A Level Film Blog

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Evaluation 4

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Evaluation 3

Codes and conventions:

I thought myself to be rather familiar with the codes and conventions of black comedy films. However, there was more to the genre than I thought, especially in regards to black comedies distinction with respect to filmmaking, such as a reliance of timing rather than jokes themselves, as well as character driven narratives.  

Planning and organisation:

Planning through preproduction was very simple and straightforward, which enabled me to have a relatively smooth production. With respect to planning for production, my skills improved as I had to adjust to the schedules of others, as well as prepare everything for filming beforehand as to minimise the amount of overall time. This worked out as the only reshoots needed were for b-roll.   

Camerawork:

We started the film coursework proper in November 2022. Starting out I had never even picked up a camera, was not ready nor confident enough to start with production. To help with my lack of skills, I con consulted my teachers in my free time to learn how to operate a GH5. I now know the bare bones of how to operate it, specifically on how to adjust shutter speed, exposure and focus on both automatic and manual.

Visual FX:

I had no prior knowledge on how to use the visual FX systems built into FinalCut. Throughout the process of creating my film I acquired how to mask, use presets and text, as well as colour grade. 

Editing:

Last I edited was my animated film which had minimal edits. Despite this, I felt relatively confident with my ability to edit sequences together in a cohesive way. Live action footage enables more cross cutting and allowed me to experiment with different forms of editing as well as more interesting transitions.  

Creative confidence:

As someone who mostly draws and visualises in 2D spaces, translating that to 3D in a way that is natural was a tall order. Despite this I felt I had translated my film rather well with a good balance of realistic and cartoony with the saturated colours and artificial framing. 

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Evaluation 2

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Evaluation 1

Conventions and Narrative 

My narrative follows a vengeful girlfriend exploiting her boyfriends allergies after he has wronged her. In my study of the black comedy, a convention I identified would be a misleadingly light opening in order to juxtapose the darker themes present later on. My film adheres to convention as it follows the same format, however the dark humour becomes present within the intro, specifically halfway, whereas others wait till either the end or the next scene. This will likely come as a surprise to the audience as it is not conventional to appear so early on.

Camerawork and editing

The use of camera is relatively simple with minimal movement throughout my film, as I only made use of a tripod and slider. This relatively fixed setup is rather unconventional for comedies, which are typically high energy and demand a lot of camera movement, especially with the recent trend of handheld in comedy with shows such as modern family and the office. To add dynamics to my film, I used masking to make text appear and disappear as well as transition from one scene to another. I also used fast paced editing as seen in the baking sequence.

Lighting 

The lighting in my film changes drastically throughout each sequence. It opens with high key lighting, and goes into low key, chiaroscuro during the baking segment. It was a stylistic choice to keep the kitchen the darkest as it is where the protagonist makes her death cake. My sequence ends by going back to high key lighting, ironically, when the boyfriend is killed. Most black comedies adhere to the cinematography of standard comedies, as dark humour is often shown through character and dialogue rather than cinematically through film language. 

MES 

MES was an important element of my film. I wanted the colours to be bright and warm to contrast the dark tone. This was accomplished largely in pre and post production by making custom graphics, as well as by turning up the saturation in final cuts built in colour grading program. I wanted my fonts and titles to be complimentary, and thus decided on a warm green. This is typical of black comedies in recent years, with black comedies almost becoming synonymous with satire, and thus have exaggerated set pieces and dressing. The order of credits follows an almost identical trajectory to that of "Panic Room" (dir. David Fincher, 2002) 

Representation

My Film only contains two characters, that being a girl and boy. Based on the homely location, and clothing choices such as watches and jewellery, it could be determined that they are both relatively well off people with enough spare time to share a meal together. The representation of the female character, Faye, is one of having feminine rage. Characters that harbour said quality are female and enact revenge on those who have wronged them, often by violent means. However, this previously unconventional representation of women has become. Niche trend, specifically in the indie sphere of filmmaking. Her choice to murder explores the theme of immorality, and how audiences engage with it. Especially with how now more than ever, media can create sympathetic villains, such as the likes of Walter White

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Camera Practice

Due to my inexperience, I rented out the cameras early in order to learn how to properly operate them. after meeting with my teachers, who taught me the basics, I put what i learnt into action within my household. A majority of shots had to have the exposure turned up due to the poor lighting in my house. Another problem encountered was the camera ability to capture shots in the relatively small area of square footage. this was a problem as shots could not go wider than a medium close up, which posed a problem for framing. due to this, I decided I will get a new lens, capable of capturing wider shots. 

