michael, media work

This semester has been extremely challenging for me, within the space of about a month I went through a terrible break up, got an infected wisdom tooth which made me miss a week or two of university for doctors appointments just to have my surgery canceled because of Covid 19, I had serious landlord troubles and moved house just to have to move back to my parents when I couldn’t afford to live in Melbourne anymore due to loosing my job (again thanks Covid) I also totaled my first car. So university was about the last thing on my mind. But this studio in it’s own way has taught me that there’s a way around most things in life no matter how shit things get. I never thought I’d be making films with other students over the internet without any face to face contact but I was really pleasantly surprised at how everyone was so willing to collaborate and help each other out in these circumstances. I also liked how this studio covered a wide range of skills from editing, to actively shooting footage to script writing and creating animatics and mark-ups. I had done script writing in a studio last year but had never gone that in-depth when it came to planning out a shoot in it’s entirety.

For the vast majority of anything I’ve ever made, it’s either just shooting and improvising off a vague idea of what I want to create and mostly making it up as I go or literally doodling around and editing old random footage in my spare time for fun, so outside a few group projects I’ve done in recent years there’s never been this much planning that’s gone into anything I’ve made (even if my end product was kind of scrappy). I really liked this about this studio and while I wish we could have been working together with tripods, lighting stands and nice cameras in different locations and such, working and creating under lock-down was a really unique experience (hopefully the last of it’s kind in my lifetime, and my kids lifetimes) and while I’ve been stressed out trying to rebuild my life and find work so I can move back to the city, having university projects to work on has saved me from going a bit mental I think since there’s almost nothing else going on and it’s great to just have a goal of any kind to work towards where you can actually see yourself progressing.

Collaborating with other students obviously had its difficulties as we couldn’t meet up to shoot anything together and all planning had to be done through messenger and Zoom. Like I said before I was pleasantly surprised at how willing to help out everyone was when it came to filling me in on class information I’d missed or being on board to help shoot part of my film from the script I ended up choosing. I think I tend to avoid reaching out to other people to help work on my projects since I lack confidence and am pretty anxious about judgement from other people when it comes to my work (or work I’ve tried to pour my heart into), I also think I see myself as being to disorganised to properly co-ordinate other people and direct them as to what I want from them whether it’s acting or helping film. The fact that this studio pushed me to better my communication and collaboration skills I think was challenging but also beneficial because it was a lot more straightforward than I expected it to be in the end. So I think I’m going to have more confidence when it comes to reaching out to others to work on my films in the future.

Looking at my work, I think one thing that’s changed over the course of the semester is that I’ve stopped overthinking and overshooting everything. The ‘Making the Bed’ exercise was one in which I purposefully tried to make it as simple as possible and from memory the whole thing consisted of only three different shots while for the very first exercise we did, my work had more than double that for the same thirty second time span. Learning to trust in simplicity and not to overthink, over edit and basically just over do everything was great for me I think, less is definitely more sometimes.

In creating the animatic to match the Lenny script and our specific mark-ups I think I learnt new techniques and ways in which I could string shots together without even having to shoot them which was really cool and something I want to practice and put to use more in the future. I remember sitting down to think out which location I had immediate access to around my parents’ house and how best this might compliment the given script. In the end choosing the shed was a better option and more appropriate to the constraints of the project as well as the script itself as the environment suited the narrative a lot more than the inside of mum and dad’s house, most importantly it was a lot more open and spacious and I could take photos to try out different angles a lore more easily without having to navigate the furniture and random crap inside the house.

This was also the first time I’d properly considered things like eye-line for characters, the 180 degree rule for shooting exchanges and dialogue and how different shots and angles could draw attention to different parts of the environment or aspects of the scene like the mysterious box. Continuity errors are something I came up against both in my animatic and the editing of my final film. Within the Lenny animatic I remember characters would go from wearing a beanie to being bare headed or vice versa within a few shots, this was a silly mistake on my part. Within my final film it was mostly the fact that mine and Eamon’s door frames were completely different colours as well as the inside of the house just within the front door. This couldn’t really be helped as I wasn’t about to go out and re-paint the door frame for this project. What I could control however was the look of the shots in post-production and account for the colour and brightness that the two environments created. This I played around with in the colour grading compilation I made as part of this final project but didn’t worry about too much within the final edit.

