Creative Project Realisation Evaluation

For the module Creative Project Realisation I have gained many new skills that I enjoy and believe will help me in the future as I would like to take some of these skills into a career. The module has helped me develop a liking for set design and set dressing which was something new I had never experienced before but always liked the idea of doing since I believe that good art direction and set dressing etc. really helps show a deeper narrative within a film or television programme. I also really liked the uncanny theme we had to work around as I found it was something different to anything I have ever had to create for the other modules on the course. One of the first sessions was a workshop for Adobe Photoshop which I has never had any experience using before and found it to be quite a tricky programme to get my head around at first. However I found it helpful that Susannah went through the basics of what we would need to do when creating our mood boards, which I done in the session for my own proposal idea called ‘Never Ending Nightmare’. Since there wasn’t many sessions on using Photoshop I decided to carry out my own research on how to further develop my skills on the software. I started to watch a Youtube channel called ‘KingTutPro’ who has many video with step-by-step tutorials which I found really helpful as I took notes and you could pause the video and re watch to get the notes correct so that when it would come to creating a mood board in the future or using the program in general I would have a source of information to help.

I worked with Hannah Grencis, Carrie Marples, Billy Jackson, Ryan Wroe and TS for this film and overall I think we worked quite well as a team. For the development of our film at the beginning of the semester we sat down as a group and threw together some thoughts of what we each though would be a good idea for creating something that is uncanny. What we originally came up with was the use of shadows projecting onto a sheet, which in the set would look like a tent in the middle of the woods with some creepy shadows being projected onto the sheet. However after trying to consider the main aspects we had to consider while creating and filming our set which were; the use of wallpaper and paint, materials, a special effect and a visual effect, we decided that our original idea wouldn’t come out with the best result. This was mainly to do with the size of the sets after we visited workstation 102 and it might be difficult or time consuming to think of a green screen idea for the film, think of a VFX to add in in post and also how we would actually achieve the shadows in the time slot we had to film the shots.  Instead Carrie and Hannah and I decided to stick with the outdoor theme of the film but change the whole idea of it. We wanted to create the set like it was the inside of a wooden hut in the middle of the woods, where a strange figure would climb through the window into a really creepy and strange looking interior, full of taxidermy and little trinkets. We had all of the aspects covered from the brief as we needed just a plain white wallpaper, brown paint to cover the walls and red pain to create hand marks and splash across the walls. For our material we covered the ground in multiple blankets and old curtains and Hannah and I collected a huge amount of sticks and twigs that covered all three walls. The SFX aspect came from the blood splats created from red paint, that we see being splattered onto the photo in one of the shots, and then the green screen where we had an image of a wooded area and some leaves falling down. Finally for the VFX we put some logs in a pile during filming so that in the edit a fire could be created as the creature danced around it.

One of the strengths I’d say myself and my group had during this module was our communication with each other, as we have a CPR facebook group where we exchanged ideas, worked out who could go into the studio to work on the set at what time so that there was at least two of us in there working on the set every day for a few days before it came to filming. The set build process is another strength I’d say we had as we all just got on with it although none of us had really done any DIY stuff in the past, Hannah, Billy, Ryan and myself managed to get it all wallpapered and painted in a couple of days ready for Hannah and I to start gluing the sticks to the wall. This part of the set build was personally the trickiest but also the most enjoyable in a way. An issue we had with the sticks is that we assumed they would stick on the wall and stay there by using pva glue, which resulted in myself and Hannah sat for three hours holding each stick we stuck on the wall for a few minutes before letting go, which didn’t always work either as a full line wasn’t even finished by the end of these few hours because of the majority of the sticks dropping off. After emailing Susannah about this problem I learned that there were glue guns we could have used all along and they saved us a lot of time which is something I will remember if I need to for future films.

A change we made to the film was the figure that was going to be climbing through the window as we originally just wanted him to be wearing all black and to have a hood up so his face would be hidden to add to the mysteriousness of the film. However Billy brought in a pig mask to one of the set build days because he thought it might have been an interesting thing to add to the film which I agreed with and really liked the idea of as it could be seen as something uncanny since it would be a human with a pig head. Ryan was our actor for this film and I decided that to add to the creepiness even more he should keep eye contact with the camera at all times. There is one shot that I think works really well along with the theme where he walks up to the camera as it tracks in at the same time and he just stops and stares into the lens which on the edit worked really well and looked very creepy. What we originally intended for Ryan to do was to make up a sort of tribal dance for him to be doing next to the fire to add to the strange dream like tone of the film, however I think he was quite nervous about it and we didn’t actually get any good shots that didn’t look too funny to be able to include the dance in the edit which was a shame. So I think if I was to create this film again I would let Ryan know of this idea more in advance so that it would look smoother and less humorous so that it could be reversed in post-production to create an unnatural look to his movements. One other thing that I would do differently if we could would be to put a marker down where the fire would be placed in the edit as it became very difficult for TS and Billy to get the fire to stay still over the logs while the camera moved. However I do think that managed to get the fire to look really good in the final film so I was happy with how the VFX turned out in the end.

