EXPERIMENTAL FILM - PRODUCTION AFTER FEEDBACK

After receiving the feedback from our peers and tutor, we sat down and discussed what needed to be changed. For filming, we decided to add in two more locations which would be the library in the adsetts building and the theatre which is outside the winter garden. To bring a bit more meaning to it, we would have one of the characters look at the other one, which would signify that they a different and we would have them meet each other at the end of the film. 

In terms of editing, we removed the tilted shots and made the long shots shorter. Using the 3 way colour correcter, we enhanced the colours of some of the shots. We also changed the colour of the last shot, where we have one screen in purple and the other in green. We did this to signify that these were two different characters.  

This image shows the changes in colour correction of the film, starting with the image from the right going to the left. 

We also recorded more sounds for the film and managed to sync the sounds to the images. Using the EQ band effect, we used it to change the mood of the sound, especially in the church scene. 

After making these changes, I was pleased with the film. If I had more, I would have made more changes to it. As we removed some of the shots, it became aware to us that the film was too short. This has taught me to shoot more footage because you can never have enough footage, especially if your doing the split screen technique.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - FEEDBACK FROM PEERS

We got a chance to show our film to our peers. They enjoy watching the short film and they all different opinions about. Not mentioning names, I mostly liked the feedback from 6 of my peers.

Peer 1

Made us aware of the sounds of the film. Some of the sounds were not in sync with the images in parts of the film, especially the high heels and it would be better if some shots didn't have any sounds. He also said constantly hearing the high heels all the way through might seem repetitive.

Peer 2

Liked one shot of the church and night scene. He liked the colour of the shots and encouraged us to experiment with similar shots like that. 

Peer 3

Thought that some of the shots were a bit too long and needed to be reduced.

Peer 4

Found it unnecessary to include the shots which were tilted or at a different angle. He seemed to enjoy the static shots better. 

Peer 5

Within the film and we included the split screen and some shots were in full screen. Peer 5 found it confusing at times and advised us to either use the split screen or use the full screen.

Peer 6

From all the feedback, I mostly found this one to be influential. Peer 6 did not get the meaning of the film and thought that it was just one character wondering around Sheffield, where as it was two different characters. This made me aware that we had not clearly established that these were two different characters and we needed a way to convey this. 

Overall I found the feedback very constructive. And watching the films made by the other groups was very interesting, seeing how they had approached the project at a different angle. The feedback motivated me to try and improve my film. 

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - FEEDBACK FROM TUTOR

We showed our film to Lee and explained to him what we were try to archive. He told us what was working within the film and what wasn't working. Firstly the bedroom scene wasn't good and didn't seem necessary because it made it obvious where the film was going. By taking it out we wouldn't be giving too much away to the audience and we wanted them to kind of wonder what was going on. He encouraged us to experiment with different locations, colour composition and shots.  

I found this feedback very constructive and we took it positively. After the tutorial, I sat down with my colleague and we discussed on the improvements we need to make. We removed the bedroom and scene and looked for more locations to do our filming in.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - POST PRODUCTION

I found editing to be fun, as I enjoy it. Doing the editing of the split screen was interesting as it involved a bit of maths in terms of framing the screens. When we started selecting the shots we wanted, we started to notice some technical issues with some of the clips. Some of the clips we either a bit blurred or the camera was shaky in some parts of the shots. This made us crop a lot of stuff out of the shots and and discard some the shots because they were not working. 

As we edited the film, it was not what we had imagined and some of the scenes in the bedroom were not working, like the one below. We edited a rough version and presented it to Lee to receive some feedback on what he though about it.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - PRODUCTION

First day of filming didn't go on very well. We managed to film the bedroom scene but once we onto west street to do the night filming, we had problems in terms of lighting. The areas that we had chosen with in west street were too dark for filming and there were too many people.

We filmed at Weston park the following day and everything went on smoothly. Later on we filmed in the atrium and managed to get some good shots of the stairs and cafe. We tried to film in the church but unfortunately we couldn't because there were people praying and we didn't want to be disrespectful. We decided to come early in the morning when the church opens (St Mary's church),  that way we had enough time to do the filming. 

During the filming and we faced a few technical problems like adjusting the white balance and camera shakes but we were able to resolve these issues. We learned a lot about filming in public in terms of being polite to people and having patience, especially in the park where a lot people seemed to be walking and we didn't want them to be some of the shots.

