Lauren's DFSA Research

This is the (roughly) edited version of the visual test that we shot the other day. Originally we were going to leave it as almost one big cut, however after us watching it over and finding it a bit boring, I suggested adding some jump cuts to make it slightly more interesting. To help improve the next test/ final outcome, I made a list of things I liked and disliked so that next time we can work on achieving an overall better result.

Things I like

The POV shot - I feel it works well for the piece, showing movement but without revealing an identity so that people do not disengage with the meaning and think more about a fictional character instead.
The jump cuts - I think these generally work well however these will need to be more carefully planned out on the actual shoot to make the outcome flow better in certain areas (such as entering/ exiting doors).

Things to be improved

The steadiness of the camera - I realise this is a difficult task to maintain an exact fluid motion with filming, as Tom has to hold the camera at an unnatural angle at my eyes, thus resulting in stress on the hands/ arms, as well as not as accurate control over movement. Hopefully this can be improved with practise and choreographing so that both of us can maintain in sync, having a better knowledge of what each other's movements will be at any specific time.
The length of the each action - I feel this could be shorter, so as to not focus on one action for too long and have it drag on.
The transitions between one room and the next - we need to work out where to film in order to make a fluid transition in post.

To create the rough edit, I thought I would continue to use Avid to test my skills and improve my knowledge from what I learnt through the Avid workshop.

After importing the footage, I arranged each clip into bins for good organisation and easy access when I need to find a specific shot. I created a bin for the new sequence as well, to begin with the edit on the timeline.

Bin window organisation, including sequence

I then created a rough edit, with no cuts just the footage in it's entirety placed together in order on the timeline. For this I had to pick out the best version of each shot from the associated bins.

After this I tried to make the cuts between shots flow together to make it seem seamless/ more like one take. I did this by making the start point of the incoming shot as similar to the end point of the outgoing shot as possible so that there is not a massive noticeable cut between the two and it flows nicely. I created a mark in point in the source monitor, while viewing the record monitor to see the end point of the outgoing shot so as I could match them accurately and then spliced them into the timeline.

To make sure that I didn't have to start the entire project again, I duplicated the sequence, placed it in the sequences bin and named it 'POV Sequence 1 Cuts Version.' This ensured that if I made any mistakes in this cut version, the original would not be affected, and I could go back and work from that instead if a problem occurred.

I created jump cuts by using the 'Add Edit' button, cutting the timeline up and then deleting the section that I didn't want in the final piece.

Highlighted section to be removed after placing an Add Edit

The final timeline cut

After reviewing the piece to make sure I was happy with where the cuts had been placed, I exported it to be played 'on Youtube.'

Today we ran some indoor test shots by creating a scenario consisting of normal every day activities, using POV perspective. For this we used a Canon 600D for convenience with a 10-22mm lens to achieve a wide angle to gain as much information in the shot as possible - similarly to how your eyes work.

Narrative

Person lying in bed with TV remote in hand (fell asleep while watching TV presumably)
He/she slowly wakes up and gets out of bed
Puts on a jumper and then picks up tablet which is sitting on desk
Goes out of bedroom and downstairs to kitchen, leaving tablet on dining room table
Boils kettle then retrieves tablet and begins scrolling through a variety of apps
Once kettle is boiled, goes and makes tea
Travels back upstairs with tea and tablet
Takes jumper off
Gets into bed to watch TV
Falls asleep

The way the film begins and ends therefore creates a seamless loop.

We took different turns being the character whose point of view we see. Tom tried filming it using only himself as one test, but this meant that he couldn't concentrate as well on actions and also could not hold the camera while getting both arm movements in to make it a realistic POV shot. Josh and I took turns being the the character, while Tom would stand behind us or beside, holding the camera roughly where our eyes were. This was a very awkward way to film as there wasn't a lot of room to move and we had to keep very tight to maintain the shot. It was also hard for Tom to judge where our eyes would be looking and our head movements to accurately follow with the camera.

Tom testing to see if we could get away with simply holding the camera, while carrying out the actions

Josh acting as POV character

Reviewing footage and suggesting improvements

After doing a few solo practice tests in the bedroom part (waking up), we decided to try and shoot a rough copy of the entire thing to get an idea of what it would look like and whether it would work. Using me as the POV character, Tom continued to hold the camera where my eyes were, as I carried out the activities, making sure to get arm movements in. We had to work as a team in order for camera shots and actions to be in sync and make sense together.

We all felt that the test shoot went very well and Tom even suggested we consider using it for the final piece. We learnt how important choreographing it is, and if we decide to re-shoot I feel this is something we will need to work on more before picking up the camera to film anything. I also feel the movement needs to be less shaky and slightly more fluent. I am currently in the processing of editing together the test shots to make an entire rough edit, and I found at times watching it was very disorientating.

Example Test Shots

Picking up tablet

Playing game

Making Tea

Watching TV (green screen to add footage later)

I've been looking into visual references for the occipital lobe section of the brain, in which when touched on the model will play a short film on the screen. In my previous post, I discussed how we thought indoor visuals might be more efficient to carry out. We are continuing with the point of view perspective, in order to try and make it more relatable to the audience. Hopefully the style will be interesting and appealing, but will not distract from the playfulness and interaction side of the installation. Tomorrow Josh, Tom and I are going to try some more visual tests, but this time indoors to see what we can accomplish and whether or not it fits with the rest of the piece.

