Experimental Evaluation

Our film is a linear piece which has elements of a collage as we used both our own footage and footage from the Prelinger Archive. The final product is a film and audio piece about the process of where our meat comes from. However as it is an experimental piece we made it very dark and disturbing by using many clips of cattle on a farm and raw meat being cut in the same shot to shock the audience. We also used a background track of a 50’s housewife themed piece of music, which we got off a copyright free music website, to show a contrast between the disturbing images and the ‘happy’ music.

Delicatessen Opening Titles

This idea was influenced by the opening titles to the TV drama ‘Dexter’ as the titles include his morning routine but it has been edited to make it seem quite dark, so that it links with his ‘serial killer’ personality. This was done by using very sharp sounds when he was eating breakfast to suggest his aggressive behaviour; this was the most influential part towards our ‘kitchen’ theme. The main influence for the idea of contrasting the preparation of raw meat to the cattle was Richie Bierne’s ‘Meat Factory Ear Worms’ as this was a very strong audio piece also based around meat and cattle. Another very strong influence for our piece was the opening titles for Jeunet and Caro’s ‘Delicatessen’ as this piece included raw meat being cut on a white tablecloth so that all of the blood was soaked into the cloth. We thought that this was such a good idea that we decided to do the same thing in our piece using raw meat, a white tablecloth and blood (red food colouring) as this created a very strong, disturbing image.

I think that our experimental piece actually turned out quite well, especially seeing as we had a few setbacks. The main thing that I like about our film is that we used not only our own footage but archive footage as well. We also made the piece work in terms of getting the archive footage to fit with the theme of the piece, this was quite difficult as we had to look through a lot of archive material to find the appropriate footage for our film. However, if I were to re-do this project I would probably have tried harder to find other material that I could film myself and use less of the archive footage. Another thing I would improve if I were to do this project again would be to record more sounds to put into the audio of the piece. This is because I feel like we could have used more of our own sounds to make the piece more interesting, however I think if we added too many more audio clips then this may make the piece seem too busy and cluttered.

One of the things I liked the most about our piece was the camera shots that we used. This is because I think we got some really good close up shots that worked well with the rest of the piece. The fact that the camera was really close to the meat whilst it was being cut made it more disturbing to watch. Another thing I liked about the piece was the fact that we filmed all of the meat clips on a white tablecloth so that it soaked up all of the blood (food colouring) making it more visually enticing.

I think that our film worked better as a shorter, stronger piece. This is because originally the piece was longer but the shots that we have taken out included the meat being handled in someone’s hands. We thought that if we took those shots out and just used shots of the meat on its own then this would make the piece stronger, which it did.

Prelinger Archive Footage

When it came to actually making the experimental piece we tried to be quite creative. Once we had come up with our idea the first thing we did was look for archive footage in the ‘Prelinger Archive’. The clips we chose to use from the archives includes a 50’s housewife talking about the different kinds of steak, footage of cattle on farms and the cows on the way to the slaughterhouse and clips of families eating meat at a BBQ. We chose to use these clips as they matched perfectly with our idea.

When filming our own footage we tried to get as many shots of the meat and blood as possible. We also tried to include a lot of knife shots as our film is loosely about the slaughter of cattle. Along with audio that matched the footage we filmed, we also recorded a number of sounds that we didn’t have images for but that we thought would be interesting to hear. We included a number of these in our piece as we thought we could match them with different images that maybe oppose that sound, therefore making the piece more experimental. When filming we laid a white sheet under the meat so that when we added the ‘blood’ (red food colouring) it would soak into the sheet, making the mood of the piece more dark and sinister, like in ‘Delicatessen’.

Colour Corrector

When it came to editing we made sure that the mood of the piece was reflected in the imagery. As I was the only one who knew how to edit the colours of a clip in Final Cut, this was one of the individual contributions I made towards the creation of the piece. I edited the footage that we filmed so that the ‘blood’ was darker, making it look more realistic. I also made it so that the shadows were a lot darker and the whites weren’t so bright, therefore sticking to the sinister and disturbing mood of the film. We also added a slight comedic value to our piece as when the woman in the archive footage said the word 'steak' we replayed that several times to lighten the piece so that there was even more contrast between what you see and what you hear.

We used Final Cut Pro to edit the footage as this is what we were told to use in the brief. I had never used this program before but had used a similar program previously; therefore I managed to pick it up quite quickly. We also used Pro Tools to edit part of the audio as what we wanted to do with a part of the sound was not possible in Final Cut.

When we originally came up with our idea for our piece we wanted to record the audio and film and edit them so that they played backwards. When we created our first draft for our audio piece we weren’t really confident with the outcome and we received mostly negative feedback when we had our crits where we showed the rest of our seminar group. After our crits we had individual meetings with our seminar leader who gave us a number of ideas to improve our piece. We then decided to keep the original idea of our sense of place being the kitchen, but we decided to focus on using meat as our subject, rather than playing backwards kitchen sounds. We also got the idea to use archive footage to contrast between the kitchen/live animals and the raw meat. This resulted in the end product being very different from the piece that we had originally planned.

