Every film starts with an idea. Even if that idea is "your last film made zillions, make a sequel quick" or "their film made money, let's rip it off to capitalise on it/con people into thinking it's the original or related to the original", it's still a concept. Some films are made that are almost or even exactly what the creators envisioned at the earliest stages, and some end up utterly different from what the original idea was (e.g. a dark comedy film being turned into disastrous romantic comedy Gigli since the stars started bumping uglies during production and the tabloids were all over it). Most films, though, turn out to be similar to what was originally thought up, but the trials and tribulations of pre-production, production and post-production more often than not take their toll on a film, for better or for worse. Writers coming in and out have different ideas and mindsets, a director with a strong vision may steer the project on a new course, actors can provide insight and perspective into their characters you wouldn't get from anyone else, composers can give scenes all new life and meaning, and all kinds of technical crew from cameramen and lighting engineers to editors and foley recordists can achieve what was being aimed for with wildly different results than what was expected. Thus it's rare for a film to turn out exactly as was envisioned.
Such was the case with A Stranger Being. I meant it to be a way to bring some more depth and memorability into a one-joke character from the Interview Project, and without any real point where I decided to do so, ended up moving away from that slightly. It's mostly the same character, he's dressed the same when you see him at the very end and is represented in a stylised version of his mask during the drawn segments, but he's still a very different beast (perhaps literally, the character is deliberately shrouded in mystery, so there's no definitive answer as to what he is) to what he was when he made his first appearance. I'm happy with him if you consider the film as a standalone piece, but when considered in continuity with the earlier film, I'm somewhat disappointed it wasn't made clearer that this is supposed to be the same person. With the exception of this unexpected development of the character, the film came out pretty close to how I intended it. There wasn't any major deviation from my original concept, the vague ideas of seeing something come out of a hole in the ruins as a creature that the character fights and kills, an abandoned mobile phone that, in the character's eyes, is an egg that hatches into a tiny dragon, and the character having a glow in his eyes at the end to imply the supernatural were all fleshed out and made part of the film, with ideas for further segments and scenes inspired by location scouting and other such influences.
So, with the vague segway of evaluating how the story changed over the course of making the film, it's time to evaluate all stages of production.
For the pre-production stage, I think it worked well. I had a strong, unique idea and fleshed it out well with influence from varying sources. One thing that I do regret is not doing more research than I did, a lot of the influences I had in pre-production were ones I was aware of already, and I feel it was a bit lazy to not be more proactive with it. It's not that big of an issue, since a film doesn't live or die on its research. Many of the worst blockbusters made today are those based not in creative sparks or passion, but in market research and focus testing. I'd only say this would be an issue if I hadn't done any research at all, I did, my only qualm was that it was rather rudimentary, extending mostly into investigation into techniques used by the Radiophonic Workshop, and rewatching a lot of media I had realised were having an influence on me to see why and how they had done certain things.
Production was the stage I'm happiest with in hindsight. Shooting was fast, efficient, and produced good quality work. As I stated in Unto The Breach (Of Editing), to this day I'm proud that I managed to achieve the shot looking out of my window, something I wouldn't have had any idea of how to do at the beginning of this project. Like with pre-production, there's only one problem I have with this stage that isn't very minor, and that's the paperwork. With the exception of my own bedroom, and I refuse to go through the stupidity of making a release form for myself, I filmed in public areas with no people in frame, so release forms were not necessary. The graveyard might have been an exception, but I didn't have the foresight to bring a release form with me and there was no-one around to sign it if I had brought one. If I were bringing in a crew of fifty to trample all over the place, then I would certainly have gotten one. But I didn't. It was just me. I simply walked in, took a few pictures of an angel statue (making sure that the gravestones were out of focus, since the only possible legal issue would be if I showed the names of graves and the families of the deceased somehow found out and decided to sue), and five minutes later I walked out again. I fail to see how the owners, if the site even is private property (which I doubt since it's used as a throughfare by locals on a constant basis), would have an issue with that. Again, all of these issues stem from the question as to whether it's private property, when all evidence suggests it isn't.
