Evaluation - Trespass

For this project, we were given the task to make a short film, from a select portion of sonnets and poems. We were also given the challenge to try not to use the poem for exposition i.e. to tell the story of the poem. This was a challenge because when I was coming up with ideas for the short film I came up with the exact same idea as what the poem was about. However, I overcame this hurdle quite quickly and came up with an amazing idea, which is very personal to my own story with my anxiety and intrusive thoughts.

When it came to casting, there was a few problems with casting the main character Lucy as an adult and casting Hope, Lucy's positive voice, with some of the cast pulling out to do paid jobs and some not showing any interest at all with being a part of this project. Luckily, I made sure to have two backup actresses that I knew were available to play Lucy. However, when it came to casting Hope, no one had applied to be her, so I decided to play the voice of Hope to save me the added stress of asking around and getting rejected. When it came to the day before my filming day, my original actress for teen Lucy had just recently gotten the booster vaccine for COVID-19 so she said she was feeling too ill to be on the shoot the next day. This definitely was an added stress for me, but I adapted to the change and asked around to see if anyone would be available last minute to act in my short film, and luckily in about half an hour, I had another person to play teen Lucy.

When it came to the actual filming day, there was a couple problems that occurred. One of them being that at some points it started raining outside when filming the majority of the scenes, but the rain was not constant, this meant that some shots had rain, and some didn't. Another problem was that the actress that was playing Lisa, Lucy's therapist in the flashback, was only available after three o'clock, this meant that for the therapist scene it was a lot darker than initially planned. However, I dealt with these with the upmost professionalism, making sure that the camera was covered from the rain with an umbrella to prevent any damages happening to the camera, and I had to deal with the change of the time for the therapist's scene as I knew that filming the therapist scene also at noon was going to be tricky as I had to consider the cast's schedules and availability. 

When it came to editing the final product, I was really happy with the quality of acting that my main actress portrayed when being adult Lucy as it made the whole story a lot more believable. I was also happy with the idea of the overlay of the fire after Jax, Lucy's negative voice, shouted in Lucy's head "and make your life a living hell" as I thought it added the connotation that Jax was associated with a demon, fire connoting hell and the underworld. I also liked the idea that I had with one of my teammates who suggested to do high angles and have adult Lucy look straight down to the floor to connote hell when Lucy was listening or addressing Jax and the low angle shots with Lucy looking up when she was listening or addressing Hope as the looking up connoted that the good voice came from her head but was from heaven. I also enjoyed colour grading the clips red and dark contrasts when Jax's voiceovers were happening and colour grading the clips yellow and warm contrasts when Hope's voiceovers were happening.

On the contrary, when recording the voiceovers for Jax and Hope, there was a noticeable difference between the two voices, that was because the Jax's lines were recorded at my home, in my cabin, with the actor speaking into a professional microphone and Hope's lines were recorded in a professional sound recording booth that is provided at the studios. Before this happened, I had planned for the actor to do the voiceovers at the studios with myself as Hope that way the sound matches. However, he was busy on the day that I booked the sound studio, so I decided to just use the sound studio to record Hope's lines and level the two voiceovers, sound wise, in post-production. In addition to this, I enjoyed playing around with the voiceovers, using the audio effect 'Analog Delay' to make Jax's and Hope's voice sound more mysterious and sound like voices in someone's head. I also liked the idea I had with having red and white lights flash on the screen to signify that Jax and Hope are fighting, I made the last white flash deliberately longer to show that Hope was triumphant in defeating Jax.

The things that I have learnt from this project was that you have to plan your time solely on the cast and crew and to be more patient with them and open-minded when suggestions for shots are suggested by cast and crew. I also learnt that not everything has to be perfect, and nothing always goes according to plan when filming is taking place, as long as you adapt to the change of plan and show your passion for the film and filmmaking in general then that is all that matters. 

If I had more time to develop this project, I would carry out more research on this project and look further into mental health in general, I would try and send the casting call on mandy.com a bit earlier than I did to allow for time for people to respond to the post. I would also consider adding an optional ending that we decided to film on the filming day including teen and adult Lucy together, if we didn't have one of the requirements be that the film has to be a maximum of five minutes long including titles and credits. If I didn't have this restriction of this timeframe, I would have added the additional optional ending that me and my crew filmed. Overall, I am very happy with how well this unit has gone and I am very proud of how my final edit came out and can't wait to see how my imagination flows into my future projects on this course.

