I was going to mention this in my blog on Avatar, but I got onto other things. I do not think cinematographers and editors have fully thought three dimensions through. It is not sufficient to simply film and cut the piece as if for two dimensions, but shoot each frame in three dimensions.
Psychologically there are two key things which have to be considered.
1) Everything has to be shot in deep focus. It is no longer possible for the director to have the subject of the fram in focus and everything else classically blurred. Especially if there is something in the foreground which is out of focus, our eyes automatically try to focus on it. So we look at it - and it's out of focus. This isn't right, our brain says. We are looking at a three dimensional object and yet we simply cannot get any focus on what we want. Our focus is still in the plane of the subject the director wants us to be looking at - we end up trying to look at the blurry image even harder, with the brain willing the eyes to bring it into focus, and the eyes contorting as they try to find some way of bringing the image into focus. Meanwhile we have lost what is going on in the scene.
So directors have to revert to the ways of classic Hollywood and use deep focus. The audience will then be able to see every part of the scene as though they were actually there, and the job of the director is then - by lighting, action, dialogue and composition - to draw us to the point in the shot where we are supposed to be looking.
2) It takes much longer for our eyes to adjust to a 3D cut than to a simple 2D cut. The moment we cut we have changed position on the room and this becomes far more intrusive psychologically than the similar effect in 2D. (In fact I have had a mild headache during and after the three 3D films I have seen.) The answer here is to use less cuts. In action sequences, we are used to cut-cut-cut-cut-cut, but that simply makes the audience dizzy and disorientated in three-dmensions. Urgency can be added by camera movements and by the performance, but it takes (I estimate) about a second in three dimensions for the brain to adjust after a cut. If we are cutting every second, we have no sooner worked out where we are than we are somewhere else and we have huge trouble actually seeing what is happening in the shots.
Perhaps I am over-exaggerating the case, but I do think a radical rethink of both cinematography and editing is necessary with the advent of three dimensions. We have to return to human psychology and see what works and what doesn't. Murch expressed amazement in his book that the cut works at all. It is such a violation of reality to transpose the viewer geographically in a fraction of a second. Somehow it works in two dimensions. Maybe we are less tolerant of the cut in three dimensions.
Monday 28 December 2009
In the Blink of an Eye
Discovering that this book by Walter Murch, often cited by Andy, was not a massive tome but a slim paperback was quite a welcome find while browsing in the library and it's remarkably easy to read. I recommend it to all aspiring editors, and to everybody else too. It doesn't lay much stress on the technicalities of the edit, but instead looks at it in a more psychological and philosophical way. How does our brain react when we see a cut? Is there a "right" cut and a "wrong" cut? How can we work out which is which?
Even the chapter on digital editing is not as hopelessly out of date as other books I have come across. Murch seems able to put aside the limitations of current technology as it was in 2001 or whenever the book was written, and instead has very accurately estimated the curve of how technology has advanced. He said he was actually surprised how long it took to catch on. He blamed it on the "old industry" editors being so traditional in their methods and afraid to experiment and take a risk by going out of their depth. It was apparently something he and FF Coppola looked at back in the 70s for The Coversation, but had to abandon at the time for logistical and budgetary reasons.
Even the chapter on digital editing is not as hopelessly out of date as other books I have come across. Murch seems able to put aside the limitations of current technology as it was in 2001 or whenever the book was written, and instead has very accurately estimated the curve of how technology has advanced. He said he was actually surprised how long it took to catch on. He blamed it on the "old industry" editors being so traditional in their methods and afraid to experiment and take a risk by going out of their depth. It was apparently something he and FF Coppola looked at back in the 70s for The Coversation, but had to abandon at the time for logistical and budgetary reasons.
Final Week of 2009
For the sake of completion, I'll mention something about the last week of term.
Monday I was ill - so stayed in my bed.
Tuesday was a class in Directing. We were working on storyboarding a short sequence based on a "ticking clock" idea. Ours involved a foolish boy playing with a toy car in the middle of a highway while a drunk driver sped past him.
Wednesday was a day off, as I recall.
Thursday was, I think, a class with Cammy on Sound gathering. I didn't feel I learnt an awful lot in this class. I think we are beginning to bump into a bit of a ceiling in terms of our advancement. Perhaps if we progress to recording scripted dialogue we might be able to further hone our techniques, but largely what we need as a class is the same as what we need with the camera: practise. And for myself I find it difficult to be motivated for practise unless it has a specific aim in mind, or unless it is to learn a specific technique prior to recording. What I have found my biggest challenge with Sound Recording is dealing with the cold in Mugdock Park while holding a freezing boom pole. Lucky I have now acquired a pair of leather gloves for when I'm next on boom duty!
Friday was an editing assesment: building a scene from Balamory based on the footage collected. I did feel myself constrained occasionally, with the only shot of one or two lines from one character being the Master shot. I wasn't sure if the director had forgotten to film an extra shot, or if some footage had just got lost on the way from the set to our Media folder, but either way, ti showed me the importance of getting "options" for the editor. (I still hate Avid!)
