Every Frame a Painting - Text Messages in Films

A quick and short detail I would like to share. In our short film, there is a scene where the main character receives a text message. How we can tackle this little detail that most people would easily miss out? There are many ways film makers have tried and experiment with. The most common techniques would be having an extreme close up shot on the phone to show us text messages and having the characters read the message. Another recent technique film makers would use is to have text messages or text bubbles popping up around the user.

*Update 1: This scene has been replaced with a simple paper note. The reason is the phone screen doesn't look good on camera. Usually film makers add the screen onto the phone in post-production.

Pre-production Week 3

We had another meeting this week to polish up the story. Here is the story we end up with at the end of the meeting:

'Elizabeth is a girl studying History at University and wakes up in her room on the morning of her 21st birthday feeling lonely when she realizes her friends and family will not be around to celebrate with her. She starts her day like any other having a shower and getting dressed but is soon concerned when she hears noises indicating she is not alone in her house. Views from outside her bedroom window indicate she is being watched and although Elizabeth tries to carry on with her day as usual she can't help the hairs standing up on her neck and her ears pricking up to sounds around her.Elizabeth distracts herself by opening her birthday cards and reading notes on the fridge left by her friends apologizing for their absence. She notices her spare key is missing but has no alternative but to leave the house and hope she has misplaced it. She locks her front door and hopes she will find the key later.In the next scene Elizabeth walks to the library along deserted paths and woods hearing footsteps and whispers follow her and quickens her pace eager not to be alone.

-DAYTIME EVENTS?-

When Elizabeth returns home she notices her front door is ajar although she knows she left it locked and that no one else is home. She pauses wondering if she should enter but feels she has no other option. Carefully pushing the door open she quietly walks into the dark hallway leaving the front door open. She can't see or hear anyone until suddenly a noise in the kitchen startles her followed by what sounds like a whisper. Terrified Elizabeth searches around for something to use as self defense and manages to grab a lamp/knife/umbrella and slowly makes her way to the door of the kitchen. She steadies herself trying to catch her breath and holds the door handle ready to enter the kitchen. She slowly turns the handle and opens the door an inch to see shadows moving around her kitchen and a large knife on the counter. Again she pauses before flinging the door wide open and shouting, holding her chosen weapon above her head. Suddenly the kitchen light switches on and she sees a group of her family/friends with balloons, banners, party hats and a huge birthday cake with snacks and drinks. A shocked look on her face it dawns on her that it is in fact a surprise birthday party and her birthday hasn't been forgotten and that her friends do really care. Elizabeth suddenly smiles relieved but still shaken.'

As you can see, we still have some issues in the middle with the daytime events. The problem is the story is written based on existing shooting locations and shooting techniques which would easily cause problems like what we have right now. I've been telling them to finish up the story and not worry about the locations. We can always improvise a scene or location later on but they never listened to me. I was instead scolded for not helping to search for locations and being wrong for how a writing process works. I mean, how am I supposed to find shooting locations without a guide or description from the story/script?

Enough with the rant. Moving on, We completed a questionnaire on character profiles. Some of them doesn't make sense. Once again, we also tried out the university's video camera and learned the shooting process and techniques. It was a big help to those who had never use a proper studio production video camera before like me.

Every Frame a Painting - Editing Space and Time

I am starting a new segment called 'Every Frame a Painting'. Here is where I will talk about things I've learned from reading and watching film analysis. This segment may come in handy for our short film.

Let's start off with a video from the Youtube channel of the same name.

Satoshi Kon is one of the best directors of all time. He was known for his works like Perfect Blue, Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika. What made him special was his unusual editing style.

The following are some of Kon's choice of editing:

• Match cut
• Exact graphic match
• Inter-cutting two different time period that mirror each other
• Rewind the film
• Cross the line into a new scene
• Zoom out of a TV
• Use black frames to jump cut
• Use object to wipe the frame
• Stack transition back to back
• Jump pass parts of a scene
• Build up and cut away but show the result
• Start a scene in close up and let the viewer figure the location
• Start with an establishing shot but reveal to be a POV shot
• Show one image and reveal that it isn't what you think it was

Kon's works were about the interaction between dreams, memories, nightmares, movies and life. Matching images helped him to connect different worlds. Thus, earning the title "Editing Space and Time".

Pre-production Week 2

This is week 2 of pre-production. In this week, the team decided on coming up with our own storyboard and discuss it by the end of the week. I was confused with why the team chose skip the scripting/writing phase and jumped onto the storyboarding phase. This would cause major problems like different plot points, odd timeline and pacing issues. As I thought, it happened. Although our short film will have minimal dialogue, it doesn't mean that we don't need a proper script. In the end, the storyboard was not resolved. The team planned to start from scratch but not from the script but finding shooting location. I was confused why would they made that decision. I went along with the plan.

The image above is a storyboard I made for the opening scene of our short film. It is a reference to Ghost In The Shell's opening scene - "Making of a Cyborg", when Major Motoko Kusanagi wakes up.

Pre-production Week 1

Trying out the university's filming equipment.

I apologise for the late entry but here it is, the first entry of the film production diary. What we did for this week was to pitch in and discuss the ideas we came up with for the short film. The starting point/theme of the project is 'The Greatest Day'. After some discussion, we settled with a suspense film about a girl's supposed greatest day that did not turn out what she expected.

The following is the basic idea of the short film:

• Girl was excited because it was her birthday.
• According to the notes and messages Girl received, her friends and house mates could not celebrate her birthday due to reasons like being out of town or busy with work.
• No one was in the house except her.
• Girl had rough day. Frustrated from study and work. Felt paranoid as she thought someone is tailing her.
• Returned home but some thing did not feel quite right.
• Things went missing and Girl felt that someone or something was in the house.
• Girl look around the house. Heard noises. Not sure if she was going crazy.
• Film ends with her going into the kitchen, finding out her friends throw her a surprise birthday party.

We also started playing around with the filming equipments as shown in the picture above.