DIRECTION - DIRECTORS STATEMENT

 Carla Buckingham does 'The Hurt Locker'

Casting
I made the creative choice about my cast before I started the process and had cast my two main actors because I knew that whatever I choose to do my actors would adapt to that role, as they already worked in the profession and I had seen their work before. I thought it was a good idea to do this until my first idea was axed due to the non-interesting factor of the director's skills, I changed my idea four times but then had to fit my idea around my actor's availability.

Katherine Bigelow had the same issue when she cast for the role of James William, he wasn't available until the June, the year that she shot and this caused problem with the location as well, because she was filming in Jordan, the heat was extreme that time of year, she said in an interview (DP:30) 'I had a choice to either cast someone else or to film in June, and there was no way I was going to cast someone else'. Bigelow also talks about how she cast for her extra's, she used refugees from Jordon who had some theatrical background, she explained that it was really helpful to the aesthetics of the piece.

I haven't used extras but I did have my 1-year-old son play a supporting role so I feel I used what I had available and also drew from my own resources. I had the same attitude with the cast members I had committed myself and invested time into my actors that I wasn't willing to change my date on filming, it paid off as well because it was a really sunny day.

My two male actors want to get into the profession again after years off-screen, Bigelow had the same idea when it came to casting, she wanted to cast relatively unknown actors for the main parts because she wanted to emphasise the tension and due to the lack of familiarity for the audience it came with a sense of unpredictability.


Although this is a student project it worked well casting people whom the audience may recognise but have been of the screen for a while because it's exciting to see where they were going to take their characters.

My male cast was Brady Powell, who played Sgt Sanborn and Tony Discipline who played William James.

                                                                   Tony Discipline                                                               



                                                      Jeremy Renner (William James)


                                             
                                                                    Brady Powell


                                                        Anthony Mackie (Sgt Sanborn)


There is a very obvious mistake that could of cost me dearly, Sanborn is played by a black actor and I cast a male actor to play the role, the reason that this happened is that I read the scenes before I watched the movie and had already cast. I stuck to the plan of keeping my actor because there weren't any racial themes underlining the story. I couldn't see any reason as to why Sanborn had to be played by a black guy and Brady played the part really well.

I explored the possibilities of maybe some scripts are written without specifying the race of the characters and came across writer, producer  Shonda Rhimes, she writes and casts colour blind and she quotes "I'm in my early 30's, and my friends and I don't sit around and discuss race," Ms. Rhimes said on the telephone. "We're post-civil rights, post-feminist babies, and we take it for granted we live in a diverse world."
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/arts/television/greys-anatomy-goes-colorblind.html

Personally, I think that this is a great way to cast unless the script is set in stone and by using the casting process as 'colour blind' it will give me the opportunity to look at talent rather than specific stereotypical roles.

I also had a supporting role as 'Connie James' (William's wife) to cast for her I used Mandy.com.

Originally Connie's part was going to be a main role but due to script changes and my storyboard I had created, it came together more obvious that the relationship between my two male characters and there different views of war, I did want to incorporate Connie within the scenes but have little appearance, this was because I wanted to create the feeling of distance between herself and her husband.

Here is Marie's self-tape that she sent me:


Although the dialogue is in an American, I was happy with the tape because she had a vulnerable and shy look about her and that's how I imagined Williams wife to be, the relationship isn't a fiery one it's very much distant.

Locations.
For this project, I felt at first that locations would be a challenge to find because the original script was filmed in Baghdad and America.

I changed the American location to a British one because my actors are British and because I wanted the film to be believable in as many ways possible and if my actors spoke in an unbelievable accent it would not have the same feeling of emotion as it had.

The house was not a problem to find because I could use my own house.
I thought my house was a good choice of location because it is in a quiet street (which fits the location within the film of a suburban area) so not many people or car traffic flows through, also I could storyboard a-lot better when I could constantly look at the space I wanted to film each shot.
                                                                       My House
For the Baghdad scene, I thought about what would work best to create a feeling that my two characters are in a war zone.
I thought back to when I was an army cadet for a few years and I used to camp out in the woods with a troop, it was always cold and dreary and it made us miserable, so because the scene I was shooting was of the last day on tour and my characters are sharing an intense moment It would be perfect to find a location that was in a wooded area, I had to be cautious though because of the weather elements as filming was in February.

Locations are paramount for the aesthetic of a project, if the location is not fitting the scene then the mood/tone and visual style will be off.

