Directions Unit- Idea development over the Christmas Holidays

Over the Christmas holidays I have spent a lot of time developing my previous ideas about my 4 minute short film about "A Journey Through Freedom."
In my previous blog entry, I briefly discussed an alternative idea I had come up with about a character living life in the same way as a character from George Orwell's classic novel "1984". I have since decided that this alternative idea would in fact be a much easier film to create, as well as a much more effective story overall.
I have also been thinking about camera styles and how exactly I would like my film to be shot. I have recently been watching a lot of the films from the "Paranormal Activity" series, and although the acting and storytelling in those films isn't anything stellar, or something I'd like to emulate, I must admit the idea of the camera being a physical object in the film as opposed to some omnipotent eyepiece is something that interests me.
If I were to tell the story of somebody living their life while constantly spied  on by hidden cameras (ala The Truman Show) I would be able to express the character's need to break free from their life, and show the story of a character trying their best to escape from a life which they have no control over- a life where they are simply a subject to be spied upon and watched.
This would be great for the theme of Freedom.

Paranormal Activity

 

I have attached a screencap of one of the paranormal activity films here to demonstrate the kind of shot I would want my film to be filmed like in terms of camera placement and such. You can see clearly that there is a timestamp present which suggests that the camera is a physical object in the scene, much like a CCTV camera.

I believe this sort of feature is something that would be a great thing to insert during the editing phase of my film, giving it a sense of it being "found footage" or security camera footage.

I am still undecided as to whether or not my film will be shot in this way in part or whole, but I expect it will most likely just be sections of my film that is recorded in this way.

 

 

 

Directions Unit- More development of 4 minute short film idea.

I have spent some time recently developing my idea about my 4 minute short film which has already been scripted ( I only have to direct.)
Since the theme I chose was "freedom" my original idea was to base the story on a prisoner in jail who meets with another character who provides them with some kind of object which will allow them to escape from the prison (such as a file or a crowbar of some kind.) The only problem with this would be the inconvenience of having to create a set that would resemble a prison cell, and also a set which could represent the outside of a prison.
Baring this in mind, I have been developing an alternative idea, which although revolves around the same idea of a prisoner not being able to leave an area and another character giving them an item to help them escape. However, instead of the character being in prison, the setting could be some kind of post-modern "Big Brother" type scenario, where the "Prisoner" is kept hostage and monitored in an everyday house, similar to the George Orwell story "1984".
Although with the second story the setting would not be in a prison, the theme of "freedom" would still be present.
I will continue to generate more ideas for stories, and will probably decide on which one to use for my project over the Christmas holidays.

Directions Unit- Gregory Crewdson Photographs and Planning to Direct a 4 Minute Short Film.

I have recently begun my new unit at university, which is entitled "Directions." This unit mostly focuses on moulding me into a better director, and seems to target my skills as a director, as opposed to script-writing, camera work or any form of editing.
The first part of this unit involves me creating a 1 minute sound design piece featuring a photograph by the photographic artist Gregory Crewdson. The aim of this project will be to tell a story using a photograph using only sound. I will not be able to manipulate the photograph in any way, and the only visual enhancements I may use are to zoom into certain parts of the photograph when I wants to show that a specific sound is playing from a specific area.
The class has been given a choice of which Gregory Crewdson photograph they would like to work on, and one that I am particularly interested in using is his "House Fire" photograph shown here:

The reason I am planning on using this image as opposed to the others is that this is definitely the scene which has the most "action." I believe there's potential for me to make a much more interesting sound design piece if there is a lot going on in the image.

The second part of my project involves me creating a 4 minute short film based on "A Journey Through..." The catch with this project is that I can only operate in a Directors capacity. This means I cannot write my own script, film my own scenes, appear in my own film or do my own editing. For this project, I had to choose what my journey would be through. The choices were:

• Sorrow
• Love
• Anger
• Freedom
• Loneliness

I decided to choose Freedom as my journey piece, with the reason being that the script I was given to direct by immediately brought a particular storyline into my head which would work if it had Freedom as the main "theme" of the film.

