One location
One Location
S.T.M.L (Short Term Memory Loss)
Short term memory loss is a short film based around the idea of a person living with the illness. It is set in a very normal setting being a family house, the shots are very quick and show the normal day to day morning morning of this individual. Although the shots are very simple at times it adds to the odd feeling you get from the film, the different perspectives give you a more in depth feel of the person from their movements to what they see.
Initial Idea
My initial idea for the one location project was based on a very clean looking landscape montage that had a hidden background.
The film would start with very bright colourful shots with very upbeat happy music and have very clean movements almost to replicate a tv advert. As the film went on you would see a figure in the distance, nothing too obvious but it would be in frame. The shots would then start to get a lot less clean cut and the music would start to change, as this happens the figure would start to come closer and clearer. Ending up with it in the final shot face on with the camera.
The main reason why this was not chosen for my final idea is down to time, location and weather. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to get to the location (Burrington Coombe) to film and also to give the sense of a clean cinematic advert I would need a clear sunny day as the location was quite well shaded under trees and due to the time of year that was not possible.
One of my main inspirations for this idea was Audi adverts, they are very clinical and clean with lots of smooth shots pieced together to make a stunning advert. I was going to use the same aesthetics and speed of the adverts to portray a clean video.
These are all photos from the location scout that myself and Ryan Gilson did for the initial idea for the film, as seen in the photo in the far right the weather was not the best on the day we were going to shoot so it was cancelled.
Final Idea
Research
Memory loss, also called amnesia, happens when a person loses the ability to remember information and events they would normally be able to recall. In the case of this film it is Short Term memory loss where a person forgets events happening minuets ago, this gave me the idea to put the note reminding the person to “Check Post” so that it lets you know he has got to grips with reminding himself of things he needs to do. This can be very dangerous in a day to day life of a normal person living on their own and this is portrayed in the film.
Shot Plan
The shots in the film were not planned as the location was very unpredictable at the time. I did have a rough idea of how I was going to shoot it and what needed to be done. The film was shot in chronological order as this would help with the light through-out the day due to not having any additional lighting. The film was a ‘run and gun’ style which has worked for me in the past and I am very comfortable with, we did have a time limit in the location we were filming but I also had some time to experiment with shots and lighting. One shot in the film (Fridge Shot) I have always wanted to do as it is inspired by David Fintcher who has inspired a lot of my cinematography, I feel the shot adds to the film as you get a very odd perspective and contrasts to the rest of the film.
Editing
As the film was shot in chronological order it made it easier to edit, also when filming I made sure to block the actions a few times to keep down the amount of shots taken. This helped when editing by saving time going through shots. I did not yet have a track to play in the background so I spent a bit of time researching that, I use youtube for all my music as I like to use independent copyright free work that is made by creators, I will be adding the song credit at the end of the video before I publish this online - RossBugdenMusic - Other sounds on the film were either recorded via my iPhone then transferred over to my Mac or sourced from youtube again as it is a free service. This is the first film I have colour graded from start to finish, it was only a very basic grade using the colour correction in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, I found it gave the film another layer and more depth so I will be doing this from now on in my short films.
Equipment List
Canon C100
Canon 24-105mm
Canon 10-22mm
Manfrotto DSLR Tripod
iPhone 8+ (Sound + Slow-Mo Video)
Evaluation
When given this project I had a very strong idea as to what I was going to make (Initial Idea), this was not planned well enough unfortunately for the time I had to do it in and working around personal life. If I was to do this next time I would sit down and plan out times and restrictions to filming to prevent any interruptions or delays. I then teamed up with Ryan Gilson (Actor) and went over some basic ideas I had for a film, we bounced ideas back and forth until we came up with a film loosely based around Short Term Memory Loss. Then we have to move onto working around the location we had as it was still a busy environment that was being used for day to day work. I did come up with a lot of the shots on the go which could have made it harder in some situations but in this specific one it was fine. I may have benefitted by getting a rough shot plan so I could have been a lot more efficient with time. I did well with the time and location that I chose but did feel that my main fall was with lighting.
This year I was hoping to work a lot more with my lighting techniques and I wish I took some lights instead of using just practical light. I still took a lot from this shoot in terms of using practical light inside a house an making a shot have a balanced light that looks natural and smooth. The time of year with this shoot came in as a slight problem due to low sun most of the day which came though windows and this came in as a problem with continuity due to movement of shadows and light and also made some of the shots less even and at times more exposed.
I used a Canon C100 rented from the uni and this did come with its problems unfortunately, the specific camera I took out had a few problems with the camera itself as the screen was showing a nice balanced exposure and yet when transferred to the computer after the shoot it was very bright and almost burnt out with the exposure. I did manage to just about recover some of the shots but it still posed a problem in some of the shots making them look a lot different to others.
