Research: Selected Text

This book by Terry Eagleton about cultural theory and post-modernism interested me because he addresses a lot of things that are undermined by the "dogmatic" approach of people who believe that their truth about life is the "absolute truth". Many of these things include human virtues and what it means to actually have human nature if there is one at all. 

“Because we are able to be false to our natures, there is some virtue in our being true to them. It may be then that we resemble toads in the sense that we, too, have a nature, in the sense of a way of living which is peculiar to being a successful human, and which, if we are true to it, will allow us to prosper. It is just that we are not sure what it is.”

“Because of language and labour, and the cultural possibilities they bring in their wake, we can transform what we are in ways that non-linguistic animals cannot. To discover what we are, to know our own natures, we have to think hard about it; and the result is that we have come up over the centuries with a bewildering array of versions of what it is to be human.”

- Eagleton, T (2004), After Theory, 1st edn, Penguin Group

The quote highlighted above is what really spoke to me through this passage. This being from my perspective, it's absolutely right. No single thing defines our own nature so we have to stop and think about who we actually are. Also, it speaks of the ever changing definitions of what human nature really is. But the quote is suggesting that there is no single definition of human nature as there is for the nature of a toad as Eagleton plainly puts it. We are complex beings and we all have different approaches to what the nature of a human being is. This in turn makes all have different and individual philosophies of being human and living life. 

From my understanding of  the quote, it asks the question of if we really can be called a collective species like that of a wolf pack, a flock of birds (or a toad as Eagleton describes); when in reality, in western culture at least, we all live in a society of capitalism and work for our own interests, beliefs and truths rather than together as a species. 

NEW MODULE: Exploring Meaning Through Narrative

The Brief:

For this module, I'm required to select a text from the public library as an ignition to spark an idea for a short film or animation. Sound design is particularly focused in on for this module and how it will aid the meaning of the project.

Module Evaluation/Report

Practice In Action Module Report

Beginning this module, my group members and I discussed what our strengths and weaknesses were so that we could decide on what roles we would take in this project. My role was director due to the group’s confidence that I could be fair and organised. And I believed that from day one, we would all work with each other and not for each other.  In regards to idea development, initially the majority of the group was keen to include an element of gore in the story; this was more or less the starting point after we drew our four pictures to create themes. Incorporating our final themes of isolation and oppression, we discussed making one idea with graphic representations of gore in the form of art and we chose to use isolation in the theme of mental health in a protagonist stuck in an abusive relationship.

When pitching our final two ideas, I felt that we were confident and unbiased in explaining our ideas. Idea one was chosen; the idea about a woman creating with her own blood in a world where creativity is illegal. What was challenging when we were making the screenplay was how we could imply the world’s lore of illegal creativity without plainly telling our audience through posters or news articles within the frames of the film. We struggled in deciding what the end painting would actually be and if it should be washed away at the end.

Resolving these problems, we created a sub plot within the film about the protagonist’s loss of a child she had taken away from her. This implied the oppression we wanted and it also gave us the final painting design which was a fetus.

On the first two days of production, we were organised in most respects; however, upon reviewing the raw film, it was clear that we’d made a mistake with the lighting. In trying to create a dark mood in the garage, we’d cut down masses amounts of light and there was little information being received by the camera as shown not only by the footage but by the scopes in Davinci Resolve. And when trying to raise the exposure, the amount of noise in the frame was too large to ignore.

The only way we could resolve this was to reshoot everything with a brighter setting and then darken the scenes in post. In doing it all again, the results were much more rewarding and successful when grading the raw film.

As far as production went, I feel that I’ve taken away a lot in regards to working with others and agreeing on a group idea. I found that being director involved a lot of listening but a lot of decision making. I had to make sure that everything that was being brought to me for review such as sounds, score and painting designs; everything was suitable enough for the story and conveys our message effectively.

I will also take away from this what it is to work with people under stress and keeping people motivated. When announcing to the group our reshoot plans, we were set back a little but I found that being keeping everyone motivated even under the stress of reshoot was effective in keeping quality in performance and efficiency on set.

In editing, myself and Ellie were responsible for the visual editing side of the film while Oscar and Fi were responsible for editing and creating the sound and score for the film. Personally I think that dividing the post work in this way proved to be effective as we each had a specific area to perfect.
Now that the final cut has been exported, I can say that I am pleased with what we’ve achieved in creating this short film. From a personal point of view, it’s not a genre I would be particularly interesting in watching. However, from a directorial point of view, I feel that we have utilised the visual components we selected and combined them with sound to create a film with a story that is visibly shown to transpire through the perspective of one character faced under oppression.
I particularly like the way sound was used to tell the sub plot within the story of the protagonist’s child that got taken away from her. This sequence of sounds explaining this context motivates her drive to finish her painting; using up her last ounces of strength to complete it and not run from the police to save herself.

Saying all of this, I feel that the film could have done with more scenes to distinguish when tension slows down and speeds up. Due to the five minute limit on the time, everything happens a little bit faster than I think it needs to be but never the less, the same tension and meaning is still put across in my opinion. I also think that we could have taken greater measures to acquire better costumes for the police as we were limited with the resources and budget.

Were we to shoot this film again, I would take more time to plan out the shots individually; focusing in more on the development of visual components and the golden ratio; so that we can save a lot of time on production and keep things running smoothly. I would also plan more days to do a proper recce and test shoots in order to avoid the lighting problem we faced. On that note, I would also hook up the camera to an external monitor to double check how the shot looks on a bigger screen. Furthermore, I would do more reviews of footage on set; checking the light scopes and making sure that we have the right settings, lighting and camera angles so that things can continue to run smooth.  In summary, I feel we worked well as a group and shared our ideas equally and listened to each other respectively; this was a successful group project.

Analysis of the final cut

Line:

Line is mostly used to show the protagonist's discomfort and stress. This is demonstrated through the lines in the props and set. They draw the audiences eye off to a tangent which creates disorientation and thus discomfort.

Shape:

For the purpose of intensity, two shapes are used specifically in relation the protagonist. Squares are present when the protagonist is doing their  "routine" performance; being that they do what they normally would each time they come to the art studio. It suggests a sense of equilibrium for the audience. However, whenever circles come into shot, that's where emotion starts to come in.

 For example, the quarter of the circle in the corner of the frame as she strokes the painting with emotion, the moment when she opens the jar; the circular lid foreshadows the trigger of the emotion of sadness, the final painting is in a circle to reflect the polices' changing perspective of it; they begin to look at it more on an emotional level.

Tone:

For the intense scenes, tone is contrasted to make the frame staggered. For example, the police always wear black in a white walled garage which shows they are permanently contrasting against the protagonist's studio due to the large dynamic range. The protagonist also where black on white later in the film to add to the contrast. However, this is done midway through as a way of foreshadowing that she will soon be in danger. 

When she arrives, she wears a colour that creates more affinity to the walls and the canvas showing that she is meant to be there in the first place; due to  the shorter dynamic range. This shows that all is currently calm as she sets up her studio to carry on with her painting.

Her skin tone is also in affinity to the cream coloured canvas as she touches it and paints on it. Again reducing the intensity and creating more affinity of tone to indicate that she and the painting are connected.

Colour:

To an extent, we used the Pleasntville effect in colour grading to make the protagonist saturated and the environment excluding the canvas, desaturated. We did this showing that she does not belong in the world she's in. Here, colour shows her passion for creativity in a world where it is prohibited. 

Desaturated the environment also enhances the red in the canvas making it stand out a lot more to the audience. It can either overwhelm them in shock knowing it's made from blood and/or it overwhelms them in the hipe of seeing colour in a film where it is highly limited or at most bland or in a low saturation.

Narrative:

Protagonist's want = to create her final masterpiece

Protagonist's need = to let go of her vengeance and anger

Protagonist's flaw = the traumatic memories of her forced abortion

Antagonist = The oppression inflicted by the government

Act 1:

• Introduction to protagonist and the police pursuing her in a tense opening
• Introduction to the protagonist's work space and their "call" to finish their painting
• Introduce the police broadcast in pursuit of a "suspect"

Act 2:

• Discover the protagonist's love for her child that was taken from her
• Point of no return, she cuts herself to use her blood as paint
• Police grow closer forcing her to paint faster

Act 3:

• Protagonist uses everything they have left to finish their painting and then faces the police
• She is held down and apparently 'loses' until the police are changed by looking at the painting
• Protagonist has achieved her goal and is more wiser at the end in changing the police's emotions towards the painting

The Final Cut: Cassiopeia

Summary:

Cassiopeia is based in a world where all creativity has been banned by the government in an effort to increase human efforts into science and the military. For one such woman however, the ban has taken more than just her freedom of expression away from her, a child that she long to nurture and raise for so long was taken away from her too. This sent her on a path of extreme determination and 'liberation' to create the ultimate final masterpiece that could potentially change the world.

Post Production: Adding Sound

Today was the final day of editing. Oscar worked on the score, giving me regular samples to get my opinion and Fi worked on the foley and other sound effects in the film through Premiere. I also advised her on the best places to add certain sounds for the effect and raising and dropping intensity.

Research: Film Festival Submission

Kinematifest:

http://kinematifest.com/

Kinematifest not only exhibits films but involves guests speakers that instruct their trade and have open Q and As. Films are open for submission and we could enter this in good time before the deadline comes around.

