POST-PRODUCTION NOTES

I wanted to improve the complexity of the lighting styles I have experimented with in the past to give my final scene a more interesting and futuristic colour dynamic. We chose to combine a selection of Dedos with differing coloured gels combined with Kino lamps, all positioned at different areas of the studio. By doing this we managed to create a 3-tone pallet where blues and reds illuminated different sides of Olivia and Evan's figures in a pulsing fashion while the yellow-tinted beam emanating from the structure shined on them from the front. Adding to this was a smoke machine that we used to further create atmosphere and an etherworldly look to the scene which I hope will give a more complete sense of detachment from the real world. This is the one scene I didn't wish to reveal much of in terms of the final visuals but as part of a final post to this website I relinquish the following!..

Light 'beam' first stage...

Light 'beam' second stage...

Final 'smoke' effect...

In the style of Folk Horror films like The Blood on Satan’s Claw I intend to use extreme low angles in the field to suggest the significance of landscape by offering a sort of lands-eye-view of the characters existing off of it. This was an idea clarified by The Blood on Satan's Claw's director, Piers Haggard on tv series A History of Horror made by Mark Gatiss in 2010...

"The nooks and crannies of woodland, the edges of fields, the ploughing. The labour, the sense of the soil was something that I tried to bring into the picture. So in the opening scene where the lonely ploughman and his girl across the valley and you gradually become [aware] that something's going to happen but you don't know what it is. And from the moment that you do see this eye in the earth it was important for me for the rest of the film to have the camera often very low. So we dug an awful lot of holes to put the camera in just to give you the feeling that we were somehow in the earth and what it was might come out of the earth." (A History of Horror, 2010)

I wished to mimic this use of camera angles in my field scenes because of how effective I find them and how this visual approach relates to my own themes that I am trying to communicate through the story. Unfortunately I am yet to shoot this part of my film due to the 2020 pandemic but have planned to organise my actors in late August/September of 2020 depending on social distancing restrictions!

Other visual elements I am exploiting are the drawing from the grey and sepia tones naturally present in my footage and adding shocks of red coming from below in most of my titles and credits sequences. This graphic element is a way in which I'd like to add symbolism and visual consistency to the film: with red decals positioned at the bottom of the frame and creeping up the sides I wish to suggest the idea of something deathly positioned below and seeping up and out of it.

Covid-19...

I have managed to bag Isaac White's help with editing of my film, both as advisor in terms of my receiving opinion from a second pair of eyes, and in the context of the Covid-19 Lockdown and the fact that his hardware is far fore efficient than mine!

To date, as mentioned earlier, I have yet to complete shooting of the field scenes in which Tobi and Maz play, retreat, discover the artefact and enter the mill near the close of the film. This is due to the previous and current Covid-19 regulations and I am intending on completing the film with help from the Plymouth College of Art as soon as I am able to bring my Evan and Olivia and the crew together to shoot the remaining scenes.

Apart from that, I hope you will enjoy the finished film once it is completed!

Poster (designed by Holly Wilson)...

Trailer...

__

References:

A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss, (2010). [TV programme] BBC Four: British Broadcasting Corporation. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaFNgHuYdPA