Project Evaluation

Overall, I am pleased both films we have produced despite the challenges we have faced, although our longer piece differs from what we originally aimed to create.

Strengths

The main strength of the poetic piece is the simplicity of the idea, the slow reveal of the photograph mirroring the development of the memory as it is told. I feel the story and speaker are both engaging and its editing is well paced. The subtle elements of sound design and underlying music help to bring the memory to life but do not distract from the speaker, and the retained nuance adds to the sense of character.

For the longer piece, its main strength Ralph's warm and engaging character. Also, we have managed to find, structure and present an interesting and personal story whilst avoiding an overly sentimental tone, which would not have been representative of his character and arguably would have undermined the film. It was a challenge for us, particularly after our first meeting, to see where a film could be made from the various memories he shared, but through planning and discussion we managed to extract the necessary information.

The transition from Ralph talking about his happy memories to talking about his wife passing away was challenging to execute without feeling abrupt or forced. However, with the change in pace, music and tone, as well as the slow match-cut dissolve, I think we bridged the two sequences effectively and with respect. In response to feedback we also tried to improve the pacing throughout the entire film, giving the audience more time on the photographs and pauses between speech. Additionally, planning and discussing the editing structure ensured that there was efficient movement between different ideas and scenes, finding a balance between exposition and personal anecdotes.

Planning a rough editing structure

I am also pleased with the quality of the coverage and cutaways, which help to provide movement to an otherwise static piece. On our second day of filming we focused on shooting cutaways to create opportunities in the edit, as we were still experimenting with which sections to include or omit. We therefore had enough coverage to reinforce anything that was said and importantly mask the high amount of editing required to deliver the story with clarity. The photo album scans were also essential in delivering the story in a more engaging way, and to maintain the link with the original theme of photographs that explored in the poetic piece.

Devising a shot list

Weaknesses

The only real issue with the poetic piece is that some speech is hard to distinguish at the start of the film. This was mainly due to the quality of the sound recording, which was difficult to fix despite EQing the audio mix.

Similarly, sound was an issue in the final film among other small technical which we did not have the time to correct. Firstly, there is a difference in sound quality between the two microphones we used, and switching between them is at times noticeable. In addition, due to issues we were facing with importing media, we had less time to balance and EQ the audio mix, leaving a couple of lines harder to distinguish under the music.

Also, due to changing light conditions some shots are slightly underexposed or not properly white balanced. A result of the restricted space and trying to fit too much in the frame was that the shots beside Ralph in the first shoot are awkward (below), and we could not hold on them for long.

Issues maintaining eye-line

Footage still pink after correction

On reflection, although we made effort to slow down the pace of the film and allow more time to look at the photographs, some shots are still marginally too short. I can attribute this to having spent a lot of time with the footage and not having chance to screen the film to someone else before its completion, which I will ensure for future projects.

Ultimately, although I’m happy with the final film, it is not the film that we intended to make. Our original idea was to find a number of older people with photographs and interweave their stories, using poetic imagery and sound design to bring the memories to life. From the start of the project I was aware of the difficulty and ambitiousness of achieving this within such a short amount of time. Although we met with many potential contributors, and the idea proved successful during the poetic exercise, it became clear that we would have to change our focus and approach – which we did several times throughout the project.

That said I am pleased with the way we continuously dealt with challenges and adapted to changes, having to find and construct a story in the late stages of production. We tried to ensure that the film maintained at its core the same thematic concerns as our original idea, even though we have struggled to implement the poetic techniques we explored.

Process and Contribution

At the start of the project I spent time researching and generating ideas to share with the group. This mainly involved looking on local news sites such as Sheffield Star, as well as various subsections on The Guardian such as ‘Volunteering’. From here I found a number of interesting local news stories that could be developed as film ideas. However, the most helpful resource whilst researching was the ‘SheffieldHelp Yourself’ website, which lists every charity and organisation in the city.

Several topical issues fit the criteria of being both achievable within our time-frame and having potential to be developed for the poetic piece. Through discussion we also added more vague topics that could be explored in the film such as dreams or memories, but most of these were omitted later on as they lacked a focus or tangible story. In tutorials we narrowed the list down to two favourites and two contingencies, and as producer I immediately began researching and contacting potential contributors. This was largely done online via Twitter, Facebook, sites like ‘Sheffield Forum’ and e-mail.