Trespass

Pre-Production Paperwork - Production Notes - Trespass

Pre-Production Paperwork or Production Notes - Trespass

The above link is my evidence of my planning and preparation for this project. This includes: consent forms for the actors shown in the video and the actors that was voiceovers (not including myself), floor plans or shot ideas for the day of the shoot (instead of a storyboard), my idea development with copies from my post on mandy.com for casting (I did not include teen Lucy, Lisa (Lucy's old therapist), Jax (Lucy's negative voice) and Hope (Lucy's positive voice) as hardly any people wanted to be those characters and I had already casted teen Lucy, Lisa, Hope and Jax), the location permission form to film at the location, the mood board (for adult and teen Lucy and Lisa), the risk assessment signed by one of our course lecturers, the first and second draft of the script, the shot list, that was used on filming day and the treatment for the project.

I haven't included the location pictures because I did not have the time to take pictures of the location before the owner went on holiday, but I did have permission to film at the location, as evidenced by the location permission form. 

When casting for this film, I did have some initial issues. For example, the actress, that I originally had planned to be Lucy as an adult, emailed me on mandy.com to tell me that a paid job came up and she had decided to take that opportunity, instead of being in the short film, but she did send her deepest apologies. So, I went with my first backup actress that also applied for the role of adult Lucy, but she didn't email me back about the opportunity, so I decided to go with my second and final backup actress and luckily, she was available. 

I also had problems casting Hope, Lucy's positive voice, because at the time of casting I wasn't sure if I wanted Lucy's voices to be physical people or voiceovers, but I then decided that it would be easier and simpler for me to have Lucy's voices be voiceovers. With no one who applied to be the voice of Hope, I decided to have myself play the voice of Hope and I made sure to agree this with my unit leaders prior to filming. Also, the feedback from my tutors I took onboard was that the ending should be more positive, and I fully agreed and went onboard with this feedback.

Idea Development - Fiction Adaptation

When it came to choosing poems to inspire some ideas for a short film, I liked the look of one poem and two sonnets. These were: Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet 1 by Gwendolyn Bennett, and Trespass by John Clare. The ideas I had for these are in a mind map below.

Mind Map - Development of my Ideas 

I decided to go with the Trespass poem by John Clare as I really liked the personal spin, I took on this poem as the idea is based on my personal experiences with my intrusive thoughts and my experiences with my anxiety going to a place that I am not familiar with. I wanted to include the voices in the Lucy's head because in the poem itself it reads: "And always feared the owner coming by" (Clare, 1841). So, instead of taking it in a literal sense and having Lucy getting shouted at by the owner of the mansion, I thought about the owner being the negative voice taking over Lucy's head.

When writing my first draft for my script for this project, I am planning to have Lucy's voices to be physical people that only the audience could see to make the story more mysterious and dramatic. I also planned for the ending to be more sad, as the 'Trespass' poem is very sad, and have Lucy break down at the end saying: "Why do I have to be different? I just want to be normal". Normally, with my writing, I like to leave the audience on a cliffhanger to make them ponder what happens next. 

However, when writing my second draft, after I casted all the actors for the characters, I decided to save myself the stress with the actors having to drive to the location and for my mental health, I came to a consensus that I want the voices to be voiceovers and that I would record them on a separate day to the filming, as I am planning it to be a very long filming day and the actors playing the voices both agreed and were completely fine with this. 

Also, when coming up with an ending to Trespass, I also decided to make it a bit more of a happier ending, with Hope, Lucy's positive voice, triumphing over Jax, Lucy's negative voice, and entering Lucy's head saying that it's all going to be ok and that she is going to get professional help as she gets up and walks out of the shot of the camera. My two drafts of my script are shown in a link below: 

Scripts - Trespass

I decided this because I wanted the main character to follow the same pathway that I am going through personally to make it more unique to my story of my life. This was also one of the suggested things that I should do by my unit leader. Also, the majority of the poems and sonnets that we had to choose from all had sad endings so I wanted to show a bit of diversity to show some difference to my other peers short films. When it came to storyboarding, I decided to not do a storyboard, but I did a few floor plans to help with staging when it comes to the actual filming day. These are shown in a link below:

Floor Plans - Trespass

These three particular shots were at the start, the first shot of the short film, the shot of teen Lucy panicking with the negative voice in her head and the shot of her running out of the therapist's office. I thought it was important to map out the most important scenes so I at least have a visual plan for the day of filming, along with the shot list which I am planning on making.

