This post will conclude the Blog for
Team 1
Group 3
Nathalie Kranich - NK312
The Project will be concluded today, one day before the submission deadline.
Throughout the journey for this module, we had to come to terms with a few difficulties that made our work harder or possibly less rewarding, but I believe we came out of this with many new and nice experiences.
Our most fatal mistake throughout the entire project was time management. We had drastically underestimated how short 2-3 minutes would be, and had prepared an idea and script for a project that would require a much larger time frame. We therefore had to reduce our script to the minimal shippable product, and often struggled with how our vision had to change due to time restriction.
We also came to realize that finding actors interested in a project can be difficult, and that advertising the project and properly arranging for contacts is essential to keep a movie alive. Thankfully we found a very capable actress in the end, after a total of three audition.
Filming was a wonderful experience for most of us I think. I thoroughly enjoyed directing, and being with a friendly group that got along well made the filming days fun and rewarding.
I feel as though throughout filming and post production we were little prepared for the things we had to mind. We often took unfocused shots, or disregarded the lighting so that shots became over exposed. We had only very little camera training, and Cian, our camera man, was the only one who really picked up the camera throughout these times, as he had claimed that responsibility from the beginning. Our whole camera knowledge was therefore mainly focused on him.
We had also received only one editing lab session with the bare necessities of editing, resulting in a minimal shippable product but by no means something I would consider professional work. We had to accept that we would probably never be able to fix all the audio problems we had. Audio management was not taught to us at all, and other than balancing out the audio and working with the microphone we had, we felt like we knew how to do very little.
As all the post production had to be done within two to three days this week, our days became pretty stressful. I am the first to admit that I started to become quite irritable with my group due to the stress that was building up before the deadline.
Teamwork can often be a difficult thing, and although rewarding, I am little used to letting other people do a large part of a group work on their own, resulting in me wanting to link myself into every aspect of work on the project. I believe that as a group we communicated well and regularly, met up often, and made big decisions together.
Overall I am very happy with our teamworking skills throughout the module. Apart from some stressful moments we got along well and got work done reliably.
Was my vision of the shortfilm fulfilled?
I don't fully believe so, although I have not yet seen the final colour corrected version. It was our absolute first attempt, and for that I am content with what we have produced. I think we can do better another time when we have less time restrictions and possibly more knowledge and experience. I would certainly do a few things differently next time.
Ofcourse the vision was obstructed by the simple fact that we had to butcher our idea into a shorter script, therefore we are happy with an outcome that matches the criteria and leaves us with something to show for our work.
Me and my group have already spoken about maybe picking up a filming project next term. We enjoyed the moving image module and might want to do more on our own terms, with a chance to experiment and take our time.
Although this is the conclusion post, I might upload the final short film here later on. That however depends on whether our actor is fine with that.
Thursday, 9 April 2015
Wednesday, 8 April 2015
Post-Production: Editing
Tuesday, the seventh of April, Sach and Alistair started editing in the computer suits. They got the first third of the movie done during the morning and afternoon, and later called me to come and assist with the editing. Cian, who was with me at the time, and me, therefore went back, and we had a look at the work already done, finding that quite a lot of footage was unfortunately shot rather bad. Some of it was out of focus, and we had big issues with the light shining onto Sophie's face during the break up scene, causing it to appear over exposed at times.
I edited the second third of the movie, which was intended to be a montage scene, and got started somewhat on the break up. Overall we probably realized that we were still way over time.
Today we had our last seminar group. Sach and Alistair had finished the rough cut last night after me and Cian left, and we showed our work to Helen, who picked out many inconsistencies and pieces in which we failed to relay the message and plot of the movie. Some serious reediting had to be done, shifting scenes and cleaning up the montages.
The middle montage I had worked on as we had intended in the script was too jumpy and unclear for an objective viewer to understand. We had to rearrange them so that the scenes fit the mood that was shown prior and after the montage.
At 12 Sophie came to see us because we had promised to take her for lunch as a thank you. We went to mine first with a camera and got a still of the picture frame, as well as some more audio tracks done for which we quickly wrote down a short script, that later didn't end up being used. Then we went for lunch. Oscar and Sach stayed at Jennison to continue with the edit, and by the time we returned they had changed and improved it drastically. Indeed the film now made more sense, and there was not much time left that we needed to cut down.
Together with Oscar I worked on the music audio tracks, for which we used two songs I recently came to like and chose for the project.
Angus and Julia Stone's "For you" was one of them, the other was "King" by Lauren Aquilina. I think I shall post links to the song, as they quite nicely reflect the nature of the story, and have long inspired me for the shortfilm.
