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shot-by-shot analysis of 'i love'

This shot was very close to what I initially envisioned - and this goes for all of my macro footage of the house ornaments and photographs. Because I'd already visited Florence's home it was actually this decor that inspired me to choose it as a location. I loved how her character and experiences were reflected so beautifully by her home environment. It felt immediately lived in and was a perfect fit for what I wanted.

Visually, I really like the muted earthly colours in this picture and believe it gives the viewer a fantastic snapshot of Florence's childhood.

The title 'I love' came to me while editing. I stuck with it because it communicated the theme of love and affection in a way that avoided feeling generic. To say 'I love' feels both definitive and at the same time unfinished, it gives a degree of ambiguity to the film while conveying an important theme directly.

I always wanted my credits to involve a cut to black with white text because I love how it looks visually. The technique is actually shamelessly lifted from Godard in 'Eloge de L'amour' - but I felt that the context surrounding my title card would make it a palatable and forgivable case of stylistic copying.

This is the viewers first introduction to one of three cats! I particularly enjoy Ralph's movement in this, it was surprisingly easy to capture and set a standard to follow for naturalistic performances. It also made me realize how much I enjoy capturing natural behaviour on camera.

Again I'm very pleased with these shots. My motivation behind opening the film with so many close ups of decor was to establish the environment for the viewer and give them an insight into the character of the house - and by extension Florence herself.

I actually debated whether to include the names of the actors at all with the reasoning that this was only a 3 minute short and it may have felt too self-important, but both my tutors believed it was fine. It was nice to credit the actors who did a great job and gave a large chunk of their free time to help make the project.

As one of the few truly wide frames of the entire film, I feel that this shot is crucial in more ways than one. It's important for diversity but also establishes Florence's living behaviour before she slips into her dream. I filmed about 15 minutes of footage here and sifted through to find the part I felt fit the most - I enjoy Ralph's movement as he's walking into the kitchen as I feel it makes it a little more dynamic. This was a great experiment in shooting long-form takes.

This is one of my least favourite cuts largely because it's handheld and is sandwiched between two tripod shots which I feel is jarring. But it's also an important cutaway because it allows for the passage of time to occur for Florence's character. My tutor Danny Turner expressed his like for it with the reasoning that it was our only glimpse of the outside world during the entire film, which I felt was an insightful observation.

This was perhaps the most successful moment of the filming process in that it matches exactly what I envisioned. Although a simple close up, to me this is a very Godard-like shot in that it was directly inspired by his framing in 'Eloge de L'amour' - you can find the comparative moment the trailer I posted earlier on this blog of the woman in black and white. What was important here was that the frame feels tonally dynamic, rich and considered. I wanted there to be contrast between shadow and light and have the skin tone captured accurately. These are qualities that I feel I rarely achieved so I'm extremely pleased with this particular moment.

All of the footage up until this point I had recorded on the first day of filming, when I wanted to shoot Florence living before Jonathon eventually arrived. I was very happy with the footage and glad that even when I changed direction I managed to retain all of it. It's the only segment of the treatment that came to fruition and hit my desired targets.

This is from the third day of shooting when I began to simply observe and capture the behaviour of the actors, moving my camera into different spaces to find cinematic angles. This is one of my favourites and I'm fond of Jonathon's genuine affection towards Ralph. It was here when I felt that this naturalist approach could really bear fruit and give great results.

This close-up signifies a moment Florence's dream where she begins to recollect a different day with Jonathon. We intentionally changed both their clothes to sell this effect.

It was important for me to have a time where Florence directly displayed affection towards Jonathon to confirm their close relationship. I love this sequence and what it reveals about their dynamic - despite him recoiling in melancholy and covering himself in his jumper she still breaks into an empathetic and knowing smile.  To provoke this interaction I asked John to talk about his love-life, something I knew he felt a little shy about. This back and forth was pulled from about 5 minutes of discussion, and although the reactions were slightly further apart in reality they were all part of the same conversation. This was important for continuity and also keeping things genuine.

In another incident that was a mixture of scripted and improvised, I asked for them to meet each other in the kitchen and as a result John embraced Florence from behind in a spur of the moment hug. To me it's a lovely display of platonic affection which I was very pleased to capture.

These two cuts are important for transition and moving the action away from the dining room to the bedroom. The former has been singled out and remembered by quite a few people which is nice,  I think it has something to do with how unique it feels among everything else.

This sequence is similar to the opening in that it's actually quite close to my original concept. I'd always wanted a moment where John was exposed to Florence's femininity and in turn experienced a sexual awakening - or at least a realisation towards a deeply fascinating and alluring element of the 'feminine'. The process of getting ready to go out felt like a perfect scenario.

This was shot at the end of the 1st day. I knew that Florence had to leave prematurely to go to an actual party, so we planned for me to film her getting prepared. I like to think this grants the footage a degree of authenticity. I was extremely pleased with how this turned out, the natural sunlight that day was very strong and I shot this all without any lighting equipment. The colours are extremely vivid and quite sexual, with lots of warm reds and pinkish tones. It reminds me a little of an Almodóvar film.

The last shot of John was actually shot the next day when he arrived, a rare moment of completely scripted acting from him. This was lit artificially to recreate the lighting of the previous day, with Florence re-donning her outfit and put out of focus to mask any continuity errors in her movement. I wanted to frame him in a way that expressed how his virginal perspective was being fundamentally altered by a first time experience with sensuality. In the context of the final film I still feel that it adds another wrinkle to their relationship.

We then return Florence waking, signifying the end of the memories and the dream - a crucial bookend that confirms to the audience about the past and present aspects of the narrative.

I made this photograph the final shot not so much to act as a twist, but a clue that this wasn't a romantic relationship shared between the two characters. To me, the fact that they are platonic lends a lot more nuance and richness to their scenes together, and also supports the notion that love exists in many legitimate and beautiful forms.

i completed a final cut of 'The Innocents' which is now the alternative version to 'I love'. In contrast to the one i had posted some weeks ago I fixed up the rhythm of some transitions to make it flow better, with the intial cut to blacks completely gone. I felt it was important that I had a polished optional cut which used music from the public domain, just in case a submission is needed for the UAL competition. To be honest while I much prefer 'I love' I'm still pretty content with this version. It contains a lot of footage I really like.

How the timeline of the new edit looks

Colour correction on 'I love'

As mentioned in my journal, the colour correction on 'I love' was very subtle and a case of making my tones consistent. In the scene at 1:06 with Jonathon and the cat I reduced the saturation so the transition from the shot of Florence sleeping was smoother. The image still contains strong colours but i believe they're less jarring. 

The original non-colour corrected shot ------

As you can see the effect is very slight, but when compared side-by-side the desaturation becomes noticeable. ------ The shot of Florence smiling at 1:54 was an example of me needing to brighten an image that was slightly too dark.

I like this correction particularly because it enhances Florence's skin tones, making her look more radiant as well as it simply being a clearer image. ------ The final colour corrected shot was at 0:55 when Florence is sitting with her cat Gus. Again it was slightly too dark so I simply brightened the gamma like in the previous shot to make it a clearer image.

The edit is subtle but i believe quite significant when viewed in sequence. ------

These images highlight the process of colour correcting a shot. As shown, while taking the mid levels up will make it make it brighter it will also reduce the colour and desaturate it as a consequence. So you need to take both levels up in tandem to recreate the colour and tone.

The shot before any colour correction has been done.

Here the mid levels have been taken up and with it the shot as become slightly desaturated.

To rectify this and restore the original tone, I take down the mid levels a little bit as my initial increase too large. I then take up the saturation to meet it, finding a good and convincing balance.

This is a brief dialogue edit, which is now more of an experiment due to time constraints and it being so late in the process. I'm happy with how the dialogue plays against the imagery but just feel that I would need to film more appropriate material for this to work in a longer form. Sadly that isn't an option at this point as the deadline is in a weeks time. Thankfully, I'm very happy with my second edit 'I love' and still consider that to be my final film.

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The booking form used for recording the audio in my house.

This was my final choice for the dialogue edit, I love the long drawn out reverb on the piano notes and the cinematic feeling of it.

I almost chose this as my score for the dialogue edit, but felt it was just a little too vanilla and pleasant for what I wanted to portray.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33Dec_ayndA

This is the sample when the dB is reduced to 10 instead of 20. The hiss has returned but the voices now sound more natural. I feel this is the best I am going to get the audio. I've noticed that the audio sounds too quiet on speakers but fine on headphones. This is frustrating because if I take the volume any higher I will only increase the level of hiss.

Here, hiss is completely reduced but at the expense of making the voices sound somewhat artifical. This is because reduced the dB by too much, going for 10 instead of 20 as suggested by the video. Screenshots

Screens showing me removing the hiss from the audio with Adobe Audition.

I asked Bronek about the situation and he mentioned that we have software on the computer that could do a great job at removing the hiss, but he hadn't had any experience with it. So i looked up a trial on youtube to give me an idea of what needs to be done. Screenshots

Here shows how to upload audio files to youtube as videos, which I needed for comparison on my tumblr.

This is a sample of the dialogue I recorded with Florence. Unfortunately I found there's a bit too much hiss and noise in the background and the volume is also too low - likely because the mic wasn't close enough to her.

In preperation for the recording of the dialogue that I will use to create a new edit, I've been revisiting how Godard uses it as a parallel narrative device. This is similar to how I want Florence to recount her memories and feelings towards different subjects, such as love and loss.

This track has the perfect balance of texture, melody and ambiance and is my final choice. It doesn't detract form the film like the previous one, but enhances it. The one slight on this track is that it's copyrighted, which means I won't be able to submit the film to any serious competitions.

This was the runner-up Yokota track, the opening is wonderful but unfortunately I felt the percussion was too distracting.

This was another Fennesz track that ended up being dropped for the same reasons.

I listened to a lot of artists when deciding for the score of 'I love'. Fennesz appealed to me because while he still creates ambient music, the textures of his soundscapes are highly original, distinctive and unlike most contemporaries. I liked the textures and melodies within this track but it was just a little too meandering and so was eventually dropped.

This was the piano piece I chose for my first edit of 'The Innocents'. I found this on soundcloud listened to a complete collection of Satie's compositions while I got a feel of the footage. It set a melancholic tone and gave me an entry point into the hours of footage I had recorded and the kind of atmosphere I wanted to create.  By the time I had found a structure and established the narrative, it made little sense to choose anything else for the score. How the page looks on Soundcloud showing how this particular version is a free download