Appealing to the Audience

Audiences are less rigid in short films and because they are not often actively promoted the audience tends to be whoever chooses to seek them out. For that reason the main foundation for choosing my audience was the certification on the film, which I originally deemed to be a 15 but reduced to a 12 after making changes to the screenplay and the content. 

That being said I thought that my audience needed to be of a mature mindset to interpret the events on screen, and so the 12 rating was less of a target demographic and more of a content warning. I didn't actually tailor my film to my audience, I tailored my audience to my film. This is because short films are not as industrial or commercial and so do not have studio funding, making them an independent endeavour, a benefit of which is the creator having sole control over the content, length and approval of the final cut. They have no demands to meet because many of them are made for non-profit purposes. Audiences for short films are active, since they are often distributed digitally and so have to be found online in order to be watched. I discovered this when I had to search on YouTube and other sites for examples when I needed inspiration, which I found difficult. Therefore my film appeals to no audience in particular, but I made it visually symbolic and so viewers need to be engaged and focused in order to interpret these multilayered moments, which is why I would recommend only watching the film if you are an enthusiastic fan of the film platform. 

Applying Genre and Narrative Theory

I think that now would be a good time to reflect on how I applied some of the relevant theorists to my work, and how I also subverted some of their proposals to make my product more unique. 

Henry Jenkins: Hybridisation
I mentioned in my genre post about how I wanted my short film to not distinctly fit into any singular genre. Drama and thriller were my selected combination, and this is because it would enable emotional depth but also unpredictable suspense. I feel as though my storyboards and screenplay demonstrate this through how the first half of my narrative steadily heightens in pace and anticipation as Dylan approaches the father, but then a slower pace and more dramatic tone kicks in for the latter half of the narrative, reflecting the inner change of the character. Visually this is further evident through the colour palette, using greys and dull shades to enhance the sombre tone at the start while transitioning into a brighter visual array for the dramatic optimism. I was always certain that I wanted my short film to be more drama based than thriller, and I think that the brief moment of suspense at the start proves that the thriller elements are more of a sub-genre of the film than an equal split between thriller and drama. 

Levi Strauss: Binary Oppositions
I wanted to completely subvert Strauss' cliched concept of opposites, because dramatic performances work best with flawed characters and moral ambiguity. I did this by establishing both of my characters as protagonists/antagonists and so viewers can potentially argue that they both undergo redemption and closure to some extent. Dylan can be seen as a villain through his malicious intentions to kill the Father and avenge his brother, but also as a hero through how he has the self restraint to let the Father and Son go, redeeming himself. Likewise the Father can be viewed as the villain through his unintentional murder of the brother, but also as a hero through how he tries to make up for the loss of life by being the best dad he can be for his son and also mourning his mistake. Either way the film relies on both of them learning something over the course of the narrative, Dylan regaining his humanity and the Father experiencing mercy. 
When looking at aspects other than characters, I did conform to Strauss' Binary Oppositions through my use of light and dark. At a visual level I made changes to the aesthetics of my narrative to reflect the tonal shifts taking place, keeping the brightness and colours low and dull so that when the transition occurred my film became visually enhanced and more optimistic. 


Tzvetan Todorov: 5 Act Structure
My film Shades of Reason doesn't fit conventional narrative theories because it doesn't have a state of equilibrium. We are immediately thrust into a context taking place after the disequilibrium (where the death of Dylan's brother would be the disequilibrium) and so the whole film follows an attempt to restore the equilibrium. However, there is arguably no equilibrium to restore because either way Dylan won't get his brother back, so he is left with the reality of killing the Father and settling for an equilibrium where his revenge has been carried out, or not killing the Father and forcing himself to adjust to an equilibrium where he must live with forgiveness. Whichever way the film had ended equilibrium would never have been restored to the circumstances prior to the brother's death, and so arguably although my film ends on a point of closure, it doesn't end with the sense of events coming full circle. I feel like if I had opted to conclude the film with the death of the Father, this would have felt like more of an equilibrium by capturing the idea of what goes around comes around, but it would not have been as dramatic and poignant, which is why I wanted a more nuanced conclusion. 

