Daniel's Kite - Final Film Link

Password: kite

Collaborative Evaluation

My job in the production group, as the editor, was to construct a narrative that mimicked the director’s vision (Chris’s) in a way that was both entertaining and clear. “An editor’s responsibility, as Murch sees it, is “partly to anticipate, partly to control the thought processes of the audience. To give them what they want and/or what they need just before they have to ‘ask’ for it – to be surprising yet self-evident at the same time.””^{[1; Pg 208]} Achieving this in an effective manner required me to collaborate with all members of our small production crew on a variety of different topics.

This collaboration started during pre-production, which as an editor I should conventionally be distancing myself from to remain completely objective towards the film when it came to cutting it. “Don’t unnecessarily allow yourself to be impregnated by the conditions of shooting.”^{[2; Pg 24]} However due to the size of our groups and the length of time the majority of us have worked with each other, we all help each other out where and when they can to ensure the whole filming process is as smooth as possible.

I attended all the pre-production meetings where we discussed the film well as a group, bringing up any personal or technical concerns we had with all the aspects of the project to address them early on so they don’t cause us problems further down the line. I discussed the stop motion and green screen shots with Chris so we both knew what the other expected in terms of the finished product. This also applies to our discussions about how certain scenes or shots would cut into one another and if we both thought they would work to enhance the narrative or not. We used films such as Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and Vince Villigan’s Breaking Bad (2008-2013) as visual references to help each other understand the others vision. As me and Chris have worked on a large number of shoots together, we both feel comfortable expressing opinions critical of each other’s work, as we know we have the films best interests at heart.

My main contribution at this stage was creating my own marked up script that involved me annotating the finished script with notes on how I personally visualised the film. I collaborated with both Chris and Matt, the cinematographer, by comparing our scripts and discussing the best way we could shoot the film to tell the narrative clearly. Through this process we constructed a rough, master shot list that compiled of all our contributions that Chris and Matt continued to edit up until the production shoot days.

On the set I mainly acted as a runner and extra pair of hands for the rest of the crew, pitching in when and where I could e.g. helping move props, help building sets, changing camera lens’ e.c.t. The majority of the collaboration I did at this time was with Chris, especially when the shot list had to be changed due to unforeseeable problems such as actors arriving late or leaving early. We discussed how to work around these problems by adding in or cutting out shots and if this would still make the sequence work in the edit or affect the narrative in any way. I also had to collaborate with Matt and Jay, the art director, when attempting to solve these problems, mainly to check if the continuity in any of the altered shots didn’t match previous ones.

My actual designated role on set was to do the clapperboard that aided both the sound designer, Luke, and myself when it came to post-production by cutting down the time it took to label, sync and find the desired takes.

In terms of the workload, the post-production stage was my most active time in the filmmaking process, so collaborating was essential to make it run smoothly. However, when creating the first assembly, I worked alone to apply my own personal ‘look’ and view point to the film by editing in my own style. I’ve found I have a similar style to Shelton Kahn, editor of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), as I prioritise performance over other aspects such as continuity. “I think that different editors do bring a certain look to a film. I am what I could call a “performance editor,” always looking for the best performance from the actors…”^{[3; Pg 21]} This is because I personally feel the performance is the driving force in a film and is what the audience engage with the most.

After the first assembly I began to work with the director during some editing sessions, showing him each major new stage of the cut so he could approve or make changes when necessary, before we showed it to the tutors for feedback. When we got to the rough cut stage I began to collaborate with Luke more by giving him a list of the takes we were using in each scene so he had time to clean up the dialogue and prepare any foley that may need to be recorded. When I got to the fine cut stage, Chris and myself worked together consistently as the narrative structure wasn’t going to be changed and it was just putting the final touches to creating his image. I was always mindful to listen to Chris’s feedback and opinions throughout the editing process, as it is ultimately his film that I was creating. “An editor should follow his own instinct when it comes to editing, unless the director has given the editor certain directions or instructions.“^{[4; Pg 32]}

After getting the film to picture lock, I sent it over to Luke so he could begin to construct the soundtrack and then I started the colour grade. Chris, Matt and myself all gave our inputs on how we thought the grade should look by going through scene by scene and showing each other our ideas. We, once again, used other films as examples so we could understand the reasoning behind each other’s decisions, for example the over exaggerated yellow grade in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012).

Even though everyone worked well together as a group, there were still some problems during the filmmaking process, the biggest one being the headmaster scene. At every stage in the editing process we received feedback from the tutors criticising various aspects of it, the major one being its length as it was just one person talking to camera. This wasn’t helped by the problematic performance where the actor seemed to be searching for lines constantly causing the pace to be basically none existent. We addressed theses issues by being brutal with the dialogue by cutting out around 4 minutes of it partly to improve the pace but also to cut out any unnecessary exposition that told the audience the whole films message only 4 minutes into it. “You’ve got to be very careful, I believe, as the storyteller not to let the audience get ahead of you. And sometimes giving them less information and letting them fill in as the story goes is better than giving them all the information immediately”^{[3; Pg 19]}

Another problem we encountered was the green screen dream sequences as originally they were going to be shot on location and not on green screen. This required Chris and myself to come up with a creative solution to this problem and after brainstorming a few ideas we decided to use stop motion as a backdrop. This actually worked very effectively in the film as it allowed the audience to see the world from Daniel’s perspective and empathise with him more. The art direction also played a big part in this due to the collaboration between the director, art director and cinematographer, as it ultimately gave the film a very distinct visual style.

