Music

I arranged to record the music with Katie on a Saturday afternoon with the basic microphone build into my camera- it hadn’t let me down before so why not? We’d already decided we wanted all the music to be light acoustic sounds so she brought her acoustic guitar and ukulele.

We started by recording a few songs she knew that we could add in as incidental music including ‘Blackbird’ which she knew very well and I felt would make a great closing track and ‘Norwegian Wood’ as I really liked the idea of using it as a transition into the party scenes, the opening lyric is ‘I once met a girl or should I say she once met me’ which I hoped anyone who recognised the song would subconsciously hear in their mind and would connect well with the visuals. We also recorded a piece called simply ‘Spanish Ballad’ which would match up with what Katie had been playing at the beginning of her scene as Sarah but I wanted a recording on guitar as the sound better reflected the hopeful, vaguely romantic mood of the scene.

We then recorded a song called ‘Yes It Is’ I’d requested Katie learned as I’d been listening to it and thinking about the climax scene in the past and I felt it really worked with putting the audience in Michael’s position.

Then there was the original music. This was purely for the opening scene, I wanted something bright that sounded vaguely improvised to really set the tone for the film but acknowledge the differation between the white on black titles and the dark shots in-between. I asked Katie if she could switch between finger-picking and strumming chords and what she came up with was pretty much everything I asked. We ran it a couple of times until we’d perfected it and then I recorded it. In the end all the runs we did had something wrong with them so I had to subtly mix a few versions but it worked. We played the muted visuals while Katie played to ensure it would match up as well as a possible.

I then recorded a few sounds from the guitar I could use as incidental music, a friendly chord and then a mysterious apprehensive one. I also asked for a couple of high pings I wasn’t sure I would use but I wanted to be on the safe side.

Finally I needed to record something on the ukulele for the montage, Katie looked up a few tunes but nothing seemed to fit. We gave it some thought then Katie mentioned that she could play the song having seen Paul McCartney play it as a tribute to George Harrison she had learnt to play ‘Something’ on the ukulele (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b_kvE_DsCU). Since the montage had been inspired by ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ it seemed only appropriate that it ought to be a Beatles song. We played it thought a couple of times then we recorded the famous refrain separately and called it a day for the music.

Opening Credits

Having already been warned against shot reverse shot I knew I neared to establish a strong visual style and I hoped making the opening sequence including the credits would help me do that.

My original idea was to have several boxes appearing on the screen with the video in each playing and fitting together. This turned out to look quite messy and very difficult to pull off and even if I managed to put it together just as I had imagined it didn’t really fit in with what I was trying to do elsewhere. I’d already spent a few hours on it but continuing was not the answer.

The original concept:

In trying to develop a new idea I started with finding a new font for the titles. A pet hate of mine is seeing the same automatic fonts used by Microsoft cropping up in people’s films again and again. My top three most despised and over-used would probably be Comic sans, Chiller and Bradley Handwriting. I picked a particularly jolly some might even say playful font in the end because I wanted to keep the film quite light-hearted. To that end I decided it would look better as black on white than white on black which is when it occurred to me what I nice contrast it would make to the dark shots I’d taken of the opening.

The font I setled on:



Once I’d put together the basic credits framework I thought about how I could make it more visually interesting. The idea of having speedy drawings appear next to names appealed to me so I searched the internet for a basic program for recording your drawings. What I found wasn’t ideal as the black on white came out slightly grey making the use of chroma key impossible and the files took ages to render but I worked round this with what I would call some skilful resizing.

I picked pictures that would apply well to the names but have a simple childish charm to them. I used a picture of Fern and Joe on the title slide to briefly confirm in the audiences mind the premises; Joe has just broken up with his girlfriend. I used the final broken heart similarly.

Sketchy drawings of Joe and Fern:

Second Filming Session

The second shoot got off to a rocky start. To give us more time Bobby and I had stayed over at Katie’s the night before but we over-slept and were woken only by Matt knocking on the door the following day. It took a while then to wake everyone and prepare for filming.