Roland Barthes: Codes
Barthes' proposed codes are very specific and so not all of them were relevant to my work, but I incorporated the Symbolic Code and the Enigma Code into my short film. Barthes believes that when more than one of his codes is used this leaves the narrative as 'open', meaning that the interpretations are not fixed and that people may read differently into the film. So despite the fact that the visual ending of the film makes the narrative closed in the sense of a conclusion, the meanings and symbolic depth behind the narrative is open to personal interpretation. When I say I used the 'Symbolic Code', this means that I use physical or visual motifs to represent ideas or themes. In Shades of Reason I specifically use colour on a frequent basis to represent the themes. For example the sky is a symbol for the mood of the film, at first grey as a symbol of hate and delusion, then blue as a symbol of redemption and hope. Additionally I used the colours of the characters' clothes to represent the extent of their moral corruption. Dylan is wearing all grey to represent how he is going through various 'shades of reason', the Father is wearing darker clothes to show how he has been haunted by the guilt of killing Dylan's brother, while the Son wears all white to embody the youthful innocence and major turning point of redemption in the film. 
With regards to the Enigma Code, which is specifically used for suspense where actions rather than implications are the source, I feel like I captured this with the recurring prop of the gun. Its appearance showed the potential for violence and helped to elevate the intensity  of the scenes, especially where the Father was unaware of Dylan's presence. 

Vladimir Propp: Character Archetypes
As already mentioned in my talk about how Dylan and the Father subvert classic Binary Oppositions in my study of Strauss, I also conformed to and subverted the character archetypes proposed by Propp. In much the same way, I feel that I create ambiguity about who is the hero and villain in this film, since it could be any of the three characters (even the Son through how his appearance prevents the murder from taking place). I often find my characters fitting several of Propp's archetypes, or at least certain characteristics of Propp's archetypes.  However there is no categorical purpose of my characters, showing how I wanted to make humanised characters rather than characters who merely served a function. Nevertheless, the fact that my characters still conform to certain elements of Propp's archetypes suggests to me that certain characteristics are essential for storytelling. 

Joseph Campbell: Hero's Journey
What I find interesting about Campbell's proposal of the Hero's Journey is how it can be applied to both Dylan and the Father, further showing that I may have been successful in portraying my characters as humans rather than as hero and villain. His first stage is the 'Departure', embodied for both of my characters in the death of Dylan's brother. Then the 'Initiation' for Dylan is where he is forced to choose either to shoot or spare the Father, and for the Father is it when he chooses to wait for Dylan to make the move when the two of them meet eye contact. And finally the 'Return' is where both characters embrace the consequences of their actions, with Dylan letting the Father live and the Father showing his guilt and regret. By displaying how both of the character arcs can be seen as following the 'hero's journey', it shows that I have applied Campbell's theory, but I prefer to see the character arcs as just a 'journey', allowing the heroic elements of the film to be decoded by the viewers themselves. 

Shades of Reason: Final Cut

This is the final cut of my short film. I am very proud of it and am looking forward to reflecting on it in the evaluation. 

Final Tweaks

As I'm sure I will consistently find things I could improve on in my final short film, I feel that currently my final version is more or less complete and so now would be a good time to add any minor changes so that I can finish and move on to the next tasks. In total honestly I feel like the only change I needed to make was to the font of the opening credits. In iMovie I tried out a variety of fonts, narrowing it down to two. The first is  called 'Chalkduster', (typography shown below).

It has connotations of graffiti and vandalism due to the faded and slightly free flowing nature of the style. From an audience level I thought that this would be another great way to subvert expectations, because the build up from the narration and the grey visual tone of the opening denotes violence and adolescent recklessness, so I think this font conforms to the stereotype. Therefore the font won't seem congruous with the rest of the narrative, because the tone becomes much lighter and redeeming, whereas at the start it seems to confirm the audience's initial expectation that the film will be about erratic and antisocial behaviour. 

