Our final Production...PENUMBRA...

Penumbra from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

All footage and sound captured and uploaded

OK, so we have finally captured and created everything that we needed to construct our final short film. The editing has been an ongoing process that both myself and Blaine have been very excited and motivated about, whilst watching and editing all the footage making little cuts here having a spark of genius there, it is really exciting to watch our hard work and effort come together as the final product is slowly taking shape.
Yesterday Blaine and I went on a long bike ride into the wilderness with some newly purchased sound recording equipment purchased by the school (A boom). we wanted to re-capture some of the ambient sound made by the birds within the graveyard. This was due to the fact that on the day of filming, maintenance was taking place and this intercepted the sound quality that we wanted and the over all feel and atmosphere we wanted to create of segregation. We decided to film the birds again and it was very good quality and we are happy that we decided to re-capture the sound.
We also used the boom to capture the voice over of the main antagonist, we wanted his voice to be very clear and dominant within the film so we recorded this sound separately to the film and within a quite location to enable the voice over to be raised specifiably to the decibel level that we desire without any ambient sounds also being increased.

We have been editing some of the scenes as we have gone along the course and now we have a large quantity of the film to the standard that we desire. We will try to finish editing the footage today and then we can also add the voiceover and re-captured ambient sounds to have our final short film finished and to a high standard that we want, before we recieve feedback from potential consumers.

Credits

Credits have to be perfect in order to leave the audience thinking that they have just watched a profesinal film. If directors, actors, extras and many other people are not credited within films correctly or forgoten to refence everyone and their envolvement this would give very unprofeshinal feel to the film and would be an insult to anyone that was kind enough to help us in the creation of it.

I decided to create a mock up of some credits that we could potenially use. I say potentially use but the thought never crossed my mind that we would use them because I was trying to create them to look fancy and play around with the effects on sony vegas which is the editing software I have at home.

Half way through I decided I would use them as a DO NOT video in the creation of credits.

I made them look good so they could be used in the creation of other certian products with different requirments. But i also include some mistakes and left out some actors names.

Although I did leave out some names, consumers of the product would be unaware of this (unless it was a very well known main actor) but it is not the consumer that it would seem unprofeshinal to but the actors or technitions ...etc that were forgoten and worked hard aswell as giving their time to create the film.

Below is the video of the credits that we will not be using, because they do not fit the conventions of a steryotypical short film or feature length films credits as well as the mistakes they have within them and absence of actors.

Penumbra credits from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

After creating this video I created a list of everyone that featured within the film that we need to credit as well as a special thanks to Joel for letting us use his soundtrack. These will be the people that are credited within our film:

Starring:
Toby Barrett
George Frost
Eloise Fitt


Supported by:
Martin Palmer
Anne Palmer
Lewis Surridge
Jonny Brown
Victoria Moore
Jamie Reeves
Alex Smith
Conor Murry
Libby O'leary
Daniel knights
Martin Cambell
Jordan Bezants
Lydia Earl
Ben Goulder
Jessica Mills

With special thanks to:
Joel Neilsen
James Wigger

Production photos

During production, I have been taking some photos to create a portfolio of the production process and these are just a small minority of the pictures taken which are a preview of how myself and Blaine work on set and how we go from ideas to film.

This is a make shift dolly that I spontaneously thought of one evening, I combined the wheels of this small trolly with some toy car track to make the ride smooth and the shot smooth when we wanted a pan shot of the protagonist in the final scene.

In the end the dolly didn't work on the track because it kept coming off, but we tried it without the track and it worked well. As it was raining i had brought many umbrellas and we were shooting under one of them because we really needed to capture the last scene. We got some very good shots but we are going to have to re-shoot because the lighting changed very quickly which made many shots impossible to film.

This is just an action shot of Blaine filming the classroom scene, it shows SLR camera that we are using. (Got you Blaine) (It also makes it look like your wearing nail varnish)

This is Blaine explaining the scene to the actors and extras in the classroom, he is explaining the shots we are using and then we had a run-through of the script.

