Final Thoughts

My Name is John is done! I'm happy with how it looks, there is some discussion about blurring a few faces in the self help group which could be tried out before Vue and might solve the issue we had with extras (and we had to grab students!). 

There's some discussion about making the entirety of Hope for the Vue show and festivals, however I'm not sure how available I will be with Castle Pin coming up. I would love to help out where I can though! I think at least we need to make the scenes link up a bit better, and try and make better transitions especially between the bedroom and animation scenes. Hopefully we will be able to get back in contact with Armarni too with material we could display for our Degree Show. 

Hope - Marketing and Festivals

For marketing Hope, I predict we will be making a Facebook page like Cirque last year (plus Twitter and Instagram), which I need to talk to the director and main producer about. There were talks about making a comic book with Armarni's drawings and storyboards but not a lot of news on this lately which is a shame.

Even though I'm not managing the FilmFreeway page for Hope, I'm sending the director links to festivals that look interesting and could be entered for. Here are two I've pointed out (I've seen and sent about 4);

The Final Girls present We Are the Weirdos (https://filmfreeway.com/TheFinalGirls)

Submissions: June 30th [free]
Location: ??? UK somewhere
Specifications: Must be directed by female identifying filmmaker. Shorts up to 25 minutes. 
Awards: ???
Festival Date: October 25th-November 4th

Screentest: The National Student Film Festival (https://filmfreeway.com/Screentest)

Submissions: August 31st [free]
Location: London
Specifications: Made by students, max 20 minutes
Awards: Trophy. 1 general entry.
Festival Date: October 19th-21st

Hope - Rights Approval and Ethics

This post will cover any rights approval or ethics I can see in the film even though I'm only the DOP and co-producer. The script involves a car crash and some possible upsetting scenes (with a few swear words). The scene of the swear words is just voice over and if necessary we have a clean version of the ADR. Apart from that I don't see any huge issues with the film and give it a 12 rating which should be appropriate for festivals and is no worse than Cirque last year.

Hope also has a lot of scenes paying homage, rather than 'plagerising', to other shows or films, such as the void scene with Stranger Things and Poltergeist. However, this is an original story with our own shots and ideas put into it (as discussed in another blog post). 

There are a few found effects in the film (plus one song we have clearance for as we used it in Cirque) which have been double checked to make sure we can use them and are royalty free.

Hope - Poster

My main poster submission is for My Name is John as I have no solid ideas for Hope. It would be cool to have a poster a bit like Crimson Peak so I had a bit of an experiment today on Photoshop and well... it doesn't look great!

http://www.thecapistranodispatch.com/at-the-movies-crimson-peak-is-horror-able/

At least I tried

So then I had an idea. The film is heavily based on Poltergeist and the TV scene so why not just copy the poster? 

http://smokinggunpr.co.uk/2015/11/great-design-examples-13-terrifyingly-good-horror-movie-posters/

I identified the fonts used using whatfontis.com. I had a bit of trouble outlining the film title font, so I followed the instructions on this website, which involved highlighting the text, making a new layer and then doing the stroke for it (as for some reason it doesn't work directly on the text). 

I'm too late to hand this in for Professional Practice, but my main submission is the My Name is John poster, plus I'm pretty sure FMP only requires a poster handin.

Hope - Colour Grade Designs

Between me, the director and the colourist, we have already discussed the main colours of the film with various mood boards which are blues and purples. We also have a few shots that need colour grading from day to night. I work well with the colourist/editor suggesting what works well and ideas for the film, when the 180 degree rule was broken and we were both on the same page.

The Wetherspoons scene is quite warm in colours, mostly reds from the Mother's clothing. The black room blues from the static. The cellar purple. The car crash quite dark, not a whole lot of colours apart from street lighting and emergency lights (blues of these to be boosted in post), and hospital scenes will be clean looking with the red of the blood and bruises on Hope standing out. 

Hope - Day 7

Today is our last scheduled shoot for Hope and it's the big car crash scene. We have the studio, car and equipment booked and are also doing some hospital ADR beforehand. We had the Mother, Father, a Doctor and two nurses (exclusive cameo from me). Most of it was improv so there was plenty to edit with to fill out the scene. It went very smoothly and we now have two great actors under our belts for future productions (Martin the Dad and Ethan the Doctor). 

We waited quite a while after that for the car to arrive. But when our last actor arrived, there was no sign, so we had to improvise. So we got another car. It's slightly different to the one in the Wetherspoons scene but we might just get away with it as the only shot of it that's used is in a puddle and most of it is obscured. Needs must. This was an essential scene to get for hand in or the film just wouldn't make sense. First, we got a shot of the Mother smoking in the car outside (it was raining so we had to keep wiping it!) and got it dropping on the floor. This was all done in slow mo and looked great. This went quite smoothly once we knew roughly where the cigarette was going to fall (we were worried the wind would blow it away but we were safe).

