4. problem solving (UPDATED)

Problem Solving
Problem
/ˈprɒbləm/
noun
1.
a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or
harmful and needing to be dealt with and
overcome.
Solve
/sɒlv/
Verb
1.
gerund or present participle: solving
find an answer to, explanation for, or means of
effectively dealing with (a problem or mystery).
Sam Schoettner

COST
One of the big factors for this project is cost. No matter what project you are making.
If you have a shred of care for the project costs and fees are bound to crop up.
Whether this is for equipment, cast, set, props, locations etc. Since I already had a
pretty clear Idea of what it was that I was attempting to make I knew right from the
get-go that I would be spending at least £200 but it could easily become more.
Of course this instantly caused me to go. Ok, hold on. How am I actually going to be
able to make this project financially viable?
So, I did what all students do. I made a spreadsheet.

COST
Cost Of Production: estimated. £ actual. £ Income: estimated. £ actual. £
Financial
Outcome:
estimated. £ actual. £
£ - £ - £ - £ -
£ - £ - £ - £ -
Props/ costume: £ 100.00 £ - £ - £ -
Lights: £ 120.00 £ 116.98 Guaranteed income: £ 108.00 £ 90.00
max_actor travel
costs: £ 100.00 £ - Existing: £ 150.00 £ 188.00
Set: £ 120.00 £ - Editing jobs: £ 175.00
Total spend: £ 440.00 £ 116.98 Total income: £ 433.00 £ 278.00 Money left:-£ 7.00 £ 161.02
This spreadsheet was designed so that I could list all the costs that I have initially, and after a little bit of
research (web browsing for said item, average cost to travel 100miles etc.) I wrote down my estimated
price for each item. And then underneath it would calculate my overall costs. Then I also added an
estimated income. To see how much I would need to make up etc. Both columns are also accompanied
by a column that shows the actual cost after having purchased the item for example. This will of course
update as the production goes on.

COST
Though it is going to cost me a lot to produce this film, I hope to be able to pull all of the finances together.
At the end of this project I want to know that I did as much as possible to realise the idea I had in my mind
and making it a real thing. I don’t want to make hundreds of excuses saying, well if I had more time I would
have changed this, if I had more money I would have done that. Of course I will be because I simply don’t
have the funds or time to create a fully professional movie, but I want to create a movie that feels semi
professional at the very least.
Spending money on making this film is vital to me. It will allow me to create something that I will hopefully
be able to look at and say : “That was worth two years of my life.”
More importantly it will hopefully allow me to create something that I can take to future clients. Production
companies or submit to film festivals to say. Here, I made this, I know what I am doing. I want this film to
allow me to create more opportunities for myself beyond a grade at college and beyond approval/praise
from my family or peers.
If that’s all I was making this film for, then I should just give up right here and now, as that’s not what film is
about. It should be about taking initiative, telling a story, and then making a story that you can use to create
and tell more stories in the future.

Actors/Cast
The number one concern both theoretically and practically for my production is Actors/Cast
and crew.
I need a cast to play the parts in my production and I need that cast to be reliable. End of. I
can’t just rely on my friends coming by when they have a free moment, but rather I want to
have set filming dates which I can use
This is because I cannot control them completely. I can learn how to use equipment, I can
learn to edit, I can learn to frame a shot etc. But I cannot guarantee my cast members wont fall
ill, I cant control if they turn up on time or not. I can’t control if they don’t turn up at all!
So I need to establish my cast and crew with enough time before production so that I can be
as comfortable as possible with knowing who they are, how they will get to the shoots etc. So
that I feel more confident that everything will run as planned.

Actors/Cast
I started by finding actors on a professional casting website for talent. Placing two casting calls. One for the
lead role of the film. The reason for two casting calls was because when I placed the original casting call, I
had not fully developed the film concept yet. I was sure at this time that my film would only require one actor.
I got over 20 applications and finally found one actor who was willing to play the role for free. I offered
headshots/portraits as job compensation and after talking to actor I also offered to pay his cost for travel as
he would have to drive from Whitby to York for every shoot which would end up costing him around £100.
Later when I realised I would need more actors I placed a separate casting call for the ‘extra’ smaller roles
which would only require a single day of shooting. Again stating that I would give the actors job
compensation in form of headshots and portraits, but not travel expenses.
I then later once I had found a few actors contacted them about when they would be available to shoot.
Unfortunately I have not figured out all of the dates yet. But I certainly will do before the shooting begins and
will notes these down either in my development diaries or add to this document once I have all the details.