Monday I was ill - so stayed in my bed.
Tuesday was a class in Directing. We were working on storyboarding a short sequence based on a "ticking clock" idea. Ours involved a foolish boy playing with a toy car in the middle of a highway while a drunk driver sped past him.
Wednesday was a day off, as I recall.
Thursday was, I think, a class with Cammy on Sound gathering. I didn't feel I learnt an awful lot in this class. I think we are beginning to bump into a bit of a ceiling in terms of our advancement. Perhaps if we progress to recording scripted dialogue we might be able to further hone our techniques, but largely what we need as a class is the same as what we need with the camera: practise. And for myself I find it difficult to be motivated for practise unless it has a specific aim in mind, or unless it is to learn a specific technique prior to recording. What I have found my biggest challenge with Sound Recording is dealing with the cold in Mugdock Park while holding a freezing boom pole. Lucky I have now acquired a pair of leather gloves for when I'm next on boom duty!
Friday was an editing assesment: building a scene from Balamory based on the footage collected. I did feel myself constrained occasionally, with the only shot of one or two lines from one character being the Master shot. I wasn't sure if the director had forgotten to film an extra shot, or if some footage had just got lost on the way from the set to our Media folder, but either way, ti showed me the importance of getting "options" for the editor. (I still hate Avid!)
Monday 14 December 2009
Reformation 1490 - 1700
A book I have come to the end of reading this weekend was "Reformation", which I think I started in September. It looks - from a historical and non-partisan manner - at the history of the Reformation in Europe and how the events of these years have affected us down to the present.Reading this lengthy tome was inspired by watching The Tudors, and being fascinated by the whole backdrop to that series, and it's been a book I have found fascinating. It covers a vast time period and geography in quick detail, with an occasional tongue in cheek sense of humour. Despite his attempt at neutrality - and I think he does fairly well - I think the issues of the Reformation still divide us today. In Glasgow especially, your identity is deicded for you by which school you go to and the colours of your football team.
My previous knowledge of the reformation had been a series of rather hagiographical illustrations from childrens books and sermons, where the Protestants were always the goodies and the Catholics the baddies. And if occasionally the Protestants were the baddies too, that was only because they weren't real Protestants but were just pretending. And its amazing how such simplistic ideas stay with us, even in our subconscious. Dark hints from childhood as to the wicked doings of the Jesuits ("Give me a child till he's 8, and he's mine for life!") made me wonder how it was possible that any sane parent would send their child to a Jesuit school. Yet reading into this book, I begin to understand something of what the Society of Jesus (as the Jesuits were otherwise known) were all about. Although I disagree with some of their methods and theology, I no longer think of them as Machiavellian demons, looking to brainwash the world one child at a time!
The huge flaws of some of these Reformation heroes like Luther and Calvin were highlighted, along, of course, with their huge bravery and insight. They began to feel more like fallible humans than as Magi whose words must be valued as being just below the apostles.
As the author said, the Reformation now may seem like two bald men fighting over a comb: a futile struggle over an irrelevant issue. But quite apart from the fact that it has been one of the chief shapers of our modern Europe (as that differs from country to country) I feel that the Reformation was a continent-wide re-examination of a fundamental question equally relvant today. How can we know who God is, who we are and how we can be reconciled? The Catholic church said then - as they still say today - that we learn about God through the teaching of the church. Whatever the church teaches on the subject of God is true. The Reformers said - as Protestants of all flavours still say today - that we learn about God through reading his word: The Bible.
One thing that stands out so clearly from this book is the danger of fanaticism - of all sorts. Toleration is a wonderful thing. I do not mean toleration in its modern sense of saying "You are as equally right as I am" to an individual whose beliefs clearly contradict your own. But toleration in the original sense. "I think you are wrong. This is why I think so... Nevertheless, let's still get along as human beings without reaching for that nuclear missile!"
Week Beginning 7th Dec
An easy start to the week with no classes on Monday. Tuesday was a screening of "This film is not yet Rated". I found this film rather fascinating to watch. First up, it was very very funny in places, especially in the description of what is permissable in each classification. Second it raised some interesting issues, albeit in a very one-sided and polemical fashion. There were some things which it presented which I heartily concurred with. (1) There is no need for the ridiculous levels of security and privacy surrounding the voters. (2) The high handed attitude of the MPAA and their unwillingness to reason out the issues, enter into dialogue with the film-maker and supply information is also needless, bullying and ultimately counter productive. (3) The make-up of the voting members from the laity rather than from specialised professions, such as phsychologists, sociologists, film-makers even councillors and politicians is foolish and makes a virtue of ignorance. It also taps into the mythical notion of "normality" and "the real world".
