The film "ByteDance" is a creative exposition.

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This is an automatically translated post by LLM. The original post is in Chinese. If you find any translation errors, please leave a comment to help me improve the translation. Thanks!

Introduction

"ByteDance" was created from late May to early June 2022, taking half a month. It is the highest level short film I have participated in so far.

Film Overview

"ByteDance" won the Best Film Award in the 2022 Master's Degree General Elective Course "Film Creation" at Xi'an Jiaotong University. The actor who played Lin Ning also won the Best Actor Award. The full film can be viewed below:

Workflow

The film creation process mainly includes the following steps:

  • Determine the story theme and outline
  • Write the script
  • Write storyboards based on the script
  • Confirm shooting locations
  • Develop a shooting plan and prepare equipment and props
  • Film shooting
  • Post-production

The following sections will explain each of the above processes in detail.

In terms of team collaboration, the following solutions were mainly used:

  • Tencent Meeting: Online meetings and communication without geographical limitations
  • Shimo Online Documents: Collaborative editing and viewing of documents online, allowing real-time updates and facilitating text collaboration
  • Seafile Cloud Storage: A cloud storage that can be mounted to the computer directory, used by our team to store all shooting materials for easy access and collaboration with special effects files.
Shimo Documents
Seafile

Determine the Story Theme and Outline

This step is the most brainstorming and creative part of the entire creation process. Our team consists of students majoring in science and engineering, so this step was relatively challenging. During the discussion phase in class, our team considered many themes, including suspense, love, science fiction, and even contemplation of the meaning of life. Science fiction was slightly more difficult in terms of shooting and post-production, so it was the first to be ruled out. As for the meaning of life, it was abandoned because the team members could not reach a consensus. Finally, we discussed the themes of suspense and love, and during the discussion, we suddenly thought that we are students with a background in artificial intelligence, so we focused on a story about artificial intelligence falling in love with a human.

The story is not complicated. It tells the story of the relationship between an artificial intelligence male lead and a human female lead. The characteristics of the male lead are already obvious, he is an artificial intelligence. At this point, we need to give the female lead certain characteristics. The most common characteristic of artificial intelligence is the lack of explicit emotions, so we gave the female lead the ability to read minds to highlight the male lead's uniqueness in her world. In addition, we also need to consider the motivation for the two characters to develop feelings for each other. The initial considerations are as follows:

  • The female lead discovers that people often say one thing but mean another, but she cannot read the male lead's mind, which piques her curiosity. After becoming friends, she gradually develops feelings for him through their time together.
  • The male lead is the result of a strong artificial intelligence program and theoretically lacks explicit emotions. The experiences of interacting with the female lead form the basis for his emotional development, leading to the development of feelings.

With this, the core of the story for this film creation is complete.

Write the Script

Writing the script is the process of enriching and completing the outline into a complete story. In other words, it is the step-by-step finalization of the details. Our team used the Tencent Meeting and Shimo Online Documents for this process. We held two meetings to discuss the script. The first meeting completed the draft of the script, and the second meeting confirmed some details of the script (such as how the male and female leads become acquainted, the plot twists, and the ending). In addition, the script went through multiple revisions during the process of writing storyboards, preparing for shooting, and actual shooting. Here are some interesting processes:

  1. Determining the names of the male and female leads. Lin Ning and Mo Chi are homophonic with "Machine Learning". In addition, because artificial intelligence and robots require graduate students to clock in early, Mo Chi also implies that graduate students should not be late.
  2. The line of the heart voice at the end of the film went through many revisions, including "Lin Ning, I like you," "Lin Ning, I think I understand what it means to like someone," and so on. Finally, it was finalized as "Lin Ning, I know what it means to like someone." On the one hand, Lin Ning reads Mo Chi's mind and shows that Mo Chi has developed feelings. On the other hand, it leaves room for interpretation, as it does not directly explain Mo Chi's feelings for Lin Ning, leaving it to the audience's imagination.
  3. About the film title. The name "ByteDance" naturally emerged with the story plot. "Byte" represents artificial intelligence, and "Dance" represents the development of emotions. The name "ByteDance" is very fitting. Perhaps the founder of ByteDance, an AI company, also had this idea?

Write Storyboards Based on the Script

Writing storyboards may seem like a simple task, just turning the script into a series of scenes. However, if there are problems with the storyboards, it can cause significant inconvenience during shooting. Since our team had no previous experience in shooting films, we focused on considering the guidance for subsequent shooting when writing the storyboards. For most shots, we used on-site rehearsals and test shots with mobile phones to confirm how the shots would be composed and where the camera would be positioned.

