Major Production - Colour grading second edit

After a long and tedious trial and error procedure, I finally got round to choosing a LUT that myself and the group believe suits the tone and the feel of the narrative. There were some conflicting opinions but I came to a compromise with Callum and Will as both wanted slightly different tones to shine through. It was about giving it a warm yet surreal feeling which simultaneously matches with the narrative of the project. I knew that there was still a lot of work to do with the colour grade, as certain scenes needed further manipulation to match up with the rest of the sequence, as some shots were better lit than others.  

(Colour grade nearing completion)

The colour grade that we had all agreed on was the Amira Default LogC2REC709 LUT. This was actually the LUT that we had applied to our footage in the shoot week, which was quite frustrating considering all the time I'd put into trialling the many other LUTs I'd downloaded, but finally we'd found a LUT that fit our piece, obviously it needed manipulating ever so slightly so I did that. There were some slight issues however, as Aimee started the edit on her laptop with her premiere pro, when trying to used that saved premiere file on the university macs, it wouldn't allow it to open as the version on the macs is the older one. So this meant that I had to colour grade on Aimee's computer, which was very time consuming and pushed everything back as this also meant Andrew had to edit the sound on Aimee's laptop as well. 

One of the main things was having a consistent aesthetic, so I did this by starting off with a peachy kind of tone, which Callum didn't really like. So after correcting this by slightly taking down the temperature and upping the highlights of the adjustment layer on top, it created on the image a very nice and balanced piece. I thought the peachy tone was quite nice if I'm honest as it was obviously not natural but that's what we were going for. It's a surreal sitcom so nothing is really meant to make any logical sense, but Callum wanted it to look like the Inbetweeners which I disagreed with as that series concept is completely different to ours and is way more realistic. But I went with what he said because he was the producer and Will and Aimee didn't really argue my case. So after sorting this out, it allowed me then to be slightly more creative and focus on the juicy parts of the narrative like the hallucination scenes. 

LUT - Amira Default.LogC2REC709

Temperature - -9

Tint - 0

Exposure - 0 

Contrast - 11

Highlights - -83

Shadows - 40 

Whites - 55 

Blacks - 0 

These were the colour correction settings I had towards the end of this colour grade session, everyone was in agreement that this aesthetic should be the way forward for our project. For the next grade i'll be focusing on the key areas like the hallucination scenes, penguin scene and raid scene. I'll have really experiment and get out of my comfort zone with these scenes as to attempt to bring the surreal themes to the forefront of the narrative.  

WHY

I felt this colour was significantly more appropriate than the rest I had looked at and tried due to it's balance between the natural and unnatural. It has elements of the surreal, but that will be further developed with adding more of a vignette effect to reinforce the narratives overriding tone of surrealism. 
The reason why the temperature is so low on the settings is because of the white balance setting I had the camera on whilst recording. This created the peachy tones once I applied the LUT to the raw footage, so I had to bring down the temperature to balance it out and give it a slightly more natural yet surreal look, as stated before Callum wasn't overly keen with the peachy tones. I didn't want to play around with the tint of the grade, as that would only bring in high greens which I felt wouldn't fit in with our narrative, however saying that I might play with the tint once it comes to the hallucination scenes to see if we can make them more dynamic and energetic. Throughout the majority of our project the exposure wasn't really needed to be played around with as I got the right strength on the LEDs there and then on the shoot days. However once again it may be manipulated when I start working on the hallucination sequences, especially the plant scene as on the day of the shoot it was extremely sunny, so maybe bringing the exposure dial down a few notches would be ideal. The contrast was used ever so slightly only because people had disagreements on using it. I wanted to heighten the contrast as it made the image pop more and from reading how to great a surreal/psychedelic look on your image, the contrast should be heightened. Unfortunately my team didn't really agree with me and my hand was forced to keep it slightly more natural than what I was hoping to go for. I wanted the highlights to be pretty low as it brought out the skin tones of each character more appropriately, I felt this gave more of an identity to the individual characters which Will agreed. The shadows and whites were increased as this was to create more depth between the characters and their surroundings, it gave the image increased quality and authenticity. I left the blacks at 0 because I found that when I increased it the whole picture lost its saturation so I felt it was the right decision to not utilise that creative tool. 

