Peerbear's Film Blog

Parting Thoughts and What's Next?

(Excuse the vain photo of me amongst the cherry blossoms, I don't like making blog posts without photos on them!)

At the end of my four years of uni, the question I have heard the most is 'What's next?' What is next? I honestly don't know.

My future in film is unclear, over the past four years my self-doubt has been a raging issue and I think I will pursue directing and cinematography in my own time for my own passion projects. But on an industry level, I would like my journey to lead to working in a sound design post-production house. This would be my ultimate dream, somewhere like Savalas in Glasgow. I feel this would mean I could be creative and work within the industry whilst still leading the kind of life that I would like outside of that, where I have time for family, friends and more.

On the side as well as that I want to do intimacy coordination. I did my dissertation on Sex Education in Film and Television and I volunteer with the charity Sexpression outside of uni as a sex educator. So, I feel my next logical step is to merge my researched knowledge in these departments with my technical and creative skills in film and this brings me to intimacy coordination. I want to ensure that sets are more ethical spaces where everyone especially actors are treated well and not taken advantage of and in the uneasy power dynamics that can ensue between an actor and a director I want to ensure where I can that this is not abused.

I also want to travel the world and live abroad. Who knows what will happen. Here is a photo of little Peer from my first year helping on the set of Away Out:

I am happy because I know I have come a long way and I can't wait to see what's next.

This is goodbye. For now at least. It's been a blast. 4 years go by so fast. I have learned a great deal, even though we started during COVID-19 and my confidence levels over the years in my abilities were not always what I hoped for. Maybe one day that will be different.

I'm sure it will be, I can already feel it changing.

What I do know is that I can't wait to see what's next!

Hopefully, see you all on the journey.

Bye for now.

Lots of love,

Sombra de Névoa - Shadow of the Mist (formerly Drifting) by Silvana Macedo

Now at the end of my journey at Napier I’m thinking a lot about this short film that has greatly inspired me as a filmmaker. I think it is so powerful and beautiful. It is a piece of art. Screened on three different screens it has been designed to be viewed as an installation, but it is still very much viewable on one screen.

I really like that it has been split into the three different screens, I find this such an effective creative method of story telling. It offers three different ways of telling a story and each screen only adds to the story. I find the layering of underwater shots speaks to me as I am drawn to anything that plays with water. I enjoy the dreamlike tone of the film and how playful, and emotive it is.

Silvana Macedo is a brazilian artist. The film is in part inspired by her experience of finding her mother dead when she was a child. What I find the most inspiring about Silvana is that she is not afraid to explore all different kinds of mediums to make her art.

Here is the link to the film:

Where Currents Meet Reflection on the Final Film

This project was a challenge for me because I was pushing myself out of my comfort zone, but I'm so happy I did this. I know I have an eye and intuition that are good for cinematography, I just need my confidence and then experience to follow suit, but both are of course things that come with time. I feel we worked well as a group and everyone tried their best to get us to where we are now. I believe we made the film we set out to make on our own terms and true to our creative dreams. I hope we have created what Bethany wanted and that she knows she can be proud of the world she has created.

I did my best and I am happy with that and I'm very happy with the shots themselves and how they turned out. I am less happy with the grade, but this again was a learning curve with many things to take away with me.

I feel scenes 1 and 2 at the beach did not turn out quite how I hoped in terms of lighting consistency and colour grading, but as I have previously mentioned this is due to different positions to the sun that were unavoidable due to positioning in relation to the water from a narrative point of view.

I feel scenes 3 and 4 at the bus stop and pavement were both quite different, the lighting in scene 3 at the bus stop was rather cloudy and thus easier to manipulate both on camera and in the edit. The only shot here that I was unhappy with was of Kallie where I feel she is over-saturated and over-contrasted. In scene 4 on the pavement the sunshine was beautiful but there was an inconsistency in sunshine as it kept moving in and out of the clouds, this meant it was not fully consistent when it came to the grade, however here I feel like the grade is letting the image down a little bit because the shots are very pretty, I just couldn't seem to find the right balance and again have a little too much contrast.

Scene 5 in the woods is a little inconsistent in the grade, here again, I am happy with the shots especially the two-shot from behind as they are walking. Sadly as I said the grade is a little inconsistent and has a clear difference in wash and tone to the previous scene and thus has a different style. I feel the grade between shots here does not quite match.

For scene 6 part one at the river and part two at the bridge, I am overall happy with the grade. I feel like the river scene would have benefited more with a two-shot as it would have shown the actors interacting with each other. However, the two-shot that I did as shown above (ungraded) is much lower than and does not match the singles. I had done this with the intention of being the water that they looked into, but this did not edit with the other shots how I thought it would. So I had thought it through but it did not turn out as planned. For part two at the bridge, I am happy with the shots and the edit even though I feel it again shifts in tone with the colour grade in a lighter wash than the rest of the scenes.

For scene 7 in the bedroom, I am pleasantly surprised with how it has turned out, I think in spite of poor lighting the scene is exactly what I hoped for it to be. The grade is far from perfect here but it definitely aids the image a lot.

Scene 8 is my favourite scene and I think it has turned out very beautifully, but I'm afraid the grade is again quite different to the rest of the film, but I feel it is very pretty by itself. I think I missed a shot here in the shot list where there could have been a closer two-shot of the two of them for more of the scene.

Here is an ungraded example of what I mean:

It is a shame that we removed the final part of scene 8 even though I understand this choice was made for its reasons which is very valid as one of the leads was too cold and could barely hide it, this is where we removed both actresses from the water and brought them home to warm up. This was for their safety and would have felt unethical otherwise. I do understand the decision, but feel it greatly affects the film losing this scene.

Overall I wish there would have been more of the two shots because I like seeing them in frame together and how they respond to each other. I understand that this was a conscientious choice due to both creative and necessity reasons where there were issues with some of the two-shots. I personally prefer the two-shots, and I think it would have greatly improved the film overall if these had been usable in the final edit.

