The Process

The main quality of Ghost in the Machine is it's rhythmic nature. This took tonnes of very painstaking editing in Soundtrack Pro. This meant a lot of lining up sounds and cutting them down so that they began precisely on the beat.

This screen shot is taken from later in the piece when more rhythms are introduced. It only shows a few of the many tracks, but you can see how precisely they are lined up and chopped to fit exactly in each position. They are layered in such a way that at certain points when one sound has played another comes in on the next beat and then another.

I did a lot of experimenting with the envelope tool (especially where pitch is involved) in order to create some more interesting sound.

In this image you can see that the pitch shifting tool has been used in a precise way in order to get exact pitches that can be repeated.

In this image the you can see pitch shifting tool has been used in a much more haphazard way which was actually more difficult to edit as it couldn't be copied and pasted. It creates a fun effect that sounds like a drill going slightly crazy.

I also used the envelope tool to make it sound like the workers were moving from one part of the factory all to the door together.

I panned one set of footsteps to the center, one fully left and the other in the middle. This gives the impression of people from different parts of the room all moving towards the door which is panned totally to the right.

This is what the finished audio file looks like in stereo:

If you look closely you can tell that perhaps the left side is a little too loud when compared to the right, but when listening to the piece I don't think this comes across too aggressively.

These are the original recordings used in the piece:

Many of these sounds were edited and chopped down and used in different ways.
In total the piece had about 20 different tracks in the mixer.

Inspirations

For this project much of my inspiration came from music rather than film or audio plays and the like. The music that most inspired me tended to be of the "Industrial" variety which generally consists of a lot of harsh sounds and driving rhythms.
A big inspiration early on was a song called Reptile by Nine Inch Nails:

At the start of the track Trent Reznor has sampled what sounds like machinery in an actual factory, which is absolutely what I wanted to go for with my piece. Then when the meat of the song kicks in the factory-esque sound still seems to be driving it along. When I came to do the piece I found that keeping it rhythmic and in a straight 4/4 time signature made it sound musical as if the machines had a life of their own.

Another inspiration was Kraftwerk, a German band who were early pioneers of electronic music. They sampled a lot of harsh sounds and used synthesizers to create very mechanical beats.

Not as obviously industrial, but the same sort of idea. Very mechanical. Some sections of the music do use fairly industrial sounds very rhythmically.

In terms of trying to get the sound of an actual factory a big inspiration was Terminator 2: Judgement Day directed by James Cameron. The climax of the film takes place in a large factory and the sounds of machinery come from all around. I wanted to achieve something similar to this.

Solitude: Shot by Shot

Once we came to the edit we decided to make a fairly experimental film with a non-linear, cyclical narrative that would be a visual metaphor for the idea of loneliness. We did this by having three distinct sections that were split apart by "blackouts" and end the film on the same shot that we started it on.
However we felt that using the extreme long shot of Lewis running was a much more effective opening as it pretty much summed up the entire short film in one shot. The still camera and vast area reflects the idea of loneliness being a possibly never-ending thing while the small, lonely figure darting across the scene represents the attempt to escape and also the futility of this.

We then have a blackout. "Blackouts" are used throughout the film as a way of linking disparate sections of the film while making the viewer feel a little uncomfortable. Having the screen go fully black without a real explanation is usually a fairly uncomfortable experience.
The first shot after the blackout is an establishing shot of the environment. We used a fade in to convey that this was the start of a new section and hopefully give the idea that this is a more complete section. Almost as if to say "this is actually the start of the film".

The next shot is of the landscape and also establishes the area for the viewer. The cloud's slow movement shows the passage of time in this section of the film a something almost excruciatingly slow.

Next we see the protagonist stood in the arch of this tree. We chose this location because of how distinctive it was. This was what gave us the idea that we could return to the location later in order to imply the cyclical nature of what was happening. We corrected the brightness on this scene and others in order to make sure that the cuts between them were not too jarring.

Ths use of landscape shots surrounding this give the impression that the protagonist is surveying his endless landscape. The low clouds cover moving through the hills was probably the most interesting thing about the weather and area on the day we were filming and so we got quite a bit of footage of it and they fit perfectly into our film.

The next few shots before the next blackout are of Lewis walking alone through the hills and streams surrounded by more vast landscape shots. We wanted these takes to be generally very long in order to, again, accentuate the idea of the excruciatingly slow passage of time.

In the scene of Lewis walking next to the stream we used a cross disolve to show this passage of time and almost show Lewis as a sort of ghost aimlessly wandering through this landscape.

