysed some professional film reviews, Tom has developed a much better looking layout.

The full details of the review-page construction are here in Tom's post.

Just as I took the lead in the creation of our poster, with Tom contributing to the design, Tom is constructing our review page, and I am contributing two small reviews of short films to go alongside Tom's larger review of our own film.

Below are my two reviews in their original states. Whilst writing them, I kept the results of our audience questionnaire in mind, which showed that, in the text of the review, readers wanted...

* Comparisons to other films.

* An unbiased perspective.

Although I didn't crop in direct comparisons to other films, I tried to acheive the same effect by making it clear what kind of genre the films fit into to, what kind of style they are, and who is likely to enjoy them.

For the unbiased perspective, I simply made sure I wrote about the films fairly, justifying every qualitative judgment I made.

Connected

For directors of shorts, filmmaking is always a careful of balancing of ambition against capability, and in Connected, Danish directors Jens Raunkjær Christensenand and Jonas Drotner Mouritsen strike the balance perfectly.

Described by Christensenand and Mouritsen as ‘a sci-fi western,’ Connected transports audiences to a desolate, post-apocalyptic wasteland, where it gives a glimpse into the torturous lives of the surviving few. Clearly a sci-fi by setting alone, Connected affirms its ‘western’ status with the conventionally confrontational characters that trudge through it, shot in the trademark style and accompanied by a soundtrack that even Ennio Morricone would be proud of.

What prevents Connected from being just another weird experiment in contemporary filmmaking, however, is also what makes it unique. There isn’t one part of Christensenand and Mouritsen’s film that doesn’t beg for you attention and contemplation; not one part that fails to make you think. In their brutal world, created from a neat combination of live-footage and CGI, the young directors reveal the startling literality of the film’s enigmatic title, as well as posing questions about the ethics of survival. It is testimony to the directors’ vision that Connected combines tense action and philosophic diversion in a way that many features struggle to imitate.

***** Five stars.

Floor Show

Going by name alone, any viewer would be forgiven for letting Floor Show pass them by, but names can be deceiving, and this is certainly the case with Sam Webber’s directorial debut.

Contrary to the simplicity of its title, Floor Show is a fascinating short that is as exuberant in style as it is disturbing in its themes. With murder, lust, and human salacity all featuring within the space of five minutes, the film will leave you feeling a little dirty, but also somewhat enlightened. The plot isn’t exactly original, but the brilliantly acted characters, atmospheric lighting and creative costume designs bring a welcome dose of drama to the quintessentially theatrical setting: an old-fashioned stage framed with blood-red curtains.

Webber is nothing if not a perfectionist; every shot and angle has been chosen with care, and each plays its own important part in the visual feast-for-the-eyes. Some audiences might find the extravagance off-putting, but Floor Show is sure to gain a substantial cult following from the art-house crowd, who aren’t afraid to value style as much as substance.

**** Four stars.

Unfortunately, I had massively overestimated the space available for the smaller two reviews, taking into consideration not only just the size of the page, but the space taken up by the details for the films and images from the films. After discussing the layout possibilities again and again with Tom, we decided that my two reviews really needed to be cut to around 60 words each; they would be more of a summary-review rather than a review itself.

Below are the final 'summary-reviews'. It was certainly difficult to cut them down to only a few sentences each, but I think I have succeeded in keeping them as informative and interesting to read as they could be at this length.

Connected

For directors of shorts, filmmaking is always a careful of balancing of ambition against capability, and in Connected, Danish directors Christensenand and Mouritsen strike the balance perfectly. Described as ‘a sci-fi western’, and set in a brutal post-apocalyptic wasteland, Connected is an artistic, intense and engrossing piece of film that is as sharp in concept as in execution.

***** Five stars.

Floor Show

Contrary to the simplicity of its title, Floor Show is a fascinating short that is as exuberant in style as it is disturbing in its themes. Webber is nothing if not a perfectionist, and every shot plays its part in the visual feast-for-the-eyes. Some audiences might find the extravagance off-putting, but Floor Show is sure to gain a substantial cult following from the art-house crowd, who aren’t afraid to place style ahead of substance.

