Reflective Journal

Friday 2nd March 2018

I have begun my proposal document and have set up the blog post structure for unit thirteen. I will aim continue to work on my proposal and add to the bibliography post with possible research resources as well as create an action plan for the entire unit.

Friday 9th March 2018

I have successfully reviewed and analysed four different scenes from four different films, relevant to my project. I have also obtained an email containing advice from editor Eddie Hamilton on successfully editing and composing an action sequence.

As well as this I have also carried out audio tests with the shotgun microphone and Marantz kit. Conversations were recorded along with footsteps and impact sound effects to test the effectiveness of the recordings.

As a whole, no distortion occurred when these sounds were recorded and all dialogue was clear and understandable. I am yet to complete research on locations but some ideas have come to mind and will be considered as planning begins to come into practice.

Friday 16th March 2018

I have began compiling filming locations and will be carrying out a location recce. I have began adapting my script to fit the short film time frame I intend to.

Friday 23rd March 2018

I have completed my new draft of my script. I have also complete a risk assessment and an equipment list. In completing the risk assessment I had to consider changes in situations due to the changes in locations. Unlike, the proof of concept, I would be filming in multiple places and outdoor. Therefore, some risks which were irrelevant for the proof of concept became relevant to the final film.

With the equipment list, I simply referred back to previous projects and tests, carried out, where all the necessary equipment was booked out. I then began listing all the necessary resources I would need and sectioned off the equipment which would only be required for indoor shots.

Having the risks addressed and prevention methods introduced, I can now move forward with working on more pre-production work and be more conscious of the risks and the ways of avoiding them when the time comes for shooting. With the equipment list complete, I can make sure the process of filming runs smoothly by assessing the list of requirements and determining whether or not everything is accounted for. Bookings can be made to avoid a lack of equipment for my own use.

I have begun work on my shooting list. Progress continues as I begin to visualize the final film, shot for shot. I will refer back to my script for encouragement in the shot choices and begin to bring together all pre-production work for the shoot.

 

Friday 30th March 2018

I have contacted actors and added them to the cast list. One complication was that many had cancelled due to inconveniences in timing and work. As a back up, I have contacted two actors from a Sheffield actors Facebook group. I have also contacted a friend who works with the South Yorkshire police as I will be using prop guns for numerous scenes. she also works, part time, as an extra for horror-based events. She is part of a Facebook group of acting extras and I asked her to issue a link to my Starnow listing in the group.

Friday 6th April 2018

I have completed my shot list and cut down my script to 10 pages. Additional location images have been taken and will be uploaded to the research portfolio.

Friday 13th April 2018

I have created a duplicate of the original script and cut the pages down to nine pages. The script will be issued to all actors via email. Actors have been contacted and I now await replies.

One complication with contacting actors via Starnow is that unless they have applied for your listing, you cannot directly message them. However, to overcome this issue I referred to Facebook and contacted actors there with a link to my listing.

Friday 20th April 2018

I have completed all the necessary pre-production paperwork for my final film shoot, next week and have made breakdown sheets for the first two days of shooting. The one major complication in creating this paperwork was when actor’s availability changed and the work had to be revisited and adapted to cater to both my own and the actor’s needs.

I will now make sure all the paperwork is printed for when I begin filming and make sure actors are fully notified of meeting locations. Having now got a full cast, it is only down to hearing back from the council with regards to whether or not I can shoot the fight sequence in the Norton Water Tower or not. Regardless, an advantage which came from looking for this scene’s setting was that I am now guaranteed a place to film which is the car park in the West ONE building. With permission granted, I have a firm back up for in case the Water Tower is unavailable. However, I hope that I am granted permission as this location is key in achieving my vision for this sequence.

Friday 27th April 2018

I have completed three days of filming and have transferred the first day of footage onto an external hard drive and on my college computer. As a whole, filming has run smoothly this week. However, it has come with inevitable complications such as obtaining permission to film in certain locations. Whilst on location, Tuesday, I improvised by asking to use the exterior of a building as a bank for the bank robber to emerge from during the scene we were shooting. After being told that it was private property I promptly moved on to film elsewhere. Though this was not a major set back it did take up a small amount of time and the crew were forced to leave the premises which they were using to shelter themselves and the equipment from the rain.

The weather was another inconvenience as it has rained through every single day of filming. The third day of filming was the most frustrating and challenging where weather was concerned as the actress involved was wearing clothes which were fitting for the character but proved extremely difficult to work with during the long periods of rain and low temperatures.  For future reference I will double check weather conditions before heading out to film and make sure I am better prepared by bringing waterproof coats for actors and umbrellas to shelter them from the rain.

Friday 4th May 2018

I have shot almost the entirety of my final film and have begun gathering together and editing the footage for picture lock. The story is coming together despite a number of challenges. One challenge I faced over the past two weeks of filming was time management; often a scene which I had previously believed to only take two hours to shoot took longer and required more detail. This could be a line which needed to be delivered differently or a prop which had to be in shot for a certain amount of time.

