Separation Music Track - Sending it to the Musician

Now that I was ready to send my nearly finished edit to the musician I had to think into what I wanted from the music track. I had been thinking about this for a long time through out this process and had spoken to him a few times about his. However I hadn't got myself set on something very specific because I wanted my brother to interpret my visuals and make music for this childhood memory how he saw best as he also went through a very similar experience with me as my brother. I did however give him guidance because I needed it to flow with the visuals. I thought about the story, the emotions  I wanted, sounds I liked, inspiration I had heard etc and used all this to write myself a rough list of everything I needed to mention to him. Here is the email I then wrote him consisting of all of that:

The musician then phoned me to let me know he had received this email and was very happy with everything I had said and suggested. He said he will be getting to work shortly and if he has any issues he will give me  call. I  will also be seeing him in person very soon so we are going to use this meeting as a chance to discuss any questions if he does have any at all. He has given me a preliminary rough date of completion which will be the 9th April so I am very happy about this because it is sooner than I was expecting due to set backs. I am very happy with how things are progressing so far and I am excited to receive the music track.

Separation Edit 5 - Nearly there!

As I am starting to become a lot happier with my edit and also as I now need to get a sound track fro it I spent several days from 24.03.18 - 27.03.18 making more adjustments myself and creating Edit 5 of Separation ready to send off to my Brother so he could begin making the music track. Here are again the main things I adjusted and changed on this version of the edit:

I went through the edit I had already and began like I said previously I would being very harsh and taking away any visuals which just weren't working either visually or conceptually. I also cut down shots and re-framed if there were certain parts of the shot that didn't look right or made it look bad. The main items I lost were a lot of the sunflower shots I had in it. The sunflower just didn't seem to have the power I wanted it to visually and I felt like this was because I just had way too many shots in the edit of it. This meant it lost its gravitas so I took out a lot of the shots that I had previously not been sure of as they still just didn't fit. I felt a lot happier having removed these and also a few other minor shots that didn't work as it left me much more room to play with now and it allowed me to think into the order now much more deeply.

Addressing the order I noticed now having removed certain shots and sections that my piece was almost chunked into little emotional narrative sections and the main problem was that I now needed to find things to put between some of these to make it flow and even move some of these sections around to make the emotions work and flow the way I wanted. To help me with this I made a written edit plan messing around and re-thinkign the order. Here is the rough plan I came up with to help re-order this:

This allowed me to not only think visually about the order but also think into conceptually as well. This order as you can see got adjusted and changed a few times times during the making of the newest edit but I kept moving things round till I reached a point where I was happy both visually and conceptually with it.

I had been speaking about the potential of having a motif within my piece and I finally decided I would try it as I felt like this could make the piece link a lot closer to memories and the idea that memories do repeat themselves. I went with my favourite visual which is of the dress being picked up and unfolded in slow motion. I had a brief discussion before about maybe using this visuals and repeating it but at the time I didn't thin it would work. Now having re-ordered it I really think it will add to this. I took the dress and added it it into the edit in total around 7 or 8 times. I shuffled these about to try and get them evenly spaced through out the piece but also appropriately matched with visuals either side. I then decided to emphasises this I would speed this visual up at the beginning then have it slow down each time you see it till the final visual is at the slowest possible speed (the speed/frame rate it was filmed). This is to make the memory are significant each time. I then came up with the idea to make add some overlays to this of the same shot just a few frames apart with low opacity almost to give a trail effect to the dress. This made it look almost dream like which I loved because memories do seem almost like dreams after such a long time. I decided to play on this effect because of that and every time the shot came back up I added another trail so it was getting more and more dream like each time. This displays the idea behind memories after such a long time and visually shows how this piece reflects memories distorting over the years. I really like this mite and I am so happy I decided to try it as it does add to the piece a lot.

As well as the dress layering images I used added layers in on other visuals as well to give a similar effect but distorted it differently a lot of the time for example I layered the rings but then mirrored the image so one is upside down. This gives the sense of distance and unbalance. I feel like this layer effect has really helped me make my piece a lot more exciting and also reflective of memories. My piece during the filming and more so now in the edit has evolved from being about one story and situation to now more about the way memory works and can effect us as well revolving around this situation. I also placed crossfades between a fair few shots when I felt like it helped the visuals flow better or if I felt like the images should reflect on one another a lot more. This again helps it flow and adds to that same feeling.

I then added in a few new shots as well that I now felt would work in the piece because of the new order and new concept. These were close up shots of my hair moving around in the water. I really loved these as visuals so I was happy that they now added to the piece conceptually as well. I combined them with the dress in the water shots as this was trying to show the situation getting tangled and reflect the dress as part of me (like my hair). This worked conceptually and looked nice visually.

