LO3: Final film

 

LO1: Daily Shooting Schedule

 

LO4: Evidence of gaining feedback

During the editing of my short film, I gained feedback from my peers about what I could do to improve the edit by creating a SurveyMonkey questionnaire and sharing the link to my classmates via email. 

I made sure to ask open ended questions which are important in gathering rich in depth data about my peers opinions. This is so that I would be able to evaluate it much more effectively than if I were to ask closed questions, and apply my feedback to my work to improve it. 

These are the 3 questions I asked. The first two used to gather as much general information about my film as possible. This is because I wasn't trying to look at a specific area of my short film, but the project as a whole. The last question was used as conforming to the genre is most important aspect of creating my film because its useful in my final evaluation of wether or not the film is effective at what its trying to do.

LO2: Applying codes and conventions of my genre

 

When creating a media product it's important to look at the genre codes and conventions of my media product. As my genre is horror I looked at a mix of large scale productions and other short films for inspiration around how I could apply the tropes of the genre to my movie. 

In my primary scene (the kitchen scene) which creates a horror atmosphere I looked at how I could create an effective scare. I used a common trope/scare of the genre to mislead my audience. I gained inspiration for this from the horror Scream 5. Similarly to my short film the scene takes place in a kitchen and constantly uses the camera to mislead the audience about where the antagonist might be, so the audience are left waiting for the doors to close and the antagonist to be waiting behind one of them. The reason why this scene is effective is because it plays on the tropes of the genre as the audience are aware of what the scare is, as it's often over used. This is why it's good at misleading the audience as it focuses their attention entirely to the mislead. 

Here is a rush from my short film of the inspired scene. I used a similar angle to Scream 5 of being side ways on to the character to invoke that same tense feeling of waiting for our character to finish what they're doing.  This allows me to create tension within the scene which is important for wether or not I want to follow the codes and conventions of a typical horror film, as horrors are known and recognised by audiences to be scary and tense, meaning that is what they want and expect my film to have. 

Another product I looked at when researching how I can apply codes and conventions to my planned film is the horror short film on YouTube 'Shadowed' created by David F. Sandberg who directed the horror film 'Lights Out' which came to production due to his widely successful, low budget YouTube short of the same name. Sandberg still creates low budget horror short films in his own home using limited resources, meaning its perfect for me to analyse as I have a similar set up (although a lot more limited talent/resources). 

Although my horror is vastly different from Shadowed, I still took inspiration from how Sandberg lights his scenes in the short film due to the similar setting of being alone in your house in the middle of the night. This way I could figure out how I could light my scenes effectively in a similar way to other short films of the same genre with the same setting. Sandberg uses very low-key lighting in his scenes as he wanted to emphasise the brightness of his characters flashlight so that it's easier to see the shadows. He also uses the fact the character has a flashlight to create a way in which he could light the character so that the audience can see them which also makes sense within the narrative. This is because in the narrative there is no other light source in the scene other than the moonlight from the window and the light from the flashlight. This means that he can conform to the horror genres codes and conventions of lowkey lighting without sacrificing the audiences suspension of disbelief by being pulled out of the narrative thinking 'why can I currently see the character?'. 

Here is a screenshot from the first shot we see in my short film. Here I used the fact that within the narrative the TV in the room is on. This means that I could use my camera mounted light to film the scene as the audience wouldn't be wondering why the scene is so bright in the middle of the night. 

In the same scene I created a 'flashlight searching around the room' visual by using very low key lighting inspired by Sandberg. This allowed me to emphasise the light from the flashlight I was using so that the scene was able to look exactly how I wanted, with the concentrated beam of light showing us where our character is looking/pointing the light exactly. 

LO4: Evaluation based on audience feedback, identifying strengths, weaknesses and ideas for future improvement

My unit 5 brief required me to plan, produce and edit a short film or documentary that would be able to show a wide range of technical knowledge and skill. 

STRENGTHS OF MY COMPLETED PRODUCT:

DID I APPLY CODES AND CONVENTIONS? (Including how I used positive feedback to improve my film):

For my genre I chose horror, this is because it is my favourite genre and the one I felt most comfortable within and knew a wide range of knowledge about, specifically surrounding the tropes and typical horror conventions. This is one of the strengths of my finished product; the following of genre conventions. 

In the survey I put out to gain feedback on my short film, a piece of positive feedback I gained was how my lighting was effective at creating a horror atmosphere in the kitchen scene.

Gaining feedback like this whilst working on my edit was very effective in helping me improve my short film as it allows me to understand what edit changes work well, allowing me to incorporate it more into my work.

Knowing that the shadows, lighting and overall colour of this scene worked well meant that I could then apply what I did to the other scenes. For example this meant that I retroactively went back to other scenes and added more colour. Such as the bedroom scene where the door closes in the background. I made the colouring colder in temperature which made the foreground slightly more blue than white. This helped to greatly contrast the orange light in the back that was cast on the door to creature a colourful, dynamic visual.

