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IN YOUR SHADOW PRODUCTION FOLDER
With my major project, I wished to expand the narrative scope of the idea that I first started to explore for my initial project, while also expanding the size of the crew that would work on the film during the production and post-production phases. This would allow me to fully concentrate on developing the narrative potential of the central idea of a photographer who is haunted by grief and desire for his deceased fiancé. In the original treatment that was written for the film, two more scenes continued the story after the Photography Studio scene that were intended to create a sense of confusion that conveyed Matthew’s rapidly deteriorating mental state. These would eventually be dropped as, during the late stages of developing the plot, I discovered that the actor playing Matthew, Adam Stafford-Smith, would only be available for three days. This unfortunate situation has taught me that my creative vision is not always absolute and must sometimes be dictated by the logistical realities of the other people who are involved in its creation. As a result of having to par back the story, the ending feels very abrupt. Several people who have watched the film have mentioned that they feel like the story was just getting started when it suddenly ends. While I agree with this assessment, this is often the nature of short films that tell a story in a limited space of time and I think the narrative still has a logical end point. I’m very happy with the shooting draft of the script and feel that it’s the first that I’ve written where the dialogue flows very smoothly. This was a long process that took six weeks to complete over seven drafts. Ultimately, I think that this was time well spent as the conversations convey the themes of the film in a natural and thought provoking way, while leaving some details, such as the nature of Allison’s death, open to audience interpretation. During pre-production I met with a professional Director of Photography named Camila Carlow at the Watershed in Bristol. I think the fact that I was very unprepared for this meeting contributed to Camila not taking on the role. At the point where I met her, I had no materials that would convey the visual aesthetic of the film beyond a shot list and story boards. I paused for a long time when asked if there were any films I could reference in regards to lighting. This undoubtedly contributed to me not coming across as being very professional or confident. My biggest regret during pre-production is that I didn’t have time to re-take the photo that would feature in the film. I had planned to add a bondage element to the photo that would have suggested Allison’s unlimited boundaries and hinted towards the nature of her death. With more immediate and pressing matters to take care of and an absence of money to pay the actor who portrayed Allison for a half day photo shoot, I had to drop this idea. I think using the original photo in this film contributed in a negative way, as several people, including Camila Carlow, commented that they didn’t think the photo was provocative enough and it that it feels more like it was taken decades ago than in the present era. While I think that what is considered provocative is highly subjective, and the controversy surrounding the photo stems from the timing of its release, the aforementioned bondage element would have added a deeper, more suggestive, layer to the films narrative. A big problem that we encountered during the production phase was recording clean audio. The audio from the first day of shooting, that took place at Centrespace in Bristol, was tainted by a large number of students being in the room directly above where we were filming. As a result, there is a large amount of inconsistent background noise that can be heard behind the dialogue in this scene. Unfortunately, there is not much that could be done about this in post-production, although the sound editor/mixer did a better job than I thought would be possible when applying noise reduction on there was no way of knowing that this would be an issue when I recced the location two weeks before the shooting date. I’m very disappointed with the pace of the photography studio scene as it feels very rushed. The day before shooting this scene, I decided to cut around a page of the script from this scene as I was worried that we would be able to four pages in one day. Doing so negatively affected the build up to Matthew snapping and bearing down on Ella, whose reaction to Matthew appears to be extreme and without any real sense of justification that the slow build created by Matthew making her feel increasingly uncomfortable. This is the first of my projects where I had decided to ask someone else to edit the film. This turned out to be a big mistake as I quickly discovered that the person who I had picked to edit the film would not have much time available to refine the rough cut they had put together. This issue was exasperated by the fact that I wasn’t present while the rough cut was being put together. The takes I had asked them to use had not been included in the rough cut and no explanation was given to me as to why. This led to me loosing faith in the editors ability and finishing the edit myself. In future, I will stick to editing my own projects as I think it is far too an important task to assign to someone else. If I do work with an editor, then I will make sure that I am present for the assembly of the edit so I can communicate directly what I want from it. After editing the film, I then colour corrected the footage with Cinema Grade. This is the third of my films that I have colour corrected and I am now starting to become comfortable and familiar with how to use the scopes and histogram effectively to complete this task. I had originally wanted to colour grade the film with different de-saturated, monochromatic colours for each scene. Having colour balanced the footage, I decided to stick with the white and black colour pallet. I think this is quiet distinctive in and of itself, with the two ends of the colour spectrum being represented equally and feeling oppositional, an approach that feels very appropriate for the narrative of this film. I’m very impressed with the music and sound design for the film and feel that it adds a lot of tension to the imagery of the film. This helps move the narrative forward while evoking a dreamy, otherworldly atmosphere. The film feels very cinematic with the music and dense drones mixed in. My direction to the composer was to make it sound like a horror movie, a horror that is aimed at the male ego. This direction was well interpreted by the composer as a heartbeat rhythm that becomes more erratic at keys points during the dialogue and acts a theme for Matthew. In conclusion, I think I tried to expand too much, too soon with this film, giving up large amounts of responsibility to other members of the crew. This felt very unnatural to me and contributed to the stress of making In Your Shadow more than if I had opted to do the majority of the production tasks myself. For my next film, I would like to strip back the narrative and the crew and continue on from where I left of with the initial project teaser in terms of the length of the film and the size of the crew. Currently, I don’t feel that I have enough experience to work with a crew of the size I did when making In Your Shadow and I don’t yet feel comfortable with giving up such a large amount of creative control. On a more positive note, the production of In Your Shadow afforded me an opportunity to network with other like minded filmmakers who are on a similar level as me in terms of experience and their chosen career path. Although I consider stripping back to a smaller scale a necessary step in my progression as a filmmaker, I’m glad to have made the contacts that I have while making In Your Shadow, especially the two new actors I worked with, Suzanne Kendall and Alice Dillon, both of whom turned in excellent, nuanced performances.
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The following version of the finished film has been mixed in 2.1 ready for the Cineworld public presentation. As such, there are some lines of dialogue during the Photography Studio scene that sound very low in the mix when played through computer speakers. These have been mixed this way so they sound like they are being muttered under the characters breath and will sound louder when played through the speakers at the cinema. As the bass has been mixed to a sub woofer channel, some of the bass frequencies from the music and sound design might also sound weaker when played through computer speakers that only supprt two channels of audio. |
AuthorMy name is Clay Sandford and I am currently studying an FDA in Film and Media Production at University Centre Weston. I have a keen interest in directing, cinematography and camera operating. ArchivesCategories |