(Settings for the most recent colour grade)

WHAT HAS BEEN LEARNT & EVALUATION 
- Slowly mastering the art of colour grading, and I now know what is needed for the whole project which is a great benefit for myself and the team. 
- Listening to the team is important for this process, but sometimes I feel too many people are getting involved with the creativity and obviously not everyone will have the same opinions, so we're clashing and no one is really making a major point as to why we can't have it a certain look. Only stating it isn't the right look, not offering a solution. 
- There's still a lot more to do, I need to focus more on the hallucinations and make them feel like and actual hallucination by amplifying the colours within the scenes.
- Overall i'm happy with the progress being made, but I can only go so far with it as Aimee and Andrew need it to finish the actual edit, I don't know who decided to make this decision in regards to using just one laptop, but its beginning to hinder our production pace.  

Major Production - Colour grade on first edit

So after some extensive research of how to colour grade Log footage, i've been lead to these things called LUTs, (Look Up Table's) now what these things are, are different aesthetics and colour schemes that you can apply to your footage, and then manipulate that even further. These LUTs go hand in hand with Log footage, as shooting in Log increases your dynamic range, (which is basically just heightens the contrasting shadows and well lit areas of your shot by adding more depth & colour to them).

 What is a LUT?

A Look-Up Table (LUT) is a file with .CUBE or .3DL extension, containing maths instructions
to replace a colour (based on RGB value) by another one. It's like a colour grading preset.
This process is done pixel by pixel with a very high accuracy.

These LUTs are compatible with images shots from all cameras.

There are a lot of websites which offer these LUTs, but it's about finding the right one that will fit our piece tonally and crucially add more to the narrative as colour plays a pivotal part in doing that.

(Helpful colour chart found on my researching trails)

Coming into the studio since being back after a few weeks of absence due to health - I'd already done a lot of research on what LUTs would be effective and how to get the best out of them. I'd watched a lot of tutorials as well on how to get the best quality out of overexposed and underexposed images too. It was time now to start applying this research to my actual project. It helped though that I had done some extensive research on how to approach the LUT selection process and how to grade footage, here were the few simple steps I followed. It helped though that I had done some extensive research on how to approach the LUT selection process and how to grade footage, here were the few simple steps I followed.  

 1) Adjust colors and tweak your image BEFORE the LUT. Your LUT is adding a certain style to the footage, if you don't want to mess with the style, tweak your image before the LUT so that the LUT is the last thing the colors hit.

2) If you want to change the style of the LUT, adjust AFTER the LUT. But, be careful as most LUTs will do some kind of limiting to the image and may "Bake in" certain colors or lose detail in the highlights that you can't get back while grading after the LUT.

3) There are no MAGIC LUTs. There isn't a LUT out there that can make all of your footage look great 100% of the time. LUTs are designed for ideal WB and exposure. That means if your image isn't exposed or balanced correctly, you'll have to adjust the image before the LUT.

4) Don't use a LUT for no dang reason. Know why you're choosing a certain LUT or look. Be informed and make creative decisions. If you don't know why you're using a LUT, maybe consider if it's good for your camera, lighting, and feeling you want the viewer to experience. Remember, LUTs are just a part of color grading, which is a very artistic medium. Don't slap any old LUT on your shots and call 'em good.

I came in the studio with lots of LUTs to apply to the project and knew it would be a trial and error process. Here are the downloaded LUT batches that I started out with at first, each one had about 30 - 50 different LUTs within them. 

GSG - LUT sample
FG - LUTS
LUTS for Adobe premiere 
PB - 17 Luts
Cinematic LUTS 
Wanderlust LUTS
GrayScaleGorilla LUTS

The luts that I acquire from the wanderlust and GrayScaleGorilla set were really dynamic and tasty, so I thought i'll keep to these ones and figure out a way to manipulate them even more to fit the tone of our piece. A lot of my colour grading knowledge had came from Youtube video's which I watched constantly throughout when I was back in Manchester recovering. A great one that really allowed me to focus on what I should be striving to achieve was this - 




This video gave me a greater insight into the workings of making a great colour grade for my piece. I know our piece wasn't necessarily wanting a cinematic aesthetic but from learning how to achieve this, I can manipulate that look to my particular style that we want so that it reinforces the narratives themes and tone. 

