Pre-Production 

My pre-production work aimed to communicate my ideas to my friends who agreed to help me make my experimental short film. I made a list of inspirations, a story board, a mood board, a breakdown of what the different ‘sections’ of my film should be made up of and a shot list of what would be needed to achieve this.  

I knew what I wanted my final product to look like, however, I needed to communicate this to my friends to ensure that they knew exactly how I needed them to help. One of my worries was that, due to me being on camera, I wouldn’t be able to have a role in what content was being captured or how it would look. However, my friends were not overly comfortable with the idea of being on camera themselves, and so this posed the opportunity for me to practice my ability to communicate my visions to others.  

Production 

During production I had two friends helping me to capture the shots needed to create my experimental short film.  

I had Charlotte Hirons helping me as a camera operator, using my Cannon 4000D with a EFS 10-18mm lens, on a DJI Ronin S gimbal. She walked myself and my other friend through what we needed to do, how we needed to do this, and making sure that the framing of the shot was complimentary to these shots.  

Lucy Barnes-Durrance was helping me through being in the film alongside myself. Her hands were covered in paint and came in and out of shot with the purpose of representing the ways in which women are objectified. The paint transferred onto myself to show and how objectification can leave a lasting effect on not only the woman herself, but also in the way that others may view her as ‘marked’ or ‘tainted’ because of it.  

Post-Production   

During post-production I used Premier Pro to both edit my videos together into a sequence as well as to alter the appearance of the shots. I used a Lumetri preset, Fuji F125 Kodak 2395, and altered both the contrast and the temperature of the shots throughout via time stamping. I wanted the video to look slightly dated and cold toned and found that this preset was an effective way to achieve this.

I paid special attention to the beat of the music I had chosen, which is the instrumental to ‘Nightmare’ by American singer songwriter Halsey (Halsey, 2019). I altered the original audio to have a more clear contrast between the calmer sections compared to the louder sections, as well as distorting some parts. I aimed to have the video progress with the audio so that the two would work together in aid of the storytelling process.

Bibliography

Halsey, 2019. Nightmare. [Sound Recording] (Capitol Records).