I left a little earlier than the others, when Sach, Oscar and Alistair remained to start colour correcting. it felt like a job I could not necessarily assist with much. Tomorrow we shall meet up to have a final run through the project, and hopefully we will be able to submit tomorrow.
I shall then also write an overall conclusion for this blog.
I edited the second third of the movie, which was intended to be a montage scene, and got started somewhat on the break up. Overall we probably realized that we were still way over time.
Today we had our last seminar group. Sach and Alistair had finished the rough cut last night after me and Cian left, and we showed our work to Helen, who picked out many inconsistencies and pieces in which we failed to relay the message and plot of the movie. Some serious reediting had to be done, shifting scenes and cleaning up the montages.
The middle montage I had worked on as we had intended in the script was too jumpy and unclear for an objective viewer to understand. We had to rearrange them so that the scenes fit the mood that was shown prior and after the montage.
At 12 Sophie came to see us because we had promised to take her for lunch as a thank you. We went to mine first with a camera and got a still of the picture frame, as well as some more audio tracks done for which we quickly wrote down a short script, that later didn't end up being used. Then we went for lunch. Oscar and Sach stayed at Jennison to continue with the edit, and by the time we returned they had changed and improved it drastically. Indeed the film now made more sense, and there was not much time left that we needed to cut down.
Together with Oscar I worked on the music audio tracks, for which we used two songs I recently came to like and chose for the project.
Angus and Julia Stone's "For you" was one of them, the other was "King" by Lauren Aquilina. I think I shall post links to the song, as they quite nicely reflect the nature of the story, and have long inspired me for the shortfilm.
I left a little earlier than the others, when Sach, Oscar and Alistair remained to start colour correcting. it felt like a job I could not necessarily assist with much. Tomorrow we shall meet up to have a final run through the project, and hopefully we will be able to submit tomorrow.
I shall then also write an overall conclusion for this blog.
Production: Last day of filming (almost)
Monday (6th of April) we met up again with Sophie for 1pm, and shot the last few scenes in my room, as well as the last few outdoor scenes. We took some pretty dramatic, angry shots of her with smeared lipstick (to which she later turned out to have an allergic reaction. Nothing too fatal, thankfully.)
The day of filming went well. It was only me and Cian, as well as our actors Alistair and Sophie. We had good enough weather, although it was a little cloudy. We finished quite on time, long before we ran out of daylight.
Scheduled that day were mainly montage scenes, with no dialogue. We did however take some audio tracks to overlay later.
The day of filming went well. It was only me and Cian, as well as our actors Alistair and Sophie. We had good enough weather, although it was a little cloudy. We finished quite on time, long before we ran out of daylight.
Scheduled that day were mainly montage scenes, with no dialogue. We did however take some audio tracks to overlay later.
Sunday, 5 April 2015
This was a nice thing to go over, although I had long ago done it wrong with scriptwriting for our shortfilm. In collaboration with Sach I noticed that his formatting completely differed from mine, and that I had forgotten quite a few things that I should have paid attention to - in general all things mentioned in the above video.
Mind when to capitalize names and actions, what degree of description to use, etc.
Production: Second day of shooting
Last wednesday during the seminar group we decided to get the camera for the weekend and do most of our filming then. This being the easter weekend, we actually managed to book the camera out for quite a long duration.
We agreed with our actress to meet on saturday at half ten infront of the production studio, and at first the weather looked rather bleak. It had been raining a little, the ground was wet, and then our actress did not show up at first for a good two hours. Turned out she had overslept, but we waited tirelessly and long enough to manage to arrange a meeting afterall. Everyone was still in the Jennison Building, so we met back up and went back to mine for filmig.
Scheduled were the griefing scenes in my room and the opening call. We filmed that all pretty easily as they were short, simple scenes with easy pans.
The group harmonized well once more and the scenes worked pretty well. Unfortunately Alistair and Sach had only little to do that day, as most scenes simply included Sophie, and we could not have all of us in my room at one time, out of fear of crowding the place and getting in the way of the filming.
They stayed on standby anyway and helped out with anything that was needed nontheless, so we had plenty assistance on set.
The funeral-scene, in which Caitlyn returns from Adrian's funeral and begins her grieving process, was a hard thing for us to film. We gave Sophie sometime, and she used it to put herself into a sad mood. She did a wonderful job with it, and actually cried naturally during the scene, making for a quite upsetting and emotional shot. It was perfect for the shortfilm, and a little difficult to watch, but she worked very proffesionally with nicely smeared make up.