I then focused on one of my establishing shots that stood out. This was the back rolling up shot. I loved this shot but it got mixed feedback with some people also loving it and others not liking it as much. I wanted it in there because it was a way of introducing the presence of a body. I felt like maybe some people didn't like it as much because it stood out in comparison to the rest of the body shots as it is frame very wide with space around the back whereas all the other body shots have been framed in very tightly. I decided to try and distort this slightly to make it more ominous like the other body shots. I in the end did this by keying in a zoom as the back is appearing into shot. This throws off your perception of what is happening slightly because as the back rolls we get closer and closer. This distorts it well but now makes this shot end in a way which matches up to all the other body shots closely cropped in and it still introduces like I wanted it to.

These major changes along with many other minor ones and lot of experimenting has led me to achieve an edit that I am happy in and confident with. I can't wait to show it to my colleagues and tutors after the holidays and get more feedback on it so that I can make any final tweaks needed to achieve as bets as I can with this. I also need to revisit this and colour correct it and add titles and credits. However I have exported it as it is for now as a very nearly finished edit and I got myself ready to send it off to my brother (the musician) to start making the very important music tack to go with it!

Separation Edit 4 - Effects Consultant Meeting (Maisie)

I met my effects consultant Maisie on 22.03.18 to discuss my edit and improve this with her advice and assistance especially when it comes to adding effects and smoothing those out that I already have. This is how I created Edit 4 for Separation. Here is the main things we worked on together:

We began discussing the effects I had put on the water filling up and then emptying shot to attempt to make it look almost like a time-lapse styled shot. She felt like we could improve on this especially since at the current time it was very disruptive between each section as the water line suddenly jumped up. Maisie worked on smoothing this out by increasing each sections length so the water line flowed up. We then pieced it back together for the beginning and ending and on a separate sequence we messed with speeds to see how we could get it to look. WE increased the speed much more than already to around 800% to try create a time-lapse look. However we felt like now it moved so fast it was very distracting because it was just too much happening too quickly. We then had the idea to maybe drop the frame rate just on this section to make it look like a time-lapse. we dropped it all the way to 10fps and this worked a lot better and had the visual style I wanted to achieve. I was much happier with this!

We then worked on the water submerged facial shots. Like I said in a prior edit I had added more of these facial shots through out to make it a constant part of the narrative and keep anchoring back to me. However I didn't want my face to be easily and instantly recognisable because that gives away too much too quickly. Instead I wanted it distorted so me and Maisie worked on distorting each of these shots. We did this by layering a few of the shots and dropping the opacity so that makes it much more distorted with bubbles so that you can't tell who it is easily at all. Then on some other shots we just framed it in on the bubbles much closer up making that the focus to again hide my face more. Then on the final reveal shot where I sit up out the water I needed this to be distorted too. We decided to make the sitting up shot out focus and create a focus pull so that by the time I'm out of shot you can clearly see the moving water behind me. That also allows more time while you watch the water before I open my eyes to allow the viewer to have a moment before the big end shot. This now makes these sections a lot more exciting and how I envisaged them. We also adjusted the colour temperature on these shots slightly to make them watch in with the body movement shots more from the perspective that we wanted it to be deemed as the same body/being (myself) so warming up these bath shots helps that. However I will in the finals ages of editing come back and colour grade the piece to make this much more effective.

Maisie then went and added to some of the shots I had already keyed motion in like the stomach roll to make the shots frame up a lot better. Like I said I keyed this to have unnoticeable camera movement in post that makes the belly button stay in frame. She just re-visted this and added more key points to make it smoother. She also then keyed some other body shots with me to make the moment again sit in the frame well and flow smoothly.

We then spoke about the order together and I again moved a few things around while I had her their for her creative opinion.

This meeting was very successful because now I am much more comfortable that the effects I added and wanted work to the best of their ability and she has assisted me with this to make sure things are as good as they can be from this perspective.

Separation Edit 3 - Learning from Feedback!