Confirm Shooting Locations

When writing the storyboards, we had some ideas for shooting locations, such as in a park, in a classroom, in a corridor, and so on. However, if we followed these storyboards to guide the shooting, it would inevitably take a lot of time to find suitable locations, greatly reducing shooting efficiency. Therefore, after determining the shooting time, Jing Xue, Zi Qian, and I started looking for suitable locations and times in advance. The main shooting locations for our film include classrooms, school roads, parks, rooftops, dormitory entrances, and dormitories. The location selection process is as follows:

  • For the classroom, we considered the staircase classrooms in the west annex building of Hanying Building. We chose this location for two reasons: first, the staircase classrooms here have a youthful campus feel and good indoor lighting; second, in the evening, the outdoor light shines through the windows, creating a good shooting effect (although the outdoor lighting was not good on the actual shooting day).
  • For the school roads, we initially considered the wide roads south of Hanying Building, the corridor at the entrance of Hongli Building, and the corridor outside Building 3. We finally chose the corridor north of Building 3 because there were fewer shared bicycles nearby (there were many shared bicycles near Hongli Building), and there were many plants nearby that created light spots, which looked better. On the actual shooting day, we chose the corridor on the east side of Building 3 because the lighting there was darker, and this road was connected to the wide road south of Hanying Building, which provided a good transition for the plot.
  • Choosing a location for the park was a big problem. There really is nothing near the Innovation Harbor!!! And the green spaces inside the Innovation Harbor itself are not particularly scenic. We finally decided to shoot near the so-called "Yanzhi Slope" near the Innovation Harbor.
  • The rooftop location was determined while looking for locations. Initially, we wanted to find a place with a beautiful view, and then we discovered that the sunset was beautiful that evening, so we decided to try shooting on the rooftop. The result was indeed good. And luckily, the sunset was even more beautiful on the actual shooting day.
  • For the dormitory entrance, it took a long time to confirm the location because this scene involved the cat's exit, and it couldn't be too far from the cat's living area. Also, there couldn't be too many objects. We finally chose the road south of the cafeteria in the B South Area as the shooting location.
  • For the dormitory interior, it was relatively simple. Jing Xue's dormitory was beautifully decorated, and it looked great in the shots. Nice!
  • In addition, there are scenes of the male and female leads going on outings together in the main plot. In order to give these scenes a realistic and romantic atmosphere, we chose scenes in a shopping mall, the green space of the Innovation Harbor, and the Milan Building for shooting. When designing these scenes, we found that there were too many shots of them walking together:joy: - they walk and talk, walk together in the mall, walk next to Einstein, and even walk together to visit the Milan Building. It seems that besides walking, they only walk:happy: (although people with dating experience say that walking together is indeed common). To make these scenes less monotonous, we designed each scene with some creativity. We changed the mall scene to them playing claw machines together (but there were no claw machines in DaKe Mall, so we changed it to eating), added a scene where the female lead imitates Einstein next to his statue, and added a scene of an office chair race in the Milan Building because there was a swivel chair there. This made these shots look more diverse.

Develop a Shooting Plan and Prepare Equipment and Props

The equipment and props used in this shoot are as follows:

Video recording equipment: Canon 600D×1, Canon 70D×1, Canon 6D Mark II×1

Audio recording equipment: PINSUN wireless lapel microphone [one-to-one] [type-c interface]×2, mobile phones×2 (used as receivers for the microphones)

Stabilization equipment: Tripods×2, camera stabilizer

Clapperboard: Physical clapperboard×1, iPad clapperboard×2 (Clapperboard software: "Easy Clapper")

Animals: Puppet (cat)×1

Props: Pigeon feed×1, painting×1, cat cup×1, clothing, "Machine Learning" book×1, "Deep Learning" book×1, notebook (Notebook)×1, laptop×1

The preparation of shooting props was done in stages. After determining the shooting, the preparation of camera equipment, audio equipment, stabilization equipment, and clapperboards were put on the schedule. The key props in the plot were determined during the discussion of the script and storyboards, such as pigeon feed, cat, and painting. The remaining props were determined during the specific set design and shooting, such as clothing, notebooks, and books.

The shooting plan is crucial for the efficient shooting of the film. The male and female leads do not reside in the Innovation Harbor, so the shooting time was very tight, and we needed to complete all the shooting within a day and a half. Therefore, the shooting plan and preparation before shooting were made to save as much shooting time as possible. When developing the shooting plan, the following principles were considered:

  • Prioritize scenes with time constraints (such as the rooftop scene at sunset)
  • Shoot all scenes in the same location at once to save time for moving locations
  • Group scenes that are connected in the plot together to ensure actors' understanding of the plot
  • Shoot from multiple angles and positions, record audio with multiple devices to ensure redundant footage

Film Shooting

Shooting is the process of turning the creative and planned ideas into reality. The shooting process of a film requires a strict and standardized workflow to ensure the usability and standardization of the footage. Since the shooting was scheduled for Friday and Saturday, the shooting part of the film creation course coincided with the shooting process. We followed the following process during the shooting:

  1. Arrive at the shooting location. Each member of the production team has a copy of the shooting plan, and the actors have the script.
  2. The director informs the production team and actors of the scenes to be shot based on the shooting plan and explains the emotions to ensure that the actors understand the emotions.
  3. The cinematographer determines the camera positions and shooting paths based on the director's requirements.
  4. The sound recordist determines the microphone placement based on the actors' actions and camera angles.
  5. All departments are ready, and the clapperboard is placed in front of the camera by the script supervisor.
  6. The director shouts "Three, two, one, action." When shouting "Three," the sound recordist and cinematographer start recording. When shouting "One," the script supervisor moves away from the camera.
  7. The director shouts "Cut," and the sound recordist and cinematographer stop recording.
  8. The sound recordist renames the audio files in the format "n_k_r take" \(n,k,r \in N^+\)

