Broken Bubbles

So the shoot is complete. 120 slates in three days. Vague memories of awesome shots and electrifying performances set against a stunning backdrop. How much of that is really true, and how much is the result of my state of general confusion is hard to say. I have viewed barely any of the footage back - the exception being low-res imagery for the backplates when we were filming the greenscreen.

Let's try and take it in order.

So we got the set up on Tuesday, and from the moment I saw it, I was blown away. We had some minor issues with a wall that was about a meter shorter than we had anticipated, but an upended table blended in remarkably well and we were soon fussing around with the smaller things. At every point, I was trying to step back, re

strain the control-freak inside me, and let Luisa get on with her job. And she got on brilliantly. I want to say publicly that without Luisa, Broken Bubbles would have been a tenth of the film it has turned out to be. No matter how convincing the performances, if they were acted against a poor set, or a generic modern room, the film would have flopped disastrously. Thanks to Luisa's consistent dedication, we had a lifelike set, a spectacular array of props and beautiful set of costumes.

On Tuesday evening, we got the kit into the space, set the light

s, fired up the camera... and saw nothing. Apparently, fitted with a zoom lens, the RED is incapable of fully opening the aperture, resulting in a very poor sensitivity to low light. So we abandoned our Peppers and Dedos and started flooding the place with a 2K and 650s. Although it looked washed out to the eye, we achieved a pleasantly moody look on the RED with which

we were all generally happy.

Wednesday morning started with an attempt to set the general lighting set, and although I had hoped to have it done the night before, it wasn't long before it was ready and we were filming Slate 1, Take 1. From there, it was a marathon till Slate 120, Take X roughly 60 hours later. I was very grateful to David van der Zanden for the energetic, focussed and resolute way he kept us all to it. There were plenty moments of more light-hearted banter, but nowhere along the line did the production slip off the rails. Meanwhile, lunch was scheduled for the middle of the day, and although this slipped on Friday, we managed to get a proper break and the crew were happier as a result and worked harder.

There were many times I thought we wouldn't make it, and looking back, I am considerably surprised we did. The film should really have been filmed over four days. I appreciate that in the real world we might not be able to raise the budget for a four day RED shoot, but for the purposes of the film we had in fr

ont of us, with all the necessary complexities of greenscreen, of a fantasy setting, of an 11 page script and a crew working with equipment for the first or second time, a three-day-shoot seems unhelpful and cramping.

One of the first decisions we made in the pre-production process was to film by set-up rather than by scene. This I discovered to be remarkably confusing - far more so than it sounded on paper. It resulted in multiple minor panic attacks where I wondered if we had got a particular shot. Reassured by John, David and occasionally by Rhys, I am confident we have hardly missed anything, but at the time it caused me some consternation. However, this convoluted shooting order was vital in accomplishing the film over the time allotted.

We also decided to film the destruction sequence handheld, and everything else on the tripod. I wanted the chaotic movements to mirror Grabulous' mental breakdown. The subsequent post-apocalyptic scene was filmed in different lighting, with different camera positions. We wanted to illustrate the fact that Grabulous wakes as a new man. Everything is different. Whether this works in the edit, or whether it jars awkwardly remains to be seen.

Thursday afternoon was the scenes in Mugdock Park. This was a source of particular worry to me, especially as the weather was against us at the beginning. But we were particularly blessed as the rain melted away just as we were setting up for the first scene. By the evening, the sun had broken o

ut and the camera guys were almost jumping up and down on the spot looking at the glorious sunset on the monitor. There were issues: the midgies being number one, and the battery charging system being number two, but we did alright. It highlights the need for drivers on a shoot. It's not great when the make-up artist has to double up as Runner!

Friday afternoon was the green screen. Initially scheduled for all afternoon and evening, we squashed everything into 90 minutes. We run the risk that we have a poor special effect, but John, David and myself were all 100% agreed that it was more important to finish the workshop scenes and get a good story and a good performance, than to compromise for the sake of a special effect. At the worst, if the special effect is disastrous, we can adapt it with a re-shoot or an animated fairy. It's of much less consequence than the workshop scenes with the performances that go with it.

I was delighted with the way the whole team pulled together in the making of this. The camera team were tireless, Graeme ploughed thr

ough on a totally new piece of audio equipment, the art department never failed, Phil doubled his workload by being Producer and DIT after Gavin Rizza suddenly discovered he had been scheduled as DIT for the shoot and we suddenly discovered he was unavailable. In particular, the way the Heads of Department worked together was brilliant.