Costume was immediately an issue. Bobby, as instructed, had brought the same clothes he wore from last time (for pick-ups and a scene we ran out of time for last week) and a casual t-shirt and jacket such that he would look as though he’d only just arrived at Joe’s house to casually console his friend. Matt however had only brought clothes he’d worn on the last shoot and forgotten the pyjamas we’d ask him to bring. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. There were obviously no men’s pyjamas lying around Katie’s house but she could lend him unisex pyjama trousers and her sisters dressing gown which we thought would look as though Fern, Joe’s ex-girlfriend, had left it behind the night before and would add to the immediacy of the scene following the break-up and show Joe in a light where he is too miserable to care what he looks like.

We started with the first bedroom scene. Since that was set early in the morning I figured their genuine tiredness might actually enhance their performance. The pair were supposed to be playing a video game throughout this scene but we quickly realised that without the screen we would cut to in editing actually in the room eye-line was going to be a problem. We over-came this by moving a picture of Paul McCartney from Katie’s wall where we intended the screen to be and asked Matt and Bobby to focus on him like he was a third actor.

The second bedroom scene was shorter and should have been simpler if we hadn’t had so many issues with corpsing. I really wanted the Joe and Michael scenes to be very naturalistic and build-up the idea that they are two friends completely at ease with each other in contrast to the party where they stand about awkwardly in the company of others. To try and achieve this I played about with the positioning asking Matt to sprawl over the swivelling chair and Bobby to lie back on the bed fiddling idly with the pen.

I needed a few simple shots for the opening which I was afraid if I didn’t do at this point might be forgotten despite the shot list. The first was the alarm clock which prompted much debate over whether to use a digital one or not, I played about with the lighting on this one to try and get an interesting effect with the shadows. I filmed a couple of other pre-planned shots and then thought for safety I’d better get some of Joe and Fern and what actually happened prior to the main film just in case I needed it in post production.

The kitchen scene took the longest because it was ultimately the longest scene and I wanted to keep the naturalistic look which meant asking Bobby to not only concentrate on his lines but a few set movements. In the scene whilst talking to Joe, Michael fetches out a bag of mixed nuts and pours him a drink of water. This stops it from being just two people standing and talking which rarely happens in real life. However when the conversation turns serious the two go very still to emphasise the point which the whole film hangs on. The scene went reasonably well although we did come across a problem that would haunt me throughout post-production. It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him Bobby’s eyes will inevitably in almost every shot slide from Matt to the camera and sometimes back again.

I also attempted a tracking shot here with the use of a broken swivelly chair and had Katie pull it backwards across the kitchen whilst i sat on it holding the tripod steady. It didn't look bad but we couldn't stop Matt from laughing at the spectacle and the noise it made over-powered the dalougue- honestly you would have thought I'd have learnt from last year when we tried the same thing with the tricycle.

I found the door scene possibly one of the hardest to film because I couldn’t quite make my mind up where the camera should go relative to Matt position. I really wanted it to look straight onto him in a close-up, slightly back-lit because I thought it would make a nice contrast to the dark shots that preceded it but when I thought about Matt’s position in the doorway I realised the only way it was really going to work looking in on him was if he opened the door a crack and leaning forlornly on the frame looked out at Michael. I tried doing a few poor shots from Joe’s point of view looking out at Michael but I’m still undecided as to what I should use in the final edit.

After we’d filmed all the originally scheduled scenes we had to use our last hour to film the scene we’d skipped the weekend before. I’d hoped we’d have someone to play Natalie by now but no such luck, Carrie and Amber were still unavailable so as the only person present who looked even vaguely Greek I had to take the role instead. I don’t enjoy acting in my films because I want to be behind the camera knowing what’s going on able to check it’s all to standard. I find myself concentrating on that so much I completely forget to act it took me a couple of goes just to remember to say my line but we got round it in the end. It won’t be the strongest scene in the film.

