Restart.

Whilst producing and planning all of the projects i have been working on this year, i have some how let this blog get left behind. I have decided to delete all of the old posts about the third year projects i am working on and start again from scratch. Trying to fill in all the blanks between what i last posted and what i have done is a lot more time consuming than just starting again.

I am currently working on 6 practical projects which are-

My personal projects are- 

Debbie, a short experimental drama. Role - Producer

Debbie Behind the scenes,  documentary. Role - Producer + Editor 

Anxiety, a dance video. Role - Producer + Editor. 

I am also collaborating on - 

My last breath, a dance video- A Film by Lydia dwek- Role- Editor 

Strike, a fashion film.  - A Film by Christina (fashion student at epsom). Role - Producer+ Videographer + Editor  

We will not be silent, a short experimental film. - A Film by Dominique Murphy de neef (a Film production student). Role - Editor. 

Over the next few weeks i am going to be updating this blog with the concepts and work that has gone into make these films.  As my last breath and We will not be silent are not projects created by me, i was just asked to help edit the footage i will not be posting in great detail about thoose projects and more on the ones i have input in the creation of. 

BTB - Design influences

For our project we wanted to create a timeless effect, to do this we will use bits and bobs from all time periods to give it a quirky surreal edge to the design.

Here are some examples of what we have been looking at

BTB - Producing

As i have produced nearly every project so far at university my main research isn't what a producer dose or what goes into a pre production pack but more towards specific areas i am not certain on.

The 2 main ares i need to research into for our group project is fundraising and distribution.  With a bigger budget film and a small crew raising the funds for what we need is going to be a hard task.

From research into producing there are several different ways that a film can gain money.


- Executive producer

An excec producer is someone who is well known in the business who can either help fund the film or find people who can.

- pre sales

This is when you sell the rights to the film before it is complete in exchange for funding for the film, how ever these are hard to obtain as you need a good script or cast.

- crowd funding

This is when you offer the viewer of the film rewards or perks in exchange for sponsering the film

- equity investment

this is when you sell the rights to the film for more money but they also get a % of the profit

For our project we will be using crowd funding, the main thing about this is that we will also be competing with several other graduation films that need crowdfunding as well. This means we will have to pitch our film correctly and at the right time to make sure we get the most of funding we can.

To boost up the word about our film we will create a facebook page and share and talk about the film to raise awareness before asking for money.

We are going to offer reasonable priced rewards for our film to get the most out of people.



for distribution of our film we are essentially saying if you help fund us we will give you a copy of the film how ever we could also distribute it online or at film festivals.

Beyond the boundaries - Mood board

here are so example images of what me and lauren have been looking at for the style of our film 

Beyond the boydaries - Anxiety reaserch

The movements of anxiety can differ from person to person, therefor will be harder to capture the actual feeling itself how ever there are a broad selection of movements that are created from anxiety that most people experience such as :

• heart pounding 
• heavy breathing   
• tremors / twitting 
• restlessness 
• dizziness 
• insomnia 

these movements can be explored in our piece how ever there are also emotional effects that we could amplify through dance to add to the effect such as : 

• a feeling of doom 
• irritability / lack of concentration 
• over thinking / memories 
• tention 

To get more a sense of these feeling and how they are portrayed in film i have been watching documentaries such as 

Beyond the boudaries - Dance film reaserch

For this project we want to use contemporary dance, this style will work best for our project as it is about expression and can be done through improvisation. Improvisation will be a key thing for us as we aren't choreographers nor will have a lot of time to spend rehearsing due to lack of space/rooms at the university.

We also would like a solo dance for this project to heighten the feelings and make it feel more personal.   After advice from Kathleen we have decided to us a male dancer as male representation with anxiety is a big thing at the moment and also females are stereotyped as being weak and vulnerable.

Here is an example of solo contemporary dance:

We want the style to be simplistic so the focus is on the dancer and the movements rather than the background, we thought to add a sense of vulnerability / feeling exposed to the piece we would have the dancer preform in just skin tone shorts.  After watching some videos on line we had the idea to create animated tree branches in the background, these will represent the dancers fears and emotions pushing and provoking the movements and help create a sense of tention. The over all 'story' will start off with the dancers movements being more free but getting more ridged and more worked up until they find it hard to move.

Here are some examples of films we have been looking at for inspiration:

we liked the way the animation and the dancer worked around each other to create the sense that the branches were hunting him down. 

this film is a great example of how close ups of the body can create mood and trigger a feeling. 

this video has a simplistic style like ours but it also shows how simplistic movements and expressions can be used to create a routine.

The music in our film will also play a big part in creating a feeling as it could change the way the movements are perceived, along side creating a sound track from the dancers movements i think we should use ambient sounds to create a tension.

An example  of this is the utopia sound track, it is very subtle but creates a mood .

Beyond the boundaries - Anxiety Film Concept

My initial idea for a dance film was biased around how body language and movements vary in different situations, to get this into so form of routine i pitched it with the idea of how someone reacts on a blind date,  how ever when Lauren was pitching her idea i thought it would be easier for us to team up as both of our ideas we similar.

This project is about anxiety and how it effects the body, we want to create a tension and feeling through dance and soundtrack whilst in the movements emphasising the effects it has on the body such as, tapping, legs shaking etc

Like my other idea we will use close ups of the movements to heighten the effect and play around with repetition to simulate over thinking.


In this project i will be both producer and editor, and lauren will be director. These roles suit us best as lauren is doing alot of editing work on other projects directing will give her something to do in the meantime and i am producing other projects there for i have more time to edit.

I also think these roles will give lauren and me more confidence in feilds we dont do as much.

BTB - Group project - Film + installation Analysis

Whilst researching this project i have watched a lot of films similar to ours and some not to get inspiration and idea.

Heaven knows what

This film came in out 2014 and follows the life of a homeless drug addict. One of the things i liked most about this film is its simplicity, there no long winded back story, no complicated hidden meaning, it just portrays the life of harley as and when it happens. This allows you to focus on the emotions and feelings of the character.  I want to keep this kind of simplicity in our film so the viewer dosen't over think it and just enjoys the ride.

This is england 

I have followed this film/ tv serise since it first came out, i think the main thing that i enjoy most about it is how realistic and natural the  story flows. The diolouge and character seem to naturally fit together letting the story flow rather than feeling like you are watching a constructed film. I want to try and capture the same kind of feeling in our film, keeping it simpler to get the most effect out of it. 

Trainspotting 

Like both of the films before to me trainspotting feels like your looking into someone life rather than a story. I also love the grungy feel all of these films have. The scene that stands out the most in trainspotting is when he puts his hand down the toilet and ends up in the ocean, i feel this is really simplistic and effective that the viewer dosent question it. To make our film better we should focus on simple surreal effects  and slowly introduce them rather than long complicated ones that way it feels more natural to the viewer. 

Frank 

this is another one of my favorite films, i think the character is so interesting you dont question the weirdness of it, i think jarvis should have the same kind of energy as frank. I also really like the colour scheme in this film. 

requiem for a dream 

This film contains a similar theme to what we want to discribe, I think it works well is it dosent spell it out for the viewer it lets them come to there own conclusion. They also use a lot of experimental techniques to show the effects of addiction. The main thing that ties it all together is the music and ours also is going to need a good soundtrack to bring it all together. 

american horror story. 

This show dosen't really relate to our project how ever i think some of the camera effects and styles could be useful in our project. 

Bunny and the bull 

This film again dosent relate to ours how ever i think the set designs are really cool and we could do something similar. 

i also watched this documentary to get inspiration into the characters and the effects it has. 

The main thing i got from my research is that the simplicity and subtly is what makes them interesting. Keeping the story simple and gradually fading in the effects will make it much more effective than coming back and forth from effect to effect character to character


We have also been looking at doing our film as an installation how ever , this means some of our effects wont be as effective it also dosent feel like it has a purpose to be an installation as it is the story of a man it isnt really needed. If we were to base it on the effects of drugs or pov film it would make more sense but as it is a scripted piece it isnt really need

how ever i did do some reaserch into different ways we could do 360videos and installations


one way we could do it is to get several cameras and stich them together to create a 360 effect like in this video

we could then use several projectors and project it in a cirular wall  like here

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/arts/design/t-j-wilcox-in-the-air-at-the-whitney-museum.html?_r=0

this would be very cool and imersive how ever we dont have that many projectors or cameras. It also means we cant do effects as well

Another way is to build a replicar of the set and film all 3 walls from those angles.

that or we can do what Jeremy deller did and when screening the film build a cafe so it feels like the viewer is sat in there watching along but we dont have to do projections. 

Beyond the boundries - Camera work shop + film outcome

In this workshop we got shown the many different cameras and told the pros and cons of them all.





















Being both a producer and editor i know the importance of getting the equipment and transferring files right from the start rather than saying well just fix it in post.

One of the things i learnt is that you can program the cameras to use,  LUTS (look up table ) which is great for colour correcting  as it retains more information in the shaddows and highlights.

all of the cameras we were thinking of using have samuri blades with them witch also gets us an 10 bit range rather than 8, one of the things we learnt was to make sure to use a short sdi cable to connet it as this transferes the data better. When we filmed our dance video last year we used another cable and it lost of  data, leaving glitches in the footage.