Then we moved the car inside the studio to do the driving at night. I preferred this a lot more than filming inside a moving car so we got Hope's close ups again as they were quite wobbly last time. The only huge problem was lighting. We had a lot of studio lights on and took us a while to get a balance and not light up the black studio screen behind. We were debating whether to use green screen but opted out because in the other car shots, it was mostly black outside and having green screen in might throw the whole film off. We also had one studio LED on a stand high up for extra lighting for outside shots like the door handle and Hope getting inside. For the travelling shots, we had two small LED lights. One to light the scene and one moving one to act like moving street lights. This was really effective in the end and a great arm workout.

For the emergency lights, we ran into a lot of bother. For the tests, we used red heads and waved gels in front of it. But we didn't have them on set, plus there was not a lot of room and would have been way too powerful. So we put gels on the small LED lights. The red one worked fine but the blue one was very weak. I suggested doubling it up which worked a bit better but still quite weak compared to the red one but better than it was. Hopefully it can be boosted in post.

The shoot finished a bit over schedule, but it's done! I can't wait to see the slow motion back, I wish I got some of the Mother in the crash in slow motion too but we didn't have a whole lot of time. But what we did get and had a quick look at looked fantastic.

Hope - Final Format Development

A lot of creative choices for the final export are required for any project like frame rates and aspect ratios. It's mostly a camera, editor and directive decision so we all worked and communicated together to find what is best for the project.

The camera settings are the easy bit as they are what I'm overseeing. The main camera frame rate and timeline settings are 24fps and in 2k Pro Res HQ (with a few exceptions of slow motion clips which are in 90fps). Export should be as close to these as possible. The director decided against black bars. Aspect ratio will be the default 1.78:1 as it's the most commonly used. 

Hope - Day 6

Tonight we filmed Hope coming out the house and driving around in the car. We didn't do any of the car exterior shots due to continuity (we can do these on Day 7*). The first bit went well, but we were a bit behind schedule (we finished roughly at 11pm, estimated wrap was 10). We also got a helping hand to hold the LED lights as a street light. 

The nect shots were of Hope in the car and general street lighting. I get travel sick quite easily so this shoot was a challenge, I had to put the camera down a few times as looking through a viewfinder does not help! I think I did well considering and got some pretty looking shots. We managed to catch a police car and ambulance too which could be used.

* Don't forget the slow mo cigarette and Hope getting into the car

DERIGGED!

The Dark Room is officially derigged (RIP). There's a few bits of sellotape on the floor still as they're being a bit stubborn but we are coming back tomorrow to get the last of it up with those scraper things you get.

Hope - Day 5

Today we planned to do the car shots and a few dark room and cellar pick ups. However we didn't have any word from the person we need the car from and also the second camera, so we decided to cancel (and hopefully rearrange for another day, we are working on it and actor availability UPDATE rescheduled for Tuesday 8th). This will also give us more time to plan exactly what we need. 

Instead, we focused on more pick up shots as the editor had trouble cutting into action, so we got a few pick ups of Hope walking into scene. Also a few new actions as it's scripted that Hope flinches with the defibrillator in real life.

The XCU of the eye from yesterday was not quite close enough, so we used the 100mm macro lens from photography to get it even closer and it looks fantastic. 

We had some behind the scenes footage from Ethan today too. I quickly took the best of and uploaded it to YouTube but I will be editing it properly and to music later.

Hope - Day 4

Due to a few communication errors, I had to rearrange the dates on the risk assessments so we are now doing the black room and hospital scenes today and the cellar and car crash tomorrow. I also put on a way too late unit call as I didn't realise we were putting down bin bags all over the floor to blacken it out. I also used a new piece of equipment called the quick release plate. It attatches to the tripod and can essentially take it of the tripod easily to shoot handheld then back on for tripod shots. It was great and I'm not sure where it's been all my life.

Photo Credit Janice Lee

For lighting, there are two LED lights on the left hand side and one overhead. Tillie comes out of the dark and into the light, and it's not too bright or too dark. The light of the TV also worked well. We started filming at about 5 and finished at 6:30. We decided to grab the hospital close ups too while we still have a hospital bed set upstairs which took a bit longer as we needed a few extra bits of equipment. Roughly finished at 8. We have left the studio as is for now if we need any pick up shots tomorrow, but we will need to dismantle it on Wednesday.

Hope Update

Production for Hope has slowed down more than I would have liked. Communication was very quiet and I was worried I would have to step up as main producer and finish the film (or join what we have together to make a coherent piece) after our production meeting on Friday. Even more worrying we haven't received a completed script so even if I were to take over, I had no idea what scenes there were and what they contained.

