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.
Today me and the director of Afterlife did a few tests with the slow mo setting on the new Blackmagic cameras. I took a few notes of how to do it, but I ended up having to YouTube a tutorial;
I followed the steps and also lit the tests more that I would usually to compensate for the higher shutter speed. We had two red heads to act as car headlights, and also two overhead studio lights to act as street lights. We tested each shot in different fps (24, 60, 90, 120) and decided which were best for each shot.
We have decided to not film the water shot in the final film as it's not the best shot and the director has better ideas for the slow mo, such as blood trickling down. We have also been told to improve the lighting, we need some sort of backlight (another red head maybe, and say it's a car behind).
For the head shot, we used three hairdryers to make it as exaggerated as possible. It looked like a L'Oreal advert on 120fps so we avoided that.
For the emergency lights, we had two gels moving after each other in the tune of Pink Panther on the left hand red head where the car head lights would be. I also walked past to make the glitter of the shirt, well, glitter. I think it would be better with a red gel rather than an orange one. I also really like the reflection of the shirt on the book. The book needs improvement, and to figure out how best to make it fall dramatically. It would look best falling down on the floor, but it's figuring out how to do it naturally. I think the tests were successful, we know which works, which to avoid, and which fps to use.
Today our mission was to do the car shoot again, but in lighting the Director wants. However, this didn't happen. I think it will be a lot darker on shoot. We could still do some lighting tests today to see what works. Red heads outside would be a good shout, but didn't have much of an effect today with light still outside. We used the LED lights like last time but with the 2400k setting, however, even though it does create a menacing look, it's a little much, and this was on the lowest setting! I think the 5500k was better after all.
We also used a light up mirror (couldn't find a compact one), if the director decides to use this, we can include a shot of the glove box and getting the mirror out to show that it's always in there (a few other shot suggestions is one of a gear stick to show that it's stationary). Personally, I don't think the light up mirror adds a lot to the shot (it may look better in the dark). A few other suggestions is going with the mirror on the sun block (no idea what you call this? The bit at the top of the car) or using a phone (we can always use an LED light to light the scene and make it look like the lights in the car).
However, we do not want to overuse mirrors (this was an issue looking back at the edited version), so it's up to the director to scrap any shots. One shot that worked especially well is the opening shot with the slider, but could be longer. I was using my Canon for this test and was hard to focus (and my auto focus doesn't work), but for the actual shoot, it will be much longer, since I am using the P2. The director has a few concerns whether the P2 will fit in the car. I am certain it will, also if we use my Canon and mix it with P2 footage, there will be a huge difference in quality.
Today we took out the tracking dolly and P2 camera to try out a trombone shot, with a mannequin dressed as a clown. It was very difficult to get the speed of the dolly and the zoom the same, so we set up and pulled our hair out on the morning, had a quick meeting, and went back to it on the afternoon.
We managed to get our hands on a Blackmagic to try and use something that would help (one of the items on it was a "whip", not sure if the whole thing was called that though!) It took a while to set up, and even longer to try and get it right. Much longer than the P2. I decided we were getting there faster with the P2 and I should try and push the dolly, zoom out and also move the camera to try and get the speed right (as this was easier than telling the dolly pusher to slow down or speed up). The likelihood of us filming with the Blackmagic was also slim and I feel like it would stand out too much against the P2 footage (we might also potentially use my or the sound op's Canon cameras as it's small and can fit in the car). We did a few different takes until we were sick of the sight of the shot. I hope there is something we can use. I also felt looking back at a few clips that it wasn't as dramatic as the director wanted; it's quite subtle and doesn't scream "look there's a clown behind you!" It's up to the director now to watch it all back and make a decision whether to keep it.
I also got a few pretty pictures of the progress of the circus being built (more pics here!) On the evening/dusk, we did another car test. This was mostly to figure out lighting and try out the slider shot. The director did want the slider to go from black to slide out, but it couldn't reach or zoom in that far, so I would recommend fading in from black instead. The shot itself did look good, but I will need to constantly check focus (or even have a focus puller). We then got a few mirror test shots to try and angle them so you could see people in them, and also a few just so we can edit something together.
Watching the footage back, it might be a good idea if we have Lacey in white light, so for our next test, we are going to use a handheld mirror that lights up. The light on Shaun in the above footage (Sophie) will remain the same, maybe trying with the 2400k led setting rather than the 5600k.
Today we did a few quick test shots of the potential beginning car scene to see if it could be done. We worked around having the car/action around the car stationary and worked through different shots the director had in mind to see if they were doable and also looked good.
Me and the director teamed up to make a doable shot list, where the camera will be, and whether the shot is in the mirror or not. We got a few good shots using the mirrors, but getting them exactly right was time consuming. I think it paid off though.
We learnt a lot from today, and we should be able to go ahead with the scene! However, we did have a few issues, such as lack of equipment (lighting today was terrible, so we need red heads! And the director now wants a slider shot) and lack of people (the director had to double up as both Step Mum and Dad!) We are hoping to try again tomorrow.
Today me and the director booked out the studio and did a few test shots of lighting and 'throwing' knives so see what could be achievable and also looks good. It is also something for the editor to experiment different effects and colour corrections with. I just used my Canon 750D for this, since it was just a test. We experimented with different lighting set ups and props to produce different silhouettes (I'm pretty sure I took pictures of this, but I can't seem to find them!). We switched between two and one redhead and focused on the wolf mask. The director managed to make it blink and it looks really effective.
We then looked at using people as a silhouette. We used two red heads at first which produced a three dimensional effect (almost like the actor was fighting with herself). The director liked this one over the next one. For the strings (which also look effective in this set up as it looks like there are a lot more than there is), we attatched them to a broom stick and also to the actor (loosely).
We then used one red head to produce one strong silhouette. This set up looks more classy, which is not what the director is particularly after. The above one symbolises more chaos, like the atmosphere in a circus and the film in general. This one is more calm and conventional.
We then moved on to the knife throwing tests. We cheated the shot so no knives were actually thrown. We got a close up of the knife and I did a swooping pan (I talk about this more in the blog post here) to create the illusion of it being thrown. We attatched fishing wire to the knife already in the wood so someone could make it move (we did originally have someone move it with their hand but it's hard to get out of the way quick enough and is easy to see).
It took a few times to get it just right, and the results do look pretty good! In the future, I should also do a swooping pan when the knife gets thrown so it's easier to edit (I didn't think it would be at the time since it happens to fast, but it does, so I will!) The director has also made a blog post about filming it in slow motion, and balloons popping in slow motion? But I have not been confronted about this. I am not sure how we would do this. We have used a camera with slow motion for Wynyard Hall (the Sony FS7) but we had to hire that out for a lot of money. Slowing it down in post maybe an option.
