Blog #7 - Comm Link

"Communication is key", a phrase I have heard many times in my life and communication was a subject that came up quite a bit through production.

At first it was simply a matter of all getting to class on time, but it went beyond that quickly.
The biggest issue faced was not being totally honest with each-other about our handling on a subject. For example, telling our producer "yes" in response to his questions when we didn't actually know or weren't sure we could do it.

The other was saying we would have a task done by deadlines, but not or getting things told to us. I was pretty good at writing everything down in a notebook, but the problem became I had two notebooks and not much organisation inside them.

Being able to stay in contact was another one.
Email was the largest way on a grand and personal scale. Early on our producer requested that we all respond to his emails so he wasn't left in the dark and that we all use email.

I don't think I have used my phone (as a phone) as much as in the last trimester, texting and calling a lot more than I normally do.
Facebook was good early on, but lost a lot of its use later when texting was more guaranteed a response.

Blog #6 Editing

Editing is something I thought I was good at, well I am pretty decent at the technical side of things, but one area I have found to be lacking in is the “Feel” of being an editor.
I guess I just think about things in a different ways, some people are good at breaking down a scene, getting all the metaphors, subtext, ect out of it, while I just try to enjoy things. So when it comes to editing, it seems my gut instinct isn’t quite what everybody is looking for all the time.

Pacing, feels and looking at things a grand scheme of things is something I need to take into more consideration in future, but I think management as well.

Calling the editing process of Ritual ‘non-liner’ is a understatement, instead of importing all the files into neat folders within Premier from the start, I pretty much just dragged in the files I liked from  the master folder and imported them in that way. Which works fine enough on Windows, but since in the editing bay I am forced onto the awful nature of Mac, it isn’t as simple because if you struggle with making a mouse which double-clicks, everything else is a mountain to climb for an operating system.
But I do know that in future I will manage the folders better, import all the audio at once into their own folder, all the video and other assets to be placed into their own neat section.


But I think the biggest thing I have figured out is that I should sync the boom audio to the footage straight away, while I did the typical Mark thing of cutting the vision first then adding the (good) audio later on. Which was not the best thing to do.

Blog #5 Audio

Audio makes or breaks things, it’s an annoying fact of things.

If you go onto YouTube it’s common to find that people will deal with low quality visuals, but the one thing people cannot stand, is bad audio.

Audio in many ways has a far profounder effect on the brain that images do, audio changes the tone, mood and everything about the piece.
This of course doesn’t just effect Film/TV, but every other medium from Video Games, Web and Live Production.

A great soundtrack can in specific stances can elevate a mediocre product into a great one, it can stick in such an iconic way.

Star Wars, Jaws, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park without the score of John Williams? They’d be totally different feeling films.

The thing is, I am not an audio student, in fact I know very little about the technical side of audio.
I know what I know and I like what I like, but I couldn’t play an instrument to save my life, let alone fix the background buzz of ducted heating, they’re proper wizards in their own way.

One advantage SAE does have over other places is that all the students are dumped together in the same building, this can be annoying when the audio people play sick-beats which shake the whole building or that every computer is a Mac (when if you’re doing games, Mac is like worse than a Windows 95), but one plus side of it is that you’re able to find people who know their stuff about areas you haven’t a clue.

Nobody in my ground, myself very much included is audio minded or skilled, however thanks to a crewing night we were able to get two very talented audio students who have been invaluable. Not only are they just two good people, but without their stuff we’d be boned.

See the camera’s in-built audio is just hot-trash, it doesn’t sound good and it seems in our case in a bunch of cases the audio just doesn’t exist.
The boom mic just sounds far better.

Now that we’re into post-production, things going to get a lot better. With proper mixing and balancing of the audio from the people who actually know what they’re doing (when while I am an editor, my effect on audio isn’t great).

This of course isn’t at all mentioning the score which is also being done for us, now that’s neat.


So audio folks, some people might diss at you, but really we need you a lot more than you need us.
You can make music without film, but you cannot make film without audio in most cases.

