Final Film - Obedience

Overall, I really enjoyed working on this film and I think as a group we worked really well together. The decisions we made in post production really helped us get exactly what we wanted from the film. I would like to thank Connor Albinson for having a clear vision for his idea and knowing exactly where he wanted the film to go. I would also like to say a huge thank you to Yasmin Curren for being an amazing actress and helping us out with this film.

If I were to do this project again, I would have enjoyed seeing more reaction from the actress and editing it a little bit differently. I also would've liked to create a soundtrack that would go with the whole concept of subliminal imagery to test out how that would work with the final edit of the film.

Presentation Powerpoint

Editing Process

Connor had the footage on his hard-drive so he chose to start selecting the clips we were going to use and putting them into a timeline on Adobe Premier Pro. He put them in order from the beginning where she would be reacting to the montages and then the effects of the subliminal messaging at the end.

Connors Adobe Premier Pro Timeline

But we hadn't made the montage clips yet so we decided to meet up as a group and separately work on those and put them in together when we were done. We found some archive footage and edited it into a montage in a way that we thought it would be most effective. We cut them up really short and the montages were really fast as if to represent the way we were shown subliminal messages on the television.

Connor did the colour grading and used the colour wheel to add a cooler tones to the clips that we had filmed.



We also added some lines and some TV grain onto the archive footage montages because they blended into the film and we wanted them to contrast the footage we had filmed.

Before

After

We also decided to have flashing words throughout the film that are very hard to notice. We added words such as "BUY DRUGS" "SEX" "TOUCH" and "FEAR".

The subliminal text was added to both the clips we filmed and also into the montage clips from the archive footage. 

Filming Day

Originally, we were supposed to find 5 actors to represent each one of the 5 ways of subliminal messaging and have them all sitting on a sofa watching the TV and then individually reacting. But we decided to go with one actor and have them react differently to each the effects.

I asked my close friend Yasmin Curren if she would be interested in acting for the film and she gladly agreed. So, we had to work with her schedule as well as ours and decided to film over Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and try and get all of our shots on the shot list.

We organised to film on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday but due to being unable to take out equipment on that Friday, we planned to film the following Tuesday which unfortunately meant we had to return the equipment the next day.

We met at the equipment hire at 1:00pm to get our equipment but we were delayed because we didn't have an equipment list. We finally got the equipment out at around 2:00pm then we had to take a trip to lidl to buy some supplies for the film like chocolate cake etc.

We set up our equipment and by the time we were ready to film it was around 3:30pm. During set up we had some plastic sheets that we could lay down on the floor so that whatever mess we made wouldn't stain the floor. We also had a VHS TV that Nicole had brought over and we set it in the corner of the room which along with the plastic gave the whole set an eerie feel. We had red head lights which we diffused with two sheets and added a blue filter to make the lighting appear more natural. We set up the microphone, Canon XF305 and covered the windows with a black sheet so we don't get any natural light from the outside.

Overall, we filmed for about 3 hours and it went well because we were very organised and we had the shot list so we knew exactly what to capture. We took turns filming, holding the mic and reading out the shot list during filming and it was a good system in my opinion. We got all the shots we wanted and I was very pleased with how Yasmin acted and I think she did a really good job with getting into character which made our jobs much much easier.

Below are a video of the filming day and an image of the aftermath.

                                   

Shot List

All shots interior 

1. Camera pans around the subject as they watch TV - 8 secs - Long shot
2. Camera films subject watching TV - 4 secs - Close up
3. Subjects eyes not blinking - 4 secs - Extreme close
4. (From side of subject) Subject learns in - 4 secs - Mid shot
5. Relaxed hands and arms - 4 secs - Close up
6. Extremely slowly getting closer to eyes - 4 secs - Extreme close up 
7. Television montage 1 (food)
8. Eyes - 2 secs - Extreme close up
9. Licking lips - 2 secs - Close up
10. Television montage 2 (violence)
11. Eyes - 2 secs - Extreme close up
12. Hands are now fists/crack knuckles - 2 secs - close up
13. Television montage 3 (drugs)
14. Leg twitching - 2 secs - Close mid shot
15. Television montage 4 (sex)
16. Smirk - 2 secs - Extreme close up
17. Television montage 5 (fear)
18. Gulping - 2 secs - Close up
19. Looking in mirror putting on makeup - 6 secs - Mid shot 
20. Drinking coffee - 3 secs - Close up
21. Drops small pizza box onto more boxes (tilts to floor) - 3 secs - Mid shot
22. Gets scissors and starts to cut top - 2 secs - Close up
23. Eats a food - 2 secs - Mid shot
24. Shifty eyes darting around - 2 secs - Extreme close up
25. Cuts top to make it smaller - 4 secs - Mid shot
26. Angry expressions/shouting - 6/8 secs - Mid shot
27. Looking scared - 2 secs - Mid shot
28. Eating more food - 2 secs - Close up
29. Putting on more makeup - 3 secs - Mid shot
30. 'Obviously stoned' - 6/8 secs - Mid/Close up
31. Drinks from a bottle of alcohol - 3 secs - Mid shot
32. Lights cigarette - 2 secs - Close up
33. Eats food quicker - 2secs - Close up
34. Seeing shadow figures and looking around - 6/8 secs - Long shot
35. Anger - 3 secs - Long/Mid shot
36. Snorts 'cocaine' - 2 secs - Close up
37. Smokes cigarette - 3 secs - Mid shot
38. In corner of room screaming - 6/8 secs - Long Shot
39. Sprays self with deodorant - 2 secs - Mid shot
40. Cowering in the corner - 2 secs - Long shot
41. Sprays self with colour spray - 4 secs - Long shot
42. Putting makeup all over face - 6/8 secs - Mid/Close up
43. Drinking more alcohol from bottle - 2 secs - Close up
44. Shoves food in mouth - 3 secs - Close up
45. Stands with alcohol bottles and food all around her, camera slowly moves back - 10 secs - Close to Long shot 