Storytelling unit: Critical response and trailer feedback

I have recently completed my 2 minute trailer and uploaded it to the UCA TV Production YouTube channel, (here) and have since received critical feedback from both my course leader as well as my class-mates at a screening that was held at the Maidstone TV Studios where we are based.

Firstly I found it to be a very valuable and interesting experience to have my work critiqued by people who had also completed their own projects, as opposed to randomly chosen viewers, as my classmates and course leader had a better understanding of the amount of work that had gone into making said trailer, and would therefore take small mistakes and inconsistencies into account when watching it. I believe people that hadn't completed the same project as me may have critiqued the work more harshly.
The majority of the actual feedback I received was positive, with the main criticism being that the "eviction" notice that appears in my trailer was a hand-written one as opposed to one that I had created digitally and printed off.

Looking back however, I have a few criticisms of my own, mostly about the ways I shot the film. I feel like I should have made more use of the cameras focusing features, to create good depth of field. In my trailer however, all shots are perfectly clear, which although gives my film the look of perfect quality, makes it lack the depth it could have had if I had made more use of the focusing as opposed to using autofocus.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this unit, and I feel I have learnt a lot about what it takes to script, film and edit a trailer, as well as what it takes to perform in front of a camera. As such, I will be able to control my actors in later film pieces in a much more efficient and effective way due to my own experiences in front of the camera.

Story-Telling Unit: The Script Draft 1 and 2

I have decided to upload the two scripts I created for "The Meeting" to this blog by uploading them to the Scribd.com.

First Draft Script for "The Meeting" by Mark Cooper.
Final Script for "The Meeting" by Mark Cooper.

By reading these two very different scripts, you can get a very good picture about how exactly my story development and character development changed as I progressed with my script-writing.

Story-Telling Unit: Creating the Trailer

I have just finished creating my final trailer for my "The Meeting" short film project. I originally entered the editing process with only a vague idea of what I wanted trailer to look like, but I found that as I began to order my clips on the video timeline, and discovered what they looked like once uploaded to Final Cut Pro, I immediately developed a wealth of ideas.
The first, and probably most obvious edit I have made to the clips I have inserted into Final Cut Pro is the desaturation of the images. Since my film is about a very serious and bleak subject (suicide and depression) I found it appropriate to make the actual picture quality look the same. I achieved this by first using Final Cut's desaturation tools and then using the exposure tools to create very dark, gritty videos, which I believe reflect the films subject perfectly.

The music I chose for my trailer was an instrumental, which I chose for a very particular reason. I did experiment with several different soundtracks, some of which contained lyrics, but due to technical issues such as the song lyrics overpowering the actual words the trailer's characters were saying I decided to instead use an instrumental.
As for the song itself, I chose to use a version of the band Placebo's song; "Running Up That Hill." The piece of music has a very haunting melody, and contains a piano which plays throughout. It actually gives off quite a cold, unsettling feeling when listening to it, and so it seemed perfect for my trailer, where I wanted to make my viewers feel as uncomfortable and unsettled for the main character as possible.
In the future, I would like to be able to spend more time investigating more suitable pieces of music for my work however, as although Running Up That Hill is a brilliant piece of music, and I am very happy with it being in my trailer, It was the first song that came to my mind when creating said trailer, and so I cannot help but think there may in fact be a much better music alternative that I just haven't thought of using yet.

All in all, I am very happy with the way my trailer has turned out, and I look forward to hearing critique and suggestions!
(The trailer itself will be posted here once it has finished uploading to Youtube.)

Story-Telling Unit: (Filming Day 3)

Today was the final day that I filmed material for my short film entitled; "The Meeting."
I have decided that the best course of action for me to take would have been for me to film a 2 minute trailer, as opposed to the first 2 minutes of my film.
Something that I found helped the filming process was creating a set of storyboards for myself, which I would follow completely when coming up with certain camera angles and techniques out in my filming location.
I will attach photographs of these storyboards here.