This is a picture to give a sense of the scene, but it also act as a continuity image because whilst filming they had to leave and enter the room many times to acquire many different shots and in order to have great continuity I had to record we everyone was sitting.

Finally this is just a picture of the shot list that Blaine create after we had a brainstorm of ideas for each scene. This was an efficient way to record the shots that we had captured and needed to film but whilst we were getting these shot both myself and Blaine were coming up with new shots which we thought would look good at the time and we got many extra shots on each scene that we were filming.

If you want to view Blaine's post on-set organization it shows all of the different shot lists that we used and how we organized each day of filming.

On set organization Blaine's blog

Throughout the production process on set organization has been key in making sure that every thing runs smoothly to a certain extent that is manageable. Because we cannot control the weather some dates which we planned to shoot or even tried, have had to be prospered or re-shot due to the weather, but umbrellas where always on had because myself and Blaine had a contingency plan for if such circumstances occurred.

Blaine has made sure that all technical equipment was working and charged before each day of shooting as well as the shot lists that we defiantly wanted to get but could then be added to on the day if we thought a specific shot would look good and our creativity took over.

To view Blaine's post on our on set organization follow the link below:

On set organization

Short flashback/dream sequence edit

Throughout our short film the protagonist selflessly takes pain away from others but is then acquires it himself. This is done through the process of him touching someone in pain both emotionally and physically. Myself and Blaine wanted to create a short sequence that could progressively play each time he touched someone in need and took the pain away. We wanted the sequence to be very symbolic and we both were inspired by many of David Lynch films with his weird and wacky symbolic signifiers that are both visual interesting but important to the narrative. We wanted to re-create a very visually stunning piece but very realistic and intriguing creating the effect upon the audience that we desired also adding to the narrative and the symbolism it possesses.

After we filmed the footage i was really excited to get home and play around with the software effects trying to make a sequence that could be useable or at least act as a point which we could both add to in the future editing process.

I wanted to add a sound effect of the protagonist entering and exiting this trance state which is shown within his thoughts through the use of this footage. I tried to recored this on my iphone which was fit for purpose at the time because there was no other sound recording equipment available but now our school has purchased a boom so it will be easier, clearer and better quality once we have recorded the sound on that.

Below is a video of my voice just trying to re-create this existing of a dream like state.

Creating sound effects from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

When i was editing the footage i was playing around with the effects that were available, changing the huge and saturation, changing the colour scheme whilst adding key frames to the footage and overall i think for a first attempt the footage looked awesome and the sound added works well. But for our final product a lot more tweaking will take place with better sound and a lot smoother transition between live footage and this footage adding to the whole effect it has on the audience and will make them ask questions into what the footage is symbolizing.

To view the clip of the short dream sequence/flashback watch the video below:

Short flashback/dream sequence from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

costume and props, subtial but vital parts of of our film

When people hear the word filmmaking, they immediately picture film sets with large complex cameras and do not always take into consideration the smaller things that make up these huge productions.
The importance of costumes is often overlooked, because it is a small factor that everyone takes for granted but the implications can be phenomenal if the costume is wrong in any shape or form. This is also the case for props within film.

Multinational film producers have teams of people to produce and check over any props and costumes that are made and included within the film making sure that the continuity is perfect when actors have breaks and come back to a scene with an extra button done up on their jacket. However we do not have these teams to look out for us so we will do this ourselves but just to give you an idea of the amount of effort and work that goes behind these unseen necessities of films here are some lists below of the people that would be present on set:

-Props Master

The property master, more commonly known as the props master, is in charge of finding and managing all the props that appear in the film. The props master usually has several assistants.

-Props builder

The props builder, or more frequently prop maker, as the name implies, builds the props that are used for the film. Props builders are often technicians skilled in construction, plastics casting, machining, and electronics.

-Armourer or Weapons master

The armourer is a specialized props technician who deals with firearms. In most jurisdictions this requires special training and licenses.

