Results

After the screening we gave out questionnaires for people to fill in.
Overall, we got an average score out of 10 of 8.19
When asked how they felt about the film
-8 out of 21 said it was very good
-13 out of 21 said it was good

Some of the improvements suggested were:
'the grainy shots in places'
'ending revealing the whole film being a dream sequence, bit cleche'
'Hint at plot/themes and twists rather than making it obvious'

Overall, the film was very well received by the people invited to the screening.

FILM LINK

INTERROGATION- LINK TO VIMEO

Self-Assessment Essay

Interrogation is a story of a young man who has been lead down a bad track by a combination of peer pressure and bad decisions. The film is supposed to depict the struggles that young men have with peer pressure and dealing with the fact that it’s time to grow up. We wanted to create a film that could be influential and relatable to students who were about to face the leap and join the real world. One of the main influences to our film was the flashbacks from ‘Source Code’, which split up the main narrative of the film and added a depth to the structure, rather than it just being a linear timeline.  I was appointed director of the film, Phil Johnson was editor and as he was responsible for getting the final vision to the screen, we decided he should also be an assistant director on set. Nathan was originally given the role of Director of Photography and Camera Operator, however, due to him showing a lack of enthusiasm and not showing up to the majority of production meetings, we made a collective decision to give Rob Hughes the position instead and have Nathan as a cameraman. 

Once we had decided on the idea for the project; Phil and I sat down to flesh out a rough script. I think this stage of the process happened a lot quicker having only two of us doing it, although we had had some input of ideas from Rob, which we implemented. We then took our script to the whole group and made changes accordingly. One of the biggest problems we faced in the planning stages of the project was sourcing performers. In fact, this was a problem that we took right up to the filming. We had such a problem sourcing extras; we had to completely change the layout of our poker scene, as there weren’t enough bodies to fill the whole room. I think this problem would have been easier to resolve if there was a budget to pay the extras for their time. The other problem I faced with using less skilled actors was them not remaining professional whilst in the background of a shot. So there was several wasted takes where some of the extras have started laughing or doing something inappropriate. In terms of post-production, Phil did the majority of the editing. One of the main issues he had was getting the sound right. This was down to several factors, such as only using a mono microphone input, meaning there was a dead channel that developed unwanted noise. The other issue was the fact that we forgot to use a clapped board for the majority of the scenes so syncing audio was an issue.

Overall, I feel the project has gone well and the final outcome has got very good feedback from people when screened. If I were to start the project again I would definitely keep a closer eye on what shots are looking like, especially the dolly zoom shots, as the moving dolly makes it hard to get a live feed from the camera. I would also plan more time to brief the actors before we get to location, as I spent a lot of time doing this on set which made it harder to look at the shots from a technical point of you. 

Treatment

Interrogation – Treatment

Interrogation is a story of a young man who has been lead down a bad track by a combination of peer pressure and bad decisions. The backbone of the story is an interrogation of Billy, who is struggling to remember the events of the night before. As the plot unfolds the audience sees flashbacks of the events that happened to get him in this position. There film finished by revealing to the audience that this interrogation has been happening in Billy’s head and he is in fact laid in a gutter.  The plot depicts the struggle that young men have with peer pressure and facing up to the fact that there not a teenager anymore.

The film will open on Billy, who is tied down to a chair looking a dazed and confused. A mysterious voice off camera starts interrogating him and pressuring him to remember the events that have led to him being here. The voice triggers a flash back of Billy at the start of the night in his flat. The scene starts with him greeting his mates at the flat door; at this point he is enthusiastic towards them and appears to be ready for a good night out. When they get into the flat, Ruby is washing up and looks annoyed at the boys. One of Ruby’s possessions is smashed, which triggers a chat between Ruby and Billy, in which, Ruby tries to bring Billy back down to earth and ground him in reality. This is undone by his mates who pull him back towards the ‘fun’ living room. Billy finds himself back in the interrogation room and looks even more tired and his shirt is less clean. The interrogator (still off camera) starts questioning him again, triggering another flashback. We now see Billy at a poker game in which, he appears to have a winning hand and be in a betting competition with another player, who also seems to have a winning hand. We see Billy go all in and as the dealer lays down the flop, he slowly realises that he has lost to the opponent. We then see him storm out of the room, followed by Geoff who is sat to his right. They enter the bar and sit down with some shots to have a heart to heart chat. This ends with Geoff persuading Billy to go out to a club and spend some of his overdraft. We go back to the interrogation and Billy is now looking messed up with rips in his shirt etc. The interrogator is getting angrier now and is shouting by the time Billy plunges into his final flashback. We see him in a club, making his was round a few different girls, before he settles on the girl in the stripy dress and they make their way out of the club and start making out in the alleyway outside. They are cut short by the girl’s real boyfriend punching Harry, knocking him to the ground. We are back in the interrogation room where Billy is realizing what he has done wrong. We emerge back in the alley. It’s now morning and Ruby had found Billy and is reassuring him as he apologizes.

The main style of the film is in the Interrogation scenes as that is the backbone to the story. The lighting on the subject is harsh and the background is in complete darkness to give the impression that he is in a void. A lot of the visual style of the film was achieved using in-camera fx; such as the slow shutter speed in the club scene, which gave the scene a look of drunken confusion. We also used a dolly zoom shot in the casino scene to exaggerate the expression on Billy’s face when he realizes he’s lost all his money. The earlier flashbacks also use a variety of warm gels to contrast with the later scenes.

Our target audience is students or people who have not long since ben students, aiming to encourage make the film relatable to them and, maybe even encourage them to grow up a little bit. 

Promo and premiere

In order to get some feedback from a fresh audience and to allow the cast to see the film we have decided to organize a screening of the film on a big screen with a proper PA system. Phil has produced a promo image to advertise the premiere.

Editing

As Phil (the editor) had his own copy of Final Cut Pro, he was able to get working on a rough cut fairly quickly. Me and Rob did have several meetings with Phil to check on the progress and offer constructive criticism. Unfortunately, Nathan was not available for any of the editing review sessions, so he has not had chance to offer an opinion on the edit. On Sunday 29th April Phil invites us to see the full film with all of his colour correction and effects. We were both taken aback by how well the film flows and how good the edit looks and other than a few minor changes we thought it was ready for a public screening.

Shoot day 3

Me and Harry got to location at about 9.00 and set up the set for the interrogation scene. Rob and Phil turned up about 9.45 and after setting up the cameras we started filming with Harry. This scene was fairly easy to get right as there was only one actor to direct. Phil fed Harry his cue lines of that the spacing would flow well.

Nathan turned up on location at about 11AM, which meant I was able to focus more on directing.

We finished shooting the interrogation scene at about 12, and as Phil had planned the extras from 11.30 they were ready to go straight into the club scene, which was in the same location.

While Harry was removing the fake blood from his face, we set up the lighting which came from a T-bar with some moving disco lights on them.

This coupled with the slow shutter speed on the XM2s gave the look that the scene was clustered and 'club like'.

I called a Rap on shooting at 12.45 and we all had to go to out 1PM lecture.

At 3PM we went back to the location to record the V.O. audio and pack down the equipment. This took about 30 mins.

We then took out main actor to the bar for a quick 'RAP' drink and then took the equipment back to the kit stores before it closed.

Later that evening me and Phil met up in the VFX lab to get the footage off the DV tapes and check the footage in the process.