Final Film “He Sucks”

https://vimeo.com/875743608?share=copy

Pre-Production Reflection

Production Reflection

Post-Production Reflection

Final Reflection

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He Sucks Folder

Final Reflection

 “He Sucks” employs the Post-Horror genre through its use of slow zooms, long takes and psychological plot. The reviewing of classical films inspired me to explore German Expressionism, an early form of what we now identify as the horror genre, and use it in a modern setting. The film presents  a strong underlying societal message that is symbolically explored throughout the film, the message being the female experience of their early/first relationship with a man, and the toxicity and harm that women endure under the guise of “love”.  Mary’s boyfriend, James, his vampiric characterisation and the effect it has over her health is a symbolic exaggeration that looks into the tortured psyche of young women and the societal expectation to settle and to tolerate. 

The studio is very referential and I wish I had consumed more Post-Horror films and assigned reading  whilst doing the studio to further understand the genre’s tropes and conventions. Having this knowledge would have made me better equipped and more confident to make my own Post-Horror film. Navigating my role within the film production was certainly the biggest challenge, using my leadership role to be firmer in what I expect from the crew and accepting my own limitations.  I was ambitious in certain aspects such as shots and the time frame of shooting and missed out on getting valuable pick-ups and B-roll as I was too focused on the initial vision in my head. I tend to over exert myself in leadership positions and in hindsight, I needed to communicate better with my crew and collaborate more openly. Having another chance to redo the studio, I would’ve liked to have encouraged more opinions and creative choices from the crew, and given the opportunity for them to present their own personal experience with relationships as a way to feel more invested and connected to the film’s story and its message.  I also would’ve changed the setting for the asthma attack scene. The sounds of the building were far too distracting and I wish I had scouted out the location prior to shooting and opted for a much quieter space. I would have liked to have created a more organised lighting plan, taking stronger inspiration from Expressionist films, and even experimented  with more pops of colour in the film to draw focus and break up the constant black and white.  I would definitely redo the dialogue if I had a second chance and organise a run through/rehearsal prior to shooting. Whilst filming, I realised how stiff and cringey it sounded but had no time to rewrite the script of course. I recognise that writing dialogue is not my strong suit, and so I should have reached out to others for feedback, drafting more versions and talking openly with the actors on their personal opinion and interpretation of their character. 

The film’s strength lies in its artistic, Expressionist style, unique plot and the potent societal message within it. “He Sucks” also stands out amongst the other short films in the studio when it comes to aesthetics, with a black and white colour palette, diverse use of stock footage and a general experimental, arthouse approach. Its weakness’ certainly lies in the quality of shots that emphasis’ its amateur quality. There was some poor acting that  needed to be cut around and our use of chocolate sauce as blood was more comical than believable, which I had not  intended. Overall, the film lacks polish, and certain scenes could be seen as unintentionally confusing and comedic, but I am so proud of the crew and myself for what we’ve made as first time filmmakers and I’d love to approach this idea in the future with a more experienced hand.

Post-Production Reflection

In post-production, my editor and I first went through all of the footage together, deleting unuseable takes and beginning to think about ways in which to edit these shots into a scene. We divied up the editing work scene by scene  in what I believe was an equal share before working on these separately. However, because this was the editors main role in the entire film production I assigned her the role of colour grading each scene and allowed her to edit the scenes that were more creative and artistically driven with myself focusing on aspects like the credits and smaller scenes.

Receiving feedback from Tim on a rough cut, I was encouraged to implement a more Expressionist Style, utilising related stock footage, digital zooms and removing shots that felt too drawn out or lacked emotion from the Actor. This was incredibly helpful in bringing a stronger horror tone to the film.

Whilst editing, I noticed more mistakes within the raw footage e.g. Mics in shot, shaky camera and the focus being off. To conceal this, I used Warp Stabiliser on Premiere Pro, cut down shots that were initially going to be longer and interweaved it with stock footage and added in successful shots from other scenes. These editing choices helped to elevate the footage rather than amplify its flaws.