**** Four stars.

In today's Media lesson, as I continued with some editing of our footage, Tom added these reviews to the page, and we tested a number of fonts to get the best likeness to the actual font used for the main reviews in the real Empire magazine. I also had a chance to look through Tom's review, so that I could point out any errors or typos he hadn't noticed.

Production Photos

The actual process of directing and shooting a scene is very demanding, and it can often be quite stressful, so the documentation of the process for our blogs is easily overlooked. 

Luckily though, over the most recent days of filming, Tom has been ready with his iPhone, taking snapshots of anything and everything that we feel is important, and he has since compiled them, along with written explanations, in this post.

I think the photos do a great job of illustrating the work that goes into filming a scene, and the way in which Tom and I go about it.

On-Set Organisation

Planning and research are all well and good before a filming takes place, but you can't put what you've learnt into practise unless you're organised during the actual filming. 

When watching film or television, it's easy to forget the amount of work that goes in to producing a single scene, or a single shot, even! Obviously, seeing as Tom and I don't have the money (or, frankly, the authority) to be able to command a team of experts in fields of makeup, costume, set-design, lighting, cinematography, continuity, etc, we have to organise these things ourselves, to whatever extent in manageable. 

Here is a link to a post Tom has helpfully compiled about the different roles allocated by filmmakers. (Not all of these people are always needed on-set, but they all help in the overall organisation of a day's filming)

Here is Tom's post showing our 'call-sheet', which he drew up for use as a way of keeping track of dates and the exact tasks we were going to be carrying out.

My role in the organisation for filming has been to maintain the tripod and the camera, the latter involving:

• Ensuring batteries are charged, and that spares are ready.
• Freeing-up space on the memory card, so that we do not run out of storage whilst filming.

Also, for each day of filming, I have written lists of each shot we need, for the same reason as I did for my AS Media production: so that we are never wasting time wondering about which shot to capture next during filming. They are not laid out perfectly, and they are not presented neatly and tidily, but they do serve their purpose as a simple way of reminding and keeping track. Tom and I could have spent time and effort writing a pristine screenplay, and we did consider it, but the pay-off would never have been worth it; we are not selling a screenplay, we are making the film, so all we need is something practical, efficient and convenient that serves the purpose of a script. These shot-lists are shown below, some used, some yet to-be-used. 

Poster Production

As can be seen in my plans, the original ideas Tom and I had for the poster revolved around a 'school yearbook' kind of look; either with faces of students simply staring out of the poster, or with faces staring out of the photos within an actual yearbook laid upon a desk. The central concept was in showing the absence of a person by having one photo that doesn't contain a subject; one photo that shows the background alone, with no face. The purpose of this was to convey the predicament of our protagonist; he is always around, putting others before himself, but never receives any recognition or praise; he goes pretty much entirely unnoticed.

Whilst Tom liked the plan including the actual yearbook, I kept pushing the first plan, because, not only was the grid of photos clearly going to be simpler, I believed it would be more effective; the faces staring directly out were going to catch people's eyes and draw their attention straight to our film. So, with this in mind, Tom and I used part of Tuesday's lesson to take volunteers into the library and photograph their head and shoulders against the quintessential school photo backdrop: a bookshelf. Pleased with the amount of photos we had taken, I went home, slipped the SD card into my laptop, and started editing away with photoshop.

I placed all of the photographs onto the canvas in order to get an idea of what the final poster was going to look like. That's when it dawned on me: THIS LOOKS REALLY AWFUL.

 
All of the volunteers couldn't have been more helpful, and I want to make clear that the abandoning of this idea is no fault of theirs. The problem is, it just doesn't look like a poster. Good posters jump out, grab your attention, and refuse to leave your mind until you walk into that cinema and purchase that ticket. What you see above is banal and bland; more effective as a sedative than a stimulant. Our quantitative audience research revealed that what audiences most looked for in a poster was an eye-catching image and images of the characters or actors. So, not only was this poster not performing its general role, it was not performing the specific roles required for it to appeal to our target audience.