"Point of View" // Doug Smith

This short film shows a man going through his ordinary daily activities, but the audience watches as if they are looking through the man's eyes. Doug Smith wanted to 'fully embrace the idea seeing life in a way that we all do. Small narratives play out in our daily lives every single day, this is just my way of documenting it." Hopefully using a similar approach, we can engage the audience from being relatable and make them feel more connected with the installation.

A concern that I brought up with Tom during our location scouting trip was how we were going to place the camera to make it look like a POV shot, while still being able to view upper body activities such as hand movement. He suggested having someone hold the camera in front of the actor who would be performing the activities, however we both felt that this would be too awkward and would probably not end up looking visually very realistic nor good. However for "Point of View," Doug Smith used a 'a belt and the supplied neck strap' to rig his DSLR to sit right where his neck is. Maybe we can try a test using this method to see if we can get our desired effect.

A Ride in the Park // Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale

Safe Haven // Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans

Both the above clips are from the 2013 anthology horror film, V/H/S 2. This film instantly came to mind when thinking about shooting from a POV view as it uses this technique pretty regularly through it's many shorts.

POV : Eating a Salad // College Humour

College Humour have done a series of POV shorts, which we can also look at for reference and inspiration on camera angles and how to frame the activities.

Tom and I decided to go out and get a rough idea of what images we want to show and where these will be set. This brought us back the the psychogeography task earlier and we used a similar approach by just going out a walking.

We looked at quiet places, but we thought that these wouldn't be visually interesting or relatable enough for the audience.

e.g. empty field (it was very foggy so everything looked pretty/ mysterious!)

We thought that the character should travel through a busier location, such as during rush hour/ a busy road as this would be more interesting visually in terms of movement. However I wasn't sure how this would tie together with the rest of the project and would the viewer be engaged or find this relatable enough? It might be too random and unconnected.

Busy road reference

Tom did some film tests of walking to get a feel to how the final outcome will look. We also ran into Katherine on her way back to the house, who provided some sounds and interaction.

Filming : movement tests

After reviewing the footage from Tom's camera, I made a list of improvements for the next tests/ final outcome:

Movement needs to be less shaky and more realistic to an actual pov from a person
Only looking down (or at other certain angles) when necessary

However on our travels we had a think about the flaws of filming solely outside:

We can't film outside shops etc
We need to gain permission to film inside places
We can't film random people walking past without getting their permission
Number plates, logos etc would probably need to be blurred

Therefore we have decided that the majority of filming should probably be done inside. We were thinking of maybe having an ordinary POV of someone's daily life doing simple tasks that everyone can relate too - eg waking up, making coffee in the morning etc

Also I took these two shots, just for some random fun, spare of the moment kind of thing, of cars going past and traffic light changing. At the time I found them interesting how they had created different coloured pentagons / cool shapes, but after looking back on them maybe this is something we could show when the entire four lobes of the brain have not been selected. Therefore leaving the imagery to not make sense until all pieces of the puzzle have been connected, revealing the un-blurred visual that makes sense to the viewer (along with sound etc).

Out of focus shots of car and traffic lights - unclear visuals?

We started off the day having a quick discussion with Anne and Rosie, before our production designer Lucy went off with Rosie to buy materials for the set build. During this time the rest of the crew started on scraping the walls to get them smooth and Thomas (director) directed me to work with Julia to create a shoot schedule. This schedule was later re-done as advised by Thomas to group the shots rather than film in a linear way. Julia and I grouped them according to what lens was going to be used (first wide shot, then medium, finally close) and put the shots that required the set to be moved around last to ensure we don't waste time moving it back and forth. There is also a time slotted for pick up shots before the actor leaves. We also thought it would be best to begin early (9am) to make sure we aren't rushed and have enough time to set up the equipment and prepare to shoot.

Shoot Schedule

Once the shoot schedule had been finalised, I helped out with scraping the walls. However since there wasn't enough scrapers I just used my hands (and a sponge to dampen the wall) to peel back the past wallpaper, as I thought every little helps. Eventually I got my hands on a scraper and continued the job with more ease. I found this to be a hard, taxing job on my arm but we did take brief breaks and swap over.

Tom and Shahid busy scraping!

Tom, Rob (cinematographer), Shahid and I (assistant directors) had a brief meeting with Simon to make sure everything was achievable within the shoot. Simon advised us to create a prevues of the film to get an idea of framing and shots to make it easier on the actual day.

One side of the wall completely stripped

Once all the walls had been adequately stripped of previous wallpaper, we put a wall covering on one of the boards as a test, using wall paste. It wasn't perfect but we agreed that no wall is ever going to be 100% perfect anyway, especially for a gallery space.

The installation consists of two convex mirrors

Paula Crown based this piece on the fact we don't know a lot about where artistic inspiration comes from and how it works in relation to the brain. There is an endless right brained vs left brained debate and Crown wanted to show what actually occurs in all areas of the brain while making art, rather than trying to understand how this happens. Her inspiration comes from MRI scans, actually using this method to capture the inner workings of her own brain as she performs art. This focuses on both external and internal appearance, Crown stating she wanted to allow "the record of the data to physically build the environment.' She has manipulated the imagery to show multiple points of perspective and 3D imaging.

I really like this piece as I feel it is visually very interesting and I like the way it has been displayed/ set up in the gallery space. The two convex mirrors feel like an intersection straight through the middle of the brain to give a separate view and perspective of each side. While there is not much we can take from this for the actual artistic side of this piece, I feel it is very helpful to study and get an idea of other artists interpretation of the brain. This also inspires me to make sure that we display our installation in an appropriate way in the gallery to do it justice and gives me a sense of the importance of setting it up right.

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