Final Film

I found myself quite relaxed when it came to this unit and I think thats because I am quite confident in myself and my ideas. When I think of my projects I usually tend to think of it quite visually  and this helps with the look of the film, which I think was really important for ours. Overall I am quite happy with the general aesthetic of the film and I think it works well to get the message across. When I first pitched my idea to the class, I imagined it to be more or less exactly what we created and in some ways I'm really pleased about that. Im happy that I was able to create a piece that I thought of and directed myself and that what was produced is actually good quality but I have found that when it comes to film I am very structured with my approach and this held me back, I feel, from being even more experimental. If I could start again, I would probably try and get more shorts of Yasmin being  affected by the images as I think more footage would have been more interesting to work with. Overall I am happy with what we produced. I think we worked well together as a group and Ive really enjoyed making this film. 

Experimental Film Presentation

Putting the Film Together

As I had the footage on my hard drive, I decided to edit the main footage myself, as we had picked out the shots we liked most and wanted to use. I decided to edit as if the film was in four parts: when the characters is watching the TV, the montages symbolising what she had watched, the effects of the subliminal messages and the aftermath. As we had not yet edited the montages I decided to leave a gap where they would go so I could edit around them. I started with the long shot panning between Yasmin and the television to set the mood and theme of the film, followed by the shots of her watching the TV. Then I left 5 small gaps where the montages would go and around them I put the reaction shots of Yasmin watching the television, which I cut very short so they would blend with the montages. After the montages I added the shots representing the affects of subliminal imagery. I didn't have much of a plan in terms of arrangement but I thought it made sense to start off with the less 'extreme' shots and build up the crazy throughout the film, ending with the mess the character made. 

Next we edited the montages as a group. Together we spent some time looking for archive footage that would be suitable for each of the five themes and we started editing the first montage together. However this process was taking longer than expected so we edited the montages individually, I edited sex and fear, Nicole edited drugs and violence, and Rufaro edited food. To create the montages we used found footage, this was because the footage was meant to symbolise what people watch everyday. We cut the footage up really short as if they were like a bombardment of flashing imagery representing subliminal messages. After we made each of them they were added into the main film.

When it came to colour grading, I used the colour wheel to change the tones in the footage. I added more blue and purple into each of the clips to cancel out the orangey colour and make the walls look whiter. I also turned up the contrast on all of the clips to make the shadows stand out more and enhance the colours. I think this improved the look of film especially the makeup scenes as the black and red makeup now stood out stronger.

After watching the film, we thought that the montages blended into the film to much and it wasn't obvious enough that the montages were what she has seen, or a representation of what she'd seen. So I decided to make them look like they are being watched on an older television, like the one we actually used in the film. To give them a VHS look, I first added lines overplayed on the footage and then added TV grain. The grain was very subtle but adds to the effect.

Original

With lines added

With grain added

Finally I added typography to the film starting with the title and credits. I decided to add the credits to the opening of the film as I felt it worked aesthetically with the longer shots. I think the font I chose worked well with the film as its futuristic look coheres to the theme of watching television and the media. We also added quick flashing text to the montages to recreate the old techniques of subliminal messages. For each of the themes we chose certain words to flash such as: heroin, overdose, drugs are cool, for drugs etc. and we put around ten words in each of the montages. To recreate the classic technique we use Arial Black, a large bold font, in white for each of the words. The idea was very inspired by the artist Barbara Kruger. For the rest of the film we decided to use more of this idea but make it even less noticeable by adding the typography but using the overlay effect so it blends into the film. Lastly I decided to add all the words to the last shot before the aftermath, flashing one after the other.

Film credit

Film title

Subliminal text in montage

Subliminal text in montage 2

Subliminal message in real film

Subliminal message in real film 2

Evaluation and Final Sound

Overall im not completely pleased with my soundscape as I think there is much to improve. I thought, going into the project I knew exactly what I wanted my work to sound like but throughout recording my sound and editing the sound together, I realised that some of the sounds I wanted to use did not work in reality. I think that if I had more time in the sound studio there would be potential for more sounds as I would've had help and other peoples opinions. I tried a few variations of sounds to create different patterns  and I think the one I ended with was the best. I used my body to make most of the sounds, as the individual pictures that make up the piece are of body parts, I mostly used sounds made with hands like the scratching and clapping and mouth like the popping noise. I altered some of the sounds pitch to make it more coherent to the piece. I think the sounds of the hammer and the echoing people, that I recorded on my phone were quite successful and worked to make the sounds tell more of a story. Unfortunately I lowered the volume too much on the echoing sounds of people, as I was worried it would take over the piece while editing, and it is very difficult to hear it. My idea was that the beginning would suggest putting up of the individual pictures. Overtime a new sound is introduced and new picture was put up. Towards the end of the piece you start to hear sounds of the museum and I added this to finish the story and create a realisation of the piece itself being an installation.

Recording Sound

As the session in the sound recording studio did not work out, I realised I would have to take out a recorder if I were to get my sounds ready in time to edit for the deadline. I decided to take out the H4N Zoom Recorder out as it was recommended to us as the best one we could take out from uni. Again I did not have any experience with this equipment so I decided to watch a YouTube tutorial so I could get an idea of how to use the equipment. It turned out that it was very simple to use and managed to record all my sounds quickly and easily. I decided to record the sounds that I could make with my body parts on this device as I already had the sounds for the 'museum' and hammering, that I recorded with my phone while I was at the sport centre. I thought that the echoing sounds from the large halls would work well in sounding like a museum so I quickly recorded the sounds of people as they were leaving. I also got the hammering sound while I was home for the weekend. 

I also decided to rename the sounds so editing the sound would be easier.

Sound Studio

To record the sounds of my project me, Chloe and Nicole booked out the recording studio R23, that we were shown. We had the room booked out for a few hours, so we were hoping we would each have enough time to record all of our sounds for our projects. When we got into the room we were not 100% sure on how to use all of the recording equipment, but we remembered some of our induction and there was manual with information on both the main recording area and the recording booth. We managed to get everything working but struggled to actually record any sound. As Nicole and myself had a tutorial during our scheduled time in the recording studio, we were away from R23 for about an hour with proved to be quite an inconvenience as it meant we had less time to work out what we needed to do. Towards the end of our time in the studio, I worked out our issue. As I have little to no experience with any sound recording equipment, I did not realise that the recording button pressed once was to prep before recording and pressed twice was to actually record the sound. We tried to get help for the situation but James was in a lesson and we was not sure who else to ask. Luckily we worked it out by the end of the session so if we decide to book out the studio again we would be able to get on and setup faster. I wouldn't consider our time in the studio a waste as we managed to work it out on our own so it will be a more memorable experience. 

List of Potential Sounds

To prepare for my time in the sound recording studio I decided to create a short list of sounds off the the top of my head so it wouldn't feel like I going into the recording blind. I think these are the most obvious sounds that can be made with these body parts and would work into my soundscape. I am planning to record a variation of these sounds, ranging in pitch and speed.

Nose:

Heavy breathing, snorting, sniffing nose

Mouth:

Speaking, whistling, smacking lips, teeth chattering, eating, gasping, scream, pop, breathing, laughing, kissing noise, ah 

Body:

Scratching, clicking fingers, clapping hands, rubbing hands together, stomping feet, shuffling feet along floor,