As I said with my previous edit I was more confident in it now but still uncertain about certain elements and parts of it. This wasn't helped by not yet having tutorials and feedback from many people. I showed edit 2 to several people including two tutors and many colleagues in my class. Again I used feedback from them along with a fresh pair of eyes (after not viewing for a few days myself) to help me make changes to improve the piece. Here are the main changes I made to create Edit 3 of Separation. (21.03.18):

I spent a lot of time debating weather the stress ball shots in my piece worked as it had been pointed out by a few people that it is one of the only more natural objects within the piece. It is also the object which most people want to ask questions about - Not in necessarily in a negative way but people are curious as to what it is in particular (if they don't know already) and they also ask about its significance to me etc. I really wanted to personally keep the stress ball within the piece because it is a significant object to me and I am assuming that even if nothing else the significance of it must be obvious hence why people notice it and ask about it more. It links to my childhood but in many personal ways but also on asking many of my peers of solar age and generation they know what they are as they have their own experiences with these stress balls as children. I also love the irony in these stress balls because they were given to children who struggled sometimes yet they had happy faces on them? It is only now I look back as an adult that I see the irony in that and this is one of the many reasons I want it in my piece and the way it is abused and destroyed in the piece is one of the sights of stress but also loss of childhood and innocence. In conclusion I have reworked in the stress ball to the new edit because I really want it in their for conceptual reasons but I have changed the order of these visuals slightly and placement of them to try and make it flow visually a bit smoother.

The water line in my shots was another part that a lot of people noticed and I myself felt some of the visuals worked better without it already and hence why I had framed in on some of these to take that away. However in other shots I left the water line because I wanted it to be evident that things were going in and out the water however when I tried taking all the water lines away by framing in I actually really loved the effect. You could still tell by the movement of the objects and water that things were entering and exiting the tank however now it was much more exciting to see as all focus was on these objects making a much nicer visual. It allowed it to be more immersive so I now have no water lines in this edit apart from the tank filling and emptying at the start and end.

I  had previously played with speed on some of my clips never slowing down (as majority was filmed in high frame rates and already in slo mo!) but instead speeding some clips up to add excitement and tension as if there was too much slow motion in one place it just seemed a bit dull. I went back and played with the speed again because having re-watched I don't know if I got the speed right on some things. It was also pointed out to me that some images were just too fast. I went through and thought about speed in terms of how object relate to one another and to the concept/story. I then adjusted the speed to make it interesting and varied through out but also to add to the piece as some faster sections build up the tension. I was much happier with how the speeds worked with one another more.

I also tried to move the order round again for this edit as I was happy with the beginning and end but the middle was the messiest section as the least clear. I tried to think through all the feedback and through the emotional story I am trying to tell and then moved a lot of visuals around to work with this. I am a bit happier with the order now but am still unsettled and unsure about certain things - I know soon I will have to get harsher with myself and the edit and eliminate the weaker points that just aren't working. I did take out the apple entering the water shot because as much as I loved this visuals it messed with the apples individual object narrative because it left the apple in limbo and this was partly feedback I recieved. I feel like the apple is enough at the beginning to show the initial disruption and it is much stronger left this way. I also removed the water droplet down the dress shot as I was never keen on this when I reviewed footage because it did just look a bit random and odd. I put it in because I thought it would help with he concept however when it was pointed out that it didn't I knew straight away that it should be removed as I had doubts anyway. Lastly I removed one of the last ink spreading shots as I felt like I had too many of these and the metaphor and visual is interesting but after too many times it seems simplistic and lacks meaning so I reduced the amount of ink because I wanted it to keep meaning.

I am glad that I have progressed further with my edit and have made more changes in preparation to meet my effects consultant tomorrow to work on this further. (22.03.18)

Separation Edit 2 - Ready for more!

Due to unforeseen circumstances (snow) I was unable to attend my tutorial on 19.03.18 so instead emailed a compressed exported copy of my edit so far to get some feedback via email. The feedback was general but it defiantly gave me something to think about. I also got friends and colleagues of mine to watch it to judge their responses and make amendments from this. Here are the main changes I made to create Edit 2! :

I still wasn't sure about the water shots at the beginning and end of the piece. I wanted them within the piece for conceptual reasons as I feel like it shows the pressure building at the start and then it easing at the end and showing things washing away however visual it doesnt work at the moment. I wanted it to look more like a time-lapse I sped it up slightly more than I already had and then added a cross fade between the sections. This made it look better than it did but I may still need to revisit this.

I then felt like some of my establishing shots and some shots in general still weren't snappy enough so I played with trimming these down so the shot just shows the bare essentials of what is needed but still looks visual nice and works conceptually. This help the beginning flow better especially the establishing facial bath shot and sunflower shot.

One issue I have always had with some of the stomach rolling movement shots is that I want the main focus to be on the belly button and this didn't come across as well as I had hoped because the belly button moves out of frame where I cropped in to eliminate the background. I thought of a way to fix this by keying in camera motion bit by bit so that subtly and almost unnoticeable the camera (in post) and framing now keeps the belly button much more in frame so it keeps more focus on it.

