michael, media work

I’ve now finished the process of editing screen project 1 and looking back on the process I’ve realised a few things.

Crazy Saturday (Final) from Michael Tucci on Vimeo.

Number one is that you don’t necessarily need to show characters moving around the environment with painful shots of them walking into different rooms or down stairs every time they move. We had a lot of this kind of footage from the shoot which I really had to cut down on. Even the scenes where the ghost was going after Jack, again I had to look for the shots or parts of the shots that looked good in the edit while still allowing the audience to follow the chain of events, it’s a bit of a balancing act I think but I feel like it was definitely the right decision to cut right down on pointless shots.

I realised too that the old plasma screen I was using to edit tends to make shots look darker than they really are which is quite confusing and annoying and I had to go back and fix brightness and contrast on shots I’d over-compensated for.

Another thing that struck me about this whole process was the amount of time I was actually spending on sound. We had our shots and I had to string them together in an understandable way while trying to make the thing look good (same as any editing process) but the difference here was the lack of dialogue and the amount of time that nothing sonic was actually happening. On reflection too, it’s the noise that really makes horror movies scary I think. Visuals alone don’t really cut the mustard, sound tells the audience when they should be bracing for a jump-scare, tensing up with suspense or even relaxing a bit. It seems like it’s all about winding the viewer up for the desired reaction to what’s occurring on screen or what’s about to.

It’s amazing the amount of royalty free material you can find to use. I cam across Nicolas Gasparini’s work on SoundCloud and decided to use his track ‘Nebula’ so here’s a link to his site to show some support: http://thedarkpiano.com/creepy-piano-music

The rest of the sounds except the ones we had actually recorded on the day of the shoot are from royalty free YouTube SFX videos. Because the majority of editing I’ve done has more or less just been random stuff to music I’m quite used to syncing sound up to visuals in Premier, so working with lots of sound files luckily wasn’t too difficult. Exponential fade became my best friend here as you can’t be as abrupt and straight cut with sounds as you can afford to be with the visual aspect of a film.

Once The sequence of events was pieced together I thought about what sorts of effects I could use to make the whole thing look a bit better and to place emphasis on dramatic events. Making the screen strobe at certain points helped add to the disorientating and unsettling nature of the shots and made otherwise boring shots a bit more spicy (in my opinion). I was also initially worried about the continuity of shots where the lighting and brightness of environment is clearly different to the last shot, but in the final cut I didn’t seem to notice this as much and I’d like to think that again this adds to the feeling of panic and disorientation I was aiming to convey.

Lastly, while it’s not central to the film. I decided to make a bit of an animated end title with the same sort of dripping effect I’ve used in some of my previous work and skill development. This gif only consists of about ten frames and was only exported in one flat colour, but stacking multiple gifs on top of each other and messing with turbulent displace, blending modes and hue settings really let’s you make some cool looking text so I thought I may as well send thing thing off with a bang (or a stab rather). Does the logo match the feeling of the film apart from the Japanese characters? Probably not, does it make me look like more of a skilled editor? Hopefully. After seeing another group’s title sequence in class too I felt I wanted to give it a try because it certainly beats plain white text on black (like the rest of the credits)

 

 

‘The Ring’ is possibly the most well-known eastern horror with the usual American butchery in the form of a Hollywood remake where all the mains are replaced with white people (because how can you connect with characters if they don’t look and talk the same as you) beats me..

Ranting aside. There’s a real messed up Japanese folktale behind the film. In the movie a young girl gifted with supernatural and telepathic powers is thrown down a well for reasons I can’t quite remember but am sure were unjustified.

The real world folktale tells the story of Okiku, a female servant to a samurai called Tessan Aoyama who died in the well outside Himeji castle. Aoyama ended up falling madly in love with Okiku and told her of his intentions of making her his wife, but Okiku didn’t feel the same way so long story short Aoyama killed her by throwing her down the well. Or in a different version Aoyama hid one of the castle treasures Okiku was in charge of cleaning and keeping safe only agreeing to return it if Okiku agreed to be with him, the alternative being her torture and execution for suspicion of stealing the ornament herself. In this version Okiku throws herself down the well in despair.