I appreciated working with the team of Where Currents Meet and I feel on set we really came together when we needed each other and I felt we were all supporting each other.

Saint Catherines Reflection of Final Film

Overall I am very happy with the finished product of Saint Catherines. I feel all of our hard work has come together and is clearly visible. As for sound, I am very happy with my results there. Minus scenes 8 and 11, I feel the film is finished to a standard that I am proud of. The two scenes I have mentioned need to go back to an earlier form where they are less processed and more delicately edited.

I feel the first 4 scenes introduce the characters very well and my hours of work have paid off here. There are very few things I would change here if at all and I am very happy with transitions from scene to.

I am very happy with how scenes 5 and 6, after the assault, have turned out as I feel they have this tight close feeling and really bring across Phoebe's POV.

Scene 7 where she starts to realise what has happened has become one of my favourite scenes as there was less to work with in a way in terms of sound when I received it but I feel now it really works as an even better beat in the story.

Scene 8, the confrontation, is a scene I am not very happy with, with all of the cars in the background and some issues with the EQ of both actors, this is not only processing but also some issues I have yet to fix.

For scene 9, the smaller confrontation between Phoebe and Sara I am happy, but it is not my favourite scene even though a lot of effort has gone into designing the different movements and textures of this scene.

I'm very happy with scene 10 as I feel it has turned out nearly exactly how I wanted, the only issue is the transition into the following scene.

Scene 11 was the bane of my existence and I always knew it would be the hardest scene to fix. I hope to find a sweeter spot if I were to go back into it where I can fix the dialogue an make it less processed.

I really enjoyed working with the score I felt this worked really well with the film and helped further build the world.

My biggest achievement for this project is my recording, and that I have recorded every sound that you can hear in the film except for the score. This is not something I usually by any means aim for as I have mentioned but I am happy to have managed it on this occasion and I do feel it adds to the natural feeling that we have gone for in the project.

Where Currents Meet Colour Grading from Reds to Blues to Going Crazy

Colour grading is not my forte, to say the least. I had very little idea of what I was doing and I had little practice and awareness of how to do it. I usually go into it kind of figuring it out as I go and this was no different. I found this much less enjoyable than the actual filming and went quite crazy. I went for many different looks and approaches to the film over the days that I graded it, each grade had a very different feel to it and felt like a different film almost.

Bethany and I had previously talked about blue tones for the film and when I tried it in the grade I found that this was too sad for a film about romance so I went through the entire film adding a warm reddish glow to every scene. I thought it looked great, but wanted to see what Bethany thought. Bethany came in and we went back to the previous grade and went into that. She asked me to try blue and I tried this throughout and we agreed it did not work either so in the end we found a kind of medium which lay in the correct part of the graphs indicating how much of the image you are keeping whilst still going for looks that Bethany liked and that I had become happier with in time.

I found the initial scene hard to grade because the opening shot I had chosen I leaned into all of the reflections of all of my waterproof gear, because otherwise it would not have worked. But in doing this Iris looked almost like a ghost so I tried to bring her more into reality and make Kallie's single more dreamy.

I really struggled with continuity throughout but especially in scene 2 on the beach where Kallie comes out of the water and flirts with Iris. Kallie and Iris were always lit differently due to their positioning in relation to the sun and the water. But I tried my best to make them as similar as possible. Here in the photo above I think Iris is a little too saturated and slightly cold, but this was in order to fix the sand to match Kallie's sand in her image and I think this was achieved.

The following bus scene I felt graded relatively well except for one shot of Kallie that I could not seem to desaturate in the way that I wanted to.

Following this I found this image above turned out too saturated and contrasted as well, but it seemed the best way to get it away from the reddish tones that I dived into all too deeply.

In the following scene where Iris trips, I feel the two shots are different to the singles and offer a slightly paler palette that I did not quite match.

I was very happy with the river scene as I felt Iris really glowed in that scene.

This is a shot I really like and am happy about how the grade turned out. I feel at the bridge everything had a lighter wash than in other parts of the film but I felt it matched a dreamy tone that this scene has.

The bedroom scene as I previously mentioned was a bit of a nightmare on set, but I feel it was really saved in the grade.

In what is now the final scene, as the original final scene was cut, where the girls are sitting on the shore I am overall very happy with the grade here but I feel it again does not match the rest of the film.

I do feel that my biggest mistake in the grade is the inconsistency in style. I feel every scene is almost completely different in style of grade and I hope that this won't take viewers out of the experience.

I'm not very happy with the grade overall but I am happy enough and I know I tried very hard. This is because I think I could have done better or it could be better, but with my limited knowledge I tried my best and that was all I could do. I found myself very burnt out in the grade from all the shoots and the sound design from Saint Catherines and I think this also affected what I could deliver.

Saint Catherines The Sound Design Chronicle

Pretty much straight off the bat of filming for Where Currents Meet I jumped into the sound design edit suite, back in the comforts of sound I got to re-enter the world of Saint Catherines. I was really pleasantly surprised by my on-set recordings. Recording sound on set as I have mentioned previously is something I find very stressful. In the suite is where I belong and feel most comfortable and in control. I found initially I had to find my bearings again and relearn everything, but I feel I got to where I needed to be.

Sadly mid-way through I got ill from exhaustion, so I had to take a break from the project and stay in bed for a few days.

I was really happy with the sound in the above scene 5, where Phoebe comes back from being assaulted. The sound design here was very minimal and raw and I think it hits the spot exactly where I wanted to do so.

I did not use any SFX for this project which I would say is quite unheard of, it is not my typical goal, by no means, but it did feel like an accomplishment and a reflection of how much and how well I recorded things on set. And also what a great working environment I had that allowed me to do this. Again, thank you Orla! I recorded Foley in the foley suite at Screen Academy for select sounds only, such as the bottle dropping in scene 4, the footsteps outside the caravan in scene 4, extra layers for when Harry touches Phoebe in scenes 6 and 8 and Jo and Phoebe hugging in scene 11. Otherwise, the only thing that I recorded in a different space was the kettle sound in scene 7, which I recorded in my home because I decided to cut one sound recording take on set short as we were holding everyone else up at that point.

