Initial Response to the Module
When I first heard about the module I was to be honest quite skeptical about the Research Experiment Development assignment, as initially I thought that this was going to be just a case of rinse and repeat from last years Experiment assignment, so going along those lines, my first idea was to concentrate on directing and writing dialogue and script because this is what I had originally singled out in my year overview of areas that I really wanted to improve upon. I thought of again using my experiments from last years module and applying them to this RED project and filming a scene from a script that I’ve had in the works for a couple of years now that is really still in it’s skeleton form of a treatment.
After a couple of weeks of mulling over the module and my idea, I thought that I shouldn’t take this approach as I would be spreading my time and skills too thinly over numerous different roles (writer, director, art director, DOP). I had already joined up with Rob Cooper, Damian Suparasiri and Ross Carter to shoot a music video for a local band and had put myself forward as being the D.O.P for the shoot; and after seeing Joe Tippett’s work during his Lighting Workshop exercise and hearing him talk briefly about his script idea in class, I really wanted to challenge myself to take on another project with the same job role.
The challenge for me was not only to learn the role thoroughly and act as professional as possible as D.O.P/Cinematographer; but both projects gave me different working conditions; with the music video I would have to work closely with Lighting as we were going to be shooting in a studio environment and for the short film I was being challenged to create a post apocalyptic world look in camera and as the film was going to be shot solely outdoors I was going to be restricted to working with natural light only. Also with the music video I was tasked with creating a specific visual look from the director whereas on the short film I was being given more creative freedom to create the visual style of the film not only in camera but during the colour correction in post production.
My main influences for this RED project were geared more towards the short film project as I’ve always been quite keen on post apocalyptic world films and the films that really sprang to mind from a visual standpoint were the likes of The Road (2009, dir John Hillcoat), Children of Men (2006, dir Alfonso Cuaron) and the made for TV film Threads (1984, dir Mick Jackson); each film having their own distinctive cinematic style that for different reasons had a huge visual impact and something that I would really like to not just simply recreate, but try and amalgamate the strong points of each into one visual style.
I had hoped and expected to gain more knowledge of the role of D.O.P/Cinematographer and really hoped that I would gain great confidence from this project as I was taking on two separate projects within this role in a hope to build my confidence on set and begin to hone my communication skills to a professional level. I was also hoping to learn more about how to create different picture styles in camera and with colour correction in Final Cut.
The Process of my Research
The main focus of my early research was to read books from the library on general key points and skills required and expected from a D.O.P/Cinematographer. This was brought about after our Lighting Workshop when it became apparent that on set the communication between myself and others seemed rather distant and we ended up doing little bits of everything rather than sticking to our role; this made me realize that I wasn’t really 100% aware of what the full responsibilities of the role were and what would be expected from me in the professional world as a Cinematographer.
From reading some basic books that listed all the responsibilities and what is required from someone in this role; I made a point of noting down those that I wasn’t really aware of down in bullet points to read over a few times so that I knew exactly what I should be doing throughout the whole process of a production (inc. pre-production and post-production).
I then moved onto more specific books that talked about composition and all the key elements that go into framing and shooting scenes within film; the book that I really found to be of greatest use was Cinematic Storytelling by Jennifer Van Sijll because from reading this and applying what I had learnt from that onto the script of the short film that I was working on, I was able to break down each shot in my mind, and how it should look and the methods that best suit each scene thematically.
A big turning point in my research was discovering the video tutorial of Dynamic Picture Styles on Vimeo that was pointed out to me by Joe Tippett; before watching this I was really struggling to understand how I was going to approach the actual filming of 'After Arcadia' and how to best create in camera a visual style of my own. After watching the tutorial, I checked out numerous other unique pictures styles online and was considering what was best for this project, but I decided that really considering this as a module I needed to challenge myself as much as possible and decided that I should create my own User Preference set ups in camera myself.
As for my research aimed towards the music video, because it was just a case of getting the visual style that a director had in his mind, I really just needed to familiarize myself with those videos that Damian was influenced by and look at how they were achieved. Also much of the reading material that I started my research on applied to both projects.