(LENOX 340) - Temperature + 41.

Tint  +12 

TONE 

Exposure 0

Contrast +14 

Highlights 0

Shadows 0 

Whites 0 

Blacks 0 

I tried out atleast 70 different LUTs from several websites to see which one would best suit our piece and convey the same tone as the narrative holds. Unfortunately there were only about 5 LUTs that I felt did that and so with these 5 I began to manipulate the colour grade even more on them. 

(AZRAEL 93) - Temperature 21

Tint - 0

Expo - 0

Contrast - 20

Highlights - 60

Shadows - 40

Whites - 60

Blacks - 0

(AMIRA Default LogC2Rec709) 
Temperature - -9
Exposure - 0.7

Tint - 0

Contrast - 20

Highlights - 60

Shadows - 40

Whites - 60

Blacks - 0 

This is the actual setting that I think we'll be using throughout our major project. The lut Panasonic Vlog is there lut that is actually build for our specifc log recording format. I haven't shown the rest of the crew yet how the footage looks with this particular lut but hopefully they'll approve. 

(CONTRAIL LUT) -

Exposure - 0.3

Tint - 0.4

Contrast - 50

Highlights - 30

Shadows - 45

Whites - 65

Blacks - 10

(Example of the adjustment layer being used and layed over the top of the images)

For this to be to be achieved effectively and efficiently, I dragged an adjustment layer across the top of all of our visual clips, and then applied the colour grade to this adjustment layer. Following on from research about how to colour grade properly, this is what I was instructed to do. This technique saves you from applying the individual LUT and all the manipulate attributes to each individual clip. Obviously though there were scenes that needed separate work on to get them to match up, so all you'd do it just cut the adjustment layer to match up to that specific clip size and then manipulate that adjustment layer accordingly. 

In this first colour grade session I did all of this colouring alone as I wanted to present what I felt was right in order to support the narrative from my perspective. I didn't want to be getting any constructive criticism yet as I wasn't even sure about any of these specific LUTs either, so it would of been no help to anyone if I received criticism as I hadn't selected any particular LUTs yet for the project. 

All I knew was that I wanted to give it a consistent colour grade throughout as many of the sitcoms I'd watched like People Just Do Nothing and Cuckoo, they have such a beautiful consistency to their pieces, that you can immediately tell what the show is, even if it was just an establishing shot you'd be able to know. People Just Do Nothing like's to accentuate it's blue's and navy's where as Cuckoo likes it's saturated oranges and yellows, giving completely different feels to their narratives. This is what I want to achieve through the colour grade, to apply one that conveys a certain mood that fits our tone of the piece, allowing it to support our narrative and give it more consistency. 

'Though often associated with warmth, energy, and humour, orange can also register a sense of warning and caution. The ancient religion Confucianism associates orange with transformation. The image above arrives at the tipping point of Beasts of No Nation — our hero is now a completely different person, almost unrecognisable as he trudges through the murky orange trenches.' (L.Baker.2016)

After some further research I've decided to try and incoporate the colour orange as stated above, it is a foreboding colour with a lot of hidden meaning behind it. It will serve well in the hallucination scenes I believe. So i'll see once I get to the hallucination scenes how best to approach them and how to incorporate. I also was trying to emulate a look from a film The Fall, as this has a very cool and interesting colour palette that I did try and emulate within this piece. The reason begin is that this film is quite surreal and trippy, so I felt with both the film and our project matching tonally, it made sense to try and make our visuals look very vivid and poppy with colour. 

(Panasonic Vlog to V709)

Temperature - 0.2 

Exposure - 0.1

Tint - 0

Contrast - 32

Highlights - 60

Shadows - 50

Whites - 80

Blacks - 0

I did some further research on this LUT, after watching a tutorial on youtube on how to get the most of out it. The video I watched also captured raw footage on the camera we were actually using, the Panasonic DVX200 so this really gave me a lot of faith in this LUT and it's capabilities. 

