12/03/2021 While filming parts of the practice response, I wanted to mostly focus on lighting, in order to only have one subject in shot, with the rest in darkness. Originally, I tried to use a single spotlight, however, that caused a lot of harsh shadows on the subject's face. Therefore, we decided to include another light coming in from the side to even out the shadows, while still creating a dramatic look. While I do think that the result emulated theatre lights decently, I believe that I should have included another light, as the shadows were still rather harsh in some angles.
Also, when we were trying to recreate the scene 'After Everything I've Done for You', we decided to only shoot one take, as I only wanted to include a few lighting examples in a compilation. However, whenever I moved too far, I would end up going out of focus on both cameras. Therefore, I should probably shoot more takes, even if I don't plan on using the entire shoot, just so I can see what works and what doesn't. Also, I may need to film some hidden cuts, so I can mask any potential mistakes and include some more shot variety, so I can truly see how the lighting looks from several different angles.
19/03/2021 This week, I was mainly editing my practical experiment. While I originally just wanted it to be a short compilation of stage lighting, I opted to try and include some colour as well. I think that the colour experimentation of blue and red made it look a bit more interesting without becoming overbearing. Although, while I tried to create a spotlight effect to really emphasise my inspiration, the effect was a bit too bright and overpowered the rest of the clip and made it look a bit too washed out. Therefore, if I would like to use this again in my final project, I will try to adjust the effect for a bit longer, so it looks cleaner. Although, I believe that the lighting will be important for my project, as it's one of the biggest examples of visual clues that it's influenced by both stage and film musicals. From here,
I did have an issue with the clip where he straightens his back with the light behind him. Considering that was an effect in post, I had to try and mask his body, so I could place the white behind him. However, at points, you could see the light shining through him, rather than around. Therefore, I played with the effect controls and made it dimmer and blended it more with the background, so it looked more natural. Even though I couldn't perfect it, I do think it was a step in the right direction and I may be able to get it right, if I. were to try it again.
26/03/2021 This week, I was focusing mostly on some pre-production, mostly context. I looked at some examples of musical segments that included a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic music. Each of the examples were from different genres, so that I can determine how to incorporate this style into my project, whichever direction I decide to pursue. Also, I think that it has made me more aware to certain codes and conventions that I may have missed if I hadn't tried to analyse them. Therefore, I think this has helped my development for my project, as I can try to make the mise-en-scene as distinct as possible between scenes.
Also, I wrote my proposal and received feedback for it. One of my main issues is that I was a bit too vague in my timetable. Therefore, I went through it again and made it more detailed, so that I know how much work I need to complete each week. By clearly labelling what I need to get done, I can stick to a schedule and keep on top of my work, and not forget about certain tasks until the deadline. I also left some detail out of the sections, for example how my specialist study has influenced my concept and the detail for my reflection in the early stages.
02/04/2021 This week, I was focusing on more pre-production, as I'm on track to finalise my idea. Originally, I had wanted to make a recreation of 'Tell Me I'm Okay, Patrick' from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, as it featured the swap between reality and dream, while also having a dark background and an extravagant costume. However, I think that just doing a direct recreation would limit my development and ability to adapt. Therefore, I decided to make a note of each of the elements in the segment of which interested me and try to use them in a different song. I realised that using a song unaffiliated with an official musical would result in being able to develop an idea without being influenced by an existing narrative.
23/04/2021 During the discussion of the final presentation, alongside a poster and thumbnail, I had the thought of creating some 'prom campaigns' for the other candidates mentioned in the song. Therefore, I think that it will introduce the audience that the song is a parody of 'coming-of-age' movies and it follows similar tropes that my target audience is accustomed to. Also, creating a short teaser trailer, without the original music, may be an effective way to market my project to my audience. However, I have a prominent issue, as I had filmed my project and got rid of my costume before I knew that we had to complete marketing. Therefore, for my poster, I have had one idea of using some screenshots to create a split-screen poster of the different versions of Sara, potentially with the faces blurred, so that the seam is not easily noticeable.
30/04/2021 This week, I received feedback for both my website and some of my practical. Something that was highlighted for my website, is that I need to explain the narrative of the song, otherwise my subsequent planning won't make much sense. Therefore, I need to elaborate on the song's plot and how the story influenced my production, and if I've taken any creative liberties with my adaptation. Also, I haven't discussed how my initial research will help with my development, for the rest of my project. Thus, I should write a conclusion on my context page about how effective my research will be going forward, for the rest of my development and if there is any additional research to complete. For my practical, I was advised to cut the song on the beat, so that I could bring more attention to the song and emphasise my inspiration. Also, before I introduce the blood-covered version of Sara, I need to use the normal Sara more, so that the reveal can have more impact and establish the change in appearance.