Being entirely unhappy with this design (as you can probably tell), I went away thinking deeply about new possiblities and variations, keeping in mind the criteria set by our by our audience research results. I began to reconsider what it was that stood out to me most about our film. The predicament of the protagonist is definitely at the core of our film, but this is difficult to convey in a single poster, and besides, our target audience would be more interested in watching the film if they were yet to discover the nature of the protagonist's situation. Finally, it occurred to me: what gives the film its identity on first impression is the title - PENUMBRA (click here for an explanation).

So, last night, with the title of the film at the forefront of my mind, I began to construct an entirely new poster. I explained the idea over the phone to Tom, and from this he drew his own mock-ups of how the poster could look. The first two images below show the initial experiments carried out in photoshop yesterday evening, and the rest are all from different stage in the poster's production today. Below each image is an explanatory caption.

Inspired by this poster for Inception, I put the title at an angle spanning most of the poster, and gave it the signature glow of our title (important because A- it looks cool, and B- it relates to the definition of penumbra as a part of a shadow). Then, using internet tutorials, I learned how to mask layers in such a way that images can appear within text. Our lead-actors eyes can be seen peering out from the forth stroke of the M.

Here, I was trying to see if it was possible to have an image show through more than one piece of text. Luckily, this process wasn't as difficult as I had expected.

This morning, in Media, the first thing I did was to create lots of text layers which i then transfromed and arranged to make an interesting collage.

I then grouped the text layers appropriately, then rasterized them and merged them so that different images (either from our film or relating to it) can be seen in different peices of text.

Deciding the images within the text were too busy with detailed colour, I made them all black and white, and this definitely had a positive effect in drawing more attention to the title. After discussing things with Tom, we decided it would be a good idea to have an outline of our protagonist in the bottom right-hand corner. I set about cutting a blurred image of our lead-actor out of a frame from our film, and once this was in the poster, both Tom and I agreed it looked better in full colour than as an outline alone.

Next, in an attempt to make the poster stand out more, I experimented with different hues of different intensity for the images in the text. Eventually, I decided that red was most attention grabbing, and most fitting for the theme of pain which is important in our film.

Finally, here (at full resolution, provided you click on the image) is our new poster! In this final stage, I increased the vibrancy and brightness of the colours in the image of our protagonist from the back, so that he is more visible against the solid black background. I also added some text (in the same font as the title for conguity) to specify that the poster is advertising a short film, and some other text to credit Tom and I as directors. (For the crediting font, I searched online to find fonts similar to those used for crediting in actual film posters, and then downloaded and installed one called 'Rothman' from this website)

Because I have literally just completed this poster this afternoon, Tom has yet to see it, and I have yet to ask anyone besides my parents for feedback on it. Therefore, this is by no means our final poster. Before we reach that stage, I will look at the poster with Tom to see what variations we can create - perhaps of a different style, or perhaps in the same style for different modes of exhibition - and we will show the poster to a lot more people in order to get some detailed qualitative feedback.

Filming has commenced!

Yes, that's right, the filming of our short film has officially begun! 

Yesterday, we filmed a single shot from Scene 2 (information on the content of this scene can be found in the treatment and the animatic). Normally, we would have never considered shooting one shot of a one-minute scene on a separate day to the rest, but we thought that this single shot - of our protagonist walking out onto the school field as other students walk in - would prove difficult to film, so we wanted to start trying to capture this shot as soon as possible. 

Luckily, it all seemed to go well, and we have a useable piece of footage, exactly how we wanted it. Thanks to a friend's tripod, the camera does not shake, thanks to common decency (or perhaps general ignorance), no kids waved at or stared into the camera at an important point, and thanks to our actor's willing and patient nature, we have a piece of footage that will have relevance and make sense. 