The main thing about picking a camera is choosing what is right for the project, its no use film 4k on a fancy camera that takes up lots of storage and transfer time if it isnt needed.


We decided for out main project we are going to use the ursua as it works better in the lighting conditions.  For the dance project as we need to use the glide cam we will use the c300 or the ex3 as we used that last year and didnt have a problem with it as we only plan to screen the film in 1080

BTB - D-eb31e fundraising

As our film needs a big budget we are going to need to fundraise, our main source of this will come from crowd funding.

With crowd funding it is all about building up the project on social media to get people intresed and involved.

We are going to make a facebook and instagram to document the progress of our film , share images and information with people and advertise our crowd funding.

We also are going to make short trailer to give people a taste of what our film is about and like.

This way people will feel more involved in the project and be more likely to donate.

We plan to get the facebook/ instagram running by the end of the week, the trailer a week after and crowd fund the week after that, this way we create some kind of momentum and interest in the project.

To link all the accounts together we are going to use a domain email, this also alows us to make our own website, we decided it would be more useful to create a company website rather than one for the film, that way we can show case all of our projects and get them views too.  How ever we will sort out a website when we have more time.

Here is a list of our fundraising activities.

Fundraising Plans

BTB - Script breakdown and budget

Here is the copy of our script break down, from this i could get a budget to start fundraising, ideas of what props well need ETC.

Lucy will then go through this add notes and shots so i can make a shot list and a shooting schedule, then thomas can go through and work out what technical requirements we will need  eg camera, editing softwere so i can go and book equipments and editing suits.

Production BreakDown

After going through the script breakdown i went through and created a budget for our group, i was aware this would be quite a big budget from the start so we had already thought about fundraising.

i went through and divided the budget up into sections, then worked out an over all budget.

Budget

Beyond the boundaries (BTB) - Visual script

As we are running out of time to get the pre production work done, and everyone wants to get on with other tasks i decided it would be best to create a visual script instead.

This isnt a normal  bit of pre production how ever as our project contains a lot of effects that need planning and the fact we are all visual people who havent worked with traditional scripts before i thought it would simplify it for everyone, and hopefully stop us going round in circles wasting time.

All thought it is not a traditional way of writing a script i was doing what was best for the project as a producer to get the work flowwing, especially as the dialogue itself isnt as important as the over all theme. We plan to come back to the script and work bits out and put it into a traditional format later.

This script focuses more on the description of what is happening spelling out clearly the effect, the style, how it gets from a-b, i feel like the ending isnt quite resolved and some of the diolouge isnt very good but we plan to come back to it.

As we can now get on with our tasks using this script it means, when we come back to it we will be less pressed for time and able to think it through clearly. I think one of the problems lucy had when writing it is she was seeing it shots and a directors point of view, coming back to it means lucy will have got most of the directors work out of the way and we can focus clearly on the story.

I tried to make this script less complicated, focusing on the experimental aspects, and concept rather than complex characters and there backgrounds to convay a message simply.

Visual Script 1 – Debbie

As i was writing the script i showed it to tom and lauren who gave me this feedback

The following day we had a group meeting where we discused the script and where we are going next with it, we all agreed it was much easier to read from a visuals point of view, but the ending needs some work.

How ever this meant we could break down the script, start fundrasing, get requirements ETC that are necessary to film, lucy said that we would have to change the shot list/storyboard when we do the ending, how ever thats a lot easier to do than have no money or equipment.

Beyond the boudaries (BTB) - Script changes

I showed one of the version of the scrip to my friend Lexy, she has been specializing in script writing thought her 3 years on the film production course so i thought she would be able to give us some clear feedback. She sent us a version of the script with annotations on it for us to make changes

lexys notes

She said the readability of the script was hard, the premise of the story is interesting and there were some nice moments in it but overall I was just confused as to what was going on, never got a sense of distinction between characters and some dialouge was corny.

With that in mind i showed a couple of the other scripts to a few people, including other members of the group, to see what they thought.  They said 

• they preferred the script in one location, as it flowed better
• it was better when debbie appeared before pete
• they liked the idea of comparing the 2 addictions
• they didnt see the importance of the relationships of the charactors in relation to the over all story.
• they liked the duel conversations between characters. 

With all this in mind i decided to go back to the first script and the original idea and re work it, to try and get it back to the concept i pitched.

