I confirm that the work on this website is all my own and does not include any work completed by anyone other than myself, except where clearly stated otherwise, and that sources have been appropriately referenced.
Unit 08: Blog
22nd/March/2022: Research and Planning
Going into this project my idea felt very directionless, I spent a large portion of my first week noting down any ideas I could think of without really developing them further or deciding on which one to pursue, as of today however I feel like I have a fairly certain idea on my idea I just need to work on its structure and other aspects as it begins to fully take shape.
Yesterday I researched different camera/editing techniques, today I moved my focus onto the topic of target audience, more specifically I looked into different social medias, their demographics and how I can utilise them for sharing and promoting my short film.
The apps I looked at were YouTube, Discord and Instagram, I made sure to find and reference as many statistics as I could find and to talk about how these apps could be useful to me personally.
I also went through and made sure I had harvard referenced any videos, images or websites I had posted to my website.
For the rest of the week I am aiming to put together my proposal and prepare a script.
Yesterday I researched different camera/editing techniques, today I moved my focus onto the topic of target audience, more specifically I looked into different social medias, their demographics and how I can utilise them for sharing and promoting my short film.
The apps I looked at were YouTube, Discord and Instagram, I made sure to find and reference as many statistics as I could find and to talk about how these apps could be useful to me personally.
I also went through and made sure I had harvard referenced any videos, images or websites I had posted to my website.
For the rest of the week I am aiming to put together my proposal and prepare a script.
6th/April/2022: Group Pitch
Today the second group of pitches were presented, like before we were split into two sub groups. I went second in the second group.
All things considered I think it went pretty well, I've never been a great public speaker so having not had a panic attack during my presentation was a good enough for me, I also didn't stutter as much as i thought I would've and from my feedback I think my pitch was received fairly well, specifically, I was told that I was an engaging speaker, had a good knowledge of my location and how it inspired. my idea thoroughly; I was, however, given two places to improve upon. Firstly, the necessity of guns was brought into question as if not pulled off correctly they could look goofy and take away from the scene. Secondly, I need to provide more in depth knowledge and reasoning for the inclusion of my props.
I do think the question on my use of fake firearms is a good one, however I think if framed right they will look realistic enough, although one of my gun props does have a slight rattle to it which could both ruin the feel of a scene and make it extremely difficult on me in the edit as trying to remove that rattle could be near impossible with my current experience with audio editing.
All things considered I think it went pretty well, I've never been a great public speaker so having not had a panic attack during my presentation was a good enough for me, I also didn't stutter as much as i thought I would've and from my feedback I think my pitch was received fairly well, specifically, I was told that I was an engaging speaker, had a good knowledge of my location and how it inspired. my idea thoroughly; I was, however, given two places to improve upon. Firstly, the necessity of guns was brought into question as if not pulled off correctly they could look goofy and take away from the scene. Secondly, I need to provide more in depth knowledge and reasoning for the inclusion of my props.
I do think the question on my use of fake firearms is a good one, however I think if framed right they will look realistic enough, although one of my gun props does have a slight rattle to it which could both ruin the feel of a scene and make it extremely difficult on me in the edit as trying to remove that rattle could be near impossible with my current experience with audio editing.
24th/April/2022: Filming day one (Test)
Today was my first filming day, we were on location by 12pm and were filming from 1pm to 5pm which was an hour later than I had planned but this didn't affect us too much, we spent today filming the opening scene with most of our time being focused on the back and forth between one of the robbers and the store owner.
I'm fairly happy with what we recorded, there is definitely room for some re-shoots but I was able to put together a short, 50 second, rough cut of what we had captured and the product is beginning to take shape. I have booked out a zoom recorder to capture some foley from wednesday to friday and then I have also booked an XA25 camera and a tripod for thursday to tuesday, I will be filming Sunday as planned and maybe monday as its a bank holiday, however this will depend on my actors.
I'm fairly happy with what we recorded, there is definitely room for some re-shoots but I was able to put together a short, 50 second, rough cut of what we had captured and the product is beginning to take shape. I have booked out a zoom recorder to capture some foley from wednesday to friday and then I have also booked an XA25 camera and a tripod for thursday to tuesday, I will be filming Sunday as planned and maybe monday as its a bank holiday, however this will depend on my actors.
1st/May/2022: Filming day two
After reflecting on my footage from my first filming day I decided to start over as I had some issues such as audio and pacing quality.
My new footage turned out better, I had an XA25 camera this time and compared to the DLSR I used last week the quality was much better, I also extended the dialogue between my store owner and robber as well as getting more shots from outside the store.
