Reflection

Reflection (Artists Statement):

What worked? I'm really happy with this one as I have stated in previous posts. I think it was quite ambitious as a loop project. I think things went really well and I got a lot of good shots. My favorites are the newspaper scene and the shots down the hallway where all you can see is the silhouette and the shadow from the spotlight. I don't think this is a true 'Noir' film but that part definately is. Everything went really well until the part where I had to get it up on the net and that has been a disaster. It hasn't happened and I have tried both on her and on Youtube.

What could I do better next time?

I think that the sound could have had a bit more attention. I recall Lee Hobba saying that it is in the best interests of an artist to do their own sound for projects. I think that's why I went with my soundtrack rather than Miles Davis. 

In terms of editing I think I could have cut the length of the film a bit. I don't think that the fan sequence was necessary but I really wanted it in there and its a fun shot. I think next time I do something like that it will have to be with about 30 people with a camera on a wire pulling back over head. Some more dramatic lighting too. But for the amount of skill I have I think you would have to agree that its a fun concept. I like the side on shots like the envelope swap as they walk and the part where the mystery man disappears as the main character walks off was a lucky take. Looks really cool because he is supposed to come from the shadows and he disappears into them quite well.

In terms of lighting shooting and editing, its my best work ever. I took time to try and get it close to what I envisaged. With makeup and lighting assistants I recon I could have got that real 'Noir' look. In terms of a 'Noir' film I think I half got it right. If you look at the films that were made in the Noir period they are quite slow, dark and very mysterious. The lighting in those films is so dramatic too. I think mine was a little to light and fast paced at times. The slightly humorous aspects to it don't help either.

All in all I think I came up with a good concept. I planned well and I had some people working with me who made the shooting part of the process very easy. My editing was also quite an easy process and I think the fact that I felt under pressure to get it done really helped there. I do regret that I didn't put a heeled shoe walking noise in there but that is my one major regret. The music could be more complex but I think, as I was told by a fellow student, "It gets the message across. It is very repetitive and it is a loop project .

There are minor details that need to be worked on with my film making but I think as a first year student I made something that people can watch and enjoy. It could have possibly been a bit shorter and I still would have got the message across but I just didn't want to compromise on this one in terms of scenes. I think my choice to put the main character tipping his hat towards camera before the loop tarts again really rounds it off too. It has been a learning experience and I hope I can carry it over to make my future projects even better.

The Crit

There has been a strange phenomenon in E-media Crits this year. I never really get much criticism - good or bad. I would like to think that its because my stuff is so amazing it leaves people speechless but this is definitely not the case. I just find that I have walked away three times with not much feedback. I just managed to present at the end of the crit. Peole might have been a bit worn out but they seemed to like it. I found that the class spent most of the time analysing the way that some shots had a border and some didn't. It was suggested that I leave it for effect because it was mostly on the stair shots that looked good with the vertical border. 

Other suggestions were that I re-edit and tighten it up. I wholeheartedly agreed with that as it was a pretty rough edit and needed some tweaking. The other one was that I put in some walking sounds which I do regret a bit that I was not able to do! 

My hope is that if I continue with E-media I will get a bit more feedback for future projects because I always leave feeling that I haven't really been offered to much substance in what I can change or do differently. They are usually only slight or small changes and suggestions offered up and I feel like E-media has been my weakest subject, so some suggestions on what I can do differently are always most welcome. E-Media has all been very new to me and a bit of guidance is always helpful when you start out on something new. I have enjoyed the experience though. I love making the films and I can only get better with practice. I think this one is a lot better than my 'Ident' in terms of lighting and camera work. I'm pretty proud of what I have achieved with such limited experience in this one!!

Sound

I had wanted to go into the studio with my friend John Salter on drums and me on the bass to create a minimal Jazzy soundtrack. we would have done about five 20 second grabs and then I would have picked the one which worked best with the footage. Unfortunately time ran out and John has exams so I had to make a choice between Miles Davis and Garage Band. I really did want it all to be my thing and despite the slight compromise I was able to make a Jazzy tune which was very repetitive in-keeping with the loop theme. It was a little challenging to try and play the tune on a computer keyboard but I got there in the end.