On the other hand this is my preferred font, 'Helvetica Neue Ultralight', because it just seems so nuanced and basic, whereas Chalkduster provided a much less subtle appearance. I think that this is a more professional style to use and also supports the subtle meanings that are evoked rather than obviously forced. In terms of symbolism, I think that this works better because at the moment I am thinking of the tagline 'The line between grief and guilt is not black and white' and so the thinness of the font hints at how there isn't that broad a gap distinguishing the two key emotions. What I have done, again subtly, is changed the colour of 'Shades' to a light grey, so that it emphasises the moral and ethical shades that it alludes to. This is a trait I intend to continue on my poster. 

Apart from some minor audio changes, my film is now complete. 

Post Production: Non Diegetic Soundtrack

Although I think that my film appears more realistic without a non-diegetic soundtrack, I feel as though it will help to create a more cinematic effect on my narrative and enhance the tones I want to establish at different points in the film. Unfortunately the criteria mandates that any material that isn't your own cannot be used, meaning that if I wanted to use a non-diegetic score, I would have to compose one myself. I am going to attempt to use Garage Band to create and then export different musical backing tracks, but if they sound too basic and unprofessional, I will discard them. 

Having never used this program before, I started by attempting to familiarise myself with the instruments and keys that correspond with my laptop keyboard. I experimented with a variety of sounds and recordings as a way of learning what sounded suitable and what sounded too incongruous with my film's tone. The soundtrack is integral to a film and can be equally effective when there is not one at all, but I think it will help to add another layer of intensity and redemption with a musical score to signify this change. 

I know that there are channels on YouTube dedicated to providing tutorials on how to compose famous film soundtracks on the piano, and so I thought that rather than necessarily try to compose a score from scratch, I could replicate a theme using my own instruments and as a result not commit copyright fraud. The screenshot above is my attempts to use the grand piano to copy the piano tutorial for 'Alan Walker - Faded' because I thought that instrumentally this had an uplifting tone that may correspond nicely with the conclusion of my short film. Although I think that my soundtrack was a good reflection of the tutorial, I think that the music sounded both too optimistic and too depressing at the same time, and I also feel that the piano gave the track a connotation of innocence which didn't really suit. 

The screenshot above demonstrates the process of exporting a track from Garage Band in order to open it in iMovie. Clicking 'Share' and then selecting 'Song to iTunes' from the drop down menu allows it to be exported into iMovie. When this is done, opening up the iTunes bar in the audio section of iMovie will give you access to all of your iTunes purchases, with your songs included. 

Music tells a story in itself. The soundtracks for films have to accompany the tonal and emotional experiences occurring on screen, and so musically they reflect the narrative and how it unfolds. For this reason, when starting to compose music for my short film, the best place to start was at the beginning. Since the start of my film is supported with a voiceover, any additional audio would need to be subtle and unobtrusive. I also didn't want to make the opening overwhelming, and so what I thought would be an effective idea was to design a soundtrack that represented a heartbeat. This way it functions as both a diegetic and non-diegetic sound, subverting conventional music. To achieve this effect, I chose an instrument in Garageband that resembled something like the thumping of a heartbeat, and the closest that to this was a drum. Then I used a simple rhythm of 1 beat followed by 2 beats to reflect the double contractions, repeating this on the recording to maintain an equal and steady pace. I decided to start this just after the voiceover begins, making it seem as though the sound is in fact tied to the character. 

The blue colour of the microphone tool in the top right shows that I have altered the volume. I thought it would be an effective idea to keep the pace of the heartbeat steady but slowly increase the volume to make it seem increasingly more tense. 

