As the last project of this semester, I think it’s only right if we do our best and use everything we learned in this studio. To me, one of the things I learned throughout this semester is teamwork. This is also the reason why I chose to change my plan and do this film in a team. I have worked alone for too long and I would like to try more things with my team members. When there are more people, there are more ideas; therefore we will have more inspiration to do the project. I will also have more chances of working alone in other studios in the future and teamwork is one of the key learning outcomes of this studio, so I decided to team up with Samantha and Zhen for this project and do another abstract film with narrative.

This project will also be an abstract horror film; our first idea is to make a film inspired by “Disturb” by Brad Boeson. It is a short story of a daughter killing her parents but she doesn’t know she was the killer. This film is also mixing up the reality and dream, what we want to achieve is to use the scenes of the daughter waking up to mess up the storyline and the boundary between reality and dream. So the audience will find it hard to identify which parts are real and which parts are from the dream. This time we have also added many conversations, because in the last project we had 0. In the pre-production, our job distribution is Samantha taking care of the script and arrangements, Zhen go look for the actors and I will find all the equipment we need.

It was easy for me to setup all the things we need for the shooting. Camera wise we will be using Canon 5D mark III and Canon 80D, and I have also prepared a wide range of lenses:

50mm F1.8

17-40mm F4

100mm F2.8 Macro

135mm F2.8 Soft focus

These cameras and lenses can cover all of the scenes we will be shooting. For still scenes we will use the 5D and for moving scenes we will use the 80D because of the better focusing system. All of the lenses have a big aperture so we won’t need to worry about the dark environment. I have prepared lenses with different focusing distance so we can shoot all different kinds of close-up shots without worrying about the distance.

Because we have some scenes that needs fake lightning effect, we experimented many different kinds of lights. Then we decided to use a LED torch and a big LED light panel to do the fake lightning and use diffusion and reflector boards to help with the lighting.

Because we don’t have a storyboard for this film, and we have added a lot of conversations into the film, we decided to write a script to have a better understanding of the film. We have also made changes to the script before the shooting and made it clearer and shorter. It is very easy for us and the actors to understand it. After I read it I can clearly see the scenes and I know how the scenes should look like. Having a script indeed helped us to understand the story better and also got me to pay more attention to details.

The biggest problem we had during the pre-production was casting. A lot of people were interested when we posted our info online, but a lot of them didn’t respond to us afterwards. We received 24 answers in total at first, but only two of them responded. Later, another one of these two actors disappeared. So we had to find two actors immediately, because the shooting is tomorrow. Luckily we found two of our friends who are happy to help. From this experience, we learned that we should look for actors as early as possible, because there are many accidents that could happen, we should make sure about everything before the shooting.

In the first shooting, because of Samantha’s absence, I will have to do the director’s job, however I have always been an abstract photographer, same for videos, so it is very new for me to direct a film. Especially this time we added so many conversations in our script, I find it very hard to do the composition. I thought about how we are going to edit the footage together when I was shooting the conversations and use the composition to help making the cutting smoother. It was a very hard thing to do.

So just to be careful, I had to do it in many different angles so Samantha will have more choices when she edits the video. I also found that there are too many conversations, if we include all of them, the video will be too long and we will be giving out too much information. Therefore the film will not be abstract and also too easy to understand. So we had to change the script again. This shooting have taught me that we need to try things out to see if it is really going to work like we expect it to be. In this case, the script didn’t work like we thought it would. Luckily we have two more days to right the wrongs.

For the second shooting, we deleted most of the conversations and made the film more abstract. As we are filming the killing parts today, we will use a lot of the fake blood. We prepared a white robe for our actress so she won’t get her own cloth dirty. We also bought some bathroom curtains and towels to put on the floor the avoid getting fake blood all over the place. In this shooting we also used the reflector boards a lot, it worked very well especially when we are shooting with the 100mm F2.8 Macro lens, everything looks very smooth and beautiful. Comparing to the last project’s hard lighting, the reflector boards really helped a lot. The only problem we had today was to make two of the scenes in the bathroom look good. One is the daughter suddenly show up behind her mother, the other is when the mother screams and waves her hand in the bath tub. Both of the scenes look like they are from some vintage horror films and we couldn’t figure out a way to improve it, so we had to use post-production skills to help them blend into the film. Overall this shooting was very productive, we finished all of the mother’s scenes and redid some of the scenes from the conversation. I am proud that all the lenses and lighting tools worked very well, the faces of actors look very nice and less oily, the shallow depth of field also created a very nice visual effect.

