FMP 2022 evaluation doc.pdf

1. L3 Creative Media
Production & Technology
Year Two FMP Evaluation
Lucas Higham

2. Personal Response
This section will explore your thoughts and feelings about the
experience. This will help gain a understand of how your personal
feelings may have impacted the final outcome.

3. How did you feel about the project before
you started?
Previously documented in my project diary, before the project begun and as
it started, in the first few weeks I was unsure how my initial idea would be
translated to the screen. I was fully aware things would go wrong, but I was
determined not to sacrifice my idea, my vision. The biggest problem I was
fretting over was the casting process. Actors are one of the most important
yet frustrating aspects of making a film. For a student film, they're hard to
get and once you get them, they might not be any good, as a bad actor can
bring down a film significantly.With no actors, no film. Bad actors, bad film.
It was something I was seriously worrying about. And for myself to act in the
film was not an option.
Looking back, those feelings were valid and I was very fortunate to get the
actors I got, albeit one of them being difficult to communicate and work
with, he still delivered a serviceable performance. While the likes of
Courtney were outstanding.

4. Did you collaborate on your project or engage
contributors, etc?
As a filmmaker striving to create something personal, for the benefits of myself and the audience, it is a
necessity to bring other people in to help you make that idea come true. I welcome collaboration.Filmmaking
is a collaboration.I wrote two main characters that would be exciting for an actor to play, and to be authentic
and sophisticatedon screen for an audience to latch onto. When speaking with the actors, they were grateful
for the role and how interesting it was for them to play. I crafted these charactersin my mind, then onto the
page. I was very aware when I cast the film I would be giving this character life and interpretationto another
person, who will playsaid role. They will bring their own ideas, interpretationsto the characterand I welcomed
that. It was important to me, to create an atmosphere on set that this isn't just my film, it's everyone's film if
they make it so. The film is just as much as it is Courtney's as it is mine, the character she playscertainly is. I
wanted this atmosphere to encourage the actors and whoever else was on set to challenge my ideas, expand
upon them. I would talk them through the character, the story, the idea, the themes and where it all came
from. What it means to me and hopefully it will mean something to them. I explainedmy decisions, even with
my shot composition or the symbolism – giving greater understandingfor the actors to work off of.
I also, in early pre-production,tried to bring in some trusted people to help with the cinematographyfor the
film (you can see their names listed on personnel on pre-pro document). This did fall through, but the attempt
was there. It would've been nice to bounce ideasoff a trusted artist, againgiving the film a greater meaning to
more people.
Finally,I did also try and engage with a composer for the film. Original music for the film would'vebeen nice
but this also did fall through. I resorted to royaltyfree music via artlist so there was a fee to pay but the music
was good and I'm happy with the result.

5. How did you feel when the project was
completed and why?
I feel I would be able to answer this question better, 3 months from
now. The film has yet to be released publicly (only private screenings
and screeners have been held). The project, the film is only half
complete, it's still waiting for a wider audience to watch it and to have
an opinion on it, an interpretation on it. That’s when the film will truly
be finished and be alive to the world. Then I can evaluate my success
levels – did it touch people? Did it move them? Entertain them?
On a personal level, I feel extremely proud of the film. It went from a
little idea to actual production, to a fully realised film. I am happy to
have expressed my ideas through this way. While it’s not what I
originally envisioned it is something I fully recognise and am proud of
creating.

6. Evaluating the project
In the previous sections, you have been commenting upon the project development. The
evaluation may include some similar information but it will also include critical comment.
An evaluation must include information about the good and bad points of the project and it
is important to be honest. Finally, you should make a judgment about the effectiveness of
the success of the project

