Answering the Clients Brief

This is perhaps the most important aspect of this whole project and something that I feel important to include. I just looked over this one last time to ensure everything and thought I'd blog about how I feel I have done in meeting the brief set by VICE. This is a screenshot from the official brief (I won't post the whole thing because I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do so) but this section here is all about the key themes and ideas you need to consider for their project:

I think that the work that I have created answers each one of these points fully. Firstly it says to consider that the series is ongoing. This to me suggests not creating something that could become dated and also, simultaneously don't create something that will become tedious on repeated viewings. I feel as though I have done this. My piece is simple, creative and engaging and (as I mentioned from showing it in crit) does well to build interest and engagement upon repeated viewings.

Next it mentions the Rule Britannia identity. It says you don't have to stick to what they already have and that they encourage change. To quote the brief "VICE want to see something different. Be brave and don't feel you have to be literal". This is where my project really comes into it's own. I think that what I have created does really well to not fall into clichés. I mean of course theres the cliché of the tea but I didn't put in any overtly British memorabilia and steered clear of any outright blatant finger pointing. Everything is implied and subtle. This is one of it's biggest strengths. Every part hints towards a common goal and atmosphere and as a result creates something clear and present. It isn't all there though I intentionally made it so you own interpretations can be made. It is clearly British and carrying every theme the show wishes to put across yet never blatantly and directly says that or shows it. Everything works together to construct the feeling without there being one thing that jumps out to mention it. I think that that was quite an achievement and one of the projects strongest components.

The point about audio is also a strong suit too. They mention audio isn't essential but "A sound design or original piece is preferable to an existing track". This is taken care of because I wrote and recorded the music myself and also created a custom sound mix recorded myself (apart from one sound effect). The sound is one of the strongest parts of the ident pulling together the visuals and visual effects and I feel a string to my bow that some may not be able to accomplish.

Lastly it mentions that if you use footage it can be stock footage but it is not recommended. I managed to steer clear of any stock footage and every visual element I created. This again makes it unique, stand out and also makes it personal which infuses a certain human element to it.

Then below are the technical aspects all of which I have adhered to.

So there we go. I thought I should post this as I am really proud of how completely I think that I have accomplished each goal they have laid out for me. I really studied the brief for this project (especially before the second shoot) and really tried to execute a complete package that answered what they were looking for as completely as I could manage. I think that my piece does just that and for that reason I am very proud. Hopefully the judges can pick up on this too.

Evaluation

Another project is over. This one has been great as it was right up my alley. I am really passionate about filmmaking, motion graphics and music and I got to express all three in this project pretty substantially. It was new for me as well because I am so comfortable in a filming environment. This meant there was limited learning that had to take place before I could get stuck in. I of course tried new techniques and styles but the foundations were there to start with. This meant I could dive straight in and had a good chunk of time to experiment with ideas and concepts.

This lead to me being able to re-shoot another idea after the first one didn't quite hit the mark. I got to actually physically improve something in the space of one project. I created a piece, looked at it, evaluated it's positive and negative traits and then carry that information forward into a new project. That meant that, I think, I have created a far stronger piece than I did first time around. It is accomplished with seeming simplicity but harbours much more depth and intrigue than first meets the eye. I am really proud of the outcome and think/hope it will be a strong contender for the D&AD judging panel.

I have also, although this project sat within my comfort zone creatively, learnt a great deal in this project. I have learnt ore about after effects through experimenting with the "roughen edges" plugin. I have learnt about how to create a seamless black background and backlight a product for shooting. I have even learnt how to harness a certain flair I had noticed in a directors work and apply the concept to my own work. I think all of these new skills and more are visibly present in my final piece and that to me is a great addition to my filmmaking arsenal. 

This project has been great for me and allowed me to stretch my wings in familiar territory. Placing in the D&AD (or even winning it) would obviously be amazing and the icing on the cake but even without that it is still once of my favourite pieces of work to date and something I am very proud of.

Crit Changes

The crit was a success. There was only one change suggested by the class to definitely make and apart from that everything else received praise. So I set to making that change. I removed the crackle sound effect and put nothing in it's place. There were suggestions in the class of what to add instead or to create a crazy effect with the visuals to accompany a crackle to give it justification but, after playing around for a while I realised that jus removing it did everything I needed it to do.

As I've mentioned in almost every post now, I wanted this piece to be simple and non-grating and I think that just by removing the sound completely that is accomplished. The piece still retains all the grit and undercurrents just by the visuals and the rest of the sound effects/music. 

I did make some subtle other changes along with the removal of the crackle sound effect. I adjusted some of the volume levels, panning and timing of the sound effects. They were only very slight changes of a few decibels here and there and a few milliseconds. Once it was all said and done however, this is what I was left with:

Again, I really like this final version. It is better the the first piece I shot by quite some margin. Everything gels together so well to create a really unified atmosphere that is reinforced by everything that's included in the frame. I really like it and am really proud of it.

