Crit & Evaluation

Today I presented my short film to the class, and got some feedback. Below is my proposed final film.

Crit
The export is exactly 22 seconds long. It contains a 2 second introduction, which is a black screen with the title 'A Messy Situation' fading in, in a scrawl-like, handwriting font, then cutting when the first sound is heard - a phone vibrate. I count the beginning of my film as this point, as that's when the sound starts. From here the film runs to use up the maximum amount of time we were allowed - 20 seconds. 

I was generally feeling very confident about my film, with my only concern being that in some places it may have been cut a bit too quickly. E.g. from 9 seconds to around 12 seconds. There are a lot of shots within such a small amount of time, and things like the throwing of the make up in the book are on and off screen very, very quickly. I presented this concern to the class, and explained that in order for me to portray a sense of narrative I had to trade off the longer, establishing shots in the beginning with a lot sharper, snappier shots throughout. They responded saying that they didn't feel it was cut too quick, understood the narrative and felt it helped to portray a sense of panic.

The class liked my sound effects, particularly the use of the clock ticking and the heavy breathing throughout. Combined with the snappy edits they again felt it put across panic in a successful way.

Another positive comment was my range of shots. I explained how, due to my conclusions when researching, one of my aims was to have good cinematography through use of focus and camera angles, and I was complimented on this. Overall I had very positive feedback, and as a result I'm going to leave my film and submit it as it is. I could probably continue to edit and edit and edit...but that seems to always be the case with editing - you never feel completely finished. 

Evaluation
I am happy with my film. I've created what I set out to achieve, and that is a film that fulfils the brief through having the correct amount of cuts, duration and is dynamic and interesting with successful sound effects. Throughout the process of making my film, I've developed it, and I've done this during both pre-production, production and post-production. When I started I wanted to simply wanted to have "someone tidying a room". I then developed it further, came up with a few shot ideas, settled on a storyline etc. Then whilst filming I realised how I had over complicated things. This forced me to reconsider what I was doing, take a step back and refocus my efforts on creating a balance on an interesting, obvious storyline that was not too complicated. I think I've achieved this. 

As I mentioned above, the editing process turned into a bit of a toss up and a "give and take" between shots that had to be longer (eg. reading the reminder on the phone) and shots that I could afford to trim.

Above I have selected some shots in yellow. You can see that at the beginning and end there are two longer shots. These are shots that I felt I could not compromise on - they had to be a bit longer. The first shot, of the reminder on the phone, had to be long in order to allow ample time for it to be read - if it's not read then it leads to a misunderstanding of the film (e.g. why are they rushing?). The shot itself is only just under 1.5 seconds, but is quite dramatically longer compared to a lot of the other shots, as you can see. I felt I needed to keep the end shot quite long (in comparison) too, and this is because I wanted to avoid having an abrupt ending. I saw an opportunity within my shot of the hoover - where it comes right up to the camera. 

When I saw this, I knew I wanted to create a quick dip to black, which would allow a nice fadeout to my film. This would allow me to end the film how I started it, too, with just sound. This portion of the film (the black screen) took up 3.8 seconds, though, which is a large chunk of time when I only had 20 seconds in the first place. This has again resulted in having to generously trim a lot of shots within my film, some of which I feel have suffered, and some I've had to cut out as it was becoming impossible to feature every piece of action within each shot. 

Despite this give and take between shots, I've managed to include everything I felt was necessary and hit the requirements defined in the brief. If I had more time - even 1 more second! - I would extend those shorter shots I have highlighted above on the timeline. They play very, very quickly and I'm still not sure I like it. The sounds are still present and help the understanding of what's on screen, though.

What has benefited me when editing was my pre-production and how I planned to 'act' on screen. I have not really sped up any of my shots to try and trim time and increase the tempo of the film, instead I have stuck with the way I acted out the shots originally. I tried to be dramatic in my acting through over emphasising things (e.g. pressing a button, forcing shut a drawer) and I feel this has greatly benefited my film. It's made it feel more rushed and forceful, and has added to the sense of panic. This is something I feel has been successful in the creation of my film.

