Sense of Space - Final Piece!

We've had a very rocky last half of finalising our edit together; at the last minute we decided on cutting out the narration whole together, as we felt it sounded better without it. This was a huge decision to make as the whole half of our final piece was meant to integrate the narration to help move along the narrative.

Recording the sounds went pretty well overall, however it took us a while to gather everything we wanted... We resorted to recording sound effects in bursts, as a majority of the time we were busy/had something scheduled, so we were forced to re-arrange another time to meet to finish off the recordings.

PROBLEMS - We hit a few dead-ends whilst trying to record, some equipment was faulty, for example the headphones and a shotgun mic, this forced us to head all the way back into Uni (stores) to return and swap the equipment. If i have learned one major thing to take on board for future reference, is to test/check the equipment before leaving.

Another problem we came across was only receiving one connecting cable lead with two shotgun mics in-which we intended to record stereo.. this furthermore emphasises the need to check the equipment before leaving.

As for the editing, initially it was a long and steady process of logging every sound we had into Soundtrack Pro (SP) and re-naming them.. this took up heaps of time and forced us to return to editing the following day... Once we had began the editing we knew exactly what we were doing. I began by creating the intro, introducing the egg frying clip whilst layering the running up the stairs clips, brushing teeth, the knock on the door etc. What we had learned in the workshop sessions really helped with the editing we were doing on the day - The shortcuts, editing in fade-ins/face-outs quickly and efficiently, layering and altering the EQ/compressing options.

Personally I feel our final piece was satisfactory, nothing we did was too out of the ordinary or ground-breaking. Perhaps I think we should have kept in the narration because it may have made the whole piece more interesting.

Sense of Space - Further inspiration

This famous scene from the award-winning 'Saving Private Ryan' (1998) directed by Steven Spielberg has always been a strong influence/inspiration for me.. The way the sound changes from above the water and under the water really makes you, the audience feel you're there with them.

Sense of Space Inspiration

Inspiration never really came from anything specific.. in other words the inspiration I had was gathered from a wide-range of external sources. From movies, to radio sound-clips, games and everyday sounds in real life.

Sat on the train and closing my eyes whilst on a journey ironically opened my eyes to the sounds in our every day world; subtle background laughter that can be heard from the other end of the carriage, the subtle back and forth movement of the train as it sways on the tracks and the sound of a fast train approaching and swooshing past me with it's horn.

Walking through town also opened up my eyes to potential sounds to form a log - The rain bouncing off the tarmac and a leaking drainpipe that drips on the floor creating an almost 'echoey' noise.

As for inspiration that may have influenced our final piece, I would say that 'cliche' horror movies such as 'Scream' (1996) directed by Wes Craven and 'The Ring'(2002) directed by Gore Verbinski

These two movies offer some of the most well-known sounds that are associated with horror/thriller movies. They use soundtracks and sound effects to convey tension, atmosphere and fear.

Knocks at the door, phones ringing, creaking doors and unsettling voices are all juxtaposed together to create what is seen as an effective range of sounds.

Sense of Space Planning

My partner (Christi) and I spent many days planning on the piece we were going to create.. many ideas were thrown around from the idea of portraying life and death, to a sci-fi piece. Eventually we thought of an idea that seemed to gel together well..

Our first idea was to create a thriller piece that situates the main protagonist in his home, who'm is then chased after and killed by a murderer. Whilst portraying this through the use of sound, we also decided on using narration in the piece.. the narrator was to be in fact the victim of the attack (the main protagonist) looking down from heaven, discussing what happened that dreadful night.

However after the feedback we received, more ideas were thrown around the room and we settled on changing the narrator from the perspective of the victim, to the perspective of the killer. Although we weren't to make it obvious that the narrator was in fact the killer, until the end of the piece.

In the early stages we created a sound map that outlined our main idea -

On top of that we created more notes on what sounds we needed to collect, along with brainstorming ideas -

Camera and Edit: Exercise 1 Problem!

Nooo, this afternoon has been aweful.. we set off from Uni early afternoon to film some footage for our camera and edit project, two hours in we weren't doing bad at all, until we got an error on the XM2 camera saying the tape-deck or what not needs a good old clean... So we thought oh, okay then, and whipped out the tape-deck cleaner. Cleaning took place after having to work out what to do and all seemed well. This was until we decided to view the footage we had recorded in the last hour or so.

