Project Overview – Experimental Film Piece

16/05/15 – Sound association

Alexandra Capper / May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 / Project Overview

A big idea for my soundscape, and one that I feel makes it different to those I have made in the past, is sound association. In the past, I have heard many people describing their experiences with mental health using colours, sounds, feelings, and I wanted to reflect that within the piece. It was also inspired by the OCD film I found, and the chaotic sound he produced for it.

Due to the fact that I was physically moving the character for the glimpses into his head, it needed it to sound different too. It wasn’t the real world anymore, it was what it sounds like to be in his head.

I chose waves for the ‘upset’ sections, to represent the feeling of drowning, and being overwhelmed to the point of not being able to control it. For anger, I chose heavy traffic – chaotic, often unpleasant, and very distracting – so difficult to sustain coherent thought. And for the ‘depression’ stages, I used a big echoing reverb setting to try and replicate the isolating loneliness which is often felt by those suffering from mental health problems.

16/05/15 – Why the character is called ‘Man’

Alexandra Capper / May 19, 2015 / Project Overview

This wasn’t really something that came from research, I just wanted to have a character that didn’t necessarily identify with anyone specifically. I wanted the character to be accessible to everyone. So, using ‘Man’ is more a reference to the human race, rather than a male.

It was important that the audience didn’t feel like they could never be this character, as the character is supposed to represent the potential in all of us to develop such problems.

18/05/15 – Project Review

Alexandra Capper / May 19, 2015May 19, 2015 / Project Overview

This was an incredibly ambitious project, so I suppose it was never all going to go smoothly. Some of it did go right, but I think most of the process had issues along the way. However, where I could, I used the problems and learnt from them for the next time wherever I could, such as filming. Here are the main things I think went wrong and could be improved on if I had the chance to make it again.

The film was too long.

If I were to do the process again, I would swap the audio and the film recording. That way, instead of guessing when the actor needed to change expression, or move on, he would be able to react accordingly to his own voice. Instead, I ended up recording FAR too much footage, and with the film needing to be one continuous piece of footage, I wasn’t able to cut any out. This left huge chucks of film where there was no audio, as I had to fit the dialogue to what was happening on screen.

Dodgy audio

Additionally, a lot of the dialogue I recorded was unusable, as it had been recorded with a different microphone to the main lot of audio. It sounded odd and out of place when put with the other audio, so I had to leave it out.

Video editing software

I had never used any video editing software before, so was very new to it. After the filming was delayed, and had to be re-shot, there wasn’t much time for the editing afterwards. This time was further cut into as I taught myself how to use iMovie (not particularly difficult, but I was still very slow, and it took a long time) after realising it would take far too long to learn how to use Premiere Pro.

Began earlier

The project meant a lot to me personally, which I think is one of the reasons I was so set on my original idea for so long, even though I encountered problems with it. If I had begun writing the script and filming earlier, then I would have been able to experiment a bit more, and would have discovered problems sooner.

The anxiety section

I had recorded an extra section following the character experiencing anxiety, but forgot to include it within the script which is why it was left out of the main filming footage. However, I was really pleased with it, so I included it within the piece, even though it did not fit well. The is the longest gap of silence in the piece, as I didn’t want to waste time putting sound to that when I considered it to be not part of the film anyway.

And the things that went right:

The film

Despite it being too long, I am pleased with how the film turned out after editing. I like the cut out sections where you see his ‘inner self’, and I think they work well in the film.

The script

Even though it is not anything like a professional script, I feel I worked the research into the script quite well. Even if not directly in there, it was certainly heavily influenced by the personal stories I read while researching.

17/05/15 – Editing/exporting/computer problems

Alexandra Capper / May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 / Progress Updates, Uncategorized

During this project, my laptop has hindered the project quite a lot. It’s been running quite slowly in general, and has crashed several times when trying to start up, run, or export files from iMovie, Premiere Pro and Pro Tools. I lost progress a couple of time, and caused the editing process to be almost doubled in length.

For a few days, I didn’t have access to the blogs system, as the whole site was down, but luckily that didn’t last very long. However, as I had set aside those day to write some blog posts and make sure everything was up to date, I then had to factor in blog posts at a later date. I wasted a bit of time waiting for the site to come back online before typing up the posts up on a word document, and emailing the IT services. I tried to do as much as I could, but it was the day before another hand in, and I felt I couldn’t really give much more time to the blogs, which is why I had to complete them later.