The main disadvantage of filming the same scene across different days is that of consistency and continuity. Because the footage we have shot was taken on an overcast and windy day, the rest of the footage will have to be shot on a similar day. Either that, or we will have to re-shoot the 'walking out onto the field' shot when we shoot the rest of the scene, and just hope everything goes well again. 



Either way, I am glad the filming process is underway. So glad, in fact, that I quickly knocked together this teaser trailer, which I hope will give people an insight into the sort of the film Tom an I are aiming to produce.

Short Film Title: PENUMBRA

Yesterday, Tom and I recorded our latest Production Log, giving a general progress update and explaining our current situation. Unfortunately, yesterday evening, I realised that I had forgot to mention something relatively crucial: we have a title for our film!

Tom and I have been thinking about various title ideas for a while. 'Selfless' was a strong candidate, as this is the central concept that our film revolves around. However, both Tom and I thought that this was too obvious; too 'in your face,' for a film that we intend to have a great degree of subtlety.

One media lesson, we were trying to think of a title by explaining the plot of our film to people in different ways. We were focusing on the fact that the protagonist is doing good deeds; affecting other's lives for the better, without being noticed. A friend mentioned 'shadow' as a possibility, and whilst I liked the idea, I did not like the word 'shadow' itself. So later, I searched the internet for any interesting words related to 'shade' or 'shadow' that stood out. This is when I came across Penumbra, a title that Tom and I both liked.

Penumbra is a suitable title, not only because it is an interesting word to say and pronounce, but because it carries a meaning which is relevant to our film and adds to the meaning of the film. 

The word is used in many different contexts, each use with its own definition. The definitions that are relevant to us, from Dictionary.com, are as follows:

General definition: a shadowy, indefinite, or marginal area.

Legal definition: an area within which distinction or resolution is difficult or uncertain.

Tom and I are looking to exploit the 'two-step flow' model in the marketing of our film (where discussions about the film become a way of advertising - Click here for Tom's explanation), and we are confident that Penumbra will draw people's interest, whether they hear it spoken in a face-to-face conversation, or see it written on the internet or in print.



Above is a very short example of how the title could look at the beginning of the film.

Plans For Poster & Magazine Review Page

Whilst Tom has been working on posts relating to Target Audience and Editing Techniques, and I have been finishing the Animatic and looking at issues of Representation, we have also been discussing ideas for our ancillary products; a poster for our short film, and a magazine review page featuring our film. Here are some of the basic layout designs I have drawn, along with explanatory notes.

Our film is about a person acting selflessly; a person who has an effect on others, but is not noticed or recognised by them, so I thought it would be good to convey this kind of message in the poster. My idea, as shown above, was to have a simple, geometric collage of many ordinary portrait shots, with the subject in each staring directly into the camera. They would all be around the same age as the protagonist, just as the characters in the film are, and the portraits would all be taken with a bright, airy background so that the person's outline stands out. Just beneath and to the right of the film's title (which we have yet to decide on), however, one of the photos will contain the same kind of blurred background as all of the other photos, but will not contain a subject. The appeal of this poster would firstly be in the stare of the subjects captured in the portraits; hopefully, this will unnerve people enough to look more closely at the poster and discover what it is advertising. The missing subject in one of the portraits will also hopefully add a sense of intrigue, so that the consumer remains curious about the film and its premise for a long time after seeing the poster.

Below is another layout design suggested by Tom on the basis of the first. The core idea of the missing subject is retained, but the setting of the school/college is conveyed with the portraits being printed on a yearbook, and the yearbook being laid upon a desk. I like this idea, but I am aware that this poster will be considerably more difficult to create.

In preparation for the magazine review page, I have been browsing through various film and cinema magazines, both in physical form and online. Although there are quite a number of magazines that allow consumers to view short films either online or via a DVD, there are surprisingly few that regularly offer actual reviews of short films. Therefore, our magazine review page will have to look like a special feature within that specific issue of the magazine, or like a first-time introduction to a new section of the magazine.

