The Journey of the Film
First I built out my screenplay. It was quite long, sitting around 30 pages or so. And immediately, I understood where this was going. It was going to be LONG and very dialogue heavy. This was the first sign of where this film would end up.
I created a detailed shotlist to organize the filming process and ensure I captured all necessary angles and scenes. This helped streamline production and maintain a clear vision throughout the shoot. I made it in Excel, and realized that despite how long it was, I didn't have THAT many shots. This was an entire sign - this film was likely to be somewhat slow.
Using the camera and doing the cinematography was perhaps the most difficult part of this project. I shot on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K. The thing with that camera is, while it has spectacular quality, incredible low light performance, and fantastic freedom for post-production, it does NOT have autofocus. It's also quite heavy for a solo operator to handle for extended periods. And so, it made getting my shots quite difficult. I had to extend my hand and use that as a focus target many times. However, I did keep every shot in focus, which is honestly somewhat of a miracle!
I only really shot this over the course of a day and a half. And so, to show passage of time, I recorded it in reverse, having a thicker beard in the beginning (recording the end) and a thinner beard in the end (when recording the beginning). However, I believe this wasn't very noticeable to the audience, which is unfortunate. The reason is - I didn't actually have that thick of a beard by the end, and it wasn't different enough. I think it would have been more effective to go entirely clean shaven, but that's a great lesson to take!
Designing the production and set was a crucial part of this project. I had to carefully plan the layout and elements within the frame to ensure they complemented the narrative and visual style. A lot of the film takes place in a messy room, but I had to be quite intentional with how I messed it up. The mess had to be clear - it's camera equipment and recording stuff, which keeps it "meta." And I had to make sure to keep everything in frame./p>
I shot BRAW on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K. And therefore, I had to do a LOT of color grading in DaVinci Resolve. This took a lot of the initial editing time, and as I did my rough cut, I did coloring so that I would not have to worry about it after cutting later. I learned a lot about color editing within DaVinci, and the node-based color grading was something entirely new to me that was quite useful.
I probably collected around 2 hours of footage, which I cut down to 30 minutes in Final Cut Pro. And yet, I wish I cut so much more. Truthfully, the film did end up quite long, but understanding what to cut and what to keep was also difficult for me when I was editing. I had made videos and edited before, but this was the first time I had collected THAT much footage, which was tough.
Sound design and mixing were also critical components of the post-production process. I had to ensure that the audio levels were balanced and that the sound effects complemented the visuals without overpowering them. I did all the audio on a separate mic and audio interface while recording the actual footage and synced everything in post. However, I made this to be part of the concept of the video. I did, however, also have to do foley. Additionally, I made original music for the film toward the end, and used Bo Burnham's Inside Waltz at the beginning.