The typography also works really well, I realised that I have kind of neglected to talk about it in previous posts. The brief encouraged you to play around with the typography and create a whole new brand if you wanted to. I really did and the current typography they have leaves something to be desired.

The idea behind it ties in with the idea behind almost every other choice. I wanted to take something that looked nice and clean and destroy it. That reflects the ethos of the whole show rule  britannia. The name itself "Rule Britannia" suggests regality and power. To reflect this I left aligned the text in the centre of the page. This is very traditional, standard text placement. The modern way to do something like that is to centre align the text but I wanted to harken back in time a little and refer to books and traditional ways of formatting text. Left to right, standard. I also wanted the text to begin looking clean and then over time deteriorate. This mirrors my experience of watching the show. It takes something familiar and previously unseen and shows you the mess thats behind the curtain. It slowly taints you opinion on something and it is very powerful at doing so. I really wanted everything in my ident to reflect that but perhaps most blatantly the text does so. Once again here is how the text evolves for reference:

As you can see, I took something traditional and prestige and literally infant of your eyes destroyed it. I think that that exactly mirrors the feelings and atmosphere I got when watching Rule Britannia and I think that the text in particular accomplishes that style really well.

As a little icing on the cake too by the way. The destruction on the text hints at water damage which ties in with the pouring of the tea. This suggests that the tea is destroying the text. This can be extrapolated out to the wider ideas of the show with the underworld and being a close glimpse behind the mask of Britain.

Crit

Today was our class crit. Again this is a really valuable experience as I've mentioned in every project because of the outright view you can get of your own work. Having to justify and evaluate every single component of your work to everyone can really bring out aspects that don't work but, perhaps more importantly, reenforce the parts that work really well.

I just showed it in the last post but for references sake, this is the piece that I showed to the class for crit:

Overall it was really well received. Everyone really liked the colour, the look, the feel and the sound/music. The whole thing worked well and everyone thought it suited the theme and shows style really well.

Perhaps most encouragingly everyone wanted me to play it over and over. I think in total I played it about 7 or 8 times. Everyone kept saying that it got better with repeat viewings. That was really good to hear because that's one worry I had when creating an ident. I wanted it to be something that would stay engaging and interesting on the 10th to the 40th viewing. It had to be simple though at the same time and the fact that everyone wanted to keep watching it whilst commenting on how successful the simple nature of it was suggests that I might have achieved my goals in that area.

There was only really one negative really which I had already noticed myself. That issue was the crackle sound effect that plays around the 3 second mark. I added it to add another level of distress and grittiness to the mix but I realised it was pretty intrusive. It sounds like you have a faulty connection to your speaker/headphones and that obviously isn't that good of an addition to the sound mix. Especially as I just mentioned I wanted it to stay fresh and non-repetative on repeated viewings. That noise is so harsh that it would really stand out and start to become grating after a while.

Other than that there were no other real points of concern. It was very well received and it was a really encouraging experience once again.

Final Product

So I've finished the first draft of my VICE, Rule Britannia ident. Without further ado... Here it is:

I think that it has all come together really nicely. This showcases my music track and the hidden, Edgar Wright inspired, cut wiping my body through the frame I eluded to earlier.

I think that the whole piece encompasses everything that the Rule Britannia show stands for and does every aspect justice. It is subtle, mysterious, sinister and yet has heart and meaning. It isn't too in your face and repetitive. I think that it would really compliment the series well, adhering to all the standards they want to put forwards and it works a lot better the first ident I created. I am glad that I re-shot.

The sound effects all work really well as well. They are more subtle yet still present enough to create depth and engagement. They compliment the music well and they all work together to create a really fulfilling film. Not all that's left to do it show it to my classmates.

Sound Design mk.II

The sound design this time around was a lot more subdued than in my first piece. everything was a little more muted yet, still fully engaging. I again used Adobe Audition to create the mix as it is really easy to use and I can edit to picture which is great. This is my workspace:

As you can see I can have the finished video sitting up in the top left whilst I edit and mix the sound assets in the editor section. I did some subtle and really interesting things with this mix and experimented with perspective. I wanted to just add texture and interest to every aspect of the piece and so instead of having the sound effects sit front and centre they all sort of reside behind the sound of the kettle boiling which is slightly muffled to create more of a wash rather than the actual realistic sound. 

As you can see there aren't actually that many sound effects used, that was intentional to let the music and imagery really breathe and speak for themselves. One thing I did use this time was a soft "whoosh" sound effect. I noticed that the transition effect of my body wiping the frame seemed to be lacking something. Initially I thought that it was lacking footsteps and realistic tones to match the action. That helped but wasn't quite right and after some experimentation I found that a whoosh was perfect.

I needed to exaggerate the truth somewhat and extend past the image to really bring it to life. I have a sound effects pack downloaded from Video Copilot and I combined two of the whoosh sound effects that reside within it to create a breathy, airy and bassy whoosh sound that accompanies me wiping the frame. The result works magnificently and is very Edgar Wright which is perfect.

