FILM PROJECT 2 – Reflection

Quick disclaimer, as discussed earlier in the semester, this reflection will be largely derived from my blog posts on this project from across the semester.

When I began this project, I had a simple, short statement of intention. Here it is, taken from my initial pitch:

“In short, what I want to create is not a piece that will necessarily stand alone in terms of narrative engagement or thrilling visuals, but simply a short and effective piece of mumblecore-inspired lo-fi cinema. Considering time and budgetary constraints of this course, I feel that this is something I can achieve to a high quality.”

I’ll address how I think I did in achieving this, what went right, what went wrong, and lessons I’ve learned. Firstly, I’m very happy with my final product! When reading back my initial intention I think I achieved most factors to various extents, and my focus did not deviate from the pre to post-production.

As a first example, I’ll go through some of my storyboards, and see if I achieved them in my final product. (Click to enlarge!)

As you can see, some I nailed, some I differed slightly, and some I cut from the final version. I think I perfectly executed 1, 2, 3 & 5, all part of my opening sequence between John & the Dealer. I envisioned these shots very early in the brainstorming of this project so I felt very confident about how I’d shoot them. As you can see they are quite similar to the storyboards. 3, 4, 6 & 10 were similar, shots that I had thought about earlier and I think I pulled off quite well in the final cut. 7 & 8 are slightly different from my original envisioning, a) due to the change of character from DJing to making music on different gear, and b) because I decided to shoot from John’s perspective instead of Jim’s. Overall I’m quite happy with those two shots. 9, 11 & 12 were all cut from the final version. For 9, I decided not to have a cut-away shot of the deal being made between the dealer & John, and also decided against showing the rat, instead deciding to just talk about it in the dialogue. This was mainly due to my trouble finding a good prop rat. As for 10, I thought the final scene worked better without the focus on the actual smoking, instead on the group shot.

As for the actual shooting day, here are some things that went right!

– Improv! (to a point)

I really gave my cast free reign to improvise on the day, and I think it paid dividends. As expected Callum was great as my dealer, as I really think he’s a good actor. He can really think on his feet, and perfectly interpreted my script in his own way. John was grappling well with him (they are close friends, so had great chemistry), and it looks like their scenes together might be the highlights of the film.

While the other boys weren’t at Callum’s level, they all worked well in the parameters, and if my goal was to create naturalistic dialogue, I think I’ve succeeded. Jim worked well from the few notes I gave him, and the other 2 boys needed a bit more help but we got some good stuff from them in their scene.

– Cinematography

From the rushes I’ve seen so far, I’m quite happy with how most of our shots turned out. Although fairly simple over the shoulder or two shots, I think the hand held is quite engaging and with the little preparation we had I think it was a success in that respect. Some highlights in my opinion are one of the opening shots, the pedestal shot of John starting at his feet, and the over the shoulder shot of John talking to Jim through the window.

– Audio recording

Although I haven’t synced it all up yet, from listening to our audio rushes, it sounds really great. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Andy, who had just used the same equipment earlier that week when shooting for his Media 3 subject. He knew perfectly how to use the recording device, and even helped me make a makeshift boom pole after the IT store forgot to give me mine.  He showed me a technique of logging all the recordings, and matching them up with each take, which will help with editing and syncing all the clips together. As I’ve discussed before, I think audio is something that I can achieve to a high level so I’m happy with how this went.

And here are some things that went wrong!

– Acting (to a point)

While I wrote in my previous blog that I was happy about how my actors improvised on set, and that is true, I do have to say that their slightly lacklustre performances at times let down the spectacle of the film a tiny bit. I feel that there was some over-acting, some under-acting, and some poor background work. For example, while I enjoy the scene between John and Jim through the window, I feel with a couple more takes we could’ve improved to make it a bit smoother. It was hard to get them to react to music which was not playing (as I will add it in during the editing process), but I don’t blame them for that at all. Also in the backyard scenes, I feel that while both Andrew and Finn had some moments, their performances seemed a little forced at times and slightly unnatural. We tried a few takes but its very hard to get non-actors to improvise and keep the vibe seeming real. We went back to the script a few times to iron out some lines, but mainly stuck with the improv. We’ll see how those scenes fit in during the editing process. I also didn’t quite communicate enough I think during those shots, as I intended for Andy and Finn to be intently focusing on the game instead of looking at John while they spoke. This leads to some of the shots being a little disjointed and not totally continuous. That was my fault for not communicating pre-take though.

