2011 Showreel

REX

So here’s what I’ve been working towards, enjoy…

REX is a study of three individuals that are key to the running of the independent cinema, The Rex, Wareham.

A lot of what makes visiting The Rex a spectacle is its aesthetics. However I felt just as important are the people behind it. The film is intended to represent the personalities and passions of the real characters of The Rex. Their interesting experiences and to highlight what drives them to dedicate so much to the cinema.

Filmed on a Canon 7D using both a Canon 50mm f/1.8 & Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5

Music – ‘Truth’ by Alexander

Written Titles

Film titles are of real importance to me in many cases they are literally the first thing you see of a film, they not only introduce the name of the film, but can set and give an insight into the tone of the film before you even see any footage. For example the title for the Transformers films immediately identify not only the name, but what the films about, with their noises of machinery and animated moving parts you’re in no doubt that your about to watch a film heavily reliant on special effects, booming sound effects and robots. I wanted the text used in my film to attempt to be just as effective. I wanted something simplistic and complimenting. The Rex is a unique place, built on the foundations of its characters. With the film dealing with some personal details, and the unique setting i knew i wanted my titles to be bespoke to the film and not to over shadow its content, remaining respectful of the details the guys shared with me. I tried the usual search for downloadable fonts, but nothing really worked. Then i remember the film ‘Where The Wild Things Are’ by Spike Jones, the film is based around the one character and his unique vision of the world. The typeface used throughout the film is so fitting for its content. The hand written style really enhances the films personal feel and touching visions.

I love the imagery this typeface inspires, I really wanted to use this hand written style for my film. However it turns out this type of typeface, and many others i have seen since this film, are all hand written. Realising i would have to hand write the titles I decided why not go the full hog. I ended up making my own font for my film. I didn’t want to hand write each title as i didn’t want to have any variation to the letters, perhaps placing more importance on a specific aspect or person of the film as opposed to another. This way I would maintain respect for the film’s content, in treating them all with the same attention, whilst giving my film a genuine unique touch.

Post

The final edit is pretty much done now, i don’t think there’s ever a point where I’ll be 100% happy with it. So rather than spending another week tweaking it I’ve decided to begin the post production. I don’t have any grand plans for particle effects or anything too ‘shouty’, treating this area of the process for touch ups. There’s a lot about the look and sound of the film I don’t like, it’s mainly the consistency between each interview that are at times very jarring. I’ll first tackle the looks, there are many shots that are far too soft and even more that are way to dark. Particularly Jocelyns interview segment, not only is the scene too dark but you almost lose her skin tone against the wall behind her, creating a really flat look. This is also the case with Dougal’s interview segment, but his is a little less of a problem as the light isn’t too limited. To begin with I’ll correct the colour tone of the scene, lowering the yellows and increasing skin tone. Then applying a further general correction to contrast and saturation. What I’m trying to do it lift the subject away from the background at the same time as creating a tonal identity that runs consistently throughout my film. Next, something that is usually overlooked is sharpness, I always shoot my films with sharpness turned off thus decreasing the chance of digital artifacts and general muck that can ruin a shot. However doing this does tend to flatten and image, and like much of my film, make it look soft. To rectify this I apply an unsharp mask layer to the clip, the key with this effect is less is more. This is my general approach to treating the clips in this film, some clip may require a little more attention, but so far it’s looking good. Bellow is a before and after of my general colour correction work flow. Notice the difference in sharpness to the lamp and the change in tone to the wall behind her.

BEFORE

AFTER

As far as correcting the sound is concerned, I’m not too experienced with this. Sound is just as important in a film as the visuals, the audio isn’t that bad with my recordings, just needs a little clean. There’s a few dead zones where the mic noise becomes too apparent, and where the levels seem to peak to high. After exporting into Adobe Soundbooth thankfully I’ve managed to fix the majority of the problems. The key was to add a DeNoiser and Limiter to the wave forms. I’m pretty happy with the results.

Editing

With all my footage gathered i can move onto editing, it might take a while. I’ve collected well over 80gigs of footage during my time at The Rex, I need to filter it down to as close to a 10 minuet short as possible. It’s imperative that I don’t get too attached to what I’ve gathered, with this much footage anything that isn’t 100% vital or correct it has to go, there’s a fine balance of length and interest i have to maintain for this film to work. This is the first time I’ve ever attempted a documentary style film, without a developing narrative to follow I can foresee a problem with maintaining interest. There’s only so much i can do with the footage I’ve filmed. One way that I’ll try to achieve this is to structure the edits of the interviews in with a definitive beginning and end, from stories of the interviewees early childhood experiences to what they are doing now. This sort of structure creates an almost instinctive reaction in the way the film is watch and followed. Along with that I’ll be structuring the location shots in an order that wont be unfamiliar for those who have been experienced The Rex already. The shots will be cut in the order at which you see The Rex when visiting, from entering the front door to buying your ticket at the pay bow, then grabbing a drink at the bar and finally up to the screen to watch the film. This is a detail that i wont really expect people who have never experienced The Rex before, but for those that have it should work well with keeping them engaged.