After I had a general edit of my film, I started to source and import sounds. I'd already planned what sort of sounds I wanted, it was just the sourcing of the sounds I found tricky. What didn't help was trying to decide whether I wanted to go the 'comedic' route or just have sounds that were more true to what was on screen. I went with the latter, as I liked a lot of the sounds that I recorded myself when timing. These felt a bit more organic and seemed to work well. If I would improve, I'd try to create a rhythm with the sound. I've seen this done before, e.g. the Lurpak advert, and I like the idea of it. It's very engaging, making someone want to continue watching because it's interesting and amusing. I found it tricky to create an 'environment' out of the sound I used, so I would definitely improve this.

I did use a "room tone" in my film. This is similar to ambient sound. It's the sound of a room when it's left alone, no other sounds/actions happening. The one I used has a very slight hum, but I used it over my entire film. This allowed me to mute clips that had sounds I didn't want in it, and avoid having moments of pure silence - instead, the room tone would be heard.

Overall, I'm impressed with how I have managed this product and I think it has resulted in a successful outcome. I have fulfilled the brief and created something I am proud of, even if there are ways I feel I could improve it. I've managed my time pretty well and come up with an idea that works well.

There are 33 cuts in my film.

Gradual Improvements

When editing and applying sound effects, I've been saving out versions of my film each time, so have several versions of it (each at 20 seconds long). This helps me to show how I've developed it and improved my editing each time, hopefully creating a snappier, 'sharper' version of my film at each export.

Version 1

This version ends quite abruptly, as I was unsure how I was going to edit it. It's snappy, but doesn't actually have enough edits, and the beginning is too long. There's quite a lot of time between each vibrate, and it's resulted in quite an uneven rhythm. Also, there are breaks in the sound effects. It does not feel like there has been too much sound built up, and as a result there's a lack of tension and panic. To improve I needed to add more sounds and more shots, simple. 

Version 2

Here I have added the ending, and added more shots and sounds. Although, you can hear unwanted noise from shots that should really be muted. I felt like the doorbell at the end was too soon, there needed to be more breathing space between the hoover turning off and the doorbell sounding. There's also a difference in the sound of the hoover, as there are two different sound effects playing one after the other, so I needed to source a better version. 

Version 3

In this version I have extended the length of the heartbeat and turned it into one that's continuous and plays throughout, although there are points where it drops out and it can't be heard - this needed to be improved. When I showed this to a friend he also suggested repetitive use of the 'heavy breathing' sound effect, and perhaps shifting it so it's heard quite prominently when the hoover cuts out and fills the time between that and the doorbell sounding. By adding another shot (a drawer being closed) it forced be to trim the existing shots even further, which has resulted in an even snappier edit which is better. 

I'm working on the (hopefully) final version at the moment.

Making Some Tweaks

Once I had (what I considered) a final edit of my film, I started to make some final tweaks. Two of those being doing some colour grading, and "cropping" my film to create a more cinematic look.

Colour Grading
I've had a little bit of experience with colour grading before, but I wouldn't say I am knowledgeable of the skill - there are people who's job is to purely colour grade. What I was aiming for was to sharpen and create deeper contrasts on some of my shots - have "proper" blacks and striking shadows. I played with a few presets that are available, but didn't really like the look of any of them.

Brighten

Contrast

Dew

Fall Sun

I decided to make some manual adjustments. I played with the exposure - the shadows, mid tones and highlights - and the colour levels.

Before correction

After correction

Cropping
In order to adjust any effect in Final Cut Pro X, you must open the 'Inspector'. This is found below the live preview screen (where you can see what you're editing). Once selected, it glows blue and shifts the entire top half of editing windows along to make room for the inspector window.

Once that was open, I expanded the "crop" panel, and started to make adjustments. I knew I wanted to crop the top and the bottom of the frame - to create "black bars" - but I wasn't sure by how many .px I should adjust it. I started to play around, and found that around 100px seemed to work well, so I stuck with that. 

0px, (no crop)

 100px (top and bottom crop)

The Ending

The ending of my film is something that's been bugging me.

I do not want to end abruptly.
I want to "wrap up" the story, in some way.
I don't want to create a whole other tangent of the story.
I don't want to take up too much time and detract time from telling the actual narrative.

In my presentation to the class, where I pitched my idea, I proposed the question "What direction should I take it?". I asked them to tell me the way they thought would be most successful, and they liked the idea of incorporating a failure into the narrative. I liked it too, but I then I thought about how I could do it. Previously on here I've spoken about my worry of over complicating things, and I've got this worry again. Some of my ideas require me to shoot extra footage, and some can be applied straight away.

