Jack Henderson summarizes his film production process. He began by creating a shot list to plan out his project. During filming, he had to change his idea from a short film to a horror movie intro due to lacking enough content. In editing, he experimented with effects like warp stabilizer to add an unnatural feel. He also incorporated some stock footage and royalty-free music and audio clips. Overall, the planning process helped manage his time and the experimentation with effects during editing helped create atmosphere and tension for the horror genre.

1. Production Reflection
Jack Henderson

2. Process
I began my production by planning my shoot to get the content
that I needed. This process was started by creating a shot list to
map out a brief idea of how the piece will be constructed. I
found this very helpful as it helped me visualise my project
before production began and also aided in the creation of certain
sequences which were difficult to produce. By planning all of the
production out before had, I had the advantage of beginning
production with a full view of my ideas and concepts which I
wanted to incorporate into my piece. Doing so, increased my
available time which gave me an advantage of focusing on
different areas of the project at once. My time management in
other projects was definitely an area that I could have improved
on so doing this high level of planning first benefitted me a lot.

3. Process
The filming portion of my production was successful,
however I had many set backs which I had to deal with
throughout. Initially, I had planned to make a short film
with a basic structure of start, middle and end however
this idea changed after my filming was completed as I
realised that I did not have enough content to be able to
create a successful film that would have a sustainable
continuity throughout. I decided to change my idea to
be a Horror movie/series introductory sequence as this
would be more suited to the content and amount of
footage that I had. This idea was allowed me to manage
my footage more freely to be in an arrangement which
did not necessarily have to be linear. I involved 2 actors
which are close friends of mine which was more
comfortable to direct and work with as we already had a
relationship that allowed us all to be openly creative. I
was lucky enough to have a filming location that was
very open such as an empty house that was, at the time
of shooting, owned by my family. This was a great
advantage to me as it allowed me to have unlimited and
unrestricted use of a location. The empty rooms of the
house gave a good freedom for certain shots that
involved movement of the camera such as an orbit. It
also benefitted when I needed stationary shots such as
use of the green screen or tripod as I was not restricted
by anything inside the rooms

4. Process
One of my favourite parts of my film is a sequence near the
beginning of the intro which features the camera panning
forwards and backwards around a the character repeatedly. This
was really enjoyable to produce and edit with as there was so
much freedom to throw different elements in. The sequence
finishes with a warp stabilised close up of the characters face
which was placed to break the sense of confusion that is created
by the scene before. I accomplished this scene by starting with
only one shot which then became 5. Initially I had planned for
the scene to run at a ramped up speed and then reverse like a
rewind effect and come back to the beginning. I accomplished
this shot first but found that the shot lacked the level of
atmosphere that I wanted to create with it, so I began to
experiment with different levels of speeds that could create an
unnerving sequence. I duplicate the original clip and alter the
speed/duration to -200 (I had already changed the original clips
speed/duration to 200). For here I began to cut and move
different parts of the sequence around. I wanted the sequence to
be fast paced and represent the manic personality of the
character. If I were to create this shot again, I would have shot
different versions of the original clip with the character having
different positions or expressions each time to really exaggerate
the mindstate of the character

5. Process
Equipment I used for my production included a Canon 700D camera,
Tripod, Handheld sound recorder, Flycam and a green screen. Some
of this equipment I found more effective for my production that
others. For example, I found that the Flycam rig was very
complicated and difficult to use and from my research into the
product itself, I believe that the Flycam I used was faulty which made
it almost impossible to use the rig effectively. I filmed a lot of smooth
tracking shots which is why I intended to use the Flycam however as
this wasn’t an available option I had to attempt to recreate the
potential effects by holding a tripod attached the camera and
attempting to manually stabilise the shot. As expected this was not
very successful so I ultimately scrapped the shot and tried to find an
alternative solution. This was a setback to my production however it
helped me understanding the uses of different pieces of equipment
and the various strengths and limitations of them.
The open space I had was really effective in use with the green
screen as there was a lot of room to spread the screen out so there
were no creases which made the green screen the most effective it
could be. After the shoot I took the green screen to a studio to get
some shots with professional lighting. This is due to me not having
access to effective lighting and only relying on adjusting natural light
to light the screen. I used the studio time to light the background
and subject exclusively. This helped me with the specific shots where
I wanted to single out the actors face to then render this onto the
face of a stationary object. This proved to be successful whilst using a
combination of the mask tool and the color key tool on Premiere Pro.
I enjoyed doing this process as it was something that I had never
properly done before aside from some prior experiments. Initially, I
found this process difficult as changing the variables required was a
hard concept to grasp however this came with time and trial and
error like most processes. I eventually found that by combining the
mask tool along with the color key I was able to get a smoother and
more accurate effect by lowering the parameters for the colour
correction and replacement.