Another way that I’ve notice the majority of documentary based films to keep interest and momentum is to edit the film to a music. I’ve had experiences with this in the past, but never really composing a whole 10min+ film to a track. The song I’ll be using for the film is a track by called ‘Truth’ by Alexander Ebert. This track is not only one of my favourite, but it has a wicked walking pace to it, but the biggest reason for choosing it is that it reminds me of The Rex when ever i listen to it. The first time I visited the cinema was to watch the Quintin Tarantino film ‘Inglourious Basterds’. Ever since then i have always made a connection in my head between The Rex and Quintin, I can imagine him working there. This track has a very Tarantino feel to it, with the underlying western tone and whistling, i always thought it should have featured in one of his ‘Kill Bill’ films. The only problem i have with the song is its length, obviously it wont last the whole film, so i have to loop it in some way. This wont be easy however, as the song has a very distinctive beginning and end. I’m getting somewhere with it though, now I’m getting to grips with Soundtrack pro.

An Evening With Steve

Steve was the only one on my list i had left to shoot. He’s a bit of an illusive character, what with his feature film due to being aired on national TV he was understandingly busy, his shifts at The Rex had even been cut to allow more time for his film. He was kind enough arrange one evening when he was working though, which was a massive relief, for a moment i was expecting the phone call to tell me he could no longer take part. As i was only going to get one evening with him i would have to film both the interview and shots of him at work in one shoot. As i had already seen the projection room in action before, i was aware of just how noisy the projector was, I was desperate to film the interview in a quiet environment. An interview with that noise in the background just wouldn’t work. Steve kindly offered to come in early, i would have half an hour before the projector had to be turned on.

I arrived at 6pm and got straight to it. The room with the projector in it was a little too small for the two of us and my equipment, plus even with the projector not running there was still a feint hum omitting from it. Instead we shot the interview in the cutting room next door, a much better choice. Nice colour tones and the aesthetics where more characteristic than the unexpected clinical feel of the projector room. Also lighting wise it was perfect, I sat Steve down next to a massive window giving the whole shot a real earthy, natural feel. As Steve has had loads of experience with interviews and documentary film making he knew exactly what i was after. The interview had a real nice pace and flow, with his answers very concise with just enough character details within them. I didn’t know very much about Steve prior to the interview, as there isn’t much content out there about him, so i was a little anxious and fearful of a crap interview, i needn’t have worried though. For me the interview with Steve was the most genuine, the only point where i had real idea of what it might be like to be in the audience when watching my film. Like my audience would be finding out about someone for the first time, with no preconceptions. Overall a brilliant end to the interviews, and with only a few more locations shot to film I’m pretty much done with the filming.

Busy Day

Today I arranged to shoot the interviews with Jocelyn and Dougal. I wanted the to shoot a standard sit down interview, as I think the juxtaposition between both the styles of filming, interview mixed with voyeuristic cutaways will keep interest and maintain a nice balance to the film. I knew I would be fine taking care of the filming, but i was a little lost as to what to do with sound. I needed the interview to feel genuine so I didn’t want to give any reason for the interviewee to feel uncomfortable, I didn’t want to use a separate sound man nor did i like the idea of using a rifle mic and boom, so I looked in to what equipment was available to me from uni. I found my course had just purchased a hot shoe Rode directional mic, perfect for the DSLR’s, it seemed perfect for the job, didn’t add much to the appearance of my setup up and meant i could monitor the audio at the same time as filming, also the audio would be recorded straight to the film so i wouldn’t have to sync anything up with the edit.

After having a little play with it i was left a little disappointed, the mic picked up too much ambient sound and the constant fuzz, which is apparent in all recording equipment (with varying degrees) was a little too much for my liking. Then i remembered that the film course had a couple of clip on radio mics, i have had previous experience with these during work outside of uni so i knew how effective they can be. The advantage of using clip mics are that the mic is literally attached to your clothes, placed near the chest you get a real sharp and full-bodied recording, plus after a while people tend to forget that they are mic’d up, so natural conversations are easily achieved. Plus, like the Rode hot shoe mic, the audio is recorded straight to the footage. After much negotiation (due to the stupid way that much of the store equipment is only available to the film course) I was given handed the Sennheiser g2 500 kit, after figuring out how to attach them to my camera i was ready.

