Traits:

-Cautious, introverted, prefers being at home in her comfort zone.

-Loves photography, but fearful of exploring the woods.

-Moral head and doesn't want to break rules.

-Supersitious and hyper aware of the supernatural.

Traits:

-Strong willed and extroverted.

-Spontanious & outgoing.

-Very outdoorsy and has a passion for adventure.

-Fearless and a complete non-beliver in the supernatural.

Traits:

-Eccentric, strange.

-Defensive, fickle, quick to anger but often regrets his actions (turning people into stones).

-Friendly on the surface and usually welcoming.

-Clumsy, impulsive

-The Nomad is not from this world, he was trapped on Earth when a spell went wrong. He is very clumsy and highly impulsive.

We chose to build a set as we knew that the particular look we wanted to achieve would only be possible in a highly controlled studio environment, allowing us to bring more props and set pieces into the scene, use a hazer and have more control with lighting.

We looked for locations that have tall trees and large woodland areas which would emulate our fantasy vision we are aiming for with this film. A picturesque setting will also help sell the idea that the girls are going into the forest to take photos and make the photos Elysia takes in the film to have an aesthetic quality.

Exterior Locations: Hillsea Lines, Warsash Common, Blackwood Forest, Stoke Park Wood

Interior Location: White Swan Studio 1

Choosing Kit, Transporting it safely.

It is proving difficult to use the Arri Mini LF, especially for transporting it in the woods. This can still be in decision, as it would work for using the Arri’s in the studio

Another suggestion was to use the Sony sf7 with Arri PL Mount Lens, using an adapter to attach to the Sony for better quality shots.

Update W/C 28th Oct - Team has decided to get accredited on the Ronin 4D and use this camera for exterior shooting. Then move to using the Arri Alexa Mini LF for interior shooting.

Update and confirmation, W/C 11 Nov:

Ronin 4D for ext shoots

Sony FS7 with Xeen prime lens for studio.

Preesha Patel - Camera Team & Location Scout (up2107263)

Freya Le Roux - Camera Team (up2112839)

Joe Batting - Gaffer, editor & colourist (up2108854)

Elysia - Lea Neumayer

The Nomad - Harvey Albury

Production Design - Lea Neumayer

Sound Recordist - Alex Carvalho

Camera Assistant - Tess Ekeland

-Duration of 5mins (10% either side)

-Minimum of 30 shots, all original

-Use of drone/go-pro limited to 20 seconds

-Professionally recorded dialogue

-Exported HD h.264 .mov

-Audio: 48,000 16 bit

-Padlet must include a Shot Rationale once your film has been edited, justifying inclusion of the shot with reference to lens selection, composition, lighting, framing, grading, camera movement and meaning.

-Each shot should add to the narrative development.

-The film should demonstrate creative vision, ability to communicate complex ideas through the language & craft of film but also demonstrate camera skills, technical ability and cinematic awareness.

-The film should be visually stunning and emotionally charged.

• Focus on the individual

  Romantic artists focused on the moods, feelings, and emotions of their subjects, rather than objective reality or accuracy. 

• Imagination and emotion

  Romanticism emphasized the imagination and emotion, and rejected the didacticism of Neoclassical history painting. 

• Nature

  Romanticism explored the beauty and power of nature, often depicting landscapes, flora, and fauna in a highly stylized and idealized way. 

• Sublime

  Romantic art was characterized by the sublime, which is a mixed feeling of awe and terror. 

• Rejection of societal norms

  Romanticism rejected societal norms and the Enlightenment's values of reason and order. 

• Exploration of strong emotions

  Romanticism explored strong emotions, including operatic emotions and extraordinary experiences. 

• Expansion of subject matter

  Romantic artists expanded the repertoire of subject matter, incorporating elements of the supernatural and the mysterious. 

The Tent: Inside the tent the main element will be the haze, creating pools and beams of light which will come in through tears in the fabric. Warmer light will be created by using portions of transparent orange fabrics, almost like the tent is a patchwork quilt. This will help me create a nice contrasts of bright, daylight and a soft warmer fill (see middle image in the moodboard below). The bright artificial sunlight coming through will also be used as a backlight, possibly to silhouette the characters when they first enter the tent and as an interesting small rim/edge light.

DP/Preesha: Magical Realism - the idea of reinforcing the audience to follow the journey of the fantasy worlds through cinematic moments.

Magical Realism

It was stated that that magical realism is a right way to create symbolism or explore characters via exaggeration. When we normalise phantasmagoric attributes among people and animals, we’re normally looking quite closely at what we already know about them not what unique features they’re capable of.

Understanding how shallow depth of field and focused perspective helps create the Fantasy effect/world:

See next section

Please see my Moodboard inspiration as well below:

+ Great location (on Uni campus and near Eldon building) and access for parking, meaning transporting people and kit is incredibly easy and free.

+On site toilet, changing facilities and a wide space for storing kit

+ Allows use of hazer and high ceiling height to truely realise our vision for this interior set scene

- Priority of booking: Realistically, half a day to set up and a day to shoot would be required for the studio shoot. Priority is given to drama/theatre students meaning that issues could arise with our booking

- Bookings can only be made three weeks in advance and often 3 hour lectures slots are automatically added onto the system meaning accessing the studio for a full day might not be possible.

Reasons we chose studio 1:

-Able to use the hazer machine

-Large floor studio space

-Easy rigging access (raised walkways and lowerable top rails)

1) Use an array of c-stands and boom arms to hold up the fabric as shown above.

2) Use white swan's gantry to hand 3 lengths of rope across so we can hang the tent fabric over the top and form the tent shape.

Through testing we found that option 1 isn't ideal and quite unrealistic. The weight of the fabric is surprisingly a lot and pulls on the c-stands too much. We also may be unable to get enough c-stands from the loan stores to achieve this. Lots of sand bags will be needed however overall the concept is not safe enough. We have spoken to the White Swan studio technician team and will be going with option 2 instead which is a lot safer, more practical, gives us more control and overall will give us a lot more space to work with.

We are looking to practically test this concept next week and are finalising floor plans for the props/furniture.

(This outline was sent to the White Swan studio tech team for them to properly understand our concept)

Shelves: We have 3 shelf units, one large and two small, to place props and add interest to the background of shots. Props added will mostly be books but also glass jars, the metal case, battery operated candles and also aged up household objects like shoes, old mugs, bowls.

Large Shelf: The largest shelf will prominantely feature in the scene due to storing the pebbles. The best props will concentrate around this shelf which the characters will interact with (see prop list for key props)

Cauldron Area: This area will act as a great corner filler and help motivate the haze in the scene. This will involve a metal fire brazier with a camping tripod above it hanging a metal pot downwards. There will be no fire for obvious safety reasons, however we will try and fill it with twigs to create the illusion it has recently been used.

Other: Additional props we can use to fill out the space include a brown cushion, plants and boxes covered in old fabric. These will be essential in filling out the space and making it feel as though it is currently lived in and will be excellent background set elements.

Waterhouse’s works, such as The Soul of the Rose, often portrayed figures caught in moments of intense emotional or spiritual revelation, blending the human and the mystical. When we are shooting, I will be directing my actors to embrace the fact that this is something unlike they have ever seen before, relating to the idea that waterhouse captures so often in his work. 

Close-ups of Elysia in particular could be framed to echo Waterhouse’s emotional portraits, capturing her wide-eyed wonder or fear, especially as she interacts with the supernatural elements of the tent.

Waterhouse’s work also blurred the line between the mystical and the mundane, often depicting supernatural events with a sense of realism and detail that made them all the more unsettling.  I believe our mix of location shooting and studio set design, will infer this idea quite well.  Shooting the outside locations more in a drama style, and the studio in a much more conventional fansty way.

Focused Perspective:

It makes use of the fact/illusion that objects in the distance appear smaller than those in the foreground. The Lord Of the Rings, filmmakers embraced this theory to make certain characters appear larger or smaller compared to other characters that fit within the screen. See photo, below as an example of this. Because the camera makes images in 2D, the perspective is compressed. To add to the effect, the actors were also given different sized props than other characters in the scene.

Inspiration. The Lord of the Rings (2001)

Bibliography

https://library.fiveable.me/advanced-cinematography/unit-2/lighting-genres-moods/study-guide/sIblWjXJim0tn7Ra

Low-key lighting

-   Involves using strong contrasts between light and dark areas, with deep shadows

Frequently used in dramas, thrillers, and film noir. Ours is a thriller/fantasy film. Used to create a muddy and mysterious atmosphere.

- Involves using strong contrasts between light and dark areas, with deep shadows

• Frequently used in dramas, thrillers, and film noir. Ours is a thriller/fantasy film. Used to create a moody and mysterious atmosphere.

Lighting for different genres - lighting for fantasy, to enhance the new world we have entered into:

• Colour temperature refers to the warmth or coolness of a light sources, measured in Kelvin (K).

• Lower colour temperatures (2700K-3000K) produce warm, organise-tinted light (candlelight, tungsten bulbs)

• High colour temperatures (5000K-65000K) produce cool, blue-tinted light (daylight LED Panels)

• Lighting for dramas and thrillers – using low-key lighting to create a sense of mystery and tensions and emotional depth.

• Strong contrast between light and shadow can be used to symbolic the internal conflicts of the character

• Backlighting and silhouetting can be used to create a sene of unease or hidden danger.

• Lighting for Fantasy: often use creative lighting techniques to set up otherworldly or magical settings

• Coloured lighting can be used to crate alien en our menus or distinguish between different worlds (blue for Earth, red for mars) – I wish for dark blue lighting, I think using the candles in the tent will not look good with the blue colour lut/tint on the camera – if we change the white balance.

• Practical lighting – can be used to create interactive and immersive effects.

Location 1: A large dipped area with steps going down in a U shape. At the bottom is a small, safe wooden bridge going over a small river. The main feature is a large pipe that stretches across the dip, with concrete poles rising high into the air. Tree type is more evergreen with patches of orange deciduous trees.

Location 2: An area of the forest with a clearing we plan on placing the tent and near to lots of oragne deciduous trees and orange foliage. Near to the clearing there is a raised wooden path, however lots of room for the protagonists to be walking in the middle of the woods and stumble across the clearing.

Location 3: Close to #2 is a pathed section which follows a straight line. We decided this would work great for the beginning of the film where the protagonists aren't quite deep in the woods yet. Great sense of depth and tall deciduous trees which rise and lean across the path.

Location 4: Towards the bottom of the path, a large dip led by steps which leads into a wooden bridge across a body of water. While the bridge is too risky to film on, the area above gives a great point to shoot down onto (see photos in overview slidershow.)

Location 5: A short section of deciduous trees which appears as more wild and off the beaten path.

Location 6: Again, another location that looks more wild. It is near a nice looking body of water which could look great in some shots.

-3 copies of the media made

-2 types of storage used (SSD, HDD)

-1 copy stored offsite (Freya & Preesha keeping one SSD copy and Joe keeping the others)

Shoot -> Rushes -> year.month.date -> camera#.001

Haze: The entire room will be filled with a light level haze, focusing on filling the tent first but of course the haze will drift to fill the entire room.

Aputure 1200D: This will be our keylight, cutting through the haze and lighting up one side of the tent interior. This soft light through the dust sheet fabric wall of the tent and act as a an upstage/reverse key light for our subjects. Set to 5600k. This light will act as our sun and matches the position of the sun in our exterior scenes.

Kinoflow Freestyle: Fill light, set to a warmer colour temp, motivated by the warm candle lights. Soft and controllable with the barndoors and can rotate into a verticle form for tight spaces. We've had issues with the 'fire' flicker effect so won't use it this time.

Aputure 60D: Backlight/kicker (maybe hairlight) for the subject closest to the table. Motivated by a cluster of LED lights which will most likely not provide enough light.

LED Practicals: Use of LED tea lights and candles spread throughout the room, with a cluster on the table to motivate the backlight. Potential to add fairy lights in the back of shot, however they may look too modern and might not fit with the space.

Aputure 300x: Not shown in the diagram but we have booked this out as a spare light incase we need additional fill light on the other side of the set walls.

-They bicker and Lily eventually reveals her true intentions, Elysia is very aprehensive.

-They find the campout and Elysia is surpised, she laughs about it to Lily that she took all this time taking her to a tent. Elysia really doesn't want to break into someone's property but Lily manages to convince her.

