Debbie - summary of the project

I cant believe this is the end. Is it really the end? Will this project ever end ? no is the answer to that.

Along side having to create an opening title sequence for the film as we tried to film one but it just wasnt quite right, i now have to do MORE BLOODY WORK FOR THIS FILM. WHY WONT IT LEAVE ME ALONE. After hand in i have to start sorting out the indegogo bundles for the film and send them off to the people who funded our film.

Summary of  the debbie blog 

I feel like i havent blogged as much as i should have for this film it and if i have not gone into that much detail compared to the amount of work i have done, however as i have spent so much time actually doing the work i have not been able to keep on track of this too.  I have done 100s of reaserch and plans which hopefully you can see through the quality of work produced from all of us, but i was not able to document the whole process here. 

As producer it is also really hard to document the process as after all the inital reaserch done for BTB most of it was me filling out paper work and generally managing the group, and i feel like i dont really need to write a blog post on why i did the sooting scedual/ call sheets or other bits of paper work becuase it should be self explanatory from the pre production folder. 

I have tried to go into much detail of the additional roles i covered and demonstarate the work i have put in but we started this project LAST APRIL and its really hard to go back and remember 12 months worth of work and reaserch when you just did it naturally with out thought. 

I have  also gone into alot of detail of my thoughts of the process and the film on my evaluation of the film submited with the project. 

Summary of the whole process. 

This project was challenging!  I think it is more interesting to take on a challenging project than a simple one as you can learn more from it. Our group set out to not only demonstrate the skills we have through this film but take on something we have never done before. All though for the most part and actual nightmare to create  with the complexity, restriction, problems and negitivity this film faced actually seeing it through to completion egnoring what it looks like take a lot off skill, patience and will power from the whole  team.  Along side that, the film is in my opinion pretty good for a student project of 5 people who had never done something like this. We all used the skills we had to the best we could for this project, ok the story isnt that great and it still needs a bit of tweaking but the over all out come is more than any of us could have imagined. The film shows how we have all used the skills given to us on this course as well as demonstrates who experimental techniques taught on DFSA can be used alongside traditional cinema to create something unique, unusual and well executed.  The whole process has probably been the biggest yet best learning curve for us all in the whole time at university, teaching us not only new skills but showing to ourselve that we do have it in ours to do something to this scale. I think despite what the film looks like, what grade it gets and what anyone thinks of it every one who took part in this project from lucy the director to kat on clapper should be proud of the efforts they put in to achieve something well all enjoy. I think despite the negativity and struggles we have had to make this rather than being glad its over we should be glad its happened, and continue on with the will power and determinism we have gained from this project  to make even bigger and even crazier things in the future.

And ... Im glad this is the evaluation i am writing for my final proejct as when i started this course i had no idea what i was doing, got pushed into a load of rubish groups and generally for the most part wanted to give up, how ever i have put 1000% of my energy into everything i do and  i feel like now it was all worth doing. 

This post was originally meant to evaluate the film but i went on a bit of a soppy tangent so i think im going to leave it at that.

Debbie - Production design and prop management

Influences 

Lucy wanted to create a timeless kind of feel to the film, a space that you couldn't place the location or time setting. This was to demonstrate how addiction is  something that happens to any one at any time. To do this i decided to mix match items for serval different time periods so it wasn't distinctive where it was set. 

my main influences for the cafe itself was the 1970s, i choose the 1970s as there cafes look quite grungy and run down and minimal which would heighten the feeling meant to be created in the film. I wanted it to be grungy as it brings out more of jarvis character as he wouldnt choose somewhere nice to eat 

The bold patterns and run down furniture seen in 1970s cafes/ homes fit the mood of the film well.

http://retrorenovation.com/2011/10/11/postmodernism-and-how-it-influenced-1970s-and-1980s-interior-design-i-look-to-the-vas-new-exhibit/

http://www.designhistorysociety.org/blog/view/design-in-the-1970s-a-still-misunderstood-decade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s_in_furniture

For jarvis costume as his character is a little bit scetchy, run down and worn out  but he was still a nice guy at heart i wanted to base him on 1980s /90s  skin heads.  as jarvis needed to look smart like he had been at work but also as he was un reliable the fred pery shirt with braces and a bomber jaket seemed to fit well. The shows he put a shirt on to try look smart but didnt really follow through with the rest. The skin heads attitude and characteristics also suit his character. 

