Technology

Operating the Camera
I used my own camera for this film. It made the most sense, considering I know how to use it and the quality is great. I used a tripod for the shots of Jonesy walking toward the house, but ditched it afterward as it was clunky and got in the way (another reason being that it makes creaky noises when it's moved). I made sure the camera was set to manual focus for the outdoor shots so that the shot wouldn't be blurry because of the low lighting. I also had to use manual exposure and put that to the max for these shots. For indoor shots I left it on automatic, allowing the camera to adjust in real time based on how bright or dark the target of the camera's sight is. The camera battery was almost a disaster, as it was fully charged to begin with but could not last four hours of HD recording. To get around this, I kept switching the camera off when it wasn't in use. To import, I had to plug the camera into the computer and use the Sony PMB software to import the *.m2ts and *.modd files for the video. I could preview the clips in PMB to find which clips were useable, and then open them directly in Vegas.

Composing Shots
Again the exposure and focus were used to make sure the scene didn't become obscured or blinding, but I did try a few things for specific effect. One of these was the telemacro, which meant zooming in to an extreme level and then blurring the scene beyond the subject of the shot. I used this for the shot of the beer on the table during the pause in narration. Another thing I used was the slow-motion burst to get a (silent) shot of Michael's hand falling to the ground with Bronson running in the background. I had tested these out before to make sure I could include all the elements that I wanted, such as Bronson running in the background. My choice of lighting ensured my shots were lit to the degree I wanted. The outdoor shots were lit by having all the curtains open and all lights (both indoor and outdoor) on. Indoor shots varied between dim lighting in the poker scenes, harsh lighting in the hallway, and soft lighting in the bedroom that fades away from the hallway door. In terms of setting up scenes, I made sure to cover the table with poker chips and glasses so that the table looked full and in use. In some outside shots, I crouched in the bushes so that the leaves would partially obscure the shot, to give the impression of Jonesy being watched or shady. I also made sure to change the angles of shots often to give a flow to the film, so that the action and dialogue flowed from one shot to another as seemlessly as possible.

Recording Sound Effects, Dialogue, Music
The main video's audio was recorded straight from the camera, but the narration was recorded seperately. This was simple enough, because all I had to do was start recording with the mic facing Bronson, then remove the video in Vegas. Some sound effects, such as the door opening/closing were recorded in these clips and I simply cut and moved them around in Vegas. Other sound effects, mainly the siren and the gunshots, were taken from external sources (obviously I could not record them myself) and so I cannot comment on their recording. I downloaded the siren from Youtube as a video file and converted it, then I simply imported the audio into Vegas for editing. All of the music was downloaded off of Youtube and converted for use here.

Importing Images & Video Files
Importing was the simplest part. the camera automatically syncs up with Sony PMB, and from there all the files are saved in my My Pictures folder in My Documents. In Vegas I then imported all files the same way, either drag-and-drop import or media import. I used one image in the film, which was the opening frame. To do this I saved the frame of a clip as a still image in PMB, and then imported it along with everything else. I did, however, have to sift through all the clips in PMB and note down which ones were useful before importing them in Vegas. This meant the program would have less to load and performance would not suffer as badly.

Editing Sound
I used fade-ins and fade-outs to mask the beginning and ending of each track of music, and for the last piece ("Angel") I cut off a section in the middle and used a cross-over (fading in one clip and out another at the same time) to mask the gap and make it seem natural. In dialogue, some lines were louder than others, so I used audio envelopes to adjust the volume as I wished. In the part where Maria and Ed are arguing through a door, I used the audio envelopes to muffle the sound from the other side of the door, which is more realistic than having the audio float through the wood as an overlay. Another aspect I had to think about was background noise. My camera does not have an external mic, so there was some static noise created simply by the air in the room. To make sure this was not jarring, I had to make sure that the background noise was continuous and only dropped out in the opening and ending, where the music would mask it. This meant copying space from other clips and moving it around so that it didn't distract the viewer by popping in and out at random. I also had to make sure the background noise didn't get too loud, which meant redcuing the amount of overlap of audio as much as possible and adjusting volume acordingly. Otherwise, the static noise would become randomly too loud.

Scene Breakdown

1. Intro - Jonesy sneaks into the house, the others are involved in a poker game. Narration overhead explains the background to the story.
2. Poker scene. Ed tells Maria to leave, then reveals he knows all about Bill's investigation. His goons grab Bill and restrain him, and they discuss the matter of Bill's execution.
3. Seduction scene. Maria catches Jonesy searching through a safe in Ed's room, and startles him. He pulls a gun on her, but lowers it when she seduces him. They kiss, and Maria takes the gun. She then threatens Jonesy, demanding the medallion. Maria then shoots him in cold blood.
4. Poker scene 2. The men in the poker room are startled by the gunshot, and Ed begins to panic about the possibility of Bill having backup. He leaves to find out what's happened.
5. Ed finds Maria in his room, with a gun in hand. She slams the door on him and tells him she's called the police. She has also taken the medallion and is not afraid to threaten him openly. Ed swears he'll kill her if he gets his hands on her, and a police siren is heard approaching. Ed manages to get the door open, only to find Maria missing, and Jonesy's corpse lying atop his bed.
6. Ed flees, telling his goons to kill Bill, before heading out into the night. Bill overpowers and kills the goons, and chases after him. But by the time he reaches the front of the house, the police are there, and have killed Ed. Bill is set up to be arrested and framed for murder, considering he is the only survivor present in the area, Maria having escaped. Title appears on-screen.