-Lily remains serious and tells Elysia to enter the tent. Elysia stops joking when she realises Lily is being serious. She cautiously enters the tent. Elysia is shocked by this place, initally curious but slow turns more scared.

-Lily silently enters and spooks Elysia. Lily is excited but Elysia wants to leave. Lily drags Elysia around the tent, pointing out the curious objects and weird things.

-Elysia starts to get more interested and takes out her camera to take photos. Lily hears a noise from outside and gets spooked.

-Elysia is obsessed with taking photos while Lily is more frantically trying to get Elysia to leave, Elysia isn't listening. They knock the book over, revealing a demonic symbol.

-They both hear a terrifying sound from outside and see a silhouette on the walls of the tent.

-The Nomad enters the tent, both girls scream which also scares The Nomad who uses his staff to cast a spell, turning the girls into pebbles.

-The Nomad is frustrated with himself but quickly moves on. He picks up the pebbles, adds them to the pile seen earlier, sits down into his armchair and drifts off to sleep.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mESMgdJU9qwtZgi1Kworgzc2e3Udg6wP/view?usp=drive_link

DJI Ronin 4D

• 35mm full-frame CMOS image sensor - high resolution and excellent image quality

• 4 Axis stabilisation - Adds a Z axis to the traditional 3 axis gimbal, decreasing camera shake and increasing stabilisation. Perfect for keeping all of our outdoor tracking shots and camera movements smooth.

• LiDAR Focusing System - Able to track and focus subjects even with quick movement, making it a useful feature through all of our tracking shots.

Sony A7S

• The Ronin 4D only has 1 battery available, so we had the A7S as a backup, which we ended up using for a few shots.

• Compact and easy to use with good stabilisation from the gimbal.

Interior:

Sony FS7

• This is the camera we are most familiar with, allowing for quick and easy set up and use, with no confusion or complications.

• Super 35mm CMOS sensor that produces high-quality images with a 14-stop dynamic range and built-in ND filters.

• Ergonomic grip design that makes it easy to manoeuvre, handle and operate. 

Gimble Balance Procedure:

1. Lock the Pan-Axis & Lock the Roll-Axis

2. Unlock & manually balance the Tilt-Axis. Lock the Tilt-Axis

3. Unlock & balance the Pan-Axis

4. Unlock the Tilt-Axis & Unlock the Roll-Axis

5. Power up the camera & go to the Menu. Perform an auto Gimbal balance

6. Unlock the Z-Axis

7. Activate the Z-Axis with the 4D button & via the menu view the balance state of the Z-Axis. Manually adjust the Z-Axis using the Z-Axis Balance Knob until it reaches a balanced State

8. Verify that all Axis are balanced by pressing the on screen Gimbal Icon. A Red or Orange Icon indicates an unbalanced Gimbal. Repeat the above to achieve a White icon.

Recording mode and format based on the camera compatibility chart:

Apple ProRes 422 HQ 25fps

C4K (17:9)

D-Log

Sony A7S:

Format: XAVC S 4k 25p 50M

ISO: 200

White Balance: 5600k

Creative Style: Standard

Picture effect/profile: Profile 1 (most natural profile, easier to match with the Ronin)

Movie/HFR - Manual Exposure (Manual 35mm)

SteadyShot: On

Auto Slow Shutter: Off

Zebra: 90

Marker Display: On - 1.85 Aspect

Peaking: Mid, yellow

Sony FS7:

Shooting Mode: CineEl

Colour Space: S-Gamut3.Cine/SLog3

Scan Mode: Normal

Video Format: 4096 25p

Codec: XAVC-I

Category: LUT

LUT Select: P1

SDI & Internal: MLUT OFF

SDI2: MLUT ON

HDMI: MLUT ON

Viewfinder: MLUT ON

Shutter: 1/50

White Balance: 4300

Sony FS7 - We decided to use the Xeen Cine prime lenses rather than the Samyang lenses that come with the kit. This is because the Xeen lenses produce a clean and clear, consistent look with an excellent, high-quality resolution and excellent performance in all sorts of lighting. The kit comes with 14mm, 18mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm lenses. We utilised all of those lenses amongst various shots, apart from the 14mm. This is because it's ultra-wide, and so the edges become warped, which wasn't the effect we were going for.