Coleen Brennan @coleenbrennanfilmblog - Tumblr Blog

Research Agenda & Rationale

Throughout this semester I want to continue my work as a Documentary Director. My previous work concerns the exploration of the human condition and the experiences people face living in Scotland. I find myself drawn to individuals who intrigue me, due to the way they live their lives and how that differs from what may be considered the ‘norm’. I enjoy spending time with these people and creating a film that represents them in a creative way. I am also interested in the different social issues that are present in Scotland and how that affects individuals. I find myself drawn to interesting landscapes and the way we interact with them. I am primarily invested in exploring the human condition and the way we navigate our environment, particularly in Scotland.

I take a lot of inspiration from the work of Agnes Varda, her use of observational techniques to explore people and landscapes mirror that of my own. Her approaches are ones I wish to emulate in my filmmaking. Despite being a fiction filmmaker, I reference Lynne Ramsay a lot in my research. Her social realist style in films like Ratcatcher and Morven Callar is very interesting to me. These are my primary filmmaker references but I tend to turn to other sources for my filmmaking. Books, exhibitions, news articles and photography are really beneficial for my documentary research. I am currently reading Glue by Irvine Welsh, his fiction is a great source as it offers detail into the difficult social and political issues present in Edinburgh in the 90s, and the way that people react to this. I also read a lot of non-fiction concerned with aspects of the human condition, this stems from a personal interest which now informs my filmmaking. Reading content like this allows me to find greater meaning in what my characters share with me, and create a film that offers greater insight on life as a whole - making an individual's story relevant to everyone. I also want to continue going to exhibitions, particularly photography exhibitions. Whilst not directly related to film, I find that a lot of photography exhibitions spark creativity and ideas that help me explore my subject in a new way.

Engaging and exposing myself to this range of media will help me develop my idea for my grad film. Currently, I am not feeling entirely inspired by any particular idea. In doing all my research methods as stated above, I will develop an idea that is relevant to the type of stories I want to tell and aligns with my filmmaking style. I am also open to engaging with as many new people as possible to find stories through conversation. I will be keeping a diary of this research so that I am constantly progressing. My methods of development will become more specific once I find an idea that I want to pursue.

Sound Edit / Grade - LURE

Me, Beth and Fraser put in some serious hours to make sure that the picture edit was done to give Laurie and Molly plenty of time for the grade and sound design. We gave Molly a plan of a workflow we wanted, like basic adjustments by this day, creative sound design by this day (you get the gist). 4 days after Picture Lock we were made aware that Molly hadn’t even created the project. She hadn’t let any of us know that this was the case so we were quite rightly pissed off. When we got the first draft of the sound edit we were very disappointed, It was bare-bones, lacking location sound and lots of levelling issues. We sat in with Molly and gave her detailed feedback of everything we wanted changed, she wrote everything down and agreed to change it. When we returned the next day, close to none of our feedback was taken on board and it felt like nothing had changed. This was continuing for a few days, and the crit was creeping closer and closer. At this point, I asked Molly to please have Zoe sit in with her and help her with the sound. The day before the crit Zoe did this and fixed a lot of the issues we were having to at least get it to a point where we could screen it. It sounded okay at the crit but was still lacking a lot, and it didn’t have the visceral effect that I had hoped for. Don’t get me wrong, it still had came quite a long way since the start - but it left a lot to be desired. After the deadline, Me, Molly and Fraser had a meeting to talk about our plan for the final deadline. Molly would show us a daily edit to which I would feedback on alongside Fraser.

Me and Fraser agreed that again nothing seemed to be changing, we kept asking for things that just were not happening. I understand some of it was maybe difficult, but Molly would never communicate with us so we couldn’t tell. It is now at the point where it is still lacking a lot of footsteps and the ones that are in it aren’t really in sync, there is a twig snap sound that sounds really off and just a lot I am unhappy with. It has gotten to the point where I just have to accept that this is it for the deadline as it seems nothing I say is taken on board. To be honest, I found Molly very difficult to work with. We have had discussions about this amongst Me, Fraser and Molly and we have left it on good terms. I am sad that she didn’t have the passion for this project, because it had a lot of exciting potential as a sound designer. We have decided to re-do the sound design for our final version of the film after the deadline, One of my good friends Joseph in 4th year will be doing it for us. I am excited to see what he does with it!

As for the grade, I let Laurie take the reigns. Me and Fraser had a chat with her to let her know what our ideas were for it, but the communication between us three was pretty strong from the beginning so I knew she’d do a good job. I know she had some issues in Davinci which was a shame. I think we should definitely be taught more about grading on the film course, as it is pretty much not spoken about. I know that as a Director this made it hard for me, I didn’t quite know even what to feed back on as I have no knowledge of grading. She did a great job though!

Picture Edit - LURE

So we wrapped LURE on the Friday, I worked all weekend and then on the Monday both me and Fraser were heading to Glasgow to start our placement with MTP, it just so happened that out of the whole class we were the only ones who got put on the same film. This was quite bizarre considering we were co-directing, with him as a DIT Assist and me as a Runner. We thought this would be beneficial as we could talk and watch Beth's cuts together but reality set in pretty early that this wasn’t the case. On Monday we travelled to our first location in Kyle of Lochalsh. We had a 12+ hr shoot the next day, and then travel all day Wednesday, and then another 12+ day shoot in Ayr. After this on top of the shoot, neither of us were in the headspace to even think about the film, so we couldn’t really give any sort of help. I got back from this shoot and was working all weekend, I then went to Germany for a week to visit some friends. This was something I booked before term began and it was well informed to everyone as soon as we got into our groups. Obviously, it was still not ideal - and I really wish I was present as this was the first proper week of the edit.

Post Production proof brought to u by the daily BeReal

Once I got home, I tried to be as present as possible - this was still quite difficult as I work 3 days a week so I could not be in with them on weekends when they worked away at it. Me and Fraser sat in the edit with Beth throughout the entire edit, which was not necessary, especially for the last couple of days. I think Fraser was slightly too overbearing with the edit and didn’t give Beth any creative freedom. I know how good Beth is at editing so I would’ve been happy to let her get on with it and just check in at some points. We also had the issue of the voice-over not being finalised, we didn’t really know how we were going to approach the voice over / picture situation and maybe weren’t clear enough with Beth. A lot of her job was editing the voice over to construct the narrative. I think theoretically, this was the best way to approach this style of film - but we didn’t make it clear that Beth had to do this and she maybe struggled a bit because of it.

Beth was such a trooper and spent insane hours in that edit suite with minimal complaint. The editing of this film is where it really shines in my opinion, it was such a big part of our film and she pulled it off so well. I do wish Fraser had taken more of a backseat and let her lead the edit though. I also found that I was having to fight against Fraser a lot for choices in the edit. I felt like I compromised a lot, whereas it took at least 5 other agreements from people to change something he liked and I didn’t. I also found that a lot of the feedback and changes I wanted were the exact same as feedback given by Kieran and Andrew.

Shoot Day 5 - LURE

we have no photos from this night - business ONLY

Day 5 was never meant to be a thing, however, due to our Bus Stop palava it had to be. This was a Friday night, so most of our crew was not available. Me and a few of our core team cancelled our Friday night plans to try to get this bus stop scene done. We managed to rope in one of the first years to help us out. On this night our crew consisted of Me, Fraser, Laurie, Molly, Davide, Juno (Also Acting) and Calum for the first couple hours. This already posed its challenges as stuff naturally takes longer with such a small crew. We ended up shooting at our test shoot bus shop which was the safest choice.

