By Skye Putwain
Production and post production
This page documents my filming production process of my film. The page will conclude of shot logging, which specifies and shows my chosen shots for the final cut, it will also have images and videos that document the preparation before filming and how my crew and I created the scenes. It will cover the issues and mistakes we made, in order to give a full view and scope of how this project came together, as it is very important that I reflect upon my mistakes because it will allow me to improve and help me better myself as an aspiring filmmaker.
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This page will also have a link to all the re drafts of my film, as when I receive feedback I shall either re shoot or re edit my film in order for it to be at a high standard. My feedback will come from my supervisor as they are going to be marking my project. I also wanted this page to cover my editing process too as sound and music will be key to giving the film more substance and atmosphere. The editing software that I will be using is known as After Effects, this is where I can add colour grading and adjust the lighting for my film.
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Overall, this page is highly important in showing the stages of how my film came together and will help me reflect upon the varied failures and successes that were part of creating it. I hope that my evaluation of this project will be positive and express how challenging and enjoyable making this film will be and has been so far. I have to thank my family for being patient with me on this project as I would have no crew or cast without them and generally no film.
pre production to production
The three images below display my pre production organisation for my production process. I create a dated schedule that panned across ten days, which concluded of my filming times, lengths, scenes, costume and days/nights. I also created two more for my cinematographer and other actor. Overall, I found this sheet to be most useful, as it helped me feel less anxious and stressed about production, because I was organised and prepared.
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The image stating the 'scenes list' covers the order of scenes I shot in, I tried to choose a specific order that related to my characters emotional states, as you watched them progress. This decision was mainly for my benefit, as I was acting my protagonist, and felt this technique of shooting would help prepare me to follow the characters narrative by reflecting her mindset through the order of scenes. The scene list also has the order of days and scenes within the given timeframe I set for myself. Then lastly it covers the final post production days, to remind myself and to make sure I give myself enough time in my editing process to complete my film, within its deadline. This sheet was incredibly useful for myself as I mentally ticked off the scenes as I went through production and also used it as a guide to work off when in post production too, as it helped me navigate my scenes as I cut each into their order.
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The third sheet was mainly for me to use in post production, as it lists all the slug lines in order of the script. I found this useful in the editing process because I knew what scenes to cut to and from, as my film has a non linear structure. I also highlighted on the sheet whether the scenes were shot in the day, night and also colour coordinated so that I could see which scenes shared the same costume, this was to help me in production, as I could figure out which costumes I needed to keep or change when filming.
The images below capture my storyboard. I scrapped my old storyboard and reimagined a new one that fitted to my redrafted script. This was very useful for my cinematographer, as I could give her a sketched idea of my shot visuals for the scenes and we would both experiment with trying to replicate a similar framing, although we were not dependant upon the storyboard and did collaboratively experiment with many shot styles when in production, to try find the best ways of capturing the scene.
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The structure of this storyboard does not mirror the film's structure, as the first and second scene are cut throughout the film between all of the following scenes.
production
The production process of my film was like a rollercoaster. I had to face many challenges, one being my lack of equipment. I had no tripod or grip for my camera, being an iPhone. Instead, my father and I created a DIY tripod using a lamp stand and wire. I also used a thick clip and a bed frame to use as a tripod which was very stable and useful when filming long shots. The images below capture the two tripods I created for my film.
Once my family and I started to shoot our scenes, we faced some challenges when collaborating, this is because my 'crew' consisted of two of my family members which can be quite confrontational and cause more conflict than if I worked with friends. The stress of my father learning his lines and my sister having to shoot the shots I wanted became heated at times and made certain scenes cut short due to lack of understanding. Although we got through all the scenes eventually, I did have to shoot most scenes between one and three takes as my crew needed to attend to other priorities.
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However, I am tremendously grateful to have a supportive and accepting family that have helped me complete this project to my best abilities. As shooting this film used up a lot of their precious time and they were all incredibly patient with me as a director, even on my bad days.
