First showing

I had the first showing just before Christmas, for my flatmate Sophie and our neighbour, Isabella
The verdict? It was very encouraging. They felt there was a film there.
Clearly the edit is still a mess. There is too much, too many shots. What I wanted to achieve was clear and then there was no development, just repetition.
Why is this encouraging? That I just needed to reveal the film there. It was matter of whittling away what is not and finding what is.
Discouraging? Sometimes they had difficulty understanding some of the simplest things, confusing the sister Natalie with the best friend Sophie, even though they look nothing alike. Here I have probably gone too close to the edge of the minimal with the narrative. This may be my biggest gap, something I may have to solve with some pickups or even some new scenes.
At this point I have not had to make any painful decisions. For the most part it has been about revealing what is there, not about choosing between this option or that option. That will happen soon I am sure.
Still, one question that both JC, Sophie and Isabella brought up: that we really don't know any of the other characters, that is the boyfriends Paul, Nick, the sister Natalie, or the friend Sophie. Now what do they mean? The other night I watched Bresson's Mouchette and there was a comment that we watched for 90 minutes and still didn't know anything about Mouchette. Now what they mean is in the conventional sense of character, actually meaning characteristics, that she likes oranges but not apples, wants to be a nurse when she grows up, etc. The character of Mouchette is revealed in action, and there was plenty of her action. Now I never wanted to show characteristics, I wanted to show action. So what does mean for my film? Is there enough of these people in action to reveal them? If not...?
I have since been busy, made some minor adjustments to the cuts in the first part, conflated some events in the second part, and done two or three reedits of the third segment. The edit I showed last week was 110 minutes. The latest edit is 96 minutes. I feel this is a lot stronger and clearer with a lot less. Now I have to find some new victims.

First cut

On Saturday evening I showed the the first edit to JC. I of course had been avoiding doing this, as I was afraid to look. I knew it would be a telling moment.
Of course I had seen the film in bits and pieces since I began editing back in October. But it is one thing to see bits and pieces on a computer screen, another to see the whole on a large screen.
It was the only way to know if we really have something.
So was it good? I have to say that I am now so close to it I am in no position to say. I think at best I could say it wasn't bad. There was nothing in it that I thought, 'that's no good'.
What was clear was that it is a film. It is one complete piece, this I was happy about.
On the practical level, the cutting worked. The way in which I conceived the edit was successful. I also had done enough work with the sound so that it didn't interfere with the edit. Rough sound can make it difficult to determine if this or that cut worked. The sound design was also fundamental to my concept of the film, so the no edit could ever be complete without at least some crude sound design.
Aesthetically, JC and I were happy that the original concept of the shooting style was very successful. That is, going from the longer to shorter lenses in Norway was very effective. We begin with the 25mm. The world is in fragments, closed and circumscribed. It is almost as if Claire had to fight to put herself together. By the time we come to the final segment, in Norway, we were using the 12mm. It is not that she has been successful in assembling herself, rather that she had given in to nature and dissolution. Here she is within the place, or absent. It doesn't matter one way or another. The view of the world is wide, almost as if the world could drift away.
The few scenes of drama? Dialogue? These worked very well.
And the many scenes of non-drama, where we watch Claire looking, searching? They were interesting, compelling to watch. I have to say that I was very happy with all the actors and their performances.
Less successful, because it still incomplete, was the layer of the story presented visually and with sound. This is the other Claire story. It still needs work and has been my fixation for the past few weeks. It is moving along slowly. Yesterday I was already making tweaks. It is like sculpting. Each day I am paring off one part, and adding another part. I need to shoot more test material and will probably do this over Christmas.
Now JC had some questions and observations. We don't know Claire in the conventional sense. There is little dialogue or drama. JC wondered if there was enough interaction between the characters to get to know them. I would say no, we don't know them this way, but of course I never intended this. I rejected drama, I was always interested in the way that cinema is able to achieve an emotional effect without resorting to tricks from the theatre. But have I accomplished this? If not, this would be my biggest problem.