The only downfall was the fact it didn’t face the road so we couldn't get the tasty wides we wanted. We had some problems this night as our cards were filling up at a rapid speed and not exporting to our drives fast enough. We didn’t have Beth on set and she was usually in charge of this so we were all a bit stumped. At this point we were about to run out of space with a huge chunk of the shoot still to do. I was rapidly phoning everyone on the course pretty much to try and source some cards that I could go pick up at midnight on a Friday. This was pretty difficult as you can imagine, if this was a day shoot we could have at least gone and got advice at the store room or something. Miraculously, Ethan awoke from his slumber and saw his many missed calls from me. He had a spare card at his so I tokyo drifted to marchmont and back to granton.

As this was happening, the crew continued to shoot and also drastically cut the shot list so we only had the absolute essentials for coverage left. We had to do this otherwise Joseph would have to get a bus back to Glasgow at a ridiculous time which just wasn’t fair considering how much he had done for us. We got the bare minimum coverage we needed and then wrapped on Joseph, I drove him to the bus stop whilst the crew finished up Juno’s shots.

I returned to Granton just in time for wrap! At this point we were all really delirious but also very happy to be done. Me and Juno jumped in the car with Davide to take him back to Bainfield and spent the whole journey blasting Carly Rae Jepsen which was very therapeutic after the week I had. But also… it was not done yet, we still had more wides to get. We decided to go and do these now at 2am, again, a bad decision - but the thought of another night outside in the cold was just not fathomable. Me, Juno, Laurie and Fraser went around Dalry and got the rest of our wides. We finished these at 6am. I was at work at 9am, this was pretty rough. Funnily enough, Demelza came in to my work to get a coffee - to which she saw a very dishevelled woman lacking sleep.

psa: I stayed well within the speed limit but my choice of words better describes the urgency of the event

Shoot Day 4

Shoot day 4 was quite pleasant. We were back at the industrial estate shooting everything that we missed from the first night with William and Ruth. This night was always scheduled as pick-ups with William and Ruth, and that was exactly what it was. We didn’t have a lot of shots to get so we spent time making sure we had the coverage.

Laurie was such a trooper throughout as at this point she had been doing handheld for so many hours that week, I honestly do not know how she did it - a true girlboss! As this was day 4 we were well into the swing of things and we got better at being efficient. There was a lot of chat on set throughout the week which meant we probably could’ve been a bit quicker.

midnight Car Boot Coffee became a ritual at this point

However, I quite liked it as it meant that the set was laid back and there was a nice atmosphere. After we wrapped William and Ruth, me, laurie & fraser went to get some of the wides and try find another bus stop. This was a mistake, we were all so tired and started to lose touch of what looked good. We ended up wrapping at about 2/3am which was just ridiculous and unnecessary, we should've scheduled a night for wides only.

Shoot Day 3 - LURE

Shoot day 3 or Attempted Shoot day 3 was quite the disaster. The Bus Stop had been a saga for a while in pre-production, Me & Fraser spent what felt like years looking for the ‘perfect’ bus stop. We needed one that was quiet or closed, was facing the road and one where we could get around the back to place lights. We decided on one down at the shore in leith, which was closed, faced the road and with plenty space behind it for lights. I had stressed that this is a really busy road and car noise might be an issue, but we still ended up choosing it. I was picking Juno up from Bonaly as they were on Masked, so I arrived to the shoot just a little later than crew call. When I got to set Fraser told me that it was too loud and Alex, our gaffer, had gone to look for another bus stop. This was a bit annoying considering I had already said it might be an issue yet we still decided on it.

my eye bags say it all

Alex ended up finding us a bus stop just next to lindsay road that was closed, so we all decided to go along and use it. This was frustrating because one - it pushed our turnover and two - it was quite badly organized and I felt as a producer that I was fucking over our crew by making them relocate. But also, this isn’t a professional shoot and I would rather part ways with my ego to get a better location for the sake of the film. Whilst we set up, we had the actors sitting in my car as it was really cold. We had our kit with a tarp over it on some railings which was quite the rookie set up but it worked (for a while). We were then hit with what can only be described as gale-force winds and earth-shattering hail which was a bit rough to say the least. The tarp almost flew off the railings and into the abyss, and we all got battered. Not to mention the fact it was FREEZING.