Film magazines such as Empire and Total Film generally contain one or two large reviews that span two or three pages each, for popular or critically anticipated films, and these are followed by smaller reviews: a few that take up a single page each (for films that are less critically anticipated, but still popular), more that take up half a page (for semi-popular films), and even more that take up around an eighth of a page (for any other films). To keep the reader interested, these different sized reviews are combined on the page, but with the general trend being from pages covered in long reviews with large images, down to pages filled with small reviews with a single, small images. 

Tom and I have decided that our review should be either the small 'eighth of a page' or medium 'half a page' size, within a page featuring other short-film reviews. Above is a basic sketch of what the page could look like.

Test Footage

Here, uploaded and edited by Tom, is the test footage we filmed with our main actor back in December. We performed the test, covering the entire first scene, so that we could confirm our choice of actor, and also generally so that we can tell if the film, with the shots and cuts we intend to use, is going to work.

Here is the unedited footage in its entirety: 

Scene one footage to be edited from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

And here is the footage edited similarly to how we hope it will be in the final cut: 

Scene one graveyard test from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Animatic for a Short Film

Finally, here is the animatic of our short film's first two scenes. Unlike the music video animatic I produced for my preparatory task, the purpose of this animatic is not to show exactly and precisely how our film will look; it is to establish the content and general ordering of the shots, sounds and effects we intend to use. As a result, although the scenes will only be around a minute in length each, the animatic is much longer, because I spend time expanding upon the relevance of each shot and at the end talking about other aspects. Basically, this animatic is a rough but detailed guide of what we are aiming for. 

Short Film Animatic from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

Tom and I decided the animatic should show the first two scenes because we feel these are the most complex, and probably also the most important. Having these scenes as an animatic will allow us to preview the film to people to get early feedback and suggestions, if we feel this is necessary. We have also had some different ideas about how the first two scenes should be ordered, so, if time permits, I may produce another animatic that shows the other idea of intercutting the scenes.

Production Log 3: Experience in Editing

Today, we present you with a 'special edition' Production Log. As we approach the actual production and editing of our short film, it is important we have sufficient experience working with the school's editing software, Final Cut Express. After running through a few tips and tricks with the school media technician, we decided to make a production log that would showcase some of the things we had learned.


Production Log 3 (Experience in Editing) from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.


Although we may not use these effects in our actual film, any time we take editing in Final Cut counts as experience, and it will all help to give our film a more professional look in the end. The school technician also made us aware of the limitations of Final Cut Express, so we may well use different editing software to achieve certain effects.

Cinematography: The Look of Our Film

In a previous post, I alluded to cinematography whilst talking about the films of David Fincher. I talked about his film having a 'distinctive visual style'. This style is created by the use of specific camera shots and lighting, and these processes are collectively known as cinematography.

Tom and I see our short film as having a minimalist feel. This is not to say that we will only put minimum effort into cinematography, or that we will only take minimal control of the images we capture. On the contrary, it means that we will ensure that our film doesn't have an elaborate look; it is supposed to be a personal story with a cerebral feel, and we want to focus the audience's attention in this direction, not to have them distracted by a great amount of unnecessary detail.

Good examples of this style in use are Dennis Gansel's German film Die Welle (The Wave - 2008), and the aforementioned Dead Man's Shoes (2004) from British director Shane Meadows. What both have in common with our film is that they are thoughtful and psychological thrillers. The shots are clean and simple, with an unobtrusive mise-en-scene and, for the most part, natural lighting, as illustrated in the screen-captures below. This is the kind of style we aim to recreate.

Die Welle



Dead Man's Shoes

As you can see, the focus in the shots above is clearly on the characters; the people around which the narrative revolves. One of the central aspects of our film is going to be the protagonist's ambiguous internal monologue, and a clear cinematographic focus on the protagonist will complement the monologue and add to our creative exploration of the character. To maintain such an intimate visual focus, we will mainly use mid-shots and close-ups which reveal the body-language and facial expressions of our actors, with the occasional long-shots to establish and close scenes.