This specific LUT just felt right, but there was another default LUT that we tried whilst on set as we were filming the piece, called the Amira default LogC2REC709 which also had a similar aesthetic to this one. We'll have to see what Will thinks, if it matches our tone of the narrative.
Overall i'm happy with how the colour grading session went as it's the first of many, I've made a lot of progress and it's now just a waiting game to see if Will/Aimee/Callum are happy with these LUTs i've chosen to trial. I've got about 5 on my list out of the 70 I had at the beginning, so hopefully one of them will be good enough for the cut. 

Reference - 

https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/manipulate-emotions-with-color-in-film/ - (L.Baker.2016)

Major Production - FaceTime meeting with Team

So as I was in Manchester, Callum was tied up with sorting out things at home, we decided that it was best to come together through FaceTime and discuss arising issues that had appeared so far with our project. Aimee had established that we needed more coverage for the specific scenes stated below, so Callum got on with organising another reshoot date with the cast and I got in contact with Ferg to book out the kit in advanced to prep for these shoots.
We basically spoke about the first edit/rough cut and how it was coming a long, we all contributed ideas and fresh insight into the project to allow Aimee some different perspectives other than just herself and Will.

Heres a list of things we needed to get more coverage of - 
- Coverage for scene 1 -
Shot/pan of feet.
More coverage of laptop
POV from characters of laptop
High-five needs to be speeded up by frame rate & close up
Sam thinking, close up/zoom in to his eureka moment?

Coverage for scene 4 -
Slow zoom on Sam's face indicating anger
Lower audio - emphasis on face

Coverage for scene 5 -
See more of the laptop from the characters perspective
more fan footage


Coverage for scene 6 -
See more singles of faces
More close up shots of general visuals. 

Coverage for scene 10 -
More close up shots of general visuals.
Need more fan footage for this scene


Penguin Scene Rough Cut -
So Aimee and Will had done a rough cut of possibly the most complex scent to edit and shoot. It gave us more of an idea on whether this scene would need reshooting or not, but fortunately the feedback was that we didn't need to as we still had loads of unseen GoPro footage to delve through yet. 


I organised a list of equipment that we'd need for these reshoot days - 

Kit that we will need from the 18th - 25th March - Tripod & Panasonic, lights will be borrowed from Laura in our year. Tascam and boom pole & mic will be essential. 

These meetings are really useful in the sense that it's a time where we all get to share our creative ideas and also state where we are up to with our roles. Aimee let us know how far into the edit she is, Andrew let us know how he's getting on with his creation of the sound beds, and myself and Callum were allowed to contribute to the edit and put forward ideas that can help take it up a level. I also let the group know that i'm researching colour palettes for sitcoms and trying to figure out what one would be best suited to ours. I'll have to keep searching and delving further into the colourist books to pinpoint the exact aesthetic that will emphasise and bring to life our project most appropriately. 

Major Production - Colour Grading Research

As i'll be colour grading the footage, the wise thing for myself to be doing whilst the edit is nearing completion is to research deeper into colour correction and the significance it has on storytelling. So I've decided to look at films which have a unique colour palette and critically analyse them to find answers on why specific colours have been utilised, additionally what the colours convey and how they support & reinforce the narrative. This will ultimately give me a greater advantage of when I come to the colour grade as through my research, it will provide me with a better understanding of what colour palette will appropriately suit our project but also how it will reinforce and convey the themes of our narrative. I want everything to be in harmony, so the colour grade has to match the general tones of the narrative.




The complimentary colour palette - 
You take one colour, and combined it with its opposite, and boom you have yourself a scheme that's automatically compelling. its the source of the ever popular, ever frustrating orange teal Hollywood blockbuster look, which look, we get it, it's fun to complain about and it can get stale if used to the exclusion of all else, but film makers use it for a reason, its the colour contrast that best emphasises the look of human skin. 