At this point we were all a bit down in the dumps. We had been on set 6:30-1:30 the past two days. We were setting up for maybe our 3rd shot of the night and a van pulls up and tells us we have to leave. So we had to send everyone home at 11pm. This was really disheartening and also quite embarrassing. I really feel like I failed my job as a Producer on this night, I should’ve researched permissions more and made sure we were 100% on the location. But honestly, at the time it really did feel impossible and I felt like I was trying as hard as I could. It was really hard to find information online and I was so swamped with trying to just get the film done.

Shoot Day 2 - LURE

Laura on the ground with a fag, April 2022 (Colourised)

Day 2 of the shoot was in the underpass with Sally and Dan. This was perfect because it was pissing it down outside so we could take shelter in the underpass. We shot this in the George IV tunnel in Bonnington. This was much more accessible for people as it was more central, we had access to the toilets in Tesco - however, like before, it was only until 10pm. Tonight's shoot was fairly simple compared to the rest because there was no real action or lines included.

probably telling Fraser that I will chop his head off if he even thinks about going for another take

On set I acted as more of an AD and let Fraser take the reigns with directing actors. I also focused more on keeping an eye on camera and lighting as this is more natural for me. I also don’t really have an interest in fiction whereas Fraser does so I would rather let him do that than do it myself. We were pretty laid back with how we split the work between me and Fraser (which had benefits and drawbacks that I will discuss in my reflection).

Another good thing about the underpass was we used mainly the underpass lights with a godox for some fill. This meant that setup was minimal. The shoot went well and we didn’t run into many issues - the follow focus was still an issue but it got easier to deal with.

Sally contemplating why she agreed to sign up to this film

Laurie had gone to visit the store room and got spare parts for ours, but to be honest it never fully worked the whole shoot and always found a way to disengage with the lens - bastard nucleus! All in all, this night went fine, the underpass was super quiet so we didn’t struggle to get our shots.

Sally checking her phone to see when she can go home

Shoot Day 1 - LURE

For our first day of shooting, we were filming Kay’s scene - with our actors William Dron and Ruth Heggie. Our schedule for day 1 was the most tightly packed out of all days. Me, Fraser and Laurie marked the schedule for shots that we could film on another day, with the understanding that we may run over time. Our shoot location for night 1 was an industrial estate in Granton, with limited access to toilets and indoors. The shoot was scheduled from 6:30pm to 1:00am. When we arrived at the location, there was a thick fog surrounding the whole area, it was the most intense fog I have ever seen.

This was great as it looked fab on camera, however continuity would be an issue if we have to film on another day. We began setting up equipment once the crew had arrived, we ran into issues quite early on. Our follow focus screw was not tight enough to clamp to the lens. This was problematic as we had a lot of handheld shots so having the remote follow focus was essential. We tried to play around with it for over an hour, using gaffer tape and various @shittyrigs. Due to this, we didn’t turnover until 9:30pm, with our original turnover time as 8pm. It was the type of way where you could occasionally get it in the correct position to go for a take, so we just had the occasional time where it worked and other times where we had to manual focus.

It was a really cold night so our main concern was keeping the actors and crew warm. Juno was on hand to chuck jackets over people when they needed them and they were dishing out hand warmers left right n centre! Once we got going, everything was going smoothly, we were really tight for time due to our follow focus issues - so we didn’t manage to get as many takes of our shots as we would have liked. The toilets we were using were in Go Outdoors which shut at 9, so after 9 we had no access to toilets. This wasn’t an issue but in hindsight I should’ve found somewhere as a base for us because it was quite a long night shoot so it was a bit grueling.

Once we got going we were doing well, while the camera team sorted the follow focus, me and Fraser rehearsed lots with the actors so the action was good. Despite our delays, we managed to get everything done apart from ‘area 1’, which we ended up shooting on the thursday. Overall, this night of shooting went well - however, it was very cold by the end of the night.

Scene Recreation - Side by Sides

Some stills from the scene recreation we did on Monday, was a lot of fun playing around with lighting and such to get the desired look - love a scene recreation

Spike Jonze watch ur back x

Short of the Week - Awoko

Awoko is a short documentary about a group of men working in a printing press in Sierra Leone. It is observational in style. Awoko features a lot of beautiful long takes, that let you sit and relish the beautiful cinematography. I read somewhere that long takes make you turn inward which I really believe, it is a moment of reflection and is really calming to watch. There is minimal dialogue and when it is present, it is just of the workers talking to each other. I love observational documentary, probably because i’m really nosey. This was a lovely gem to find on Short of The Week. An insight into a life and place I would otherwise be unaware of, this is the joy of docs!

I will definitely take inspiration from this film - I notice a lot of similarities in technique to my film from last semester, ‘The Conservationist’.

ASC Articles Updates

ASC - Article on Belfast

I read an article on the film Belfast that details the relationship between Director Kenneth Branagh and Cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos. It talks of the early stages of how they created the film, such as walking through the streets of Belfast together to find locations. They used digital for the film combined with old lenses, to give the film an interesting look. It also discusses the decision to shoot in colour and then change to B&W in Post. This then gave them more freedom with what they could do with the shots. I also found the discussions of lighting to be helpful - I love shooting on natural light so I was pleased to see that this is what they did for a large part of the film.

ASC - Article on Matrix Reloaded

This article details the cinematography on Matrix Reloaded. I didn’t realise that there were 2 main cinematographers on this shoot which was interesting to learn. I would like to watch the film to see if I can notice this, but I doubt it. Matrix films are very stunt-heavy so I found it intriguing to learn of the different techniques needed in order to get the correct shots. They use a lot of zoom lenses which makes sense considering the actors were probably in quite precarious states at times and would need to move fast and not burn out.

Pre Production - Film Project

We have just finished doing our interviews for the film! We got a lot of responses and ended up choosing 6 individuals to take part in the voice-over. Fraser was in charge of sorting all the sound equipment, we did it just the two of us two avoid overcrowding the victims. Doing interviews of this nature was always going to be risky because of the ethical concerns of talking about traumatic events. I spoke to all the victims on the phone previously in order to make sure they are ok with taking part, I also emphasized that if they decide to pull out at any point in the production then that is totally fine. I made sure that everyone was receiving therapy in order to work through these events. I made them all aware that Fraser would be sitting in on the interviews and if they would prefer it to be women only then that can be arranged - but everyone was ok with it. If I had more time I would’ve liked to involve counseling in the interviews as it would have given the victims a bit more safety and peace of mind. Thankfully everyone was really brave in sharing their stories and we had no issues at all. These interviews give Fraser a good starting point for the script.

Now our interviews are done, we are looking to cast the film. We don’t have a full script yet so it’s slightly difficult to cast however we do have a vague idea of who we want. We put out the casting call last week and have already had a lot of responses so me and Fraser will be calling tonight to discuss this and see who we want to take part! I booked the equipment for both our test shoot and final shoot and thankfully had no issues with this. In terms of crew we are all set and just starting our discussions with cinematography and production design this week. I am feeling good about how it is all going!

Early Development - Film Project

So for the film project module, me and Fraser are co-directing a doc/fiction hybrid film. It follows the story of three separate walks home at night. The film is an exploration of the fear evoked when walking at night, especially by women, POC and non-binary people. We all sadly have negative stories of this, so I feel it is important to bring light to the issue. We are currently in early stages of the production. I created this poster to post on social media, to gather stories from people.

We have already had a few responses which is amazing, so I have created an excel spreadsheet to collate the answers. We will then invite these people onto campus and record their responses with sound equipment. This will be a start point for Fraser to script the three walks. We can also use these in the sound design, layering the voice over with the images.

