I must say I am very pleased with my film. At first there was a lot of doubts and problems related to location and when to film. I had been doing my prep work all along since early january, which was when I decided to work only in the sound design project first, turn it in and then start working in the 4 minutes film.

Regarding casting, I was a bit worried whether it was going to go well or not. A decided not to audition people here at the studios, but via Skype. Some people had told me that you couldn't trust them to come and the best way was doing an audition to make sure they could make it here. I decided not to do that and trust them, although I talked to them every 2 days just to make sure we were still in the same page and they were still going to come. When the actress told me 4 days before the production that she didn't read that I wasn't playing for travel expenses, she told me she couldn't make it. I needed her and I wanted her to be my character, so I decided to put that in my budget and pay for her train. This made me change my location for the meeting from Chatham Dockyards to Rochester Castle, since I was paying for the bus from Waterfront Station to the Dockyards. In the end I am very happy I did that change since I like the castle more than the dockyard, it gives my film a different and more natural look. My actors were amazing for me and I am more than happy to work with them again in the future.

For my editing in general, I am very pleased with the colors and the decision of filming it in 50fps. It was the best thing I could do, since I love the look it gives to the film. Sadly I didn't know that neither Youtube or Vimeo accept films over 30fps, since they automatically convert them to that format. Everyone that will see it on youtube, will only see the film in a standard frame per second rate and not all the effort I put in the visuals of mine. 

I worked in a BBC production for a week during pre-production time, which pushed everything I had planned one week. I ended up filming one week before dead line and if I am honest I don't regret any of it. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot in that BBC week, plus the week after that was raining almost everyday, which means I wouldn't have been able to shoot in one day as planned, taking into account that I had to pay to one of my actors to come here. I didn't have enough money to pay for two days. Monday was a very good day regarding weather, time and light, so I think it was almost perfect.

Some of my clips, specially when they meet for the first time in the film, are not very well synced, so is a bit tough to make the transition from the male character waiting for her and her coming towards him. I believe that is the weakest part of my film since I should have done a different approach to that scene to make it look more natural. 

In general I am very happy with my project, since is the first one I don't really use much effects and focus more in the story telling with clips and movements and actions instead of music and effects. 

"I hope is right"

Here is my final video:

Here is the final work of my director statement:

Director Statement

The use of Proxy Media is very important for people that don't have a fast computer or that are using very high quality clips. In my case, since I was working with 50fps clips, my computer couldn't playback the clips in realtime for more than 3 secs. The best solution in this cases where the frames drop during playback, is to use proxy media. As some people don't know, proxy media allows you to edit your clips in 1/4 of the frames you originally have. In my case approximately 12fps. The clip stills looks good and you will watch as if editing a normal clip, but to the computer the program is telling it that your clip has less frames, which allows you to playback with no drops. After finishing my video, I exported it normally, since in proxy media you don't need to change anything to export it in your original format. Proxy media can only be used if when importing a clip you select the option to create proxy media.

Here is a screenshot on where to find proxy media:

P.S  Remember when creating a project, to adjust it with the frames per second you wish to use, otherwise it won't matter if you shoot in 50fps if your project presets are in 25fps.

Here is my final piece of my soundtrack with a couple of technical mistakes:

For my sound design, I decided to create my own music instead of using Royalty Free. For this, I used Logic Pro X for Mac, which is a very complete software to create music. Since I used to play the piano years ago, I know about music and I am able (with some time) to create a piece of music. I had been working on this particular piece for months, but I never finished it, so I decided this was a good moment get it done. The piece of song us very peaceful and a bit sad. It was all played in piano and although there are a couple musical mistakes, I think it ended up right.

Here is a capture during the production:

One of the options for my film was to use Rochester Station for my busy location. I didn't know I needed a permit to shoot in it, so I went straight to the station to film. Before anything, one of my crew members, Helen Welsh, told me to ask if I was allowed to film or not. I head to the person that sells the train tickets and asked him if I was allowed or not. His answer was that I needed permission for it and usually it was not given, so I headed to the Help Point Office upstairs and talked to one go the southeastern officers for permission. After saying no, I explained to him everything I was going to film, exactly as it was going to be framed, which convinced him of allowing me to shoot, everything, except inside the train. Here is a still of the train leaving the station where my character is suppose to be in:

During pre-production, I had to set a budget for my film, including props and any expenses related to crew or actors. All the way until the the day of the shooting, I changed the amount of money that I was able to pay. I knew that I couldn't exceed from £70, but i didn't want to get that close either. Following the original plan, I was suppose to transport with my crew and actors to the dockyard in Chatham, which made me think that the right thing was to pay the bus ticket for everyone. I changed the location when my actress told me that she couldn't come unless I paid for her travel expenses (train from London.) I couldn't afford both definitely. 