True black versus Rothko

What a series of tangents this whole project takes me on.
So I have gone back and smoothed out the assembly edit and then reviewed it.
I have already described how I had written into my outline blackouts, breaks in the visual narrative at key moments. In the edit I created these blackouts and then...they didn't work. They broke the narrative, the flow. Did I lose my nerve? I began to think how they might develop the narrative.
First I added sound. I had been working with Roland to create another layer of meaning with the sound and the blackouts seemed to be a logical place to develop the sound design. But I found that sound alone was not adequate.
Then I began to look for means that the blackouts might be see as logical extensions of present images. For example scene 28. Claire is asleep, and is awoken by...? The scene began with a shot her asleep, awakes suddenly and turns on the light. I became interested in the abstraction of the image in the dark.
Then were a few influences.
In October I saw Un Lac, by Phillipe Grandrieux at the London Film Festival. A lot of this film impressed, but specifically the liminal images, inside a cabin in near darkness, the figures and objects just at the edge of perception. I made a literal connection between Claire's darkened bedroom and the idea of a semi-conscious searching or reception of the transcendental.
In November I watched Antonioni's Red Desert. In this Antonioni uses soft-focus to create colour abstractions. Grandrieux also made use of soft-focus extensively.
At the Tate Modern there was the Rothko exhibition. I was especially taken with the the Black-Form paintings, where Rothko layered a series of blacks and different coatings. What happens as you look into these? You might say that you are drawn into them, that they are a void, but they also push outward, they extend beyond the frame. They seem to pulse, move about.
I began to imagine that in these sequences I would develop a series of images from facts, objects in the location, for example Claire's bedroom, which become liminal by way of the lack of light and the soft-focus. I experimented by drawing and painting images in Photoshop, based on top of images from the shoot. So in a long-take of these images there should be sense of searching, grasping for what...always remains out of reach, at the threshold.
Soon it became clear that these sequences had nothing to do with the blackouts.
Now I don't know if I just lose my nerve? Or did I need to find out how the blackouts might work by first discovering how they would not?
However it came to me, I realised that the blackouts did not require sound or any logic, the blacks are true, negation, the absence of sound and image, no extensions to existing image, rather negation of the images. It should be expected that they break the flow. That is what they do. If they failed perhaps they were in the wrong place, or more likely that the place was wrong, that is the edit, the material around it was not strong enough.
I realised that what I had were two different ideas. The true blacks on the one hand and what I called the Rothko sequences on the other.
I don't certainly don't consider the work I did on the Rothko sequences a waste. On the contrary, as I come close to the first version of the edit I have begun to extend the development of these images.
Presently I have developed a language based on three or four colours.
White is an invasion, the exterior coming in, drawing Claire out.
White is images of light entering the flat, or clouds with the sun behind them, over-exposed.
Blue and brown are the interiors, the bedroom at night, they are present but not dynamic like the white images.
Green is the exterior, the location of fear, the world of nature. This past week, as I revised the final segment I began to see how the green images would form a part there.
If the first two segments are about Claire searching trying to construct an identity then the final segment is a realisation that identity in the face of nature is an indulgence. The extinction of identity. Here then I will explore the concept of Claire in the landscape, dissolving, smeared into the pine groves.

