Non-Narrative Production Diary + Reflection

Pre-production

The non-narrative way of thinking is not something I’d really considered before the commencement of this term. I had always been focused on the idea of telling a story. Now, I was faced with the somewhat daunting prospect of trying to tell a some sort of story, or at least make some sort of statement/point using a form of presentation I’d never tried.

What started as frustration soon turned into excitement though as we began to explore the non-narrative form. We were lucky enough to be exposed to a variety of non-narrative pieces through the term’s Wednesday screenings with Chris. And though some of the things we were shown were challenging to the point of frustration at the time (the famous work of John Cage, to name one), it is evident looking back at the term that simple exposure to the format has had an effect on the way we got to thinking about the film we were being expected to produce.

Two places we drew influence from were the works of Oskar Fischinger and Norman Mclaren. For me, these two artists opened up my creative mind to the idea of an abstract audiovisual communication. Fischinger’s experiments with visual music in the late forties (or, his ‘Early Abstractions’) ended up lending themselves directly to the theme of ‘rhythm’ that we would eventually focus on in our final piece. Whilst it would be very easy to lose yourself in the abstract, non-narrative world and produce something that is (and I quote my peers) a ‘mash-up’, Fischinger’s work was testament to honest correlation between what your viewer is seeing and what they are hearing. That correlation is something that we would come to consider crucial to the way we edited both our sound and our visuals.

Mclaren’s influence is also immediately evident in our film. In fact, there were ideas borrowed from his 1971 film ‘Synchromy’ that reveal themselves within the first minute of the piece as appearingly random falling drops of melted snow are married to a range of electronic beeps. While there is no defined or trackable rhythm (they are just drops of water falling from a roof after all), the brain cannot help but accept that there is some kind of consistency to it. As both the video and audio clips are looped, upon hearing it repeated, the unnatural rhythm it does possess is able to become familiar to the listener and therefore they may (or may not) be able to accept it as natural as the film progresses.

Initially, what we wanted to do was create a sort of freeform, split screen documentary of the seaside town of Wells-next-the-sea, concentrating our efforts on the themes of nature, industry and community. We set aside time in the Cavendish Building (C12) to indulge ourselves in a screening of Simon Pummells' 'Bodysong' (2003) that chronicled (through over an hour of archive footage) human life from birth to death, dialogueless, accompanied on by an original musical score from Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead.

While this particular film provided endless encouragement in terms of our understanding of the non-narrative form, strangely enough it was in the trailer that we discovered how we wanted to 'not tell' our 'story' through the use of split screen visual editing.

The trailer for 'Bodysong' highlights segments from the film in a progressive split screen form that advertises each chapter of the film from birth to death. Though only a few minutes long, the trailer features original musical accompaniment, and in many ways is a non-narrative piece all of it's own.

Production

We were much looking forward to filming in Wells as it is a true seaside town with a rich history and spectacular scenery. We had our three themes in mind had a structured game plan in terms of how and where we wanted to shoot. Unexpectedly, our day of shooting landed right in the middle of this winter's only real bout of snowfall. That particular occurrence along with the fact that we were shooting during the day in midweek made for an experience that took some adapting to.

Whereas we had originally planned to shoot with three separate mindsets, the snow and lack of people meant that we were faced with a cold, barren setting that immediately required rethinking. Abandonment soon became a familiar feeling, and our concentration soon turned to the lack communal sense in a town that had previously prided itself on providing an exciting family oriented atmosphere.

I'm sure that none of the Wells 'summer magic' has been lost in any way, shape, or form, but the winter non-wonderland that we encountered on our visit surprisingly enabled us to think about the social issues that we would eventually want to put across in our film.

The sense of community in this country used to be noteworthy. Neighbourhoods used to band together in response to the friendships of the children that inhabited it, and the town hall was the central hub of activity on most evenings and weekends. In recent years though, we have become a nation of conservative, overly political correct people who don't know the names of the people living next door to us. We keep to ourselves and concern ourselves more and more with paranoid privacy and financial security with each passing, cash-guzzling Christmas.