We do intend to make use of effects in post-production, but again, we want to keep these simple, so that they serve their purpose of communicating the narrative, as opposed to making the film look cinematically elaborate. Some examples of effects are a monochrome colouring to show events of the past, and a translucent overlay of two different videos to show a character's thoughts. Tom is going to work out how we can create these effects, and I will post I link to this below when it is ready.

Update 2/12/10 - Tom and I have arranged to work through the methods for creating these effects with the school Media Technician, so that we will both have the knowledge and experience when it comes to the editing of our actual piece. Tom will still be responsible for posting this information, and I will provide the link to that post below.

-We actually decided to show what we have learned in a video in this post: http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2010/12/production-log-3-experience-in-editing.html

Writing a Treatment

As we mentioned in our first Production Log entry, Tom and I recently met to plan out our short film scene by scene. The plans I drew up from our conversation are shown below. They are organised scene by scene, and are intentionally rough; there is no division of different aspects, such as sound, narrative, dialogue and shots, there are merely bullet points for everything of importance. This is all that is needed for the time being, but the animatic we intend to make will reveal how all of these things function both individually, on different levels, and as one.

This morning, I began transforming these notes into a film treatment. As the Wikipedia article states, a treatment is the step between basic ideas for scene and the first screenplay, and seeing as I am going to be writing the script, I think it will be a useful step to take. The treatment will also be useful for Tom, because he is going to be taking photographs of the locations we want to use, and also researching the editing techniques we can use to achieve what we desire. For both of these processes, the treatment will serve as a useful reference.

I have literally just completed and uploaded the treatment, and here it is:

Treatment for a Short Film

It doesn't contain information on absolutely everything that will be included in the actual film, such a shot types and post-production effects, but it does describe all of the live action that we want to show on screen, and it does give a detailed description of the film's narrative. Although treatments are consistently written in the present tense, I felt that it was necessary to break this rule by writing in past tense for Scene 2, as this scene is set before all of the other events of the film, and I needed to indicate this in the treatment.

Music Video Remake: Completion

Finally, here is the completed version of my music video remake as a purely preporatory task.


Music Video Remake from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

Music Video Remake: Editing

It has to be said that, as a music video remake, the editing process was different in many ways. Instead of creating something new and original, where artistic decisions could be made at all stages, I was replicating a pre-existent product; working to a predetermined model. In some ways, this made the editing easier, because I didn't have to decide what shots to use where; I just had to have the footage ready, and cut the shots together as shown in the original video. In others, the process was constraining, because there wasn't much freedom to stray from the path that the original video dictated.

The original shot.

The new footage, imitating the original shot.

Intuitively, I took advantage of multiple video tracks, running the original video above my own footage so that I could time the cuts between shots as accurately as possible. Essentially, I was reviewing the original video, and aligning my own footage to it to create the remake. Whilst it wasn't difficult to time the cuts correctly, timing the pace of the performance to the audio track was much more of a trial-and-error procedure. To get the pace as accurate as possible, I began by watching the footage with the audio track and estimating the phase difference between the two. I then moved the starting position of the footage the appropriate amout to compensate. As it gradually became clear that the audio and video track were close to being in-phase, I moved the starting position back and forth in smaller and smaller increments, until the video and audio track worked together well.

Music Video Remake: Production

Soon after completing my animatic, I set to work persuading peers to take part in my surreal audio-visual venture. Luckily, a college 'day-off' was fast approaching, so I took the opportunity and organised filming to take place on that day. Ideally, I would have filmed the remake on the school stage, or in a drama studio, to ensure that the mise-en-scene was as similar as possible to that of the actual video. However, because availability of volunteers was limited to a day without college, and because I wanted a space that was mine to control (without definite time-windows and lingering responsibilities), I decided to film in my back garden. 

