Experimental Film - Final Film

Multi Screen - Editing

Editing is always a draining task for me as it isn't exactly my favourite thing to do. It was very easy for me to do the Premiere Pro side of things as really all it was was putting the clips together. The part that I really hated was the After Effects side of the project. I find the software very difficult to use and feel that it's going to be a long time before I grasp a proper understanding of its uses. I followed the tutorial which was simple enough to go along with and ended up with something that I was relatively happy with. I had to go frame by frame following the path of the object I wanted to animate around. This was a lengthy process as the films were 24fps meaning I had to draw on 24 frames for just 1 second of footage. Given more time I would love to do this again and on a bigger scale as once I got into the swing of it I was actually enjoying drawing on each frame and seeing the animation come together as a whole. 

Multi Screen - Filming

The filming process of this project was very makeshift and quick. I really didn't have a lot of time for this project in terms of when I started it so I couldn't afford to waste time worrying about the camera settings too much and so I settled for natural lighting. Because I had very little time I couldn't bring in an actor so I had to step in myself; this is partly the reason as to why I tried my best not to reveal my face (because I was holding the camera in some shots).  I used a Canon 600D with a 35mm lens and used a gorilla pod to keep the camera steady. In all honesty, the filming went quite smoothly and was all done in the space of an hour. My only query whilst filming was not having someone in charge of the camera able to tell me if everything I was doing was looking okay or not, meaning I had to film a take, stop and playback by myself to make sure it all looked okay.

Multi Screen - Progression on Idea

Because I feel like I haven't had a lot of time to think about this project, I found it difficult to think about how I was going to implement the use of After Effects into my project. I started looking online for interesting effects that I could create but didn't want to try anything too challenging that I know I wouldn't be able to follow. I then stumbled upon a tutorial on how to create an animated drawing effect which after watching seemed quite straight forward and seemed to be in my sort of skill level. I started following the tutorial but there came a point where one of the buttons wasn't available to me that was there for the person doing the tutorial. Because of this I had to keep every drawing that I did on the screen for the rest of the video. I really didn't like this at the start but after I'd done all the drawings and saw them overlap onto one another I actually quite liked it and thought it made the whole piece look quite abstract and thought that it could represent the brainwaves of the person on each screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-CNfSqydsY

Multi Screen - Relative Work (Hoodie Allen)

Whilst trying to think of ideas for my project, I remembered how one of my favourite musical artists has a music video that uses multi screen imagery in an ingenious way. In this video it follows the singer, Hoodie and a pretty girl in whom he tries to impress at a crowded house party. One screen is on Hoodie and the other on the girl with there being a clear divide down the middle of the screen. There is a part in the video which I find very impressive which is where both Hoodie and the girl are in the same room and notice each other, the cameras on both screens then quick pan to the other person so for a very short moment they are on the wrong side of the screen. It then pans back and everything carries on. This video has really influenced me as it is an excellent use of using two screens at once and if given more time and money, would be something I would want to achieve for this project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZunGEL-jD-Y

Multi Screen - Initial Idea and Development

My initial idea for the multi screen project was to have two different people of similar characteristics following a similar journey of walking/strutting/dancing who would then eventually meet each other. I planned to use interesting camera angles and to colour correct the film in an extreme way, making the video seem quite abstract. After some thought and re-reading the brief, I realised that my idea would not meet the fitting criteria. I then had an idea to do a similar thing to my original plan but do a sort of gender role reversal idea. So essentially it was going to be two different people getting ready and going about their day but you would not see their faces until the end which would have been a reveal that the whole time you thought you were watching the mans day, it was actually the woman and vice versa. Again after some consideration I decided that this would not suit the brief again and started thinking about technology and how I could include that into my project. I decided to settle on the idea of one screen showing a person using a lot of technology then having the same person adjacent on the other screen using no technology whatsoever.

Experimental Film - Evaluation

This project has been very different to anything I've tried to make before. I feel as though it has really challenged me in tasks that I have never thought to attempt before and even though they may not have ended up the way I wanted, I'm glad that I've at least had the opportunity to try out new things. The general plot for my film was to touch up on a few things, I'll start with the character of my film first. The reason as to why he wears a blue morphsuit is because I wanted it to resemble being just plain and bland, only one colour meaning only one feeling. Everything was neutral. Moving up the character to his face and his stitched mouth and the reasons for it. I wanted to symbolise how a lot of people in the modern day are too scared to say how they truly feel as they are worried about the outcome and consequences. That lead to the meaning of the cable and the monitor, I feel as though a lot of people can only speak their mind as long as theres a helping hand (i.e. The man is unable to speak due to the stitches and must communicate by displaying his thoughts and fears onto a monitor). I tried to link the thoughts and fears to modern day problems which is why I included the clip with Donald Trump as he is a very intimidating character in todays society.