My storyboards, although very basic in the way they are presented with simple "stickman-esque" characters and primitive descriptions of cast movements and dialogue, were very useful when I was out on location filming.
One feature I added to my storyboard was a series of check boxes next to each panel, that I would check off as I filmed each scene and voiceover. This allowed me to film scenes in order of convenience, rather than filming them in the order they appear. This saved me a lot of time and energy.
Another factor that affected the way my filming was handled was my previous decision to film "The Meeting" at the student accommodation at Doust Way as opposed to the pier that I wanted to film at previously. Because of the fact I had to retake a few scenes last minutes because of things I hadn't noticed while filming (gun-mic in shot, extras in shot that shouldn't have been, poor sound quality etc) filming so close to home was a very useful thing to do, as I could return to the shoot-location at short notice.
My next step will be to edit my film.

Story-Telling Unit: Last Minute Script Revision (Film Day 2 Morning)

Today is the second day of filming my short film. Unfortunately, the weather has changed since yesterdays shoot, and in the interest of keeping continuity in my short film, I have decided to change one of my scripted scenes from an outside shoot to an indoor shoot.
This shouldn't affect my film in any way aside from the change of scenery, and should in fact benefit my film for this reason:
In my original script, two scenes takes place at the pier at different times of day, but right after each other. The problem with this is that it would have been quite confusing for the viewer, since they would assume it was simply a continuity error, as the same characters would be involved, speaking about the same subject, but at a different time of day, and it also may have become boring to see the same scenery repeated over the space of several minutes.
I think the benefits of this change to the script I have made is that I can now film this particular scene at any time of day due to it taking place indoors, and also it should be more interesting for the viewer to see 2 shorter scenes that take place in different areas, as opposed to having to watch one long continuous scene in one area.

Story-Telling Unit: Filming my Short Film (Day 1)

Today was the first day I filmed material for my short film. I decided to film my beginning scenes at the exterior of the student flats where I live, which is situated next to a large body of water.
The Actors I chose for my short film were my flat-mates Vittorio and Ruby. There were several reasons for this;

• The convenience of living with my actors and being able to film at any time of the day due to their being no restrictions with travel distance or time.
• The fact that Ruby and Vittorio have excellent work ethics and have known each other for quite a while, and are therefore much more comfortable with performing in front of the camera together, and also more comfortable in following instructions from me.

In the interest of health and safety, I had to be extra cautious for one of my scenes. In one of my shots, Vittorio had to stand on the opposite side of a set of railings, which are situated directly next to a drop into a river (which is subsequently where his character Lucas attempts to commit suicide.)

Since this was a very risky scene to film, I was sure to have the proper equipment around in case something went round. Situated around the river are several life-hoops buoys, and so I made sure to always film with one of those in reach, I also made sure to always have a phone with me to call emergency services with in case something bad happened.

Tomorrow I will begin the process of filming the indoor scenes and finishing up some of the outdoor scenes.

Story-Telling Unit: Experience in front of the Camera

Recently as part of this Broadcast Media Course, I have been asked to assist a lot of my class-mates with their work by appearing in their short films. At first, I was quite apprehensive due to the fact that it has been a couple of years since I have appeared and acted in front of a camera. After some thought however, I decided it would be a valuable experience for me to actually be put into the shoes of an actor, as well as the shoes of the director, script, writer and other production team members etc.

As of now, I have appeared in around 6 films in a week playing various characters, from a business-man to a comedian's manager to a bitter homeless man. I found the whole experience to not only be fun, but it also allowed me to understand what kind of position I will be putting my actors into for my own film. I think I will be able to better understand any grievances they have with certain aspects of filming now, and I will be able to act accordingly and hopefully be able to produce a much better film because of it.
Here is an example of one of the films I have appeared in:
"The Meeting" by Andy Cox

As you can probably tell, my acting isn't particularly fantastic, but I am more happy with the fact that I have been allowed to experienced being able to work in front in behind the camera.

Story-telling Unit: Script Revision and Film Preparation

The time for me to begin filming is fast approaching, and in preparation, I have decided to do some last minute editing for my script, as well as finalise the location I want to film at. I have also begun to gather assets for my editing, such as royalty-free music, graphics- and I have also been watching several video editing and filming tutorials through Youtube and the Lynda.com services.