Here is a breakdown of my final budget:

Tent - £20

Travel expenses - £17

Food - £26

Total: £63

Mission accomplished

Here is the final poster for my film:

As an usual thing I started doing for my films, I wanted to create a poster for it. Close to Rochester Castle I did a photo shoot and picked the 3 best pictures out of it to come with an idea for it. The final poster will be posted in another post, here the 3 options.

For my locations I did an area scout to find the right places for my film. Starting with where to set my tent, my original plan was to use a park that is next to UCA Rochester campus. After going back to it and a feedback from my teacher, I realized that it wasn't the best place to set a tent of a person that is living in it (who lives in a tent in the middle of a park.) Two days before my film, I found a place close to the river where I live that  good portion of brownish grass, that looked very abandoned and away from everything. I framed it right so couldn't see the buildings around it or many cars, so it actually looked like it was abandoned. Here a still of that part:

For the meeting part I was going to use the Dockyard by Chatham, but since transport was a bit time consuming for me, I decided to scout more and found a much better place which was Rochester Cathedral and Rochester Castle. At first when I went, the area seemed very quiet and not much movement, but the day of the shooting, there was a lot of people and cars that disrupted my noise all the time. It was tough to frame right and find the right place to film. Since a lot of cars passed by the road where we were filming, we had to wait until no car was coming to shoot and so on for every clip, so that we could get a good audio. Here are two pictures of the place:

In the script that we were given, the film was meant to start and end with a close up of a time piece. As usual, I thought almost everyone was going to use a hand watch or an alarm clock, which gave me the idea of trying something different, something like a clock tower. There were a couple of tower clock that I saw around Chatham and Maidstone, but non of them really suit what I was looking for. I remembered that I had seen one where my sister lives in Bradford, that I liked a lot. I decided to as her to shoot it with an HD camera she has, explaining the exact angle and everything I needed for it. After a couple of tries, she finally made it right and I realized it was exactly what I wanted. Here is a still of the original clip of the clock tower.

For my film I decided to use a tent for the interior part. I though it was an original "home" and could give a very interesting tone to my video. The decision was down to which tent I was going to use. All the facts pointed to a fabric and bad quality one. I decided to try and find a very cheap tent, but I also thought about how the tent could help me visually in the video and the answer was to look a tent with a strong color. The best option for me was a red tent bought in Sports Direct, which gave a really nice look to the film without the need of adding a filter to it in post. I payed a bit more for this tent than for the one I picked originally, but the red one ended up being much better. Here is a still of the exterior of the tent and the reddish tone in the interior.

In my movie I wanted a clip where my main character looked at a picture with him and his ex-fiancée when they were together. Since non of my actors had met before and taking a photo, editing the size and printing it to have it during the real shot, was a bit time consuming, I decided to use a technique called Photo Replacement.

During the filming day I used an empty frame with white background and made the actor look at it as if there was something in there. 

Before

After that, during post-production, I put a picture I took and blended it to the color and light of the clip so it looked real. Since the shot seemed a bit static after I did it, I decided to give it the movement that it had in the original clip, which was why I created a mask around the frame so I leave the frame static, but the still have movement in the surroundings. Here a picture of the final composition.

After

During pre-production, something that came into my mind was changing the settings for my film. For the resolution I stayed of course with 1920x1080 HD, but I decided to change the fps (Frames Per Second) for my film. As a standard, here in the UK and Europe (PAL), the normal setting is usually 25fps. Different than America and other countries in the world (NTSC), the normal setting is usually 30fps. For my film I decided to shoot in 50fps, which was a tough decision to make. Originally I was afraid of doing that, since I wasn't sure it was going to come out the way I wanted to. 

I got inspired by Peter Jackson, director of the Hobbit and all Lord of The Rings trilogy, who shot his movies in 48fps, which is known as High Frame Rate. He is the only person so far on doing that in the cinema industry. 

