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Audio evaluation

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Evaluation

As this project is coming to a close I will be taking time to reflect upon what I have achieved. I wanted the film to display a tedious and relatable concept through a first person view to truly create some relatable content. Most films these days are exciting and creative spectacles that are unrelatable, for example science fiction or action and that’s great as it allows people an escape and that’s why people love these films. However, I wanted to create the most immersive film I could and to do that I had to make it relatable and most genres don’t relate to real life so I made my own theme/genre mundane. The premise for the genre was to display a repetitive and basic life like the work of Bruce Nauman, in another way I wanted my work to relate to Bruce Nauman’s by trying to engage the audience by making them empathise with the character or picture them there. Bruce Nauman displays anxiety in the audience and makes them feel anxious by not saying anything and making over exaggerated motions. I based my character on this ideal, I made him almost silent to create an uneasy feeling for the viewer as well as creating a more relatable host. I thought that if the model was to speak it would take away from the viewers’ immersion as they won’t hear a voice similar to their own. Also by leaving the model silent the viewer can concentrate more and think about the film more clearly. For the model’s costume I wanted something neutral that most people could relate to wearing and this is why I decided on the colour black as it conveys the character’s design and is a common colour most people wear. The model’s hair colour was designed in regard to the research I did into the colours of loneliness; I discovered that people often subconsciously relate the colours purple and blue to loneliness. I wanted to use this in my film but I didn’t want it to be overly present because again not everyone would wear blue coloured clothes. The film starts with a long dark pause and this is to give ample time for the viewer to put on the VR headset as the film is meant to be viewed in VR and not on a computer monitor. If I was to go back and change my project I would create two versions of the final film one with a faded black border to be displayed in VR and one without the border as it doesn’t look as good when viewed on a monitor but does work in VR. When I tested it in VR it simulated a long blink or someone slowly closing their eyes, I would often leave a gap open so the viewer could see a small amount of what was going on. After a few seconds so the viewer can put the headset on, the camera pans to a red glowing digital alarm clock in a dark room fading from the black screen; this scene was first designed on a post it note a long time ago. As the alarm goes off the model begrudgingly disables it before going back to sleep. In the next scene the viewer realises they are late and exclaims “oh shi-“ before being cut off by the cliché record scratch freeze frame common in many movies like Ratatouille and Deadpool. After that the narrator addresses the model as “you” breaking the 4th wall and talking to the viewer. The narrator often breaks the 4th wall within the film and by addressing the model as “you” it makes it more personal and gets the viewer to instantly relate to the recording body improving the immersion in the long run. The model then goes through his normal daily routine with some actions repeating themselves over the following days. The film is set over three days of the character’s life. The narrator then tells the viewer that these are the last three days of the character’s life and states how he is the character “You”; he was also the character’s conscience. By using words like ‘was’ it suggests that the film takes place after the character’s death and the viewer is somehow re-watching it. As the character gets ready we see many actions that will repeat along with some that don’t, every day the character will walk down the stairs, get ready and leave the house but some of the actions abide by the rule of threes. The rule of threes states that the third time a repeating action happens it is presented differently, this could be a character in a film saying a one liner twice and on the third time someone else says it. In my film as a lot of things happen multiple times, the rule of threes although still prominent is a little more hidden just so it is more rewarding to those truly paying attention to the film even though it is mundane.

Examples of this are when the character walks down the stairs; on the first two days a black cat is waiting for him at the bottom, but on the third day almost to suggest bad luck the cat is missing. Some people believe that if a black cat crosses your path it’s bad luck but if you cross a black cats path it’s good luck and this scene is kind of a reference to that ideal as the third day is the character’s last. Another example of the rule of threes is when the character is getting ready in the morning on the first two day he puts on his shoes and gets his key card/id of off the living room table but on the third he leaves it behind/forgets it. When he leaves the house he tends to make sure he has locked the door as demonstrated by the fact he walked all the way back to his house to check. On the first day this was done to demonstrate the character’s anxiety but after successfully leaving the house with a locked door on the first two days he forgets on the third and just walks away without a notice. Later on in the film we see the character walking to school and the narrator tells us that the character has been walking the same way for a long time and how he always did the same thing every day, stating how it was quite sad. This was contradicted though on the third day when the character crossed the road earlier then before also demonstrating the rule of threes. When at school he enters an almost empty room witch was strangely large for the few people that were inside and the narrator enlightens us and tells us that this is the characters school, before suggesting that we skip the section of him working and go straight to lunch. I added this to both cut down on time and to suggest that the character’s daily work is too boring to display. When on the character’s lunch break he heads off to the balcony passing someone on the stairs and he frantically tries not to make eye contact and continue walking. As the narrator states that he comes here every day to eat in piece and people don’t tend to bother him when he is here. On the first day we see him walking over to the balcony but we don’t on either of the two other days ,this was done to shorten the time of the film and to display how the character gets to the balcony to make the film flow nicely to the next scene. After establishing where the balcony is the second and third day lunch breaks just cut to the balcony, on the first day he stops and looks out and doesn’t get up on to the ledge but the narrator does say that the character does sometimes sit on the edge as he likes the view. The next scene take place in the classroom once again but this time the room is completely empty and we see the narrator once again. Previously the viewer sees him in the kitchen before leaving for school. The narrator is wearing the same clothes that the recording body is along with an intimidating black mask with the word “You” across it. This is to solidify the fact that the narrator is the viewer’s conscience and therefore embodies them. The narrator then comments on how empty the room is and says that it is no wonder the character was so lonely. The recording body does not comment and remains silent. This is one of the last scenes of the day before returning home. When leaving the school, the sun is shown shining in the character’s eyes. I used the faded black border that was implemented to resemble that of human sight and closed it slightly depicting that the viewer is squinting. This happens again as the viewer enters his house, once inside he sits down and turns on the TV to relax. The camera turns black and the black screen is held for a while imitating sleep this is then broken by the second alarm and the second day has began. The character gets ready like before going down the stairs petting the black cat and more actions. This time he does not enter the bathroom to splash water in his face like the first day when we were introduced to the recording body’s appearance in the reflection of the bathroom mirror, but we do see him putting on his socks. The scene goes on for long enough that it is noticeable but no too long that the viewer questions it, but for more observant viewers they might have noticed that all of the character’s socks followed a pattern/theme. All of the socks were from the popular game Pokémon and the socks were worn in conjunction with the order they are displayed in the game.

