WIDESCREEN & CROPPING

To make our film Home Away From Here more cinematic, I put the widescreen effect over every shot. To do this I did the following-

I then selected - Filters - Widescreen - Type - 2.35:1

The widescreen effect didn't work on the shots that had been  rotated, as the widescreen effect applied itself to the raw shot rather than the FCP7 window. This is displayed below-

The shot displayed above was rotated because of the 'Dutch' angle it was filmed at. The director decided he wanted this climactic shot to be levelled as to not distract the audience from the experience. The shot itself is the key point in the film in which Jack takes his own life by slitting his throat.

To combat the issue and create a working widescreen effect, I created two rectangle shapes and positioned them perfectly in-line with the rest of the 2.35:1 bars. I used the left and right arrows to switch between shots to ensure the bars were of the same size. They appeared like this in the timeline-

Other certain shots required cropping because a member of crew was in the shot. The show

Unfortunately the level of gain appeared to increase as I cropped the image. The more you crop in on an image, the quality of the shot reduces. This shot was paramount for continuity purposes and the second take was just as bad. The widescreen bars also helped cut out the sound designer from the shot.

This part of the scene was difficult to cut due to the extremely poor levels of acting.

2:50 - 3:00 minutes in our film (displayed below) Jack rushes to the door to stop the woman from locking him in. In the original RAW footage (also shown below), Jack makes almost no attempt in grabbing the door before she closes it, resulting in a comical, pathetic attempt at saving himself. I therefore decided to incorporate a series of jump-cuts in the sequence- by quick-cutting shots of Jack banging on the door in despair, I attempted to create a sense of urgency and tension.



Home Away From Here - RAW Bad Take from Lewis Hague on Vimeo.

NOTE - The RAW footage (above) features sound issues, however it is for visual purposes only.

Home Away From Here from SHU Film & Media Production on Vimeo.


The process of editing this film has indeed been difficult, but I feel confident that I have discovered ways in which to get around/over certain issues such as the ones discussed above. If an editor is faced with an issue, one must think of an inventive way to get over the issue.

'PSYCHO'

The infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho (1960) features an abundance of clever editing and cinematography.

The shower/bedroom scene begins with a fixed, stationary, MCU which allows the audience to analyse Marion's body language/expressions, whilst still allowing the audience to be acquainted with her surroundings. These fixed shots slowly begin create a sense of tension and anxiety for the audience.

We then cut to another fixed CU which is used to draw attention to what Marion is writing on the piece of paper. The camera soon cuts back to the original shot of Marion sitting on the chair, which in-turn allows the audience to once again see her mannerisms. This show also builds up a sense of context and perspective.

The camera then slowly tracks her movement around the room whilst remaining in the fixed position. This appears to be come across as a subtle reassurance to the audience that everything is at ease for now. More tracking shots are used to follow Marion's actions/movements in the bathroom. CU shots of Marion are maintained throughout the scene to highlight her body language/feelings. The audience feels connection between themselves and the main protagonist as we're alone with her in the scene.

The pace of the cuts subtly increase to emphasise that something is about to happen. The lack of non-diagetic sound in the scene also creates an un-settled mood. As Marion turns on the shower, the camera cuts back and forth between Marion's movement and the source of the water. Her actions potentially symbolise the idea of 'cleansing' herself, both spiritually and psychically. CU shots are maintained to display her emotions. Brief, OTS shots also make the audience feel present in the bathroom, as if we are voyeuring into Marion's life.

As Marion continues to clean herself, the camera switches in the opposite direction that allows the audience to see the shower curtain and the obscurity behind it. A shady, dark figure appears and opens the shower curtain, the lighting in the scene creates confusion/enigma as we cannot clearly see the killer's face. Sharp, frantic, snappy cuts are used throughout the fatal killing of Marion Crane. They create a sense of urgency, panic, terror and fear. ECUs, CUs and fixed shots are used to display her reactions to the terror unfolding on-screen.

As Marion falls to the floor whilst tearing off the shower curtain from its rail, the edit jump-cuts for a split-second to the shower, then cuts to the bloody water draining away down the plug-hole; it's as if to say the shower brought her new life, whereas the plughole ironically drains her life away.

The final few shots focus on Marion's eye, 'the key to the soul'. The camera gently moves around, creating an un-settled atmosphere. The final shot focuses on the $40,000 that she stole, this also creates a sense of irony; Marion stole the money for the search of a better life, whereas she consequently and surprisingly loses her life shortly after. The camera tracks away from Marion's face, and tracks in towards the stash of money.

Overall, the use of an editing pace that is slow, combined with frantic, fast cuts later on the scene create an effective scene that really allows the audience to interact and respond with what happens on-screen.

