Editing Week 3: 2nd - 8th April 2012

This week I focused on completing my rough cut and correcting all of the 'yellow' shots.

I showed the rough edit to my tutor Rod. I was concerned about the cuts between scenes as mentioned before as I haven't edited in this way before but he said these were good. There are some cuts where the dialogue overlaps and is repeated which will need to be corrected.

My plan for the next week is to begin playing around with the rough edit and mixing up the two interview sequences. My aim is to keep the audience continually reassessing which character is the homeless man - is it Lewis's character or Mike's. In the second interview sequence between the Support Worker and the Estate Agent, the Support Worker gives his name as James Rose, which is the same name given by the Homeless Man in the initial interview sequence, which is a subtle link between the two characters which will hopefully be picked up on by the audience.

Next Steps:

1. Watch the rough edit back through deleting any overlaps of dialogue and neatening any cut away edits.
2. Begin mixing up the first interview between the Homeless Man and the Support Worker. I filmed the interview shots with both Lewis and Mike looking directly at the camera twice - in the first sequence Lewis (Support Worker) is completing the entire questionnaire with Mike (Homeless Man) answering as if he were homeless, in the second Lewis begins asking the questions and then Mike takes over. I want to add these clips into the interview sequence so the audience are constantly changing their minds as to which character is homeless - the one who looks homeless, or the one who is in the position of a homeless person.
3. Begin mixing up the second interview between the Estate Agent and the Support Worker. I have a slightly more limited selection of footage from this filming session but as I used the same questionnaire as the backbone script for this section I am planning on cutting back to the initial interview sequence between the Homeless Man and the Support Worker, again re-iterating the similarities and confusing the audience's perception of Lewis's character and whether or not he is homeless.
4. My sound needs a lot of work. I know how to make the mono sound stereo which is quite a time consuming process so once I've got the rough edit into a more final state I am going to begin correcting this. I'm not going to start working on the overall sound - levels, echo, buzz and so on, until my editing is complete.

I have booked another tutorial with my lecturer on Thursday so I am hoping to have made some substantial progress by this time so he can give me some feedback. I am also planning on getting in touch with one of the other instructors to help me with the sound further down the line.

Editing Week 2: 26th March - 1st April 2012

This week I didn't make much progress due to focusing on other commitments and deadlines. I have begun work on my rough edit and have completed the first half - the interview between the homeless man and the support worker. So far this is going well and I am pleased with my results.

I have noticed a further problem with sound in some of the footage from the second interview between the estate agent and the support worker. The first few clips captured on Fin's camera have no sound - I think this must have been where I forgot to turn the microphone on. As Fin's camera only has one output and this was taken with the microphone connection, we were unable to simultaneously record and listen to the sound so didn't notice this! Luckily we were filming on two cameras so I have spent a lot of my time this week attempting to synchronize the sound from different clips. This has worked really well and isn't noticeable but has proven to be quite a time consuming task.

Editing Week 1: 19th March - 26th March 2012

This week I began editing my footage. I uploaded and named all of my clips creating bins within Final Cut Pro for each scene then categorizing them into shots of each character and shots of both characters together. This will make things easier when I come to edit.

I have already noticed that the sound is quite random - the footage filmed on the HMC camera is all mono whereas the footage captured on my SLR or Fin's Panasonic is stereo, also in certain shots the sound is much louder or quieter than others suggesting I accidentally readjusted the audio levels when filming. I am confident that this is something I can adjust post production.

Secondly I noticed that the footage captured on Fin's Panasonic camera is very yellow - this is because I couldn't work out how to set the white balance when using the Red Heads. I have begun to play around with the colour corrector to try and adjust this and these are the results so far:

Establishing Interview Shot - Before Colour Correction

Establishing Interview Shot - After Colour Correction

Close Up of Homeless Man - Before Colour Correction

Close Up of Homeless Man - After Colour Correction

I am really happy with the adjustment to the close up of the homeless man however I still feel the establishing interview shot needs some work. I enhanced the cyan hue in the image which worked really well except in the areas of the image which were much brighter and more exposed to the light as they have gone slightly blue! This is something I will continue to work on but I have saved the colour correction formats used for each to my favourites in Final Cut Pro so they are there as a guideline for future reference.

My next task is to complete the rough edit. Once this is done I can begin experimenting more with the sequence. I am a bit aprehensive about the cut aways between clips that I will need to edit as all my other projects have been quite abstract so have used dissolves and fades to move between clips. This is something I will need to experiment with.

