Through My Eyes Short Film - Film Blog

Pre-Production

During pre-production, I created a number of documents. I already had a strong idea of what the pre-production stage entailed as I completed all the pre-production forms in the year prior to this so I had little difficulty during this stage. I duplicated and altered some for each different time the group filmed on different locations. Due to an issue during production, I had to create new pre-production sheets at last minute due to a main character falling ill on the day we scheduled to film. This including casting a new member from the class, asking him to sign a performers consent form and then quickly running through the script (See production section for more detail on this incident). The list below consists of all the pre-production sheets I created and handed in for submission.

• Created new pre-production forms
• shooting schedule
• performers consent forms
• call sheets
• production safety
• risk assessment
• budget
• script
• audition lost
• casting roles and names
• email screenshots of communication

I believe all my documents were completed to a high level of quality, though they weren't used to their full extent because I personally didn't hand out any of my documents to the group, plus no one asked for them. I believe the reason behind my cast and crew not asking for any of my pre-production documents is due to them all being informed through emails and messenger. Regarding timings on the call sheets and shooting schedules, I think that the group stayed very close to the timings I stated in the documents. Keeping in mind that they didn't have the specific documents to reference to, I ensured I kept the pace and momentum of the production flowing. Sometimes the production team finished earlier than I said that they would in my documents and other times and some times we were slightly late to issues with equipment. After seeing how the group works with communication, emailing and messaging cast and crew is effective, but it could be better. To ensure I alleviate communication, I will call a meeting will all cast and crew involved so they can all hear first hand what the schedule and plan is for filming and then remind them about filming via email and messenger. I will test this method for the next project to see if this helps communication.

I always made certain that equipment was booked out for filming and that I had a mic, lighting or tripod, just in case we decided we needed them at some point during filming. To sum this up, for future projects I will clarify with the group and have a proper discussion about what we specifically needed to book out, rather than taking equipment out that we possibly don't use.

I didn't get to see how well my team members performed during pre-production as we were mainly working individually on our own documents. However, when we briefly discussed about filming schedules and certain shots we could film, our ideas bounced well off each others and each of us saw where we were coming from. I personally believe that this was the best part of pre-production; getting excited to start filming and see our visions and plans start to form. Again, I do believe that the group could've always improved on this by sitting together, having regular meetings (even if they weren't for that long), continuously giving feedback to each other and showing each other our progress.

Production

• Edi-roll didn't record doors opening and closing
• Rescheduled filing
• cast member fell ill at last minute
• recasting
• jerry left, no equipment
• confusion with production roles
• refilming scenes, clock scenes

In terms of communication within the group, it quickly came to a halt when we began working as a team and started filming some of the smaller scenes we had scripted. I took a small amount of time before we had a group meeting about the issue. We all discussed how members of the group weren't informed about filming, how certain members were confused their role and what they needed to do whilst filming in a production team. From this meeting we had, we all decided that we needed to improve our communication skills as a production team if we were to complete this project. I created a group chat on Facebook messenger so were were able to notify each other on documents we needed from each other,

I do believe that a few things went wrong during production due to delays, rescheduling and having the refilm scenes to due the group not paying attention to detail. The first main issue that we had to deal with as a group was the fact that the male who was supposed to play the killer in our thriller fell in on the day of filming, forcing the group to call an emergency meeting to figure out our options and come up with a solution really quick. After seeing the group come together and working calmly together, I do believe we dealt with it situation very well and the only thing was after this is that filming was delayed by half and hour to an hour. We were delayed more due to the staff member who is in charge of equipment unfortunately left when we needed to collect equipment for filming out at Clifton. From this issue we quickly asked another member of staff to lend the group some equipment so we go start filming start away. In terms of recasting for the male who fell ill, we all decided on a person in our class who we all though could replace cast member and play the character. After we found our new cast member, we allowed him to do some test runs of his scene inside the college with the class mate he will be filming with and the group agreed that he will play this character very well. I quickly got our new cast member to sign a performers consent form, we went to collect the equipment and then began filming.

The only other issues that occurred was when we looked back at the footage and found that the red record light is visible in shots where we were filming with the clock, so I decided that it would be best to go back and record these shots and a couple other shots. This was to ensure the quality and professionalism of the short film.  

Post-Production

Once my group filmed a couple scenes, I decided to get a head start by editing the footage I had so far. Premiere Pro CC 2017 is the software and version I will be using to edit my short film. I first began by dragging in my footage into a new premiere project and then started to arrange the footage into a linear order, and labelled each scene a certain colour so I could clearly see which section I was working on.

During editing I did come across a number of factors which decreased my working speed. I had some technical difficulties with Premiere Pro as while I was editing my project, Premiere crashed and all of the improvements and additions I had made to my edit were lost. Up until this point I was in fact saving my project every 5-10 minutes just to ensure I had a recent copy if something happened, though my work unfortunately wasn't saved when I reopened my project after the crash. I re-edited what I did beforehand and then continued to ensure I saved my project after I did anything significant. 

As I am still learning to use Premiere Pro, every so often I looked up a certain technique I wanted to accomplish by searching for a tutorial on YouTube.

Footage

On almost every piece of footage I edited, I used warp stabiliser, colour grading and aspect ratios. I found out how to create my own aspect ratios through a YouTube video I found and I learnt how to use colour correction to make my footage look cinematic through two YouTube tutorials.

I picked up the information on these tutorials very quickly so I didn't have to keep going back to them to refresh what I had previously learnt. There was one person in particular on YouTube called Jordan Dueck that provided his audience with tips and tricks about Premiere Pro and he even created a playlist about editing tips he wished he knew, including full demonstrations and reasons behind everything he did. They include very basic editing techniques that allow you to edit quicker and effectively and I really do believe they have allowed me to do just this. I even learnt about warp stabiliser from one of his tutorials.

When the group filmed SCENE 1 - CLOCKS (INT), Catherine was recorded "watching TV" and scrolling through her phone. Some of these shots didn't include the reflector as we were all focusing on using the jib and ensuring Catherine was safe and comfortable. However when we finished using the jib for specific shots, we went back to using the reflector. The final edit of that scene, there parts where the reflector hasn't been used are, unfortunately, visible. From this issue discovered in post-production, I can learn from this mistake by making sure I pay attention to the small details of a production.

In the lead up to the climax killing scene (Scene 4), I slowed down the footage of Jack walking up to Georgia, and Georgia on the phone and then added fade transitions between each piece of footage to give the audience a sense to suspense and so they are aware that something is about to occur.

Titles

I wanted my titles and the opening/closing credit scene to look a certain way, especially when the genre of the short film was a thriller. I have had experience with titles in my previous year of Creative Media Production so I didn't need to research for any tutorials, I purely experimented with them until I found the aesthetic I was looking for. I used the font type Adobe Song Std, changed the leading to 30.0, set the tracking to 27.0, brought the slant up to 10%, put the text in capitals, aligned the text into the centre and then added an 80% shadow onto the text to ensure it is visible.

Voice Over

One effect I found during my first year of this course was the ability to 'Fill left with right' or vise versa when audio was panned to one side of the mixer. I remembered finding this option and applied it to my edit, as well as a couple more effects, as it allowed me to keep my project professional and high quality.

I searched for a YouTube tutorial which allowed me to learn about boosting the quality of voice overs. This video was quick and I personally picked up the information within the tutorial very quickly. From this information in this video, I went into the audio effects in my Premiere Pro project and dragged 'Vocal Enhancer' and 'Single-band Compressor' onto my voice-overs. The tutorial I watched said to get the best quality out of my voice-over, select the voice-over option within the drop down box. This way, all of the dials are automatically set to improve the quality of a voice over. The next effect I added to my voice-over was a 'Voice Enhancer'.

When dragging in the voice-overs from my folders, I misplaced one take over a different one and I played them together and they created a effect where it seemed as if the character was hearing voices in their head. I understand that this is meant to happen within the film but due to not having enough voices-overs to layer over one another, I cut pieces of audio from multiple takes and places them in and around the climax scene. If I was to record a voice-over again at some point this year, I will ensure voice-over is recorded in the centre so it saves me time editing in post-production.

Audio

When I came to editing certain scenes in post-production, I found that when the group filmed, SCENE 3 - THE FIRST CHANGE (INT),  I realised that we didn't set up any microphones so there is no room ambience or sounds of Dan moving paper, putting it into his bag, picking up his phone and pen from the table, walking to the door and then opening the door. After learning that we had none of those specific bits of audio, I did my best to find royalty free audio on YouTube to make up for the audio we didn't record for that scene. To ensure this problem doesn't reoccur, I will ensure there is a microphone set up to capture natural sounds, even when we only need to record a scene indoors with no dialogue.

I had a strong understanding of the plot and how I would use the footage we filmed, so I rarely looked back on the directors pre-production documents (script, shot list and storyboard)for referencing as I knew how I wanted to edit it. I only used the script when I was editing the climax scene and then finishing of the edit by adding a few more sound effects and sounds for dramatic effect. The script also reminded me to add in important aspects that will allow the audience to grasp a better understanding of the plot and why certain characters are involved. I do think that I could read over the production teams documents during post-production as this may help me complete this stage of production a little quicker and possibly more accurately.

Credits/bloopers

From past projects I have created in my first year of this course, I often put bloopers at the end of a project because I personally enjoy seeing a couple outtakes at the end of a film as it lightens the mood and makes the audience feel like they have a stronger connection and understanding of the cast and crew. Therefore, this is the reason why I decided to include a few bloopers just before the credits in this project.

Overall Evaluation

After looking back at this project and stating everything that has happened through the production stages, I can say that we all worked well as a group apart from a few issues that occurred. Even when the group had a few problems, we all came together as a group and found the best solution and moved on from it. I have developed my skills as a producer within this project and I am happy to have had this specific role as I believe I wouldn't have pulled off any other role as good as this one in particular. I know how to work at a fast pace, communicate with multiple people, inform cast and crew about important information and work well around problems that arise in productions.