We used out final half-hour on pick-ups. Last time we filmed a fairly weak closing shot in which Joe puts his arm around Michael and walks him back into the party but in the small space of Katie’s hall it wasn’t very clear at all and I didn’t feel it was anywhere near strong enough for a closing shot so I re-shot in the same location but with a close-up on Joe taking Michael’s hand which got a far more emotional response from our immediate audience (Katie). We also added a shot of one of ther girls (me) flinging water at the camera which meant getting the cling-film out again but the results were at least far more sucessfull than last time.

Then we added some close-ups to the kissing scene, we’d rushed it last time because we felt uncomfortable about asking Bobby and Matt to do it more than a couple of times. But now they’d got into the swing of it they didn’t seem to mind.

All in all it was a far more successful day than the first and I’m fairly confident I can put a film together with what I have now.

Joe's Encounter with Sarah

Before the second filming session I put together a very rough cut of the short scene where Joe is rejected by Sarah just to get a feel for what the film would look like and what I was aiming for.

I’ve opened with a few panning shots of Sarah playing her ukulele fading into one another. I think it presents Sarah as a soft innocent character, I want to stress that the antagonist isn’t any of the girls it’s Joe’s own social incompetence probably due in turn to his sudden lack of confidence ultimately brought about by Fern- the unseen villain of the piece. Essentially it’s about something Joe is lacking, a personal dissatisfaction which makes a romantic relationship between himself and Michael – the only person he’s portrayed as genuinely comfortable around – actually possible.

Aside from that quick establishment it’s all about telling the story. I used the shot zooming out from Sarah bringing Joe and Michael into focus even though its quite clumsy visually in principle I think it’s the ideal transition. There is a brief shot- reverse-shot sequence between the two followed immediately by one between Sarah. I realised when I put the two exchanges together how well this works in establishing the shift in Joe. When he speaks with Michael they stand very close together using very few words to convey meaning and the camera position puts them on the same level despite their height difference. With Sarah Joe has to look down on her. It’s pleasantly ironic that although the low-angle ought to portray Joe as empowered Sarah clearly has all the control.

I also chose a tight close-up on Joe when he starts to become flustered, the warm lighting and facial expression hopefully give the audience that idea of heat rising uncomfortably to your face. I also sped up the zoom on Sarah’s face when she frowns to better suggest the speed with which Joe can alienate women. I hope either consciously or subconsciously this comes across.

Sarah has to look up while talking with Joe

This close-up cuts out Joe's shoulders making it uncomfortably close

A sharp zoom relects the speed at which Joe manages to kill conversation

The focus shift on Michael hopefully suggests a blurred side to his charector

Establishing a Style

The feedback from the animatic was that there was too much shot-reverse shot which doesn't prove much in the way of skills and is ultimately just visually dull. I tried on the shoot to balance this by other shots with interesting camera movement but there wasn't nearly enough so I had to start thinking about what I could do in post production to resolve this.

I talked to a couple of people and an idea emmerged to impose sketchy drawings of say thought bubbles and arrows and the like over some of the shots which would better convey infomation to the audience if I needed to condense my work later on. Something along these lines:

This could be used in the kissing scene where the shots we have actually aren't that strong so this would draw attention and emhasis to the action

Another idea I had was punctuating some moments by inserting a poorly taken photograph at the party which would envelop properly the mood of the evening. It's hard to explain but I hope to experiment with both this week and post my results.

First Day of Filming

The first day of filming could have gone a lot better. Time pressure meant we had to make cuts in the schedule including a whole scene.

Our first task of the day was set preperation and this went reasonably well. To create the illusion of evening at 9:00 in the morning we pegged a dark red sheet over the window and attached black-out matirial to the outside of Katie's front door (we filmed the whole thing at her house). Then we set out food for people to pick-out which we hoped would reflect the low-key party atmosphere we were trying to create.

Here are couple of examples of our efforts:

We found that anything can look sophisticated if you put parsly on it.

This was intended to poke fun at some of the posy food you get served at partys. It's mini-toblerone with mayonaise and again parsley.

