LO5: Final product

 

LO5: Postproduction and analysis of postproduction techniques

Digitally editing my visuals

The cinematography of my short film isn't just enhanced by the camerawork and set design I used in production, but also the digital editing. This is useful as some of my shots didn't turn out how initially planned, so the digital editing allowed me to go back and fix some of my previous mistakes. 

An example of digital editing allowing me to fix/enhance my cinematography is this shot, which appeared much darker than initially intended. This was an issue as only a slight bit of the foreground could be seen in the shot; seeing the background here is important for the audiences understanding of how the scene plays out, as it lets us know that there's something in the room with my protagonist. 

I fixed this issue by accessing the properties of the clip and balancing the whites, highlights, shadows and exposure of the clip to make an overall better looking shot. This allowed the audience to be able to see the fact that the door was opening by itself in the darkness. It also made the scene much more satisfying to watch as a movie being too dark is a highly regarded criticism in modern horror movies that I wanted to combat in my production, whilst still creating a fear of the unknown with my monster hiding in the shadows.  Increasing the brightness also helps to enhance how blue the scene is, which is what I was originally trying to create when filming. 

Using pale/cold colours such as blue to reflect the atmosphere of a scene is a common convention of horror used to unnerve audiences. This was why it was very beneficial to create lighting sources such as the TV (and later the fridge) that reflect the terrifying and cold scenario my character finds themselves facing, and then intensifying it with the visual editing. Effectively conforming to these conventions allows my audience to feel comfortable reassurance in the horror conventions I am using in the visuals. Furthermore, the blue colour is often synonymous with a feeling of bone-chilling terror, fear and sadness that I want to communicate to the audience.

Another way I fixed an issue with my recorded shots with digital editing was improving the continuity of the scenes, as well as just giving the movie more of a visual style that helps make it stand out. An example of a continuity issue with how some scenes were filmed is that the lighting drastically changes in between the shots that are supposed to be taking place one after the other. Here is an example below:

In the first shot we can clearly see that our antagonist is being hit with a dim orange light in the room where they are stood, but when the shot changes that allows s to see in to the room, the lighting is not only much more high-key, but also much whiter/yellow. This makes the room appear much brighter, which is an issue as it completely pulls the audience out of the immersion of the film for what is supposed to be an otherwise shocking and important scene. 

And here is the updated scene after adjusting the properties: increasing the exposure in the first clip and increasing the temperature and shadows in the second. These changes make the scenes look as if they're are taking place immediately after one another and help to give more depth and meaning to the film. The orange was initially intended to be used in the scene to make it feel hot with tension as we reach the 'boiling point' of the film, so being able to accomplish my initial vision through editing helps to exentuate the movie with more meaning that audiences will be able to pick up on and recognise. This gives the audience a strong impression of the atmosphere of the scene so that they know how to feel before even realise what's happening. As well as this it helps to improve the cinematography by making the shots feel more stylistically distinct from the standard white/pale lighting.

This was a change I made to most of my scenes also, correcting the lighting and giving the film more visual flare so that the audience stay invested in my film. 

I also enhanced my cinematography with digital editing to conform to the conventions of my horror genre. In this example of my protagonist Quinn's phone light scanning over the environment, I edited the temperature, exposure and blacks/whites. This caused the light to be much more concentrated and made the surroundings darker. This made it so that I could directly control what the audience were allowed to see within the light, putting them in my protagonists shoes and allowing me to appeal to genre conventions of horror by creating a creepy atmosphere to keep the audience engaged and on edge. This genre convention not only enforces the audiences comfortable reassurance 

Another way I applied my cinematography knowledge to the short film editing was by cropping the shots. Cropping allowed me to make the shots look exactly how I wanted, as when recording I would often film the scene very closely to the storyboard, but accidentally have my subject off centre. Cropping made it so that I could adhere to the rule of thirds so that the visuals are perfectly balanced and multiple subjects can be in the audiences focus. This results in my short film feeling much more satisfying to watch for audiences, and allowing me to conform to the conventions of cinematography to create stunning visuals. 