I stopped the heartbeat just at the beginning of the main title interlude, ending with the climax of the voiceover. I ended the final heartbeat track on full volume so that it supported the threatening implications of the narrator. 

For the sequence just after the title where the Father is introduced, I thought I could continue the heartbeat but make the beats increasingly closer together to show a rising heart rate and show Dylan's anticipation as his conflict becomes visible. However, I decided that I would opt for a more nuanced approach here, having just heard his heart rate it would be better if the audience had to rely purely on Dylan's reaction to gage his intentions, rather than be shown in the music. Additionally I don't think that the heartbeat was an engaging sound motif to be continued without pause, so a break from it works well in my narrative, embodying the calmness and stability of the Father. 

Having used a temporary non-diegetic silence in the narrative between the Father appearing and Dylan stalking him, I decided that it was a good time to reuse the heartbeat soundtrack for the sequence where Dylan starts to get closer and closer, but also adapt it to show the changing circumstances. I used the increasingly quick beat of the drums to reflect both his increase in pace but also his increase in heart rate, establishing a much faster pace for the film itself. There is less space in-between each beat of the drum (shown in the green bar in the screenshot above) which shows that the music is quickening and consequently adding to the pace. 

While I wanted the heart rate to build to a crescendo, it also needed to complement the sudden appearance of the Son, and so whilst the heart rate reaches its quickest just as Dylan is ready to pull the trigger, it suddenly disappears once the Son is heard off screen. Although realistically the heart rate would quicken even more on the sudden shock caused by the appearance of the Son, this is where the soundtrack retains its non-diegetic characteristics by being used to emphasise the tone and pace. Suddenly getting rid of the score adds to the abruptness of the Son's entry and in my opinion makes it more dramatic. It also signifies the end of the heartbeat, because I feel like to use it more would be to overuse it and there aren't really any sequences that follow where the heart rate is a good  fit for the narrative. 

For the more revelatory part of the narrative following Dylan's choice, I needed a soundtrack which reinforced the redemption of the character. I thought about famous soundtracks such as 'Time' from Inception, 'First Step' from Interstellar and 'Adagio' from Sunshine. However all of these were very complicated tracks to master because they involved the entire keyboard and for a beginner on the piano this would be hard to compose. So I kept thinking about a simple but evocative soundtrack, and the final scene from The Grey sprang to mind where Liam Neeson's character is facing an alpha wolf. It is a basic but emotional soundtrack, balancing regret with redemption, and what's more, there was even a tutorial for it (shown above). What I liked about it was that I could only copy the integral parts of the score and discard the rest, simplifying the process. 

To change it slightly, I used an instrument called the 'slow synth brass bells' which gave the track a spiritual and choral edge to it. 

The theme from The Grey is something that I wanted to play from the shot where Dylan pulls down his hood to the end of the Big Mead sequence. The problem was that the part of the score I had recorded did not run for that long, and so I would need to copy and paste it twice in order to continue the musical track for the entirety of the sequence. 

The screenshot above shows how I had to overlap the audio files of The Grey in order to make the copies more seamlessly continual. There is a slight disruption in the pace and although it isn't perfect, the overlap helps to conceal the obviousness of the restart. 

Because I didn't want to keep reusing the same 40 second recording of the clip I decided to record some of my original music to use for the part of the narrative after Dylan and the Father see each other. In order to keep it congruous with the sounds I already used, I chose to use the 'slow synth brass bells' again because it would all feel like a combined and complementary theme. There was no real structure to my recording, I just tried out a few different combinations of keys and eventually found one that I thought was tonally appropriate. 

I didn't want to put the recording over the clips where Dylan and the Father make eye contact. This is due to my wish to recreate the effectiveness of the ending of Sicario where Benecio del Toro and Emily Blunt have an intense stand off, remaining still and silent while anticipating what the other will do. This transpires without the addition of a soundtrack, and it contributes to the suspense of the scene. Similarly I felt that this is the pinnacle moment in the narrative and I didn't want it to be undermined by having a continuous soundtrack play over it, so the silence draws attention to the significance of this individual moment. 