For the last shooting, we are more focused on the daughter’s scene and the part where she kills her brother. The biggest problem we had in this shooting was the lightning, because everybody needs to be highly focused and organized to create a perfect footage. I was using the light torch to create the first two lightning, Zhen will use the LED panel to do the third lightning after me, Samantha will be filming, our actor Joey will control the other LED panel and the house owner Kimi will be holding the reflective board. For such a big group of people, collaboration is key. We spent a long time experimenting and making sure all of us are on the same page. After a lot of tries, the final result is satisfying. The fog machine was also very helpful. It not only helped to soften the lighting, but also made the background look more layered. It really builds up the atmosphere in the room, which is very good for an abstract film. In the brother-killing scene, the fog is really the key factor. Without the fog in the background, this scene will look very bad and boring, the fog really created a good visual effect.

The three shootings of this project went very smooth and efficient. We prepared very well, and we didn’t forget to bring anything, everybody was on time and efficient. I’m proud we finished everything up in three days, the only problem I could think of was to start finding actors earlier and check the lights when we take it from the AV loans so we won’t get any broken ones.

In this film, lighting is very important, to have a better understanding, I did some research on the relationship between light and shadow.  Because neither of them will exist individually, so I think it’s fair to say that light and shadow are equally important. But are they equally important to human? I believe to most people, the need of light is definitely higher than the need of darkness. However, Myra Cohn Livingston once said that light and shadow can change an everyday world into a world of mystery and beauty.As an abstract photographer, I use lights because I need the light also because I need the shadow to improve the visual image of the photo.  People need light to see things but also need shadow to avoid the sun, photographers need light to brighten up the model’s face but also need shadow to make the shape of her face clearer. I need light to show the main object in the photo, but also need to shadow to build up the atmosphere. In this project, we used light to make sure audience can see the characters, but most importantly we used shadow to build up the creepy atmosphere. If our film is made in the daylight it will look very bad and weird. Shadow also can hide unnecessary things in the room, and the dark backgrounds really gave the film a good visual image. The relationship between light and shadow is complicated but also simple. They are the opposite of each other but also the reason why each other exists. In this project, both of them also helped us to make the film better.

After the shooting, Samantha made a rough cut:

In my opinion, comparing to the last project, the quality of the film has improved, the acting skill of our actors are better than last time, the music and the transitions in the film are very nice. Samantha mixed six pieces of music together to fit into the tempo of the film and it worked very well! The smoke machine really helped developing the creepy atmosphere and the white LED panels we used did a very nice lighting! The fake lightning worked very nice and the lenses all worked very well! However, I still don’t like the part of the mother screams and waves her hand in the bathtub, and also the scene showing the daughter’s reflection in the mirror. Even after the editing, those two scenes still look like they are from a vintage horror film. Because of the low frame rate of the footage, the scenes look very low quality when we used slow motion effect. To make them better for the final exhibition, we had to make some changes. Luckily James gave us some useful suggestions. For the waving scene, we think it looks awkward because in the scene we put in the film, she kind of waved down her hands, so the scene is showing her face, and the acting skill isn’t so good in this scene, therefore it looks awkward. So we decided to use the parts where her hand covers half of her face, so it will look better and less awkward. For the scene of the daughter, we just decided to put it in normal speed, so it will go faster and therefore become less awkward. The problem with the low frame rate is also solved.

Throughout the semester, I have learned about working as a team, and for the first time, made some films with the crew. I have learned more about lighting and had the chance to try out almost every single light in the AV loans. I have also become more familiar with the process of filmmaking, had to chance to direct a film is a piece of precious experience. This project is also a lot better than the last one, after all the practices we have become more prepared and also better at planning things out. We only had three problems in this shooting, one is the casting, one is the broken light panel and one is the low frame rate. Comparing to the countless problems we had with the last project, I think this is a huge improvement. In the future, I will keep trying out new things and improve my current skills and become a better photographer. I have had a great time in this studio and I will use what I learned here in the future and make some even better works!

Reference:

Light and Shadow. (1993). The Reading Teacher, 46(4), 514.