top of page

The Making Off Unregistered

Major Task

Filming

The "taxi"scene shooting took place outside of  train station. When writing the script I did not have a specific driver to work with. So after filming the first scenes (where Basarb Nicolae - the main character - arrives in Cluj) Catalin (my actor) and I looked for someone to in the near by locations to help us shoot the film. After a good 30 minutes I found a driver, Mirel is his name, that was willing to play the role, and well he played it. In order for him to take part of the film and drive us to the location, I paid him 50 lei (which is equivalent to 10 euro - the budget allocation for this part). After a short negotiation, I set my microphone  in his taxi cab and asked him to drive in front of the train station. As the city is very crowded in general, nobody has time for "us." Meaning that we could not afford to make mistakes in our one and only take. Because we talked over and managed each move we successfully filmed it in one take.

The grave yard shooting was in my opinion a very successful one. Unfortunately, we could not be on schedule with this shooting due to some altercations in our previous day, when we tried to shoot in the location I basically aimed from the beginning, even before writing the script (seen in the picture below). The first intended shooting was done in a Jewish grave yard. We managed to film half of what we wanted, but sadly for us, the owners got mad on us. This was because we did not talk to them beforehand filming, which was completely  fair and understandable. All of this happened due to my mistake of the location. I thought that the location of the grave yard was part of the city's public place (where I personally asked for permission from the guards), but in reality it was a private area. I apologized to the owners and moved on the next day to "re-shoot the scene". I think that this is relevant because it shows that while "on-set" many unexpected things might occur and you have to be ready to adjust to does contorted situations. I ended up likeing the second "take" a lot more then the first take.

The rooftop shooting was the most difficult take of all. This was because it took 10 takes to achieve "the prefect" shot for my liking. Taking a hand-held shot while moving and aiming to capture everything I needed to capture was truly hard. It was also the most time consuming "take" out of all. The weather was not on our side and we did not want to rush filming the scenes. I found out that a good copping mechanism when under pressure is to look very relaxed and calmly explain to the actor what he needed to do, without showing unpleasant signs of anger or frustration. This helps the actor calm down and focus on doing his part best as possible. In the picture to the left, I emphasized to Catalin what he needed to do by putting him in my shoes and asking him how he would like to be filmed doing his act. His response was very well received and from his feed back he told me that he felt like he created with his "his own hands" the shot.

Filming in the apartment was extremely stressful. This was in particular because both actors live in 2 different cities, and this meant that there had to be 2 days of filming allocated to creating these shots. Taking everything apart and making the house empty wasn't the hardest part of the job, putting everything back where it belonged was though.. I aimed to make the living room empty so that it would instigate lowliness for both "takes" (the scene where Basarab came in the apartment after a he was gone for four years | the scene where Basarb is shown 30 years later) . The fact that the apartment was untouched was done on purpose because I wanted to portray the idea of social deprivation. 

The top 3 pictures are from the first day when I filmed in the apartment and the 2 on the left and right and from the second day I filmed. Setting the letters on the ground the way they were set was a matter of improvisation and thoughtful thinking. I felt like the the best way to connote the idea of time passing and neglectfulness was by putting them in front of the glass door so he would step on them, this would show that he doens't care anymore fo what society thinks and want from him.

This is how the apartment looked after it was emptied.

The last scene was filmed in my mother's salon. As I explained in the 'Location Recce' I used this place because it emphasizes very well the idea of a mental hospital. Filming here wasn't very challenging because from the beginning of year 13 I had this particular idea in my head and I planned through out the whole year how I wanted it to look. The equipment seen in the room looks similar to the once used in a psychiatric hospital - I know this because I personally visited two years ago the Cluj Hospital and saw for myself what kind of equipment is used. This is merely a lucky coincidence. In this shot, I wanted to convey the twist of the film, the part where the audience ask questions about what they have just seen. I used the main character's looks in order to portray this idea. In the scene where he is seen 30 years later, the main character's facial hair is not cared upon, where in the last scene he is bold. This was done in order to show the audience that everything they saw up to that point was a fiction of his imagination/interpretation of the past. Mihaela, the psychiatrist, has a appropriate wearing to the location in order to indicate just that. 

Recording the Narrative

For recording the narrative I had to improvise in order to reduce the noise. To achieve this I went to a closet in my house with Lucian, the older main character, and tapped a blanket to the walls. I also covered the surroundings where the noise could escape with towels. Because the room was filled with clothes the sound was trapped and the quality was generously better then expected, but still not optimum for my liking...

Editing

First Editing of "Unregistered"

First of all, I have to mention that when I reached the point of editing, I realized that my shots/"takes" were longer then expected and the length of the film doubled (11 minutes long). The reason behind this is that in order to portray all the ideas that I wanted to convey, I needed to film each take for a longer period of time. This was unexpected since I took the time to examine each shot before filming, while I was still writing and rethinking the script. So, I decided to edit a 11 minute version, then narrow it down to the 5 minute exam coursework. 