In terms of feedback when it came to my feedback for the pre-production paperwork that I produced and the pitch I did to my unit leader, it was fairly positive feedback with the one critique being that I change the ending from being depressing and sad to a more positive ending. I agree with this because as I have stated above, it makes the short film more personal to my story of my life and makes it different to my classmates' short films.

Project Research - Trespass

Please see above the mood board I did for the main character Lucy, as a teen and as an adult, and for Lisa, Lucy's old therapist. For the main character Lucy, I wanted to give off a depressed gothic look, with dark colours to give off a character that wants to blend in to the background, metaphorically. With Lisa, I wanted to give off that professional look that she means business and I wanted the therapist to look approachable and kind and give off that vibe.

Floor Plans - Trespass

Also see above the floor plans that I made for three particular shots for the filming day to help with staging the cast. I did not do any further research on any relevant topics to the short film, but I will make sure to do so in any future projects on this course.

'Trespass' by John Clare - Contextual Research

'Trespass' is a poem by John Clare, the poem reads:

"I dreaded walking where there was no path

And pressed with cautious tread the meadow swath

And always turned to look with wary eye

And always feared the owner coming by;

Yet everything about where I had gone

Appeared so beautiful I ventured on

And when I gained the road where all are free

I fancied every stranger frowned at me

And every kinder look appeared to say

"You've been on trespass in your walk today."

I've often thought, the day appeared so fine,

How beautiful if such a place were mine;

But, having naught, I never feel alone

And cannot use another's as my own."

John Clare, according to the John Clare Society website states that he: "was born in 1793. With his reputation having grown over the whole of the 20th Century, he is now regarded as one of the most important poets of the natural world." (The John Clare Society, 2017). Also, according to this website, he has written a lot of literature about love, corruption and politics, environmental and social change, poverty, and also folk life. 

My take on the poem is about the poet who used to dread working on a place without a path. It is also about the beauty of the meadow and that he would have a fine day everyday for as long as he lived if he ever had such a beautiful place like the said meadow in the poem. I liked this poem because it gave me a variety of ideas that I could play around with for my version of this poem. I also liked this poem because I liked how it portrayed the emotion of anxiety that the poet was feeling in this poem when confronting the owner. 

According to Dan Rose, the content creator at SkillPath.com, states that: "A confrontation is usually a conversation with heightened emotions. Sometimes it is a result of unresolved conflict." (Rose, 2021). With this poem it is the poet trespassing on unwelcome territory and the owner does not want them there, meaning that the conflict between the poet and the owner is unresolved. The poet showing signs of wariness but was distracted by the sheer beauty of the meadow that he just wanted to be that lucky person that lived by this meadow.

Charley Reid, an author of lovepanky.com, says one of the reasons why people try to avoid conflict is that they might be afraid that they will not be liked. She mentions that: "You may not be afraid of confronting someone, per se, but you may be scared that after you confront someone, they’ll like you a whole lot less." (Reid, n.d). This can be proved by the eighth line of the poem: "I fancied every stranger frowned at me". This means that the poet envisioned that everyone would frown at him, meaning that they would dislike him.

Bibliography:

John Clare Society website (2017). About John Clare. [online] Available at: https://johnclaresociety.wordpress.com/about-john-clare/ [Accessed 28 November 2021].

Reid, C., 2021. 6 Reasons People Have a Fear of Confrontation. [online] lovepanky.com. Available at: https://www.lovepanky.com/my-life/relationships/reasons-people-have-a-fear-of-confrontation [Accessed 28 November 2021].

Rose, D., 2021. This is How Timid People Get Over Their Fear of Confrontation (and Win!). [online] Skillpath.com. Available at: https://skillpath.com/blog/timid-people-fear-confrontation [Accessed 28 November 2021].

Montage Camera and Editing Workshop - 18/11/21 to 19/11/21

In this workshop we were told to try to convey 3 out of a chosen 6 emotions through camera angles and different colours using gels on the lights to connote the emotions. We decided to choose anxious, rage and hopefulness. 

