Post-Production

final cut link

We filmed, as planned, using 3 mediums; tape, film and digital, to reflect the varying ways in which the protagonist views the world.

I scratched the titles onto partially exposed ends of 35mm film strips, making the image vary in brightness.

The film grew a sort of possible, non-linear narrative from the experimentation,  that the protagonist had visited this hotel in it's (and his) prime, burnt the hotel by accidentally dropping a cigarette (and perhaps perishing with it) which caused the fire that ultimately destroyed the hotel. Blinded by guilt and unable to see/accept what he has done, we see him return in a dreamlike state, unaware of the hotel's disrepair, reliving his terrible past. He then awakes in the clear, truthful present, having, through his subconscious suppressed guilt resurfacing through the nightmare, come to terms with what he has done, he takes off the bandage and sees again, and we, like him, see the world in it's true colour.

The second nightmare shot was achieved by shooting burst mode at 5fps as the man takes a drag, and as he breathes it out, I stopped recording and tightened the tripod at the same time to preserve the frame as if it were still recording. Natalie then donned a Poncho and danced as the shutter was left open for up to 30 seconds per shot, as me and Dan altered the light. I varied the exposures to make the figure vary in blurriness, altering the aperture to correct the exposure. This effect allowed us to manipulate time entirely, tricking the viewer into thinking they are viewing real time, when actually they are viewing 30 seconds at intervals, condensed into each frame and presented as continuation.

The two shots give unnatural lifelike features, such as veins and a ghostly apparition. This anthropomorphises the hotel, as it is a character in the film, and adds to the guilt the character feels; did he burn this place, and if so, did anybody perish? the growing black vains and ghost could be those haunting him in his nightmare, or could simply be a figment of his own tormented mind.

Daniel Dowson, the star and musician of the film, with the lampshade. We didn't use many shots where he also played the lampshade man walking around at night. He allowed us to use some of his music for the piece, which fit perfectly with very little editing, as if made for the piece.
Links to the music used for the Opening and Nightmare sequences on Soundcloud.

For the end of the nightmare i quietened the track and mixed it with the background sound, panning it to appear as if it were emanating from his sleeping head. As the man wakes, the music disappears.

The Pentax Q we shot the digital part on. The small sensor and scale of it make it similar in depth of field and camera shake to the tape camera. The sensor is so small, the crop factor from 35mm is x5.6. The 8.5mm lens was adapted down to 3.825mm, equivalent to a 21.42mm lens.

The tape camera was a Samsung VP-L500, standard consumer hi8 tape camera. Due to it's inability to transfer digitally i filmed a television screen playing the footage. The screen stretched the footage to the 16:9 proportions, and i recorded it on a Canon EOS 550D at 16:9 (1920x1080) I then squeezed the footage in to 1440x1080, the correct 4:3 format.

I burned holes into an exposed end of film of varying sizes, scanned these and put them in order to create the burning of the film after the cigarette drops. This connotes the dropping of the cigarette could damage the film itself, and could perhaps be the cause of the location's destruction.

 I shot the animation sequences using the canon EOS 5, as planned. I shot on fomapan 400 black and white film, and developed the film using a budgetary/stylistic alternative to traditional developer, Caffenol. The mixture includes Coffee (caffeinated), washing soda, vitamin C and water. The image is darker, grainier and higher contrast than most developers. I left the film out to dry in the open to collect dust and hairs. I then cut them into strips to scan.






I discovered the wide angle adapter i used for the pentax q could also be held over the lens of the tape camera to create an extremely distorted fisheye effect. This helped create an uneasy feeling that we are seeing through the eyes of an unseen observer.








We booked and using the steenbeck, but ultimately scanned the 16mm scratch transition. I made sure to scratch a large area with no black at all to make the transition completely hidden. The transition is important, for it marks the transition from seeing the truth, feeling pity through dramatic irony for the man, to a much more subjective view of the world, as we see the intact hotel he is imaging and visualising in his head for his surroundings.





Although not the best software,  I edited on Motion 5, as it was affordable I could use it at home, allowing me to edit, develop and scan in the same place.