Special Effects to Improve Visuals 

As part of my project it's important to apply visual effects in post production so that I can make the short film as closely accurate to my vision of what I want the film to look like as possible. In the production of short films, especially horror, special effects are the way to do this. 

As I have not only a budgeting constraint but also a talent constraint for the application of practical effects, it resulted in an issue of me not being able to find a way to create an effective dead body to communicate to the audience the twist of the movie. I came up with the idea of a close up shot of the hand, that way I can also solve the enigma of where the car keys were by having them be in the dead body of the mothers hand. I added a minor practical effect of fake blood (as seen below) but it still didn't feel worthy enough of a shot to reveal that the mother is dead, especially with the extreme lack of blood on the hand. This causes the audience not to be satisfied with the reveal as their audience expectations of what they expect to see in a modern day horror film is a lot of blood and gore. 

(the shot before any application of Digital Effects)

This is why I decided I wanted to apply a digital effect to the shot to make the scene feel more 'gore-y'. Although I still had a digital effect talent constraint being that I couldn't create fake blood/gashes on the hand, it didn't mean I couldn't make the scene feel more gorey. I decided it would narratively make sense if I made it seem as if blood was dripping down the camera lens instead, implying to the audience that the death was so brutal that blood splatted everywhere, even on to the camera itself. 

The first thing I did to create this effect was duplicate my clip and layer them on top of each other. I did this by holding down the option key and then dragging he clip a layer higher, duplicating it on top of the other.

I then searched for the 'tint' and 'gaussian blur' effects in the project window and added them to the duplicated clip.

I opened the added effects settings and mapped the black to a dark red and white to a lighter red on the tint effect. For the Gaussian Blur effect I just increased the blurriness to make the screen look like we (the camera) were looking through blood, causing the screen to be blurry. 

I then clicked the 'new item' button in the project window and layered a black 'colour matte' on top of my clips. I then put the 'VR fractal noise' effect onto this new colour matte. 

I edited the 'VR Fractal Noise' effect by adjusting the contrast and brightness to create a white stained fog like screen. This white fog would become my blood. 

I did this by adding the effect 'track matte key' to my previous duplicate clip, accessing its settings and then changing the 'matte' to 'video 3' and changing the composite to 'matte luma'.

This made it so that the blood red overlay replaced the white and black of the fog-looking matte. I then further started playing around with the settings of each effect (mainly the contrast, brightness and opacity of the clips) as well as increasing the size of the matte overlay so that there wasn't excess blood on the screen and making the blood larger.  

The finishing touch I added to this effect was editing the 'evolution' setting on the 'VR fractal noise' effect. I enabled the animation for the setting and created key frames at the start and end of the clip. The starting keyframe being set to 75 degrees and ending keyframe -13. This made it so that the blood moved on the screen slightly, as if it's dripping down the lens.

How My Created Special Effect Conforms to Conventions

The absolute most popular and common convention of my chosen horror genre is the use of blood. Blood is the ultimate trope as it connotes a sense of guttural fear and pain that the genre is popular for, this is why it's important to implement this genre expectation into my film. As my audience are expecting to see it, it's important to deliver on their expectations so they feel comfortably reassured in my movie being a part of the horror genre. Its use here is also effective as my camerawork purposefully obscures the audience from seeing the entire dead body, so the implication that there was so much blood it splattered all over the camera only reinforces the terror and fear in the unknown and makes the audience themselves picture the whole scene, without me having to spend a lot of money on visceral practical effects. 

LO4: Evidence of setting up camera and lighting equipment

 

(Merge) LO4: Rushes and how they met conventions, LO4: Rushes and notes on camera settings used

Here is an example of 5 key rushes from my recording session and how they conform to conventions, compared to the storyboard plan.

