From the start of the planning and development process of this film I have been part of the developing the main storyline along with my peers. Thomas Hird was the script writer as this was his initial idea. What I thought the synopsis lacked was symbolism and after Thomas suggested that the film should be an ‘experimental thriller’ I was quick to research into symbolism within the thriller genre. One thing I found was that within the thriller genre a lot of religious symbolism is used. My idea was to use different symbols from different religions to push the idea of death within the film. One of my ideas was to use a bible with a hole cut out, this was taken from the pirate ideology of the black spot as well as the hole representing that religion can leave you feeling empty as well as filling the holes in people lives.
The main role of this film was to be the sound engineer as well as the music composer. I wanted to include our own music in the film as I felt it was only right to make everything from scratch. The idea was also to use sound effect such as swoops and impact sounds to represent the start of the loop. This was inspired by The 1975’s music video for Sincerity Is Scary when a man wakes up from a dream and those sound effects are used. This was also where I helped by peers decide the shots for some of the scenes within the film. Taking inspiration again from the video there was a specific shot where we see his eye open in a medium shot as his head is on the pillow. This was my idea again to replicate this shot and use this as the looping shot every time he wakes up, instead of using different shots each time, I tried to push for this idea as it was important for the audience to understand the protagonist is stuck in a loop.
The second delegated job I was given was lighting as sound was recorded much on set as there were no lines in the script, and heavily relied on visuals. So my job on set was to light the scene. For scenes the like the beach scene, it was pitch black and we had to replicate moonlight, this mean getting the led light, with a blue gel on and getting it as high as possible. This was often difficult as the lights were not powerful enough to light the subject from a distance and create the desired effect. This meant I had to get closer and used initiative to ensure I create the same effect. I decide that I would move closer with the main light onto the subject and add a filler light to light up the floor and background.
Another problem we had was when we filmed the kitchen scene with the roast chicken. The way the house was laid out, there was no direct light into the kitchen, nothing that looked like moonlight. I was moving around the space trying to replicate some sort of lowkey light effect, something that looked like moonlight, However, it wasn’t until tried using the light shining through the window, was I able to get the desired effect.
As well as lighting and sound I was also involved with the cinematography on set too, although it wouldn’t happen on a real shoot, I helped the DOP set up shots and discussed what would work well. This was a lot easier as the lighting and cinematographer work close together anyway. Dale who was the DOP sometimes called on my opinion when shots were difficult to frame when on set lighting was introduced such as a street light or direct light from houses for example. Often there were problems with contact between the director and DOP and it was often hand for a third person such as myself to help find middle ground and arrange the shot.
One problem in the production process we had to deal with as a crew was the amount of work we had planned and the timescale in which we had to do it in. Throughout the whole planning process was simple and we had planned each day to fit what we had to film. However, after the first shoot it was brought to our attention that we had given ourselves a lot of work to do. It was easy to write on paper what we had to do but when it came down to it, we had tried to squeeze a weeks shoot into 2 nights. As a crew we decided to cut scenes down and to remove unnecessary part we planned to allow us to concentrate on the main aspects and scenes of the film. I helped create a revised shooting schedule and shot list to give us a clearer understanding of what needed shooting and when. During the day we had spare time as all of our shoots were at night, during this spare time it only made sense to go out and recce the area to again speed up the process.
The initial idea for the Post Production process was to distribute the jobs to the person whose production role fit.
Dale Salter: Colour Grading/SFX
Thomas Simmerson: Editor
Thomas Hird: Editing Director
Myself: Sound Effects & Music.
However due to how we needed to be graded we all had to do an individual edit. This set back the process of each person doing their delegated job. This intern meant that I was unable to start the music production and collect SFX. We decided that we would each all have to do an edit for our grade but also have a main edit which we all contribute what we needed, this version would then go out to film festivals around the country.
Overall I feel like I have contributed a lot of my skills to this project and that I still have skills to offer in terms of the music production side. As a whole we have all worked really hard as crew to ensure we have met the deadline for this work. I have enjoyed learning new skills and stepping out of my comfort zone in terms of lighting. This includes developing my problem solving skills as well as team working skills to ensure the project has gone as smooth as possible.
-Joshua Poole- 