Conclusions from my RED module
I feel that my research task was very robust and the decision to take on 2 projects really helped me get the most out of this module, which I deem to have been a massive success and despite my early fears of this just being a repeated pointless module from last year, this might well have been my favourite and if not most productive module I’ve completed since joining the Film Arts course at PCA. I could make the argument that my research could have been more refined to concentrate on an area within the role as D.O.P/Cinematographer, and that for me would definitely be looking at creating your own unique visual style that is not only personal to me as an artist, but one that also makes you stand out as instantly recognizable. That being said because of my lack of experience working as a D.O.P/Cinematographer I feel that my initial research task was best suited for me to grow and learn as an individual
I feel that my approach to my research was pretty much the best way for me to get the most out of the RED module; starting from reading the books and understanding the role and all the theory that goes with the technical and creative skills within Cinematography and then looking at the visuals and videos like tutorials was very effective, because it was worded towards building my own character and knowledge into the role of D.O.P/Cinematographer. The process in which I research was certainly the strongest aspect of my approach to the research itself, yet the real stand out weakest was that I really could have spent more time researching the technical side of creating User Preferences in camera and different dynamic picture styles, also I really would have liked to have found the time to research the cinematographers from the films that have influenced me for 'After Arcadia' and go back and learn what it was and who really inspired and influenced them.
I’ve learned a substantial amount about being a D.O.P/Cinematographer from this RED module, and I’ve pretty much got everything out of this module that I had originally hoped for from the beginning of the module. I’ve tackled numerous challenges along the way and though I’ve been met with some stumbling blocks I believe I’ve been able to successfully find the right way around them. I feel that this module and my RED projects will be of great importance to building myself up as a more accomplished filmmaker and though I still feel that I really want to go more down the directing route of film making this project has allowed me to explore the world of cinematography, which has always really intrigued me and now I feel I’ve got a more appreciated attitude towards those working in the role.
Finally I’m really happy with the finished pieces of film that I’ve worked on for this project; I’m really impressed by the final version of the music video I worked on as I feel that it really does have a professional feel and look to it, and though the footage for 'After Arcadia' might not have been able to convey the post apocalyptic world in the end, I did really like the style of which it was shot and how after the colour correction the life seemed to be drained out of the film, much like the life is drained from the earth in a post apocalyptic world.
I hope to apply my research towards the next upcoming projects for the rest of the year, and will hopefully look back at my online blog in the future after I’ve left the college and try and develop this approach further in future film projects and hopefully the production crew that we’ve put together for the music video will be able to take off and find more work in the near future.
First I decided to heavily reduce the saturation and then started tweaking with levels on the Blacks, Mids and Whites until I found the right stylistic image I had in my mind.
I finally found that with the saturation reduced by just over 50% and slighting reducing the Blacks & Whites levels and ever so slightly increasing the Mids just a tad I found the style that I was looking for and one that I was really happy with.
This was a very good starting point and thought that it might be a good idea to copy this colour correction setting and paste it onto the rest of the scenes in the time line, and for the most part this worked very well and each scene fitted together really well and only needed very slight adjustments to match up with the montage shot that I originally colour corrected.
Though there were some scenes that needed more adjustments to match up with the rest of the footage; example – the establishing shot
This scene in particular, actually needed slight increase on the saturation, with the Mids staying the same from the raw footage and the blacks and the Whites levels needed to be adjusted to fit in with the rest of the footage.
I really have a positive reaction to the colour correction process and am really happy with how the footage looks now, I think that this one scene below really shows how from what the raw footage that was captured to the colour corrected image has changed; I think that the raw image itself shows that some of the life has been drained from the image, but then I've exploited this effect even further with the colour correction adjustments in post. I feel that you have that feeling of life being drained away with that gritty dull beige/light brown colour palette prominent in the scene.