Actors/Cast
Doing this has made me a lot more comfortable with the idea of creating this film, and it has given me to confidence that
this film will feel and look a lot more professional. This is because the actors are different ages. The lead role being
played by 32 year old Dan Winspear. And the extra roles being played by a actors of varying ages.
I think this will make my film look and feel more credible, and especially take it beyond a student film. Making it look more
professional, something that has been my goal throughout this entire project.
I am also excited to work with professional actors as it will help me overcome an issue which I have had in the past. That
issue being, not wanting to tell my actors what to do, how to act etc. This was always because I filmed using my friends
and I did not want to offend them, or annoy them by doing takes over and over again. Luckily I always managed to get
the footage that I needed, but it was never anything of pristine quality. Working with professional actors will allow me to
(at least attempt to) perfect each shot, as it will be in the interest of myself and the actors. It will be beneficial to them as
they will give a better performance and the overall film will shine brighter, making it better for their show-reel.

Lighting
Another Very important aspect of my film will be the lighting. I will be Using lighting as one of the primary
ways of moving the story forward as there will be very little in terms of colour and props/costume change.
However, I have no previous experience and skill with lighting. In preparation for this project I bought some
soft box lights as I knew I would need my own lighting for the project. As well as having access to them
before production and learning how to use them.
I started by trying to replicate some lighting that I had previously seen and lighting that I was/am planning on
using within my film.
Not necessarily by choice I used myself to demonstrate some of these lighting techniques, as well as
subjecting my dad to some lighting experiments.

THREE POINT
LIGHTING
SETUP BLACK
BACKDROP

High Key Lighting-
(Little to no shadows, even
distribution of light. Most/All of
subject is visible.)

LOW KEY, SPLIT LIGHTING-
(SUBJECT IS LIT PRIMARILY FROM ONE SIDE, CASTING A SHADOW ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE
SUBJECT.)

LOW KEY
DOUBLE
BACK/SIDE
LIGHTING-
(STRONG SHADOWS IN
THE CENTER OF THE
SUBJECTS FACE.)

LOW KEY,
“GODFATHER”
LIGHTING-
(STRONG SHADOWS
OVER THE EYES, MOUTH
AND CHECKS OF THE
SUBJECTS FACE.)

High Key Lighting-
(Little shadows, even distribution
of light. Most/All of subject is
visible.)
Split Lighting-
(Subject is lit primarily from one
side, casting a shadow on the
other side of the subject.)
Double back/side Lighting-
(Strong shadows in the centre of
the subjects face.)

Lighting
All of these lighting techniques will be used to age the character. Making him look more tired, or hiding his
humanity by casting shadows over his eyes. Making him look thinner by exposing his cheek bones etc.
It has been extremely useful and a very good learning experience to explore lighting. Just by taking a few
photos I was absolutely amazed by what a huge difference lighting makes. I don’t think I can really go
back to just relying on natural light after using, playing with and exploring artificial lighting. It gives you so
much more control over the scene, the characters and the overall mood of the image.
Furthermore, It allowed me to realise that I will be able to push the project beyond my time constraints. In
an ideal world I would be able to physically alter my characters to match the story as it progressed.
However, I don’t have the time or means to do this. So using lighting as a way to alter the appearance of
my characters, making them appear slender tired etc. Will be extremely useful, cost effective and it will
allow me to make my product more professional looking and feeling.

Manual Focus VS Auto-Focus
One of the things that are easily overseen on a production is focus. While I will always use manual focus
where I can as it means I can lock the focus in one place and it will only change when I tell it to. There
are a few situations where I can’t really use manual focus. For example, when the camera is on a
shoulder rig or jib/steadicam of some sort.
This is because touching the lens to adjust the focus would shake the camera, ultimately ruining the
shot.
Ideally I could have a focus puller, someone who has a wireless follow focus system and they can control
the focus. However, neither do I have access to a wireless focus follow system, nor do I have access to
someone who is a good focus puller (as unsurprisingly its an extremely difficult job)
So, what options do we have to overcome this issue?
Just use auto focus
The first and obvious one would be to ‘just use auto focus’ However, this brings lots of implications. For
example. If you use continues auto focus, on a contrast focus based camera, the camera will be
constantly doing something called ‘focus hunting’. This is because the camera has to find the subject, go
slightly beyond it and the pull back to focus the subject. Resulting in the subject, being out of focus,
briefly in focus, briefly out of focus again, and finally being in focus. This looks quite unprofessional and
can cause the shot to look terrible. Especially when it is happening while the subject is more or less
staying in one spot.

Keep it manual and keep it locked
The second option is to ‘Keep it manual and keep it locked’
This means, establishing where your subject is going to be (for example during a tracking shot)
Setting the focus manually, with a higher f. stop (say f.5.6-f.11) and trying to keep roughly the
same distance from your subject as you track them.
This can work quite well if you have focus peeking enabled and are able to roughly keep the
right distance. However, (unless you’re a robot) you wont be able to keep a perfect distance
and therefore will have to increase the reduce the aperture darkening the image. This will
cause two issues.
Firstly you will loose depth in the image and have a less ‘cinematic’ image.
Secondly (unless it’s a bright day) you will need to boost the ISO and therefore potentially have
noisy image with poor colour.
(this option is not great if you’re shooting in low light situations)
The last factor to consider is that you can’t change focus, so you can’t focus pull.