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - PRE PRODUCTION

STORYBOARD

We did not come up with a storyboard but we thought of ideas of what we could film in the locations we had chosen.

LOCATIONS

Park - in the park we would film duplicate versions of the same character. The filming will be done during day.

Bedroom - film the character sleeping and going into a dream like state. The filming will be done during the evening.

Cafe - we chose the atrium in Sheffield Hallam University. We would film in the evening when there is no one in the atrium.

West Street - for west street we are going to combine a mixture of day and night shots. 

Church - for the church we are going to try a point of view shot and will film inside.

SHOT LIST

We drew a few sketch's for our shot lists to guide us through the filming.

for the bedroom shot, we booked out some lighting equipment because we want control the projection of the light on the characters face.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A DREAM ANALYSIS

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2012/09/25/the-psychology-of-dream-analysis/

I don't like the narrative aspect of this film but I did like the transition of how the character dreams and some of the shots when she's sleeping. 

SENSE OF PLACE: EXPERIMENTAL FILM

IDEA

Our idea for the film wondering, is to make it into a dream. Based on the research we have done, we are going to try and create duplicates of the same character within the dream and use the split screen technique to try and portray them differently using colour and night and day shots. We are going for a non linear structure which will enable us to experiment with different techniques and ways of portraying the character. We are thinking of making the character blurred throughout the film but will experiment with focused shots as well.

CHOROS by MICHAEL LANGAN

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2013/02/05/choros/

I found this short film very interesting in terms of the technical aspects of how Langan managed to create a ghost like movement using one character and how he creates duplicates of the same character in the field towards the end of the film.

As I watched it, it had dreamlike elements to it. And since our idea for wondering was to be like a dream sequence, this influenced me to try and create two or more characters and portray them differently using the split screen technique. 

FRAGMENTS FOR EYE DRIFT by ANNA THEW

http://www.luxonline.org.uk/artists/anna_thew/fragments_for_eye_drift.html

Fragments for Eye Drift is a short film by Anna Thew. In this short film, she uses the split screen effect to show the idea of places and journeys that flicker past like tattered pockets of memory.

I like how she experiments with the moving images and static shots within the screens. This has influenced me to use this technique and experiment with it. I also like the colour composition within some the shots, for example:

will experiment with colour and static shots

will experiment with night and day shots 

INBINDABLE VOLOUME by KARIN KIHLBERG

http://www.karinkihlberg-reubenhenry.org/Inbindable%20Volume.htm

I also like the split screen technique within this film. Unlike Fragments for Eye Drift, this film uses three split screens which I found very interesting and amazing. What I mostly liked within the film were the zooming techniques and how composition of shots of how he mixes the static shots and moving shots. At one point it was over whelming trying to look at the three screens and also engaging. 

I also like the sound of the film and how the same voice over describes each location. Even though the voice over works well with this film, I'm not going to consider it because I don't want a voice over in my film. I feel like the voice over might change the concept into something else. 

SENSE OF PLACE: 2nd RECORDING & EDITING FOR THE SOUND

After receiving our feedback and agreeing on what changes we were going to make, straight away we to record the sounds we needed. We recorded the church bell, coffee machine in the cafe and some additional sounds for west street.

We added in the new sounds when we edited and increased the length of the different locations. Darryl Peat (our sound lecturer) showed us a new technique in pro tools called the EQ Band.

At first this tool looked very sophisticated to use but the more we experimented with it, the easier it became. We were shown how to remove or change the low and high frequency sounds. This would help our sounds to be more clear and create different atmos sounds in terms of inner space and outer space.

SENSE OF PLACE: SOUND PRESENTATION FEEDBACK

We prepared our sound piece for our first presentation to our course mates and lecturer. They listened to our sound and we got constructive feedback from our peers and lecturer. The feedback was in the form of post notes from our peers.

From our lecturer, we encourage to bring out the sounds a bit more in terms of volume

- bring out some of the sounds a bit more in terms of the volume

- add specific sounds to signify some of the areas like church bells for the church or coffee machine for the cafe.

IMPROVEMENTS TO BE MADE

After receiving the feedback, we sat down and discussed on the improvements that we could make.

- firstly we were to record more sounds for the cafe and church so as to signify the locations. This would be recording the church bells for the church and coffee machine for the cafe.