Editing continues

So last Tuesday I finished the assembly edit of the film. What I mean is I assembled footage according to my shooting script, or outline really, since I don't use a script. There was no regard for pacing or feel in the assembly edit.
At the finish of the assembly the film looked like this:
Segment 1 = 31 minutes
Segment 2 = 43 minutes
Segment 3 = 36 minutes
Total length = 110 minutes.
(Actually the film is now longer as I have adding more material in the blackouts. See below).
Now I have never thought that shortening a film is any virtue in and of itself. Milos Foreman told a great story about editing one of his films for a studio. He showed them a version at 115 minutes. Too long, make it shorter. He went away and cut 10 minutes out of it. Still too long. He got it down to 95 minutes. Still too long, shorter. Well he didn't know what to do. He couldn't see how he could make any shorter. He went back to the editing suite and thought and thought. He added three minutes to the film and presented it to the studio. Yes, that's better. You see, shorter is better?
So, I am not going about this edit thinking that the film must shorter, I am going about thinking it must simpler and clearer and that may mean making it shorter. At 110 minutes the film is too long.
This past Saturday I started going through the assembly and tried to cut with some sense of pace, and necessity. I have been most happy cutting dialogue from certain scenes, which seems less and less useful when you see all the bits put together. It is almost as if a I have this toy constructed in my hands. It is held together with all sort of bits and pieces and it works, but it would work better without some of those bits. How many bits and pieces can I get rid of? That is what this whole process is about.
Right now the cutting is relatively pain free. Cutting away extra bits has meant that scenes are smoother and make more sense. Other scenes just work better at a certain length. Some scenes were intended to feel a certain pace and cutting brings this out. Some of the dialogue scenes were deliberately extended so that I could decide in the edit parts I wanted to use.
But before long I know this easy bit will be over and some hard decisions will need to made. Is this scene necessary? Is it necessary to explain this or that? Is that character necessary?
Between last Tuesday and last Saturday I have been preoccupied with another problem, the blackouts. I think I have already posted on the subject (http://tidalbarrier.blogspot.com/2007/10/blackouts-and-7th-draft.html) previously. I had decided that I needed to find a relationship between the blackouts and images within the narrative. I would like to post separately on this subject, as I have a lot to talk about. For now suffice to say that I have been very much inspired by Phillipe Grandrieux and his new film, Un Lac, which was part of the London Film Festival (http://www.bfi.org.uk/lff/lake). If you have not seen it please call the ICA and nag them to distribute the film.
My other influence has been Rothko, and the exhibit at the Tate Modern. More on all of this soon.

Film geek...

I have successfully avoided the editing up until now and have been busy creating a press pack and other such chores. I plan to start editing this weekend.
In the meantime I thought I might do a how did you do that?
We shots this film on S16, in this case an Aaton LTR54, which was over 2o years old. I purchased this camera over a year ago (http://tidalbarrier.blogspot.com/2007/09/september-update.html).
Now this camera came with 7 primes and a zoom lens but came up with our own aesthetic, which meant we shot the first third of the film a 25mm, the second on 16mm, and the last a 12mm. So as the narrative unfolds we move further back. This practically meant that in the early part we saw the characters and spaces in fragments, while in the last third we saw the characters and space as one. To a certain extent we mirrored that with the film stock. For the first two thirds we used 250 daylight and 250 tungsten film, while in the last third we used 160 daylight. We used Fuji film throughout and I have to say that it was exceptional, especially in low-light conditions. We always had more room and could've gone much further than we did. You always understood why you shot on film and not video.
The film was developed and transferred by iLabs in Soho. It was transferred onto Digibeta and then a DV dub was made of it. The plan is to do the offline edit with the DV dubs, and then finish on Digibeta. A return to film would happen when the film is sold.

Photos...

I have successfully put the editing off this past week. So before I begin again - I will probably start capturing footage tomorrow - a few photos from the last shoot. Courtesy of David.


Scene 11












After an argument Paul goes for a walk in the forest. Claire comes looking for him. He watches her come to him, as if watching her from the outside. It is the end.














In the forest Paul has scratched himself. Claire examines the wound, but from the outside too.


Scene 24












This is a new scene I wrote this autumn. It replaced a scene where Claire first meets Nick, which we had shot in August. I changed it for three reasons. One, it seemed their meeting was redundant. There was already a scene where they meet, and it seemed far more interesting.
Two, that scene also doubled to introduce the concept of the periphery, of Claire moving from the city to the park to the wild. This was important enough to the focus of the scene, rather than the background it was in the original scene.
Finally, the footage from August was fogged. The film tin had been opened, we are not sure how, and the footage was ruined. Sometimes these disasters happen for a reason.














So, in this scene, Claire, having just moved into Natalie's flat, goes out into the neighbourhood, as this new person. Here she has made her way into the park.














At the end of the park the wilderness begins. She looks into the forest, and sees her own fear.

Scene 32












As she begins a relationship with Nick, she begins to wonder if she was right in leaving Paul. Here she has spotted him inside a bar, though at this moment we don't know that.














Before she can decide whether to confront him he comes out.














Claire makes a retreat.


Scene 41/42












With the rough edit I was able to see what worked and what didn't, and especially what needed development.
In this scene Claire decides to confront her fear and makes her way into the forest. We added new events and shots, and re-shot some of the shots from August.

And here we are making it...
Scene 11

























































Roland is wondering if there will ever be any dialogue to record.




















JC sets up. Anna was our focus-puller this time around. She came with us to Norway.














