Overview:

Matthew, was a short film we produced this past Summer. 

It was shot over three days, using two led tubes and a simple bi-colour 1x1 led light.

We worked with an extremely small team and budget. With Leslie shooting and editing, Tristan covering the acting and audio, Sam colouring the final grade, and Oliver writing the poem. Because of the small team, it was a pleasure throughout. We wanted to celebrate creativity and move away from corporate work to rehabilitate in pretentious art. 

The Shoot:

Leslie shot this on a Sony Fs700 with an Odyssey 7Q+ recorder. With the recorder we could get a ProRes 4k 10-bit signal, giving us more flexibility with the grading.

The Fs700 is a very dated camera, but the final video definitely holds strong, we feel. We are sure this looks better than some projects shot on a RED, and we are equally as sure that it looks worse than some projects shot on a 5dmkii. The camera is never at the centre of our focus.

We shot this over two days, with the bathroom scene and the desk writing scene shot on the same day. Unfortunately, while shooting the forest scene where Tristan punched the ground, he split his knuckle wide open and we had to finish shooting. We returned a week later to get the remaining shots and finished up by the coast for the grand-finale.

We kept it handheld for the majority of the video, while also implementing a Kessler slider for some smoother motion to add further contrast to the grit of the handheld motion.

Two led tubes were used for the bathroom scene and the desk writing scene. For the latter, we used a candle setting to emulate some realism in to the shot. The second light was gaffer taped to the ceiling to add a backlight for Tristan.

We worked with practically no crew and relied on a lot of gaffer tape to get us through the shoot, as always.

We worked off a relatively loose shot list and allowed for a lot of improv at each location. This was ironically planned as we knew there would be many moments where we would bounce off each other and create new ideas.

The Edit:

Leslie edited the footage without a soundtrack. We did this to really force a natural rhythm in to the edit and we believe it came out clean. 

Knowing Tristan had a strong level of German, we decided to translate the poem and have him deliver it. The reason for this is non-existent. We then added yellow subtitles for that classic Tarantino look which we have always admired.

Tristan composed the soundtrack in Ableton which is covered below. With the edit locked in (Premiere Pro) we exported a ProRes file for our colourist, Sam to look after. Once finished, Leslie brought it back in, applied the transitions again and exported the project.

We opted for varying aspect ratios, determined by the scene. On top of this, we added a 16mm grain to the desk scene as well as a 35mm grain to the bathroom scene to both compliment the look and aspect ratio.

Audio:

This project initially started with some inspiration. I was listening to a lot of ambient music, specifically Brian Eno and Harold Budd. I was recommended "Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears" by A Winged Victory for the Sullen, and on first listen I knew this was the feel I was going for. Something sad, something emotional, something a little bit twisted. 

I opened up Ableton and set up my Nord electro 6D, a beautiful semi-weighted keyboard with some incredible sounds. I found a fitting piano preset and tweaked it with bells being played on the release of each note. I just hit record on Ableton and started playing, there was no set tempo. I was watching the screen with the movie playing in the background and just kept playing. I played maybe 5-10 times until I found the take that was right. I chopped up the 2 minute sample of me playing, and started placing them on scene transitions. 

I found a heavy drone sound and transposed it down to fit the key of my piano piece. I wanted something swelling in and out of the music. It sounded so pretty and sad to me, the low rumble of the drone and the shimmering piano and bells on top. I added a heavily delayed synth to fill the middle. You can hear this panning left and right when each note is hit. It was sounding pretty, because thats how the video looked. But I knew I needed to take what was sounding pretty, and twist it. I needed to slightly bend the pretty aspect to make it darker. I duplicated the piano from the beginning of the recording, and reversed it in Ableton. Reversed sounds give a slightly creepy undertone, and I think this landed perfectly for the piece, you can hear the reverse piano panning left and right underneath the piano and bells, especially in the bathroom scene where I'm painting my toe nails. You see the subtitles "Crippled, Broken, Grotesque" as a broken man is spiralling backwards, I wanted to create a sound that emulated that feeling.

Initially I opted for the drone and mood of the song to stay the exact same throughout. However, Leslie (thankfully) pointed out that the ending needed to be more climatic, more driven towards an end point. I was watching myself on screen throwing my arms in the air wearing a yellow dress, screaming, but the drone and piano was the same. This needed to change. I found the biggest stomping kick I could. I'm talking Hans Zimmer level of ridiculous here, just completely crushing the low end of the frequency spectrum. I placed them on shots that needed emphasis, for example me throwing my hands in the air, the cigarette being stubbed out, etc. The snares and claps were added to give the kick a sense of rhythm, however they're definitely not in time, please don't try and count it if you're big into theory and time signatures. I added another pad when the stomp kicks in, it was (I think) 5 semitones below the original drone. Just more layers to give that wall of sound and climax. I let it build and build until it completely stops on the cut of me at the cliff.

The composition was complete, but foley and sound effects were still needed. I added foley for each location, 3 room tones, an ocean backdrop, and the forest. The sound effects are a mixture of me screaming in my room, me swooshing a coat hanger dangerously close to my condenser mic for the punching effect, and some sound effects from Splice to round out the project.

The monologue was the fun part of this project. It was just a few hours of me crying german poetry into the mic. My brother and my dog Gizmo were incredibly worried listening outside the door, but I assured them I was fine. It was all for the art, baby. 

I mixed and mastered everything using some Waves plug-ins and Soothe 2, on a pair of Yamaha HS7's, and a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones.

Summary:

Matthew was a real pleasure to work on. 

We always had a love for short films. However, that love was pushed to the side for more corporate work and to make sure the 'business side' of the company was in order.

It is always worth putting time aside for these passion projects. This one, in particular, has reminded us of the sheer fun you can have on set, and the freedom of full creative control. It also reminded us of what we can do with minimal gear at hand. It was some good old fashioned filmmaking and teamwork!

We would love some feedback from you and our email is always open for both collaboration and work.

Gnarvana.

info@gnarvana.net