Scouting for locations is key, even if it's in a wooded area, I thought about what part of the area would fit the scene and taking into account the natural elements like where the sun rises and sets, traffic noises, is it a busy place with dog walkers? is there a play park with lots of children? is it a school walkthrough or a school nearby? what are the risks if it's windy with falling trees or branches?

I remembered a part of Vinters park I had used before in a workshop, it has an old derelict stone shed looking structure, it reminded me of war films I have watched like 'Platoon' that was filmed in Vietnam, the families that represented farming families lived in these type of dwellings, it gave me a war type feeling instead of two men dressed in army uniform camping in the woods.
So I began to draw my set around this area of Vinter's park.

                                The circled part is the area within Vinters park that I used 

A Photo of the stone building that inspired my choice of location 


Bigelow Scouted two locations for 'The hurt locker' she went to Kuwait and Amman in Jordon, she chose to film in Amman because it was closer to the action, on the border of Iraq also because she had to film in June the temperature in Kuwait was 130° and far too hot to film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcMVGQphEw8

Preparing my actors
I read an article online during my research about the casting process and I came across an interview with Renner, he talks about how he prepared himself for the role as William Sanborn, he explains that he spent a week in a U.S Military training camp at Fort Irwin, he was taught how to use C4 explosive devices and learned how to render them safe and how to wear a bomb suit.

This information was important to me, although my actors didn't need training in that way, I could still be communicating with them about things to watch and methods to use to create emotions that I needed for my film to be believable, so 3 weeks before my shoot I gave them homework, they had to watch the scene from The Hurt Locker twice a week and also practise getting in touch with their emotional side by sitting in front of a mirror and thinking of emotional subjects that could make them cry.

The reason I wanted them to connect with their emotional side was that both of my actors have always been cast in very strong masculine roles and I feared that they wouldn't be able to capture the sense of powerful emotions, the method that I gave them came from my time at drama school.
On the day it worked visually and also there was also some dialogue that was missing from the script that was in the scene I sent them and it worked more effectively than the script I had to hand.

Even before we went out on location my actors run their lines (below) over and over until we left.



The importance of staying in touch with the actors and keeping them up to date has been a blessing because actors can never be over prepared and I feel they came on set knowing who their characters were and what was expected from them during their performance.

                                          Below is the clip that I sent my actors to watch.




Camera approach.
Using a storyboard was the key to my visual eye on this project, I knew how I wanted my actors in the frame and getting those important shots first was paramount.
Watching the scenes that Bigelow directed gave me the inspiration for how I wanted to capture my actor's emotions.

The interview that Bigelow had with DP:30 she was asked a question about visual boards and the importance of them, she explains that she storyboarded the script from beginning to end before she got the location because they were still deciding on what location they were to use and when they were on the location there where some visual elements that had changed because of the different buildings and place that they came across whilst scouting the area, instead of re-doing the visual board, the scene was just rewritten.
Herself and the DP looked at the visual board once, internalise it then never look at it again.

I used the approach of knowing the storyboard inside out and also sent a copy to my DP and AD, this was helpful on the day to get my shots in the correct framing, I found this better than just a shot list on its own.

Bigelow had a tight space in a Humvee to film and had to create an emotional mood in that space, she never had any of the characters in the frame at the same time but still showed the brotherly connection between them, the way she did that was starting wide on each individual then coming in closer when the monologue got deeper.

She also shot behind the actors showing that they were driving through a dusty hot dessert type location.






I wanted to create an emotional piece from the different points of view from my characters just as Bigelow did so I started by using a wide to establish where my characters were,  then I came in on a medium-wide to get closer and interact with them more then I  used close-ups and held the shots long enough to capture the tension and emotion that my characters were experiencing.


(Below) Myself talking to my AD Alix Mottershead about the angle and the where I wanted the actors to be framed in the shot, I did that with every angle to make sure that it was consistent. 



All my shots were either from the front or side profile because I had the set built behind instead of the front to show the audience that is was a camp not just to men sitting in the woods, my props were placed in camera shot of the view I wanted the audience to see as well.
My side profile shot showed both of the actors in because the action was happening in those shots and as it's not in a car like in the original scene I wanted to see them interacting with each other where I could do so.






    Below are the storyboards for my shoot at Vinters Park.



