We've now wrapped on the principal photography of our 'Time' advert for the Kodak awards and client Paperchase. Reflecting upon the past month or so since we began scouting locations and soon after having our first shoot, I think it's been a massive success. Obviously we'll find out if I'm right when we get the footage back from being processed over Christmas. I'm very excited to get back in January and begin editing it together.
Shooting on 16mm for the first time has been a very steep learning curve. It's a totally different type of filmmaking to digital. I've began to see it as more of a precise craft. Shooting on digital there is a tendency to overshoot, or to get the same shot from many an angle or with a different F stop. With film you simply can't do this, every shot is time and money. I very much appreciate this as it really pushes you as a director to think about what you really need to tell the story, the most crucial aspect of any film. Despite this module being a production for a 30 second advert it made no difference to me. From the get go my perspective has been to see it as a short film and to shoot everything to piece together a cohesive narrative that makes sense to the audience.
Going through the directing process again has been fantastic for me. Every time I direct something I learn so much about what it means to direct and why I strive to be a director. It's so rewarding to see things come together physically when they were once just a thought and a chronological drawings on a piece of paper. I felt like I very accurately stuck to my guns on this production in terms of what was my initial vision and what wasn't. Going back to my previous point about digital, in May upon the completion of my digital short film 'Nemesis' I noticed many flaws. The main one being that the film I'd just made wasn't entirely what I'd wanted it to be. This was primarily because of the 'shoot what you want' attitude you can so easily have when it comes to digital. Working on film there was no room for compromise in my mind. I needed what I'd storyboarded and shot listed for this to make sense and for it to be what I want it to be.
As for pretty much every production I've been involved in at CCAD, only half of the crew pulled their weight. It becomes increasingly frustrating when sound operators and camera operators don't turn up to the shoot. The crew becomes stretched when people are doing each others jobs as we experienced a couple of times. It's also frustrating because everyone should be relishing in the opportunities we are being given with the likes of this module. It is a perfect time to gain experience in something as valuable as 16mm film production. Not everyone sees it like this however which is a shame.
Saturday, 10 December 2016
Friday, 9 December 2016
Kodak Awards - Progress Update - Shoot 3
Today we had our third and final shoot of our 16mm Kodak shoot for the outside brief from Paperchase. This was going to be the modern sequence and the end of the advert. The concept as it goes follows history chronologically, the caveman, then to the Victorian era and then onto modern times.
We arrived on set, which was my own living room, around 11 o'clock. Our actress arrived first followed shortly after by our actor and the crew. It took a while to get set up, and an issue with the batteries stopped us shooting until around 1 o'clock. Better preparation all around could have potentially prevented this.
Below is an image from the shoot, of our camera operator, actress and extra (my dog)
We used the living room of my house as the large windows let in quite a lot of light which we needed as we're shooting on 250D film stock. We've been very successful until now when it comes to avoiding it getting dark, which it does so early at this time of year. The sequence commences as the young man walks into the room to greet his parter who sits on the sofa. He hands her a card and as she opens it she appears to be delighted, throwing her arms around him. The man then notices something in the window, shown through his facial expression. We then cut to a shot of the caveman and the victorian man from the previous scenes, standing at the window looking extremely jealous. The blinds are pulled shut on them to add a tongue in cheek element. At this point the paperchase logo comes across the screen and we're made aware that the message we're witnessing is 'shop at paperchase this valentines day, or as seen throughout history you'll fail to impress'.
Overall, following a recurring theme I think the shoot went very well. We got everything we needed and more with around 50ft of film left in the camera. Unfortunately as we overshot this scene and one of the others, we were forced to cancel the Roman shoot which was to be another sequence of the advert set in ancient rome. I am a little disappointed as we had a great costume for that shoot in particular, but as we've shot to much in terms of usable material over three shoots, I can't see it being too much of a miss. I'm confident that the original message we were aiming to portray will still come across very clearly without that sequence. Now that we're wrapping up the project we have nearly 10 minutes of usable footage that has to be cut down to 30 seconds.
As you can see in the image below, my dog Coco joined us on set and even acted as the couples pet. She sat nice and still for the most part, I think we did alright on continuity between shots with her positioning despite her jumping down a few times.
We arrived on set, which was my own living room, around 11 o'clock. Our actress arrived first followed shortly after by our actor and the crew. It took a while to get set up, and an issue with the batteries stopped us shooting until around 1 o'clock. Better preparation all around could have potentially prevented this.
Below is an image from the shoot, of our camera operator, actress and extra (my dog)
We used the living room of my house as the large windows let in quite a lot of light which we needed as we're shooting on 250D film stock. We've been very successful until now when it comes to avoiding it getting dark, which it does so early at this time of year. The sequence commences as the young man walks into the room to greet his parter who sits on the sofa. He hands her a card and as she opens it she appears to be delighted, throwing her arms around him. The man then notices something in the window, shown through his facial expression. We then cut to a shot of the caveman and the victorian man from the previous scenes, standing at the window looking extremely jealous. The blinds are pulled shut on them to add a tongue in cheek element. At this point the paperchase logo comes across the screen and we're made aware that the message we're witnessing is 'shop at paperchase this valentines day, or as seen throughout history you'll fail to impress'.
Overall, following a recurring theme I think the shoot went very well. We got everything we needed and more with around 50ft of film left in the camera. Unfortunately as we overshot this scene and one of the others, we were forced to cancel the Roman shoot which was to be another sequence of the advert set in ancient rome. I am a little disappointed as we had a great costume for that shoot in particular, but as we've shot to much in terms of usable material over three shoots, I can't see it being too much of a miss. I'm confident that the original message we were aiming to portray will still come across very clearly without that sequence. Now that we're wrapping up the project we have nearly 10 minutes of usable footage that has to be cut down to 30 seconds.
As you can see in the image below, my dog Coco joined us on set and even acted as the couples pet. She sat nice and still for the most part, I think we did alright on continuity between shots with her positioning despite her jumping down a few times.
Thursday, 8 December 2016
Kodak Awards - Progress Update - Window Shoot 1
Today we shot the entire 'Window' advert for the Kodak awards and for the client of Centrepoint. Due to a problem the Producer had we ended up running late by a few hours. Over the past few weeks things have seemed to go catastrophically wrong but we've always found a way to bounce back and get things done. Just like the other week when we loaded the wrong film and had to cancel shoot, today the film reel was dropped and took 2 hours to be rewound to its normal state. The shoot was supposed to commence at Grindon in Sunderland at 5PM. As I lived nearby in Sunderland I was waiting to be picked up. Luckily whilst the Director and Producer were setting up on set when they got there, they had someone on hand to come and pick me up. That meant by the time I got there we were ready to go. I had one final look at the shot list and one final chat to the director about what it was he wanted then we got going,
The first shots were exterior. We used two redheads powered by an interior source and with the use of an extension cable. We used one redhead to act as a light which belonged to the scene. As the scene goes, a young girl approaches a window of a house, inside a man and woman are enjoying a christmas dinner in their warm home. The young girl bangs on the window, but they cannot hear her. A car then suspiciously appears behind the girl to pick her up. The scene is used to show how young homeless people are shut out and their voice cannot be heard. Therefore we used one redhead to act as part of the scene almost as if it were a light coming from inside or from the side of the house. We decided to do so because without that light source the F stop reading I was getting from the light meter was too low to risk shooting at. I was consistently getting a reading of 0.7, whereas the camera lens we opted for only went down to 1.4. With the use of the redhead it upped the amount of light within the frame and in turn upped the light reading to 2.8. I felt like this was safe and that we had it right so we went with a take with the camera set at 2.8. The director was happy with this but I suggested we go again at 2.0 just so we have two options. I reminded him consistently that we had more than enough film. It was better to overshoot and to shoot at different aperture settings than to leave ourselves short knowing we had a few hundred foot of film left.
