CMPP Self-Evaluation

Creative Media Practice Project End of Semester

2000-word Individual Self-Evaluation

Joshua Walker - 23034155

Explain the concept for your work, try to outline your idea clearly and concisely and indicate where your influences and inspirations for this piece have come from? Consider the intended audience for your work and consider how you would like the project to be received; is there a particular age group or background for example that the work is aimed at?

Initially, the group planned to create a bathroom 'sense of place' to represent someone's gruelling process of waking up and getting ready in the morning before their daily routine. We recorded bathroom sounds, for example, a tap running, a toilet flush, a shaver and the shower. We also recorded a person awakening which involved them hearing their alarm and getting out of bed. After our first audio only 'crits', we decided to change our idea. The idea was too literal and the sequence was predictable. We developed idea towards a more abstract film. From our initial idea we gained experience from recording and editing sounds and used some of the sounds in our final idea. After research and planning we finalised our idea to represent a dream with a point of view theme making the audience feel like they were inside a nightmare. The theme we intended to create could be interpreted differently depending on the audience’s life experiences and background.   The film begins with a still image sequence, representing a journey on a coach. The film suddenly changes mood when the character submerges into a dream. Loud guitar distortions and instrument related sounds transform the tranquillity of the coach journey into a vibrant confusion of sounds. The visual becomes distorted with dark colour tints and visual effects which represents a sense of the unknown.                           Although a character is never shown, we intended to represent an emotion through the dream which the audience can relate to. The backstory of the film is about music, alcohol and a typical adolescent lifestyle. The blurred and dark images represent how recollections of a dream are usually blurred. The theme of the film carries a large music influence. The majority of sounds used in the dream are mainly from a guitar and other instruments found in a music studio. The imagery represents the theme of a music studio with guitar strings, amplifiers, input volume dials and speakers. They are accompanied with cans of alcohol and cigarettes. This indicates a darker side of the hinted protagonist's life. Throughout the dream we intended to represent different emotions. The audio mainly represents nostalgia and confusion. Towards the end of the dream, the audio becomes more distorted, faster paced and louder. This shows that towards the end of the dream the character is becoming more confused, irritated and annoyed. The images become more surreal, distorted and more abstract. Our main inspiration for this piece was Chris Marker’s ‘La Jetee’. We thought the use of still imagery in La Jetee expressed meaning in a way moving images could not. The audience has to use their imagination much more when looking at the still images. Because of La Jetee’s abstract storyline and still imagery, it can be interpreted differently. We intended our film to create this same effect, because we felt it would give the film meaning and a further depth which cannot be created from more realistic films. Initially, we were going to use still imagery throughout the entirety of the film. However, to emphasise the difference between reality and the dream stage, we used moving imagery in the dream stage, and still images in the beginning and ending coach sequences. The inspiration behind the music element of the film was for many reasons. Firstly, including instrument related sounds made our audio only surreal and alternative. I am in a band. I utilised the resource that I had access to instruments and a quiet music studio which I could record the sounds with minimal interference.   The film is related towards anyone who is interested in abstract films and the representing elements of the unknown; in this case dreams. The target audience would be working class with an age range would potentially be late teens to young adults.

Give a detailed critical analysis of the finished piece of work for this project, try to consider your work as a member of an audience and recognise what has worked well and what has not been as successful in your project. Try to be objective and weigh up the pros and cons focusing on the positive outcomes as well as the areas that have room for improvement. Reflect on what you would change if you could make the work again?

I am fairly pleased with the overall project. Our initial bathroom idea represented the sense of place too literally. We developed this idea to embrace a more abstract structure and developed on the dream where we could express more meaning. In the dream we took more risks and experimented more with production and post. This journey from our initial idea was stressful at times because we had to completely re-think our approach. Once we determined the dream aspect ideas productively developed.   Our main intention was to create a mental and physical space. I feel that we accomplished this by clearly defining the different sections of the film. The physical imagery and audio sequences are clear, normal and realistic; representing sanity and normality. The transition between the two voids is easily distinguishable. We were quite ambitious to recreate a dream but created meaning at the same time.    The audio created a great foundation to develop visual and accompanied the imagery well. We layered composited images in the dream which is distorted and blurred which makes the audience unclear of the images shown, but creates a depth of meaning at the same time. This is the effect we intended to achieve. Whether the audience can identify the dream images really doesn’t matter. As long as they interpret the images and meaning to suit their life experiences and background culture the film will create an effect. This shows the layered sounds over the mix. The main success is the audio. The group spent more time planning, recording and editing the audio only. We intended to create a finalised audio piece before we started planning and recording the visual. However, this became problematic. Our final film was shortened down to maintain pace. But we didn't have enough time to correctly edit the audio to match the final transition to the still images. In hindsight, the audio transition would have been more appropriately edited. In the submersion to the dream I used several effects which made the transition flow naturally. I decreased the low pass frequency with the 7-band EQ. I decreased the volume of the coach atmos and increased the reverb which gave the dream sound abstract. This is the 7-band EQ which i used to automate the Low pass frequency and adjust the high and low end of each sound. This was the finished mix of the audio only.  I used the compressor to reduce the threshold of sounds which were unclear and too distorted. This improved the overall sound of the mix. We intended not to give away too much from the visual and try to show our ideas through the audio which is why we heavily distorted the images. In hindsight, the images are slightly too dark and too distorted which can make the film too abstract at some points. Tyrese was the visual editor of this task and our different creative minds sometimes clashed. I requested him to make the images slightly brighter so that they could be more identifiable, but he preferred the images more distorted and did not change the effect. However, we included some shots which didn’t have the dark distortion which created the greatest effect of the film. The shots below show an input volume metre flashes on the screen which shocks the audience because of its orange luminous glow contrasted with the dark blue distortion of the rest of the film. This was the shot without the filter. This is the same shot with a blue filter. We included a close-up of a person face. We added a negative colour filter which contrasts between the darker images. This image stands out from the rest of the dark images, contrasts the theme of the dream quite well. The audio created a surreal effect from a different use of settings in the editing. We designed the songs to sound like they are distant thoughts in the memory. We did this by panning them. We featured repetition for key sounds and visuals in the film which created confusion.

