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Meeting today with Ethan (director) to discuss the conform, any missing media I needed such as After effects files and the graphics for the end scenes, discuss the timeline for the colour corrections and how we are going to navigate him giving feedback when I begin the look of the grade. Ethan sent over their inspiration packet and any work they have for the look he would like the inspirations such as 'The end of the fucking world' and 'Wandavision'. I can now begin checking over my conform and the colour correction process.

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2nd feb mood board inspiration provided by Ethan

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2nd feb mood board inspiration provided by Ethan

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2nd feb mood board inspiration provided by Ethan

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2nd feb mood board inspiration provided by Ethan

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Home Alone is a 5ish minute drama -
"Little Mikey fends for
himself in an eerily empty house… until a
a mysterious older child named Will appears in
his backyard."

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This is all of the inspirational materials Ethan sent over to give me an idea of what look they wanted, although I have chosen to go for more of a realism grade as the VFX haven't been completed yet and without that element the overall look will be confusing by itself but i will be keeping in contact with Ethan after the deadline so when the VFX is complete we can reassess how the grade looks with the other elements and look into leaning more into those fantasy scenes.

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As this piece is a post apocalyptic drama,  i am taking inspiration from pieces like The last of us, A quiet place and Birdbox, these pieces are inspiring because they reflect grief and loss during a world crisis.

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Colour corrections happening

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Notes - Picture lock a week from tuesday the 28th

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working on organising the media into different sequences so i can go through and select the best takes using the lined script

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Copy of Portfolio Time Management - Sheet1

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Since creating my initial scheduling plan I have had to rethink how I will manage each of my projects, as gormanium was scheduled to begin on the 1st of march but has yet to be picture locked by the editor due to revisions, I am now scheduled to get this project the week of 13th of march.
Hatter is scheduled to begin at the start of April but is likely to start the week of 13th march also, this moves it forward significantly but means I can work on both projects simultaneously and have all through march and April.
The downside is my Home Alone edit needs to be pushed forward so my current focus is getting a good draft of that ready to add sound design to.

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The progress i've made on this project so far is selecting the best pieces from the rushes, assessing the potential storylines and how I want to portray the characters and their emotions, i feel its best to lean into the emotional thoughts and feelings of the main character and how apocalypse has effected his childhood, I will be using sound deisgn to show the emptiness in the house and also his life, instrumental music to add depth and keep the flow of the piece moving forward and potentially some music additions over the montage scene to match the visuals.

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After making a few sequence versions of this edit in premiere I have finally reached my final picture lock version, I have added crop bars on the side and gotten rid of the crop bars on the top of the footage as I feel this adds a close feel to the characters and draws you into the young boy's story and emotional journey.
Although my timeline is very simple in terms of editing it will be greatly enhanced by the sound design and I feel this sfx will pair well with the simplistic and concise cut, lending more space to the sfx to immerse the audience further into the piece.
I also added some temporary music and have cleaned up any existing audio that I don't want so that I can enhance any dialogue and add in sfx more cleanly through Adobe audition which I have conformed to today ready for more sfx work.
Inspiration from my sound design comes from similar films to the edit inspirations such as "a quiet place" and "the last of Us" using the natural sounds happening in the scenes and enhancing them to add depth to the audio, then using any music choices to move the flow of the edit along as to not become stagnant or too quiet.
I will add another timeline screenshot from audition further into the sfx journey.

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I have begun colour corrections for Hatter, the opening scene i am aiming for a desaturated wonderland look, the main scenes set in London are bright with cold tones and the final scenes back in wonderland are oversaturated with lots of highlights to match the characters moods.

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I met with the editor and director to collect the deliverables for my conform and to discuss their ideas for the grade, Ben (Director) is happy to lean into the natural hues of each scene, keeping the highlights up and avoiding desaturation as an overall look, I think this will suit the storyline and set design well, i plan to complete a rough draft of some scenes to send to Ben for review by Monday the 3rd of april, I'm using frame.io to collect feedback from my clients on the scenes so far and to organise any changes that need to be made.

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I recieved a cinematography lookbook and an art department inspiration pdf (linked under this post) as inspiration for what they will be filming so I could get an idea of how to move forward with the grade once it had been picture locked and helped me to understand my client Ben's (the director) vision for the film.

