Final Major Project

FMP STARTAs at this moment I have no idea what I want to do for my moving image project. All I know is that I want to keep it as simple as possible and minimise the video duration, because of my time limitation as I have two other projects to do. I want to try and produce a good short movie with good quality. I know this will be a challenge because my I have very little experience with moving image.

I also know that I want to create a short movie with a story, so I'll try to avoid documentaries, interview, etc. So with all that in mind I’ll have to start with research to get inspirations.

As I was listening to my iPod I came across a song by Eminem called guilty conscience. I remembered that the music video was quite interesting so I decided to go on YouTube and watch it again. From experience (while trying to generate ideas) I’ve found out that when I try to get ideas from a different source I end up mixing things up. So while watching this video I kept in mind that I was watching a music video but what I was aiming for was a short movie.

While watching this video the 1st thing that came to mind was an angel and a devil version of someone. The angel tries to make him/her to something good while the devil does the opposite. But I thought this idea has been used a lot and there will be no creativity in it.

Inspiration

I am trying to get inspiration for my story and not focusing on Mise-en-Scene. So when I’m was watching this video what comes to mind is story based idea.

What I picked from video 1 was the idea of having some one battling with his conscience. I thought this idea was very good idea so I decided to explore it the idea. I know that a lot of movies have this idea embedded into them. So I'll do some research into different movies and see how the story is told and use it as a means to tell my story.

Video 1: Guilty Conscience, 1999

BrainstormRather than focusing on the idea of guilty conscience I decided to broaden the idea to just conscience so I have more to play around with.

With that in mind I decided to do a brain storm of the with the word conscience as the centre of focus. I also tried to include the ideas I had so far.

Photo: Brain storm

More Inspiration I decided to look for more videos related to my idea. I watched movies and browse through YouTube as this are sources. I found a couple of movies that were related to my idea.

This is a scene from, How to kill a mocking bird, 1962. This is a court scene where Atticus Finch (played by Gregory Peck) is questioning Tom Robinson (played by Brock peters). Tom is wrongly accused of beating up a lady but Atticus as Tom’s lawyer is trying to defend him. My main focus is the character of Atticus and Tom; Atticus (the lawyer) is trying to defend a black American in an era where racism was rampant. While watching this I kept thinking to myself that Tom must have had thought that what he trying to accomplish the impossible. Tom on the other hand is trying to so hard to fight his innocence.

Screen shot: (How to kill a mocking bird, Robert Mulligan 1962)

Inspiration from Video 2This video sparked a few ideas into my mind as I started thinking of new ways of telling my story. Though the movie was based on a crime vindication of a wrongly accused man; I decided to look at it from a different angle.

The idea that came into mind was the idea of an unfair society trying to influencing someone. so rather than having angel and devil trying to trying to convince someone to do something. I decided to merge the idea of the supernatural forces and an unfair society trying to influence someone.

As I was developing the idea I came to a conclusion that I wanted someone representing and unfair society and someone representing a fair group of the society trying to influence someone who is the individual.

The China Syndrome (1979)Law abiding citizen 6:30(A story whereby someone's family is killed and he wants justice but he uses the wrong means

Dead Man Walking(Young man wrongly accused of a crime and is executed for it.)

the A-Team 1:30A group of elite soldiers who were assign a mission and later wrongly accused of a crime they didn’t commit

Other movies I watched

Talk with tutor & further development I talked to my tutor about my idea development and my progress and he was impressed he suggested that I read a book called ‘the stranger’ by Albert Camus. He also suggested that dramatising an idea like mine will be very hard to do; so I will have to look deeply into the idea and do more research.

I found out that this was true as I was unable to develop a dramatic story that suited my idea. Since human conscience can be know as a philological factor, i decided to do in-depth research. I research great philosophers like

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900)He suggested that morals were not right and declared himself immoral (Kaufmann, p.187. (Ecce Homo-M I). He pointed out that morality being based on the doctrines of good and evil was an error.I thought this was useful having an opposing view could help me develop an idea.

Albert Camus (1913 – 1960)Camus dealt with the idea of absurdism, absurdsim refers to humans trying to find meaning in life and failing to achieve it.

After a couple of research I felt this topic might be a little too big for me so I decided to drop this idea. Thereby putting myself in a starting position.

inspiration new Idea While doing research into philosophical ideology of human relation with his/her conscience . I came across a seminar on YouTube by Dr. Philippe Goldin in 2008. the seminar was on Neuroscience of Emotions. I came across this by accident but I felt like this is what I wanted.

As I kept watching this video, I felt bored. I started to think that I had chose the worng sorry to tell. After a few minutes, I came across a photo in the video which helped me in generating my next idea.

Screen shot: seminar - Neuroscience of Emotions Philippe Golding 2008

2nd Idea

The image above gave me the idea of having a story about a doctor/scientist and a patient. But I didn’t know how this story will fit in. I knew that I wanted the doctor / scientist to attach a few sensors on the patient body as if he is checking for something. But I had no idea what the doctor / scientist will be searching for.

It was not until I watched ‘Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’ (2004) that I had an idea of what to do.

Screen shot: Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’ Michel Gondry (2004)

Refining 2nd idea After watching the movie I decided to have a doctor who tries to erase the memory of his patient on the patient’s request. So as not to have a carbon copy of my inspired movie, I decided to be a little creative with the story. I decided to bring in some elements of my 1st idea and merge them together.

while the doctor is trying to delete the patients memory, he also has his personal interest in mind. His conscience comes into play as he tries to decide if he should go on with his personal interest or not.

To conclude the story I decided that the doctor, after trying so hard to get the memories finds out that the memories where not what he wanted but something useless.

I ran this idea with my friend and with class colleagues. They suggested that I should make it such that the doctor accidently killed the patient. At the end we see that the whole short movie is a story of the doctor as he is about to delete his memory of killing a patient.

I thought this was a good idea but decided to consult my tutors. Who suggested that it would a good idea. He suggested that it will also be good to consider having the doctor try to get the memory for himself. He later found out that what he was looking for was stolen so the young man does not actually have what he wants

Pushing forwardAt this moment I realised that I had less time on my hands than I thought and I had to start pushing forward as quickly as I could. I decided to start with my script and then move on to the storyboard. (see page script1 /storyboard1).

After the script and storyboard were done, I decided to think about location and filming. I decided to use the immersive space in the logging getaway. And then get a camera from the university to start filming as soon as possible.

I pretty much knew the characteristics I wanted to my talent to possess and I sent couple of emails to friends and classmate who could help. Among the people I sent the email to was Lee (fellow classmate) who agreed to act the role of the doctor. I gave him the time and venue, he told me that it would be impossible to film that day.

I rescheduled the shoot date to a day he was most comfortable with. I sent the script and storyboard so he can familiarise himself with he story. I needed someone to play the role of James but no one was available. I was later luck to find out that one of my classmate was free. I asked him if he could help me out and he willingly said yes. I was able to gather my cast in was ready to start filming.

I knew it would be a little difficult to film by myself so I asked my friends HaKeem, Jason and Kiran to help out. Kiran told me he was very busy and that by the time he finished it will be late. Jason wasn’t able to help as well. So the only person who will be helping out is Hakeem.

Shooting / feedback

We all arrived on time and I had managed to get in early to arrange the props as necessary. Igave my talent time to rehearse their script and do a few test before we started the main filming by 1pm.

The whole process lasted for 4hrs with short breaks inbetween, and we were able to do a lot. We could have stayed longer but my talent look exhuasted. Since we were not being productive anymore I decided we stop and continue another day.

The same day I did a rough edit so I can show it in class the following day. On the day, I showed my work to the class and I got a lot of negative feedback. The problem I had was mostly based on very poor planning.

Feedback I got.1. The set was not dressed2. Some shots were horrible 3. The actors where not dressed4. The audio was not worth listening too 5. The overall outcome was a failure

I totally agreed with the feed back I got, I was fully aware of this flaws and at the moment it felt like it would be almost impossible to try and turn things round as I have less than two week to hand everything in.

I actually wanted to try again but my talent were busy as they also had work to hand-in so I decided to leave it like that and wait for a resit.

ResitAll the hand-in Has been done and a few weeks of relaxation and it now time for a fresh start and work on the resit with a fresh mind.

There was a bit of misunderstanding with the arrangement for the resitwhich left me with 3 week to finish it before the hand-in date. I knew this was not enough time to continue with my former idea, so I decided to change it to something simple. I had a feeling that a change of idea or story is what I needed. I wanted something more exciting and motivating.

My friend told me a story about how people were pranked into believing that there was something important in a bag. when they (those who were pranked) opened it was an audio recorder that was recording everything they said.

I liked the idea of someone thinking there is something important in a bag but later discovers that it was nothing. On the other hand I didn’t like the idea of someone being pranked. I decided to turn this into my idea for the resit; It was a nice, simple and manageable idea to work with.

I decided that before doing anything I had to do a schedule 1st, because I'm trying to avoid making the same mistake I made for the 1st video. See page schedule. When the schedule was do I decided to draft out a story.

I wanted my story to be told as a two way conversation between two friends. So what will be shown in the video is what happened to the two guys who are now telling the story. We will not hear much from the video, so all we will be listening to is the two guys talking.

I found a similar technique in a channel 4 TV service called ‘My name is Earl’. It is not exactly the same because the TV series is more of a narrator telling a story rather than it being a conversation. I couldn’t find a movie that had exact technique I was looking for.

Once the story was done I decided to write out a script and then create a story board. I sent the script and storyboard to a couple of friends who thought that the idea was good. Although there were till problems with it.

My attention was drawn to the fact that the story was a little too complicated and might end up being really long and maybe get boring at the end.

One of my class mate (Hakeem) suggested that it would be better if the two guys, who are interesting in the bag fought for it. He also added that more action will be suitable for the technique I was going for. He said it will be better to have just one persons narrating the story . He also suggested that I watch forest gump again because it somehow had a similar technique and idea.

Technique and story feedback

Refine storyboard / script

Forest Gump was one of the best movies of its time and I still admire it till today. The cinematography looks good and the story is told very well. The narrator’s voice and the way he spoke was unique and that gave the movie it’s uniqueness ( so it wasn’t just anther movie with a narrator). While watching the movie I realised that I had to make sure that my is audio is very good if I want my video to be interesting.

I rewrote the script and redrew the storyboards according to the feedbacks I got. When I finished everything I showed it to both my friends and other people. they agreed it was better than before.

With this done I decided to go out and look for locations, I decided to look for more than one location just in case I wasn’t able to film in some locations. After I got everything ready I felt like I was going down the right path. Unlike my previous video, I was able to figure out mistakes at an early stage and this quarantined success.

CastI had to 1st of all think of my main character as he was very important to this story. I needed some who can act and voice act as well. I thought about my class mate Lee but I felt like I needed someone with a little more attitude. I recalled watching my class mate’s brother performing a poem in his (class mate’s) video. I thought he would be perfect for the role. So I decided to contact him through my classmate and he agreed to it and now I need I more person.

I contacted a friend of mine who had always wanted to act in a short movie and without any hesitation he said yes. Now I had the 2 people main characters. For the extra character I just decided to use myself and my classmate (Hakeem) since we didn’t have to do much.

Props and budget What I enjoyed about this story is that I didn’t really need to do a lot of set dressing as everything was natural and I needed it that way. The talent had to dress casual, so not much dressing had to be done on them.

The props I had to get was

A toy gun = £3

Bicycle = thy friend had one (this was to try and keep this casual, and show a sense o youth)

Bag = own one

Camera = own one

Tripod = own one

Shoot

We started filming at around 12 pm and the weather was not exactly what I expected but it was manageable. I didn’t want too much sunlight and didn’t want it to be too dark but the weather kept fluctuating and because of this I didn’t have a steady lighting. I decided to film on that day because the weather forecast said it will be a sunny day with mild clouds. Well it didn’t happen that way. At some point it started to rain but it wasn’t heavy as we were able to continue filming.

Everything went on smoothly and we had fun filming. Apart from the weather another problem I had was that the ground was not levelled. some parts of the floor were high and the other were low thereby making it hard to get the tripod and camera levelled. I decided that it would be appropriate to adjust the tripod’s leg sector to try and level the camera/tripod.

1st edit

I imported the rushes into adobe premier and started putting them together. I made it a very quick and rough cut without any colour correction at all. I made it a low compressed file so I can send it off quickly because I had a few people I wanted to send to. This rough cuts were later sent to friends and colleagues, some of them knew about the story and other were watching it with a fresh eyes.

For those who understood the story, the felt that the story was much clearer now they have seen something but there were few things lacking. For those who didn’t know, I had to explain the whole story to them, this was not a good sign.1. The cuts were bad2. No continuity 3. Too dark4. Colour correction would help 5. And a test audio would be prefect so they cold visualise the whole

thing.

2nd shooting So everything did not go well the 1st time (to be honest I wasn’t expecting it to) but I learnt form it and knew what to do.

I picked out a few shot that were bad and decided to reshoot them. I gave my talents a call again and although the agreed to do it they didn’t sound happy to be called again. I assured them that, that might be the last time I would ask them ask was aware they were busy with other things.

This time we had done a test record with my talent and we were able to use this as a guideline/reference for the recording .

2nd Editing

Import into after effect

Since Adobe After Effect can be integrated with Adobe Premiere I was able to copy the files into After effects and do some colour correction in there.

I showed people what I had and they were pleased with it. It wasn’t perfect at the moment because the sound was not right and we were still recording a new sound but the visuals (for those who knew the story) look ok.

There was continuity and the cuts look decent (this is from the feedback I got). There are some cuts I personally didn’t like ,but everyone said it was ok so I decided to go along with it.

Audio/Colour correction The audio was recorded in my friends studio, he was very busy but still decided to help. I did the sound editing in Adobe Premiere and sound booth. I had to spend a lot of time on the audio to make sure it was just right, but I was still unable to make get to sync perfectly.

I uploaded the 1st test with sound YouTube showed it to people who said it was good and the understood the story. Some suggested that I added a background / ambient sound to the video as this will make it sound better. (I went for the majority vote)

I had a hard time trying to figure out what type of cinematic look I wanted my video to have. I also thought about keeping it in its original state with no added colour. Since I couldn’t decide I thought I should do a few test

I wasn’t satisfied so I looked up a few tutorials on YouTube on colour correction, in Adobe after effect. I tried out the technique with my video but it still didn’t look right. It either look very artificial or gave the wrong mood. so I decided keep it natural and add just a few effect (saturation and curves) to give the video vibrant colours.

Once all that was done I decided to upload the video on YouTube

Before: colour looks dry

After: added a little vibrant colour

Personal review

This project to me was very educational. I was able to learn from my mistake and towards the end my time management got better. I felt the my final video was much better that than what I did before. Although there were issues with video and there are a few this I would have changed, I’m proud that I was able to learn from my mistake.

Among the thing I would have liked to change was the lighting. In some parts of the video, I had terrible lighting for example, the image below.

I also failed to pay attention to little details, as this made some of the shots look terrible, for example the Image on the page. At the start of this project I paid too much attention to story and total forgot about the techniques and mise – en-scene, which was the 1st lesson I had. Even though I my time management got better I feel I still have a lot to learn about managing a project.

Talent looks at camera

Altogether, I feel proud that I was able to pick myself up, and what I struggled to do in a few months I did it in 3 weeks. I was motivated and determined even though it was at the last minute.

In conclusion, I feel that the project went well. A little disappointed at my 1st attempt but with determination and good planning I was able create a tangible video.

I had a mix comment from both friends and colleagues. some were impressed with the video and some although thought it was ok, said I should have done more to it. Those who saw me progress from my original idea, thought that the video was better than what I initially did. Some people commented on the dark video and lack of energy to the video. Other thought there were things in around the set that was a little distracting.

I agree with most comments I got and if I were to do this again there are a lot of thing I would change. Although there are some issues with the video but what makes me happy the most is that I’ve achieve something and I’ve learnt a lot from this experience

Scheduleweeks 1 (25-31) 2 (1-7) 3 (7-14)

Pre- production

Reece

Script

Storyboard

Casting

Getting props/equipment

Production

Filming

1st test

2nd test

Finalising

Editing / necessary corrections

Sounds/ sound fx

Hand in 15 of august

Schedule

Story in summary

My idea is about a man (Garry) who is trying is telling the viewer how he met his best friend Dave. Garry is a young adult between the ages of 19 -22, doesn’t have a stable job and try to make ends meet. He is very lonely person and finds it hard to get along with people (this is shown by the manner he talks to people). Loneliness drives Garry, at some point went to log in to a site called friend finder (the viewer to do know this until the end) to try and get a friend. He totally forgot that he did that as he didn’t get a reply. One day Garry furiously walks into a park and slams a bottle of water on the ground while mumbling to himself. Besides him (Garry) sat a guy (Dave) who is busy reading something. On hearing the sound of a bottle hit the ground he turns round and looks at Dave but later decided to ignore him. Dave looks like a calm, collective and very cautious guy, who hates getting involved in unnecessary things.There are two sit in the vicinity and while Dave is occupying one another guy with a big bag next to him is occupying the other. The Guy later leaves but without picking the bag, both Garry and Dave look at each other. Garry later approaches the bag and is about to open it then Dave stops him. Garry irritated tries, to convince him (Dave) that the bag is not dangerous and everything is fine. The argument goes on until Dave agrees to open the bag with Garry. Noticing that there are embarking on a dangerous mission, they decide to open up to each other as they talk a little about their lives. Garry then decides that they should be friend at least, if it’s the last thing they do they will be happy they had friends. After a few moments on heavy atmosphere as they are about to open the bag, they final open it and the find there was nothing important inside the bag.