Beth prepares Paul's injuries.














And we are set and begin shooting. Kendra sets out the board. She came with us to Norway as well.

Scene 24












On Wanstead High Street following Claire on the opposite side of the road.














Marc listening in. The sound guys spent most of their time getting atmos tracks.

Now in Shoreditch in front of Lounge Lover.
































Joe Gough was our 1st AD during this shoot.



























































It was sometimes hard to recognise Azahara.

Scene 42












Here Fred and I are wondering if the sun is ever going to cooperate.














In Wanstead setting up the final part of Scene 42. I added this shot to the scene from the edit.
Claire lays herself down.














Anna focuses with Kendra's assistance.














Lara was with us that day. She and Azahara alternated days.














Anna checks the gate.














Now an earlier part of Scene 42, where Claire enters the forest. Here we are just off Wanstead High Street.

I have been putting off writing this.
These past few days I have just been so happy to not worry if it was raining or sunny, or if a tree was the right colour. I need to clean my bedroom, find a job, meet up with the few friends I have left and who I have neglected this past half year, and do anything but worry about making a film.
But I will say that we did it. On Friday I met JC at iLab to see the rushes and there were no problems. It looks very good and we have everything we need for now. I have already been thinking about some new material I want to try, but that will happen down the road.
The big story was the weather which was generally good and bad when we we needed it to be.
On the Saturday it was cold and drizzly but we kept working right until the light was gone. On the way home the rain really opened up so were fortunate because we wouldn't have been able to work in that. This shooting day was the key, as we managed to capture more than we planned and that put us ahead for the rest of the shoot.
The remaining days were not quite as cold and it never rained again. At the same time it was flat and grey, which was called for in the script and also made it easier to match scenes shot over two days. We had an early start, 7:30, but we were generally finished by 3 in the afternoon. This meant we began to rise and sleep like farmers, to bed at 9 and up at 5.
We shot the remaining scenes of the first segment, which mostly involves Paul and their troubled relationship. After an argument, set off when Paul discovers that Claire had a sister he did not know about, Paul goes off into the forest to cool down. Claire searches for him there, and eventually finds him, but now their relationship is essentially over. All that remains is for one of them to leave.
We also reshot the whole of Scene 42 as I mentioned, which included all the new material that I had developed with the video camera and Flora back in September.
So a big thank you to Redbridge and Walthamstow Forest Council for being helpful, kind and generous. And also to the people of Redbridge who were happy to have us there, and were kind, and helpful and generous too.
And a big no thanks to Epping Forest and the City of London who wanted to charge us £1000 for use of the forest, which for a low-budget film is prohibitive. They don't seem to care if you are Batman 4 or a small film just trying to get by, and weren't particularly helpful. They told us they have targets - how can a forest have targets? And what do they spend the money on? Walking about in there you can't help step in the dog shit, or stumble over the remains of parties and men going off into the shrubbery to have sex. They weren't patrolling the park or cleaning up the rubbish.
This reminds me of a story from Carlos Reygadas, when making Battle in Heaven in Mexico City in front of the National Palace. The authorities were happy to let a homeless man live in the square, being loud, abusive and drunk, but you want to make a film? No way! You need permission, you need to pay! This is the National Palace!
I would also like to thank our lab, iLab who have always treated us well, even though we are never going to make them a lot of money out of a small-budget group like us.
Finally two locations that really helped us out.
Lounge Lover in Shoreditch let us use their front entrance for the scene where, late into the second segment Claire spots Paul inside of a bar. Before she can decide whether to confront him he comes out and she turns and goes off. Did she make the right choice?
And then there was the White Hart pub on Stoke Newington High Street. Now they already have let us in back in September when we used the interior to shoot the meeting between Claire and Sophie. This time we made use of their fantastic beer garden, where Paul and Claire go one Sunday.
What next? I am putting off editing until at least after next weekend. I just don't have the taste for it. And when do you begin to think about cutting a trailer? I think that frightens me the most.
I have also been reminded that we need to develop the press package and website. Perhaps I could put my energy into that for the next while?
Below are a few photos, mostly via JC. David's photos will come shortly.



















Anna and Kendra load up.














Anna in front of some Lounge Lover street art.