Initial idea generation

Although I did get some responses it was very difficult to arrange to speak with anyone. Many online contacts for our strongest idea could not be contacted by phone and/or took a long time to respond. Also, as we were still choosing between ideas I was cautious before arranging anything definite with contributors. On reflection this was detrimental to our progress as we hadn't secured participants by the time we were pitching. For future projects I will try and ensure that this process is started sooner and that one idea is chosen to progress with to avoid confusion.

In the pitch we proposed two films; one about libraries in Sheffield and another about photographs. Although I did not have contributors attached, I was much more confident about the library film, and in my research I’d contacted a number of organisations and individuals that were interested. I was unsure about the photograph film as we didn't have a clear approach and it relied heavily on finding appropriate contributors. 

Describing our visual approach

Therefore, when we pursued that idea in response to peer feedback, we were immediately behind.

Through discussions and feedback in tutorials we identified our approach for the poetic piece. I interviewed my granddad, transcribed it and scanned the photographs they had provided. Following issues importing the scans in to AVID, I edited the film and Jamie developed a sound design. I also contacted a composer to create a short music track, which we gradually refined in response to critique.

We changed the focus of the longer film to older people, as we felt they would be easier to contact and have a higher chance of having a photo to share.  With this change of focus, I began contacting a number of friendship groups listed under the ‘Older People’ section of ‘Sheffield Help Yourself’. After explaining our project I arranged meetings with several groups over the upcoming weeks. Meanwhile, I kept my group informed via messages on our group page and regular meetings to discuss our approach to potential contributors.

Identifying groups to approach

Over the weeks some meetings were cancelled due to various circumstances with the groups, and of those we visited the results were mixed. There was a lot of initial interest and we made contacts, but through further conversations nearly all dropped out. Despite our best efforts to explain the film, many thought it was a film about local history, which wasted time in the meetings. Most of those we spoke to afterwards either couldn't find photos to share or didn't want to be interviewed, which was a major setback for the project.

Following up contributors

With limited time we were forced to drastically change our approach to the project, considering focusing it on my family instead. However, after our first meeting I had stayed in touch with Ralph, who had expressed an interest in the film. I arranged for us to meet him to see what photos he had to show us, and from this arranged to interview him the following week. At this stage we could not tell whether there was enough material to make the film a portrait of Ralph, and we only had a loose understanding of his story. Planning was therefore essential prior to the interview to obtain this information with clarity.In preparation for the shoot I arranged meetings to draft lists of shots, equipment and questions, create a floor plan and make a schedule. 

Questions and schedule

Rough floor plan and camera positions

On the day, I interviewed Ralph, helped direct the camera work and completed necessary paperwork. Afterwards we divided the transcribing task among us and I reviewed the footage. It was then decided that we should film again the following week, as issues with transferring footage during the shoot wasted time and we did not have the coverage we needed.  

After arranging this with Ralph, we planned the second shoot to cover material that we needed to tell the story. This included listing cutaways and focusing interview questions on parts of the story that needed clarity, or where we felt there was more to be expressed. On the second shoot, our questions could be targeted at more interesting parts of the story, yielding some of the best responses. By taking multiple cameras and planning our approach, we obtained all the footage we needed. Being able to borrow and scan the photo albums was also crucial as the stills we took on the first shoot were unsuitable for our desired use.

Panning and zooming did not maintain quality

Following the shoot a post-production plan was drafted, starting with transcribing and scanning the albums. With limited time available I also worked on a rough edit of the film at home, relaying ideas between us to speed up the assembly process. We highlighted parts of the transcripts and created a structure for the film, which was continually revised as some sequences did not fit. I spent a lot of time searching for music for the film, taking influence from ‘Eric’s Secrets’ (Lucia Zoro, 2008) due to its similar topic and tone. As the piece 

I found was copyrighted, I paid a small fee to obtain to the rights to use it.

Elliot faced a number of issues whilst completing his cut of the film.  Trying to correct some of the shakier shots by converting them into screen-grabs was complex and time consuming, and the scans we had taken turned blue when imported into AVID. We tried to rectify this by converting them into JPEGs, but they were not of the required quality to pan and zoom into the photos. Ultimately, we had to present the edit I had completed as we were out of time and couldn't resolve these problems.