Here are two photos of me on ProTools, one is my session with all its many folders each per scene and the other is me trying to do processing without destroying audio:

As part of my sound post-production, I went to Portobello with my mum, as we sometimes do, to audio record her walking into the water, this was meant for layering scene 10 where Phoebe walks into the water. Sadly the recordings were unusable because it was so windy, so I used the onset ones instead and processed them a little and removed wind from them. Even though I didn't end up using this it was part of my creative process. Here is my mum, my foley artist holding the recording gear for me:

I struggled the most with scene 8 (the confrontation between Phoebe and Harry) and scene 11 (resolution/support/confiding between Pheobe and Jo). The dialogue in these scenes was particularly damaged and difficult to fix due to surrounding sounds such as traffic, wind and waves. I am happy with what I managed even if I still think it could be much better. Scene 11's dialogue is practically all recorded in the sound take afterwards and I chopped and added it into the timeline, so the fact that it is synced well is something I feel proud about.

I am very happy with the final product of my sound design. I feel like my hard work has really paid off. I must mention that Orla, Katie and Zoe's feedback were all very helpful in different ways. On the whole, I feel it is finished but I feel there are a few things I could tweak if that is something Orla would like, but if not I am happy to let go because I know I will otherwise never move on to the next thing. So I might be in the sound edit suite briefly to reconvene but otherwise, my work here is done.

Where Currents Meet THE SHOOT

The much-awaited Where Currents Meet shoot was upon us and even though I had a week and a half between shoots it barely felt like enough time to gather myself, my thoughts and everything I knew I needed to bring together what Bethany wanted in the film. I was much more nervous going into this project because I feel less confident in camera than I feel in sound. I don't know what it is but my imposter syndrome strikes me with this every time. I think part of it could be the organisation aspect and getting to a point where I can see a shot in my head can take a lot of time to immerse myself into.

The shoot started off at Craiglockhart kit stores as usual where I went through equipment and organised it by department. Sadly I only skimmed it and there were some major issues I missed, this was in part due to being in a bit of a rush as I hoped to stick to the planned schedule of the day. Alex arrived after a previous engagement and helped me load up the car. I was very impressed by how he packed the car. Usually, I like to do this by myself but this time it was a pleasure having someone else who appreciated packing a car nicely too. We headed off and made our way to Broughty Ferry.

The next couple of days of shooting had to shift around quite a bit due to the weather. We were so dependent on ensuring that our ocean shoot day would be in the best possible conditions.

On the first day it was pouring so we filmed the bedroom scene (scene 7), which was our only indoor scene. This was quite the disaster because all of the dedolights were broken with frayed snapped cables. This was something I had missed in my quick scan of the equipment so instead of a three-point lighting set-up with a bounce fill, I had to use just two lights to do it, one of which was Tom's mini LED. At the time I was convinced we needed to reshoot it up until the last day, when I realised I had to let it go because it would not have been a logical thing to do. I was really happy because we redid the overhead shot that we had done in the test shoot and this time it made the cut.

That evening Tim and I, my 1st AC for a big part of the shoot fashioned a waterproof camera housing for the camera. It was more of a splash-proof housing but it ensured that I could keep the camera completely dry throughout the shoot. Only on the last day I filmed without it and this was a clear day on the beach where we only shot scenes outside of the water. Sadly I don't have any photos of us constructing the housing but this can be seen in detail in the photos above where I write about the fourth day.

On the second day first, we shot the scene in the woods (scene 5) where Iris trips. This went pretty smoothly and just about how we wanted it. The only thing was that it was raining so the camera housing stayed on. This meant the camera was safe and we could shoot regardless, but the reflections of the Polly Bag were difficult to see through at first. Later on that day, we filmed the bus stop scene (scene 3) and the pavement scene (scene 4). Both had different factors that were issues for us. For the bus stop scene, we had to make sure no one else was at the bus stop so we would have to wait and shoot around the bus schedule and the timings of people waiting at the bus stop. This worked out in the end. For the pavement scene, our main issue was continuity and lighting, the sun kept changing whether it was out or not. When it was out I embraced the flares as I knew Bethany would like and this ended up making it into the final edit. I was a little worried about continuity here but there was nothing we could do as the sun was going down quickly.

The third day was the big day. Here we shot our water scenes. For the first half of the day, we shot the opening scene (scene 1) where Iris is on her board in the water and Kallie is on the shore. This was really hard to shoot because we were running against the time of the tides, even though I believe this had been factored into our schedule we had to move set after every shot and it just wasn't attainable. We tried our best but Iris ended up being even more in the shallows than we had planned, which was good for camera and sound would not have made it further into the water. We tried to make this work for us as best we could and I don't think it is clear in the final film just how shallow we were. For the second half of the day, we had the second half of the final scene (scene 8) which is where Kallie and Iris are in the water. We had to shoot this very quickly because one of our actresses was very cold and was clearly reaching her limit but not admitting to it so we decided to call it a day even though we had a whole other scene in the water that we were going to shoot. Sadly the final scene that we did shoot did not make it into the final edit because the others felt the actress looked too cold in that shot to the extent that it took away from the scene.

On the fourth day, we shot our scene at the river and then at the bridge (parts one and two of scene 6). The river scene went pretty well, although, after three days of handheld, I was beginning to feel it so I struggled a bit with this scene as there was a segment where the actresses sit down and I tried to track this movement down. Otherwise, this scene went smoothly. We then shot the bridge scene which again went relatively smoothly even though it had a pretty complex choreography. When we were making the storyboard, Bethany and I had planned this through precisely so we knew what we were doing and Bethany knew exactly what she wanted. This went well and we managed to finish early that day.