I arrived at The Rex by 10am, Jocelyn was there waiting. I already had an idea of where i wanted to shoot the interview, the bar was a popular hangout for Jocelyn whilst she worked, so i knew she would feel comfortable there. I was a little unsure of the lighting though, I never really shoot anything over 400iso as the noise generated when above that gets a bit ridiculous. I was forced to use my lesser quality lens as the light was simply too low for my Sigma f/3.5 to perform well. I switched to my Canon f/1.8, a much softer lens, one which I’m always reluctant to use, the only way to fix this would have been to bring a couple of lamps with me, but that was simply illogical for what i wanted to achieve with the interview. So instead i sat her as close to one of the table lamps as possible. I think it works well, although I’m not looking forward to sharpening the footage in post. Overall the interview went well, Jocelyn was a little reserved at the start, but 10mins in and she was into her stride. We wrapped up just before 11. I didn’t expect to be done this early, I had 4 hours to kill before my arranged interview with Dougal. I gave him a call and asked if we could start at 12, to which he agreed.

Dougal was free all day so i was in no rush to start the interview, instead I decided to finish what i had started yesterday. With his studio back to normal we began the shoot in there, the filming was pretty much the same as the day before. With the difference of the room being far more interesting, I had originally wanted to capture Dougal making one of his models from beginning to end, but as he explained it would take more than a couple of hours, so instead he started work on a model he had been working on for an up and coming animation. I could tell this is where he spent most of his time when not at The Rex, so I planned to shoot the interview in here. With Dougal sat behind hes work bench I dressed and lit the scene with one of his lamps. Once he started talking i couldn’t stop him, the only point he stopped was when i had to change the card in the camera, as he already filled the remaining space on the last one. He’s a natural in front of the camera, was really comfortable with its presence, it was a real joy to just sit back and listen to his stories.We ended the day at 5, a bit of a full on day, but really productive.

Dougal First Shoot

This morning I popped over to Dougals home where his studio is, I was really looking forward to this shoot and it didn’t fail to meet my expectations. The videos of his animations he had shown me prior to today were fantastic, my mind was already flooded with speculative imagery of his home and studio. After a long wait on the doorstep he eventually came to the door, I immediately realised the reason for the long wait. Dougal had gone into hospital to have surgery on his leg just two days before now. He was on crutches and was obviously restricted in his movements. After having a brew and a little sit down we got to work.

Now this shoot would be similar to Jocelyn’s, with the added difficulty of structuring shots around hiding his leg, and the fact he unable to stand for too long. As i wanted the film to capture his usual day-to-day routine, i couldn’t have crutches and plaster cast drawing attention. It soon became apparent the only logical way to do so was to have him sitting behind something. Luckily his studio had a desk for him to sit at, unfortunately he was a little reluctant to film in there today as his son had been using it as a bedroom for the past week. So instead we went up to his study. All the shots involving Dougal would be build around him sitting at his desk, so i would be pretty limited with shots involving him, luckily the study was full of little objects that would really help portray Dougals character. As a result this shoot was almost entirely directed, with the exception of reading a few emails and answering phones. With this sort of control i was able to take full advantage of my tracking system,  Dougal was a breeze to direct, he loves the limelight. At the end of the day i knew i had some really nice shots in the bag, the next time i would visit i would be filming in the studio.

Below are some images of the shoot.

Oh.. below is an example of Dougal’s animation work. Check his channel for more.

Jocelyn First Shoot

Tonight I arrange to spend the evening with Jocelyn during her night shift, I’ll be following her about the entire evening, staying mostly out of sight. She tells me not to expect much as the film their showing tonight hasn’t had much interest. I went along unsure of what to expect anyway. The first hour was pretty dead, customer wise, mainly just Jocelyn and Tony the barman sat in the office. It worked out well though, with the lack of customer to server i could almost direct Jocelyn as though filming a scripted piece. One shot i was really eager to get was a slow inward track towards Jocelyn sitting center frame in the pay box. It worked out brilliantly, really looking forward to incorporate this shot in the final edit. Around half 6 customers started arriving for the 7 o’clock showing, at first i was reluctant to film Jocelyn serving them, fearing a bad reaction from the camera. I shouldn’t had worried, using the DSLR’s when making this type of film really come into their own, filming is so discrete. I remained in the background filming away and was never question as to what i was doing, capturing customer after customer, i was pretty limited in angles and distance, but it worked really well, fitting the voyeuristic style perfectly.

I’m really enjoying this style of film making, shots appear from nowhere and opportunities always revealing themselves, discovering little trinkets and details that tell so much about the person without need of words, this reactive approach to filming is so satisfying. Unlike a directing an actor, it’s as though the moment directs you. Below are a some images of the shots i gathered.

Making Myself Known

During the past few days I have been spending my mornings and afternoons at the Rex, mainly to shoot footage for cutaways, but more importantly to make myself known. Its really important for me that i gain a level of trust and friendship before interviewing. The last thing i want is for the subjects of my interviews to feel anxious and stiff in their answers. I really want the guys all to perceive me as a friend, as apposed to a filmmaker. Amongst the passing conversations I’m starting to feel a connection with the guys. I’ve have lunch with Dougal and watch a film with Steve already. Jocelyn is a little harder of a nut to crack, but I’ll get there.

Below are a few images of the first couple of days filming.