'Flatline' - Review and Feedback

Today I presented our Flatline fine cut for tutor review, receiving feedback on the piece we have been working on for the past couple of weeks.

As with 'The Movement' project, we started with importing footage, separating it into bins based on scenes and then labeling, which took much less time. After this, we watched the final version of the film on Vimeo and began to create a rough assembly. Our intention was to make it as a whole 10-minute film and then see where we could cut it down afterwards, rather than work this out beforehand. However this approach was ultimately not needed due to the fact that we didn't have access to the footage for the opening montage scene nor the final scene, and so the assembly came to that duration anyway.

In the first scene, we didn't have the shot where Mike and Alex are seen passing along patients like items in a supermarket, but due to the story we had to include this part anyway. We tried to find a balance between continuity, the logical movement of the characters throughout the space and creating a pace for the story that keeps the viewers engaged - using a system similar to Murch's 'Rule of Six'. We cut to the close-up of Alex and then to a shot of the checkout machine to make clear what he's looking at (even though we couldn't use the shot to explain this properly).

We cut out the beep SFX from the checkout shot and played that quietly over the start scene, raising the volume for when Alex focuses on it. We split the checkout shot and edited out the time between passing the items through, adding more pace. We cut back to the next close-up to show his fixation on it, conveying that we're inside his mind and establishing him as the focus of the film. Afterwards, the wide shot from Mike's perspective showed what he was staring at.

We cut the travel time from the characters' exits to keep the pace and used the quick-cut, Edgar Wright inspired sequence created in the original film. To add to this effect we also used the sound of a stopwatch ticking to suggest the passing of time and cartoon whoosh sounds on the actions and whip-pan movements. We cut quite late into the next scene to avoid the long silence at the start, and due to every other shot being unusable for a range of reasons (boom pole, boom shadow, bad lighting etc.) we had to keep this locked off on the wide.

Similarly, we tried using cutaways for the scene between Alex and the doctor, but in the end kept it with the wide as the delivery was inconsistent and some of the angles were awkwardly framed. That said, we did cut closer to Alex at the end to show his reaction to the doctor's dismissal - 'Fucking taxi drivers'.

Following the second quick-cut sequence, we showed Alex lying awake in bed. We cropped the frame of the side-angle shot to exclude the ambulance toy as it seemed too forced and unnecessary. Instead, we overlaid the line from the previous scene to convey his thoughts, adding reverb to emphasise it further and using a dissolve to transition between the shots.

We used SFX of an alarm clock to transition into the next scene, juxtaposing the whack on the alarm clock with the vomiting to pick the pace back up. As the alarm clock clearly doesn't match the sound, we sped up the clip to show it on-screen for only a short time. To enhance this further, we cut out as much of the early part of the clip as possible and removed some of the frames in between.

Although there were a lot of different angles available in the next scene, mainly master shots from behind and at the side, we kept it relatively simple to just four: a single each on Alex and the drunk man, and then two wide angles. We felt it was jarring and unnecessary to show Alex walking off down the alleyway from behind, but we stayed on Mike's reaction after Alex's exit as his strange behaviour is Mike's focus in the next scenes.

In the next scene inside the ambulance, we kept to the two-shot with Alex in the foreground at the start to highlight Alex's agitation and building frustration. We then overlapped the audio 'Why are you so dismissive?' to interrupt 'earth to Alex' to be more confrontational, cutting between singles of the two characters to visualize the conflict. Even when doing this, we tried to stay mostly on Alex's reaction as he's the protagonist who the audience is supposed to identify with.

For the movement to their next location, we tried to use the best shots available of the ambulance wing mirror and of it travelling down the road. We avoided using the shaky, over-exposed shots of the traffic, those which showed unwanted signage and shots with clearly different people in the van, or a different van entirely. We also tried to respect the direction of movement to the right in the majority of the shots, using AVID's effects to flop the last one of the wheel as they arrive.

Cutting the first part of the next scene was challenging as we wanted to show Mike receiving the radio message and waiting whilst Alex prepares to leave. We kept the pace by overlapping the radio voice over Alex unbuckling himself and moving to get out. Some of the continuity was tricky to maintain here as Alex and Mike were often looking either away or in different directions between shots and takes.