During the production process we came across quite a few problems. One of these problems was that when we came to filming our footage, we found that the camera we had taken out of the store at university had the wrong batteries in the bag. This was an issue as we had planned to film our piece in the morning and then show our seminar leader our progress in the afternoon so we didn’t have any time to go and changed the batteries. Luckily one of my friends had a Canon DSLR that he let me borrow so we managed to stay on schedule. Another issue was that the camera’s white balance was on manual so in some of our shots the lighting would flicker, making those clips difficult to use when it came to editing. However, this wasn’t much of a problem as we used a lot of quick cuts in our edit so we managed to get away with only using small parts of those clips.

Although we worked as a team throughout the whole process, me and Ellie also contributed individually towards the project. My individual contribution was that I did most of the editing and she did most of the camera work. This was due to the fact that I was confident using the editing software and had researched how to do certain things to the footage using the software available so that we could make sure that our piece looked exactly how we wanted. This included learning how to manipulate the footage to convey the mood of the piece. We had a strong idea for our piece and I put a lot of effort into the editing to make sure that it looked the way we had planned and that it was received by the audience in the way that we had wanted.

During this project I have learnt many new skills, both technical and creative. I have learnt to use a completely new editing program that I had never used before and am now quite confident using Final Cut and would prefer to use that when editing footage in the future as oppose to software I had used previously. In Final Cut I have learnt many skills which allow me to do different things to improve the final look of my edit. One of these skills is how to manipulate the colours in the image of a film. This was very useful as the original clips we filmed were very bright and did not convey the mood of the film that we wanted, as I explained earlier. I also learnt how to change the sound of a piece of audio in Pro Tools. This was very useful when it came to creating an experimental sound. I also learnt how to correct some of the footage that wasn’t filmed very well during the shoot. Also learnt how to edit the piece to ensure that we used all the footage we wanted to use and how to edit the not-so-good footage so that it was still useable and fit with the piece.

I have also learnt new things through the creative aspect of the course. This includes how the lighting and colouring of the footage can affect the mood of the film and how it is received by the audience. I also learnt how important the editing is when producing a film. This also can alter the way that the piece is received.

For this project we were required to work in pairs. I worked very well with my partner as we were both eager to get started on this piece. We managed to meet up at least once a week to plan what we wanted to do for our piece and to discuss our ideas. Once we had come up with the initial idea we both put in our input and came up with further ideas to make our piece more interesting and stand out from the rest. My partner was very co-operative and involved in the production of this piece, making it very easy to work with and get along with her.

One of the strengths of our group was that we both had some really good ideas that everyone agreed with. This meant that there were no disagreements or confrontations so that all of our time was used productively to produce our experimental piece.

The only weakness that we had within the group was our timekeeping. This is because we changed our idea after we had received our feedback from our peers, which set us back quite a bit. Although we managed to finish the piece on time and we were happy with what we submitted, the last couple of weeks felt very stressful as we didn’t have much time to produce our work. This was also due to the fact that we both had other projects due in and both had part time jobs. We were also in university at different times as we were in different seminar groups for our other modules so it was hard to find a time when we were both free. However when we did find a time that we were both available, we both turned up on time and neither of us missed a meeting.

As me and my partner worked so well together there isn’t much I think we would need to improve on in terms of teamwork. As I mentioned earlier, the only weakness we had was finding time to meet, therefore if we had to improve anything it would be our timekeeping.

Film Crits

This week we had our film crits where each group would show their film and get feedback from our peers. Mine and Ellie's went really well as we got mostly positive comments, which is a lot better than we were expecting as our audio crit didn't go too well.

Positive Feedback
     - Good contrast between audio and visual,
     - Liked the comedic part of the piece (repetition of the work 'steak'),
     - Edited really well,
     - Liked that we used archive footage as no one else has done that.

Improvements
The only improvement we were told we could make was that we could cut out the part where you can see hands handling the meat and just leave the piece so that you only see the meat and the archive footage.

This would then mean that our piece would not fit the brief as it would not be 3 minutes long which is what the brief stated. However, our seminar leader said that this should not be a problem as our film would work much better as a shorter, stronger piece.

Editing

Last week me and Ellie started editing our experimental film. We decided that we would start off with the woman in the archive footage talking about meat. When she says the word 'steak' we've rewound and repeated it several times. This is to show that our piece is about meat right from the start. We then added a few shots of the raw meat that we filmed.

For the atmos track we have decided to use a piece of music that sounds like it fits within a 50's housewife setting. We've made it so that the audio slows down and the pitch gets lower as the piece goes on. This makes the piece seem more dark as it progresses. We did this by importing the track into Pro Tools and changing the tempo. The reason we did this is because to get this effect you couldn't do it in the program we were using, Final Cut Pro.


We've also used archive footage of cows and layered over our own footage of cutting up meat and the sounds of knives being sharpened. This then shows the contrast between the live animals and the raw meat that the animal will eventually become. The reason we have done this is to make it seem quite uncomfortable to watch, therefore making it more interesting. We did this by lowering the opacity on the footage of the knives. This is so that the viewer can see both the animals and the meat being cut in the same shot.