As suggested in the Crit. I did try to do some footsteps to go with it but syncing them up with the footage didn't work too well. I would have needed to stand infront of the computer and clunk arounf in heels at the appropriate moments. Unfortunately the downfall of this was that I couldn't get a computer near the right type of floor to do this. All the rooms were carpeted.

I think in terms of sound I could have worked a little harder on it but when I showed it to a classmate and asked him about the soundtrack he said "Don't worry about Miles Davis, this gets the message across." So I was happy with that. I still love Kind of Blue as an album though, Good on ya Miles!!

Editing

After some confusion as to how to get the footage both from the studio and off the camera I borrowed for the location shoots, I was ready to edit. I had all my footage and I was proficient enough in Premier Pro to know how to cut it. I had three hours of Critique time in class and I really wanted feedback because my loop was a bit different to most people's, in the sense that it was more of a short film than a moving image. 

Using my storyboard I pretty much cut it to match that. I edited the 29 minutes worth of footage from the camera on the fly as I brought it down onto the computer and had already been able to cut the fat off the studio footage that morning. I worked pretty fast and managed to get a presentable first edit done. I turned it to black and white and it was ready to be shown. It was quite exciting really. It looped well and gave people the gist of what I was trying to achieve.

After the Crit I went back and cut about 30 seconds off the film and tightened it all up a bit. There is a scene where there is a kind of Caberet-style fan of envelopes. The footage was not the best and I made it seem more fluid by leaving a small gap between the part where the envelope is handed over and the part where the fan comes down. The handover is a bit out of focus too so I sped it up to try and make it less noticeable and more fluid with the fanning sequence. It was dissapointing to see something out of focus but I had run out of time for filming so covering it up as best I could was a better option.

Pretty much every scene was shortened to make the film a bit more snappy. There are a couple of scenes where I was going for that Noir feel and I didn't really want to make them too short or fast because it changes my intention too much. A few scenes also got sped up slightly if I thought the footage was good but dragged a bit compared to the scenes either side of it.

On the whole I was really happy with the way it had all come together at this point because everything had gone pretty much to plan. There were no major problems with filming or editing and comment from the crit had also been helpful.

Filming

Filming was quite enjoyable at Uni. It went quite smoothly too. We had to play with the lights a bit but on the whole every scene was quite easy to shoot. I had to coordinate a few choreographed scenes and to the credit of the actors in them they were very quick to pick up on what was required. 

I think the uni studio is great because you have so many lights to choose from and the HDV cameras help too!! The only bad thing about it is that there are a lot of doors and windows to get in the way when your shooting a scene.

The mission was a little harder at EC. I could only get one studio light and as a second light I had to take my desk lamp which was actually used as the only light-source in the scene where the mystery man comes out of the darkness to exchange envelopes.

The camera was a bit harder to operate and we had to shoot scenes many times to get what we wanted. We were constantly re doing camera angles and lighting but we got there in the end.

It took a few hours though for what would become such a small amount of footage. Again I am very thankful for my brother's patience with this one!! He did a great job.

Location Pics

Location pics taken by Dylan for corridor scene shoot.

Pre Production

Once approved as an idea, i started to plan how to pull this off since I had limited experience in film. It was suggested that I use a school for some of the shots and seeing as I was a student at Elizabeth College last year I thought I would have a good chance of using the older corridors in their building to film in. E-media student Dylan Oswin happens to work at Elizabeth College and h not only secured the location but took photos for me to make sure it was appropriate.

I decided to shoot as much as I could at uni and do the corridor and hall scenes at Elizabeth.

I was also fortunate to have my brother come down from Sydney on holiday with nothing to do for three weeks. This was perfect because it is always hard to find people with enough time to be involved in these things. 