Synopsis and Treatment

Synopsis

A theatrical short film looking into the idea that people can try to control your mind, subconsciously, though the use of certain imagery or sounds. Subliminal messages like these have been used for years and can be as subtle as product placement. This technique is known to be done in 5 different ways through themes of sex, drugs, violence, food and fear. In our film we are planning to address this technique in a dramatised way by putting one character through five scenarios based on these themes. The film will show the character watching a montage of images that symbolise each of the themes and show the effects the images had on her.

Treatment

Working title: 'Obedience' Duration: 5:00 minutes  Genre: Short Experimental Film Crew: Connor Albinson, Nicole Harman Smith, Rufaro Muambe

Outline Production:  A theatrical short film looking into the idea that people can try to control your mind, subconsciously, though the use of certain imagery or sounds.The film will show the character watching a montage of images that symbolises each of the main themes associated with subliminal imaging (sex, violence, fear, food and drugs) and show the effects the images had on her.  Target Audience: Young adults +, The themes in the film may be too mature or difficult to understand for anyone younger. Visual Elements: Lighting – Dark environment with a single light source (supposedly from the television in the corner of the room). Low key lighting for eerie hard shadow effect. Camera Movement – Variety of movements. Starting from slow paced panning to eventual rapid/jolting movements. Editing – Television montages very fast paced as if the watcher is taking in a lot of information quickly. Real life starts slow in the beginning and fast paced during the effects scene Setting – Preferably, a derelict dark setting that we can make a mess of. Hopefully with electricity for lighting and TV. Actors – Previously 5 actors were needed, one for each theme, but now only one and that character will show the effects herself. Props – Television, makeup, coloured spray, fake blood, scissors, weapon,  Costume – Very simple, white top with plain bottoms. The character with mess with the outfit throughout the film. Audio Elements:  Effects - Certain effects within the montages, screams, diegetic sounds. Music  - If any music is used, likely a song in reverse. Requirements and Resources: Camera, backup camera, tripod, microphone, lighting and diffusers, electricity, production paperwork. Constraints and Contingency: Setting could cause problems, for last resort we can use my house with covered walls and flooring. Legal and Ethical considerations: Not allowing our actor/actress to do anything they may feel uncomfortable with. No use of offensive imagery, this could be the character harming themselves in a triggering way.

Experimental Film - Obedience

The Idea 

Subliminal messaging and the effect it has on people. 

The idea was to create a film based on the effects on subliminal messaging. What it is, is the idea that the media is trying to control us subconsciously through certain images or sounds. The 5 main ways of this are through food, violence, sex, fear and drugs. These are even often found in children's programmes because they try to influence you from a young age. This is mainly done by big production companies so they can influence you to buy their products etc. This is done in different ways such as flashing text on the television screens such as "Drink Coca Cola" and also it could be done through suggestions like "Hungry?" throughout TV adverts to manipulate your thoughts. Having the words flashing quickly throughout the film so quickly that it's almost undetectable will work towards achieving the goal of affecting them subconsciously.

Connors vision initially was to have the film in 3 parts; introducing the characters, the film itself and then how the characters are affected by the subliminal imagery. It was supposed to begin very innocently and clean then gradually turn a little bit more messy and insane. The idea was for the imagery to show the 5 main techniques that the media use to influence us which are; sex, drugs, alcohol, violence and food. The characters will be affected by this e.g. imagery of a horror giving someone nightmares and making them paranoid.

For the film, the initial idea was to include both filmed footage by us and also archive footage from the TV because it will act as an example of what we are exposed to everyday on television. 

Experimental Sound Project

Choosing an Image

I decided to go for Annette Messager's My Vows because I thought it would be interesting to explore this image/installation because of the many body parts that are hidden within it. I can feel myself listening to a sound that like the image makes sense but not really until to read about it and figure out what she was really trying to say.




The thing I like about this image was the fact that it contains so many different elements of the human body and when I imagine a sound that could be used to describe this image it too would have a lot of elements to it that are a little confusing and cluttered. The goal is to have sensuality and sexuality represented in this image will be represented by deep shallow breaths that you might not be able to pick up on straight away.

Recording the sounds

To record the sounds, I used a zoom microphone to record various sounds. I wanted some human sounds like laughter, conversations, breathing etc. But I also wanted to include some sounds that I could distort in Audition so that you wouldn't really know what they were. I recorded the sounds that I wanted some of which included a running tap, tapping, laughter, conversation, whispering, sighting, chattering teeth, crunching and I was happy with what I got.


Editing in Audition

I have never used Audition before but I find it quite interesting and enjoyable to play around with. I went into editing without much of a detailed plan really, just a rough idea of the end product. So I transferred all the sounds I had recorded and decided to play around with them and insert them into the multi-track timeline and just mess around till I thought I had something that worked. I tried to use some effects such as distortion and amplifying the sounds etc.

These are some of the effects I added to the sound clips.