Finally Isaac, who played Daniel, gave a very natural and authentic performance throughout the majority of the scenes. However this was because on set Chris would ask me if I was happy when we had to do retakes to get a second opinion on the performance which proved very beneficial in the end.

Our group as a whole has worked professionally and effectively through all the stages of production in Daniel’s Kite, which I believe is reflected in the finished film. When faced with problems we communicated well and came up with creative and intuitive solutions that ultimately benefitted the film. Throughout this project my collaborative skills have improved, especially with the director Chris, strengthening our group’s already robust connection. In turn, this has improved my own skills as an editor through peer feedback and group discussions, which I have transferred over to the film. I personally think I have achieved my goal of putting together an entertaining and stylised film by effectively portraying the films themes and engaging the audience in the narrative, without drawing attention towards any of the problems I listed earlier. “G: you spend so much time at it, wouldn’t you want the audience to know what you do? H: Well, we don’t want the audience to know it’s a film. [Carl] I think film editing is like the editing of Vogue or Cosmopolitan… It’s their responsibility, if I’m not mistaken, to throw out what’s not so good to read or what’s not a good picture.”^{[3; Pg 96]}

Bibliography

1. Charles Koppelman (2005); Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch edited Cold Mountain using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and what this means for cinema; US: New Riders

2. Murch, Walter (1988); In the Blink of an Eye; New York: Viking Press

3. Gabriella Oldham (1992); First Cut: Conversations with Film Editors; USA: University of California Press

4. Vincent LoBrutto (1991); Selected Takes: Film Editors on Editing; New York: Praeger Publishers

DCP tests - Void Screenings

For the Capture15 screening in The Showroom on 19th May, we have to ingest our films onto the projector by making them into DCP (Digital Cinema Package) files. This involved me exporting the film, with the soundtrack on, as an Avid 1x1 file so it is completely uncompressed and the highest quality possible. I then had to put it into DCP-o-Matic and create a 2k, flat DCP file that I put onto a NTSF formatted hard drive for the Showroom's projector to ingest. Tom was our lead technician which meant that we had to get all the files to him before the relevant deadlines for the tech rehearsals and eventually the final screening.

DCP export settings.

There were a number of problems during this process, mainly being that the Showroom's system is 9 years old and using a linux operating system which meant that it could only ingest footage from hard drives formatted for PC only (NTSF) which we didn't know originally. As the majority of the course edit from Macs, no one had a PC only hard drive to ingest the footage off so we had to work around it by borrowing one from the showroom and transferring all the films onto that. I helped Tom out here by giving people advice and guidance when it came to getting their DCP's screened, especially as it took so long to transfer these big files from Mac to PC.

After navigating this problem we did manage to see our film on the big screen where I could analyse the colour and make sure it kept the grade we wanted, which it had. It was also a good opportunity for us to test out the sound where the director and myself gave any notes or opinions we had on it so the sound designer could make changes when necessary.

Viewing the film for the final time before Capture15.

Colour Grading

The director, cinematographer and I discussed the colour grade for Daniel's Kite throughout the whole filmmaking process so we could all be clear on what would work best for the film. We all gave our own opinions on what would work best for individual scenes and then tested them out on Media Composer to see what worked and what didn't

Testing a warm, yellow grade for the bedroom scenes.

Although we haven't stuck to any specific rules in our costume or location colour scheme, minus the reds of the kite and balloon to signify Daniel's imagination, we still wanted the overall grade to be representative of his emotions throughout the film. “… Color correction is more than ensuring that you have a consistent white balance. You can use color (or the lack thereof) to emphasize parts of you story.”[1]

Our original idea in the way we wanted to visualise this was by making the grade very warm and uplifting by bringing out yellows, oranges and greens when Daniel is happy with his imagination at the start of the film. Moonrise Kingdom (2012) by Wes Anderson is a good example of the grade we aim to replicate as it brings a very naturalistic style to the film as well as combining with the themes of youth and childlike wonder.

Moonrise Kingdom's warm grade.

Our plan for the school scenes was to desaturate and wash out all the colours, apart from the red once again to keep it as a visual motif, as well as turning the blues up slightly. This was to make it seem like a boring and drab place, the way Daniel sees it, so the audience can empathise with him more.

Moonrise Kingdom's blue grade.

When I got the film to a picture lock stage, after clearing it with the director, I started to prepare for the grade by creating a new video track above the rest of the visuals and added edits in, separating each clip from the next.

Setting up the sequence for colour correction.

