Editing our Sound project

We got the sounds into soundtrack pro and started by making the ambient sound, the bottom layer. After this we added wind, leaves rustling and the first few footsteps. We then started editing some sounds and distorting them to create the sounds we wanted and found that the sounds we made reminded us of the original Predator film. Going with this idea we made whatever was making the noises in our film stick to either a roar or strange reverberating clicking sound. We used pans to create a sense of the listener or audience being in the area and gradually increased the sound of the creature in the film so that it appeared to be getting closer, in the first roar the creature sounds like it is a large distance from the protagonist. We like the effect of the wind and how it dies just before the first roar, we found that in horror movies everything goes really quiet right before something loud or shocking happens so we decided to replicate this. Overall I found this editing quite fun as it gave me a chance to be quite creative and experimental with the sounds I had collected.

Reviewing a film: Submarine

This film had a very laid back and subtle style but still managed to hold my interest throughout. There was a lot to be impressed about such as the Directors ability to create such strange characters and situation yet still manage to make you love the characters, always finding something to like about them. Ayoede "breaks the wall" at one point when the protagonist Oliver Tate, directly addresses the audience and talks about a how if there was a film about his life he would hope it would have a lovely crane shot at this moment, but he could probably only afford a zoom (Then the camera zooms out). I thought this was a very brave gag because it goes against conventions of film making but manages to pull it off. I also like the section in which Oliver Tate is spending time with Jordana and he starts to imagine his experiences as memories in real time and the screen turns into a sort of super 8 effect, this was a really nice touch.  The whole film is quite witty and the constant narration from Oliver Tate is actually quite interesting because the character is just slightly strange enough to want to know what he will come out with next. Finally another thing I noticed was that Ayoede likes to use a freeze frame at key moments to allow the audience to pay sole attention to the narration, usually if the protagonist has something interesting or important to say.

The Idea

The distorted Sounds in this project are supposed to purposely seem out of place in the environment therefore causing an element of uneasiness for the audience and the protagonist alike. The ambient sounds will be exactly what the audience will expect to hear and can easily identify with so that they can immediately link with the corresponding sounds and become more engaged from the outset. Also I have noticed when watching horror movies certain sounds, especially heartbeats or breathing are elevated or exaggerated and this alerts the audience to danger, I will be using this technique in my sound project.

Distorted Sounds to collect

- Radiator
- Microwave
- Oven
- Oven Timer
- Sink (Plug hole)
- Door Creaking
- Cutlery on Plates
- Squeaky Stool
- Crunching paper
- Phone Vibrate

List of sounds to collect

- Ambient base track of woods/cemetary near Eccleshall Road
- Twigs snapping, footsteps
- Rustling leafs
- The Wind
- Brushing past trees and bushes
- Wild life
- Insects (crickets)
- Actors voice

Sound project, breakdown of the story

This is what I have in the way of a script or whatever: The Protagonist in this piece is passing through a forest or wood of some sort, casually as you do. As he gets deeper in the sounds become more vivid and he starts to speed up, talking to himself to calm himself in this strange atmosphere. The pace builds and strange distorted sounds keep cutting up the flow of the space causing more fear in the protagonist. The sounds build and build until they come to a loud and sharp end. There will be a prolongued ambient silence until the protagonist gasps for air.

New Project - Sense of Space (Sound project)

I have decided to make a horror piece for my project in which a man is lost in a wilderness and strange sounds that would not belong in that given area will shock and jolt the protagonist as well as the audience. I have decided to exaggerate sounds such as footsteps, breathing and movement as that is what most horror movies that I consider succesful tend to do in my experience. The distorted sounds that break up the feel of the space will be very loud and sharp, almost uncomfortable or even painful to listen too as I want them to evoke a reaction from the audience. I have compiled a list of sounds I wish too collect and planned a time to go and collect them, also I have a script I will be working too but any dialogue will be minimal and not conversational. I have to be careful not to get lost in Cliche so I will be trying to make sure that there is no predictable conclusion as this is a common error in horror movies (Predictability) and I want the audience to be kept guessing if at all possible.