After Colour Correction
During these last two days in the edit suite, both me and Joe have been on board throughout the whole process, actually having the director in the room whilst correcting the colour turned out to be very helpful as it was always a second pair of eyes looking at how the footage linked up together in terms of light levels and making sure that the colour correction all matched up. After the edit and colour correction was finished we got some feedback from some peers; Rob Cooper actually mentioned what we already had thought in our minds, which was the footage really just looked like a homeless man walking around. Before we exported the footage we got Bob in to give us a second opinion of the final article and taking into account all the troubles we encounter we as a group felt that the test footage was a success.
Though me haven’t manage to create a believable post apocalyptic world I think that the final edit of the test for the opening scene and montage sequence does actually look really good from a cinematic point of view and feel confident that when this film goes into production in the near future we as a group can realistically create that post apocalyptic world.
Before we started the shoot, I said that whilst the establishing shoot was being set up I would create 3 different User Preferences in camera; which only took about 15 minutes for me to create 3 contrasting set-ups, once I had finalised the 3 set ups I showed each of them to Joe and together we agreed on the User Preference that best captures the vision of the style for the film.
User 1: Picture Style Neutral, Sharpness 3, Contrast -4, Saturation +4, Colour Tone -4
I thought that by doing this it might be useful for when the film went into post-production, but though the idea of having the Saturation and Colour Tone settings this way, in theory might work, I really didn’t like how the image was looking in camera, it just looked too full of life.
User 2: Picture Style Neutral, Sharpness 3, Contrast -2, Saturation -2, Colour Tone +4.
I really liked the visual style of this set up; the contrast was only slightly reduced down and the life seems to be drained from the colours with the saturation and colour tone settings.
User 3: Picture Style Standard, Sharpness 2, Contrast -3, Saturation +2, Colour Tone -2
I actually quite liked this set up as well; despite the image in camera still having vibrant colours, I thought that this could be reduced in post-production with colour correction.
I showed all 3 of these set ups to Joe and we both decided that User 2 was definitely the best option as the image in camera was really close to the what we had imagined before the shoot. Though after a brief talk we had agreed that we probably weren’t going to be able to achieve the post apocalyptic world look, as the location didn’t give us much to work with and the costume that we had for the actor didn’t look anywhere near dirty enough, included the actor himself.
We started the shoot by working along side the shooting schedule that I had compiled earlier in the week, whilst using Bob’s illustrated storyboards as a great visual reference point. Unfortunately straight away we experienced technical problems on set with the recording of sound; the Marantz that we booked out was faulty (Phone Jack and Battery Compartment) so we had to make do with the on board sound from the Canon 550D.
The shoot itself went really well and between each shot I kept good communication between myself and Joe on how each shot was going to be set up and framed and also how each shot looked after each take and whether or not I felt that it was a success or not. We had known beforehand that the chance of rain was pretty high and right on cue after shooting a key scene of our character eating a woodlouse, heavens opening and the rain came pouring down, luckily we had brought a tent to keep the equipment in and had a large umbrella to keep the camera and lenses dry; we knew that this would cause a big continuity error with regards to the weather, but because this was our only available shoot day we decided to carry on regardless.
The umbrella became a big help to me on set as there was always someone there on set to hold the umbrella over me as I set up each shot in the dry without having to worry about getting too much water on my camera and the lens itself.
After we had completed the filming of the opening scene we decided to go ahead with my idea of shooting a montage scene; this gave me a Bob a great opportunity to have a much more creative input to the shoot day, we had already scouted out some really promising areas that we could exploit to convey an atmosphere that reflected the story as a whole. One area in specific was this small and dirty pond like area that look like something out of post apocalyptic world. We also noticed on our way into the quarry that there was an old abandoned building that had seen better days, and we thought that it would be a great place to shoot our closing shot for the montage with our character finding a baby’s toy (which Bob had brought along with him to the shoot) in this building. In fact it turned out that both these shots were something that had already been included within Bob’s storyboards where the character was collecting water and finding a toy.