How ever due to budget and clashing of pattens with the cafe i dedided to mornernism him a little bit, this also meant people could still relate to him and not jsut see him as a scruffy person. 

There for jarvis is still wearing a bomber jacket but with chinos and a white shirt instead. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead

Pete had to contrast jarvis, he needed to be serious, smart and traditional therefor when coming up with plans i wanted him to be in a 1950s tweed suit. This would show he had all the serious traditional mannerisms that were around in the 1950s but lost in current culture.

I wanted pete to wear navy as navy is a darker cooler colour and shows him as strict person

How ever again due to buget and time frame to buy a suit i was left to just get one deviverd from asda, it still shows that pete is contrasting to jarvis.... but not as much as if it was 50s. 

• Carrying the blue symbolism associated with the darker shades of blue, navy conveys importance, confidence, power, and authority as well as intelligence, stability, unity, and conservatism. Like black, it carries a sense of elegance, sophistication. It's associated with police and military.

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/choosingcolors/f/What-Color-Is-Navy.htm 

like pete debbie is meant to be a strong convident character contrasting jarvis there for i also placed her in navy.  i wanted debbie to be in a 1950s lace tea dress. All thought once these dresses symbolised dainty women they have now been taken on my the rock and roll subculture and wore be rebellious characters. Teamed with a leather jaket this would sympolis debbies power and rebelious nature.... how ever like the running theme of this project we didnt have the money or time for that so i got one as similar as ai could from asos.

for debbies make up i wanted to keep it quite natural, she is meant to be wild and in your face but going ott with make up with the way she acts the character would be too over dramatic and powerfull. 

Ideas 

after  talking through the colour scheme with shaid and sending ideas and concepts over to him and lucy i mostly just got on with creating the idea myself.

( images of planning ideas with group )

I tried to go into as much detail as i could for the production design  as that is allways the thing that grabs my attention the most when wtaching film as i just find the who concept of who little things like the colour of the clothes can influence and change a characters meaning. I have always been really interested in production design but never had the opportunity to do it. 

For the lay out of the room itself i drew up several detailed floor plans, for every kind of budget we might have, i then created mood boards and description and measurement plans  which were given to shahid to draw into nicer concept art. 

details i went into

I went into LOTS of detail when it came to planning the props, which most of it in the end went un notice of not filmed.

As the cafe was themed in a train station as an inside joke from our class i made the waitress out fits/ menues/ photoframes everything all center around this.

Even little things like the rubber band ball on petes desk matched the theme as all the elastic bands were blue and yellow . 

I HAND MADE ALL THE CHAIRS!! I litterally spent days re covering and painting the colours of the chairs so they fit with the theme!!! 

I think the most detail and attention i paid was to the drugs themself which we do not have a shot of in the end. 

As jarvis is an abused of drugs not jsut recrational i gave him a tin of a veriety of drugs.  In there i made a little bag of fake cocaine, had a few random pills and some fake MDMA bombs. 

The main detail to the drugs though was the DEBBIE drug. I decided that this drugs should be a hilusicinigenic based drug to get the effect we wanted on the wall. So i made the drugs myself out of sugar paper so the looked like a tab of lsd. On them i got printed the words d-eb31e... this was choosen as the name, as  reaserch chemicals are normally printed on to the pills them so we made our own fake drug that vaugly looked like the name debbie. I printed it on to the drug themselfs so a shot could be seen against the other recognisable drugs and people would go OH LOOK HES TAKE A DRUG, ITS NAMED DEBBIE SHE IS THE DRUG NO WAY. Rathen than have to be told in the diolouge. 

Over all i spent ALOT of time paying stupid attention to detail of the props most of which didnt end up being filmed :(

Managing lots of props 

As we had alot of props and costumes, everything was stored at my house. I labed and took photographs of what all the props looked like so they could be easily found by other people and loged them into a inventory, on set i kept everything in its on section so it could be easily found.

Debbie - Fundraising and Marketing

To raise funds for our film me and Lucy looked for any way possible to get people to donate, although our group could cover most of the budget we still needed some money to get us the final things.

