Transitions: Project Evaluation

Lighting was key to this Project. One scene had an abundance of yellow light and one is an exterior night shoot. We were going to try and counter act the yellow light in the hotel room by using the rotalight on full power and bouncing it off the ceiling.  The night scene will open to darkness and the two characters dialogue will begin with the sounds playing on the outside. we wanted to experiment with lighting a bit more in this scene, but after testing the different light sources on a test shoot we found it didn't come out as accurately as planned. The red and blue lighting would be inconsistent to the rest of the shoot and would be difficult to recreate with every shot for continuity. Also, the scene would need to have a natural light source in order for it to make complete sense but there would be nowhere that the colours red and blue would naturally come from.


Overall I have found this unit to being really beneficial and a great way to explore different roles. With the pressure and workload of studio production and our commission pieces, working in a smaller group project and focusing on specific roles has been insightful. From doing this unit I have been inspired for things to come for my third year project i.e. learning how to light at night and further improving my producing skills, especially when talking about the project with contributors. This will be a short evaluation of what I have learned form this project, what worked, what didn't work and what I would do differently had I the chance to do it again.

When we first started this unit I was very worried about finding what job role I wanted to take on. I was stuck between DoP and Editor. In the end I decided to undergo the role of DoP which turned out to be a good choice and was a role I truly enjoyed doing. Whilst this was my main role, I also shared other roles with the team that we weren't specializing in (i.e.Transcribing).
Overall we didn't have very long to complete this project, and though stressful, I don't think it was a bad thing. It was genuinely really challenging and tested my resilience, resourcefulness and how to cope properly under pressure when things go wrong which they did on multiple occasions (the second shoot being the most stressful).

I hadn't attempted being a DoP before for any projects so i knew i was at a disadvantage before we even started. This didn't matter however as it just meant that i needed to do lots of research and find what "my own style" would be as a DoP. After looking at several inspirations i decided i loved the style Roger Deakins had in his work. There was an abundance of videos written material and columns on Deakins and his work, but one of the first things i saw and helped me was the video below.

 

The work we did on The Firm Awards has really helped me to on the set of The Wrong Mans through the way I've decided on colour, shots and the atmosphere we want to put forward in the piece. Although being two completely different projects (one corporate, the other television), both have helped my style and I feel in moving on from this transitions unit, I can collate all that I've learned and create a third year project I will be proud of even in years to come. In fact I have come to the realisation now I'm doing this evaluation and critically reflecting on everything that I thoroughly enjoy. On reflection looking back on all my work even to now I have always wanted to tell a story through the visual medium of Television. When I first heard about this unit I had very mixed opinions, and thought because of all the other work I needed to do this was just adding to the work load. However, now that I have experienced it and learned from it i can't wait to help tell stories through my work and be able to completely change the mood/intention of a scene by working as a Director of Photography. 

Transitions DOP Statement

Once the edit was at a point where it could be passed on, there was very little time until the submission date, however i did not let this dissuade me. The first thing i wanted to establish was how to get that "cinematic look". First i turned to the internet, which had plentiful material on this subject! so i looked at some videos such as the one below

The problem with every colour grading video that i watched was that there was one key difference, the youtube videos were shot either outdoors with lots of natural light or a well lit interior scene with lots of clean light. Our hotel scene however was a pain in the rear quarters! Due to the fact that EVERY light in the room (of which there were six!) had a very yellow hue to it, we had to adjust the camera so that yellow appeared more blue just so we could get the scene looking normal. Even with the Rota light being bounced off the ceiling the walls and surrounding areas of the scene were still yellow, this meant that the presets for colour and white balancing we set the camera to created problem when trying to colour correct.

Quite often the "quick and easy" method is to film in locations with as much natural light as possible and when in post slap a "look" or LUT from the colour panel onto the footage. For those who want to take longer but provide a more professional looking colour grade it normally begins with the way you shoot it, the best case in which would be shooting in V-Log. 

V-Log is a logarithmic (“log”) gamma curve developed by Panasonic. That’s basically it, but for those who are familiar with log-encoding, that’s more than enough to get excited about.