New Zealand International Film Festival:

http://www.nziff.co.nz/submit-a-film/submission-guidelines/

Although NZIFF is international, we can submit our film through a link for exhibition. I feel this would be good as it takes our film to an international audience where art and culture would be considerably different. Thus having an entirely new viewpoint on what our film means to the audience that watches.

London Short Film Festival:

LSFF is a festival I have been aware of for some time now. They have been exhibiting short films from all around the country for 2018 submissions are now open. As the audience age range is open and this festival primarily accepts live action, it would be a suitable festival to enter.

Publicity poster design:

With the submission of our film, this is how we would design the poster. Emphasis on the colour red as it is the only dominant colour in the film. The protagonist's eyes look down on a transparent section of the painting of her child; like a mother watching over her child.

Post Production: Visual Component Time/Intensity Graphs

Whilst we had the narrative time/intensity graph drawn on paper in pre-production, I analysed our film through and identified which visual components followed a pattern that can be plotted on the  time against intensity graph:


Narrative:

 Colour:

 Tone:

Post Production: 2nd Rough Cut (Colour Graded)

With the help from my tutor Matt, the colour grading of our film was complete today. All that leaves is to add the sound which will take place in the next few days. The purpose of colour grading the raw film was to create the correct colour of the film but also to apply elements of the Pleasantville effect.

Whilst the dripping blood scene is too dark for the red to be vibrantly saturated, we were able to bring out the red by contrasting the tone and colour of the blood on the canvas. This really makes it stand out and is effective in drawing the audience's eye to it. Another way we added the Pleasantville effect to the film was actually making the protagonist more saturated than the environment around her.

 This initially wasn't our plan as we only wanted the blood to be saturated; however it proved to be effective in implying that the protagonist does not belong in the world around her and so she stands out from it literally by being saturated with colour.

Theory: Davinci Resolve Lynda.com Course

I've started the beginners course to the essentials of Davinci Resolve by Patrick Inhoffer. This is to expand my understanding of the programme to help me colour grade our film in post. But, it will also be an asset for future projects that require colour grading in Davinci; I will have gained the knowledge to do that from learning this now.

Post Production: Beginning Editing

Today was all about organising the footage and creating a rough cut so we could get a rough idea on what the rhythm of the film will be and where sound will need to be placed.

Post Production: Rough Cut and Analysis of Rhythm and Cuts

With the corrected film in our possession, we set about getting a rough cut put together as soon as possible. Although all out film was shot on Blackmagic, we were able to open the files in Premiere Pro to  put a rough cut together that would outline the rhythm of the film and where we needed to add cuts and place shots:

At this stage of post, rhythm and intensity were the most important factors to consider. At the start of the film, the cuts were close together making the intensity high which is what we want to create to throw the audience straight into the action in preparing them for the reveal later on. From this point, the rhythm and cuts of the film are placed in a more "routine fashion" to match the protagonist's performance of routinely arriving and setting up at her art studio. It also gradually lowers the intensity and gives the audience time to recover from the high intensity and the start without missing any key plot points in the film later on,

For the scene where the protagonist looks at the painting with a motherly affection, the cuts are more spcaed out and the takes are the longest in these shots. This is so that we can really bring out the emotion in the protagonist and let it linger for the audience to absorb; so that they can feel sympathy towards the protagonist.

Finally, in the scene where the police break in, the cuts become closer together to raise the heightening intensity. And where the protagonist grows faint, the cuts are fragmented and appear more exposed.  However, this  is done to briefly put the audience in the protagonist's state of deliriousness; in the sense that the cuts make it seem that the action of her stumbling to the ground is happening faster than it should; almost like the audience is blinking too much.

Production: Re-shoot

The re-shoot today proved to be a great success. We had anticipated for every problem that happened before and for problems that could have happened. Whilst we had one Blackmagic camera in operation, we had one on charge ready to use when the other died. We also did a thorough lighting test to ensure that this time round, the camera received enough light to reduce noise as much as possible. And to be sure that we had the correct settings on the camera and lighting, we opened Davinci on the laptop and opened test footage to view the scopes:

Scope from old film during test shoot

Scope of re-shoot film

Comparing the two, there is far more information on the scope for the re-shoot where the brightest parts reach to the mid tones. This reduced the noise greatly and will prove to be a far better task of colour grading in post due to the freedom to alter the colour and light settings without the worry of exposing noise.

Research: 1984 Film

This films theme of oppression and the thought of always being watched ties in very closely the theme in our film. The reason why I thought this would be appropriate is that the protagonist embarks on a dangerous relationship where they know they are being watched and begin to discover the difference between propaganda and the real.

Like in our film, he protagonist embarks on something dangerous for the pursuit of the love lost in her child taken away from her. And also, she is creating an almost political statement knowing full well that there are police who know where she is and are closing in on her.