 

What annoyed me more to be honest was the sound and while I’m not skilled at mixing and dealing with levels and white noise, I did take it apon myself to try and create continuity when it came to the birds that are making a ruckus in the background of my shots (as my parents live in the bush). Of course in the shots Eamon sent me there was no such noise, and this bugged me more than the tone or lighting so I tried to fix it by simply chopping up parts of the continuous shot I’d filmed with all my lines in which I wasn’t taking but the birds were carrying on and kind of just taking the audio and putting it under Eamon’s shots to make it sound like those same birds were continuously making noise in the background and thus helping the illusion that we were in the same place (ignoring the ever-changing door frame).

I also downloaded royalty free door and microwave sound effects to use as I didn’t think to just use the sound of the microwave that was actually behind me within the final shot. On reflection though I think the sounds effect has a louder and ephemeral quality to it that makes it seem a lot more significant and integral to the way in which that edit panned out, as if to emphasise the shock on Mia’s face when she reads the letter Hugo had left inside her book. I also had to flip Eamon’s footage to make it look more plausible so we weren’t facing the same general direction within the shots and made sure to angle my phone camera where the door itself was blocked by bricks so that nobody would be able to tell that Hugo or Eamon wasn’t actually standing there.

All of these things that I had to work around and find solutions to either in shooting or post-production are usually things I never have to consider within the usual style of film I’m used to editing. So working to fit a script and especially within the constraints (both controlled and uncontrolled in this case) has been a different and very rewarding experience for me. It’s built my confidence in collaborating and problem solving which will no doubt help me with future projects.

Lenny Animatic Exercise

Making the Bed Exercise

Colour Grading

Scene Deconstruction

Creating animatic sequences to the Lenny script was something I was dreading to be honest but it ended up being a lot more fun and interesting than I expected. I used my Olympus camera with the timing feature and my tripod to set up for the different shots included in the sequences. I chose to do this exercise in my parent’s garage / shed because there was an old wheelchair in there and I thought it’d look more dramatic for Lenny to be doubled over in that as opposed to an armchair inside.

Watching my work back (aside from wishing it didn’t look so awkward) I think I would have done better having gone into taking the photos with more of an idea of which variations I would include for the three versions we were to make. Instead I kind of just took a bunch of different shots and then figured out how I would execute each edit afterwards.

Another thing which I had initially planned to do but is of little consequence really, was to have Sharon’s character wearing a beanie and Lenny to be without as of course I was representing both. I quickly forgot about this plan however and there are definitely continuity issues where Lenny goes from being bare-headed to having a beanie within a few shots.

All of that aside I found this really interesting as I’d never created an animatic before, I can see the value of it too as I can imagine much more vividly how a short film would look within the same shots as the photos. I think it’s a  process where you really get a feel for how different kinds of shots and angles work together and how you may want to frame certain events in relation to others within the edit before calling in actual actors and wasting time chopping and changing while shooting moving images.

I realised that this exercise was never going to yield amazing results, so unlike last time with the other short edit (where I literally just put on a record) I kept this edit simple and had three different shots instead of cramming as many different angles and cuts into it as possible to try and make it more interesting.

I’m hoping that this will at least make the outcome of this exercise easier to watch even if it is a little boring. One thing I realised too was that the final shot that’s directly across from the head of the bed has different looking lighting to the others, becoming darker which is something I want to watch out for in future and be more aware of how camera placement in itself can influence more than just the angle of the shot even if you’re shooting in the same environment as your previous shots.

One thing I did relatively well here was continuity, unlike that previous exercise I mentioned before, my cuts within this one line up together a lot better without it looking too jumpy or becoming obvious that there is in fact a jump in time, meaning it seems a lore more organic to me.

This also comes back to not over-complicating it as I tend to do with my editing, there’s a lot to be said for avoiding over-editing because sometimes less is more. That mindset makes it easier to remain consistent in the way something is going to look and feel overall which is something else I tend to struggle with at times, although I rarely start editing something with a solid idea of what I want the end product to be (at least with my own stuff I do for fun). So I think these exercises are good in terms of trying to develop that consistency and polish, even if it is just a 30 odd second edit with three shots.

 

 

 

Clip one:

The first iteration of this clip, I decided to try a sci-fi look and basically just changed the hue of the whole clip to make the fire and everything else with it an offensive shade of bright purple, it’s kinda ugly but I think the purple fire looks cool at least.

In the second graded version of this clip, I messed around with the shadows and mid-tones to make the clip look less washed out and to bring out the black of the screen against the fire and red spray paint in order to create more contrast and within the clip and to make it look more high definition with colours that pop out at you.

Finally in this last graded version of the clip, I went for the opposite approach to the last one and purposefully made the clip appear more washed out and less well defined in order to achieve the look of an older shitty television, using the same shadow / mid-tone sliders. I also messed with the colour wheels in premier to achieve a yellowy-green kind of hue to the clip that works against the colours of the clip itself to compliment the washed out look.