Dun, dun, duuuuuuurn for some reason all our footage was not there, apart from half a minutes worth that had gray bars across every clip. A very unhappy/annoyed Lewis and James was not what we were expecting. So, it looks like Friday will be a very long day indeed -_-

Portrait of Place - Equipment and Editing

The camera we ended up taking out from stores was the XM2.. Various problems occurred whilst we were shooting on location including the camera resetting its settings every time we turned the camera off and on again. Luckily James (who mainly controlled the camera) noticed this immediately so we were able to work around it.

The weather conditions and lighting conditions changed throughout the day, so when it came to the post-production stage we had to select each clip and adjust the brightness settings to make the final piece 'believable'.

We received some positive/critical feedback when showing our rough-cut of the video. We took the comments into consideration and altered our video accordingly. Luckily a vast majority of the footage we filmed was useable, this allowed us to create an almost '3 minute clip' (2 mins 58 seconds overall). The criticism we received included comments about some of the shots being 'fillers', so we adjusted this and included more shots that seemed to fit with what was happening on screen.

Portrait of Place - Edale Cinematography and Ideas

Wide, extreme long shot to display the opening setting

The location i found for the opening shot appears to be almost perfect for the effect we were going for; the vast, wide-open landscape contrasted with the main protagonist really gives the audience a sense of vulnerability, loneliness and being 'lost' in the wilderness. The tree in the foreground appears menacing and works perfectly in comparison to the person running across screen. It highlights the stillness of nature and how peaceful it can be yet arguably creates a sense of menace and terror.

Tripod MCU, to create a contrast between the two

 

The following shot, after the blackout, reveals a still shot of some grass gently swaying in the wind. It creates a sense of place and connection with nature, whilst giving the illusion that someone may be watching, hiding in the undergrowth. Personally i find it highly effective combing long, expansive shots with close-up, more 'personal shots' as i feel it adds variety and takes the audience from one extreme to another.

The blackouts used were intentional to create enigma in the narrative. They were to promote connotations/connections to the main protagonist's mind and what he's thinking. They also allow the audience to interpret them in their own way.. perhaps they indicate the main character's delve into madness.

Still shot from behind, providing a sense of place

This shot is also another favourite of mine. We in fact used this shot twice in the final video, however each shot is slightly different to the other. This was intended to create a sense of confusion/connection with what the character is going through. Me and my partner James also feel as if it could potentially sum up nature as a 'place that feels repetitive'. The technique of ending with one of the first shots is also a well-known technique seen in other videos, and the majority of the time they seem highly effective. Other things to note are the actual structure of the tree; it's an "iconic" tree that feels different to everything else. It allowed us to find a 'base' to evolve our narrative around. On another note, we created some basic storyboards to accompany our field trip/filming, however personally I have always preferred scouting locations and working around them to create the shots we need.

Hand-held, more 'intimate' shot

This shot, featured just over the half way point in the video is a complete contrast to the first half of the film. In this section, we aimed for a more personal, hand-held 'action' sequence to make the audience feel more involved in the protagonist's world. By using visual metaphors I feel it has helped portray loneliness (the main theme we were aiming for).

Overall, I feel that we have achieved the goals we were aiming for, however perhaps given more time, we could have expanded upon our original idea to create a more interesting movie. The combination of shots and the connection between nature and loneliness seems to have been successfully highlighted in out final piece.

The editing stage proved to be fun, yet heavily time-consuming and sometimes consuming. We stumbled across a variety of problems from cutting up the tape into separate clips, to exporting the final piece onto a 'DVD menu' format. These problems were obviously resolved (thankfully!!) but it has helped us gain experience for future projects. Given more time, i definitely feel we could have gone away to create a more interesting, tighter edit. However I think getting to grips with Final Cut more may be more important at this stage than worrying about further editing.

Inspiration came from films, videos I have created in the past, pictures, internet videos and more. I prefer to apply ideas from many different forms of media into my own work, as well as introducing my own, original ideas.. If you were to put a title on our piece, I would say it's an 'Experimental video' that focuses upon the exploration of a person in a place, heavily touching upon the theme of solitude.

Final piece title - 'Solitude'