We started filming with the exchange between Joe and Sarah because Bobby wasn't scheduled to get there for another 2 and a half hours and since we had Matt and Katie in the same place it seemed foolish not to get the shot reverse shot and the cutaways of her ukelele done. We spent a strangly long time finalising her costume. We thought the bow would give her a childish quality that Katie tends to convey in her charectors anyway.

Next we wanted to get Matt's half of the reaction shots we'd be using in the rejection montage to signify the passing of time. To do this we shined a light on the wall behind him to create a plain white backdrop and asked him to pull a variety of bizare expressions for the camera which we could pick from later and mix with similar footage of Katie, Megan (who was supposed to be arriving that afternoon) and myself.

After Katie had left to meet Bobby at the station I kept working with Matt on the montage. I had an idea as to how it would end that one of the girls would through water on him and you'd see it trickling down the lense blurring his face. We set up carefully with a towel on the floor and I was ready to experiment only everytime I started to tip the glass (having covered the lense in cling-film of course!) Matt would start laughing. I'm still not sure how we over-came this in the end but we did. Disappointingly the footage didn't come out all that well. In heinsight I'd like to play with the focus on this- it's something I might pick-up on when we re-film some bits next Sunday.

After 12 the schedule started going astray. When Bobby arrived we went straight into filming the stairs scene which took about an hour and a half and we'd already been put back 45 minutes or so by the trains. This was mostly due to a line we'd put in to condense several so as to cut down the running time and the amount of shot reverse shot which was the main critisism I got for my animatic. The line was: I love you Mike but I see us as more of a Lennon and McCartney than a Colin and Justin. Matt couldn't say it. One time he even came out with 'I see us as a Paul McHeather McCartney story?' In the end the best solution I could come up with was Matt saying 'I love you Mike but-' and Bobby cutting in with 'But you see us as more of a Lennon and McCartney than a Colin and Justin'. It worked.

A major problem we had with the party scenes was keeping the illusion of there being many people milling about when infact we only had three extras if you included Katie who was playing Sarah as well. The best solution was Katie fetching out a selection of hats and hoodies people could wear so that from behind they looked like different people. Example's are shown below:

Finally after Matt left we recorded a few cuttaway's a pick-ups with suprising success. We didn't get nearly enough as we were all very tired and wanted to finish so we could have the cheesecake which had been serving as the insentive to keep going for the the last 6 hours. But I got some reasonable shots of Megan and Katie to insert into the last scene to give it a bit of diversity.

I found looking back time pressures had forced us to leave a lot out but I plan to make a detailed list of shots to pick up on next Sunday before it comes round including showing Matt and Bobby what I already have and seeking their opinions amongst others.

Time Management

Having a schedule for Saturday 9th (our first day of filming) became all the more important when we found out first off that James couldn't make it after all (didn't I say he was unreliable) and we had to call in Bobby Kirke at the last minute who's brilliant but lives in Twickenham and secondly because Matt had to leave to go to work at three.

When I made this rough schedule for the day it was on the assumption Bobby would arrive at 11:30 when instead, due to train difficulties, he arrived at 12:15 so we had to abandon the scene with Natalie and post-pone that for the following week:

8:00-9:00 - Set-Up. Set-dressing. Black out windows.

9:00-10:00 - Film the scene with Sarah exclusing shots of Michael

10:00-10:30 - A selection of optimism to rejection facial expressions from Joe. Shot of lights dimming over Matt and water trickling over-lense.

10:30-11:30 - Line learning with Matt Goodwill.

--ARRIVAL OF BOBBY KIRKE--

11:30-12:00 - Scene with Sarah including shots of Michael.

12:00-1:00 - Joe and Michael stairs scene.

1:00-1:30 - Scene with Natalie

1:30-2:30 - Film build-up and climax to final scene

2:30-3:00 - Establishing shots and pick-ups

--DEPARTURE OF MATT GOODWILL--

3:00-3:45 - Second half of rejection montage (girls reactions)

3:45-4:00 - Wild Track and Sound Effects

Shot List

Click on image for a larger and clearer version.

Film Title

I was considering changing the title from 'Fishing to Affection' to 'Fishing for Confidence' because it would then be a better pun on Fishing for Compliments and still make sense. I even played about with the titles to see which one was visually more pleasing:

Personally I really like Fishing for Confidence but I asked several other people and there votes all went for Affection possibly because the fs provide something close to alliteration which is midly pleasing. I shall stick with 'Fishing for Affection'.

The Montage

The montage in the middle of the party scene has remained up to now hazy in my mind and I really wanted to get it straightened out before I worked out the shot list. Eventually it occurred to me this was an opportunity to do something more like the opening credits than your classic film montages of this type.

I thought I’d mix shots of girls rejecting Joe with Joe’s feelings of dejection culminating over the evening so that it has more of a narrative to it. The idea came from the cover of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ which was lying on my desk at the time:

This in turn reminded me of the clever credits sequence at the end of the film (A Hard Day’s Night) which can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgFOQuWICnM&feature=related (watch from 0:56) so that has now become my basis for the montage.

Production Plan

Click on the picture to see a clearer enlarged version.

Charector Development and Casting

For Joe I always had Matt Goodwill in mind as I have worked with him previously with a similar kind of charector. He'd already proven himself reliable, also I think he has an appropriate look for someone like Joe as illustrated in this screenshot from a previous film I made with him 'White Lies' :

To help me really pin Joe down I also drew some rough costume designs my intention being that in the party scenes he's putting on an uncomfortable act by being dressed awkwardly smart, it's part of his charm (I hope) :

Michael has been much harder. I orginally intended the part for John Platt who had also taken part in 'White Lies' but for personal reasons this became impossible so after asking around I had to fall back on James Hoye. I worked with him last year reasonably well but he has proven in the past to be quite unreliable so it's risky but ultimately I have no choice.

Again I sketched some cotume ideas for Michael:

Storyboard/Amimatic

I drew out a storyboard in reasonable detail and after recording a primitive voice-over of the dialogue spoken by myself and my brother put it together into an Animatic to give me a better idea of the project. As a sequence of shots it’s not looking too bad but I’m starting to fear for length as I’m currently running 45 seconds over.

The Script

Writing the script was definately the first priority on a film so heavy in dialougue. A lot was taken directly from the short story but in order to make it more exciting and easier to film a lot of changes had to be made too.

As an example here's the first page of the short story comapred to the first page of the script:

Analysis of a Proffesional Product- My Wrongs 8245-8249 & 117

My Wrongs, directed by Chris Morris and produced by Warp, I consider a wonderful example of a successful short film. It takes a quite abstract idea and through stylising and tight narrative structure turns it into something comprehendible within the restricting boundaries of ten minutes.

First take its distinctive visual style. Every shot is sharply in focus to draw the audience’s attention to specific information most specifically the central character and his limited perceptions of the world around him as he breaks down. The idea of seeing from the point of view of a man mentally unstable is then re-enforced by the jumpy camera style which jerkily zooms in and out. Every shot is a little shaky and loosely framed. Morris also chooses to avoid wide-angles to keep his audience very close to the protagonist and the dog at all times.

The mise-en-scene also helps connect the audience to its central character though it is naturalistic in editing the contrast appears to be heightened which gives it a looser connection with reality and helps enforce the idea of not so much seeing through someone else’s eyes but being trapped in someone else’s head. The protagonists appearance has also taken some thought. He is dressed in a shabby jacket and jeans and his hair is unwashed, contrasted to the neat almost shiny dog and the clean almost sterile looking house he’s been asked to sit it looks like he could have been pulled in off the streets and so when he does break down and end up loitering at the park shouting at ducks he looks less out of place there than in Imigen’s house.

Sound is especially interesting. The music is not so much music but surreal, eerie drawn out notes and similar, even the tone on the answer machine is distorted into one of them so that it becomes like a sound of feedback or similar on the unfortunate protagonists life itself. Then there is the narration, less narration than internal monologue in fact an idea again re-enforced when we are able to hear first the dog and then the baby talk.