Friday 11th May 2018

Filming has now wrapped on ‘Richie’s Lost & Found’ over this week I have begun editing a rough cut of the film in Adobe Premiere. Alongside this, I have begun creating ten second character vignettes for the promotional page. These were created in Adobe After Effects to inform the target audience that post-production is underway. Also, it is giving them a little insight into what they can expect from each of the characters they are shown.

One complication which has arisen from editing, is continuity errors due to the end half of filming being rushed. On the last day of filming, the car park sequence became rather time consuming as I had signed an agreement form with a hotel in the city center which granted us permission to shoot within their facilities. However, there was a criteria I had to abide by and one of the terms read that I could film there between 1PM and 4PM. With still a considerable amount to shoot up at the car park, I found myself still directing the car park sequence half an hour before 4PM.

To overcome this, I called the actress who would be performing down at the hotel to come up and join us for the last section of filming up at the car park. We then were given lifts from the crew, down to the hotel along with all the necessary equipment. After arriving, the process of filming ran smoother than I could have hoped and no more issues arose. That is until the editing where certain shots, during the car park sequence, were contradictory. However, through assessing the scene repeatedly and having tutors review it as a second opinion, I will begin correcting these errors and cutting out unnecessary shots.

Fridat 18th May 2018

Over this week I have completed the rough cut of my final film. I have moved on to adding in all the external audio and scores. Alongside this, I have begun working on the visual effects in Adobe After Effects. One challenge I faced in syncing up audio was that for one of the shooting days I had made a slight mistake with setting up the Marantz recorder. This resulting in all audio not being centered. Also, some of the audio was extremely quiet and therefore it was more difficult to hear what actors were saying.

To overcome these problems, I referred to both Audacity and Adobe Premiere (Which I have been using to edit together the final film) For the issue regarding audio not being centered, it was simply a matter of importing the tracks into Audacity and then selecting the option to turn the stereo track into a mono track. This then centered the single track of audio and made it audible from both directions. As for the quiet audio, I simply referred to increasing the volume with the audio effects in Premiere. This has proved better on certain tracks, however others may require further manipulation in Audacity.

Having faced these issues, for future projects I will be more focused on the leveling of the sound recording equipment I use, to avoid having to manipulate impractical audio files in post-production. I will also be able to further explore the possibilities of the audio effects in Adobe Premiere. The basics are commonly found in most video editing software, however there are more for me to discover in this piece of software and it may greatly contribute to my final film. Perhaps in making all audio more cinematic or simply exciting.

Friday 25th May 2018

Over this week I have exported the rough cut of my final film along with a majority of the sound. The challenges I faced included having to search through hundreds of audio files due to me skipping the renaming and numbering process. Though this was inconvenient, it was not as time consuming as previously imagined. Of course, for future projects I will rename all audio as soon as it is transferred onto a computer system.

I have now begun colour grading and adding effects. After the week away from college, I will only have a few finishing touches to make to the piece and add my music tracks before screening it to the class and gaining feedback for my evaluation.

Friday 1st June 2018

Over this week I came into college on the Wednesday in attempt to further the completion of my final major project. Whilst not fully completing it, I managed to add the majority of effects and begin exporting it.

An issue I faced in doing this was that due to the film being exported from After Effects, the render would have to process every detail of every piece of footage along with the effects. This then meant that I would have to wait two hours for the film to be fully exported and there was limited time as it was also being considered for Aesthetica and needed to be copied into a file along with the other films to be submitted.

In facing this issue, I now know that for future reference I should only bring into After Effects the aspects of the footage which require effects rather than importing, and attempting to export, the entire edit.

Friday 8th June 2018

This week I completed my final film, ‘Richie’s Lost & Found’ and screened it before the class. I then compiled feedback from Padlet and have begun my evaluation. The biggest challenge in completing the final product was sound, which became more apparent to the audience when the screening took place. The feedback given stated that for the most part, sound was of a high standard but, at times, the musical score would overpower the dialogue. Another issue was that during some scenes, audio was ever so slightly out of sync.

For future reference, I will have a more in-depth look at the syncing of audio. When editing, it appeared that all the audio was in sync with hardly any effort contributed to doing so. However, there are other more reliable ways of achieving synced audio and in future projects, I will use these methods as opposed to manually lining up audio on the timeline.

Friday 15th June 2018

I have completed all other posts and am drawing extremely close to finishing my evaluation. However, due to a thorough read through of feedback, I still have work to do on the conclusion. I have now published the final film on my promotional page after building up the anticipation over the past few months. The official public release on YouTube and Vimeo will be on July the 1st so it is within a selected group of people. Those being the cast and crew and their friends who they have chosen to screen it to.