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Another issue I faced when filming was the lighting and sound, majority of the time my crew and I had to adjust the light imbalance using the small sunlight logo next to the focus square on the iPhone camera. The problem this caused was that sometimes adjusting the lighting changed the focus and certain shots in the film are out of focus due to this. I have shown am image below of the light adjustment effect on my iPhone:
The sound was very much limited when filming as I had no mic or boom kit to record the dialogue or sounds with, instead I had to rely on myself and my other actors to be loud enough and close enough to the camera and in order for me to retain a decent level of sound. Although this did not worry me too much as I was aware that in post-production I could increase the input level.
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However, the rest of production went quite smoothly as I only ended up being one day behind schedule than planned. I had little control over certain shots due to my lack of equipment, and this project has taught me that I will always use a camera as I found working with an iPhone to be only useful for wide silent shots and I feel camera's allow for a better precision on focus and give the benefit of adjusting the white balance on set, which saves time than doing so in post production.
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The enjoyable parts about working in production was bringing my characters to life and experimenting with new ideas on set, as I found the collaborative part of production to be mostly exciting as I liked challenging myself in new ways of filming a scene, expressing a line of dialogue etc. Although I found it very hard to juggle being a director and actor, it has taught me lots about different perspectives within creating a film, and has given me a new insight as to what responsibilities and challenges both roles face.
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To conclude, I found the production process of my film to be equally as educational as my research, this is because I explored new ways of filming, expressing my ideas and generally evolved and progressed in my social skills as I had to use many soft skills when directing and had to use my initiative logic and patience when acting and working behind the camera. This was important as I had to keep my team and myself motivation when filming!
post production
The post production of my film is hugely part of forming and putting my footage into a solidified film, and editing through cutting shots, adding music and colouring helps collide the scenes and allows me to create pace and enhances the emotion, atmosphere and tone of my scenes.
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To edit my film, I used a program on the Adobe Creative Cloud called After Effects 2020. I found this to be a very useful program as it allowed me to cut footage, add transitions such as fade ins, and also add effects that helped me add colouring to my footage. Instead of shot logging my scenes, I created separate folders for each scene and then created separate compositions in After Effect for each scene. I chose to do this instead of logging my shots because I only had one to four takes per shot and then when editing I could watch them back and import the best quality takes into the compositions and start cutting the footage. This process worked quite well for me, however, I regret using After Effects it cut my footage with because the rendering of the scenes takes ages and uses up time I could be spending to improve colouring etc.
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The left image below show the separate folders I had for each scene and the right image shows an example of how my footage was imported into each folder. The bottom image shows the cut shots of my scenes in my final composition.
Once I cut my scenes, I added transitions between the cuts. My favourite transition is a 'fade in' which I retrieve from the effects panel and then I simply drag it onto the piece of footage I want the effect to made on. I have shown an image below of the transition on the After Effects preset and effect panel.
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Another part of my post production was adding colourings, to do this, I added an effect to my footage called 'Lumetri Colour', this allowed me to adjust the saturation, lighting, tints, shadows etc. The effect is a colour grading tool and allows me to add grading to my footage. I found colour grading to be the hardest out of all the post production because when I copy and pasted the same colouring to the different clips, it changed with the lighting and sometimes enhanced the lighting to create yellowish tone which made the footage look poor and uneven. I had to readjust each colour grade per clip which used a lot of my time. I have learned that this is a skill I would like to practise in as I disliked the outcome of my colour grading.
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I chose for my colour grade to be a blue and purplish tone for the flashbacks, this was to give the scenes more vibrant colours as the memories are filled with life and capture some nostalgic memories of the protagonist. The blue gives a slightly enhances sadness to the scenes as they are either moments the protagonist longs for, or regrets.
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The counselling session scenes I chose to only have subtle colour grading which enhanced the white background. This was to give a more fresh look to the visuals, as I wanted stripped and raw footage of these scenes as they capture more current moments in time within there narrative and help the audience feel more settled in present or future when watching the scenes.
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The image below shows the Lumetri colour effect on the preset and effect panel. I have also screen-shotted an image of the colour grading (I used a colour wheel to grade scene six of my footage). I have also given an example of the outcome of my flashback colour grade used in my film.
Once I cut my scenes, adjusted the lighting, added transitions and added colour grading, I then exported each composition into an mp4 format and imported all of the scenes into a new composition where I finally combine all the shots into one, creating my first draft of my film.
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I will be improving my film bit by bit and redrafting it. To do this, I will export it into an mp4, watch it all the way through (as with After Effects my render did not let me watch the scenes smoothly all the way through without pausing). Then I will make notes on parts that I believe I could improve upon and then keep editing it. My first draft off my film is shown below, I have also created a list of improvements shown below it.
Overall, found my chosen technique of editing to be messy and disorganised. This is because I felt that having separate compositions and exporting each of them, ended up using a lot of my time and prevented me from smoothly editing it in one format. For my future projects, I have learned that I will use Premiere Pro to cut my footage, so that I can watch my film all the way through and then add colourings using After Effects.
FINAL CUT
Before I approached my final cut, I decided to re watch my film and write a list of notes as to what I want to improve in my film, within my post production skills. The image below shows the notes I made on my film. I mainly wanted to tweak some of my cuts and re do my colour grading as I felt my previous one was bland and has too much of a yellow tone. Instead, this time I decided to have a more light purple tone which I believe worked well as it allowed me to adjust the lighting in my scenes and was subtle yet effective in enhancing the melancholic flashbacks. I have also have put an image below showing an example of the purple toned colour grading I changed for the flashback scenes in my film.
I also wanted to experiment with one of my shots by creating a double vision effect. I created this effect by simply copy and pasting the layer I wanted to edit, the I scaled in the top layer and turned the opacity down to a low level. I have put a screenshot below of the outcome of my effect and chose to create it to enhance the disorientation of my protagonist when she is high, this allows the audience to be put in more of her perspective and hopefully enhances the atmosphere within the scene.
How I created this effect using After Effects!
I also experimented with using subtle faded visuals in the scene where David waits for Kat to come home. I wanted to play around with using the opacity tool to enhance the anxiety in the scene by having time be shown both through a digital visual and nigh time setting, as it lets the audience know time has passed and emphasises the anxiety David feels. To create this effect, I simply added the layers onto one another and turned down the opacity of the top layer, in order for both clips to be visible. The still image below shows this experimental visual used in the scene:
For the transitions from the counsellor sessions between the flashbacks, I decided to use three effects, one is called 'fade in layer below', the second is a 'fade into black' and the third is a 'gaussian blur' fade. I found these three transitions to be subtle yet effective, particularly the gaussian blur as it created the illusion of being transported into a memory, as they are not always crisp in the mind and tend to have a distant vision of the times recalled.
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Gaussian blur was also a very useful effect when improving the focus of my footage. For instance, in the image below, the background became distracting, in order for me to give more focus surrounding the actor in my shot, I had to blur the background. To do this, I again, copy and pasted the shot, added Gaussian blur to the bottom layer, then masked around my object (being my actor) on the top layer and added mask feather to smooth the mask and then the effect was complete. I found this technique to be simple yet very effective in improving the visuals of my film, as I felt it gave the illusion of using a professional camera, when in fact it was shot on an iPhone 7!
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The images below show the gaussian blur effect found in the effects and presets panel of After Effects.
Once I complete my post production, I uploaded my short film onto the media platform, Youtube. I uploaded it as unlisted for anyone who looks onto my blog, has an access link to watching the video. I chose to not have it public as I was not comfortable with being publicly online, however, for future projects I will try and be more open to sharing my work on mainstream platforms, where the public have free range to watch my projects. The video below is will lead you to the final cut of my film!
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To conclude, the practical side of making this film was hard due to my schedule, as I had to fit my timetable around my fellow crew members. I also had to direct and act at the same time, which I found to be incredibly straining and challenging. This is because I found it difficult to stay in character when trying to direct my actor and cinematographer, all at the same time. However, I found that filming this short was very useful as it has helped me grow in my understanding of the varied challenges directors face and helped me understand more about myself by reflecting upon what parts of myself I want to improve upon as an aspiring filmmaker.