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04 Jan 2023 | TEL230 Makers | Individual Response | 1480 words
In this module, I demonstrated my ability to work professionally within a crew to create a short, stand-alone drama. I undertook the role of editor and collaborated with my team to produce our five-minute short horror, Red Door Yellow Door.
Initially, my role of choice was director. I had worked closely with actors before and I felt as though I could carry out the role of director favourably; screen acting specifically is something I would like to specialise in in the future. I pitched my vision for a film called Mercury’s Flaw as I loved the story and personally found this script easy to visualise in terms of the cinematography and design. However, this pitch was primarily to exhibit how I would go about interpreting any of the scripts. For each scene, I thought about specific camera angles, based on the tone of the scene, as well as the practicality of the location.
A director had already been allocated for Red Door Yellow Door so I went with editor, which was my close second choice. Right from the first read, I loved the concept of this script and could already envision the editing process. Editing is something I have been interested in for a long time, yet had never experienced the role in an actual project so this was the perfect opportunity. I did not have a lot of previous work but I showed work from previous modules and concluded the interview with ideas I had for Red Door Yellow Door. I was very keen to adopt this role as editing is a skill I had wanted to build on in my second year and this module seemed like an excellent opportunity to demonstrate my knowledge and learn new skills.
I was not particularly familiar with the horror genre so I felt this was also a great opportunity to learn more about structuring films, particularly pacing and how to approach the jumpscare. In the book, Film and Video Editing, Crittenden expresses that the aim of constructing a scene is to ‘provide the right pacing and to establish or
emphasise the inherent rhythm’. I feel as though it is especially important to establish a rhythm in the horror genre because tension needs to build in order for the jump scares to have the full effect on the audience. If the cuts are too fast, the audience will get used to seeing a rapid change in tone and any quick surprises coming up will feel anti-climatic. I looked at some examples of horror films - the opening scene in Scream (1996) begins quite casually and gradually moves into longer cuts to build tension before the first jump-scare. According to an article referencing Scream, ‘less is more’ when it comes to editing horror; long cuts induce feelings of anxiety to an audience and moving to faster cuts further builds the suspense, subtly letting the audience know something is about to happen without giving away too much information. (Silva 2020).
Successful shows like Stranger Things and Black Mirror use features of horror but are not primarily horror-based so perhaps Red Door Yellow Door, a new ‘horror-thriller’ could be a refreshing new asset for Netflix. Additionally, releasing the drama through a streaming service would eliminate the need for specific television scheduling, as this show would likely have to be shown after the watershed (9pm).
My input was focused mainly on the post-production stage of the film so while the crew were planning for the shoot, I began working on some animated graphics. Originally, my idea was to have a stand-alone title sequence at the beginning of the film, similar to how television programmes use the same title sequence for every episode. Initially, it was a simple animation of a title and opening credits against a black background but after discussing my ideas with the director, we realised we could lay these over the footage, especially if we captured some extra shots to use for this.
As well as editor, I also took on the role of Digital Imagery Technician. These roles go hand-in-hand with each other as the DIT makes notes for the editor to use. This makes choosing shots easier and a lot less time consuming for the editor when it comes to assembling the rushes. I used the provided continuity log template along with sheets I had put together myself. As I was both DIT and editor, I was able to compose my own ways of noting the best takes as I would be the only person needing to interpret them. During the shoot, I worked collaboratively with the crew. The cabin scenes were the most complex of all, involving dolly tracks and some very intricate lighting set-ups so we purposely scheduled some extra time to practise camera movements and lighting before the cast arrived. Being present on the shoot meant that the director and DoP were able to discuss any concerns with me straight away. For example when we were shooting a wide shot for the corridor scene, there was a small hole in one of the walls which was entirely visible on camera. I was able to quickly decide whether this could be fixed in post or if they needed to reframe the shot.
When I began assembling the rushes, the first thing I noticed was that we had six different angles of the same scene. Using all six angles would be very disorientating for the viewer, and it would be difficult to follow where the characters are in relation to each other. This is why the ‘180 degree rule’ is commonly followed in film and television, only using angles filmed from one side of the actors. In the book, Directing Television: a Professional Survival Guide, Bamford suggests that the cameras can be set ‘anywhere in one of the two 180 degree arcs created, but not in both’. To help me visualise the set and to choose which angles were best, I created a floorplan of the set and added the line in.
Once I had a rough cut of the whole film, I was able to further refine each scene, making sure the story was smooth and that the cuts felt natural. I was also able to make creative choices of my own at this stage. For example, I cut the close-up of the door handle in the corridor scene because we had used a lot of wider shots here and suddenly cutting to a close-up felt very jarring. Additionally, after receiving feedback on an early draft of the film, we collectively decided to remove the Faceless Man from the bedroom scenes. Seeing him appear in the film not only before the jumpscare but also quite close to the jumpscare made it a lot less intense and therefore did not have the intended effect on the audience. The viewers need space to move into the film rather than be bombarded with action and provocations the whole time (Rosenthal and Eckhardt 2016).
From this module, I gained a lot of knowledge on the processes of creating a short film. I learned a lot about structuring a story and making sure the audience is able to follow the narrative and stay engaged the whole time. I also learned a lot about the technical aspects of the film, including exporting the film from Premiere Pro to use in
other programs like Pro Tools and DaVinci Resolve. The biggest problem here was making sure the Sound Designer had the files in the correct formats and that the raw rushes were still in the project so they were able to synchronise sound using timecode. I did not realise that colour grading tends to happen before the effects are added in, so I had to spend extra time removing the effects and adding them back in after I colour corrected the film on DaVinci Resolve. This is something I will take forward in future projects. As an editor, I would also like to be more involved with the director and DoP and talk to them about continuity. Some of our shots could not be used as they did not show the characters moving from one place to another and as a result, some cuts looked more like jump cuts. Luckily we had wide shots of the whole scenes so this was an easy fix but it did mean that actors had their backs towards the camera. Nonetheless, our film received good feedback, especially on the visuals and cinematography. Removing the Faceless Man from the bedroom scene was also a favourable choice because the jumpscare was very effective when the final draft was shown to our peers.
Overall, I believe Red Door Yellow Door was a success and we solved any problems we encountered quickly and effectively. This is a film I am proud to show and it gave me a chance to demonstrate my skills in editing.
References
BAMFORD, Nick. 2012. Directing Television: A Professional Survival Guide. London: Bloomsbury.
CRITTENDEN, Roger. 1995. Film and Video Editing. London ; Glasgow ; Weinheim: Blueprint.
ROSENTHAL, Alan and Ned ECKHARDT. 2016. Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films and Digital Videos. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Scream [Film]. 1996. New York: Dimension Films.
SILVA, Matthew. 2020. ‘Cutting and Editing the Genre (Horror)’. Medium [online]. Available at: https://medium.com/@mgosilva143/cutting-and-editing-the-genre-horror-949f0 487ea38 [accessed 9 Dec 2022].
Author: Bethan Radford
Module: TEL230 Makers
Assessment: Written Assignment
Classification: 1st / 76%
Degree: BA (Hons) Television
Submission: 04 January 2023
Words: 1480