Boyand the boundaries (BTB) - Script comparison

During the summer i wrote the initial script for our film, when we came back from the summer me and lucy went through the script and have since then been making changes.  I thought i would upload some of the scripts we have so far and compare and analysis them as we have been doing.

Initial Script

This is the first script i started writing over the summer, Lucy thought that pete needed to be introduced before debbie to get some context of there relationship. After some discusion we thought it might be intersting to make it an installation, this would me making the story so it all take places in one room and the effects gradually develop in the room over time.

Script V.2

This is the script lucy then wrote, all though very well structured and thought out i felt that the dialogue wasn't very realistic, the story was to complex and it wasnt showcasing what we wanted to show very well so i went and made some changes.

script 3

i wrote it this was as i thought it flowed easier and we could do some weird effects with it, however lucy thought it removed alot of the plot points and the ending wasnt very good. We decided we need to clarify the meaning we wanted out of the film. We decided we wanted to show how people can be adicted to any thing.  lucy then went away and wrote this version

Grad Film V3

After reading this version is till thought the story was to complex for what we are going for, as our main focus is on the effects of the addiction and the film will only be 15 mins long i thought it was trying to achive and develope to much in that time. i thought it was a good script but something that needed longer to allow the characters to develop properly making some of the diolouge corny at times.

I am going to get feedback on the versions of this scripts before moving on as i feel like we could keep going in circles for weeks going between me and lucy.

Beyond the Boundries - Work done so far and Pitch

Here is the work i have done so far  - These charactor bios were done by lucy, and older version of them was done by me and can be found on the google doc

Pre Production

Mood Board

2nd film treatment and learning agreement 

Blind Date

pitch 

Beyond the boundaries - Design + Style

For this project we want to build our own set now it is just one room we can spend more time and money making it look nicer.

we want the style to be quite unique and timeless, i imagain it as a square room with random memorabilia on the wall like tgi friday have , the colours would be royal reds/ greens / blues / mustards  but also quite vintage and film noire

Beyond the Boundaries - 2 group meeting and changes

After summer me and lucy got together to go through the scripts and make some changes.

We said the narration made it a lot more interesting and the way i had wrote it make debbie sound like she was the name of a drug so we came up with the idea to create a fictional drug called D-3bb13 this way when he hallucinates as it is made up we could make up the kinds of things he sees rather than trying to portray  them accurately to drugs that already exists.

We also felt that pete needed to appear  earlier in the script to give some context to who he is, i also felt he sliped in and out of the trips to fast to do anything interesting with  and i wanted it to flow into each other nicely. So we decided to change it so that it was all in one location that way he could take the drugs at the start and its get weirder and darker a lot easier. It also means we dont need as many props and can build just one set etc making it alot easier.

we are going to keep the bit of narration from the 2nd script as that is my favourite part but rework the structure so its now like this

-       Jarvis has just lost his job and his girlfriend dumped him so he has met up with his brother to talk

-       His brother tries to convince him not going go back into old patterens

-       Jarvis dosent feel as accomplished as his brother

-       Gose to bathroom to take Debbie comes out more convident and weird

-       Orders food and starts to flirt with Debbie, turns out it was the waiter

-       Pete dosent know Jarvis is taking

-       Jarvis is talking to both Debbie and pete at the same time answering debbiws questions but it sound like hes answering petes

-       Food arrives and it looks weird and trippy

-       Debbies moved to Jarvis side of the table, starts flirting and makes out

-       Hes actually making out with the air

-       Pete realises what is going on and his negativity makes Jarvis trip go bad

-       Jarvis takes some more and things get really dark

-       The walls start moving

-       Both Debbie and pete are yelling at Jarvis as he starts to od

this makes the story flow a lot easier and alows us to mess around with different effects. 

during the summer i saw the stage version of trainspotting at edinburgh fringe festival. It was very interesting to see how the play compared to the film but one of the things that made it amazing was how imersive the show was, it was like siting in the room with the characters rather than just watching it. I sugested to lucy that we could make it more imersive and she liked that idea. 

we came up with the idea of screening it like the viewer is sat in the caffe with the characters, so the walls are built up around them and we project on all 3 walls, This was way can minipulate the room to make it feel like the viewer is on the trip with jarivs and make it very surreal and creapy. 

More reaserch will have to be done into how we can screen it and if it will work, lucy sugest we film it from 1 angle at a wide shot then just project that onto the 3 walls, how ever this dosent give up much to play around with so if we do it that way we should also film it as if it was a one screen piece so we can edit a second version if that dosent work. 

Beyond the boundaries - Group Organisation

All thought the google doc was a good way of orgnising the group i found a much easy way.