After continuing this method through the whole sequence, I started to look at the shots that I had perviously identified as being visually different, in terms of colour and exposure, and started correcting them where possible.

Spot colour correcting anomalies in certain parts of the frame to match the rest.

Correcting the exposure to match the rest of the scene.

After doing these corrections I showed it to the director and cinematographer once again and we started going through the first 3-5 shots of each scene, applying the grade we discussed to see if it gave the desired effect. When we achieved the colour we wanted, I enlarged the video window and changed the middle screen to 'reference' which allowed me to select any shot on the timeline and use it to match the colour of the other shots in the scene.

Matching the colour from a reference shot.

I used the colour template icon to drag and drop onto the rest of the clips in the scene to give the same colour grade, altering each slightly depending on the shots framing or exposure. I did this scene by scene, starting at the beginning.

The colour grade for Daniel's bedroom.

I kept to our original plan for the opening sequence by turning up the yellows and saturation slightly to give the room a more warm and childlike feel. I didn't want to make it too extreme and over-exaggerate the yellows too much like in Moonrise Kingdom because it wasn't going to be consistent enough throughout the film. "...a 'less-is-more’ approach in which subtle changes in colour could become more powerful..."[2]

I also stuck to the plan of making the school scenes washed out by turning up the blues in the gym sequence, as well as turning down the saturation.

Attempting a washed out effect in school scenes.

As we did pick up shots for this scene there were some obvious disparities in colour due to the white balance being different so I had to be careful when just dragging and dropping the colour template on each of the shots.

Matching the pick up shots to the rest of the grade.

I originally tried the same grade from the gym scene in the classroom but decided against it in the end as the rushes were very white and quite bright to start with and the grade over exposed them drastically. After talking to the director we decided to match it more with the headmaster's scene by giving the classroom a green tint with a little desaturation to continue with the washed out, dull visual style.

The colour grade for the classroom scene.

I also matched the dream sequence in this scene with the earlier one by saturating it heavily and making the colours more vibrant.

In the headmaster scene I slightly exaggerated the grade from the classroom by highlighting the greens, turning the contrast and saturation up slightly to highlight the colour scheme used in the scene.

The colour grade for the headmaster scene.

Once again I continued the vibrant grade when Daniel attempts to escape to his imagination in this scene to allow the audience to see the story from his perspective.

Turning up the saturation and yellows to give the shot a dreamlike feel.

The close up of Daniel in this scene has always been problematic due to the mismatched eyeline and lack of backlighting, so getting this to match the rest of the scene was difficult. In the end I turned the contrast and brightness up slightly, upped the saturation and added a green tint so it fit with the rest of the shots.

Daniel in the headmaster scene.

The original shot of the clouds we had, that appear straight after this scene, were very grey and washed out which we decided to change as we wanted them to contrast with the shot of Daniel looking up at them. To do this I heavily increased the blue mids and highlights as well as the saturation to give them a near un-naturalistic feel.

Heavy blue grade on clouds.

I did this to connote Daniels longing to keep in touch with his imagination by making it seem like it  was out of his grasp.

I originally made the next park scene relatively warm, turning it down gradually in the scene shot by shot until it looked more washed out at the end when Daniel lies down on the floor in a huff. However after collaborating with the director, we decided this gradual shift in colour was too subtle to make it look like an intentional feature so we chose to desaturate the whole scene to reflect with Daniels emotions of feeling let down and alone.

Washed out wide by turning down saturation heavily.

We were already quite happy with the colour in the living room scene as it was quite warm in the close ups but slightly less vibrant in the wides which represented the lack of chemistry between the father and son. I did change the exposure on the close ups, as I mentioned previously, as well as making the wides match slightly better with them.

Slight increase of colour and yellows.

The next scene when Daniel tries to escape to his imagination again was a little tricky as the background was extremely different to the rest of the film visually. To make it slightly less jarring I colour corrected the green screen shot of Daniel to make it match more with the background, using the blue colour scheme in the 2nd Moonrise Kingdom shot above as a template.

Altering the brightness and contrast to match the background on the green screen shots.

I used the same desaturation template from the 1st park scene in the playground scene to once again reflect Daniel's emotions.

Desaturating to reflect mood again.

Finally in the last park scene, I over exaggerated the yellows and saturation to the same sort of levels as the dream sequences to connote Daniel's happiness and intentions to get back in touch with his imagination.

Bringing out the naturalistic colours, yellow, green and browns, mimicking Moonrise Kingdom.

I'm happy with the colour grade overall as I have been very careful to make each shot reflect Daniel's internal emotions, as we had planned from the start, to allow the audience another window into his world, which hopefully allows them to empathise with him more.

Bibliography

1. Pete Shaner (2011); Digital Filmmaking: An Introduction; Virginia: Mercury Learning and Information

2. Scott Higgins (2003); A New Colour Consciousness: Colour in the Digital Age; http://con.sagepub.com.lcproxy.shu.ac.uk/content/9/4/60.full.pdf+html; Last Accessed 17/05/15