– Continuity

I did not notice on the day, but while looking at our rushes it seems there could be some minor continuity issues. For example, during our opening shot of John standing on the corner, in some shots he’s looking at his phone, and in others he has his hands on the bike, and others his hands in his pockets. This was my fault for not noticing or communicating this as I was strictly focusing on the position he was standing and not what he was doing with his hands. Hopefully I can edit around this but I’m not entirely sure. Another example is during John’s conversation while walking with the Dealer, there is some action in the background featuring an old man who wandered into the frame, and James halting him from picking up our stuff that was on the ground. While I quite enjoy this background action, and find it a little amusing, I hope it’s not too distracting. I found that take to be one of our best all day and didn’t want to scrap it so I will be using it. The issue is that some of my corresponding shots of that conversation don’t have James and the old man in the background, but hopefully I’ll be able to edit around it cleverly or the audience just might not notice. (I’m unsure with most of these if I’m just being too particular because I’ve watched the rushes so intently). Another minor error is that Andrew, who was in charge of the boom mic, is slightly visible in one shot of John walking into the house. I didn’t notice the first few times I watched, and was only told afterwards by Andrew himself so I’m hoping that again no one notices these as it was by far our best take and the only really usable one for that shot. I know on proper film sets there are people and sometimes entire teams in charge of continuity so I know it’s hard to keep track with such a small crew, but I’ll need to pay more attention next time.

Slightly differing takes

– Wasn’t sure how to exactly word this one but what I’m talking about is, due to the improvisational nature of my set, several takes of the same scene had slightly different dialogue. This means that when splicing some of the best parts of these scenes together (two shot, reaction shots from each character etc.) it could be a bit of an issue trying to make it all work. The main scene this is gonna be a problem with is one of the opening shots with John and the Dealer as he approaches on his bike, and also as he rides away. This also happens in the later shots involving Finn and Andrew outside, but to a lesser extent. Simply the hardships of working with improv I suppose. Perhaps next time I’ll need to get some specific phrases to be the same for each take so I can sync them up, or perhaps have no speaking during each reaction shot.

Here’s my reflection on the editing process!

First things first, I noticed that my footage was quite over exposed. This confused me quite a bit because it looked visibly different on the camera screen which is how it ended up that way. I was quite worried it would be a major problem. However some nifty googling led me to some tutorials about the colour grading capabilities of Premiere Pro, and with some messing around I found some good levels to bring some of the detail back, add some colour and make the whites a little less harsh. I’ll attach an image with those presets. I applied this filter to all my video after I was finished editing, and I am very happy with the results. Not only is the colour a bit richer, the grade seems a little more flat, which although might seem bad, I think it adds to the mumblecore aesthetic of cheap, digital video. So an unintended but welcome positive out of a negative situation.

Now onto the editing itself. My friend and fellow media student Andrew directed me to this great little tutorial from a teacher at RMIT about how to merge audio files with video in Premiere. Using the log we’d kept during the shoot, I merged all the files and it turned out perfect. It couldn’t be easier, and erased any fears I had lingering from my last project where synced audio was a big problem.

I found many of the other problems I had previously mentioned during my blogs were true. I had some trouble matching up some of the footage from the first interaction between the Dealer and John, as the takes were all slightly different. However I worked around this to the best of my abilities by using two seperate audio tracks, and merging them were possible, and using the appropriate video, while also inter-splicing video with no moving mouths. I think this opening little sequence is probably the clunkiest part of the whole short but unfortunately there was nothing else I could do, to my abilities at least. Despite this, the rest of their scene was wonderful and I really enjoyed it. Again as I mentioned earlier, there were some continuity errors but nothing super noticeable.