On the final day, I removed the plastic protection, it was a bit frazzled and the forecast was no rain and little wind so the equipment was safe that day of course we were extra careful and I still had my protective lens filter on the lenses. That day we shot scene 2 which we had had to rewrite over the previous two days because we did not want to put that one actress in the water again. Instead, we made it look as if she was coming out of the water so we would spray her between takes. Again she got quite cold so we did not go on for very long, but we got everything we needed. I was happy with my shots here. Then we moved onto the first half of the final scene (scene 8) and I think I got my favourite shots of the whole film here. We had to filter the sunlight on their faces but I feel this worked really well in the end.

I have to say my camera team was super helpful and without them I would not have managed to do it. Tim was very meticulous and this was really helpful at times to get things correct. Tom was also really helpful, especially with his LED that saved the bedroom scene's indoor lighting set-up. Cal was my star and my rock in the camera department, he made me feel at ease and calmed me down with his presence when I was stressed. He was always helpful and had something positive to say, I'm so glad to have had this experience with him as we never worked together until now.

Here are some photos from when we wrapped:

Prep for Where Curents Meet

For preparing for Where Currents Meet I do not have many photos of me doing it but I will include some screenshots of what I did. So instead here is a photo of me in one of our group meetings and for once I look goofy and not grumpy!

Anyway for preproduction and prep there were many things to consider.

I struggled to crew up. Finding camera assistants proved very difficult. I was last minute, but less last minute than on Saint Catherines and somehow I ended up struggling to secure and confirm ACs for the project. I reached out to all different years and nothing seemed to work. Eventually, I found my two main ACs Cal in my year and Tim a Masters student, and Tom in 2nd year also helped assist for two days of the shoot. They all helped me a great deal and without them I would not have been able to do it. I appreciated all of their help. Special shout out to Cal who was such a calming and kind presence on set, I really appreciated having him there with me.

I had some issues with planning equipment, as I had been so focused on Saint Catherines for a couple weeks I missed the boat on figuring out what equipment we needed until it was too late and much of what I wanted was no longer available. But we still managed to get a decent amount of equipment and I borrowed Natalia's shoulder rig which was a great help with shooting all of those handheld shots and definitely saved my back in the long run.

My greatest stressor but also my greatest desire for this film was the water cinematography. I knew we would not be submerging in the water but that was not what I would have wanted to do anyway. However, I was keen to do this as best I could and in a way that would ensure that the camera would be safe. I have to admit I was very sure we would not be allowed to go into the water with uni equipment but I was happy and pleasantly surprised that we managed to do this and were not limited in our creativity. To prepare myself for filming in the water I had a meeting with Andrew who instructed me on how to create a waterproof/splash-proof housing so that the camera was safe from splashes and droplets. He told me what I needed to buy and from there I knew I would figure out what to do. It was such a specific thing that I somehow could not find videos about it online. I ordered everything I needed that Andrew had told me about ready to build when we were on set because the casing I had in mind would leave little room for being removed every day and thus would not be possible to make until we had the camera for shooting anyway.

Here are my notes from my meeting with Andrew, they describe what precautions we would take and what extra equipment we would need:

I also spoke to Andy about a worst-case scenario action plan and what to do in that instance so that I knew what to do if it came to it.

Here is that action plan in writing:

In our creative visual approach Bethany and I met several times to establish a shot list and storyboard. I found I would always cut things down to make it as doable as possible and she would always dream of more and plan for more elaborate edits. I hope she was happy with where we went in the end, and I tried to meet in the middle with a happy medium between her dreams and what I thought was achievable. But for the water scenes, I wanted to really bring it down to grassroots essentials because I did not want to have the actors in the water any longer than they needed to be.

Here is an example of the storyboard that Bethany drew when we were planning the shots together (it's from scene 1):

Here is an example of the same opening scene from our final shot list:

We also shot some of our shots as they would be on location using Cadridge so that Bethany could see what visual styles, lenses and focal lengths she preferred.

Here are some examples, that you might recognise in the final film:

The Boom Operator Finding Struggle - George (My Saviour) Appreciation Post

A sound recordist is nothing without their boom operator and mine was a joy and pleasure to work with.

Finding crew for my departments on both films this year proved to be quite the nightmare. For my boom operator, I left it a little bit later than I should have, beginning the proper search in late January, rather than securing someone before Christmas. I was not in the same position as Katie, in the other department as our DOP who had already secured everyone on the test shoot in November from her 2nd AC to her gaffer, another woman applying excellent organisation to the project so that it could thrive. Shout out to the camera team they were a well-oiled machine and a very iconic combo and without them, the film would not be what it is now. However, this post is actually not about them, I degrees. Back to finding my boom op. Everyone in our year in the sound department was busy, and so was everyone in the year below and the year below that. I even asked Zoe to send out a call to sound design students in all 4 years on the Undergraduate Sound Design course at Napier. One person had even been in touch but then did not get back to me.

At this point it was a couple of days before the shoot and I readily accepted that I would have to boom op for myself. And then I thought of someone who I had not asked yet who would be perfect for the project. George is a family friend whom I have known pretty much all my life, we went to school together (in different years) and we celebrate Christmas together with both of our families and one other family. Our parents are close friends and George is a childhood friend of my older brother. It's safe to say we know each other pretty well. Geroge is now studying Sound for Film at Edinburgh College and has applied to the Napier Masters Programme for next year. Anyway, I had not messaged him because I thought he would be so busy with his own deadlines at this time. But I messaged him on the off chance that he would be available and I was so lucky. The day before we picked up the equipment and set off to Saint Catherines he was a confirmed member of the crew.

Here are some photos of him in his element (I took so many that they couldn't all make it into this post):

Saint Catherines THE SHOOT

The shoot for Saint Catherines was a very heartwarming experience.