I especially enjoyed working with John as DoP. From the first meeting we had in pre-production where he showed me some of the pictures he had found as references, I knew we were on the same page. By the time of Thursday shooting, I was deliberately only watching the monitor during the technical rehearsal or first take. After that, I left John to watch the monitor and I tried to watch the actors in the flesh. It's easier to see the nuances of performance that way. I trusted John to know if the shot was good or needed a tweak. Our levels of communication developed to the point of me saying "You know, it's that one... with the thing" and John nodding confidently: "Oh yeah, yeah!" and heading off to set up the shot.

All in all, I've enjoyed every minute of it. It's made me more keen than ever to learn the craft of directing and it's a pleasure to work alongside such talented actors, artists and film-makers as those with which I am surrounded.

What do I believe?

I had some interesting chats over the EIFF weekend about life, the Universe and everything. I was particularly interested in the conclusions Ross has reached - an epiphany in a poky hostel room in Edinburgh - but also in some of the views of the others. I ended up going to a church in Edinburgh which I hadn’t been in for over ten years and one of the points made was that very few people really understand what Christianity is. Very few folk understand what it is I actually believe. I suppose this is probably true, as I certainly don’t feel comfortable talking at length about Christianity and my faith when I know it makes others feel uncomfortable or awkward.

But I reckon a blog would be impersonal enough to be safe!

So what do I believe?

God exists - the infinite personal Spirit who is the author of all time and space, of all matter and energy, of mind and soul. God made the world in six days several thousand years ago. He formed Adam, the first man, and made him the steward or manager of the Universe. He formed Eve to be a wife for Adam and the two lived together in a full and free relationship with both each other and God. God gave them one law: don’t eat the fruit from one particular tree. The law was arguably a little random, but was a test of their obedience and loyalty to God. But becoming convinced that God was keeping something extra special from them, they ate the fruit of that tree and in doing so rebelled against God, broke away from his kingdom and declared themselves independent. They separated themselves from God.

As a result God - being truly just - had no choice but to put them under the curse of law-breakers. The Universe was also cursed with them and the full array of natural disasters, of violence in the animal kingdom, of poisonous plants, parasites, sickness and death is the result of this.

From these two, Adam and Eve, all the way down through our generations right to the present, we have all been tainted by the same mindset that Adam and Eve got. We naturally put ourselves first, distrust God and value others only for feelings they stir within us or for benefits they can bring to us.

None of us, by natural power, can ever make ourselves “good” in God’s sight. To make this point clearer, God gave rules (the 10 Commandments) as a guide to what moral perfection looks like: (Put God first; Never idolise another; Honour even the name of God; Honour one day a week for God; Honour your parents and all authority figures; Do not kill, commit adultery, steal, lie or desire another’s possessions). As Jesus pointed out, the commandments cover even our thoughts and fantasies, so nobody in the world is truly “good“, or can even be “good” for a day.

With all of us dirty and impure we are all equally unfit for Heaven and unfit to stand in God’s presence. Nothing is left for us after death but to be plunged into Hell. We know very little about Hell, but the metaphors in the Bible give us an idea (unquenchable fire, outer darkenss, the place of the eternal worm, of gnashing teeth and of torment). It is perfectly just for a soul to enter Hell. It would be perfectly just of God to throw the whole race of humanity into Hell. But God is not merely a just God: he is a God of love. He has not left us to perish.

Two thousand years ago Jesus was born in the Middle-East. He grew up, trained as a joiner, and eventually did a three year speaking tour of the Roman provinces of Judea and Galilee. This man was both fully human and fully divine. He lived in complete harmony with the laws of God but was put to death for his outrageous claims to be the Son of God. But this death was itself part of the plan - indeed the crowning part of the plan - for why he had come in the first place. This was the death of the only truly innocent life the world has ever seen.

In a way that is too deep to go into here, Jesus took the sin of the world on his shoulders as he died, and paid the price for it. If we accept him as our personal Saviour and King, that payment is extended to cover our sins also. If we don't bother with him, that payment will be required of us personally.

Three days after Jesus died, he rose again. There is very strong historical evidence that this is indeed the case. This is a guarantee to the rest of us that those who are in him will also be raised from the dead and will not end up being cursed to Hell but will go to Heaven after they die.

I realise I'm beginning to ramble. It's intensely difficult to compress down an entire way of viewing life and death into a couple of paragraphs. It's far better explained in the Bible... but there again, they've got a few more pages than I do! Either way - that's what I believe to be true. It's not just a story. It's as true as the fact that if you stand in the rain you get wet.

Breathing Room

Pulled on at last minute as a Sound Recordist for this film, I rather enjoyed the experience: the family atmosphere of camping out together on location is rather grand, and Gourock is a beautiful part of the world to which I had never been.