In regards to the editing I have been undertaking for my script, I have mostly been trying to develop a way in which I can foreshadow Jess' eventually death early in the film. I already had the idea to have her cause of death be an asthma attack, but I have also recently been suggested that I have Jess and Lucas initial meeting be because of an asthma attack. If Luke was about to commit suicide, but was distracted by the sound of Jess having an asthma attack, and rather than killing himself- decided to help her, I think that would add a lot to his character, as well as foreshadow her eventual death later in the film.

I have had another idea for the filming location, which is not ideal, but would make a perfect substitute should anything go wrong with my previous location idea. The student accommodation where I live is situated next to the same river the pier from my previous entry was, and also features an area that although looks nothing like a bridge or pier- would be believable as an area where somebody could jump into the water to kill themselves.
The benefits of filming here would be that I would not have to have the expensive camera equipment in public areas where they could potentially become stolen or damaged, and there is also the fact that I am close to home, which means if I suddenly need to improvise a prop or collect something from home, this would not be a problem.
The negative aspect of this however is that a lot of students use this area as a smoking area, and so I would have to choose my time to film very carefully.
I collect my camera equipment tomorrow, and will have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to film, with Thursday and Friday left for editing.

Story-Telling Unit: Scouting for locations and Script Revision.

I have recently begun the more physical side of my short film project. I handed my finished script in to my course leader, and have since received feedback on this and have begun editing my script in such a way to accommodate the changes that have been suggested.
I have also found it to be very useful to show my flat-mates and fellow students my script, gathering as much feedback and recommendations as possible.
In reference to beginning the "physical" side of my project, I have recently been scouting out shoot locations which would be effective for my short film. Luckily my student accommodation is located close to a river, and as such, there are several piers and waterfront features which would be ideal for me to film at.
I have attached a couple of photographs with this blog entry which show one of the piers I am particularly interested in filming at:

 

In terms of being a shooting location, the pier is ideal for my film. The area itself is actually very scenic, and I believe it would translate nicely to film, especially with some editing. (Unfortunately, the above photographs do not fully capture the way the pier truly looks, as all I had to photograph with at the time was a BlackBerry mobile phone,)



Story-Telling Unit: Practice creating a trailer.

In preparation for the creation of my 2 minute trailer/ opening 2 minutes for my short film, I have been experimenting with the video editing software; Final Cut Pro X. Since I currently do not have any of my own footage to work with, I have been working on creating a trailer for another short film, which I have been watching and analysing extensively in the duration of this course called; "Soft" which was created by Simon Ellis.

As you can see from the trailer, the idea I had in mind with the trailer was to add a sense of danger and tension, without giving too much of the films plot twists away. For example, in the actual film "Soft", the father is revealed to be very submissive, and prefers to stay away from confrontation- and the son is the one who eventually stands up against the antagonists.
In the trailer however, I edited it in such a way that this fact isn't so clear.

I have not yet decided whether or not I want to create a 2 minute trailer or the first 2 minutes of my film, but I feel like the practice I have had creating this trailer will provide valuable experiences which will come in handy when it comes to storyboarding and editing my final project piece for this unit.

Story-telling Unit: Research into suicide, depression and character development.

It's really important in drama films to have realistic characters that react to situations in ways that the viewer can find believable. I have learnt from personal experience that films with characters in that perform acts that are greatly "out of character" can either be fantastic (and can lead to some amazing plot-twists and story-development) or absolutely terrible, and can ruin a characters likability. Therefore, I have recently been doing quite a bit of research into typical traits of depression and suicidal people.

I have used the internet to find a few websites which detail the symptoms of depression as a disease, as well as some of the common causes of depression and what can trigger it. I have found that a lot of cases of depression are caused by difficulties in life such as:

• Money troubles.
• Drug and alcohol addiction.
• Relationship problems.
• Loneliness.
• Unhappy work-life (Or lack of a work-life.)
• Bullying.

This research has given me a wealth of information to work with, as well as given me some reasons to make my films main character; Lucas feel suicidal. For the purposes of my film, I have chosen to make Lucas feel suicidal for several reasons, including the repossession of his car, loneliness, a recent loss of a job and lack of money (also a potential alcohol dependency). I believe all these problems when added together would be enough to cause somebody to feel extremely depressed in real life- perhaps even suicidal.