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Final Film

★Final

★Rough

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Rough Cut Feedback

★Rough cut

After presenting my rough cut to my teacher and the class, I received feedback which is to be utilised for editing my final cut. 

A major criticism I received was the domination of the soundtrack and how I should include more pleonastic sounds, especially in the final part of my opening with the two characters eating together. This not only demonstrates an understanding of how to use sound in film, but also aids in generating immersion for the viewer, making them feel as if they're also there at dinner rather than being passive observers. The addition of sound is an easy change in post, and I will implement through the addition of cutting, cracking and pouring noises. 

Another criticism I got was the edit at the end, confusing the audience on what Fayes motivations were. advice i got was the remove it in itself entirety, as the final shot of Faye looking to the side leaves the story open ended enough to serve as an opening to larger film. This is also easily changed in post.   

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Masking and Rotobrush

Success:

Masking is utilised throughout my film. I made use of masking to make my credits appear and disappear in order to make my film more dynamic and interesting, as many of my shots are static.  

Fail:

Earlier in the year, we learnt how to use rotobrush and camera tracking on After Effects. I thought to use the technique to put the graphics on the milk carton. this however failed, as the camera was in fact static, and the object was the moving subject. This was later fixed through the use of practical effects. 

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Super 8

As I didn't have access to a KODAK Super 8 Camera, I had to rely on filters and blending layers to create the grainy, vintage look of older film cameras. 

After searching, I found a free download of Super 8 filters which came with many different formats as well as a film burn. 

These were easily utilised on final cut pro, as they were to be overlaid on existing footage and could be transformed accordingly. 

Final look: 

I believe these were successful recreations of Super 8 footage however the footage itself could benefit from more grain. 

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Colour grading

Due to the less than stellar lighting present in my location of choice the colours in my shots where very muted, dark and desaturated. I knew that this would need to be overcome in post, and thus filmed in preparation for post production colour grading. Though not overexposed, I made sure to make my shots as light as possible, so the colours would be visible and thus editable later on. 

I did my colour grading in final cut alongside general editing, although after the bulk of editing was complete. many of the shots followed the same steps:

1. Turning up exposure; Make shots lighter 

2. Turning up saturation; Make colours brighter 

Before: 

After:

The brighter colours are more indicative of the light and bubbly tone I attempt to portray throughout my film. 

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Target Audience

Merriam webster: 

A person who likes, knows about, and appreciates a usually fervently pursued interest or activity 

Wikipedia:

A person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject, or pastime.

Traits of film aficionados: 

- Predominantly watch films out of Hollywood 

- Seek personalised film experiences 

- Engage with popular foreign media 

Metroculturals: Prosperous, liberal urbanites, interested in a very wide cultural spectrum.

Age range: 16-30s millennial / Gen Z audience (Early 90s - Late 2000s) 

My film would be targeted and best suited for the demographic of teens to early adulthood (Millennials and Gen Z as of 2023). This is due to the humour being too dark a for audiences in their preteens, and too offensive for older audiences, covering death through allergens. Humour which would be more likely to fly with metroculturals. The humour of Gen Z and Millennial demographics is also that of dark and post/meta ironic humour, making them a suitable audience willing to pay for a black comedy. As my age range is 16-30, the demographic will most likely be in the C2DE bracket, as many will be starting out on entry level jobs or still saving, making them unlikely to spend disposable income, as well as take risks on films they watch.

Profile

Chloe is a 23 year old college graduate who enjoys watching films in her spare time. the types of films she leans towards are non mainstream, but easily digestible to casual film watchers. 

She has an affinity for dark comedies. As the dark humour aids her in a time of financial instability as a recent college graduate. She mostly watches films in the evenings of weekends, but saves up to buy a ticket to go to the cinema once a month to see newer films. 

She tends to enjoy films that look aesthetically pleasing, but enjoys when they tell a good story more. She believes that a good film is one that balances both visual and story beats. 

Chloe looks for films on letterboxd and tumblr, as both sites cater to her interests of providing visually appealing films. She writes reviews and shares her thoughts online, as she doesn’t have a space in real life to discuss her interests. 