Conclusion and Learning

Ultimately, our change of approach to the longer piece meant there was less opportunity to implement the poetic techniques we explored in the first film; the long, slow zoom and subtle elements of sound design which brought the memory to life. As a result the film is a more conventional biographical portrait, albeit with a broader thematic concern and some poetic features. For example, the match-cut dissolve between the photo and filmed footage, and the tone of the music in the latter half. However, knowledge and research of the poetic form was important during the initial stages of the project, helping both to generate ideas and discard those which would not have suited the form.

I feel I’ve learnt a number of lessons and skills during project, having contributed in different areas to its completion, complemented by relevant sections in the texts I have read. Firstly, how to carry out research and idea development, and approach and build trust with contributors. I’m also more confident conducting interviews and aware of how to plan them to get the best responses. Through editing the films I understand the importance of pacing and the need for thorough preparation and structuring in the early stages. I have gained valuable experience organising, planning and directing shoots as well as operating related equipment, such as lapel microphones.

Throughout the project we’ve had to respond quickly to challenges and developments, continually shifting our focus and overall approach to the film. We have worked well as a group and each member has assisted in tasks outside their role. The main lesson I will take forward from a producing role is to meet and secure contributors sooner in the project, as this is the most important task and allows more time to fix issues as they arise later on. 

Exporting Issues and Presentation

Today we presented our finished film to our tutors and peers, after a number of issues during exporting.

We were still unable to find a way of importing the photo scans into AVID in high quality, and the images we had been using were too low quality to use. We could not find a simpler way of turning the shaky shots into still screen-grabs either, and did not have enough time to follow the process it required for each shot. As these problems carried on I continued to work on my edit of the film as a back-up.

I sent my fine cut to Elliot for him to copy as we were running very low on time. We exported the video from there for Jamie to redo the entire sound design in Pro Tools, including adding music, soundbites and balancing audio. This was a bad decision which wasted a lot of time as we had to re-find all the soundbites from the audio clips to put into the mix. As a result, there wasn't enough time to EQ the audio and create fades in and out of each clip.

After this was completed Jamie exported the sound with the video and I took it away to add the high quality images Sony Vegas. However, an error prevented me from importing the finished video file into the editing software and this was not possible. I tried to fix the problem which I suspected was the result of an unknown codec, but as it was too late to render the film again we instead decided to upload the cut I had made.

We presented our film and talked about the project; how the idea had changed and developed, the problems we faced with contributors and our stylistic influences. The feedback we received was largely positive. We were praised for how we'd found a story and created a film despite the issues we had faced, adapting to the constant changes in direction we have had to make. A minor criticism was made about some of the photos not being on screen for long enough, which I agree with, and will bear in mind for similar projects in the future

Fine Cut and Adding Music

This afternoon I finished my cut of the film, implementing the changes we discussed in our tutorial and now just waiting to add Jamie's music track.

Following the advice we received yesterday, I added a couple of extra establishing shots at the start of the film (below), and some more detail from Ralph's interview about when it was that he joined the army - 'Well when I got to 19, I went into the army then. I think it was 1947/48, might have been '48.'

I also went through the film and paced it more effectively, leaving pauses between Ralph speaking, holding longer on photos and making the movement across them slower to give the audience time to look around the images.

Additionally, I swapped the places of the two sequences we discussed, one of Ralph wanting children and the other of his mother's issues with Karla. This seems to flow more logically from the previous sequence about moving to Germany, but I had to include a couple more cutaways and soundbites from the interview to make it work.

We had been discussing for a while the way in which we should transition from Ralph's happier memories to that of his wife passing away. The change in tone was quite difficult to implement without it feeling abrupt or insensitive, and our initial structure did not work due to a number of factors. I suggested using Ralph talking about revisiting Germany for holidays in the summer, but now that he's older he says wants to stay put. This was a useful marker for changing to a much slower pace, and for the music and narration to fade out.

In this sequence I used photos of Ralph and Karla at home to support what he had just said, holding on the photos for longer to make the pace slow and meditative. To convey his wife's passing I dissolved the image of Karla in the garden into the matching shot we took. I followed this with a shot of the clock and Karla's photo, reintroducing Ralph's speech over the top - 'I think it was about 7 years back when she died... yeah.'