Here's a few ideas I have:
- The sounding of a doorbell, and a shot of a panicked face and a wide shot of a still messy room.
- Wide shot of a tidy room, relieved face, lighting a candle, sounding of a doorbell.

- The hoover approaches the screen very closely (I already have this shot), and at the closest point there is a dip to black. You can hear the sound of the hoover dying out, heavy breathing and a clock ticking, and after an appropriate pause, the sound of a doorbell ringing or a door knocking.
- The sounding of a doorbell, and a medium shot of feet running and suddenly stopping - a pile of clothes is then dropped, to signify panic and failure.

At the moment, I am leaning towards the idea in bold. I'm drawn to the way it will tie in with the beginning of my film (e.g. the black screen), and will give focus to the sound effects and scope for me to experiment with sound and the feelings they portray further. As well it tying in with the beginning, it will also leave a slight cliff-hanger - even though above I stated I wanted to "wrap up" the story. This leaves it open and could leave you wondering (e.g. did they do it in time?).

Also, I want to avoid any opportunity for rubbish acting...

I'm most certainly not the most dramatic and emotional actor. I don't want to include any more shots containing bad acting...as that's just going to detract from the message I want and not have a positive effect on my film. 

Editing in FCP X

Firstly, I have a title screen and a title.

I've gone for a very simple font, title and positioning, because I didn't want to bring more video into the introduction. The font choice was based on the meaning of the word 'messy', so I went for something handwritten. I did have other, 'messier' versions, but I didn't think they were very legible, so decided on this one. 

I've found myself extremely zoomed in on the timeline...

This is because I've been focusing on trimming shots frame by frame, and have noticed the importance of trimming by this much. It's allowed me to cut out any frames that do not contain any action. For example, a shot where my hand enters the frame and presses a button. If I cut this without zooming right into it and looking frame by frame, I may leave frames that still contain no action by accident. By zooming in, I can see if there is no action within each frame and trim this way, and this has played a huge part in creating a snappy edit. It's allowing me to ensure that there isn't any points that waste time that I could use elsewhere. When you're on tight constraints, you start to appreciate the importance of each frame and become ruthless. I've been removing shots that I like the look of but that just 'don't work', and I think this is making me a better editor. I'm able to separate myself from the edit, even though I'm the one in the film and I'm the one that's shot it, and focus purely on portraying a strong narrative.

Room Tone

I'm editing my film at the moment, and I'm finding the sound aspect of it tricky. There are points where I need to mute the sound from each clip, which is easily done, but it leaves a 'lull' of complete silence. I did some research online about this, and came across the phrases 'room tone' and 'wildtrack'.

These are filmmaking terms that describe the sound a room/location (e.g. a forest) is when it is just left - no other action is taking place, no one is talking etc. This creates the room tone/wild track, which can then be overlaid over an entire scene to avoid these lulls of silence and create consistency through each cut. It also helps to avoid a change in sounds between each cut, again creating consistency. This is the room tone I'm considering using in my film;

Shooting: Day Two

Today I shot some more of my short film. I'm even happier with the results as I was yesterday. I think I'm going to stick with the idea of having an alert/text message appear on a phone, and that shall kickstart the film. I like it because it allows me to contain the film within one location and does not over complicate it. 

I was thinking of varying ways I could shoot things, so as you can see above and below of the broom I shot from the perspective of the broom and towards the camera too. I thought this would make my film a bit more interesting and gives me more scope to play in editing.

I said yesterday I was going to shoot various scenarios for the ending of my film, but I realised today whilst filming that the differing scenarios required completely different shots throughout, and I would essentially be shooting 2 films at once. For example, instead of having a shot of someone tidying shoes I'd have to shoot someone tripping over them. I'd have to do this for every single action shot - the successful way, and the failing way. So, considering time and my preferred direction for my film, I have only shot the "successful" scenario of my film. This keeps the story very simple and should hopefully strengthen it in turn. 

Whilst shooting my film I've been careful to consider framing and depth of field, and I would say that's apparent when you look back over my shots. When I concluded my research I pointed out how one of the strongest ways to convey a message or story immediately was through the framing of the shot, as good composition establishes an immediate heirachy and importance within a shot - it draws your eye to the important part straight away. I hope this strengthens my film.

Whilst shooting, I started to think about sounds. I'm thinking I may try to establish some comedy through my use of sound, and I could do this through comedic sound effects (e.g. cartoon-style "pops" "whoosh" "bangs" etc). I was browsing on Vimeo and found this video;

Obny sound design for Brian Chang 'Garden crash' video from OBNY / Music & Sound design on Vimeo.