When I started editing the 11 minute version of the short film I began by cutting the video apart and creating a few rough cuts to see how it pans out. The best part about this is that I was able to change the outcome of the product to my liking. I particularly enjoy this process as it is very rewarding to see that with every cut the film is beginning to take form and look just as I want it to.

The next step I took was breaking down the ambient sound I recording while I was on scene. In the image to the left, is the beginning of the film where I edited the ambient train sound. My technique was "overlapping". This means that if the sound is shorter then the scene it is present in, I will look for a spot where the overlapping isn't noticeable and replicate it in order to make it longer. The sound used in the film was all recorded on spot when filming with my microphone. Also, as it can be seen on the left in the middle of the sound layers, I dropped the sound opacity the it wouldn't be disturbing to the audience.

I then proceeded to edit the narrative of the film so I would have an understanding of how the film vibrates and how it feels. In the top screen shot we can see an example of audio from the narrator. Even though I recorded the audio in a room where the noise was reduced, the narrative still had noise, so I took some of the noise out using 2 methods. The first method that I used took most of the noise out, and it was achieved by highlighting a spot in the audio where the narrator wasn't speaking. Then I reduced the noise using the Sony Vegas's tool and applied it to the whole audio by highlighting it again and applying the same noise reduction method. I first noticed that the audio was a bit deformed, so it repeated the steps again, but this time made the affect a bit lower. The second method I used was very simple. I faded the start and end of the audio so it would not sound to abrupt when the narrator spoke.  

The next step I took was editing the non-diegetic sound in the film. Hear I borrowed two already made sounds from YouTube. Unfortunately, for some reason the videos have been taken down and I am not able to find a similar audio track/video on the internet. The first audio that I used (seen in the left image, third layer and it is used through out the majority of the film) is a sound that connotes the idea of mystery. It focuses on what will happen next in the shot and guides the audience into an enigma. The second audio sound used in the film (the scenes where the camera un-focuses on the grave and when the main character is woken up from his "so on so" reality) is an alarming sound. I edited this sound using an overlapping technique.

A more difficult cutting part of the film was the letter scene, where I had to focus on syncing up the narrator's audio with the image on screen. 

When editing the audio for the scenes where the main character dropped his medication to the ground and where he rushes to the rooftop in order to smash the chair, I overlapped to sounds for two reasons. The first was that the transition of the film is a J-cut. The second, it is a great conventional tool to indicate what is going to happen next. Basically it helps the audience understand what will happen next. 

Because some scenes were too bright, I dropped the brightness down as seen in the screenshots below.

The transition between Basarab's fictional reality and the reality we are presented at the end, I innovated a unique technique for me and used it to connote the idea that of altering reality. So, the way I achieved this was by overlapping the same video (copying the shot and putting it on top of the other one). I darkened the top layered video by adjusting the brightness and contrast of that video, then multiplying it. The HSL Adjust tool was not used, I just wanted to see how this layer would look with it turned on; the outcome was too dark (All the steps in darkening the video can be seen in the screenshot down below). The outcome of this affect was well fitted because conveyed what I wanted it to convey.

The font title used was 'Pseudonumb' and I took it off dafont.com. I felt that it fitted well with the beginning of the film as it had comparable appearance with the train. I used the white text color so there will be a big contrast between the font and scene. 

For the subtitles i used Tahoma (default font available int the software) and a white font outlined by black so it would stand out in any scene.

As a conclusion in the editing process I managed to convey most of my ideas. I used 12 layers in the editing process. In the left screenshot, we can see all the different settings I used for the audio volume. And down below we can look at the whole process outlined.

The Eleven Minute Version

Editing - Final Cut

When editing the final cut the hardest part for me wasn't editing the video down to 5 minutes, but rather quieting on a some key shots or cutting some scenes early that were vital for the eleven minute version. It was extremely difficult and frustrating cutting the video and taking out bits and pieces in order for the story to make sense. After many hours of holding a grudge while editing, I finally managed to edit the video down to half it's size. The only manageable length that I could shorten the film down to in order for the story to make sense and have the same effect as it had with the first version was - 5:38 minutes (21 seconds of the short film being credits). The editing as a whole was not too difficult; below are the parts shortened or cut out. 

This shot was the most difficult shot to edit when it came down to cutting parts out. I liked this shot a lot because it gave a great connotation towards the idea of Basarab's anger and frustration. Also the continues shot helped convey in a follow-able manner how he entered the rooftop and smashed the chair to the ground. This shot as a whole was the transition from bad to worse. To remedy the scene I used Jump-Cut, which is also a great tool in conveying the idea of Basarab's anger as it disturbs the audience's view.

Final Cut

Minor  Task

Postcard/Analysis/Making off

UNREGISTERED Short Film

POSTCARD - making off

Final Version

Website / Analysis and Comparison 

Analyzing Short Film Website

Comparing a high budget film with a low one:

UNREGISTERED Short Film Website - https://moldot517.wixsite.com/neinregistrat

bottom of page