Whilst the crew and actors where relaxing, I passed Tony (James) in the hallway and saw him sitting in the kitchen on the phone, I got my DOP to grab the camera (handheld) and to film him as he was because the shot looked so natural and the lighting around him was warm and he looked comfortable, I didn't need to call 'Quiet on set' either so all the sound in this shot was real.
I knew as soon as I see him sitting there that I wanted that shot, he didn't even know that my DOP (Alyssa) was filming him because it only took 10 seconds to get this shot.
(Below) is the shot that I am describing.


The scene at the house when William is home, I put a frame within a frame so that I could visually show that he was trapped in this world of home life.

I shot the beginning and the end of the opening scene on a wide to create and show the distant between Connie and James.



The end of the scene when the camera comes back to the wide, James walks up the stairs and we see Connie's emotion and she longingly looks after her husband.
I did this because it's the only time we see Connie's full profile and that is when her husband leaves.



The scene in the kitchen the I use individual shots of Connie and James and purposefully make sure that they have no eye contact with each other, this is also for the cold emotional distant's between the characters I wanted to created. I used front close up's on James's because I wanted to focus mainly of him; this enables the audience to be disconnected with Connie and more emotionally invested with James.


The shots filmed on James were filmed from outside in the garden, with the window open, we did this because of the tight space and perimeter we had to work with, this was effective, however the mic was positioned inside and next to James's mouth so this created an echo effect rather than natural speech, In the fine cut it was less obvious as I has more sound design within the scene.

There are some shots that I experimented with and wanted to see what they looked like but going back to my story bored it didn't work with the flow of the film.

In the shot below is a different angle of the shot in the kitchen, I wanted to use it at first because I wanted to show the wound but if I would have kept it in i feel I would of had too many cuts on each character because we could only see James's back in this shot and too many cuts back and forth on the dialogue would take away the neat flow that I had plus in most my house shots I framed within a frame when there are two people in a room and this shot does not do that.

Costume and make up.
Costume and make-up were one of the key parts of the production that I wanted to spend time on because attention to detail within a film is more evident than if it was a stage performance, its up-close and personal on a screen.

I had a costume fitting at Semma4 in Maidstone with my actors in advance of the filming day because it is important to make sure that there are setbacks on the day and not only that it also gave me a chance to speak to them about what is going to happen on the day.

I also had my actors not shave for a week so that they could look like they have been in the field for a long time, they had a fresh shave the night after shooting so that they were ready for the 'home' scene.

I watched the scene I was doing over 10 times to see how I could make realistic wounds as I have never done this before, it was crucial for me to learn and to practice because there is a part in the script when Sgt Sanborn unconsciously touch his neck whilst talking about his injuries, reading through the script and seeing that action was how I came to the decision that I wanted to have a wound visible on screen.

I tried and tested my method with latex as I read that this is the material that is used in films and it is durable. I never watched tutorials on how to do the make-up but I think practising is key to getting results.

                    Practising on my classmate 'Sydney's hand in preparation for the shoot

On the day I had also bought tattoo wounds, fake blood, camo cream and different colour eyeshadows to blend, I made the decision that I needed to spend at least an hour on make-up because it couldn't look rushed, I took pictures for continuity as well.

In the shot below Alix (AD) is applying an open scratch tattoo to Sgt Sanborn's face whilst I create a dirt effect on his hands, I wanted the scratch to be apparent but underneath the camo make-up, this was so it had a subtle yet visual effect.
The picture below was the starting of my wound, I used tissue and latex and skin colour foundation, latex can be difficult and messy and I am glad that I practised at home first because I was well prepared on the day. Latex is far more realistic to use as it gave a 3D and textured look on the skin.
I did learn before I used any product on an actor to ask if they had any allergies, that is a key fact.



Pictures, where defiantly a good decision to make as the weather, was warm and the make-up faded throughout the day (below) so I was already prepared on set with the make-up, I knew from working on productions in the past, there is always a make-up artist on set.


The picture below is the cam cream being applied to William James, Cam cream is used in the field to hide flesh colour being seen by the enemy, Bigelow uses it in her film as well and she really had it blended in with the wounds on the actors.


For the costume, I asked a military costume expert at Semma4.
Bigelow filmed out in a desert so I asked Mark at Semma4 what colours would be best for me to have with my army uniforms filming in the winter in the woodlands and green camo was the option, I wanted to have the whole kit along with anything that a soldier may carry because I wanted to be as realistic to an actual British Solider, I also wanted to make sure that if people in the military watching didn't pick out any inconsistencies.

The house scene on the 2nd day of shooting I re-applied the wound on the neck of Sgt Sanborn for continuity, but I only used pressed powder on all my actors faces this was to take away any shine that may reflect from the light and into the camera, this method was watched on youtube about news presenters in America and the narrator said "if there is one piece of make-up that is a must for on screen, it is clear pressed powder". And it worked.






My choice of costume for the house scene came from what was interpreted in the script, I got (from reading the original script) that James and Connie where having a BBQ so I imagined what my characters would be wearing comfortable clothes although James had 3 costume changes there was one costume change that was important for me, it was the scene with Sgt Sanborn, I wanted James to look comfortable in shorts and a T-shirt but I didn't just want any shorts, I wanted him to carry on his love for the military with his costume so his costume was combat shorts, a dark t-shirt and to still have his dog tag around the neck, (which I had got personally engraved with their characters names on it).
This choice was because it said something about James as a person, many soldiers who go home want not to be reminded of the field, they leave it behind, they enjoy being with loved ones and want no imagery of there time at war, whereas James is different, he wants to be away, he wants a reminder of the place where he felt needed and not to be a typical house husband, so the way that I could show that was through what he was wearing in the scene with his fellow soldier Sgt Sanborn.

                                                  (Below) James in costume 2

                                      (Below) Personalized Dog-tags that I purchased for costume


For Connie and what I got by reading the scene, I imagined her to be sensibly dressed and 'house-wife' looking, yet I always wanted to have some Khaki Green mixed with-in her costume, I did this to incorporate the first scene (when the men was in the field), This was so there was some sort of connection between her and James.



I chose a pink jumper for her when she answered the door to Sanborn because pink is a soft colour and she is an innocent character.



Sgt Sanborn's costume and appearance in the house scene was to be a different contrast from the first scene, the costume was jeans and a smart t-shirt, he was clean shaven and his costume made him tidy and happy.



Production design
Without good set design, the story I feel is harder to believe. In my first scenes I used colours of the surrounding wildlife to influence my choice of colour for the set, I not only wanted to use the same colours but I also wanted to be true to what a soldiers living conditions are like in the field, I watched films such as 'Platoon' and 'The full metal' in scenes when they are out in the field there where I saw some essential props and set pieces that where affordable and accessible for me to acquire for my set these where;






I got 2 of these helmets as I have watched many army films and I saw in almost all of them that these helmets where used, I got my actors to try them on at our costume fitting but I didn't think it worked well with the rest of there costume, so I used them as props.

Mess tins (below) a standard issue for all soldier's to cook in. I had similar ones on set but they were out of shot, even so, it was important for me to get as many items as I could to create the feeling of being in an army battlefield.

A ration pack (below) is always filled with various items enabling a soldier to live a little more comfortable in the field. 


                                   (Below) The first part of my set design without my props.

I was an army cadet for a few years so I also remembered little the details such as ration pack, mess tins to cook in and the basher to sleep under. I know that these are a key bit of kit when out in the field, its a survival kit so it was important for me to acquire them so that I can get my set as close as possible to the real thing.  the set helped my actors get into character.

For the scene at the house, (as it was my house) I had to remove photos and position items in places so that it could be seen in the frame. The hallway in the house are Browns and Creams and although these colours are a symbol of hope and stability it's only my character Connie that feels that way, so doing a long shot contradicts my choice of colour, which I found interested to do, to play with the audience's intuition.

                                 (Below) a still of the hallway and my actors in the kitchen.


The baby's room is bright with many white colours, this was a conscious choice as having James in the room with the baby, without even saying much, the colour speaks volumes of protection and love. I didn't want to overload the room with toy's, the script read that the baby had a mobile, a Jack-in-the-box and 'Toy's' was mentioned in the piece of dialogue that I cut (see edit section), but I wanted the scene not to be busy, it is a tender moment between a father and son and I thought by having the set looking to busy it will distract the audience from what is really going on.
The jack-in-the-box was a subject that James had in his piece of dialogue it read

                                   (Below) A still of the baby's room, with Tony and Danny


'You love your Jack-in-the-box don't you, you love all your toys, you love your Mommy and Your Daddy, don't you? but like your Jack-in-the-box, maybe one day you'll realise that it's just a tin with a stuffed animal inside and the older you get the few things you really love, but with me, it's really one'

Although I cut the scene I knew that having the Jack-in-the-Box was a crucial element of my aesthetics because it is also a symbol of how James feels about his life, my interpretation was that James felt like he was in a 'box' when he was at home, he felt trapped and it was when he was a way that he felt free again. So I used the prop also as a symbol because with or without the dialogue, this prob signifies a deeper meaning to it just being a 'toy.

                                             (Below) The Jack-in-box I used as a prop on set.


The main bedroom that I used when James was laying in bed was also thought out creative process.
My vision for the set came from watching 'Stranger then fiction' (2006, Tele-fantasy, directed by Marc Forster), when Will Farells character goes to bed alone every night and one side of the bed, is perfectly made and dark, whilst his side has on one light and is being laid in.
Even though James is living with estranged wife I wanted to create a sense of loneliness and distance between them and to do this in one shot was very interesting to look at, the practical light from the lamp was very effective for his side of the bed, it was just enough light to assume it was night time but not enough to light the whole room which I wanted, the side that Connie was supposed to lay in, I made up with scatter cushions, I Used a white heart and a sparkly pillow, this was to suggest that the bed was meant for a female as well as a man, it would have looked different without them because I chose a chequered blue cover for him to lay in. The colour I used was also a conscious decision because I wanted the meaning to be cold and depressed.

Colours are really important to think about when creating Misé-en-scene and I have learnt that by researching in theory lessons and also by researching my directors especially Stanley Kubrick as in his films he used lot's of colours symbolically.

(Below) 'Stranger then fiction' (2006) still of the set from the bedroom scene, although the set is darker than I wanted mine, it still gave me the image that I wanted the tone and visual element of this scene.

(Below) The bedroom scene in my film, looking at the image now I could have gone darker on one side, but the light created the mood that I was looking for visually, warm on one side, dark, cold and lonely on the other.

(INSERT PICTURE OF MY BEDROOM SCENE)


Editing.
to start my edit I referred back to my storyboard because I knew that if I got the right shots in the places that I had drawn the scene would flow nicely as I had imagined.

Bigelow always gets lots of coverage because she likes lots of options to chose from-she does this in every film that she makes.
Chris Innis and Bob Murawski had 200 hours worth of footage from 'The hurt locker' to  through and the dailies had to be edited in London as well as Jordon, it too them eight months to complete the edit and they used minimal special effects or enhancements because most of the footage was handheld and they wanted to retain a 'newsreel' documentary quality.

I also had a lot of shots but I filmed most of my shots in a whole on each angle and the continuity of my actors was to the point.

My rough cut was the first time I had to be crucial with some of my scene's that I felt never worked or dialogue that I had to cut because it cut off the emotion of the flow.
The first cut of dialogue that I took out was the first scene when Sgt Sanborn has a monologue the original line was;

"Another two inches, that shrapnel goes straight through my throat, I bleed out like a big in the sand, no one would give a shit, I mean my parents will but they don't count, I don't even have a son'

I took out the line "I mean my parents will but they don't count" I felt that the line had an adolescent  quality about it with the mood of the dialogue, I listened to it over and over and it didn't seem to ring true with the context that he was talking about, which was about him wanting a child and settling down, the line through me a bit. So I cut it.

The next scene I had to cut was the monologue of James and his son, it was a beautiful moment and my actor Tony worked so hard to make it a lovely moment but by actor (and son) Danny's continuity in the different shots didn't match any cuts that I could use, I have put together the outtake to demonstrate  why I was unable to use them;


I made the right choice to take this scene out.

In my final cut, I made a few more changes, I took out Connie at the start of the scene, I wanted the audience to stay in James's world, the cut back to the house when the phone rings and Connie is holding the baby (after watching it a few time and asking others for an opinion) didn't feel like we were far away with James and how he felt, but when I took it out it felt and looked better, I also added a ring tone sound effect in to add to the mood.

I sharpened up the exposure in some of my shots because they where overexposed, whilst doing this I played about with colour effects and colour graded my shots, I popped out the green dark tones in the uniforms and sharpened faces of my actors, I enjoyed working with colour effects but I chose not to go overboard on colour as I want to learn more about how and when to do it because each time I was correcting I had to write down all the numbers of each effect that I changed and because of the difference of light in scenes it was being adjusted.

Below are the first images that I started working on, in the first image which is the original the shot was overexposed, I turned the exposure down and the contrast up a little, this popped out the greens and browns on my actor face and defined his features which made it a sharper image.
 
Below is the colour mixer I used for the shot above.