I also played around with panning which I really enjoyed and was the cherry on top of the cake. This is a closer view of the editor to help explain:

The blue lines that are keyframes in the actual green boxes for the sound represent the panning for the layer. How far left or right the sound is panned in stereo space. The kettle begins panned to right and the guitar to the left but when I pass through the frame the anatomy and composition of the shots flips. This was another subtle cue to suggest change and evolution on the visual front but I noticed an opportunity to expand upon that idea on the audial front too.

As I pass through frame and I introduce the whooshes I also pan all the effects to the opposite side. All the physical sounds (the whooshes, kettle and tea pouring), pan from left to right and the music track pans from right to left. This is all to subtly reenforce the feeling of confusion and mystery by flipping the world into the opposite direction. I think this effect really pulls the whole video together and the sound in general really finishes everything off really nicely.

The next post will be the finished product so you can hear it all there.

Music Production

This project allowed me to create a piece of music. Music is one of my major passions that I don't often get to implement in my university work too often so it was really nice to be able to create a short piece of music for this project. This was a pretty short amount of time to write for so I kept it simple. I basically used a simple chord progression that resolved to an E minor chord. The whole progression had minor elements to evoke feelings of sadness and dread.

I wanted to add a little dynamism to my guitar tone. I have a few guitars now and I decided to go with my Fender Telecaster:

Also pictured is my Fender Deluxe Reverb amp. I decided to use my Telecaster because it has a thin, trebly tone that I really like in conjunction with the sharp tone I have on my amp. I used the bridge pickup (the most trebly one) to play the simple chord progression. I also used the tremolo effect on my amp to create a warble that compliments the harsh, sharp tone and softens it slightly. I also used the built in spring reverb to add a little dissonance and space to the tone. It creates the illusion of a big space with the amp far away which is a nice subtle other layer of uncertainty.

The thin Telecaster tone also goes hand in hand with a British guitar tone as does the warble which is also and predominantly why I chose the pairing. I really like the way the music came out. It has all the tones and emotions that I wanted it to contain and it goes really well with the imagery. It also works perfectly in the limited amount of time I had to write music to. The music track will be included in the final edit in a later post.

The Edit

The edit on the surface was very straight forward too as it was literally two shots joined together. This however, is where the creativity really comes into it's own though. Here is where I played around with colour correction and colour grading along with typography and timings. 

I decided to edit in After Effects which is somewhat unconventional but the project, as I mentioned, was just two shots. This is a very simple edit obviously but the cut itself was to be obscured by my body wiping through the frame. This is accomplished by masking out my body from the second shot and laying over the end of the first shot creating an unnatural transition. This required some quite technical and precise masking and that is something I couldn't really have accomplished in (my editor of choice) Premiere Pro.

I decided to bite the bullet and put up with slightly more clumsy editing capabilities in favour of being able to dive right in with the colour grading and effects as this is what will make the piece (more so than the timing of the cut).

So. I dived into After Effects and assembled the edit in a few minutes. That was the easy part. After that came the creative segment. First I decided to tackle the colouring of the piece. From the beginning I always pictured having a punchy, black & white image with a gritty, over sharpened feel. I imagined it having grit and understated severity/sinisterness. 

However, I decided to explore other avenues first with colour infused in the image and less grit to create a sort of faux happy vibe. I basically brought up the black level with a blue solid in conjunction with a Curves adjustment. This added a subtle wash over the image that enhanced the greens and blues. This gave it a unique and unsettling wash. Green is a colour linked with sickness and envy. Subtly enhancing the green in the image helped to push out those values in the image subconsciously. This is all topped off with a little sharpening to bring out some of the edges. Here's a before and after:

Before:

After:

I think it has a more filmic look and the subtleties work well. I wasn't really feeling it though, especially after I through some more grit on there and made the image black and white:

I just think this worked a lot better. It is gritty, grimy, severe, harsh and unsettling. All of these are themes I wanted to highlight and bring out. It might just be me subconsciously convincing myself of this too but I think it looks very British too. So that's the colour down. It looked great in the second shot too and inspired me to play around with titling. Here is the finished title I created in After Effects:

I really like this. I think it is some of the best typography I have made yet. It is achieved by taking the font Akkurat Pro and applying two passes of the effect roughen edges. This effect is designed to literally roughen the edges of whatever you want to roughen. By default it creates pretty spiky jagged edges to the element it is applied to. After a bit of digging and playing around with it I found you could change the method it uses to roughen from "roughen" to "photocopy". This works by fading sections based on a faded, blobby noise map. This is a really effective effect as it creates a feeling of wear that looks amazing. Especially over the framing I chose. 

