Ahhh I have finished my film! There were a lot of technical difficulties at the end as I'm not an expert with all the right formats etc for finalising and burning to DVD, can get be quite stressful as I've found out! I would love to post it up on here but no sure how to compress it in order to fit under the 100MB max file size, I will work on doing this in the near future. I am happy with it overall, but still feel as though I could have spent longer on it even though this film is all I've been working on excessively for the past two weeks. It's quite ironic, I seem to have become obsessed with making this Obsessive Compulsive Disorder film.

Ater much experimenting and deliberation, I have chosen the song 'dog shelter' by Burial as my soundtrack. I have to chop it up and edit different bits of the song together as I loved the intro but another middle part of the song went very well with a clip that didn't then fit. However I think I've done a pretty good job and its not obvious in any way.

I have now cut and edited the film together and am choosing whats sounds and background music would compliment the video. This has taken way more time than I thought it would, I've realised how fussy I am in getting things perfect which can be a good and bad thing!! I wasn't sure whether to go with a more fine-arty, less melodic sound and have it as a tool to make the viewer recoil back and feel some of the distress the sufferer would feel. Or, choose something a bit more melancholy which would allow the viewer to concentrate more on the visuals and encourage more sympathetic emotion. I could always try bringing in the not so pleasant sounds at the end to demonstrate the build-up of the frustration and torment of their compulsions. I am recording myself counting over and over to reinforce the concept of repetition, and also because 'counting' kept coming up in examples of compulsions; to relieve the feeling of uncertainty.

Have experimented a bit here with increasing the contrast. I like the result although I might make it bit more subtle.

First test.

I recorded about 12 different short clips of counting and going a bit crazy (to use as snippets in between the phone animation - to show the intrusive thoughts) I won't put them all up but here are a few examples...

Another clip from the final destination 2 film. Will probably use bits from both these final destination clips. I also filmed another 5/6 of these clips but they are too big to upload on here. They included plane crashes and more car crashes.

a clip from death proof. Not really what I'm after but thought I'd see what it looked like anyway...

filming clips of clips!! for the flashes of intrusive thoughts. This one is from final destination 2, quite spectacular...

This is the final touched up clip of the phone movement. I also darkened and slightly desaturated the blue. It is now ready to edit into a short film, along with other very short, distorted clips.

Scanned in version. I want to clean up the quality of the image though. Make the white look properly white and not grey/mauve, and remove crinkles and creases from the paper. This will have to be done frame by frame on photoshop so better get started!

Finally finished the drawn animation. This is just put together by taking photos of each page in the layout pad and making it into a video, a quick way to get the animation onto my mac in order to test if it runs smoothly enough. Obviously when I scan it in accurately it will be smoother still but at least I get an idea. Will now start scanning in all 25 pages!

Experimenting with different camera angles. I do prefer the characters view point Pretty sure I will stick with just using the phone rather than the grid of different rituals. The phone clips are more successful visually and I am sticking to my previous thoughts about the viewer feeling more attached by using just the one ritual/character.

Opening the door with my foot... was actually very hard!

checking the door is locked by unlocking and locking it again, over and over...

I managed to track down a retro looking phone!! Wahoo! I had the idea of shooting the sequence from the sufferers viewpoint, as if we, the audience, are looking through her eyes. This will not only be more visually dynamic, but will increasingly connect the viewer with the character. Very happy with this video! Will now try a few more rituals...

Crit

we talked about how the phone really needs to be an actual landline phone rather than a mobile as you wouldn't pick up a mobile to hang it up, you would just press 'end call' so this movement wouldn't be necessary. The need to check the phone had rung up properly may not be there. Going to have to try really hard now to find a retro phone!

Another point made was that instead of concentrating on just one ritual, I could have a grid on screen playing loads of different rituals. Although I can see how that could look effective, I think I'll probably stick with concentrating on the one ritual. This way it will reiterate that obsessive, repetitive movement, again and again and again. It will also effect the audience on a more personal level if it is focused on one case. The viewers will sympathize more with one character, rather than watching lots of random actions. Nevertheless, I will still experiment a little with this idea and shoot a few more 'rituals'.

This turned out well. It took quite a while!! But I do like the result...

A still to check how the colours are showing up, whether the photo is different to the video. Apparantly its not.

The colours appear to be different on here (Blogger) to what the actual file is. That's annoying...

Test vid from a further distance, might use this in between the other shots but definitely prefer the close ups. I am now going to attempt a tester drawn animation... using these videos for reference.

I really like how the colours are coming up in these videos, the lighting is great. Daytime (how I wanted), but also a bit cold and solemn. I figured this angle would be quite good as it is making the action of the phone the obvious point of the video. I am going to try shooting from a further distance too.

I shot some footage of picking my mobile up and down. I wanted to originally use an old retro dial-a-phone but I'm finding it really difficult to get hold of one. Nearly could the other day but it turns out it was given to the girl by her late grandmother so she is quite protective of it, which I can completely understand. I think using a mobile could be the way forward anyway as its more contemporary.

Rather than using a camcorder to shoot the film, I am thinking of using my digital SLR on a high speed shooting setting to create a more stop-motion feel to it. This will also make it look a bit disjointed and unstable much like the sufferers lifestyle would be. I could possibly draw the movement of picking up the phone and putting it down again as a drawn stop motion animation. Repeat this 5ish second animation over and over. I could have a bit of both styles, film stop motion as well as drawn. Have flashes of the 'bad thoughts' in film, and the phone action drawn. Would it look strange having both? Hopefully not if they're both connected in the style of stop-motion. I will try!

After looking back at what my word is supposed to visually explain (repetition), I realised that this particular action (of opening doors with feet) is not suitable; it is not so much an obsessive, repetitve ritual, but an extreme hygiene precaution. However there was another post that had caught my eye about a girl who had to keep picking up the phone to check she had hung up, and then check again to see if she had the second time, and again because of the third time, and again, and again. Even when the phone wasn't plugged in, she had to check again and again. This would make a captivating, repetitive movement to have in my video. One down point is I won't be able to use that comedy factor to guilt trip the audience.

One of these posts that I saw potential in was about a man that couldn't open doors with his hands but had to use his feet because of the fear of being 'contaminated'. As I said earlier, it sounds and would defiantly look pretty funny! But I realised I could use this to my advantage to engage the audience. If I can make the audience laugh while watching the first part of the film and then show them the horrors of OCD affecting the same person, it will make them feel guilty for laughing and will consequently effect the viewer to a greater extent.

I went to the library and got out 4 dvds of film productions showreels to research short films. There were aspects in most of them which stood out and gave me inspiration for my own short film. I also looked on youtube as there is such a diverse range of short films available to browse. There were also about 5 recommended for me to look at by friends and tutors including 'salaryman 6', a beautifully filmed but sad story, and 'Her morning elegance', a wicked piece of stop-motion animation which really inspired me to go ahead with the stop-motion idea. I searched health message boards where sufferers had written their own specific rituals and problems in forums. This was a perfect starting point for me as there were hundreds of different and unusual rituals that would be fascinating to explore and develop into a short film.

I have chosen Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as the subject for my short film. After researching the condition, I am shocked to discover how horrible the condition actually is and how much it effects the sufferers. I think many people, including myself, are completely oblivious to the severity of the condition and it is often interpreted as quite a comical illness. The aim in this project is to raise awareness of the darker, more realistic side of the condition.