Overall Evaluation

We worked really well as a group with minimal problems which I think was reflected in the final piece, I was happy with the comments made about the Sound. Namely in the drinking scene as that was the part that I had envisioned from the get go, as well as that the instrumental throughout elements in the piece. Tutor and Audience responses to the movie was good and in my opinion this is one of the best pieces I have been a part of this year.

Post Production: Final Touches 09/05/2012

Today I came in once Joe had sorted the colour on the necessary clips, then I gave my opinion on the job he had done and pointed out a few other clips that could do with some colour correction, namely the clip where the girl is lying on the couch and gets up to close the blinds.

The clip on the left shows the original and the right is what it was changed to. I felt it was necessary to make it more blue as the interior is that colour because of the natural light due to the weather we were filming in/around.

Once that was done we fine tuned the piece up until the confrontation scene, tackling it last was the best idea as it was very frustration trying to either match the actors to their script or get all the dialogue levels to sound the same. At one point I decided to export certain sections into Soundtrack Pro to give it an echoed sound to match the other parts.

As well as this because of the rain starting and stopping it made it doubley difficult. It got to a point where there was nothing more we could do. So after another run through where nobody raised any qualms about the picture of the sound we were finished. All that was left was to come up with a name. I was against using a name at all as I felt it would seem forced and not really match the piece especially as it wasn't something we had considered until that point. Regardless one was decided on and we were finally finished.

Post Production: Sound Design 08/05/2012

Today I came in with all the relevant sounds, as per me and Joe's conversation on Thursday. We then went through the sequence and matched each picture clip with the clearest/relevant sound I had found and recorded. It was a long process that took most of the day but it was very rewarding especially when you matched a random sound to a picture and looked and sounded right, such as using a footstep for the sound of a rose falling on the floor. We did everything up to the confrontation scene, deciding to tackle that section tomorrow when we tighten up the edit and after the rest of the group had looked through it. As well as this Joe had some colour correction to do.

Sound List

After going through the sound recordings with the help of the Sound Log I was able to find the majority of the sounds needed for the post production stage on Tuesdays, though there were a few problems, namely that a few of the recorded sounds didn't sound long enough or did fell like it matched the sound that it was supposed to sync with. This mean that we would have to duplicate the sounds ourselves or possibly re record them. This again all depends on what we deem as useful or other wise as we continue to cut down the piece which was still over the limit.

Sound List for Post Production Drama Project

Tutorial and Post Production 03/05/3012

We showed our rough cut to Esther and knew we had a lot to cut down. She didn't have much to say about the piece except for a few shots that we should consider going to ref-ilm and of course that we had to get to cutting down the piece as it currently stood at 8minutes. As well as this there was no sound on the piece except for the confrontation scene. These were the elements that me and Joe had intended to work on today. So after the session we went to the edit suit and imported the sound that I had found to use a few days ago and edited the segments where the sound was going: The drinking and the graveyard scene. As well as this when it came to cutting down the piece I was very brutal and with the help and opinion of both myself Joe and Luke we managed to get the piece to just over five and a half minutes. Whilst this was happening Mark and Fraser went back to the Graveyard to get usable establishing shots for the opening. Me and Joe replaced the old clips with the new before calling it a day.
As well as all of this, as we went through the piece I wrote down all the different sounds I needed to find from the files me and Luke recorded. This would be easy enough as I had been keeping a sound log whilst the sound was being recoded on production days. All I had to do was look at the list, listen to a few of the possibilities then label them and bring them in for our next edit day so we could fit them in the right place.

The clip on the right is one of the new shots Fraser and Mark went back to the Graveyard to get.

Post Production: Soundtrack 01/05/2012

Whilst we were filming we knew the key sections that we wanted sound playing over. These scenes include primarily the Drinking scene as well as the Graveyard section, in the Elevator and during the build up to the Confrontation scene. I knew that I definitely wanted either a dubstep type or alternative track playing under the drinking scene and we came up with a few options.







But due to obvious copyright reasons it was either unattainable or would take more time than we had to get permission, but it did help narrow down the type of style I was looking for.

Frazer told me about a Youtube channel that had copyright free music (Activity Music) and after trolling through the different types of music they had I finally settled on FinalFix - Parastite.

I also found Elevator music that was marked under copyright free and I contacted the person who posted it and am awaiting confirmation

Finally for the opening Graveyard scene Joe led me onto a site called Incompetch (http://incompetech.com/m/c/royalty-free/) that has a source of royalty free music where I searched and found a sad piano composition. I had the editor agree with my choices as he would be editing to the sounds and with that done all that was left to do was organise and type up my sound logs in order to start sound designing by the end of the week

Sound Log

Typed up sound log from the three production days. This will help me when it comes to finding selected sounds. I made it easier for myself because at the end of each production day I took all the sound clips on the Marantz and copied them into a separate file on my laptop then deleted everything off the memory card. This meant that we had no worry of running out of space if we were out on location. As well as that it meant that I could locate sounds based on what day we filmed what scene.

Sound Log for Drama Project

Sound Research

Soon enough it would be time for me to start sound designing. I already had a few ideas in mind, such as having Dubstep styled music to play during the drinking scene. But Further research was needed for me to get the right feel of what I wanted the Final Piece to sound like.

I listened to the Tron Soundtrack and though none of the pieces felt like it would fit in with our production it did make me think what unnatural or unexpected elements I should Look for when searching for my Dubstep styled music.