Blog #4 Of Teenagers and Goats

The script stars two girls, one 12 the other 14. The actors playing them are 13 and 15 respectively.

At first we were under the impression that we all needed Working with Children's Cards, which seemed simple enough at the time.

The process is quite simple, you fill out the details on the website, print our the form, take it to the local post office with some ID to prove it's you, they spend it off, do a police check and then bang you get it.

At least that is provided the Post Office likes your photo, they didn't like mine. See I got my photo taken at the Kodak shop because they get better photos than the Post Office does, the lady at the photo shop has a bit of plastic which shows how big the photo is meant to be in the frame for the ID, the exact same big of plastic is in the post-office. The problem was the two different ladies each had their own interpretation of the SAME government-issued guide. So that was a thing, thankfully they did finally spend it off.
Being that I have no criminal history, I got approved quite quickly and got my card.

But other members of my group not so lucky, oh don't worry none of them done anything bad. Just that they took a very long time process their cards for some reason.
Although while we were stressing out about the other crew members outside our core group (i.e. audio), Child Services told us that only one personal actually needs it to be a supervisor... and that person can be the parent who doesn't even need a card. That would have saved us a lot of trouble!
Still I have the card for 5 years, so I cannot complain, might come in handy if I ever decide to become a Lifeguard or something.


Child Services themselves are interesting, while we all know why they exist, they can get a bit strung up about certain things.
See I don't really care about someones age, I am very much of the opinion that one shouldn't be judged for their age and that many age-based laws are nanny-state nonsense (I have a lot of opinions about things), but the things they talked about just confused me.

At first we couldn't have our youngest (who let me remind you is 13, a teenager, not a young kid), couldn't be near a goat because apparently goats a wild beasts who cannot be unleashed.
Although now they say it's cool as long as she isn't holding it.

Oh and the themes might be too spooky for her or whatever. Let me tell you, I hope child services never goes to read the type of fan-fiction actual tweens/teens write themselves, they'll need to really re-think how they view that age-group.

Blog #3 - Location, Location, Location

Attempting to find locations for the film proved quite hard.

We looked at a place called Kirth Kilm, however being a public area it meant that other members of the public could be camping there or just walk though, with no way to stop them or close the area off.
Not to mention having to go through Parks Victoria would be a nightmare, submitting the files our producer never really got an answer back from them and aspects like the goat could never work.

Also there would be a lack of power, toilets and not really any real way to feed or keep warm our crew and more importantly our cast. Child services would not be pleased.

I was personally sent to inquire about Treetops scout park, however as we thought we found a location I was asked to not bother going after it, in hindsight maybe that was a mistake as we could have used the location and it might have been quite ideal with power and shelter. Not to mention perfect for me as I am very close to it, while every other location is like a three hour drive for me and I hate driving, along with the fact I am made to carry the gear because I have the SUV.

Regardless after much faffing around looking at locations, we settled on two places.
The first being the house of the family friends of our Production Manager, the house was perfect visually and some of front areas proved quite useful.

The second location is the neighbor property of our director, quite handy and there's a goat nearby.
But the drive for me personally is utter hell. The one thing I will be glad once this shoot is over is that I don't have to drive for a long time. Because SAE lacks a proper car-park of sorts, parking in Melbourne is hell and attempting to pick-up/drop-off gear becomes more of headache than it really should.

Blog #2 - Cinematography Workshop

We spent a day working in a cinematography workshop with an expert named Michael in the soundstage.
While Michael got familiar with the script, the director (Logan) showed us his directors brief including examples of how he wishes the film to end up looking. Which is important to me as now I am doing the colour grade so I have something specific to aim for now which is handy, it very much has an old-70s looking vibe as if the film has been exposed to the sun too much.
It also clarified something for me in terms of the story, but I won’t go into details for spoiler reasons.

The first major part of the day was spent talking about lighting, the use of defusing to get a soft light, inspired by the works of famous painters.
He commented that Light is Truth, the idea being that if at all possible go for one light source, the main example for us being windows.
How the lighting could be used to light the characters is also touched on, with our villain being in the dark/shadows while our hero being in the light. Surfaces on tables can be used to bounce light as well.

