Just a few documents to help our rehersal tomorrow run smoothly.
I would like to start with these cameras and operators:
Camera 1 - Main hand held - ALEX
Camera 2 - Second Hand Held behind stage - NEIL
Camera 3 - Track in front of stage - JANE
Camera 4 - Fixed Tripod Left of stage - DAVE
Camera 5 - Fixed Tripod Right of stage - NIKKI
Camera 6 - Fixed HIGH ANGLE Tripod behind audience. - SAM ELLIS
The camera shots are just to help with framing, obviously we won't achieve the look due to lack of audience, lights etc. But it just gives you an idea of what I'm looking for tomorrow and for the record day :)
Wow it's all over! So glad we had this unit! The freedom to truely create what ever we felt the poem meant to us, was so freeing and creatively liberating. I was so impressed with EVERYONES work, so many beautiful films and we have all stepped up our game! I really think the cannon 7D has made the world of difference, the films are just in another class to some of our previous work, simply because the quality of the footage. I particular love the filmic quality of Alex's, Zee and Dan's, there shots and stories are fantastic, and would make for excellent show reels! I also love Lauren Woodfall's and think she has achieved so much with her photography skills and patience for editing perfection!
Overall I couldn't be happier with this unit, I started out a bit distant from it, mainly because I was so focused on AS LIVE, but I really feel I have found my experiemental side, and learning things from each other has been vital. Watching others' work today has really spurred me on to learn and develop more!
With most of my work, I have always found the editing to be the most rewarding. I love being able to take images, and transform them into something better with music, cuts, effects, colour correction and transitions. This piece of work, has been by far the most fun to edit. I really went for it, and experimented with all types of effects and colors.
I started by rough cutting, and placing the clips in the order I had roughly sketched on my storyboard. I then started to play with colour correction. For the nightmare and dream sequences I decided to add plenty of contrast, and pinks, green and blues, to create a fantasy effect. For the shots of my character drinking and have DT's in his room, I didn't need to do much, as I had spent time lighting these well during my shoot, I just added my contrast and smoothed out some of the grain in the darker clips. I also used effects like mirror and negative, in order to create a more surreal feel,
One of the hardest tasks was making my tracking shots in the Bearsted wood and with the candles look as smooth as possible. I started by making sure I took my time when shooting, and used the tripod and Figrig, but this did not eliminate all of the shaking. I therefore decided to slow the clips down in the edit and place the steady cam effect over the top. If there is a lot of shaking, this effect sometimes makes it worse, but I was really lucky that it gave me the desired effect. With lots of colour correction and changing of contrast and brightness, I really feel these shots are the best cinematography I've achieved to date.
I've been working really hard on building my soundtrack recently. Right from the very start I always had the song in mind I was going to use, Hurt. But I found the original Nine Inch nails version instead of the Johnny Cash one, really fitted my piece, especially when I applied more strings and drones to it.
The song makes for the base of the sound, creating the mood, tension and drama. I have also added some sound effects to make the images come to life, such as the bird qwarking and the breathlessness of the man as he is running through the woods.
My main challenge was the voice over. I decided that the poem was quite dramatically visually and I didn't want to take that away from the piece with my original idea of on screen text. So instead I decided to use voiceover, but as I had my heart set on the music, I needed to record it and edit it to make the two work well together.
I started by recording my actor, Phil reading the poem. It was a good recording, but his tone of voice did not fir the tone of my poem. It didn't have underlying pain or torment or even the haggard emotion I was looking for. I therefore decided to import the song into Garageband and see what elements could be changed to make it work. First I decided to lower the pitch of Phil's voice, my changing it down a major third, then adding a "Southern Voice" effect and slight "monsters effect". I then decided to overlay it with another track. This would be the same recording but changed to a panning echo of multiple voices, that repeat elements of the poem's words throughout. I really felt this added to the atmosphere of my poem, relating to the "listeners" and different voices in the man's head. However I still felt both these tracks overlaid were missing something, they were fighting each other, and didn't seem rounded enough. I therefore decided again to take the original recording and use the "male to female" effect, so that I was actually left with a reading of the poem by a "women". I feel this really completed the voiceover, and all three tracks work well together, creating a three dimensional voice, similar to what the alcoholic would hear, "himself, the need to stop and the want to carry on"
I was also happy that the new tones, had slowed the pace down slightly, and created dramatic tension and sadness at the key points in the poem and song, so in my mind all elements are in harmony, the score, voice over and visuals.
Here is what the tracks looked like on garage band:
I am changing the way the poem is perceived, by adding my own personal experiences and relating it to someone suffering with alcoholism. Any poem will always have a different meaning to different people, but there are guy lines and themes in the poem that made me relate it to the struggles, nightmares, guilt, broken promises, loneliness, DT's, withdraws and demons, that an alcoholic must battle throughout their lives, especially when they try to put down the bottle or relapse. Key lines of the poem stood out for me: "Is there anybody there?" "Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken" "By the lonely Traveller's call" "'Tell them I came, and no one answered, that I kept my word', he said" "From the one man left awake"
I will use these as key moments of tension and drama in my piece. I want my film to have a "mood" rather then a strong narrative. This is because an alcoholic's mind is a very dark, lonely and abstract place, it often makes no sense and they suffer extreme withdrawal symptoms which cause hallucinations and terrifying nightmares. I want to capture this in my piece, and so have drawn up some more story boards to help with the development and editing.
I'm making a start on Lighting, by doing plenty of research and getting to know the ins and outs of lighting a studio, especially for music. Below are notes and pictures of what I want to achieve.
Notes:
1. Light for the camera, not your eye. Your eye can handle a huge range of
detail in contrasting light. Standard definition NTSC video can
reproduce a contrast ratio of about 10:1. That means if you hope to have
any detail in the shadow side of a person, you'll need more light on it
than you probably suspect at first glance.
2. When lighting a person set a key light, at about a 45 degree angle up
and to one side of the nose. Use a fill light to minimize the shadows
caused by the key. Back lights are used to separate subject from the
background, adding three dimensionality to a shot.
3. A focused source like a fresnel produces a hard light. Aim it first
with the carriage pulled back in the housing then flood it to create the
desired effect by sliding the carriage closer to the lens. Lamps like
broads or soft lights are more diffused and are used as fill lights.
Lekos are hard spots that can project a pattern called a cookie or
cucalorus on a background.
I really like this video on Jools Holland, as it sums up the back lighting I want for the acoustic stage, (where is shines on the singer form behind), as well as the uplit floor lighting that will reflect on our transparent hanging material. I also like the small lights the have placed on the stage, to add another dimension. I like the use of blue and white.
This video of Labrinth, is not the style of music or pace that will be on Unsigned Live. However when I saw this on Johnathon Ross the other day, I really enjoyed it, and wanted to use some of the elements. I really like the use of spotlights behind the ensemble (We could use our studio kits for this) as well as the spolights on the floor. I'm not sure if we can get these from the studio themselves, but even if they are ones that are fixed, four or five at the front of the stage would give a great effect! I also like the shot used right at the end, where the camera is slightly above Labrinth, and he comes into shot on a MCU, it really brings the audience in on the action, and would like to try this with one of our cameras!
This performance of Ellie Golding, is very similar to the look myself and Lauren are trying to achieve. We want to have the smoke machine, the twinkly lights at the back are being made by our set designers, I like the use of them on the floor, and the colors are exactly what I wants, Orange, Blue, Purple, Turquoise. It creates such a nice mood and atmosphere, and I will be studying it to try and get the ideas and lights that we need!
This Coldplay performance is just insane! The lighting
is the best I have EVER seen for live music. We would never be able to
get anything close to this, but I couldn't help showing everyone and it
is a source of inspiration.
Here are a few performances from Orange and T4's unsigned act. I have chosen these ones in terms of the closeness to our set and lighting designs. The first video is very similar to our set, quite simple, with "Balls" hanging down. We will have transparent curtains and more lighting and colors, but it gives you and idea:
This video also shows how the space they have, which is quite similar to ours, and how well they use it!