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A directors look book i received at the beginning of the project as guidance for the look and feel of the film

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to help me understand the content and the look of the film

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Lightbox view of all finished shots before shot matching

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Lightbox view of all finished shots before shot matching

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Email and Whatsapp communications with Ben

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Email and Whatsapp communications with Ben

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Some examples of communication ive had with Ben throughout the project.

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I used frame.io to send a copy of some finished scenes to receive feedback from Jenny mid way through this grade, this helped me to keep my vision aligned with Jenny's vision as director, a few changes have been made such as the desaturation on the first scene wasn't quite the direction jenny wanted to go with so I pushed the sat back into those shots but kept an overall dull feeling as matches the story to create something Jenny is happy with, after this and the other feedback comments I used those to go through and finalise one shot from each scene, i then went through and shot matched as best i could until they all aligned with Jenny's comments, this piece is then ready for shot matching and denoise/grain.

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Ben sent me a pdf file with his notes and revisions ahead of our meeting on the 18th so i could get an understanding of the changes needed before we meet up so i could prepare a few look options for him to see.

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on Monday 18th i met with Ben to look through the notes he sent me and to make any final adjustments before submission.

Overall Ben was happy with the progress of the grade but had changed his mind on the look of some scenes mostly with contrast and shadowing  he sent me through a document with notes and photo references of where he wants changes made, I made a few correction examples before i met with him to show him how its looking, he was happy with these and after going through more scene changes he was happy with the final product.

We discussed grain as well as Ben had expressed that was an important part of the look for him, we used 35mm grain on the first and brighter half of the film, after the power is shut off we switched to a 16mm film grain to help with the darker turns in the storyline.

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Hatter meeting with Jenny (the director)

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Hatter meeting with Jenny (the director)

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I had a meeting in the grading room with Jenny the director and Henry the editor to showcase Hatter and to get feedback on the film with enough time to make adjustments before our submission.
They were happy with the overall looks of wonderland in the beginning and afterwards but have asked if i can brighten the middle sections where the main character is in a london office, we originally liked the dull and flat imagery and how well it matched the tone of the story but apon watching it back together decided to go with a different approach of adding alittle more saturation but darkening the main charcters surroundings as to draw attention to him without losing the important aspects of the scene and set.
I will reach out again to Jenny with a few new shots and get more feedback before this piece is set to be finished with grain.

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when researching for Hatter my first idea was to look into all of the alice in wonderland films to gain inspiration from those, i learned that the original alice in wonderland was shot on 35mm film and thought it would create a nice link between this wonderland story and the original if i emulated a 35mm film grain for the parts they are in wonderland and emulated 16mm grain for the london scenes to help the audience shift between the locations of the scenes.

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As my client is a Ravensbourne graduate they are very busy in the industry so are more hands off in terms of my creative choices, this was helpful in terms of allowing me creative freedom to interpret the piece, i chose a realism look as i felt it subtly added to to final look without taking away from the important messages in the story.

Complete creative control has its challenges though as it means I don't have any guidance on the original vision for the grade other than references and have only been able to schedule one meeting for review due to the busy schedule of the client.

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on Monday 18th I had my final review meeting with Jenny for Hatter, this was to discuss the scene adjustments id been making and to also discuss final looks and grain and audio for my export.

Jenny was happy overall with the look but wanted to go through some specific shots and edit them in person, this helped us to choose a final look for the middle dialogue scene with Alice and to match the reverse shot also.
We also were concerned with the London office scenes that as we wanted them to be dull and grey they were lacking depth and looked very flat, I added contrast, a warm undertone and some light highlights to help this as it was bringing more detail from around and on the main character.
After this, I added noise reduction and grain after discussing with Jenny my plans to add 35mm grain to emulate a similar look to the original Alice in wonderland as it was shot on 35mm.
I will then send Jenny my project file to go back to her editor for the online and VFX, I will be submitting my copy without the vfx as their vfx won't be ready in time for my deadline.

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Home Alone is a short 5-minute piece I picked out from the uni rushes folder as my craft edit piece, I worked on the sound design as well but haven't submitted that to be marked on my submission, as my speciality is grading I chose to take on a smaller piece of editing to focus on the larger grading pieces for my clients.