One thing I think really works well for our film is how it has been edited, and because of all the overlaid shots you can’t really tell if the film is something from a dream sequence or not, which I really like because I think dreams or nightmares work really well as part of the uncanny theme. The only thing I would change about the edit is that I wouldn’t have colour corrected it to the red that it is, so I would tone that down just a little because I think a subtle orange/red glow would have worked better because of the ‘fire’ inside of the hut. Overall I have gained many skills from this module that I know I will use in the future as Creative Project Realisation has helped me to figure out that I would like a career in the production design/art direction skill after graduation. Therefore the skills I have learned on programs like Photoshop and After Effects are going to help a lot, and also the basic understanding of what it takes to build, design, decorate and dress a set, are going to help me achieve this goal. 

Pig Head Film

Pigboy final from Billy Jackson on Vimeo.

Editing

Coming back after the Easter break Hannah, Billy and myself started to get a rough cut of the film together. We already had a good idea of what we want the film to look like and what the structure of the edit would be as we had a clear image while filming. This made it easier for us to quickly get shots onto the timeline in an order for us to start fine cutting and focusing on some effects and leaving us with more time to figure out the visual effects and green screen. The first manipulation to the edit we started on was reversing one of the shots of 'pig head' walking through the window, so that he leaves through the window backwards while keeping eye contact with the camera as we felt his eye contact is one of the creepiest parts of our film. 

Billy started messing around with overlaying some shots then making the duplicated clip slightly transparent and a little bit off time with the original clip so that it creates this weird effect as if someone is watching it while slightly dazed. 

The three of us really liked this change to the film and decided to add it to a couple more clips for even more of a uneasy feeling while watching it. We also played around with some music to see what would suit the genre of the film and we found quite a creepy low humming atmospheric sound with some occassional high pitched screeches which I thought went with our film really well, especially when the audience first see's pig head and the creepy cut-a-ways of the bloody deer head and blood splattering the painting on the wall. It really added to the unease and uncanny theme we have been trying to achieve. 

Mike Kelley: The Uncanny

In 2004 artist Mike Kelley curated an exhibition called 'The Uncanny' at the Tate Liverpool in which many artists explored "memory, recollection, horror and anxiety through the juxtaposition of a highly personal collection of objects with realist figurative sculpture." Each artist within the exhibition are able to provoke the uncanny effect by the use of the materials, scale and colour, which create a distressing and unnerving feeling but at the same time they are fascinating to its audience. Here are some of the sculptures created for the exhibition:

(Kristian Burford)

(Nayland Blake, magic)

(Gavin Turk, Death of Che)

(Ron Mueck, Ghost)

https://whitecubediaries.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/the-uncanny-where-psychology-meets-art/ 

Green Screen Session

In today's session we had a quick briefing of how to understand the basics of chroma keying on After Effects. I have used Adobe After Effects in the past while at college and found it a long process to eventually get the hang of, therefore when it came to this session I found it familiar but I was still unsure about the steps you have to take that leads to keying the green screen.

First of all we had some problems with filling all the green screen as we didn't have one consistent colour of green because of problems with how we lit it. This was a difficult task during filming because we had to make sure the board that had the green felt thrown over it fit the whole cut out window. For it to do this the board had to be right up close to the set, which created a difficulty with how we could light it. We had to from the side behind the right board which created a shadow over the left of the of the green felt and therefore created a darker green. I think that is the reason why this session was so important, we are able to have a look at all our footage and see where our problem areas were, so that in the future I now know what to take into consideration to make the work in the edit a lot simpler. 

This is roughly how we want the final edit to look like with the leaves frantically flowing in the background, along with a wooded area shot we are yet to shoot. This is to let the audience further understand that he is in a hut in the middle of the woods.