-Costume designer

The costume designer is responsible for all the clothing and costumes worn by all the actors that appear on screen. They are also responsible for designing, planning, and organizing the construction of the garments down to the fabric, colours, and sizes. The costume designer works closely with the director to understand and interpret "character", and counsels with the production designer to achieve an overall tone of the film. In large productions, the costume designer will usually have one or more assistant costume designers.

-Costume supervisor

The costume supervisor works closely with the designer. In addition to helping with the design of the costumes, they manage the wardrobe workspace. They supervise construction or sourcing of garments, hiring and firing of support staff, budget, paperwork, and department logistics. Also called the wardrobe supervisor. This term is used less and less.

-Key costumer

The key costumer is employed on larger productions to manage the set costumers, and to handle the Star's wardrobe needs.

-Costume standby

The Costume standby is present on set at all times. It is his/her responsibility to monitor the quality and continuity of the actors and actresses costumes before and during takes. (S)he will also assist the actors and actresses with dressing.

-Art finisher or Breakdown artist

An Art finisher may be employed during the pre-production setup to "break down" garments. This specialized job includes making new clothing appear dirty, faded and worn. They are also known as breakdown artists.

-Costume Buyer

On large productions a buyer may be employed to source and purchase fabrics and garments. A buyer might also be referred to as a shopper. This distinction is often made when the lead actor in a production has control over their wardrobe, and they may personally hire this person.

-Cutter/fitter

A costume technician who fits or tailors costumes, usually on-set. They can also be called cutters, seamstresses or tailors. Some celebrity actors have favourite cutters, and larger productions may hire several and have them on set at the same time, particularly in period film projects that might have complicated or extremely expensive extras wardrobe.

I would like to say that both myself and Blaine played the role of all of the above minus the weapons adviser, costume designer, costume buyer, and costume fitter. so overall we researched the clothes that our actors had and asked them to wear a specified costume. The main protagonist was the most important to get the look and representation of him correct. We wanted the audience to be curious why a well dressed man is laying, asleep in a graveyard clueless to how he got there. This uncertainty within the audience is what the main protagonist is experiencing and this empathy is what will engage the audience with the film and make them want to keep watching.

We told him to dress in smart casual so: Jeans, he had some converse shoes, a shirt which can be seen within the scene under a black smart coat. We also wanted him to have a bag which was a contrast to his jacket and jeans. Overall he looks very good and within the scene that we have filmed the costume has worked perfectly, every time we have filmed we have asked him to remember what he is wearing due to the fact that the narrative of our film happens all in one day which means we need him to look the same to have good continuity.

The Main props we are using are; a red rose with thorns which the young girl will touch and bleed which leads us to the other main prop, blood. I researched into how to make blood and there where many different ways to do so, I tested lots of different formulas but thought that treacle and food colouring worked the best.

Apart from these main props which we have already bought or made there are no other purchases that need to be made. In terms of costume we need to make sure that the teacher looks like a teacher and the girl is presentable and creates the correct representation of her character, we also need to keep making sure that Toby, our main protagonist keep wearing the same attire to keep continuity in check. Overall we have learnt through many discussions and research how to represent characters through costumes and Mise-en-scene to the extent that we want them to be interpreted by the audience.

Animatic for the first two scenes

The purpose of this animatic is to give the viewer an overall sense of atmosphere and order of the first two scenes and this is created not just by the images but with the detailed analysis and explanation throughout by Blaine Kenneally up selling the film giving a general ordering of the shots, sounds and effects we intend to use.

Short Film Animatic from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

This animatic can not only act as a visual aid for ourselves it can act as a supplement for the active consumer of our film. They will watch this animatic but it could act as a short teaser trailer enticing them to want to find out more and watch the finished product.

Scene one, take one, and action!!

Target audience is a vital variance that any product produced, has to analyse and research in order to then take into account when constructing the product. In our case the short film needs to make sure it fulfills the needs and desires of the target audience in order to make it successful. After analyzing the effects models and coming to the conclusion that our film will attract active consumers under the reception theory of the effect model structure. we will play the part of the Two-step flow theory as we will construct a review of the short film that will explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model but to completely cover this section people will need to analyze and depict the short film and then readers will adopt their interpretations of our short film.

Myself and Blaine met up with Toby Barret (who we chose to take upon the role of the main protagonist) to shoot the first scene of our film as a second installment to our pre-production testing. unlike the images that we took in my post Scene 1 location and potential camera shots
this pre-production test depicts many of the camera angles, shots and sound that we want to include within the first scene of our short film. We have not added the voice over of the protagonist for this test but i came up with the idea that if we add the voice over, then we could select people to watch the first scene and receive consumer feedback to then be analysed which could outline many different types of consumers that we could then categorize under the effects model theory and work out a marketing strategy based upon the results.

This test footage was edited to depict what we want our first scene to look like and the time we will allocate for the first scene within our five minute short film.
To view the edited first scene watch the video below:

Scene one graveyard test from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Like any filming process we filmed around twenty one minutes of footage for a one minute section of our film to then be cut down, but it is better to have to much footage than not enough as re-capturing footage will waste time, money and may not fit within continuity.
Some of the footage was static camera shots trying to capture the ambient sound of birds tweeting as this is will be a prominent sound effect that we will use within our film.

To view the un-edited footage which we uploaded to give evidence of the time, effort and organisation that went into testing feel free to watch the video below:

Scene one footage to be edited from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Pre-poduction location testing

Myself and Blaine did a small 30 second short clip of one of the shots that we want to include within our film. It is just a quick test of the location and sourroundings to see what the noise levels were and natural lighting that was avalible. It was extremal cold so my hands were shaking like mad but we can over come these factors by having professional equipment when the real production is filmed for example a tri-pod, some gloves and a better camera will all be vital equipment we will use when the clapper board snaps for scene one take one of our short film as well as estensive planning on behalf of myself and Blaine and professional acting. (Sorry blaine)

Pre-poduction testing from Tom palmer on Vimeo.

Scene 1 location and potential camera shots

Most writers, film directors and script developers have a preference for one style of writing over another. Some writers are more interested in developing complex, interesting, and quirky characters. Others indulge in eye catching visual effects or heart pumping action.
Myself and Blaine are very interested in very complex narrative based films which are predominantly character driven and this is to a certain extent what our short film will consist of. We have taken inspiration from many films that follow this style. Blaine's posts on sources of inspiration and Directorial techniques to consider as well my posts, Inspiration for our short film, True leaders of film and Three inspirational films from our teacher extensive DVD collection show our interest in this style and how we were inspired by these films and their unique styles.

Our film will strongly focus on the emotional development of the main protagonist and due to this being our main focus we want the cinematography to be very minimalistic, giving off a great sense of realism but also to accentuate that the main protagonist is just a real man in the real world, any over elaborate visual effects will digress from this sense of realism as well as the over attention to detail as it would then not portray the real world but an idealised version. This links with the postmodern theorists that we are learning about throughout the A2 course and how they believe the media portray an idealised world to us and this is another post-modern asset that our film includes, we want to portray the real world.
Both Blaine and myself have discussed the visual style of our film in great detail and my fellow director has written a post on cinematography: the look of our film which gives an overview of our discussions as well as some great examples for you to look at.
Above is just a very simple picture of a location which could be used within our first scene, it would be the place were the main protagonist wakes up, the protagonist would be centralised within the shot on the path laying down.

These four shots give you an example of the overall location that we want to use. The graveyard will be the opening location and because it is a very morbid but surreal place it will add to the ambiguity of why the main protagonist is their. The shots above are some examples of some establishing shots we could use before you see the protagonist on the floor, these establishing shots will set the mood of the film as well as providing a picture the audience can paint of the general surroundings that the main protagonist is in. Like myself and Blaine said the shots we used will still be thought about and look great making sure we portray the message that we want they will just not be overly visually stunning due to the realism we want to create.