Bake sale 

Bake sales have become quite a common thing at UCA for people to do. All though we used online donations as well people either did not click on the link or forgot to donate in time. How ever sitting out side in the cold for a while  meant people walking passed us couldn't really forget to donate and got food too, so win win.  As i was doing the paper work and casting at the time lucy didnt the risk assments and orginising the bake sale, but kept me in the loop with times and plans ETC 

Su night 

Along side the bake sale me and lucy also hosted our own event at the su. For this i spent days making the perfect play list and writing a pub quiz based on music i loved. Apart from raising money this was just a laugh to do really. We both jsut wanted a night to enjoy music we liked and hang out with friend whilst doing work at the same time.  

Indegogo 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/d-eb31e/x/12492561#/

This was my main focus for fundrasing. For this i had to right an in detail pitch about the film, create perks as rewards  and make a trailer so people knew what they were getting them self in for. All of this took weeks of planning an orginising. We tired to keep it professional by creating pre production work for the trailer, it also doubled up as a pre vis as we got time in G12 were i messured the flats and space we needed. We also went in the photography studio and took proffesional photos of ourself so people thought we were legit.

trailer 

Besides writing the indgogo page i did alot of reaserch into what makes crowd funding sucessful.

http://www.indiewire.com/article/indiewires-ultimate-guide-to-crowdfunding-for-filmmakers
http://www.raindance.org/fund-your-film-with-raindance-and-indiegogo/
https://support.indiegogo.com/hc/en-us

i choose indegogo over any other website as if we didnt reach our goal we still got some of the funds we raised. 

Facebook 

Along side this to get more people interested in the film i ran a face book and youtube page, here i would post updates, news , behind the scenes all that jazz to get people interested in the project. I still after fundraising keep posting on the page as i feel it is a good way to document the work i have been doing and share it with everyone.

we also created concept art and posters for the film on here

then if we wanted to share the film publically could use this to launch our film on.

https://www.facebook.com/debbieFilm/

Trailers

i then also, becuase if that isnt enough marketing allready created short little clips of the trailer and publised them on the films youtube  to get people interested in the project

Over all marketing was never something i planned to do as a producer... how ever it has been fun to learn and reaserch. I feel its a great way to document and share the process with a wider audience. 

Debbie - Organization

A project this scale needs a lot of organisation to keep it all on track, to help with this i set up different ways of storing files, dividing up task  and communicating with each other.

Trello 

i used trello to set everyone tasks and keep on track of what needed doing

Google drive 

i used a shared google drive to store all paper work onto  so could be accessed by any one at any time 

Hard drives

The team  had allocated and labeled hard drives to store all footage on

banking 

we had a group bank account so payments count be monitored and used by any one of the team

messaging 

and we also had a group chat to comunicate between each other. if done in the real world would be done via email or slack.

over all there was lost of ways to keep everything together and easily assessed by the team 

debbie - Description of final concept

How we got to this point

So after  months of going back and forth between me and lucy wth ideas all rather different and changing dramatically each time we decided to sit down and talk about what the actual out come and aim of the film needed to be .  All though we wanted to make a scripted drama we still wanted to keep it quite experimental and unique. We decided to do this we should not only focus on the dialogue but how making the film itself could tell a story.   Besides the scripted we wanted to showcase how everyone can be addicted to something and how this impacts on there life. Through both sound a visuals we could demonstrate the effects this has on a person. 

the aim

- short scripted drama the focus on 2 brothers 

- the 2 brothers each have addictions and cant see how they are both int he wrong 

- compare the addictions through the use of visual effects and sound 

- one addicted to drugs, one work, both addictions affect them in some way 

-  show jarvis narrative and thought through a personification of the drug 

- you can see how they are both being effected 

why we want to do i

- intersting 

- unique 

- simple  but complex 

- show case our tallents 

- incoporates different media

Debbie - Casting

Casting

For the casting lucy took the character bios she wrote when generating the script and shortened them to a brief description to put on several casting websites. 

I then sent these to various websites , emailed drama school etc and got several responses back. 

i then emailed back the applicants with a copy of the script and dates the auditions would be held on, i then organised the applicants into different time slots and dates. 

we decided to host the auditions on skype and via video application as most applicants did not live near by so it made it both easier for us and them. 

When casting we asked them to read 2 sections of the script they liked the best and explain why they chose those sections, this showed they understood the story and characters. 

here is our cast 

Since then i have been in constant contact with them asking them question, arranging rehearsals sorting out costume. 