- during editing, we were to increase the length of the sounds for each location. That way the audience could get a good sense of place from the sounds they heard and it wouldn't feel like the sounds were just rushing though.

Overall I found the feedback to very useful. It pointed us in the right direction of where we should take this project and what things we needed to change or add in order to archive our goals. The presentation also helped us try to explain our idea to everyone and made us confident with our idea. 

SENSE OF PLACE: EDITING THE SOUND PROJECT

We edited the sounds we recorded using Pro Tools. At first we had complications on importing the sounds into Pro Tools. There was no sound whenever we imported them and this was because we had made an error when creating the session. We managed to correct it and got our sounds into Pro Tools.

Before we started editing we came up with a structure of how the sound should be like. We wanted to start with a busy area and then progress to a more quite place. Our plan was for it to start with the cafe, then west street, then the construction site, then the park and finally the church. As we started putting the sounds together, we noticed that we had missed some sounds in some of the locations like the construction site, west street and cafe. For the cafe and west street, we needed the sounds of people chatting to make it sound more like a busy public place. For the construction site, some of the sounds were too low and couldn't hear the different sounds made by the different machines.

Since a lot of sounds for the construction site were missing in, we ended up removing that location. We used the cafe, west street, park and the church.

Since this was our first sample of the sound project, I didn't like it very much because it some sounds were missing and it wasn't bringing out the idea of sense of place. 

CREATING SHOTS FROM A SCRIPT

On 21 November 2013 I learnt how to come up with shot ideas just by looking at a script. This was a very useful skill to learn as it placed me in the director’s shoes of how he would want the shots to be.

Although it was not easy, a lot of things had to be considered when coming up with the shots and so we did it in pairs.

Firstly there was understanding the script and where it is going in terms of the story. The script we looked at was from “The Goodfellas”. I’ve seen the film before a long time ago and had forgotten about it which was a good thing as I would come up with new ways of presenting the shots which are not similar to the movie.

After reading the script, we got an idea of what was happening in the narrative. We then deconstructed the script on how and what we would want to do within the shots. We had a shot list sheet where we organised on how we were going to take the shot(s) and what the shot(s) will look like.

This sheet allowed us to consider the number of shots we needed to take for each scene. It also helped us think on how the shots related to each other and the flow of the narrative.

We also had a Schedule Pro Forma sheet where we included the details of when and where we were going to do the shots and the different conditions that were needed during the shooting.

When we had finished with our shot ideas we then saw the actual clip of The Goodfellas and how the director shot it. The shots that the director had chosen were totally different from the shots that we had in mind but they all portrayed the same story. We also compared our shots with those of colleagues and realised that we had different shots as well. This gave me a clear understanding of how different directors have their own view points when it comes to filming and the conditions I need to think of when filming my experimental film.   

SENSE OF PLACE: SOUND RECORDING

Our first recording was at the construction site in the city centre. We recorded about 3 minutes on the location. We used the zoom to record the sounds. We had few problems in adjusting the volume level of the zoom because the sounds of the construction would change from low to high in an instance. This change in sound made it a bit difficult to get a variety of sounds but we did managed to get some sounds.

Our second recording was the café and the cathedral. We first went to record in the café and we got some great sounds of people talking, walking and using the coffee machine. And we also managed to get a good sound of a creaky door, which some students were coming out off and going inside the cafeteria.

We then went to the cathedral hoping to get some good quality quiet sounds but unfortunately they were closed because of an ongoing construction which was taking place near the area and was making a big noise. They told us to come back next week or go to ST Mary’s church. We went to ST Mary’s church and we also had problems in there as there was another small construction going on inside. We decided to do this recording at another time. We came back there again a week later and there were still some constructions taking place. This problem with our location made us realise that we need a backup plan just in case some locations are not what we expect.  

Our third recording was of the café again and west street. But this time instead of recording people, we were recording the lady walking in high heels in the café. My project partner Danayet took the role of the lady in high heels. We came in the evening when it was nice and quiet and got a nice sound from the surface of the floor which had a nice echo to it.

We then went into West Street but did not manage to get all the sounds we hoped for. We got some sounds of the traffic, a few people chatting and some restaurants. We were hoping to get a lot of people laughing, going to clubs and queuing up at clubs. We realised that we needed to come at a late time and on a Friday or Saturday when a lot of people go out clubbing.