Having said that, there were also certain areas in which I disagreed with the film, or at least didn't support it as much as I might have been expected to. The implication that sex - with all the array of fetishes that go along with it - is safe for anyone and everyone to see is, I believe, false. I just yesterday read an articule about G.K. Chesterton, author and journalist from last century. He has a quote: "All healthy men, ancient and modern, Western and Eastern, hold that there is in sex a fury that we cannot afford to inflame; and that a certain mystery must attach to the instinct if it is to continue delicate and sane". I think our culture is significantly too free and easy with something so elemental, raw and powerful as sex. Further, I think the argument of "artistic freedom" only goes so far. Zam was talking about genre, and how within a genre movie, each scene can have a different genre, for example within a horror film, we can have a romance scene, a comedy scene, a thriller scene, and action scene or a social drama scene. Similarly, in pretty much any genre of movie produced today, we can have a scene in the pornographic genre. Seeing two characters, naked, simulating sex (or indeed actually doing it - though that is a whole new kettle of fish) and letting the camera languidly linger on them as they do so, is, in my book, pornography, and is (insofar as I am going to generalise) a Bad Thing. If for no other reasons than the objectification of women, the exploitation of young desperate wannabe actresses and the cynical attempt to sell a poor or average film on the back of an pornographic section.
I could write oodles more about it, but I feel I should curb my rant and move on - just after one final thought. The thing I just didn't get was the NC-17 rating itself. Why do cinemas not show such films? Is it because they tend to be pornographic and small-town America would not stand for their local cinemas showing porno pictures? After all, looking at the British system, we are even more strict. A lot of the films they rate as R we would rate as 18 (even stricter that NC-17). Yet cinemas still show such films and although they won't do so well as lower-certificate film, they will still draw in enough profits to make them worthwhile. This seemed to be the missing piece in the jigsaw.
Wednesday and Thursday morning were a class with Zam, looking at genre: in particular at comedy, and how that has manifested itself in different ways over the decades. Certain films I found vastly funnier than others, but we saw that the key things were the set up and the punchine; the reaction - better being underplayed; the timing of the reveal; the pacing of the scene and the turnaround in where the audience thinks the scene is going.
Thursday afternoon was editing: just a case of viewing and annotating footage ready for the assesment next week.
Friday was a screening of some of the films DFTV have done over the last year. The two that really stood out for me were "Slag" and "Little Clown". It would be nice to see more external projects being done by more people.
From Friday - well from Thursday, really - I have been knocked out by a flu or cold from which I am only just recovering. Very nasty. Today I feel like I have been run over by an elephant (or arguably a herd of giant squirrels) but I no longer feel infected, so hopefully I shall be able to get back on form for tomorrow.
Having said that, there were also certain areas in which I disagreed with the film, or at least didn't support it as much as I might have been expected to. The implication that sex - with all the array of fetishes that go along with it - is safe for anyone and everyone to see is, I believe, false. I just yesterday read an articule about G.K. Chesterton, author and journalist from last century. He has a quote: "All healthy men, ancient and modern, Western and Eastern, hold that there is in sex a fury that we cannot afford to inflame; and that a certain mystery must attach to the instinct if it is to continue delicate and sane". I think our culture is significantly too free and easy with something so elemental, raw and powerful as sex. Further, I think the argument of "artistic freedom" only goes so far. Zam was talking about genre, and how within a genre movie, each scene can have a different genre, for example within a horror film, we can have a romance scene, a comedy scene, a thriller scene, and action scene or a social drama scene. Similarly, in pretty much any genre of movie produced today, we can have a scene in the pornographic genre. Seeing two characters, naked, simulating sex (or indeed actually doing it - though that is a whole new kettle of fish) and letting the camera languidly linger on them as they do so, is, in my book, pornography, and is (insofar as I am going to generalise) a Bad Thing. If for no other reasons than the objectification of women, the exploitation of young desperate wannabe actresses and the cynical attempt to sell a poor or average film on the back of an pornographic section.
I could write oodles more about it, but I feel I should curb my rant and move on - just after one final thought. The thing I just didn't get was the NC-17 rating itself. Why do cinemas not show such films? Is it because they tend to be pornographic and small-town America would not stand for their local cinemas showing porno pictures? After all, looking at the British system, we are even more strict. A lot of the films they rate as R we would rate as 18 (even stricter that NC-17). Yet cinemas still show such films and although they won't do so well as lower-certificate film, they will still draw in enough profits to make them worthwhile. This seemed to be the missing piece in the jigsaw.
Wednesday and Thursday morning were a class with Zam, looking at genre: in particular at comedy, and how that has manifested itself in different ways over the decades. Certain films I found vastly funnier than others, but we saw that the key things were the set up and the punchine; the reaction - better being underplayed; the timing of the reveal; the pacing of the scene and the turnaround in where the audience thinks the scene is going.
Thursday afternoon was editing: just a case of viewing and annotating footage ready for the assesment next week.
