Apologies for continuously referring to content I had not yet posted! Without futher adieu, please enjoy our rough cuts for scene one and scene two of Black Flat. In this blog, I will break down each scene by identifying the highs, lows and learning curves associated with putting these two sequences together.

As you can see, scene one is the tense exchange between Emily and Damien in the lead up to their wedding. Emily is feeling apprehensive about their future together and lashes out at Damien in attempt to cope with her anxieties. Meanwhile, poor ol’ Damien is feeling rather belittled and hurt by his domineering fiancé. The pair are both on edge after their conversation by the river and viewers are led to wonder what will come of their future together.

Although I am mostly happy with scene, it turned out a little differently to how I had originally envisioned it. When the script went under revision, a few lines were cut which effectively made Emily come across as more aggressive than how she was first written. Damien on the otherhand becomes a bit of a pushover, claiming he was ‘kidding’ when merely suggesting they grab pizza for dinner. While this was not the original character profile that Jackson or I had planned, it served to create a new dynamic between these two characters, which effectively translated onto the screen.

In terms of shot composition and the like, originally we had planned to have the characters walk along the river side-by-side as they casually conversed. However, we deemed this would be too difficult to shoot as we would need three different backward tracking shots, requiring both Bonnie as the camera op and Sarah as the sound op. to be mobile. We unanimously agreed it would be wiser to have them stop somewhere for a conversation so that we could perfect the frame and have better control over sound. I think this shows through the technical qualities of what we were able to produce (note the frame composition, off-side lighting and well-balanced sound).

Editing this scene was relatively straightforward for the most part, yet few sound and continuity issues limited the number of cuts we could make. For example, when Damien says ‘Babe…’ and ‘What?’ we were unable to cut back to his face as Emily’s hand placement kept changing. Nonetheless, we made the best of the footage we had to produce something mostly continuous.

Admittedly, this scene was not originally intended to come across as overly dramatic, instead aiming to simply set the scene for what was later to come. As we did not get the chance to film the really thrilling content however, Jackson and I thought we should play around with his score to see how we could transform a relatively calm scene to make it more intense. Through the addition of the music, we were able to achieve this effect, despite it coming across as slightly exaggerated and over-the-top.

Nonetheless, we are pleased overall with how this scene turned out and will take the above issues on as something to learn from.

Scene two is the intentionally uncomfortable and slightly creepy encounter between Emily and Ted. As Emily goes for a run to clear her head, her phone dies and she finds herself unsure of which path to take when faced with a fork in the track. Along comes creepy Ted, who stops Emily to ask her what she is doing out there all alone. Ted seems nice, yet something is not quite right about him.

This scene was certainly the most fun to shoot and edit as the relationship between these two characters is so awkward and cringe worthy. In this scene, we see the vulnerable side of Emily (quite the contrast to the previous) as we sense overt fear, apprehension and angst within her. Ted on the other hand, whilst appearing quite friendly on the surface, leads viewers to think that there’s more to him than what meets the eye. Ted’s true colours (ie. his inner psychopath) would’ve been further explored in the later scenes we unfortunately didn’t get a chance to film.

When it came to shooting this scene, time was of the essence. We stuck pretty close to the script but we did make few changes on the fly as we noted words or phrases that worked better, eg. ‘sweetness’ was creepier than ‘sweetheart’ (thanks for that one Scott). As the scene was quite long and wordy, the two shot was perhaps the most time consuming as it took a while to get a seamless take. The handheld shot of Emily running up the hill also took time, as it was difficult to perfect the framing whilst doing the reverse tracking shot. The fact that this took five takes or so to get it right made me very relieved we hadn’t attempted to get the same type of shot for the conversation between Emily and Damien! In terms of framing and composition, we made use of some purposeful shot types to make the characters look a certain way to the viewer. For the close-up on Ted, we used a low angle to make him appear domineering and powerful, whilst doing the opposite for Emily to have the reverse effect.

This scene was also relatively simple to structure in the editing suites as we had select shots that needed to be simply ordered, timed and layered appropriately. There were also a few additional shots that I later gathered on my own (establishing shots, the CU of the phone, POV shot of Emily looking left to right) which conveniently matched the shots with which they were juxtaposed quite well. If we had the time to colour grade, this would’ve made these shots appear even more fluent and seamless in conjunction with each other.

Overall, I think this scene does an excellent job of fulfilling its sole purpose of establishing the relationship between these two characters. Viewers sense that something dark will come from this exchange, but the question of what remains.

Ta daaa! These scenes are essentially what we spent the entire semester working towards. While there is always room for improvement, I’m proud of what we were able to achieve and feel as though we came a long way in a short span of time. Go team!