Colour Grade - Rest of film

Hover over each image to see it before colour correction!

I'll let the photos mainly talk for themselves - I think the difference is surprising. I'll talk generally about what I did though:

I made the shots darker as the trailer went on.
Fixed blown-out highlights and crushed blacks - mostly a problem in scene two because the camera wasn't exposed properly.
Generally gave the film a similar, stylised look as the trailer went on.
Set the colour scheme - lots of browns, blacks, and off-whites.
Converted several scenes to night time - notably the scene of the main actor and his friend talking on a bench, and the very final scenes. These were originally bright and this was something of a challenge, although I think it worked in the end.

Foley Sound

We used a variety of original foley sounds in our trailer.

Foley Sound in Act 1

In act 1 we deliberately removed almost all of the diegetic sound, to create a smoother montage as the sound wasn't of consistent tone or quality. As such, there was no need for any foley sound, as the feeling of verisimilitude usually created using foley sound and continuity editing isn't needed during a trailer montage.

Foley Sound in Act 2

Act 2 starts with the breakfast scene, which required lots of post-recorded diegetic sound. The tapping on the bowl, the ticking of the clock (which is barely audible, but helps to build intensity and tension in the scene) and the spoon falling onto the table were all recorded separately to the camera shots - hence why some of it doesn't synchronise up that well.

The next scene in Act 2 is Eve using her phone and scribbling in her diary - I recorded sounds of me typing on a phone and scribbling on some paper to add in later. I did this in an environment with soft surfaces to allow me the greatest freedom to use reverb to give an idea of the size of the space in post production. You can here this in the trailer.

Unfortunately we had a sound recording error in the next scene - you can hear that the sound of the footsteps is far too loud in comparison to the voices. Unfortunately, this was very difficult to remove as the footstep sound is a similar frequency to the voice, and we didn't have time to reshoot this scene, so I did my best and moved on. Next time, I would have re-recorded the dialogue in post production (as we did last year) but as mentioned, we didn't have time this year.

The plate smash sound effect is the next example of foley sound - since the plates were made of plaster, they didn't sound like plates smashing using the recorded sound, so I had to source a plate smashing sound effect from a royalty-free website. Next time I would record the plate smashing sound myself, but unfortunately our budget didn't allow for that this year.

Foley Sound in Act 3

Again, in Act 3 the sound of her removing the knife from the rack didn't build tension in the way I'd hoped so the sound was cut from the piece. The sound of her tying her shoelaces remains, although it is quiet and backgrounded by the singing and music, which means it often goes unnoticed by audiences. I found this out by asking them after showing them rough cuts of the film. 

Next Time

Next time I will think more about other foley sound we might need - splitting into the 3 categories of foley sound:

Feet

In my opinion, we didn't have enough 'stepper' sounds in our film - for example, when Eve walks up the stairs, we hear nothing, when in fact we should hear her on each step and perhaps a creak or two in the final scene. Hearing the father's boots as he comes in would also make a huge difference to the impact his entrance creates.

Movement

Again, our film doesn't have enough movement sound - swishing of clothes, or the sound of hand holding in the first act would have helped heighten the tension in an otherwise 'nice' scene.

Specifics

This is where I feel our film excels (when considering foley sound). We used lots of specific sounds, discussed above, to create a feel of verisimilitude and to heighten the effect of certain scenes. In particular, we wanted the breakfast scene to feel uncomfortable with all the heightened sound. I think this could have been executed much better than we did, with more sound (e.g. tea/milk being poured) and more of a build-up to the climax of the scene. We were unable to do this because of time limits on the length of the trailer, but next time I would definitely make more of an effort on this front. The final scene also would benefit from some more foley sound, such as the knife and steps discussed earlier.

Sketch Magazine, Extra Features

Initial Sketch Conversion

To convert the picture to a sketch, I converted the layer to black and white, duplicated it, inverted the photo, added a Gaussian Blur to make sure the edges weren't perfectly aligned, before setting the blend mode to Linear Dodge. I then duplicated this layer several times to increase the boldness of the lines to give the result above

Skin

This was the hardest part to get right, and as you can see above, even the finished version is a little off in colour. However, when the other colour was added in this effect was less noticeable.

Hair and Camera

The hair and camera were significantly easier - I just had to be careful about not going out of the lines. Also for the camera I chose a dark grey instead of black so that the lines of the camera still showed up.

Clothing

The clothing was fairly straightforward, as I could really have chosen any colours. I chose to stay faithful to the model's original outfit (although I did increase the vibrance of those colours in this example) and I simply had to ensure I stayed within the lines.

Title/Background
For the title of the feature itself I wanted to stick to the font originally chosen for Photobooth, but adapt it to the Sketch magazine style. I traced over the original title in Illustrator, giving it a black outline and white fill. For the background I filled it light blue and then lightly coloured some patches a darker purple colour (using a brush with a low pressure).

I also did this process for the other two extra features, so I won't write another post on this.

Ukraine National Film Festival

For my poster, I decided to do something a little unconventional. I decided that since Ukrainians enjoy gritty drama such as The Guide (2014) or The Tribe (2014), they would enjoy the film we have produced which perhaps could almost fall into this category. I drew a top-down view of a stork in photoshop, the national animal of Ukraine, and left a space for text. I then wrote Ukraine National Film Festival 2017, Award Nominee in both English and Ukrainian in the space, prioritising the Ukrainian by putting it above or to the left of any English writing.