At this point we had planned to create a sequence about Ralph sitting by the pond at the cemetery, but it did not seem natural to start another anecdote to bring the pace up again. Instead, I selected a few shorter soundbites to put over the images, particularly those referring directly to his thoughts on keeping the photos.

As we had discussed it, the end of the film came together quite simply, and was just a case of drawing out the pauses between his speech as much as possible to maintain the pace.

For the end image of the film we used a photo of Ralph and Karla together, and during the credit sequence I added the 'Edelweiss' section which we hadn't found a place for elsewhere. We were aware that giving the film essentially two endings might be confusing for the audience. However, we felt it was important to leave the film on a more positive note, and so all agreed it should be included.

Jamie had created several different music tracks for the second part of the film, which we listened to, picked the best and then added into the sound mix. After this was done I added the final touches: balancing audio, smoothing out transitions and colour correction. For the most part this involved removing the orange mid-tones from the shots on the XF305, adjusting the dark shadows during the kitchen interviews and making it as consistent as possible throughout.

Tutorial and Rough Cut Review

After continuing to work on my rough edit for the film, I rendered what I had done to share with Elliot, the rest of the group and Debbie in our tutorial.

Following the opening story about the angel, I cut to shots around Ralph's house to establish him in the setting. I then went straight into talking about him in the army, zooming out from a photo of his group. As he spoke more about his job in the army, I panned across other photos to add a sense of movement. Linking to this I then had him talking about meeting Karla in the army, including the story about her hair changing colour.

After this I used Ralph talking about where they got married, and then talking about why they chose not to stay there. This then linked well to Karla and her family coming over, and then talking about her son Manfred.

In the final part of the rough edit I had Ralph talking about his mother not getting on with Karla as she's German, and then the story of her chatting with a Jewish doctor about Germany back in Sheffield. We wanted to include this as it was one of the few anecdotes which could fit in to the structure of the film. It also added to our impression of Karla's character, and was a strong parallel with the attitude of Ralph's mother.

We both showed our rough edits to Debbie and received feedback for improvements:

• More information at the start of the film before getting into Ralph in the army. Additional establishing shots and more detail - when did he go into the army, what year?
• Swap the sections around about Ralph's mother and not having children. Makes more sense to go from talking about coming across to England and then issues with where they were staying. 
• Stay on the photos for longer, make the panning slower and don't have Ralph speaking from start to finish. Leave audience chance to look at and absorb images.

Another concern that was raised was the music, but we explained our plans for the sound design in the latter half of the film, and our wish to create contrast and a change of tone. Although we are still experimenting with the structure leading up to the end section, we also shared a rough outline of the content we're aiming to include. Also discussed was if there was a way for us to include part of the interview where Ralph sings 'Edelweiss', which we are now considering adding during the credits. 

I will continue to work on the rough cut for the film, implementing the changes we discussed today, with the aim of finishing it by tomorrow. Unfortunately, due to problems accessing the computer Elliot is behind with his version, and we've been unable to fix the issue importing with the photo scans nor find a simpler way of taking screen-grabs to use as shots. Hopefully after my edit is complete it should be a simple process of finding and assembling the footage in AVID, adding Jamie's music then mastering the sound for exporting.

Film: 'Eric's Secrets' (Lucia Zoro, 2008)

For the longer film our main stylistic influence has been the short film 'Eric's Secrets', which we first watched last year.

The film is a short portrait of Eric, 91, who shares stories of his life, his secrets for happiness, and how he met his wife. The film takes place entirely in his home in a relaxed conversation and is illustrated by photographs throughout his life and cutaways around his home. 

As the focus of our film shifted to be a portrait of Ralph's life, we revisited the film, as the story and approach shared many similarities with ours. Both films focus on the life of an older man, now living alone, with a use of photographs to show the story and create a visual timeline. 

The main features which we looked to the film for influence on is the pace, music and camera-work. 

The pace of 'Eric's Secrets' is one of its strongest aspects, not overloading the film with expository information but giving enough to establish a warm and engaging character. There are several moments where there is no voice-over, and we are just shown photographs with music, which adds to the relaxedness and intimacy. In the moments preceding Eric talking about his wife's death, the music fades out and there is a ghostly silence. The pace is slowed even more, shots are lengthened, and it ends on a very powerful soundbite - 'She died in my arms'. When looking to create a similar transition in our film, we used a similar approach.