6. Process
These are the shots that I used for this specific clip. I recorded
the first clip for a different purpose however once I had began
assembling clips initially, I discovered that the characters eyes
would perfectly align with the dolls eyes. I began by using the
color key tool to remove the background of the first shot. I
then realised that this was potentially unnecessary as I only
needed the eye of the character which made the background
irrelevant. I used the mask tool the isolate the eye and then
layered the eye over the doll head clip. Lining the eye up was
easy however blending the eye into the background clip was
quite difficult. The edge feather variable helped me do this as
it blends the mask well into the background by creating a faint
outline of the areas outside the mask from the masked clip.
This helped me achieve my finished product which I was
incredibly happy with.
When rendering the doll clip I used the warp stabilizer effect
as it helped make the clip smoother and gave a more
unnatural effect to it. I opted for the smooth motion variable
which made the shot vibrate and twitch a little which is ideally
what I wanted. I then colour graded the entire clip in a slight
sepia to bring out the brown tones which made the setting feel
older and a more worn environment. This also helped to
reduce the bright sunlight which provided a happier
atmosphere, this being the exact opposite of what I wanted to
achieve

7. Process
The next phase of my production was editing
some of the eerier shots to create more
tension and atmosphere. I initially used the
warp stabilizer effect to try steady some shots
the I had mistakenly filmed freehand rather
than on the tripod however once I had used
the effect a I realised it created really good
3D effect that created a really good depth and
focal point in the shots that required this.
After playing around with the effect for a
while, by changing variables such as
stabilization and adjusting the smoothness of
the clip, I found that This effect really, I
believe, heightened some of the shots in my
piece as it gave a very unnatural feel to the
antagonist character. I used this on 3 shots
throughout the film which were all close ups
to create an isolated effect which is solely
based on the characters emotion through
visuals and body language.

8. Process
I created the credits in Photoshop and then
imported them into Premiere when
assembling. This is something I have done
before and so my understanding of the
process allowed me to focus on the creativity
and aesthetic qualities. I began by creating a
Photoshop file with the dimensions of my film
as the canvas and then colouring the
background black as I knew that this would be
the colour of the backdrop. I decided to use a
font that I downloaded from Dafont.com
called True Lies. I used this font before in a
previous project as it reflects a unnatural
atmosphere. I wanted the text to be centred
in the page so I used the guidelines on
Photoshop to find the exact centre which I
could then snap the text to. For the main title
at then end of the film, I duplicated the layer
and layered a black copy underneath the
white to create a drop shadow effect as the
main title was shown on top of a video clip
rather than black. This added depth to the
main title but also helped it stand above the
shot it was laid over.

9. Process
For some elements of my film, I opted to use some royalty free stock footage I found
online as some footage I found related to the footage I had captured myself really
well. The first piece of footage I used featured 2 dolls. This was perfect for my piece as
I had myself used dolls as a feature in my film. I used this stock footage to overlay
another credit over as the scene does not move much, only to change focus between
the 2 subjects. Another piece of footage I used was that of bees landing into their
hive. I chose this footage as the bees have very sporadic movements which directly
contrasted the shot of the dolls being still. I also find the movements of the bees to be
slightly unnerving which is the effect I aimed for. I edited the shot of the bees by
scaling it up so the bees are larger and closer to the audience as this creates an
uncomfortable reaction. I then colour graded the shot by washing the bright colours
such as yellows and blues away using the lumetri color effect. Initially I found this
difficult as I do not have a large amount of experience with colour grading and what
works best when it comes to colouring certain scenes and managing levels and
exposure. I decided to do some trial and error and try to work out what works best for
me. I think this was successful as I think the shots fit together well, however I also feel
this will be something I should focus on in the future.
The music that features in my piece is also royalty free sourced from the website
ThePurplePlanet.com. After attempting to create my own music for my piece using
Garageband; I decided that producing soundtracks is not my strongest asset and that
working on this skill whilst facing a deadline was not very productive. I decided that I
would work on this skill in my own time to better myself as a creator in all areas. The
soundtrack I found was perfect for the purpose I intended. It has a slow build up with
a good progression towards a climactic end. This piece of music became the basis for
the structure of my film as it made it easy to plan different sections around what the
music was doing. In future, I would like to produce my own soundtracks for my
projects and plan to do this by furthering my skills outside of production time.
I decided to use samples from existing pieces of audio rather than to record dialogue
as it would not have fit well into the feel of the piece especially with the level of
tension that I tried to create in the scene, any dialogue could have broken it. I wanted
to use a speech that I could chop apart and move words around in to create a
different outcome than intended. The speech that is used in my piece is by Alan
Watts, a 1960s zen buddhist. His speeches are all on Youtube so are easily accessible,
which is were I got mine from. I listened to the entire audio clip (59 minutes long)
whilst writing down specific parts and keywords that I would like to include in my
piece. The clip used at the start I decided to trim down as some of the pauses
between his words were too long and did not fit with feel of my piece. The clip used at
the end I cut together myself from different keywords used in the audio. I enjoyed this
entire process as it allowed me to customise an existing piece to my own
specifications. Audio is something I would potentially consider focusing on as I move
forward in my career.