This was done as a reference to the franchise and a little Easter egg. After the character has gotten ready he heads to school locking the door and walking the same way as before but as he is leaving he puts on a pair of headphones and plays a song. This enabled the viewer to hear the song at the same time and volume as him. A fraction of a second after hitting the play button the song begins, the song was from a playlist on Spotify called “film music  … what film?” this was a little hidden Easter egg for people who might notice it. As the song is playing the film lines up perfectly with the music for example the moment he opens the door the song states that it is cold outside and reference how the character does not want to leave his house but has to. By the time the character is walking past the corner of the road we saw in the last day the song has ended and no more music is playing. This was done to suggest that nothing he enjoys lasts for too long as he was visibly happier when listening to music. This is reaffirmed when he is at his desk at school he puts on another song this time some instrumental piano and pretends that he is playing it on a fake drawn piano he drew on his desk. I did this to show the viewer that the character still leads an enjoyable life even though he was alone and the scene was a reference to the film ‘Baby Driver’ were the main character pretends to play piano on the desk and we can hear the music coming through his headphones. This type of diegetic sound can really immerse the viewer into a film in comparison to some none diegetic sound in a lot of action movies. On the second day the viewer experiences a jump cut to the balcony and the character can be seen with one leg over the side this was continued into the second day starting from both legs in a safe place on the first day to one over the edge on the second and on the third both legs were dangling off of the side. All of these scenes were recorded with safety protection in place as I was safely harnessed to the wall and was accompanied by other people. The second day was much shorter than the first and before the viewer knew they were back at the house watching TV. The third and final day started the same way as the last two with the same alarm clock. But the scene shown was the same scene as the first day reused, I did this to reference the production of films. A lot of films reuse multiple scenes more than once to save money and time and I thought that it would be a good idea as well. After lying in bed for a while the character wakes up and like stated before the cat was not at the bottom of the stairs he did not pick up his key card or lock the door. When at school he puts down his bag has a drink and then goes to lunch. The narrator says that you are probably becoming impatient and want to know how he dies and as it cuts to the balcony we see the character has both legs over the side of the balcony. The narrator then references the original scene at the beginning of the film describing that it won’t be an eventful film with guns or monsters and then say that he just fell off of the balcony and died. Originally, I was going to record this scene but at the last minute I decided against it as the film was going to be show in a VR headset at the final year show and some people are afraid of heights and VR can be quite daunting so I didn’t want to risk peoples’ safety. Secondly in the creative story workshop I learned that not all stories have to end with a satisfying ending some can end on a disappointing note or cliff hanger. The fall is suggested to happen right after the last scene on the balcony, the third balcony scene this was the last example of the rule of threes. This project has been very eventful with a lot of challenges but I have managed to achieve an immersive experience. I am very pleased with the fact that the film is being displayed in a Vive VR headset as it improves the immersion a lot more and I hope others will enjoy and relate to the film.

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sun in eyes

I’ve added a faded black border to the footage like I said I would and I have tested out a glare effect its very simple the character gets the sun in his eyes so I lowered the amount of allocated canvas to imitate squinting. I personally like the effect its not to noticeable and if I do put my film in a VR headset it might become less noticeable but should at to the natural feeling I want the film to have.

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The first edited copy of the first day I’ve already updated a lot of the problems in this edit for example the fact that there is no faded block border or that the mirror scene appears over the other layers for a moment and more general fixes like the sound effect at the beginning. But this is still the theme or route that the first day follows and this is a clear stepping stone to greater things. The editing has been tough and I am running out of time but I am still finding ways to enjoy my work. I’m glad I took this course and I hope I get a good grade at the end, I’ve been working tirelessly staying late every day and I’ve watched my project grow as much as I have I have almost reached 100 posts on this project alone and I’ve enjoyed it all.