Filming

Today we filmed our set which to me was something new to get my head around. You have to really think about the angle your filming in as it's easy to end up outside of the set in the frame. I think my group worked round this well eventually. At first we had some difficulty with the green screen, as we needed the gap between this and the wall with the window as Ryan needed to climb through it into the set. The gap meant that the shot we wanted, which was a tracking shot out as he climbed through and came up to the camera, was difficult to get right as you could see the ends of the green screen wall through the window, which wouldn't work well in the edit and look a mess in the final piece. We eventually found the right placing of the green screen and the tracks with the camera, however I did think that it made the shot look a bit badly framed but it worked with the green screen and I think that's what was more important in this shoot. All we done once we were finished with the shots that needed Ryan to climb through the window we pulled the wall closer to the window so that there was no gaps at all. We used a dedo light to light the green screen and a kino light with an orange gel taped over to create a dim orange lighting. I think that the lighting worked really well as we wanted something dark since the set is supposed to be in the forest in the middle of the night, and the orange glow helps with the idea it's lit with candles and a campfire. The dimness and orange glow also helped with making the props look quite eery, especially the deer head. All the props actually tied in well with the film and I think the cutaways we filmed are going to look good in the finished film. Billy brought some fake blood spray and sprayed it on the deer head and the photo that's hanging on the wall, which on camera makes it look like someone is spurting blood off camera which I think was a really good idea. 

Set Building Week 2

After the problem with the pva glue on Friday, Susannah gave us a hot glue gun to use for the sticks which was a lot easier than what we were originally doing. This meant that while we continued to glue sticks on the wall, Carrie and Billy looked for props that fit in with our theme and some of them turned out to be quite strange and creepy which fits in well with our film. Billy also mentioned that he has a pigs mask that was used for Halloween that Ryan, who will be acting in the film, could were to add to the strangeness. We ended up getting one and a half walls covered in sticks before we ran out of the ones we collected, therefore I moved on to helping with props and picked out about 7 different throws/blankets to cover the floor. By the end of the session I think we had a good amount of props which all seemed to fit in with one another. Some of these included the deer head which was drilled into one of the walls, and some little trinkets on one of the stands that we found in the studio.

On Thursday Hannah, Billy and myself went back down to the studio with more sticks and finished covering all walls with them . The last bit of decorating we wanted to do was to use red paint to splat over the walls and create red hand prints to give the set more of a horror feel. We also set up another wall with green fabric thrown over it to put behind the window so that when it comes to the green screen session we can film some leaves blowing in the wind using a fan and key a clip of some woods onto the shots in the edit. 

Mood Board - The Uncanny

For creating our mood board of inspiration for our film we decided to create a digital board on Pinterest. This was so all 6 of us could be added to the same board and add any pins whenever we saw some that relate to our own ideas of what we image our film to look like. Seeing the board full is also a good way to remember certain themes and colours we want to focus on as Pinterest puts all the images together on one page so it's easy to look at and find a certain image. 

https://uk.pinterest.com/grencis/the-uncanny-cpr-project/  

Set Building Week 1

During the first set building session we had the chance to get the walls up, clamped together and hopefully all wallpapered. We had to use 3 walls and one of them had a piece cut out of it big enough to act as a window which is necessary to our film. To allow more space for us to move the camera around we clamped two wall together at a 90 degree angle and the third wall at a 45 degree angle so that it wan't too boxed off but still will look like the inside of a shed or house. In the 3 hour session we had to get these things done, the part that took up the most time was ripping/scraping as much of the previous wallpaper off the walls. To save time we worked as a team and each of us has a wall between two of us, then when one wall was finished, myself, Billy and Ryan started on the wallpaper while the rest continued with there walls. The wallpapering was more difficult than first expected because you need to watch the consistency of the paste, otherwise it will leave lumps on the wallpaper which is what happened to us on our first sheet. However the process was simple once we got the hang of it. In this session we managed to get all walls stripped of wallpaper (as much as was possible without a steamer) and half of the whole set wallpapered. 

On Thursday, myself, Hannah, Billy and Ryan booked out the key to the studio to continue with the set so that the walls will be dry in time for set dressing the following week. Hannah and I began messily painting the walls that were already wallpapered a brown colour. We want it to be messy instead of perfectly because we believe that if there were a wooden shack in the middle of the forest it wouldn't be too neat inside, and because we can't fully replicate that we decided on the brown paint, with sticks scattered over the top of it. While we were doing this Billy and Ryan continued with the rest of the wallpapering.

Yesterday myself and Hannah went back into the studio to paint the rest of the walls which we couldn't do on Thursday as we needed the wallpaper to dry, and begin to stick on sticks and twigs. After I finished painting the rest of the walls I began helping Hannah with the sticks as they are taking a lot longer than we thought to get done. We know that this is because we bought pva glue to use which wasn't doing a good job at keeping the sticks on the wall, which resulted in the two of us sitting there for a few hours and only finishing a row of sticks as we had to keep holding them to the wall ourselves. We decided the best thing to do was leave it until Monday and email Susannah to ask if there is anything stronger we could use. 