Choosing when to start my recording was quite difficult. If I played it too early, it would finish at an inconvenient and illogical place later on, but playing it too late would mean that it would impede into the epilogue scene. I settled on placing it just as the Father starts to get in the car, because I feel like at this point the choral eloquence of the instruments would capitalise on the forgiveness/redemption currently being experienced by the characters. And then it would finish by fading out into the epilogue scene, coming across as quite professional. 

When approaching the final scene I was torn. Part of me thought that leaving it in silence would be a good way to ground the film back into a sombre reality as it drew to a close. On the other hand this would be quite anticlimactic because I have spent the rest of the non-diegetic soundtrack emphasising the optimism that is occurring, and so it would be a complete reversal of tone to leave the narrative in a depressing silence. I thought that I could repeat my original recording, but this wouldn't be effective considering it had just finished as this scene began. So I thought that The Grey recording was a better fit, because it was more subtle in the notes and came across as more gentle. It also helps to make the epilogue scene feel as though it is a necessary scene in the film, by playing a soundtrack already familiar for being in the narrative already, it makes the final scene seem important to the conclusion, even though tonally it may seem a bit different. But hopefully by re-playing a track already used, it gives it the same redeeming tone as the rest of the narrative. 

The soundtrack and film perfectly desist together, coming to a slow and uplifting conclusion. All in all, I feel that for the most part my non-diegetic recordings have complemented the film effectively. My only concern is that the repeated playings of The Grey during the Big Mead sequence sound more disjointed than they do cohesive. 

To change this repetitiveness, I used the speed tool in iMovie to actually slow down the recording. By doing so it extended the length of the soundtrack, meaning I didn't need to repeat it multiple times, allowing it to play at a slower and more complementary pace to the unfolding of the scene. You can see in the top corner that I only slowed it by 10% because to do so any more would make the track less fluid due to the fact that each note was being played further apart. 

 

Although the slowed down soundtrack didn't quite extend the entire length of the scene, I wasn't bothered because by repeating the track again at its normal speed it allowed me to add variety into the soundtrack as it progressed, rather than being obviously copied and pasted. So now I have two copies of the same score, but the first is played much slower and comes across as slightly different, but still cohesive with the recurring theme that also plays at the end. 

 One final change I made after this was to delete some of the heartbeats in the build up to the appearance of the Son. I feel like it worked in short bursts but I had copied it too many times and started the build up too early, causing it to have the effect of being prolonged rather than intensified. To solve this I deleted the first two because it allows the silence to become more eerie before the heartbeat starts and adds suspense in a brief but exciting sequence. 

Post Production: Audio

With the visuals of my short film more or less finalised, I wanted to move over to the sound design. This includes the diegetic audio and the non-diegetic soundtrack. In this post I am going to talk about how I edited the audio of my film to have a greater impact on the effect of the narrative. 

For the opening scene where Dylan is sat in the car, I wanted the audio to have the effect of being confined, of being shut away from the outside world, because this really captures Dylan's isolation in the current moment. I could have reduced the sound or muted it completely to create an eerie silence, or the third option was to search through iMovie's list of stock audio effects and see whether one of them fit the criteria I needed. As shown in the screenshot above, the muffled effect was impactful, because it slightly distorted the sound and made the viewer feel slightly detached from the interior. 

However, in the end I opted to mute all of the clips taking place with the voiceover, because the silence was balanced by the narration over the top. This allows the visuals of the film to be complemented only by the voiceover, which is given sole focus by muting the audio of the clips themselves. Therefore the contextual information given by the narration is not imposed on by the background noise of the clips. 

The narration itself was slightly inhibited by the fact that there was a muffled sound in the background which lingered for the whole voiceover. In order to get rid of this, I used the simple checkbox in iMovie (shown in the screenshot above) called 'reduce background noise' and by selecting this it instantly got rid of the muffled audio and gave my voiceover a much crisper sound. 

