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In this seminar, it was the introduction to the module and our groups, while also looking at how short films are structured.

The short films we watched in the first seminar, Doodlebug (1997, Dir. Christopher Nolan) and The Black Hole (2008, Dir. Phil Sampson & Olly Williams) were very interesting and I thought they demonstrated the short film format very well. I think the best thing about both of these films is that they invite the audience to question what is going on within their worlds. This inspired me, and made me want to have a similar questioning moment at the end of our film.

Learning about short films was very useful, as I am not as familiar with them as I am feature length films. Getting a sense of how short films are structured was very useful in setting limitations for our film.

We left the seminar with the intent of brainstorming on our piece before the next seminar.

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In-between seminars, my group had a discussion of where we wanted to take the film. We discussed keeping it simple, as we had learnt in Mondays seminar that short films need minimal characters and simple plots.

We all agreed we wanted to do a psychological-thriller-type film, or something similar, as that was a popular genre within our group, which we learnt in our discussions in seminar 1.1.

Originally, we did have ideas about a Girl who was haunted by a ghost. This idea never got past the character stage before we decided to go in a different direction, but the characters I wrote of in seminar 1.2 reflect this premise.

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This seminar was a further look into the story of our short films, discussing characters, beats and loglines.

We were tasked with individually creating some character descriptions based on the ideas we had during the week. I enjoyed this task and it helped me get a better idea of where our film was developing. During this part of the seminar, our group moved away from the ghost idea we had, and moved to a more tangible threat.

When learning about the conflict in stories, I think we all resonated with the idea of the conflict coming from 'human vs. human.' As such, we decided to change our story from a woman being haunted by a ghost to a woman stuck in an abusive relationship.

After learning about story beats and creating a beat sheet for our film, we developed the framing device of our protagonist (the woman) having a conversation with a friend, with flashbacks developing the character of her boyfriend, the one abusing her.

We left the seminar aiming to develop our story and create a synopsis and logline for our film.

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After some discussion, I developed a logline from our longer synopsis.

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In this seminar, we discussed the visual style of our short film. With our roles now decided, I enjoyed listening to the ideas of our director and camera operators ideas, while also contributing my own for consideration.

We all discussed having a darker visual tone in our film, which helped to inform not just the director and camera op, but also myself and the sound design of each scene.

We left with the task of creating a treatment package for a film to summarise our thoughts and intentions.

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After discussing further what we wanted to do with our film out of lessons, I wrote up this treatment package summarising our ideas.

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In this seminar, we discussed screenwriting, looking at examples of other short film scripts.

I already had some experience with screenwriting in the past, but viewing other scripts was helpful in giving me an idea of what to implement and what not to implement when writing our first draft.

I also spoke to my group about my experience with screenwriting, and I said I would develop an opening scene for us to build off.

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After I wrote the opening scene, some other people in my group developed the café scenes separately. After this, I typed it into a full version, adding an ending.

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I am my groups Sound operator. I think this will be an interesting challenge, because sound is an aspect of production that I am not confident in, so I'm hoping the module will build my confidence.

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In this seminar, we learnt of the responsibilities of the Director and Producer.

We had already discussed in our groups what roles we wanted to do. In last trimester's Production Skills, I was my groups camera operator, so I didn't want to repeat that.

Learning about the responsibilities of these roles was interesting and informed my decision on what role to do in our group.

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In this seminar, we discussed sound. As this was the role I was taking within the group, this was a very important seminar for me.

We discussed problems faced on set with audio, such as weather conditions. As our scenes with dialogue are inside, this doesn't present a problem for our group, as the shots outside can have sound effects added to them later.

I made a note in this seminar reminding myself to take ambient tracks of each location we shoot in.

The clips we watched help me get an idea for the sound I wanted for each scene.

The editing section was equally as important for me, and it helped to inform my ideas more, as everything we did on the day would have to be edited.

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When I was writing the first scene of the script, it was inspired by Oppenheimer (2023, Dir. Christopher Nolan), a film in which the first scene has very impactful sound design. I wanted to reflect this in the final edit.

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Prometheus Stole Fire From The Gods Scene - Oppenheimer | 4K

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During this seminar, I had discussions with the Director of what the sound design should be like. I discussed the opening scene with the building tension, and also how to approach the café scene, which is the only scene with any dialogue.

I went away with the intention to record various household objects for consideration for the opening scene.

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Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to book any equipment out during this week. However, that didn't discourage me from recording some test footage on my phone.

These tests yielded some positive results, because upon looking back on them, they gave me the feeling of overstimulation I discussed with the director in seminar 4.1

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I decided to test the audio of the AC unit in my flat's kitchen, as I wanted to get a sense of what normal, domestic sounds would produce an overstimulating feeling

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The extractor fan test yielded better results than the AC unit, because it sounded more aggressive, which is closer to the tone of the film.

