Practical Skills
Production and Post-Production Process
Under this section I will present production and post production process of my project development, as well as my short film.
My Final Project.
Production Process.
Here is where I’ll state and describe my experience with the production process while providing evidence of filming, pictures from behind the scenes and screenshots from the film that was captured on the day.
In my production team, I had myself, 2 actors, and 2 others who helped with setting up and recording the sound. We all agreed on a day that was available to us all and half of us met at college while the other half met us at the first location.
Both of our chosen locations were situated in Ramsgate, Kent meaning that it was accessible to us all within the team. The first scene was in one of our team members living room, meaning we had permission as well as space to work with.
We began filming at 12:30pm due to certain delays to do with travel and began with the first scene. For the first set-up, we placed 2 cameras either side of the sofa, facing it diagonally.
After filming all the scenes, we need with them angles, we took one camera and placed it in the centre, creating the front-on angle. This would allow me to create differentiation in the edit with multiple different shots.
We filmed all we needed with the angle and then filmed all the quick shots such as close-ups of the ring and phone and wrapped up filming at around 2pm. We used a zoom microphone which was held by a member of our team to capture the dialogue and spare sound in the room.
Overall, I believe the filming went well and we were quicker than I expected. I made sure to minimise the continuity issues as much as possible in the filming process, so it is easier to work with in the edit. However, there were some things that went wrong. One piece of audio from this scene was unusable due to the microphone sensitivity picking up hand movement from the person holding the microphone yet it was fixable as I will use the camera audio and try to minimise the white noise as much as possible in the edit. Furthermore, I forgot to film an important shot of the phone before Fred enters the scene however, it’s not the end of the world as I will just edit text within the frame, informing the viewer that “Anthony” is calling him.
For the second location, we were in a forest near the house of the first location. It is a public space that isn’t used during the day, so we thought it was perfect to film in: and it was as we weren’t interrupted by the public. We were also lucky with the weather as it was sunny yet not too bright and hot, making it perfect filming conditions.
Instead of filming it with different angles, we just followed the storyboard due to only now having one camera and limited time.
We also made sure to move away from the first forest scene location for the second forest scene location to create the illusion that Fred was away from Bobby to search for evidence. We started filming at around 2:30pm and were finished around 3:45pm. We used lapel microphones to gather the dialogue from the two actors and I used a zoom microphone to capture any extra foley I wanted for the final edit such as the sounds around us (such as birds, wind and leaves) as well as footsteps.
Generally, I believe the filming went well and like before, we were quicker than I expected. However, similarly to the first location, there were some minor issues which might set me back and drop the quality of my short film. When we got to the forest, there were glass pieces on the floor. Luckily, I covered this in health and safety however, it was dangerous and could have ended badly if we were unsafe. Also, due to being outside there could be potential lighting differences creating continuity issues however that can be solved by colour correction in the editing process. Furthermore, the surrounding sound of wildlife may interfere with the audio, causing the quality to drop. We used lapel microphones to record the dialogue and they may be muffled by the clothing. If they are, I will use the camera audio and edit the white noise to remove it.
In conclusion, filming went well, and I managed to film efficiently while capturing all the shots I need but one, which can easily be replaced and fixed. I am prepared for the potential problems I have discussed, and I know how to resolve them if they come up in the editing process. Next time when it comes to film, I will make sure I am more careful with continuity as well as when it comes to filming shots, making sure not to miss any. I would also like to improve my sound recording skills for next time I create a short film to minimise the chance of the audio quality ruining the overall product.
Post-Production Process.
Here is where I’ll state and describe my experience with the post-production process while providing evidence of screenshots from the software, I was using to show the development of my final edit.
To edit my final major project, I decided to use Premiere Pro as Avid was unavailable for me to use due to technical difficulties with the footage I recorded.
I began my edit in Adobe Premiere Pro by gathering all the footage from the first scene and putting them into order on how I envisioned. I made sure to use all the angles I recorded and tried to match up each bit of footage with the next to minimise continuity issues. I then started to add the audio that was separately recorded on a zoom microphone onto the timeline to match it up with the footage.
I finished lining up the audio for the first scene making sure it all lines up with the footage to create the effect that the audio quality is from the camera. However, I did have to use one bit of camera audio for a section due to audio issues with the section of dialogue. The issues made it unusable, so I had to take the camera audio, insert it into audacity and remove the white noise to make it sound similar to the microphone recorded audio.
After that, I began adding extra small bits that would make my film even better. This includes graphics such as titles and images as well as audio effects like a text message sound, a suspense riser sound effect as well as fading out audio to make it seem that the world is collapsing in on Bobby as he reads the text message.
After I finished the first scene and was happy with it, I added another graphic at the end to lead into the second scene. I made sure it had a black background and just stating "One Week Later". This opens information to the viewer allowing them to know the time frame between the scenes.
I then began adding all of the footage from the second scene onto the timeline. I also added the the third scene on here as they are in the same location and simply lead on from one another. I include the camera audio onto the timeline as well to help me reference the microphone audio that I am going to input next.
Like with the first scene, I then began adding the audio, making sure it matches to the footage. However, due to using lapel microphones, I had a lot more issues and had to edit a lot more camera audio than the previous scene. This included the same steps however I also used Premiere Pro audio effects to help out like "DeNoise", "DeHummer" and "DeReverb".
I then added all the extra sound effects and graphics that I needed to add. This includes credits and information at the end as well as sound effects to help inform the viewer about the story like a gunshot and bushes rumbling.
I finished my edit by adding background music to help liven the atmosphere. I also finished and cleaned up any scenes that didn't flow smoothly or that were unnecessarily long. Here is the finished timeline:
Overall, I think the post-production process went very well. I overcame all my problems that I faced efficiently and vigorously. I only have a few issues that couldn’t be fixed to create a full smooth and continuous short film; however, I believe I have edited them problems to the best of my ability to try and hide the issues as much as possible. Next time I will be more careful in the production process to make my post-production stage easier and quicker.