Planning

I have realised that I have not blogged about the planning of this shoot. This was mainly due to the speed in which we came up with the idea of a lost hiker in the middle of Edale. The idea came from brainstorming and just writing down different things that we could relate to the area and things that we could relate to hiking such as being lost or hurt in the middle of nowhere. We did show our initial planning/idea and got feedback on how to shoot the film sucessful or what would work well. This feedback proved useful and we took the advice during the shoot making sure that we played on the feeling of being lost and how that would create panic. The planning was quite minimal as we had never been too Edale and therefore could not script the film specifically to the location so we had a list of shots that we would like to include in the film and decided on a style to shoot in. On the day we found a location suitable too our vision in the early stages and used this as the basis for our film. I think we could have improved the pre production planning with a trip to Edale before the date of the shoot to decide on a location but the way we did it worked fine as we had a general idea of what most of the location was and also the film was not location specific. We decided early on that Will would be the protagonist as it would be inpractical for us to get an actor to come to Edale for a whole day and he had the most clothing similar to that of a hiker as he had hiked somewhere else on a previous occasion. The only other planning was to aquire either a compass or a map as a prop for the protagonist in our film and that was not hard as Will already owned one. We had also decided on using a tripod for still shots at distance then using handheld for close ups as the slight movement has a way of engaging the viewer and we wanted to go for this style. This moving camera seems to work this way becase people do not tend to sit completely rigid and stare at somebody especially if they are hiking, it was necessary to make the film seem more realistic and engrossing. The main idea of this film is too tell the story of a Hiker slowly getting more and more lost in the wilderness in the most engrossing and engaging way possible without losing the interest of the audience.

Evaluating the Finished film: Portrait of Place

During the editing process we found that the XM-2 fell short of what we wanted in terms of quality and often had vastly different colour balances between shots, which we had to fix in post production. A big problem for us was that we had too much footage and found it hard to fit it all into just three minutes and had to cut out nearly two minutes by the end, perhaps we could have planned the timing better. Looking back over the shots on the Mac I thought that we had been very sucessful in getting the exact shots and style that we had gone for. We also added a Vignette filter and feathered the edges of the shot after we colour corrected to add an interesting style to the film. I thought that this film focused the viewer and made the whole shot look more aesthetically pleasing to the audience. We had tried to mix up the shots and keep them all interesting and engaging to the viewer. I believe we did this quite well because when I watch short films of this kind that do not grab my attention I find myself looking around the room by accident and losing interest whereas I was concentrating on the film every time we played it back. My favourite part of the film was the moving close up or over the shoulder shots because I love the effect and how it makes you feel so close to the protagonist as well as the action. I had to work quite hard to get this shot walking up the steep hills over bumps, dips and a few fallen trees to get the shot and keep it as steady as possible. We tried to get a subtle shakey camera effect, which gradually increased over time. This shake effect creates a sense of panic in the viewer and we wanted the audience to relate to the protagonists feelings and realise how stressed and worried he would be. To improve this film I would like to have got a few more scenic shots showing off the surroundings as looking back through my footage some of it seems like a total waste of a great landscape to shoot in. Also I think that we may have concentrated too heavily on technique and not enough on developing an interesting enough story for the short film as the protagonist just gets lost in our film. Overall the film worked quite well and told the Hikers story in an engaging way with some quite interesting shots that differed from the standard shots you would expect to cover the same action sequence.

