Digital Filmmaking - Week 14


12/10/2019


 Bourke, B. (2019). Ablaze [Television film]. New Zealand: Television New Zealand.



Last night, I watched this TV film on TVNZ OnDemand

 Themes - loyalty, bravery, the worth of life

 Ablaze is a very subjective film based on the 1947 Ballantynes fire in Christchurch. It still remains the worst fire disaster in New Zealand's history. This TV film is an absolute artistic triumph in doing something with a New Zealand period drama. Robert Sarkies once said that '...dramas should be more like documentaries..' and I think this film has managed to succeed in doing so.

 I don't know if it was the lighting, the framerate, or something done in post-production, but it really did look a film from that time period, there something about it that looked surreal, and the use of black and white helped mask any sort of VFX and helped blend in with the archival footage from the actual event. 








Even the production design for the exteriors looked like it was on a budget like films from that era of cinema. I would compare the filmmaking style in this TV film to It's a Wonderful Life and films by Ingmar Bergman. It was more authentic looking than what Tarantino tried to do by using black and white film in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood


The subjective portion of this film is in my opinion, more into the slice of life drama before the disaster, portraying social aspects of that time period (gender roles, and the strains, roles and relationships in the workplace), which was reminiscent of what your grandparents would tell you of working at a hotel or a place like Ballantynes.
The exterior scenes during the disaster had handheld, amongst the crowd type of cinematography that tries to be like a drama as well as a documentary




The performances were solid and at the same time, it paid great respect to the historical figures related to the event like March Mitchinson as Mr Ballantyne and Hannah Marshall as Violet Cody. This film managed to make thrill and work you up like any other disaster movie, period or true story drama e.g. Titanic, Out of the Blue.

 Ablaze would be a delight to see on screen and would had been an exhilarating cinematic experience. The use of the letterbox aspect ratio contributes to what makes this film cinematic. With documentaries, you not only try to document history, but also make it a cinematic experience at the same time.
The film also had great use of drama and action. I would highly recommend this TV film and deserves a lot of credit than just being a simple TV film about a NZ disaster.


 Last night, I also sent out messages to Kiarne and Bo asking whether they knew any actors that could be keen to be in my short film. Kiarne saw the message, but never replied, and Bo suggested for me to talk to Dillon Kirton, Bo also informed that he will not be doing BTS over the weekend shoot because he has his own projects to worry about

With considering potential times that actors could be available for next weekend, I may end up with only half of a short film. 

 I got in touch with Dillon and he was keen to be involved. He asked for a script, which I provided to him by email. He asked for us to meet up with each other about the script, which I was fine with.
I asked him if there are any actors that would be also keen, especially for the role of Daisy and he suggested for me to get in contact with Jemma Kate Holst.


 I had sent another email to Taylor Barrett to see if he was still interested because I still had not received a reply from him to my email


 I got in contact with Gemma Kate Holst, but she didn't get back to me until late that night. She was interested in acting in my short film

13/10/2019


 I informed Jemma about the likelihood of the shoot being intense and what my short film is about. I also sent her a script through Messenger.


 I asked Dillon about time and place today would suit him for us to meet up. He was fine with any place, anywhere after 2pm. I suggested for us to meet outside the Downtown campus at 3pm, which he was fine with. I plan for us to talk inside the campus.


 I wrote up drafts of emails to be sent to Craig McKenzie (SIT Facilities), Nathan Gill (Invercargill City Council), and Paul Watts (SIT Accommodation Officer) to enquire about filming consent.


I had a chat with Dillon in person and he is all on board to act in my short film. He has no dietary requirements or concerns when it comes to the catering. I showed him the mood boards and other related images, and explained to him things about the story and his character.

 I also talked to Johanna Pyre about voicing the off-screen receptionist for my short film and she was keen to do so and work around her busy schedule. We have organised time to do it, which is 2.30pm next Thursday 24th of October.

 I made a booking for the Zoom H6 in case if Jean can't make it on the Friday shoot. I tried to book the F3, but it was already booked out. I may have to book the Ursa in this case

14/10/2019

I talked to Luqman to inform him about the F3 being booked out and he told me that it's booked out, it's broken and now can only use Zesis lenses. I went ahead with booking out the Urusa for Thursday and Luqman will be returning it that day. I also booked out a reflector.

 Gemma messaged me this morning informing that she will likely be only available for some of the filming and still definitely keen to act in my short film.

 Resolve
First step in colour grading is one node to correct the luma levels with curves and one ode to adjust the saturation because luma can affect saturation

 You can do automatic adjustment by clicking Alt + A, but it doesn't look good. It's like the Auto Colour, Auto Contrast, and Auto Tone options on Photoshop

 We worked with Red camera footage and tried grading them, but it was a tricky process. One way to sample white balance is to sample the white on the slate. On the luma waveforms, all the tones seemed to have gathered all together in the low levels so much, it's quite bright.

 To understand what you are doing on a waveform or vectorscope can be difficult to follow (even for me) because there is limited consistency

 You can adjust background colours by into the Hue vs Sat Curves and eyedropper sample it. From there you can adjust the background colour e.g. yellow on a wall

 QuickTime H.264 MP4 is good for the web, but not for broadcast. For broadcast, you export at QuickTime DNxHD. It is recommended for us to export DNxHD for the final grade and to import that back into Premiere.

 It's important that your dialogue is in mono. The bits per sample doesn't matter, you can either go 16 or 24 when exporting to OMF.

 Pro Tools structure
Tk 1-3 clean dialogue
Tk 4 phone dialogue
Tk 5 -8 SFX
Tk 9-12 Atmos
Tk 13-16 Music
I managed to send an email out of Nathan Gill at the Invercargill City Council to request filming consent at council-owned properties and footpaths in central Invercargill


 I was absolutely exhausted and stressed about my short film by the end of class today

15/10/2019


 I recieved a response to my email to Nathan Gill. He has allowed me to shoot in all the location except for Wachner Place. Wachner Place is under the jurisdiction of ICC Parks and Reserves, just like I warned Patrick last term. Nathan Gill has forward my request to film at Wachner Place to someone at Parks and Reserves. 

 Fingers crossed they allow me because getting filming consent from them can be a painful, bureaucratic process and they prefer for filming consent to be asked a couple of weeks in advance, plus I don't think I have time to fill out health and safety plans.


 I spoke Luqman and showed him the equipment that I have booked for the filming this weekend. He is fine with it all and reckons that I have all the good stuff, which is good because someone else usually has it all and I'm left with bugger all. Luqman suggested to talk to Ash or James about the Easy Rig again, but this time it's to determine whether an Ursa can be used with the Easy Rig. 

 Luqman reckoned it should be compatible with the Easy Rig because the Ursa is about the same weight as the F3. I spoke with Ash and told me that weight isn't factor, what was important was whether the Ursa had a handle on the top of camera for the Easy Rig to attach too.

 Me and Luqman talked about our editing suite since he is in the editing suite I will be taking over starting Thursday and he has heaps of stuff in there and I don't in the editing suite that I have already. We negotiated about me continuing to use D-317, while I allow Luqman to continue to use D-318

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