Prior to colour grading, we were able to watch a draft of the film complete with sound. This allowed us to pick up on any errors or elements that needed fixing. My notes for improvement included:
· Is there any way we can improve the smoothness/stabilise the tracking shot of Madeleine on stage? Or would this warp the footage? Same with the living room
· The shot of the gun on the table during the intro, start this shot later and linger on the gun for longer.
· Sound mixing during interrogation scenes needs improving.
· The dialogue needs to be louder in the theatre lobby scene.
· Include more close-ups of James in the theatre lobby scene.
· 7:23 - the sound from the two clips overlaps/echoes so James saying “alright” repeats.
· Were the any other takes we could use for the street scene? Parts are out of focus.
· 9:50 – the transition for James’ to Elisabeth’s interrogation requires a match-on-action shot as James looks up.
· 11:35 – Linda shuts the wardrobe door. Next shot needs to be cut earlier to ensure continuity
· 11:45 – After Linda folds the towels, she bends time to open the drawer. Could you cut to the close-up of the drawer here? For continuity purposes.
· Much of the bedroom scene involves Linda talking towards the wall – could we use the close-up short of Elisabeth’s book to break this up?
· 12:13 – sound cuts out as Linda picks up the gun and then the volume is affected (too quiet). Include close-up of gun falling to floor.
· 12:22 – Elisabeth saying ‘put it back’ is interrupted as we cut back to Linda.
· Is there another take of Detective Foster we can use for the exterior scene? As mentioned, it is out of focus.
· Elisabeth’s voiceover (recounting the events) needs to be slightly louder.
· 20:07 – the sound pops slightly on the close-up of Linda.
In our meeting on Monday, we went through the most up-to-date cut as a group and talked through these improvements. One such improvement included adding a score to the final scene, in which Linda and Elisabeth hold hands on the beach. This would add a necessary feminine touch to the end of the film, reminiscent of Killing Eve’s style. We received incredibly positive feedback on what had been edited so far. As well as this, we discussed with Julia the potential submission of Murder at Curtain Call to film festivals in countries such as Hong Kong, New York, and Sweden. The film festival in New York is noir specific, whilst the event in Sweden celebrates female producers.
After the meeting, I joined Javier and Julia at Javier’s flat to begin colour correcting the key scenes in the film and discuss our plans for colour grading the film. The most important factor for grading Murder at Curtain Call involves conforming to film noir tropes and increasing the contrast in each scene to create a chiaroscuro effect. We also wanted to create a colour contrast between blue and red – reminiscent of Blade Runner 2049 and the more recent instalments in the Star Wars franchise – to elicit ideas surrounding the binary opposition of good vs. evil. We ultimately decided to use the original footage in the 4:2:1 codec for James’ conversation scene, which proved difficult to grade as it proved difficult to match to the preceding and next shots. There was limited grading that could be done without making it obvious, but we were determined to make it work.
On Wednesday 18th May, I joined Javier and Danay in The Parlour edit suite in Alfred Tennyson Building to colour grade the film. Javier took charge as the director and as the crew member most familiar with DaVinci Resolve. We went through each scene in chronological order, picked out what elements of the colour palette I wanted to emphasise, and I gave my opinion on how I think each scene should look. The beach scene was the scene we struggled with the most. Due to the weather conditions, the lighting is incredibly flat, and the sky is overexposed. Javier had a meeting with Chris Greybe scheduled on Friday to ask for advice on issues such as this and the phone conversation scene, which was extremely helpful. I found it difficult to contribute heavily to the colour grade as I am not trained on the DaVinci Resolve software, but I tried my best to offer my advice and thoughts on improvements that could be made. I wanted to focus on enhancing the cinematography, particularly the lighting we had created on set, rather than changing the look completely.
On Friday, I shot Emma and Danay’s interviews for the behind-the-scenes video. I chose to shoot the interview in The Parlour so Danay could be positioned in front of the monitors – with a still from the film displayed on DaVinci Resolve in the background. Meanwhile, Emma’s interview was filmed in front of shelves showcasing various film-related ornaments and an old television. I shot both of these interviews using a single light set-up that adheres to the noir style of the film. Following these interviews, I continued aiding Javier with the colour grade. He showed me what he had done the day before, offering me before vs. after comparisons as well as providing multiple options for what would best compliment the film.
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