07/05/2021 This week, I did primarily editing and presented my first rough cut to a focus group. During editing, I focused a bit more on colour grading, so that there could be a clear indicator of what is a dream and what is reality. This is because I had worried that, without prior context, it may be confusing to the audience as to why there are sudden cuts to a new location, which aren't referred to in the reality segments.
Also, when I was receiving feedback for my rough cut, I had mentioned how I was stuck as to what to do for some scenes in reality, since those are what I was struggling with the most. Luckily, I was given a lot of suggestions, which have influenced me, so that my filming schedule will be a lot smoother. Those suggestions led to me imagining what I could do with them visually and how I could be able to develop them. Also, I had mentioned my concern with the drop in camera quality between the scenes in dream and reality, even though I was using the same camera and lens, which may have been an issue with the settings. Although, I was told that my issues weren’t majorly noticeable and I shouldn’t prioritise replacing that footage and focus more on getting the gaps, in my timeline, filled.
14/05/2021 This week, I have been doing editing, as I filmed some footage for the reality sequence, after being given some ideas. When I was filming, I used a notebook, as a prominent prop, in order to try and emphasise that she is young, due to keeping a diary and a few shots show that she uses it for doodling, as well. Also, I tried to create an in-camera transition between the page turning and her wardrobe door opening. Unfortunately, I struggled filming this and I wasn't satisfied with the result. Considering that this was filmed with a zoom lens and there wasn't enough space in the wardrobe to fully push the camera back, the shot almost ended up looking like it was shot with a fisheye lens. Therefore, I have decided to try and recreate the shot, but instead using a different lens. so that the final shot will look less distorted and create the transition that I am aiming for.
However, I realised that I didn't record enough, during my shooting day, so I still have some moments left, without any footage. Therefore, I used the remaining time before my next shoot to fully refine my edit. I went through the timeline and fixed any errors and made changes that I think benefitted the project in small ways. For example, there are some moments in the song, where the chorus will chant two syllables, so I tried to sync up the shots, so that the movement matches the beat. I believe that this will bring emphasis to the song and make the end result look a little bit more professional.
21/05/2021 I spent the majority of this week either editing or developing my marketing. The promotion is something that I have been struggling with, as I haven't really been able to keep the tone consistent, with the rest of the project. This is because the drafts of my poster, so far, have all looked a bit too much like they're promoting a horror film. While this was intentional, to an extent, designing it like this, completely neglects the the main basis of musicals, despite the fact that I had based the composition around Hairspray's poster, which is very recognisable. Therefore, I think that I should try and emphasise colour a lot more, in my current design and try to include some pink, so that I'm able to incorporate my main colour palettes. Alternatively, I could make two posters, one with more of a pink colour scheme, preferably with the 'ideal' Sara, then a second, with the bloody Sara, which focuses on reds.
Final Evaluation
Overall, I am satisfied with how my final project turned out, even if it wasn’t entirely what I had originally envisioned. Even though I was mostly pleased with all of the dream sequences, I thought the reality scenes were very dull and uneventful visually.
I was least pleased with how, especially in the first half of the song, the reality scenes would drag on and there was hardly any variation in location and shot-type. This resulted in these scenes being very boring to watch and didn’t serve as a very good build-up to the dream. Also, I wasn’t very happy with how, over the whole piece, I really only included static shots, until the final chorus. Similarly to the lack of location, I believe that this made a lot of the project unappealing and doesn’t show any development in how I use equipment. Also, quite a few of the reality shots have a noticeable dip in quality, with noise and grain being a very prominent issue, and is something which I think detracts from the rest of the video. Most notably in the shots where she opens the wardrobe and all of the shots with the long mirror. The main reason for these being poor quality is that I hadn’t spent enough time checking the camera settings and I had only realised how these affected my shots until I had loaded them into Premiere Pro. Therefore, I should have properly looked through the settings before filming, so that the quality can be consistent throughout, as the camera screen is too small to fully be able to make an educated judgement about how it will look.
Even though I did initially like the recurring motifs of Sara’s diary and the pinboard, I think they were overused at certain points and eventually they just looked like filler. My initial intention with the shots of the pinboard was that the same panning shots would be shown at both the beginning and the end, in order to tie the narrative together, but unfortunately, I think I used them too often, so they ended up losing the impact I had wanted to convey. I had a similar issue with the shots of the phone, as even though I wanted to use it in place of other cast members, for some of the instances with the chorus, it became overused and some of the shots that featured it would last for far too long. The most notable example being during the line ‘Her B.F.F.'s proclaimed her socially dead’, as the panning shot lasts for far too long and I should have paired it with another clip, as the original result is very visually dull.