For the anxious emotion we had our actress sitting on the floor with her knees up to her chest, as small as she could and looking around anxiously. In terms of colour, we decided to use a mix of red and purple, the purple colour representing anxiety and the red colour connoting danger. We also decided to try pulsing the light, with the red gel on, slow then fast to convey the characters heartbeat with their anxiety. In addition to camera angles, we wanted to do slow movements and the camera being at a high angle to channel the character feeling tense and anxious and the camera looking down on them to convey her feeling small in size.

For the rage emotion we decided to have our actor sitting in between piles of chairs, making it look like he got angry and threw them, looking away then looking at the camera with a psychotic look in his eyes, the camera being at eye level to make the audience feel scared. We also attempted to do very fast shots as this can make the audience feel a bit uneasy and a bit uncomfortable. With colours, we used the red gel, the same one that we used when doing the anxiety emotion, to represent the emotion of rage as it is a very harsh colour. Kendra Cherry, an author of verywellmind.com states that: "Across cultures, people intuitively associate red with the concept of anger. This relationship makes sense given that many people get red in the face from increased blood flow when they're angry." (Cherry, 2020)

With the hopefulness emotion, we wanted our actor to be spinning on a chair in a circle smiling, much like those shots that best friends use in short films, where they are holding each other's hands and spinning around and the camera focusing on their facial expressions. With colours we went for yellows and greens to give that sense of happiness and life. With the motions, we decided to do fast spinning to give that feeling of joy.

In the editing workshop, we edited our footage that we filmed when we were playing around with the cameras previously in the workshop the previous day. Our team wanted to capture the emotions of the different characters portrayed in this montage. So, we used the montage type of character development, which entails communicating the growth. When it came to sound, I wanted the same music for the anxiety and rage emotion because I wanted to show a character arc between the two characters, even though they are both of different genders, to show the similarity between the emotion anxiety and the emotion rage. The lighting that we used really helped convey the different emotions. 

However, our original actor that was portraying the emotion rage was not feeling well that day when we had the camera and lighting so we had one of our teammates step in for him to test out the shots with the gels on the lights, and we decided as a group that we would colour grade the red for the emotion of rage in editing to prevent any further problems with our teammates health. I also decided when editing to make the movements slower than originally planned because I thought it added a bit of uncomfortableness and made the viewers very uneasy. I also wanted the sound to fade into more cheery and upbeat music, for the emotion hopefulness, to show the clear difference between the previous two emotions, anxiety, and rage, as hopefulness is the polar opposite emotion of anxiety and rage.

Bibliography:

Cherry, K., 2021. How Does the Color Red Impact Your Mood and Behaviour?. [online] Verywell Mind. Available at: https://www.verywellmind.com/the-color-psychology-of-red-2795821#aggression [Accessed 18 November 2021].

Haiku Workshop - 16/11/21

In this workshop we were introduced to a new type of poetry called Haikus. We were given the choice of three haikus to make an edit on using stock footage and sound clips from online. I decided to choose a haiku that was written by Matsuo Bashō, which said the following:

"No one travels

Along this way but I,

This autumn evening."

I chose to do this haiku amongst the other two because I really liked the idea of making something based on what I thought about autumn, which is my favourite season, which the haiku itself mentions. When making this edit, I was thinking about all the things I associate and do in the autumn. For example, going on nature walks with my family, roasting marshmallows on an open fire, conkers and the list goes on. I wanted to try to include as much as I could in this edit, however, because of our timeframe of 2 hours, I didn't get everything I wanted in my edit.

But I was really proud of the music that I sourced from YouTube, that was copyright free, as it made the whole minute of the edit seem very nostalgic. I also wanted to add the colour orange in as much as I could because I associate the colour orange with autumn as it reminds me of the colours of the autumn trees, much like what I included in my final edit. If I had more time to edit this haiku, I would have found some clips of roasting marshmallows on an open fire and conkers falling from the trees to give more of an autumn vibe. 

In comparison to my classmates's Haiku edits, there was a lot of different interpretations for the selection of Haiku's we were given. However, some of my classmates that did the same Haiku as myself took it in a dark and mysterious way which I really liked because it showed how everyone has different feelings of walking alone in the woods and the difference in everyone's imagination when it comes to creating short edits in a very short timeframe of two hours.