I originally wanted to call the suicide hotline; "Samaritans" so that I could actually speak with somebody that works with suicidal people in person so that I could get information on the condition of depression that way, but I understand the organization is extremely busy, and I wouldn't want to take any of their crucial time given the circumstances.

All in all, I think my research has given me a lot of information to work with. I feel like I have gained a small understanding of how suicidal people see the idea of ending their own lives (a form of escapism) as well as how I want my character Lucas to react in social situations, particularly with the secondary character; Jess.


I have also recently been generating my own ideas about why Jess would be so interested in assisting Lucas with his problems, and convincing him to not be so hasty when it comes to ending his life. My immediate idea was to have to two form some kind of romantic relationship over the course of the short-film, or have the Male/Female relationship being the reason for Lucas ultimately deciding to keep himself alive, but since then I have decided that is not the route I want to take with this film.
Typical Hollywood storylines tell of a damsel in distress being saved by a strong male character, and in my film we will see the exact opposite. The male character will be the weaker character in need of saving, while Jess- the female character will be the strong, independent character that has problems of her own, but is managing to deal with them. Since my film will already be ignoring the typical damsel in distress storyline, I have decided it will also ignore any potential love-storylines too. This will lead to Jess's motivation to save Lucas to be more about her sense of humanity as opposed to any particular attraction.

Story-Telling Unit: Character Development

I have recently begun the process of scripting my short film; "The Meeting".
During the scripting process however, I have stumbled across a bit of a problem. Since I have no experience dealing with suicide, or communicated with people contemplating suicide, I have no idea how the Lucas and Jess characters in my film should react and communicate with each other when certain events happen.
As such, I have decided to undertake some light research into the subject using the internet so that I can create believable dialogue. How am I to do this?
Well I personally think the best way for me to check out how suicidal people communicate would be for me to check out some YouTube videos about people's stories, as well as maybe check out some films that have already been made which feature characters close to ending their own lives.
I hope that by doing this, I can get a bit more of an understanding of the mind and workings of a suicidal person, which will add a sense of reality to my film.

Story-Telling Unit: Pitch for "Soft"

Recently we have been learning about the importance of pitches in terms of selling a story idea to a potential viewer or someone wanting to invest in the story. We will be creating pitches for our future script and story ideas, but in the mean-time we have been gaining experience on the subject by watching short films by various different film-makers, including the short film "Soft" by Simon Ellis.
The premise of the film seems to revolve around the theme of cowardice and also the willingness to stand up against bullies, at the risk of getting hurt and losing dignity. The film itself is a very powerful piece, that tells a very realistic, believable story in a very short amount of time. As such, it was a very beneficial experience and task to create a pitch for this film.
The actual pitch I came up with was this 22 word one:
"A father and son find themselves thrust into the middle of a violent, modern-day class war where fear and bullying dominates."

I chose to word the pitch the way I did so that the basic plot point is outlined to the viewer or potential script-buyer, without giving away the major plot-points, or films ending.

Story-Telling Unit: Character Analysis for "The Meeting"

In this post, I will briefly describe the two major characters that will appear in my short film "The Meeting."
The first character is a teenage male called Lucas. Lucas has no job, no money, no friends and is about to lose his home due to lack of rent payments.
He is a guy that has not had much luck in life, and slowly feels the weight of the world crushing him. Although to other people, the thought of committing suicide may seem like an overly dramatic, almost cowardly thing to do under the circumstances, Lucas feels like he has been dealt a bad hand in life- almost like he has no control over the way it has turned out, or the way it is going. Thus, the decision to end his own life is not only a way to escape the pressures he is under, but also a way of finally taking back some control and making a massive choice that he and only he can decide upon. Because of this, he believes the idea of committing suicide is perfectly justified.
The second character I have created for this story is a young female character called Jess. In the story, Jess will be the character that manages to convince Lucas to actually not be so hasty about his decision to kill himself, and also to try and help him repair his life. I have chosen to make this supporting character a young female after some suggestions from my class-mates. Initially, I had no idea of what gender to make the two characters in this film. However, after some discussion, I decided that I would like to explore the possible relationships between a male lead character, and a female character attempting to "save him."
I believe this would be a very interesting dynamic, as well as an opportunity to go against the typical Hollywood storyline of a "strong male character saving a damsel in distress."