Another idea that we had was to have a two shot of a couple of graves, one of them being rendered down a little and he other either relatively new with some flowers next to it. This shot will juxtapose the two types of graves showing that one is frequently visited with fresh flowers placed upon it and generally being clean, but this will then be emphasised by the rendered grave or grave with no flowers signifying the difference between them. we want to then use a close up shot of the rendered grave making sure that the name is in focus and centralised within the shot, this will mean nothing at the time but it will be referenced later within the film.
We also played around with the shadows around the graveyard which made the visual look of the shot very aesthetically pleasing, this part of the location could be used for the protagonist to walk through, he would also create a shadow and with the glare from the sun there would be minimal detail on him so he would look basically like a shadow. we wanted to uses this part of the grave yard because it has no path and this would be a great place to bring in the theory of semiotics that Blaine was deconstructing for one of our ancillary products. We want the protagonist to walk on the grass but respectfully not walk at the heads of the grave stones where many people would create a visual outline of where the body is. This would show and act as a sign of respect and would correspond to the protagonists selflessness nature. This would be a very simple way to incorporate semiotics within our short film but it would show that we are thinking about the production of our film in great detail.
This is a picture of the road just outside the graveyard. We managed to create a very good image on camera incorporating the light of the sun that beams down onto the road where the protagonist will walk. The darkness at the side will emphasise the beam of light that the protagonist appears to be walking towards. the outline of the protagonist will only be visible as he walks down the road to end the first scene. When taking this picture I thought about our underlying style that we wanted to include, film noir, which will also be portrayed within the flashbacks of the protagonist. This then meant that we had to think about the chiaroscuro within some shots to conform with the conventions of film noir.

Within this picture I was trying to re-create the glare from the sun that blinds you if you look towards it, so I faced the camera towards the sun just over the trees to reconstructed the visual image of the protagonist opening his eyes to be blinded by the sun. This did work to a certain extent but the image is not bright enough to re-create the effect on screen but I think we will have to create some artificial light to help create this effect on camera or we could add an effect on within the post production process.


Whilst we were walking around we came across an archway of trees which created a very mysterious walkway which we could try and use within our film. I thought about this later on in the day and I realised that if we did use this archway then it wouldn't be conforming to the minimalism that we want the cinematography to portray.

Over all after taking these location shots it has boosted my confidence within our chosen choice of location, first of all because we acquired permission to film within the graveyard. But whilst looking around and taking pictures I began to create the movie within my head, planning out every shot and detail that we would include and it all started to piece together.

Our choice to use the graveyard for our first scene I think will create the first enigma within the audiences mind. 'well why is this man here, on the floor?' I think it will give the correct ambience that we are looking for, which is to have a familiar location that the audience can relate to because this will add to the realism but they will have no idea why the man has woken up their and due to the overall mysterious and spooky feel that a graveyard includes it will add to the ambiguity of the whole film and can create many questions that the audience are left with still un-answered which corresponds to the postmodern active consumer that our film is aimed at.

These images are just locations shots and do not convery any of the camera shots and angles that we want to use within our film. This will be done within our pre-production testing with the main protaganist within the film and this will be filmed , uploded and analysed shortly afterwards.

Follow the link below to view this post:

Pre-production testing scene one, graveyard.

All Hail Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer is amongst the most respected composers within the film industry and as a composer in general, the German composer and music producer is most notable for integrating electronic music sounds with traditional orchestral arrangements.

A turning point in Zimmer's career occurred with the 1988 film Rain Man. Hollywood director Barry Levinson was looking for someone to produce some exciting soundtracks, and his wife heard the soundtrack CD of the anti-Apartheid drama A World Apart, for which Zimmer had composed the music. Levinson was impressed by Zimmer's work, and hired him to score Rain Man. Following from this, in nearly three decades he has composed music for over 100 films many of them exceptional films such as The Lion King, Crimson Tide, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down,The Last Samurai, Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Da Vinci Code, Frost/Nixon, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes and Inception. Many have won multiple awards each.

He, himself has won four Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Classical BRIT Award, and an Academy Award. He was also ranked 72nd in the top 100 living geniuses which was a poll collaborated by The Daily Telegraph.

