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Head way - the making of Head
by Bob Vine and Graeme Webb
Conception and birth
| I don't know about you but externalising
personal visions at 25 frames per second is very hard for me. As each frame
is digitally captured I feel like I am giving birth to some unholy monster
that has its own direction and purpose.
The short film Head was no exception to this and had
morphed over the two years of its life cycle from a one line horror flick
to a dark dystopian dream. |
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I and Bob Vine had spent the best part of a year working
on Last Drop which was an attempt to purge ourselves of the gangster genre
after Bob's Car Park.
We felt we had reached a point where we needed
to push ourselves further than the technical and acting difficulties that
we had encountered on Last Drop. We had 'made our bones' as Moe Green
had put it in The Godfather and it was time to explore a different
world.
Head had languished (some may say festered) for a
year and, although the central narrative of the sad pathetic creature trying
to rid itself of 'something' and then trying to find 'meaning' which the
'feel' of the film hangs on remained the same, the industrial look and soundtrack
of the film evolved as we planned it.
Planning ( Do we have to do this?
....YES)
When we have an idea we start by flowcharting it. This
enables us to structure the logic prior to scriptwriting and
storyboarding.
This process is fundamental to the success of any project
and also allows us to improvise in shooting and postproduction without loosing direction.
In effect we try to design out operational and technical failure to enable
us to concentrate on the creative side of things. The devil is in the detail
and in film making you cannot be too organised.
We always cover any locations with photographs which
are inserted into the storyboard and for this purpose we use either Keynote,
or Frameforge. Any script items, direction or camera moves are included
in the story board.
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If we have CGI or green screen scenes we will make
mock-ups and test these prior to shooting as often some things will work
better than others. |
We use Celtx for scriptwriting more ambitious projects
with a lot of dialogue which also has the ability to incorporate pictures
and files. Celtx produces the script in a format that is familiar to most
actors.
Also at this point we will try to get a feel for the
soundtrack which as far as we are concerned is more than an equal partner
to the visuals and plays a major role in setting mood, style and
significance.
Myself and Bob have worked together on a few films and
music videos over the past three years and have come to understand how each
other works.
We both use Apple Mac technology and our systems as
far as software goes are mirrors of each other. This makes life a lot easier
and gives us access to Apple's powerful and dedicated video editing and music
production tools.
We both work on all aspects of pre-production and one
or the other will take a lead in pushing the project forward. The tasks are
divided up into the various skill sets that each of us has.
We are both reasonably competent at camera work and
sound recording in the field and in this film Bob handled the comping/montage
side of things in Shake and Motion, I handled any other green screen layering
effects and editing inside Final Cut Studio, Apple's NLE application, and
composed the soundtrack.
We find the work flow of these applications easy to
use as even Soundtrack and Logic PRO 7 integrate fully with Final Cut
Pro.
Bob works full time for a international company in their
design team. I freelance. This means that I will normally pick up any
other jobs like preparing DVD's, looking after the Blog, entering films into
festivals etc.
At the end of the day it's teamwork which provides synergy
to the project and enables you push forward with it. It is give and take
and if you don't get on then you have to find someone else to make films
with.
Who the hell can we find to act in this
film?
In previous films we had used actors who were friends
of friends and came from amateur dramatic backgrounds. Although this worked
reasonably well we were sort of stuck with who we had. We never auditioned.
I think we tried to shoehorn some of the actors into parts that on reflection
they may have not been entirely suitable for.
This was an important lesson. We decided that we would
have to take more time and care in actor selection in the future.
| We made the decision to use two of
the on-line film community websites Shooting People and Talent Circle to
find a couple of suitable actors for Head. I placed a brief advert with
a very short synopsis of the film onto the websites. We had no money to pay
actors but we offered expenses, and within 3 hours I had received 49 responses,
fantastic!!!
We knew we wanted a certain look for the characters
in Head so we trawled through the actors pictures and looked at their show
reels until we found what we were looking for, contacted them and set up
a meeting in the Coal hole in London's Strand. |
 Iannis Aliferis (Factory man) |
 Tim Wilderspin (Tunnel man) |
Tim and Iannis had previous films under their belts
and were also involved in writing screenplays. Both had experience of 'edgy'
roles and were certainly up for what we wanted from them. We had a couple
of further meetings prior to filming to read and discuss the script and work
out the logistics of the shoot.
Location, Location, Location
Where do you find a cellar in a factory? Bobs 12x10
lock-up garage. We dressed this a week prior to shooting the opening scenes
making a nest for 'Factory man' in the corner of the lock-up and placing
the various homemade props around it. The shoot went as planned.
Two weeks later we did the scenes along the river. It's
important to walk the route that the actors will follow at least a week prior
to filming as there is nothing worse than finding that an area is closed
off or someone has dug a big hole where your actor is going to sit. In the
case of the underpass scenes the local council had removed most of the graphitti
from the walls two days prior to us arriving and other than being pestered
by the local 'loony' the shoot went to plan. We even got time for a pint
afterwards.
On the subject of multi-location shoots I would suggest
that you should try to get them all in the can as soon as possible. Last
Drop had too many delays due to the fact that we couldn't get all the actors
in the right place at the right time as they had other commitments. There
was a delay of 15 weeks between the shot of Vince in the bathroom and him
entering the garage (and almost a year between him leaving the garage and
dying in the street). This can cause continuity problems which you may not
have anticipated.
Its important to stress to the actors upfront about
their commitment to your project. Always have contingency for such
events.
The locations are as important as the actors and should
be 'auditioned' as such. We photograph or video areas and process them with
the sort of look and feel we have decided the end product will have, just
to make sure it all fits together.
Two weeks, darkened room,
coffee...
We both feel that modern audiences are now quite
sophisticated and will not accept poor production values even from 'amateur'
film makers.
The post-production element of the project is potentially
the most creative part and should not be thought of as just the chore of
linking all the clips together but more as a virtual pallet of images and
sound. This is where the synergy of soundtrack, visual effects and graphics
come together, where that old saying "The whole is greater than the sum of
the parts" really does mean something.
Understanding both visual and audio elements of your
editing tool set and studying film and TV techniques will improve production
values. Reading books from the likes of Walter Murch 's 'In the Blink of
an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing' and Mike Figgis' 'Digital Film Making'
can help enormously. There are thousands of books on the subject and the
ones written by actual filmmakers are the more valuable ones. There is no
substitute for the real thing and although we have differing tastes, we both
visit the cinema to see at least 20 films a year.
| We had something like 3 hours of raw
footage from the Head shoots. We use a clapper board at the start of each
shot because we record sound separately on a Tascam HDP2. This kit combined
with a Sennheiser K6 system and muffler enables us to get high quality
sound.
After identifying and marking the clips in the Final
Cut Pro capture system I then batch capture them and synch the sound files
from the Tascam in the time line. This takes a bit of practice but after
a while I found the easiest way is to do it visually (looking at the wave
forms and pulling the clips along at the frame level).
When I had completed this I discarded the on camera
microphone audio and locked the new visuals and audio together. |
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I finished this part of the job by colour correcting
all the raw footage. A rough assembly was made from these clips and any cutaways
that were filmed on the day. We are a bit obsessive with planning and
storyboarding so we know how the film will be put together and the final
look and feel the film will have (this we agree on at the start of
post).
This assembly formed the basis for the film and I layered
the green screen and special effects on top. Even with a pretty organised
time line the post on Head was about 13 full days due to the excessive
rendering times for the final special effects.
Nothing is quite what it seems in the film and Bob produced
the furnaces in Shake from photographs taken in the Science Museum and some
of the external locations using composites of industrial building pictures
around the Thames Barrier. The matte paintings were done in Photoshop and
either incorporated in Motion or Shake with green screen elements (the head
flying in space for example).
When all of these elements were in place it was time
to start putting the soundtrack together. The soundtrack for Head ended
up being 25 pairs of stereo tracks layered on the time line. Most of these
are industrial drones prepared in propellerhead's Reason using the NN19 digital
sampler and various industrial noises I have recorded. There are also samples
from one of my favourite audio sites The Freesound Project.
Using my midi keyboard I doodled a small theme that
appears a couple of times in the film just to change the mood of things.
The track used at the start of the film is a piece by Geraldo called 'I'm
confessing' and the final track is 'Forgotten Dreams' by Sandy MacPherson
at the Blackpool Tower organ.
These two pieces of music (especially the Geraldo one
with the added heavy distortion and reverb) takes me back to my childhood
as I struggled to hear the radio through the bedroom wall just before falling
asleep.
When the rough edit was complete I used Genarts Saphire
filters lighting plugins to apply the night effect to some of the later shots
in the film and a Magic Bullet plugin to desaturate and control the gamma
of the black and white sequences. Finally a tint, animated visual noise and
CHV-Electronics film grunge (hair, flicker, dust) plugin was added for the
final edit. The colour of the scenes that take place in the tunnel were based
on the colour of the lighting in the Saw horror movies.
Stepping back
Head was filmed in HDV 1080i but looks as if its 8mm
film, that's what we were aiming at.
The story evolved over a year from a man waking in bed
and finding something odd in his wardrobe (the original idea) to a creature
caught in a bleak desolate landscape who's only escape is into another world
of uncertainty and horror, until he is released by confronting what's inside
the box. The seed is now free to go and populate/infect other
dreams/universes.
Head is all a dream of course and should be viewed
as such, more of an audio visual experience than a straight forward piece
of film making. There was also an opportunity to pay a small homage to two
people who have influenced my film making and thinking: J G Ballard and David
Lynch (the Brothers Quay are also standing somewhere in the shadows).
I am re-editing the soundtrack with a soundscape from
fellow collaborator Mark Pover a composer from the UK which will be finished
sometime in May. It is quite exciting visiting this world again and seeing
new colours and moods generated by the new soundtrack.
It was an interesting journey for Bob and myself technically
and creatively and although the films we have in production at the moment
are a million miles away from Head it will be interesting to return to
that universe at some point in the future.
Head lines
The major lessons we have learnt from making the
film:
Give ideas time and space to grow. Don't rush it. If
it's worth it, it will be even more worth it in 6 months time.
Engage your actors, it's their film as well.
Make sure there is someone to catch you when you
fall.
Push yourself: - you're only as good as your last
production.
Stay true.
Don't worry about what the critics say. What do they
know? :)
Bob Vine and Graeme Webb,
Borderline Shorts
2008
Please note that the version of Head at HypTV does
not include the opening and closing tracks as mentioned above.
The Borderline blog
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