After the funeral shots, the weather turned sunny, and we decided it was best to use the sunny time we got to film the outdoors scenes. So we wrapped up in my room and went out towards elliot foothpath, where we filmed one more happy scene of the two actors climbing a tree, and went on to locationscout out a tree for the breakupscene.
Last week we had used a tree that was positioned in a very soft, swampy area, and we had issues with our shoes sinking in and the wetness getting to us. So we moved somewhere a little more stable, and repeated the scene there. It was difficult to position the actors correctly for the light to work with us, and in general framing and positioning was difficult because the actors moved a fair bit during their scene, leaving frame when panning was unintended.
Alistair and Sophie nontheless managed towards the end to really make the scene look natural. They reached for each others hands and embraced well, and the forehead-kiss looked affectionate as it should be. We are very pleased with the work our actors have done, and after a round of close ups on both characters, and a general run through from the distance, as well as special medium close ups for the hug and the kiss, we wrapped up for the day.
Our next shoot is planned for monday afternoon at 1pm, where we will finish off some argument scenes, create some audio for voice overlays, and finish the griefing scenes in Caitlyn's room. That will complete all our shots, and we can start editing afterwards, giving our post-production people around three days to finish the editing.
Overall, we spent six hours yesterday on the project.
We agreed with our actress to meet on saturday at half ten infront of the production studio, and at first the weather looked rather bleak. It had been raining a little, the ground was wet, and then our actress did not show up at first for a good two hours. Turned out she had overslept, but we waited tirelessly and long enough to manage to arrange a meeting afterall. Everyone was still in the Jennison Building, so we met back up and went back to mine for filmig.
Scheduled were the griefing scenes in my room and the opening call. We filmed that all pretty easily as they were short, simple scenes with easy pans.
The group harmonized well once more and the scenes worked pretty well. Unfortunately Alistair and Sach had only little to do that day, as most scenes simply included Sophie, and we could not have all of us in my room at one time, out of fear of crowding the place and getting in the way of the filming.
They stayed on standby anyway and helped out with anything that was needed nontheless, so we had plenty assistance on set.
The funeral-scene, in which Caitlyn returns from Adrian's funeral and begins her grieving process, was a hard thing for us to film. We gave Sophie sometime, and she used it to put herself into a sad mood. She did a wonderful job with it, and actually cried naturally during the scene, making for a quite upsetting and emotional shot. It was perfect for the shortfilm, and a little difficult to watch, but she worked very proffesionally with nicely smeared make up.
After the funeral shots, the weather turned sunny, and we decided it was best to use the sunny time we got to film the outdoors scenes. So we wrapped up in my room and went out towards elliot foothpath, where we filmed one more happy scene of the two actors climbing a tree, and went on to locationscout out a tree for the breakupscene.
Last week we had used a tree that was positioned in a very soft, swampy area, and we had issues with our shoes sinking in and the wetness getting to us. So we moved somewhere a little more stable, and repeated the scene there. It was difficult to position the actors correctly for the light to work with us, and in general framing and positioning was difficult because the actors moved a fair bit during their scene, leaving frame when panning was unintended.
Alistair and Sophie nontheless managed towards the end to really make the scene look natural. They reached for each others hands and embraced well, and the forehead-kiss looked affectionate as it should be. We are very pleased with the work our actors have done, and after a round of close ups on both characters, and a general run through from the distance, as well as special medium close ups for the hug and the kiss, we wrapped up for the day.
Our next shoot is planned for monday afternoon at 1pm, where we will finish off some argument scenes, create some audio for voice overlays, and finish the griefing scenes in Caitlyn's room. That will complete all our shots, and we can start editing afterwards, giving our post-production people around three days to finish the editing.
Overall, we spent six hours yesterday on the project.
Thursday, 26 March 2015
Production: Photos from Set
Here are some of the photos I took on our great filming day yesterday!
a
On set for the Breakup, Sun was setting and we were losing light quickly. It got pretty chilly and the ground was wet and muddy.
Getting started on the Breakup scene
Photoshooting for the couple pictures. We got many nice pictures and Alistair will be printing them off so we can use them next week and prepare my room as a film set.
Teabreak for the group, at my house in parkwood.
At the Parkwood path for the second running scene. We had quite a few curious people walk through the set and wonder what we were doing.
a
At Dolce Vitta to feed some ducks. Sach got a healthy wholemeal bread for the birdies.
We also saw a seagull eat a goldfish. Yum.
Getting started on the Breakup scene
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