(To be honest all of these stories are bringing out my inner feminist because it’s a load of shit that these women are literally turned into demons when the men are being the real monsters. I mean murdering someone because they’re not into you is probably the shittiest thing I’ve ever heard. Why isn’t this dickhead the one who’s sentenced to eternal suffering?!)

Okiku was said to crawl out of the well on a nightly basis and appear in front of Aoyama driving him insane in time… Because murdering a woman who doesn’t like you back isn’t already insane…

Drawings of Okiku are visually very similar to Sadako (the ghost from the Ring) with flowing black hair and a long white dress.

This appearance is the sign of someone who’s died under unnatural circumstances in Japan apparently. There’s even a type of ghost or spectre known as Yūrei, translating to “faint soul” or “dim spirit.”

These spirits within folklore are all in the form of women in white dresses with long black hair flowing over their form. This means that in our firm for example, the ghost played by Karren would also fit into the Yūrei category as those visual aspects are more or less what the whole character is built off.

The area of research set for me in line with the first film project of the semester is eastern ghost folklore and visual motifs of eastern horrors.

As part of the research for the pitch of our film, I began looking up specific examples within Japanese folklore and art in particular that include ghouls similar to those seen in The Grudge and Shutter.

Here are a three of my favorites summarized

“Known as yūrei, these mostly female ghosts won’t let their male wrongdoers rest until they’ve received a proper comeuppance (Gotthardt, 2019)

I’m not going to lie. A lot of this has very sexist undertones and I’d argue the sheer amount of demons and spirits who are women reflect men’s attitudes toward women such that they are often a man’s downfall and are untrustworthy. WHICH IS A LOAD OF SHIT I want to make very clear but having said that it’s interesting to read about how these folktales have evolved over time as part of traditional culture

Oiwa

A woman who suffered severe facially deformity after being poisoned by her husband so he could marry a rich neighbor’s granddaughter. She died of shock and a broken heart, going on to haunt her backstabbing husband who would see her melting face in paper lanterns

 

Nukekubi & Rokurkubi (No Neck & Pulley Neck)

Human’s who’ve sinned at the cost of their families or god and are punished for their evil deeds. Women may be punished as scape goats for their husbands or father’s sins also (which seems very unfair to me) Nukekubi are women whose heads and souls have detached from their bodies in their sleep (bit worse than waking up with a hangover I’d imagine). They are supposed to have a thirst for blood like that of a vampire. Rokurokubi are women whose necks stretch to incredible lengths. They supposedly attack small animals and consume oil from lamps and like to scare people for the sake of it.

 

Hone-onna, Skeleton Spectre

Arguably the coolest looking of the lot, this female skeleton lures men into her cavern by changing form (back into a normal looking person I’d assume) Once the victims realize what’s going on, the Hone-onna sucks the life force out of them until they become skeletons themselves. Sounds like most relationships to me 😉

 

In all seriousness though, that last joke there reflects the true nature of most folklore demons I’d argue. Monsters demons and spirits that are immortalized in this way are all just reflections of the inner demons inside ourselves and our own reactions to the world and others.

 

Gotthardt, A. (2019). These Vengeful Female Ghosts in Japanese Prints Will Haunt You. [online] Artsy. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-vengeful-female-ghosts-japanese-ukiyo-e-prints-will-haunt [Accessed 27 Aug. 2019].

After exporting and watching the first rough edit of our film there are both positive as well as weak aspects.

The timing and of certain shots and the flow of the sequence can be improved a lot, same goes for sound sound effects. But the footage overall looks good for our purposes. There are a few potential continuation errors but these can be fixed in the edit with fillers. This is where the b roll type shots of the house come in.

I’ve recognized a recurring theme to the process and reflection of editing and shooting, and that is certain choices you make about equipment and resources used will almost always come with two sides, positives and negatives in relation to other potential decisions.