 

Clip two:

First up, using lumeri colour, I once again tried to make the original clip look less washed out by adjusting brightness and contrast. I think out of all the iterations I did on this particular clip, this first one looks the best, as the colours pop out more and the shadows and highlights are more well defined.

In the seconded grading of the clip, I raised the saturation to make the image look more interesting and for the colours of the grass and plants in the background as well as my t-shirt to pop out more. However I think this clip looks overly saturated possibly and my face looks a bit to red and pink for my liking.

Finally I put the clip into black and white and raised the contrast. In moderation, this combination of effects can make some clips come to life when the desired effect is to make something look more grungy, artistic, or even just old-fashioned (although I guess if it had been left more washed out in that case.) High-contrast black and white is one of my personal favorite looks and I’m using it heavily in a current project I’m working on with a friend.

 

Clip three:

My first thought while colour grading this clip was to bring out the colour in the ‘Hard Rock’ sign and to make the rest of the image have a kind of warm red glow to it. I used the colour wheels and adjusted the highlight colour and brightness in particular to achieve this look, I like the way the graphic on the side of the car stands out more also.

Second time round, I once again decided to try the opposite of my first grade and attempted to give the clip a more cool light by adjusting the mid-tones and making the whole image look bathed in a kind of aqua blue light. This however ended up looking a bit strange and washed out with neither the car nor the sign really being complimented by this look.

Lastly I wanted to balance the detail and lighting of both the car and the sign within the clip. I also changed the ugly looking blue to a more subtle purple in the mid-tones that blends into the red light thrown by the lit up sign a lot better. I was also able to lighten up the car a bring out more detail by adjusting the shadow slider without making the clip to overly washed out or tampered with on the whole I think.

 

 

 

 

The thing that stands out the most to me about this scene is the sound design, the atmospheric noise of traffic outside the restaurant creates a sense of stillness and quiet inside, the clink of cutlery as Sollozzo and McCluskey eat their meals while Michael goes into the toilets to get the handgun out stands out against this background noise giving us more of a sense of how quiet it really is inside the establishment. This atmospheric noise grows louder also as Michael heads into the back away from the front of the restaurant, more or less masking any noise he’s making. This emphasis on sound within the scene and the growing tension is used to great effect within the short cut back to Sollozzo and McCluskey eating out front wherein Captain McCluskey looks up momentarily, hearing Michael banging around getting the gun out. For a moment it seems that the two might realise something’s up but they just continue eating instead. I think that there’s a moment of foreshadowing also just before Michael comes back out from the toilets as he pauses for a moment and prepares himself for what he’s about to do, the noise from the outside of the restaurant swells getting noticeably louder and you can hear the noise of a train in particular that becomes recognisable amongst the rest of the exterior rumble.

Skipping ahead to the point in which Michael makes his move, I love how the sound within the scene once again goes from being almost completely quite (save the Italian dialogue) and then the tension ramps back up as the noise of an approaching train gets louder and louder until the final moment of release when Michael gets up and shoots them both in the face using the cacophony from to railway to partially mask the noise from his gun. Although as this point the gunshots and the noise of McCluskey collapsing and the entire table of food spilling over is overwhelming and the noise of the train becomes almost non-existent.

Speaking briefly on shot style, I noticed that Michael appears almost exclusively within mid shots or medium close-ups where we can take in his demeanor and the subtleties of his facial expressions moreso than if he had been framed within longer shots. This style of shooting and emphasis on Michael’s character really shines through right before the moment of climax, you can literally see the glint in Al Pachino’s eyes as they dart between the two men sitting across from him like a lion eyeing off its prey.

Love it!

 

Studio Goals: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/michael-tucci/2020/03/23/deliberate-film-assignment-1-post-1-what-do-i-want-from-this-studio/

Reflection & Findings: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/michael-tucci/2020/03/23/deliberate-film-assignment-1-post-2-findings-from-exercises-and-homework/

Initiative Post: http://www.mediafactory.org.au/michael-tucci/2020/03/23/deliberate-film-assignment-1-post-3-initiative-post/

 

‘Trailer Park Boys’

For my initiative post I’ve decided to reflect on the show ‘Trailer Park Boys’. It’s messy and crude and I love it. Me and my friends watched a lot of it over the summer and I’ve grown to love the characters and the setting but what find the most interesting is the way in which the show is filmed.