The film was hard to edit, since my computer can't take the playback of clips with 50fps in real time. I had to create something proxy media, which allows you to edit your clips in less resolution, but to export it in the original one. I didn't see the outcome of the 50fps until I exported my final video, which made me very pleased. 

Sadly Youtube and Vimeo have a rule that don't allow any video that has more than 30fps to be uploaded, so they automatically convert it in 30fps, which won't allow people to see all the work I did to make it look right. 

For my actors I decided to use Casting Call Pro as explained in a previous post. After looking a lot into the applicants and knowing exactly what I wanted, I discarded more than half of them and auditioned the rest via Skype. There were actors that had good acting skills, but didn't fit the looks of what I had in mind. In the end there were only two actors that I really wanted and those were the two ones I picked.

For the female role (Katherine Porter) I picked:

Anna Burkholder




For the male role (Alexander Hoover) I picked:

Jon Bolitho-Jones



As for my crew, I was the director, producer and editor of the film. For my camera role, Helen Welsh and for my sound, Danny Hewitt.

For this unit we were given a script so we create a film based on it. The original idea was to change some part of the script the way you as a director see it. For example: You were given the line "unidentified package" meaning that you could replace that by whatever you though the package should be. I decided to edit the original script in Final Draft so I could get a better view of everything I wanted and being able to show to my crew and actors the real script without the blanks.

Here is the final script edited by me:

A Journey Through Sorrow

The second title sequence was the one done by the group. The idea was to create something with mist, and some water, dead trees... The mist was eliminated due to majority in the end, so of the the group members, Mike Hoad, recorded the different scenarios so we could all choose which one we liked. The majority voted for the first one, but the idea was to change the font of it since no one liked it. After the font was changed and put all together by him, we were basically done with it.

Here is the title sequence for out film:

Finally here is the video of the title sequence made by me:

To give life to that picture I created a virtual environment in After Effects. The first part was giving life to the still picture, which is why I created a light in her face and moved it every 23 frames so it seemed like the light of fire was reflecting in her face, this way it will give the sensation of movement. For the second part I decided to create some rain and give it movement. The idea was to start seeing the rain from the front and then slowly move as if we were on top of the rain looking down, falling with the rain. This was all done with a CC Rain effect and using a virtual camera. For the Third and most complex part, I wanted to create the illusion of the rain hitting the floor and creating a puddle. This was all done in computer and using the plug in Trapcode Particular, I managed to create water from scratch and shape it so it looked like a puddle.

Here a picture of the creation of the particles in After Effects:

After finishing it and shaping it, the final result without the rain was this one:

In the end all I had to do was add the name A Journey Through Sorrow and give it an effect with CC Liquify, so it looked like it was coming from the water. See next post for the final result.

As a group we were meant to come with a title sequence and although we did, I created one of my own which took me about 2 days. The idea of this one was to show a bit of sadness, confusion and sorrow. The first elements that came to my mind were rain, tears and sad music. The title sequence was done all in computer using Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects. For the photoshop part, I used and image of a woman crying and I changed the image completely. I gave it a reddish tone, changed brightness and contrast, masked it to cut the background behind her and made it look very dark. 

Here is the before and the after of the image:

Before

After

Between the objectives of the project, one of the tasks was to have an opening title sequence with closing credits. Both title and credits had to be exactly the same ones for every member of the group and it had to be done by the entire group. I personally found this task a bit complex, since it is hard to get along with four more people so that we can all agree in one title. What was going to be about? Who was going to do it? What was the message? These are only some of the questions that came up the day we all discussed it. In my personal opinion, this kind of tasks are the ones that teach you how to work with other people, it can be people you get very good along with or people you barely talk to, but all together had to come with this title sequence. In my next posts I will put two different titles that were done for it. 

For this unit, the objective is to create a 4 minute film based on a script given by our teacher. The idea is to create 5 different groups, so that each one gives the story a different point of view. The five options were:

- A Journey Through Sorrow
- A Journey Through Anger
- A Journey Through Loneliness
- A Journey Through Freedom
- A Journey Through Love

I chose A Journey Through Sorrow, because from the very first moment I read the script, I imagine the character being sad and going through a tough moment. I was also going to pick Freedom, because I had the idea of using a non UK passport as the package, which can mean freedom to someone.

Here is a list of the members that are in my group.