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.
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