Above is my film “Ocean Path”
The film is a collection of drone and camera footage that myself and Mathew collected while we were on our coastal walk. All of the drone footage was made by myself and Mathew took most of the camera footage while we were walking. This is the first cinematic piece that I have made so I was a little worried that I bit off more than I could chew. However, I went through a process, much like my post production photographic process that enabled me to work efficiently in Premiere pro to make this piece of work.
My first task was to select which footage was going to make it into the film as between us we had collected around 100GB of video. Once I had done this, I dropped those files into Premiere pro and selected sections of the footage that I wanted. (Something that I learnt during this process was not to take 4-5 minutes drone shots as I was constantly cutting the sections out that I wanted. In future I will perhaps film 30 seconds to 2 minutes of footage of an area I want once I have refined the framing.) I then sequenced the video clips in an order based on the location in which I took the frames. This then left me with 4 or 5 sequences that I then placed in an order which allowed a cohesive narrative of movement throughout the land.
My next task was to find some music or sounds that I thought would work alongside the film. I wanted something calming and relaxing to keep my viewer at peace when they are viewing my journey. I scrolled through Bensounds and eventually found two tracks which I think do a good job of achieving a peaceful emotive throughout the film. I used two tracks, the first one being faster moving than the second which really brings the viewer into the shots of the sea. As well as the music, I thought I wanted some movement sounds. Such as the sea crashing, footsteps and the camera shutter. I downloaded some sounds off Youtube and placed them into my film. They did not sound that organic nor did they fit into all aspects of what I was trying to achieve, so I went for the less is more attitude and took them out.
Finally the last task was to colour correct the footage. This was most probably my most favourite part of the editing of the film and one that I think I have done fairly well. I played around with some of the preset colours that Premiere pro has and then made a few of my own adjustments to make the most out of the colours in the footage. I wanted to bring the detail in the land alive in the most calming way possible. I edited the footage with warmer tones, as well as bringing the vibrance out by upping the contrast and saturation. These bright and punchy colours show off the pure beauty of the land that I was in. I was also bearing in mind that I wanted the film to be a similar colour palette to the photographs that I took so that the two sit uniformed together.
The order of the film came together quite naturally. Most of the footage is placed in chronological order and the drone footage is broken up with camera shots that were taken on the ground. I want my audience to feel as if they are travelling through the land with me. The film starts off by showing the size of the space that Matthew and I were travelling through, the music builds up during the first half of the film and then calms into the second piece of music. The film then slows down, with the shots being slightly longer and more focused on the way in which the sea is interacting with the land it is falling into. The idea is to make the viewer feel at peace and connected to the space that I have captured. The time that I spent making this film allowed me to be purely connected to the land that I was travelling through. It gave me time to reflect on my relationship with it, to understand the beauty and the power of the land while giving it the respect that it should be given. These are all the feeling that I want my viewer to feel when they are watching my film “Ocean Path”
Having only just brought my drone I was a little worried about the quality of the footage that I was going to be able to get. I wanted to shoot drone footage for two reasons. It shows the size and perspective of the land that I was travelling through which is hard to achieve with a camera on the ground. Secondly, the drone is able to capture the land with a god like eye which gives it an omnipotent view point which I believe emphasises the power and beauty of the land.
The inspiration that I had for this film came heavily from the way in which the Anthropocene by Burtynsky, Baichwal and Pencier was made. I thought the way in which it collected its narrative throughout was incredibly interactive. By having your viewer in the sky with drone footage, showing the size and scale of the land. While then bringing them back to the ground and into the smaller narratives that the filmmakers were interacting with. This gives the viewer a wide perspective of the big and small narrative of the land that the filmmakers were interacting with. I tried to create my film in the same style, by bringing the viewer closure to Matthew and I with the ground shots and then sending them into the sky with the drone. This shows the viewer the size of the space that we were traveling in while giving them a god-like perspective of the land.
Overall, I am really pleased with the outcome of this cinematic piece that I have made. Before I went out on the journey I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like and I think I have been able to achieve that in the way that I wanted. This slow and gentle film shows an area of the South West that I feel greatly connected to. I want my viewer to come in and feel the same level of peace and contentment that I do through this moving image. “Untitled Thought- Seeking Silence” was my last body of work in which I wanted to primarily convey the feeling of peace and silence in the landscape. “Ocean Path” brings the viewer on the physical journey that I went on to create this body of work. The audience is connected to me interacting within the landscape on a more interactive and physical level which allows them to be more immersed in the body of work than the previous one I made.