7. What challenges did you face and how did you
respond to them? Try and think of at least 3...
One of the challenges I faced was using two different cameras, for the purposes of the main camera not being able to comfortably attach to a stabiliser which will allow me to use smooth
'handheld' shots, I will be able to have more flexibility is some scene to shoot fast moving smooth shots. Therefore, to use the stabiliserI would need to use a smaller camera with high
capabilities. The only downside to this is the colour could be different between shots due to different cameras. That is true for what happened to me. The colour was radically different so I had
to match it in post-production. At the thought of doing this I worried about how well the colour match would go, whenever I've tried to do something like this in the past it never went well. I
started by adding a sony colour layer which helped with the colour. Then I pasted in a separte layer of colour grade which was used for the main camera grade and it was matched perfectly.
Another challenge I faced was dealing with major audio problems. After the first day of the shoot, watching back the footage I could barely hear the audio. It needed to be butsed. Then once I
could hear it, in the background you could hear wind and banging. I used adobe audition to help with this, a program I never used before. It was relatively easy to teach myself how it works
and what I needed to use. The scene isn't perfect but after fixing most of the problems it's far better than the raw footage. Learning from this on day one, I approched the further four days of
production with a different audio recorder. I conducted experiments to make sure it worked by comparing the audio between recorders and the distance, then putting that into my computer
to listen to it. Once it knew it would work, on set I would wear headphones and click my finger near the recorder, so I knew definitely that it was working. Although, some scenes didn't require
the use of an audio recorder, I decied to use the built-in audio from the camera but since you need to change the setting from audio recorder to bulit-in – I forgot. So, for the scenes that
didn't require a recorder were accidentally shot completely silent so I had no natural ambience to go off of. Therefore, editing those scenes needed me to source the natural room tone, sound
effects etc. I did this through a variety of ways. Foley. I recorded the sound of Jospeh taking the yellow nylon from the table at the beginning of the film – the display playing on my computer
and sound being recorded from my personal audio recorder so I could time it right. This was something new for me so it took a few attempts. After each attempt I would load the sound into
premiere and synch it to the action. That meaning that I would be certain it worked rather than recording the sound then later discovering it doesn't work. The room tone from the opening
scene is just a few seconds from dialogue scenes where there's a moment of silence, that short sound looped. The carwas a mixture of both sound effect from online and the real sound.
When I eventually discovered I had been shooting the scene the silent it was when I was outside shooting a shot of the car, I immediately switched it on. This gave me the sound of the car
which I was able to use when it drives in. The reason why I didn’t use an audio recorder is as there is no dialogue in these scenes.
This next challenge was down to dealing with people, more specifically one actor who caused me greater stress, worry and annoyance throughout the production. He played the main role. A
role where I had no backup. His lack of communication made me worry a lot. The night before the first day of production I wasn't sure he was going to turn up, he did – 2 and half hours late. I
learnt to keep professional throughout my experience with him. I didn't mention to him that his lateness and lack of communication was crushing and pathetic. I had to work with him. I
needed him. I knew I had to keep my cool to maintain my professionalism.

8. How did you design appeal to your target
audience?
From what I've gathered it seems the audience that have seen the film so far,
from a general select audience to people who have been given the film early
to review it for me all connect with the relevant genres that they like. One
person made the link between the films style to the directors David Lynch,
Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman
calling it a "perfectly chaotic mix". Those directors I researched into for this
project specifically– except Kubrick I believe although I wouldn't need to
research him for his style to inspire me, as I class him as one of the greatest
filmmakers of all time. My inspirations clearly shone through with the genres
these directors work in. I got a sense that the film did compel them which is
certainly something I wanted to elicit, they brought their own interpretations
which I found fascinating to read.

9. Analysis
In this section, you will focus on the details of the project and make
sense of what happened in the project. You should demonstrate how
your decisions informed the project development and the success of the
outcome.

10. How did your skills develop during the portfolio? [remember,
skills aren't just technical, remember things like organisation,
time management, communication, etc as well]
My time management and planning certainly had to adapt throughout
the production. After the first day of shoot it was decided that Luke
would be picked up each day from his home town and driven onto the
location to avoid him being late again from using the bus. I had to
adjust the schedule to be comfortable with his lateness, time was
managed differently to account for lateness – contingency time. Time
that we could run into but it's not ideal. Some locations and shots were
either not visited or were shot properly due to rushing with time.

11. What feedback did you get from your peers and viewings?

12. What feedback did you get from your peers and viewings?
Insomniacs ThatGo Bang In The Night LM
Higham builds his mostbold film to date.
Insomniacs ThatGo Bang In The Night starts in
medias res; one last night, one last job, for
Joseph (Luke Tearney). Simple enough; until
Higham peels back the layers of Joseph’s psyche
through a cacophony of sound. the audience is
taken through a frantic trip of sounds creating a
loss of time for the viewing audience. With
stylistic editing Insomniacs echos Kubrick’s 2001
a space Odyssey meshed with the non linear of
Nolan’s Momento. The film resides on Higham’s
technical precision and Tearney and
Henderson’s performances.This 18 minute
thriller winds down the rabbit hole of sanity
with sharp twists and turns navigated by the
moralhigh ground to surviveand at whatcosts.
Insomniacs, brilliancelies in the amount it
reveals. The permanent unknown leaves the
audience wanting moreand questioning what
we saw was realor apartof Joseph’s insomnia.
It’s thatrazors edgeof the physicaland mental
to surviveourselves and the world around us

13. Action Plan
This section will identify what you would do differently in the future and
identify ways you could develop.

14. If you were making a similar project in the
future, what would you do differently?
I would pay more attention to audio and sound. The way in which audio is recorded
and how that can be edited. This is something I should've explored more within my
problem solving experiments, I didn't do any for this project – I avoided sound
experiments as I don’t like it / I'm not very good. I should confront my weakness
more in the next project as that will make the overall film better – the weak spots
will fade away as I learn how to deal with problems I don't like.
To takle this same project again with having already done it, a different approach I
would take would still lead back to surrealism. I'd take more of a deep dive and look
into other styles of surrealism in cinema and would look at different films perhaps
the modern state of surrealist art as I only looked at from 1920s.
I would also take the time to arrange rehearsals / table read so I can use that time
with the actors for them to understand the story and character better rather than
doing that inbetween takes. Although this is dependent on time, availability etc.