With regards to the post production, I feel as though I have just been very unlucky, especially on the filming day where I had constant interruptions and in the editing stage where I had to wait for my special effects friend to get back to uni. Having said all of this, I feel as though I coped very professionally with all of my problems that I faced and produced a relatively high quality film which I am quite happy with. Obviously I am not completely pleased with it because I would have loved to have filmed more takes so I feel like the start of the film works very well and is very well paced and edited but towards the end I feel like it is very rushed and that it is very noticeable that it is rushed but other than that, I am pleased with how my film came out and if I had the chance I would love to go back to it and finish the project with as much time as possible to really make something I'm proud of.

Experimental Film - Editing Part 2

Once it got to the part of the project where I had to edit the special effects it was the most difficult thing I've ever done. I've never used After Effects before so the whole software looked bizarre to me so instead of trying to press a load of buttons I didn't know, I looked up tutorials on how to do what I wanted. Even after doing this I realised that I was using the newest version of After Effects, different to what the tutorials were showing so a lot of the buttons and options were either out of place or not available anymore. Because of this I had to turn to a friend who specialises in After Effects to teach me what to do as I was still clueless on how to do everything and asked if he could show me how to do it myself. The two things that I needed doing was to have second hand footage playing on a monitor as the camera zoomed into it and to also change the eye colour of my actors eyes. My friend showed me how to create a mask for the monitor and how to track its movement with the camera as it zoomed in. He also showed me how to make null objects and how to follow the path of the actors eyes without doing it frame by frame which was extremely convenient. The whole editing process was very lengthy but was worth it in the end.

Experimental Film - Editing Part 1

The editing stage for my film was very different to any other project I've worked on. This is because it was my first time properly using Premiere Pro so of course, learning the software as I go along was a challenging task. With this project I really wanted to try using foley sound a lot more and so for this reason I only used the camera whilst filming, evidently making the film practically silent as there was no use of exterior microphones. I started piecing the silent clips together and it all went well. I then hired out a Zoom microphone and started recording sounds. The first sound that I really wanted was an ambient buzzing sound; I got this by leaving the microphone next to a powered fridge in a large kitchen which gave it a nice textured echo. I then saw that there was little sounds that I had forgotten to include like the fact that the actor is wearing a lycra suit, meaning that he would swish slightly when he walked. After realising this, I used the exact suit that the actor wore and as I watched the footage back I swished the suit in time with his movement and to my surprise it worked really well. It isn't the most overpowering sound but it is an essential one that you may not notice at first.

Experimental Film - Filming

The filming process for this project was a very difficult one. I had planned as much as I could have and everything looked okay on paper. My first encounter was through no fault but my own which was that I had previously thought that the costume/makeup would take about 10 minutes maximum whereas it took about 40 minutes. Baring in mind that I only had the room for 2hrs 30mins this was quite the setback. The filming began and everything seemed to be going well; the communication between the cast and crew was good and we were slightly ahead of schedule. We had filmed about half of the film right up until things started to go downhill. A fire alarm went off meaning that the shoot had to come to a stop and everyone had to be evacuated from the building. We were stood outside for about 10 minutes and once we were allowed back in, the fire alarm went off a second time, meaning that we'd lost about 20 minutes in total. After all of this happening I then had a teacher let me know that he had the room booked from 1pm for tutorials with his students even though I had booked the room out until 1.30pm, meaning that this cut off another 30 minutes of filming time. Because of all these unfortunate reasons, it meant that we had to rush a lot of shots just hoping that we could get everything we needed.

Overall, considering the amount of unwanted setbacks we had, resulting in losing about an 1hr 30mins of filming time; I feel like we coped with it very professionally, not just throwing the towel in and actually made use of the 1 hour film time that we ended up with. Obviously if I were to do the shoot again I imagine there wouldn't be so many inconveniences on the day. In a sense, I am happy that what happened happened because it has helped me a lot as a film maker, forcing me to make decisions in a short amount of time, making each minute count.