Ron Mueck

There are many artists that use realism in their work and create sculptures that look like human beings, except they have the strange lifeless look to them that can create the feeling of the uncanny for some people. London-based sculptor Ron Mueck, formerly a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, has been creating fine art sculptures since 1996. Using resin, fiberglass, silicone, and many other materials, Mueck constructs hyperrealistic likenesses of human beings, while playing with scale. The detailed sculptures are captivating when viewed up close, as they may be many times larger or smaller than expected. Here is some of his work: 

                                                                (Mask II)

(Boy)

(Women With Shopping)

Pig Head Proposal

Set deep in a mysterious dark forest lies an abandoned wooden shack which feels horribly claustrophobic and cramped. The shack has 3 visible walls covered in sticks and unusual objects such as bloody handprints, animal heads and items that seem disturbing to the average person. The shack is dark but has a somewhat warm glow to it. There is a large open window along the main wall and just below is a seat covered in mis matched fabrics. The view outside of the window is bleak and leaves fall softly past the window. We pan around the room as if we are confused by the bizarre items within the shack. Suddenly a figure appears and begins to crawl through the window. The figure appears human at first, until we see the figures head. A pig head attached to a human body. We track in. The pighead comes towards us as if he will jump out of the screen. We are confused as the pighead appears human but not human enough. He sits on the fabric covered seat. Suddenly he starts to dance as if he’s in a trance like state. Back and forth. Tracking in and out. The movements are uncanny and very unusual and uncomfortable to watch. It’s as if we are seeing 2 of the same character adding to our confusion and uncanny effects. Suddenly the character starts a fire and again we see the unusual items in the shack and begin to question what is reality. Pighead looks directly at us.We cut to black.

Props

After coming up a new idea at the end of this weeks session, Carrie, Hannah and myself had a think about the sort of props we need from either the storage cupboard or things we need to buy after our group meeting on Friday. So far we have came up with these props:

Decorating walls:

• white wallpaper
• either used teabags or brown water colour to create a distressed look on the wallpaper
• sticks and twigs to fill the majority of the walls
• Red paint to splat on the wall or create hand marks

Interior:

• fake candles and/or lanterns
• old blankets
• small logs
• clocks
• taxidermy rabbit 

Exterior:

• Leaves

Final Idea

After seeing the size of the set in this weeks session, myself, Carrie and Hannah decided that our idea of using a tent and shadows could be a difficult task as we don't think we would be able to fit a tent, or create one big enough, that would fit in the set. We still liked the idea of have a set that looked like you were outside and use green screen to get the visuals of stars. Instead we have came up with the idea to create the set as if it's the inside of a wooden shack out in the woods. The 3 boards will be covered in sticks of wood, and we're going to use one of the boards that has the window cut out of it so we can have the stars in the background and use a fan to blow some leaves around. The action will be really simple as we just want a dark figure to climb through the window and sit in the corner of the shack. To make this look weird and unnatural we're going to reverse the footage, so the person will start off sitting in the corner and then climb out of the shack. For the props inside the set we want to keep it quite dimly lit and have fake candles around for more of a fiery glow than white light. Lots of blanket will be spread around and there are some small logs of wood in the prop storage room which we will also put in the corner. I have found some images that could be possibly used for our mood board as they fit the general theme of what we are thinking of achieving. 

What is 'The Uncanny'?

The theme we have to use for our film is the Uncanny, which is a term that describes an instance where something is both familiar and foreign which results in a feeling of discomfort, and was studied by Sigmund Freud in his essay 'Das Unheimliche'. Freud believed that the things we find the most terrifying appear that way because they once seemed familiar, he described his theory as such, 'This class is frightening things would then constitute the uncanny; and it must be a matter of indifference whether what is uncanny was itself originally frightening or whether it carried some other affect... for this uncanny is in reality nothing new or alien, but something that is familiar and old fashioned in the mind and which has become alienated from it through process of repression' 

(http://students.english.ilstu.edu/rrjohns/hypertext/repurposing/uncanny.html)

What is being said is that when something we are familiar with undergoes change and takes a different form from it's original meaning or context, we become afraid or wary of it. Freud was not the first person to discuss this theory of the uncanny as his essay was a response to Ernest Jentsch account on the subject. However both Jentsch and Freud relate to E.T.A Hoffman's short story 'The Sandman' as an example of the uncanny. Ernest Jentsch, in his 1906 essay 'On the Psychology of the Uncanny'  defines the uncanny as "intellectual uncertainty". Whereas Freud see's the uncanny as something that lies in the realm of the frightening and evokes both fear and dread, and though the term isn't clearly definable as it relies on a persons personal experience, Freud outlined several circumstances that would be considered uncanny. These are; animism, magic, sorcery, the omnipotence of thought, unintended repetition, the double or Doppelganger, the castration complex and instantaneous wish - fulfillment. 