I wanted to show the mug obviously along with the kettle but more importantly I wanted to show the scenery. As you can see I framed the mug bottom right. This meant that the majority of the frame is filled with my kitchen which is quite a quaint, British kitchen. This was important to me because I felt it created a real apposing image to the colouring and the text effect. The kitchen is standard and alive whilst the text looks as though it is dying right in front of your eyes. This is backed up by the colour space that seems to mute and kill the space. Again this is all really subtle, but it's there.

One other thing the plugin allowed me to do was animate the effect over time. This really adds to the punch. This creates the feeling of the text being strangled to mirror the themes present in the show. Those themes being undertones of violence and focus on the underworld which wants to remain hidden. Here's how the text evolves over time:

As you can see the text deforms over time which looks really dynamic and interesting. I coupled the "photocopy" effect within the roughen edges plugin with another effect it allows called "rust". Rust is essentially another deformation type this time creating the look of a rusted edge which is quite sharp and dense. These two layers working in conjunction create a really engaging effect.

The deformation overtime also links to the ideas present in the show as the text goes from standard and everyday to seedy and disfigured. That is what the show does essentially. Takes the setting that is familiar and regular to us and shows it in a completely different, unflattering light. No holds barred showing exactly what happens. That is what I wanted the transformation of the text to mirror really.

I also created a way of showing the VICE logo and the phrase "a VICE original series" at the beginning. I think it works quite well. It is more succinct that the first piece I created:

I like this layout. It is clear, concise and aesthetically pleasing. I like the subtle pyramid shape created, it leads the eye through the phrase whilst allowing full impact to be on the VICE logo. It does the job nicely I think and is the best of both worlds.

I also masked myself out to create the cut being hidden by my body. That will be more impactful and easier to show in video form though so I shall comment on that later when I upload the finished project.

Shooting Round Two

This shoot was a lot more conventional and straight forward. It was more of a familiar environment for me as I am most at home shooting in a guerrilla style with natural light and realistic environments. I felt a lot more at home as a filmmaker when I had a natural environment with natural lighting. I could work with bokeh and framing in a more familiar environment. 

I already had an idea in my head of exactly what the shots would look like. Again with it being so simple and focussed of an idea with such a short timeframe to shoot for it was a very straight forward shoot. I wanted to get two shots to tell the story that I have wanted to tell in this project from the beginning. I wanted to capture the feelings and atmosphere that I mentioned in all the earlier posts but my previous experience and tests had shown that subtlety was key. I decided to use subtle framing cues and practical elements to tell the story of uncertainty turning into familiarity. I very roughly drew out each shot as a quick guide:

 To accomplish this I wanted to use a close up followed by a medium shot. The close up would take place within a tilt shot moving over a background window pane and eventually end tight in on the spout of a kettle as it it is boiling. Steam will rise through the shot throughout it's duration coupled with a sound effect. This shot is restricting the viewers perspective of the scene and intentionally withholding information. This is unsettling and subtly confusing to witness. I will then harness the style of Edgar Wright and wipe the frame with my body as I move the kettle over to a mug wiping left to right. 

My body will be completely silhouetted and obscured to add another layer of mystery and uncertainty. only to reveal a normal situation of me pouring boiled water into a mug on a work surface in a  kitchen. My body will then wipe the frame to black. This is simple filmmaking to imply emotions and atmosphere that contains a lot of hidden depth yet doesn't smack the viewer in the face or draw to much from the beginning of each episode.

It was a pretty simple principle and was very quick to shoot as it was only two shots. They came out really well too. Very close to the original storyboards which is good:

Shot #1:

Shot #2:

Like I said. It was a simple shoot that I think came out looking really nice. It fits the style I was going for and with some colour correction and sound design I think it is all going to come together to make a really strong piece.

Directorial Inspiration: Edgar Wright

This is something that inspired the way I direct and compose my shots anyway but I thought it important to include here as it is particularly relevant to what I want to shoot next. I am massively inspired by Edgar Wright. One of my favourite films is Shaun of the Dead.

Source: http://teacherluke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/shaun-of-the-dead-poster.jpg

It is hilarious of course, superbly acted and written but something that can be overlooked is the direction and camera work. It is absolutely incredible and in all of his films the camera becomes it's own character in a lot of ways. He is a master at visual comedy and impact as this video shows:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FOzD4Sfgag

I feel like this shows the genius of Edgar Wright and is something I will pull from massively. I love the way he frames the shots symmetrically and artistically yet always throws something new and interesting in the mix. It suits my style greatly. I frame everything in a clean and simple way that works well and looks good. I just need to work on the engaging scene transitions and other such elements.

I am going to use his style of direction whole heartedly for my new idea and hopefully I can do it justice.

P.S. Another important aspect is that Edgar Wright is a British director. A lot of his earlier films have been huge cult successes in England and so his style of direction and aura are inherently synonymous with British filmmaking. Successfully accomplishing this style myself will add an unavoidable British flair to the piece which will be subtle, and only those in the know will be able to pinpoint, but I feel as though everyone in England will pick up on it in some capacity. This is yet another layer to add into the ident which I feel wasn't quite fully realised in the first one I shot.