We worked on the idea of tricking fire by using light, at a part of our film requires the use of fire. However due to Child Services, what should be a rather simple thing has turned into a nightmare. Naturally not wanting to break any laws one possible outcome is to use light, by using a bounce board, placing a plot-plant in front can create the image if a hand is placed over the light to create a flicker. It’s a neat trick, for water it looks great, for fire I am yet to be personally convinced.
The other solution, of course is to find actors who don’t need child permits, easier said than done if you need a character who is twelve.
There has been talk of also finding a safety officer, which seems to be the likely route if we can get one.

After a break two actors were brought in to play one scene, the object of this was less about lighting and all about the camera itself. What lenses to use, movements, angles and the like. It seems to be that the 50’ lenses is a winner. I think I have now pretty much mastered the art of changing (or “pulling”) lenses.
It was pretty nifty seeing two actors play out a scene I had imagined in my head for a while. We placed down a table, placed a few props (With a “holy book” which was my notebook which I did some designs in). Curtains were pulled in order to create a door for our hero to come through.

However the main thing I could take from it all was pot plants, pot plants can be used for everything.
For background dressing, for foreground dressing and in order to push light through to have an effect.
So thank you pot plants, you’re the real MVP.

Blog #1

Up to only recently have I had any real experience in partaking in the practical side of film-making.
For my childhood and teenage years I acquired a growing understanding of the film-making process, however this was only ever at a distance from what I gathered from online and behind-the-scenes.
The media program at my high-school did little to incorporate much of this, as it was mainly have an idea and go out doing it. Of course there a level of pre-production, however in high-school I didn’t often see the point as I already had ‘the vision’ inside my head, for me the real work was in the production and post-production.

My first real experience with pre-production wasn’t in film at all, it was in Games, previous to studying Film I was studying Games at SAE. In games it was as like film, critical to nail down the plan of action before production could begin.

Once in Film, the pre-production for our first project (Keyhole) was limited, the story changed around a lot and roles were pretty much locked in place of being shared around.
The second and third projects (Medley’s “Do you Feel Safe” and Derroman) were the first real film process sections, going through months of pre-production. This mainly applied to our music video, working with the client, working out the locations (although in the end we just filmed inside the Sound Stage with some set-dressing).
The production itself felt easy by compassion to the pre-production, I myself was not much involved with the Post Production.

That is going to change with our current project Ritual, for I am going to be the editor and colour grader. My key is to have all the elements which I can setup beforehand setup in place, ready to go.
This is setting out the assembly line and starting to cut it together as soon as I can get my hands on the footage, not waiting until I have it all.

I am relevantly confident in the cutting of the film, my largest focus of learning right now is on the colour grade. The director has made his vision quite clear, that the images should all be de-saturated, the Director of Photogopghy has helpfully told me a good starting point is “Lumetri Color”, getting in as much practice before hand will be critical.
But right now I am go work on the titles/credits.

I am working on an animated logo before the first scene, after the first scene will be the title and of course after the film will be the credits.
I have already gone through the script (which is now scene-locked) to figure out the order of appearance of characters and where they appear, if I can write up the credits as much as I can now with leaving spaces for placeholders when the final information comes through (i.e casting).

Along with the main project is my own personal script, titled Local Council, I have written it to be somewhat in the vain of the ABC show Utopia.
At time of writing I have yet to review the feedback, however I will need to download software such as Celtx when I go for my second draft to re-do the script.
The first draft was written using Microsoft Word (which I am using right now actually), however as scripts are very set in the way of the formatting I have been advised to go against the free-form word processing software in favour of a dedicated software suite.

Due to personal reason and my own failures I have fallen behind a bit, however I endeavour to step up and get into a better system of getting things done.
My main motivating force behind this is the shared score with the team, the idea that my own failure would bring down the mark of my team, my friends, is frankly terrifying to me. That is a prospect I do not wish to face, ever, so that is my major driving force as of now.