(https://whitecubediaries.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/the-uncanny-where-psychology-meets-art/)

Rough ideas

For this project I am working with Carrie Marples, Hannah Grencis, Ryan Wroe, Terry Silver and Billy Jackson. We came up with the idea that we didn't want to have to use any actors for this module because of the very tight time frame we have to film the 2 minute piece in, and this would be quite difficult to find an actor who would definitely be free in the 2 hour slot we have to film in. This helped us come up with the idea of using puppets and shadows. At first we thought of just using the puppet doing some actions while his shadow could be doing something completely different. But to make it simpler for us considering the time scale, we have ended up with the idea to just use shadows. The basic idea is to have the set build like an outdoor area, with a tent in the middle. With the sheet used as the tent we will have the shadows moving around by the use of puppets (which won't be on screen). We haven't thought too much about the other elements that need to be included yet which are, wallpaper and green screen, however we will be having a group meeting at some point this week to further develop the idea.

I have looked for some images using shadows on tents or sheets that are used in a more dark and creepy way and I found some good examples of the sort of things we'll want our film to look like in the photos above. 

Mood boards

To help with building a set and finding the correct props and materials, it's best to create a mood board as part of the planning stage. We had a brief introduction to photo shop as a few of us had never used photo shop before. It took a while to get the hang of, however I will be doing my own research on photo shop and looking at tutorials to make sure I know what I'm doing when it comes to creating my mood board. I think for my individual proposal a lot of materials would be needed as it's almost two different settings, as at first the bedroom is a normal teenage bedroom, but in her nightmare it changes into a darker and abandoned looking room. These are the sort of images I will be including in my mood board: 

Proposal - Never Ending Nightmare

Anna jolts up from her sleep in the middle of the night, you can just see her face from the moonlight shining through the window. She looks at her clock as it reads 2:30 am, switches her bedside light on catching a glace of the photo of her younger self and father in a frame next to the clock. Anna notices her bedroom door has been opened slightly. As she gets up to close it she notices a light coming from behind the door. 

Anna steps through the door into a dark room that she quickly realises is her bedroom, except with a few differences. Her stuff is all over the place, with the wallpaper ripped off to reveal blood drips and her name written in blood all over the walls. Anna quickly goes back through the door only to realise she can't escape and is back in the nightmarish room. Lightning strikes to reveal a dark figure standing behind her. As she steps back Anna notices her photo frame on the floor. Picking it up she sees the photo of her and her father only now her face has been ripped out of the picture. 

The lightning strikes again, this time revealing the dark figure standing right before her face. In a panic Anna drops the photo frame and falls back onto her bed. Her eyes open again as she jolts up back in her normal bedroom. She looks at the clock to see it's still 2:30 in the morning. 

Introduction to Creative Project Realisation

The aim of this module is to plan and build a set using paint, wallpaper, props and other items that create an effect, with the idea of 'The Uncanny' in mind. The areas that are going to be covered during this module are art direction/ production design, SFX & VFX, proposal writing, research and 'creative realisation'. 

Art direction/production design - we are going to be given a tutorial in using hand tools in preparation for building the sets. We will be creating mood boards to help with communicating our visual ideas and working on set as a art director, decorating and building the sets.  

SFX - Special effects are props that are used on set to create a visual, e.g. using fake blood to drip down the walls.

VFX - Visual effects are created in post-production when using after effects and photo shop, e.g using green screen to place a still or moving image onto a shot. 

Proposal writing - This will be a free writing exercise that will help to inform an idea I have for the specific theme for the set building task. 

Research - This is going to be important with helping me to fully understand what 'The Uncanny' is and what sort of props or moods are going to be relevant for using as part of the set. 

Creative Realisation - An overview of a film making process with specific changes, and offers practical skills and introduction to new software with a view of extending scope of imagination. 

In preparation for writing a proposal for a idea we took part in a meditation process that is supposed to clear your mind to help with creative writing. From this I took away a sort of Alice in wonderland based idea that is all about childhood, imagination and going through a 'rabbit hole' to discover deeper thoughts.