It would have been ideal to film over Easter like we did for Cirque last year but we couldn't. Would have been even better to film more before we broke up or get straight back into it after Easter and book equipment for when we get back. 

But we now have a plan of action and communication has fired back up. I have booked out the studio Monday 30th for the car crash* and hospital shots, and Tuesday 1st for the cellar scene reshoots and the dark room. Since it's unrealistic to get the whole film finished in time, the director has picked the most important scenes and ones that can make the film still work. I'm a bit upset that the workshop scene has been cut as I was really looking forward to lighting and storyboarding the set. Maybe, if we get ahead with scheduling, we could film it. But we should be focusing on the main scenes, prioritising, and giving the editor plenty of time if there is anything else we need.

There are also some concerns of the Wetherspoons scene. The establishing shot is quite wobbly. My bad, I was camera op here. We did to multiple tests to see which worked best and did multiple takes but it wasn't enough. The jib was too big and clunky to bring too. The actor also drinks the wine very slowly. There must be a way to edit around this if we can't get any reshoots. At the moment, we have to prioritise and get new things to make the current scenes we have flow and into one film and come back for reshoots later.

*note to self don't forget dropping the cigarette in slow mo here

Hope - Equipment Needs

Hope is a fairly safe production for camera equipment with more drastic equipment needed for set dressing (the black room, light prop, etc). A jib would have been ideal for the Wetherspoons opening shot but there just wasn't enough room. This was the opening and probably the most ambitious to get right.

The main equipment used was the Blackmagic Mini Ursas (for high quality footage), tripod, slider and the studio LEDs (sometimes the small ones for inside a car). We were more experimental with frame rates and sets than the equipment. We also had Hutch's lighting kit. We only used LED lights for the film as they are easier to control and give off a much more softer lighting. Sometimes we also don't have great electricity in locations like the soundstages and the cellar, so the portable studio ones would be ideal.

Hope - Day 3

I have to stop calling the film Afterlife, but I will still tag my posts as Afterlife as I have a lot to go through and change. 

Today I couldn't make it on set. Due to complications giving blood, I couldn't lift anything and was told to rest by the official NHS nurses. Luckily Liam stepped in to lend a hand. I had booked out equipment, risk assessments, etc. and was all organised. I also uploaded storyboards and lighting plans on the VLE. I have heard that it went well, but didn't get all of it done. From the pictures I have seen it looks very dark too which I am a bit concerned about for the colourist. 

Afterlife - Day 2

Today we filmed the opening sequence to Afterlife in Wetherspoons and originally the Marina. However the director decided for ease as well as aesthetic to keep it all in Wetherspoons (still did the risk assessment for the Marina anyway!) I put a call time for the crew at 1 and for the actor at 3 on the call sheet however the actor turned up incredibly early and we got equipment late. Luckily this was the only bump in our schedule. We also ended up shooting day for night as a few people needed to be headed off at 6pm, which was when sunset was.

We also chose not to bring the red heads and use Hutch's new lighting kit and I'm so tempted to buy one myself. It was so much easier to carry, set up and less dangerous as they do not get hot. However, they do not have batteries and are not portable, so we took a few studio LED lights with us in case we needed them outside in the dark. 

We had two camera ops on set today so I assigned myself to the handheld camera and the second camera op to the safety shots and tripod. I did this as I rehearsed the complected opening shot before and know where I need to pull focus. We both got a lot of great looking shots and plenty of cutaways for the editor to work with. I also tried to make a few edit cues when the mother leaves the pub (e.g. walking into the actor to make it cut to black).

For the outside car shot, we had an issue with delivery drivers and people so we had to find the right time to film and quickly move out the way. The exhaust shot that the director wants didn't work amazingly well and may need some smoke put on in post. 

The shoot went very smoothly, and we finished at 6 (before the estimated wrap). I also feel like we got a lot shot from having two cameras on set.

Afterlife - Day 1

First day of Afterlife production today and we are filming the Facetime scene. We were all set up and ready to go at 9:30, we just needed some extra bits of equipment. However, we had a few mishaps on the morning which meant that I was incredibly poorly and we didn't get equipment until about 10:30. We managed to get everything set up and started filming at roughly 11:15. We had a few extra hands today too which was very helpful as sound required two mics as two places/dialogue were happening at the same time. 