(Vertigo)

VERTIGO - 
There is hardly a film that uses technicolor so brilliantly as vertigo, there is perhaps no other film that evokes such a strong impression as a colour palette as does it red and green, red for caution and green for envy, red for Scotty and green for Madeline. and the colour scheme is felt even in scenes of its absence the lack of these powerful colours feels like a lack of these powerful emotions, its a colour scheme so memorable that we actually feel it when its gone. which makes 






The evocative colour palette -
Selecting a limited range of colours from the colour wheel, and avoiding use of the rest. I.e Tim Burton in his later work, (Sweeney Todd) we notice which colours he loves to use because of how little he utilizes other colours in his work. Or it can create a gap, like in 500 Days of Summer, or American Beauty, or The Red Shoes, these films save certain colours for certain moments and characters are able to lend those certain colours far more power than they might have with less of a vacuum. A great example of this would be Do The Right Thing, which painted everything in these red and orange tones to try to contribute to the feeling of a heatwave within its narrative.

(O' BROTHER WHERE ART THOU)

O' BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? -
Roget deakins O brothers cinematographer set out to create a dusty vintage story book kind of look for the film. He spent nearly 3 weeks in the film lab mucking about with varies different chemical processes to no avail. See Deakins palette was met to specifically avoid green but they shot in Mississippi in mid summer and it looked as he described it as greener than Ireland. so they turned to digital colour grading a main stay in modern features but a never before used technology at the time and changed film colour history. the look is incredible, all the lush greens and blues of the mid summer south are transformed into yellows and oranges and borrows and burnt oakers, invoking a dusty autumn feel without just tinting everything sepia its a more controlled refined look that comes from singling out and effecting some colours while leaving the others alone. 



Vivid technicolor kaleidoscope trip palette - 
This colour palette really goes full balls to the wall crazy, talking about colour grades that're like a technicolor acid trip, in these hyper-colourful films that make the audience go 'wow'. A great example of this would be in -  

(THE FALL)

THE FALL - 
Tarsem Singh, the Falls mad man director, took 4 years to meticulously create this multi colour wonder land across 24 different countries to an effect that David Fincher described as what would of happened if Andrei Tarkovsky had made the wizard of OZ. and he employs colour in every possible way, from the space like orange dues of the location to the sky high blood red soaked funeral banner of his set design. to the primary colour wheel costuming of his main cast. but the most important part is that he does it for good narrative reason, as the window into the vivid imagination of the little girl, the excess is explainable and it is grounded and oh so beautiful. 






The selective saturation palette -
limited to the extreme, everything is in black or white except for the focal object which gets the most vivid of colour, most earliest form of colour on film, back when colours were only achieved when stencilling on stock. 

(SIN CITY)

SIN CITY - 
This takes the colour grading process of O BROTHER WHERE ART THO and dials it up beyond 11, it uses colours so sparringly that they take on a massive emotional and narrative signifance, the decision to include any one colour is so clearly intentional that the audience has no choice but to snap to attention, inspired by the arts style of frank miller comic, sin city use of colour is more akin to graohic design than photogrpahy and it makes for one of the most extreme possible examples of a limited palette.



The monochrome palette - 
Simple, you just get one colour, sure you might deviate in saturation and expousre but you select one colour on the wheel and stick with it. 

(CRIES AND WHISPERS)

CRIES AND WHISPERS - 
Good colour has been around long before the turn of the millennium, production designers and cinematographers controlled the colours the out fashioned way through meticulous design, films can follow just as strict a palette as carefully selected and coordinating costume and location choices set design and make up and lighting, criess and whipsers does just that, beyond a few relieving scenes of blue and yellow, everything in cry and whipsers takes place in a world that is blood red, birdman famously said all of my films can be thought of in black and white except Cries and whispers, and yoiu can see why, the overwhelming perseverance of crimson has such a moving effect like a sensory deprivation tank of colour that you cant help but be emotionally moved.  




SUMMARY
To conclude on this research that i've found so insightful, i'll be now applying some of these palettes to the edit and see if any of them work. I have a feeling that the colour palette used for The Fall could be of great use to our project as these colours used are extremely trippy and surreal, which coincidentally are the themes of our narrative. So this colour palette would probably be the best suited for our project. I think it will be best to have a go and trying to emulate these palettes to truly gauge if it would be right for our story. 

Major Production - Shoot Day Five

We hadn't actually planned for this shoot day to be our final day of production, however as the day panned out, we realised collectively that we could complete our filming by the end of the day, without rushing. So after completing our penultimate scene, we set off to the field to record the concluding scene with the main protagonists.