After the shooting on Friday, the shooting process was discussed in class, and we realized that we needed to make some adjustments to our shooting process. Based on our own shooting process, we summarized the following issues and solutions:

  1. The problem of missing shots: The script and editing of the male lead's storyline were not very detailed, which led to some abrupt transitions in the editing of the male lead's shots after shooting. Since the male and female leads do not reside in the Innovation Harbor, it would be costly to reshoot the missing shots. To solve this problem, we decided to use some first-person perspective and close-up shots to fill in the missing footage (since the face is not visible anyway). As a result, we added first-person perspective running shots in the later part of the film(I running around with the camera in the Innovation Harbor really looked like an idiot). In addition, during the shooting process, there was a scene where the female lead gave a painting to the male lead, but the content of the painting was shot after the scene. To ensure smooth shooting and avoid additional costs, we used a blank piece of paper as a prop during the shooting and later had the actor's hand replace it in the close-up shots.

  2. The problem of continuity errors in the film: During the elevator scene, there was a mirror reflection inside the elevator, which inevitably captured the cinematographer in the shot, as shown in the left image below. Moreover, the camera was constantly moving at this time, making it impossible to simply cover up the reflection. After exploring many solutions, we used the method shown in 【Premiere】pr移除场景中的杂物_哔哩哔哩_bilibili to remove the person captured in the shot, as shown in the right image below.

Post-Production

The post-production of this film was relatively extensive, involving film editing, handling of voiceovers (heart voice), special effects production, and memory flashback effects. Therefore, the workload was divided among three team members. The responsibilities were as follows: Yi Xin was responsible for the opening, editing, audio effects, and transitions in the first half of the film; Jing Xue was responsible for the editing, audio effects, memory flashback effects, and special scenes in the second half of the film; I was responsible for special effects, subtitles, and the ending. This division of work minimized the coupling between tasks and ensured that each part could be worked on independently, greatly improving production efficiency.

In addition, at the beginning of the editing process, the three post-production team members created a WeChat group for easy communication. After the initial editing, an unexpected guest joined the group - me. She did not participate in any editing work but joined the group to push the members of the editing team to finish their work as soon as possible. However, her role turned out to be more than that. On top of constantly urging the post-production team, she provided feedback and improvement suggestions for each edited segment. This turned out to be necessary because the editor may repeatedly watch and make changes to a segment, which may lead to overlooking the overall impression of the film, i.e., the audience's first impression when watching the film. The arrival of this "unexpected guest" ensured that each segment had an audience member providing suggestions, which greatly contributed to the overall quality of the final film.

Equipment and Device Usage

The equipment used in this shoot is as follows:

Video recording equipment: Canon 600D×1, Canon 70D×1, Canon 6D Mark II×1

Audio recording equipment: PINSUN wireless lapel microphone [one-to-one] [type-c interface]×2, mobile phones×2 (used as receivers for the microphones)

Stabilization equipment: Tripods×2, camera stabilizer

For detailed explanations of the equipment and their usage, please refer to the "Develop a Shooting Plan and Prepare Equipment and Props" and "Film Shooting" sections above.

Some additional notes:

  • The camera stabilizer was rented, but it was not easy to use. It took a long time to balance it. We eventually gave up and switched to handheld shooting. The result was that the slightly shaky footage actually had better expressive power than completely static shots. On the other hand, the cinematographer's ability to shoot handheld also improved significantly.
  • The tripods played a significant role during the shooting, providing stable support for shots that required stability.

Problems, Solutions, and Lessons Learned

This film creation process allowed our team to experience the entire process from an idea to a film, and we encountered many difficulties and challenges along the way. Finding solutions to these difficulties was a process of growth for us. Here, we record the problems, solutions, and lessons learned during the creation process.

1. Problem of missing shots

Due to the lack of detailed planning and editing for the male lead's storyline, there were some abrupt transitions in the editing of the male lead's shots after shooting. Since the male and female leads do not reside in the Innovation Harbor, reshooting the missing shots would be costly. To solve this problem, we decided to use some first-person perspective and close-up shots to fill in the missing footage (since the face is not visible anyway). As a result, we added first-person perspective running shots in the later part of the film(I running around with the camera in the Innovation Harbor really looked like an idiot). In addition, during the shooting process, there was a scene where the female lead gave a painting to the male lead, but the content of the painting was shot after the scene. To ensure smooth shooting and avoid additional costs, we used a blank piece of paper as a prop during the shooting and later had the actor's hand replace it in the close-up shots.

2. Continuity errors in the film

During the elevator scene, there was a mirror reflection inside the elevator, which inevitably captured the cinematographer in the shot, as shown in the left image below. Moreover, the camera was constantly moving at this time, making it impossible to simply cover up the reflection. After exploring many solutions, we used the method shown in 【Premiere】pr移除场景中的杂物_哔哩哔哩_bilibili to remove the person captured in the shot, as shown in the right image below.