After the blackout we used a shot of a focus pull on Lewis' face in order to show the transition to a new part of the film. It displays a new mood and can be said to be representing Lewis' renewed focus in order to escape this lonely, aimless wandering.

From here the pace of the film picks up significantly. We juxtaposed very fast shots of Lewis running in different locations against the image of him stood against the door, defeated.

We also cut shots of Lewis arriving at the door and attempting to get in by knocking furiously in order to hammer home to the audience the idea that the images they are seeing are not necessarily in any chronological order while the do tell some kind of narrative.

The fast editing is obviously a contrast to the much slower pace of before and after this section and is supposed to be fairly exciting and engaging. Perhaps there's not quite enough of it for that to be the case, but I think the contrast makes it work fairly well.

The tracking shots and chasing shots are extremely frantic and handheld which, along with the editing, create a sense of pace.

We deliberately used the fast-edited static shots of Lewis running, followed by the handheld tracking and chasing shots and finally followed by the, again, static chots of him hammering on the door in order to create a sort of distinct rise and fall in the pace of the action.

After this there is another blackout and we then return to a slower pace and return to the same, distinctive tree from earlier in the film. We see Lewis return to this tree and his confusion is supposed to match the viewers.

We then have what is essentially the exact same shot of Lewis from the beginning of the film, completing the cycle. We end on another blackout just as Lewis turns to look at the camera as if he almost reaches out to the audience, but is cut off from other people once again.

Inspiration

For the lanscape shots I was quite heavily inspired by the photography of Fay Godwin. She is probably my favourite lanscape photographer and while most of her work is in black and white the composition and feel of her lanscapes are partly what I was aiming for in some of the shots.

Here are some comparisons. Obviously Fay Godwin's compositions and images are much more impressive and beautiful, but I think the inspiration is somewhat clear:

Fay Godwin: Heppenstall, backlit, Yorkshire

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Flooded Tree, Derwentwater

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Clump in Hollow, Summerhouse Hill

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Meall Mor, Glencoe

Solitude

Fay Godwin: Welsh Water Authority bulldowzing Bronze-age tracks, Snowdonia National Park

Solitude

I think Fay Godwin's landscape work gets across the same ideas of vastness of the land and the loneliness inherent within that. There are no animals or people in any of these photos and there is a very quiet, subdued feeling about them. The water is completely still with the flooded tree and the skies always seem like they would be moving incredibly slowly if you could see them moving.

I like this stillness and vastness and tried to incorporate it a little into the film. Hard to do when the image itself can move, but I think we were successful with the slow moving clouds and tiny pieces of movement in the foreground occasionally. There is a sense of stillness and with that loneliness in my opinion.

Other inspiration for the landscape shots includes the opening shots to No Country for Old Men which are some of my favourites.

They convey the vastness of this type of landscape better than our film or Fay Godwin's work and they also convey that same stillness.

And inspiration for the more frenetic scenes and especially the handheld shots was Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. The shot of Lewis being chased by the camera is fairly similar in style to the monster point of view shots that move through the forest in Evil Dead.

Portrait of Place: Early Thoughts

Ideas:

• A documentary following someone as they explore Edale - Lots of establishing shots, landscapes and following the lead chronologically.
• A more experimental film with the same theme. Less chronological, more atmospheric.
• Someone being followed/chased.

All three ideas involved someone being followed by the camera and we decided that since the chase idea was the most dramatic it would present opportunities for the widest variety of shots and potentially the most interesting. This was especially true as we imagined the film to build up from earlier, slower shots and cuts up to something more fast and intense.

Early shot ideas:

• Static shots (tripod), long: landscapes and showing the lead wandering around, giving a sense of scale and loneliness.
• Static shots (tripod), short: Same as the longer shots, but quicker in order to give a sense of the pace increasing.
• Slow tracking shots of walking.
• Fast tracking shots of running.
• Camera chasing from behind.
• Very quick shots of lead running past camera in different locations.
• Few (but not many) close up shots in order to show confusion or fear, but in general preference for the action to be impersonal and distant.
• Extreme long shot of the lead running.

These were our general shot ideas, but once we were there the general atmosphere of the day and the locations we found lead us more towards the theme of loneliness and our shot selections reflected this.

We also came to this idea since we were only able to have one person in the actual film as we couldn't get anyone else, though the idea of the lead being chased by something unseen was an idea from the beginning.

We still filmed lots of shots of the lead being chased, but these became more about attempting to escape rather than actually being chased.