I started trying to add some basic effects myself before meeting with my effects consultant (Maisie). I started experimenting with mirroring images. I tried this on the feather shots as these worked in my pre-vis really nicely being mirrored. However this time I didn't like it at all. The feathers were white this time (as more appropriate) but this meant the mirroring just made it more visually complicated and messy rather than adding interest. I left this mirroring effect for the time being.

As suggested I wanted to try out some black and white shots to see if this added anything. I tried the black and white on the body movement shots but again I really wasn't keen on this at all. I felt it made the visuals again look worse and it meant I lost the lovely skin tones I had in the piece prior. I don't think conceptually black and white works in my piece anyway as its too cliche when linked to memories. I left the piece in colour.

I removed the headband shot all together as I only had one in the entire piece anyway and this meant that one shot stood out for being a bit too random and not necessary to the story and made the visuals seem a bit jarring. I removed this and reordered the section around this shot slightly to get the flow between shots a lot smoother and I think the removal of this helped.

I had attempted to create a glitch looking effect previously on the sunflower shots in the middle to move from a real sunflower to a fake sunflower in an interesting way and to also reflect how memories can warp and change. I felt it work conceptually but visually the glitch wasn't successful. This is because when splicing up the two clips to blend and glitch together I cut it into too bigger chunks so it was way too jarring. I instead resisted this and cut it down into amy more much smaller sections then cut these together and now the glitch looks a lot more like a glitch and is visually nicer.

An effect I had played with a lot before and wanted to put more in of was layering and opacity. I really love layering the object shots to make it more memory and dream like but also to add importance to certain objects. On one of the ring shots I added a second layer which was a different part of the clip. I then dipped the opacity so you could see essentially two rings moving around and then keyed one to zoom in so that it looks like one ring is spinning away out of shot leaving the other alone. I think in terms of visually and conceptually this is a strong metaphor and I like it.

I then came back to the mirroring effect and decide to use it on the ink spread ind after shot. I mirrored it and loved the results as its an abstract way of enhancing what this shot was already symbolising. I then went one step further and rotated this mirrored shot so the reflection line is in the middle vertically and the ink spreads from the enter to each side of the screen. I love this cause it now also on top of everything else also looks similar to a psychological blot test and this now links to the psychological aspect of the piece which has become much more important than the actual story itself as this piece represents and memories and the psychological states I was and am in.

A part of the edit which was the weakest to most people and also to myself is the sunflower shots where I have cut between the sunflower in water then on the stomach and so fourth. This happens twice, once aggressively and then again at the end but much more gently to show the calm now. I resisted this ad cut down the shot lengths and lined them up so that the sunflower appeared through out both shots to be moving back and forward continuously which allowed it to flow better and if I couldn't get it to match position continuity wise I went through the other sunflower shots to find where it could match up. This improved it however this is still he part I am unsure about in my edit.

These improvements help the piece look a lot cleaner than it had done previously and added interest however I still felt like I had a long way to go yet.

Separation Edit Week 1 - Rough Cut!

In preparation for a tutorial with my Tutor and a Meeting with my assistant editor/special effects artist I have spent this week putting together a rough cut of my piece to review with them and improve upon next week. I have kept it fairly basic when it comes to effects because I was focusing on getting the emotional intensity right and making the visuals flow from one to another with the order and also using some of the poetic editing techniques I used to make it smooth but exciting.

Here are the main steps that occurred during the editing process this week:

Before I even began putting things together in the timeline I firstly uses the log sheet to decide on the most important and successful components, particularly the symbolism images, and I then broke each object into its own story of emotions with the visuals. This was to help me make the piece flow in emotions as well begging smoothly and building more negatively and finally coming through all of that and moving on. Here are the notes of my plans for this...

Before even editing I had to make sure I set myself up a 1080p project because even though I recorded in UHD I am zooming into/ cropping a lot of the videos so I won't loose any quality doing this with massive UHD footage as long as the sequence is 1080p.
I began by focusing on the beginning using imagery that showed the calm before the storm. I wanted this imagery to build up quite quickly but also not too boldly as this is the biggest explosion that is meant to occur. Here is the timeline once I had got the introduction to a stage I was happy with. My log sheet was very useful for getting the imagery I needed into the sequence quickly and also making sure I was always using my best imagery.

I played with pace a lot keeping it slow with a lot of my slow motion clips and then speeding some up slightly to make the pace build as the intensity is building. I also used basic effects like crossfades and scale etc and small post camera movements but overall I was focusing more on the concept and the order etc so kept it reliably simple at the moment.