Overall I’m happy with the footage I captured, we filmed almost double the footage than we did last week. My plan for next week is to film from where we left off and also record some audio I need.
I also need to begin experimenting with a gunshot VFX, I can use the shot through the security camera to test that.
My new footage turned out better, I had an XA25 camera this time and compared to the DLSR I used last week the quality was much better, I also extended the dialogue between my store owner and robber as well as getting more shots from outside the store.
Overall I’m happy with the footage I captured, we filmed almost double the footage than we did last week. My plan for next week is to film from where we left off and also record some audio I need.
I also need to begin experimenting with a gunshot VFX, I can use the shot through the security camera to test that.
This shot is from my day one shoot, filmed on a DLSR I do prefer the natural lighting in this take but the DLSR camera struggled to focus on the drill making it slightly too blurry and now what I was going for.
This shot is from this weeks filming day, the XA25 camera achieves a much higher quality focus on the drill and while I do prefer the natural lighting from last weeks attempt it can easily be colour corrected in the edit.
8th/May/2022: Filming day three
Due to an issue with my location I was unable to film this sunday, I was able to rebook my equipment until the 16th and I will be doing three mini-recording days on tuesday, wednesday and thursday (10th, 11th 12th), on top of this I am still on schedule to film next sunday.
9th/May/2022: Running out of time
As of today I have the next two sundays to film, the three mini filming day's I have planned, I could also maybe fit an extra 3 mini filming days next week but that depends if I can get access to equipment and at that point I'd be eating into my editing time.
So in the interest of making my deadline I'm deciding to change the ending to my idea, shortening it to fit my schedule. I have a few ideas for this.
Both of these ideas allow me to keep my prior footage and still work as endings for my film.
So in the interest of making my deadline I'm deciding to change the ending to my idea, shortening it to fit my schedule. I have a few ideas for this.
- After the robbers make it into the room my cashier wakes up and locks them in the room, this leads to a section of the duo arguing and then trying to escape which eventually leads to them giving up and being arrested.
- Similar to the first idea, the two robbers get stuck inside the room but sticking true to my original idea it turns out to be a dream, however, instead of being shot and waking up the two could give up and be trapped in the room for a while which causes my character to fall asleep, then waking up at home revealing that it was all a dream.
Both of these ideas allow me to keep my prior footage and still work as endings for my film.
10th/May/2022: Mini filming day 1
For my first "Mini filming day" I decided to do some small reshoots and capture some outside shots, we forgot the drill prop so it limited what I could film but it was still a productive day.
Previously we we're struggling to film the scene where the cashier is knocked out by the robber as no matter how I angled it, it never looked convincing; this was mainly down to my actors not being able to pull off the action. However, we came to agreement on changing the scene to have the robber shoot the cashier and have them "die" off screen as using some custom VFX I made, the scene would look much more realistic.
Creating the muzzle flash I wanted to challenge myself to not look at an online tutorial just to make myself suffer that little bit more, there was also none online that didn't involve the use of after effects and I do not have the time to teach myself how to use that. Despite this the effect was actually very easy to make, originally I believed I could generate a circle and tweak the settings to make it into some sort of light source but it became quickly apparent that this didn't exist but I did notice the "Lighting effects" effect which allowed me to almost do exactly what I had planned to do, I generated a circular mask and shrunk it to be just larger than the barrel of the gun and then I layered an orange light with a brighter white light underneath it to create a yellowy flash effect, making his play for a single frame on the IRL click of the gun made a pretty good looking muzzle flash effect.
Previously we we're struggling to film the scene where the cashier is knocked out by the robber as no matter how I angled it, it never looked convincing; this was mainly down to my actors not being able to pull off the action. However, we came to agreement on changing the scene to have the robber shoot the cashier and have them "die" off screen as using some custom VFX I made, the scene would look much more realistic.
Creating the muzzle flash I wanted to challenge myself to not look at an online tutorial just to make myself suffer that little bit more, there was also none online that didn't involve the use of after effects and I do not have the time to teach myself how to use that. Despite this the effect was actually very easy to make, originally I believed I could generate a circle and tweak the settings to make it into some sort of light source but it became quickly apparent that this didn't exist but I did notice the "Lighting effects" effect which allowed me to almost do exactly what I had planned to do, I generated a circular mask and shrunk it to be just larger than the barrel of the gun and then I layered an orange light with a brighter white light underneath it to create a yellowy flash effect, making his play for a single frame on the IRL click of the gun made a pretty good looking muzzle flash effect.
11th/May/2022: Mini filming day 2
Today was my second "Mini filming day" and I decided to film another chunk of my opening sequence, essentially the two robbers preparing in an alleyway for the robbery, I also included a vertical panning shot from the sky downward to have a space for my title; I also looked at some font plugins through the creative cloud to use for my title and found one called "Flyswim" which was an untidy and rough font which I think works for my style of film.
.Lastly I experimented with a shot I had planned which would require me to crop the same shot split down the middle to give the illusion of both characters holding a stack of money, I have to do this as I only have one stack of money and it did work which is good as I can reshoot it with the proper movements later.
In the meantime I have been experimenting with colour correction and have found a tone which makes my film less grey and more vibrant, on top of this the temperature feels warmer with an increase of orange tints to the video.
.Lastly I experimented with a shot I had planned which would require me to crop the same shot split down the middle to give the illusion of both characters holding a stack of money, I have to do this as I only have one stack of money and it did work which is good as I can reshoot it with the proper movements later.
In the meantime I have been experimenting with colour correction and have found a tone which makes my film less grey and more vibrant, on top of this the temperature feels warmer with an increase of orange tints to the video.
12th/May/2022: Mini filming day 3
For the last "Mini filming day" we began by reshooting some shots from yesterdays shoot before beginning to film the second half of the entire film, at this point I am improvising slightly as I had to change my ending but despite this it's turning out better than expected. I've been experimenting with more handheld shots to make sure I don't only use the tripod for filming as it can make the film look too stiff and I have been preferring it to just tripod shots.
My project is coming along nicely and starting to take shape, it's currently around two minutes long and showing people such as my teachers, family and friends has produced some positive feedback.
My project is coming along nicely and starting to take shape, it's currently around two minutes long and showing people such as my teachers, family and friends has produced some positive feedback.
15th/May/2022: Final filming day
Today was supposed to be my last filming day, however, due to time restraints I'm unhappy with how today turned out and so I will be doing a short reshoot on Wednesday, I was very short on time today and so my footage felt sloppy, while it useable I don't like it.
In the meantime I have continued to edit and just refine certain pieces of my film, I also showed a small group of people in my class the current edit and it was met with very positive feedback; I'm especially happy that they found it funny which is one of my main goals with this project.
In the meantime I have continued to edit and just refine certain pieces of my film, I also showed a small group of people in my class the current edit and it was met with very positive feedback; I'm especially happy that they found it funny which is one of my main goals with this project.
18th/May/2022: Reshoots
Today was reshoot day, Prior to this I made a short list of all the shots from the 15th so I wouldn't waste anytime, it was shorter than expected as after putting the footage into my edit most of it was alright, I just needed to tidy up some last few bits to make that last minute meet the quality of the rest of the film.
Luckily everyone was able to turn up and we managed to be done within two hours, and I think it was worth it as it makes the ending feel cleaner and the quality of the entire film feel more consistent.
I'll now spend the next week finishing my edit and getting certain bit's of my website up to date.
Luckily everyone was able to turn up and we managed to be done within two hours, and I think it was worth it as it makes the ending feel cleaner and the quality of the entire film feel more consistent.
I'll now spend the next week finishing my edit and getting certain bit's of my website up to date.
May/25th/2022: Edit finished
After three months of working on this project I finally have a finished product, there were a few hiccups and it isn't 100% what I envisioned but I am overall happier with this as after beginning to physically work on this film I started to notice the holes in my plan and so I made it funnier and more engaging than the typical plotline I had setup at the start.
The film is exactly 4 minutes and 36 seconds, slightly shorter than I had originally predicted it to be but still a good length.
I'm happy with this, though my Timeline is an eyesore I can't wait to see how people react to it at the screening this week.
The film is exactly 4 minutes and 36 seconds, slightly shorter than I had originally predicted it to be but still a good length.
I'm happy with this, though my Timeline is an eyesore I can't wait to see how people react to it at the screening this week.
Evaluation
When I first heard about what we would be doing for this project I was, to put it bluntly, ecstatic; I had zero clue what I would do with this freedom but just the idea of being able to choose what we would make with no forced limitations but a 5 minute time limit got me invested and actually motivated which is something I hadn't felt towards the course for a while as the previous projects had near driven me insane.
I struggled at first, while I always have ideas bouncing back and fourth in my head, trying to think of one which was both plausible, engaging and possible was difficult, I eventually decided to just take into account two things, one, what do I have at my disposal? such as a location or my props, actors or just anything I had; and two, what did I want to learn? one thing that came with me being demotivated was a feeling that I wasn't learning anything, or at the very least, anything I actually wanted to learn and so I had boiled it down to these few things.
I wanted to learn a new type of visual effect, we had briefly explored this with the teleportation and portal lessons both of which I genuinely enjoyed learning and I eventually decided on wanting to make a gunshot effect, I originally planned to teach myself how to do this through Adobe Aftereffects but this ate up way too much of my time, I did however find a way to make one in Adobe Premiere using the "lighting effects" effect, another student in my class even asked me to teach him this technique for his film which gave me confidence in it's effectiveness.
I then needed a way to work this into an actual film, I thought of where I could film this and remembered my dad's shop had both a large metal security door and security cameras which lead me to the crime genre. But I didn't just want to make a super serious crime film, I thought about how I could make it funny was recommended to watch "Snatch" and "Lock stock and two barrels" both films by Guy Ritchie, while now considered older films, they both share a common identity of being crime comedies.
Attempting comedy was risky, if no one found it funny then my film would just be an awkward failure but this made it fun for me, I wanted to experiment with the humour that Guy Ritchie and other directors like Edgar Wright were able to achieve and in the end it actually worked? most of my feedback was on how funny it was to those who watched it. Even with the speaker issues that rendered certain dialogues silent in my film during screening day people found it funny which in itself makes this film a success to me.
I even had a close family friend say it reminded them of "Lockstock and two smoking barrels" which really made me happy.
I struggled at first, while I always have ideas bouncing back and fourth in my head, trying to think of one which was both plausible, engaging and possible was difficult, I eventually decided to just take into account two things, one, what do I have at my disposal? such as a location or my props, actors or just anything I had; and two, what did I want to learn? one thing that came with me being demotivated was a feeling that I wasn't learning anything, or at the very least, anything I actually wanted to learn and so I had boiled it down to these few things.
I wanted to learn a new type of visual effect, we had briefly explored this with the teleportation and portal lessons both of which I genuinely enjoyed learning and I eventually decided on wanting to make a gunshot effect, I originally planned to teach myself how to do this through Adobe Aftereffects but this ate up way too much of my time, I did however find a way to make one in Adobe Premiere using the "lighting effects" effect, another student in my class even asked me to teach him this technique for his film which gave me confidence in it's effectiveness.
I then needed a way to work this into an actual film, I thought of where I could film this and remembered my dad's shop had both a large metal security door and security cameras which lead me to the crime genre. But I didn't just want to make a super serious crime film, I thought about how I could make it funny was recommended to watch "Snatch" and "Lock stock and two barrels" both films by Guy Ritchie, while now considered older films, they both share a common identity of being crime comedies.
Attempting comedy was risky, if no one found it funny then my film would just be an awkward failure but this made it fun for me, I wanted to experiment with the humour that Guy Ritchie and other directors like Edgar Wright were able to achieve and in the end it actually worked? most of my feedback was on how funny it was to those who watched it. Even with the speaker issues that rendered certain dialogues silent in my film during screening day people found it funny which in itself makes this film a success to me.
I even had a close family friend say it reminded them of "Lockstock and two smoking barrels" which really made me happy.
So overall this has been my favourite project so far, I genuinely enjoyed almost every minute of making this and actually felt motivated to work for once, I even feel I achieved more than what I had set out to do, originally I just wanted to try smash and match cuts, eye shots and making my own gunshot effect but in the end I did more audio work than I've ever done, tried implementing more handheld shots and moving shots, and did all of this with almost no help from other students in my class having only borrowed one prop from a friend, my location and actors were all sourced through my own means.
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However, there are still some issues I had with this project, for starters I did have to change the second half/ending to my film due to both time restraints and just not liking my original ending, this however didn't affect me much as I liked the changes I made better than the original. secondly there are three distinct visual issues with my film, one costume inconsistency with me suddenly wearing a beanie before it disappears in the next shot, me not being able to add a second gunshot in the security camera shot as the amount of VFX were stressing out my computer and lastly the mirrors, god the mirrors drove me mad and were a massive oversight with my location recce, the second room in the store had one large mirror on the right wall and two small ones on the door which resulted in seeing some of the cast in reflections when they aren't supposed to be there.
If I had the time and means I would have tried to fix these but in the end I just had to accept that they existed and finish the project, I will keep this in mind for the future.
In regards to my website, I have had issues in the past with keeping up at updating my website and this time around I really tried to keep on top of it as best as I could and I do think compared to my previous projects I've done better, I do need to improve but I am getting there.
If I had the time and means I would have tried to fix these but in the end I just had to accept that they existed and finish the project, I will keep this in mind for the future.
In regards to my website, I have had issues in the past with keeping up at updating my website and this time around I really tried to keep on top of it as best as I could and I do think compared to my previous projects I've done better, I do need to improve but I am getting there.