Back to the Drawing Board

I showed the sequence I had created to the class and my tutor today. It went down pretty well. Everyone in my class really liked it and commented on a few of the things I liked as being good additions. The teacher liked it as well. She had a few more criticisms and suggestions but overall she liked the style and direction. There were a few things that I saw wrong with it though that when I mentioned them to everyone they agreed. It was a really difficult balance to strike I think and when discussing it with everyone I mentioned this other idea I had been mulling over and they liked the concept. And so I decided to give it a go.

The worst case scenario was that the sequence I have now can be polished to work well. My problem is that I cannot see a great deal of growth possible within that idea and I wanted to try something different. 

I have realised something about this brief and idents in general. It is a very tricky thing to nail. You need to capture a feeling and concept fully in a very short period of time. This requires a certain amount of artistic vision and accomplishment with potentially some strong ideas and imagery. This infringes on another section of what makes a successful ident. That is the fact that this sequence is going to have repeated viewings by a lot of people and as a result needs to stay engaging yet simple and un-intrusive. Nothing is more annoying than a loud, obnoxious, jarring ident.

Now I'm not saying my ident is loud and obnoxious. I think the idea is strong and so is the execution. I have a few niggles with it. One is that it is very dark. This show that I am putting the ident forward to is an Internet show. That means that people will be watching this on all sorts of devices in all sorts of locations. Screen glare or low brightness could result in the ident being completely invisible. Another is that the sound effects and music aren't really engaging or catchy they can't really be timed and as a result could get annoying on repeated viewings. Also there is no real strong resolution or story being told with that setup and theme which is an issue. Some of the sinister and mysterious elements I feel got lost somewhere along the way. 

To fix this I have come up with a new idea. Well it was kind of on the back burner the whole time. To be honest it was more the idea I had at the very start of the project. I started filming on the black background to test the idea and got a little carried away. The time constraint of the piece and uniqueness of the scene made it difficult to show anything other than something in that scene setup and there were a lot of things that I wanted to show that weren't conducive to that type of environment. 

The main thing though is that I want to tell more of a succinct story that has some weight and ambiguity whilst maintaining a sinister style. All of this however, I want to accomplish in a more conventional setting and have it all be brightly lit.

Now just to be clear I am still really proud of the first ident and I think it works really well as a short film or artistic project however, I just think that it isn't as fit for purpose as I know I can produce. And so with that, I head off for round two.

Colour Grading

The colour grade is something I was proud of with this piece as it was very subtle but I think very intriguing and powerful. The original shots weren't really able to be completely controlled by my camera. The camera I have is meant for stills and so the video side isn't all that professional in terms of how you can control the image. The quality is amazing but the controls you have over what you are capturing are limited. 

The main problem here is the white balance and colour temperature of the image. Basically colour temperature is measured in Kelvin. This is a universal, scientific measurement that is used in the science world to accurately measure temperature of objects without going into minus figures but used in cameras to determine the overarching colour of a scene. 

Source: http://www.productionapprentice.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/KelvinScale.jpg

You adjust the white balance and colour of a camera from scene to scene as the lights in each scene will have a subtle colour change. You then use an adjustment of kelvin to change the point of white in the camera to try to level out the colour from scene to scene and keep it consistent for grading in post.

This is a tricky task on the Canon DSLR's because they don't have very fine, incremental adjustments available. The camera is controlled by a jog wheel and that steps up the kelvin level in pretty large jumps and so fine adjustments are impossible without a 3rd party OS hack (like magic lantern).

Magic lantern wasn't installed on my card however, because it can be a bit dodgy on my camera (as it isn't a top of the range model) and so I thought it best to just go with the standard settings. This came with the caveat of having to put up with the cameras basic white balance options. The closest I could get everything in camera to white wasn't quite there and so still meant that there was a green wash over the image as evident here:

This look wasn't really what I was going for. I wanted to go with a more subtle, warm look to the image. For that I wanted a subtle orange/brown wash to the image. Something reminiscent of tea perhaps. I didn't want it to seem obvious and jarring, my main goal was to create a nice looking image with a subtle shift not to overtly wash the colours out. 

To fix this the first step is colour correction. This is the act of fixing the image and making all the images in the same scene look the same. Differences can occur when changing camera angles, changing lights, changing lenses, or even just shooting on another day. Light is a difficult thing to control without somewhat of a budget and equipment. Most of the images I captured were close to each other and didn't need much work but there were a few that needed them. For example this shot:

This shot is very bright and also has that hint of purple I mentioned in the last post. I needed to get rid of that purple and also darken the image to match with the darker, greener images captured by the other lenses I used from different angles. Once that is done and uniformity is created then I can grade the piece.