What want well and what didn't go so well is summarised in this vlog video I captured during the shooting week. I felt by doing these video's it would help me summarise easier what I felt worked and didn't work throughout the day and what could of went better. I've tried to assess my own work and speak about others in the team that I felt worked well/didn't work so well.

(Vlog post-shoot day 5)

What scenes we shot this day -
Scene 21, 22, 13, 23, 19.

Scene 13 & 23 - Fan scenes

Scene 19 - Field scene with Ralph, hallucination part

21 & 22 - Raid scene


WHAT-
So we first started off the day by filming scenes 21 and 22. scene 21 was just a warm up to the raid scene, (scene 22) so there wasn't really much to it. The set, lighting and camera were all set for scene 21 as it's another sequence within the dining room. So in that sense everything was ready, however we need to severely choreograph with the actors and reannactment team on how to approach scene 22! This scene took about an hour or so of the day to fully plan out how each officer would storm the house. As Will was blocking out the scenes with them, I was helping Aimee out with the GoPro's, making sure the angles were right and if they were on the correct part of the body. As well as this, the scene was a major pain, as we had the GoPro's on the officers, they would capture all of the rig set up in our dining room scene, so we had to move everything out for the takes we did with the GoPro footage on. Unfortunately one of the GoPro's had ran out of battery and we didn't have a spare, this was only a small hindrance as we got the desired amount of footage from them. After getting all of the coverage from the GoPro's, we set the rig back up in the dining room and continued getting all of the footage from our main camera, the Panasonic. After we got that scene done, we moved onto the field scene, which is a drive away from our main location. We took all of the crew and Ralph out to the field where we shot our final major scene for the day. We had to be relatively quick as the sun was going down and for continuity purposes it wouldn't work if some parts were super bright and others super underexposed. After we completed that scene, we called it a wrap but myself, Callum and Will filmed a few of the fan sequences towards the end of the day so that we could finally tie up all the loose ends and hand Aimee all of the remaining footage the following day.



LIGHTING/FRAMING/MOVEMENT/SETTING DECISIONS
The lighting for scene 21 was not really any different to any of the other scenes covered in the dining room. This was down to the fact that I didn't want to disrupt the continuity of the piece, and as the lighting was at a good and focused level throughout, there was no point of changing it now and I can't make sense of trying to fix something that isn't actually broken. I made sure that the framing and movement for this scene was quite tame, in anticipation for the next scene, I wanted to be building up to it through the use of quite generic shots, lulling the audience into a false sense of security to have them thrown back by the foreboding onslaught that is about to entail. So the lighting for scene 22, as we first had the GoPro's running for this scene, I took all of my equipment out of the dining room, and had them complete the scene from the top about twice with just the GoPro's on. The footage looked good but at times the GoPro's would slide down the back of one of the actors and you'd be able to see nothing. We corrected this though as the shoot went on. I wanted this footage to give the widest possible angle, and it would serve it's purpose by presenting itself as authentic looking footage, so that's why we attached it to the barrel of one of the guns to have a totally real perspective. This footage would also give the sequence that dynamic edge that it needs as it's such a fast paced scene, we need as much coverage as we can get so we'll cut into vast shots making it as chaotic as possible. So after we secured that footage we set back up the Panasonic/LED Lights/Tripod and began the filming process again from the top.
I didn't want to but thought it would be wise to record the scene from the static master shot just in case we needed it to cut back to as a filler, I always made sure to use this shot as it acted as a safety net, in case we missed any shots to cut to.  The reason why I didn't want to use the master shot for these scene was because I felt we didn't need to, additionally I felt as if it should of been all handheld. After speaking to Will we came to an agreement on that this scene should be shot handheld as it supports the anarchic & mad struggle the boys are experiencing, so I captured the scene as such. I made sure to get singles of all the characters reactions, and point of views from their perspectives as I felt we need to squeeze every ounce of intensity out of this last sequence as it's our chance to make it as crazy as possible. I thought this scene would be best set on auto-focus but I managed without, and I'm glad I stuck with my decision on that, haven't looked back on some of the footage, the moments it goes slightly out of focus adds to the narratives stupidly chaotic situation and once again allows the audience to submerge their-selves into this state of affairs.
The field scene in terms of lighting was fortunately quite easy to piece together, I set up one LED just incase the sun was moving to quick for our slow paced organising of the sequence with the actors. I brought a reflector too, so we could utilise some of the natural light out in the open instead of using artificial light. The LED light was used briefly, just to balance one side of Ralph's face to the other side  that was being slightly overexposed on the other side by the sun. In terms of the framing, this particular scene was one we'd blocked out shot for shot so we were quite confident on boxing this one off relatively quickly. I didn't want to rush it though, as there's no point if it could risk having to reshoot it all over again. We set up the characters in a triangle position, I'd place myself at the bottom of the triangle with my camera lens as wide as it could get to capture the establishing shot. I shot from the top all the way to the bottom capturing the master shot/wide shot from this angle. Then like the rest of the scenes I made sure to get every angle I possibly could, I shot the over the shoulder shots first, from the perspective of Ralph, then Plant B, then Plant A. I was fully aware of the 180 degree rule and made sure of myself not to break it by setting markets in the grass. Finally I finished on shooting all of the single close ups of each plant and Ralph, the tricky part was for Andrew getting the sound, as I was recording him, Andrew had to make sure he was out of shot. In the end we found the solution to this. My record settings that came in super useful for this particular scene were my zebra and peaking levels on the LCD screen of the camera. I was able to tell what parts were peaking/overexposed, and corrected the exposed areas by turning on the ND filter to about 1/64.

