Current Project: Code Of Conduct - A Short Film

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the film I spent all the time blogging about! Now available online for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think!

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 Poster Typography

this font is called Crime Times Six and I chose this because it had the natural, chalk texture to it as well as a sharpness to the style of the lettering that reflects the darker nature of the film.

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Fringe Season 5 Poster

This poster was an inspiration for the poster for Code Of Conduct because I wanted to reflect the traditional appearance of a school, with the blackboard being the backdrop of the poster and any imagery laid over the top to feel like it was drawn in chalk. I chose to do this because I like the minimalist approach for poster design because I think it provides more intrique for the audience.

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First Scene

 During the construction of the first fine cut, Jack placed a royalty free orchestral track underneath the first scene and cut the first minute of the film to it. When he first presented the idea to me I was quite surprised but after watching it several times over, I grew to really like it. We pursed this idea and refined it by using 2 better exterior shots of the school, one which was filmed during a reshoot specifically to have a stronger opening shot, and also removed the single line of dialogue that Sasha has because the facial reaction from Matilda was descriptive enough for the audience to understand. I feel using this opens the film strongly because the strong orchestral track reflects the order of chaos that students think teachers strive to achieve. This way of thinking trickles down into the students and their status among their classmates. The strong control that the song has over its elements, reflects the strong, clear hierarchy that is present within the relationships of the teachers and students. It also promotes the classical idea of a school in that it is a place where the adults are in charge and the students are there to listen. behave and learn.

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Sasha's Fear Sequence

One of the points I made to Jack was to try and find effects that could mould and embed well into the footage whilst trying to maintain an organic look so that the effects feel like its reality distorting rather than a visual effect. The images above are two stills from the sequence. The first is mixing the original image with a green and red filter to give a distortion effect. The effect only wraps around Matilda which really makes the effect feel apart of the scene.

The second image shows an effect where Jack has projected the same image over the top. I really like this shot because its shows Sasha's displacement within her own mind and communicates to the audience that she is experiencing something unsettling and painful. 

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Sasha Fear sequences - Editing experiments

When I met up with Jack to discuss and work on Sasha's fear sequence, he showed me a few variations he  had been working on. One of the experimental sequences was based around layering the same images, quick cutting of the same shot next to each other as well as some other layering effects from Final Cut Pro. Whilst I wasn't happy with any of the sequences as a full sequence, I like elements from 2 of them, like the use of layering the fast tracking forward shot as Sasha reacts to the intrusion of Mr Grey. One of the issues we were having with editing this scene was making sure any editing techniques or visual effects we were using didn't look too electronic and look just layered over the top. 

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Rough Cut of " Code Of Conduct "

When Jack arranged the first rough cut, I was happy to see that the plot was there and that the story flowed well and was as interesting to follow as the script was. One of my early main concerns was making sure we got good performances in the classroom and that we got enough coverage in order to still be visually interesting, even though between the fear sequences, we are cutting back to the same room.

I was also happy to see that the rough cut ran at a time of about 13 minutes which was good because I knew when I sat down with Jack and went through the scenes with him, we would be able to improve the  pacing of each scene and hopefully narrow down the running time.

As soon as Jack got a rough cut locked down, we talked about the possibilities and ideas for the fear scenes and he decided to go away and come back with some experimental edit sequences. Then we would progress from there.

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Event Horizon - Sound Design Reference for Sasha's Fear Sequence

Whilst discussing ideas for sound design with Paul for Sasha's fear sequence I brought up the film, Event Horizon as I knew whilst it is set on a spaceship, one of the major themes running throughout the film is fear as the ship causes the crew members to have hallucinations of their fears and events they wanted to forget.

Myself and Paul sat down and watched the film and we noticed a particular sound during this scene where Jason Isaac's character is playing back a recording. Whilst the characters are focusing on the dialogue in the recording, myself and Paul noticed the background sound design behind the dialogue, which is a sharp, grating sound playing prominently in behind the dialogue. We decided that this would be a good basis for a sharp stabbing style sound to reflect the pain Sasha is feeling as Mr Grey intrudes violently into her mind.

We could use the sound during fast-track shots in order to additional emphasise the pain felt by Sasha during the push-in shots. 

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Sound Design Inspiration for Mr Grey during Fear sequences

Myself and Paul had discussed several ideas relating to how we wanted Mr Grey to sound in the fear sequences because the idea of them within the story are that the characters are experiencing the intrusion of Mr Grey into their minds, of him taking control and forcing them to see and hear what he wants. We needed the sound design of the voice to reflect the power of the character as well as give the impression that the space the character is in is massive and endless. We wanted to do this through using search tools as reverb to displace the voice and cause it to echo around the space. We also wanted to play with Wayne's voice more directly, such as pitch shifting, in order to give Mr Grey's depth, to use his voice as a projection of his power.

One of the references myself and Paul discussed was Frank's voice in the film, Donnie Darko (2001). Frank's voice had the kind of distortion we were interested in using as well as the background rumbling soundscape that were wanted to create to give the visual space fearful scale and scope.

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Promotional Still for " Code Of Conduct "

Character - Harvey

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Promotional Still for " Code Of Conduct "

Character - Sasha

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Promotional Still for " Code Of Conduct "

Character - Riley

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Promotional Still for " Code Of Conduct "

Character - Mr Grey

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Final Title Decision - Code Of Conduct

Whilst making some colour correcting alterations with my editor, Jack, we continued discussing possible replacements for the title "Subordinate". We came up with several other ideas but nothing seemed to fit or sound right.

Jack then mentioned that it should be related to the rules that are set within a school and came up with the possible title "Codes of Conduct" I really liked this title because I felt that it captured the school setting as well as the themes and elements of the story and plot. I decided to change it slightly to "Code of Conduct" instead because I felt it encapsulated Mr Grey's perspective of the situation as well as the fact the students know that they should be following this, but chose not to. 

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Title Change

Whilst working on the edit with Jack, I found that as we constructed the story I was moving further away from liking " Subordinate " as the title. One of the main reasons for this was because I felt that it sounded to militaristic  and that it only commented on one aspect of the film, that being the relationship between the teacher and the students. I made it clear to the rest of the crew that I wasn't happy with the name and I began brainstorming a range of names varying from being quite random and just having a metaphorical reference, to being closely related to the idea and themes of the plot.

The names I came up with:

- Grasp ( or In Your Grasp )

- Fist

Grasp and Fist came from the idea that once Mr Grey has the students in the classroom, he is in control and has them in his "grasp."

- The Difference

- Error

- Intrusion

- Violation

A more literal take on the psychological and supernatural elements of the film. 

  - Capsule

This relates to the title ideas of Fist and Grasp. The idea that once Mr Grey has them they are trapped in the room.

- Just

- Absolute

  - Grey

- School

- Detention

Much more literal ideas relating directly to the environment and the story.

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Promotional Still for 'Subordinate;

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Production Stills from 'Subordinate'