Shoot 3: Smoking/Tea Making Sequences

Shoot 3: Smoking/Tea Making Sequences

Sunday 18^th Sunday 2012

6.00pm – 9.00pm

Cast: Mike Evans (Homeless Man) & Lewis Marks (Support Worker)

Crew: Natalia Gonzalez, Finian Pye & Myself

Equipment: Panasonic HDC SD900, shot gun mic, tripod

Location: Midland Road, Old Market, Bristol & My House

What we did:

The aim of this shoot was to capture some extreme close ups of each character smoking, and each character making a cup of tea. The idea was that the audience will assume that it was the homeless man smoking, and the support worker making the tea. I wanted to film each character doing each action so that I can experiment with this in postproduction, possibly merging the opacity of certain shots to give the illusion the characters are actually merging into one.

What went well?

I managed to capture all of the shots I needed and was also able to capture a couple of nice close up and medium close up shots of both the homeless man and the support worker which I felt looked really good. These shots were similar to the shots in the beginning of Hunger where the prison warden is smoking outside stood next to a wall, except my shots are much closer than these. I’m not sure when or if I will definitely use these shots but I thought they worked well as potential character introduction shots as they simply show each character stood by a wall leaving the audience with nothing but their visual appearance to base an opinion on.

What didn’t go well?

There were numerous problems with this shoot. Firstly, I forgot part of Mike’s homeless man costume so had to drive back to collect it, meaning we were slightly later starting than anticipated – only 15 minutes but still enough to have to hurry a bit more than I’d have liked. Secondly, we were supposed to be filming in the tea making in the Bristol Methodist Centre – a homeless day center where I used to volunteer. I had picked up the keys from the manager earlier in the week but there must’ve been a double booking as there was a meeting in place in the main room where I had intended to film. The meeting was going on till 8pm, which was too late for me as cast and crew had other plans for the evening. We decided to capture the footage in my kitchen in the end. As the shots are all extreme close ups, the background isn’t too important as there isn’t enough visible to give away the location, I did quite want to capture some establishing shots of just the posters on the walls and so on, to give the audience an idea of the setting. This is something I can do at a later time if I still feel it is necessary. Finally, after having to rearrange a location for the tea making shots, we began to lose the light and being outdoors meant there was no way of adjusting this. Luckily I had the HMC camera, along with the Panasonic and my Canon 550D so was able to switch between cameras to find out which one worked better at low lighting- it turned out that the Panasonic was considerably better and we were able to get some light from a street light which is was hopefully enough to light each shot effectively. I have had to warn my actors that we may need to reshoot these sequences but I am hopeful that I have been lucky and that the footage is okay, as it looked good on the camera monitor.

Shoot 2: Support Worker/Estate Agent Interview

Shoot 2: Support Worker/Estate Agent Interview

Saturday 17^th March 2012

2.30pm – 5.30pm

Cast: Lewis Marks (Support Worker) & Sally Bartram (Estate Agent)

Crew: Finian Pye & Myself

Equipment: HMC camera, Panasonic HDC SD900 camera, 2 x shot gun mics, 2 x tripods, Red Head Lighting kit.

Location: Towry Law Offices, Bristol City Centre

What we did:

The aim of this shoot was to conduct the same interview as with the homeless man and the support worker, but with the support worker and an estate agent. The idea is that the support worker is collecting the keys for a new house and is asked by the estate agent to answer a few ‘routine questions’ which then leads on to the same set of questions being asked as in the night shelter. The only difference in this scene is that rather than going through the risk assessment form, the estate agent talks the support worker through the rules and regulations, which are again those that apply to the night shelter.

This is another relatively static sequence in which both actors are sat at a desk the entire time. The aim was to capture similar shots to those in the initial homeless man/support worker interview.

What went well?

Having an extra crewmember to help out worked really well in terms of being able to change the set up of cameras and lights quicker. My mum (playing the estate agent) did a fantastic job. She is a financial advisor and is used to conducting interviews with clients and just acted in a similar, professional way as she would for her paid job. This also really helped Lewis get into character as he admitted afterwards to feeling quite intimidated. He hadn’t actually read the terms and conditions before so was hearing them for the first time on camera in the first shot captured making his reactions much more real as well as some of the rules weren’t what he was expecting.

What didn’t go well?

Despite having been to my mum’s office many times in the past, I hadn’t come down to access it in terms of a potential film set, this meant that the layout was quite new to me. I the choice of three potential meeting rooms to film in one was simply too large and would’ve looked strange with only two people in it, and the other one’s, despite being a much more appropriate size, had a very large table in the middle of the room which was too big to move and became quite awkward in terms of setting up equipment in order to achieve the best angles. As a result, I wasn’t able to recreate the same shots I had captured in the earlier shoot and had to become slightly more creative with the positioning and angling of the camera.

There was also a large white board behind my actors, which caused a major glare when the lights were turned on, this again meant I had to work really hard when positioning the equipment as unfortunately I was unable to move it.

Shoot 1: Homeless Man/Support Worker Interview

Shoot 1: Homeless Man/Support Worker Interview

Saturday 17^th March 2012

9.30am- 12.30pm

Cast: Mike Evans (Homeless Man) & Lewis Marks (Support Worker)

Crew: Myself

Equipment: HMC camera, Panasonic HDC SD900 camera, 2 x shot gun mics, 2 x tripods, Red Head Lighting kit.

