HoW IT ALL STARTED

I have always been interested in American culture and considered working in the arts and film sector there. Therefore, it occurred to me that to focus on the artistic style of art, photography and filmography would be relevant to my future. I wanted to combine my interest in art and film with the old American style. I therefore took the opportunity to visit New York City and work on my photography and poetry which ended up combining to create the basis of my final piece.

I started constructing the plan for my final piece by writing a poem. I then visualised what I wanted to be on the screen throughout the voiceover. I did this by writing a script, planning my set and drawing out storyboards. Whilst I had plans to make a video, I very much am interested in installation artwork. Therefore, I did not want my piece to be a video only. This is when I decided that I wanted to project my video onto the area that it was shot. I wanted the space to engulf the audience so that they could envision the actions taking place right in front of them.

PLANNING

SET DESIGN:
My set is to be designed in the form of an American Motel room, inspired by films such as Psycho, From Dusk Till Dawn and the artwork and photography behind Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino by the Arctic Monkeys.  I produced a colour and aesthetic mood board for my set based off of sets, lighting and atmospheres that inspired me and sent it to my cinematographer and those who I asked to help with the construction of my set and the filming on the day.  I did multiple sketches in advance on how I wanted my set to look and I am happy with the end result. Luckily I did not come across any major problems and with the help of some friends managed to construct a studio set from scratch to match the room that I envisioned.

SHOOT


I shot for my short film on January 19th 2019. I booked out the studio and designed my set in advance. Booked out and searched for the props and set up the full set the day before filming. The filming on the day went smoothly, we set up from 10am-12pm and shot from 12pm-6pm and packed up by 7pm.

LIGHTING

I wanted the lighting to be very atmospheric and the idea behind the red light shining through the window came from the idea of the neon lights and commercialism which America takes hold of. I wanted the light to hint to a motel sign outside of the window shining in. The reason that I made it red was to hint to the sexual expectations of women in society, linking to the red lights of prostitution, which contrasts to the innocent and nonsexual acts occurring within the room. The red light is designed to be a direct visual metaphor for the male gaze, which invades her privacy and explores her body.

EDITING AND POST PRODUCTION

I edited my film on Adobe Premier pro. I used my storyboard to structure my piece and worked through to the accompaniment of the soundtrack.

VOICE RECORDING

I voice recorded the poem myself to test out spacing and how it would fit with the shots and the film. I did this by speaking along with the film and recording my voice in one of the Edit Suites. I originally wanted the voiceover to be an American accent, however, as my project developed, I realised how much of myself and my own experiences I was emitting into the piece. Therefore, I decided that I was the best person to speak my own poem so I stuck with my own voice for the voice over.

PROJECTION PRACTICE

I practiced projecting in the studio the week before the final presentations. I was really happy with how the video looked on screen. I had already colour-graded a little bit but was planning to do more to make the video softer with less contrast. However, I really felt, when watching the video projected that the contrast worked really well. It projected colour throughout the whole space and really engulfed you ad the audience. This practice also enabled me to pick what props to use in my final presentation. I decided that the screen space was very effective so I would only use smaller decorative objects such as the lamp.

When it came to setting up my final project I decided to change the sides of my space to replicate the room in my video by making them wooden and adding the same props. I think it creates a more interactive space with the projection on the wall.