Rush 1:

This shot of my antagonist finally taking the centre screen for the climactic part of the movie is very effective at meeting conventions. As this is the shot where my antagonist has finally revealed themself, I want them to have an imposing presence on screen and to the audience. I did this through multiple techniques, including a low angle which connotes the power and dominance of the antagonist as it towers over us and our protagonist. I also created an effective visual that further emphasises the terror of the scene by using a backlight behind my actors to emphasise their imposing presence and obscure the antagonist to the audience. This helps to further create the enigma of the short film for the audience as they are finally able to see the entity, but aren't given answers to their questions. It also allows me to create a ghost-like antagonist on a low budget. 

For achieving this shot it was important that the camera settings were regulated in order to give the shot its intended meaning. 

- I used an ISO of 300. This is because it was vital to the shot that it was dark enough so that only the outline of the figure can be seen. I didn't reduce it any lower however because, although the shot was meant to be dark to obscure the figure, the light still needed to be bright enough so that the figure would be much more emphasised. This emphasis is what gives the shot more weight as it creates a much more vivid impression on the audience as the figure feels overwhelming. If I had reduced the ISO to make the background much darker like in my original plan, the reveal wouldn't have the same payoff as the bright background. Having the light still be fairly bright because of my ISO setting also allowed me to increase the contrast between the figure and backlight to further enforce the overwhelming fear of dread on the audience. An ISO of 300 was the perfect choice as it was a perfect balance between keeping my antagonist an enigma whilst also highlighting its presence. 

- I used an Aperture of f/16. This was because I wanted to make sure that my silhouette had a perfectly crisp outline as the scene is supposed to denote in its visuals that this is the antagonist revealing itself to the audience in its full power. If I had accidentally made the figure blurry, it could potentially give the audience the wrong impression that our antagonist is still obscuring itself from the camera, when in actuality I was trying to communicate that it wants us (the viewer and the protagonist) to be scared of it before it makes a mockery of, and kills, the character that the audience have been routing for the whole time. Although this achieves the intended meaning, next time I will instead increase the aperture to a higher f-stop value of 5.6. That way I would still make the silhouette perfectly clear whilst also blurring the background behind it slightly, this would be more effective as it means that all the audiences attention is forcefully dragged onto the antagonist as it stares us down. It would also create more meaning as any way out would be obscured to the audience, connoting the impending doom our protagonist is about to face. I was able to remedy my mistake in post-production editing my obscuring the background more by intensifying the backlight to have the same meaning, however it would've been more more effective to achieve this with the camera settings instead. 

Rush 2

In the kitchen scene my extended tracking shot conforms to genre conventions of horror by creating tension. It does this by putting the audience in the protagonists shoes, having us slowly move around the kitchen with her, making us empathise for the character much more. The bright cold light emanating from the fridge and camera mounted light connote the spine chilling fear our character is feeling in the scene. When the light is shut off at the end of the scene as the fridge closes, the room is left shroud in dark, creating a new further sense of tension as the antagonist could be hiding amongst the shadows and leaving the tension still in the air as the shot carries on for agonisingly long. This scene is also an example of how I effectively used camerawork to conform to my genre; this is done by controlling exactly what my audience can/can't see in the scene. For example blocking the background out when my character gets to the fridge that opened by itself, tricking the audience into thinking something will be waiting behind like in a typical horror movie. I then created my scare scene by hiding the scare in an area the audience already thought they saw earlier in the tracking shot: directly behind us.

For achieving this shot it was important that the camera settings were specifically regulated in order to give the shot its intended meaning. 