You would notice smaller changes in brightness in darker areas, so a log curve is optimised to give shadows

and midtones the most granularity. The curve is also flattened in the highlights to capture a wider range of highlights, though with less granularity than shadows and midtones.

Simply put, log encoding allows for a wider dynamic range of luminance information that is more in line with how the human eye sees things.

Once you have established how you will be capturing the shots that you want the next step is to understand colour itself. The following video taught me about colour and the lumetri scopes on Adobe Premiere Pro.

Unfortunately i was only able to give this project a basic colour correction due it's to the time sensitive nature. The first thing i did was to load a clip from the hotel scene on premiere pro and try different things as a sort of "experimental stage" just so i could play around with colour and see what it would look like on our actual project. Firstly i adjusted the dark areas and shadow, through trial and error i managed to get the look i wanted which was a slightly dark look with dark skin tones that imply dark gritty tones similar to that of Deakins work Prisoners. 

The difference is that in this scene Deakins had the choice of a set, so he could adjust the light however he wanted for whatever effect he wanted. Deakins positioned the light so that it would highlight the main character and create strong shadow behind him. I also did this however we could not cause areas of darkness (to stop the ye wondering from the main character) as we had bright walls and limited space. The location was a hotel room we had managed to attain for free, therefore we had to work with what we had been given. The positioning of the camera was another point of interest for me. I placed at this angle because i the photo above there are two characters in frame but the one on the left is shown to be looking down on the character facing the camera. This is a classic well know technique for symbolising power or dominance in some sense or another. In our scene however, niether character has more power or dominance than the other, one rapidly fires out continuous fantasy plans as the other deconstructs them as soon as they are mentioned. They are equally matched, one speaks sense as the other oozes confidence and optimism.

The last thing i want to talk about is the first time we see Sam (Alex) in the bathroom. The lighting in there made it perfect to colour it so that it gave a dark cold feel to it and along with the dark clothing gave it a really serious tone. This can be related to a scene in another Deakins film Skyfall. In said scene Bond is returning to service but badly out of shape and not qualified for active duty physically or mentally, and the scene occurs at the point where his superiors are starting to realise that. It is a tense dark moment and this is reflected by the pale green/ blue colour. Not only this but The camera places Bond close friend and long-time superior M, in soft focus and appearing to be the shortest one of the three. This relates back to the first comparison where physical size/ height can be related to power/ influence. M being the only one of the three superiors that suggested bond come back the audience can tell just by watching the scene and the placement of the camera that due to Bond performance in his tests she is in a weak position of power. Where this concerns our scene is that our main character is introduced on his own, reflecting his loneliness and showing that he is not in a good frame of mind due to the dark serious colours that surround him. Then as he leaves the bathroom he transitions from being alone with his troubles to having Phill talking about their situation and trying to come up with solutions. So even though his speech hints to the contrary, through the colours changing to become warmer show that he is happier or in a better place when around Phill. 

Transitions: The Script

My experience writing the script

What I think about the script

Transitions: Risk Assessments

Why is it important?

Transitions: Shoot day 1 and 2

Day 1 

The first shoot day was a success overall, and although the hotel room location we organised wasn’t as big or luxurious as we originally intended for the scene, we were still able to use it for free and the manager was very nice and accommodating towards us.
Me, George and Connor arrived early to set the equipment up and drop everything off as there wasn’t enough room in the car for all the equipment and to pick Andy up from the station. We picked Andy up and took him to the hotel just in time for Alex to arrive. We introduced both of them and had a quick blocking session. This was a good way for them to practice lines and also start to bounce each-other.

Setting up the track

We had some small technical issues at the beginning; the hotel room lighting wasn’t very good to work with; the shots looked very yellow. We tried adjusting the white balance which didn’t really help that much as it looked too blue. We resorted to adjusting the color Kelvin which helped but overall we took a lot of time sorting the camera out to accommodate the lighting. I really wanted the shots to look clean because it makes it easier to play with colour in post. If the original filming is clean then we can do more with it. Its also better to have more light then no light; cameras operate of light so being overexposed can be fixed in post, being underexposed can be very tricky without losing quality and picture noise/grain was something we wanted to really avoid if we could.

Conor on sound

Once we were all set up for lighting, sound and picture we were good to go. Something George and I learned from the third year shoot we helped out on was how much battery the Tascams drain, and how handy it is to carry a pack of batteries. We brought some batteries for this shoot which didn’t work as well as we had hoped. The batteries kept draining rapidly and we got through sixteen overall, which was ridiculous and we need to invest in a power bank when shooting for the third year. A power bank is a better solution (preferably one with two usb ports) as they can take multiple charges. This was recommended by Ferg and something I will consider for my final third-year project.
The shoot went very well and the eye zoom filming was easy to do and didn’t take much time to set up thanks to our practice test shoot. We did have some issues with contra zoom; the contra zoom is typically used in horror and would be good in adding tension and a buildup of drama. When the door knocks I want dit to be dramatic. The following is a bit of research I did when looking into the contra zoom before filming:

Day 2

Todays shoot was very interesting and a great learning curve for us all I believe. Because we came across so many problems today, we had very little time to overcome them. This is very common in production and something we need to get use to in industry, but the purpose of university is to learn. I feel after the events of today I can deal with most things, and its always good to be prepared for something to go wrong.

The day started out when our main actor playing Stevens dropped out. I was concerned that I hadn't had a response to one of my latest emails so I decided to phone him to confirm everything just in case and he had booked himself in for another job role, and therefore can no longer do our shoot. This was very stressful to hear, but in trying to behave as professionally as I could I told him not to worry, and that I would phone him back should I not be able to find a replacement today and consider rescheduling to another shoot day. Rescheduling really wasn't something I wanted to have to do as we were lucky enough to be able to use the studios carpark at this time (when they have shows coming in we are more restricted and unable to film there). On top of this the other actors have booked today free, so cancelling would alter their arrangements and its difficult matching up another shoot day where they are all free again, especially as Andy has a show coming up soon.






Me and George searched all over and looked online to try and find a replacement actor at the last minute. After really keeping our noses to the ground we found someone who seemed perfect for the role as Stevens. Alex Donald responded to a post Jack put out and reached out to us. He looked really well suited to the part. The only issue was he was very well spoken and Steves is supposed to be cockney. However, we felt this didn't matter too much given this was our own take and bad guys are often cast as being well spoken British people. Take Tom Hiddleston for example. We went ahead and sent Alex the details of the production, script, call sheets and a clip from the original scene we would be re-filming so he would know his character.

So that was one thing sorted but another problem we began to encounter was the rain. This was something we had already planned for in advance as the weather this time of year (April), the weather varies so much. In planning this, Jack got hold of some umbrellas. We really didn't want the weather to affect our shoot continuity or aesthetic. Slight drizzle could be atmospheric but if it was heavy rain we would have to consider a backup plan. Our backup was to film it as though they are in a car between a henchmen. This was a last resort but luckily in the end we didn't have to do it.



Alex interrogating the cast


Another issue we encountered was timing. Because out replacement actor was traveling from South West London, his last train from Maidstone was 10:00. It didn't get dark until about 9:00 and it would take at least 10 minutes to get to the station. The shoot didn't go as well as I had hoped which was mainly due to the time limit we had. Ideally, I would've spent more time perfecting the shots and how the colour was coming through on the camera.

Transitions: Shot List

Why is a shot list important

My shot list

As Live - Critical Reflection

For our “As Live” unit we were given two roles each, a pre-production and production role. Mine were Casting Director and Assistant Floor Manager. Within this critical analysis I will discuss the processes and problems that i confronted whilst carrying out my roles as well as the research i conducted for both roles.