I want to expand upon these characters in my script even further.

Story-Telling Unit: Creating a story and pitches.

Recently we have begun creating our own story lines and characters for our first university project. We have been given the choice of creating a comedy, a thriller or a drama. Because I have created comedy pieces in the past, and things that could be considered thrillers, I decided to create my own dramatic piece.
In order to do this, I have been developing my own characters and creating my own scenarios, which I believe would be very enjoyable to see play out on film.
I have had the opportunity to actually present my ideas and opinions to other members of my class, as well as take in some of their suggestions and thoughts in order to make my ideas better. I am extremely happy to have been able to develop my ideas further, and the addition of classmates that can improve my ideas has really helped me.
As a result of creating my own storyline idea, and sharing said idea with other members of my class, I have been able to generate even more ideas and fine-tune the ones I have already had. I have also been able to create my own 25 word pitch for my short film called "The Meeting."

"After convincing him to postpone a suicide attempt, a young woman struggles to show a broken man that life is worth fighting for. But will she be successful?"

I have worded my pitch in such a way that it describes what will happen in the film perfectly, but without giving away major details which I believe would spoil the film and give away the major plot turns.
The next step in the film-making process will be for me to take my completed storyline idea, and develop it into a draft script.
I look forward to beginning this process and creating the film. I will continue to update this blog.

Story-telling Unit: Exercise in story-telling.

Recently in my Broadcast Media class, we were given an exercise designed to introduce us to the art of story-telling. The exercise involved randomly choosing 2 types of character and a setting, and then create a story for the characters and that setting, with the key theme being a "meeting."
For this exercise, I worked with my new flat-mate, Ruby.
I did the random choosing, and picked a "Minor Celebrity" character, a "Private Investigator" character, and the setting of a prison. I found this exercise to be actually very interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed being able to work with somebody else to create an intriguing story.
You would think that restricting ourselves to using certain characters and settings would be hindering, but instead I found it to be a great way to set ourselves boundaries in our story-creations, allowing us to generate a realistic, coherent story.

The first character I worked on creating was the private investigator character. I wanted to create the impression of a seasoned, tough old ex-police investigator, deeply passionate about his work- to the extent of leaving his family and friends behind to pursue his occupation. The theme of this entire story would have been the importance of family and being there for children, and the change we wanted to show in this story was the investigator's attitude towards his own family, after meeting with the celebrity character.

The second character we created was the minor celebrity character. We wanted to create a character that would be believably involved with the private investigator character in some way, and we also wanted this celebrity character to be the reason the investigator changed his attitude towards his work. The celebrity character herself was intentionally created to be as obnoxious and appalling as possible. We made her a person that craves attention, whether it be bad or good, and made her someone who has issues with her family (especially her father). We thought this would create an interesting dynamic between the two characters, one who is very established, organized and dynamic (the private investigator), and one who is very rebellious and unruly (the minor celebrity).

The story itself was created once the two characters were established. We decided that the two characters would meet at the prison due to an indiscretion at the minor celebrities home, where the private investigator would be caught trying to find incriminating evidence about the minor celebrity after being hired by an un-named character.
The two would then meet at the local police station after the minor celebrity reported the incident to the police and would then visit the station to make a statement. This is where the majority of the stories action would take place and also where the big change of the story would happen. The change would be mainly psychological, with the minor celebrity character disclosing information about her troubled life and unstable relationship with her father, which in turn would cause the private investigator character to re-assess his relationship with his own daughter (who he effectively abandoned to pursue his work).

HEY!
So I've recently begun a Broadcast Media course in Rochester! So far I've had the opportunity to meet some great people and I really think I'm going to enjoy my time here.
So far during induction week we've pretty much just chilled out, been given the basics of what our course will be about, been introduced to the places we'll be working in and just generally gotten to know each other.
I'm really looking forward to what will happen in the coming weeks, and so I'll end this blog by saying; It's going to be a hell of an experience!

-Mark