The Film [Making of and Outcome: NULL]

The 1st of Feburary was my group's slot for filming in the green-screen studio and with a previous induction on setting up the studio, we were able to get going pretty quickly. Due to my use of a puppet over a live actor, I had to make quite a large adjustment to the lighting to accomodate this; as you can see below. After setting up the 3-point lighting sytem and bringing the heights down to meet the puppet, I was ready to start taking some test-shots.

Above: Setting up the Green-Screen Studio.

In advance of the filming day, I had booked both a DSLR Canon and a 4K GoPro - with my model being so narrow I thought the use of a smaller camera could come in handy. However, after a few test shots it became clear that although the GoPro produced some intresting 'fish-eye' effects, the quality was far too grainy and there seemed to be some incorrect colouring too. In the end it was the DSLR that I used to shoot both the puppet and set-stills; nonethless, I'm glad I at least had a go with both options.

Above: Some interesting, but poor quality, test shots taken on the 4K GoPro.

Above: A selection of images taken on the Canon DSLR.

Getting the right lighting on the model was quite difficult due to it's dimensions and closed-off nature, but eventually I had collected a good range of shots to be used later on in the editing process. From here I had to begin recording the puppet as I was running short on time. The puppet itself just had to make general agitated movements; there wasn't a very specific physical narrative I had to follow, but in order to record the puppet from the right angles I had to work constantly with my storyboard to make sure that the background stills and puppet recordings were in alignment.

Reflecting back on this part of the filming, I made a mistake in not checking the frame through the DSLR finder myself when setting up the lighting. There were far too many shadows on the rubber floor and the infinity curve on the green-screen had not been lit correctly. By the time I fully realised this when looking back at the footage, I had run over my time limit. Luckily, I was able to eradicate this in the editing.

Above: A selection of frames from the puppet footage.

With all of the footage and photographs ready and a basic understanding of Premier Pro, I began creating a rough cut, simply splicing and arranging everything in order of the storyboard. The Ultra-Keying was fairly simply; I had to make a few adjustments in the advanced settings to get rid of defects [some of which I couldn't eradicate entirely], but on the whole it didn't take very long. The storyboard was followed carefully and each frame moved in sequence with the track.

For the title and credits I simply wrote out the text by hand, worked them in on Photoshop and overlayed them as PNG file or simply against a black screen. As you can see below.

Above: Adding in the title and credit text.

The editing was spread out over 2 days and it wasn't as difficult as I'd expected it to be; Ultra Key does most of the work for you and the other editing tools are fairly similar to FinalCut and iMovie [softwares I've used before]. It's obvious that my lighting could've been a lot better in the green-screen studio. It raised a lot of issues in the editing stage and I would've saved a lot of time had the original footage been crisper. At least, I know this for future filming and I won't make the same mistake again.

Overall, I am... satisfied with the film. It didn't come out quite as I'd expected, but I have to recognise that it was filmed and edited in the space of 2 days and it was my first time using green-screen technology. I learnt a lot during the process and will have a new set of skills going into new projects.

Below are a few stills from the short film and, of course, the film itself.