After finishing this scene, we knew we had basically wrapped up for the whole shoot week! We just needed to capture the fan moments, so myself, Callum and Will did that. The lighting was pretty formal, using one LED light, shining it onto the roof of our room used to capture this scene. I like to bounce the light from the roof onto the subject because it acts as a buffer, softening the harshness of the LED lights. As we knew these clips were only going to be brief, I wasn't too concerned about any particular movement of the camera, I wanted to make sure however that we had several angles to play around with once it came to the edit, allowing Aimee to make as many changes and choices as she needs to. I utilised once again the rule of thirds setting, this setting is desirable when you want to achieve a composed shot. I felt it was a necessity to have as these fans will be watching from their home in a clean and presentable manner, completely juxtaposed against the conflicting imagery on the other side of the webcam, where chaos ensues the characters, physically and mentally.  

f/ FULLY OPEN 
ISO - 60
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/ FULLY OPEN 
ISO - 60
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/3.4 
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/3.4 
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/3.2 
ISO - 320
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static



WHAT I LEARNT & EVALUATION
- We took a while to shoot scene 22, I think this was due to choreographing out the scene more in depth with the officers than we first had planned too, this may of slowed down our pace for the course of the day.
- It was an experience to have that many people on set, it was a big juggling act, making sure that everyone is doing their job at the right time and place, it's very difficult so I can appreciate the job Will had must of been really challenging. But he did it!
- I knew that the colour grade was now going to be my next big challenge. I needed to begin research on what will be best suited to this piece and bring it to life.
- I'm not 100% convinced on the coverage we got of the fans, and I don't know if they'll suit our piece but we'll see once we begin the edit! 
- The field scene was shot pretty fast and i'm concerned some members of the group may of had their own interests at heart on driving the scene to get finished early rather than completing it when it was meant to be shot. I don't want to regret anything so that's why I would of preferred to wait and shoot it later, but maybe with hindsight we did the right thing, only time will tell! 
- The raid scene went well, I'm looking forward to how it turns out in the end, hopefully we got enough coverage on the rest of the cameras to make it short, snappy and chaotic!  

Major Production - Shoot Day Four

This day was much more relaxed than the others as we had got out the way one of the heftiest scene's within our project, the penguin sequence, which was scene 20. It didn't necessarily have a direct and obvious impact but I felt like everyone had a different kind of subconscious feeling towards the approach of the day, in terms of our pace and efficiency. It definitely didn't have an negative impact, more so just a slower approach and making sure we got every shot we needed and Will was happy with the performance.
I think at this stage, everyone knew the hard hurdle had been climbed, so we lifted our foot off the acceleration by, 1%, maybe 2. 