The best of Both worlds
Now, the finally option that I came across, quite interestingly allows me to use a ‘focus puller’ to some degree.
While using the Steadicam, I can use my Panasonic – Lumix G7. This will allow me to connect the camera via my
phone and therefore allow me to focus the camera without touching.
Furthermore, I can put the camera into semi manual mode. Meaning I can push to focus, but the camera will only
use AF when I tell it to. Which can all be controlled from my phone, like an external monitor. While this is not the
ideal solution. It will work perfectly for the shots where I need to be able to rack focus while using the Steadicam.
Since, however, the Lumix g7 does use contrast based auto-focus, it will unfortunately be subject to a little bit of
focus hunting, but it is better than it being completely out of focus.
Then when I am doing shots that are on a tripod or other equipment where I can touch the camera. I can use the
C100 (or Lumix G7) in complete manual mode.

Stylistic Choices
Recreating cinema
While there is by no means a specific look for films and TV there is some things techniques and tricks that we do often
associate with cinema. For example anamorphic lens flares and lenses are extremely popular within cinema.
Anamorphic lenses produce a very unique image. For example a 2x anamorphic lens produces a very wide image with
oval shaped bokeh (meaning the out of focus areas are stretched out).
Now recreating the oval shaped bokeh without an anamorphic lens is possible, but you would need to spend a lot of time
masking and compositing so its not really worth it.
However the wide stretched look that a anamorphic lens creates is quite easy to replicate. We can even go as far as to
add custom coloured chromatic aberration at the sides of the frame.
Common characteristics of an anamorphic lens are.
-The sides of the frame have vingetting and blur.
-The sides have chromatic aberration.
-The sides of the frame are ‘squished’ not dissimilar to a fisheye lens (just far less extreme.)
-The blurred areas of the frame have oval shaped bokeh.
-The centre of the frame is very sharp.

2x anamorphic lens
(2.35:1 aspect ratio)
Vertical lines bend. Sides
of frame are ‘squished’
Vingetting and blur at
frame edges.
Chromatic Abberation.
Anamorphic lens flare

Starting Image, completely unedited straight out of the box.
My “Fake anamorphic” Look

Image with a subtle colour grade applied to it.

To create the warped squeeze effect that is often associated with anamorphic lenses is achieved through
essentially warping the edges of the image with a pluging called VashiMorphic. This allows you to select
points of the image and warp them/move them by a specific amount. In my case I moved all the corner
points (vertexes) by 80 pixels.
(see next slide for the result)

Normal Screen warp (straight from left to right) Anamorphic screen warp (bulges out towards the
center)

Adding a vignette and blur is quite easy. All you need to do is add an adjustment layer with an oval shaped
mask. Then you need to apply the a blur filter to the adjustment layer (I used the fast blur) Change the
blurriness to something that matches what you want. Then all you have to do is set the mask blending mode
to subtract and voila there is your corner blur. To add a vignette simply add a curves adjustment to the layer.
Drag the bottom point slightly to the right and you have darkened the adjustment layer.

You can see that Chromatic aberration has been added to the sides of the image. This is achieve quite
easily by duplicating the original footage 3 times. Applying the ‘Shift channels’ effect and then singling out
each channel (red green and blue).
Then change the layers to screen and all the colour will blend back into one another as normal. You can
then use the ‘Optics compensation’ effect to stretch the sides of which ever colour channel you have
selected which will allow you to create the illusion of chromatic aberration.
Red, Green and Blue channels

Final Output Image, once it has been corrected to a 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Before
After
If you compare these two
Images. You wont notice a
huge difference. I removed
the colour grade to just look
at the ‘structural’ changes of
the image.
You can see that there is
blur vingetting and
chromatic aberration at the
sides of the image. And that
at the side of the frame the
image has been ‘squished’
or compressed.
I think these small changes
don’t particularly change
the image per-say but they
can add a nice style to the
image to make your work
stand out a little more.

Before
After
More examples of shots
that have been edited this
way.

Anamorphic shots
Is it worth it?
While the difference that is made to the picture is not huge I do love the overall outcome. The
image looks a little bit better and it has a bit more character and personality. Furthermore being
able to control the colour of the chromatic aberration allows you to draw a little more detail into the
scene. Dropping little colour hints that can help set the overall mood of the image.
The way that all of the attention gets focused into the centre of the screen is also a very good thing
for close-ups or more dramatic shots. I am definitely going to put forward this method of modifying
the image in post, and use it for my FMP. I will not use it for every single shot as it is not applicable
to every shot.
It is definitely a useful tool to have in my repertoire and it will certainly help to elevate my work.
Making it look more visually interesting.