Our main problem when casting was trying to find a waitress as no one wanted to play a small role. 

We had one girl who was up for the part, how ever the day before filming dropped out for a paid role. There for we had to use molly my housemate as a last minitue resort. This is not a problem though as the waitress is mainly a small background character. 

Debbie - Pre production research

Paper work for scripts 

Alongside all the basic pre production work i already know i have been looking on line at tips on how to produce a scripted drama.

I have been reaserching all the paperwork needed to create the film from production to edit aswell as how to manage the project.


Here are some examples of the  documents i have been looking at

Production scheduling checklist - tips - http://people.ucsc.edu/~ilusztig/172/handouts/preproduction.pdf

scheduling for dummies - http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-art-of-scheduling-a-film.html

how to breakdown a script - http://howtofilmschool.com/script-breakdown/

Tips for hiring actors - https://www.theproducersperspective.com/my_weblog/2008/12/10-audition-tips-for-actors.html 

everything to know about film prodution - http://www.filmmaking.net/blog/show_article.asp?id=76

65 tips for producing - http://www.filmmakingstuff.com/the-official-65-step-film-production-checklist/

what exactly a producer dose - http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/757_producer


From this my pre production work should be detailed and planned out enough to see the idea be created and run smoothly to the edit, if all followed by the team to plan. 

Debbie - Script writing and changes to ideas

My script

After spending all summer researching the content of the the film, i came up with a really basic structure. i split each section in 3 parts each with 3 parts, so each section had its own set of drama that leads to one big drama.  We wanted the story to be like almost like a monologue of jarvis thoughts, with occasional dialogue to build the story. I choose this as you can cover alot more back story in a monolouge in a smaller space of time, then use jaring and unique imergary for the viewer to put the 2 together to make a interesting story with experimental imagery that dosent focus on the story too much. 

i created a really rough version of the script that i gave to lucy as the director for her ideas on it. 

- https://www.scribd.com/doc/285771901/Initial-Script

Lucy said that she thought pete needed to be introduced first, that it should be in one location as an installation so we can see how the behaviour changes over time.  Lucy then started writing her own version of the script whilst i did mine, she then came back to me with hers and although well structured the story and dialogue didn't seem to fit. After going round in circles for 4 weeks about what was going on with the script i sent lucys version of the script and mine to versious people to get there opinion. 

Whilst waiting for feedback, i decided that we was wasting to much time. I wrote a visual breakdown of the film not focusing on the diolouge but on the action and how the film would look. This meant that the rest of us could use this structure to start pre production work whilst lucy got on with the script. 

i got feedback on the ideas of a visual script  - 

Debbie - Creation of the idea and research.

 Origin of the idea

Having a lot of ideas through out uni, i noted them all down into one big  A4 document. When we sat down as a group to decided what project we wanted to do for third year we all pitched ideas that we had had. I pitched a long selection of ideas that would fit everyones roles and the main one that everyone liked was a short film based on the bad pulp. 

Im a big fan of musicals and big fan of 90s grungy indie music, and ive always wanted a musical based around music i actually like.  Something this isnt up beat and preppy like all other musical but a dark comedy that mock life rather than makes it out to be happy and sun shine.  So i thought if there isnt a musical like that why dont i make one. Although everyone was against making a musical they liked the concept of the film. 

The film was based around the band pulp and the theme in there songs. I selected the songs i loved and broke down the themes in them to create a story. 

The story went along the lines of a man called jarvis who has allways been down on his luck, he lives in a one bedroom flat with a woman who strings him along brining him back down and making it so he cant sucessed in life. One day jarvis meets a girl he used to know as a child, he tries to shape up to impress her, but when he gets to know here she is not like she seemed as a child. Jarvis realises know matter how hard he tries to change or  impress people his life will never change. 

Group meeting 

Me, tom, lauren, shahid and lucy got together after filming our dance films in 2nd year, as we wanted to work together to make something big and crazy as our final year project. We decided we wanted to created a 15 min film together as well as each pitch a small idea for beyond the boundaries.

Along side coming up with an idea we discussed what roles we wanted to do.  As it was my idea i was the one to produce the film, lauren edit, tom do VFX, shahid DOP and lucy do sound. 

