Evaluation

During the very early days of this project, the story, plot and majority of design is quite different to the resulting final cut, a lot of planning was still put into the initial blue prints which I think are worth noting so as to produce a full picture of a beginning and a completion of project that has received a multitude of attention, crafting and many changes.

In it’s initial conception the film was essentially a crime film revolving around the drama of a long time, seemingly unwilling crook who is trying to get out put being prevented by the ‘head’ of the criminal organisation. This version of the film was intended to be dark, moody and tense. It was to be set in a single location, more a less like it is now. The film would have been set in a café or bar type setting and is the reason for a similar setting for the film made before this project. When we we’re pitching the project my contribution to the pitch was mainly to talk about my working methods and aspirations for the standard of the work as well as my inspirations, although I could talk about my specific aims and ideas for the film a little we were still at early stage with scripts and other plans and so talking ‘through’ other films was easier. It is worth noting that although these initial plans were for a different version of the film and that the project would alter somewhat in essence and story, that many of these ideas linger on through into the final film and that they are still relevant to the new story and focus. Films such as Edward Dmytryk’s 1944 Murder, My Sweet and John Huston’s 1941 adaptation of The Maltese Falcon, as well as other great noir films from 1940s Hollywood. These films, although quite remarkable in their use of light, have a very deft and wonderfully ‘simple’ way of telling their story visually. Through careful and attentive shot construction, composition and sequence they are able to put characters in danger, dominance or a variety of different situations depending on the requirements of the script, story and needs of the film makers. Huston’s Maltese Falcon I believe is especially notable for both its sophistication and at the same time, staggering simplicity.  It was this film especially that I hoped to capture the visual story telling and mood setting aspects from, right from the initial crime idea to the present final version of the film. As the single location film was to be based mainly around tension and atmosphere this highly telling visual style would be perfect in order for us to get the intended effect of the film across. Moving forward into the ‘new’ idea for the project, concerning a man in limbo over the death of someone, this more ambiguous and pared down narrative would benefit more from a highly emotive visual style, clearly letting the audience know the dynamics of each character and their relationships with others and the environment, or even confusing these by playing with the style, something the script implies. This simple yet sophisticated and effective style was also perfect for our short film. The unambiguous narration this style can give will quickly establish the tone and effect intended, essential when you only have minutes to tell your story.  Although my focus and inspiration was to draw heavily on the films mentioned above, I felt at time that this over extreme styling, specifically the lighting would be wrong for the film for a number of different reasons. Firstly I felt that the by being as exaggerated as some of the mentioned noir films, the film would lose its more grisly real feel, this goes for both the crime concept and present emotional one. By having something more extreme, I felt that the film would lose its ability to express the extreme emotions that characters are going through. It is for this reason that I also took on board inspiration from Wim Wenders’ 1977 The American Friend. Wenders’ film is at once an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game, itself a very psychological thriller, a stunning piece of seventies cinema and a homage to 1940s noir films that had initially inspired my ideas for the project. The film is much more realistic than the 40s noirs but also plays a very tight emotional game with characters who are caught up in unpleasant situations. The film is a great example of film that can sustain itself on tension and the situations and binds the characters find themselves in rather than drawn out plot. Like our rather complicated plot for short film, The American Friend’s incredibly complicated plot is given hardly any attention because the characters’ between a rock and a hard place situation take precedent. The film uses moody and dark lighting without losing its touch with realism and uses, sparingly, shot that convey the magnitude, emotion and danger of the situations occurring. Moving forward into the second script project I carried these elements over, as well as adding new one for a new and perhaps more relevant to the story films. Another reason for not wanting to use the full ‘noir style’ was a practical one as well. Time constraints as well as budget would be a very limiting factor in being able to realise the scope and ambitions of film that use lighting in such an extreme and integral way. From past experience with lighting set ups, none of which have been extreme as noir lighting, time is precious and just lighting a scene minimally can be extremely time consuming and the amount of time it would of taken to produce a lighting scheme even for a film of just 10 minutes or so would a require an amount of time we could not afford ourselves especially when all the other aspects of the film begin to be factored in, location and actor availability especially. As I will discuss later, this timing factor also had a bearing on the schedule and lighting design dynamic in a very big way.

During these early stages I sat down with Ben (the director) and talked through his and my ideas for he film. I talked to him about my various ideas to do with the look of the film and the sequencing of the shots, as mentioned above. Ben was happy for me to take the film in that direction and was in fact happy for me to put whatever stamp I felt fit on the film in that respect. This proved both a blessing and somewhat of a hindrance. Many of these initial discussions, especially when including other team members, mainly Joeley (art direction) and Georgina (producer) revolved around the use of location or set. The first film, which was being made around this time, was made using location, set in a café. Because this film was lighter hearted and concerned more ‘everyday’ characters it was obvious and easy to find a café that was suitable for the film. For a camera and lighting perspective too, the café was a good location for fulfilling the aims of the plans. We were able to block and light the whole placed with a lot of freedom, which is probably the crucial factor in making the location usable in my opinion. Whether we could repeat the same sort of location use again for the next film was less optimistic. For starters, both in its initial conception and in its current form, the film required a very specific setting that tailored to the needs of the situation and finding a location that was even similar would have proved very hard indeed, and finding a location that was both suitable but needed dressing and available at the correct times would have been very difficult indeed. The decision was made by the group, with me in favour, to shoot on a set. This had a variety of pros and cons, however I thought, and still do, that the pros out weighed the cons. This then set into sequence a long chain of pre-production events. Firstly it meant for Georgina and Joeley to book a studio and begin gathering, from scratch, props, the set itself and other items such as paint and wallpaper that we would construct the set out of. The group set about building the room that the events of the film took place in.  This included constructing the walls of the set and putting them in place, scraping them free of debris, wallpapering them, painting them with several different coats of paint, fitting a floor surface to the room, setting up the props which Joeley had sourced and then preparing the set and studio for becoming a working film making environment.

Before and during the set construction, Ben, Henry (the editor) and I met frequently to build up a storyboard, shot plan and lighting plan.

I had asked both Ben and Henry to meet me frequently regarding the shot design and construction for several meetings, this was because I had felt in previous films that there had not been enough communication and coherence of vision between crew members of films I had worked in the past. Although Ben did want each of us to have our own input into the film I felt as though it wasn’t going to work having each of us going off and creating something and bringing it back for the group to have to adjust to. All of our roles in the crew over lap and I thought Ben’s role (obviously) and Henry as editors role were too closely linked for us not to work together in planning the films visuals. Ben, because the film is his vision, I wanted to make sure that whatever I created was inline with this and that I would not be, through my own solo input, be creating any mixed or new messages to the audience.  I wanted Henry present because he also has a very good knowledge of how a film can work visually, so I could bounce ideas off him and receive good feed back but also because as editor I felt he had a better idea of the film in the form of montage as a whole, where as my brain works in more isolated frame way, emphasising single or double frame sequences. It would also be handy as an editor to better understand the reasoning of the sequences and shots you are given when it comes to the editing process. Although often I would be working on the storyboards alone, it was only in a drawing capacity, the real brainwork was done around the tables we met at to discuss the film. Firstly Ben and I met to mark up the script with rough ideas of where shots would be more or less on in the film in relation to certain directions and what type of shots they may be. Then Henry joined us and we went through the script firstly discussing any changes to the shot ideas and then drafting up a big storyboard for each shot in the film including the following: scene and shot number, a description of the shot and the action it shows, lighting notes and ideas, a rough blocking plan, a predicted lens angle, any jib, grip or focus pull notes as well of course as a sketch of the frame itself. This way of working is, in my opinion, very efficient and really allows for a thorough thinking through of any concept or obstacle preventing a effective shot flow. My way of working is one of having things worked out before hand, hence this storyboarding method, and that my approach is one of intellectually approaching art. Although there are those that can and tend to rely more the moment of creation and improvisation to achieve an artistic result, I only feel like this results in less developed results and is too romantic a notion for me to take seriously. After these boards were fully revised they went into a period of scheduling. As mentioned before, the shot’s blocking and lighting affected the schedule in a very big way.

The biggest factor in scheduling the film for Georgina, apart from hiring actors to work at specific hours, was that we only had a half a set, this meant that after filming everything that took place in one half of the room, the set was then changed around to look like the other side of the room and everything else set in that side was filmed. This meant that, in regards to my input into the film, that lighting set ups had to be simplified so that they were similar to each other as much as allowed, and that all sots that were filmed in the same positions were strung together so as not waste time resetting up set ups that had been up previously.

When the time came around to start shooting, most things had been planned and accounted for and the shoot went relatively smoothly. Each shot and set up had a certain amount of time to be shot in, however, as always, seemingly, this ran over regularly because of, in the main lighting set ups. The main reason for this was that because the studio was booked up right until we needed to build and shoot in their, the first time we got to light the set was on the first day of filming, consequently the plans made before hand were just estimations made on tests in other rooms and from experience on other film sets of what might be required to achieve a desired look or effect.  Another time consuming problem, related to the lack of time we had with the set before we could shoot on it was that spacial estimations in relation to perspective in the shot construction and the choice of lens were having to be re-evaluated and thought through mid shoot, which was obviously a serious time consumer. Shots were also cut and added on the fly, mainly by Ben and Henry as they were constructing edits in their heads and as they days went by after watching the rushes during the nights. Georgina was very good however at adapting the schedule to keep us on the track in relation to the number of days we had in the studio, lunch breaks and hours in the day.

Everybody on set was very professional and this allowed to get through a very tough and busy schedule more or less on time with what we needed.

During testing the camera to decide on settings, it was agreed that we would shoot on S-Log 2, a profile that gave a relatively flat and washed colour scheme to the images. Henry suggested this because it was thought that the images could then be graded with more freedom that if we had used a more extreme profile. While I agree with this to some extent, I think that it resulted in a too flat a image in most of the shots, which led to some extent to a loss in drama. This was not the whole story though because during the storyboarding process we decided not to light too dramatically because we thought it would be too over the top, as mentioned before, as well as time consuming. This now seems like an obvious mistake and what should of happened is that either we shoot on more extreme camera setting profile or we light in a more dramatic way.

After the studio scenes were shot, there was the business of shooting in as of then unknown bathroom location. This involved shooting both characters of the film against a mirror, against a door and one in a bath full of water. These were hard to plan as the bathroom location was agreed until last minute, but the simple shots needed were listed and then we did the best we could with the time available. This working method and its results were just, unfortunately, the product of our budget, time scale and pure necessity.

I thought that everybody in the group performed to a very high standard, everybody worked hard and in a professional manner, Ben, Georgina and Joeley especially I think require extra special mention because of the sheer amount of hours of organisation, cast and prop finding and paper work time they have put in. Ben was always on top of what needed doing when, however I feel like he was never clear on his artistic vision for the project and that sometimes this led to ambiguity and a lack of focus when we were trying to think of solutions and methods to achieving ‘effects’ and meanings. I think that a rather bland script and concept is evident of this. Unfortunately there is nothing really to be done about this as Ben was always going to be writing the script and if the inspiration doesn’t hit, well then it doesn’t hit. Bearing in mind that there was only around 4-5 months spent chasing ideas around, and the original was scrapped tells you that the idea was never fully formed.

Georgina was an excellent producer and that is all I can say really, she did such a grand job or orchestrating a full set build, casting and jam packed shooting weekend. Scheduling was particularly good as she was always on hand revising schedules on the fly as the events on set evolved and she was also very good nagging us to make sure we kept on schedule. Joeley likewise did an incredible job or organising a full set build within a few days and find all the props, make-up and effects we needed on a very tight budget with compromising the quality of them.

As said before, I think that as the final cut is quite different to the script is testament to the vagueness of the concept of the film, however I think that Henry has done a sterling job of pulling something in line with our original ideas out of the footage we have. One of the things that bothers me the most about this re-edit is that it seems as though some of the shot flows clearly didn’t work as planned and so they needed to be re-edited, this is perhaps something I need to work on as I can get too focused on just single or double frame clips rather than how a whole sequence of shots work together.

I think that Grace has done a pretty good job of making a good soundtrack in  short amount of time but I feel sometimes as though it is too much and that a less noisy and cluttered sound design would have been more effective. Some of the more electronic sounds in the design seem just plain out of place. This may have been the product of a film with very little dialogue but I still feel that in this case less would have been more.

I believe that the film is effective in achieving its general desired effect that although rough around the edges and perhaps visually tellingly made on a budget, the film is nice to look at and watch.