Whilst looking for music for our film, 'Eric's Secrets' was again a strong influence in tone. The music in the film is quirky and cheerful but simplistic, reflecting the warm atmosphere and straight-forward approach without distracting from Eric. To find music with a similar tone I either narrowed the search down to 'relaxed' or 'quirky' tracks, or those which featured violin and clarinet, as these instruments worked well to convey the history in the piece. I also listened to soundtracks with a similar tone such as that for 'The Terminal' (Steven Spielberg, 2004), where the clarinet is used to create a sense of oddness and loneliness about the main character.

Finally, we took a small influence from the camera-work in the film, noting that the key to its slow, meditative pace is that the shots are locked-off and still. Whereas we did try to experiment with some slow pans and tracking shots, for the most part we kept to the stillness of the tripod shot, following advice we received during tutorials and after our poetic exercise, where it was suggested we could create a living portrait by leaving the camera in one place. 

Editing Progress

Over the past few days we have been making progress editing the film following our second day of filming. On Friday Elliot and I scanned the photo albums in high resolution for use in the film. However, although I had no issues with them in Sony Vegas, when imported into AVID they appear blue and cannot be corrected. We had the same issue during the poetic project, as it is caused by the high quality '.tiff' file type from the scans. For the moment we have converted them into low-quality JPEGs to use as placeholders until we can find a fix.

With the scans of the photos and the second day's interview transcribed we have been able to create an outline for the film's structure. We had already discussed how we will approach the end of the film, even down to the individual soundbites we will use, and so this has stayed largely the same. I split up the transcriptions into a number of different subsections, and we worked out which we wanted to include and in what order.

We wanted to find a balance between a chronology of information about Ralph's life and some of the unrelated stories he told us. This process was quite difficult as we had to exclude a number of interesting anecdotes which didn't fit the rest of the material, but ultimately we have to prioritize the overall story. Important also was keeping the focus on the photographs, so including his responses to these questions is essential.

As I've been editing I highlighted parts of the transcript with different colours and symbols corresponding to the section I've been working on. As well as the time-codes we included in the transcripts, this has helped to greatly increase the speed at which I've been able to find and extract individual soundbites from the audio.

We had a number of different ideas for the opening of the film, which we had narrowed down to three.

• The photo of the bench at the cemetery - extract from Ralph's interview
• The montage of the clocks in the house - introduction to Ralph
• The story about the brass angel - Ralph going into the army.

As Elliot couldn't get access to the editing suite, I began a rough cut of the film at home to see which would be the best opening. I first tried using the story about Ralph on the bench at the interview, opening to the photo and Ralph talking about looking back to England. Unfortunately, the essential end part of this soundbite was unclear so we could not use it. 

Ultimately, we decided to open with the story of the little brass angel, as we felt it was short and succinct enough to introduce Ralph's character and immediately engage the audience. It was also more personal than using 'My name is Ralph' (although this was an option) and linked to the idea of sentimentality and stories behind photos and objects. To make this work required a lot of cutting from the original transcript (below), which I masked with cutaways of the angel. 

Since last week I had been looking online for suitable music to use in the film. We felt that music was necessary to maintain a pace whilst looking at the static photos, and then to create contrast later in the film when it slows down and Ralph talks about his wife passing away. It was important to us that the film's tone should not be sad or mournful all the way through, as that would neither represent of Ralph's outlook nor fit the tone of the memories he describes. 

I spoke with Jamie and the group about what type of music we wanted for the film, as we were struggling with finding a suitable tone. We wanted to try and find a piece which was quite simple so as not to distract from the images, but conveyed the quirkiness and history in Ralph's story. For an influence we looked again to the use of music in 'Eric's Secrets' (Lucia Zoro, 2008), which used a clarinet and ukulele as a quirky, relaxed undertone for the film. 

Whilst I looked for music online, Jamie experimented with music ideas for the second part of the film. I looked on many different copyright-free music databases such as Mobygratis, Incompetech and YouTube Audio Library. I downloaded and tried a couple of tracks on the film, but they were either too bright, modern or sombre and didn't fit. One option I tried was using German folk music and stretching it out to slow it down. Whilst this fit some of the parts in Ralph's story it was ultimately too complex and distracting.

