I am more than happy with the final production I have been able to create. I believe I have been able to represent and apply depression in conjunction to Lacan's 'Mirror Stage' theory effectively. I split filming into three separate days in order to allow myself a variety of shots within each told narrative.
The first shoot was the vintage videos I shot, which are found in the beginning of the narrative. I used an app called VHS Cam on my phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 9) in order to produce old style, VHS Camera footage. The reason why I chose to do this for my project is that it is common in most families to have "your most cherished family memories are stored away on old VHS tapes" (Komando, 2016), and I wanted to give a meaningful back story to the subject in the film. Furthermore, I really wanted to emphasise the good things in the subjects life, in order to gage background on the idea of the depression and to allow the viewer to percieve the Lack of happiness that the subject is witnessing, due to the soul draining mental disorder. I did have to adjust the dates in the app settings screen to give background upon what is being shot - this was no issue but it allowed viewers to encode information, without being an active viewer. I found the clips easy to film, I shot at my sisters house (as shes just had a baby), at a fast food restaurant, a friends house, a coffee shop, and college - I wanted to ensure that I had enough 'memories' to enforce a detailed vision into my subjects mind. Within editing, these shots were montaged together in the beginning of the sequence. I believe that these worked effectively in conjunction to the voiceover and the backing track.
The second shoot was done in my own home, using my Canon 200D DSLR, two led lights, and most props on the list, such as: medication, cigarettes. The first thing I ensured in this shoot is that health and safety was explained to the person assisting me in filming, I made aware any tripping hazards and explained safety when using the lighter, making sure that the equipment/household items weren't subject to catch fire, or that myself wasn't burned when using it for the shot. I wanted to recreate the cinematic shot first that I analysed in my planning. For this I adjusted my camera frame rate to 50fps as I wanted to capture an increase amount of motion, for if i wanted to use the clip in slow motion. After setting my lights up in the places they were previous (one facing myself, the other facing the other subject who enters the scene later), I then altered the camera settings to film. I kept the shutter speed as low as I could get due to the slow shutter speed used in that previous image, however, part of me believes this was a mistake as of the 'double shutter speed of frame rate' guide, I found no problems in post production with this clip. The aperture was kept as wide as possible (f1.4, 2.8) to allow more light into my shot, without getting as much grain impact from the ISO, which was set to 6400. All shots in the bedroom maintained the same settings. Within lighting, one light was adjusted in certain scenes to flash like a strobe, I wanted to portray the feeling of anxiety - a common side effect/disorder felt with depression. The shots following this were shot on the stairwell in the mirror, to furthermore reinforce the idea of Lacan's mirror stage, bringing in an actual mirror. I wanted to show what the subject saw themselves, allowing the viewer to engage into his personal life. Shots I used to emphasise the personal life in this shoot included, over the shoulder, close up, long shot (still). I did also experiment with edge lighting in one shot, to connote the contrast between the good and the bad parts of the characters life.
The third shoot was in the studio, shooting footage on a black background for the paragraph where i discuss existential thoughts. I refreshed upon my knowledge on health and safety and made sure i referred to my blog post before entering, to remind myself of the rules. In terms of the camera settings, I ensured the exposure triangle followed the studio settings of 1/125, F8, ISO 100. The (singular) studio light was pushed to the back of the room so it couldn't light the marks upon the black wall, but still allowed for the subject to be lit.
Editing was pretty simple, I used Premiere Pro on my iMac to edit. It all ran smoothly apart from one particular shot, which was the three clips overlayed of the subject in bed - this caused my mac to freeze in playback, allowing extreme difficulty to edit. I am unsure why this is as my Mac is a newish mac with 16GB of ram, using an SSD to read and write data, I believe this was a software bug. Other than that, transitions such as crossfading were simple. I used a constant power transition and the razor tool upon my soundtrack in order to lower the volume seamlessly when the monologue/voice over is added in. I recorded my monologue using a Blue Yeti Snowball Mic and encountered no issues importing into my project.
I chose the soundtrack M83 - Wait, due to the minor chord progression and its previous use in the film 'The Fault in Our Stars', which was used in the same technique, a voiceover featuring montage of clips, with parallel editing of the 'then' and now. The one issue I did have was with trying to find an instrumental of the song, I looked on various services including YouTube, iTunes Store and Spotify and couldn't find one. I, therefore concluded to just using the original song, and lowered the volume as said when necessary.
I believe that overall, this project was successful, despite issues I encountered along the way. I ultimately have nothing I wish to change about this project in terms of filming, other than editing - which would to be - be more precise in transition timing, but that is all. I can say I focused upon the Lack (Lacan's theory) in my characters life, whilst also displaying the positives, offering an awareness/insight to people who live with depression.
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