An example of where my camera work was proven to be effective at following the genre conventions was also in the kitchen scene, where a long tracking shot dynamically followed our protagonist as she picked up a knife and moved across the kitchen.  This shot was carefully mediated to show the audience just enough of the kitchen to unknowingly set up the scare, which is why it's so effective. In the early stages of the tracking shot we see and walk past a closed door. This door is shown just enough so that the audience make note of it, but not focused on too much to make the audience aware that it will come in to play later in the same shot. That's why when the audiences attention is then directed to the fridge and the potential misleading scare behind it (which turns out to be nothing), they aren't expecting the camera to whip around to the door being open with something inside of it. The misdirection of the fridge is an equally important part of the shot as it tricks the audience with common conventions of a scare often used in horror; closing the door and something being behind it. This brings all of the audiences attention to the fridge so they aren't expecting anything else after it. This is what makes the jump scare so effective as all the different working parts of the camera work help to build the shot into an effective scene for my genre and serves as one of stand outs. 

This shot also creates more suspense in the fact that the audience are put directly in the characters shoes; we see exactly what she sees and can't see exactly what she can't. This forces the audience to empathise with her as they are literally put in her shoes and feel the same fear she does of how scary being alone at night can truly be. This allows me to conform to typical horror genre conventions as horrors often get you to sympathise with the lead protagonist as they face horrific events to make the movie feel more tragic. 

WEAKNESSES OF MY COMPLETED PRODUCT:

AUDIENCE CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM:

The audience feedback I gained in terms of constructive criticism is much more effective at helping me improve my final edit than the positive feedback as it allowed me to directly improve any faults/things I've missed as my peers have areas of expertise that I do not. For example, the very effective piece of feedback that told me:

This meant that I could easily improve one of the faults in my editing knowledge that I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. 

DID I FOLLOW CONCEPT DOCUMENTATIONS?:

I made sure to follow my concept documents closely as they were strongly structured and thought out, making sure scenes have effective dialogue that not only fits into the scene naturally but also to deliver a narrative to the audience in a short amount of time. Since I had planned out my visuals in the storyboard with the location in mind, it made it much easier to create the visuals I wanted so that I could deliver a strong atmosphere.

However, one thing I missed was not being able to film a scene in my storyboard due to time constraints. This scene was a conversation that took place early in the film where the mother called Quinn on the landing to give her an update of the police coming. Instead I filmed the scene at a later date in a different location (the staircase), which causes the scene to feel slightly disjointed, however its effective in changing the scenery of the film so the dialogue scenes are a little less boring. 

This scene would've been great to include as it fits the narrative well and delivers a small jump-scare of the phone calling right as the tension reaches a peak. This phone call happening in a later scene means it doesn't break the tension with a loud noise (a common convention of horror) as there is no tension when the scene begins due to an absence of threat. This makes the overall scene a lot less effective for a short horror film as it bores the audience with a lack of horror, which is what they want to see and expect when watching the movie. I could have avoided this issue by instead creating a more spaced out shooting schedule so that I have more time to film scenes and the actors get more breaks. When creating any productions in future products I will make sure to keep this in mind to improve my overall final product. 

DID IT LOOK HOW I WANTED IT TO?:

Despite me using my knowledge of cinematography and lighting to my best ability, the short film doesn't feel as cinematic and tense as I hoped, this was due to multiple reasons. One reason is that I didn't have a budget, which made set dressing difficult as I had to use what I already owned. An example of this is in the pivotal scene where Quinn finds her mother dead; I had to communicate to the audience what happened through my visuals, but without a budget and talent for practical effects, I had to use fake blood that looks cheap and drags the viewer out of the scene. As well as this, it meant I couldn't hire many actors so i had to use as little characters as possible. This resulted in the short film having a 'homemade' element that makes it less authentic and scary as it doesn't feel real to the audience. However, I am happy with a lot of the visuals I have created, as they are effective at delivering an atmosphere that gives the audience a strong impression of the genre. The low-key lighting is also effective and presents how I wanted it to as it was easy to control using equipment I already owned. Another way I mitigated the effects of my constraints was that I structured my story around my character being isolated; this allowed me to create effective scenes as I could work my wide knowledge of the tropes of the horror genre into the premise so it feels more well thought out and satisfying to watch. 

WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?: 

One thing i'd change about the production process next time I create a short film is expand scenes in more depth during pre-production. As I had never created a film of any type before, I was unaware of how many different shots there were in a single scene to convey emotion and raise tension which I hadn't planned at all. I noticed this while recording my footage as I realised that much more shots would be required in the kitchen scene to increase the duration of the scene to what I planned it to be in my head without the audience getting bored of looking at the same shot for so long. This would ruin the tension I was trying to build in the scene by completely pulling the audience out of the movie by making them bored. This meant that in the moment I had to create, light and come up with additional shots multiple different times throughout the recording process, causing me to become off schedule and have too rush some of the scenes later into the night. Next time I will create a much more in depth storyboard that displays a higher range of different shot types now that I am more experienced and understand how to produce scenes effectively so that there are more shots with better time management spread across them instead of all in the same shot. 

LO3: Evidence of Logging Rushes, choosing/importing footage

I selected my clips by watching them in my files and deciding which version of each shot I would use, then logging them as rushes, choosing which duration of time I would use each one for. This makes it much easier to know what clips I will use for how long when importing my clips into Premiere Pro.  

Here is how I logged my rushes (raw footage):

Here is evidence of me importing my footage to Premiere Pro:

LO3: evidence of editing

 This post is a merge document containing the;

- Evidence of editing

- Control and manipulation of audio

- Application of visual effects and transitions 

The first thing I did when beginning the editing of my horror short film was adjusting the length of every clip. This was because when filming I purposefully made each shot last slightly long so that I could create the perfect cutoff. An example of this is the reaction shot in the first scene when Quinn hears the bedroom door close. I made it so that as soon as the noise is heard, the shot quickly cuts so that we can see our protagonists reaction. I did this using the razor tool, allowing me to precisely choose where exactly the clip will cut.

Some of the clips I recorded were too short, resulting in the shot ending abruptly and causing the scene to move much quicker than intended. To make these shots last longer, I right clicked on them and slowed down the clip by selecting 'speed/duration' and setting the number lower, allowing me to adjust how much slower they're going to make the clip the perfect length. I mainly did this for the shots that didn't have my character in them as slowing down a clip of a person would be very noticeable and pull viewers out of the immersion, ruining the tension. An example of this is the shot of the now open fridge, the slowed down clip wasn't noticeable for audiences and allowed my scene to be much better paced. 

Digitally editing my visuals

The cinematography of my short film isn't just enhanced by the camerawork and set design I used in production, but also the digital editing. This is useful as some of my shots didn't turn out how initially planned, so the digital editing allowed me to go back and fix some of my previous mistakes. 

An example of digital editing allowing me to fix/enhance my cinematography is this shot, which appeared much darker than initially intended. This was an issue as only a slight bit of the foreground could be seen in the shot; seeing the background here is important for the audiences understanding of how the scene plays out, as it lets us know that there's something in the room with my protagonist. 

I fixed this issue by accessing the properties of the clip and balancing the whites, highlights, shadows and exposure of the clip to make an overall better looking shot. This allowed the audience to be able to see the fact that the door was opening by itself in the darkness. It also made the scene much more satisfying to watch as a movie being too dark is a highly regarded criticism in modern horror movies that I wanted to combat in my production, whilst still creating a fear of the unknown with my monster hiding in the shadows.  

Another way I fixed an issue with my recorded shots with digital editing was improving the continuity of the scenes, as well as just giving the movie more of a visual style that helps make it stand out. An example of a continuity issue with how some scenes were filmed is that the lighting drastically changes in between the shots that are supposed to be taking place one after the other. Here is an example below:

In the first shot we can clearly see that our antagonist is being hit with a dim orange light in the room where they are stood, but when the shot changes that allows s to see in to the room, the lighting is not only much more high-key, but also much whiter/yellow. This makes the room appear much brighter, which is an issue as it completely pulls the audience out of the immersion of the film for what is supposed to be an otherwise shocking and important scene. 

And here is the updated scene after adjusting the properties: increasing the exposure in the first clip and increasing the temperature and shadows in the second. These changes make the scenes look as if they're are taking place immediately after one another and help to give more depth and meaning to the film; the orange initially intended making the scene feel hot with tension as we reach the 'boiling point' of the film. As well as this it helps to improve the cinematography by making the shots feel more stylistically distinct from the standard white/pale lighting.

This was a change I made to most of my scenes also, correcting the lighting and giving the film more visual flare so that the audience stay invested in my film. 

I also enhanced my cinematography with digital editing to conform to the conventions of my horror genre. In this example of my protagonist Quinn's phone light scanning over the environment, I edited the temperature, exposure and blacks/whites. This caused the light to be much more concentrated and made the surroundings darker. This made it so that I could directly control what the audience were allowed to see within the light, putting them in my protagonists shoes and allowing me to appeal to genre conventions of horror by creating a creepy atmosphere to keep the audience engaged and on edge.

Special Effects

As part of my project it's important to apply visual effects in post production so that I can make the short film as closely accurate to my vision of what I want the film to look like as possible. In the production of short films, especially horror, special effects are the way to do this. 

As I have not only a budgeting constraint but also a talent constraint for the application of practical effects, it resulted in an issue of me not being able to find a way to create an effective dead body to communicate to the audience the twist of the movie. I came up with the idea of a close up shot of the hand, that way I can also solve the enigma of where the car keys were by having them be in the dead body of the mothers hand. I added a minor practical effect of fake blood (as seen below) but it still didn't feel worthy enough of a shot to reveal that the mother is dead, especially with the extreme lack of blood on the hand. This causes the audience not to be satisfied with the reveal as their audience expectations of what they expect to see in a modern day horror film is a lot of blood and gore. 

(the shot before any application of Digital Effects)

This is why I decided I wanted to apply a digital effect to the shot to make the scene feel more 'gore-y'. Although I still had a digital effect talent constraint being that I couldn't create fake blood/gashes on the hand, it didn't mean I couldn't make the scene feel more gorey. I decided it would narratively make sense if I made it seem as if blood was dripping down the camera lens instead, implying to the audience that the death was so brutal that blood splatted everywhere, even on to the camera itself. 

The first thing I did to create this effect was duplicate my clip and layer them on top of each other. I did this by holding down the option key and then dragging he clip a layer higher, duplicating it on top of the other.

I then searched for the 'tint' and 'gaussian blur' effects in the project window and added them to the duplicated clip.

I opened the added effects settings and mapped the black to a dark red and white to a lighter red on the tint effect. For the Gaussian Blur effect I just increased the blurriness to make the screen look like we (the camera) were looking through blood, causing the screen to be blurry. 

I then clicked the 'new item' button in the project window and layered a black 'colour matte' on top of my clips. I then put the 'VR fractal noise' effect onto this new colour matte. 

I edited the 'VR Fractal Noise' effect by adjusting the contrast and brightness to create a white stained fog like screen. This white fog would become my blood. 

I did this by adding the effect 'track matte key' to my previous duplicate clip, accessing its settings and then changing the 'matte' to 'video 3' and changing the composite to 'matte luma'.

This made it so that the blood red overlay replaced the white and black of the fog-looking matte. I then further started playing around with the settings of each effect (mainly the contrast, brightness and opacity of the clips) as well as increasing the size of the matte overlay so that there wasn't excess blood on the screen and making the blood larger.  

The finishing touch I added to this effect was editing the 'evolution' setting on the 'VR fractal noise' effect. I enabled the animation for the setting and created key frames at the start and end of the clip. The starting keyframe being set to 75 degrees and ending keyframe -13. This made it so that the blood moved on the screen slightly, as if its dripping down the lens.

Audio control/manipulation 

In my short film it's important to make sure my audience don't have their suspension of disbelief broken by being pulled out of the immersion and narrative by visual or audio errors. As part of the narrative of my short film my protagonist is talking over the phone to her mother throughout the movie. I recorded these lines separately and added them in post production instead of having my actress actually speak over the phone. This is because I didn't want to run into any issues with the microphone picking up the phone audio, as well as having overall audio quality to be unclear/distorted. This meant that in post production it was important for me to edit the audio to make sure it feels authentic, as if the characters are actually talking over the phone. 

I did this by accessing the effects window and searching for the effect 'highpass' which is used to make audio sound more as if it's coming from an electronic device.

 I then dragged and dropped it on to each audio clip which applied the effect.

 After then listening to the sound, I noticed that the effect made the audio much quieter, so I right clicked on it, went to 'Audio Gain' and then increased audio gain by 15. This made the audio much easier to hear. 

In this specific scene our character is on the phone further away from the camera than in most scenes. To make it sound like the phone is further away I also added the effect 'lowpass' to these specific audio clips through the same application of effects method. 

Another important effect I added to almost all clips that greatly improved my short film was the DeNoise effect. Whilst editing my colour grading of each clip I noticed that in most clips there was background noise that often pulled the viewer right out of the immersion of the scene as a loud distracting buzzing noise could be heard, however I wasn't aware of how I would be able to fix this issue. This was especially distracting in scenes which switched between shots with low buzzing and high buzzing noises. After gathering audience feedback via survey a peer said that to fix this I should apply the 'DeNoise' effect which reduced the audio of that background noise so that my audience wouldn't be distracted. This also allowed me to conform to my horror genre conventions as the completely silent atmosphere in the house now created with this effect means that the audience hang on every sound that happens, waiting for something to break the silence and tension felt in the air of the agonisingly drawn out shots. 

Now that the clips and dialogue were edited together effectively, I used the site free sound.org to gather my sound effects for the short. Although I recorded some (screaming sounds), I still needed to add non-diegetic sound effects that would be difficult to create myself. These sound effects are important to help me follow conventions of typical horror films. 

For example a static sound effect was important for hiding my dialogue but wouldn't be able to be captured naturally