As said before I edited this film on Premiere pro and I feel like I am gaining more experience and techniques every time I edit but I want to improve my skills on the programme as I feel like it still takes me a long time to put out a short simple edit. I also colour graded this film from start to finish on Premiere and this was something I have never done before, I did watch a few tutorials on YouTube as to what I needed to do in terms of keeping every shot balanced. I now know how much better the film looks with it and it adds another layer to the experience.
To conclude I feel like I did the best I could with the time and locations I had left but I would have much preferred to have filmed my original idea but due to the storms and bad weather we had it didn’t work out that way. On my next shoot I will be using more lighting and working on my sound design, I will also be putting more time into my pre-production and looking at every obstacle that could occur to not make the film work.
Research
Memory loss, also called amnesia, happens when a person loses the ability to remember information and events they would normally be able to recall. In the case of this film it is Short Term memory loss where a person forgets events happening minuets ago, this gave me the idea to put the note reminding the person to “Check Post” so that it lets you know he has got to grips with reminding himself of things he needs to do. This can be very dangerous in a day to day life of a normal person living on their own and this is portrayed in the film.
Shot Plan
The shots in the film were not planned as the location was very unpredictable at the time. I did have a rough idea of how I was going to shoot it and what needed to be done. The film was shot in chronological order as this would help with the light through-out the day due to not having any additional lighting. The film was a ‘run and gun’ style which has worked for me in the past and I am very comfortable with, we did have a time limit in the location we were filming but I also had some time to experiment with shots and lighting. One shot in the film (Fridge Shot) I have always wanted to do as it is inspired by David Fintcher who has inspired a lot of my cinematography, I feel the shot adds to the film as you get a very odd perspective and contrasts to the rest of the film.
Editing
As the film was shot in chronological order it made it easier to edit, also when filming I made sure to block the actions a few times to keep down the amount of shots taken. This helped when editing by saving time going through shots. I did not yet have a track to play in the background so I spent a bit of time researching that, I use youtube for all my music as I like to use independent copyright free work that is made by creators, I will be adding the song credit at the end of the video before I publish this online - RossBugdenMusic - Other sounds on the film were either recorded via my iPhone then transferred over to my Mac or sourced from youtube again as it is a free service. This is the first film I have colour graded from start to finish, it was only a very basic grade using the colour correction in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, I found it gave the film another layer and more depth so I will be doing this from now on in my short films.
Equipment List
Canon C100
Canon 24-105mm
Canon 10-22mm
Manfrotto DSLR Tripod
iPhone 8+ (Sound + Slow-Mo Video)
Evaluation
When given this project I had a very strong idea as to what I was going to make (Initial Idea), this was not planned well enough unfortunately for the time I had to do it in and working around personal life. If I was to do this next time I would sit down and plan out times and restrictions to filming to prevent any interruptions or delays. I then teamed up with Ryan Gilson (Actor) and went over some basic ideas I had for a film, we bounced ideas back and forth until we came up with a film loosely based around Short Term Memory Loss. Then we have to move onto working around the location we had as it was still a busy environment that was being used for day to day work. I did come up with a lot of the shots on the go which could have made it harder in some situations but in this specific one it was fine. I may have benefitted by getting a rough shot plan so I could have been a lot more efficient with time. I did well with the time and location that I chose but did feel that my main fall was with lighting.
This year I was hoping to work a lot more with my lighting techniques and I wish I took some lights instead of using just practical light. I still took a lot from this shoot in terms of using practical light inside a house an making a shot have a balanced light that looks natural and smooth. The time of year with this shoot came in as a slight problem due to low sun most of the day which came though windows and this came in as a problem with continuity due to movement of shadows and light and also made some of the shots less even and at times more exposed.
I used a Canon C100 rented from the uni and this did come with its problems unfortunately, the specific camera I took out had a few problems with the camera itself as the screen was showing a nice balanced exposure and yet when transferred to the computer after the shoot it was very bright and almost burnt out with the exposure. I did manage to just about recover some of the shots but it still posed a problem in some of the shots making them look a lot different to others.
As said before I edited this film on Premiere pro and I feel like I am gaining more experience and techniques every time I edit but I want to improve my skills on the programme as I feel like it still takes me a long time to put out a short simple edit. I also colour graded this film from start to finish on Premiere and this was something I have never done before, I did watch a few tutorials on YouTube as to what I needed to do in terms of keeping every shot balanced. I now know how much better the film looks with it and it adds another layer to the experience.
To conclude I feel like I did the best I could with the time and locations I had left but I would have much preferred to have filmed my original idea but due to the storms and bad weather we had it didn’t work out that way. On my next shoot I will be using more lighting and working on my sound design, I will also be putting more time into my pre-production and looking at every obstacle that could occur to not make the film work.