We started out checking the equipment at Craglockhart Kit Stores where I colour-coded every character's lavalier microphone so that I could quickly and easily differentiate between transmitters and receivers on set and also know immediately whose was whose and thus where to connect it on my MixPre 10 on which I gave each character a channel each. The boom was 1, Phoebe 2, Harry 3, Jo 4 and Sara 5. The colour choices were Phoebe blue, Harry red, Jo yellow and Sara green. I also in a previous session where I had booked out the MixPre 10 to go over settings, learned how to use the WingMan App's reports (using a Youtube video), which is a log of the notes you make on each take on set, which is super helpful for post-production. This was the first time I used the MixPre 10 on set with so many channels and the first time I recorded a 4 people simultaneous setup.

We had also been introduced to the Tenacle Sync which syncs the timecode for camera and sound and saves time in the edit. I took it upon myself to set this up every day and coordinate with camera because they had so many other things to worry about. We had had a brief previous session going over how to use it and I messed up because I had put a cable in the wrong port of the MixPre I did not realise this until the last day, so the tentacles were synced but the MixPre was not receiving the timecode, but the camera was. So we only had the last day synced automatically, which took away time from our editor, Alyssa, but she had factored this into her edit window anyway. I still felt guilty and this was a massive learning curve for me. It will never happen again!

Here is a photo from the session of how it should have been and I forgot to double-check the photo, rookie mistake:

Back to Craiglockhart Campus, after checking all of the equipment, Katie, Eva and I helped Orla load up a van with the equipment and once we had done this she drove off to Saint Catherines. I then drove myself and some of our crew (Katie, Eva, Alex and Sophie, our continuity supervisor) to Saint Catherines.

From here I won't go entirely in chronological order because so many things happened, so I will just give some key highlights and summaries of what happened. Every day we would shoot from about 9 to 5 and in the evenings we would relax and play werewolf which became a proper daily ritual.

Before the shoot, I had been quite nervous about being in charge of sound mixing and recording because I usually find this very hard and run into many issues. After all, there are always issues when recording sound that in some instances are out of your control. But on the shoot, I fell in love with sound recording and found myself getting into the groove and getting more and more comfortable with it. Something I have to say is that when I listen back to my recordings and see photos of me on set I hear and see how serious I am! I think this will be my nerves coming out and me wanting to do my best, it must be the German in me or something because I am never so to the point and sharp. With the expressions, I am not as worried because I know I have a bit of a resting bitch face.

As we were recording both inside and outside I found the struggles for these were very different. Inside the mics were more sensitive in the smaller space and the lighting setups created lots of whirring sounds. Outside cars were extremely loud as we were situated right next to a main road, something I had been aware of on the location recce, but it had seemed like a much quieter road at the time. There was also a construction site where someone was building a house, but somehow this did not interfere with dialogue too much.

Something I learned about dialogue was to do with recording overlapping dialogue. When so many people are on set it is very hard to avoid having actors not interrupt each other during takes. Usually, they will and this will be what is used in the final picture edit because it is a natural performance and what is required of them but in sound, this means the different character's dialogue are not separable from each other which means it is less manipulatable and hard to get rid of. Usually, dialogue is separated into each character but when there are interruptions this is harder. However, overall my dialogue was mostly very clear and I had fewer problems with it than I expected. While on set I was most nervous about scenes 8 and 11, which are the confrontation scene and the support and reconciliation with a friend scene. These are arguably the two most important scenes of the film. Sadly when I got to the sound design I found these were the hardest to work on and contained the most affected dialogue due to loud wind, waves, and traffic.

On this project I learned a lot about micing up the cast, I looked into it and found that placing the mic between the dip in their chest proved to provide the best and smoothest audio. For women, this dip is in between their breasts and I found this was a very new situation for me to navigate. I was told by friends that on their sets women had to lav themselves up, but the actresses had no idea how to do this and I did not find it fair to ask this of them, nor did I want to risk having bad dialogue. But we were lucky, who knew being gay can pay off in the workplace. I would lav up the actresses while my boom op George would lav up the only actor. I would navigate this by ensuring actresses felt comfortable and most of this involved them moving the microphone through their clothes themselves and even holding it in place in the necessary dip. My main point of contact was applying the mic to their chest with medical tape that I had procured before the shoot. What I also had to take into consideration was costume. Different costumes required different lav positioning and these also required different housings made out of tape, something that I learned from Tom in the test shoot and then adapted to fit my own needs. These housings lessened contact between the lav and the costume. Laving up the actresses would get quicker each day and we quickly found our rhythm and a way to make this work for each of them. From the second day after having a noisy necklace on our lead I would speak to costume and as much as possible ask for changes if they were detrimental to sound. This of course did not always happen, but I found solutions along the way.

I was absolutely blessed with Orla, I feel we worked really well together and she always left space for sound. This was something we had spoken about previously and I had requested extra room for not only time for room tone but also wildtrack sound takes of actions and sometimes even dialogue, especially where there had been interruptions previously. This meant I had many options in the design for when things had gone wrong in the actual takes. As Orla is a sound person as well as a director this is something she pushed for so I got nearly every sound recorded in the space where we shot it. They would call wrap for camera and then me, George and the actors would record whatever was on my sound shopping list for that scene. Every afternoon after shooting George and I would go over what we were shooting the next day to make sure we had everything on the shopping list that was needed. Overall I was super happy with clear dialogue and production sound. I know the actors had also never taken part in wildtracks before and I am aware I was in a very lucky position and I am very thankful for it, I think it really paid off in the sound design edit.

I felt we worked incredibly well as a team and built some close working relationships and friendships. Everyone put in so much and without each and every person we would not have been able to make the film that we made. Katie and her camera department were incredible, I have described them as a well-oiled machine and they were just that. Also working with Katie has been a creative experience that I really enjoyed because I feel we connected really well and worked hard together. Having Eva on set was such a relief, she is so near and dear to my heart and it was nice to see her excel and be such a strong support for the camera team. She was also a big support for me as sets can be stressful and having her presence around meant I had something and someone from home and it was nice to also work on a grad film together. George as my boom op was my saviour coming on board very last minute and being an incredible boom op, he has his own separate post coming up. One day as a treat I let him sound record because I was going to do on set folley footsteps to the water's edge to replicate Phoebe's steps towards the water. He again excelled. Orla was an incredible director and made an incredible space for everyone on set, she looked after all of us so well and kept us on the right path. We all felt we were in safe hands and we definitely were. The cast was really well picked and as the days went on they fell deeper into their characters and we all very quickly believed who they were. The whole crew was great to work with and helped provide a positive atmosphere on set.

