David Lynch Foundation Production Skills

FOUNDATION PRODUCTION SKILLS

Task 2 – Portfolio - Film Project.

Evaluative report sheet

Student Name	Cameron Hunter-Spokes
Student Number	26018618
Title of film	In The Dark
Crew members	Jon Lea Cameron Hunter-Spokes Georgia Maddocks Lewis Mccrum
Module Code and Title	55-4748 Foundation Production Skills
Module Leader	Name: Ron Wright	email: r.p.wright @shu.ac.uk
Semester, Level and Credits	1 portfolio- evaluative report	20 credits
Task Number and Name	2	Weighting:  70% of the module mark

In The Dark: https://vimeo.com/195536221

Please fill in 4 sections which are aligned to the 4 learning outcomes for this module. Show how you have met each of the 4 learning outcomes below. The word count is 1,000 words which is 250 words per section.

Learning Outcome 1 Apply specified skills and knowledge in a practice-based context, typically in areas such as Cinematography, Post-Production, and Sound Recording and Design, and solve given problems using the approaches specified and evaluate these solutions. Assessment Criteria Craft Skills And Technical Application- Employ the knowledge, competence and judgment to realise    appropriate concepts or techniques

We made the film about isolation. A character that was focussing on all the bad in the news and was refusing to leave his house and enter the real world because of it. For the day of filming I'd also booked out lighting equipment with a few coloured filters to make sure we got the right time for the film. One thing I've definitely learned for film making is that one of the most important things for a film is good lighting. Without that, It can change the entire film from great to terrible. I made sure we used a reflector to diffuse any direct light on the character and I tried to make sure there were always two lights active. A fill light, and an edge light, preferably with the brighter light behind the actor as an edge light. Whether this worked or not is hard to tell but the shots look good as they stand. When it came to editing I started off using Avid and moved in to Premier. Lewis, the sound editor in our team helped compile the clips in the correct order and we worked together to make sure all the shots flowed and appeared natural. During the edit, a few things became clear. The film was both too short, and we felt ended without much explanation. I decided to help both of those aspects and booked out a camera to get a few shots of the city. I hoped this would extend the film a little, add a backdrop for credits, and provide some clarification for the audience that the world directly outside was fine. Which worked, I feel. I ended up staying quite late by myself to edit together enough shots to give the film what felt like a good pace, along with various sound effects I'd gathered and put in for editing.

Learning Outcome 2 Demonstrate and apply some understanding of professionalism in your engagement with independent and collaborative work. Assessment Criteria Studentship and Professionalism -  Work with and support others responsibly and professionally;  manage independent self-development through planning, reflection, commitment and  engagement

When it comes to the collaborative process, I feel certain things went better than others. I'll go through what I mean in a list. For communication, I feel like we could have done better. One team meeting organised was to choose an idea that we'd be going by to make the film along with the quote from David Lynch it'd be inspired by. I came prepared with at least one idea for each quote, but when the meeting was had, It lasted about 30 seconds and consisted of one person giving an idea and everyone else agreeing. The problem is not that we didn't use my ideas, the problem is that my ideas were not even considered before a plan was being made. There were also personal gripes between certain team members that made the filming process a little unpleasant. I frequently felt unable to suggest ideas because of this. When it comes to time management, I feel like we used the time we had effectively, though it could have been utilised more. Once a day of filming was done, members of the team were very unwilling to get any more footage and I found myself having to book equipment out, to go off on my own to get footage, which I believe improved the final production. Support between team members was, as far as I could tell, only prevalent during the editing process, where co-operation between team members meant much more attention and care was put into the editing process. Again outside the editing process, I feel like professionalism was lacking. When personal arguments cannot be put aside for a creative project, it's never going to be as good as it could have been. For future projects, I know I need to focus on finding others who are as passionate about film as I am, and who enjoy and care about the creative process. Fifty percent of the experience of making a film is in the people you work with, and these need to be chosen with care.

Learning Outcome 3 Access, analyse and comment on a range of relevant media examples from a production perspective Assessment Criteria Identify, interpret, evaluate and reflect on a broad range of concepts and/or materials. NB. Where appropriate show 1 link per craft area Eg – a you tube clip, a book reference. It is important to say why this influenced your thinking.

The brief itself specified that we use a quote from David Lynch as an inspirational starting point. The quote we ended up using was as follows: "I look at the world and I see absurdity all around me. People do strange things constantly, to the point that, for the most part, we manage not to see it. That’s why I love coffee shops and public places – I mean, they’re all out there." When it comes to the process of creating the film and my inspiration around that actually stems from films I made in the past with my Dad. He always stressed during filming that a good film needed good lighting, and I kept that in mind throughout the process of filming this. I had also learned a few lighting tricks from a small creative company called "Node": (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psug6mmAjQ8) online who frequently create professional level productions and show tutorials for using lighting, software and equipment. As we were creating a film that wanted to feel very cold and isolated, I kept in mind what I'd learned from Node and made sure the scenery was as dark as we could get it. Setting up the lights in the way we did meant that natural light didn't interfere with the shot and we kept the colour of light and therefore the feeling we were going for. As far as inspiration further than that goes, It mainly lies in the sound design. I tend to listen to a lot of ambient sound textures by a YouTube channel called "Cryo Chamber". I applied what sort of sounds U I know work for them to this production, adding a droning ambience with sounds scattered throughout in strategic areas to make the whole environment seem alive as it builds tension.

Learning Outcome 4 Reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of production skills work Assessment Criteria Identify, interpret, evaluate and reflect on the process you engaged in from start to finish.

Overall, I believe the film was a success. I both took something away from the process and the experience with the final creation. I learned how important it is to make sure your entire team is happy with the production being created, and that sometimes even if everyone is willing to work, there may sometimes still be difficulties in the team. The concept itself was an interesting one to explore and taking the initiative to go out and film extra shots and audio pieces allowed me to explore the idea of tone in film more thoroughly. I learned much more about the various editing programs I was presented with and feel much more comfortable using them for basic editing tasks. This entire brief has been a valuable learning experience. That's where it's strength comes from. The weaknesses in this of course were many problems with certain team members refusing to listen, bringing personal opinions of other team members into the production and generally being unsupportive and adding a lot of unnecessary stress. There were also times when production was slowed due to lack of understanding of programs and equipment. This is to be expected however, being new to most of what we're working with. The finished production was something I was quite proud of. The sound design I put together was received extremely well along with editing transitions I put together with the other editor I was working with. It was mentioned that the location itself may not have been the best place to film the production since the background may have needed to be more convincing. I'll take this into account for the next production.