Not only does Zimmer compose for films but he composed the opening titles to the world record holding video game, Call of duty: Modern warfare 2. sales reached $301 million dollars in the first 24 hours of release in the UK and U.S alone.

Myself and Blaine are adamant about using a soundtrack that was previously released on a computer game. The main narrative ideas have originated from a computer game and we want our main soundtrack to also be from a computer game. Our reasons for this is that 'we think it will give our short film a very post modern vibe, when people find out that the narrative and soundtrack originated from video games, this will enhance the sudden world wide interest that can be clearly seen above with Call of duty modern warfare taking over $310 million dollars within its first 24 hours of release.' The new instalment to the call of duty franchise: Call of duty Black ops which is set to release on November 9th 2010 is set to break records and this statement was released by one of the worlds biggest video game website. Gamespot UK regarding the progress. “We are ahead of where we were with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 last year, which previously set the industry standard.”

This one video game franchise is part of a much bigger industry and with such interest in just this one game, overall the video game industry must be booming.

Quentin Tarantino is quintessentially known for the soundtracks included within his films, many of his soundtracks pay homage to other films or novels that he has been inspired from. All the soundtracks that are used within his films are available to purchase on Itunes and many websites such as Amazon. The soundtracks he uses are more of a collaboration than original soundtracks which creates his own original style but this style is now associated with Quentin Tarantino and sets him apart from other directors, his quintessential blood and gore with very humorous, but controversial violence in my opinion is provides a great example for Auter theory, which is based around the concept that if a filmmaker has such a unique style which can be instantly recognisable then their artistic voice will transcend genre.

'I don't believe in putting in music as a band aid to get you over some rough parts or bad film making. If it's there it's got to add to it or take it to another level'

This statement from Tarantino himself sums up what soundtracks are all about. This is why we want to include soundtracks within our short film and the main soundtrack that we have chosen will defiantly add to the whole film taking it to another level.

Our Main soundtrack is from a video game called Black Mesa Source: Half life. the soundtrack is titled End credits and we want to use it to end our film, we think that the track will heighten the atmosphere as well as setting the mood that we want the audience to be feeling that will make them thoroughly evaluate the content they have just seen.
Because the soundtrack does not belong to me I sent an email to the original composer, joelnielsen asking permission to incorporate his soundtracks within our film. Generously Joel emailed me back granting permission for me to use his soundtracks within our films. This was very exciting news and I would just like to thank Joel for letting us use his exhilarating soundtracks. If you want to visit his website follow the link : http: http://www.joelnielsen.com/ and if you want to preview the soundtrack we are going to use, then watch or rather listen to the video below:



I have provided evidence below of the email I sent to Joel and the reply from him granting me permission:

Inspiration for our short film

These are the video's that show some very good camera shots which I would like to incorporate into our short film, the first video is from 'Awaydays' its about a two young boys who join a football gange and basically kich the living day lights out of other football gangs the film was just like any other football factory film, a bit repetative but there is a shot right at the end of the film which grabbed my attention i think it is a very artistic shot and with the long periode that the shot stays the same the audience has time to stop and think which i like very much. The shot is between 00:57 - 1:07 eventhough the shot isnt that long the slow motion of it makes it seem longer aswell as this it also has a dramatic effect upon the audience due to the extreame close up of his face bleeding and his pain within. which I really liked when I was watching the film so myself and Blaine would like to put our own artistic twist on the shot and use it within our film.This secound video is an extract from the film 'Funny games' and this film is very unique with its filming style, their are many static shots within the film which regualy exeed 30 secounds but they were all framed shots with no movement, sometimes no-one is in the shot and only background noise can be heard and sometimes the shot stays the same whilst the actors moves around within the same shot. I couldnt get enough of it when you cannot see a convisation but you can hear it especially when their is blood in the shot and they are talking about how they just killed someone. This just gripped me to the screen as i was constantly guessing and trying to hear things that the killers would say but i couldnt turn round and look agt them and in my oppinion this was simulating the kidnapped hostages who cannot move but are always trying to find some information to give them the upper hand. This shot is from 8:29 - 9:15