Our fourth recording was at the park. In our minds we wanted to create a sense of peace and quiet but because of the windy weather condition we got a lot of a whooshing sound. Though we did manage to get some good sounds of the ducks, fountain and a few people. We also recorded the lady walking in high heels and there was a small bridge which gave us a great sound as compared to surface of the paths in the park. We tried getting some sounds of the leaves being blown by the wind but it sounded more like it was raining because of the poor weather condition.

In overall, all the recordings were good except for the church which was a problem because of the constructions taking place.

SENSE OF PLACE: LOCATIONS

To know about the locations we wanted to record at, we went there and took some pictures of the places and got a rough idea of what sounds we could record. 

• Park - ducks, fountain, wind blowing on the trees

                                                            

we also thought about the surface and what kind of sounds we could get from it.

• Church - church bell, people praying or the silence

• West Street - Traffic (tram, cars, buses) and people

• Café - people chatting, walking, coffee machine and till operator

• Construction site - machines, workers and tools

JACOB KIRKEGAARD

I went onto this website http://www.fonik.dk/works-sounds.html  which had great sounds of different places done by Jacob Kirkegaard.

http://www.fonik.dk/works/earsoftheother.html

From his audio files he had I was mostly interested in his sound piece “Ears of The Other” which he did in Ethiopia of how he records the everyday lives of the people that live there. He  recorded their favourite sounds and in there are different characteristics in each piece which make it interesting to hear for example people singing and talking in the background. 

This influenced me to look at significant sounds that you would hear at the locations that we were going to record in. In each location that we were recording in, there were certain sounds that would signify that location for example, at a church you can hear the church bell go off or at the park you can hear kids laughing or people chatting or playing games.

SENSE OF PLACE: SOUND IDEA

After our first exploration of Sheffield & listening to various sounds, I sat down with my partner and discussed more about our ideas.

We agreed on the idea of wondering, more like wondering aimlessly without a plan. We considered using a women walking in high heels and she’s wondering in different places all across Sheffield. She has no final destination or objective in her wondering. As she’s wondering in different places we thought of the kind of sounds we would be able to get from those places.

Possible Locations

• Café (atrium, Starbucks): getting the café machine, people talking, drinking or eating.
• West street: as west street is mostly a busy road we thought of capturing some sounds during the night when there’s a lot of things taking place like traffic, clubs, restaurants and people.
• Construction sites: construction sites make a lot of noise generated from the heavy machinery they use and the workers.
• Cathedral: the silence you get inside the church creates a peaceful atmosphere.
•  Park: a park is a nice relaxing place full of nature and peace. We chose Weston Park because there are wonderful sounds we can get like the ducks in the pond, the fountain, and trees swooshing and people having some quality time.

In these locations we also thought what the sound will be like if the woman walked in high heels on the surfaces. In the church the sound would have an echo whereas at the construction site it might be hard to hear them because of the noisy background of the machines.

We also came up with an idea for our film which involved the same concept of wondering but this time it maybe in the persons mind. This is not the main idea yet as we still have to think and research more about it.

For this project, we chose different roles. My partner Danayet would be the sound recorder and I would be the sound editor. But at certain points we would change roles so that we both know how to use the equipment and tools.

SENSE OF PLACE: WALKING AROUND SHEFFIELD

To start off on our sound project, I began by walking around Sheffield with my partner Danayet Gezaie. We went to the train station and heard a variety of sounds from people walking with their luggage to the café machine, sliding doors, birds, people chatting and people buying tickets. All these sounds gave me an idea of travelling and the concept of things converging together like a trading dock.

We also visited the (Millennium Gallery) and there was a sound exhibition called ‘Inside the circle of fire’ by Chris Watson. The experience of hearing the sounds with loud speakers in that room was fascinating. Different sounds reminded me of places I had been to before like a market place, stadium and nature. The speakers also influenced me to listen to other sounds on-line using headphones, that way I'm submerged into the sounds and not hearing any external sounds.

We passed the winter garden which represented nature. It also reminded me of sounds of nature and places I could record them such as parks or gardens. The last place we went to was the cathedral. It was so quiet such that you could hear the sounds of the construction workers and doors opening. It reminded me of the Pantheon and the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy.