Filming Weekend

Filming a Short Part Two 
Another take on directing a short in two days.

Second time round, my immediate thought was that I wanted this film to be more successful than the last one. Before the weekend I ran through all the problems in which went wrong last time, and how I could avoid them this time round.

The weekend started at Madison and Oakley, which the owner kindly let us use for a few hours to film the office scene. We gave ourselves plenty of room to get as much filming in there as possible.  We got set up quickly, starting with going through the shot list. However, we didn't stick to it. I think this is a good thing as we were discovering better shots on the day when we were there. For example, I had the idea of filming the clock at various points. When edited, we can keep cutting back to the clock. This doesn't just show that time is changing, but also that it shows the characters boredom while he is at work as he keeps looking at it.

We also had the idea of filming close-up shots of various items in the office. Such things as the printer, the phone, the computer, plants, office papers. This was inspired by Ricky Gervias' The Office. It helps with the establishing of the setting and it makes the film more visually interesting and different to the ordinary establishing shot of the building.

We didn't run into any problems in the office. We then proceeded to film more that day, with the main character biking through Oldfield Park (his journey home). This went fairly well as we managed to get the shots as the sun was at its peak. We decided to have a long shot of the character biking up the road. It worked well as we were standing in the road and the cars parked went down in a triangular angle.

On the second day, the filming took place in my house. this was the most fun and exciting part of the weekend as were about to attempt the shot of the room turning upside down. We got off to a good start with all the shots. Similar to the clock, I had the idea of him putting in a pie in the microwave. We filmed the microwave counting down from two minutes. The idea is to keep intercutting to the time and as soon as it ends, the room will turn upside down.



It finally came to the last shot - inception. The shot was very interesting to film, and we had very interesting ideas on how to film it. We brought a white board which we placed on the floor, and attached my light shade from the kitchen on it - so basically we re-created the ceiling on the floor. We then shot the character holding a chocolate gateau (didn't have enough money for a tiramisu) and then swaying the camera almost like a pirate ship ride, however with the camera eventually going all the way round.

We then shot him falling on the board and then a shot of the cake falling on his face. This we create in slow motion giving it more of a dramatic effect. The last shot we decided to use the audio of the character, in which we will cut out the music. Here are some pictures from filming.

 

Overall the weekend was much more successful that last time. We didn't run into any problems which made the whole experience much more enjoyable. I am looking forward to seeing how it comes across in the editing process.

Pre-Production second time round

Pre-Production - again!
Tackling through the paperwork a second time round.

Yet again, it was time to tick off the to do list for my next film. I decided to work with a different group this time round, simply because I wanted to work with people I knew better, and just experience other people's perspectives. When picking the scripts, there was quite a wide selection to choose from. Although, there were very few I liked and wanted to film. When picking 3 I liked, I wanted to choose the one which I thought people wouldn't do and would be difficult to film.

'Take Care', written by Eve Beddows was definitely my first choice. After reading the script, I seemed to come up with ideas almost straight of how to film it. Another aspect that intrigued me to do the script was the challenge of the room turning upside down in the last scene. After discussing with my group we got started with tackling the project with the pre-production.

We wanted to keep most of the script the same, and just changing minor things. For example we changed a few of the signs due to us not being able to find the right type of locations. We also decided to change things due to risk assessments. For example the main character drove a car, and almost crashes. Instead we used a bike nearly biking into someone.

One of our main changes however was to cut out the dialogue and have music running through it. It was my idea to do this. The reason for this choice was me being influenced by the short film James Rafn's, She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not. The film seems to be so visually beautiful and and a compelling, intense story without using any dialogue. It is not as if the dialogue in the script was bad, but more so as if it wasn't needed. As the film is going to be consisting of many short fast shots, I think the music will help pick up the tempo of the film and give it that lighter touch it needs, especially as the punchline at the end of the film is unrealistic yet very light-hearted. The music to me seemed like it would be very fitting, especially how I wanted it more visually expressed. We managed to get some music written by music students at Uni which hopefully is going to be suitable for the film and its tempo.

Locations

This time round I had more trouble to get the locations I wanted. Getting the house scene was fine, as my house was suitable. Although I had more problems finding the office in which most of story is told. We went through the whole of town trying to find a suitable office that would let us film there. Of course, some of the buildings are owned by the government, therefore, getting permission to film there is unquestionable. We had a few promises but I got an email back on the week of shooting that they were unable to let us film there. I was getting pretty desperate until I decided to walk around Oldfield Park in which I found Madison and Oakley, an estate agents on Moorland Road. The guy who owned the place was really helpful giving us a big window amount of time to film in. I was almost shocked when he said yes, as I was expecting him to say no, with him working on the day of the shoot.

Casting
Casting was very easy this time, as we only really needed one character and the rest more like extras. We found our main actor straight who was Sam's housemate. He studies Performing Arts, which was a bonus because my last film's main actor hadn't studied acting before. As for the extras we just used anyone who was available in on the day. We had two people helping us out who was in the film briefly. I also brought my shirt and tie in case I had to jump in.

Assigning Roles

This time round I was much more reluctant to be Director again. Although I am Director again. Although I dod think it will be much easier this time as my group members seem to be more talkative and expressive with their own ideas. Rachel took the job as editing. As we are having music running through the who film, she says she has had experience with editing music videos. Sam took the role of camera man which is what he wanted to do originally in the first film but couldn't due to him having toe surgery. Adi decided to production planner due to him not being here while filming takes place.



After the main components were sorted, all was left was to fill in the paper work. It seemed to be much easier this time round as I knew how it worked and how to fill in the papers correctly. Also as we had little locations, it was much easier to fill out the Risk Assessments.

I am hoping filming is going to go well, and I am looking forward to putting my ideas into practice. As I am directing again, it should be interesting to see if I had learnt from my mistakes from last time.

Writing a Script

Car Boot!

What lies within... 

It was time to start writing the script. To write the script I used the free downloadable software, Celtx. This software allows you to write scripts in the way in which they are supposed to be written. 

I had a lot of fun writing the script. More fun than I thought I would. To get me started I needed a few ideas of what I am going to write. I wanted to use something with as little dialogue as possible, and something which would have a question flowing through it. The question being something a long the lines as the classic 'whodunnit?'. Instead I wanted the focus to be something more materialistic. 

I tried asking my flatmates in what they would of liked to seen in a short film. They came up with ideas like a twist, good music and possibly a dead body. Everyone likes to see dead bodies. 

Most dead bodies occur in films with hit men. I decided to have my two central characters with an occupation which will only later be found out. I decided not to name them in the script by their christian names, but only simply by 'Driver' and 'Passenger'. 

A love interest is also briefly introduced, whom also helps tie the short story together. However, I wanted my main focus to be on what lies within the car boot (hence the title) and the journey from what story to the next. I also wanted to highlight that even though coincidences may not happen for a reason, in this case they let you understand the bigger picture. This may all sound confusing now, but the script at the end of the day is going to be how it is 'visually told'. 

This shot of celtx shows how easy it is to write the script in a structured way. There are a lot of options to make sure that script makes sense, is coherent and looks readable. I found in much more manageable and accessible than other software I have used.


What's in the car boot?

The still shot below is of Quentin Tarantino's 1991 classic Reservoir Dogs. I picked out this particular shot because I had envisioned this to be the shot which really asks the question, 'whats in the boot?' The shot really has the emphasis of there being something important in there.

I am looking forward to the final outcome of the script, and whether or not the script will ever make it on the sceen.


 

Post-Production

Post-Production
Final Cut Pro to the max

Now that all the filming was done, it was time to edit. For this we were using a software called Final Cut Pro. For me I found this the most strenuous part of the whole task. I am not a whiz on the computers as it is, and Final Cut Pro made me look like I had never turned on a computer before. Thankfully I wasn't the chief editor so I was just there for creative input and assistance. 

Final Cut Pro Layout

The first task was to log and capture all of the shots which we may or may not use. This was quite a lengthy job as our tape went over the time code so it took even longer to sort out. After everything was logged and captured, we had many shots which were all under different categories of useful and well, crap. To be honest the majority of them were crap. After deciding which ones we wanted to use we put it in the timeline which gave us about a 6 minute movie. 

Then came the tricky part of making it look good. We had a lot of trouble with the lighting and the audio. These two important factors possibly ruined our film and made it look like it was filmed on a mobile phone. It really annoyed me how bad it was even though on the day of shooting it looked fine. As our main camera man couldn't make it, we were relying on hope that the cameras would work fine. I feel I am slightly to blame for the situation of the camera, but in my defence I had no idea how the damn thing worked. I was trying to focus on the directing of the film.

Another aspect of the editing that really annoyed me was that we were unable to use some really good shots due to the acting being bad, or the audio was faulty, or the fact that the whole shot was too bloody dark. Having said this after about two long weeks of editing we managed to create a short film which was barely passable. Luckily enough we were only showing it to the group who knew the script. If we showed to others I don't think they would of fully understood it. This being because we had to cut two short, yet very important, scenes because it was just not visible being it was too dark.

Mike and Richard did really help us a lot in editing. Without them the film would be even shitter. The bright side of things is that I have learnt a hell of lot. Minor mistakes I made really did effect the overall film. Which I guess was the whole point of this film, to learn from the mistakes so next time we won't have any. Even though I envisioned the film differently, the film wasn't that bad. I really felt like I put my all in the making of it. With more time it could of been a lot better, but we did the best we could considering the circumstances.  




 
 

Filming

 Action!       

Time to put our filming caps on...

All week I was really looking forward to the filming at the weekend. We ran into trouble almost straight away.  
The first scene we anted to shoot was actually the last scene in the film. As director, I found that I wanted this to be the best scene, not because I wanted something to end on, but because it was probably the most important scene as it gave away the twist. So therefore, I wanted to spend as long as possible filming this scene. However, this was not to be. We arrived at the office to film at 1, after being there for 10 minutes, another group turned up saying they had booked this room. Originally having two hours to film, we only had an hour and the other hour was given to them. This was our fault for not checking the availability of the room in the afternoon as we were originally going to have it in the morning.

ANYWAY, long story short, we managed to get what we needed in the short amount of time. After this bad start, everything started to run smoothly. 

For the most part of the weekend, I had a hell a lot of fun. Although at times I was pretty stressed out and exhausted and just wanted to get it finished. I was wondering what sort of attitude I should take as a director. I didn't want to come off as quite strict, but I did want to take fairly seriously. 
So I made some strict rules for the cast and crew before filming. First I wanted to make sure no one comes in hungover/ill. Therefore I 'banned' drinking and going out. I wanted every to be there, on time without any excuses. Of course if it was important than it could of been an exception. It seemed quite unreasonable but no one seemed to mind and therefore everyone turned up on time. 

These pictures were taking on the Sunday while preparing for the scene.

I spent a while on each shot, trying out different angles each time. To me this seemed like the most sufficient way. It will help in editing to see which angles looked best, or if they all looked good, use them all. Although I used a lot of takes, people looked like they were getting a bit annoyed, I wanted to make sure I had at least one or two that looked right. Sometimes we had disturbances though. For example when we were filming in town, we would find a quiet place, and everytime we hit record, people would start walking in the shot or a baby would start crying.

The actors we had were very good. They contributed a lot to the project, giving suggestions and ideas to me and the rest of the crew. It was good to hear an outsiders perspective. I also let them improvise their own lines and use the dialogue in the script as a guideline. I think this worked for the best as the dialogue wasn't really groundbreaking and it would of sounded more natural if they thought of words themselves. Also it helps them develop their character more if they can think of their own dialogue, for which they did. 

Greg played by John Celea

Dan played by Joshua Norris

The whole weekend was a great experience for me. I really can't wait to do it again next year for the second film. Hopefully I will be a bit more organised and have some more inventive ideas/
 

Pre-Production

Plan, Plan, Plan, Plan, Plan, Plan, Plan, Plan ...
The never ending planning for a 5 minitue movie.

Alfred Hitchcock once said that a successful film needs 3 things; a good script, a good script, a good script. Considering our script was not really changed a great deal, we were relying on how our film was going to be visually told.

To make this possible, there was a hell of a lot of planning involved. As this was the first project, and I am directing, I wanted to make sure everything was right before the filming beigns this upcoming weekend.

First thing that needed to be done was assigning roles. I held up my hand for the role of the director. Not becasue I didn't want to do anything else, I just felt like I wanted the responsibility of making sure everything was perfect. I consider myself a perfectionist when it comes to film.

Esme took the role of the producer. This role is very important, and yet again a lot of responsibility. Other important roles were editor, and camera man. We didin't want specific roles, as we all decided that we are going to take on all the roles when needed. Even though I am directing, I didn't it to be all down to my interpretation.

The next job was finding the cast. This seemed to start off well, but it went a bit hectic when our lead actor dropped out and we were stuck with no one.

The script didn't have many characters originally, and as we re-edited, we found that we only really need two actors. Rosie's character was very small, and I had a friend who was ideal for that one-liner. We found Greg's character fairly quickly as he happened to know Sam in our group. Dan's character was where it got complicated.

As he is the lead role, we wanted someone who was not just good at acting, but someone who can be emoptionally vulnerable and be quite unlikable and at the same time, being likable. The original actor dropped out for reasons I don't even know, so I made a few calls to see who could fill in last minute. I couldn't find anyone who was available or wanted to do it. It then hit me that the character of Dan had similar qualities of one of my friends. I asked him if he had acted before, for which he replied, "I did child acting/modelling". I said that was good enough for me. I have no worries about his ability to perform well as he is more dedicated than any other actor would of been. For example he is shaving his beard for the role, and believe me, thats a big deal for him.

The next big step was getting permission. We had to get permission to film everywhere if we want this film to not have any copyright issues. I always thought that this would be the most daunting task of the whole project. However, we mangaed to find it fairly simple. We had some trouble getting to film in the library at the university, but after persistance, we finally got the permission.

The most fun part of the whole process of permission was getting permission from the pub. We decided to use the Green Park Tavern as I was quite familier with it, as I am a local there. When the manager asked us what we were going to film in the pub, I simply replied that we were going to steal your alcohol! He gave me a query look, but I reassured him that we were going to give him the alcohol back. He seemed really pleasent and helpful, and I am looking forward to filming in there.

- Green Park Tavern in Bath







After permission was finished, and the risk assesments were done, the actors were ready, the shot list was devised -  everything seemed like it was going to plan. Unfortunately it didn't last. Our main camera man dropped out of the filming weekend due to him having toe have surgery.

Things were looking bad. We had all the ingredients to cook a good meal, but no idea how to use the oven. To overcome this, me and Lori today asked for another camera tutorial. Richard Wood (technician) managed to fit us in. We learnt the basics (I use the term lightly considering the size of the thing) of the camera. Hopefully we will remember how to turn the damm thing on when it comes to it.

As the weekend quickly apporaches, I am looking forward to it and bricking it. No doubt will it be very fun and very useful on an experience level, but I don't think the planning would be the last of our cock-ups. Hopefully we will be able to think of solutions for any of the problems that may occur.

The Eager Student

The Eager Student 
Lights, Camera, Action!

To prepare us for Choices, which we will be filming next month, we were given the task to prepare, shoot and edit a VERY short film. We were given the script from Mike, in which we took two sessions to make plan and make it.

As there is no dialogue, and shouldn't really be no longer than a minute, we didn't exactly need any top of the range actors. After getting the shooting script, we wrote down some set ups, in which we wanted what angles where. We then wrote down a shot list which helped us decide what we were shooting when. However when it came to shooting, our group did in a different building, which had quite a significant layout to the one in which we based the set ups on. However we just used our initiative and just started shooting.

I was appointed director, so I called all the shots, literally. I was hoping this would give me good experience when I am directing choices. The technical side of the camera was slightly lost on me, but im always up for giving a go. Unfortunately we didn't have time to finish the short film, however, after editing it on Final Cut Pro, we had a full 17 second movie! It wasn't on its way to win any oscars, but we fairly proud of the one edit transision we has of the girl outside the door, switching to her coming inside.

The filming was great experience for me, and probably for the rest of the group. It gives us an insight to what expect when we are shooting Choices. Our main problem was time management. Hopefully we can overcome this when it comes to it.

Here is a link to show that not all films have to be long...