The Final Stage

Editing

Because our production time had run over schedule we had begun to cut into our editing time. We now only had 3 days to get all the footage cut, placed and edited with any effects we wanted include. With a bit of foresight we had begun to load all the footage that we had already onto the computers during the production. This was a necessary task as one of the cameras we had used to record on used mini dv tapes and would have to be loaded on in real time. Our first day of editing consisted of us putting together a time line of all the events in our storyboard. It took a long time to identify and label each of the videos that we would use and in hindsight it would have been better if we had done this as we took each video off the cameras. At the end of the first day we had a movie that was approximately nine and a half minutes long, which was way over the time limit that had been set. Before we left we cut this to 7 and a half and decided to leave the rest till the next day.

Day 02 of editing proved to be just as long as the first as we started on the audio of the film. Deciding to keep the main character mute during the production made editing the audio much easier however some of the background noises had unwanted vocals in it and all these had to be removed or edited to get rid of these. The sound levels in several scenes also had to be adjusted as the background noise was too overwhelming. The bus scenes in particular were far too loud. We decided to remove most of the audio from the dreams and replace it with ambient sort of music that would be a stark contrast to the harsh noises of real life. This was to help the viewer to register that difference between the dream states and real life. We also recorded several sound effects to be used in the stop motion animation and the dreams. Key points that have been given extra audio are KARL brings the lamp to life, Lamp talks to KARL, Plane building and flying, Toy Fight, and Teleportation. All these things are necessary to give the movie a sort of comic feel.

On the morning of day 3, the day when all was due, we ran into a problem which lost us 4 hours of editing time. The computer we were using could no longer handle the file and Premiere Pro the program we were using to edit the film would crash every time. We spent many hours trying to trouble shoot the problem but to no avail. We decided we would have to transfer the files to another computer. By doing this we were able to start work on the project again. We did have initial issues of set up when we had to find and link all the files again but once this was done we began some work in After Effects to give our movie the cheesy effects it needed to make it extra funny. We had some lighting in the first scene when KARL touches the lamp and some subtle tinting to contrast between the dream world and the real one. Time was not on our side though and with all the lost time these were the only effects we were able to edit into the film. We rendered the movie and it was ready to show in the BCT popcorn premier night

This is our movie advertisement poster

And this is the final movie. Enjoy.

Somewhere In the Middle

Production Part 2

With lectures all day Monday the only time we would have to shoot would be the evening. This was actually good timing as the third scene in the park was intended to be shot at the end of the day. After lectures finished we bused out to the location which was a park with a playground near Emile’s house. The lighting wasn’t quite right when we arrived so we shot a few clips that we had not had time to do the on the previous day. Once the day started to get darker we shot the transition clips from his house to the park as well as those needed for the dream. The idea was that ‘KARL’ could now teleport wherever he wanted in his dream and would move rapidly around the park. By cutting the clips we would easily be able to make it appear like he was moving from one place to another. To get this effect right we set up a static shot of two parts of the park. He would move around the jungle jim and then move onto the swings. This scene was relatively easy although we had a very limited time frame due to the fact that the sun was going down at such a fast rate. No issues arose on this day.

On the last day of production we shot the two scenes. We had ‘KARL’ entering school and being bullied by the students there and the final scene where he walks around Town in the robot suit. The idea behind the last scene was to show that he had become completely lost in his own reality. He no longer saw the real and the dream world as separate pieces but as one reality.  Aside from random people wanting to take photos of a guy in his suit we had no problems shooting these scenes.

Production

The production seemed strait forward to me as we started to shoot. I headed in with confidence that we could get it done in the 2 days we had set aside for the shooting and we started off well working on the stop motion component of the film. The idea behind this was that the main character ‘KARL’, a boy who dreams of being a robot, would bring to life inanimate objects in his dream and they would act out his imagination. This seemed like a fun approach to this project and it was something that we all had a little experience of doing. However, we came across some difficulties with lighting and how much time it was taking. The time it takes to move the pieces a tiny amount and then take a picture meant that hours passed by and the lighting changed around us while we were doing it. This led to inconsistent light sometimes. To get around this we cut off most of the ambient light sources and replaced them with lamps. I would have liked to use some commercial lights and have the light reflected round the room to have made more even lighting and shadows however, we did not have access to these so it could not be done. Aside from these small issues we managed to get about half way through the first scene on day one.

This is a video of us working on our stop motion to demonstrate how long it takes. This short clip was originally 46 minutes long and is playing at 64x normal speed

Our second day of production had us finishing off the stop motion. I think we were all a little frustrated by how long it was actually taking us to shoot this and we all knew the whole movie wouldn’t be finished by the end of the day. Soon after starting we had another issue with lighting, as it changed as we moved about the room. We had used some lamps to illuminate the original scene but when we moved to the next shelf up we had huge shadows being cast over the props. By reshuffling some of the lights we were able to fix this and it also gave the scene some sense of a change happening between the 2 location and an almost surreal feeling to the footage. Another small difficulty we encountered during this was the law of gravity. Everything had to fall down. The bullets that flew from the toys gun proved to be extremely stubborn when it came to hanging from the ceiling and being ties in place. With the time flying by we had to come up with a good solution. The thought popped into my head of just swinging the bullets back and forth and this proved to be a small victory as it gave the impression that we were actually moving them.

The second half of the day was spent actually filming the movie. Without a proper time production schedule we had let ourselves be pushed outside the optimal time for shooting the morning scene of the movie. This was more of a lack of experience on our team’s part rather than bad management. As we were working it just felt like time was flying by and the lighting was rapidly changing away from what would be suitable. However we moved ahead as planned and finished off the first scenes shooting.

At this point we were all pretty tired and the production was less than half done. We decided that we had to head into town and shoot the second dream. Our location was in the BCT studio and this would be our only opportunity to have it empty. The second dream consists of ‘KARL’ moving the walls of his dream and making objects move at his command. After this he moves about his reality at super speed. We started off by having him move from the area where he had fallen asleep. Use of a panning medium shot we had him moving into a boxed in area with no exit. By setting up a static shot over his shoulder and having a shot on the ground between his legs we were able to capture all the action that was happening as well as being able to move the objects. We then set up a sequence of motion that we would act out so that Emile could sync up with the flying objects. This took a few tries to get the movement and the objects matching but we managed to get it done.

This was our first attempt.

At the end of 2 days of production we are now about half way done and have put in about 18 hours of work into the film.