Production Schedule

I planned to get all the scriptwork done in the holidays, and managed to do so. I even planned shots, costumes, and actor routes around the house. I also planned to get the casting done and settle on a date for the filming to take place, and got these within the first week of term.

All filming was done at my house on the tuesday of the second week of term (can't recall the date). I filmed it all chronologically, although I did the guy's reaction to the gunshot before the bedroom scene. I had planned to film over the holidays, but my actors were unavailable, so I completely re-wrote the film, added the femme fatale, and then re-scheduled for the first weekend back. I had to re-schedule again because of re-casting. The delay was only two days though, so I'm very pleased with my management there. The filming took about 3/4 of an hour longer than I had expected, but it wasn't an issue and I managed to get everything done in one night, other than the narration which I had forgotten about and recorded the next day after school.

In editing I didn't set any goals as I was already a few weeks ahead of everyone, but I did want to get it done as soon as possible so that I could fix up anything that I wanted to. I got the editing done within three weeks of filming, including the re-edits, where I changed the music, sound effects, and colour correction.

Art Department

In terms of props and set, I bought five hats from a couple of two-dollar shops (cost was around $30 despite the shop title). The bb guns were borrowed from an acquaintence of a friend, but did not come with any pellets (though we never intended to fire them in real life). The other items of the film were the necklace, which was my mum's, the 'safe', which was actually a wooden bedside table that my parents already owned, and a phone which was already in my parents' bedroom. The cards and poker chips/money were lying around the house, as were the glasses and beer. I basically used anything I had lying around. The costumes were not mine; they belonged to the people wearing them. To avoid too many historical inaccuracies, the microwave was removed from the kitchen and the cars removed from the carport.

In terms of 'art' there weren't any differences from the house as-is. The paintings on the walls were already present, and nothing was changed dramatically. One thing that was unusual was the lighting. I had used a specific light which sits behind the wooden beam on the ceiling above the poker table, as opposed to the house's normal lighting. This was to create a dim, shady, low-light effect for the film. Another use of light was the open 'harsh' lighting in the hallway - the shade was removed, leaving the bare bulb, which creates shadows on Ed's face since it sits directly above him. The lighting in my parents' room was also reduced, so that it became darker the further the camera got from the hallway door. I chose not to turn on the main lights here in order to keep the lighting low and not bloom out the shot (because the walls are very bright).

In editing, I used Sony Vegas Pro 10's video effects to desaturate the image and manipulate the light and dark values seperately, this way I was able to brighten the outdoor shots and darken the indoor shots, but keep the highlights and shadows that I wanted to keep. In some cases, this even accentuated these highlights/shadows by making them contrast the rest of the scene even more. In making the film black and white, the green walls around the poker table became black, creating a very dark atmosphere with high contrast. The black suits blended in with the shadows, but the greys and whites stood out clearly. This is what I was aiming for with the black and white 'noir' style. The other art-related part was the blood effects, which were sourced from a friend. These were high-definition effects (actually recordings of flares and red liquid splashing in front of the camera with a black background to be edited out in After Effects). I used the same colour grading effects as with the rest of the video to make the blood darker, and then appear black.

Research

Film Noir Genre
-Suits and Hats, formal looking clothing. Handguns would be used, which would be either magnums (western-style) or glocks (like the ones I used).
-Focused on crime (usually murder) where the characters would be involved in heists or con games.
-Lots of conspiracies, false accusations, and adulterous affairs.
-Betrayals and Double-crossing.
-Greed and Jealousy motivations.
-Often centres on a pirvate eye/lone detective or criminal gangs.
-Heroes are very flawed and morally questionable.
-Literal identity of a 'dead man walking'.
-Protagonists filled with existential bitterness - alienated, moody.
-Black and White, saxophone music, voiceovers.
-Stock characters include the hardboiled detective, femme fatale, corrupt policemen, gangsters, jealous husbands, and... intrepid claims adjusters...?
-City location that is more like a maze, includes bars, lounges, nightclubs, gambling dens...
-Climaxes in industrial areas - warehouses, factories, trainyards, powerplants.
-Night setting, very low lighting. Lots of use of shadows.
-Pessimism, hopelessness. Characters become trapped in unwanted situations.
-Cultural paranoia and widespread corruption.
-Steadfast virtue rewarded and vice severely punished.
-Sexuality and dangers of women.
-Focus on the criminal rather than society producing criminals.

I watched a couple of film noir classics, "The Maltese Falcon" and "Little Caesar"  for inspiration and an idea of the genre. Google helped me get a feel of what my scenes and characters should look like.

For my camcorder and Vegas, I already knew how to use these. I did, however, pick up a few tricks from watching Christian edit various films. For After Effects, I worked out how to use the UI by myself (only the parts I needed to use) and watched a few of VideoCopilot's tutorials (www.videocopilot.net) to learn the basics of masking/applying effects and colour correction.