I then moved onto focusing on creating the main conflict of the piece which involved making it build and have a lot of sudden moments occur. I also went back and cut down the beginning because I felt on revisiting it I had left too many pauses in-between shots where the main action had finished but it was cutting quick enough to the next action. Here is how the timeline looked after expanding he stay but also refining the pace etc

I also added in some glitch effects and repetition of images in this main conflict section as I felt this gave those images a lot more power but also added the memory feel to them of keep seeing these significant reminders and not quite being able to clearly see them all the time. I also though a lot about the poetic visual techniques I looked into like making images match visually to add a smooth flow so I applied this rearranging to try and add more flow. For example if a hand pushed down I then had a movement images where the camera is panning down or I had an apple followed by a stress ball so the shapes mimicked one another. This helped make the piece seem a lot smoother but still build well.

I then finally focused on how to create an ending. This was very hard to do as I needed the pace to now slow back down and a lot of the images to be reversed to show me moving past that pain and letting it go. I then needed the piece to end a little bit more positively in that sense but also with my face/eyes being revealed to anchor the piece to my identity. Here is the plan I made for the ending because I was struggling to visualise it so instead thought emotionally and rationally about it...

This helped me to complete the ending of the piece by picking up the pace and then slowing it down by using reverse editing mainly. Here is the timeline now the whole story is in place.

I then kept going back to this piece and reviewing it with fresh eyes to keep making improvements to it by cutting things down which aren't needed but also adding visuals which could have better connotations. For example I added a lot more water shots through out as they all suddenly appeared towards the end. I also made sure to add my facial underwater shots through out because it didn't make any sense just having them appear at the end with no explanation therefore no connotations. I needed it to be obvious that the ending is showing the explanation of these being relived memories for me. I feel like I have reached the best point I can by myself but now I need feedback from people who have never seen this before so I will get that feedback from some tutors on Monday but also from my assistant editor/special effects artists who I have deliberately not shown my rough cut to yet as I want to get her initial reactions and feedback to this when I see her in person.

Fairy Tale Photoshoot Revisited! 6th & 7th March 18

I completed a fairytale photoshoot of Chloe already however  she asked me to reshoot and complete another photoshoot for her over two evenings as she had much stronger ideas for her images now having learnt from our mistakes and weaknesses in the last photoshoot and set of images. She also asked me if I would be able to video her moving into poses so she can play with the idea of projection. I thought about this but struggled with the idea of me having to not only concentrate on the photos but also now on videos. This seemed like a two person job so I asked Chloe if I was able to bring someone else with me to help so that we can achieve the best results. She agreed and it ended up being arranged that Chloe would direct and pose, I would concentrate on the photography side and Natasha would be the videographer filming chloe getting into pose. We planned to work with two same spec DSLR's (2 x's Canon 80D's) both on tripods right next to one another to try and achieve the same perspective on the image but one would video while one would capture the photo. Me and Chloe then discussed the best props for each character now having more time to prepare and also discussed ,fighting and style. While talking to Chloe I drew up some rough sketches of ideas I had to see if she liked them:

Some of these were a little too complicated for what Chloe wanted but they helped me think more into lighting styles and framing which was good. 

I used two point lighting again like I did before and similar technique of having one duller and one brighter to create subtle shadows across the face. Then I would just move the lights about for different images and particularly for different characters. Here is the rough set up we worked with:

We completed Red Riding Hood on the first day and then began taking photos of Alice but finished these on the second evening and then completed Little Mermaid on the second evening. We began by trying things we knew had worked previously for each but then started playing with poses more and experimenting particularly with getting into the poses for the videos. We reviewed the images on the Mac after we felt each set was complete as we wanted to check they were to their best potential and then re-take any we felt we could improve. Then once we were happy with every set Chloe then looked at her favourite images as a set of three the way she will when she paints them to make sure these are successful which she said they were. I am very happy with how the images turned out because with more time to prepare and more time to actually take the images allowed for a much higher success rate and the videos to go with them are really interesting as well. Here are a few of the favourite images from the shoot:

 I am happy with how this shoot turned out as it was more successful and prepared than the last and also very enjoyable to be a part of!

Logging and Reviewing my Footage

Now that filming has been completed for my piece I wanted to make sure I logged and reviewed my footage before beginning my edit. This is so that editing is made a lot smoother but also to make sure I try to include only the best visuals as well as the most meaningful. Here is the footage log I made for the three day shoot:

(Some of these are highlighted because when I began editing I kept track of some of the shots I used)