These thoughts, as political and opinionated as they may be, began to become a focal point for our shoot. We knew that what we were shooting was never going to tell a story, but as we garnered more and more footage, a point began to form. Rather than a narrative, we started to think about a statement of sorts that we would be able to convey through a strong communication between the visual and audio aspects of our production. Keeping only the visuals in mind, we proceeded to shoot in both 28mm and 50mm formats keeping in mind the themes of social neglect and disintegration. We explored every corner of the town which featured industrial hotspots, abandoned playgrounds, and points of natural beauty; the setting providing the visual canvas on which we were able to paint a cold, abstract picture that highlights how British values have evolved in the last 50 years.

Post production

Post-production was always where this film was going to find its shape. We had never planned to record live sound in Wells, as we always wanted to propose a modernistic, 21st century influenced sound design to compliment our traditional visual style. In an industry that (in music) is dominated by the same four, computer generated and vocoded chords, and (in film) post processed, trend-fucking 3D cash cows, we wanted to identify the current social state of the country (and how the country defines art) through a bold audiovisual communication. This was always going to be a tough ask, especially considering that the last thing we wanted to do was fall into the trap of 'messy pretensiousness'.

So the idea of a somewhat coherent rhythm returned to the forefront of our minds. We decided that we wanted to take sounds that were apparently random and unconnected and marry them to a visual progression that was both challenging and socially relevant.

We filmed a progressive tracking shot from a car window that documents Wells from the town centre, along the boardwalk until we finally made our way to the seafront that is (much like our theme) completely detached from the greasy spoon, stick of rock town centre. This journey is the basis of our film (the only one of ten sequences that doesn't loop) and signifies the distance between commercialism and natural tradition that we wanted to highlight.

With this snow-laden backdrop in place, nine individual clips begin to introduce themselves every 20 seconds once the film is underway. Once the 3x3 focal points were in place visually, we were able to start thinking about how the introduction of different sounds would sonically echo the ever changing visual progression of our film.

We originally challenged ourselves to make this film a performance piece. There would be nine sounds against a melodic drone background, all within the realms of live performance. What we wanted to do was select these individual sounds and then perform them in a foley environment in real time without any kind of loop. We thought that this would provide a natural sound design that would stand out over the course of 3-4 minutes. Upon realising the mechanics of our visual edit though, we once again began to consider our original ideas concerning rhythm, and (somewhat boldly, I suppose) decided that like the visual edit, we wanted to experiment with a kind of forced familiarity over a period of time.

What started as a base drone became an expansive sonic trial. We used this project as a chance to try things out as far as Soundtrack Pro was concerned. Having enjoyed success in our on location, live sound recordings for our narrative piece, we elected to do the exact opposite for our non narrative sound design. Purely for the sake of experimenting with a different practice altogether, the sound of 'Community Moderne: Values Flail' is comprised entirely of sounds provided by the Soundtrack Pro sound library. The simple reason for this is that there were so many kinds of sound that we wanted to manipulate and then include in our final piece. Many of these sounds could well have been recorded live, but there was a precise mechanical crispness to many of the used effects that I felt were synthetically important to realising the modernistic criticism that the film addresses.

The point of the film was always to lightly highlight the past while being cynical of the present, and the almost ironic use of pre-recorded sounds only poked fun at an entertainment industry that is making millions of dollars from recycled ideas and regurgitated riffing. Where we lacked in original recordings, I feel like we made up for in the way that our sounds were manipulated and then strategically placed within a stereo space to directly correspond with our visual edit.

The one thing that I am truly proud of with this film is the way in which we were able to shift visual and aural focus of the course of the film. Sounds are introduced with an immediate permanence. You will hear it for as long as you choose to before moving on to another sound, or another image. A minute later, you may find yourself dragged back to focusing on that same sound. That one individual sound will never have wavered or shifted, it will have remained constant. Whilst we are pleased with the final mix, we hope to have offered our listeners the chance to create their own 'mix' through our careful consideration of levelling and panning.

As this term concludes, I am pleased to have made a non-narrative film that I personally understand and feel capable of explaining to people who may ask me about it. It is a format that I was completely unfamiliar with only two months ago, but now feel confident in returning to.

Narrative Production Diary + Reflection

Morning has broken, and two businessmen have been working a late shift at their office. Having worked through the night, they are heading home, making way for the 8am reinforcements.

We follow the two characters through a mostly empty parking garage until the shake hands and part ways. We continue to follow one of the male characters, his brogued footsteps echoing throughout. A second set of footsteps becomes evident, slightly unsynced despite their attempts to be. The businessman becomes suspicious and stops a few times and looks around, listening for signs of unwelcome company. The first few times, the second set of footsteps come to halt at the same time as his own, and he writes it off as fatigue playing with him. The third time, he stops and the unwelcome footsteps continue and he feels wholly threatened.

This 'following' is but a diversion though. And as the attention is drawn towards investigating the threatening footsteps, our victims back is turned. From behind him, we see a barefooted man in a mask creep out from behind a car, unnoticed due to his lack of footwear. He attacks the businessman from behind, cueing the second attacker to reveal himself and join in the attack.

What culminates is a two and a half minute attack/fight sequence to the tune of Grieg's 'In The Hall Of The Mountain King'. Foley sound effects are used to emphasise the brutality of each hit (hitting leather jackets with a baseball bat, beating pieces of meat etc), with the most crucial blows synced with the dramatic hits of the music at it climaxes. Visually, the edits during the fight would be quick, sharp and taking into account all of the 360 degrees surrounding the altercation (see below-ish).

Pre Production

Above is the original idea that I pitched to Carl in January once we agreed to work together as we did (in a larger group) last term. He agreed that the idea of 'following' opened up a variety of opportunities to experiment with the creation of sound in different size spaces, and indeed, to use this project as an opportunity to experiment with the entire narrative filmmaking process for a second time. We proceeded to develop this idea and shoot the film ourselves, rather than opting to design sound for a 'found' footage sequence.

As we soon found out, filming a 360 degree, rapid edit fight sequence was slightly out of our depth, but we still wanted to explore the prospect of creating a sense of threat through the use of sound. Knowing full well that our project was to be assessed purely on its audio, we still wanted to make sure that we provided a solid audiovisual relationship in our work.

As a referential starting point, we began to look closer at the work of many of our favourite directors and films that have been widely praised for their sound design. For the type of film we were going to try an make, the films of Nicolas Winding Refn and David Fincher.

Fincher has employed the same supervising sound editor in all of his films; Ren Klyce. Fincher's meticulousness coupled with Klyce's responsive ear have provided audiences with some of the more subtle but no less noteworthy feature sound designs in recent years. Most notably, 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', 'The Social Network', and most recently 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' have been proof that explosions and car crashes aren't necessarily essential to the creation of effective sound. All of these films are successful in aurally filling a space that is created by the camera. Whether it be the open sea in 'Benjamin Button' or Mark Zuckerberg's dorm room in 'The Social Network', the sound is appropriate to the space making the scene it more accessible to the listener. The listener is able to subconsciously accept the sound they are hearing and thus able to concentrate their focus elsewhere. Upon watching these select scenes using Chion's masking method though, it becomes clear not only just how full of sound they are, but also how non-intrusive the overall design is in the larger context of the film as a whole.

Klyce himself even highlighted his use of subtlety in a short insight into the sound of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' recorded for the Soundworks Collection late last year. In the video, he referenced a scene in which Mikael (Daniel Craig) visits Lisbeth (Rooney) at her apartment for the first time. He mentions a passing train in the background as Mikael enters and how this is used to give the viewer a point of reference as far her 'urban residence' is concerned. For someone who is studying sound design for the first time, to hear these subtleties explained by their designer is true influence. After watching the scene and hearing it explained, it goes a long way as far as being able to recognise the importance of sound in any scene and how integral a strong sound design is from a storytelling point of view.

The sound in Refn's films takes a similar stance. Refn though, is a director who likes to challenge the viewers senses by forcing you to accept the unnatural as realistic. Aurally (and visually), natural inconsistencies occur frequently without any explanation, however they are never outstanding enough to be questioned at the time. The sound (however unnatural it is) is always in perfect context so as not to alarm the viewer as they partake in the film. It is only afterwards and upon repeat viewings that we are able to understand the lengths Refn and his sound team go to for the sake of creating a visceral movie experience.

'Bronson' contains early examples of this use of sound in Refn's work. One fight scene in particular matches body shots to the beats of the accompanying soundtrack. Unnatural as these sound effects were, considering the context, they still contained the necessary force to convey the ultraviolence of the sequence. The pounding bass beat of the soundtrack slings home the brute force of Charles Bronson as he single handedly takes down half a dozen men.