I have also put out an open call for dancers & choreographers on multiple facebook groups. One idea I am really certain of is having an experimental dance performance between the 3 victims walking home. I think this is a visually interesting way to show the connection between people who have had these experiences, and provide some sense of hope, and a sense of togetherness. I think without this, we may struggle to create a unique film that doesn’t just replicate a classic ‘scary walk home’ structure. I have a few films which inspire this. These are where I got the ideas from.

https://www.nowness.com/series/lovesick/cass-lex-phillip-kaminiak?utm_campaign=later-linkinbio-nowness&utm_content=later-23959487&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkin.bio

I love the extreme lighting in this and I think this will be a big inspiration for Laurie in the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il4o_jJMq10

This is a music video but it really inspires me heavily, I love the way the camera moves around the space and how it circles the dancers when they are in the main room. I think this play between camera and movement is really beautiful, and I want to replicate this in our film.

I am also in touch with a composer I know, he is possibly going to create a short experimental piece to place over the movement sequence in the film. Here is a link to some of his work. https://open.spotify.com/track/6nf0qFiU7ypSKnXQg0kknJ?si=8c20cad8cb2f4013

As I currently have COVID, we will be postponing the interviews to next week. Right now we will just go full steam ahead with the pitching document and try get that all sorted!

Laurie created this moodboard for the film which captures my vision perfectly!

Second Cinematography Exercise

For this exercise, I struggled a lot to come up with an idea for what to shoot. I was also really stuck for time. I wanted to create an idyllic mood. My only free time was at night, so the use of daylight was not an option. I liked the idea of creating a cosy kitchen portrait, documenting a dinner. Something that feels cosy, warm and safe. For this, I would need to use warm colours - deep browns and warm shadows, luckily there is a lot of wood surfaces in the kitchen. I also like the idea of blue light coming from the TV to give a bit of contrast to the otherwise warm palette.

This is what the space looks like during the day with no dressing or lighting.

I did not have access to lighting, so the film is just with what I had available. Rather than seeing the film as an end-piece, it is more of a starting point to figure out what lighting is needed. At the moment, the lighting is a bit cooler than what i’d need, so I would change all the bulbs in the room out for warmer ones. Some of the shots are quite dark too, so this needs to be supplemented. I would potentially consider using an Aladdin ball on one of the bi-flex lights. I would place this underneath the TV so that it was hidden and brought up the light of the room. The light would be soft and warm, creating a nice subtle flood light to bring the brightness of the shots up. I think this is all the space needs from what I can tell. I am a big fan of using as much natural light as possible, so I think this set up would work.

Here is a rough plan of what I would do - not an incredible lighting plan but it gives you an idea of the space.

https://youtu.be/iO-sA1f94qg

Photo series - Home

ASC Article - Behind The Legend - Haskell Wexler

This short article is about American Cinematographer Haskell Wexler. It talks about the film that was made about his life Shoot From the Heart. He is not someone I have heard of but after reading the article I'd really like to watch the film! The article doesn’t say much about technical processes of filmmaking but it offers an insight into the life of an activist/filmmaker. I found this interesting because documentary/activist filmmaking is the area of film I am most interested in. I am really inspired by filmmakers who encourage social change through the medium of film so I am definitely going to look into him. He was also a big advocate for changing the working conditions for filmmakers in the industry which is an ongoing issue today.

ASC Article - Fashion Battles

Fashion Battles is an article that details the collaborations of Dariusz Wolski (Cinematographer) and Janty Yates (Costume Designer). They discuss the ways in which they worked together on House of Gucci and The Last Duel. It is interesting to learn that the process of collaboration starts very early for them. They state that colour pallete is the place their discussions begin which makes sense, as it is something that must be in line for both the costume designer and cinematographer, otherwise the film will look mismatched. They stated a key disagreement was that Yates would come up with beautiful bold costume ideas and the colouring of the film would de-saturate it. This is an example of how in-line both disciplines must be in order to make the film the best it can be. They talk about how it should be a ‘fluid collaboration’. Costume & Cinematography should be in talks from the very start of pre-production. The article was really interesting as shamefully I haven’t really considered costume design in much of my cinematography. This leaves a lot for me to think about!

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Coleen Brennan