Being on set as the D.O.P and the Camera Operator, I decided that it was essential to keep my own shot list throughout the day, and it proved to be very helpful as I was able to keep track of what we had shot in regards to the original plan in the shooting schedule and also will be a massive help for when we get the footage into post-production tomorrow in the edit suite as I’ve got each shot listed with all the technical settings and more importantly which shots were successful; this should save us a huge amount of time in the edit.
Though I don’t believe that during our test shoot we have be able to capture a believable post apocalyptic world, I do feel that the visual style that I made in the camera really does suit the genre of the piece, as the footage itself looks like the colour has had the life drained out of it, just like the world in the story has been drained of life. And I hope to amplify these feeling with colour correction in the post-production of the film, which we beginning the edit tomorrow.
Crew to meet outside of the college for 10am
Catch the bus out to The Broadway for 10.30am
Get to the filming location for 11am
Ready to start filming by 11.30am
Finish filming by 5pm
These really allowed us to make sure that we captured all the different shots required for the video with the least amount of performances that the band had to provide in front of camera and also allowed us to be a bit more creative with certain cutaway shots. One nicely composed shot I really liked on set was a cutaway of the drummer playing his kick drum from a very low angle.
This I thought might really work well in the final edit of the film as the music track itself seemed to have an heavy emphasis on the drum and the kick drum in particular.
I had decided to shoot the footage in colour, because I thought that filming in the monochrome setting on the Canon 550D probably wouldn't allow as much creative freedom with colour correction in post. Though I did at times put the camera in monochrome setting as a reference point to see how the lighting set up was looking on camera, the setting up of the lighting for each shot was achieve really quickly as Rob had brought his Lighting Plan to the shoot and there were pretty much spot on in terms of position. Any minor tweaks that we’re made was by me talking to Rob on set and showing him what I thought needed to be changed in order to get the creative vision that Damian had wanted for the video.
We stayed on schedule for the shoot, despite having some complaints from the noise coming from the drums (guess that was to be expected), we probably in hindsight should have given prior warning to the ERC that we would be filming a band and that the noise levels would probably be very high for periods of our shoot; a bonus of the shoot was the decision to shoot digital, as we not only had the Canon 5D MKII from the stores, but we all brought our own cameras to the shoot, which allowed all of us to chip in with the camera work, for alternative shots with the idea that they could be used as nice cutaways in the final edit, Overall a highly successful day of shooting and I’m really looking forward to seeing the finished article in black & white.
Today I picked up all the equipment that I booked from the ERC from last week. I also borrowed some equipment from Rob Cooper that we needed for the shoot in a couple of days.
Equipment List
Canon 550D
18mm Zeiss Lens
28mm Zeiss Lens
50mm Zeiss Lens
Monfrotto Tripod
DSLR Rig
Marantz
ME67 (mic)
Small Sunbouncer
Large Reflector
Tent (keep equipment dry)
Large Umbrella (might provide useful on set if it rains heavly)
In summary, good composition is the best arrangement of the subject matter in sympathy with the function of the shot. It should have simplicity and intensity and achieve its objective with clarity, precision and economy. (Ward, 2002:7)
This I believe applies really well to one of the shots that we plan to shoot; where a simple shot of our character is the centre piece of the composition of the shot, but he’s talking to something just out of shot implying an importance to whatever it is just out of shot whilst concentrating on his character that is in the shot. Hopefully this composition will make the audience sympathize more with our character whilst still being aware that something just out of shot will play a huge importance to our characters situation and feelings.
Colour not only has a profound influence on composition, in many forms of image making, it is the subject of the composition. (Ward, 2002:84)
I feel that if I can get the right stylistic look for this film within my own personal camera settings during the filming of the footage for ‘After Arcadia’ then I believe the visual style and the colour palette of the film itself will create this environment that will have it’s very own atmosphere and give the film some substance through the visuals alone; I hope to find the balance of style and realism that will leave an imprint of the films cinematography in the minds of the audience.
