Evaluation

The drama module this year has bee one of the most interesting, as a producer I have learned a lot about what needs to be done on set ad in planning and how frustrating it can be when people don't follow that plan. As I ultimately want to write and direct being a producer has shown me the other side of the coin so to speak, it feels like the producer is often the person struggling with control over the project with the director and this semester has taught me what it is like to be on the other side of that struggle, it will definitely effect the way I direct in the future.

When we began the project nobody wanted to be the producer, we all wanted other rolls, myself included, but I thought back to work done by most of the members of the group in the past and their presentations and realised that whilst their work in the past is good what they were missing was something to focus them and push them into working. With this in mind and the overall control and creative input I would gain from producing I decided it was worth taking a job I wasn't keen on to benefit the whole project.

The small project was directed and created by Jordan, originally a music video my main creative input to the project was the idea to take advantage of the on sync sound ad play it forwards in opposition to the visuals. I a really happy with how this worked out, I think it creates a little bit of mystery and puzzle in the narrative making the viewer question what they hear and ultimately wok out the narrative. This sense of audience participation is my favourite thing about the film and in the future I will try and explore similar ways of getting the audience to participate in the film. Watching audiences work the film out has been one of the most satisfying things about the project.

The audience ad peer reactions to Lack of Prestige have also had a big impact  as an insider it is difficult to tell if what you are producing is funny or not. to hear people laugh was a big relief. I am happy with the psst ad I think we produced a good piece of work, unfortunately I see Lack of Prestige as a big opportunity missed, we could have made something of a much higher quality.

The pre production of A Short Story in Brutality was good, we all attended most of the meetings and we discussed in depth what we each liked about the film and planned carefully what to shoot. how to dress the sets and what the actors should be like. One of the biggest problems was finding actors to take pat, I took advantage of the shu drama society which is where we got our actors. Due to illness however our lead actress had to pull out and Amy had to fill in. Not the greatest solution but there comes a point when you have to stop looking for ore ad work with what you have. Our specific most important meeting, I believe was our shot listing session, although Joe, the projects cameraman didn't attend, we did manage to get a coherent shot list of the whole film. timed and ready to storyboard. Not only would this help in the production but it meant we were all on the same page. we all had the same intentions, we were all making the same film.

In the pre production for Lack of Prestige on the other hand we had a lot of issues. Firstly with working and reworking the script and essentially with me and Christi not being on the same page. He pitched the film to me as like a brtish gritty drama that makes magic look real. I could see elements of that in his script ad tried to push it further in that direction but clearly that was not the film Christi wanted to make, instead we produced a quirky british comedy. After many rewrites we got close to an acceptable script, Christi wanted to continue working on the final scene which I thought would be good. I now know the importance of locking down the script, the changed Christi made were not exclusively in the final scene and the changes he made exasperated the confusion experienced on set. The majority of the confusion however stems back to the shot listing session, it was such a good process on the 2min I wanted to reproduce it. In the 2min the plans we made were frustratingly not followed and this time I specifically said to Christi either we can improvise on set or we shot list the whole thing. he agreed shot listing was the way to go. The problem I think with the majority of our production id that nobody but me and Christi attended the shot listing meeting or any of the other meetings, Joel was often present and I think it shows, his music fits perfectly and I believe it does so because he got a strong feeling for the film by attending the meetings. Without anyone else at the shot listing session and with Christi still working on the final scene I took on the responsibility of story boarding and produced some nice shots with the input of Christi from the session and the shots we decided on together. We used the story boards on production but they have since been lost.

I learned a lot about working with directors, in A Short Story in Brutality I leaned about trying to fuse ideas in pre production  Specifically that you have to either mix the ideas or throw one conflicting idea out and decide what to do in production in  pre production. Failing to do this wastes time on set and causes arguments. Our problem on the set for A Short story in Brutality was that nobody followed the planned shot list and the sets weren't pre dressed. I attempted to coordinate the production despite this but it was difficult and took a lot longer than it needed to.

On the Lack of Prestige the same issue unfortunately arose however this time I had asked Christi specifically if he wanted to follow the shotlist beforehand and he agreed so this time I forced Christi to follow the story boards when available. The problem was that a lot of Christi's ideas developed and changed through the production, he wanted to add things in and change bits we already filmed, I would have liked to include a lot of his ideas but I had to choose which worked and which didn't. Christi had a lot of ideas, I think putting all of the in the production would have crowded it with tricks and effects and would have taken away from the story. So restricted by taste and time I chose Christi's ideas selectively and made sure we had the coverage we needed.

I learned a lot about working with actors, both professional and unprofessional. On A Short Story in Brutality we used mainly professional actors, getting them scheduled was tricky, they kept backing out the day before but when they got on set they were professional, knew lines and were really helpful. I would have like to direct them a little more or for Jordan to direct them a little more but we concentrated on coverage. In Lack of Prestige we used non professional actors, the advantage to using them is that the characters were written for them to play and so they fit the parts perfectly. The down side was quite literally the lack of professionalism, they weren't on time, didn't know lines and acted differently on every single take, a problem in post. Even though they were good for the part in future I would rather work with the professional or semi professional actors it would run much more smoothly. On the Lack of Prestige shoot, due to the actors not turning up we ended up shooting until 6 in the morning to make sure we got everything done. I scheduled a lot of the shoots and think we could have worked to them if the actors had known the lines and Joe had known the lighting and storyboards.

Post was good in both productions due to good coverage, a few shots were unusable as always but we had enough different angles to fill in gaps. It would have been nice in both cases to do some pick ups but we just didnt have time. We learned a few effects in the Lack of Prestige edit and applied the effects learned in the Short Story in Brutality edit to our second film and generally it all went well. There were a few arguments but when it comes down to it a lot of editing is about taste and personal choice. In the 2min Amy edited and both me and Jordan had to work with her a lot to keep the project to schedule, on the 10min Jordan edited, with the editing I saw him help with in the 2min I was confident with leaving him and Christi to do the work.

Sound worked well for both projects, the guys put a lot of trust in my idea for A Short Story in Brutality's sound and I am grateful for that but all praise has to go to Joel for sound. On both projects recording were done well and music was brilliantly written despite the completely different tones of the films, I am extremely impressed, the music really finished both films.

I am not sure if it is because of my producing roll or because of my wish to make really good films but I felt like I did a lot of work for these projects. As well as all the jobs required of me I filled in and helped out wherever possible just trying to make everything run smoothly. Nothing did run smoothly but I would never expect it to, the work I put in I feel held the projects together from pre production to end. I found the level of involvement from start to finish both liberating and enlightening, seeing the ways the concepts changed in production and them were differently interpreted in the edit makes me think about how to articulate my own ideas and interpret others'.

I am happy with both films, they both have good stories and good camera work but I feel in both cases they could have been excellent. I think everything was well planned but we poorly executed those plans because no matter how early we planned on filming and conservatively scheduled we just got delayed over and over again and the projects became rushed. I think strong pre production and post production save both of our films. In the future I will push for as much production time as possible I will help this by using professional actors and not just planning long before the shoot but having other actors on back up in case the schedules get endangered. I enjoyed being a producer and learned a lot from it but still don't want to pursue it as a career.

A Short Story in Brutality and Lack of Presteige

This is our final film, Lack of Prestiege
Which was informed by our short, A Short Story in Brutality

Presenting and Class Feedback

I was a little nervous about exporting a mere 5 minutes before the deadline but our film was bound to be cutting it close after all the production problems. We didn't have time to check the disk or run a second copy if things had gone wrong so just crossed our fingers damn hard. the export was good quality so nothing went wrong, not only that but the on the spot laughs and reactions we got were great.

It was a little tense to screen a comedy as the reactions are all there for you to see but I think along with the music the acting and writing got a chance to really work its magic and the audience knew exactly when to laugh and knew exactly what they were watching.

The one response I am surprised with is that people like the performance of Nick, the market salesman and thought that Jim the magician could have been more eccentric. Whilst this is clearly an issue with rehearsing which we had no time for I am shocked that it was that way round. I thought the magicians performance may be too over the top when filming the scenes however they come across more refined on camera. Either way i'm very happy with the final piece, it got the reactions we expected and its not too poor in terms of grain however the camera work it one of the let downs, Night Shoots Are Hard!

Editing and the final product.

The editing process was an interesting one for me, Christi and Jordan were quite on the ball and apart from actually sitting at the computer and working there wasn't a lot I could do to help. That being said I still came into the edit suite as often as possible to check on things and offer constructive feedback and make sure everyone was on task. Most of the time they were and despite a tight editing schedule the work got done to a good standard in good time.

One creative thing that came from  the edit was the way we will in future treat special effects, some of the things we wanted to do didnt work and some of the things we did do could have been achieved more easily. There are a few ways we could have figured them out before production such as test shoots and test edits but the fact that the schedule changed so much made these things difficult to plan. However I am a little glad we didn't know exactly how easy it could have been, this could have led to an overuse of things popping up added with after effects as the muzzle flashes were. I think the balance between comedy, story and effect is just right, it isnt a camera exorcise but a tasteful and playful film, a fine line we could have easily fallen off.

We also have a very different end product to the script for a lot of reasons. Firstly its because of large changes in post, Christi's original script was too much for the time scale, there were too many ideas within it. We had a really long session talking about where to take the script and came up with some good ideas and simplifying the idea a lot. However, I believe, the problem with the project on the whole is that after this meeting the other group members left it to me and Christi to plan the film. They were told to come along to the scripting discussion and the shot listing session but they didn't. This lead to lots of production issues and a lack of coherence between the team. Finally a lack of professional actors and Christi's directing style led to takes being improvised and different every time causing continuity and editing problems.

I think overall that is why we have a different product, with a lack of coherence and muddled story lines we never quite knew what we were making. With the coverage I made sure of and the voice of Christi that was written in the script and executed on set we ended up with a nice final project, cobbled together from takes  a little all over the place.

Production

Day 1

Schedule:
20.30 Meet Outside uni with equipment actors and props.
21.15 Arrive at alley location.
21.45 Start Alley Shoot. Scene 2, Scene 5.
12.00 breaktime
12.30Carry on with shoot
01.30 Finish scene 5. Walk to sitting location Scene 6
2.00 Shoot scene 6
3.00 Shoot scene 7 (costume change)
4.00 Shoot ends.

Unfortunately at 2 we lost battery in the audio at 2 and only got to shoot scene 2. This was due to poor acting and bad set ups.

Day 2
Failed Day shoot

2030 arrive at location to finish scene 3 and film scene 5 and final scene
2300 Shoot scene 2
2330 walk to carpark location and shoot scene 6 and 7
0100 break
0200 Shoot subway scene
0400 fin

This time the camera battery died and we again failed to shoot scene 6 7 and the subway scene.

Day 3
Failed to shoot

Day 4
failed to shoot

Day 5
Failed to shoot

Day 6
1800 start shoot and continue till finish... which was at 0600 the next day, a hard shoot but we got it all done over the time.

Inspiration and influences on Magicians Veil

Through its many forms of script there have been a lot of different influences and inspirations, what we have arrived at takes parts from all of them and rejects other sections.

At its inception it was described to me as a "gritty realistic" portrayal of urban magic, despite it not turning out this way in the end it immediately pointed us in the direction of films such as This is England (2006 Shane Meadows) and many other Meadows films. They encouraged us to add an aspect of violence and or drugs that in "gritty British" films unfortunately represent Britain realistically. This model isn't just perpetuated by Meadows, many British films, specifically those set in London, portray Britain in this way such as Harry Brown (2009 Daniel Barber) and Kidulthood (2006 Menhaj Huda). We attempted to add a more violent and drug orientated subplot to the film but on development it became clear that this style was not right for the lightheartedness of the film. 

For some time we moved in the opposite direction, it was suggested in one of our feedback sessions that we consider our audience, could this be a children's or family film? This lead us to look a little at films like The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010 Jon Turteltaub) which deals with magic in a very realistic way. We kept the realistic aspect of the film but didn't want a family audience, a lot of our comedy comes from our character who's traits depend on his rudeness and brash qualities which contrast comically with the magicians manners.

Another film which springs to mind for me, in reference to both narrative and characteristic inspiration is The Fisher King (1991 Terry Gilliam). The slight arc at least of characters being introduced to new worlds fits nicely. The characters also share similar but not exact characteristics, at very least they are similarly opposite and the ways in which they react to one another and ultimately work together similarly reflects our film.



This is England, 2006, Meadows S. UK, Big Arty Productions, Film4.
Harry Brown, 2009, Barber D. UK, UK Film Council.
Kidulthood 2006, Huda M. UK, Stealth Films, Cipher Films.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice, 2010,Turteltaub J. USA, Walt Disney Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer Films.
The Fisher King, 1991, Gilliam T. USA, Columbia Pictures Corporation

Magicians veil Reccie

All of our next film will be shot in the night time(ish) and will be outside in streets and markets so we looked around sheffield with a camera to see how it would look on film. Lights were not available so it wasn't a great test but we suspect if we can find a location where the background is lit well lighting the characters with small spots shouldnt be too tricky.

 This first shot is on the market in sheffield and will be practically the same as the first shot of the film.

We got a large selection for each area and these are some of the best. We will use locations that have good lighting but are also interesting to look at we hope some of these will work out.

Magicians Veil. The Script.

So scripting this one has had a lot of stages...

We began looking at it a few months ago, there were a few formatting issues and small mistakes but overall it was a strong film with some great characters, ideas and a really strong voice that bridges comedy and drama.  We kept all of that good stuff but streamlined and formatted the script. The problem we then had was that there were two narratives. It begins with Nick, an aging market seller, being entranced and introduced to the world of magic and overcoming his skepticism. The second narrative was a battle with the magician and Nick against a "Prophesist". We tried as hard as possible to make that work and discussed a possible drug plot to make it grittier. However even with all the changes it didnt feel right and we had over 12pages of script so something had to go. We spent a lot of time deciding what to cut and settled on the fact that we could only use 1 narrative of the two, out of the two we chose Nick being introduced to the world of magic, to me it seemed the funnier and more relatable part of the film.

With that in mind Christi went away and rewrote/ adjusted what we had sent it on to me and I edited it a little and we think its about ready. Christi isn't happy with the ending but for now we will keep it as it is and if he rewrites something fantastic we will use it. Although the project has changed a lot I think it fits the brief a lot better and am looking forward to filming it!

Editing Day2

We worked for a good full 6 hours to get the edit finished but after the long tiring stint working we were happy and exhausted. Right from the start we had similar problems to the day before, too many cooks, ling times spent on discussion rather than editing and missing footage. We found a lot of things we didnt think we had, labelling would have solved this, and realised we hadnt shot a lot of things. Another problem was that we had shot things but quickly and on the fly, not adjusting lighting or giving the shots the time they deserved, because we were behind schedule, as a result we couldnt use a lot of conceptual stuff that we really loved but looked horrid.

After a few hours we finally had something close to a fine cut so we reversed the footage. This took a while because of a mess up with sequence settings and rendering but eventually we could see the piece in its intended chronology. As I had hoped, and expected due to practice footage, it pretty much all worked backwards! Everything but the fight scene really...

One of the hardest parts to edit, as expected, was the fight scene, the fast pace and reverse editing was really tricky and confusing. Because of the nature of punches they are faster on the way down than the way back, this took the impact out of the blows and the scene. We were puzzled and debated playing with the speed of clips a lot or cutting it really violently but in the end Amy's simple suggestion of playing some of the footage forward was the best idea. So we carefully played some parts forward and kept others backwards for continuity's sake and because some of them just still worked! In the end to a standard viewer we dont think it will be obvious that some are forward, the action is so frantic and short it is impossible to tell for sure.

Amy then took a well deserved break and Jordan really got eyes on some footage he hadnt seen, after a lot of reviewing he found a few shots he preferred in the piece and discussed them with me and Christi, we all agreed and the changes were made for the better. Amy didn't like them... majority rule rang out and I think for the better. After a little more fine cutting the audio was ready to go on.

As our audio is slightly unusual for the project it didnt take long to sync the sound, most cues had been met in the writing of the audio and already matched. After playing around a little and arguing over a hilariously bad piece of audio that I argued down in the mix (I would have preferred it removed) we exported ready to slap it on a disk and present it the next day, Job Done!

Editing day 1

Despite our tight schedule we got way behind and our first proper editing session wasn't till yesterday (11th), Amy had done a little work already but only pulled together what she thought looked good, there was still a scene missing and we were already at 4mins on the timeline. On the other hand Joel's sound work was awesome the effects and rough foley for the fight scene was perfect, cringe worthy. The musical score he had put together was creepy and unsettling with just the right amount of melody although we are going to have to tweek his work to make it fit the timeline I am really impressed. 

I didn't want to get too involved in the edit and at first was just keeping my eye on what Amy and Jordan were doing however I was aware of Jordan wanting to put all of his shots in whether they were up to scratch or not. I kept my eye on things for 30mins to an hour and not much had been done, partly because of none of the clips being named and partly because every cut had a discussion attached. With only two days left I didnt think we had the luxury of that much discussion so I jumped in to speed things up.  This worked a little but we still had a lot of arguments on what to cut and what not to cut, specifically the conversation between Jenny and Dean. Jordan wanted to show only the reaction shots because he thought seeing a moving mouth backwards would be silly, I disagreed. Its not the difference in opinion I was annoyed with but the fact this was the first time Jordan opposed something in that was planned in preproduction filmed in production and now he was questioning it in post production was frustrating. I told him to do what he wanted and he continued to debate, I just wanted something to be done so I edited a mixture of the two. I roughly edited for the next 30mins with Amy's permission and cut everything to a rough timeline so that Joel could start timing his music and the whole film was almost there, only fine cutting and reversing to go. 

So not a bad day in the edit, I would have liked to export today after tomorrows rough success but I think we are going to have to wait until early on the presenting day, there is still a long way to go. 

Shooting Day 2

BLOG WORK

SECOND SHOOTING DAY

Our second shooting day was pretty well scheduled and shot listed, we arranged when to meet actors and left time for travel and it looked as though things would go really well, unfortunately we did not stick to the schedule.

TIME SCENE SHOT DESCRIPTION ACTORS LENGTH
4.30 Meet at uni (Joel Jon Jordan Christi Joe)
5.00 4 1 CU hand wash track up to face. J 4s
5.10 4 2 Blood drip from hand to hand. J. 3s
5.20 4 3 Shot from inside sink. J. 2s
5.30 4 4 Tap Running J. 3s.

Walk to won ting

Meet at won ting ALL CREW AND ACTORS

6.00 2 2 Won Ting meeting from Car park roof N.J.R.
6.30 2 3 Tunnel walking from light to dark N.J.R.
6.45 2 4 Coming out of the Tunnel High angle up steps, they walk towards cam, Dean lurking at bottom N.J.R.

Walk to Christi's

7.15 2 5 Her entering a house, him stopping and looking down at the ring. N.J.R.
7.25 2 7 ECU Ring box J.
7.30 2 9 CU Deans face J.
7.40 2 6 Wine being poured. N.R.
7.50 2 8 Candles lighting N.R.

8.00 3 1 Deans legs foreground framing the bed. N.J.R. 4s
8.15 3 2 Cam behind Couple in bed framing Dean (reverse of shot 1) N.J.R. 3s
8.20 3 3 MedLong Dean walking over and punching Tom to the ground and pushes Jenny to the floor N.J.R. 5s
8.25 3 4 Jenny cutaway crying R. 2.s
8.30 3 5 POV from Tom Dean climbing ontop J.N. 4s
8.40 3 6 Wide shot of the fight J.N. 3s
8.45 3 7 POV Dean J. 3s
8.50 3 8 POV Tom N. 3s
8.55 3 9 POV Jenny J.N. 3s
9.00 3 10 Blood Splatter cutaway N. 3s
9.10 3 11 Profile shot of fight J.N. 6s
9.20 3 12 360 shot J.N.R. 6s

We met 30 minutes late for a start because Jordan was late but we had enough people to carry all the kit and had enough time to walk to the set and start filming, we were hoping to squeeze the bathroom scene in before anything else. I left us about 30mins for first set up and then 10mins for each set up, with the 30mins late and without the set being dressed before we arrived we had no time to shoot so we left Christi behind to with Joel for help with set dressing and moved onto the outside stalking scenes. The other thing that held us up was the discussion about the mirror…. This may be a little confusing as it has never before been mentioned but Christi, Jordan and Joe all wanted a shot of a mirror being smashed, framing Amy, the reverse smash would look really cool but it presented time issues. I really love the idea but there is no time in the film, we scripted and shot listed a 2min film and didn’t have time for it in the film. Secondly we didn’t have any time on the day to shoot it, being over an hour behind already this really pushed us behind. I argued that it wasn’t worth it but was overruled so left it to be set up whilst we were away, as we were on location we didn’t need lights so they could be set up so we could be as quick as possible when shooting the next scene.

We got to the next location just on time and efficiently shot absolutely everything exactly to schedule (minus the 1.5hours behind from the last scene). We shot every shot we wanted exactly to the shot list and with the extra camera picked up alternatives. This was probably the most successful part of the shoot, we used the hand cam light really well and directed the public a little so that nobody was in shot, it all went really well. It was cold and raining a little but was successful.

When we got back not everything had been dressed and the lights weren’t set. We also spent 30mins whilst light setup was going on debating whether or not to add a scene, Joe already had a lot of cutaways and with the additional mirror shot I disagreed again. The shot Jordan and Amy wanted was of “Dean” breaking into the house after Tom and Jenny. To me this wasn’t necessary because you have seen him following and there is no easy way for him to break in, if we don’t show it the audience will most likely connect the dots in a more believable way than we could film it. It was taking too long to argue about it so I backed down so we could film it and move on, which we did, briefly, after looking at the edit we think we will cut it.

Lights, camera and set were still not completely ready and we spent a really long time setting up shots randomly. By this point we were way behind schedule but everyone refused to follow the schedule or shot list. This meant we just grabbed random shots we could, it was much less efficient and much less cinematic. We muddled through and I did everything I could to help, adding blood, helping with lighting and other odd jobs.

We were hours behind schedule but began shooting the final scene in the bathroom (the first scene) Jordan asked for the shot list (for the first time) so I left him to it and started packing up the equipment and saying goodbye to the actor that had finished. I hope that the footage was good but the bathroom was too small for so many people, Joe, Christi and Jordan seemed to have things under control and I felt maybe it would be ebst for me to step out. At this point it was 12 rather than the proposed finishing time of 9.30. I am extremely grateful to the actors for staying as long as they did and working as hard and well as they did I was genuinely impressed. I was actually embarrassed by the amount of wasted time, it felt unprofessional and unorganised and we wasted a lot of the actors time.

I personally found the day really frustrating, too many people were fighting over lighting which we had already discussed, too much arguing over what to shoot despite our extensive shot list and too much wasted time talking and discussing when we had a good plan. I didn’t put the plan together from nowhere, we had had a really productive session in which we discussed it all and planned it together, it felt like those discussions were needlessly repeated on set. 

Actor trouble and Shooting Day 1

Unfortunately actor troubles have continued and we have really struggled to keep the work on schedule. We tried to shoot last week but had trouble with our actress getting ill and put in hospital. Then we tried to shoot during this week with our Editor standing in as an actress if we couldn’t find anyone else. I tried really hard to find someone emailing as many actresses as I could find and asking both actors to get friends to help out if they could but to no avail so we eventually decided we would have to substitute our editor for the role of Jenny, fortunately it’s a pretty small role. One of our actors pulled out of this week’s mid week shoot and we needed him for the scene we had planned, we didn’t have time to reschedule the other scene in its place. We attempted to film this weekend but our other actor was unavailable and he is necessary for all scenes so we couldn’t shoot at all. Hopefully we will be able to shoot next week.