The same goes for risk assessments. Again, if I had a crew of fifty milling around, it would make perfect sense to do risk assessments and I would gladly do them. But, yet again, I must emphasize that I was a one-man crew, and all I had to look out for was myself. The only possible threat posed to me in the shooting locations was the possibility of falling from the ruins, since they are atop a hill. However, I deployed an apparently rare trait known as 'common sense' and knew there was a steep drop, and took all precautions to not be a dumbass and stayed away from the edge. Even if I had fallen, the drop isn't sheer, just a steep incline. There's the remote possibility that I might have broken something (either the camera or me) if I had landed in a certain way, but the far, far more likely option is that I'd have simply received some cuts and bruises. All of this assumes I had somehow fallen off the wall, of course, and short of climbing onto the walls to do an impromptu dance routine on the edge, that wasn't going to happen. While I have perfectly good reasons, as I just finished explaining, why release forms and risk assessments were little more than stupidly complex red tape, I do wonder whether the better mark goes to those who follow guidelines intended for entirely different types of production or those who have legitimate and articulated reasons for not doing so.
Enough of production, let's move on to post-production. Again I'm happy with the work I did, and the only major issues that arose were down to wrestling with 5.1 than any creative difficulties. Considering what a technically challenging project this was, shooting in an entirely different format than usual, being dropped like a child before a lion into 5.1 production, and also having the fact that Premiere was used instead of the course-standard Final Cut meant that there was a lot of confusion as to how advice and instructions given in tutorials applied to Premiere. Yes, I know that to import DSLR footage you need to put the SD card into a reader and convert it in an import tool in Final Cut, but how does that apply to importing in Premiere? With what I was forced to deal with in technical terms for this project, I truly am proud I made it through the process efficiently and with little to no detriment to the final product.
As for that final product itself, after having the chance to compare and contrast it with the other projects produced by the other members of the class, I'm proud of how different it was. Most of the class focused on down to earth, realistic stories, and I'm not putting them down for that, it's an entirely valid approach, but I was happy that mine stood out for being far more openly fantastical and strange, and think the combination of photographed and drawn images drove home its uniqueness. Ignoring comparisons to its peers, I'm equally as happy with it. The story, atmosphere and themes came across well, it was well produced and looked good, with the stark, simplistic and often rather rough drawings both contrasting and blending into the photographed segments, and I think I pulled off both production techniques well. As mentioned, I'm still immensely proud of how some of the photographs turned out, and the production of the film was of good quality.
Of course, no evaluation is complete without the two prerequisite questions: "what would I do different" (which is a veiled way of saying "what do you think didn't work"), and "what have I learned". In answer to the former, there's nothing I'd really do different if I were to redo it. The only big change I want to make is one I already plan on carrying out before I release it on Vimeo for public viewing: to take all the various tracks used to create the 5.1 mix and remix them down into a more palatable stereo mix. I also plan to render the video in full 1080 HD this time, since Premiere has no equivalent to Apple ProRes and the only format available that is compatible with Compressor is Quicktime PAL DV Widescreen, a 720x576 format.
As for what I have learned, that is far more clear and quantifiable. First there's the relatively minor things like how to draw images with an iPad and transfer them to computer, and how to create a DVD in Compressor. However, there's much more I learned. When I started out on this project, I had absolutely zero experience with filming with DSLRs. Now, not only am I moderately confident with them, but more importantly, I have a firm understanding of aperture, exposure and focus. Prior to this task, my shooting technique was limited to focus, making sure what was meant to be in focus was in focus, and that's about it. Even then, often my films would have very wide depths of field, and focus didn't really come into play, it was all about realising the composition I had in mind. Now, I know exactly what aperture and shutter speed are and do, and how to employ them to achieve specific effects. I hope that this knowledge will serve me well in future projects, since I now have a new tool to use in creating a shot. I also learned that 5.1 adds little and, when using Premiere at least, is way more effort than it's worth. Another thing I can use is creative lighting setups. Previously, if you could see what was going on, it was acceptable. Now that I've seen what stark, noir-ish lighting can do, it's another tool I can bring out when needed.
And with that, that's A Stranger Being all wrapped up. You'll see more from this blog if and when a further project requires me to submit my write-ups and evaluations in blog form, hopefully with posts written along the way next time rather than one big splurge right at the end of the project. It's nice that these posts were largely written with hindsight (while the bones and some portions of these posts were written over the last few weeks, they've only been fleshed out now), but it might also be nice to do it the way I'm apparently 'supposed to'.
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