Returning to the ambulance after the missing scene, we moved to a single shot of Alex after he's handed the letter to highlight the effect it has on him.

From here we cut to a close-up of his eyes to show his reaction, then back to a two-shot where Mike gives a good performance - looking up from the letter at Alex's reaction. We ended it in the only way available, a slow fade to black as the ambulance drives away.

After cutting the footage, we identified a list of all the sounds we wanted to include, such as ambiences of different environments and spot FX like doors and beeps. We sourced around 20 online, some of which weren't needed, and began putting them into the mix.

In the opening we used a 'supermarket ambience' track as a base throughout the scene, extracting the checkout beep from in-camera sound and adding reverb where necessary to convey Alex's distant thoughts. In the corridor scene we added a 'hospital ambience' track at a low volume to add to the environment, which included sounds of people walking up and down a similar sounding location. In the bed scene we added a slow-ticking clock to keep the pace and emphasize Alex's inability to sleep, also leading into the alarm sound afterwards.

To create the sound of the voice over the radio, we used an initial radio static SFX. We then used the 'Resonant Filter' tool in Sony Vegas to modify the voice, which had a preset designed to make it sound like a low-quality phone call. After making the final cut we were shown how to apply sound effects per clip in AVID, so will use that in the future. Other spot FX included the van ignition, the beep of the panel in the ambulance and the handbrake as the car pulls up. In the final scene we also added the sound of light rain on the car roof to match the environment and to make the volume consistent throughout.

We made the error of having the ripple edit tool selected whilst adding and editing sounds, which threw most of the dialogue and other effects out of alignment. With not much time to fix this I managed to recreate the film quickly in Sony Vegas, adding the final touches to the audio mix and creating a title, at which point it was ready to present to the group.

Ultimately, if we had all of the footage available we would have been able to experiment with a structure different to that of the original film. With more time I also would have improved the title sequence colour corrected some of the problematic shots in the hospital and ambulance. However, without the need to cut down the film from its 9-minute running time, what we've produced essentially stays very close to the original, albeit with some different choices in shots and sound. That said, we did learn some useful lessons in working with sound in AVID by putting effort into the sound design for the film.

In the session we presented our films for feedback, and I noted down some of the key advice we received as a group:

• Character looking at something - need to see what they're looking at
• Cutting on movement helps to disguise cut - audience distracted
• Cut before they leave the frame in short films
• Give a definite ending to short films to help the audience
• Use an ND filter on DSLR to reduce bright white sky
• Don't over-cut - audience only cares about the performance
• A fine cut must be ready for an audience

Website: Soundworks Collection

'SoundWorks Collection' is a website dedicated to providing insightful videos and profiles on music and sound design from the latest films. Many of my favourite composers regularly feature on there, such as Hans Zimmer, Michael Giacchino and Howard Shore, as well as composers for trailer music groups such as Immediate Music, Two Steps From Hell and Thomas Bergersen.

The most interesting aspect of the videos is learning about the initial ideas and stimulus for the music, and then how this developed into the final score. For example, in creating the score for 'Interstellar' (2014) Christopher Nolan wanted to move away from genre and focus on the story of a father and his daughter, which began the process of collaboration with Zimmer. The heavily featured organs were utilized to provide a 'religiosity' to the film, adding to its sense of scale and scope. In the video below Nolan describes his plans for the music.

The videos also feature interviews with sound editors, mixers and recordists talking about the sound design aspects of the film, often per scene which helps with learning the individual roles and responsibilities during production. Some of my favourite SoundWorks videos have been about 'Gravity' (Alfonso Cuaron, 2013), 'Tron: Legacy' (Joseph Kosinski, 2010), 'Oblivion' (Joseph Kosinski, 2013) and more recently 'Interstellar' (2014).

In 'Gravity', they respected the physics of sound in space in their sound design. They also made full use of surround-sound to create a sense of disorientation, overwhelming the audience to mirror what the character is feeling. In an interview with composer Steven Price, he talks about the decisions involved in designing the music for the film - it felt empty without it but a fully orchestral score undermined it. Ultimately, the music's low, synthesised drone comes to representing the antagonistic force in the film - the debris field.