I picked home alone as I felt it had a lot of potential to move the story around and to work on the sound design to enhance the story, after looking at the rushes I chose to cut straight into the main character making breakfast, no music but with enhancing the natural sounds of the scene, cupboard doors shutting, milk pouring etc, I felt this set the tone for the main character with jump cuts to show him being there alone and struggling a little to make his breakfast, jumping quickly into a wide shot of the little boy alone again this time playing by himself, I then chose to introduce the deceased mother after he runs into her room and is talking to her, I then chose to reveal her face as a confirmation that the little boy is all alone.

I chose to have these boys meet briefly in the middle of the piece to form a connection over losing their parents but then to represent grief not being linear you see as soon as the boy becomes comfortable with his new friend and falls asleep he is awoken afraid and alone again, becoming panicked I used jump cuts again to show again how long he spends alone, eventually returning to the grief of losing his mother and being alone again.

A negative of this project was that when you are trying to reshape a story that was shot for a specific plot it can be difficult to find a story that works, is interesting and flows well, I felt deleting some of the scenes and moving the dialogue where possible would help to make a more concise story.

Overall I feel this edit could have benefitted from a more in-depth sound design but overall has a nice flow to the story and is an interesting edit.

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This project is my favourite to work on out of these pieces, the director Ben was amazing to work with, had a clear vision and enough understanding of grading to be realistic with his expectations for the piece.

Gourmanium was shot in an indoor set designed for the piece so the lighting really lends a hand to a consistent grade, I had a meeting with Ben before shooting about the kind of final look he was going for and we agreed warm lighting overall would be the best base as he wanted a lot of reds, oranges and yellow tones rather than cold lighting would bring out more blue which Ben didn’t want at all.

A negative about this project was it spent a long time in editing which left a shorter deadline of 2 weeks for the grade, I would have preferred to have more time to have Ben sit in on the grading process shot by shot as I feel this would have benefited the final look and grain especially but because of the short time schedule, I chose to instead make use of all of my available time and send Ben over video files to review at each stage and have one sit in meeting at the end stage to go through shot by shot and have him confirm he’s happy.

I enjoy working with clients and helping create their vision, especially on well-shot pieces, Ben shot Gourmanium on RED footage so I had an amazing colour gamut captured to work with, this gave me a lot of freedom to push the shadows and contrasts in the way my client wanted.

I started initially with my client wanting a very saturated and bright piece with leaning into the natural hues of each scene including the backlighting such as the green in the kitchen scenes and the more red tones in the living room, after review we decided to go into a different direction of bringing more shadowing and contrast in, this matched the feeling of the scenes as the characters start out very cheery and bright and move into a dark and sad environment in the second half.

As this story becomes more sad and dark with the characters losing power halfway through it was a great opportunity to use these natural hues to move more into yellow candlelight and away from the reds and more into the yellows, this complimented the shadowy tones and the flow of the story as the main character gets sicker throughout, it also lends a hand to blend into the dream sequence towards the end as they shot this with a bloom on the camera to naturally add this effect so I could subtly enhance this in the grade to keep a natural look, with yellow hues all through this scene it still keeps a nice flow between the candlelight scene before and the end scene which has prominent red lighting in, we used the highlights to push that candlelight flicker on the character to keep a consistent undertone all the way through as not to be a jarring experience for the viewer.

The only thing I would change if I did this again would be receiving feedback earlier on from Ben, because of his specific vision he had a large number of notes, all very similar overall but he was wanting to make lots of revisions close to my deadline because of receiving the grade so late and also changing his mind on what he initially wanted after seeing it cost a lot of time because Ben is so hands-on as a director I think it would have benefited having more time in the grade and also more time to have him sit in with me to avoid any miscommunications but has expressed he is very happy with the final outcome of the grade.

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Hatter is a 14-minute piece following the story of Hatter, the main character, on his journey out of a tiresome wonderland to find Alice. This piece is a homage to “Alice in Wonderland”  as it features all the best characters from the original films, I worked with Jenny a DFP student and the director of Hatter, who had a clear vision of what she wanted for most scenes such as a saturated and bright wonderland and a bold and mysterious rabbit hole but was very open to creative input for what is a big chunk of the shots which is the London office scenes.