With the prospect of our shoot day being rather cloudy it reminded me of a quote from cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (Deliverance) from the book More Contemporary Cinematographers on Their Art by Pauline B. Rogers. Which I had been reading because of the connection with director John Boorman who Joe has listed as one of his main influences from his 1968 film Hell in the Pacific. And from a cinematographers standpoint I thought that Deliverance (1972, dir. John Boorman) was an interesting piece because of it’s cinematography within a natural environment.
“We were very lucky with the weather” he adds. “The sky was cloudy most of the time.” For Zsigmond, this was the simplest way to shoot the picture. He didn’t have to wait for the sun and the lighting matched all day. (
Looking at the forecast for our shoot day it is due to be very cloudy and a strong possibility that we might have 100% cloud cover, which would be great for matching up the lighting, though I’ve still got a Sunbouncer and a large reflector booked out for the shoot day just in case the forecast is wrong. This quote really stuck with me because even though you expect professional cinematographers to be meticulous with their attention to detail in regards to lighting especially it seems that even the professionals get lucky in regards to lighting and weather when shooting outdoors and can concentrate more on all the shots they need.
After the group discussion when everyone seemed to be really keen on the idea of shooting a montage scene I also remember a couple of quotes from two books I’d been researching this week, the first is the same book as mentioned above and on the same page as the previous quote.
“The challenge was how to make the trip down the river exciting,” Zsigmond says. “We shot different tests on the river, like shooting from boat to boat. We also tried different angles, different camera moves. (
This made me think that I myself should walk around the area once on location to find interesting and believable areas where I can portray our character traveling across land in the montage for the film; though because of our time constraints this might have to just be done by framing scenes just in the camera without our actor playing out each scene as we have an already very tight shooting schedule and too long spent on this will see our light source soon fading fast. I will look to envisage the montage shots as we walk through the shooting location and whilst I’m setting up the user preferences in the camera before shooting commences.
The other quote that came to mind after our group meeting was from the book Cinematography: Theory & Practice by Blain Brown. I had been reading this early in the week as it looked like it might be a good source of information for those looking to develop themselves as upcoming Cinematographers.
Montage is generally only useful for short sequence in narrative storytelling. It can be useful informational work such as documentaries or industrials but most often just for short sequences to establish a mood or give an overall impression of a process or situation. (Brown, 2002:27)
This I thought was a very interesting quote and one that was key in my decision in looking to create a montage scene on our shoot day as looking to establish our character and his setting and situation is actually really key to the overall aspect of the short film project as a whole. And the reference that montages are prominent in documentaries just adds to my overall vision of the film as my idea initially was to have this film have a realistic feel to it and hopefully the inclusion of a montage would subconsciously have that effect on the viewers mind, that the film would seem more believable and feel very realistic.
There was another quote from earlier in the same book that made me think about a certain shot in the opening scene of ‘After Arcadia’ the quote is in reference to Hitchcock’s Rule, that was actually brought up in a recent morning session with Andy James after the screen of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film Rope.
The size of an object in the frame should equal its importance in the story at the moment. (Brown, 2002:25)
This made me really think about one of our scheduled scenes for the shoot day when our character is speaking directly into a mirror; as the mirror is actually a really important object and matter in the film, we could try and apply this rule to our film and have a very close up of the mirror as our character is speaking to it as at this point the mirror is extremely important to the film; and also I have an idea for the montage, so that at the end of the montage our character can find an object that signals previous human existence which again is a massive part of the idea behind ‘After Arcadia’.
Today’s meeting was about the logistics of the upcoming shoot day; we decided that filming at the clay quarry in Plymstock would be the best for our project and Alex Littleboy has agreed to show us the way on our shoot day. We looked at the weather forecast which was due to be cloudy with a high chance of rain later in the afternoon. I also brought up the idea of a montage that I had from last night after watching Alex’s film The Blackouts; the rest of the group seemed very keen on the idea of this and we as a group decided that we would try and fit it into our shooting schedule directly after the shooting of opening scene was complete.