It was surprising to see how much dialogue and scenes were cut whilst editing. Listening back to the dialogue I’d written, so much of it made me cringe and I knew that the audience would likely experience this too. To avoid this, anything that was integral to the plot was removed and in turn, the scenes without dialogue were more tense and uneasy and the ones with dialogue became more impactful and meaningful within the film. Originally, the final scene was supposed to reveal that Mary, having escaped James’s grasp and in a new relationship, has become a vampire herself. Writing this ending was a struggle from the very beginning, trying to write a strong reveal, present her evil vampiric actions of evil, and crete an ominous future for her new partner. As a result of this uncertainty, the shots taken for this scene were lacklustre, and didn’t match what I had first envisioned at all. The ending needed to be both powerful and horrific, and so when it came to the editing process, I decided to remove this entire scene, and instead end on Mary having just bit James, covered in blood, laughing and finally free. The message of this is much more powerful with this ending, focusing more on women’s experience being in young, toxic relationships with men and the feminine rage that accompanies that. 

Production Reflection

During the Production, I leaned into the German Expressionist style, focusing on shots such as Close Ups and Super Close Ups to reflect the main character’s emotional state and emphasise the sense of terror within the film. I also wanted to employ long takes and slow zooms, typical techniques used in the Post-Horror genre that work to draw tension and give context. My main use for lighting was to light up the space, create shadows on walls and faces and add depth onto the actors’ face. I did this because I knew we would later be colour grading the shots into a black and white colour palette, and wanted to mimic the Expressionist style of harsh lighting and use of shadows. 

When shooting halted to a stop it was commonly one of these three reasons. Technical difficulties , which included our boom mics disconnection, navigating camera storage and adjusting the ISO frame rate to ensure our camera quality wasn’t grainy. Redirecting the actors with matters such as the realistic usage of the inhaler and the believability of an asthma attack. Finally, there was time spent adapting to shots that could not be executed the way I wanted. An example was the scene in which the character, James, had no reflection in the mirror whilst arguing with the character, Mary. Unable to film the shot that I initially envisioned, with both actors in the shot, I provided an alternative, which was to film each actor individually talking to each other, and splice it together to give the illusion of no reflection. 

Throughout production I was mainly focused on rearranging the camera and lighting and directing the actors and as a result of this, I missed some of the smaller details that would have made the shoot smoother and the shots of better quality. Details like ensuring everything was focused,  the mic was out of every shot and that unnecessary objects e.g. Water bottles and laptops were out of frame. I found myself caught up in the moment with visualising shots and engaging with cast and crew that I regrettably lost track of the shot-list and ended up missing a couple of important shots that I wanted to capture. This meant that some of the story and horror aspects were lost,a disappointing consequence. In future shoots I aim to refer to the shotlist more closely, ticking off each one as I go in order to prevent any reshoots or missed opportunities.

Pre-Production Reflection

I began my pre-production through storyboarding, amateurly sketching each shot and using the distance and detail of each drawing to then determine the type of shot to utilise. The story is predominantly linear, with recurrings shots of the bathroom scene as a form of foreshadowing which I deliberately used to add tension and invite intrigue from the audience. Looking back, I wished I had been more creative with my initial storyboarding rather than choosing to focus on continuity and shots purely for plot. This just comes with gaining more confidence as a filmmaker and director, as well as learning about the importance of collaborative work. I would’ve liked to have put more effort into reaching out to my cinematographer to brainstorm and visualise the shotlist together, balancing the workload better and allowing another creative mind to be involved in the pre-production process.

Our first meeting as a group was incredibly successful, organising our house location, a music producer, cast call information and props/costume for my Art Director to source. In regards to casting, we sourced our actors through Facebook, filtering through the applications sent to find the right look and experience and finally an audition on Zoom. The audition consisted of having the applicants read lines chosen from the characters, giving different directions to measure how adaptable and flexible they were as actors. I checked availability, location of residence and dietary requirements for each applicant, making sure my Production Manager was taking notes of these. I was lucky enough to find the two actors I wanted through the first round of auditions. Because of the intensity of the relationship between the two characters in my film, I held a follow up Zoom meeting so the two actors could meet each other, discuss their boundaries, safety precautions and their general needs in order to create a safe space for them both whilst on set.

Booking the equipment brought some minor challenges as well. My minimal knowledge of sound equipment resulted in myself booking too many mics that ended up not being the right fit for our production. This was an embarrassing realisation however it was quickly solved with the help of the tech support, booking a recorder that we ended up using for the whole two days of shooting. In regards to picking all the equipment up, the lack of crew members’ presence meant that the transportation of equipment was extremely laborious. In hindsight I needed to set a standard, emphasising the importance of everybody showing up to move everything and store it safely before returning it back.