What want well and what didn't go so well is summarised in this vlog video I captured during the shooting week. I felt by doing these video's it would help me summarise easier what I felt worked and didn't work throughout the day and what could of went better. I've tried to assess my own work and speak about others in the team that I felt worked well/didn't work so well. 

(Vlog post-shoot day 4) 

Scene's filmed on this day - Scene 17, 18 - Two of the hallucination scenes.


WHAT -
This day was theoretically quite short as it was only two scenes but the scenes were again very complex to piece together visualy. Scene 17 was Danny's hallucination which involved him being dressed up as a chef and believing he was on a TV show presenting a chef programme. We set the mis en scene and dressed the character accordingly, at the end of this scene we would have a dark monster enter the background of this piece, for this will be the running dark thread throughout the hallucinations, linking them all together. For scene 18 this was Sam's hallucination, a scene where he wakes up in his bedroom with a large smile on his face. He gets up happy as larry, pulls open the curtains, then unlocks the door to be greeted by the monster that keeps entering their hallucinations. It took a full day to film, finishing up at about 4pm.




LIGHTING/FRAMING/MOVEMENT/SETTING DECISIONS
The lighting for scene 17 was quite brighter than usual, I wanted to try and make it look like a studio lit room. So to do this I blasted the tungsten from outside through the window behind Danny, as well as having the LED placed directly in front of him to have maximum coverage of light. So we were only really using one LED light and one tungsten, in comparison to the rest of the shoot we'd been using three LED lights. I also tried to emulate the aesthetic of a studio shoot by trying to record in that way too. So I made sure to set up and use the tripod as much as possible, to have extremely tight shots with no movement whatsoever. As Danny was meant to be a presenter in a TV show, it only felt right to shoot in this particular way, to indicate that he's meant to be a TV presenter. I tried to use a minimum amount of actual camera movement for this specific scene as I felt it was warranted. It wouldn't of suited the scene I personally believe and so did Will. I used my rule of thirds setting quite heavily for this scene as I wanted a nice balance on either side of Danny in terms of subject matter on each side. Macro lens was also used throughout this scene as there were some extreme close ups for this scene, and the auto macro lens really helps accentuate the tone of the shots and reinforces the point we were trying to get across; that he is a presenter for a cooking show. The lighting for scene 18 was quite difficult to get right, as the room was quite tight for space. So we got all the shots from within the room first with the door shut, I'd placed the camera and light right next to it, giving us as much distance as possible between us and Sam. I made sure my lens was at its widest possible lens configuration to achieve that spacious/free feeling when Sam wakes up. For this scene, we recorded handheld as this sequence in my opinion was more suited to this type of filming. It was a faster paced scene, with a more darker and shocking reveal. This allowed me to be a bit more experimental with the crash zooms, and it was a scene which utilised the point of views very well. The point of view shots in this scene work because you can see the fear in Sam's eyes, we made sure that Sam were to look into the lens, as the camera was acting as the monster coming for him. I didn't really need to use many settings for this scene as I wasn't overly concerned with the rule of thirds, or with it looking pretty, I wanted it to be immersive for the audience, to make it an uncomfortable watch. 

f/3.8 
ISO - 600
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Handheld

f/3.2 
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/3.4 
ISO - 400
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Handheld

f/4.5 
ISO - 320
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Static

f/3.8 
ISO - 320
Shutter Speed - 1/60 
White Balance - 5000K
UNGRADED
Handheld



WHAT I LEARNT & EVALUATION


- This shoot day was good for the way I utilised the lights, I feel as if i'm really mastering them now. I'm able to light up the rooms without making myself question the authenticity of the piece.
- Myself and Andrew keep finding ourselves bumping into each other as we're both trying to find the best spots for each new scene, need to do further blocking on the new scenes.
- Each day allows me to think clearer about the next oncoming shoot day, leading me to concentrate more on each of the new scenes that we're about to shoot, which I really enjoy.
- The crew and cast are beginning to feel like a small community, everyone is bouncing off one another, but also I can feel the energy being slowly drained from our bodies. It's been a long few days.
- We forgot to digitalise the footage today at lunch, and this just backlogged everything for the end of the day which resulted in Aimee leaving way later than expected. We have to remember and keep on top of these things as we can't be getting sloppy towards the end of the shoot week!