Experimental Film - Relative Work (Eraserhead)

Going back to the beginning of this unit, I remember watching a clip from the 1977 film, Eraserhead directed by David Lynch. The film was shot in black and white and was the first ever feature film by Lynch, continuing from a series of shorts that he had made prior. The genre of the film is a "Surrealist body horror" film, meaning that there are a number of disturbing scenes in the film which interested me a lot seeing as I have been very keen to see how directors achieved a disturbed looking film in the earlier years of film. Lynch does a magnificent job of creating tension using minimal dialogue which is at the top of my list for things I want to achieve when filming my film. There is a scene in the film in which the main character, Spencer is in a room with a small alien like creature which quickly becomes covered in flies, symbolising that it is sick. This is a very disturbing scene which is created predominantly using sound and realistically I would like to be able to achieve a successful scene creating the same tension and atmosphere as David Lynch did in this scene.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKhURjt9x5A

Experimental Film - Relative Work (Poppy)

I have been looking into things that a lot of people can agree is physiologically 'creepy' and see the effects it has on people and see how they react when watching something of this calibre. There is a popular girl who is internet famous for standing out for odd reasons by the name of Poppy. Her videos consist of her just explaining random things she is doing but uses very uncomfortable angles, getting very close to the camera at times whilst talking in a soft but sinister voice. There have been lots of speculation with poppy's videos regarding if there is a hidden meaning behind all of them, if she is really as strange as her character portrays or if she is just a hired actress and the whole this is just a scheme to creep people out. I knew what my opinion of Poppy was but I decided to look further into if other people see her how I do and if so, how they felt about her videos. I found a video of a series of children watching her videos and reacting to them and as I expected, even children find her awkwardly disturbing which wasn't really a surprise. I really like the production of her videos though, how she is always just in a blank room and everything about Poppy is very light and pure; She has white hair, pale skin, light coloured clothes, along with a white background. The background is exactly what I want in my film but I may have to settle for something a little less production-wise. 

Poppy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4nHLHDtyVA

Kids React to Poppy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQkYgw52PnE

Experimental Film - Relative Work (Teddy Has An Operation)

Although I have had my heart set on trying to go for a completely phycological thriller, I decided to see if it were possible to still achieve this but on a much more light hearted scale. Through searching for a video like this, I came across a video called 'Teddy Has An Operation'. This video shows the autopsy of a teddy bear and includes a doctors hands performing surgery on the bear with a narrator explaining everything that is happening to the teddy in almost a children show host type of voice. The video begins quite innocent saying that the bear has a 'sweet layer' and reveals a lot of small wrapped candies. The innocence of the video then disappears when the doctor opens a sweet and there are used cigarette butts in it. After fiddling with the bear for a bit longer the doctor removes another layer of the bears insides and we are then met with lots of human organs inside the bears chest to which the doctor proceeds to pick out and mess with. I really like this video as it shows a lot of twisted, sinister things whilst still being able to sugarcoat the entire video in a sense and is something that I would definitely be inclined to try in the future as I think it makes the video very enjoyable to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdYaTa_lOf4

Experimental Film - Relative Work (Dining Room or There is Nothing)

The other video that my brother recommended to me is a very strange video called 'Dining Room or There is Nothing'. In this video is shows a girl sitting at a dining table, with a roaring fire behind her whilst she is staring directly down the lens of the camera with piercing eyes. The girl then opens her mouth and says a cluster of sounds. The camera zooms out and the girl slams her face into a bowl that is just in front of her on the table. The camera zooms out to a certain point and then the whole video goes back in reverse, making the camera zoom towards the girl who then lifts her head from the bowl but this time with the audio reversed she says "There is nothing" and the video ends. This video is relevant to me because it purely just makes no sense and is overall very creepy. I want to make the viewers of my film to feel the same way as I did watching this film. The thing I like about these types of videos is that you always feel that something is going to happen so there is a constant fear of tension leaving the viewer pondering whether or not something is going to scare them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns1SGo3WCF4

Experimental Film - Relative Work (I Feel Fantastic)