- I used an ISO of 400 and an Aperture of f/22. As I'm trying to create a horror short, even the scenes I had planned to be the brightest still had to be fairly dark, with this extended tracking shot being a perfect example of this. Using an ISO of 400 an aperture of f/22 was important for the scene as it requires the audience to be able to see, and therefore pay attention to, many little details that help to set up the scare. For example this ISO paired with the camera mounted light meant that our audience could notice the closed door at the start of the tracking shot easily and in detail due to the aperture, meaning later seeing it open would be more scary as they knew for a fact it was once closed. For the climax of the scene, it tries to bait audiences into thinking the scare was going to be behind the fridge. This is so when it closes they need to be able to see deep into the dark room so they know it was a fake out and lower their guard before I shock them with the real thing. The low aperture here means that they can see that there's nothing hiding in the background, making them feel much more comfortable so the scare catches them more off guard. The ISO also couldn't be any higher however as not breaking the immersion is just as important for the scene. If the audience were too distracted by the fact that the scene is much brighter than in the previous shots even though my story is taking place in the middle of the night they would be taken out of the moment, causing them to not take the scene seriously and ruin its intended purpose entirely. 

Rush 3:

At the beginning of the final scene the camera tracks the protagonist as she runs upstairs and bursts into the parent's bedroom and reacts to something horrifying. The camera movement tracking the character and it keeping its distance for the duration of the scene creates meaning by implying that something is watching our character, creating tension for the audience as our character is completely unaware of the lurking danger. The increasing distance of the audience from Quinn also connotes how this is the most alone she's ever felt, which contrasts the tight claustrophobic tension when she was previously talking to her mother on the phone, as she realises her mother is dead in this scene and no help can be found. She has been alone the whole time. The camera being positioned in a way that the audience cannot see what our protagonist has broken down witnessing heightens the tension as we wait for the reveal. When Quinn (our protagonist) enters the bedroom she is met with a hot orange light on her face as she witnesses the off-screen horror. The orange light connotes the tension and danger our character has found themselves in as she has discovered the body of her mother. The light implying that she was never safe in the first place. However this rush is much darker than intended, making the foreground too difficult to see. In post production I will increase the brightness slightly so that more of the landing and door frame can be seen to increase visuals. 

For achieving this shot it was important that the camera settings were regulated in order to give the shot its intended meaning. 

- I used a very low ISO of 100. This was because the shot was taking place in an area of the house where no natural light would be able to reach the area and justify why the scene would be bright. To ensure that the scene wouldn't be too dark in my production plan I was initially going to have the in-universe landing light be on before its switched off slightly out of sight by an unknown force, that way I could not only create tension but also come up with a way for the scene to be lit. Using a higher ISO if this had worked out would've made the light way too bright and strained viewers eyes. This however didn't work as I wasn't able to find a correct enough angle that I could still achieve the shot I specifically wanted whilst still having the light switch off screen for it to be turned off. This meant I had to film it in the dark with no planned light source for the foreground making the rush much darker than its intended purpose. Next time I would instead film it in a higher ISO of around 400 similarly to my previous scenes. 

- I used an aperture of f/11. Although at the end of the scene my character is stood in the far background and would've benefitted from a low aperture so that they are fully in focus, I instead went for a slightly different approach. I used a higher aperture than the lowest as I wanted to make my protagonist blurred and seem out of reach from the audience. This is as the moment signifies a turning point where there's no going back for our character and I wanted to make the audience feel as helpless as possible when watching them struggle. The fact they are blurred slightly means that they are no longer the audiences 'main character' that is protected by the plot of Quinn needing to survive so we, the audience, can experience the story. They are now becoming out of focus for us as we lose grasp of Quinn and can no longer protect her from the horror with our presence. She's too far gone metaphorically and physically. 

Rush 4

This scene is also an effective use of both camerawork and lighting to allow me to conform to conventions of a film. The lighting is a key part of this scene as I need to be able to light both the foreground and background so that the audience can divide their attention and so that the scene displays accurately what I'm trying to show. I used a camera mounted light to highlight my actor and wardrobe, so that it's visible on camera. The second piece of lighting I used was out of shot in the hallway. I used a soft box to make the door visible to the viewers as that's where I wanted them to focus their attention. This allowed me to position the camera in-between the actor and wardrobe so that both the actor and background can be seen to create the tense scene. This secondary light being orange allowed me to create more meaning in the shot additionally, as it implies something sinister is lurking just out of sight. 