I really like this video because of the sounds that are used. Even though it's a stop motion animation video, the use of the sound is over emphasised, is actually the "wrong" sound for the clip (but works) and is funny. I think it's clever how they've used the sound to emphasise a story more so than the actual image. I probably won't use sound this extreme or dramatic, but I like the idea of using emphasised, cartoonish style sounds, as i said before, to highlight an action.

Something like these;

I've been doing some thinking...

I've been thinking about my project, and am starting to consider that I may have tried to fit too much of a "story" into my film. I'm worried that I may have to skip over things or a message won't be as strong as I'd hoped in my final edit, as I am going to have to try and convey a few things within such a short amount of time; enough time to read a "note" that explains why the room needs to be tidied, a look at the time, going upstairs, seeing the messy room, trying to tidy it, and failing. My original plan incorporates a minimum of 2 locations and a longer cut to allow the viewer to have understanding.

Thinking about it, this may be too much. I will still film all of my planned shots, but in editing I think I may have to start stripping back the storyline a bit. One way of doing this is just having a "tidying room" montage, but I'm unsure whether this can really be considered as a "story". I could just use the story of rushing to tidy the room and establishing why (e.g. someone is coming over, maybe receiving a text message or seeing a note?). Seeing a text message would eliminate the need for another location and would only require a maximum of 3/4 shots, and allow me more room to play with the variety of shots for the actual tidying. Hmm.

My Pitch

Today I pitched my idea to the group, and got some good feedback. My pitch and the way I presented was complimented, and this has given me a real confidence boost on my ability to pull together my work and communicate it to the class, or potential clients, in a successful and clear way. Especially considering I used to feel sick just standing up in front of the class.

In my pitch I introduced the class to the phrases "diagetic" and "non-diagetic" which I learnt when I studied Creative Media. They are the film terms for sound from within or implied to be from within the scene (diagetic) (can be from the original recording or added in later, e.g. an alarm clock sound in a bedroom scene), and sound that is not within or not implied to be within (e.g. mood music, a narrator).

At the end of my pitch, I asked the group a question. I've been unsure on what direction I'd like my short film to go;

1. The room gets tidied with no problems
2. The room does not get tidied in time
3. The room is tidied, only to be ruined at the end
4. Consistently failing at tidying the room (e.g. constantly dropping things, tripping over etc)

The general consensus was a mixture of 1 & 4. I agree, and I think I'll be going in this direction. Now that I've thought about it, number 1 seems too boring, and number 3 seems too cliche & expected and wouldn't be as funny.

In my pitch I shared a quick 4 second video containing a few of my practise shots as I try to explore with my camera work.

Idea Development: What direction should I take?

The idea that I am now leaning towards using is the 'tidying a bedroom' idea, but there are a variety of directions I can take it.

The general idea
Girl sees note on the fridge, reminding her to tidy her bedroom by 10am as someone is coming over. She looks to the clock, sees it's 5 to 10, and she only has 5 minutes to tidy her room. She bolts upstairs, and starts to tidy her room.

This is where I'm stuck, I have a number directions I can take the story;

• She manages to tidy the room on time, everything is perfect, happy ending etc.
• This would be the easiest to do. The shots would consist of her successfully completing different tasks in the room and we would at the end see her succeeding - clean carpet, bed made, smiling faces etc.
• She is halfway through tidying, but doesn't manage to get it tidy in time.
• A half tidied room, would result in a build up of tension in the film on false hope, that is released through failure. Reasonably amusing. 
• She manages to tidy the room but it's ruined at the last second. My main vision for this is a dog bolting upstairs with muddy paws and ruining the whole thing.
• Visually is quite amusing, unsure whether it's too cliche/expected though.
• Her attempts to tidy the room are useless, it ends up looking exactly the same at the end than it did at the start - a pointless attempt.
• Quite funny. Would turn the whole film towards the comedy direction. I could show her failure throughout the film or leave it till the end as a 'reveal'.

I have already storyboarded the film as her simply cleaning the room, so I will now experiment further with these ideas, do some more storyboarding and when it comes to the pitch next week I will present this question to the class to find out their opinions.

My Idea

I've come up with a short, one line synopsis that explains my idea for my 15-20 second film.

A film following the rush of tidying a bedroom when you’ve only a few minutes to spare.