Azahara in disguise. Some times we just couldn't find her, she was so well covered.














Beth resting on a Lounge Lover lion.




















Always great to get a photo of David.














Anna and JC set up the car for the driving scene.















JC and now Joana, who wrangled the Lounge Lover location.














Marc starts on one of Isabella's sandwiches. Isabella did all the catering for the shoot.
















Once again I am pointing out things to Flora.

Wrapped!

I just want to say briefly that yesterday afternoon we finished the principle shooting of the project. I think it will take some time to sink in...
Much more to come.

Production update

Just a quick note to say that tomorrow morning we begin to shoot the last major part of the film. On Thursday and Friday morning we are indoors, shooting in the flat, and then we are out in the forest for the last 4 days. I can only for good weather. More to come...

Where to start?
I have just begun pre-production for the final phase of the shoot. There are two great pressures. First there is the of course the issue of the time of year, the daylight and the weather. The sun is going down around 6pm, and we are losing around 3 minutes of daylight per day. Scheduling this means I have a lot less time to play with and 4 day shoot in August is now a 6 day shoot in October. On top of this is the weather question. Now, I know that there isn't a month where you can't assume rain here in London but those risks are increased when you combine it with the lack of daylight. If I have to cancel a day because of rain then when do we pick it up? The days are not getting any longer or warmer.
A more interesting issue is what the edit has thrown up. I have already written about how I have added detail with video, and now I have to plan to shoot these new sequences on film. This means a complete re-shoot of scene 42 so that the weather and light matches together. This scene follows on from Claire's break-up with Nick, and details her entrance into the forest and her confrontation with her fears. It precedes the Norway segment and at this stage is one of the most important scenes in the film.
And then there is the edit. So much to say. David saw some of the segments last weekend and had a lot of comments and suggestions, which to me was very positive. I felt there is so much work to do, but we have something to work on. What I showed hung together.
Which brings us to sound. I have just begun to really play with the sound as another dimension.
It was especially interesting to hear David's comments regarding the long blackouts I included in second segment. Now I had arbitrarily set these to be 20 seconds long which I thought might seem like an eternity, but in the viewing felt like 2 seconds. To be fully developed they can be a minute long. How to develop them? That is what is so much fun. I have begun sampling sounds from other parts of the film, voice, odd sounds that happened in by accident, pushed the volume down and chopped off the top and middle frequencies and then mixed them with some of the atmos tracks that Roland recorded. It is fantastically suggestive. Now I can't say what I am getting at yet, and I wondered if I need to know. Could I just approach this idea instinctively? We'll see...

Whew! I've done it

Yes, a long time since I posted, but I really wanted to have something to report.
And what I have managed to do it finish an assembly edit of all the material to date. So that means what we have shot for the first segment (we plan to shoot the missing bits at the end of October), one edit of the second segment, and two edits of the third and final segment in Norway.
The second segment includes the additional material I shot with Flora in Wanstead last week. I already said that when edited this part first and immediately felt that the final scene lacked development. There just wasn't the detail there to suggest the relationship between Claire and the landscape. Now there are a number of scenes still missing in both this segment and the first, that also add detail to this theme and I suspect that at the end I will have too much, but I would rather be in that position than not have enough material.
So I have cut this video into the film, or rather the DV dubs of the film, and when JC returns he can see what I have, and we can go from there.
It was also time for Roland to begin playing with the sound design, so he came by and took away an earlier version of this second segment with the idea of creating some play material for me. I really do not want the sound design to be slapped on to a finished edit. Instead I want the sound design to change the edit itself.
Once I finished the second segment I went onto the third segment. Now this is the part where I need to do the most worrying. What can I do if I am missing some key material? Not only is there the expense, but there is a real winter in Norway. The earliest you shoot again is in April.
I realise there is a contradiction in what I am trying to achieve. On the one hand the shots of the landscape have above Claire's story. The exist outside of her. But at the same time they are meant to create a unified whole to this segment, to be the final part of the arc of her story. How to do both at the same time?
So I am at this moment burning DVDs of the these editing sequences. I have invited David over to watch them on the big screen where I hope I will find some objectivity and some useful feedback. Is there a concept here? And if not, some other ideas? So news from Monday...