What did I learn? I got some elementary knowledge of a new piece of equipment: the solid state recorder. 100 top level menus, with multiple sub and sub-sub menus under each one mean that this machine will take a long time to master. Meanwhile I was very glad to get the opportunity to use it and try it out with Gavin Rizza as mentor on set. There also was a new model of mixer which I hadn’t worked with since my first class with Simon in first year. So that needed a lot of work to re-familiarise myself with its operations.

Sound guys get a raw deal: they are the only one on set for their department, while the pack of camera hounds eat all the pizza and grumble about the boom shadow being in shot. In particular one thing which irritates me is that after a scene is completed, and I need silence for a wildtrack, there are grumbles and general noises throughout. After a yell out, silence is maintained for about ten seconds. Then it is right back to larking around and general noisy behaviour. Either I get good sound at the time the camera is shooting (which isn’t always possible) or I substitute it with a wildtrack in the edit. If I can’t get clean wildtrack and I can’t get my boom close into the action then the sound for that action will be inevitably poor. I did allow my grumpy side to come to the fore on the third take of a recording of ambient sound. All three were ruined with chatter and after much remonstrating, I yelled angrily for them to Shut Up. This landed me with a red face when it turned out it was Graeme’s mother talking, newly arrived and unaware that I was recording. Another lesson learnt: no matter how provoked, never lose your temper. It does nobody any good.

Having had my rant, I do feel I got good sound, and was helped especially by Lauren on the third day of shooting where she volunteered to be my Boom Operator after a lack of jobs going in the Camera Department. I was particularly pleased with one set up where Lauren was on the balcony with the boom and I was in the garden with the mixer signalling where to point the mike. A wide shot with good quality sound: nice!

Meeting Actors

It's a new way of directing for me. I've never sat down before and chatted with actors about the characters they are playing.

However, under the influence of Zam and PMB, I thought I would give it a go, and I feel it has been very beneficial. I talked to Rhys for an hour, Laura for forty minutes and Adam for twenty. I started with asking some general questions about backstory, motives, aspirations, fears and relationships. I then moved on to going through the script scene by scene, asking questions to discuss what was going through the characters mind at each point. I had previously made up my own notes in the margin of my script and it was re-assuring to find out in discussion that the actors had the same view of the characters as I did.

I tried to keep it at a fairly even keel throughout. I think, however, with Rhys I concentrated too long on the generic questions and we had to stop our discussion half way through the script. I reckon I'd know for next time when it was time to move on to looking at the specific script.

A couple of times the actors would come up with something I hadn't thought of. I hoep that over the next couple of weeks we will be able to come up with more like that: exploring the characters together and hopefully finding the truth at the heart of this script.

More general thoughts

So while the model was a big think this week, I tried hard to prevent it distracting me away from the key elements of the story. We now have a cast - in many ways the optimum cast. At first, this seemed perfect. But after the first rehearsal, I am realising that it can be a little harder to get a sense of "freshness" to a character when each is being played by the actor it was written for. I have given the actors some time to think about the part and will hopefully meet with them on Monday to discuss character. This is a far more cerebral way of approaching directing than anything I have used before. I'm getting influenced, no doubt, from Zam and PMB, as well as from a study I did into Ken Loach and his own directing style. I'm not sure I feel wholly comfortable with it, but hopefully it will work out well.

For a while, with Laura on Sole mates and Rhys on Breathing Room, I was concerned about getting good rehearsal time, but that issue seems to have lifted now, with Laura no longer on Sole Mates. I hope there will be no problems for Broken Bubbles similar to those experienced by Gavin in getting actors.

I am deliberately trying to pull my involvement back on the Art Department side. We are beginning to move away from the design stage into the "sourcing and making" stage, and I feel these guys need a bit of creative freedom, rather than having me micro-managing them. We had a second recce to the props store, to allow Luisa and John the chance to see the space and discuss the issues of constructed walls, camera positions, lamp positions and access routes.

We also have had a VFX meeting this week, where Gavin explained to the other HoDs how we intended to shoot the fairy. We came to some conclusions about super-fast movement, dangly legs, nonchalant hovering and reference models. All very exciting. Everyone except Gavin seems a little out of their depth, but life would be dull without a challenge. It's a shame Gavin will be in the US for both our Greenscreen test and our filming dates, but hopefully he can teach us well enough first.

Model-work

Over this week, the question has arisen as to why we are building a model for the workshop exterior. Would it not be easier to do the film without it? I realised this was something I needed to give a good bit of thought to, and came up with the following rationale.

From a story point of view, the exterior shots of the workshop do a number of different things.