The second redhead we used belonged to the scene. At the end of the advert when the car pulls up behind the young girl, we needed some way to show that. We decided a redhead was a good option. We shot the young girl from behind as she was banging on the window, which also allowed us to see the car headlights (the redhead) in the reflection of the window. This took me a few attempts to frame and light correctly. When the lighting was too harsh, it meant that it would be very overexposed from the F stop we were using to shoot before the lights are turned on. The second problem being the reflections of myself in the window when the light was turned on and when the young girl moved out of shot. She eventually walks away from the window and toward the car, so at that point I could see myself. Again I made a suggestion to the director that when she walks away, she walks closer to the camera so that he had a catalyst to cut the shot when the full shot goes black from her standing infront of the lens. He liked the suggestion so we shot it that way. Going back to what I said about the overexposure issue. I think we found a way to fix it by finding a nice transition between F stops between the shot. Prior to the headlights (the redhead) appearing in the shot, we were at 1.4. When the light is turned on, allowing for a second of overexposure which can be used as an artistic decision, I then quickly changed the F stop to 2.8. Doubling down I believe this will correctly balance the light. I took light readings with and without the redhead to ensure this was the correct transition from 1.4 to 2.8. I did this whilst also pulling focus onto the facial expression of the young girl, attempting to capture her emotional vulnerability at that time.
We moved inside when we were done with the external shots. This meant that the young girl who was her actress was able to head off with her family who had come along with her. I felt like we were very professional on the shoot and held ourselves to a great standard. As we moved inside to shoot the interior stuff which involved shots of the man and woman eating their christmas dinner, we got a load of cut ins from around the room. The F stop was consistently at 2 within the room, a nice balance I found. The colours were very warm inside the house and extremely festive in contrast to the dark colours and greys in the exterior shots. I feel like this really contributed to what the director was going for, essentially showing two worlds in severe contrast. The warmth and depth of the reds, yellows and golds inside the room on the christmas decorations enabled us to experiment nicely with cutaway shots. I focus pulled a few times on things around the room including the subjects of the man and woman, to vary the shots. We also got a slider shot in there which is to act as the main focal point of the interior shots as it was shot with the wide lens, capturing as much of the room and atmosphere that was possible.
Overall the shoot was extremely successfully. I'm confident I got the lighting right for the most part as a lot of attention was taken to the smaller details. We went over each shot with strict rehearsals numerous times so there were very few unusable takes.
The first shots were exterior. We used two redheads powered by an interior source and with the use of an extension cable. We used one redhead to act as a light which belonged to the scene. As the scene goes, a young girl approaches a window of a house, inside a man and woman are enjoying a christmas dinner in their warm home. The young girl bangs on the window, but they cannot hear her. A car then suspiciously appears behind the girl to pick her up. The scene is used to show how young homeless people are shut out and their voice cannot be heard. Therefore we used one redhead to act as part of the scene almost as if it were a light coming from inside or from the side of the house. We decided to do so because without that light source the F stop reading I was getting from the light meter was too low to risk shooting at. I was consistently getting a reading of 0.7, whereas the camera lens we opted for only went down to 1.4. With the use of the redhead it upped the amount of light within the frame and in turn upped the light reading to 2.8. I felt like this was safe and that we had it right so we went with a take with the camera set at 2.8. The director was happy with this but I suggested we go again at 2.0 just so we have two options. I reminded him consistently that we had more than enough film. It was better to overshoot and to shoot at different aperture settings than to leave ourselves short knowing we had a few hundred foot of film left.
The second redhead we used belonged to the scene. At the end of the advert when the car pulls up behind the young girl, we needed some way to show that. We decided a redhead was a good option. We shot the young girl from behind as she was banging on the window, which also allowed us to see the car headlights (the redhead) in the reflection of the window. This took me a few attempts to frame and light correctly. When the lighting was too harsh, it meant that it would be very overexposed from the F stop we were using to shoot before the lights are turned on. The second problem being the reflections of myself in the window when the light was turned on and when the young girl moved out of shot. She eventually walks away from the window and toward the car, so at that point I could see myself. Again I made a suggestion to the director that when she walks away, she walks closer to the camera so that he had a catalyst to cut the shot when the full shot goes black from her standing infront of the lens. He liked the suggestion so we shot it that way. Going back to what I said about the overexposure issue. I think we found a way to fix it by finding a nice transition between F stops between the shot. Prior to the headlights (the redhead) appearing in the shot, we were at 1.4. When the light is turned on, allowing for a second of overexposure which can be used as an artistic decision, I then quickly changed the F stop to 2.8. Doubling down I believe this will correctly balance the light. I took light readings with and without the redhead to ensure this was the correct transition from 1.4 to 2.8. I did this whilst also pulling focus onto the facial expression of the young girl, attempting to capture her emotional vulnerability at that time.
We moved inside when we were done with the external shots. This meant that the young girl who was her actress was able to head off with her family who had come along with her. I felt like we were very professional on the shoot and held ourselves to a great standard. As we moved inside to shoot the interior stuff which involved shots of the man and woman eating their christmas dinner, we got a load of cut ins from around the room. The F stop was consistently at 2 within the room, a nice balance I found. The colours were very warm inside the house and extremely festive in contrast to the dark colours and greys in the exterior shots. I feel like this really contributed to what the director was going for, essentially showing two worlds in severe contrast. The warmth and depth of the reds, yellows and golds inside the room on the christmas decorations enabled us to experiment nicely with cutaway shots. I focus pulled a few times on things around the room including the subjects of the man and woman, to vary the shots. We also got a slider shot in there which is to act as the main focal point of the interior shots as it was shot with the wide lens, capturing as much of the room and atmosphere that was possible.
Overall the shoot was extremely successfully. I'm confident I got the lighting right for the most part as a lot of attention was taken to the smaller details. We went over each shot with strict rehearsals numerous times so there were very few unusable takes.
Sunday, 4 December 2016
Kodak Awards - 'Time- Progress Update - Costumes 3
This week the focus was on obtaining costumes for our upcoming shoot at Arbeia in South Shields. The time period of this sequence is Ancient Rome. A few weeks ago as I discussed in my previous posts, we obtained a Roman soldiers costume from the costume department at CCAD. Below are some more images of that costume.
The challenge was finding something for the roman woman. We opted out of buying a toga online incase it didn't arrive in time. We also opted out of using a bedsheets to make into a womans toga dress as we feared it would be too noticable and too tricky to make in the time we had. Luckily my partner has something perfect for the Roman woman. It is a long white summer dress, and in doing my research I found it is definitely something a roman woman would wear.