Friday was a screening of some of the films DFTV have done over the last year. The two that really stood out for me were "Slag" and "Little Clown". It would be nice to see more external projects being done by more people.
From Friday - well from Thursday, really - I have been knocked out by a flu or cold from which I am only just recovering. Very nasty. Today I feel like I have been run over by an elephant (or arguably a herd of giant squirrels) but I no longer feel infected, so hopefully I shall be able to get back on form for tomorrow.
Monday 7 December 2009
Week Beginning 30/11
So we started with another early morning kit return - how many weekends in a row is that now?
After that, we had a class on Marketing and Distribution, possibly the most formidable of all the film strands - certainly the one I feel most out of my depth when considering. I think it is my own attitude to paying for anything, and certainly for luxuries, but I don't really understand how you can bank on anybody paying money for your product. I have the same issue with Maths tuition: happy to give it, I can't imagine what makes someone decide to pay for it. Same with theater: I only watch theater if I can see it for free, but I'm quite happy to draw a wage based on the crowds of people who spend money coming to see shows. There is no way I could ever be a salesman or a marketer - simply because the idea of spending money on something which is not particularly necessary or helpful is quite alien to me.
After this was a class in Screenwriting: the last class, actually, now that Mr. Smith has gone to Hollywood. We were looking at how to write an engaging scene. It was stressed that this sort of tense, emotive scene simply cannot be sustained throughout the movie or the audience will be utterly drained by the end of the film, especially with a feature. But for the key scenes which provide the main turning points of the movie, this is a very useful skill to learn: taking the key elements of a scene, and spinning them together, continually raising the stakes higher and higher until finally there is a resolution either for better or worse.
Tuesday was a Documentary class, where we watched Grey Gardens, which no doubt has had an effect of the collective cultural psyche, but which is still difficult to watch. There is little development from the understanding we have of these characters at the beginning to the end. Old Edie has obviously had her day - and still had a good voice, for a cailleach. She was going a little senile, but her life didn't seem to be the tragic mess of Young(er) Edie. Sexually frustrated, kept at home far longer than anybody should be and as a result sent over the edge into a world of fantasy in which she was an alluring young woman, with all her life ahead of her. I felt pity for her, but little sympathy, as so much of her problems were associated with her own choice not to leave. Perhaps, because I had to leave home at 18, and there was no quibbling with that, I find it harder to get into the shoes of someone who has "missed the boat" and finds themselves an adult living in someone else's house. The documentary is overlong and if I had watched more than five minutes at any point of it voluntarily I would have been surprised at myself.
No classes on Wednesday, and Thursday was our filming day. We were interrupted with the hospitalization of Adam, which meant that the afternoon had a different focus, being more interested in visuals (and arguably in simply getting through the exercise) than in getting the best performances. Either way, I am glad the experience is over: I am certainly not cut out to be a DoP, and was very much flying by the seat of my pants - as would have been very obvious to Ray and the crew.
Friday was a screening of The 400 blows. I use the translated title as I can't remember the foreign one... See other blog for review.
After that, we had a class on Marketing and Distribution, possibly the most formidable of all the film strands - certainly the one I feel most out of my depth when considering. I think it is my own attitude to paying for anything, and certainly for luxuries, but I don't really understand how you can bank on anybody paying money for your product. I have the same issue with Maths tuition: happy to give it, I can't imagine what makes someone decide to pay for it. Same with theater: I only watch theater if I can see it for free, but I'm quite happy to draw a wage based on the crowds of people who spend money coming to see shows. There is no way I could ever be a salesman or a marketer - simply because the idea of spending money on something which is not particularly necessary or helpful is quite alien to me.
After this was a class in Screenwriting: the last class, actually, now that Mr. Smith has gone to Hollywood. We were looking at how to write an engaging scene. It was stressed that this sort of tense, emotive scene simply cannot be sustained throughout the movie or the audience will be utterly drained by the end of the film, especially with a feature. But for the key scenes which provide the main turning points of the movie, this is a very useful skill to learn: taking the key elements of a scene, and spinning them together, continually raising the stakes higher and higher until finally there is a resolution either for better or worse.
Tuesday was a Documentary class, where we watched Grey Gardens, which no doubt has had an effect of the collective cultural psyche, but which is still difficult to watch. There is little development from the understanding we have of these characters at the beginning to the end. Old Edie has obviously had her day - and still had a good voice, for a cailleach. She was going a little senile, but her life didn't seem to be the tragic mess of Young(er) Edie. Sexually frustrated, kept at home far longer than anybody should be and as a result sent over the edge into a world of fantasy in which she was an alluring young woman, with all her life ahead of her. I felt pity for her, but little sympathy, as so much of her problems were associated with her own choice not to leave. Perhaps, because I had to leave home at 18, and there was no quibbling with that, I find it harder to get into the shoes of someone who has "missed the boat" and finds themselves an adult living in someone else's house. The documentary is overlong and if I had watched more than five minutes at any point of it voluntarily I would have been surprised at myself.