Towards the end of the first minute we've sped up the pace a bit and used very fast cuts of our footage with the raw meat and also 50's adverts about beef and steak. We used the sounds of the knives sharpening to accompany these shots as we thought that it fit within the audio of the piece.

When we looked through what we had edited we noticed that the footage we had filmed ourselves was quite bright and the colours didn't look right. To fix that we used the 3-way colour corrector in Final Cut to lower the saturation and make the shadows a bit darker. This then gave our piece the desired effect and made it a lot darker, which is the look we were going for.

Filming

Today me and my partner started filming for our experimental piece. We filmed in my kitchen as it was the quietest kitchen out of the two we had an opportunity to film in.

For our piece we wanted to make it seem very uncomfortable as we would be cutting from clips of live animals to shots of raw meat being cut up. To do this we placed a white sheet on the counter and put the meat on top. We decided to use a white sheet as we wanted to have lots of blood all over the place when we were handling the meat, creating a more uncomfortable effect. The white sheet then soaked up all the blood which made the piece more visually interesting as it shows the contrast between the plain white sheet and the bright red blood.

To make it even more uncomfortable to watch, we shot a lot of the footage in an extreme close up so that you can clearly see the knife going through the meat. When we edit the piece we will make sure that we have straight cuts from footage of farm animals to clips of the raw meat being cut. We will also layer the clips on top of each other so that you can see both the animal and the steak being cut in the same shot.

We also recorded our sounds today as we wanted to make them as realistic as possible. some of the sounds included throwing the meat onto the counter, cutting the meat, sawing through bone and the squelching of the meat as it was being handled.

To film we used a Canon DSLR as we were both confident in using this type of camera. We also used a Zoom H4n audio recorder as we had both used these in the past and found it the easiest piece of audio equipment to use.

Although we started off using a tripod, we then decided to shoot the rest of the footage freehand as it was a lot easier to use as we were working in a very small space. Another reason we chose to shoot the footage freehand is because the cuts will be very quick as that is the type of film we are going for where it is very fast-paced, therefore it doesn't matter toom much if the camera was slightly shaky.

Further Planning (Storyboard and Shot List)

Before we started filming we had to come up with a storyboard and shot list so that we knew what we would be filming when it came to the shoot. Although Ellie was in charge of the camera-work, we were very involoved in the project as a team so we both came up with the storyboard and shot list so that we could both have our input.

Storyboard

Shot List

SHOT NUMBER	LOCATION	TYPE AND DESCRIPTION OF SHOT
1	Kitchen	Mid shot of meat dropping onto a white tablecloth with a knife in the foreground.
2	Kitchen	Close up of knife cutting into a piece of meat.
3	Kitchen	Sawing ribs, mid close up.
4	Kitchen	More close ups of meat being cut.
5	Kitchen	Mince being squelched. Close up shot of hands.
6	Kitchen	Ripping of ribs, mid shot.
7	Kitchen	Extreme close up of a knife cutting into a piece of meat covered in blood.
8	Kitchen	Blood splattering onto meat from above. Mid shot.
9	Kitchen	Close-ups of meat, static shots.
10	Kitchen	Extreme close up of sawing ribs.
11	Kitchen	Close up of more meat being dropped.
12	Kitchen	Mid shot of blood seeping through tablecloth.



Planning the Video

Today me and my partner started planning what we were going to do for our film part of our experimental project. In our meting with our seminar leader we got some feedback which was very helpful when we started planning our experimental film. She suggested the idea of using the 'Prelinger Archive' to find footage of people from the 50s/60s handling food. From that idea we decided that we would make our film more about preparing and cooking meat and contrasting the harshness of our handling the meat to the way that a housewife in the 60s would when she was preparing dinner.

We also decided that our piece was going to be linear as throughout the film you will see the process of how a cow will become someone's dinner. Although, this piece will also have elements of a collage as we are using both our own footage and footage from the archives.

After we had decided what we wanted our piece to include we started looking at films in the 'Prelinger Archive' by searching for the word 'meat'. We found quite a few clips that we wanted to use in our experimental piece.

How to Buy Meat (Part I and Part II)





These films includes a woman talking about how to buy a quality piece of meat. This will be good to use in our piece as we intend to juxtapose clips from this film to clips of us handling raw meat and quick cuts making it seem quite dark.


Beef Rings The Bell



This film is about the process of producing meat, from the cattle ranches, to the factory, to the BBQ. We will use clips from this film as it shows all different parts of the production process which we can use to juxtapose against our clips that we will film. An example of a clip that we will use is of a calf in a field, which we will then cut to a clip of meat being cut and blood going all over the table, therefore making it quite uncomfortable to watch.

We have also decided that we will use music that you would imagine to be in a film about a 50s housewife as the atmos track. This is because it will work very well with the archive footage that we are going to use. Also the music will create a contrast between the happy music and the disturbing imagery.