Advanced Production Exercises – Purpose and limitations of scope
For the VFX and Post Production module I intend to create a short film called “Isolation”. This short will merge real world footage, digital display overlays, particle effects such as smoke and fire, green screen compositing and more.
The primary focus of this piece is to try and integrate digital elements into live action such as the lighting of a cigarette and fireworks exploding in the night. As this piece is a film short there are several considerations that need to be taken in the pre-production phase.
This piece is heavily influenced by Inside Number 9, an anthology television show created by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. Each episode focuses on a different number 9 (Typically a location) and experiments with singular one-off narrative per episode. Each episode has a twist that unfolds towards the end and inspired my idea for this short. Typically, the show uses a single location for each episode and serves as a “bottle” for the narrative.
Season 2 Episode 2 “The 12 days of Christine” shows a vignette of 12 days in the life of a woman named Christine jumping one year and a month between each segment as the audience grows sympathetic towards her character. My short will try and emulate this style of storytelling without the runtime of a 30-minute episode.
1: Locations
I currently do not have the means to transport filming equipment to multiple locations. It makes the most sense to limit the spaces the short will be shot in where I can control as many variables as possible. Due to the current time of the year (December / January), the amount of natural daylight is limited and will make it more difficult to get good quality footage outside. Also, the weather is rather unpredictable and forces more interior shots to be used. This can help to emphasise the sense of isolation this piece is aiming to convey. However, attempts will be made for the later stages of the short to leave the house where it is filmed to get some variance in shots and locations. This is potentially not viable in January; it will become apparent as I start to shoot the short.
Solution:
Shoot most of the footage in the house and use the different rooms to serve as a limited “bottle” space.
2: Equipment
Fortunately I have a green screen that I can experiment with along with decent quality lighting allowing for more options when creating the short. For this piece I will be filming it on the Google Pixel 6 which has a high quality camera (Shooting at 4k 30fps down sampled to 1080p 30fps for export) but lacks the ability to record video natively at 24fps to emulate a motion picture aesthetic. “The 24 frame rate was used in bigger budget cinema films, the more we would associate that frame rate with being more ‘cinematic’. This frame rate is what most feature films are made at and it is fairly standard that you would expect this frame rate for commercial ad spots or short films. It is most widely used because of the familiarity and the way our eyes render the video” (Gamut, 2021).
I will edit and render the short on my home computer which will allow me to spend more time focusing on the shots and able to quickly add and remove footage to ensure the pacing isn’t stagnant.
Solution:
Use what I have to try and maximise what I have available to me, rather than focus on what I do not.
3: Technical ability:
This module is presenting new challenges as I have tried to experiment with various visual effects using the Adobe After Effects suite. This software is more challenging to use than Premiere Pro and it has a steeper learning curve.
Solution:
Create several subtle effects rather than try and create one grand effect that may be out of my scope of abilities.
4: Lack of actors
I have had to write around the fact that I won’t have help from many people due to the time of the year. People who have helped me with short projects in the past are now deep in the midst of exam season. I will have to minimise the amount of time I can ask of people to help me with this project.
Solution:
Make the piece about an isolated individual.