The film will show the panic of trying to rush to tidy your bedroom within the shortest amount of time possible. This film will be filmed within the confinement of a bedroom, which allows me to focus on shooting shots that have a sense of continuation between them. By restricting the story to one room I am hoping it will allow me to explore with as many camera angles and shots within that room and then strengthen the story and the feeling of panic with the actor being surrounded by mess.

I have made note of the sorts of sounds that I would like to use in my film.

• Spray can sound
• "squeaky clean" 
• Feet running on wooden floor
• Running from carpet to wooden floor
• Sweeping - wooden floor
• Hoover
• A fall onto wooden floor
• Panicked breathing
• Plug being plugged into wall
• Creaking
• Scrape against wall
• Clock, tick tock etc
• Cloth rubbing together

A quick Google brought up a list of royalty free sound effect websites, but I am yet to explore these further and look into their usage licenses; freesound.org, soungle.com, freesfx.co.uk, soundbible.com.

Advertisements

There are tons of advertisements on television that play between each show and during the breaks, but they do not last for too long. On each advert break for a show each lasts for an average of 30 seconds. There's currently a maximum amount of minutes per hour that adverts are allowed to be shown on a channel - 12, with an average of 9 minutes.  This generally means that the channel will obviously want to try and squeeze as many adverts into that time frame as possible, so generally none are over the 1 minute mark and most are around 30 seconds long, with a lot being around the 15 - 20 second mark. So, I decided to look into them.

Advertisement lengths by Ofcom

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/reviews-investigations/rada/

I saw an advert by KitKat on the TV and noticed the fast cuts, so I looked it up.

The car chase happens for about 25 seconds, and in that time features around 25-30 cuts (it's hard to count them!) What I really like about it is the use of sound. There's a slightly different tone to the car engine on each shot. Part of this is to show the difference from a shot from inside a car, and from outside (as that will sound different anyways), but a lot of the changes happen simply when a different angle of the car (from outside) is shown. I like this, as it seems to increase the pace of the film, provide a sense of continuation and create a tense feeling that goes along with the car chase. This has lead me to think about maybe using sound in my movie to create a beat/soundtrack. Each shift in tone of the engine put together builds up a rhythm/beat, and I like the idea of creating this in  my film.

From looking at other car chases I have noticed that the quick cuts/fast pace is pretty much standard, especially in more recent films (e.g. Fast & Furious, Drive etc).

This advert by Lurpak users a narrator, and a slight soundtrack but uses the diagetic sound from within the shots, and timely editing to create a beat.

This advert by Weetabix uses quick cuts to contrast with the slower, longer shots to create humour. There are 4 members of the family, who each have a short, quick cut sequence. One of the moments I noticed immediately was the sound effects at 35 seconds in, when the mother is picking up clothes from stairs. Instead of using the standing "clothes being picked up" sound (which isn't exactly loud, dramatic or exciting...) they have chosen to use a slightly "woosh" sound, which I think is really successful. It helps to strengthen her point of her constantly and quickly picking up the clothes her kids leave around and makes the advert a bit more engaging and humorous. The sound enhances the jump cut shot which shows her picking up clothing after clothing.

The Paper Kites - Quick Cut Video

The Paper Kites - Young
Whilst this video is not 15-20 seconds long, and is a music video, I still found it interesting. It's a quick cut video containing over 4000 images.

The Paper Kites: Young from Oh Yeah Wow on Vimeo.

This video got me further interested in transitions, and how I can use them with quick, fast cuts to create links from one shot to the next and in turn display a journey.

In this video, each shot is shown for less than a quarter of a second, but it builds the basis for the next one and in turn there is (whilst not seamless) a transition from one to the next that we can make sense of. It's almost like stop-motion. Below shows how each shot shows how someone lifts up their head. 

From watching this, I am interested in doing this in the larger scale. It's inevitable my film will have quick cuts - it has to have 30 fit within a maximum of 20 seconds - but I don't want that to mean that will have a detrimental effect on the storyline. I want to use the quick cuts to my advantage by linking each shot to one another in some way. I could do this through the location, the content, linking sounds, camera techniques (e.g. whip pan) etc.