I tried to use the sound theatre and edit suites where I could, but the sound theatre was very heavily booked up, and I struggled to get all the recording done in the slots I had booked. The edit suites weren’t as popular, but due to being quite ill last week, I didn’t feel able to make it into some of the slots and had to cancel them. I tried to do what I could at home, but my laptop did not work well when running video editing software and it was an incredibly slow process. A lot of the time the video would not run smoothly, so I’d have to replay a lot of the material two or three times. Of course, in hindsight, having known that I could film the piece by myself and that no other actors would come forward, I would have started filming FAR earlier. That way, it would have allowed more time for the editing process for any problems I ran into. I also would have been able to use Premiere Pro, as I would have had the time to learn how to use it. Although it was not the main factor for the delay, my laptop did cause several problems and delays itself.

Added to the filming difficulties, there have been so many issue with this project, I am not unsure whether I will be able to complete it properly.

16/05/15 – Filming sessions

Alexandra Capper / May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 / Progress Updates

Each filming session took place in the photography studio, after the suggestion from Mike Downing. I had no problem booking out the equipment, as was originally thought, and Mike was able to book the studio for me. This was a little frustrating, as had I known filming would be that easy (i.e. as an audio student I could still book out the equipment/room, I could have bypassed requesting help with filming and set up from media students), as waiting for a response to my posts delayed me by several weeks, if not months.

Filming session equipment: Canon 600D DSLR, tripod, 3 x LED lights. We used the white background, in the photography studio. This set up was the same for all sessions.

It took three sessions to get all of the footage I needed. The first had the aid of Mike who helped me set up, and taught me quickly how to use the camera. Even just a little help gave me the confidence to set up myself the following two times. He took me through how to set up the camera for what I wanted – we didn’t change much, just the ISO settings to increase/decrease sensitivity mainly. The photo below explains the set up better, but we used three LED lights, two for the background, one for the subject. The two background lights were set to the highest setting (255) and the subject one to a little lower (200) so it wasn’t so bright in the Sam’s (the actor) eyes. Additionally, the subject light was set off the the side, so it wasn’t as uncomfortable for Sam to be looking in the direction of the camera.

It took a while to get the initial filming session booked. As I wasn’t a media/FTV student, my room booking had to go through Mike, and I had to rely on him replying with when it was free for him to then book. He advised not going in on the weekend in case I needed help, so I had to wait until Monday to book. The first session went brilliantly, but the camera was angled slightly up and two one side, and caught the edge of the background in the corner of the frame. This was so small that I didn’t notice on the DSLR screen, only when I got home and loaded the footage onto my laptop. As this was the first session, it was also my first time directing an actor, and operating a camera. I had directed actors a little doing ADR, though I’ve never had to worry about what they looked like. I was pleased with the footage, however, during recording, I realised how unnatural the character looking straight into the camera was. I continued filming, to get the full script recorded, but I knew I’d need to come back in to film.

Unfortunately, I was now pushed for time, and there were very few studio slots available. To avoid the weekend, I had to book a single hour slot on Friday morning at 9am, before I was due in the sound theatre. Taking into account getting the items from media loans and set up, we didn’t even have a full hour to record. Additionally, the student who had used the camera previously had set it to different settings than I knew how to fix. Mike also hadn’t come in yet, and I couldn’t find Adam or any media advisors when I quickly went to look. It took a long while to figure out how to change the settings, but I got there eventually. However, almost as soon as I get ready to start filming, two fashion students arrived at the door with costumes for the student in the studio next. They spent a good few minutes finding places to put the costumes, and were wandering around the studio, so I didn’t feel able to film. After they left, they came back with more students and more costumes, but instead of putting the costumes in there and leaving, they sat down and began chatting fairly loudly. I wasn’t interested in the sound recording (I didn’t need it for the project as I was recording everything), but I felt unable to direct Sam properly because they were so loud, and it was incredibly distracting. In the end I just packed up the equipment and left, with very little recorded. I knew that the photography student would be along soon to set up, and I suppose I was too stressed and irritated to ask the students not to talk. I suppose I was also a little self conscious having others in there (having anxiety isn’t very good for that).

Having said that, I’m fairly glad we had to record again. Yes, it did massively delay the project, and I wish I could have got it all recorded much earlier, but I managed to get a Saturday slot in the studio, and the timing went really well, far better than previous sessions. By now, I knew how to set up quickly, and I could direct with no distractions (being a Saturday, there were very few people in the building). I had changed the script following the first session, and it worked really well. I was very happy with the new script/footage.

Here are the photos from the first session:

And here is a photo from the last session, after we moved things around a bit, to avoid catching the edge of the screen in the top corner: