UBC Film Production 437Advance Cinematography

Professor Ian Kerr

Waking Up is Hard. So is Falling Asleep.

a Film by Woojo Jeon

Waking Up is Hard. So is Falling Asleep.

• Project Goals

• Produce a short dramatic film that is less than 5 minutes

• $100 cash and support from film production students and friends

• 2 weeks to prep, 1 day to shoot, 1 day to edit

• Script needs to be written to allow practicing lighting

• Experiment with lighting styles and various light fixtures

• Demonstrate advanced cinematography technique

• Deliver quality image

• Tell story with visual element only

Waking Up is Hard. So is Falling Asleep.

• Director: Woojo Jeon

• Genre: Drama

• Synopsis: A broken-hearted girl deals with the worst kind of long-termrelationship aftermath: memories with him.

• Objectives

• Illustrate various emotions with different styles of lighting andcomposition

• Show protagonist’s emotional struggle as raw as possible alongwith the reminiscence of the past

• Establish the contrast between present and past

• Keywords: Realism, Heartbreaking, Dark, Emotional

Script

• INT. CLOSET - DAY

In the dark, empty wine bottle sits on the carpet next to an empty wineglass. VANESSA, a petite 22-year-old Asian girl is on the floor. Darkeye shadow and mascara on, her eyes are closed and she has dried winestain around her mouth. Her messy hair trembles as she breathes softly.Leaning against plastic drawers, she is asleep. BEEP! A cell phonelights up in the dark. Vanessa opens her eyes.

• INT. BEDROOM - DAY

White closet door opens. Vanessa squints her eyes as she sees the brightroom. The room is filled with clutters. Clothes are piled up. Shoes areon the floor. Her fingers wrap her forehead. She glances at an emptywine bottle. Vanessa grabs the glass and tilts it towards her lips butthe glass is completely dry. She puts it back down and grabs her phone.She opens it and reads a message. Her eyes water.

• INT. BATHROOM - DAY

Vanessa sits on the toilet. She lights up the cigarette and inhales andsoon closes her eyes. The fan on the ceiling inhales the smoke in theair.

• INT. BED - FLASHBACK

A dream catcher on the ceiling spins as wind blows. Vanessa wakes up ina man's arm. She digs into his arm with a smile on her face. She goesunder the white blanket and looks down. Her feet are next to a man'sfeet. She soon closes her eyes and falls asleep.

• INT. BATHROOM - DAY

Bathtub faucet is running. Vanessa stands in front of mirror. Shetouches her reflection and then her face.

Vanessa sinks her body into the water and slowly her face. Waterbubbles. It stops short after. Warmth fills the air. Faucet drops waterdroplet. Breaking the silence, Vanessa comes back out. She sobs quietly.

• INT. BED - NIGHT

Vanessa sits on the side of her bed. Her hair is wet. She stares at abox in front of her feet. She opens it and closes it. She opens it againand pulls out an album. Her eyes water again as she looks throughpictures.

With the album open on top of the box, she sits still. She flicks herbed lamp on and off. When she finally leaves it on, she closes thealbum, puts it in the box, and heads to the closet with a pillow in herhand.

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Limits

• Resources• Budget: $100 cash, support

• I have $100 to provide lunch and dinner for crew.• Locations: Bedroom with spacious closet, Bathroom with a tub

• The story only requires one location which I already haveaccess.

• No need to worry about the weather since every scene isinterior.

• Gear: UBC Film Production equipment• UBC has great amount of equipments for student at no cost.

• Time: 2 weeks of preparation• Plan to shoot on February 26th because of availability of cast

and crew which gives me 2 weeks to prep for the shoot. I thinkgood enough research and thorough planning can be done in 2weeks for the film.

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Limits

• Chokepoints

• Crew: Volunteers

• Everyone has different schedule and is busy with WinterOlympic Games going on in the city. It will be hard to organizecrew together especially because I won’t be able to pay.

• Locations: Small space

• It will be tough to play with depth of field since the story takesplace in such small space as well as placement of bulk lightingfixtures.

• Story: One character

• Since there is only one character in the film and no one else tocut to, shots for cutaways and transitions need to be carefullyplanned.

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Reference

• To describe Vanessa’s (protagonist) emotional state, a shot of her whenshe is asleep will be lighted with Venetian blind shadow. Venetian blindshadow is usually used to refer the state of being behind bar which couldalso be interpreted as locked in, isolated, or lonely.

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Reference

• When Vanessa wakes up next to her boy friend in flashback. To buildcontrast between the past and the present, lighting will be warm and soft.There will be sunlight through the window on her face instead ofVenetian blind shadow.

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Reference

• When Vanessa is crying, I would like to experiment shallow depth offield. Focus of her eyes will be going in and out as if her tear is coveringher vision.

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Reference

• When Vanessa tries to wash away her sadness and ends up crying outloud, the lighting will be minimal as her raw emotion should speak foritself. Using Pro-Mist filter, the edge of the frame will be softer than thecenter of the frame to emphasize what is happening in the centre of thefilm.

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Mood Board - Closet/Bedroom

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Mood Board - Flashback

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Mood Board - Bathroom

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• Shoot: One day, 12 hour shoot, 5 hours to prep the day before

• The script is fairly straight-forward and has only one character butdetailed scheduling is required so no time is wasted. Whenscheduling is done, lighting set up for the first scene will be done totake the advantage of access to the location.

• 4 looks: Closet, Bathroom, Bedroom (Flashback/Present)

• Closet and Bedroom in present should be fairly similar in terms ofdarker atmosphere. Lighting for Bathroom will be as natural aspossible and Bedroom in flashback will be dreamy and bright.

• Camera: Panasonic HVX200, No AC, Handheld Shots, Wide Lens

• There won’t be a focus puller so I will be operating and focusing atthe same time but I would love to practice and challenge myself. Iaesthetically choose to get all the shots handheld to show howprotagonist is shaken up by the break-up she goes through. It will bea good exercise to improve camera operating skills.

Master Tech/Creative Approach

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• Lighting: Kino (Daylight + Tungsten), Tungsten

• Due to the size of location, lighting fixtures will be minimum.Lighting will be done with a couple of dress lights on top of Key, Fill,and Back/Hair lights.

• Pro-Mist Filter: Flashback

• Flashback scene will be differently lighted with softness and sunlightin order to illustrate the contrast.

• All Volunteer Crew

• Crew member will be minimum to increase efficiency in smallspace. It will also help on intimacy with the actress considering thenature of the story.

• Dark Make-Up vs No Make-Up

• To help with the contrast Vanessa’s Make-Up will be extremelyopposite between the scenes in the past and the present.

Master Tech/Creative Approach

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Prep - Crew

• Director: Woojo Jeon

• Director of Photography: Woojo Jeon

• Gaffer: Woojo Jeon

• Key Grip: Andrew Prest

• Make-Up Artist: Kay Lee

• Wrangler: Neil Park

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Prep - Grip/Lighting

• 1 Set Apple Boxes

• 2 20” C-Stands

• 6 Sandbags

• 1 4 x 4 Frames - Medium Diffusion

• 1 Net Kit

• 1 Gold/Silk Bounce Disk

• 1 Bounce Board (Styrofoam)

• 3 2 x 2 Kino (Daylight + Tungsten)

• 1 200 Midget Fresnel

• 1 400 Dibbie Fresnel

• 5 25” AC Cable

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Prep - Camera

• 1 Panasonic HVX 200

• 1 Wide Angle Lens

• 1 Video Monitor

• 1 Filter Kit

• 1 Slate

• 1 Manfrotto Tripod

• 1 Fig Rig

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Shooting Schedule

• Shoot Date: February 26th, 2010

• Sunrise: 7:00 am, Sunset: 5:49 pm

• Call Time: 9:00 am, Wrap Time: 9:00 pm with 1 hour lunch

• Order of Shoot: Closet -> Bathroom (Smoking part only) -> BedroomFlashback -> Bathroom (In the tub) -> Bedroom (By herself)

• 9:00 am - 9:45 am: Lighting set up for Closet scene

• 9:45 am - 11:00 am: Shoot Closet scene

• 11:00 am - 11:30 am: Lighting set up for Bathroom scene

• 11:30 am - 12:15 pm: Shoot Bathroom Smoking scene (Follow Focus)

• 12:15 pm - 1:00 pm: Lighting set up for Bedroom Flashback scene,Wardrobe change, Make-Up change

• 1:00 pm - 1:50 pm: Shoot Bedroom Flashback (Follow Focus)

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Shooting Schedule

• 1:50 pm - 2:30 pm: Lighting set up for Bathroom In the Tub scene

• 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm: Lunch

• 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm: Shoot Bathroom In the Tub scene (Emotional scene)

• May require time to dry everything and re-shoot

• 5:00 pm - 5:45 pm: Lighting set up for Bedroom scene

• 5:45 pm - 7:00 pm: Shoot Bedroom scene

• 7:00 pm - 7:30 pm: Lighting tweak

• 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm: Shoot the rest of Bedroom scene

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Conclusions

• I didn’t think the weather was going to be problematic since the locationswere all interior. But sunlight change had more effect than I originallythought.

• The actress brought less wardrobe options than I thought so the colourscheme I had in my mind wasn’t perfectly illustrated.

• Lighting fixtures got extremely hot so we had to take a break every couplehours to refresh the air on set and it consumed time that was unexpected.

• I took time and checked camera settings the day before but half way theshoot I found out that I had low gain on and had no time to re-shootscenes. I learned that I should always double check everything even if I’mcertain that everything is ready.

• Eye light and hair light in the dark wasn’t as strong as I thought.• I learned that depending on which aesthetic choice it is, the shot could

look as if I made a mistake on getting the image sharp. I decided toexperiment with depth of field and make focus go in and out while shewas crying but some takes look like I was struggling to get the focus right.

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Conclusions

• Sometimes it took longer to shoot the scene because performance neededmore time than I expected. I learned that it would’ve saved a lot of time ifI had rehearsed it with the actress and that I would’ve had more time tofocus on lighting.

• Through this assignment, I got to learn how to operate camera withpulling focus myself. It was really challenging since after every take I hadto ask myself if the image is sharp and if the composition was right. Iusually did another take to be on the safe side but I know that it would beimpossible for such as documentary shoot. But by the end of shoot, Ilearned how to be intuitive when subject is moving and still get the imagein focus. Unexpected gift that I received was the belief in myself. I think Ican do this!

• I learned that not every theory or ideas in my head works in reality andthat Ian was so right about testing everything before the shoot. I certainlydid spend some time testing Venetian blind shadow and researching filtersbut I wish I had practiced a bit more on lighting the dark room.

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