The shoot went rather smooth after that and better throughout the day as the actors started to know their lines. The only trouble shot wise I had was lighting the phone. I used two LED lights for this shot to light up the phone as it kind of blended into the black surroundings. However, the director didn't like the lighting here. So we did one with one without. We also did a slider shot of going into Gabi's mouth wide open which will be match cut in edit. This one was very similar to the trombone shot in Cirque and was hard to get right and to pull focus (I was tracking in, tilting up, and pulling focus all at the same time). We did quite a lot of takes so there's plenty to pick from (I like to think it worked at least two times).

I am a bit concerned about the over the shoulder shot of the phone as 1) I don't know what the editor is after and if we needed a portrait version of the scene to edit over the top of a green phone, and 2) we don't have a real time version of the pink bedroom over the shoulder Facetime call as the phone died, so we just had to do a blank screen. Hopefully the visual effects editor has enough to go on.

Wine Glass Test #2

After setting up for the Facetime scene, me and the director went to test the wine glass shot on location. The idea is that we would pan in to the wine glass which would reveal a landscape upside down. The camera would then spin 180 degrees so the landscape is the right way around. I did a few quick tests over the weekend and concluded that it was doable with a fig rig. Today we have a fig rig and put a new Blackmagic on it. Even though it was secure, part of me was petrified if I dropped it. The director changed the landscape in the glass to a bottle, but it had to be very close to one another for it to show up, but the director wanted the bottle not in shot. I zoomed in as far as I could but the result was very shaky as I was zoomed in so much, and also essentially going handheld. So we ditched the 180 fig rig idea. Instead, it is a tracking shot going from the Mother's shoes, up to the wine glass where we see her face, then of her phone which rings, then back to the wine glass where she downs it and leaves. It's now a very simple tracking shot (but requires me to do a lot of squats from the wine glass up to the phone to see that the screen is lit up). 

Yes I am using the fig rig wrong, this is when we ditched it and decided to do the tracking shot.

The lighting in the Wetherspoons worked very well inside the wine glass, but there is also an LED to the side (with a pink gel on) just to give some more light and depth to the shot.

Facetime Test Shoot

We booked the equipment and location out a day early so we could test lighting, camera angles and if we need any other equipment that we have forgotten. This scene involves the protagonist waking up from a 'dream' and video calling her friend. There are two cameras on this shoot, and I am in charge of the dark room set (the second camera op was in charge of the pink bedroom). The pink bedroom was the main focus of today and dressing it up, so I offered some input. Upon further inspection, we also need a smoke machine for the dark corner just to add some more depth to the shot and make it a bit more eerie. The director wanted the dark room to not be obviously evil looking, so I went with a blue gel for the lighting, which is lit from below, acting as a practical light for the phone. For a few shots on the day, another LED light was also used to light some parts of the face and hair.

Wine Glass Test

Just had a quick test with my camera and a monopod of the opening wine glass shot. I did a few in my kitchen with the most light, however, there was no distinguishable features or landscapes, just a load of bottles on the windowsill. 

So I decided to get a pretty picture up on my TV. It took a while to figure out where to put the wine glass so the scenery was visible, I ended up putting it very close to the TV and then putting a wine glass on top of a lot of boxes.

Using a monopod was also tricky for the shot as it came out very wobbly but the idea is there. It will work on a fig rig and look 100% better.  

If we have time, we are hopefully going to test the shot on Tuesday with a fig rig and the blackmagic.

Underwater Test Footage

Today the director and a few people did some tests to see how we could film 'underwater'. However I was poorly today so I know very little about what happened and how. I offered to film it Thursday which would have been better but it didn't happen for some reason. I will analyse what pictures and footage I was given (and some info about how it was shot on the camera). 

Picture by Janice

Basically the idea was that we would have a perspex box full of water above someone lying down on the ground. Judging from the pictures the fps is 25 and the f stop is 4 which is fine and what I had in mind for the project. However I couldn't find a definitive answer for what mm the lens was (just that they used the zoom lens but not all the way). Looking back at the shots, the editor had to crop some of the box out so I think a bigger mm lens would have worked better (or even move the tripod down a bit rather than on a table). 

Picture by Janice

I'm not sure why there's blood dripping, I'm sure it will make sense when we have a finished script. I'm also concerned by the above picture and if the house lights were on while filming (but looks like they are off on the very first picture). I am also concerned with having a male model as there will be a girl with very long hair underwater and would have been beneficial to test how the hair would move (or not and why). 

Looking at the colour graded footage, the very last shot works the best. In the first two, you can see the scratches on the perspex box which ruins the illusion. In the third one, my issue is the bin bag background as the creases also ruin the illusion, and the same with the fourth (if the fourth one was ironed out, it could work). The fifth one is by far my favourite, not sure what the background is on this one (possibly bin bag, might be best if we just ditch this and use bare ground, or find a better black background). The lighting above the box works particularly well for these shots. Unsure if there was any other lights present.