What I didn't like about the sound of the opening scene was how by muting the clips the film would be silent through the opening title, because the voiceover would be finished by this point. And since the clip that comes after the title will have sound the audio contrast becomes too apparent and discontinuous. To counteract this I ensured that the scene before the title, although quiet, would still have some degree of sound to make the audio transition more fluidly. The audio of that clip captures Dylan breathing heavily, and I thought that I could copy this over the title to give the eerie effect of Dylan's erratic breathing. 

I decided against this when I found something better in the stock audio effects. There was a sound effect of 'Sports Car Passing' that sounds as though a car races in from far away and then disappears into the distance, building and then diffusing sound. Since my film and my narration are largely reliant on the idea that the protagonist's brother died in a car crash, I thought that this would be very relevant and also have the eerie effect needed to bridge the two clips either side of the title. It fades out nicely into the following clip, and I think it works perfectly for both the audio transition and the symbolic value of the overall narrative. 

Because the clips after the titles start to introduce the exterior world beyond the confines of the car, I thought that it was important to diegetically acknowledge this. So the shots of the Father walking along are noticeably more audible to emphasise the contrast between Dylan's eerie silence and the Father's confident strides.

Some of the shots, although visually pleasing, suffered from the background sounds of the camera. In the shot above, for example, the microphone picked up the minor movements of the camera as it panned across. I tried reducing the background noise but this only got rid of the sounds of the trees and the birds, and so I decided that I could mute the clip altogether and copy the audio from another clip. To do this I detached the audio from the clip preceding it and pasted it over the muted shot to create a more cohesive sound bridge, and one that didn't involve picking up the noise of the camera. 

The audio for certain shots I left completely untouched. The juxtapositions of the characters walking, for example, is something that in terms of sound didn't need enhancing or reducing. The sound of the footsteps complemented the panic and increasing intensity and so I didn't feel that it needed to change at all. This was the same with a lot of my shots, where the audio itself was fine, but just need minor alterations to get rid of any scuffling or reduce the sometimes overwhelming sound of walking. Here, however, the sound of walking is the main priority and so for this reason it needed to be loud and demanding.  

Throughout a lot of my shots during the Big Mead sequence (both parts), there were lots of natural sound effects in the background due to the natural environment we were filming in. When watching my film, bird song and the swaying of trees are particularly audible. I wanted to draw specific attention to the shot above, because the background noise here is crows chirping. In this shot Dylan is raising the gun in preparation to shoot the Father, and since crows are often symbols of death and ominous foreboding, I thought that this sound was perfectly supportive of the tone of the shot. 

The idea of the scene where the Son enters the narrative was for him to be heard before he is seen. Therefore I didn't reduce the sound or the background noise for this sequence of shots because the Son's voice needed to be faint but still completely surprising. The sound of a voice in the film for the first time since the narration helps to disrupt the pace and interrupt the focus on the sole two characters up to this point. 

In the top right corner you can see that I changed the audio effect here to 'Muffled'. This is one of my favourite shots, and muffling the sound drew more focus to Dylan's breathing and the echo of his breath. In my opinion it adds quite an intimate, emotive tone to the scene because as well as zooming in on the character, the shot also becomes more audibly  enclosed and so its as though the protagonist is feeling trapped by the scenario. 

For the arc shot around Dylan along the Luccombe Road there were noticeable sounds of wind and footsteps as the camera circles around. However I couldn't silence the clip because in the background the faint sound of the car door shutting is heard, which I need for continuity because the next shot of the car is when its driving off. So even though the sound is quite distorted in this clip, I am hoping that maybe adding a non-diegetic soundtrack over the top could reduce this noise. 

The epilogue scene needed to be quite like a silent unravelling for the Father, and so I reduced the sound of each shot here to around 30% so that it wasn't intrusive or overwhelming. It accompanies the emotion of the scene nicely, because the silence can be a solemn or uplifting tranquility. 