1) They set the world in which the story takes place. With one shot, at a glance, the audience know that we are dealing with a different world or time-period. They know that within that world we are dealing with an erratic, impoverished man, largely cut-off from society, unconcerned about his material comforts. They also know from the first frame the sort of style this film will take them down, rather than piecing the style together in the first scene with Grabulous, when they could otherwise be concentrating on story and character.

2) They allow the audience a chance to breathe - to take a step back from the action, process what has been and prepare themselves for what has come. A cutaway of an object within the set would not allow the audience this breathing moment.

3) They punctuate the narrative in a distinct way that a cutaway would not do.

4) They link the constructed set and the Mugdock location by combining elements of both in the same composition. The audience are more likely to buy the link between the two scenes if they have a visual picture of the workshop as part of a larger world.

Given the need for the exterior scenes, it appears we have three options.

1) A model
2) A matt painting
3) A location

Option 3, while normally the best, requires us on this occasion to first find a suitable structure, then film it in three different lighting conditions.

Option 2, while notionally easier, is actually the harder option for TPA, having spoken to them. Luisa says she would need to do it an home in her spare time, which seems an unnecessary intrusion.

Option 1 is one I was very wary of. But Luisa has told me that none of the Art Dept assigned to the DFTV films would actually be doing the model. She has spoken to a TPA3 Props specialist called Gary. He is looking to move into film work, he has done models before, he has little to do once the TPA Grad Show finishes on Friday, and he has expressed interest in doing this. Phil has been to see Gary's models in the TPA GRad show and assures me they are of the highest quality. Steven has assured me that with a bit of care the lighting of the model is no different to the lighting of anything else and that he is happy to mentor John in whatever needs to be done. Gavin has assured me that if we light the model nicely it is a good deal easier to greenscreen an inanimate workshop than a moving fairy. Luisa tells me the cost for the model would be between £30 and £50. While money matters are not my decision, this did not seem outrageous to me.

It took me a long time to be convinced that the model was possible. Even now I am not sure it will work. But I look at this as a learning experience. If the modelwork fails, we will know the potential pitfalls for next year. But I have been assured that it will look good, that we can light it well and that we can greenscreen it well. It will not greatly take time away from anyone but Gary - who is not needed for any other role on the crews. So - I ask myself - what do we have to lose?

Could we do it without the exterior shots? Yes - we could take Close-Ups of the clock at different times. This would be satisfactory, and it may be good to shoot this as a back-up plan. But the story would be better served, I believe, by attempting the model.

John, Phil and myself have had a discussion about this, and I feel we are agreed that a model is the best way to solve this problem.

Fire up the Quattro

So it's time to take out the old blog, rusting quietly in the corner in true steampunk style. The cogs are beginning to slowly grind together and with a whistling jet of steam it rattles into life.

Directing Broken Bubbles has so far been a rather strange experience. Some of this is due to the unique situation of working with selected A3 actors. While there are good things about this: free access to a highly talented bunch, there is a downside too: you have to work with the people you've got. If you've written a part for Tinkerbell, and the only actress is better suited to Miss Trunchball you just have to make the best of a bad job! We have not yet met the actors - though I've worked out who they all are - so I'm hoping that there won't be any mismatches of quite such exaggerated proportions.

But I think what I've found hardest is working with an Executive Producer over my head. It's great practice for the industry, but it's hard to try to keep all the Exec's happy while still feeling that I'm the author of my film. I think the fact I'm on to Draft 15 says something about that - though even the number has ceased to be mine: the executives have named it Draft 11.1. I keep telling myself that we are all committed to making the best possible film given the circumstances, and it looks as though we finally have some agreement on the script so there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm looking forward to getting it locked down and being able to stop writing and start directing.

I am alarmed by the prospect of doing an 11 page script in 3 days, especially given the fact that the Greenscreen shots have to be shot twice, and have to be very carefully matched. Combined with the unknown quantity of the RED camera, I am going into this production with some big questions floating around as to the feasibility of attempting the shoot. Some very careful forward planning and some hyper-efficient shooting with a minimal shotlist go some way to alleviating my worries, but not perhaps far enough.

We aim to film all the scenes in the workshop as if they were one big scene. We will get all the shots from one camera angle for all the scenes, then move on to the next. My concern with using this hyper-efficient shooting schedule is that the performances will suffer. The actors will need to match performance in the reverse shot for a scene for which the original shots were taken perhaps the day before. Maybe a rigorous rehearsal process would get the performances consistent, but I fear freshness would be lost by over-rehearsing things.

Anyway I'm just rambling now, so we'll see what happens.