Something that I really noticed throughout the editing process and not the original viewing of the rushes was some problems I had with focusing. Throughout the piece there are some moments were the autofocus, which I should have had turned off but did not, adjusted slightly and gives a strange effect that isn’t terrific and brings you out of the film a little bit I think. An easy solution for this is to simply turn off autofocus and spend a little longer getting the focus right for each shot. During the interaction between John and Jim the focus is all over the place, but this was intentional to a degree as I wanted to change the focus from John, to Jim, to his gear, to the room etc, to make for a slightly different visual than the simple over the shoulder just focused on Jim. However the autofocus took it a little far, meaning it’s a bit over the top. But that was by far my best take and I couldn’t find a way to merge the two takes effectively, so I stuck with it.

The audio editing while making Jim’s “bassline” sound diagetic was quite tough. I watched some tutorials but although they helped, it seemed a little off to me. But I really tried everything so I’m sticking with what I’ve got. What I did was make 2 versions in Audacity, one with a high-pass filter on it so a large amount of the high-frequency waves were taken out, and boosted the bass with some reverb and echo. I used this version for when John is outside walking towards the room, then switching to the original when inside Jim’s room, and back again when John arrives to the window. I think the effect works reasonably well.

Something I had a lot of fun with and I’m really happy about is both the opening title sequence, which I love and I think is the strongest part of the entire film, and the outro which i was worried about but some nifty editing, the song from Oskar, and the colour grading, meant it was a really cool way to end. The titles were a series of shots spliced over each other using cross dissolves, of Callum/the Dealer riding his bike. This sets up the viewer to think he’s the main character, but in fact he’s just a consequential person that our real lead John comes across. I really like this effect and it reminds me of something done in High Maintenance, a show I’ve mentioned before as an inspiration and something I’d classify as second wave mumblecore. In High Maintenance each episode starts with a brand new character, showing a small segment of their life, only for them to intercept the main character, ‘The Guy’, somewhere on his way and then the episode continues with him. I love this narrative element and I’m happy with how it works in my piece. The outro is also a big positive for me. The audience is left wondering where we’re going next as the boys sit down outside to smoke, only for the camera to tilt up the to beautiful sky (saved by some nice slow motion and colour grading), Oskar’s second song to start, and the credits to roll. I really like the effect of the white font on the sky and I love that this is how it comes to an end.

And finally, I had to create a poster and title for the project and I’m very happy with it!  I used one of the opening shots of the film, of John standing on the laneway corner with his bicycle. I really love the colour palette in this shot, which was honestly completely by accident but it fits perfectly. The white and blue wall, matched with John’s white t-shirt and blue jeans, matched with the white and blue bike works a treat. And then added the minimal white font over the blue wall fits perfectly. I did some quick cleaning up of the wall to make it clearer, and cropped it into a poster size. I thought the less credits the better, as obviously the names involved have no cache whatsoever. As for the title, ‘Picking Up’ was just my working title at first but I’ve stuck with it. It references that John is ‘picking up’ from his dealer at the start, and is a simple catchy name. Nothing more to it!

All in all, obviously this piece is a little rough around the edges. And if I had my time back, I would change some things slightly and I wish I could re shoot some scenes, but sadly that’s the nature of the beast when making a film alone in such a short period of time. I’m super happy however that I achieved my main goal, which was to emulate the mumblecore style, which I think I did achieve to an extent. Simply the fact that I find it quite engaging throughout, maybe only because they’re my friends or I know everything that went behind every shot, despite the narrative being quite basic, in that not a lot happens. This is exactly the maxim of mumblecore that I appreciate the most and wanted to emulate, in that these are not super melodramatic over the top stories, they’re just little slices of life that you enter for a short time, and I find myself engaged every time I rewatch it. I hope anyone who does watch it feels the same!