Friday, 2 December 2016
Progress Update - Kodak Awards Shoot 2
Today's shoot was the caveman and cavewoman sequence of our 16mm project. This shoot involved the same subject as the Victorian shoot we had on Monday, which was a man failing in all of his efforts to impress a woman, the recurring theme throughout the advert. As I discussed in my previous posts, the costumes we acquired contributed greatly to this shoot actually going ahead. A few days ago I was very worried about this shoot because I always saw it as the most ambitious and therefore the hardest to pull off. The entire shoot was based around two fur coats that we needed to cut up and somehow make into suitable costumes to fit a caveman and cavewoman. With a lot of thanks to fellow students and my flatmate (again discussed in my previous post) we pulled it off. We started around nine this morning, picking equipment up then driving to Seaham beach where we were meeting actors at 10 o'clock. We were all on time thankfully, and had time to experiment and figure out a way to make the costumes fit the actor and actress. This took us a good part of an hour. Fortunately there was a small cafe by the beach that allowed us to use the toilets of to get changed.
Come 12 o'clock we were set up and ready to shoot. All credit to our actor and actress today who braved the cold amidst takes. We were shooting on a beach away from December with characters in extremely revealing costumes. We did our duty of keeping our actors warm between takes by providing them with blankets etc. The shoot only lasted 2 hours so the cold wasn't such a big issue, if we had been shooting for longer it would have been a potential health and safety concern. Speaking of which, the tide began rapidly approaching us by around 2 o'clock so we were constantly having to hurry up with this on our minds. We didn't want our equipment ruined by the sea and we most certainly didn't want to drown in an attempt to wrap up the shoot.
Overall today was a huge success. With each shoot I feel like we are overcoming the steep learning curve of shooting on film. As our technical knowledge advances, as does our set etiquette with each shoot. I now feel as a director my relationship with actors and crew gets better and better with each experience of filmmaking.
Come 12 o'clock we were set up and ready to shoot. All credit to our actor and actress today who braved the cold amidst takes. We were shooting on a beach away from December with characters in extremely revealing costumes. We did our duty of keeping our actors warm between takes by providing them with blankets etc. The shoot only lasted 2 hours so the cold wasn't such a big issue, if we had been shooting for longer it would have been a potential health and safety concern. Speaking of which, the tide began rapidly approaching us by around 2 o'clock so we were constantly having to hurry up with this on our minds. We didn't want our equipment ruined by the sea and we most certainly didn't want to drown in an attempt to wrap up the shoot.
Overall today was a huge success. With each shoot I feel like we are overcoming the steep learning curve of shooting on film. As our technical knowledge advances, as does our set etiquette with each shoot. I now feel as a director my relationship with actors and crew gets better and better with each experience of filmmaking.
Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Kodak Awards - 'Time' Progress Update - Costumes 2
This is the second update in relation to our costume situation. In my previous post I discussed the progress we had made in terms of costumes for our production. This week we have made great progress into the creation of our costumes in time for the shoot that we needed them for. A few days ago I left two fur coats with my flatmate who is a textiles student. She agreed to help me cut the coats up and fashion them into fur clothing to fit a caveman and cavewoman. I am extremely pleased with the results. Below are some examples of what we came up with.
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Progress Update - Kodak Awards Shoot 1
Yesterday we completed our first shoot of the project, at Preston park for the Victorian sequence. I was extremely nervous before the shoot as this was the first time I had ever shot anything on film and I was ready to direct the scene. So after what was an absolutely dreadful start to the day which included ruining the museum property by off-roading onto the grass, leaving deep tyre marks, we got into the shoot. Fortunately enough the guy came around. At first he was furious, threatening myself and the producer by potentially not allowing us to shoot inside the museum. Rightly so, as we were entirely at fault. I thought we handled the situation very well under the circumstance. We tried to be as professional and as apologetic as we could. We collected £10 from everyone in the crew as a gesture of good will and as a donation to the museum, which the guy declined. Fortunately he saw our sincerity and even said we were welcome to shoot again. I couldn't be any more grateful and in retrospect I'm a little disappointed we didn't insist he took the money for the museum. It was such a perfect place to shoot for free, with access to a wide range of period costumes we were so hoping to find.
After a complete misunderstanding with one of the actors who didn't turn up (turns out he thought it was the 29th we were shooting) we decided to cast a crew member. Turned out to be a fantastic decision as the character he was playing was an artist, and the member of the crew we chose happened to be the only talented artist amongst us. There's another lesson to be had there in that our communication via emails with actors could be improved upon. I'm yet to learn whether we were at fault when coming up with the shoot dates, that will be looked into very soon. Below is an image of our crew member all dressed up in victorian attire on set, which we experimented with on the day. We had a few options but in the end I opted for a blazer and shirt combination with a matching bowler hat which finished the costume off very nicely.
The technical aspects of the shoot seemed to go very smoothly. The most daunting aspect is that the shoot went as well as a shoot can go, but from a digital filmmaker that might mean nothing once this footage is processed. There's a lot of suspense on a shoot using actual film as I found out, as every second that runs through the camera costs money. Money we have very little of. It's been drilled into us over the past few months of lectures and discussions about film that we need to be extremely strict with our timing and with our aperture. The production log was extremely effective on set, the producer managed to pick up every pro or con from each shot which included one accidental run of the film for a few seconds. Hopefully that means we know we had enough useable footage and successful takes. We found using the light meter easy enough as myself and a few others had previously used it when we had shot footage on a super 8 camera. I'd also spoken to a few fellow filmmakers about it, and I'd previously been on the set of a 16mm film shoot where I witnessed light meters in use which was helpful. Below are a few images of the cast and crew in action.
Friday, 25 November 2016
Kodak Awards - Progress Update - Window (Cancelled Shoot)
Yesterday we were scheduled to shoot 'Window' in Sunderland, at 6PM. I have had a busy few days, this morning I travelled back to Glasgow to the uni so I could load the film into the camera for tonights shoot. I was incredibly nervous in doing so, this is the first time I will have loaded the film into the camera. As I am director on the other advert 'Time' it was not my duty to load the film. Despite my nervousness I recalled all that I had been taught over the past few weeks and applied that knowledge. Luckily I had recorded a tech demo from one of our lecturers on my phone, so when I was loading the film I was able to look back on that.
Loading the film itself is obviously very tricky first time around as you can't see a thing you're doing with your hands inside the bag. It took me the good part of half an hour to find my way around the mag which was inside the bag and to successfully load the film. Once I had loaded it, we were ready to go. The crew had loaded the equipment into the car ready to drive to the set where the actors were already waiting. Then a bit of a problem occurred.
We realised we had loaded the wrong film. Whilst I am partly responsible for this (if I'd checked which film I was loading, I would have maybe realised) at the same time we would have had to cancel shoot anyway. Long story short the wrong film stock was handed to us, the wrong one had been removed from the fridge a few hours prior and the right one had been left in. The film stock I had loaded was the 250D stock used to shoot in daylight settings. This stock was to be used on the 'Time' advert I was directing. The right stock to load would have been the 500T stock used to shoot in low light situations. Despite loading the wrong film we couldn't shoot anyway as we didn't have time to remove the 500T stock from the fridge and wait a few hours.
Needless to say the director and producer of the advert were very frustrated, they had organised this whole shoot only to cancel. There is nothing we could have done on the day however, so for them it was back to planning another shoot at another date. For me there was a valuable lesson in this, to always check your film stock before loading. Another positive I took from it was that my film stock was successfully loaded. The 250D stock is to be used on Monday for a shoot. This basically meant I didn't have to worry when it came to Monday, the stock was loaded into the camera and ready to go!
Loading the film itself is obviously very tricky first time around as you can't see a thing you're doing with your hands inside the bag. It took me the good part of half an hour to find my way around the mag which was inside the bag and to successfully load the film. Once I had loaded it, we were ready to go. The crew had loaded the equipment into the car ready to drive to the set where the actors were already waiting. Then a bit of a problem occurred.