No classes on Wednesday, and Thursday was our filming day. We were interrupted with the hospitalization of Adam, which meant that the afternoon had a different focus, being more interested in visuals (and arguably in simply getting through the exercise) than in getting the best performances. Either way, I am glad the experience is over: I am certainly not cut out to be a DoP, and was very much flying by the seat of my pants - as would have been very obvious to Ray and the crew.
Friday was a screening of The 400 blows. I use the translated title as I can't remember the foreign one... See other blog for review.
Saturday 28 November 2009
Week Beginning 23/11
So Monday was an early start: 0815 with a kit return.
At 11 we had Andy's class on star theory, where I discovered that in the last few years there has been a shift from star-centred films to brand-centred films. I suppose this is simply taking the idea of what defines a star and seperating it from an individual actor. "Grab your coat - we're off to the pictures. The new ____ movie is out". If that is what defines a star, then what better fits into that sentence than a brand: Twligiht, Harry Potter, James Bond. And even if the word "new" is dropped, a recognisable brand is more likely to sell. (The Simpsons, Sex and the City, Watchmen) But this only be the case, I suspect, if the brand has something to do with entertainment. I can't see why a movie based on Cleudo or Monopoly, let alone Viewmaster, would sell any better than any standard detective or entrepeneur genre piece. After all, if "Coca-Cola: the Movie" was to come out, I wouldn't know whether to expect a rom com or a political thriller. All I would know was that there would be a lot of shots of hot people drinking bottles of coke. Having said that, "Irn-Bru: the Movie" would likely pull in the Scottish audience, largely on the back of their adverts which have such a cult following that an anthology of Irn Bru adverts sold out the GFT three nights running a year or two back. So again this is a previous link with the entertainment industry.
Tuesday was remarkably forgettable. I'm sure something must have happened!
Wednesday was a day off which I spent finishing Dust and editing my pitch for Enter the Pitch competition.
Thursday was a full day of editing where I learnt such useful things as how to change the colour scheme on Avid. I have decided to go for a sickly green colour to remind me of my antipathy for this over complicated and counter-intuitive program which continues to crash frequently when I use it. (In fact in the two days I have used it, it has crashed at least as often as Final Cut has done for me in all the time I have been using it since joining the Academy!) The afternoon was more constructive in that I managed to start capturing a clip after several abortive attempts. I had to cancel the operation before it was completed, in order to hand the deck round to the next man.
Friday was a tutorial with Adam regarding TV proposals. Interestingly he chose the one I was least excited about to enthuse over. So now the other two must remain in limbo while I do up a full outline for "Crooks of the Stone Age". I don't even like the title much! After this we watched The Island Tapes. I really enjoyed seeing that old footage, especially the two or three tantalising shots we had of Portree in 1938. I was surprised to see the War Memorial was already up in the square. I guess it was for the 1st World War, and I always thought it was a joint memorial. Maybe it was modified after '45. It was quite strange watching the musicians and the film together. My natural instinct was to watch the musicians and I had to keep looking away at the films.
Saturday was a shoot out in Mugdock Park - the fifth filmmaking adventure i have been out there for and the place gets more inhospitable every time. There was a dense fog over all the landscape, which provided us with some good shots, but combined with near zero temperatures, conditions were harsh. Metal equipment just sucks heat from your hands. I quickly lost feeling in my fingers and toes and did not regain circulation until lunch, during which time I succeeded in severely scaring some children by performing some mad dervish-Highland fling hybrid dance in the grounds of Mugdock castle in an attempt to spur on my sluggish blood to travel to my extremities. Highlight of the day was when I slipped on a wet piece of wood, and collapsed on the floor while still carrying all the equipment. It would have been funnier if I wasn't so cold!
At 11 we had Andy's class on star theory, where I discovered that in the last few years there has been a shift from star-centred films to brand-centred films. I suppose this is simply taking the idea of what defines a star and seperating it from an individual actor. "Grab your coat - we're off to the pictures. The new ____ movie is out". If that is what defines a star, then what better fits into that sentence than a brand: Twligiht, Harry Potter, James Bond. And even if the word "new" is dropped, a recognisable brand is more likely to sell. (The Simpsons, Sex and the City, Watchmen) But this only be the case, I suspect, if the brand has something to do with entertainment. I can't see why a movie based on Cleudo or Monopoly, let alone Viewmaster, would sell any better than any standard detective or entrepeneur genre piece. After all, if "Coca-Cola: the Movie" was to come out, I wouldn't know whether to expect a rom com or a political thriller. All I would know was that there would be a lot of shots of hot people drinking bottles of coke. Having said that, "Irn-Bru: the Movie" would likely pull in the Scottish audience, largely on the back of their adverts which have such a cult following that an anthology of Irn Bru adverts sold out the GFT three nights running a year or two back. So again this is a previous link with the entertainment industry.
