Evaluation

In retrospect, I feel like this project has been successful despite it's slight issues with actors, as I believe it has worked well at achieving the conventions of the films made by film auteur David Lynch - my biggest inspiration as a filmmaker. Personally I feel I have developed my skills, as I had the task of writing, producing and directing this myself, and so I believe I feel I have enhanced my abilities in terms of leadership and motivation in order to get the vision I had in my head when this project began. As I said during the feedback I think a few things could have been improved to the film, and I think some of the conventions could have been emphasised or included in a more obvious way had my original idea of three characters been the same. Despite this, I also think the two characters worked well because it made the scene more intense, like some of the scenes between two characters in Lynch's films. This therefore has made me more self-confident with my ability to problem solve, particularly when put on the spot, if a shoot or script idea cannot go to plan, as I know there's always creative ways to get around these problems. This in turn makes me confident for future projects I am to work on, and also more excited for them.
 If I was to improve anything when doing this assignment, I probably would have evenly spaced out the amount of time spent on each section. I spent a longer period of time on pre-production and research for example, but only a few hours shooting and about an hour's editing time. In production and post-production it took a lot less time to do than I anticipated, and so I could have spent extra time getting more footage just for extra coverage and more time totally refining the edit. I probably would have taken extra care and thought into exactly how I wanted the film to look as well; for example, although it turned out successful, most of the 'look' like the set design and lighting was done on the shoot day just from trial and error guesswork until I thought it looked reasonable. From the director's point of view I should have known really how I wanted it to look already with what I had available, particularly after writing the script.
 Overall I am happy with what I have achieved and I think it couldn't have been much better considering I had no budget, not much time, no actors and no crew readily available. I hope to continue working hard towards my inspirations and influences of the filmmaking industry in the future. 

Feedback in class

In class we screened our films to each other, so that we could explain our journey making it and get feedback on what we had produced. Everyone seemed to like my film, in the sense that it was easily identifiable as a David Lynch style film, and so I had achieved to fulfil the assignment brief. The only things I had noticed that could have been better were better colour grading on the scenes of my male character (to be redder like the wide shot) and perhaps the ambient sounds to be turned down in volume a little bit, as it was very loud in comparison to the dialogue; however, people seemed to think this actually worked. 

The Colour of Blood edited film

Here is my complete finished film, 'the Colour of Blood'. I think it could have been better if I hadn't have needed to changed the script as much, but the edit did turn out a lot better than I thought it would, especially after adding the atmospheric background sounds. Overall, I am pleased with the result as I believe it displays conventions of David Lynch films. 

Editing Process

The editing process for my film was very simple; I initially thought that this would take the longest time and effort but instead I actually spent more on pre-production.  I used Sony Vegas Movie Studio 11.0 because this is the software I had installed on my laptop which I find the easiest to use (considering I'm not an editor). 

I used the wide shot of the scene as a base to work from, and simply cut in mid-close up shots of the characters throughout, to break up the scene. I also used these shots because Lynch uses a lot of these, in an obscure framing method, to make the audience feel uncomfortable, which is what I aimed for. 

 I made a rough cut first, and then went through my clips and changed the pacing to make sure it was correct. The difficult thing was Lynch films are renowned for their slow and awkward pacing in order to make the audience feel uncomfortable to add to the surreal tone, and so i had to make sure i achieved this; I simply played around with the length of the clips until I was happy with it. 

I didn't do too much colour grading - I only made the telephone shots slightly bluer to match the blue filter on the wide shot, and lowered saturation in some parts. On the close-up of the pistol, I had filmed a reverse shot from the opposite side so that the manufacturing logo wasn't in view and so I flipped this clip to make sure it was the right way around in the film, using the crop/pan tools.

In terms of the sound, I simply downloaded a copyright-free ambient drone track, inspired by the sound design of Lynch's Eraserhead, and then messed around with the volume and distortion on the sound control panel. I feel like this really worked to bring a strange and on-edge atmosphere to the film.