We realised we had loaded the wrong film. Whilst I am partly responsible for this (if I'd checked which film I was loading, I would have maybe realised) at the same time we would have had to cancel shoot anyway. Long story short the wrong film stock was handed to us, the wrong one had been removed from the fridge a few hours prior and the right one had been left in. The film stock I had loaded was the 250D stock used to shoot in daylight settings. This stock was to be used on the 'Time' advert I was directing. The right stock to load would have been the 500T stock used to shoot in low light situations. Despite loading the wrong film we couldn't shoot anyway as we didn't have time to remove the 500T stock from the fridge and wait a few hours.
Needless to say the director and producer of the advert were very frustrated, they had organised this whole shoot only to cancel. There is nothing we could have done on the day however, so for them it was back to planning another shoot at another date. For me there was a valuable lesson in this, to always check your film stock before loading. Another positive I took from it was that my film stock was successfully loaded. The 250D stock is to be used on Monday for a shoot. This basically meant I didn't have to worry when it came to Monday, the stock was loaded into the camera and ready to go!
Monday, 21 November 2016
Kodak Awards - 'Time' Progress Update - Costumes
This is my first progress update in a few weeks. Things have picked up and we shoot our first scenes at Preston park on Monday 28th November. We will be shooting the Victorian sequence there and with a bit of luck everything will run smoothly. The main challenge over the past few weeks has without a doubt been the effort of getting actors and also getting costumes for the production. We needed eight people to cast in total; 4 male and 4 female all around the same age range of 18-25. This is always difficult with a student production. As we've found from past experiences, actors either see it as an unreliable production or they themselves are unreliable. I've found its mostly the latter. However this time around with us reaching out to a theatre group, we've had a lot of responses. We've managed to just about cast for all of the available positions as we're due to begin shooting a few of our scenes next week. Hopefully no one drops out last minute.
Since our location scout to Preston park last Thursday my primary focus has been on gathering costumes. The reason being that costumes are to play a huge part in the advert, as we have numerous period pieces going on one after the other. I contacted the costume department at CCAD to see if they had anything I needed. One of the lecturers told me to come over for a chat and so that I could have a look around to see if there was anything we could lend. Upon visiting I found two outfits that will help us immensely. I found a roman soldiers outfit which I have provided pictures of below. This is a full armour outfit that can be used for our Roman soldier scene, which is to be shot at Arbeia roman fort in South Shields. It is very appropriate to the setting and even better, it is adjustable, meaning that we can make it fit the actor depending upon their size.
Furthermore we managed to also get a large piece of fur that we can use in the caveman/cavewoman scene, also from the costume department. Despite this, I didn't see it as anywhere near enough. We needed two full costumes for a caveman and cavewoman, that are going to look convincingly neanderthal. I decided to call in a couple of favours. Whenever I need something I look to my mother who has a large network of friends who usually have whatever I'm asking for lying around unused. So my mother asked around if anyone had any fur coats, or just fur itself that they wouldn't be needing. I ended up with two fur coats that I could cut up or do what I wanted with. I spoke to my flatmate who is a textiles student and she's agreed to help me cut up the fur and fashion it into a bra, a skirt and a range of fur style accessories for both the man and woman. I'm going to take the coats into the textiles room with her on Wednesday, a week away from the shoot and we're going to see what we can come up with. This was all another ingenious student method of saving money on a production I really want to see do well!
Since our location scout to Preston park last Thursday my primary focus has been on gathering costumes. The reason being that costumes are to play a huge part in the advert, as we have numerous period pieces going on one after the other. I contacted the costume department at CCAD to see if they had anything I needed. One of the lecturers told me to come over for a chat and so that I could have a look around to see if there was anything we could lend. Upon visiting I found two outfits that will help us immensely. I found a roman soldiers outfit which I have provided pictures of below. This is a full armour outfit that can be used for our Roman soldier scene, which is to be shot at Arbeia roman fort in South Shields. It is very appropriate to the setting and even better, it is adjustable, meaning that we can make it fit the actor depending upon their size.
Furthermore we managed to also get a large piece of fur that we can use in the caveman/cavewoman scene, also from the costume department. Despite this, I didn't see it as anywhere near enough. We needed two full costumes for a caveman and cavewoman, that are going to look convincingly neanderthal. I decided to call in a couple of favours. Whenever I need something I look to my mother who has a large network of friends who usually have whatever I'm asking for lying around unused. So my mother asked around if anyone had any fur coats, or just fur itself that they wouldn't be needing. I ended up with two fur coats that I could cut up or do what I wanted with. I spoke to my flatmate who is a textiles student and she's agreed to help me cut up the fur and fashion it into a bra, a skirt and a range of fur style accessories for both the man and woman. I'm going to take the coats into the textiles room with her on Wednesday, a week away from the shoot and we're going to see what we can come up with. This was all another ingenious student method of saving money on a production I really want to see do well!
Visual Culture Research & Inspirations & The Concept
The Concept
The concept for my creative piece will explore the themes of identity and representation. I will attempt to document the struggles a man has with his masculinity in contemporary society. By doing this I will be linking my creative piece to my essay, where I am exploring these ideas theoretically and where they exist in cinema.
My creative piece will make great use of colour. I will use often overbearing powerful colours such as bright red and dark navy as signifiers and visual motifs. These colours are used to represent masculinity in a range of ways.
The narrative of my creative piece follows a man in an ordinary office job. He is so angered, depressed and defeated by his current status in society because deep down he knows he isn't the man who he wants to be. In many ways he is leading a false life, leading him into an identity crisis. The man one day decides to rebel against what is expected of him, and what is expected of men in society in general. He realises his own need to be free from the shackles of society, because those around him will never accept him for who he is. In the end he reverts to becoming a woman. Something he always imagined himself as inside. He escapes to the seaside where he is as far away from society and the inland expectations as he possibly can be.
Below I have linked some visual inspirations from the films 'Interstellar' and '2001: A Space Odyssey'. I love the uses of overbearing colours in both of these scenes, particularly in association with the close ups.
What is Hegemonic Masculinity?
-dominant form of masculinity in our society
-culturally valued the most
-qualities include heterosexuality, whiteness, physical strength, suppression of emotions
Hegemonic: The Driver (Drive) - Nicolas Winding Refn (2011)
Traits of The Driver;
What is Marginalised Masculinity?
-cannot fit into the hegemonic because of certain characteristics like race
-still subscribe to norms of hegemonic masculinity like physical strength and aggression
-men of colour or men with disability
Marginalised: Jake Sully (Avatar) - James Cameron (2009)
Traits of Jake Sully;
What is Complicit Masculinity?
-man doesn’t fit characteristics of hegemonic masculinity but doesn’t challenge it
-often admires the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity
Complicit: Theodore (Her) - Spike Jonze (2014)
Traits of Theodore;
What is Subordinate Masculinity?
-exhibit qualities that are the opposite of those values in hegemonic masculinity
-may exhibit physical weakness or be very expressive with emotions
-gay or effeminate men
Subordinate: George (A Single Man) - Tom Ford (2009)
Traits of George;
The concept for my creative piece will explore the themes of identity and representation. I will attempt to document the struggles a man has with his masculinity in contemporary society. By doing this I will be linking my creative piece to my essay, where I am exploring these ideas theoretically and where they exist in cinema.
