It is time. I have reached the end of the project, and what I project it has been! It has felt like a monumental task to tackle every element and has taken longer than any other creative endeavour I can think of but the end has finally come. Here I thought it would be a good idea to break down each component of the project and evaluate them one by one.
Editing:
The editing process went really well. It feels like an age ago now and it seems strange to think that I am still working on the same project. Having Jamie alongside me to edit was a great help. He was able to guide me through the clips to really speed up the process and quickly get a rhythm going.
I feel like the edit is objectively really strong. I don't notice any cuts and all the shots feel well rounded and as though they are given ample breathing room and time. I think that the whole piece flows really nicely. The pace is good and all of the story is given a meaty chunk of time. The time constraints on the project were quite a mountain to overcome.
The 10 minute mark was quite a difficult thing to hit as there was so much more we could have included. In some instances the majority of a scene was cut to keep the runtime down. The montage scene in particular was heavily cut down. Despite this I feel as though the story comes across well and thoroughly. It is clear and flows well.
Visual Effects:
Within this bracket I am counting the title sequence, the credits and the colour grading along with all the conventional VFX shots. This part of the project was fairly painless. I am really familiar with After Effects and visual effects in general so these tasks made for quite nice distractions from the more challenging and new elements to this project.
All of the actual VFX shots were well planned and Jamie had a good idea for the direction he wanted them to take. This made it really easy to carry out his vision and make them look as he described. This again was really useful as it took a lot of the trial and error portion out of the process. There was obviously still a little and when I thought something wasn't working I had room to play but more or less everything came together quickly thanks to clear direction and simplicity.
The shots that required VFX were limited to avoid cliché more than anything else. Jamie wanted this film to feel grounded and based in reality as much as possible. Everything that happens is more shocking and believable because of the reality present within the film. VFX shots are distracting from this. Another factor is that obviously I don't have the expertise, time or budget of somewhere like ILM and so the VFX were never going to look 100% realistic and believable. We didn't want to try anything too ambitious as it just set us up to fail. And I had enough on my plate as it is.
The credits and title sequence came together really well as well. I was unsure of these pieces from the beginning as I wasn't sure where I was going to take them. I wanted to do something really simple. Possibly just like kinetic text over a nicely composed shot. However, I chose to be a bit more ambitious here. I tried a new effect in the title sequence with some new ideas. I think it paid off. As I mentioned in the previous posts it would have been nice to have more time and be able to get the actors back in or purpose shoot scenarios but I think given the constraints I had to work with they came out really well.
The colour is also something I am proud of. The film has a distinctive look and I didn't try to do anything crazy. The DOP is really talented and I just let his work shine. I didn't want to spoil it all by washing it all out with colours I thought looked cool. I just heightened the scenes a little by bringing out colours that were already there. And added dynamism by way of adding contrast which also focusses the image.
Audio:
Now this is where the real meat of the project was for me. I could write a novel about what I learnt and what I experienced here I'm sure. This was such a trail by fire. I had never really worked with audio for a project like this. It was the first time really using Audition to do something of this scale and it was the first time I had ever attempted foley to this standard.
It was a risk saying I would handle the audio side of this film but I'm glad I did. It is always something I have wanted to try and I even view it as a possible career to pursue. I love the hidden creativity and impact it allows for. With imagery, VFX and colour the impact is obvious and can only be pushed so far without looking surreal or ugly. With sound though you can control everything so much and yet it remains in the background, almost subconscious.
The foley side of proceedings went really well. As I said it was my first time really carrying out foley of this scale and it went alarmingly smoothly. I managed to capture everything I wanted in a day which was amazing. This was down to the full planning document I created. All the sounds came out really well also.
The mixing of these sounds was a great process. I was able to quickly find the files due to the labelling I added to the planning document. Then using Audition to mix was an absolute joy. I was quickly able to acclimatise to the program due to it's similarities to programs like Premiere Pro and After Effects. The sound was mixed pretty quickly too. I loved this part of the project and it is a new skill I look forward to practicing and furthering.
Music:
This was by far the most challenging part of the project for me. I have always been a perfectionist and this made writing and finalising music choices absurdly difficult. I kept overwriting and not being fully happy with my choices. It took me absolutely ages. As I mentioned before I was writing and tinkering around from day one and only really finished just under a week ago.
The video I referenced a few posts ago really helped me get a game plan together and finish the music off. I was able to clearly and objectively see everything musical and make more informed decisions about everything.
The ironic thing is that all that time spent writing music often came up void. I spent about 3 days writing the song to go over the montage and another 2 days to record it. When I finally recorded the lead idea I had spent so long writing I stopped the recorder and sat there a minute to relax. I then just thought "right, now one for fun!" I proceeded to actually just improvise over the chords I wrote and record something spontaneous and that take is the one I actually ended up using in the final film.
Again this process was time consuming, stressful and disillusioning but it was also really fun. I grew a lot through doing this and I think it has made me more aware of music in films. This was the part of the project I thought would fly by and me knocked out in a week or two but when I hit the wall it really made me work to get over it.
Marketing:
This was some of the most fun I had on the project and ironically it was the part I was expecting to be the least enjoyable. I really used inspiration I gained from outside sources and channeled it into a complete array of ideas. I have never really done that as fully as I did here.
Usually I will look at something for inspiration and then I will take from it a theme, feeling or way of approaching something. I have quite a personal and unique style I think. I can turn my hand to a number of different creative tasks but everything I make always comes out looking or feeling like I made it. It is not something I consciously strive for, it just sort of happens.
With this project however, I wanted to try and look at something I really liked and then pull the core ideas out of it and apply them directly. I think that I managed to do so pretty fully. The posters particularly embody all of the characteristics of the content that inspired them. I still managed to inject some of my personal design ideas but I feel as though it really embodies the ideas of the aspects that inspired it a lot.
I think all of the promotion material came out really well and works really nicely to accurately promote the film.
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