In 'Tron: Legacy' they used a huge variety of effects, filters and synthesized sounds to create the various environments within what is essentially a computer. They added extra ambient sounds in scenes without action where the character is still feeling a sense of unease, and used filters on the character's voices to create a hierarchy among the computerised characters.

Due to the emptiness of the environments in post-apocalyptic 'Oblivion', many sequences simply made use of the absence of nature sounds, instead using ambient sounds like wind and water to enhance the sense of isolation and desolation. They also mention the creative possibilities of surround sound, now having speakers on the ceiling for an added effect, and the collaboration with 'M83' for the film's score.

For 'Interstellar', Christopher Nolan wanted to keep the sound design simple, using largely production sounds for most scenes. Similar to 'Gravity', the physics of sound in space was respected and therefore the only sounds heard inside the shuttle are the effects which space is having on the ship. The video shows the various ways in which the sound designers and Foley artists did this, such as by playing large sub-woofers at certain frequencies in empty scrap planes. 

Video: Thelma Schoonmaker Interview

In this video, editor Thelma Schoonmaker discusses a number of topics relating to her career, working with Scorsese and her opinions increasingly rapid cutting in commercials. She describes the necessities of a good editor similar to Walter Murch: patience, discipline and a sense of musical rhythm. She also gives her tips for aspiring filmmakers, discusses the benefits of moving to digital editing and talks about how bad editing can ruin a performance or even an entire film. 

On the topic of her more daring editing techniques, such as jump-cutting in 'Shutter Island' (Martin Scorsese, 2010) and 'Goodfellas' (Martin Scorsese, 1990), she gives her opinion on the visibility of film editing:

'A lot of people think that editing should be invisible. 

Sometimes you do want it to be invisible, you want a dialogue scene to flow. 

But we've never felt that way. We always like to slap the audience in the face if its required.'

Digital Cinema Projection - Research

History

In the early 1990s, non-linear editing systems were introduced, quickly dominating post-production within a few short years. By 1995, CDs were able to store a full-length feature film, and in 1999 DLP cinema technology was publicly demonstrated on four screens in the US, showing 'Star Wars: The Phantom Menace' (George Lucas, 1999). Gradually, throughout the 2000s more and more cinemas were being equipped with 2K digital projectors, with 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones' (George Lucas, 2002) being the first film to be shot and distributed entirely digital, without a single roll of film. Whilst digital cameras and editing is not new, all-digital distribution and projection of films has only arrived recently, and motion picture film is subsequently estimated to end in 2015. As of summer 2014, over 90% of the screens in the US have been converted to digital, with nearly half of them 3D capable.

How it works

A digital cinema screen also requires a digital projector and a server. The films are supplied physically to the cinema via hard-drives and range from 90-300GB in size. Trailers also arrive in the same format separately, ranging from 200-400mb in size. After this, the 'digital cinema package' must be ingested into the hard-drives of the server, usually via USB - and for feature films must be de-crypted using a key provided by the distributor via email. After this, a member of staff creates a playlist for the content on the server, which can also automate cues such as lighting and sound in the cinema. 

Positives and Negatives of DCP

For film distributors, DCP is very economical. Printing an average-length feature on film can cost millions, whereas with digitally distributed films all that is needed is a hard drive and a 'broad release of digital prints'. However, many exhibitors refused to purchase equipment to replace film projectors as they were expensive and they would not see the savings. Therefore a subsidy, a 'Virtual Print Fee' was provided to exhibitors to go towards the purchasing of the equipment needed to show a film digitally.

One of the drawbacks of digital cinema projection is that the playback system (server, projector, media block) can cost 2-3 times as much as standard film projectors but has a greater risk of failure and obsolescence - film projectors can be expected to have an average life of 30-40 years by contrast. Digital storage is also unreliable and hasn't been around long enough to see whether they can be stored and archived like film. The content must also be periodically transferred to up-to-date media which adds to costs and complications. 