My creative piece will make great use of colour. I will use often overbearing powerful colours such as bright red and dark navy as signifiers and visual motifs. These colours are used to represent masculinity in a range of ways.
The narrative of my creative piece follows a man in an ordinary office job. He is so angered, depressed and defeated by his current status in society because deep down he knows he isn't the man who he wants to be. In many ways he is leading a false life, leading him into an identity crisis. The man one day decides to rebel against what is expected of him, and what is expected of men in society in general. He realises his own need to be free from the shackles of society, because those around him will never accept him for who he is. In the end he reverts to becoming a woman. Something he always imagined himself as inside. He escapes to the seaside where he is as far away from society and the inland expectations as he possibly can be.
Below I have linked some visual inspirations from the films 'Interstellar' and '2001: A Space Odyssey'. I love the uses of overbearing colours in both of these scenes, particularly in association with the close ups.
What is Hegemonic Masculinity?
-dominant form of masculinity in our society
-culturally valued the most
-qualities include heterosexuality, whiteness, physical strength, suppression of emotions
Hegemonic: The Driver (Drive) - Nicolas Winding Refn (2011)
Traits of The Driver;
- Instinctive.
- Emotionally Unavailable.
- Physically strong.
- Brave.
- Calm and Composed in the face of danger.
- Heterosexual.
- Manual labourer.
What is Marginalised Masculinity?
-cannot fit into the hegemonic because of certain characteristics like race
-still subscribe to norms of hegemonic masculinity like physical strength and aggression
-men of colour or men with disability
Marginalised: Jake Sully (Avatar) - James Cameron (2009)
Traits of Jake Sully;
- Mentally strong
- Physically handicapped
- Self-dependent
- Down on his luck
What is Complicit Masculinity?
-man doesn’t fit characteristics of hegemonic masculinity but doesn’t challenge it
-often admires the characteristics of hegemonic masculinity
Complicit: Theodore (Her) - Spike Jonze (2014)
Traits of Theodore;
- Caring.
- Affectionate.
- Heterosexual.
- Charismatic.
- Confident.
- Lonely.
- Brooding.
What is Subordinate Masculinity?
-exhibit qualities that are the opposite of those values in hegemonic masculinity
-may exhibit physical weakness or be very expressive with emotions
-gay or effeminate men
Subordinate: George (A Single Man) - Tom Ford (2009)
Traits of George;
- Emotional.
- Vulnerable. Homosexual.
- Timid.
- Intellectual.
- Non-Manual labour.
Tuesday, 8 November 2016
Kodak Time Progress Update - Auditions
Yesterday we held auditions in the uni looking for potential actors and actresses for the project. Last week we approached a theatre group to see who would be interested in auditioning for the roles on Facebook. We had a large quantity of responses at once, so we decided to hold a full open day for those auditioning to come in whatever time they saw fit between half 9 and half 5. It turned out to be a long day but one that was totally worth it as we ended up a lot of options between the 3 groups.
Going into the auditions I was worried we wouldn't be able to find 8 actors for the paperchase advert I'm directing. I had hoped for 4 actors and 4 actresses to each fill the roles of the caveman/cavewoman, the roman man and woman, the victorian man and woman and the modern man and woman. I've planned ahead incase we didn't get 8 altogether by coming up with a compromise where one actor and one actress would play all of the different characters. This is not at all how I want things to go but I always think its good to have a backup plan. I explained this to everyone who auditioned and all seemed very happy to play all of the characters if it came to it.
The auditions themselves were rather awkward. Unlike the casting process for an actual short film where you have a script. In that situation you can ask the actors to act out a scene naturally. For these adverts there is no script, so the audition requirements were purely physical and only for around 10 seconds. It seemed a bit degrading as that was all they had to do and many of the people had travelled to get to the auditions but I suppose thats the way it goes. I'm very happy with the amount of people that turned up and they all seemed eager to be involved in some way.
Fortunately we still have a few people to audition. A few actors couldn't make the auditions in person so agreed to hold auditions over Skype at one point this week, or for them to record themselves auditioning and then send that to us. We are continuing our preparations for costumes and locations this week. Combined with the casting decisions we will be making over the following few days, things are shaping up very nicely as we approach shooting dates.
Going into the auditions I was worried we wouldn't be able to find 8 actors for the paperchase advert I'm directing. I had hoped for 4 actors and 4 actresses to each fill the roles of the caveman/cavewoman, the roman man and woman, the victorian man and woman and the modern man and woman. I've planned ahead incase we didn't get 8 altogether by coming up with a compromise where one actor and one actress would play all of the different characters. This is not at all how I want things to go but I always think its good to have a backup plan. I explained this to everyone who auditioned and all seemed very happy to play all of the characters if it came to it.
The auditions themselves were rather awkward. Unlike the casting process for an actual short film where you have a script. In that situation you can ask the actors to act out a scene naturally. For these adverts there is no script, so the audition requirements were purely physical and only for around 10 seconds. It seemed a bit degrading as that was all they had to do and many of the people had travelled to get to the auditions but I suppose thats the way it goes. I'm very happy with the amount of people that turned up and they all seemed eager to be involved in some way.
Fortunately we still have a few people to audition. A few actors couldn't make the auditions in person so agreed to hold auditions over Skype at one point this week, or for them to record themselves auditioning and then send that to us. We are continuing our preparations for costumes and locations this week. Combined with the casting decisions we will be making over the following few days, things are shaping up very nicely as we approach shooting dates.
Thursday, 27 October 2016
Pre-Production - Kodak Awards (Time)
For this module we're undertaking the task of creating a 30 second advert for a client which will be entered into the Kodak awards. This advert is to be shot on 16mm film stock. We recently began our own research and our own to do lists based on the roles we were given. This time around I'm directing one advert and I'm cinematographer on another. I've started off with the basics, looking at what to do and what not to do with 16mm, as this is the first time I've shot anything on film (other than the small amount of super 8 I did last year). I began my research by watching some helpful videos about other peoples experiences of working on film. Below is a link to a video I found extremely helpful and encouraging, about a guy who shot a film project with a hedgehog as his subject.
I got underway with directorial and cinematographer duties, planning ahead the narrative and the visuals of two very contrasting adverts. The one I am directing is for stationary company 'Paperchase' who are looking for something to help promote their valentines gifts. The other, the one which I am cinematographer on, an advert for centrepoint a company who support and spread awareness of homelessness amongst young people.
My progress so far has been to shot list and storyboard the paper chase advert, and to create colour palettes and visual influence for the centrepoint advert. We're now up to the point where we are beginning to plan shoot dates, locations, actors and costumes.
Wednesday, 26 October 2016
Christmas Films - Colour Palettes
I have began looking at and creating colour palettes for the Kodak 'Window' project. As cinematographer it is my duty to understand how to manipulate colour within the context. I will do this by making colour seem relevant to the subject matter. The subject matter in this case being that the traditional family are enjoying christmas inside their warm house, whilst a homeless girl looks inside from the cold harsh world outside. The power of colour in this case comes in when we choose to use colours to connote happiness and warmth. Below I have included examples of colour palettes from popular christmas films; The Polar Express and Elf. The colours used in both these scenes in particular are very bright and vibrant, often seen as outright 'christmassy' the most jolly time of the year.
