Kieran Beal reflects on the production process of his film. He drew inspiration from shows like Black Mirror and Sherlock Holmes and the video game We Happy Few. Initially he created mood boards but found they were not very helpful. He chose to use a Guy Fawkes mask for the antagonist to represent fear of the unknown. Some shots in the film were shaky due to lack of a steady cam. Editing in Premiere Pro presented challenges like a lack of continuity between shots due to unusable footage. A cloning effect in After Effects did not turn out perfectly. Sound editing was also an issue, with some generic suspense music detracting rather than adding to the film. Overall it was a learning experience

1. Production Reflection
Kieran Beal

2. Process- initial plans
-In order to get the concept of my film I drew inspiration from some of my preferred TV shows such as black mirror and
Sherlock Holmes, however I also used inspiration from all aspects of the media including video games, particularly the
game 'We happy few' set to be released in late 2018. Once I had generated the concept for film I wanted to decide what I
was going to include in it, and how I would go about doing it. The best way I believe to go about doing this is to have large
amounts of ambition for the film, picturing it as something that would have a large budget backing it, once I had that vision
I then started to think more realistically about what I can actually do, and how I can best meet that ambition with what is
actually available to me, this is my thought process for all projects I do to make sure I meet the furthest extent of my
ambition. I had initially created two mood boards for my products, one to help with the style and story telling of my film,
and the other to assist with the style of both my DVD cover and my poster, however I don't find the mood boards to be
particularly helpful with my products and I don't tend to find myself referring back to them that much, this can be
evidenced if you look at my finished poster for instance and then look back to the mood board for the kind of poster that I
initially wanted to do.

3. Process- stylistic choices
My antagonist using the Guy Fawkes mask was a deliberate and specific choice, this is because this mask in particular has
always been associated with something sinister but also represents an unknown entity, which is what my antagonist is all
about, the unknown paranoia and fear in the back of my protagonists mind, and the mask covering up their face also goes
a long way to dehumanising them. I also came to the conclusion that the Guy Fawkes mask made it a useful close up to use
in my poster and my DVD case cover, close up shots with not a lot of background detail, instead focusing on the one person
or object in the foreground, is the status quo when creating a poster or DVD cover for a psychological thriller, as a result I
used a close up of my antagonist with a dark colour scheme, which I believed would go a long way to solidify in the
audiences minds what kind of film this is. However if you pay attention to my film and my other products alongside it, it is
noticeable that the person I used to model for my poster and DVD cover, isn't the same person I used in my film, which is a
minor detail that I would've changed if I could, however this is just for continuity purposes that I don't believe would affect
the overall quality of the products that much.

4. While this is technically my
finished DVD cover for
whatever reason I was
unable to remove some of
the lines behind some of the
templates that I used for it,
now it looks like they are
part of the design
themselves despite this not
being the case.
Even though I believe that
my poster for the film came
out better than my DVD
cover, mainly due to the
lighting on the image being
better, I think something
that could have been
improved is by switching
the layout of the poster, as
seen here it is currently in
landscape, so next time I
would've taken the photos
portrait (which the
convention of posters) and
I would've been more
aware of space
management.

5. Process- location and camera choicesMy film started off in the Lamb and Lion inn in York, the first shot past the establishing shots is an over the shoulder shot
following an extra into the hotel for the camera to focus on my protagonist, for the most part this shot ran smoothly,
however there were a couple things that I would've improved upon, most importantly was the interruption during the
follow shot, for a few brief seconds the camera stops and faces the wall, this happened because when I was following the
actor with the camera, they opened the door and walked in, however the door then closed on me and I had to stop and
open it, which is what caused the interruption, in hindsight it would've provided a better shot to prop the door open during
that scene for smoother shot. The other thing that I would change about this shot (which is something I could've changed
for most of the film) is that many of my shots aren't steady at all, I did initially book out a steady cam as part of my kit to
help with this issue however it wasn't available and I couldn't reschedule to shoot a different day, as a result a lot of the
shots in the film that required a steady camera are quite shaky, and I think this ruins the affect of many of the shots.
The shots that did require handheld shaky cam became so shaky in parts that it was actually difficult to tell what was
happening in the scene, so I would've likely actually put a bit more control on my shots with deliberate handheld shaky
camera shots.
Location was temporarily a major issue before starting production for my film, my initial filming location was the Random
Encounters café, however they were under going renovations at the time, I also called a couple other cafes near Exhibition
Square to see if I could film there however they were also fully booked on the day, eventually I was able to book a filming
time at the Lamb and Lion inn at York.

