Beyond Silence: Week 12 Post-production and personal reflection on the project.7/05/22023.

Introduction

With the wrapping of the project principal photography and the final film almost complete, I wanted to update everyone on the situation of the project and some of the issues we have encountered in the post-production phases, which if we had more time we would have fixed, but due to how close we are to the deadline, we decided to focus on the things we can fix and reflect on how we can use this to prevent theses mistakes happening again while in production in another project.

The assembly draft and the issues we encountered.

During the week co-director, writer, and editor Aaron Cadwallader worked extremely hard to assemble an assembly cut of the film and from there we would then colour grade and export it.

One of the issues he encounter was that about 50% to 60% of the time of filming, the boom mic was in the shot, this was due to the fact that with a limited crew on shooting Aaron and I had to take turns to use it for the production and with a monitor that crops the image out it made it harder to see it when we used a wide lens (no one fault). One of the advantages of shooting in 4k was that we were able to crop around the image and get rid of the boom mic when it was in the frame. ?Another issue we had was that there was no establishing shot of the house, due to us prioritising filming the main scene which caused us to neglect it (again no one's fault).

However, doing that as well has made some shots and angles look a bit jarring and awkward especially in the train scene of Lucy and the train guard. Other issues that Aaron encountered in the post were continuity issues and breaking the 180-degree rule. The 180-degree rule is basically an invisible line when having two or more people in a scene, with the rule being that the camera has been on the same line at all times (with a few exceptions of tracking shots), and if it crosses to the other side of that line, you break the 180-degree rule. Furthermore, at certain times in the draft, there were jump cuts to cover some of the errors made in the shooting as well as to make the film more cinematic than just simple plan cuts.

The continuity issue can be seen in the bathroom with Lucy's interactions with her brother Zach with the door to the bedroom on Zach's right being open at first, then when we did to Zach's mid shot of Zach away from the bathroom the door was closed fully closed and resulting in a clear continuity error.

The 180-degree rule was broken in the argument scene, which due to how cramped the room was we had problems with placing the camera while also recording the sound, in this scene when Zach looking camera right toward Lucy, however, when the camera is on Lucy she is looking camera right instead of camera left due to the camera being aimed more in the middle rather to the left side of Lucy instead. As a result, it breaks the 180-degree rule and breaks the flow of the scene.

The other issue we had on set was at first due to personal advice from nurse Tarnia Lefevre for the deaf audience not signing while speaking. As this can be seen in the scene of Zach skipping the home video of the black belt match in which he says part of his line and then signs the rest of it.

Although this was done with respect, it has been noticed in feedback with our tutor that Robert's role of signing falls shorts of the pay of line to surprise her, as an audience member we would be not sure if Robert understands sign language and be taken by surprise when he does sign to Lucy.

If we had the time, we would have re-shot some of the scenes especially the bathroom and argument scenes in the film, with the scenes with Lucy and Cas on the Brayford being very easy to fix.

Things we were able to do in post-production.

The advantage of shooting in 4K allowed Aaron to fix the boom microphone issues. We unfortunately could not fix the rest of the issues which will remain in the final product of the film.

On the other hand, we were able to fix some issues in which using the audio equipment we were able to re-record some lines and also record some noises such as punching and kicking the pads on their own, recording some of the sign language that involved rubbing or hitting noises. For this, I recorded Aaron's lines again as Zach and also did him some sign language a couple of times. We did have some sound issues in which either I heard the wind pass by or a loud car driving by, but in the end, we were able to get it after a couple of tries.

The last thing we did was get an establishing shot for the house scene just before Lucy and Zach arrived at the house. Although we could have gone back to Loughborough for a day despite it being a bit costly, we decided due to the garden not being seen in the film we decided to shoot outside the back of the garden as a replacement establishing shot for the house. For this Aaron and I used our phones along with my Sony A7III camera with my 24-70 G master lens. This allowed us to get some establishing shots for the film to help emphasise the location of the house and establish the location in the viewer's mind.

?Conclusion and Personal Reflection

Coming full circle with this project a lot has happened to us along the way both good and bad. We had bad luck and issues from actors dropping out last minute just before the shoot and the weather being either poor or inconsistent on the days of filming. As I said in my previous article this project has been a joy and a nightmare to do at the same time. It has pushed us all to the breaking point with a lot of us having too much stress, fatigue, and quite a lot of dishearting on the way.

?Despite these issues in pre-production, shooting, and post-production, Aaron has been able to do his best with edit which after viewing it both me and him are satisfied with the final product.

?What I have learned from this project, is that unless there is a contract, never fully rely on actors as there will always be a dropout around a couple of days to the last minute of shooting. Ensure that you have more crew on set so that the main people can focus on their main roles (for Aaron and me it was having to compromise the directing in the film to record audio or act in the production).

?Another thing is that you can never have too many SD cards and batteries for equipment, especially if you are shooting 4K or higher on camera, Finally ensure that you have a monitor that will not crop out the image and ensure that the Boom mic is much further away from the frame as possible, while still being close to the subject to get the audio.

?Even in feature films and shows, there are going to be mistakes that sometimes can be fixed in post-production (however often they will still be there just either covered in some way). The issues of the production definitely had an effect on the cast and crew with everyone dedicating to making and getting the footage, then worrying about the issues we may or may not have with it(not the mindset you should have when making a film, but due to the issues in this project that what we were all like). I also want to say that no one is to blame for these issues and everyone worked extremely hard on the days of the shooting.

?I want to again thank all of my crew members Aaron Cadwallader , Luke Smith , HaoHsin Shih (Hester), and Olivia Cookson (Liv) for the incredibly hard work that we all put into this project and to say again that everyone worked tirelessly to do this project and I could not ask for a better crew of people to work with.

?Overall, despite the issues we had in this project I have enjoyed working alongside my team in making this project, we come a long way, and everyone is definitely a lot wiser and more productive from it, I defiantly learned a lot of experience from this project in terms of what is required to do for co-ordinating a project this size and problem-solving in last minute situations that no one can predict.

?Finally, I want to thank everyone who has helped and supported this project from the start and for supporting us through this journey. It has been a long and challenging time but in the end with hard work, long hours, and a supportive group of people there is nothing no one can not accomplish.

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Thank you for taking this journey with us, for more information on the project follow on social media for more information and the release of this project.

From the cast and crew of Beyond Silence, Thank you for coming on this journey with us, and farewell.