At first, I followed Jenny's general idea of what she wanted for these scenes such as very grey, dull, unsaturated and cold but when we had our first review meeting in the grading room it became clear that these scenes really stood out of the overall vibe of the other shots and didn't give any flow to the story and were overall flat and lacking any depth. We spoke about what compromises Jenny would be happy to make to these scenes to blend them in with the overall piece and also give enough depth to the scenes that the main character isn't lost in the dullness of the office setting, we agreed to try bringing a red/warm undertone into the scenes as this is what brought both the wonderland and rabbit hole scenes together and this worked well, I also suggested we raise the contrast to add more detail and depth to the Hatter character and highlights to lighten the scene in a way that isn't boring to the audience. I felt Jenny was disappointed with this compromise but due to how these scenes were shot and the short timeframe we had (one week out from the deadline) I felt this was the best way to compromise and manage expectations while keeping consistency in the piece for the final exports.

This piece has been challenging as I don't often work with scenes that are needing to be made dull or grey and this has taught me so much about different types of grading away from realism and high saturation grading, I have also enjoyed working on RED footage as it is so versatile and even the most subtle grading can make such a big difference in a natural way, I have come across file sizing issues with having a large amount of raw footage for this grade and my other piece “Gourmanium”

It has been difficult to manage storage for these files, slow playback times and extremely long export times but I have learnt how to properly manage my projects and have included multiple export versions as ProRes 4444 can be difficult to playback I have also included H.264 files of all my grades to allow for easy viewing and a Graded/ungraded file to really showcase my final looks.

The VFX are still in the works for this project so I haven't included them in my exports but this hasn't affected the look at all. Finally, I have ensured that I used noise reduction overall on the timeline and grouped together the wonderland shots, rabbit hole shots and London office shots to apply 3 different film grains, Wonderland has a 35mm grain as the original Alice in Wonderland film was shot in 35mm and a subtle shift in grain for the London scenes to 16mm to help the audience visually transition between scenes.

Overall I feel I had challenges with this but I managed my client's expectations well, delivered to them a consistent and well-graded piece and both myself and Jenny are pleased with the final outcome of the look.

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Cabin Dreamer is an 18-minute drama about the struggles of an Autistic man in the pandemic dealing with getting diagnosed and other life struggles including the decline of his relationship. The client for this project is a Ravensbourne graduate from last year, they have had this project in post-production for a while due to finding people to do the work while they’re busy in the industry, I was originally scheduled to work on this project at the beginning of year 3 but agreed with Ethan my client to instead begin to work on it this term and use this piece for my portfolio, Ethan has been very hands off and understanding due to being busy and being very open creatively.

I have had issues with this piece such as not receiving all the footage from their editor, one of the shots was an active after effects file so when I reached out to ask for an exported mov file of this shot I never heard back so I had to just pick out a similar shot from the rushes and add that in to be graded instead.

The footage is ProRes 4444 but there are many lighting issues throughout the piece such as the main character standing next to a very overexposed window in a panning shot between getting up and sitting down, I used keyframing to raise and lower the lift and gain to even out the overexposed windows and not have a very dark shot of him sitting down.

The other issues were in the edit they had chosen shots where they moved the camera and adjust the lighting in the middle of takes which affected the grade as it made some shots of them over dinner look different and inconsistent, I therefore had to spend more time colour matching these as best I could with the lighting changes during shot matching.

What I did enjoy about this project is creating a naturally enhanced environment that compliments the story well without taking focus away from the important storyline and message within the short film.

This included keeping the skin tones even throughout and creating natural lighting for the different scenes of night and day.

There are VFX happening in the future for this piece but unfortunately, they aren’t ready in time for my deadline so to keep the grade consistent and make the storyline understandable I have chosen to grade all scenes as a naturally enhanced look rather than their original intention of a mix between dream and reality as I feel this would have not have made the scenes cohesive without those added VFX, I have spoken to my client and explained that I am happy to rework some scenes with the VFX shots included to grade those and blend the scenes together nicely when the VFX is ready later this year.

Overall I enjoyed this grade but I’m disappointed without the VFX I couldn't lean more into the fantasy elements for this piece.

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Email and Whatsapp communication with Jenny

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Email and Whatsapp communication with Jenny

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Here's my communication with Jenny over email and Whatsapp discussing meetings, deadlines, issues and confirming colour looks.