The scene when James walks up to Sgt Sanborn at the beginning of the film came in to quick in the first edit, I showed my actors and both suggested that it would be nice to see Sgt Sanborn first, I found a shot of Sgt Sanborn on a profile close-up shot and it worked well to build the tension.

At the end of the film I have the van pulling into the pavement, I wanted it to be a mystery of who was in the van so I didn't have any shots of Sgt Sanborn driving until the last minute, the friendship and brotherhood of these characters grow as the film progresses and its almost a mushy moment seeing his best friend by his side again at the end, the only thing that was continuing to need work on was getting the van into the shot smoothly on the edit, so I used the sound of the van engine, we hear the van before we see it and also I have a reaction shot of James as the van pulls up, which now really works.

Sound.
At Vinter's park location, I only had an issue with the traffic in the background, but as it was a war scene I could justify the noise. We made sure that we got the boom as close as possible to the actors to avoid having to do ADR because there is one thing I wanted to take from my director of chose, Kathryn Bigelow, was her approach to sound, she used all recorded sound when she was in edit of 'The hurt locker', she recalls in an interview with DP:30

"Because of the heat and the flack vest, I could never have got the same sound in ADR, we tried it and it was surprising that it didn't have the same effect, plus I am a lover of recorded sound"

I would have never put off doing ADR, but the quality of the sound was very good and I had many different angles to work with.

In edit, I put in these following sounds designs.

Vinters park location.

  • Phone ringing.
  • Gunfire and bombs going off.
  • Footsteps walking across the leaves. (recorded on set)
  • Inhaling and exhaling smoke. (recorded on set)
  • Aeroplane overhead.
  • O/S dialogue.
  • Instrumental music, royalty free.
House Location.
  • Alan Robson - Metro radio background noise for a tv or radio.
  • Water running.
  • Peeling a potato.
  • Baby Laughing.
  • Walking up the stairs.
  • Doorbell. (recorded on set)
  • Traffic noises.
  • Click on a remote.
  • Sizzling. (recorded on set) 
  • Bottle top being removed. (recorded on set) 
  • The clink of a bottle. (recorded on set)
  • Jack-in-the-box- music. (recorded on set)
  • Van pulling up and pulling away.
  • Hand slap.
I used sound effects and foley to build a realistic atmosphere, 
I organised my sound design after sorting out the audio gain on the dialogue.  I also used clearer dialogue from a closer range to block out loader traffic noises.

My actors watched and listened to each shot angles so that they could do and say things in exactly the same way and this was great practice for future reference because I was able to not only use multiple shots I could also use the exact dialogue.

In my final edit I had to cut some of the sounds down from the gunfire because it was distracting the monologue that Sgt Sanborn was saying and some of it sounded like the mic was distorted when I cut it out, I had my emotion back in the scene, I still used certain points of it because I had it in the begging and the continuity wouldn't have been the same. I also faded the bomb sound into the next scene, to symbolize war ahead as the one they were in this really worked better than just to fade it out when the black came in.



         (Below) Watching over the footage with my DOP Alyssa and my actors Brady and Tony.


I used sounds from youtube as well as a collection of 10,000 sounds I already have, I had written down what I wanted before the edit on my storyboard this made the process easy to follow with sound design.

I worked with 6 audio channels by the time of final cut and I found sound design paramount, the sound really helped shape my film and took me on another journey, from the first rough cut with birds cheeping on a summers day to guns, bombs and plans being heard.

(Below) In this image is the timeline of me working on my sound as seen at the bottom I was using multiple sounds simultaneously, some sounds were subtle and some were obvious, I also taught myself about levels and how changing levels at a different point in a scene can make certain moments of interest really stand out.
  
One of the most powerful things a filmmaker has to provoke emotion is sound.

It was in 1979 that Francis Ford Coopla made history with his sound design on the making of the film 'Apocalypse Now'.

I read on an online Article (2014. Reeves A. A brief history of sound design. The Beak Street Bugle) it states;

'Coopla made the audience feel like they were surrounded by skies teaming with helicopters and the jungle gunfire, it was the first multichannel film to be mixed using a computerising mixing board, and the first to be screened by three speakers in the front of the audience and two speakers behind, immersing us in the action'

It was after reading this article that I added the sound at the start of my film when the titles came up and it helped me shape the sound for the rest of the scene and how I wanted my audience to react with the monologue and destruction going on, it worked well with the mellow piece of music that I had throughout the scene contrasting danger sounds and sad melody.









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