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Before and after

Bathroom mirror scene, this is a side by side comparison of the two pictures one was taken before the edit and the other after. I believe that it went very well but the mapping could have been a bit better. It was very hard to get the footage as I could not see through the mask. The edit itself is also very hard trying to adjust for every micro movement in scale rotation and position of both the original sets of footage and the mask connecting them. A mask is the term used when you cut away at a video revealing the layer behind ,this is how I created this edit I recorded the footage using the rig as seen above and from inside the cabinet as well and overplayed them, for such a challenging edit I think I did well.

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Editing the bathroom scene

In this scene the character walks into the bathroom and considers the mirror. At the moment I am removing the footage that’s inside of the mirror and replacing it with different footage as I wont want to see the recording rig when the character looks in the mirror, I want the viewer to see the “me” mask. Originally I had two mirror scenes but one was scrapped in post as the film was too long. There was one unforeseen problem and that the fact that the writing on the mask is backwards, I thought about changing it but decided against it as it would have looked odd the mask being readable and the shirt not.

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I have now finished recording I believe that I have all the footage I want/need. I have recorded over an hour of footage so I’ll have to cut it down and remove some scenes but I’m looking forward to getting it edited although I’m also a bit worried as the project is almost over and I still need to edit it all and evaluate it. Without any more wasted time I’m going to start editing it all.

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Editing the audio

I divided to go back and change up some of the audio to make it a bit louder and less static and just add some natural improvements to make sure that everything is perfect and though it would be nice to add some of the screen shots to my blog.

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The fall

I’ve been debating what to do about the fall in my head for a while now and I thought of a great way to record it. By using a better quality camera I can point it straight down from a further distance off of the edge and hold it by the tripod, by adding a blur effect at the beginning and fading it out by the end I’ll be able to zoom into the image without the video quality changing. That was my plan and I’ve already done it but now that the film is going to be displayed in VR I need to think about the safety of the viewers and if some people are afraid of heights, and/or haven’t used VR before or just startle easily it would be a good idea to incorporate it into the film so for that reason I believe I am going to remove it from the film. I don’t think it’s a big deal because it’s not like people could relate to falling to their death I wanted the main focus of that scene to get people to realise how short life really is and to make the most out of it.

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This is the second video taken whilst the character is having lunch. In this shot he is sitting on the ledge. Before recording this shot I assessed the risks and took precautions to avoid them, I harnessed myself to the wall tightly so I would be able to move and made sure I wasn’t alone whilst recording to stay safe. I love the way the shot turned out you can’t really see the safety harness at all and the view whilst looking of the edge is great. I’m very happy with this shot and I believe it was worth the time and effort. I started thinking about how I would record the fall and I’ll be creating a separate post on my opinions of that later on.

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week9

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Most movies and short films have opening sequences, normally the company’s that made the film or supported it and often the age rating of the film is displayed. I was debating if I should create anything like this for my film, I didn’t know if I should create a title sequence or fancy opening. On one hand I thought it would look cool and could possibly get me more marks but then I realised that it could take away from the immersion so I decided against it but I still debated it and I wanted to reference that here.

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I have completed all of the scripts for my film and recorded them in audacity I removed all background noise and now all I need to do is record the footage and put it all together.

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Will Smiths Fear of Fear

I have recently discovered that Will Smith will be bungee jumping out of a helicopter over the Grand Canyon with the YouTube channel “Yes Theory”. Yes Theory are an amazing channel that’s set on trying to encourage people to say yes more often and take more risks, be more outgoing and have as much fun as you can before you die. I definitely agree that life is too short to waste any time. And after I found out what “yes theory” and Will Smith were doing I found this video from 2016, Will Smiths ‘fear of fear’ just stating that there is no point being afraid until you are doing the thing that you are afraid of “why can’t you enjoy your breakfast?” before doing something scary and this spoke to me and got me motivated to just get out there and record, there’s no reason to be afraid of what could happen until it happens.

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Unpleasant

I never realised how awkward and uncomfortable it would be to walk around with a camera strapped to my face until I was out there on the street getting the camera out of my bag knowing that I’m going to have to go out tomorrow and walk around trying not to record people that don’t want to be recorded, trying not to trip over or drop the phone. Most of all hoping people won’t laugh at me, I’ve always been very awkward and introverted I feel my best when I’m editing the videos at my desk. I’ve set up my desk so I never have to leave it I have drinks on hand, tape, food, equipment, I’ve got it all I’ve even got power. I’ve never been the one I’m my films before I’ve always had models that I record I haven’t been the model and knowing that I’m going out and recording in front of strangers isn’t fun. I’ll just have to get over it and bite the bullet I guess.

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I have started to record my film starting with the waking up late scene on the first of the 3 days. The film will take place over 3 days of the character’s life leading up to his death where he will fall off of a roof/balcony. This scene however is the very first of the film and will happen 3 times once every day but the 3rd time will remain the same as for the rule of threes to truly be captivating you have to have a few duds.

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week 9