Casing Director

Finding your cast

Finding a cast for anything has come on leaps and bounds since the days of putting advertisements in the paper for actors and extras etc, however even with todays technology it’s not easy. For the show’s Presenters and models I placed casting calls on both Sar Now, Mandy Actors (formerly Casting Call Pro) and Social media. One thing to bare in mind when trying to source a cast for anything, especially when it has a limited budget is Equity. When an actor or model or any performer of any kind has equity this is a sort of protection against exploitation, a sort of set of rules that any employer must abide by to ensure fair treatment of the contributor. Most of the time this means a minimum wage and travel expenses paid at least, sometimes more than that, however we managed to source some people who were willing to contribute for just travel expenses paid. It was a slow start with only two applicants for the presenters but after a few days applications started being received every day. One of the tasks as Casting Director I had was to create character profiles for all applicants which included; their age, where they are located, how they will be travelling to the studios, a large photograph of themselves, sizes and heights for the models, and any contact details they could provide. This process relied strongly on the ability to communicate between the PA and the Directors as we frequently had meetings to update the choices made on cast. After a meeting with Jemma the PA about the budget, we agreed that it would be a good idea to re-assess the presenter and model applicants based on location, therefore reducing the cost of having to pay for their travel, as most of the applicants were based in London. Being polite and professional was crucial when communicating with the contributors as not only was I representing the show, but the Maidstone Studios as well. “A casting Director must have the confidence of a Producer and a Director” (Crouch, 2003, pg.266) and this was true in many situations. As Casting Director it was my job to answer any and all questions the contributors had and to make sure they knew where and when they were needed. So even if I didn’t know the answer to their question, I had to have the confidence to deal with the situation in a manor that was both professional but didn’t make it obvious I didn’t know the answer.

Part of The Team

“The relationship that you have with the casting director is as essential as the relationships you have with the Director of Photography or Producer” (Catliff, 2013 pg. 56). As the person who was responsible for finding every contributor on screen during the show (including VT’s) I was involved in almost every meeting, from the VT team to the directors and producers meetings. The reason I had to be so involved (as the quote supports the casting director should be) is because not only did I have to just get presenters and models but I had to actively search for the types of people/ personalities the Producers were looking for. The Producers have a vision for the show and in their minds already have people pictured, so it is my job to find people as closely matched to what they have envisaged as possible. Add this with budget/ location requirements and sizing requirements for the models clothes and keeping the contributors on board, well it was a lot of emailing and frequent answering questions.

Being Prepared for anything

If you speak to anyone in the film or TV industry, especially low budget productions or projects that rely on their contributors volunteering etc. then they will tell you to be prepared for anything. Have a back up for your back up because no doubt there will be a family emergency or something will pop up last minute as it always does and I as a Casting Director need to be ready and waiting with a solution to the problem. Two days before the day we went live our older female model said there was a family problem and she could no longer be a contributor for the show. I informed the production team that night and we quickly worked to solve the problem. As frustrating as this news was I had to maintain the level of professionalism that had been demonstrated up until then, so I used this opportunity to do some research on how to respond to circumstances such as these and found a website www.TheatreFolk.com that helped a great deal. The article on this website (Hishon, 2017, TheatreFolk.com) Gave me some good points to follow in the case of an actor dropping out such as:

Figure out how to cover the role

If you had more than one applicant for the role, it’s worth getting back in contact with the others who applied but didn’t get the role as they may still be interested. If this isn’t the case or the other applicants are busy, call in a friend. They may not be the best actor or contributor in front of the camera but being so close to the day we went live this seemed like our only option.

Do you need the Role?

One of the points on this website suggested that if it was possible, in some cases it might be as well to cut the character from the script or adapt the script to fit around that person not being present. This may have been an option if it was a short film however due to the nature od the show the older female model would not be able to be edited out of the script.

Stay Positive

The last thing this website told me was to stay positive, yes it may be frustrating how last minute they left it but keeping calm and polite is only going to help the situation. By replying with a positive attitude this shows that you are both level headed and able to deal with situations like this. Furthermore if you ever need contributors again and they fit the description of what you are looking for, if you were polite and professional with them they will more than likely agree to work with you again.

Speaking from experience

Before meeting the contributors we had for interviews e.g. Bonny and Sapphire Stone, I emailed a contact I had in ITN to ask if she could pass me on to someone who could tell me how they source people who have interesting stories for the news/ interviews. She passed me on to Ken Hayes, a Development Producer for ITN who gave me lots of helpful tips and knowledge on how finding contributors is done for the news. The first thing we spoke about was that whenever you are searching for people it is within the brief of whoever commissions the programme and you work to their parameters. In any part of TV if the people who commissions your programme doesn’t like the content or contributors you bring in then they are free to pull the plug at any time. This however was not a problem for me as we in effect were commissioning our own programme with the help of the studios. He also said that when looking for people make sure to get a good balance of an interesting story but also someone who will be confident on camera. He advised searching for bloggers or commentators, people who deal with cameras/ audiences and can handle high pressure moments. This is why our surprise guest Sapphire Stone was a good person to use for the programme because not only do they make their own clothes (relevant to the show) but they perform regularly in front of audiences. The last bits of advice he had were if the interview goes dry and the presenters start getting one word answers then get them to move onto another subject that may cause a debate or conflict of opinion, and be honest and upfront with the contributors. Hayes said that if I spend a couple of days with them, creating a bond of trust, they will more likely be more open and truthful in the interview. If they feel safe and able to trust the crew then they will relax, and a comfortable contributor is a useful contributor. 

Assistant Floor Manager

What we do

Floor Managers are in charge of the studio floor and relay instructions from the directors in the gallery to other crew and contributors via the talkback system. They can also communicate to guests and talent on the floor with a series of hand signals informing them of timing and which camera to look at. As a Floor Manager it is also your responsibility to brief any talent or guests on the floor (including audience) on health and safety procedures such as making sure they know where all the fire exits are and where the fire point is that everyone needs to go to in the event of a fire. “Anything that happens on the studio floor must go through the Floor Managers” (Brown, 2016, pg. 50). This was the case with our live production as when the VT’s started rolling it was down to the floor managers and I to make sure everything was set for the cameras to come in from the VT. This included handing a mic to one of our presenters for the show’s Fashion Fails section, dressing and placing a mannequin on set in time for an interview with the Etsy seller and the task that I had the responsibility of, organising and cuing the models/ contributors. However if I had a question or wanted to do something that involved changing things on the studio floor I would find one of the two Floor Managers or communicate my question to the Gallery.

Research and etiquette

Before we went live I needed to research my role as Assistant Floor Manager, so I decided to not only research that but to research the requirements for the role of Floor Manager as well just in case one of our Floor Managers fell ill or couldn’t make it for some reason on the day. There is a book called Cue and cut by roger singleton-turner which is an informative book that talks about working in multi camera studios, in this book I found some very useful information and tips such as the ABCD’s. The ABCD’s are an initialism that stand for:

Artistes – make sure they are in position, ready and they have any props that are needed. In my case it was making sure the contributors were mic’d up and wearing the correct outfit for the section they were about to appear in. This was done by myself multiple times as I wanted to make sure that the Directors knew what outfit they wanted the models to come down the catwalk at the end in. Our sound assistant was also a great help as every time I escorted a contributor away from the stage he was there waiting to de-mic them and put it on the right person.

Bright lights – checking with the lighting crew and gallery that lighting is ok and whether it needs any adjustments before recording. Also making sure the people in Vision are happy with control over the lights and can fade when need to be faded etc.

Cameras – making sure all the cameras are turned on, able to hear the talkback from the Gallery and in position. It is also their responsibility to make sure the rest of the crew are ready to record and to and any questions they have are to be communicated to the Gallery via you. This would normally be up to the Floor Manager however if they were preoccupied doing something else then this responsibility may fall with the Assistant Floor Manager. On the day of the recording there were a few problems with the talkback microphones on some of the Camera Operators and I had to talk to the Gallery and inform them of why they weren’t getting a response from certain crew members.

Doors – As Floor Managers control everything that happens on the studio floor that also means they are responsible for any unwanted sound that is picked from the floor. This is why Floor Managers must check before they go live that all doors are close thus not causing any sound or light disruption to the set. The doors at the studios were heavy wooden double doors so I was allocated a greenroom runner, and I asked him that whenever I took contributors through could he make sure the doors don’t slam or make a noise behind me.