Location: PH86, St Matthias Campus, Fishponds, Bristol

What we did:

The first shoot this weekend was the main interview between the homeless man and the support worker. This was filmed in one location, with both actors sat at a small table for the duration of the scene. I wanted to experiment with different camera angles, high and low angles to show power switches between the characters, shots with both actors talking directly to the camera to put the audience in the position of each character, close ups of each characters’ eyes and mouth and establishing shots based on the interview sequence in Hunger. I also wanted to film each actor reading each set of lines; so once with the homeless man answering the interview questions as you would expect a homeless man to, and once where he’s asking the questions, something you wouldn’t expect him to do – and the same with the support worker.

 What went well?

I knew I wasn’t going to have a crew with me to help with this shoot so I tried to plan everything as best as possible, I also was very aware that Mike had to be finished and dropped off as close to 1pm as possible. I spoke with the campus CSOs and the technical instructors and was able to set the equipment up in PH86 on Friday afternoon and leave it locked in there overnight. This was really good as it meant on Saturday morning I didn’t have to spend a further 20 minutes getting everything in the correct position.

Having previously held a run through in PH86, once with Fin practicing with the equipment, and once with Mike and Lewis, I already had a clear idea of the shots I wanted to achieve. This again meant that I could quickly set up each shot without having to worry about what was and wasn’t going to work.

My actors were both really prepared for the day following briefing earlier in the week and I ensured that we all took regular breaks to get out of the room which quickly became stuffy due to the small size and the hot lights. This gave my actors time to relax and gave myself a few minutes to collect my thoughts and mentally assess the footage I’d captured, and what I had left to capture.

What didn’t go well?

Not having a production crew made things a little harder, especially since I was filming on two cameras simultaneously. This meant that I had to set one camera up and rolling then run over to the other one and set that one up before calling ‘action’. It also meant I couldn’t monitor the sound or what the each camera was capturing constantly. However, having already held the practice shoot meant I was confident in what each shot looked like. Sound did prove problematic and I have ended up with the footage from the HMC camera being recorded in mono rather than stereo which is annoying but is something I know can be fixed in postproduction.

Script Run Through/Briefing for Shoots: Thursday 15th March

I spoke with Mike Evans, my actor playing the Homeless Man and suggested a meeting to run over the script as he had a few suggestions for re-phrasing some of the lines so they felt more natural.
I spent the evening reading through the script with him so he could grasp the lines. We attempted running through using the 'homeless forms' that I'd created (shown in a previous blog entry) with Mike improvising his lines. This proved very useful as it made the interview conversation seem much more natural, it also made Mike feel more confident overall about the coming film shoot.

Having spent this time briefing Mike on the coming shoot, I called Lewis (who lives in Exeter so was unable to meet with us this evening) and took him through all the changes and suggestions we had gone through.

One of the main changes I have made to this scene came following a discussion with my workshop leader Rod. Rod suggested that rather than have the Homeless Man instantly start interviewing the Support Worker, I lead up to the change with both characters taking on their normal roles - so the Support Worker beginning the interview then the Homeless Man taking over. This was a good idea as it played on the existing stereotypes with each character acting the way the audience would expect. I decided to have the Support Worker ask the initial, basic questions (name, date of birth and so on) and Mike suggested that the turning point could be asking for the Homeless Man's national insurance number.

These are the additional lines/stage directions I have added following this:

SW: Okay, and what's your national insurance number?

HM: (taking questionnaire and pen from SW) Why don't you tell me your national insurance number?

SW: (confused) I'm not telling you that! Why are you asking me the questions?

HM: These are just routine questions we ask anyone who's staying in our night service.

The interview conversation will then continue as per the original script.

I ran through all of this with Lewis over the phone and he understood the changes and is happy to go ahead with them.

In terms of costume I have asked Mike if he can bring some old trousers and an old t-shirt that are slightly mismatched and ill fitting if possible. This will give the impression that they are either really old, or items he has had donated from various other shelters that weren't selected out of fashionable choice, but out of lack of other options. I am going to provide a large black puffer jacket, a woolen hat and some fingerless gloves - the hat and jacket to suggest he has been using them to shelter from the elements, and the fingerless gloves as they are something I feel are commonly associated with homeless people. For the support worker, I have asked Lewis to wear normal clothes, jeans and a shirt - working in the night shelter required us to dress comfortably but not overly smart in a way that deliberately separated us from the service users visually, making them feel uncomfortable in their clothes.

In preparation for the shoot on Saturday, I am clearing the room of all it's clutter - there are lots of filing cabinets and bags of old papers and so in there which are quite distracting. I want the scene to be as visually simple as possible so as not to distract the audience from the conversation and the characters.