Month: March 2019

So, the expected has come to pass. The CCR is upon us and I am having issues

I have spent the past few days working on my CCR, initially forming a script, which I will post along with the Creative Critical Reflection, and then recording the audio I needed to send to the computer to download.

I recorded that audio I would input into my CCR on the iPhone app, Voice Memos. This was a convenient and effective method of recording audio as I was able to take it into my room or any other quiet space and record the necessary audio. The app also provides the possibility of recording over audio. This meant that if I was recording fairly long audio clips and I happened to mess up, I could simply stop the recording, scroll backwards in the audio and record over my mistake and continue the recording.

This revelation came a bit late, seeing as I had deleted around 90 audio clips where I had made a mistake before realizing that this was a possibility. Overall, I took 53 audio clips to put into my CCR.

Nonetheless, this was an easily overcome, although tedious, hurdle. But more problems awaited with the video editing software that I was relatively new to, AVS Video Editor. I had edited with this software previously for preceding projects, but the CCR is so far the longest video that I have edited.

It had an interface that was pretty simple to navigate. Everything was well laid out and easy to access, Problems only began to sprout when I started to input images and audio.

I quickly found that placing audio underneath video did not result in any issues, but if you placed video or images over audio, then the audio would be split apart. The same thing occurred whenever I shortened or lengthened a video or image over audio.

This became especially problematic in the middle of the CCR, when timing began to become important. I placed images to correspond with what I was saying in the audio and had to time them accordingly. Without being able to adjust the timing of the images with the audio under it, I would need to move the audio aside before adjusting the image and then put the audio back in place. This was much more time consuming of a method.

This required a lot more patience and time than if I was able to adjust the image over the audio.

Another problem that I encountered while working with the AVS Video Editor was the glitchy nature of the editor. There were multiple times when vital parts of the editor refused to work, like the all-important undo button. Another issue that would arise with the editor was that it would jump back to the beginning of the timeline whenever I would place a new image or video into the program. These frustrating occurrences would require me to close out the program and reopen it, taking up more time.

These setbacks made a lengthy project even lengthier.

Nonetheless, I’ve been able to get everything input, which has become easier overtime as I have become used to the process of moving the audio, adjusting the video and replacing the audio. I’ve got a bit to go, but EVERYTHING has almost come to an end.

Everything’s coming to a close!

The light at the end of the tunnel (you know, the metaphor that I’ve used a few too many times now) has finally come into arm’s reach. It wasn’t easy; it actually required a lot of work. But we’re almost done.

As previously stated, I sent all of the sound clips off to Ben, so all that he needs to do now is input them all into the opening. After that and any minor tweaks to the sound that may need to be made, we’ll have our final cut! Our group project will finally be complete!

But that’s not the “final stretch” I’m talking about. My final stretch towards completing the group part of the project was finishing the sound. As of now, I am officially done with our group video project

Now, I move onto the Creative Critical Reflection, better known as the CCR. This is the last part of our project, meant to help us “reflect upon [our] work, using digital formats such as director commentaries, slideshows with voiceover, podcasts, Prezis or screencasts” according to my teacher. This is the last big part of our project, holding nearly as much importance as our title sequence.

In this CCR, we need to answer 4 questions:

1. How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?
2. How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?
3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

To answer these questions, I’m planning to do a sort of “director’s commentary” which will require me to mess with some video editing software that I have only scarcely dealt with previously. This will require a bit more research and a lot more ranting in my blog posts.

Anyway, this process will start shortly, so expect some troubles ahead.

Today’s experience with recording and editing sounds was less difficult than the previous time, fortunately for me. I’ve been getting the hang of recording the sounds and have been picking more accurate items to make the sounds I hope to record.

Bed Rustling

• When recording these sounds, I occasionally showed my dad the audio I had captured, just like with the water drip. When revealing the “bed rustling” sounds I had captured, he believed that these sounds sounded too harsh, like the first water drip I had recorded, and suggested I rerecord a softer sound. To do so, he grabbed a bed sheet from storage and we stood out in the living room, moving and shuffling the sheet to give the right sound. Using this method, I captured a much more desirable sound and recorded three different variations.

Air Conditioner

• This one was by far the easiest to capture. It only took one take to get right. I simply held the bottom end of my phone (the microphone end) upward towards the vent that my air conditioning was running through. With it, I recorded a 15-second-long clip of just the air conditioner running, which wasn’t difficult to record. It should also be long enough of a sound clip seeing as this background ambient sound probably won’t be loud enough to notice a loop in the sound.

Pickup and Set Down of Picture Frame

• Capturing this sound required a bit of ingenuity. Picking up and setting down an actual picture frame did not give the desired sound as I had hoped. The part of the picture frame on the back that keeps the picture frame stable did not give a strong sound. Besides, it was hard to set the picture frame down in time with the opening and have it make a strong sound. The sound of the picture frame below was not in time with the title sequence.

• I instead went ahead and used a portable speaker that we had lying around the house. This had a more sold base and allowed for a much better sound when it came to picking up and setting down the speaker.

Now, this seems like a lot less that I recorded, but in reality, these were the ones that I deemed necessary out of a large amount of rejects. There were a lot of takes that I simply deleted on the spot because they were out of time or didn’t sound right. And some sounds I even went as far as to edit, but then ended up scrapping. These will be detailed in a later post.

I also spent the majority of this time, approximately 4 hours, editing the sounds I took yesterday and the sounds I took today. Recording sounds only took up about 1/3 of the time spent on audio. Besides, editing took less time than yesterday thanks to the beautiful art of “getting the hang of it.” I better understood the software and could better edit the sounds.

So I’m finally done and will send the sounds off to our editor – Ben – soon, meaning that we are finally coming to the end of our project.

Sound is a pain. Especially when you don’t know how to work the software (AVS Audio Editor) to edit those sounds.

That’s what I’ve learned over these past 5 hours.

Add this together with having to accomplish this by yourself in as short a period of time as possible and we have:

Stress! And Exhaustion!

Well, that’s enough complaining, I guess. I just had to vent for a bit on the frustrating experience that is – recording and editing sounds in your house while also editing them on software you have scarcely used. My sound is far from silent and making it silent enough to record diegetic sounds was pretty difficult. But it had to be done and done it was.

I won’t relay the events of 5 HOURS of recording and editing chronologically as this would result in long, confusing post as my work flow is anything but linear. I jump from task to task in no given sequence and that would probably be very difficult to follow in text. Besides, structuring this like the “Re-shooting (Everything) – Day 1 and Day 2” posts will help with clarity and section the important details into separate posts that come later. So, I’ll be talking solely about how I recorded each sound for each day and discuss the struggle of editing in a later post.

Anyway, transitioning into talking about recording the sounds, I used the rough cut to time many of my sounds. To make sure that some sounds matched up with the timing of the actual clips, I would watch the blocking and then make the sounds according to the movements of Lionel.

Water “Bloop”

• This took a lot of recording to figure out. I had initially decided to let the water drip onto the bottom of the sink and capture that sound, since that’s what would “technically” be happening in the film.

• However, when I showed this to my dad, he found the sound to be too harsh. He advised me to make it sound more like the expected “water drip” – the deep “bloop” that occurs after the water droplet hits a body of water. To accomplish this, I had the droplet fall into a cup full of water. The sound I attained was much more desirable.

Footsteps

• This one baffled me. It was simple, but not simple at the same time. I quickly discovered that footsteps on carpet don’t make nearly enough sound to capture, so I moved to tile. However, bare feet coming directly off of tile does not sound appealing. In reality, it actually sounds pretty gross

• So, I made the decision to put socks on and walk on the tile. The sound became instantly better. Unsure of how the sounds would far when added to the opening’s soundtrack, I recorded three variations. Although the differences are minute, since we were not directly communicating on the audio, I felt that these would give the editor choice and allow him to see for himself which worked better.

Bed Rustling

• This one was probably the weirdest to record. This sound was supposed to be for when Lionel is moving in the bed and ultimately leaves the bed. Unsure of how to best capture this sound, especially without a second person, I resigned myself to – are you ready for it? – shifting and swiveling around on my own bed. It was actually pretty sad. I probably spent the most time recording this sound, as Lionel spends a decent amount of time shifting around on the be in the opening and it’s difficult to get the audio to sound right when recording it by yourself. Not to mention, my bed creaks a lot and I had to be careful not to get this in my recording.

• Nonetheless, I still sent myself four different variations of the bed rustling that I planned to edit.

Hands on Bed

• This one was taken along with the bed rustling sounds. This sound was meant for the part in the second half of the opening where Robert puts his hands on the bed to lean over and glance at the fluorescent light on the other side of the bed. This one was much simpler to capture. I felt that the creaking of the bed would work well for this one.

This doesn’t seem like much as it not only doesn’t include the time spent trying to edit these sounds but also the time spent deleting the sound clips that I messed up. I deleted at least 15 takes for each variation of diegetic sound I kept.

And the worst thing is, I’m not even done yet.

So, bad news.

It seems that we’re going to have to almost completely redo all of the sounds due to our ignorance of how to incorporate sounds into our film.

In the rough cut, our editor, Ben, went ahead and included the majority of the sounds into our opening by finding sounds from the Internet. He effectively placed these with the according sounds and added them as diegetic sounds – sounds that occur within the film.

Our group saw no problem with this initially, seeing it as one less task that we would have to accomplish by ourselves. Besides, there was no rule that we weren’t allowed to take such sounds for the Internet, right?

Apparently, there was, and we just didn’t know about it.

My group was showing our rough cut to our teacher, Mr. Engle, when he asked us about how we recorded our sounds for our film. After Ben responded, relaying that we took most of the sounds from the Internet, our teacher gave a disappointed look. He then revealed the Cambridge rule, that all diegetic sounds need to be recorded by the group themselves.

Needless to say, all of our hearts dropped immediately, letting his words sink in. The end of the project had just moved that much farther from our grasp.

The light at the end of the tunnel seemed that much more unreachable.

That’s a little dramatic, but you get my point. At this point in the project, I didn’t think that we would experience any large setbacks, seeing that we have everything filmed and in the editing software, but here’s another hurdle we must face. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘me,’ seeing as I volunteered to oversee the production of sound in the film. Ben just decided to do me a favor and input it while he was editing for our convenience.

Unfortunately, that means we’re almost back to square 1 with sound, and I’ll have to create all of our diegetic sounds from scratch and edit them all myself to send to Ben.

I have to record a new dripping sound, rustling sheets, footsteps, AC ambient sound, the sounds of the bed being pressed down and the sound of the picture frame being picked up and put down.

Oh, well.

At least there are a few semi-silver linings to this situation

1. Ben did record the sound of the clock ticking in the beginning of the opening and the curtains moving himself, so I don’t have to rerecord that. I guess that a plus.
2. The same group that I am currently working with previously did a project, a “music video,” together. Before the music started in the clip, my group included a part that did not have music and therefore had diegetic sounds that we recorded input. This experience has given me a bit of insight into how to go about recording these sounds.

Hopefully, this experience will make the process go a bit quicker and be a bit less complicated than expected. However, I have a feeling that there will still be struggles

The rough cut that we produced this time around had much more of what my group had initially planned for our project.

This rough cut is much closer to a final cut than a rough cut, due to the inclusion of sound and precise editing. This may be part of why it seems so much better, but it is also largely due to the plot elements and props that we were able to include in this new rough cut.

In the previous rough cut, many of the props seen in this one are not present, such as the picture frame, flowers and computer. Although this doesn’t seem like much, especially since we omitted some props, like the red cloth, this has a large impact on the clarity of our story.

For example, from the picture frame, the audience now surmise that Lionel and the girl are close and can assume who is following him without seeing her face. This was not present in the previous rough cut and, as a result, the audience was not given any clues as to who she was. Viewers are now presented with this bit of information in the opening for them to hold on to as other questions and mysteries begin to show.

I will talk about the importance and impact of props in a later post; this one is to detail what we need to alter to reach our final cut.

Don’t get me wrong – the opening is phenomenal. I extremely proud of how the clips came together and how Ben’s editing brought the title sequence to life.

Nonetheless, there are still alterations that can be made to make the clarity and poignancy of our project that much stronger. I have already notified Ben of these changes that hopefully can be made.

• Robert jumps back after opening the curtain on the dummy in the wheelchair as he attempts to leave his room, before calming himself down. After the crash and shadow of running feet, Robert opens the curtain again and closes it at the sight of an empty wheelchair. The camera remains focused on the top of his head before cutting to a wide shot that he eventually walks into. I felt that the opening should reveal Lionel’s second, larger reaction before he walked back to the opposite side of the room. There’s a reaction clip that Katelyn filmed of him falling back into the bed after opening the curtain. I think that this bigger reaction might work better as it might add to the impact of the empty wheelchair and give Lionel a more realistic reaction.

• When Lionel walks into the adjacent room with the old lady silhouette, the fact that the lady is suddenly gone and there is no one in the bed is largely glossed over. If we can, I’d like to see if we can use the over-the-shoulder shot we got of him looking into the room paired with a musical sting to emphasize the fact that the figure is suddenly gone before he walks into the room.

• I’d would also like to try to slightly alter the sound design. I really like the musical stings that were added to the opening and the small pauses and black screens placed in between the final action at the end; I feel that these were really effective! However, I’d like to try and replace the dripping with a more “echo-y” dripping sound that it’s much more notable and ominous sound. I would also like to try and alter some of the diegetic sounds so that they sound more natural. Some of the sounds don’t sound like they come from the world of the film.

These are the three main things that I hope to alter and improve within the rough cut. More minor details might be changed later on, but these are the essential components that need to be adjusted to aid the continuity and clarity of our opening as well as make sure the creepy scenes have the proper impact on the viewers.

Having taken around 170 different clips to choose from during filming, we should have a lot of different options to choose from when decided what to replace in our rough cut.

As previously stated, our school is currently on Spring Break and my group has been unable to physically meet up. Actually, I am currently out of town. My group has only been able to communicate over the group chat that we created in the social media app, Snapchat. We had recently been discussing our editor’s progress on the new rough cut that had been in the process of being completed over the break.

Ben had told updated us briefly every now and then over the break about his progress. One big thing that he discovered was an application that didn’t degrade the quality of our clips when converting the files taken on the iPhones from m4a files to mp4 files. This was a large accomplishment as the lowering quality of our clips when Ben downloaded and converted the files to put in his editing software was a large problem we encountered in our first rough cut.

I had even aided him in putting the clips in order and helping him overcome some speed bumps with the placing of clips. We had not only revised the plot several times shortly before filming, but we had filmed the scenes out of order, meaning that it was slightly confusing at time to get them in the right order and understand what was happening in some of them. Although it took longer as I was not physically there with Ben and conversation took place over text, we communicated effectively and understanding was achieved.

I had recently asked him how the film was coming since then and he had revealed to us that he was finished and the video was rendering. Shocked that he was so close to finishing, I wasn’t ready when he sent us THIS over email:

I was not only immensely shocked, but also wildly impressed! It had turned out even better than I thought, with Ben adding musical stings and a title card that I hadn’t even thought was possible with the technology we had!!

Of course, it’s still a rough cut and there are things we need to revise, but I’ll leave this post in positivity, commending our editor for not just a job well done, but a job superbly done! I am exceedingly more proud and excited about this rough cut compared to our last one.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, it was evident that we didn’t want the film to be without music and we weren’t going to be making the soundtrack in the film ourselves, so I took it upon myself to begin the search for the music we would use.

These posts have become pretty backed up thanks to the rush to produce the films and I haven’t seen an opening to post about the music, so why not now. This was, of course, settled a little while ago, but it’s better to talk about it now than never, especially since Ben in currently editing the film. As stated in the previous post, Katelyn and I gave him the flash drive with all of the clips to edit them together in Son Vegas Pro 13, as described in my post “Technology (in General).”

We’re currently on Spring Break and won’t be able to meet due to conflicting schedules, meaning that the editing is mainly left up to him for a while. So I thought that since I wouldn’t be directly interacting with the opening for a while, it was a better time than any to catch up on some details that were previously skimmed over.

When dividing roles when creating the group at the beginning of the year, I was quick to call creating and finding the sound that we would use for the film opening. Having taken band for all three years of middle school, I was very familiar with the sharps and flats, the crescendos and decrescendos of music and how they affected listeners. I felt that I would be able to have a keen ear for the music we should use and be able to pair it up with the feel that we were trying to achieve in the film opening.

I immediately searched horror type music and listened to all kinds of creepy melodies created by synths and sound effects that created an image in the minds of the listeners and sent a chill down their spine. It had to be instrumental, that I was sure of. The issues that I began to have with the “horror music” that I was searching for, was that it didn’t fit the feel of what we were projected for out opening.

Songs like this one were better suited for traversing through the forest at night, with a stalker following the protagonist. These songs were better at making the audience fear the protagonist’s current situation.

This was not the goal of our film opening. We wanted to have Lionel’s awake in the hospital confused at his surroundings, unbeknownst to him that he is being followed the entire time. The protagonist was not planned to be feeling fear at all throughout the opening, instead a sense of confusion and melancholy. A more somber melody with creepy undertones was what I was looking for.

That’s when I found Lucas King.

A talented pianist that uploaded all sorts of piano pieces to his YouTube channel, from depressing to downright terrifying, King’s songs played within a range that I could pick from that might our film.

He had so many good pieces. Sometimes, I was tempted to use a song that he had made simply because I enjoyed it, but had to reign myself in and remind myself what I was looking for.

After searching through his impressive collection of songs, I finally settled upon three that were especially striking. From the Dark Piano series: Deranged, Liar and Psycho.

These were all very similar, but very different at the same time if you listened closely. They all told different stories.

Of course, the one that you didn’t have to listen all that closely to was “Deranged,” which is the loudest and fits its title to best, with its erratic chords and harsh notes. This had a certain appeal and subtly fit with our protagonist, Lionel’s, current state of mind. However, it didn’t fit well enough.

Although, after presenting the three options to my group members two of them said that they like the song “Deranged” best, after a while I felt that it somewhat clashed with the plan for the title sequence. All of our scares and spooks were planned to be subtle and Lionel’s demeanor stoic. I felt that a harsh, violent soundtrack behind this scene would be unintentionally jarring and confusing for viewers. I decided against this choice.

“Liar” was next. It was the first song that I had found and what put me on the “Dark Piano” track in the first place. It had so many interesting notes and tunes that were soft and subtle, yet poignant. I felt that this playing softly in the background would help portray the struggle within the protagonist – somber, yet desperate for answers. This was what I had initially hoped for us to put in out title sequence, until practicality clashed with creativity.

There weren’t enough lulls in the song to sustain any transitions should we plan to cut the song and play it again at a different interval that fits better with a different section. There were many pieces in this song too that clashed with the somber tone of the opening. In the end, though, I simply didn’t think it fit as well as “Psycho.”

“Psycho” was the last song I found and it surprised me how much I liked it. I at first thought it was boring, having been presented with the harsh tune of “Deranged” and many intriguing sharps and flats of “Liar.” It was also very long and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to listen to 17 minutes of the song in its entirety. Nonetheless, once I started listening intently, I unconsciously listened to the song all the way through.

There was even more subtlety than that of “Liar,” possessing small changes in tune and key that was sometimes a smooth transition, like a wave, and other time jarring, like a rollercoaster. These changes embodied that of the psyche of a psychopath, constantly changing, nearly inscrutable. And to top it all off, the song still held a somber and soft tone with creepy undertones, like a brewing storm; calm and quiet, although we know it is a facade, and that something mysterious and dangerous is lying beneath. Something that the person may not even be able to uncover themselves.

I felt that this fit perfectly with not only the feel of our opening, but also the story. I discussed this adamantly with my group. We will be using “Psycho” in our opening, and although I doubt that all that I felt when listening to the song can be felt in the few seconds that we might play the song, I know that it’s a perfect fit.

I decided to wait until we were done filming to make this post since revisions to the plot were still occurring during filming. There was not a concrete plot until the very end.

The plot of the opening has changed more than I thought possible, honestly. Although I will not be making another “official” script for this final opening, it’s difficult to keep up with our plan of action without at least a synopsis of what our final plot is. For this reason, I feel that the plot should be cleared up at least one last time with a semi-detailed overview that’s close to a script. Also, you can be sure that this is the last revision of our plot since we’ve finished filming now and have no desire to go back and re-film.

I’m going to have a bit of fun with this, by the way and get a bit descriptive writing-y in this overview, so it’ll be kind of like an actual script and kind of not.

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The final Plot

There is an insert shot of a green clock propped up on a will, its red hands ticking as the seconds pass by. We are then presented with a faucet, dripping slowly in the foreground and we see a character lying on a bed in the background. He is Lionel. Dressed in a hospital gown, it seems like he was admitted into the hospital.

He begins to stir as he hears the dripping faucet, looking over to the source of the sound before leaning to his left to reach over and turn it off. He returns to the bed, facing upward as his confusion shifts from the dripping sound to his surroundings. Lionel sits up in his bed and looks once again to his left, noticing the strong silhouette of an old lady lying in a hospital bed plastered to the curtain. The curtain seemed to be separating his room from hers.

Although still confused at his surroundings, Lionel decides that he should at least explore to begin to understand where he was. He swings his feet off his bed, standing briefly in front the silhouette before strolling over to the other side of the room; there is another opening to the curtain that he can exit through. Upon reaching that side of the curtain, Lionel quickly opens it, anxious to exit the hospital room only to be met with a dummy sitting in a wheelchair directly outside.

Lionel jumps back, startled at the sight of the dummy, who he mistook to be a person. He takes a moment to calm himself, realizing that he only saw a dummy. However, directly after he calms his nerves, Lionel hears a crash behind the curtain before seeing shadows flash beneath the curtain. He opens the curtain once more, very apprehensively. Upon opening the curtain again, he sees an empty wheelchair. He jumps back in shock, realizing that the shadows he saw beneath the curtain were the feet of the dummy scurrying in the opposite direction.

Deeming that that exit it now unsafe, Lionel walks back to the other opening in the curtain, from where he can see the silhouette of the old lady. He peeks into the room, attempting to see if the lady is asleep so that he might sneak into the room unnoticed. To his surprise, he opens the curtain to find the room empty. The lady that was supposed to be in the bed is no longer there.

Although perturbed, Lionel’s attention is caught by a picture frame lying on a counter in that room. As he walks over to it, he notices that the picture is of him and a mysterious girl he does not recognize. As he continues to scan the disturbing room, he notices a fluorescent light near the floor, glowing on the curtain at the other side of the hospital room. He moves towards it, curious of its source.

As he does so, he feels that he is being watched. As he reached the other side of the bed, Lionel turns to his left, looking at where he previously was to find nothing. He could have been sure that someone was there.

He continues to descend, looking at what he now sees is a computer. The screen’s light had been projected onto the curtain. A document is open displaying rows of words. Lionel picks it up to read and decipher it.

Unbeknownst to him, a dark silhouette is now projected on the curtain he has his back to, looming over him. It is oddly shaped like the girl in the picture frame.

Lionel continues reading the document on the on the computer as the silhouette opens its arms wide, sneaking up behind him without a sound. Before Lionel can notice her presence, the silhouette grabs Lionel aggressively, dragging him backwards. In shock, Lionel drops the computer, unable to fight back against the surprise attack.

The audience can then see the computer in Lionel’s absence. The document screams “I SHOULD HAVE BEEN THERE” in bold, all caps lettering. We are left to wonder who this document belongs to as the screen fades to black.

There were many things accomplished in this shoot that required us to get creative and think ahead. A few things you already know about:

• The lighting of all of the curtains
• The “out-of-order” filming
• Figuring out how to best direct Robert (Lionel)
• The plot (revisions)

However, there were other things onset that we either had to take some time to figure out or we plan to rely on movie magic to bring to life:

Movie Magic

The Light on the Other Side of the Bed:

In our opening, we plan to show Lionel walking into the opposite room with the dummy laying on the bed and once he steps foot into the room, the dummy disappears. During filming, we took a shot were Lionel looks across a now empty bed to see a light on the other side. This is found out to be a computer. Unfortunately, a computer could not produce such a bright light on an already brightly lit curtain, so we instead laid the LED lantern light that I brought and put it in place of the computer instead. This gave the desired glow on the curtain that was visible to the audience.

Dropping the Computer:

During the revisions to the plot, I thought that it would be creative to use the Word Document repeating, “I Should Have Been There” to distract Lionel from the silhouette creeping behind him and to be the last thing the audience sees. To make it all the more dramatic, I thought that having Lionel drop the computer at the end would be the best course of action. However, the floor was tile and we knew that we most likely weren’t going to get it right in one take.

As stated in the previous post, my dad allowed me to bring two computers, one broken, one functional. We first had Robert walk to and pick up the functional computer, with the screen displaying the document. We then get the shot of Katelyn’s silhouette standing behind Robert’s figure, who is at this point holding the broken computer, but the screen is facing away from the audience. After Katelyn grabs Robert, he begins to drop the computer and the action is planned to be carried out from a lower angle, where the audience will still only see the back of the computer. This creates the illusion that we are still using the same computer throughout the clips.

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Behind the Scenes Decisions

Talking to the Actor:

This was probably the best way to direct Robert. While simultaneously giving him thoughts to be running through his head while acting to have the appropriate emotion portrayed on his face, I found that directing his motions were also best to help with his timing. During the filming of our first rough cut in the motel, I realized that Robert, while acting, was not conscious of the length of time he was using to act out certain portions. This was of no fault to him, since he was going through the motions that he thought were most natural. However, in our case of only having two minutes for out opening, we need effective, concise acting. Although I didn’t do it for every shot, for some shots where the timing of his actions were important, I talked him through it, especially since the audio from the videos is going to be cut out in post-production.

Take this clip for example.

After lying back down on the bed, I talked Robert through the timing of looking around and sitting up in the bed to slow his actions down so that they don’t seem rushed, but also make sure that he doesn’t lie down and look around for too long. This project is a large balancing act.

Shooting from Different Angles:

There were many times that we would just shoot from two different phones at once in order to capture the same action from two different angles. This will hopefully make it easier to stitch the clips together in post-production. However, this could not always be the case because of group members being occupied in other roles onset (ex. Actor, holding the light, etc.) or because of the shots overlapping, causing the person filming from a different angle to be caught in the other person’s shot. However, should we have decided to film step by step and have Robert do only the actions he was required for the specific clip we were filming at the time, continuity of his movements could have become a big issue.

To combat this, I primarily had Robert run through the entire motion of what we wished to film through all of the shots up to a certain point. For example, we took shots from above Robert, after he laid back in the bed to capture his confused reaction to his surroundings before he sits up in the bed. Of course, these shots could not be taken simultaneously, so we had to take them at different times. However, during both shots, we had Robert run through the entire motion, from turning off the faucet, to him lying down on the bed to him sitting up to look at the silhouette in the room next to him. This motion was ran through many times from different angles to conserve continuity and to make our editor’s job easier.

Below you can see one the master shot of the room that the first half of the opening is planned to take place and the movements I am talking about.

I believe that these onset decisions will making post production easier and further increase our title sequence’s quality.