Colour grading is the act of styling the images and creating a colour space and feeling throughout each of the shots. It is different to colour correcting because you aren't matching and standardising the images, instead you are colouring them all to suite a certain style or atmosphere. In my case I wanted to go for a brown look that was reminiscent of tea whilst also darkening the image somewhat and adding contrast to evoke a sinister, mysterious feeling. With all that in mind, here's an example:

Before:

After:

As you can see the first image has a lot more green and is more washed out. After my colour correction and grading the image looks far more intense, sharp and impactful. In the grading process I added sharpening and a curves adjustment to really make the image punch through the screen and adding depth and impact to the subtle wash of brown I incorporated. I am really happy with the colour grade I gave this piece and it is becoming something I really enjoy doing.

First Draft

I have edited all the footage that I shot the other day and I think I am pretty happy with it. It isn't perfect but I think it is heading in the right direction. Without further ado this is the initial edit:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FU5Qy25g8y0

I like how it came out visually. I think that is really strong. The background and scene setup worked perfectly I think and the sound design works really well. The sound really helps to pull the whole piece together and give it a really physical, intimate atmosphere. The sounds feel loud and close as it it is happening right in front of you. I also heightened and manipulated some of the sounds to give them real weight and influence in the piece. The milk for example wouldn't make as dramatic and audible sound in real life but I recorded the milk bottle separately doing different motions to accentuate it onscreen and give that moment more substance.

The music is something I scored myself also. I used a reverb pedal I have to create infinite trails. I then plugged that into my Fender Deluxe Reverb amp and used the volume control on my guitar to create an ambient, distanced chord progression that softly washes through the piece. It is subtle but it adds a certain texture that I think works really nicely.

There are actually also a surprising amount of visual effects in the piece too. In the wide shots of the cup for example the two lights were clearly visible:

However, with a little bit of colour grading and some masking I managed to erase the table, lights and the lens flare on the top left side of the screen:

Another visual effect of note that I was quite proud of is the starting shot. Basically the only way to get the top down shot without expensive cranes or in place rigging was for me to point the tripod head I had directly down. The main problem with this of course is that the legs of the tripod are in shot. I needed to mask these out but also on this shot I experimented with a purple filter over the right side light. I decided against this in the edit and so had to use colour correction techniques like Curves and Tint in After Effects to get rid of the hue and dull it to match the rest of the shots in the scene. Here is what the original shot looked like:

And here is what the shot looked like after colour correction and masking:

There are also the shots involving creative rotoscoping which I am particularly proud of. The first being the opening shot in the piece where I placed the VICE logo within the tea canister and wipe it out with my hand:

This I roto'd by hand and added a shadow layer very subtly to the text. It was quite a straight forward task and yielded strong results. The other, more complicated piece of masking was this shot below. This was quite a fun task to tackle. This is the end result:

To achieve this I basically thought outside the box a little. Rather than mask it off with the pen tool by hand I thought I would try using an alpha matte. I noticed that the water was picking up a lot of the light really nicely and so I made a new composition and duplicated the layer. I then added a really drastic Curves adjustment to push the whites to 100% white and the blacks/dark greys to 100% black. Or as close to it as possible. I then used that layer as whats known as a Luma matte. This refers to the luminosity in the layer taking white values as opaque and black values as transparent. This means that it will cut out any layer that is using it as a matte where there are values of white. So when I made the text layer and placed it below the matte layer, referencing it as a matte it cut out the text where the water was at its brightest in real time. I think the end result works really well and works far more naturally and realistically than if I had tried to mask it by hand.

So all in all I am really pleased with the sound, visuals and effects in this piece. It isn't 100% final and finished however, there are still a few rough edges but I will show it to my class as soon as I can to get some feedback as there are a few other ideas I wish to explore.

Sound Design

Sound design is one of my new passions in the film world. I love going around with my audio recorder and trying to manufacture sounds to fit with a scene. I love the creativity and thinking outside the box that has to take place to make something work and when it comes together the sounds can really shine. This project allowed me to explore that in great depth which was great. I have been editing the shots I got yesterday and got to a point where I had a final cut (it was just missing some visual tweaks and effects). And so next on the to-do list was gather sound assets to use. 

This was a fairly straight forward process as I was dealing with physical, repeatable actions. There were no sounds to fabricate that were other worldly or unobtainable I was merely replicating natural sounds from natural objects. And so I set up a desk in my lounge (one of the quietest rooms in my house) and started to record sound and I think that they all came out really nicely.

To mix them I am using Adobe Audition which is an industry standard audio editor with some really powerful features. One of the most useful features is the ability to edit audio to video. I can open my final cut inside of Audition and watch it along in real time and see how the sounds work. Whats beneficial about this is that it allows far more flexibility and control over the sounds than Premiere Pro or After Effects does and I can still see the video whilst I edit. This allows for a far superior final audio result and it is far easier and quicker for me to work. I really enjoyed the process.

I will incorporate them into the edit and add some finishing touches then embed it in my next blog post so they can be heard then.

Scene Creation and First Shoot

This filming project has been novel thing to tackle as I have found it more or less impossible to plan in a conventional form. I have a vision in my head and the only way that I can think to get it out is to start filming ideas and get the camera rolling. I often find it difficult to know what I am looking for until I see it. Storyboards and scripting seemed a waste of time to me especially so in this project due to the amount of time I have. The ident can only be 15 seconds long and so it seems a larger expense of critical time to draw out ideas that i could get far quicker and more accurately just using a camera and exploring physically. It's how I've always preferred working.

So with that in mind I set up a scene I have been meaning to try recently and thought that this was a perfect application to use it in. I wanted to set up a seamless background environment and create a black void in which to film my ideas. So I assembled one in my dining room using bed sheets and two lights I had lying around.

Here is the setup:

So when all was said and done the final shots I was producing looked like this:

It is a really cool aesthetic. I spent the whole night and the night after that getting some shots and compiling a story which I will edit very soon. The one thing that I am starting to realise however, is just how short 15 seconds is going to be. There needs to be enough breathing room for each of the titles to show as well as telling a story. This has lead me to realise that the story I had planned to shoot may not work. There may not be enough time for an eerie, weird scene that is revealed to be a standard scene. I may have to simplify my idea and compromise somewhat. Anyway, I'll head off to create an edit.

Style Inspiration

Source: http://cdn2.hellogiggles.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/29/breaking-bad-logo.jpg

The style present in Breaking Bad is something I want to draw from. It has a very grounded and tangible feel throughout all five series due, in large part, to the way that it is shot. The director used a lot of unconventional camera angles and techniques when shooting the show involving POV shots and impossible camera angles. They work really well to throw the audience off and make them look at an action differently. Things carry more weight or have a new meaning because of what he does with the camera. Here is an example of some of the more unconventional shots prominent on the show:

Source: http://vimeo.com/34773713

I think that the style throughout all of the shots shown in the video above create a very unique, personal and interesting atmosphere. Providing a cool way of seeing actions that would otherwise be obscured or plain. It is a technique I have been meaning to explore for a while now. I want to use glass and mounts to get the camera into places that are unexpected. It'll all add to the atmosphere I want to create.

These techniques are something I will explore very soon.

Lens Distortions

For a while the effect of looking like you are shooting through a dirty lens/prism or lens whacking has been popular. It is especially prominent in the US. I knew that they had to be using a plugin of some description and I think that I have just found it:

Source: http://wp5648-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Lens_Distortions_Logo_2014_2.png

This company produces light leaks and lens distortions for After Effects and Premiere Pro and their products are used by some very major TV channels in the states. On their site (http://lensdistortions.com/aftereffects/) you can find examples and a lot more information but here is their promotional video for the product:

Source: http://vimeo.com/115918702

As you can see it can lead to some great effects and looks and I feel as though it lends itself perfectly to the ideas and themes I want to be present for my piece. I am particularly interested in the selected morphing/blurring effects as I haven't really seen that being offered in a package like this before. It is definitely something I am going to look into further as I think it will add a lovely flare and polish to my ident.

Test Shots

So after studying the Dexter sequence I mentioned last post and mulling over my idea some more I decided I should get to doing some shooting. My idea is kind of difficult to storyboard for because it is going to involve quite a heavy amount of trial and error/experimentation. The ambient nature of the piece and the overall feeling I want it to have I feel lends itself to a more unstructured and sporadic shoot and edit. With that being said I did want to test some ideas and concepts before the actual shoot just so I wasn't going in completely cold and had a bit of a leg to stand on.

One effect I had been wanting to try out for a long time was DIY macro techniques. It is something I had seen documented on the internet for a long time but had never really seen any real filming done with the technique to a high standard. I wanted to test the concept and see what I could achieve with it.

The technique can be achieved through an array of methods. The least costly and most user friendly way I had seen it achieved was by simply holding a lens up the wrong way around in front of the lens you have attached to the camera. You put both lenses to infinite focus and touch the front rings of both lenses to one another. Then hey presto! Easy, cheap and interestingly stylised macro photography! 

I experimented for a while with which lenses to use but eventually settled on my pair of Helios 44M lenses. They are both old film lenses which means that they are small and easy to hold. They also have large apertures which is good because it seemed as though I was loosing some light in the process. They also have a very unique look to the bokeh (which is the reason that I bought them). They tend to bend the bokeh into a circular form and sharpen it somewhat. Here's an example:

Source: http://digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Hacking_Photography_Helios_44-2_Lens-0451.jpg

As you can see the lens created a really interesting, distorted bokeh field that creates a circular pattern. I love the look of this lens for that exact reason and as I am going for quite a stylised, anarchic look to the shoot I thought it to be a perfect lens for the job.

So with all that established I got the lenses prepared and got to shooting whatever I could see in macro. I then edited it together briefly to some music I wrote for a friends film and this is the outcome:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxpSq8U65wY&feature=youtu.be

Along with the macro effect I also wanted to test the look of harshly contrasted, black and white footage as that is a look I am strongly considering. I only had an hour or so to practice the technique, get some shots and edit it so there isn't much. But I think that was I was able to get it really cool. It's interesting and an awesome aesthetic to include in my ident. I am really happy with how it all came together.