The Main Theme in Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky had me thinking of what sort of instrumental I would use that could some how allow what isn't said to speak at the same volume as what is being said. This sounds a little complicated but I was think of it in terms of "OffScreen Space" A theme we covered in a Film Analysis Lecture that talked about how what isn't shown makes the audience more curious. I felt that this was important because of the Two sides of the character we were trying to show to the audience. To word it in a way that makes sense I needed to look for an instrumental track that had space in between bars.

Overall Production Process

It was a long process but everything kept to schedule and our actors were very professional, there were a few issues that we were able to problem solve such as on the first day of production where we kept adding new ideas to the shot list but others proved more difficult, some that was within out control and others that weren't. Lighting the room and getting rid of shadows helped add to the production time within the house, and the weather/light of the day was something that was a pain. With the lighting of the day especially because one of the scenes that happen nsync had to be shot over two different days because of the actors availability. And finally the rain having to record sound and film from under an umbrella is both awkward and compromising. We all worked well as a team I thought and that helped to make the production process run smoothly and relatively hassle free.

Day 3 Production 26/04/2012

To day we filmed to last to sections of the film, the Graveyard and the Alleyway scene. We had a little hiccough when the cameraman was filming in the wrong format but that was quickly rectified. Luckily the weather was in our favour that morning, but after stopping for a lunch break and allowing the actors to run through their lines a little more we went out to film in the alleyway when the clouds broke. The alleyway we ended up using was different from the one we initially had in mind as when Luke Mark and Fraser got there it was filled with cars and there was to much background noise,, they were fortunate to stumble upon this one and set up shots before the rest of us arrived with the actors. Our actors were happy to film in the gushing rain and we had a rain proof mac to keep them somewhat dry when we rest the shots. Before we knew it we were finished filming.

Day 2 Production 25/04/2012

On the Wednesday our second Actor was available and we started the day by getting the rest of the interior shots filmed before moving on to film things from the outside. One thing we didn't get done which was on the schedule was the Alleyway scene. We decided that it was best to leave it until the last day because there was less to do and we didn't want our actors to feel too over whelmed. As well as this I think things went a lot smoother today as yesterday everyone was coming up with new ideas to add to the shot list. This was all useful as it did  help us consider the odd thing that we forgot to include earlier and some good new ideas were mentioned but the downside to this was that it made the filming go slower than it ultimately would have done. Therefore we decided to just stick to what we had written in the shot list and allow the director and cameraman and producer to come up with anything beneficial with the rest of us only piping up when we thought there night be a continuity error.

Day 1 Production 24/04/2012

As discussed we collected the equipment then came back to my place and started to plan out which house shots we would film and re-enacted the shots so we knew just how we wanted our actress to act so that when she got here there would be no messing around. Though the day felt long we got everything we intended to film filmed, I ticked off all the relevant shots on the shot list as the day went on as well as keeping a sound log. The sound log was something that took me a while to get used to but will prove relevant when it comes to the sound design stage

Pre Production: Location Scouting 23/04/2012

Today the six of us met up at around 5:00pm as per scheduled and did a bit of location scouting.
We already had our three locations in mind: An alleyway, a house and a graveyard. The house and the alleyway were sorted and we had a rough idea of where the graveyard was but we still needed to find the best spot that would fit in with the shots we had planned. We found one that was abandoned behind London Road and I had heard that it was now a public place so permission wasn't necessary, but this was still yet to be verified. We managed to decide upon which area was best to use and where we could get some establishing shots.
The Producer and Editor came and had a look at the house to better visualise the type of shots and the space we had to film in. After that we all split up scheduled to meet back at stores the next day a 1:30pm to get equipment.

Pre Production: Final Idea 19/04/2012

During the session we pitched the two ideas.
Then first one, was quite hard to put into words; A girl who seems to be mourning the death of a friend, she has a stalker who we the audience believe is a killer. He killed her friend and now he wants to kill her too. A series of events leads up to the confrontation scene where we discover the stalker is actually a friend of the deceased and knows the girl killed her and wants her to confess.

The second idea was to be a little more light hearted and was about a man who is tied to a tree after failing to pay back somebody he owed money too. The two people have a conversation and after a while he gets knocked out/falls asleep. When he come's too he finds someone is tied next to him, and they proceed to have witty banter until the end of the movie.

We ended up going with the first pitch for many reasons. Examples being that the weather forecast for the week of production was rain so being tied to a tree wouldn't be the ideal location. As well as this we already had a guy and girl lined up to act parts and the second idea was envisioned as two males.
Though it was quite hard to explain, even to ourselves once we had our heads wrapped around it, the idea made sense and we started building up the story. After attempting to work as one big group we realised we were going know where and broke off into sections and put together a props list, schedule, script before all coming together and working on the Shot List.
All in all it was a very successful planning session and I think it helped to help us all feel a little calmer about starting production on Tuesday.

Drama Project - Shot List


Production Schedule

Planning 17/04/2012

After having a two week break, during which all members of the group had kept in contact via our Facebook group (which we used to discuss possible ideas) we needed to decide on a solid idea.
We spent the next few hours coming up with the genre, characters, plot, location and development of our Drama piece. I believe that though the planning session took longer than we all thought it was very fruitful, and we had two solid ideas for Thursdays session.