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.