The Finished Film

Post-Production: Sound!

Tony (Sound Operator) here.

So I finished up the sound mix the other day and here's a quick post of what went down. Firstly, I read through the script and watched the rough edit to help me compile a list of sounds that would be needed (such as chess pieces being placed, footsteps, and sounds of hitting for the murder scene), then booked out the University dubbing suite in order to record them cleanly. There were a number of technical issues in the dubbing suite, and sadly only half the listed sounds were recorded there, with the other half  recorded in our house. Both our Production Designer and Writer helped out a lot with this part, such as helping me decide on useful items for the sound effects and even creating a lot of the sounds while I recorded them.

Once the recording was done, I met up with our Editor and mixed all the sounds into the edit. This took a good two days, as well as a third day just to polish little bits up after I'd gotten feedback from the rest of the crew. The final mix includes a large variety of post sounds, including sound obtained through the internet, such as a ceiling fan, ticking clock, police siren, birds outside and a caged bird for the inside. Overall there are 19 audio tracks, with some points in the film making use of all 19 for a huge multi-layered sound mix. Almost all of the sounds were altered, such as sound levels increasing/decreasing, the pitch being changed for some sound duplicates so they sounded different, and removal of gain on some speech after the levels had been increased.

In terms of the final product, I feel the sound mix turned out very well. I kept many of the sounds very low with the intention of them being subtle and unnoticeable, such as the variety of sounds for the murder scene (there are at least 5 sounds for each hit, including the poker hitting a cushion, a potato being smashed, and a bone cracking sound effect I found online). These sounds add to the overall feel of the film, and give a real sense that this room is busy and filled with life, even though on the day it was actually very quiet.

That's about it for the sound mix, bye bye!

Post production

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We are officially in post production, theres is a lot to do, both in image and sound.

The film length is to be from 4 to 5 minutes, essentially divided into three different scenes.

The first scene Jane meeting Victor, getting to know Victor. Second Jane playing chess with Victor, she is winning the game, and her life's in danger. The third scene is a flash back, where we se Victor killing her father and back to Jane confronting Victor.

To cut the film, in a smooth transition from one scene to another, i have followed the Edward Dmytryk two basic rue. Rule 1. Never make a cut without a positive reason. Rule 2. When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather then short.

I have followed the first rule throughout the film, but at times i broke the second one. The reason is the whole story unfold in one rom, which mean that we don't go out, to make it visually interesting. i have cut it short rather than long.

The chess game makes the transitioin from one scene to another smooth. The shots are edited based on action cut, which means we cut based on the movement of the actors, when their arm moves, or their body.

I have also made use of Eyeline match, cutting based on where the actor is looking, cut to what he or she sees and then cut back to the actor.

Behind the Scenes: The Wyatt Diversion

Filming The Wyatt Diversion

During our film shoot I had to ensure that we stayed as close to the schedule I had written as possible. On Friday I had scheduled rehearsals and a short scene to film and, although I knew you had to allow a lot of time, even this schedule underestimated those times somewhat. This was good practice for me before our main filming days on Monday and Tuesday when we had a set amount of time at our location.

Monday morning mainly consisted of tracking shots as we only had the dolly for a day. This led to a slow morning setting the big shots up, but once we started on static shots we thundered through the day and even started on some of Tuesday's shots, which was especially beneficial due to the time we lost the next day...

Planning a new schedule without Lewis

Tuesday did not start well, with a message first thing saying our actor for Lewis, the murder victim, was unable to reach the location. I spent the morning coming up with different options available to us, and what parts of the story could be adapted to accommodate these changes. Unfortunately none of my back up actors were available to step in at such short notice, and I spent the majority of the day trying to contact other actors who might have been able to help. In the end we decided that we could make the film work without the having to see Lewis directly in the short flashback scene, and could film some shots of one of our hands moving Lewis' chess pieces in case we felt the need for them in the edit. Our main actors were very understanding of the situation and despite the setback we still managed to get the essential filming done.


All in all we had a successful and enjoyable shoot. Problems occurring on Tuesday were a strong learning curve for me and a big reminder of the stress and pressure people are under on a film shoot. I had a lot of quick thinking to do but am pleased that this problem has not affected the film in too major a way - if another principal actor had pulled out it would have been a different story, but I am glad to have this experience to learn from if I ever face a similar dilemma in the future.

The show must go on.

Disaster!
Unfortunately, we lost an actor yesterday due to car troubles so today was our third, and hopefully final, day of filming on location.
The first day went by, more or less, without any negative incident. Mainly we worked on dolly shots while the equipment was available to us. Though we no longer were going to use the ambitious 270-degree shot that swung around the table we found the dolly very useful for tracking shots. I found it much easier to do this kind of shot than anything too ambitious, though it was a bit of a shame to lose such an adventurous shot. I really enjoyed working with the dolly as the movement was much more diverse than just the use of a slider.

I found it very fun to work with the lovely actors as it made the project feel much more real and lively. I found it very interesting to see what nuances within their acting was actually picked up by the camera.

Back in January we had talked about using a jib shot that would begin focused on the table and the chess set, that would then travel upwards to a mid shot of the characters. We’d also talked about the possibilities of a contra-zoom (though this was impossible with the Panasonic AF101as it is reliant on interchangeable lenses. These shots were not used in favour of more static shots that meant that the filming production process would be easier and faster to allow more time for post-production. Though this was less adventurous I feel the shots we did achieve create a real sense of stillness. It gives you a real sense of the loneliness of Victor’s character, in the eerie tranquility with his mother’s photograph always watching over him.

Yesterday we were sadly without our third actor but we managed! It was a case of using the slider to get some more artistic extraneous shots. The carvings around the fireplace were particularly beautiful when lit so it was nice to capture those on camera though I doubt they’ll get used as they’re not necessarily relevant but it’s always nice to have something just in case.
Though today was a little stressful, having only a half-day. Without Lewis’s character we had to try and find ways around the script in order to keep the project making sense so there were a lot more close ups and non-character oriented shots today which I particularly enjoyed. I really enjoy getting little details on camera and the location was full of great details. Overall I’d say the group overcame problems well and worked hard to get to the goal. Though I hadn’t had much experience with the camera the practice was really useful and I really felt I learnt a lot. It’s been a hard few days but now it’s on to post! 

Lighting The Set

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Once the ceiling lights, were turned off (which were yellowish) the room was pretty dark. THere is one big window on the left side , it gave us good natural light, although it was not enough to light the scenes. The light coming from the window was also not reliable source light, to keep the same constant light, we used the two diva, the less light we got from the sun, the more we increase the light on the diva.

We had one diva , lighting the back of one actor, while also light the other actors face sitting opposite. Lighting the actors only on the left side of their face, while having little shadow on their right, gave the image some depth.

The dedo where used only to light the background, one dedo pointing toward the painting hanging on the wall, the other on the fireplace.

What i wanted to create was a simple natural look, where you don't even notice that we are actually lighting the set. The night scene, we shut the window curtains, placing the dedo and the diva on different angles to get a different atmosphere, because there were no other lights except those coming from ours, we were able to give the impression of the night time.