These are all areas that we are interested in and work best at, and we wanted to round up our skills to the best we could and showcase them in one film. Although w are creating a scripted film, the main aim on this project was to gain skills in a type of film we hadn't yet done in the course. All thought we are all tallent in the areas we arent quite sure how to do them to a script,  meaning we are learning alot new this year.  

Summer research

Over the summer i went through all the films that influenced my idea and disected and analysed how they were made and how they could influence the film. Films such as trainspotting, filth and a serise of unfortunate events were very stylistically similar to how i saw the film, very dark muddy and unique. This style would add to the darkness and black comedy vibe of the film. 

I watched a lot of black comedys such as after hours, 50/50 and submarine to work out how they got the timings and pase of the films to make them whitty and punchy whist still serious. 

Along side this i reaserched different types of drugs and effect they would have as this would be a big influence to the FVX. I decided that doing LSD mixed with MDMA would give the best effects as they visually change the look of the film but also are effect by the emotions of person. there for when angry the effects the visuals/ sounds have can change. 

See BTB for full research 

Debbie - Filming and building

Managing set build / filming days 

I have literally no idea where to begin with this post, i spent so much time doing the paper working and planning for this film, and then on set had to cover so many different roles at any one time that i cant even think where to start. 

From a producers point of view i felt like i did the best that i could to orginise the project. I had scheduled every little detail that could happen with the film down to a t. I had so many things to think about and concentrate on that the whole processes was so stressful and i needed like 7 other people to cover the roles i was doing. 

As far as managing the build i created a group chat with all crew members in and sent them call sheets, scheduals and asked them for food requirements. I planed out all the tasks that needed to be done, how long they would take and when we would do them. I dvided these tasks up into teams so we could get them done as fast as possible ... but like everything how i planned it was not exactly how it happened. Due to the  chris pinnock not being in G12 half of the time we needed him all of the building and plans got delayed meaning we had to try and do bits and bobs of what we could do while we waited for  him.  This then meant that the whole process from day 1 was messed up and behind meaning we all had to stay later than planned. How ever we all clubbed in as a team doing what we could do when we could do it to get it finished for filming. 

Whilst building the set i also had to orginise the props, contact actors, cook food, finish paper work, get equiptment ETC ETC so it was all a bit of a mad rush to me. HOWEVER as i went into so much detail and planning with the paperwork, despite being behind schedule due to something not our fault all of the set and design fell into place as planned looking exactly like the concept art. 

Managing the filming days again i planed and scheduled everthing including file transfer times and things like that.  Due to the complexity of the project the scedual was really hard to plan as James could only be here from monday - thursday, we could only have the waitress 1 day, kesia had to leave by 4 every day, we only had the green screen / VFX equipment from monday - thursday morning AND had to keep on track of the continuity of jarvis as at some point he gets a coffee poured over him. SO trying to find a ballence between all of these things whilst planning around the file transfer times of the bloody camera card was an actual night mare. 

Once we had all that down we then had to work out what order to do the shots, trying to film all angles in one long take but had to take into account how much file space that would take up. 

Despite this we some how had a finished scedual that fitted all these elements in, but it was very tight, very complex and would be a challenge to stick to. 

Filming 

This was the most stressfull thing i have ever witnessed.  Its one thing planning and trying to work out all the complexities of this shoot, but then executing them and trying to not mess up as there wasnt really room for error was so tiring.  Every day was tense as as soon as one thing slipped up the whole day went out of sync.  I was not only trying to keep on track of the pre production, 1Ad but also doing make up, looking after actors, sorting props, FEEDING PEOPLE AND FILMING BEHIND THE SCENES.  There for one person trying to manage all of these things in one go meant that at some where at some point no matter how much paper or how well you plan it something was going to go wrong. For the most part everything was fine there was the ocasional slip ups with props at the wrong time but i literally needed 7 hands to do everything, but we managed the best we could. Everyone on the set was working 400% and there was no one sat around not working. 

But... 

Because we all wanted to have fun on this project for the most part we tried to keep everything up beat. We had inside jokes with each other, some one was allways laughing some where, i made a hot pot, it was nice, we watched childrens films in the breaks and danced to music when we could. So allthought tense while filming and al though reallllly!!!!!! stressful it was a fun way to end our 3 years at university. 

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.

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.