Tuesday was remarkably forgettable. I'm sure something must have happened!
Wednesday was a day off which I spent finishing Dust and editing my pitch for Enter the Pitch competition.
Thursday was a full day of editing where I learnt such useful things as how to change the colour scheme on Avid. I have decided to go for a sickly green colour to remind me of my antipathy for this over complicated and counter-intuitive program which continues to crash frequently when I use it. (In fact in the two days I have used it, it has crashed at least as often as Final Cut has done for me in all the time I have been using it since joining the Academy!) The afternoon was more constructive in that I managed to start capturing a clip after several abortive attempts. I had to cancel the operation before it was completed, in order to hand the deck round to the next man.
Friday was a tutorial with Adam regarding TV proposals. Interestingly he chose the one I was least excited about to enthuse over. So now the other two must remain in limbo while I do up a full outline for "Crooks of the Stone Age". I don't even like the title much! After this we watched The Island Tapes. I really enjoyed seeing that old footage, especially the two or three tantalising shots we had of Portree in 1938. I was surprised to see the War Memorial was already up in the square. I guess it was for the 1st World War, and I always thought it was a joint memorial. Maybe it was modified after '45. It was quite strange watching the musicians and the film together. My natural instinct was to watch the musicians and I had to keep looking away at the films.
Saturday was a shoot out in Mugdock Park - the fifth filmmaking adventure i have been out there for and the place gets more inhospitable every time. There was a dense fog over all the landscape, which provided us with some good shots, but combined with near zero temperatures, conditions were harsh. Metal equipment just sucks heat from your hands. I quickly lost feeling in my fingers and toes and did not regain circulation until lunch, during which time I succeeded in severely scaring some children by performing some mad dervish-Highland fling hybrid dance in the grounds of Mugdock castle in an attempt to spur on my sluggish blood to travel to my extremities. Highlight of the day was when I slipped on a wet piece of wood, and collapsed on the floor while still carrying all the equipment. It would have been funnier if I wasn't so cold!
Monday 23 November 2009
Week Beginning 16th Nov
Monday was a class on Cinema Movements, looking at genre theory and star theory. My appreciation of star theory is possibly hampered by my relative ignorance of contemporary actors. I could pass Shia Le Buoef (or however you spell that) in the street and not recognise him - I have only ever heard his name in class. Having grown up watching a diet largely consisting of TV and films from the 60's to 80's I have always felt slightly out of step with everyone else. Thinking back, apart from the occasional school trip and a solitary trip to see Beauty and the Beast, my first two times in the cinema were Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, both in 2001, by which time I was 17. I am not saying this as some sort of sob story, but to try and explain my relative ignorance of films from the 90's with which my peers have grown up. In particular, my utter lack of interest in celebity culture means I never pay much attention to who is who in th movie world, unless a character or performance strikes me as particularly noteworthy. Hence my great confusion telling the difference between Heath Ledger, Jude Law and Colin Farrel in Doctor Parnassus!
Tuesday was an examination of Derelict - a rather dreary and generic program about unhappy people in unhappy situations, about which the viewing public are as helpless as they are about AIDS in Africa. This was followed by My Fake Baby, a far more engaging, and (for me) far more horrifying program than the first. There was something incredibly sad about the psychological state these women had got themselves into, where they were looking for some sort of satisfaction in a doll.
Wednesday was a program meeting where we expressed our unease at the apparent lack of pace within the course, and were querying what our end of year projects would be. I think the class are united in preference of filming our own films as opposed to bland and generic "scenes". A possible compromise would be writing (or at least choosing) our own scenes, but I'm glad to have received Adam's assurance on Friday that we would be making between 1 and 4 end of year films. In the meantime, I am more determined than ever to continue making films in an extra-curricular fashion. I can only measure my progress for this term by considering Golden Rule, the Enter the Pitch film, and the completion of Dust. Apart from that, I've learned some more, and discarded heaps of scripts, but haven't progressed.
Wednesday afternoon was another class on Documentary, where we watched a program about sleazy Bible salesmen. It was interesting, but my attention would have been retained if it had been half the length. I could certainly appreciate the non-intrusive nature of the documentators. The genuine nature of the footage they captured was amazing. But not the most entertaining piece of film.
Thursday morning was a class in Sound, followed by a class in Editing. I very much enjoyed Sound, but because I'd had no time for the toilet, let alone lunch (due to an over enthusiastic Gaelic teacher!), I was less collected for Editing. My thoughts weren't helped by my computer crashing half way through. I thought Avid was supposed to be uncrashable! I am slowly picking up the hang of Avid, but it is so much less user friendly than Final Cut (probably on purpose) that I doubt I shall ever like this program!