Editing begins

I have been putting writing this post, probably because the beginning of this process is filled with such ups and downs.
When it goes well you just want to continue editing. When it goes badly the last thing you want to do is write about it.
What has been done?
First the tedious but necessary task of capturing all the material. Of course I have not finished shooting yet so there is more to come, but so far there are 8 DV tapes worth of material, equating to around 8 hours of footage. Logging and capturing this material took around 5 days.
Then the editing starts. I have divided the project into three logical segments. Segment 1, which is for the most part incomplete focuses on Claire's life with Paul. Segment 2 begins when Claire moves into her sister's place and her relationship with Nick. Segment 3 consists of the Norway section.
Once the footage was captured then I had to face the question in the room, how do I edit this? What is the strategy? Where do I start? And then there was the urgency of the upcoming October shoot: what might be missing that I could pickup in October?
For this reason I began by editing the second segment. If there was the need I could do some rewrites and pick up the new material or reshoot material that didn't turn out. On the other hand if I was missing something from Norway I wouldn't be able to do anything about it until the spring.
Where to start? Well the most critical parts of the second segment, the end, where Claire overcomes her fear and makes her way into the forest. I assembled this roughly and I quickly found that I did not have the material to fully develop these scenes. Essentially there is not enough detail. So, tomorrow I off to the forest again with the video camera to shoot some test segments which I will be able to incorporate into the edit. When we begin shooting in October I should have a pretty clear idea about what else we need to pick up.
So I finished the second segment on Friday morning and started the Norway segment in the afternoon. Now this gave me a sleepless night. As I roughed it out I was most worried that we did not have the footage we needed for the long coda segments, that is the those shots of the landscape that stood above and behind Claire's story. When we were there I struggled to think how they might be structured and now I was seeing the results. At the time we simply went out and shot as much material as possible, and also repeated some of the same shots at different times of the day, thinking that in all that some concept will make itself apparent. But this morning after some long thoughts I came up with a possible solution which seems the most obvious, but that the structure must be simply the relationship of each shot as part of a location, eg. a series of shots around the beach, around the mountain, etc. So link together the shots that were geographically linked. I am not sure if this solves the problem but at least this afternoon there seemed to be some coherence to the sequences.
I have also found some other segments that are missing detail, for example the scene where Claire's goes swimming. The idea, that she is immersing herself in the environment does not come across. Can I cheat some new shots here in London and insert them into the edit?

David's photos from the Dalston shoot

And now some photos of the last shoot, most of which took place in and around Dalston.













Here Sophie (Lucy Richards) visits Claire in the flat she shares with Paul.
She has never been invited here before.














With a little help...This time around I had Joana as a production manager and Will as a 1st AD. This meant that pre-production and production went a lot more smoothly and I could spend some time actually thinking about the story. Here I took advantage of some extra time and wrote a number of new small scenes. Here Claire is in the back garden, looking up to the trees and then into the house. Is Paul waiting there? Perhaps. I have not decided where this scene will sit or even if I will use it. I have repeated the image of the treetops here.














Then one day Claire watches Paul leave for work...














She washes the sheets. He won't find her odour here that night.














And not only does she remove her clothes, but she rearranges his so that it is as if she were never there...














...and closes this chapter.














In the latest outline Sophie makes a number of appearances throughout the story. Here, late in the second segment Claire and Sophie visit an art gallery where the work of her favourite photographer is being displayed. Of course these photos are David's, from a project entitled Nationale 7.














But they have a different reaction to what they see. Just as their relationship will end shortly.

And then some us in action...













A comfortable chair, a moment to myself.














Azahara and Lara give the walls a touch-up, to give it that white-walled gallery look.














David had the added stress of hanging his photos, and then...I guess JC must have taken this one.














Rob sets up the camera for the series of shots along the wall. Here Sophie and Claire go over the photos in the gallery.














Fabiano prepares Lucy. He stood in for Beth who could only make the Monday.














Joana and Fabiano.














And now the photos are mounted, the wall is painted and we are ready to shoot.


And in Dalston...












How many of us can you get in a bedroom? Cameron on the right, prepares the wardrobe for the scene.




















Rob being overlooked by Monica.
















































One moment one when Will wasn't moving us along.














Marc, in the background, tries to keep the boom out of JC's frame.