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The kettle produced a similar sound to both the Ac unit and extractor fan, however I think this was most effective as it is most recognizable, while still having an overwhelming tone.

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During this seminar, our group finalised our pre-production. We relayed our plan of actions back to the group, discussing what choices we'll make in our shoots. This helped me as it made me feel a lot more assured about the development of our piece.

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During Seminar 5.1, I also presented the sheet of sound design notes I had made. Below these are the notes I made concerning the shoot dates.

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We created a flat floor plan which I took and added to, including where I would stand for each shot.

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During this week, we finalised our shooting dates. We were separating the shoots into 2 sections:

The flat scenes - 25th February

The café scenes - 26th February

These dates were set in stone after a brief change of actor.

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During reading week I took advantage of the fact we weren't shooting to do some research into how I wanted the opening scene to sound.

I returned to Oppenheimer, which is a film that I enjoy the sound design of very much. I found a video of the Sound Designer of the film, Richard King, describing his process and the way he approached the film.

This informed some thoughts I had about our film, including making a clear contrast between the opening and closing scenes, and the café scenes, which are a lot more subdued in tone.

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This day was dedicated to the scenes set in the flat. These scenes have no dialogue. This meant that my job as sound operator was less so focused on recording shot audio, but more so focused on gaining sound effects that were needed for the final edit.

When I first got on set, I recorded an ambient track of the room. Later on in the shoot, I recorded our actors performing sounds that weren't in any shots, such as Oscar's phone call, or Jessica's heavy breathing.

I also recorded various sounds on set as well, such as chairs being pushed around, as if during a fight.

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This was the day we shot the Café sequence. This is our dialogue-heavy scene, so my work was a lot more involved with the shots being taken. In-between shots, I would help with moving lighting fixtures, or check my audio. During shots I would record the audio along with the camera.

I made sure to record an ambient track of the location, and when I wasn't needed, I would experiment with walking around the space, finding the best place to record footsteps. In the end, I managed to find a spot in the space that allowed me to record the footsteps in the scene without being in the shot. This meant we could use the on set SFXs.

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This is a photo I took during shooting. While these shots were being done, I was checking which SFXs could be recorded for later use.

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This was taken during the filming of a shot. I was taking the audio of the scene.

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During this seminar, we looked over the footage we had captured over the previous 2 days to see if we needed to reshoot. I also listened back to the audio.

While the audio was alright, it was quiet. I was disappointed with this, because I thought that I had done the levelling of my equipment correctly.

The footage of the final scenes in the flat were out of focus, however, so it was decided we would reshoot those scenes in week

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I went through the audio and took note of the different issues we had during recordings.

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While we were all prepared for reshoots, unfortunately, our actor playing Oscar couldn't make the reshoot days. This wasn't too much of a problem, as he doesn't appear anywhere else in the film, and all the shots we needed to retake would replace the ones he was in.

Finding an actor who could film on such short notice proved very difficult, and as such, I stepped into the role as a last resort. The audio I captured on the first shooting day was fine, therefore, the audio equipment wasn't needed for the reshoots (we still booked it out as a precaution).

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This reshoot day was very short, as it was only a pickup of a mirror shot. The shot had problems the first time around due to a faulty bulb in the room, however we reshot it in a different flat.

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The second day of reshoots was more focused on the opening and closing scenes. Instead of taking audio, I was acting on this day.

It was enjoyable to play a character that me and my group had been developing for the last 9 weeks.

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These reshoots helped very much in giving us a better opening and closing scene. It also allowed more leeway with shots, as many of the first shoot weren't unusable, so these reshoots gave us more options in the edit.

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This seminar saw the beginning of my edit. I reviewed all the footage and sound and began putting together the Café scenes first, mainly because of the traditional 'over-the-shoulder' nature of the scene.

By the end of this seminar, I had a rough cut of the first few sections of the café scene.

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In this seminar I gave myself the goal of having a rough cut of the whole film. I achieved this goal and put the opening and closing scenes together. The only thing I needed to do after this was perform some colour correction and grading, and put the credits into the edit.

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In this seminar we were given a quick recap of colour grading, which aligned with my progress perfectly, as I was able to apply the knowledge I had just learnt to my edit. I think the colour correction and grading I did were effective in making the film reflect more toward what my vision of the edit was. I also added the credits into the final edit.

I also asked my tutor to review my edit. I was given the suggestion of adding diegetic music to the Café scene to add more of a contrast to the scene. I was also given the suggestion of changing some of the audio in order to make the dialogue clearer.

I left with the intention of finalising the edit on the Thursday of that week.

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In this seminar, I produced the final edit of the film, adding in the suggestions from my tutor, and exporting it onto my hard drive.

I also uploaded it to my OneDrive just in case of any issues.