Hopefully we can make use of these colours through the use of interior design and decoration. This way we can truly push and force the message forward - that this homeless boy or girl cannot reach this life and ultimately that is the goal. Also, the difference in colours in terms of saturation and contrast can be of importance. E.g. inside the house around the family looking like the colour palettes and above scenes opposed to the dark grey colours of the outside world.
Tuesday, 3 May 2016
Progress Update - Nemesis Rough Cut (03/05/16)
So it looks like we finally have a rough cut of Nemesis, around 18 minutes in length. This was completed today, as we inserted the footage from Saturdays shoot and we also recorded and inserted Mikes voiceover. This is our final day we have to edit aside from Thursday. Because of this I hope to have feedback tomorrow. From our tutors but also from other students. I will be showing it to as many people as I can, so I can gather from that what people feel works and what they feel doesn't work. These changes will then be ironed out on Thursday before the hand in on Friday. I won't be aiming to make too many changes because as of the Friday we will be entering the film into some festivals, and the Friday is also the deadline for these festivals aswell as the day of our hand-in. I am very happy with the film so far, and I am confident enough to say that the changes, if any, will be very few and very subtle ones at that. Below is an image of the hectic looking final timeline.
Sunday, 1 May 2016
Progress Update - Nemesis Wrap (30/04/16)
That's a wrap. Today we had our final production shoot for Nemesis. How I'm feeling:
Aside from the continuous lack of sleep and the ever-present high blood levels, I just want to do it again. Being able to say, as small as it is, we did it after looking at it for long enough thinking "how on earth do we do this?". Coming off the back of directing the music video the step up seemed necessary. Now I can see why the step up is ALWAYS necessary. I'll be coming back to step my game up in every way possible. Better production design, production values, character, costume, lighting, everything. There is absolutely no reason why I wouldn't take the reigns to do this again because it's kind of addicting. The more stress the better anyway. It seems that once you find a nice flow and a steady momentum, you just go with it and you deal with whatever comes your way. I've worked with a four man crew instead of a five man crew for over 3 months now. With a missing crew member at all times I'd say we've done dandy. By no means am I saying I wouldn't want a fifth crew member. We're entitled to that 100%, and at times we've suffered because of it. We've managed to make a 20 minute short film in 6 weeks. To me that reflects massive amounts of hard work and dedication.
Todays final shoot consisted of some stuff we didn't actually need speaking objectively, but I wasn't really taking no for an answer if it meant we could organise another shoot and improve the film. Cutaways, they were essential in tieing some of the more difficult transitions between scenes together. And one particular scene we were yet to film in the funeral directors, which was indeed a pleasant location. For the film anyway.. Image below. Production values-wise I think this location really added to the film. It's a very small scene with no dialogue which required our actor Nathan to internalise a lot of the time to express his emotions physically, which I found he did brilliantly throughout the whole film. I remember Yiannis just giving me a horrible look when he first saw the coffin in the script. Granted it was a hard thing to get hold of, but look how happy he is with it.
Yiannis is ready to kill me I think. I ask a lot from him, but I think he appreciates how much of an obsessive perfectionist I am when we get to the edit and we see its worked out. He's been incredible on this film. We've both worked non stop and in a way we've managed to take the pressure off one another by doing so in the process. It's given me the confidence to say I'll go on directing, knowing I'd have a competent producer in Yiannis if he did decide that was the job for him (fingers crossed). Our organisation was always spot on. Week in week out. We got the equipment we wanted due to this, and I'm never willing to sympathise with others over something like that. It's a dog eat dog world. You either push in line or stay at the back of the queue. I've certainly never expected another crew to willingly give us the equipment we wanted because we put a foot wrong. You take it on the chin and think up some ingenious way to move the camera. As a director that's your job.
From start to finish it's been a kind of up and down experience. At times I've been jumping for joy and for the slightest of moments I've lost sight of what I was doing due to panic or the overwhelming fear of thinking you had forgotten to get that one shot you needed. By summarising this film I'm essentially summarising my first year entirely. Starting off being unsure or in two minds about directing has lead me onto the path of directing two things off the bat, being passionate about both of them and wanting to do more. By saying that I can say I've grown immensely over the course of the year. As a person and as a Film student. It's heartwarming to hear some feedback from peers too. The odd compliment here and there in reference to how well I may have handled directing, or how they'd certainly work with me again as director above anyone else goes such a long way. It makes you realise why you actually do it. We're students, we make mistake after mistake but we learn and we do it because we love it, or why else would we be here? Plus, we're all friends here. There's no employer and employee situation going on here so there's no need for a power play. Simply respect your crew and assert authority if it comes to that. As an employee I can say I fully appreciate that and I've brought my three years of experience in the working world into the course that way.
I took this picture after the final shot of the film, which was a simple cutaway of the tree behind. The irony. But just look at the pure joy. To celebrate Yiannis even taught us some Greek dancing which we all ended up doing in Jacks backgarden...
Toward the end it has just been a headache. Every day. Directing and editing as our editor seems to think that a successful day of editing is to go into a mood after two hours when he thinks thats more than enough work. Me and Yiannis were left to pick up his slack and continue working whilst organising extra shoots, blogging, and self-evaluating ourselves. It's tiring like I've said a few times, and enjoyable, it's just a shame that others can't enjoy it just as much and help us out in the process by doing their job and releasing tension. I have shot this film. Aside from one shoot. I won't credit myself for this, but then theres the question, why shouldn't I? I assume Mr Spielberg himself would fancy crediting himself if he shot 90% of the film and directed it. "Oh, John our camera operator didn't turn up again did he not? It's fine, I mean I've shot more than half of this War Horse thing already. Let me get my wellies on, I'll get in the muddy trench with the camera and call action."
But yeah, over the summer I have a lot of stuff lined up. King of the Howman, a North-East skateboarding tradition. I will be hopefully shooting and editing that which will be screened out at an event at Newcastle which around 300 people attend. Exciting stuff. Some smaller skateboarding side projects. Hopefully room for another short myself and a few others have been brainstorming. A LOT of screenwriting. I plan to have a feature film finished to come back and get feedback on. Ambitious I know but it's always worth a shot. I'm even going to try and shoot something on 16mm if I can get hold of a camera. I shoot a lot on 35mm for photography, but using 16mm will give me a head start on the learning curves we'll face when we come back in September and begin using 16mm. I have a concept for that I've already pitched to a few people and they're on board as members of the crew so that's great to know. For now we still have a while to go polishing the film off in post-production.
Aside from the continuous lack of sleep and the ever-present high blood levels, I just want to do it again. Being able to say, as small as it is, we did it after looking at it for long enough thinking "how on earth do we do this?". Coming off the back of directing the music video the step up seemed necessary. Now I can see why the step up is ALWAYS necessary. I'll be coming back to step my game up in every way possible. Better production design, production values, character, costume, lighting, everything. There is absolutely no reason why I wouldn't take the reigns to do this again because it's kind of addicting. The more stress the better anyway. It seems that once you find a nice flow and a steady momentum, you just go with it and you deal with whatever comes your way. I've worked with a four man crew instead of a five man crew for over 3 months now. With a missing crew member at all times I'd say we've done dandy. By no means am I saying I wouldn't want a fifth crew member. We're entitled to that 100%, and at times we've suffered because of it. We've managed to make a 20 minute short film in 6 weeks. To me that reflects massive amounts of hard work and dedication.
