I have made an opening scene to the film I want to make which will be a drama called Out of Time. It is about a boy called Charlie from 1985 who finds himself in 2020, there he meets another 18 year old boy called Benji, and it’s up to the two of them to try and get Charlie home whilst also building a friendship along the way where they will help each other overcome nay issues they are having without knowing it. Like I mentioned the film is a drama with the slight hint of an adventure film. I wanted the main genre to be a drama because I feel I can easily develop a good idea for it whilst not going too far off track and end up making a film that utilises a different drama altogether which would ultimately make me fail the unit.
The narrative and character tropes that you expect from a drama which could be referred to as a melodrama is suspense, larger than life plots which I think I stuck to very well seeing as my drama is about a boy who time travels and finds himself in a different time and place. I researched melodramas before which is a subcategory of a drama and the character tropes are such as heroes, heroines, villains, mentors, girls who the hero gets etc. but my film features two hero’s but I do have ideas for my full film which will see more characters such as girls who the hero gets, and maybe a villain. I definitely think I stuck to this very well and made sure that the character and narrative tropes I used were as close to a drama as possible. If I was to do anything different next time I’d have a more range of characters with different character tropes for example a villain or a girl or maybe a mentor, but due to how short the scene was going to be and the lack of available actors and time we had to make the films I am quite proud of how well I managed to stick to the right tropes and get them to work very well, and that can be seen quite well in the script.
When it comes to the camerawork I paid close attention to how traditional dramas utilize different shots and angles and i wanted to take as much advantage of that as possible. For example some shots have the camera flicking back and forth between different angles depending on who is talking or whatever the director wants the viewer’s eye to focus on that’s seen on screen.
So just by taking a look above at the pictures i attached i think i replicated this pretty well and managed to stick on track and frame it nicely as well as directing each shot as best i can to help keep it technically good. I think i managed to frame everything pretty well and keep everything in frame that i wanted to. I aimed to try to get the first shot pictured above to be symmetrical and apart from the tree in the background that throws it off a little bit i think i managed to replicate a symmetrical shot as well.
In terms of shots i don’t think went very well, the shot above is a little out of focus or even cloudy. This is due to the rain that had begun to come down when we started filming Out of Time. We did regularly clean all the water off the lens but after seeing the shot after shooting we did record more takes but it was only in the editing process i came to the conclusion they were not the best and we had to make do with this shot. If i could have done it different i’d taken many more shots until we had the right one but due to the limited time and actor availability i had to make do with the shots we had. I am thankful though only this shot was affected by the weather conditions so it has not had a massive impact on my film. In terms of sticking to the right production mode with how we filmed i believe we did. Apart from the very expensive flashy cameras used in films and tv shows with my production mode, we used a merrantz kit with a boom pole for the sound and a camera that follows the actors a bit like in this filming still below from Doctor Who. Which i have followed quite closely how they film due to the show being a drama.
When it comes to reflecting on my editing, I knew I had a lot to do before I even begun. The main big task was to mask and edit the can of monster into a can of new coke from the 1980’s that features in the film. due to the limited time and facilities I couldn’t manufacture a fake can and so I had to use a can of monster and mask around every frame it features in and edit it into a can of new coke. This was a hell of a task trying to get each frame as close as possible round the can before it moved slightly / a lot the next frame. After I had done that, I had to colour each frame to the right colour of the can. I had an advantage for this though with my skills colourising old black and white tv shows like Doctor Who as a hobby so I knew how to colour the can and add the right shading but once again that was quite hard because I had to do every frame it features in and the can is in for quite a bit of time. I knew it would be hard and take a while to do but then again, I knew I could make the results look really nice while also showing off my editing and post production skills which I hope get picked up on in marking.
The above pictures show the editing done for Out of Time. That is the finished timeline of the edit. The first photo shows a full shot of the Sony Vegas workbench. The second is the most important one i attached as it shows a little bit more of the masking i had to do. Every diamond seen on the bottom is a seperate mask i made of each frame. The third shows off the colourising i had to do for the can to get it the right colour seen in photos and videos and by doing some research about the can itself. The fourth seen at the bottom is a closer look at some of the lanes for the scene and exactly how the edit looks. There are four more below that you can’t see due to how Sony Vegas works it wouldn’t let me get them all in one picture, but they are all sound. So down there is the music, or doubles of the marantz kit audio to make it sound louder.