Trello, this is a website that allows to to create a noticeboards of tasks that people have to do.

each task allows you to add people, comment make check lists ad a to do date, label etc which makes organisation real easy 

because of this it allows us to keep it profesional and not use websites like facebook. 

Beyond the boundaries - Work done so far

Over summer it was my job to come up with the start of a script , a structure, character bios ETC  so when we came back in September we could start refining it and start pre production work.

I also read some books on script writing such as save the cat by blake snyder to help format the script.

As i knew we  would be making changes in september i just wrote these as a rough outline for what would happen so i wouldnt have wasted a lot of time writing in a lot of detail to have to re do it all.

character bios  -these are the main characters i see in the film  and a little bit of there back story - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HUJAaB_18gFTzbhnqywOjlPA_PGF_5I5Uv3NSBm8wvw/edit 

structure - i came up with 2 different structures to how i thought the story could go - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PGjDFAoqaU6dwlXYZrfmPb2ARhhQGngKy7BuM9l3pxs/edit 

script - i wrote the frist draft really badly just got get the basic idea down so people could comment on it

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ie9hkdkxJREkL5smzeWK_qv082cORTibFVi1Lsf5vV4/edit?usp=sharing

I then decided to add more narration and make some changes it this is as far as i got so far
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UdzgAueERdAuKMK6oTnCkDQMan3h3Dmtg3AxB4AS0KI/edit?usp=sharing

me and lucy are going to go through what i have so far and make some improvements

Beyond the boundaries - Lyric breakdown

I went through some of the songs by the band and picked out lyrics i liked and thought of how they could help us develope a story - 

• (lyric ) Pleasure now will justify our love  - ( idea for the story )  takes drugs so he can see her, has to do it becuase he is addicted to her 
• Am I loving the girl / or the feeling I feel? /Is it just the idea that I like / or is it for real? - dosent know whats real or isnt or what he loves more 
• Her presence gone, memories remain / of how she kissed and turned me on /Now there's this love inside of me / I've got this love / inside of me /And I still have dull aching pain / desire to reach and touch you once again - drug fades real life is boring when she isnt around 
• No wonder you're looking thin/When all that you live on is lipgloss and cigarettes. /And scraps at the end of the day - they look kind of scruffy and rough 
• and it was just like being in an aquarium except it was all the shoppers and office-workers that were floating passed the window instead of fish - hates his job feels like he is drowing 
• There's nothing to do so you just stay in bed,oh poor thing/Why live in the world when you can live in your head?  - why stay in the world when you can live in your head is a good line 
• If fashion is your trade then when you're naked I guess you must be unemployed yeah. - jarvis could say to mock debbie 
• She doesn't have to go to work but she doesn't want to stay in bed Cause it's changed from something comfortable to something else instead. - morning after  not as remembered 
• I feel as if my whole life has been leading to this one moment. /And as I touch your shoulder tonight this room has/become the centre of the entire universe. So what do I do? I've got a slightly sick feeling in my stomach /Like I'm standing on top of a very high building oh yeah./All the stuff they tell you about in the movies /but this isn't chocolate boxes and roses. /It's dirtier than that, like some small animal that only comes out at night. /And I see flashes of the shape of your breasts and the curve of your belly /And they make me have to sit down and catch my breath.  - good discription could write something simmilar when he meets debbie 
• Well we were born within one hour of each other. /Our mothers said we could be sister and brother. /Your name is Deborah. Deborah. It never suited ya. - familiar face  
• I know we'll never meet again but I want you to know/Want you to know that I remember every single thing. - when she fades he still remembers her 
• Not dead, just sleeping Sleeping /And you will never wake again. - over doses, pete tries to save him jarvis says this in naration 
• When you think you're treading water, but you're just learning how to drown. - same as the fish one 
• You are the last drink I never should drunk. You are the body hidden in the trunk. You are the habit I can't seem to kick. You are my secrets on the front page every week. You are the car I never should have bought. You are the train I never should have caught. You are the cut that makes me hide my face. You are the party that makes me feel my age. - realises debbie is bad and regrets it 
• I was three weeks late coming out of the womb,In no great rush to join the rest of mankind - i just like this line 
• I love your body Cos I've lost my mind. If you want someone to talk to; You're wasting your time-  addicted to her too much that he over doses 
• I never said I was deep But I am profoundly shallow. My lack of knowledge is vast & my horizons are narrow.
• I was told when I get older all my fears would shrink But now I'm insecure and I care what people think - jarvis is sad 
• I ponder of something great My lungs will fill and then deflate They fill with fire, exhale desire I know it's dire my time today