With the diegetic sound changed and altered, my next post will be my attempts to create a non-diegetic soundtrack to go over the top of some of the more emotive sequences. In the meantime, this is my updated cut of the film, with all the new changes in sound:

Post Production: Colour/Brightness/Contrast

The post-production process of any film involves much more than just editing the shots into a narrative.  It is also the point at which editors alter the sound, colour, contrast and overall visual appearance of the clips on screen. In this post, I am going to walk through my decisions to change the visual appearance, and leave the sound design for a separate post. 

In iMovie, the symbol resembling a colour palette (along the top right) opens up several different colour bars allowing the editor to change the aesthetics of their film in a simple and easy to fix manner. Once the clip in the timeline is selected, you can then click on the colour palette and start to experiment with the different looks and tones it can create. The screenshot above shows that I started at the beginning of my narrative and decided to gradually work my way through each shot in order to make the visual tone of the film look continuous and seamless. 

Colour was already an important part to my story, from its early conception in the storyboards, through to filming in locations with different lighting and even titling my film with reference to light and shades. Knowing this, I want to make sure that in post-production I made the importance of lighting and colour apparent. The screenshot above shows how I have changed the brightness and colours of the opening shot to become more defined but also a lot darker. My intention was always to make the film look visually dark in the build up to the murder, and then when Dylan decides to spare the Father's life I would shift the film into a visually lighter tone. I think that the strong and intrusive shadows help to accompany the sombre voiceover. 

Once I had started to change the brightness and colour on one of the shots, then I needed this to be continued in the next. So the shot above is much less colourful, shown through how the blue and yellow of the photograph are no longer bright and eye-catching, and the contrasts of lighting are much harsher. I like the effect it has on this shot, making it feel like Dylan is sitting in the shadows and using this as a projection of his own mindset. 

The shot above is my favourite colour change in the whole narrative. The problem I had with filming this on two separate occasions was the change in weather, because one of the days was grey and the other was sunny. Therefore in the editing process I now had the chance to make the differences inconspicuous by giving all of the shots the same dark appearance. In this case, even though the sky in the background still has a bluish tint, it now resembles more of a grey and gloomy backdrop. What is most relevant about this shot is how I have darkened it to the extent that Dylan's face is half covered in pitch blackness. I love this split because it perfectly personifies his conflicted mental state, partly consumed by utter hatred and partly still human, blending the light and dark moral connotations. I think that visually it also creates tension because by not showing us Dylan in his entirety, the audience become suspicious as to why he is lurking in the shadows. 

Making the sky differences less overt became more difficult when the sun was actually visible in the shot. Take the shot above for example, where the sun in the background helps to produce a shadow over Dylan on the side closest to the viewer. It was unproductive to just make the shot darker because this made Dylan indistinguishable in the car and made the sun more noticeable, so what I had to do was change the yellow colour bar to make the sun less defined and reduce the brightness to limit its projection rather than increase the darkness, which would have just made the contrasts more definitive. So although the sun still features in the backdrop of this shot, it comes across as spectral and eerie rather than uplifting. 

You can see in the timeline that this shot appears just before the main title, and so I wanted this shot to look especially dark in order to create convergence between the title credits and the visual connotations of the shot. I increased the darkness to its maximum and also reduced both of the colour bars, making the shot less reliant on colour and more on the shades of light and dark present here. Since Dylan is holding the gun here, I wanted him to be visually consumed by darkness in order to reflect his internal thoughts. The light from the sun hitting his face on the other side is only subtle, but it helps to prevent Dylan from becoming a silhouette and so maintains a necessary outline of the character's features. 