Pearl and Dean Audience profiling - Pearl (dir. Ti West, 2022)

Although a totally different genre, my film follows similar tropes to Pearl as they both contain an exploration of a female protagonist experiencing upset and using violence towards others as an outlet. 

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Schedule

Key:

Green: Process, Done 

Orange: Intended, undone

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Filming

Day 1:

★Footage

My film can be broken down into three distinct parts:

1. Intro 

2. Baking

3. Outro  

I made it my goal to get at least 2/3 of these sections completed during the first day as to maintain continuity. at least, I wanted to get all the baking and shots with the boyfriend complete. 

As it was my first time working with camera proper, I ensured thorough planning in order to make the day run as smooth as possible such as setting up the table with cutlery, portioning ingredients and having floor markers for camera placement. 

For the most part filming was relatively painless, however encountered issues later in the day as it started to rain. This caused further issues with already unideal lighting, as we had to turn on warm room lights to get enough exposure. This caused continuity errors as in editing, with some shots being warmly lit with a yellow tint whereas others were not. 

Another issue encountered was one regarding hardware, with the camera mount getting stuck to the slider. This resulted in having to shoot with the slider on the tripod, which resulted in the slider being in some shots. 

During day one, we managed to complete all of both the baking sequence and outro. 

(image)

Day 2:

★Footage

During day two I only needed my actress for Faye to return as the beginning sequence only featured her, and b-roll could be done by myself. As the light was good, we shot the entirety of the intro, as well as shooting some extra scenes to pad out the runtime and overall make the scene run smoother. Overall, the planning of Day 1 paid off greatly, as Day 2 started and ended within an hour. 

B-Roll:

B-Roll however took slightly longer to film as it included precise MES elements such as a custom milk carton, post it notes with writing and graphical designs. footage of the papers didn't take long however spanned a couple of days due to poor light. The cold opening shot of milk being taken out of a fridge required a reshoot as my initial idea of masking the graphics failed to come to fruition, and thus required a reshoot with physical prop manipulation, that being taping the design onto the carton. 

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Lens testing

With the only viable location being my household, there were many limitations due to the limited space and light. One of which being unable to get any shot larger than a medium close up without being a great distance away. To combat this issue, I went to change the lens length. I changed it from the GH5 standard Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm f/2.8 to a SLR Magic HyperPrime CINE 10mm. This change enabled wider shot types, in the tight domestic space of my household. The only setback of this change would be a manual zoom and focus, however a virtue of this meant i would be paying constant attention to the camera, which allows for more consistent shots as i was not relying on the camera. 

Testing

Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm f/2.8

SLR Magic HyperPrime CINE 10mm

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Location scouting

As my film revolves around baking the only viable location to film in would be a  kitchen. The two locations in mind were my home and the home of my lead actress. 

My house:

Pros

Decently sized: Can Place camera good distance from actors 

Overhead lighting 

Easily accessible: Equipment is at home 

Familiar 

Cons

Poor lighting in and around the house due to window placement 

Not enough space for sequences outside kitchen 

Not aesthetically pleasing due to subdued and muted colours

Ultimately, I decided to use my house, in most part due to the lack of transportation of equipment and its familiarity. I had also framed a majority of shots in my storyboard to be adjacent to the architecture of my own home, and didn't want to adjust it to a home I wasn't familiar with.  

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Design Development

Recipe Paper

An important element of my film is the MES elements, especially pertaining to custom graphics. The intricate MES was inspired by the works of Wes Anderson, in which props, costume, graphics, etc. are all intricately composed to create a homogeneous aesthetic. Homogeneity is achieved through repeating details such as colour and font. 

Test 1:

Inspired by old recipe layouts with sleek, modern graphics. this was my first attempt. I wanted to differentiate the the recipe graphics from the ones done for the milk, however wanted to make them appear connected. to achieve this, i used complimentary colours and the same fonts. Despite this, the colours chosen where desaturated, and lacked contrast. 

Test 2: 

I decided to use the same layout but switch out the colours. for my second attempt, I colour-picked from the milk graphics and carried over the “Dairy Free” branding, as if the same company also made recipes. the higher contrast and brighter colours suited my film more, and decided on my second attempt to be the one used.