Critical Evaluation by JoshuaSampson

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle, 2014)

Promotional poster

To inspire my film and to further my knowledge of documentary film styles I decided to watch a music drama based on a true story. The film itself follows an young ambitious jazz drummer put through the reins by a harsh, critical instructor. The film itself incorporates different editing styles and a variety of unique camera angles which makes for a visually exciting film. The build up to the narrative is inspiring, as we are put through an emotional journey supporting our budding musician, Andrew (Miles Teller) through a series of difficult, life-testing experiences that pushes him to the limit. The narrative structure itself is quite basic, however through the imagery the film and symbolism, I find the film very complex. The end sequence is particularly inspiring as it builds up to this moment and ends fittingly with Andrew playing an extended drum solo. This inspires my film as Doug is an experienced drummer so it would be interesting to represent that through his facial expressions and movement whilst playing the drums, which is exacerbated throughout Whiplash by Andrew’s movement and facial expressions whilst playing the drums.

Still image from Whiplash

Overall Whiplash has been a major influence for my film through the interesting use of varied camera techniques in addition to the soundtrack which reflects the importance of a good soundtrack, which is why I put emphasis on taking time for picking the right music for my film.

When organising my shoots, I prepared a rough shot list of what I wanted in addition to a question list and a map to the location. Here are the question lists and notes that I wrote out for each shoot and the equipment list for the shoots:
Equipment List by JoshuaSampson

Tony Moore Soho Radio Shoot 2016 by JoshuaSampson

Transcript for Tony Moore by JoshuaSampson

Shooting Schedule Buffalo Fish Live at The Monarch 2016 by JoshuaSampson

Question List and Notes for Buffalo Interview by JoshuaSampson

Sam Sampson Interview by JoshuaSampson

Erwin Lucas Questions and Notes by JoshuaSampson

I then decided to work on the interview that unfortunately turned out very underexposed. This process took me a long time to work on due to how dark the image was and how this therefore would cause a high amount of grain because of the increased brightness. Because the image would be very complex to fix, I got in contact with Shahid Abu, who specialises in colour correction, to work on the footage for me and try and expose the footage more. This process took a few days however I was very happy with the outcome of the footage he had edited for me:

 Raw footage

 Shahid's Corrected footage 

I worked on the footage by increasing the brightness and decreasing the contrast a little in Premiere also, but also by colour correcting the image as the original footage was quite green-y/yellow. 

After my colour correction

Because of the darkness of the image, I decided to incorporate a few parts from the original interview I did with Buffalo Fish, as this had no lighting issues and also included some great closing statements from Terry and the band. 

Original interview footage screenshot. 

After I fixed the footage I went onto working on the music for the film and then the introduction titles in further depth and also the credits. 

For the music of the film I gained permission to use some of Buffalo Fish' tracks in addition to new Airforce tracks and old tracks written by Doug and my father, Stephen. I organised the music by putting in into a bin named 'Sound (FX and Music)': 

Bin for Sound.

I then made sure the tracks I was using was lower during the dialogue parts as it was in comparison to the parts with the archive imagery and no dialogue, where I can rise the levels up and down again once the archive imagery has disappeared. 

Music levels during archive images

Music level during interview dialogue. 

To make this cut smooth and flow, I once again added a audio transition to do this, being the Constant and Exponential Fade. 

Fade transitioned applied in the timeline

After I did this I worked on the music level for the credits and I decided to choose a new Airforce track, which I felt worked well as an outro track: 

For the credits I added a new default title roll:

 Title roll effect added

When setting up the rolling credits I added a value to the ease out and postroll so that the credits could roll upwards and start off screen in addition to rolling off the screen towards the end. 

Roll settings 

I then applied all of the credits through two text boxes, one side being the roles and the other side being the names of the participants. 

 Title layout

I then scrolled down the image and made sure the last titles was off the screen so that the titles go off the screen at the end of the roll. 

End titles off screen

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of the titles and through following the professional BBC credit guidelines, I feel I have made a professional credit sequence at the end of my film.

Screengrab of the final credits. 

When looking at the introduction I decided to do a freeze-frame effect of each character after the title sequence so that you are familiar with who the film will be about even before you watch the film. Due to the fast cutting pace of the film, I felt this was necessary so that it is clear from the start and keeps the viewer focused and clear regarding who the film is about and who each character is. 

 Screengrab of freeze frame of Terry. 

I also decided to use Royalty Free music website called 'Looperman' and found a heavy guitar riff I could put over the footage of them performing, which then freezes.

 Website used.

'Corroded Guitars 2' WAV sound file used in my film. 

I then decided to cut away to the title of the film and have that glitch. This was inspired by the RAM documentary film I made in second year and I liked the effect and I feel that it represents the fragmented reality of ageing musicians, challenging the title of, do rockstars actually retire or not?

The effect was done by using royalty free footage of a glitch effect that I found on a royalty free video website. I applied the effect to the title and made sure it was an 'Overlay' so that it was behind the image but still applied a glitch effect to the text.

I feel the final glitch came out really well and i'm pleased with its final outcome. I then went onto watch the film in full with Anne and got some constructive criticism, which was mainly to cut down some of the interview parts further and include some different parts which exacerbate the ex-iron maidener's passion for the music. After doing so I showed Julia who felt that the film was clear and accurately represented what I am trying to say in my film. I will later evaluate my overall thoughts and feelings of the project in my evaluation, which I will put on my blog. 

Full timeline of the film in Premiere. 

When I had all of the interview and cutaways in place and in an order that makes sense, I could begin on properly organising the titles and putting them into the film at the right time. I firstly made a bin for all of the titles so it would be easier to find a certain sub-title. The subtitles makes the characters in the archive photos even clearer, I would add a date and title to the corner of the picture generally, or I would explain how old the character was at the time, for instance a young picture of Tony would have 'Tony aged 17':

Titles organised into a bin. 

Example of titling the photo. 

For the sound of the film, I went through all of the interviews and made sure that the levels were similar. Some interviews for instance were louder than others, naturally because of the differientating volume of different individuals voices, for instance Doug spoke a lot softer and quieter, so I had to increase the levels on his interview. Once I had done this I listened back to all of the interview footage and found that all of the levels were very similar, peaking at the same number. 

Dialogue peaking

Audio Gain tool 

I then decided to work on the titles for the film, and I felt that the typewriting effect in After Effects gave for a more interesting experience than just having a still text image introduce the film. 

Still from After Effects. 

Test for titles

Overall I am quite satisfied with the titles I have produced and I feel the sound of typing works well.