The scene is shown below-


 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VP5jEAP3K4 (Last accessed 02/06/14)

DREAM SEQUENCE ANALYSED

I will now analyse the dream sequences from our production Home Away From Here.



Home Away From Here from SHU Film & Media Production on Vimeo.


TIME(s)-

01:16 - 01:30
03:48 - 04:02
06:37 - 07:04

For the dream sequences the director requested a strong blue tint to help distinguish the flashbacks from present time. To achieve this effect I used the '3-way Colour Corrector'.

Dream Sequence 1-
The key framework of this short sequence evolved around the hand-held track towards the window. This effect raised questions of what lurks beyond the window, it's something the audience cannot see. The other shots used featured Jack as a child, these link to the final dream sequence in which it is revealed that the young boy is Jack himself.

Dream Sequence 2-
The second sequence followed the same format as the first, instead this time a hand-held track into an open entrance was used. This again created a sense of enigma (the unknown) and raised questions. Scenes of torture then featured to show the audience of Jack's ordeal. The quality of the track in was unfortunately not very good as no steadicam was used. Therefore I scaled the shot in and stabilised it to make the shot less-shaky than it originally was.

Dream Sequence 3-
The third dream sequence features the father reading a passage from the bible to the rest of his family. I followed a simple format of tracking across the family to reveal young Jack at the foot of the sofa. We then cut back to (present Jack) and back to young Jack once again however this time, the young boy has transformed to his present self. (Shot-reverse-shot). This sequence was very difficult to colour as the original shot was incredibly rich in yellow due to the lighting.

Overall I am fairly satisfied with the result of these three dream sequences.

ADR

Yesterday I spent a brief amount of time watching the director and sound designer working on ADR'ing our film Home Away From Here. It was interesting to see the director fulfilling his role, directing the actor and helping him achieve the results we wanted for the film. The sound designer professionally utilised the equipment to record the audio he needed and ensured he had enough takes.

I believe it's more important to understand the amount of work each person puts in towards the production of a film. As an editor I understand the amount of work required to reach our goals, and at times throughout the stages of post-production one cannot help but think they are drowning under piles of work compared to other members of the crew, however after sitting back and watching the director/sound designer from a distance I fully understand the sheer amount of work they too undertake.

'THE SHINING'

Stanley Kubrick, the director of The Shining (1982) subverts classic horror conventions by turning a somewhat 'trashy' genre into an artistic masterpiece. The Shining is extremely rich in symbolism. kubrick used new techniques that were rarely used in other movies and utilised them with great effect.

The Shining is a psychological horror film that was made in 1982. Kubrick was influenced by Grand Guignol - A french theatre theme that evolved around exaggeration, violence and gothic themes. Other themes such as madness and melodrama also influenced Kubrick. He was an auteur director, one with an artistic vision and flare, and he believed in creating enigmas and seemingly above all loved challenging audience's expectations. His aim was to create an artistically worthy production that provoked the audiences to think.

The Shining features motifs of haunted castles and claustrophobic passages, such as the overwhelmingly big solitary hotel situated in the middle of nowhere. Whilst picturing locations for our film Home Away From Here I thought strongly back to The Shining and its contrast in open spaces/claustrophobic corridors. The vast openness connotes an eerie sense of fear despite the obvious sense of 'freedom'. I believe the word to describe this is agoraphobia, a fear of open/public places. In one way or another you could relate our cottage location to The Shining's hotel, in the sense that both are situated in a place where civilisation appears scarce.

The Shining hotel (left), Home Away From Here cottage (right)

Kubrick believed in subverting the stereotypical 'physical' monsters seen in most horror films such as Frankenstein, and in turn created monsters from the inside, for example Jack's (the main protagonist) mind falling into madness and spiralling out of control. The destruction of the family in The Shining is very poignant. Jack's son Danny is threatened or 'controlled' by dark forces. For example he has an imaginary friend who'm he talks too with the use of his finger. Perhaps Jack isn't the only one who falls into madness? Danny has the ability to see the past and future, such as the scene in which he witnesses the twins in the corridor, slaughtered, coated in a sea of blood. (Shown below)

At the time in which our film starts the family is already in a fragmented, broken state in terms of the relationship with the main protagonist and the rest of the family. However, the family themselves in the film appear to think their lives are normal... the torture, the violence and the beatings all appear traditional to them. It's not until we realise that James (the main protagonist) is in danger with a psychotic family when he is tied up on the bed.

Certain major themes run throughout The Shining that also relate to our production Home Away From Here-

• Loneliness & isolation

Home Away From Here - James's isolation from the family and the outside world, lonely from the torment and physical abuse.