Describe the process of making the work and your individual contribution. Did things work out differently from the way you had visualised them at the planning stage? What production issues did you encounter that caused problems during the creative process?  and It is important to write in detail about what you have learnt during the project both technically and creatively. Outline specific skills you have developed because of making the work and new methods or approaches you have experimented with.  I concentrated more on the sound design and the sound editing for the dream. Whilst, Tyrese focused on the coach sequences and edited the visual. Until the beginning of this course I had no previous experience editing sound. However, with ProTools tutorials and online research, I became familiar with the editing software which definitely improved the soundtrack. I recorded the dream sounds on a Zoom H4N recorder. Most of the sounds within the soundtrack are created primarily from a guitar and other instruments. This proved hard when designing the sounds, because I tried to make the sounds conflict and noticeably different sounding, but yet to flow fluently when over layered together. In pre-production we planned which sounds were to be recorded. Bcause we had little experience recording sounds, we didn’t know to what extent the quality of the sound would be recorded. To resolve this we recorded sounds at two different mic levels. A high and slightly lower mic level setting. We used the best quality sound. We embraced a run-and-gun approach when recording the audio. We made an initial plan of important sounds to record, but also creatively came up with different suggestions and recorded more than planned on the day of shoot. I found from our first idea that it was helpful if you over record a range of different sounds. In the editing stage to give more leverage in post. We created a basic shot list and storyboarded specific visual shots. For example, the empty alcohol cans and the cigarette ash tray. The filled ash tray represents that he is in that certain place often because of the amount of cigarette filters in the tray, and the large number of alcohol cans represent for some reason he is trying to dampen his emotions. The coach stills were planned, however, we knew the type of shot we needed so we didn’t story board or shot list, other than knowing we had to capture some bright shots to represent the daytime and darker shots in the final sequence to represent that while the character has had the dream time has moved forward. We also creatively used a run-and-gun approach when filming the rest of the shots. In hindsight, we should have carefully planned the shots, but due to time complications from changing our idea we had to capture the footage immediately to leave us more time for editing. I filmed the shots in the dream with a Canon XF100 camera. The production for the audio and visual went better than planned. We made creative decisions on the day of shoot and recorded/filmed more shots and sounds than intended. This was valuable learning because we thought we had hit a wall and ran out of ideas. When we started production, we developed productive ideas which motivated production. In post-production we experienced no real problems. The abstract approach to the film allowed us to be creative as possible without a storyline to create and a narrative to follow. The moving images included a lot of filters and effects, which we initially intended. In our final edit, we shortened the film to increase the pace. Perhaps we could have finished the film at the end of the dream sequence without going back to reality. But I like the distinction represented between the real and surreal environments.

Reflect on how you worked as part of a team. Did all members contribute equally? What are your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to teamwork? How can you improve your teamwork skills?

Communication between the team was good. However, our creative differences sometimes hindered our progression. We contributed equally as a group, I created/edited the sound and Tyrese edited the visual. It was challenging to create sound then add the visual. However, they work really well together. In hindsight we could have responded better to each other’s critics, but we were so immersed with our own work we didn't want to change anything. However, it seemed that we agreed to develop on any external criticisms. My biggest concern is the lack of moving images we had to use, however the ones we used work well. Also, a problem is the final transition from the dream to the still sequence looks too digitised compared to the rest of the piece. And the audio transition is not completed to a good enough standard, which lets the film down. I would further address the still image sequences. I would decrease the pace of the cuts to represent someone falling asleep easing the transition to better effect. Instead the still images are used in the final film to create a sense of reality. I believe we achieved great juxtaposition between the slow cut still images and the inter-layered moving images which creates a fine difference between the physical and mental state. Overall, I am quite happy with our progression and finished product. I think we achieved our goal of creating an abstract film. And with the stress from re developing our idea at a late stage. From starting production with a poor idea, I have learnt that a good foundation idea is key. Once the idea is established, the creative development of the idea will flourish.