My one issue on set was the bathroom and shower issues that we had, but this was unavoidable as we were so many people and our lodgings were not used to this. As an IBS girlie, I had multiple evenings and mornings where I would run to the car drive from the lodge to the caravan carefully to then barge in and use the toilet. Cold showers were not an issue as this is something I do regularly. I was a bit cheeky and had these every day as I am unbearable to be around when I am unshowered so it was best for everyone that I broke this rule. Or at least that's what I am telling myself, but I know I get insufferably grumpy when I feel unclean.

I did find I had to manage my stress and my resting bitch face, but with time both eased and by the end I felt completely in my element as if this was something I had been doing for a long time.

So at the end of the shoot, I found myself as a happy sound girl, as we say, I fell in love with sound recording and felt comfortable and in my element. We all made it back to Edinburgh in one piece and so did our equipment, which myself Orla and the camera department helped unload.

Here are some shots and even a little video from all of our days on set, as you can see we had a blast:

The Saint Catherines Fundraiser, Pub Quiz and Open Mic Night

After the location recce, we were having an issue as a group with our funding. We had much less than we expected to have and there was little time remaining until our shoot and we knew we needed more money than we had to make the film. So despite Orla's incredible efforts and organisation expertise the money just wasn't coming to the extent that we had planned for on our crowdfunder.

We talked as a group and after attending Oj Tato's fundraiser Katie and I were keen to organise a fundraiser of our own. This was something we had both wanted previously but were unsure if we would have the time to do it, but seeing Oj Tato's night we felt inspired to do it. Orla and Jack as our co-producers amongst so many other roles, on different films as well, had so many things on their plate that it made sense for us to help out extra and make the fundraiser happen so that they had something less to worry about and think about. I took this role as lead organiser, so to say because as DOP, Katie still had more to do than I did in preproduction.

Upon Katie's suggestion of getting in touch with The Three Sisters and them not replying to her email, I took matters further and emailed them as well as called them immediately after and thus secured the venue, which we could hire for free as students and solidified our fundriaser's timeframe and an estimated capacity for the event.

I then put together a running order which was as follows:

Doors Open: 7pm

Start: 8pm Katie and Orla introduce the project Screen Proof of Concept (Test Shoot): 8:10pm

Talks by Charities: 8:20pm ⁃ Sexpression and Sex on Campus

Pub Quiz: 9pm-10:30pm ⁃ Rounds: 1) Film and TV, 2) Women in History, 3) Music and 4) Physical Challenge

Open Mic: 10:30pm ⁃ Open to all to participate

End/Doors Close: 00:00

I also made an Eventbrite and created an account on Square: Point for Sale, so that we could sell tickets, merch and artwork at the door.

Here is what the Eventbrite looked like:

The photo right above this is the beautiful poster that Katie designed for the event which we posted on our Instagram and Eventbrite page.

Here is the link to the Eventbrite (It looks a bit different now because the event has happened and Eventbrite does not show all the information after the event):

Katie and I had an art session before the event where we created paintings, postcards and t-shirts with Saint Catherines written on them underneath a print of the view from Saint Catherines onto the hills that overlook Loch Fyne. These were our prize products and they required some planning to figure out how to execute them and they took hours to make. But we were super happy with the results.

On the night we started off with Orla and Katie introducing the project (their love child as I secretly call it). We then screened our test shoot as our proof of concept to show everyone who was attending what the film would be about.

Making a film on such a delicate and important topic as sexual assault we all agreed it would be great for us to have some charities there to speak to our audience and show other projects that are currently making a difference and fighting against sexual assault in society and trying to make the world a better place. I organised for two student-led charities to speak at the event. These were Sexpression and Sex on Campus, both are run by Edinburgh University students and support a cause that we at Saint Catherines thoroughly support as well. Sexpression is a sex educator group that is based at universities UK-wide where students go to schools and teach sex education to pupils from ages 11 to 18. I am part of this group outside of uni and can confirm that it is run and handled with great professionalism and care for young people's safety and ensuring that they feel more comfortable moving forward through their youth and into young adult life. Sex on Campus was a more similar and well-paired cause to our project as it is battling rape culture in universities, especially at Edinburgh University. Sex on Campus is even affiliated with our film which felt like a very special backing to have which we are honoured to have and very grateful for. I'm afraid we were unable to have Sexpression's affiliation as they are such a big charity and their affiliation would have meant that they would have been involved in the edit of the film as well.

Here are some photos of Sexpression and Sex on Campus giving talks at the fundraiser:

I also created a pub quiz with help from Katie on a few sections and this was the absolute hit. Or at least I had so much fun making it and hosting it as well. We, of course, had a film and television round, a women's history round (because of our feminist crew and project), a music round and as inspired by James Fox himself we had a physical challenge round, where we had participants suck and lift skittles with straws from one plate onto another. What I really enjoyed about this was trying to make it into a quiz that was doable for a different audience to your typical quiz goer, offering music and film choices that I would mostly actually be able to get myself, when usually I can only offer a couple of answers correctly. I tried to put in a little something for everyone, but of course, you can't make everyone happy. My favourite part was the physical challenge because it completely changed the dynamic and the atmosphere in the room.

Here are some photos from the quiz, including Katie and I hosting, the physical challenge set up and people at their quizing tables:

At the end of the night, Katie hosted an open mic night which was really special as well. That girl can sing! No, really her voice is beautiful and actually features in both soundtracks of Saint Catherines and Where Currents Meet.

The fundraiser was a success and helped us with getting together some substantial money for our film. Most importantly though it was a great time and felt very rewarding. It reminded me why I am on a project like this trying to support and further a cause I believe in so strongly.