I chose to edit this project from home as it allows for a lot more flexibility and ease than having to travel into RMIT and book a suite to edit, especially on days when I have shifts at work. My five year old HP runs Premier fine for the most part, especially if I run it through a larger monitor (which I also have) but when watching the preview back through Premier I do experience quite a bit of lag which is really annoying when trying to hone in the timing of the sequence. With past Projects I’ve had to watch the exported rough cut and then go back to alter the flow of shots after getting a clear sense of the relationship between separate shots and SFX within the edit.

In future I may just have to consider either upgrading my home setup or allowing for more time to come in and edit on campus

Watch the first cut bellow:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uy-NK6GkZCXXtQfvny4s50wwi4lg5hfC

 

The process of editing a project like this can be a lot more streamlined than doing something more abstract as you know the sequence of events and you know where you’re going, you just kind of have to find the most polished and fitting way of getting there.

In this process, sound has been both my best friend and my worst enemy. I’m relying on using royalty free sound effects and music as there is virtually zero dialogue in the whole film so I can’t really have Jack walking around the house stealing money in science or even when the ghost rocks up, there’s got to be something more than visual happening. Suspense and scariness can be brought out by environmental sounds like creaking, gurgling, dull thumping etc. Jack’s house made a lot of good environmental sounds.

A shotgun mike was a better option for the constraints of the shoot than a large shotgun mike or an inbuilt slr mike. I think on my part the levels could have been adjusted for better results as I have a load of room tone in every recording but it sounds too fuzzy and loud a lot of the time. This means mixing and monitoring the levels of each audio channel against each other is more complicated than it has to be.

Robert Capa (Oct 22 1913 – May 25 1954) caught my eye as a photographer not just for his bravery and dedication to his cause but for his efforts to immortalize moments from one of the darkest chapters of human history. Capa not only captured the horrors but the humanity of war, most of us only consider the bigger picture but not the individual lives touched by conflict.

I love these black and white film photos as they don’t just serve as a reminder of our past but are also beautiful in their own right. Capa’s focus on people gives a more intimate insight into the scenes of war and the scars it leaves behind than a black and white, good and bad style of focus often employed when recounting wars. In my opinion, photos and media like this is extremely important for all to see as I naturally tend to try and imagine myself in the position of the subjects of these photos and I think it’s important for people, especially young people to think about this sort of thing as I’d argue many of us living comfortably have become become sadly numb and indifferent to our fellow humans in this day and age, sadly even those who have come from war-torn countries in search of a better life. On this point Capa’s photography is also a reminder to me of the dedication to family and sacrifices made by my own Nonno and Nonna in order for me to even be writing this right now.

To summarise, the way these photos made me feel is what gives them value (as well as being historical records) especially the photo of children smiling among the rubble and bullet holes in particular I found very touching, the sheer contrast of environment and feeling of the subjects makes for amazing photos and again I found it thought provoking when it comes to core human values and priorities in life. I love beautiful looking things as much as the next person, but 9 times out of 10 unless I feel something I’m going to forget them.

I can relate Capa’s work at least to duration, perhaps of relevance or impact because I believe images like these are immortal.

For our short film pitch, my group and I ended up going with a nice basic home invasion style horror scenario with our ghoul taking influence from the visual motifs and themes of eastern horror movies. More or less a guy steals money from his housemate and then get’s chopped by a ghost for doing so. Lots of slashers tend to follow a similar chain of events in which typically teens or college students are up to something sinful or promiscuous and proceed to be judged and punished for their sins. For example in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ the teens were guilty of being sexually active, in ‘Friday the 13th’ again it was a group of teens guilty of underage drinking and sex who Jason terrorized, same as Texas Chainsaw Massacre except those cookers in that van were also guilty of taking and selling drugs. (wouldn’t have happened to the Scooby gang because Shaggy’s a wholesome stoner who must also be a virgin since he never got brutally stabbed by anyone.) In our film however, Jack’s character who get’s terrorized is guilty of stealing instead.

We shot our footage today in Doncaster and unlike the last time I went to film for a project, I actually brought my camera battery chargers for when they inevitably die on you… Which they did. On one hand it was great to have two SLRs to use for when this happens because it means you don’t get held up, but now I’m going to have to colour-grade the footage to match visually. (I plan to start on post-production tomorrow.) The thing about the cameras we shot on is that my EM10 has better footage stabilization than the SONY I borrowed from my housemate, however his A7S is much stronger in the low-light department and shoots nicer, deeper full-frame footage as well as being able to plug in a shotgun mic (bit of a shit feature of the EM10 missing that without an adapter). Both were helpful for different types of shots, so again there are some benefits as well as gripes when using two separate cameras. The location (Jack’s House) actually suited our needs pretty well and the dull light from outside wasn’t bad either, we used a lighting stand and plastic from a green bag to create a cooler unsettling look to the house since we needed lighting to warm light doesn’t really do wonders in this context to compliment a horror environment when you need to light scenes up. I am hoping that the shots match up alright lighting wise too, but again I’ll have to do what I can in post-production if they don’t.

The first film camera (35mm) I ever brought was an old Nishika off Gumtree.

Nishika was a Nevada based company that has since gone under and doesn’t exist anymore and the N8000 is a poorly made bulky piece of crap with stickers trying to look like screens and a lead block in the bottom to make it feel more weighty because the whole thing is made of low quality plastic. Even the name is meant to sound Japanese (one of the few examples of Americans not flying the flag on almost anything they can).

The reason these cameras are so special despite their floors however is the lens setup. The N8000 is a stereo camera which takes 4 exposures at the same time through a row of lenses on the front. While this was intended for creating 3D hologram images, nowadays they’re used for making stereo gifs (which I’ve always loved) through a fairly simple method using Photoshop and lining the exposures up over the top of each other.

After watching a handful of music videos from ASAP Mob and Lil Yachty that utilize these sorts of stereo gifs I was super keen to give it a go. Unfortunately however my Nishika had worn out plastic cogs in the winding mechanism due to corrosion and stopped working 🙁 but not before I had a mess around and made a video or two with my gifs from last summer.

I do however intend to go throw some money at another Nishika when I can because they’re just so fun to use and the rarity of this sort of camera means that you can sell even a broken example and make some of your money back. I also feel I have a lot more learning to do, especially when it comes to incorporating these gifs into videos.

I intend to create a blog post about the process of creating stereo gifs too at some point.

 

 

Using the RMIT printers I was really keen to give scanning photos a go and see what I’d end up with. At first I printed black and white images and played around with them, the really cool thing is that if you leave the scan settings on colour it creates a trippy rainbow burn sort of look around the spots that have been warped and I wish now that I had scanned all my black and white pics with the colour enabled.

After the first lot I printed out a few more pictures to use and found that moving the paper back and forward on the same axis that the scanner was moving along produced my preferred look as everything either gets stretched or sort of compressed. Moving the picture up and down instead created waves throughout the image which was cool too but more basic looking in my opinion. The second time round too I used bigger images that took up almost a whole A4 sheet and came out more rich and detailed.

I’d like to keep messing around with scanners and maybe get more of an idea of how to plan out how the scan is going to look with the aim of glitching or emphasising certain parts of the image. Experimenting with more black and white images in order to bring out the colour burn kind of look could be cool too, or even scanning a pre-glitched image. I might try and make a few gifs from scanned images too and see if I can get some movement or waves that move and develop in a continuous way.

I’ve included some more images that have been through Audacity too which was my favorite method of glitching photos until I tried the scanner.

 

 

I’m not much of an animator though I do live with two pretty talented ones. But I have had an interest in developing my skills in making simple gifs to use mostly for video editing or just for fun. Like the logos I made for my friend for his Dj set video, I like creating the effect of images having a liquid and fluid nature with streaking and drops coming off text or objects. Using Photoshop and drawing stuff with the mouse pad to create frame animations is about as deep as I’ve gotten into the area but I intend to keep making shitty gifs because having technical skills in any area of production is going to be useful.

As they say on cooking shows “here are some I prepared earlier”