I had a lunch with a guy who does a lot of short film projects - Shaun Wilson. I showed him my storyboard and asked for his advice on shooting and lighting. It was quite informative and helpful. Another stroke of luck was that E-media Student Matt Magnus was keen to do ssome shooting on a Sunday. He didn't need the studio for long and agreed to help me if I gave him a hand. I needed one more person and my mate Gatesy is always keen to lend a hand for these types of things. Now I had my actors. I would have to jump in for some of it too. Its always funny to explain to someone why they have to come dressed in a costume. The guys did a really good job. Especially my bro who had to do a lot of different scenes over and over dressed in borrowed clothes that weren't a perfect fit. 

Scene, Cast and Credits

Scenes (In no particular order at this stage):

In/out tray (closeup)

Man walking up and down stairs (head/ foot shots)

Shot of man walking past newspapers opening (wide shot)

Shot of watch being checked (closeup)

Caberet style shot of envelopes fanning or rapidly changing hands

Front on shot of man walking along corridor (dolly)

Shot of man smoking in shadows/ swapping envelopes

Shot of sexy lady exchanging envelope/distraction from mission (closeups)

Shot of man at desk (closeup)

Shot of approaching desk and greeting (establishing shot)

Exchanging envelopes (shot of hands)

Hat tipping (close ups)

Cast:

The Man: Alexander Dick

Newspaper Reading Man/ Envelope Walk-by Exchange Man: Duncan Gates

Middle Newspaper Reading Man: Matthew Magnus:

Mystery Man: Dylan Oswin

White Shoe'd Newspaper Man/Boss Man: Rory Dick

Envelope Fan Hands: Entire Cast

Camera and Lighting:

Rory and Alexander Dick

Musical Score:

Rory Dick

Props:

Rory Dick

Shot on Location at: 

Elizabeth College (Thank you to Dylan Oswin for his help in securing this location)

Studio Shots:

University of Tasmania's School of Art

Technical Assistance:

Shaun Wilson

Written, Directed and Produced by:

Rory Dick

Synopsis

A man walks through an unmarked door. His mission is to deliver and receive important documents that have been placed in his care. What is in these documents no one knows. All we, and the man in charge of their safekeeping know, is they are enclosed in an unmarked envelope. 

He must work his way through the halls and corridors of the "Agency" to ensure that the envelope is passed on safely, to the right person, before he moves on. Once the last envelope reaches it destination he walks through the back of the same unmarked door to begin the loop again.

The ambiguity of what the man is doing and the lack of information about the characters involved will mean that there will be little narrative for the viewer to engage in. There will be an obvious series of event but the focus will be on a wide variety of shots and scenes rather than a story.

The film will be in black and white in the theme of a gangstery, possibly 'Film Noir' type piece. Dramatic contrasts and varied shots will add to the effect.

To further create ambiguity, there will be no dialogue, only a slow, minimal, jazz soundtrack to complement what is being seen on screen. The composition of the music will be quite repetitive to ensure that the viewer feels like they are seeing a continuous loop.

Storyboard

From the first day I learned that out final project on E-media was going to be a loop I wanted to do this. I wanted to make a Noir style film in black and white where a mysterious series of events loops in a circle. It was going to be remenicent of all the films I watched when I was young on John Heind's movie of the week. It would be about gangsters or secret business and it would take place in a 1940's/50's setting.

I was afraid that it might be too literal after seeing some of the examples shown to us by lecturer's. I put the question to Lee Hobba and he said that they really wasn't a limit to what we could do. I was quite excted. This project felt like something I could really get stuck into and after the 'ident' project I was quite comfortable using Premier Pro to edit.

The hard part was that the idea I had formulated was quite involved and it would require actors and multipul locations.

Planning was essential. I knew what I wanted to do but I needed to work through the logistics of the operation to make sure it was successful. I would need to have a good idea of what was going on at all times to make it work. 

As we were entering the last part of the semester we had submissions due for all our classes and I didn't want to waste my time or anyone else's. 

The obvious places to start were storyboard and synopsis. This makes it clear to all involved whats going on.