On the last shot I cut abruptly on a shot that made it look like the character was about to say something else. This is because Lynch tends to end his films quite suddenly without explanation, and I thought the cliffhanger this way would keep the audience mystified, as most Lynch films aim to do. 

Other than that the editing was a very easy process that didn't bring many problems.

Script final draft

Here is the script I actually used on the shoot day, where I changed the story a bit due to lack of actors. I now only had two characters, so my set-up would be more like the two-shot of the couple in Lost Highway on the sofa instead. Also, the female switches between being blonde, girly and innocent to the crazy brunette with blood on her face, as the same actress. This again, is inspired by the character changes with the same actors in Lost Highway, to further add to the insanity of the world it is set. I also changed the reveal of the male's name as Robert to simply spoken instead of being read on his ID as I thought it would be easier. 

Shoot Day

The shoot day overall was a success, but it did start off very difficult. First of all, all of my actors cancelled last minute, and so I had to change the script last minute so that I could still shoot, but I would have to act in it alongside someone else who agreed to help me. With now only two characters, male and female, there would be no lesbianism involved and so no contrasting blonde and brunette lead characters. Still wanting to keep the contrast of light and dark as a Lynch convention I decided to try a new approach, similar to the one used in Lost Highway, which I had considered previously. This involves the same female actress playing both a light haired and a dark haired girl in the film, so essentially they are the same person but in different circumstances (one potentially being in a dream sequence, which is why this character change would make more sense). 
Firstly I dressed the set, which involved putting a black cloth over the leather sofa, putting a glass table in front of it with whiskey glasses on top and adding a unique-looking side table with vintage phone on top. When setting up the camera though, we realised it was far too bright to shoot when trying to get the eerie effect that I wanted; it was sunnier outside than I anticipated. To overcome this, I had to run into town to pick up some pegs, to hold up opague fabrics over the curtain rails to block out more light. Although it did help a bit, it was still quite bright so I decided to take a new approach. I added a blue gel and a red gel over each of the two redhead lights I was using, to create an eerie filter over the scene using this light as well as the natural light. This is a convention of Lynch films anyway, as seen in Inland Empire and Rabbits, to make the scene more surreal and distorted, representing the subconscious darker parts of the mind, and not just what we see on the surface in the real world. 
 After a few run-through rehearsals, we shot the scene. It was difficult to direct and act at the same time, but it also meant I could act exactly as I wanted the character(s) to be. I asked my camera operator to shoot a wide shot (two-shot), two mid-shots from each character (at obscure unconventional angles), and then a few close-ups and cutaways of the main props in the set that showed significance (telephone, whiskey, pistol etc.). We first went through all the lines with me dressed as the blonde character, and then through the ones where I had my normal hair and a new outfit. Each time something didn't go how I wanted, I simply asked to repeat until it was how I intended, as well as giving useful tips. 
 Overall, the shoot day was alright but I got the footage I needed to create a David Lynch style film now, which I think which look better once it has been edited together properly. 

First Draft Script

Here is the first draft script for my Lynch film - so far it doesn't have a name. I decided to combine the elements of all the films I looked at, whilst trying to keep it short and simple. I decided on three characters - the cute blonde and the seductive brunette, as well the the well-dressed authoritative male. Using Blue Velvet's noir style, I made the male a gang leader, trying to convince his sister, the blonde, to join him. Eventually he gets shot. Using inspiration from Mulholland Drive, I decided to make the two female characters have a lesbian kiss scene at the end. The whole conversation is quite nonsensical as the viewer doesn't know who the characters are talking about (Robert), until it is revealed that the male himself is Robert, much alike to the reveal of true characters in Mulholland Drive. Like Rabbits, the three characters are all sat in a room much like a sitcom set-up, as I thought this would be easy to replicate. Also like in Rabbits, some of the dialogue is in a different order, such as 'what colour is the blood' and 'the blood is red'. I have included this as part of a conversation on the telephone, as the telephone is iconic in most of Lynch's films.