I have recently been speaking to my family, explaining my idea to them. Upon doing this my brother told me that he knew of a couple disturbing videos that he thinks would be relative to my work. He recommended a couple videos to me, one of which was called 'I Feel Fantastic'. After watching this video I felt it was essential to include it in my work as it focuses on phycological horror; making the viewer unsettled and on edge whilst watching it. The video consists of a female mannequin/robot standing in a small room singing the words "I Feel Fantastic" in a robotic tune The video will occasionally change shot of the mannequin or the mannequin will change its pose completely. The video has no real meaning and usually leaves the viewer unsure of what they've just seen. Seeing as this video ticks the boxes for everything I want in my video, I definitely feel like it is necessary research and I may even end up using it as second hand footage in my film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLy-AwdCOmI

Experimental Film - Schedule

Seeing as there is going to be a lot going on at once during this production, I have made a schedule to prioritise what I am going to be doing during these upcoming weeks. I feel as though this schedule is definitely going to help me keep all of my work on track. I have also colour coded it as personally I always find that when I colour code things they are a lot easier to follow.

Experimental Film: Storyboards

A few days ago I started planning what I wanted my shots to look like on my experimental film. Below are the sequence of images that I came up with.

These are the first thumbnails of the shots that I want in my film. In the very first shot I want a shot of the open room with the leg of the table slightly in shot and to be the main thing in focus, there will be a rattle of the door handle and the lens will pull and put the rest of the room as the focus. The second shot will be simple enough of a fairly close up shot of the door handle twitching and then the main character opening and walking through the door. The third will be a tracking shot of the main characters feet walking across the room. Because I don't have access to equipment such as a slider, I am creating my own makeshift slider by mounting the camera to a skateboard and pushing it along so it stays steady. The fourth shot will simply be of the characters body in front of a chair before sitting down in it and revealing his face. The next shot will just be of a cable and the subjects hand reaching into shot and grabbing it. The last of the first 6 will be a shot from behind the subject, showing him inserting the cable into the back of his neck from a side on view.

The next shot will show the subject plugged in and waiting gormlessly from the back which will then be followed by a close up of the subjects face, again looking gormless. There will then be a shot of the monitor as it starts to load up saying things such as 'processing'. I will then have a close up of the subjects stitched mouth which will be twitching slightly as he waits for the monitor load. The monitor will then load and/or get to 100% and the subjects eyes will suddenly change to a mesmerising shade of blue.

I am still yet to finish my storyboard but I am happy with how I plan to start my film with regards to how I want it to look. 

Experimental Sound - Final Sound Piece

This is my final sound piece. This project has definitely been a learning curve for me. I know that there are a lot of things that I could have done better but at the same time there is a lot of things for me to learn with sound so overall I would say that I am happy with what I have produced taking into consideration that I had never been near sound before this project.

Experimental Sound - Process of Making my Soundscape (Editing)

The editing process for this project was an interesting one. There were points where everything just fit very well together but there were other times which required manipulation to pitch, duration and tempo. One sound in particular that needed adjusting was the sound of the body being dragged across the floor. When recording this sound I must have made the mistake of not getting the microphone close enough to the bag so when it came to editing, the audio was quieter than the other sounds. Because of this I had to increase the volume of the whole clip, making it suitable to fit the rest of the track. 

Another problem that occurred was I hadn't read the brief completely and had made my soundscape about 2 minutes long. It wasn't until one of my classmates told me that the clip had to be between 30 seconds and a minute so because of this I had to cut a lot of sound out which was a bit of a pain at times. I had to take out certain clips which sometimes made other clips ping out of place but eventually I managed to fix it. Overall I am fairly happy with the outcome of the soundscape. If I were to do this again I would want to try and be more abstract instead of creating a narrative so I could experiment with more clips and try to distort them.

Experimental Sound - Process of Making my Soundscape (Recording)

When recording the sounds for my project, I didn't exactly know what I wanted to record. I had the idea to see what sound I could record with the resources that were available to me and then come up with a narrative based around the sounds that I gathered. One of the first sounds that I recorded was of 2 knives sharpening against each other. This was the sound that made me think of the narrative for my soundscape. After recording the knives I decided to try and collect sound that would make a soundscape for a murder scene taking place. After deciding to follow the route of a murder scene, I then had to think about the sounds that you would normally hear in a murder scene. I thought about what sort of noises I could use to replicate a body falling on the floor and so I used a packed bag and dropped in on the floor from head hight which created the sound perfectly. Another sound that I created was of the body being dragged across the floor; I got this sound by using the same bag and just dragged it across my bedroom floor and the outcome was exactly what I needed. Overall I really enjoy recording sound , the only problem that I find with it is knowing what materials to use to create the best possible outcome.