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.