We finally had some success with shooting, we couldn’t shoot the scene we wanted to because of actor troubles again but did manage to shoot the living room scene with Johnny and Amy. It went really well, we spent a little bit too long with our first set up and struggled a little to keep to schedule, mainly because we had to wait a while for the set dressing but after that it was pretty smooth running. There were a few small problems, the lights were admittedly a little unsafe but after a little while of shooting we got a lot more efficient and a lot safer. Another problem was everyone else's unfamiliarity with the script shot list and shooting schedule, everyone had been given copies or shown where copies were but nobody was particularly comfortable with them leaving me to re read and reorganise everyone despite the fact they should have known what was going on, that made us much less efficient.

Anyway this was the schedule, we kind of stuck to it, we didnt shoot the bathroom scene and we filmed a little out of order but other than that it was pretty good.

MEET TIME: 16.00 @bus station. 

TIME SCENE SHOT DESCRIPTION ACTORS LENGTH
16.30 4 1 CU of hand track down to face J 4s
16.50 4 2 Blood drip from hand to hand (ring) J 3s
17.10 4 3 Shot from in sink J 2s
17.30 4 4 CU Tap running, being turned on + off J 3s
BREAK
18.00 1 1 Low angle dean holding ring. J. 3s
18.20 1 2 ECU ring. Box snaps shut. J. 3s
18.40 1 3 Sofa profile shot of Dean Jenny comes in Pans across as she comes in and gets her coat and goes back into the kitchen. J.K. 30s
19.10 1 4 Reverse of shot3 OSS Jenny. J.K 30s
19.30 1 5 CU of mouth on hug J.K. 2s
19.40 1 6 ECU of phone steal J.K. 3s
19.50 1 7 ECU of phone message J. 3s
20.30 1 8 Medium long of Jennys reaction. She leaves and he waves goodbye phone behind his back. Dean fumbles ring in pocket and slams door behind him J.K. 40s

Joel, boom operator and sound man all rolled into one efficient man.

 Jordan directing

 Amy being unhappy about acting

 Not sure why at this point everyone was standing around, I'm sure we were busy.

 Amy being really unhappy about acting

Christi doing his art directing.

Permissions

These are all of the permission forms from actors and locations.

Lighting tests and Trouble shooting.

A few days ago me Joe and Jordan sat down and had a little chat about the storyboard for the fight scene, we decided it would come together more in the edit but did note that we should get: POV shots from all characters, profile shots of the fight, blood splatter cutaways, a wide shot and a shot of Jenny crying. We also talked about a few lighting plans for the rooms we will be shooting in. Finally when it got dark at 5.30 we went to our exterior locations to see if they were well lit enough for night shoots or if we would need to light them ourselves or even set it in daytime.

This first few images is the Won Ting Chinese take away we plan to shoot some of the stalking at. I played around with the ISO a little bit to try and get the right amount of light but it was quite dark. We are hoping and thinking that when we shoot there will be no other people around so the movement of the characters in the static shot will draw the eye of the audience.

This viedo shows the kind of motion that is visible. Although there are a lot of people around it is clear that the characters would be visible. 

The tunnel is the other location we looked at, the lights are dim but the gaps in them create a really nice effect we want to keep, we decided despite the darkness and possible gain in the image it would be best no to compromise the lighting pattern by spotlighting any of the characters in the tunnel.

These videos show a rough but realistic example of what the final image will be like without lighting.

The rest of the images are tests to see what the light is like in the light and dark sections separately on different ISO's.

I personally like the images where, when in the dark, the characters cannot be seen at all, the effect this will give will be that the following character will light up when the other two go dark and vice versa. However the problem with this is that when in the light they are still dark, also narratively our stalker, Dean, will be wearing a black hoodie and therefore be difficult to see either way.

Its a fine line to tread but I think that we compromise and end up with something really nice.

Trouble shooting!

Whilst the second reccie went really well and we were all geared up for shooting I got an email from our actress Kenzzie, unfortunately she is ill and in hospital so she wont be able to appear in the film.... We had no specific back up so the hunt for actress' began again but to no avail to date and we NEED to shoot this weekend. I think that if we can't find anyone our editor Amy should step in, we have been desperately looking but its not going well so I think its a nessecary contingency. Jordan disagrees with me and doesnt think that she is right for the part but I feel that Jenny isn't that important to the success of the film, its all about Dean, that what we need to get right, not Jenny.