As a viewer you basically watch it as if it’s a real life documentary that’s been shot on-sight at the trailer park (a mockumentary) and this makes for some hilarious moments and some meta humor thrown in as well. Characters will react to the camera man when they’re having an emotional outburst, telling them to get lost and to get the camera out of their face. Ricky (one of the mains) trips over cords a few times and again takes his anger out on the cameraman, in this way the camera itself transitions into a character in it’s own right and surpasses merely being the disconnected narrator and the perspective we’re shown takes on a different meaning.

Making the show a mockumentary also allows the produces including Mike Smith, Rob Wells & John Paul Tremblay (the actors that play Bubbles, Ricky & Julian respectively) to open characters themselves up in a unique and more intimate way with talking head style cutaways where they’ll often deliver a dialogue that contradicts their actions in an ability to save face or push their agenda to the audience. This creates more of a connection to the characters I think as we’re allowed to see them in more vulnerable moments and their flaws are exposed as their ambitions and the way they’d like to be seen often tends to be shattered by the actual events within the narrative of the show, much like ‘The Office’ with Michael Scott confidently telling us that he’s on top of his game as the respected and competent boss he is.

The aesthetic style of the show itself or mise en scene strongly compliments the environment and characters on screen, shots have very little polish and have a real home video style to them, the camera shakes around, gets slapped and dropped and you see every bump when the cameraman’s running around during an action scene. This is brilliant in my opinion and you get more of a sense of vivid realism while watching, I think it’d also just seem a bit out of place to have what looks like a really high production value on what’s supposed to be a documentary about ex-convicts living in a trailer park and selling weed. I’d also say that because everything looks so real in the sense that nothing looks edited or manipulated, when stuff gets crazy on-screen with gunfights, violence and car crashes, it comes off in a really raw and believable way while still remaining funny due to how over the top everything is. This balance is really rare I feel and it goes to show how well the vision of the creators has been executed. A gunshot in a Hollywood blockbuster is boring nowadays and you know they’ve used millions of dollars in effects and editing software to make everything appear exactly as intended, a gunshot in ‘Trailer Park Boys’ just holds a lot more weight.

The action sequence:

This exercise I feel has brought out my tendency to over-edit and over complicate things when they can be done in a more simple and clean way. Watching my sequence back and comparing it to the others I saw from my classmates as well as the example we were shown, I think that in some ways it ended up being a bit jarring and convoluted. The process of simply turning on a stereo and playing a vinyl record was stretched into 6 different camera angles and a handful of jump-cuts in the middle even though the video goes for 27 seconds. It doesn’t flow as well as I was hoping and I found myself editing and cutting shots to simply fit the important bits into the 30 second time limit.

The audio was an aspect that I could have considered more carefully too as the Marvin Gaye song playing just kind of jumps about between shots and this shatters the illusion of continuity within the video which I think can really interfere with an audiences ability to engage with the work and in my opinion it just comes off as a bit sloppy, unless of course you’re purposefully using this kind of jumping to your advantage within the edit to create a desired response within an audience.

Another thing that I was unsatisfied with was the way that at certain points my phone camera refocuses momentarily. Along with the and jumps in the audio, I think that this is detrimental to audience engagement by being distracting and shifting focus (no pun intended) from where I was intending the center of attention to be on-screen. In comparison, within the example we were shown, I think that the simplicity and straightforward nature of what we’re being shown within those 30 seconds is a real strong point.

 

In-class editing exercise:

Working in a group in class and taking turns to edit shots from our classmates into little sequences was an interesting process. It showed me that you can come up with potentially infinite ways to put together a small handful of shots and along with this, different meaning and impressions can be created within the way that you cut together relatively simple shots. Some of the short edits we made were made to look ominous and somber while others could be humorous or surreal depending on the order and timing of events. I had a lot of fun in particular with shots of someone stealing a chair and found that playing with the cropping and post-production zoom can really highlight little details or actions within a shot that may not usually have been the intended focus. We also created a few sequences that made it look like someone else was deliberately throwing paper on the ground right next to a bin and then smiling to herself about it.

Another edit of the same few shots showed the development of paper throwing skills as she first filed and then succeed in her shot, and another just cut to the chase and showed her satisfaction in getting it in on the first try. Relatively menial things like a few people washing their hands too can be made to look like they’ve transformed into another person when cutting between two different shots from the same angle, it’s all about what you do with the footage in post production as to how you want it to be interpreted I guess, and this freedom is really fun even without any set vision of how you want to portray the characters or events within this footage. I think within this exercise I mostly aimed to take the given footage and make it look as funny or awkward as possible when played together within a sequence.