I had a telephone conversation with Joe who told me the bad news that Andy Hardwick had to pull out of the shoot as our transport as he has a job interview on the shooting day, but Joe did mention that he has spoken to Alex Littleboy about where he shot the final scene for his FMP last year; it turns out that it’s an abandoned clay quarry somewhere out in Plymstock and is accessible via a bus route.
We also discussed about what we are actually going to be handing in for the RED project and we as a whole crew have decided that it is best that we will only shoot one scene for the purpose of the module. We feel that we will be able to focus all our efforts on a more concentrated approach to maximize our developments within our dedicated roles and areas of research. We have decided that the first scene in the script is the best course of action to shoot as it gives the strongest insight to the films character and would be most useful for everyone involved in the project; including our actor.
After my telephone conversation with Joe I decided that I would re-watch Alex Littleboy’s FMP from last year; The Blackouts:
From watching this film again, the scenery in shots at the clay quarry really struck me as having great potential for filming a montage scene; I will bring this up in our next group meeting which is scheduled for tomorrow.
For my RED project I aim to challenge myself in the role as Director of Photography/Cinematographer; this is a role that I've yet to undertake. For the module I will be taking on two separate projects that will challenge me in different ways within the same job role.
My first project is working on a music video for local band ‘Cheating Jack Ketch’; I will be working with Damian Suparasiri (Director/Editor), Robert Cooper (Lighting) and Ross Carter (Camera) on this project. For me this challenge will be to try and create the visual style that director Damian specifically wants; this will mean filming in colour so that when Damian goes into the edit he is able to get the high contrasts that he is looking for the final piece. This will be me working on a visual style that I’m being told to create with little freedom and working with Lighting (Rob) in a studio environment.
The second project is working collaboratively with Joe Tippett (Director) and Bob Brice (Art Director) on a short film called ‘After Arcadia’. Part of the challenge that I’ve got to overcome is working closely with Joe and Bob to creating a vision of a post apocalyptic world on camera. As the film will be solely shot outdoors, I’ve restricted myself to only working with natural light to try and achieve the best visual outcome in camera so when the film goes into post production, it will be easier and more productive to apply colour correction to the footage. This is also going to be part of my role to take on the role of colour correction in post production.
I hope to gain a wide range of different experiences of working in the role of D.O.P/Cinematographer and looking to experiment with camera set ups and colour correction and also see the difference of working to create a Director’s specific predetermined style and also have the freedom to create my own vision of someone else’s film.
As a group we discussed the plan of action and fed back our responses to the test footage. We all agreed that we thought that the footage was looking quite promising for the final piece which is due to be shot next week. Me and Damian worked on a finalized shot list for the shoot day based off is rough storyboards and the test footage itself; we were then as a group able to work out exactly what each of us was to be doing on the day of the shoot. Rob had also drawn up the lighting plan ready for the shoot day. And Ross mentioned that he thought that his early tests with the Lensbaby look rather promising and thought that they might actually work really well for the final version of the music video.
Personally I am really happy with our test footage and I think that we should really put some heavy emphasis on shadows in the final version of the music video as these shots are very interesting to look at and will work really well I think in breaking up the footage of just seeing a band play out their track for over 5 minutes as I feel just watching a straight performance might become rather tedious, whereas if we can insert some creative use of shadows into the edit it might just break up the repeating vision of band members playing their instruments.
During our test shoot I was able to gain more experience of working with Rob in terms of getting the lighting set up correct; Rob initially set up the lights from his lighting plan and we tested this with some test subjects, and with a little bit of tweaking we were able to find the correct set up we required for our shoot day. The only initial and obvious challenge was to make sure that our camera operator’s shadow was never in shot and especially when using the track and dolly, we found that Rob had to make sure the lights were extended quite high up to avoid this from happening.
I brought along my Lensbaby Composer for Ross to use as well and gave him a quick tutorial on how to use the lens; he was able to play around with different styles and angles during the test shoot to see what the lens was really capable of.
Also this turned out to be a good exercise for me and Damian to communicate on set and plan out our shot list for the shoot day which has been scheduled and booked in for the 14th November.