For achieving this shot it was important that the camera settings were regulated in order to give the shot its intended meaning. 

- I used an ISO of 400. Despite using multiple sources of light in the scene (created by camera mounted light and a spotlight in the back) to create a vibrant shot, I still needed the it to be dark enough that the foreground still feels as if its in the same scene as before the shot with a layer of darkness still present and noticeable. This is important for the same suspension of disbelief I noted in my ISO explanations of previous shots. The darkness created by the ISO also helps the scene feel more cinematic as it means that the ajar door in the background is still very dark and mysterious despite the spotlight placed on it. This creates imagery of the darkness looking like it's creeping out of the door, as if the omnipresent antagonist is still watching us from afar like in the precious scene. 

- I used a standard Aperture of f/16. Even though the scene had both a foreground and a background, the shot still didn't have as much depth as most others later. This meant that a not necessarily low aperture was needed for the scene to work and for the audience to see the door. I didn't use a higher aperture because I wasn't trying to hide the door from the audience. Blurring it here, although would make it feel more natural, would be counter intuitive and work against the lighting equipment I used, especially since the spot light is supposed to keep the audiences attention on the door. The purpose of the scene wasn't that it is scary because the audience don't expect it, but instead that its scary because we are aware our character is completely oblivious to a potential threat that could be nearby. This makes the audience more focused in the scene as they feel a sense of duty to protect our character and look out for her. This makes us more attached to her so that actual scares later have a lot more emotional weight. 

Rush 5

These two rushes are very effective at allowing my film to conform to the typical camera work used in film, whilst also implying meaning in foreshadowing the ending of the film. In this dialogue scene Quinn is talking to her mother on the phone, which is later revealed to be the entity taunting her the entire time. I used a shot-reverse-shot structure during dialogue, switching between Quinn on the phone and the dark space beyond her doorway where we previously saw the entity. This foreshadows the plot twist of the film that happens during the final scene. The foreshadowing allows my movie to have a much more structured layout overall, whilst making the film more interesting to watch and engaging for the viewer. 

For achieving this shot it was important that the camera settings were regulated in order to give the shot its intended meaning. 

- I used an ISO of 100 and an aperture of f/1.8. When creating the small tracking shot into the darkness I had to ensure that I was using an extremely low ISO and high aperture for the shot reverse shot idea to work. As I was switching to the shot of the void I needed to make sure the audience couldn't see into it at all as it would ruin the point of shot, which is creating tension by the audience not knowing what's in the void which then turns into an enigma as we wonder if the reason we are looking into the darkness so often is if there's actually something looking back. If the audience could see that there wasn't anything there, the shot wouldn't achieve its intended purpose at all. The negative side effect of these settings however is that the door frame isnt visible either, causing the audience to question what they are even looking at. Next time I will instead fix this by using lighting equipment such as soft boxes to light the small areas around the doorway so that the shot looks more professional and immersive. 

LO3: Features and settings of camera equipment

 

Specific Lighting settings

My ISO varies throughout the cinematography of my product as it takes place in multiple different rooms around the house: some have no natural lighting, whilst others have slight natural light from windows. 

In scene 1 (the bedroom scene) I am using an aperture of f11-f22. This allows me to create a wide depth of field which is important for the scene as the audience need to be able to see far into the room and the dark landing. This allows me to fulfil the purpose of the cinematography in creating my horror as the audience waits for the character to see what the audience can. This creates suspense as the audience hope that it doesn't jump out at the camera/attack the protagonist before our character can figure out the threat is there. In this part of the scene the ISO is at 800 as I want the space outside of the door frame to be completely dark. I also want to eccentricate the shadows in the room.  

This aperture will stay consistent as it's also needed later in the scene. This is because the audience need to see further into the dark as the protagonist gets closer to the door frame. This is effective in putting the audience in the characters shoes as we can see exactly what she can: this helps to create more tension and makes us empathise with the protagonist.