After reviewing the placement of the band and the shots required, I chose an appropriate position for filming which had the least restrictions for both camera placement and on-screen action. It was also quite necessary that I filmed on one side of the garden to avoid capturing enormous changes in lighting throughout the day. Although this couldn't be avoided entirely because of sporadic cloud-cover, the position I chose did minimise the problem considerably.

I was aiming to film what I needed as quickly as possible so as not to waste the volunteers' time, so I used the planning skills I had developed during my AS Media production project. Essentially, I wanted to make sure that I filmed only what I needed, and filmed it well, so I transferred all of the illustrated frames from my animatic onto sheets of A3 paper in order of first appearance. I then wrote the time windows in which the shots are used beneath each frame. With a variety of static shots to recreate, this preparation enabled me to set up a shot, and then film all of the moments that it is used one after the other. This method not only saved time and effort in setting up shots, but ensured that each respective shot remained the same throughout the video. 

Probably the biggest limitation I faced in remaking the video was in terms of accuracy was that of the props. The closest I could get to a real instrument was a small electric keyboard, so improvisation was required. Drumsticks became screwdrivers, guitars morphed into spades and tennis rackets, a metal safe became a cardboard box, chains turned to rope, and the miniature motorbike was swapped for a child's pedal bike. Still, this didn't matter too much, because the substitute props were chosen for their similarity in shape, proportion and utility to the real thing. As a result, the shots and performance were hardly affected. 

To ensure that everyone was performing in time, I hooked up a laptop to some speakers nearby, and played the original music video whilst filming. This allowed the volunteers to pretend to play their 'instruments' at the correct pace, so that I could time it to the audio track during editing. Seeing as only I was familiar with the video and the song, it was necessary that I mimed the lyrics. In order to allow myself to set-up the shot and also be in it, I asked a volunteer of the same approximate height to pose as me in the shot as I aligned the camera. After pressing record and swapping places in the shot, the same volunteer then played the video on the laptop at a suitable point for the rest of us to mime along to. This was the process used throughout the day, but not for certain shots involving the sabotage of the safe/box, where the timing of the performance wasn't particularly important.

The solutions for the ascent and descent of the safe/box were very much ad hoc. Essentially, we used an extending pole provided by a volunteer to hold a rope which was tied to the box. This way, a volunteer could hold the box in position whilst the performance was being filmed, and when it came to dropping the box, the rope could be fed through the loop at the end of the pole, allowing the box to fall vertically. I placed some items in the box before sealing it up to ensure that the box actually would fall instead of blowing to the side in the wind (which is rather uncharacteristic of a safe).

Admittedly, there are some glaring errors in continuity both between the original video and the remake, and just within the remake. Some examples of the former are

• The guitarist is holding his guitar the wrong way. This was a simple mistake that went unnoticed for a while, and when it was noticed, I judged it not to be worth filming the affected sections again.

• The vocalist is often stood to the wrong side of the frame. This mistake was entirely of my own making, caused by a misinterpretation of what the camera was filming; in the shots where I was miming directly to the camera, I fully rotated the preview screen so that I could set-up the shot, and forgot to compensate for the fact that the preview adjusts to mirror the image it receives.

Some examples of the latter are:

• The pole holding the safe/box suspended changes sides. It was unavoidable that the pole would be captured within the frame, but I also failed to foresee a problem in where the volunteer holding the pole was standing, so the pole does change from being on the right to being on the left, and then back again.

• The blue coil of rope being tugged by the pedal bike fully unwinds, only for the following shot to show it unwinding once more. This problem was unavoidable, simply because I didn't have enough rope for the coil to continue unwinding as the bike moved further and further away.

 All in all, I found the production of the piece to be a very enjoyable and worthwhile experience, and I would like to thank Alex Branson, Daniel Knights, Toby Barrett, Tom Palmer and Martin Campbell for their extremely skillful 'pretend-play' performances and their invaluable assistance in the arts of button-pushing, knot-tying and rope-pulling.