But the neat flowing narrative is what I find most inspiring about this film. Each scene flows effortlessly into the next via the internal monologue and the central point of a man walking a dog. Even the bizarre flashback to our narrator’s childhood mid-way through the film seems graceful after the audience have already been introduced to the concept of the talking dog the talking mouse follows naturally and through minimal dialogue provides us with a key back-story. What I like most though is the ending, after a film like this it’s particularly hard to finish it and leave the audience entirely satisfied but Morris does it as he finally pulls back into a wide-shot to show the protagonist shouting at the ducks relieving the audience and releasing them from the madness.



The full film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgvTApLkC3Y

Feedback on the Pitch

Fortunatley most of the points made were on the presentation itself rather than specifically the film but there was a sense of scepticism that my project might be over-ambitious. However the main points were:

- It needs to be made very clear that it's a short film (I have now ammended this by saying so on the title slide)

- Visual elements need to be better explained

- The target audience needs to be developed more specifically

- There should be visual examples of the running fish metaphor connected to the title

The Pitch

I asked permission from a close friend (Katie Bray) to use her short story as a basis for my film and with her permission came up with the basis outlined in this pitch:

Fishing for Affection- Pitch

View more presentations from xanthezyoung.

Further Skills Development

Over the summer I made a second video to focus my skills further and experiment with visual style. It turned into an eight minute short film the highlights of which I show here:



My main focus’ were:
• Extreme Close-ups
• Focus shifts
• Tracking shots and camera movement
• Slow Motion
• Reverse

I also worked particularly hard on the sound editing. For a demonstration of this the full film can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MipXVaUVVb4

Evaluation of Skills Development

In preparing for our next film task we’ve been developing skills for a summer-themed music video or in my case more of a summery montage. It hasn’t been my best work and I certainly feel it’s lacked any real drive but I’ve tried a few new techniques which will never-the-less be useful later on.

Speed- Slow-motion and sped up clips are pretty simple but when experimenting with them I wanted to make sure we put them to good use. For example when we were trying out slow-motion I experimented with using several angles and cutting between them with a slight over-lap rather than perfect match-on-action which made the situation (James falling) seem more dramatic and significant.

Reverse- Reversing film is actually something that I’ve played around with a lot, often when people use it, it can look tacky and I wanted to avoid that and make sure it had real purpose. In one of my previous short films I used reversed film in a few shots to make it appear that my sister was a witch who could summon objects with surprising success. This time I tried something similar aiming to make it appear that James was summoning paper and pen.

Focus- Manual focus is something a lot of student film-makers tend to avoid but actually once you’ve worked out where it’s hidden away on your camera focus shifts are pretty simple as well as highly effective. I experimented with various plants switching between foreground and background then I tried improving my shots generally by bringing very specific objects into focus and playing about with the exposure which also helped give the shots that essential summery feel.

The concept for the music video- In trying and make it slightly more interesting I decided to combine the various shots I’d got in Knebworth with some a filmed at home with more of a story to it, where my sister’s responses to the sun portrayed it as a monster she wanted to shut out. Mixing the shots in editing and with the edition of ‘Here Comes the Sun’ playing all the while gives it a faint irony although I can’t pretend I completely understand what my intentions were behind it and I’m not especially happy with the finished video.

Editing to music- This was actually a really useful skill to develop and not something I’d really tried before. First I played the song through marking all the major changes in the music to make sure I made a change in tone in the images whether this was the move from the shots of my sister retreating into the shade to a montage of flowers both in and out of focus or something subtler. In particular though I wanted the shots to cut with the words which meant speeding up shots in several places. It comes across in the final cut and I’m very happy with it in this respect.

Evaluation

After some discussion James and I decided to show our evaluation of the final cut as an interview answering the essential questions and illustrating them with muted clips from our production.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Interviewer- Katie Bray

The Final Cut

The Opening two minutes of 'Lab Rats':

Written, Directed and mostly Edited by Xanthe Young

Written, partly Edited and Music Composed by James Hoye

Allison Carroll played by Katie Bray

Heather Miller played by Phoebe Young

The Voice of Daniel Carroll played by James Hoye