Further and far more impressive (and subtle) use of 'unnatural sound selection' can be found in Refn's 'Drive'. Throughout the film, the case is simple. You only hear what Refn wants you to hear. And what you do hear, you only hear the way he wants you to hear it.

In the opening getaway scene, there are moments of tension on both ends of the spectrum. Driver creeps along so as to not draw attention from police, and proceeds to drop the hammer and try to outmanoeuvre them as they weave their way through central Los Angeles; the main difference in sound being how much of the engine noise Refn allows you to hear. During the quieter moments of this scene, you will not hear the engine at all. It's on, and the car is being driven, but Refn withholds the sound of it from us. Why? So that the impact of the suddenly increasing RPM as he charges away from the police tail has the viewer gripping their seats as the intensity level (pardon the pun) completely shifts gears. In a matter of seconds, the sound of the entire film goes from deathly quiet to rip roaringly, insanely loud, echoing the story's sudden change of pace.

This technique, directly influenced by this scene, is something that we desperately wanted to try out in our film. Not by any means in an effort to try and copy or rip off Refn's film, but to set ourselves the challenge of achieving the same level of impact, through sound, that was achieved by one of the years (if not the decade's) best sounding films.

Once we had concluded our initial research, we set about revising our story to make it more tangibly shootable. Originally, we had scripted an entire first scene between the focal character and a female accomplice who he parts way with before the film begins to concentrate solely on the 'man with briefcase'. This was eventually scrapped for two reasons. Firstly, though we were concerned with a tight narrative, we felt that expositional dialogue was not a way in which we wanted to tell our story. Both being fans of dialogue, it was a tough decision to make, but the eventual decision to scrap it meant that the sound design would be able to play a larger part in the overall narrative.

We settled on two locations following a brief city scout, but always had the same two places in mind. St Crispin's House on Duke Street in Norwich would provide the setting for our 'office exit' scene, a scene in which our main character leaves a building and makes his way across a car park. For our climactic multi-story pursuit, the St Andrew's car park in Norwich provided the most camera friendly environment. Also, their management were instantly encouragable of our intention to film on their premises and we were allowed to record there extensively on two separate occasions.

The only unorthodox element of our preparation was our decision to not storyboard this particular project. The reason for this was purely based on the fact the the film's visuals carried no weight and that we wanted to experiment in a point and shoot environment. It's no secret that there are directors out there who don't storyboard at all, the most relevant example again being Nicolas Winding Refn's 'Drive', a film from which we were already drawing direct influences from in regards to our own sound design.

Production

While we fully understand the importance of storyboarding as it provides necessary structure when preparing and planning a shoot, we thought it would be exciting to go to our locations with detailed outlines of the scenes in our mind and be able to try things out on the spot. Furthermore, with the term's emphasis being on sound design, after one failed attempt at recording sound whilst filming, we set ourself the challenge of filming and then recording sound separately. This consisted of a two man shoot one day, and then returning to our locations a few days later to retrace our steps and capture the sounds that we wanted after reviewing an initial edit of the visuals.

The filming went almost 100% according to our original plan. We encountered bad weather one day, and had to scrap one of our potential locations due to not being granted permission by the Anglia Square management. We were only looking to shoot one shot there however (a shot to show the character's progression between our two main locations), and quickly found a suitable replacement in the form of the Duke Street university library where we used an upstairs window as a POV vantage point as the character's movements are tracked as he crosses and then makes his way down the road.

The security teams at both the St Crispin's building and St Andrew's car park were only too happy to let us film on their premises provided we didn't cause any disturbance, and we happily returned the favour by keeping our shoots on their property as short as possible with both locations experience a hefty 9 to 5 bustle on a day to day basis.

We did experience lengthy waits to record sound on a few occasions, but these were limited to patiently waiting for lifts and stair wells to be unoccupied so that we could record certain sequences without any unwanted background noise. As all of the background noise heard in the film was to be recorded separately as 'ambience', it was necessary to wait for absolute silence before recording the sound effects that were to be layered on top of said ambience in post production.