6. Setup/directingSetting up the camera for filming was simple process, inserting the battery and SD card into the corresponding slots
on the camera, after which switching it to film auto focus, adjusting the ISO settings (for changing the brightness) and
then also adjusting the lens to ensure that the image I was filming wasn't blurring out at all, and finally wiping the
memory of the camera before filming to ensure any footage captured on it of mine was easy to find and to make sure
there was in fact enough space to store my footage, after I had done this all I had to do was mount my camera on the
tripod for a steady shot and I was ready to film.
Luckily because I only needed two actors for my film, communication no longer became an issue as I was easily able to
direct this reduced number of actors on set, directing them only became an issue when there was shots where
significant distance was involved, due to the nature of the city environment we were filming the background sound
levels were high and that made it difficult to communicate across the street for instance, however despite this being
the case I was still able to get these shots recorded with only minor delays (due to traffic blocking shots across the
street)

7. This is the shot at the beginning of the film
where my initial plan was to have a smooth
camera movement following my actor through
the door into the hotel, but at this moment
during the film I had to block the door from
closing on me which created the pause in
movement that you see onscreen. A couple
solutions to this problem would have been to
either prop the door open, or have someone
else in the scene open up the door for my
character and myself.
I thought about multiple methods I could try
and use to fix the transition but I despite this I
couldn't think of anything that would work, I
didn't have any footage that I could've used
for a cut away shot and I didn’t want to place
in a random transition in order to cut a few
seconds out of the shot as I have already done
tat enough time in my films and if I could I
never would've placed it in the film at all.

8. Process- editing
The primary editing software that I used in my film was Premiere pro, however I did use royalty free music off of garage
band but most of the digital effects that are seen in the film were created in premiere pro, however I did have to watch
many YouTube tutorials to learn how to do them. (I have sourced the links to them in my proposal and research)There was
however one effect that I couldn't pull off in premiere pro, that is the cloning effect towards the end of the film, this effect
was done through After effects, this is software that is dedicated to creating the finer aspects of digital effects, rather than
premiere which is more aimed at editing the film as a whole. Creating the cloning effect was a long process that took up a
lot of production time to complete, despite this the air still rippled around the clone, this problem could've been avoided if
I had kept the camera steady during the shot however since it was not completely still for both shots where I filmed
walking down on both sides of the alley, I had to use after effects to try and merge the two shots together. Another issue I
had with the editing was the lack of continuity with many of the shots, due to a lot of the footage in crucial parts of the film
being unusable for various reasons, I was forced to use transitions to fill in the gaps. Because of this many of the cuts in the
film appear to be quite jarring and unnecessary.
A third issue that I have had with the film is sound, editing the sound together itself didn't prove to be too much of an issue
in the end, but the quality of the tracks sometimes leave something to be desired. A key point of this as an example is
about half way through my film, where due to restrictions on the sounds that I could use I had to use a generic
'suspenseful' sound from garage band, however the problem with this sound is that it has been used so much by other
means and people at this that point it's more used for
Comedic effect rather than any real suspense, and this is a problem because I don't want my film to include any moments
of comedy, it's supposed to be suspenseful and serious from beginning to the end and I believe this sound effect that I have
used conveys the wrong feeling to the audience. In the event that I could change this I would certainly go back and replace
this sound for something far less generic sounding to help separate the audio of my film and make it something unique.

9. Process- editing

10. Process- editingAs can be seen from the middle image on this slide the way I did the swipe transition was use the standard rotate effect
over two different shots, but then to create that effect of disorientation I used the directional blur, turning the blur up to
300 and changing the direction to a 180 degree angle created the effect seen below, the directional blur was used to
distract the audience from what would have been a very basic and jarring transition originally, as well as putting more of an
action genre spin on the transition.

11. Process- editing
This is one of the most noticeable examples of jarring
editing in my film, this was caused by the footage in
between these two shots being mostly unusable and as a
result had to include this transition to try and fill in the
gaps between the shots, the main issue was that I failed to
keep the camera in the same position for both the shots
that I wanted to include in the scene, so I had to get rid of
them, in addition to this the area that I was trying to film in
at the time wasn't wide enough and as a result I wasn't
able to get both the shots I wanted.

12. Process- actors and equipment
This proved to be the most troublesome part of production. I had very specific days where it was possible for me to film,
and it was incredibly difficult to find people who could help with the acting in my film on those particular days, I was
eventually able to find the right amount of actors to use in my film however I did have to postpone production of my film
for 2 weeks before I was able to find them, despite this production was still completed on time. The day of filming was also
a very hot day (22 degrees centigrade) and considering that my film contained a lot of shots involving the chase scene, it
became somewhat physically taxing on my performers to sprint through city center, as a result taking care of their physical
state in between shots was crucial, in order to do this I organised it so that there was regular breaks in between shots, and
always made sure that my performers had water to keep them hydrated.
Equipment was also an issue for about a week, due to a late booking I couldn't get out any equipment I needed the time,
the second time I was able to get most of it out and I decided that I couldn't postpone production for another week and
wait till I had everything, however because of this rushed production schedule I believe that my film has suffered in
substance, mentioned previously I didn't get the steady cam equipment for my film because of the late booking, if I were
to go back and shoot some of the scenes again I would make sure that this time I do have the steady cam available, that
way any shots that are supposed to be steady are as they were intended to be, I did also have a shoulder mount available
to me on set at the time however it wasn't functional and as a result I wasn't able to use it, so next time I will have to make
sure that all of my equipment is working before I take it off site.