The Shining - Isolated location, themes of solitude in the hotel, Dany and his mother are alone.

• Illusion vs reality

Home Away From Here - The main character's flashbacks/fragmented dream sequences of when he was younger, juxtaposed with present day.

The Shining - The corridor scene in which Danny comes across the non-identical twins axed to death on the floor. This is an illusion; the audience is seeing what Danny is seeing in his head (the same applies to Home Away From Here).

The music in The Shining plays a key role in the pacing and impact of the edit. Certain subtle scenes in The Shining make the audience jump, for example when Jack makes a feeble attempt to write his novel and sudden, short bursts of sound enter the scene. (Shown below)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIqq9GusbSQ (Last accessed 27/05/14)

This technique keeps the audience on edge for a sustained amount of time. As an audience we can sense something is building up, something deep and disturbing within Jack. The editing overall in The Shining is slow-paced and is sometimes synced with jarring sounds such as symbols and 'bangs'. I believe this approach helps build up the tension of the piece.

For our production I created certain cuts that would unsettle the audience. Joel overlaid eerie, sharp sound effects to complete the effect. This technique we used for our film is best displayed below-



Home Away From Here Jump-Cut from Lewis Hague on Vimeo.


Recurring motifs are used throughout The Shining, for example the use of mazes. They are used to symbolise the complexity of Jack's mind; puzzles, a fragmented state of mind and the concept of him sinking into madness. The corridors in the hotel themselves also resemble mazes, as Danny on more than one occasion appears to lose his sense of direction.

In conclusion, I believe The Shining has been a strong influence in terms of the post-production techniques I have used.

References:

The Shining. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Warner Home Video, (2001) DVD.

http://www.kamera.co.uk/reviews_extra/barrylyndon.php

COLOURING - INTERIOR

The film is near completion after I have spent the last couple of days polishing off the colour of interior footage. The process was more complex than the exterior scenes were, as the lighting and (footage) grain was more intense. Examples of this are displayed below:

The two pictures above are the best examples that display the poor levels of lighting in our film. It came to my understanding that only deco lights were used, lights that I believe create a 'spotlight' effect (seen above) unless handled professionally. The lighting cast harsh shadows of the characters on the walls, shadows which I may have been able to get rid of however I didn't have time to research into getting rid of/reducing shadows within post-production. In hindsight this is highly unfortunate as these shots had to be included in the edit, due to the problems associated with other shots in the piece. To try and combat the extremeness of the lighting in these shots, I darkened the whites and mids in '3 Point Colour Corrector' and used the colour wheels to tint the shots brown- a look myself and Jordan found effective as it related to the family's traditional values and way of life.

If you look closely, there is a large amount of film grain on these two shots. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to reduce the amount of grain on-screen as it came off the raw camera footage. I experimented with the levels of saturation, brightness levels, blacks/whites etc however by attempting to reduce how much the grain stood out, meant it only hindered something else. For example by reducing the blacks on the shot shown above (right), meant the blacks were not as sharp and the features were not as visible (his strands of hair), however the levels of grain were slightly less impactful. I concluded that it was best to ignore the grainy footage and carry on colouring as I would, but to make sure I didn't alter the saturation levels too much as this only increased the grain on some occasions.

Grain is only an issue on the interior shots, as the exterior shots appear to be fine.  

TITLING THE FILM

The video below displays the titles I have created for our production Home Away From Here.

Home Away From Here Titles from Lewis Hague on Vimeo.

The process of achieving this is displayed and explained below -

Before & After

Colour Grading

I imported the original raw footage of the 'cloudy moon' into my timeline and overlaid the same shot, I then applied the '3-way colour correct' effect to both clips. Secondly I reduced the blacks on both clips to create a visually pleasing contrast between the whites and blacks. Thirdly, I decreased the whites (on both clips) as the moon was over-exposed. I then applied the 'Eight-point Garbage Matte' to the top clip and used the 8 key points to crop the moon. I thusly reduced the brightness of the moon and increased the 'smoothness/feather' to blend the edited moon and the remainder of the shot together.

I am happy with the result as the shot of the moon itself creates an eery atmosphere for the piece. However after showing it to the director he said he didn't like it. Instead he wishes to have a plain black background with the title 'Home Away From Here'. Therefore as it stands this work will be scrapped and we will revert back to a plain, black background. Personally I think the concept of having a plain background is very bland and boring, however Jordan wishes to stick to his minimalistic vision- which I will do my best to fulfil.

I have learnt that in film productions one must compromise, especially as an editor. It's okay to have your own visions and ideas however in some cases they not be fulfilled.