Funnily enough a couple of days after the fundraiser we had a massive donation from an anonymous donor who turned out to be a rich man Orla had met at a bar a month earlier. We all joked about it, but this just happened to be someone who often puts money into different projects and we were lucky. And even though we might not have needed to do the fundraiser if we had known he would donate, I am still so happy to have done it. It showed me that I can organise events to a level that I am very happy with and can be organised when I put my mind to it.

Location Recce for Where Currents Meet

For Where Currents Meet Bethany also had a similar plan to shoot slightly further afield. This time not quite as far as my other project but instead in Dundee, more specifically Broughty Ferry, where she grew up. Again I was unsure of filming there and not in Edinburgh logistically but upon seeing it I felt this was right for the film.

This recce was about a week after my location recce for Saint Catherines so I knew the drill. Again I was the driver, taking Bethany, Sam, Alex and James with me. Again we had a Spotify situation and the journey on either end went by pretty quickly.

When we got to Broughty Ferry, Bethany and her parents showed us around and we checked out several location options for the bridge, river, and beach scenes. We also saw Bethany's bedroom at her parents' house where we would be shooting the bedroom scene. I noticed immediately this bedroom was much smaller and would thus need some different camera setups to what we had in the test shoot. So this was very useful to see in advance. It was also very helpful to see all the locations so that I could keep these in mind when preparing the shot list. The recce was overall very helpful because it confirmed the need and justified filming in Broughty Ferry. Thus solidifying our set locations and accommodation at Bethany's parents' house. The locations were beautiful and matched our story very well and the joint accommodation meant that we would all be together every morning from the get-go, which would save time every day. Shooting further afield also limited our crew and meant that we would be shooting at a smaller scale than we might have if we had shot in Edinburgh. I quite liked this because it meant we would be a bit more relaxed and as I was already pushing myself out of my comfort zone I liked not having any added pressure of many extra people around.

Here are some photos of me documenting the different locations to see what it looked like through my camera (what it looked like through a camera you will see in the final film):

Location Recce for Saint Catherines

For Saint Catherines, one thing we knew early on was where we would be filming. The film is named after the place where it is set, as I believe, I have previously mentioned on this blog. This is because Orla and Katie found through research that sexual assault victims often relate the place where they were assaulted to the assault itself. This meant as the name suggests we would be shooting in the small Scottish town of Saint Catherines which is on the shore of Loch Fyne and thus looks out onto a relatively calm and very beautiful body of water. I had previously wondered if we could film somewhere nearer to Edinburgh as this seemed easier to me, but upon seeing the location it was without a question to me why we had to film there.

Orla had had the namesake and location of the film in mind from reviewing first drafts with Katie, having gone there on several holidays herself when she was younger. And so Orla had both our set location (the caravan) and crew accommodation (a lodge nearby) booked in and sorted well in advance with her family and family friends who owned both properties. She is such an organised and incredible person, and I have to say I aspire to her level of organisation, togetherness, iconicness and all-around loveliness. It is always a pleasure working with her.

So before we entered production we knew that we, the rest of the core HOD's, needed to go to Saint Catherines for a location recce. It was quite the road trip. We did this at the beginning of February, giving us plenty of time to plan for each department. This was a little later than we had planned because the MOT of my parents' car had expired, so we had to wait an extra week until this was sorted. We only drive safely and legally of course! That makes it sound like we don't, but I promise we do. Luckily the extra wait did not impact things too much because Orla had planned this well in advance so going a week later did not affect the rest of our schedule or creative process.

I was our driver and the rest of the gang brought the vibes. It was Orla, Katie, Jack and me. Aimee and Alyssa couldn't make it and there weren't enough seats in the car for all of us anyway. The road trip brought us into the holiday spirit that is an essential nostalgic element of the film and really added to the experience of our filmmaking and creative process, even from this preproduction stage of recceing the location.

The overall return journey took around 5 hours, roughly 2 and a half hours each way but sitting in the car flew by as we played music from each of us which is something that Katie does with her family where we each would select a song from each decade gradually moving forwards in time. It was a nice way to see who had picked what song.

As an experience, I feel this really brought us together and gave us a sense of being a team.

The journey was not only fun, because there was a major accident and we had to go on a little diversion to arrive at our destination and Google Maps nearly led us onto a private army firing zone. But we made it and it was also very beautiful because we were surrounded by stunning Scottish landscape whilst driving through all 4 seasons.

When we arrived it was snowing so we stayed in the car until it died down. This was not something we had expected, but being February in Scotland it was not out of the ordinary.

Being on set location helped further materialise the film for each department. Although we were unable to get into the caravan we could still get a real sense of the location. Each department could find things that they would need to think about and develop for themselves. Katie looked at her shortlist and saw how shots would look within the space. I recorded sounds within the space to see what it would sound like and this later translated into my sound shopping list and my sound design where I think about the wooden steps leading up to the caravan or the gravel ground around it. Or the pebbles and seaweed at the shore of the loch or the crunch of the leaves in the forest. Looking at the caravan from outside as a space before shooting also gave me a sense of claustrophobia and entrapment within such a beautiful location that I hoped to use somehow within the film's sound design where I planned to keep the sound space within the caravan close and tight.

Here is a recording I took of steps on the pier and in the surrounding seaweed there.

Overall, I feel the location recce was a key part of our early foundation of the film that further solidified the group and project into one.

Here are some photos of the location recce crew (I felt the others look like they are in a band):

Here is a link to a video of the recce that Orla put together on the Saint Catherines Instagram:

Where Currents Meet Test Shoot - The Film

For postproduction I did the colour grade which went relatively smoothly. We had an initial issue with the AAF, and reconnecting the files to their source files took a while but this was all part of the process. For the grade I wanted to go with what served the image, so although I had planned for more blueish tones as Betany wanted, I decided against this as they did not look as nice when I tried them in Da Vinci. I showed Bethany the difference and she agreed with this choice. So, I kept it more natural and colourful. It looks more vibrant than I had imagined, which I like. There was one shot that afterwards needed tweaking after I had exported it. It somehow looked different to what I had made previously, but this was a quick and easy fix thanks to Alex who while he put the credits in just boosted the contrast a bit to make it look like it had on the true tone screen.