Edale Project

We both already had a pretty precice idea of what we wanted to film and the style in which we would shoot this short film. The Storyboards remained quite loose because of the fact that we had never been to Edale before so we had to improvise on a few occasions, which turned out too be a good thing as it made gathering the footage feel like something of an accomplishment. We drew influence in our filming from recently watching a film "The Wrestler" and tried to add a few shots that emulated the style of Jim Jarmusch in the way that some long shots would linger or have the actor walk in and out of the same shot. White balancing the shot was incredibly difficult against the sky on the XM2 as the sky was actually bright white/very bright grey when we were shooting and taking too much of the brightness out seemed to distort the rest of the shot. I found that the location to be even more impressive than I had imagined and made the shots look even more impressive. The scale of the location around us helped to create a feeling that the Hiker in our film was lost in the middle of nowhere. We used a lot of long shots not only to capture the breathtaking surroundings but also to show the audience just how small the Protagonist was and I thought that was something the audience could relate too, especially if they have ever been lost in the same way. The thing I liked most from this film was the over the shoulder or close up shots that we used a gradually increasing amount of "shakey-cam" to achieve. The gradually more irrational camera movement was to create a sense of increasing panic and I think it came off really well on the footage and was well worth the effort of walking backwards without being able to see what I was stepping on.

13/10/2011

The short film I will review today is "Skin Deep" made by Yusef Ali Khan in 2001. The general theme in the film was the main characters feeling of alienation and inability to fit into any social group. The other quite obvious theme was racism and how it affected the protagonist. I would say the directors primary aim is not only to tell a story but make people aware of how difficult it is to be considered different and that behaving like the antagonists of this film does not help at all. The main focus of this film is the life of the protagonist and his struggle with his own identity, he does not know where he fits in. I liked the film and thought it was quite well acted and very well written/scripted. The storyline was quite simple but also very effective, meaning the film sucessfully covered the subject matter. The thing that stood out to me in this film was the way you emphasise with the protagonist when technically he is betraying his heritage in a way and doing things the majority of the audience will disagree with. The style of the film is quite gritty and realistic, this blends well with the story. The style of the 80's when racism was quite a hot topic was a very good time period to choose and also meant that the director could add an even more gritty mood because of how the country looked in the 80's. The techniques that I found interesting in this film include the use of flashbacks and at the end when the men from his flashbacks appeared in the present (in his head) I thought that was a very effective way of implying that the things they said never really left his head and he cannot get over it. Other than that I thought the general framing of the shots were very good as I always apreciate that in a film. to summarise I would say the story flows very well and seems to build up gradually and then climax very well at the end with the protagonist finally breaking down and shaving his head while crying into a mirror, this is a very emotional scene.

06/10/2011 - Short Documentaries

I will be writing about a short documentary called "Christmas with Dad" made by a film maker called Connor McCormac in 2008. To outline the general theme and purpose of the film I would say that it is trying to outline different stereotypes and how they can turn out to be quite inaccurate. This is shown by the way that the dad in this film strives to become a better father and do everything he can for his children whereas on first glass most of the audience would stereotype this man as being lazy or selfish because of social stereotypes and how well he visually fits into that stereotype. The film focuses on the life of this family and the kind of conditions that the family live in, the most common subject is the dads relationships with the rest of the family. I like this documentary because it takes a step back and allows the family to represent themselves and in doing that highlights the fact that certain social stereotypes can be very inaccurate. I also like the fact that it does not appear to have an agenda it is literally just telling the families story and because of this I would say that the film is very succesful in covering its subject matter. The thing that stood out to me most in this film was that at the beginning I had a prediction in my head that I would not enjoy the film and would also dislike the father in the story but by the end not only did I form a liking for the family I also wanted to see more. For example if there was another film showing how they had progressed I would watch it. The structure of the film is very clever because it slowly drip feeds you information as to take you on a small journey of discovery and does not just throw all the information at you in the first five minutes, also the fact that it saved the story of the dads difficult childhood until the end meant you could get to like him before knowing this therefore not being forced to simply symphasise with him from the outset. There was main technique in the film which stood out to me and that was the relaxed state of the filmmaker and the way that they did not get involved or try to force answers from anybody. This caused the film to have a more comfortable feel and a less aggressive or journalistic mood to it.