Pot. Problem Effect on Production Solution/Control Person Responsible
Camera runs out of charge. Unable to film. Bring spare batteries, ensure they
are all charged. Bring charger.
Sam Schoettner
SD card is corrupt/won’t write. Unable to film/ edit Bring spare SD card, check SD
card before filming by taking a few
test videos.
Sam Schoettner
Defective kit/kit broke. Unable to film some shots. Check that kit is functional before
filming (Check it at college before
bringing it to shoot.)
Sam Schoettner
Lighting breaks. Shots will be underexposed or
extremely grainy/noisy.
Bring light reflectors and spare
lights to shoot. Utilize natural light
where possible.
Sam Schoettner

Unable to organize props/costume. Final product will be lacking props,
might confuse the story or make the
product look cheap/badly put together.
Get all the props well ahead of time.
Make checklist so you can tick of what
props/costume you have and what you
still need.
Sam Schoettner
Not organizing the personnel
needed.
Unable to shoot due to lack of actor(s)
or crew etc.
Organize cast and crew before hand.
Ensure they will be able to come and
shoot when you need them. (Arrange
dates ahead of time)
Sam Schoettner
Bad weather e.g. Rain, stormy
weather.
Unable to film as equipment could
break or personnel could get
injured/fall ill.
Check that weather is appropriate,
bring weather and protective gear for
both equipment and personnel.
Sam Schoettner

Unplanned incidents such as
cast/crew falling ill.
Unable to film due to lack of cast/crew. Have backup crew and contingency
shooting days.
Sam Schoettner
Inappropriate weather for the scene. Unable to create a convincing/appropriate
feeling shot. Doesn’t match the story at
the point of filming.
Have a backup shooting date, check to
see if the weather will be appropriate
before filming.
Sam Schoettner
Unable to organize appropriate actors Unable to make the protagonist (or other
characters) convincing, will lack
immersion
See how different actors portray the
character before casting them for the
shoot.
Sam Schoettner
Personnel unable to get to shoot due
to lack of transport or traffic.
Unable to film/delay filming. Longer
production time.
Make sure you have worked out how they
will get to the location (private or public
transport etc.) And work out when they
must leave to arrive on time.
Sam Schoettner and cast/crew

Unable to gain access to certain
shooting locations.
Could alter story/ make the story less
convincing.
Request filming permission ahead of
time, do location recce
Sam Schoettner
Set brakes while filming. Unable to complete shoot. Set will
change.
Treat the set with respect. Have
materials to repair the set of
necessary.
Sam Schoettner
Not having shot list or script. Unable to complete shoot. Or
lines/shots will be made up on the fly.
Could bring issues later on in the
editing process. Video wont be as high
of a quality as it could be.
Write concise but extensive list of shot
list write full script. Print both out and
always take to shoot with me.
Sam Schoettner
When going through shots during
editing finding out that some of the
shots don’t work or that you forgot
to record some shots all together.
Will be missing footage as well as
perhaps having footage that’s not quite
as good as you want it to be.
Do every take multiple times. Ensure to
Re-shot it and start and stop recording
every time. Ensure to check that
camera is recording when you hit
record.
Sam Schoettner

Human in-reliabilities.
Near the end of production (I had wrapped the second half of my filming, and first half of
shooting) one of my actors cancelled on me with about 3 days notice.
This of course threw a wrench in the gears of production.
However it allowed me to go and take another look at the script which made me realise that
what I had written for the introduction to my character was pretty terrible and nonsensical.
(pg. 2-3)
It didn’t explore in anyway his antisocial behaviour, it just showed someone who was a nasty
person.
So I went back to the drawing board, I re-drafted that part of my script and came up with
something that was more in the direction of showcasing his social ineptitude in a short
timespan.

The intro scene now plays out in a café, I contacted a local café and explained to them my
situation and that in exchange for me filming there I would make them some promotional
material in form of a video and photography for their website.
The café co-owner accepted this offer and therefore allowed me to film at their café.
Originally I thought this would make my life easier. However, I forgot that to make a café look
like a café, you need people, and a at least a half dozen people.
So now I had to also juggle, the opening/closing times of the café, when my actor was free,
and get friends and family to come and pretend to be sitting in a café.
Overall, I think it will end up being fine, but it has been a very stressful process, I wish I had,
had a little more time to plan this, but I didn’t think about, or even conceive of needing to do
this until one of my actors cancelled last minute.
I think if I managed to get everything co-ordinated, then it will allow me to create a better
looking and superior product with more depth and location variety, leading to an overall better
product.

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