Todays final shoot consisted of some stuff we didn't actually need speaking objectively, but I wasn't really taking no for an answer if it meant we could organise another shoot and improve the film. Cutaways, they were essential in tieing some of the more difficult transitions between scenes together. And one particular scene we were yet to film in the funeral directors, which was indeed a pleasant location. For the film anyway.. Image below. Production values-wise I think this location really added to the film. It's a very small scene with no dialogue which required our actor Nathan to internalise a lot of the time to express his emotions physically, which I found he did brilliantly throughout the whole film. I remember Yiannis just giving me a horrible look when he first saw the coffin in the script. Granted it was a hard thing to get hold of, but look how happy he is with it.
Yiannis is ready to kill me I think. I ask a lot from him, but I think he appreciates how much of an obsessive perfectionist I am when we get to the edit and we see its worked out. He's been incredible on this film. We've both worked non stop and in a way we've managed to take the pressure off one another by doing so in the process. It's given me the confidence to say I'll go on directing, knowing I'd have a competent producer in Yiannis if he did decide that was the job for him (fingers crossed). Our organisation was always spot on. Week in week out. We got the equipment we wanted due to this, and I'm never willing to sympathise with others over something like that. It's a dog eat dog world. You either push in line or stay at the back of the queue. I've certainly never expected another crew to willingly give us the equipment we wanted because we put a foot wrong. You take it on the chin and think up some ingenious way to move the camera. As a director that's your job.
From start to finish it's been a kind of up and down experience. At times I've been jumping for joy and for the slightest of moments I've lost sight of what I was doing due to panic or the overwhelming fear of thinking you had forgotten to get that one shot you needed. By summarising this film I'm essentially summarising my first year entirely. Starting off being unsure or in two minds about directing has lead me onto the path of directing two things off the bat, being passionate about both of them and wanting to do more. By saying that I can say I've grown immensely over the course of the year. As a person and as a Film student. It's heartwarming to hear some feedback from peers too. The odd compliment here and there in reference to how well I may have handled directing, or how they'd certainly work with me again as director above anyone else goes such a long way. It makes you realise why you actually do it. We're students, we make mistake after mistake but we learn and we do it because we love it, or why else would we be here? Plus, we're all friends here. There's no employer and employee situation going on here so there's no need for a power play. Simply respect your crew and assert authority if it comes to that. As an employee I can say I fully appreciate that and I've brought my three years of experience in the working world into the course that way.
I took this picture after the final shot of the film, which was a simple cutaway of the tree behind. The irony. But just look at the pure joy. To celebrate Yiannis even taught us some Greek dancing which we all ended up doing in Jacks backgarden...
Toward the end it has just been a headache. Every day. Directing and editing as our editor seems to think that a successful day of editing is to go into a mood after two hours when he thinks thats more than enough work. Me and Yiannis were left to pick up his slack and continue working whilst organising extra shoots, blogging, and self-evaluating ourselves. It's tiring like I've said a few times, and enjoyable, it's just a shame that others can't enjoy it just as much and help us out in the process by doing their job and releasing tension. I have shot this film. Aside from one shoot. I won't credit myself for this, but then theres the question, why shouldn't I? I assume Mr Spielberg himself would fancy crediting himself if he shot 90% of the film and directed it. "Oh, John our camera operator didn't turn up again did he not? It's fine, I mean I've shot more than half of this War Horse thing already. Let me get my wellies on, I'll get in the muddy trench with the camera and call action."
But yeah, over the summer I have a lot of stuff lined up. King of the Howman, a North-East skateboarding tradition. I will be hopefully shooting and editing that which will be screened out at an event at Newcastle which around 300 people attend. Exciting stuff. Some smaller skateboarding side projects. Hopefully room for another short myself and a few others have been brainstorming. A LOT of screenwriting. I plan to have a feature film finished to come back and get feedback on. Ambitious I know but it's always worth a shot. I'm even going to try and shoot something on 16mm if I can get hold of a camera. I shoot a lot on 35mm for photography, but using 16mm will give me a head start on the learning curves we'll face when we come back in September and begin using 16mm. I have a concept for that I've already pitched to a few people and they're on board as members of the crew so that's great to know. For now we still have a while to go polishing the film off in post-production.
Wednesday, 20 April 2016
Nemesis Progress Update - 20/04/16
This is a progress update for Wednesday the 20th of April, regarding the progress of both production and post-production of the short film Nemesis. This week has been an interesting week so far. As it is supposed to be the second week of production, we have ended up editing all week instead. This is due to the fact we started filming a week earlier over the eastern holidays. This leaves us only two shoots away from finishing the film. Aside from the organisation of those shoots we have been left with a lot of time to start the edit early. Last week toward the end of the week we made steady progress toward starting a general timeline for all of the scenes which we would add to as we went along and finished each scene. This week we have continued that and have now made a huge amount of progress. We have roughly ten minutes edited, which need a few remaining tweaks and some missing sound. I plan to get my crew together to have a meeting at the end of this week to plan out what we will do over the next two weeks before the deadline. I hope that everyone will come together and contribute within the post production process whether that be to get a cutaway, create some foley or to research something that will further the process. I would not like to see anyone with 'nothing to do'. There is always something to do.
Below is a shot of the current timeline we have on Avid. The gaps which are missing are the scenes we have either yet to shoot or the ones we are yet to edit.
Tomorrow we are shooting early in Seaham. Organisation wise it has been a very quick turn around which I am happy with. We had very little time to get the actors and crew together so I am happy we have been able to pull it off. The scene we are shooting is currently missing from the timeline. That will give us time to return back to the edit suite for the rest of the day to continue the edit. The main reason I am pushing for progress all day every day is to meet two deadlines. The deadline for the project being the 6th of May, aswell as the other deadline on the 1st of May which myself and Yiannis as producer are pushing to meet. This is the deadline for the Cardiff short film festival which we are hoping to enter the film into. Below is a link to the website displaying the information of the annual event held in Cardiff.
http://www.cardifffilmfest.org.uk
It would be brilliant to enter the film into this competition as it is far from local. Technically speaking we are going international as it is in Wales. I feel that enough hard work has gone into this project so it makes sense to try and get as much coverage as we can for the finished film. Despite this, we have spoken about it many times and we doubt that the version of the film we enter into the Cardiff short film festival will be the same version we hand in for our uni project. We assumed that although we may rush to get things done in time for that deadline we will still have the rest of that week to make some alterations. That week I aim to be mostly finished the timeline itself so we can start on colour correction. I have looked into how we can make the most of colour correction and I am sure that will take the rest of the week to complete.
Below is a shot of the current timeline we have on Avid. The gaps which are missing are the scenes we have either yet to shoot or the ones we are yet to edit.
Tomorrow we are shooting early in Seaham. Organisation wise it has been a very quick turn around which I am happy with. We had very little time to get the actors and crew together so I am happy we have been able to pull it off. The scene we are shooting is currently missing from the timeline. That will give us time to return back to the edit suite for the rest of the day to continue the edit. The main reason I am pushing for progress all day every day is to meet two deadlines. The deadline for the project being the 6th of May, aswell as the other deadline on the 1st of May which myself and Yiannis as producer are pushing to meet. This is the deadline for the Cardiff short film festival which we are hoping to enter the film into. Below is a link to the website displaying the information of the annual event held in Cardiff.
http://www.cardifffilmfest.org.uk
It would be brilliant to enter the film into this competition as it is far from local. Technically speaking we are going international as it is in Wales. I feel that enough hard work has gone into this project so it makes sense to try and get as much coverage as we can for the finished film. Despite this, we have spoken about it many times and we doubt that the version of the film we enter into the Cardiff short film festival will be the same version we hand in for our uni project. We assumed that although we may rush to get things done in time for that deadline we will still have the rest of that week to make some alterations. That week I aim to be mostly finished the timeline itself so we can start on colour correction. I have looked into how we can make the most of colour correction and I am sure that will take the rest of the week to complete.