Favourably, we succeeded in our plan for a two day shoot without any major glitches or hangups, and were able to proceed to post without the need for any reshoots or rerecording.

Post Production

Post was where this particular project really began to find its purpose and shape. At this point, I personally began to take the proverbial 'back seat' so that Carl could mould our footage into an actual film. This was not a route that either of us had planned, but seeing as I had been in front of the camera during filming having chosen myself to portray our lone character, Carl was responsible for the actual photography. Having played this role during the production process, it made more sense for him to take the footage home and review it. Carl's first edit was largely pleasing, combining narrative progression ideas we had both pitched, and told the story exactly how we had originally envisioned. This was due to a good communication between the two of us during both the development and production stages, and agreeing on how to move forward before the 'cameras were rolling'. It meant that post production was able to proceed smoothly without the need to compromise on anything.

By this point, I had started to take the lead in the non narrative post production stage on both the visual and sound editing fronts. This meant that Carl was also in charge of constructing the initial sound edit of our narrative piece. We did liaise on a day to day basis from this point, sharing ideas and criticisms and editing the pieces we were responsible for respectively. Whereas each of us were largely responsible for our own individual sound designs, we were both equally as active in each others work to the point where we feel that both sound designs can be credited to us both on account of the amount of creative input we had, as well as the support we gave each other over the course of both projects' post production phases.

Having recorded all of the sound live, on location, all of the sound in 'Interception' seems to have the same depth to it when it is listened back to. This, I think, makes the film's sound seem as natural as the progression of the visual edit. Shooting on locations that were filled with dark browns, greys and black, the sound design therefore was able to mimic the visuals with an aural consistency to match from beginning to end.

The only challenge I'd really say we faced in post was the compacting the sound into the range of between -20db and -6db (the gunshot aside). It was completely doable, but as post wore on we both began to concern ourselves with how compressing all of the film's sound into this specified range would affect the overall dynamic we were trying to achieve. We wanted our quiet moments to be atmospheric, and our loud moments to pack an unexpected aural punch.

Media Industries: Roles and Practice – Film Editing

Film editing has long been referred to as ‘the invisible art’ by those in the industry who over the last hundred years have come together to appreciate the utmost responsibility that editors possess. Without the editor, there is no final product, perhaps making a film’s editor the most crucial part of the overall filmmaking process on a day to day basis.

What a lot of people may not realise is how much of an active part an editor will play before the cameras even begin to roll. The editor will liaise with the director as well as the script editor to construct the narrative flow and pacing of the piece beforehand so when the dailies start to arrive, the editor can have prior knowledge of what is expected of them in their work.

Editing continues throughout a shoot as scenes are shot (more often than not) non-sequentially. The editor must have a broad knowledge of the story and screenplay to be able to construct coherency regardless of the order (chronological or otherwise) in which footage is delivered to them. Once shooting has wrapped, the editor will be expected to deliver an ‘assembly edit’. This is then refined with the supervision of the director into a second ‘director’s cut’. Finally, the film’s producer will oversee any final revisions until the film’s ‘fine cut’ is complete and ready for submission.

The history of film editing goes all the way back to the earliest part of the 20^th century when Edwin S. Porter took charge of Thomas Alva Edison’s New York film studios. While filmmakers like George Melies and James Williamson had been splicing footage for a few years, Porter was revolutionary in the way that he created dissolves and transitions between the shots in his films. Porter’s 1903 film ‘Life of an American Fireman’ was widely considered to be the earliest example of cross-cutting in existence, though it has been revealed that the film’s final scene was reedited to include these cross-cuts sometime in the 30s or 40s. Charles Musser of Yale University Film Studies confirmed this in his book ‘Before the Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company’ stating:

“It is only in the last few years that careful examination and methodology have established the authenticity of the paper-print version at the Library of Congress. In 1978, the Museum of Modern Art itself showed the paper-print version at the International Federation of Film Archives conference on early cinema…”,

the MoMA that he refers to having previously had on display a version of the film that showcases the use of cross-cutting between interior and exterior shots as a mother and child are rescued from a house. The ‘paper-print’ version that is referenced differs in the way that the interior and exterior rescue scenes are shown back to back offering multi-angle repetition in the narrative rather than the pioneering editing techniques for which is was previously praised.