Friday was a short class with Adam, looking at proposals and the wording thereof. This was followed by filming the Brodski Quartet doing their thing in the Concert Hall. It was good to get back behind a camera again - it has been a very long time since I was operating previously and I was quite rusty till Paul oiled me up!
Tuesday was an examination of Derelict - a rather dreary and generic program about unhappy people in unhappy situations, about which the viewing public are as helpless as they are about AIDS in Africa. This was followed by My Fake Baby, a far more engaging, and (for me) far more horrifying program than the first. There was something incredibly sad about the psychological state these women had got themselves into, where they were looking for some sort of satisfaction in a doll.
Wednesday was a program meeting where we expressed our unease at the apparent lack of pace within the course, and were querying what our end of year projects would be. I think the class are united in preference of filming our own films as opposed to bland and generic "scenes". A possible compromise would be writing (or at least choosing) our own scenes, but I'm glad to have received Adam's assurance on Friday that we would be making between 1 and 4 end of year films. In the meantime, I am more determined than ever to continue making films in an extra-curricular fashion. I can only measure my progress for this term by considering Golden Rule, the Enter the Pitch film, and the completion of Dust. Apart from that, I've learned some more, and discarded heaps of scripts, but haven't progressed.
Wednesday afternoon was another class on Documentary, where we watched a program about sleazy Bible salesmen. It was interesting, but my attention would have been retained if it had been half the length. I could certainly appreciate the non-intrusive nature of the documentators. The genuine nature of the footage they captured was amazing. But not the most entertaining piece of film.
Thursday morning was a class in Sound, followed by a class in Editing. I very much enjoyed Sound, but because I'd had no time for the toilet, let alone lunch (due to an over enthusiastic Gaelic teacher!), I was less collected for Editing. My thoughts weren't helped by my computer crashing half way through. I thought Avid was supposed to be uncrashable! I am slowly picking up the hang of Avid, but it is so much less user friendly than Final Cut (probably on purpose) that I doubt I shall ever like this program!
Friday was a short class with Adam, looking at proposals and the wording thereof. This was followed by filming the Brodski Quartet doing their thing in the Concert Hall. It was good to get back behind a camera again - it has been a very long time since I was operating previously and I was quite rusty till Paul oiled me up!
Monday 16 November 2009
Week Beginning 9/11
Monday was a tutorial with Richard in which all my ideas were scrapped and I am back to the drawing board. I might try adapting old premises, or come up with new ones. I might even be bold and come up with an outline or two for one of the scrapped premises!
Tuesday was a class on the history of documentary where we heard about everything from "Nanook of the North" to "Sicko". Very interesting and informative. I've only got a limited interest in documentary, but Andy is doing his best to whip up my enthusiasm for it!
Wednesday was a PAT tutorial, very much a box ticking exercise, and I think I spent some time doing editing, but I really can't remember!
Thursday was a full day of Technical class - an excellent day where I learn quite a bit about a matte box, a follow focus and the uses of filters. I'm fairly certain camera is not going to be my specialism, but the more I know about its capabilities, the more confident I'll be in film-making in general.
Friday was a short class about themes and devices in TV. I'd have liked a more concrete definition of that a theme and a device actually are, but otherise, it was a good class.
This was followed by a screening of the Battle of Algiers: see other blog.
Tuesday was a class on the history of documentary where we heard about everything from "Nanook of the North" to "Sicko". Very interesting and informative. I've only got a limited interest in documentary, but Andy is doing his best to whip up my enthusiasm for it!
Wednesday was a PAT tutorial, very much a box ticking exercise, and I think I spent some time doing editing, but I really can't remember!
Thursday was a full day of Technical class - an excellent day where I learn quite a bit about a matte box, a follow focus and the uses of filters. I'm fairly certain camera is not going to be my specialism, but the more I know about its capabilities, the more confident I'll be in film-making in general.
Friday was a short class about themes and devices in TV. I'd have liked a more concrete definition of that a theme and a device actually are, but otherise, it was a good class.
This was followed by a screening of the Battle of Algiers: see other blog.
Monday 9 November 2009
Week Beginning 2/11
I am half asleep - so apologies in general to my devoted readership and fan-base for what is likely to be a somewhat slapdash blog posting.
So Monday was a class on genre theory, quite interesting. A film doesn't have to be totally unique to be engaging, challenging, entertaining and moving. Sometimes the use of genre motifs make the audience feel comfortable and a deeper story can be told under the surface.
Tuesday was a trip to the Mitchell library - it was intriguing to see the old documents, especially the 900 year old Papal bull and the rogues gallery from the police records. Having said that it seems like a solution seeking a problem. I can't think what situation I would be in, where I would be researching some aspect of Gasgow's life before 1970.
Wednesday was cancelled
Thursday was also cancelled - we watched an episode of Being Human, which I had already seen and blogged on last year.
Friday was Open Day, so general anarchy in the corridors and no classes.
