Experimental Project Evaluation

Our experimental film is based around the idea of trying to get across a feeling of a lack of sense of place within the viewers. We decided that one of the most interesting ways we could come up with to interpret the brief was to flip it on its head completely to show the opposite of a sense of place.

Our influences came from a variety of short experimental films we watched in our seminars, the ones that seemed to stand out to me and Elliot and get us discussing how we could emulate them are mainly the ones that had interesting visuals. Inbindable Volume for example had a very interesting use of two or three split screens that showed different parts of the same area, and it worked magnificently. Also the opening of Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow had a very similar feeling to what we were going for, so from that we took the idea of keeping it smooth and unrushed, letting the shots linger and giving people time to consider why we used each one of them.

I think the video is made for more mature audiences, as I see it as a film that would if anything be shown in galleries, and generally speaking it is an older demographic that goes to art galleries to analyse work. I think this for a couple of reasons, firstly since it’s an experimental film it requires analysis and thought, there is no obvious answers for why the film is the way it is and we don’t overtly tell the audience the concept we’re trying to get across, they would have to watch it and decipher their interpretation. This is something that I think more mature viewers would be much more willing to do, so throughout production I always imagined it to appeal to an audience of 20+ maybe with an understanding or a background in art/experimental film so they know the kind of abstract style and would understand why we have done certain things here.

I think the piece has worked as well as it could at getting across our difficult concept, there is a strong feeling of unease within the film, the images are sharp and get across the sense of being in a location but not knowing where you are exactly giving off a lack of sense of place as is our intention.

I think the cinematography is very strong in the film; some of the shots are really well framed and really warrant the eye to look around and explore the frame. This is helped by our theme of using the natural frames of the windows, something else I feel works very well and sort of gives a running motif to link the shots together.

The editing of it has also been praised and is a further aspect I think works very well, it syncs up to the audio very smoothly and they end up complimenting each other very well. The only criticism I have is that I think the audio works as a piece on its own, but I don’t think the visuals the way they’re edited in the film would work as well without the soundtrack, they definitely wouldn’t get the concept across alone, in my opinion.

One of the problems with the piece is the tilting and panning not being as smooth as they could have been, we tilted and moved everything with our hands and since it was a cold day some of the shots don’t move as smoothly as I would have hoped. This is something that if we were to do it again I would definitely try to change, probably by using an elastic band to move the tripod arm, which would result in a much smoother movement.

Also some of the things we did deliberately came across to people as mistakes when we showed it to them, the prime example is at the end where we put the sound up as high as it could go so it would start cutting out because the speakers can’t handle maintaining that amount of sound. We did this to further get across an unpleasant loud finale to the film but a few of the people we showed it to thought we had just gone wrong on our sound levels, not a feeling we wanted to give off. Nevertheless we kept it the way it was because it fitted our idea and how our project has developed.

The idea of lacking a sense of place and getting that across through our piece was Elliot’s idea, then once we established that we both got brain storming as the best way to do that, whether it be showing people in communities or places that were old etc. After a meeting with Lee we both mutually decided that the best way to show it was to show locations that lost their sense of place.

One of the main things we did not do enough of in my opinion was definitive planning, we planned a bit but it was more just where we would shoot, then we got to the location and explored until we found something that looked good. I think we should have definitely storyboarded some shots first; maybe a set amount of close ups and zooms etc so we could have had a certain amount of each and maybe made the amounts of each shot type even, to take a kind of formalist approach.

I came up with the idea for the visuals, Elliot came up with an idea too but his was too complex and would have required more time than we had, so instead we ran with mine because I think it got across the idea quickest and easiest, it also meant we didn’t have to deal with getting an actor as I think we both assumed we probably would have to at the start of the production process.

A problem arose when I had get the footage off the camera as I didn’t know how to convert the file types from the camera into a type compatible with Final Cut Pro, but once I got the help of someone else and fixed that I did the rough cut of the clips, this was mainly setting up some of the timings so that the transitions synced with the soundtrack. Elliot then changed the clips and did the fine cut, before I tweaked his version slightly and we both decided that to be our final cut.

The main problems we faced were in post-production with file exporting, this was mainly down to a lack of experience from both of us so we had to spend some time sorting that out, this is something we didn’t think would take up anywhere near as much time as it did and turned into quite a problem.

The main thing I learnt on the technical side of the project is mainly new aspects about the hardware used in the making of the film. Since previously I had only had minimal experience using cameras and sound recording equipment this first on location experience was invaluable to me. The camera was mainly what I enhanced my skills with considerably, when actually on location I understood the practical applications of white balance and gain control much more. Also as I did most of the recordings for the piece I feel like I improved greatly at using the Zoom and Maratnz recorders throughout the production.

In Pro Tools specifically I feel much more confident about sound manipulation and using effects such as EQ or reverb to enhance the feel of the piece. Since the piece is experimental and you can get away with things you could not in an average traditional film, as a result I could play with sound aspects that otherwise I wouldn’t have touched a lot more such as reversing and changing the speed of things, this made me much more aware of all the different effects you can create and has enhanced my Pro Tools confidence greatly.

The project has also helped me realise my lack of knowledge of file types and codecs and technical aspects of that matter, I had to get the help of someone else to export the footage from the camera into Final Cut Pro as I had no idea how to do it. Now I am more proficient at it, but this project highlighted it is still a big hole in my knowledge that I need to change.

I think from a creative stand point it has helped me realise how you can get across such a strong feeling with minimal aspects to the piece, it has solidified the idea of ‘less is more’. Previous to this project I predominantly watched narrative driven films, so assumed to rely on things such as dialogue to guide an audience, but through the course of this project it became more obvious to me that that is far from necessary to get across a response in an audience. Instead this project has emphasised the importance of when to cut or how long to hold a specific shot for to get the best effect.

Also since we focussed a lot on the smaller less obvious aspects of the warehouse I think the project has also made me scrutinise locations more searching for things that look good that other people would often overlook. This has also made me learn how important it is to do a recce of a location like we did on this project, since with the previous knowledge of the area we were able to get much more abstract and much better shots, something I never really considered previously.

I think me and Elliot both worked very well as a team we both had a mutual understanding of where we wanted the piece to go and listened to each other’s thoughts and opinions, furthermore we were both willing to give up on our own ideas if the other person had one that worked better.

The main way we could have improved in my opinion would have been to plan together more, for a lot of moments we both went off alone to come up with multiple ideas as to how we could do the piece then came back and discussed our ideas with one another. Perhaps if we both sat down and bounced ideas off each other straight away we would have had more success and come up with an idea much quicker.

Also when editing the sound on the Macs there was maybe not as much shared thought on how to edit the piece as their should have been. Since only the person with headphones can hear what they’re doing to the piece one person would have sit by and wait to see what they’ve done to it, we still swapped often and we did an equal amount, but nonetheless we could have improved communication in my opinion.

Another slight weakness as a team would probably be the communication we had when we weren’t together, since when we left the edit suite we wouldn’t discuss the project much until we went back there. This meant when we went up to do more to the project again we would have to recap and summarise all the things we thought needed changing when we could have just been more involved with the project constantly rather than when we were just at the edit suite or shooting.

But overall the contribution to the project was 50/50 since we both pretty much worked on every part together and I don’t one aspect could be put down as being purely one persons input, we were equally involved.