Although, something that I am satisfied with is the mise-en-scene and how it’s able to stay relatively consistent throughout the piece. By this, I mean how my colour palette was able to be constant, especially in the reality scenes. I tried to keep the pinks and pastel colours in most shots, in order to try and tie back to my visual inspiration of ‘Mean Girls’. Also, I tried to keep the props a similar colour, however the notebook I used was darker than what I originally wanted, so, in order to hide that, I tried to keep most of the focus on the pages instead, and tried to keep the cover hidden. Additionally, I do think that my costumes were a success, in both the reality and dream sequences. This is because they were able to match the rest of my colour palette, even though the dress I used was purple, rather than pink. I think that it was able to link back to my original intention of light colours being associated with purity, then being able to betray that later in the song.
I believe that the moment that had the most impact was the plotting scene, with the pinboard. This is because it was able to tie together the reality and dream sequences, before the final chorus. Also, after asking certain audience members, it seems that this was the most memorable part, of the whole piece, as it was able to support the build-up to the final chorus, better than the rest of the reality sequence. Another reason why I think this was more effective than the rest of the reality sequence, as it seems to have more of a bearing on the plot, compared to the scenes from the first half of the song. By this, I mean that not a lot happens in the first half, visually and the plot only starts to pick up, during the plotting scene. Also, even though my intention was to make the scenes with the blood relatively desaturated, before the final chorus, in order to make it far more prominent, at that moment, my intention didn’t land. As a result, the audience thought that those moments looked bland and made the blood just look dull, so there was no real impact by the final chorus.
Also, another thing I am pleased with is the final chorus. This is because I think that it is a lot more interesting to watch when compared to the first half of the song. By this, I mean that the camera becomes a lot more dynamic and moves a lot more, especially when compared to the static shots of the first half. I had implemented red and blue lights in post-production to try and imply that the police are in in the reality, while also trying to make them look like stage lights, but I’m not sure how well that came across to the audience.
I think that I should have done some more research into the codes and conventions of film musicals, as I believe that it’s not entirely clear, from the visuals, as to what my intention was. By this, I mean that it looks more like a music video with a narrative, rather than a scene from a musical. This may have been avoided had I used some dialogue at certain intervals, in order to clearly show how there could be a story outside of the song, since musicals will have time before, or during, a song for characters to interact or set up the premise of the following song with a conversation. Therefore, if I had taken the time to write a short script, I may have been able to convey my main inspirations and aims with in project in a much more effective way.
Unfortunately, some of my planning wasn’t as detailed as it could have been. This is mainly due to my own lack of time-keeping, as I had spent too much time in the pre-production stage. Also, some of the shot choices for my reality sequences were made, as I was filming, as I was struggling to think of what I could do for certain moments. However, even though this isn’t what I would normally do, in terms of planning, I did find that it was able to get me to move on, after a certain point, so I wouldn’t stay stuck on pre-production for too long. However, I do believe that this method led to a lot of my dissatisfaction with the reality sequences. Therefore, if I were to do this again, I should have used those improvised shots as a test, before filming the revised footage, in order to make it cleaner and more coherent.
Originally, I had intended to try and place some sound effects over the top of the song, but I thought the end result would appear to be either far too overwhelming or cheesy. Most notably, I was planning on putting some quiet police sirens, in the final chorus, but I thought that would detract from the focus of the scene and it would seem like I would be just spelling out what the lyrics are saying and what the effects were implying.
Another issue with my project is that I don’t believe there is any consistency with my tone between my film and its promotion. This is because I found it increasingly difficult to design a poster or trailer to look like it was promoting a musical, rather than a horror film. Also, I wasn’t able to market both the dream and reality sequences, in equal measure, with the focus mainly being on the prom scenes. Therefore, there is essentially no reference to reality in any of my promotion, of which makes up a large chunk of my piece, so I think that is something I should have taken into consideration before I started planning. Even when I tried to update the colour palette to match that of my project, it still did not remotely resemble what I had envisioned. The main design of my poster was meant to be a reference to ‘Hairspray’, but I don’t think that is conveyed very well. As a result, I think I should have spent a lot more time trying to get exclusive shots for my marketing and guarantee that I can fully convey the intended genre. That being said, I do think that my thumbnail and countdown were better suited for my piece, even if the tone was slightly unfitting on them as well. However, I think they work more with my final piece than my posters did.