The things that became apparent to me were that stability could be an issue (as there is no stabilisation in the lenses and quite a substantial zoom level), the focal plane is veritably microscopic and you need to get really close to the subject to get it in focus which makes it likely you'll get your own shadow in the shot. All of these things are minor hiccups though and the effect itself looks incredible I think. The way it morphed the tea leaves in the third shot and made them appear alive and other worldly was really interesting I think. It is definitely something I am going to use in my piece.

The colour wasn't exactly what I wanted. I didn't have time to take lighting into consideration and so everything was weirdly exposed I also graded it quickly in Premiere Pro which is never going to yield professional results. It is cool though. I'm still undecided as to whether to go with the gritty black and white or stick to full colour. I think I may have to decide that later on. For reference here is a before and after comparison:

Before:

After:

I do like the punchy b/w. It's gritty and interesting but I think that the colour is also important to tell the story. I may experiment with selective colour and see how I feel about that. Regardless I think that the aspect ratio bars don't work at all. They get rid of half of the frame thus destroying the circular bokeh I mentioned earlier.

Ident Inspiration

Whilst exploring the tea ident I mentioned in the last post I started drawing parallels between it and the opening title sequence for the American TV show Dexter. This show shares a lot of the same principles as the Rule Britannia series.

Source: http://cdn1.thisisinfamous.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/image11.jpg

It is about a serial killer who works in the Miami police forensic department. He is a loveable character who only kills criminals, specialising in other murderers. The series has a really darkly comic undertone throughout whilst maintaining a predominant theme of murder, gore and suspense.

This duality really works to bring the series to life and make every moment stellar. The laughs and smiles makes the dark, serious moments all the more powerful. Contrarily the darker moments really make the humour and light hearted moments shine and provide palpable relief.

All of these factors are summarised perfectly by this title sequence. It shows the main character crying out his daily morning routine but shoots it in a very ambiguous, mysterious and misleading manor. Showing that there is a hidden agenda in every action and that their are dark thought harbouring within. Each shot is a bait and switch setting up one action then showing another. It works perfectly and summarises the whole show in just a few seconds. It really is one of the best title sequences in any dramatic TV series of late.

As may have already become apparent then, this series and the Rule Britannia series share many common themes. I wasn't thinking of the dexter series when I thought up the idea for my ident it was only later I realised the similarities. I think that whilst the Dexter theme is a very structured and punchy sequence that almost works to a set beat and tempo. The vision I have for my sequence was more of an overall texture. No real setup and payoff. More of an overall feeling and uncertainty leading to one big reveal. There are certainly parallels drawn between the two however, and I shall be drawing from the series' title sequence quite heavily when shooting my sequence.

My Initial Outline

Source: https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4081/4805932458_2089f6719f_z.jpg

As I have mentioned in previous posts; I had an image in my head the second that I read this brief. I have watched VICE films for a while now. I am familiar with the channel and how they like to present themselves. I have always seen it as a very self aware and unflinching channel and these qualities can be found in their Rule Britannia series in abundance. That sort of feeling of dark humour and dramatic irony is something that is really interesting to me and I feel as though it really makes the series something iconic and unique.

This idea of juxtaposition is something that I deem imperative to the success and identity of VICE and their Rule Britannia series and for that reason it is definitely something for me to explore and present heavily in my pitched ident idea.

The idea that I had instantaneously was for a misleading action being conducted and obscured. It would be made to look much more severe until a big reveal at the end shows it to be something harmless or ordinary. This works for many reasons for me. The series is all about scratching below the surface and discovering something more than meets the eye. Something severe and raw. That is exactly what I want the ident I create to feel like. I want to deconstruct something everyday and take it into hyper-reality. It goes hand-in-hand beautifully with the ethos of the show and the channel.

The idea I had to further this was to show abstract and obscure components to making a cup of tea. Things like very macro shots of a teabag being strained and water boiling and filming the steam using tilt shift techniques and lens-whacking. I want to create a feeling of mystery and discovery. Then the ident would end with a reveal shot showing a fully assembled cup of tea being stirred. 

I think that this has all the elements that are very present in the fabric of VICE and their Rule Britannia show. It is almost darkly comic,  it is a British staple (a cup of tea) being deconstructed in front of your very eyes and in an objective and practical viewpoint it is a simple yet very engaging premise that can be fully explored and resolved in the short time scale available to me.

I think that this idea is very strong. I initially don't tend to stick to my first idea and iterate on it or try and imagine something completely different. This time however, I feel as though this idea is really strong. Every time I stray away from it I always end up returning to it. I think it is far too strong to ignore, I will try elsewhere but I have a really good feeling about this idea and will definitely explore it further.