After the credits, we are introduced to the Father's character, who is walking past the car park. I still needed to keep the exterior quite grey and dull, but I also wanted to establish a contrast between the claustrophobia of Dylan's car and the freedom of the outside. Therefore I enhanced the darker contrasts of the shot to give the Father more prominence in the foreground of the image, and also enhanced the colour this time so that the green fields and trees looked lively and fresh. I made this choice so that I could portray Dylan as isolated and compelled by darkness, whereas once we start to take the perspective of an outsider looking inwards, the world isn't suddenly so full of darkness. The greyness of the sky still needed to be continued in order to hint at the malicious deeds about to follow. 

Another shot of Dylan in the mirror's reflection, where I once again increased the contrast to completely conceal one side of his face. This time, however, I didn't make the background look as glum. I allowed the blue of the sky, which is only very subtle, to border this brief shot as a way of foreshadowing the redemptive arc that Dylan will experience. 

The screenshot above shows an important part of the narrative because the Father is now entering the location where Dylan intends to kill him. The shot is very suited to the film because it captures how the Father is leaving a bright area and moving into the darkness, whilst the position of the camera also has the impression that someone is spying on him from above. In terms of colour, the main thing I wanted to achieve here was a clear contrast between light and dark, where the darkness of the path foreshadows what's about to happen. It looks as though the Father has left a place of hope and sanctuary to walk into a trap. 

Dylan's surprise when the Son comes out of nowhere is captured with a strong sense of vibrancy. The green of the bushes and trees was enhanced to make the path seem more idyllic, and this helped the rays of the sun to be more noticeable as they try to break through the thick forest in the background. Increasing the contrast here was not done as a way to make the shot look dark or glum, but as a way to emphasise the colours and the light starting to gain prominence. This shot marks the start of a change in the visuals of the film.

From this point onwards, the increase of the darkness is not a deliberate attempt to exaggerate the sombre tone of the film, but is done to capture the light and strong contrasts between the colours, as shown in the shot above. 

Even though this shot signifies an establishing shot and a change of setting, it is still greatly linked with the shot that precedes it, and in terms of colour becomes synonymous.  It maintains the visual tone whilst not maintaining the visual content, adopting a new location but acting as a continuation of the aesthetic appearance of the shots that came before. 

The difference in colour and contrast of these two shots is quite unbelievable, especially seeing as they were filmed around a similar time. These two shots are the last to unfold at the Big Mead, and the differences in sky were something I wanted to include to characterise the differences between the protagonists. Using bright blue to capture the Father and Son helped to establish the contentment that they feel, while using a slightly faded sky with a hint of the sun for Dylan aided in the assumption that he has transitioned from being overly dark to slightly redeeming. The glow of the sunset symbolises the sense of hope that the viewer has for Dylan. 

The blue in the background of this shot definitely needed to be enhanced. It is the last shot to feature Dylan in the narrative, so I wanted it to act as a visual conclusion from where he started. The visual shifts in post-production complement the tonal shifts of the narrative, and the blue sky behind Dylan here shows how he has embraced and come into the light, leaving his darkness behind. I also increased both the darkness and the brightness to heighten the contrast of the image but show the redemptive conclusion to Dylan's arc through a lighter approach. 

This is one of my favourite shots, made even more so by the contrasts I have used to emphasise the Father's features, and also make the red flowers seem more imposing. Most of the shots in the epilogue have a combined tone of sombre regret and uplifting progression, so I wanted the shot of the Father here to begin with a darker visual approach and like I did with Dylan, start to make this less obvious as the scene elaborates. The contrast is still maintained, but becomes more about emphasising the light than emphasising the darkness. 

In order to establish character parallels between my protagonists, I thought that I could use the lighting in post-production to make these recognitions more obvious, through subtle changes. So I have enhanced the contrast in the shot above like I did with several of the shots of Dylan, to make one side of the Father's face darker and concealed. I kept the blue sky as it was so that the shot didn't start to backtrace and undo the more redemptive tone of the scene which precedes it, so instead it acts as a continuation and grants the Father his redemption as well as Dylan's.

My short film with the additional changes to my colour and contrasts.