Theory: Davinci Resolve Workshop

Luminance Waveform:

• Useful to have greyscale  in media pool
• Anything on scope that is above or below line = information lost

1. Expand dynamic range (set white and black points)
2. Alter mid-tones
3. Luminance is SET

Vector Scope:

• Yellow boxes indicate legal colour limit
• Used to shot colour limits and bias
• Offset dial used to alter vector

Pyrade;

• Splits light into red, green and blue waveform

Colour correction ="1st Pass"

Shot matching = "2nd Pass"

This workshop was useful as we're shooting our film in raw which means colour grading is a lot easier and also, Davinci opens raw files very well so we can edit and colour grade all in Davinci.

Test: Visualising Ending Credits

For an end credits scene, I did a quick test with the footage I took on my DSLR after the second Test shoot, and the song which we used as inspiration to set the emotional tone. (Note, the song used in this video will not be submitted in the final cut). The idea is to show the aftermath of the police raid as an ease to the intensity; a calm to the storm. It shows jars being knocked over with blood being spilt into the floor drainage like it's all gone to waist.

 It also shows close  ups of the painting as to bring the audience closer to its meaning even after it has been revealed at the resolution of the film. The credits sequence will also allow the non-diegetic music to continue and keep the emotional feeling of the end of the film lasting a little bit longer. This is so that the audience can take time to take in what they've seen.

Production: Highlighting Problems

Problems:

We finished the shoot as planned on Tuesday and today I planned to begin reviewing the raw film in Davinci Resolve. However, after talking with my tutor Matt and upon further analysis of the film, it was obvious that we'd made the mistake of dimming the lights to get a dim effect for the film. As a result, barely any light was being detected by the camera and there was an awful lot of noise in the shot. This is obvious in the lack of information shown in the waveform scope on Davinci Resolve:

Another problem we needed to fix highlighted by Matt was the audience's point of attention. We need to re-frame our shots so we made it clear where the audience was looking. For instance, in this shot, the arm of the protagonist takes up the majority of the shot and the action is hidden away and needs to be made more obvious:

With these changes in mind, we aim to shoot again as soon as we can. I have managed to gain the opportunity for us to film on 12th March which will still leave us plenty of time to edit a rough cut, colour grade and add sound.

Production: Test Shoot Day 2

Day 2:

Second day of production began bright and early today. We focused on filming the scenes after the intense opening; i.e focusing in on Fi's character development in shots like a routine arrival and set up. Also establishing the fact of her once being a mother who lost a child and the connection she has with it through the painting. This is important information as it adds value to the reveal of the painting at the end; in the sense that the audience is made to feel sympathetic when they realise that the painting is in fact of her child as a fetus.

Production: Continuity Log

To ensure there was no continuity and so we could record the shots on the clapperboard to help us organise footage in post, we've created a continuity log sheet:

Production: Test Shoot Day 1

Day 1:

Production began at 12:00pm. We focused on filming the scenes with the police officers in first due to the limited time we had with one of our actors. Having done the recce before hand, we could quickly set up and commence with shooting:

The Blackmagic Pocket Cinema camera was mounted to a DSLR shoulder rig during shooting. We chose this because having it hand held with a steady but subtle amount of movement to make our shots appear more natural looking compared to a still surveillance stance of a tripod. This is useful as the measure of hand held movement determines intensity. From visual components theory, the minimal movement indicates low intensity and as the movement of the camera increases towards the end of the film, so does the intensity.

Our lighting consisted of Dedolight kit and an LED portable flood light. Florescent house lights were kept off during takes. This decision was made because we wanted to have a dark feel to the room. Our method was bouncing light off the white ceiling to create a soft light that didn't cast shadows. This applies to our theme of oppression; being that the protagonist is deprived of light and also the environmental mood adds to the sadness of her character.

As Director, it's my job to communicate with actors to bring out the performance that we're looking for in the script. The way in which I do this is to walk them through the actions of the script demonstrating them first. I then explain to them what they need to be feeling during the take and how I imagine their performance to be. But I also ask them to add their own artistic qualities in order to make the character their own. This is important because takes need to be as long as possible so that there is enough material to work with in post; so keeping in character until I shout cut is vital for this.

When creating the set and costumes, we used fake blood made from red food dye, ketchup, corn flour and vinegar to create the substance that would be used to paint the picture. We didn't use acrylic because we need a natural blood texture for the creation of the painting as the protagonist has been creating this over a long period of  time with their own blood; extracting it bit by bit the hand stroke it onto the canvas.

For the scars, we used foundation and PVA glue to create the bumps that represent previous scars from cuts that she got her own blood from. However, the thickness of the PVA glue made them look too artificial so we reduce the number of them and replaced them with an eye liner pencil which also added a shade of red to them. This is important as red is the stand out colour in this film.