Arguments over quality have been made both for and against digital film. Supporters of film projection highlight that the 'theoretical resolution' of 35mm film is greater than that of 2K digital cinema (which is only slightly greater than consumer 1080p HD). Advocators of DCP argue that digital is better than film, as it is, by nature, immune to scratches, fading or jitter. There is 'total fidelity' at every screening, seeing the film the way its creators intended it. With the move to higher resolution cameras and projectors, capable of screening 4K - the difference in resolution between digital and film becomes negligible.

Criticisms of DCP

Many high profile directors have publicly criticized digital cinema, such as Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino. On the other hand, directors such as David Lynch, Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron shoot in digital (with the format being a necessity to Cameron to shoot in 3D). In a recent interview for Empire, Cameron discusses the technology for the Avatar sequels, which will be shot in a high frame rate similar to the Hobbit films. Despite the public reaction against the higher frame rate (HFR), he believes strongly that, whereas 3D was 'fundamentally different' to 2D, HFR is an improvement that he and Jackson are pioneering.

'What they're bumping up against is the limitations of the projection, 

that's been like that for almost a hundred years' 

- James Cameron

In this video, Tarantino denounces DCP as 'television in public' and the death of cinema 'as I know it'. He describes this generation of film-makers as 'hopeless' and hopes that the next will realise what was lost with the death of film and bring it back. 'There's no reason to leave the house if the quality of home theatres rivals that of in the cinemas.'

Recent films that have been shot on film include 'Django Unchained' (Quentin Tarantino, 2012), 'The Dark Knight Rises' (Christopher Nolan, 2012), 'Lincoln' (Steven Spielberg, 2012) and 'The Master' (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012). Christopher Nolan continues to champion the use of film in cinema, shooting his films on 35mm and increasing lengths of them in 70mm IMAX format. The latest of which is 'Interstellar' (Christopher Nolan, 2014) which the featurette below explores. 

The documentary 'Side by Side' (Christopher Kenneally, 2012), featuring and produced by Keanu Reeves, explores the ongoing transition from film to digital and includes interviews with a number of the above mentioned directors, sharing their views on the future of cinema and projection.

Trailer Analysis - Cloud Atlas

This video is the extended trailer for 'Cloud Atlas' (Tom Tykwer, 2012), one of my favourite films of recent years, largely unseen by most people and in my opinion greatly underrated. Based on the book by David Mitchell, 'Cloud Atlas' follows multiple plot-lines spanning across six different eras, from a lawyer travelling across the sea to colonial America to a worker clone escaping from 'Neo-Seoul' hundred years in the future. These stories are told concurrently; linked together literally, thematically, metaphysically. 

Clearly, this presents a challenge for the structure and editing of the film, and makes for an interesting case study. Each story has its own time-line and 3-act narrative which are wildly different and involve a range of characters, and so to translate this into a coherent story within the limited time-span of the film is difficult. 

Arguably, the film adaptation has, in some respects, more freedom and opportunity to create thematic links between the stories due to the nature of discontinuous editing. Its movement between the stories is bound only shot-by-shot rather than having to progress in larger chapters. Cinematic techniques such as music, match-cuts and mise-en-scene are used to draw parallels between many of the stories at once, flowing as one larger narrative.

Managing to convey the story (or rather, idea) of 'Cloud Atlas' is inherently difficult, yet this trailer manages it very effectively. The film covers so many genres, from period drama to comedy and sci-fi, that it would be easy to become lost or promote one over the other for its target audience (as happened with the notorious high-budget flop 'John Carter' in 2012). However, the flow of music in the trailer helps it massively to convey the range of genres, styles and emotions felt from watching the film:

1. Cloud Atlas Sextet - slow, light piano and strings convey the sense of warmth and romance.
2. 'Sonera' (Thomas Bergersen) - fast, low strings and chorus over quick editing to convey drama and action elements of the film.
3. 'Outro' (M83) - loud, percussive and highly emotional to convey sense of  beauty and scale, conveying the universal themes which transcend each individual story.

The trailer also makes more use of the links between the stories, using match-cuts and scene transitions that don't appear in the film to keep it together. Whilst the trailer in no way conveys the story of the film, it does enough to cover the bases of the film, generate audience's intrigue and hint at the types of emotion to be felt.