I’d say the editing fits in line with the type of editing seen in other kinds of dramas and types of films like my film. I edited my film as fast pace and made cuts to add dramatic effects for example in the opening scene where the scene cuts between calm and fast paced it shows off the types of shots you see in traditional dramas how the pace can change very quickly and the scene can get very tense. I think this is represented very well in the editing. The titles, although being a traditional title card the transition works very well zooming straight into the name of the film and it is flying past the camera. The reason I did this was after doing some research on the type of title sequences you see in dramas in film and tv today is that it is utilised by the use of a title card and not a flashy title sequence. This is shown in TV Shows like The Mandalorian which flashes the title card of the show before cutting to a black screen which reveals the title of the episode. The same with Supernatural which simply only has a title card for each and every episode before cutting straight to the episode. Seeing as I wanted to keep my film as similar to a real-life drama as much as possible, I wanted to take advantage of this trend and not make a flashy title sequence. When it comes to transitions, I opened on a slow fade and did the same on the closing to bring the film full circle in a sense in terms of the transitions. I didn’t want anything too fancy, but I did experiment with transitions like a wipe or a circle zoom as seen in films and tv shows such as Star Wars, but I thought after experimenting with all these different transitions I didn’t think they fitted my genre and with wanting to stick to the production mode I chose I decided against it in the end. I edited in Sony Vegas Pro. 14 due to my advanced skills with it compared to Premier Pro or any other kind of editing software. I felt this would help me a lot because I can me a more defined edit and one that is a lot smoother especially when I added the music towards the end of the scene. The music adds a light comedic relief to the scene which has a little funny scene of Benji asking questions about the phone. Overall, I made about 5 different edits of Out of Time each one completely different to the last with different transitions, edits, sounds and everything different until I was truly happy with the final product. So, upon reflection I am happy with how my editing has gone but going forward have learnt some lessons on how to improve my next next project.
In comparison with a professional drama you may see on TV & Film, I would say my film is very close in terms of editing because of the timing of each shot as well as the colour correction done for the shots and the overall placement and timing of the music. I also think the shots taken e.g establishing, medium etc are the most common ones you will see in a professional drama. I think these are key factors in what makes a professional drama as good as it it and I believe I have managed to replicate this as much as possible and this can easily be seen from the editing alone. I would however in my next film like to improve on the following: Having a more dynamic range of shots for example an extreme wide shot and rule of thirds. I feel these extra shots would have helped add more variety in terms of style of shot as well as keep the viewer more interested in what is on screen.
When it comes to adding in sound, I wanted to add music that not only fitted my type of production but i wanted to add music that helped add tension, or drama or even comedy. I have two tracks in my film that i added, both of which are non-copyrighted music from the Doctor Who Big Finish Audio Dramas that i listened to and thought sounded like they fitted so I experimented with a bunch of tracks before i found the right ones and cut them to fit my shots and placed them where i wanted to. The first piece of music i have is called ‘The Clocksmith’ and the opening has a very eerie dramatic build up to a beat drop which after playing round with the placement of my clips fitted in perfectly with my second shot which sole intention is to add tension and shock to the audience. I think i managed to achieve this pretty well and i am happy with the finished scene. The second piece is a more lighthearted piece once again extracted from the audio dramas called ‘Flat Mates’ this one is much more light hearted and isn’t as dramatic and tense compared to The Clocksmith. Flat Mates is placed at the end where there is a slightly more light hearted ending where Benji questions how hard Charlie hit his head after asking questions about the phone. I felt this fitted very nice and has a very nice what i like to call a ‘bumbly’ ending where two little beats fit very well with the end title card. Once again i had to play around with the placement of my clips and experiment with cutting the music in different spots to achieve the best effects. I think i have achieved this pretty well. Although dramas are more known for being dramatic and tense, they do have their lighthearted moments which i think i was able to show off pretty well thanks to the music i used. I also recorded foley sound by using a marantz kit and a mixture of a handheld mic for the wildtrack and a boom pole for the overall recording. In editing i listened to both the marantz sound and the sound from the camera and i could easily see a much higher quality audio with the marantz kit so i went through all the sound and clips we took and paired it all together to help my editing much more. I think this seen very well in the voices of the two characters who do not sound mumbly at all so i am glad we took advantage of the marantz kit and recorded some very good quality audio.
Three things i have learnt throughout the production of Out of Time that i will take on board for future productions are…
- Always have the right props! I know this is a very small one but it has affected me in quite a big way. Because of the fact i did not have a can of Coca-Cola or a homemade can of ‘New Coke’ i would not have to go through the hard task of having to mask each frame the can of monster is in and due to that it took me much longer to finish my edit. Although i managed to easily get my film done on time, I would have preferred to use the time i spent masking and colourising the can to possibly make a better edit, or spend longer redefining it and getting a few more drafts out. So that is something i will definitely take into thought the next time i film a production.
- I’d love to have been able to film with no rain but like i have mentioned with the limited time we had to film and do the entire production, we had to make do with the situation at hand, thankfully it wasn’t too bad but next time i will definitely be making sure i can get a day where there is no rain or no weather conditions that will not only make us wet, (which won’t help for the shooting order!) but to also protect all the equipment and it will help a lot of the lens’ do not get smudged or cloudy from the rain making very ugly shots. I also would refine our acting for the next time we film. I’m not adding this as a point because it’s nothing major and we are not getting marked on acting, but as a personal goal i would love to be able to have better acting for future productions so i will definitely work on that.
- The final thing i would definitely change the next time is to probably add a bit more detail to my story boards. I believe i added enough to the finished story board but i believe i can always add more details. Same with my script as well, i feel there is always room for improvement and i will definitely spend a lot more time on these to make sure i can make them the best i possibly can.
Although these points aren’t major (apart from the first one) i do believe Out of Time came out pretty well in the end and i am very happy with the production of the film on and off screen. I can safely say this is the happiest ive ever been with a finished product ive made at college and i cannot wait to put all the skills i learned towards developing more productions in the time i have left at college and beyond.
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