Eventually, I came across a piece of music on Beatpick which I felt was the closest to the pace and tone we were going for. I downloaded a preview of the track and tested it out in the rough cut, after which I showed it to the rest of the group and we agreed to go with it. As it was not copyright free, paid a small fee for the rights to use it for an online-distributed student film. Afterwards, I sent the music to Elliot for him to use as he started the rough cut of the film on AVID.

Another challenge we came across as we began editing was the difference between shots on the two cameras and, due to the change in lighting, between the two days of filming. For the most part, the shots on the XF305 were very orange and required correction to look similar to the other footage. As we don't have enough time to correct all the shots individually, we decided to use largely the 5D footage instead. However, with the amount of coverage we shot on the second day, and the availability of the photo scans as cutaways, this was much less problematic.

There is also a noticeable difference in quality between the two microphones we used whilst filming. The recording with the shotgun microphone is much clearer and crisper than the lapel microphone, which sounded too bassy and muffled. The main problem was that for the second day of filming we had only used a lapel microphone, so we cannot use the other channel in the edit. However, rather than continuously switch between the two throughout the film, we have tried to change it between sections so it is less distracting.

After reviewing the footage again we noticed that many of the cutaway shots are slightly shaky, despite being filmed on a tripod. As most of these shots are still anyway, I took a screen-grab of the frame and used a still image in place of the video. Whilst this was a simple process on Sony Vegas, on AVID this requires exporting part of the film as an image file, which is much more complex. We cannot afford to spend time doing this at the moment, as we are still at the stage of assembling footage and finding a structure. Once this is done we will go back to colour correct clips, fix the shakiness and re-insert the high-quality photo scans.

From this point I will continue to edit my rough assembly of the film and share my ideas with Elliot, discussing which sections do and don't work and which cutaways and photos to include. In the meantime Jamie will continue to work on music for the second part of the film and we will try and find a workaround for importing the photos into AVID without error.

Filming - Day 2

This morning I met Saul and Alex to collect our equipment. To make the most of our time, we booked out a camera each. We chose the 5D over the XF305 as we preferred its look from the first day of filming, and also it allowed us to get very close to the photos and objects around Ralph's house for cutaways. For this reason, the mobility of the smaller cameras was important, getting around the house quickly between setups.Without Jamie with the mixer, we decided to just record using the Zoom and the lapel microphone. We also brought a slider with us, and discussed beforehand the type of shots we wanted to get for the cutaways.

We arrived at Ralph's at around 10.30am, informed him of our plans for the day and then immediately began filming. I went upstairs and filmed the photos, paintings and clocks in Ralph's main bedroom. Downstairs, Alex and Saul filmed in the living room and the kitchen. Later on, we found the photos of the house we wanted to match with footage, and Alex went outside to shoot them.

Many of these cutaways were crucial in order to tell parts of the story. For example, we had been discussing a number of ways how to open the film: a montage of clocks in the house, Ralph talking about the brass angel on the side (which came before we started the interview) or reading out the framed letter on the wall. We made sure to get the shots needed to cover each potential opening.

After we'd finished shooting all the cutaways on our list, we found a suitable spot in the kitchen to do the interview. We set up two cameras in the doorway, tested the audio and began shooting. However, after a while the changing light from the window became too bright, and so we changed position and Ralph sat down at the table.

We still had to continually adjust the aperture as the lighting changed, and the light from the living room was very warm, but it can be corrected afterwards. At the end of the interview we asked Ralph to read out the framed letter to his wife on the wall as we'd like to use it in the film.

I'm happier with the way that today's shoot went, and I feel we got some good responses from Ralph to our more targeted questions. For the most part I think we have covered all the areas we wanted him to elaborate upon, and the time we had to spend on shooting cutaways was very valuable - giving us the coverage we need for the amount of editing required.

At the end of the meeting we took the photo albums to scan and I arranged to return them the following week. We met the rest of the group afterwards to transfer footage and sorted out a rough timeline for the editing. As we are aware that the editing suites are very busy, I offered to start a rough cut of the film at home using Sony Vegas. This way I will be able to share ideas with Elliot when he starts to edit, and hopefully speed up the process. However, the next step for me is to scan the photo albums and transcribe today's interview.