'In the Blink of an Eye' - Walter Murch

In this book, Murch talks in depth about the nature of editing, why it works on a psychological and biological level, and how the notion of discontinuity of film was first discovered. He uses a number of different analogies to explain his theories on editing, such as the moving of beehives, the differences in DNA between chimps and humans and the similarities between overactive editors and tour guides. Some of the points, such as his theories on blinking, he reiterates in several other interviews and talks.

Murch goes on to identify his top six reasons where you should cut, which he arranges into a hierarchy. In the second half of the book he describes his experiences working with mechanical and electronic editing equipment, and his predictions for the development of editing (and cinema) in the 'future' - of which most of what he describes has taken place. Below I've summarized the main points he raises in the book:

• Ride of the Valkyries sequence in 'Apocalypse Now' shot as documentary rather than composed shots.
• Cutting a film is not so much putting together but 'finding a path'
• Cuts work even though its a total displacement of time and space for the viewer - and we're used to our day being perceived as a long continuous 'shot'.
• We have difficulty accepting cuts that are neither subtle nor total - such as cutting from a master shot to a slightly tighter shot. There's not enough change in motion or context to avoid it being jarring.
• Films being shot discontinuously was the filmic equivalent of discovering flight - no longer are films earthbound to time and space.
• Film editing is 'cutting out the bad bits' essentially - like making a home movie but much more complex and subjective.
• More audio tracks does not mean a better sound mix. 
• 'Try to do the most with the least' - suggestion is much more effective than exposition. Past a certain point audience becomes spectators and not participants.
• It takes more work to decide when not to cut.
• Overactive editor is like an annoying tour guide - need to let the audience decide what they want to see, and be confident in giving them that freedom.
• Cutting to preserve 3D space is at the bottom of priority list for a good cut.
• Need to be willing to sacrifice other 'rules' to preserve emotion. Satisfying emotion and moving the story along obscures issues lower in the hierarchy.
• The editor is free from the context of the shot - and so has a unique perspective when working with the director.
• Editor has to propose alternate situations to tease out director's vision. Director might not know what they want but they know what they don't want.
• Linear vs Random-access (Non-linear) editing - can discover new ideas whilst having to look through the material in linear process. Too quick to 'NG' a shot when it may be usable later on.
• Re-cut scenes until you can't see yourself or your emotions in it - let the film create itself.
• Test screenings are useful - ask the opinion of audience a couple of days later when they're not skewed by initial emotion.
• Every shot has several cut points - staying on a character or leaving them before they've finished their line has different effects on audience. 
• History of linear/non-linear mechanical/electronic editing formats - and the pro's and con's of each.
• Effects digital editing has had on actual content - are there more cuts now because we can?
• More 'vertical editing' in the future - editing not just after the frame but within the frame, cropping, deleting, masking etc.
• Essence of cinema is 'Lets go out' to watch a movie - dissatisfaction with ordinary surroundings. Can never have true cinematic experience at home no matter how good the equipment is. Will always be watching films in the dark.

Video: Cutting a Music Montage

In this video, found through a recent post on 'No Film School', a number of useful tips for editing a music montage are shared. The author explains his different approaches and workflow when editing either a dramatic montage (telling a story) or a show-reel of beauty shots. For a dramatic montage, the music is added after the images as it is less important, but with non-dramatic this is the reverse - cutting to the beat of the music to link the images and keep the audience's interest. 

He goes on to talk about what transitions work best in a non-dramatic sequence. Dissolves are best used when the images it connects have no relation to each other, such as nature shots, and cuts for when they do. He also advises to let some shots extend across the beat rather than always cutting to it, as it draws attention to that shot and prevents the audience from always being able to anticipate the next - as they'd lose interest quickly.

Whilst cutting his sequence, he pays close attention to lines of action and the where the audience's focus is drawn to, such as fish changing direction from right to left, and he uses this to ease his decision for the next shot. He matches some of the movements within the shots with changes in the music and also creates his own subtext within the footage to make it more dramatic and engaging, something that we were also advised whilst putting together 'The Movement' documentary.