Monday, 18 April 2016
Editing Schedule 18th April - 22nd April
I have made an editing schedule for this week when we will be editing from 9-6 every day from Monday to Friday. I have spoken to my Editor Ethan and my Producer Yiannis about making an editing schedule to ensure we are making progress through selected scenes, to ensure we finish in time to make colour corrections to the film in the last week of post-production. Where we can we will be editing the scenes we have already filmed in between shootings, but as we are now currently into the second week of production it looks like we still have 2 or more shoots to go before we will wrap up production.
So far we have made some very good progress into the edit. We are just over four minutes complete in a basic timeline which covers 5 different scenes so far. We have managed to piece together some scenes in succession, and we have even made significant change to the audio as there were some small problems which needed adjusting along the way.
Week 1 - Monday 11th - Friday 15th - Completed back-garden/kitchen scene.
Monday 18th April - Completed opening piano scene.
Tuesday 19th April - Unfinished attic 'revelation' scene/Oscar collapsing.
Wednesday 20th April - Unfinished Black room scene & hospital scene.
Thursday 21st - Unfinished school lab scene.
I have colour coded the finished scenes and dates as green and the unfinished scenes on the yet to edit dates as red.
So far we have made some very good progress into the edit. We are just over four minutes complete in a basic timeline which covers 5 different scenes so far. We have managed to piece together some scenes in succession, and we have even made significant change to the audio as there were some small problems which needed adjusting along the way.
Week 1 - Monday 11th - Friday 15th - Completed back-garden/kitchen scene.
Monday 18th April - Completed opening piano scene.
Tuesday 19th April - Unfinished attic 'revelation' scene/Oscar collapsing.
Wednesday 20th April - Unfinished Black room scene & hospital scene.
Thursday 21st - Unfinished school lab scene.
I have colour coded the finished scenes and dates as green and the unfinished scenes on the yet to edit dates as red.
Black Cabbie Main Scene Call-Sheet
This is an example of a call sheet I made for my Black Cabbie script. For this exercise I chose the most complicated and most grandiose scene of the film so I could make a very detailed shot list which covered a range of different things. I detailed the shot list as much as I could whilst making it simple enough to communicate to actors and crew. This is an essential part of making a call sheet I found. Noting all the important factors, but then making it simple enough to read and understand. My first attempt of a call sheet made me go back and start again to get what I have below. My initial call sheet was very poorly executed because I understood very little of the concept of one document being sent to everyone involved in a scene. This call sheet should apply to even small roles such as extras I realised. The inclusion of things such as sunrise and sunset became important. Not so much for my scene with it all being interior, but now that I have began shooting things such as my Me, Myself and I project I can fully understand how important it is to know when the sun sets. For lighting and continuity as both affect one another.
I noted all the key roles in this version of the call sheet below including contact details for anyone on site and for the home office. I used CCAD as an example. I learnt to include and communicate which script pages and which characters were in that scene through use of a simple grid system which shows it all.
Nemesis Film Poster
Today I spoke to Ryan my cinematographer about a potential Film Poster for our short film. Though this is not an essential part of the project we felt like it would be a nice thing to do to market the film or to give it a more professional and industry standard feel. I also spoke about this to my Producer Yiannis who was also very happy with the idea, so we began putting together some ideas. Ryan is an excellent artist and has agreed to make some concept art for me to look at. Aswell as being cinematographer Ryan has been heavily involved with the set design and artistic direction of the film, as we have relied heavily on sketched out images as key props.
My initial idea was to shoot something on 35mm film and then process that to a digital image we can edit on photoshop and other digital image editing software. As a huge fan of 35mm photography I feel like it would be something different, and it would be nice to experiment with rather than doing everything digitally like we have thus far. I also feel that the contrast of colour on 35mm film is greater when you make use of very few contrasting colours. For example if you are shooting against only two or three different primary colours 35mm film captures that very well opposed to many colours which seems to make more sense to capture digitally. If we were to shoot the main image we were using for the poster on 35mm, I could use a full roll of 36 exposures, develop them and pick the best image from the lot. This way we can experiment with different lighting techniques during the same roll of film.
It is no secret I am a very poor hand-drawn artist. So far I've left the bulk of that to Ryan. Despite this I knew what I wanted visually, in terms of character and set positioning, and also where I wanted the film title, taglines, credits etc. I made this very quick sketch below so Ryan has something to go off. A particular shot in our film so far I feel sums up the overall tone and mood of the film we are creating, but also captures the essence of our main character. The character is on his knees facing a wall plastered from top to bottom with posters and theory information. The shot is from the rear of the character at a long shot capturing both the character and the posters facing down at him. Smoke rises in the air between the character and the posters creating a very sinister and hostile setting which the character inhabits. This is reflective of his mood - broody, frustrated, torn apart.
Ryan also had the idea to include some sort of concept art of surrounding planets. I liked this idea and as you can see from the poster the character is circled by planet like images. This would be done through chalk or finite pencil sketches, which would then be digitally transferred onto the film image. Below the character and the surrounding planets stands the tall and wide film title which dominates the image. 'NEMESIS' is dead centre covering almost all of the bottom third. Below that would be the tagline, then the credits. I feel like this is a nice simplistic layout which is visually effective. We are not breaking any conventional rules of film posters only aiming to experiment with the way we are creating an image through the use of 35mm film. However this might turn out to only an idea and nothing more. We may resort to using digital imagery as it may transfer easier, but we will see as we will probably be making the poster in the last week of post-production.
Below is an image which served as the main inspiration for the poster. The rising smoke from the character, the body positioning of the slumped over shoulders and the holding of the head suggests the fed up attitude of the character. The very few contrasting colours help create an extremely visually striking image which is also crisp.
Friday, 15 April 2016
Progress Update - On Set With Roger (15/04/16)
Today we met Roger for the first time since the auditions in Newcastle. I was extremely happy about being able to cast him and his wife Sue as the two supporting characters in the film. I feel like they'll be injecting the film with a bit of acting experience, as they've worked on a lot of previous small scale student and low budget productions, and even some stuff for the BBC. I was essentially stepping way out of my comfort zone as a director to do this. I know a lot of people stick to casting young likeminded people because they feel comfortable. I felt like the best way to progress is to get some mature actors on board who know what they're doing, and I can learn from them in the process. And I did. Speaking to Roger and Sue behind the scenes of the film they were very understanding and knowledgeable of the filmmaking process, aswell as being confident and competent actors. I turned up on set on the day we had Roger (at two locations. Hartlepool and Sunderland) wanting to make the best impression I possibly could. Roger was an extremely nice bloke, who gave us a lift from Hartlepool to Sunderland for the next scene. He was relatively pricey for the day, but that concerned me very little, I was very happy to pay for his performance. Below is an image from the second shoot in Hartlepool where we filmed a nice mellow and scenic scene in the Marina. We were lucky to get a reflection from the ship on the calm waters which was a blessing. The lack of wind meant the water was very still and it helped further that numb and still atmosphere I wanted to surround the characters.
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