Saint Catherines Test Shoot - The Film

In postproduction sound, we had some issues with the AAF and video exports, but eventually, after trial and error, we managed to make these work. Sadly, with a limited amount of time due to everything else that is going on right now, the sound design is not quite how I wanted it, to me it feels slightly unfinished, but it is good enough for a proof of concept. The LAV files were unusable, with many contacts and a faulty mic at the start. However, the boom mix was great. I managed to take out all the bumps and pole contacts. I am also very happy with the ambience I created which embraced the rain that I could not remove from the first half of the shoot so instead I layered it and made it an integral part of the ambience on top of any construction sounds that I could not remove. I had fun mixing and layering the sound effects that I sourced, and the onset wild tracks all came into great use for key sounds such as stick throwing, snapping, walking, small movements etc. From these I layered multiple sounds to add base and texture to the sounds, my favourite was the stick snapping. I also added in some eery tree cracking, which although it is a bit on the nose worked as I put it very low in the sound mix. This was meant to illustrate the forest creaking and breathing around them, furthering the uneasy feeling and space that they are in. On Zoe’s recommendation, I took out some of the clicks of the rain which made the dialogue much easier to understand. I mixed the dialogue much louder so that it was more audible over the soundscape that I had created around it. There was one sentence of Phoebe’s that I tried very hard to clean up, in the take Harry talks over her line and to me it sounded very off, but sadly we did not have a single take without this or that matched her lips on screen, so I tried my best to get rid of it, but it is the only thing that I did not quite manage to fix how I wanted it. However, when others listened to it, it did not bother them, and this is a learning curve for me I will know to ensure that I have dialogue that is not overlapping in future.

Where Currents Meet Test Shoot

The shoot went well. We got through shots smoothly and having prepared the day before helped make everything happen quickly. We got to set and set up quickly and then with Alex and Eva I tested out lighting setups until we made it work. I really appreciated both of their help on this, as I previously said that this is something I do not feel very confident with. Eva was so helpful as my AC; she helped me out with focus pulling, clapping, and making camera notes at the same time, which is no small feat. I felt we worked great together and having such a small team worked well for this room set up as too many people would have made the space too crowded. However, for the real thing next year, I will have a crew assembled as this would not be fair to put so much work on one person to help me. For that day it was okay as there was not too much to do, and we worked hard together. I really appreciated her help! I had changed some of the lenses when I had done my tests the night before without changing the shot list which was an issue because I had not communicated this with the AD, so when she would say what we would be shooting on according to the shot list I would say that this had changed. She was okay with it, but for professional practice in future I will open that dialogue with her beforehand. I might do this by sending her an updated shot list next time if I change it. I knew what I was doing, but she needed to know too. For the first half of the shoot, we did the four shots that I had prepared the day before and for the second half after lunch we did all of the four handheld shots, one of these we put on sticks because it was a longer action and the camera is heavy so I thought it made more sense this was, it was a quick set up and turn around so it was not an issue. We ended up shooting all the shots that were on sticks on the short sticks, this felt less intrusive to Iris’ space and made it feel like we were with her, and it gave the piece a calmer and less intrusive tone than if we would have shot from a higher angle. We wrapped early having shot everything we needed already because we were efficient. Our final two shots were top-down overhead shots, which sadly did not make it to the final edit because the cut would have been too long and maybe they felt they did not fit when seeing it all together. I was sad about this because I felt these shots had turned out well and gave more variety to the mood piece, but obviously, the final choice is not mine and I am very happy with the result.

Here are some BTS shots by Mary Hanna:

Test Shoot Preparation for Where Currents Meet

Initially, we thought that Braid Burn would be a scenic and practical location to shoot our test shoot. However, as it is November and very cold outside Bethany and Sam decided against this and instead decided to shoot our inside bedroom scene, which would be much easier logistically as the equipment would all stay there overnight anyway. Creatively this was also a great chance for us to create a mood piece which reflects who Iris is and gives us and anyone who will be involved or interested in the project the chance to get to know the character and the story before we film next March/April.

In preparation for the test shoot for Where Currents Meet, I visualised the space and how I wanted to film it, based on having seen Bethany’s room beforehand and thus already knowing the general layout. From this, I made a shot list and a floor plan. I planned these out on my own first and then went over them and refined them with Bethany in her room, so we could see the space as we were planning it, this way we could properly visualise it. We cut down and improved the shot list and agreed on which shots would make it into the film and related these to a script mark-up that we made so that we could decide which shot had which coverage. Then after this I tested out the shots we had planned, so that we could see them prior to filming and so I could test out which lenses worked best. Once I was happy with a shot I marked out where the tripod was so that we had these ready for the shoot in advance. I also wrote down the lens sizes as some of these had changed from what I had planned in the shot list. Testing the lenses out prior to shooting informed decisions on which lens choices worked best. Once I had set up a shot and liked it, I would show Bethany to ensure she was happy with it too. I also asked her and James to stand in for me so that I could frame up and pick out headroom and final framing choices. I photographed these so that I had them ready for reference the next day. I then tried out the Kino Flo lights, to see how to set them up and what they looked like. However, I left the main part of lighting for the actual day because I wanted a second opinion from Eva and Alex just to be sure. Lighting is where I feel the least confident in the cinematography department so to have extra eyes felt reassuring. On reflection as this is something I am unsure about I will be putting more effort into improving my skill set and knowledge on lighting next semester to ensure that I am prepared for the final shoot as I want to ensure that know what I am doing.

Here are the shots that we prepared in advance:

Here are the floor plan, shot list and the marked-up script. We colour-coordinated all of them so that they match up.