Controversy aside, Porter expanded on his previous work in his follow up, ‘The Great Train Robbery’ which is to this day is regarded by many to be the most groundbreaking film in the history of film editing. It used as many as ten interior and exterior settings using cross-cutting and double exposure composite editing to show simultaneous action in different locations. A 12-minute filmmaking milestone, the film cost $150 to make.

While Porter revolutionised an form of narrative structuring that would be practiced meticulously in a literal hands-on fashion for decades, today’s editors have been using non-linear digital editing software in one form or another since as far back as the early 1970s when the CMX-600 was developed by CBS and Memorex. Today, editing is primarily done on software programs Avid, Adobe Premiere and Final Cut, respectively. The accessibility of these programs means that first time trainee editors (ie. NUCA FMIP undergrads) are able to work in the same digital environments as editors like Roderick Jaynes (The Coen Brothers) who famously constructed their Best Picture winning film ‘No Country For Old Men’ entirely on Final Cut Pro. This makes the route for career progression intensely competitive, but undeniably direct. An individual’s progression will be based on their level of skill, ability to deliver under pressure, overall competency and experience of the post-production process.

This individual progression can be contextually tracked in the form of Luke Dabbs, a UEA Film Studies graduate who began his career as an editor in London in 2008 where was a runner for Clearcut Pictures surviving on a mere £11.5k salary. While this role consisted mainly of transporting documents and equipment (and making coffee), it was a foot in the door at a reputable studio who proceeded to reward him for his efforts.

After just seven months on the job, he was promoted to the role of junior editing assistant which saw his salary rise to £14k initially, reaching £18k by the end of his first year. Whilst in this role, Dabbs worked on familiar programmes such as ‘Watchdog’, ‘The Secret Millioniare’ and ‘Big Brother’ in an 18 month period that again saw him promoted, this time to the role of editing assistant/vtr operator.

In 2010, Dabbs transferred to ITV to be an editing assistant on programmes as popular as ‘Come Dine With Me’, this time for a salary of £20k per year. While working as an editor, he expanded his responsibilities to include the role of asset encoder for the ‘ITV Player’ on-demand service. In 2011 though, he was on the move again, this time to independent production house Halo (again as an editing assistant) where he worked on programmes such as ‘Coach Trip’ and ‘Dinner Date’ where he earned £21.5k per year.

After less than a year, Dabbs finally settled into his current home at TVC Soho where he earns £24k per year and gets paid for any overtime he puts in. His most recent project was ‘Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy’ and he is currently working on his first feature film, a documentary of British runner Steve Cram that is being directed by the BAFTA award-winning director of ‘Senna’, Asif Kapadia.

Now in his fourth year, Dabbs’ whirlwind career in editing hasn’t stopped for a second. He has earned numerous promotions, and is earning over double what he was earning when he entered the industry in 2008. The projects are only getting bigger, and this is a career that is still in it’s early blossoming stages. A user of multiple editing platforms (predominantly Avid Media Composer which he swears is 100% essential if you want a chance to work in the editing sector), Dabbs is proof that a career in editing is (as mentioned earlier) as achievable as it is direct should you be willing to pay your dues and work hard at your craft.

In a conversation on 24^th February 2012 L. Dabbs confirmed all of the personal facts relating to his career that are referenced in this essay.

Dalrymple, Jim. (2008). Final Cut Pro and the making of 'No Country For Old Men'. Available: http://www.macworld.com/article/132277/2008/02/coen.html. Last accessed 20th Feb 2012.

Musser, Charles. (1991). 7: A Close Look at Life of an American Fireman: 1902-1903. In: Before The Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. USA: University of California Press. p212-234.

Musser, Charles. (1991). 8: Story Films Become The Dominant Product. In: Before The Nickelodeon: Edwin S. Porter and the Edison Manufacturing Company. USA: University of California Press. p254-260.

Simmons, Dan - Acting Head of Film. (2012). Film Job Profiles > Editing and Post Productions > Editor. Available: http://www.skillset.org/film/jobs/post/article_4732_1.asp. Last accessed 25 Feb 2012.

Wallace, Heather. (unknown). History on Digital Nonlinear Editing. Available: http://www.sundialmedia.com/sait/articles/found_a/heat_f.htm. Last accessed 24th Feb 2012.