Developing Understanding & Initial Ideas

In order for me to come up with more ideas and understand the task further, I broke down the brief some more;
- 30 edits - (30 cuts), must be dynamic, will be fast paced
- 15-20 seconds - an intro and end screen is optional, but is in addition to the 20 seconds.
- A 'journey' - travelling, accomplishing a task, emotionally
- Storyboarding - need a variety of shots to build 30 edits
- Sound - sound effects, no soundtrack, royalty free

I then started to think about the types of journey that I could have, under the category of an "everyday action". These included Food (ordering food, baking, being at a restaurant), actual physical journeys (to college, work, going on a run, going home), Cleaning (tidying, against the clock, getting it perfect) and Getting Ready (e.g. doing hair/makeup).
When I thought about how I could produce these ideas, I started to see a problem with some of them. I felt that the ideas that involved ordering food, baking, making tea, applying make up etc would confine me to the one spot. For example, the ordering of food would literally involve someone on the phone talking, and applying make up would restrict my variety of shots to of someones face and close ups of each piece of make up. I didn't like how this would restrict me, and felt it would probably result in a film that wasn't very interesting because the subject wasn't in the first place.

Then, when I looked further into shooting an actual, physical journey, I realised it would do the opposite of restricting me. There are so many important "checkpoints" to cover on say, a journey to work or college, that I'd end up having just a few shots for each. I felt it would spread the story and shots out too thin, and wouldn't allow room for me to experiment with more interesting shots - they'd just be the standard, basic shots required to just portray a sense of the story.

This is what is now drawing towards the "cleaning" category, because it will allow me to work within one room and explore that room with a variety of shots. I may think of another type of story that I could contain within a room, but I'm now going to start storyboarding/doodling a few ideas for shots and brainstorming some shots I could use in each of these categories to see if I could make any of them work.

Beat You - Existing 15 Second Film

Beat You

 

Beat You from 15SecFilms on YouTube

This is another example of a 15 Second Film. It's titled 'Beat You' and follows 2 men - one of which that has an obsession with winning and being the best at aspects of everyday life. Until he finds something he's not the best at - fighting. 

The film does not follow a journey in the logical sense. Like my previous example ("Sounds of New York") we do not see the transitions between shot to the next literally (e.g. someone is at work, they get in a car, they get home) but we feel a journey through the feeling we get from the film. The repetitive use of the sound "Beat you!" builds irritation, leading to a climax at the end of the film - he loses and gets punched in the face. 

15 seconds is all that it takes to explain this story. It's a montage of different, but very similar events happening at different times in different places. The time constraint has strengthened the film, as it squeezes a repetition into a short amount of time, which makes it more irritating but also funnier. I find it interesting how in just 15 seconds the creator has managed to get me on the side of the guy that keeps on losing and to sympathise with him. 

This film is less focused on intriguing and interesting cinematography, but still looks good. The shots are more kinetic - they are off-tripod mostly and focused on the movements and actions of the actors more than the location they are in. A lot of the shots are wide, with quick pans that incorporate 2 shots into one take, rather than cutting from one to the next. There's a lot of shift in focus, from one actor to the next, which you can see below. 

The initial focus on the actor slowly sipping his drink quickly allows us to then acknowledge the contrast to the guy next to him who's practically inhaling his drink. Within under a second we understand what's going on, so this amount of time is all we need.

Movements by the camera allow for longer shots that are not boring. They are paired off with some shorter, quicker shots, and this allows for some short pauses and breaks in the pace of the film. At 7 seconds in, the 2 men are at urinals, and the camera pans to enhance what's supposed to be a funny moment. 

This has led me to think about transitions, and how they can be used to suggest time passing or links from one shot to the next. Whilst I am unsure about using longer shots and pairing them off with much shorter shots to make up my 30 cuts, I am interested in using techniques like 'whip-pans' to create a tense, fast paced feeling for my film. If I can secure a clear understanding on each shot, the use of a whip pan may enhance my film and allow me to fit a lot of meaning into my 15-20 seconds.

Sound effects are used in this film alongside dialogue (which is mainly the repetitive use of the phrase "Beat you!"). Mainly, the sounds are diegetic.

Diegetic sound: Sound who's source is visible on screen. E.g. the sound of television show when there is a television that is on, the sound of an alarm clock going off if an alarm clock is in the shot/scene. 

Non-diegetic sound: Sound that's not actually there or has not been implied to be there. This could be mood music, a narrators voice or added sound effects (particularly those that don't really make sense -  e.g. a children's TV show, someone jumps and there is a "boing" sound).

There is an example of non-diegetic sound at approx. 14 seconds. It is only heard for the duration of the shot - so less than a second - but it is not implied and is rather obvious that it's not coming from "within that scene". It's a type of mood sound-effect - it suggests annoyance and anger, where the feeling may not have been so clear if it were not there (e.g. how much understanding can we get from someone turning their head?).

From this 15 second film I have begun to think about camera work and how I can use it to create transitions which then have an effect on the pace of my film. I've also started to further think about sound and how it can be used not only to build a sense of environment and iterate what is on screen but also to portray a feeling or meaning that is either not clear enough on screen or would work well if it was enhanced further (e.g. comedic effect). 

Sounds of New York - Existing 15 Second Film

The very first point of call for my research was to look at existing 15 second films. Part of this was to reassure myself that it was possible to create a film that worked and only needed 15-20 seconds to tell a story or convey a message or feeling. I went to the website Vimeo, and searched for "15 second films".

Sounds of New York

Sounds of New York from Kofa on Vimeo.

This film is 15 seconds long, and follows a persons journey through New York. It focuses on the sounds that they come across along the way, and uses them as the soundtrack for the film.

In the 15 seconds that this film lasts, there are 19 cuts - there are 19 different shots. So, a little less than what I am aiming for, but then I do have an extra 5 more seconds (up to 20 second) to play with. Through these 19 shots the creator has managed do two things - document a journey and make the sounds an equal part of the story as the image. This is exactly what I want to aim to do.

It also does not feel like 15 seconds. When you first think of 15 seconds, you acknowledge that it's not a very long time. We're used to going to the cinema and watching a 90 minute film, perhaps even films over 2 hours long, so we learn to assume that we need that amount of time to even begin to tell a story. A 90 minute film has got the time to play with long, extended scenes, but a 15 second film doesn't. Despite this, each cut in this film feels natural. It doesn't seem as if any shot is on screen for too long - or too short - and the sounds that we hear help to edge the viewer towards an understanding for what's on screen much quicker, which allows for faster cuts.

Even though each shot is on screen for less than a second, each is framed and shot beautifully and their is no loss in focus on cinematography.

This film highlights the importance of good cinematography, in fact. The "rule of thirds" is prominent, and helps to give the viewer an immediate understanding of what their seeing as well as making it pleasing to look at. The use of focus and depth of field again enhances our understanding of what we're looking at. In the shot above on the left, it is clear to us immediately we should acknowledge the musician, not the passers-by, because of the focus on him. On the left, the girl takes up most of the shot, so she is immediately obvious, but we are forced to look at her expression because of the use of focus by the cameraman. As the film is so short, it's important that each shot means something and is very easy to process, because it's not going to be on screen for long. 

The use of sound in this film is very important, as that's what it's about. When watching, it doesn't feel like there are any added sound effects - nothing is too dramatic, no sound is really out of place or not synchronised and each sound flows nicely from one another. A reason for this is how each sound is from the same environment - New York. The sounds that were recorded during the filming of each shot seem to be the same sounds we are hearing, so the movement from one shot to the other helps build up a feeling of the environment we are seeing. It's an organic, natural progression from one to the other.

What I've learnt from this 15 second film is the importance of good cinematography, and how, despite the short length of the film, it's vital to ensure a clear understanding of each shot for your viewer. Without this clear understanding, you lose the basis and point of having such a short, fast paced film as there is no meaning to it - it's just a bunch of fast cuts. I've also learnt how sounds and the types of sounds you use can have a large effect on the meaning of your film too. This film is quite calming and low key, despite the slightly industrial and city-vibes it has, because of the images that they have been paired with. Each sound follows from the other and tells a story within itself.

AF105: Time Based Media

Short Sharp Shock
New Brief - my understanding

Plan, shoot and edit a 15 - 20 second film that depicts a journey of some sort. This could be as simple as making breakfast or travelling to college.

This film must contain at least 30 edits - 30 cuts.

This film can have a 3 second title and end screen, but this does not count towards the 15-20 seconds.

Sound effects can be used in the film to add effect and dynamism, but a soundtrack must not. (e.g. do not create a music video). All sound effects that are used must be noted down and an asset register must be created that documents their source and any usage licenses that apply to them. Any sounds that are used must be Royalty free.

In order to produce this film, you must analyse a variety of different films and create a number of storyboards that experiment with different ideas. You must submit one, full developed storyboard in a .PDF format.

Continue to update this blog alongside the project, and use it to document progress on the project and present any research.