Meanwhile all week, we were gearing up for a reshoot of The Golden Rule, which we accomplished on Saturday. The first time we had been out, the play-heads had been damaged or the tape had been corrupted and the footage was not useable for most of one scene. Seeing we were going out for this scene, we also decided to get some more coverage of another scene, on which we had been very rushed the first time. Depite some inclement weather we managed another successful shoot.
So Monday was a class on genre theory, quite interesting. A film doesn't have to be totally unique to be engaging, challenging, entertaining and moving. Sometimes the use of genre motifs make the audience feel comfortable and a deeper story can be told under the surface.
Tuesday was a trip to the Mitchell library - it was intriguing to see the old documents, especially the 900 year old Papal bull and the rogues gallery from the police records. Having said that it seems like a solution seeking a problem. I can't think what situation I would be in, where I would be researching some aspect of Gasgow's life before 1970.
Wednesday was cancelled
Thursday was also cancelled - we watched an episode of Being Human, which I had already seen and blogged on last year.
Friday was Open Day, so general anarchy in the corridors and no classes.
Meanwhile all week, we were gearing up for a reshoot of The Golden Rule, which we accomplished on Saturday. The first time we had been out, the play-heads had been damaged or the tape had been corrupted and the footage was not useable for most of one scene. Seeing we were going out for this scene, we also decided to get some more coverage of another scene, on which we had been very rushed the first time. Depite some inclement weather we managed another successful shoot.
Monday 2 November 2009
The Seagull
I watched the performance tonight of the third year actors performing the Seagll. Perhaps it's because I am not a theatre buff, but I really had no time for the play. It was exceedingly dull - the story was predictable and the pace pedestrian, the characters were hysterically emotional and generally unlikeable. The set was splendid however, but this tended only to show up the poverty of the actual piece itself. Like Ibsen, Chekov has gained some sort of reputation as a playwright among the middle-class intelligentsia of our society, but having seen one play by each of them, I am still very much waiting to be impressed! If I was to analyse the story in filmic terms, there was no clear protagonist, no drive, no goal, no inciting incident. Just a bunch of events happening to a bunch of people with vast amounts of pointless chatter in between. And then they threw in a random offstage suicide at the end just to make a clear finish to the play.
Poor show!
Poor show!
An Riaghailt Or
Having helped Phil in developing the script all the way back in Summer, I seem to have been involved in this production for a long time. Until today I thought it was all over - how wrong I was!
Meanwhile, what have I learnt?
1) A single Producer is not sufficient to deal with all the issues that are arising in a production of even moderate scale, short length. The help Gavin provided in the final stages was invaluable, and having the assistance and co-operation of a second Producer or Production Manager or some such from much earlier on would have made my job far less of a headache.
2) It’s best to give yourself more than one option for a role. Most of our actors were the only ones we could find to suit their role, and therefore we wnet with them by default, while other ones might have been easier to work with, if we’d found them.
3) Playback the tape while on set to ensure it is recording properly. This is the second time this has happened to me. The first time - in 2007 - I put it down to an error that was so rare it was not worth checking for as standard practice. Now that it has happened twice, I reckon it might be worth it.
4) Try to get on the extras list about twice as many as you think you’ll need, especially at no-fees level film-making.
5) Have a Pre-Production Schedule. I had none on this production and several things were forgotten or left to the last minute.
6) Either have the call sheets prepared in advance of the first day’s shoot, or have someone working on them remotely while the shoot is going ahead.
7) Runners and extra pairs of hands are exceedingly useful
8) When providing catering, provide plastic cups! For next time - note to self - prepare a shopping list based on what we had today.
9) It might be useful for the Designer to double up with, say, Wardrobe. We had no Wardrobe person, and, in retrospect, that would have been useful.
10) The pre-production schedule must contain a day for the final (major) script redraft. We had a major redraft at the last moment which threw us considerably.
Apart from the issue with the tape not recording, this film has provided to be fairly successful so far. While I wouldn’t call it a smooth and well-oiled production, we got there in the end. Some ingenuity from Gavin at the very end of the shoot gave us a few minutes of battery on the camera. Occasionally there would be a moment of friction between crew members (not least between my good pal Phil and myself during the pre-production stage!) But certainly, once on set, everything looked particularly professional, and the comradeship between the crew members (including those from outside the class) was outstanding. Here's hoping all will go well for the reshoot this weekend!
Meanwhile, what have I learnt?
1) A single Producer is not sufficient to deal with all the issues that are arising in a production of even moderate scale, short length. The help Gavin provided in the final stages was invaluable, and having the assistance and co-operation of a second Producer or Production Manager or some such from much earlier on would have made my job far less of a headache.
2) It’s best to give yourself more than one option for a role. Most of our actors were the only ones we could find to suit their role, and therefore we wnet with them by default, while other ones might have been easier to work with, if we’d found them.
3) Playback the tape while on set to ensure it is recording properly. This is the second time this has happened to me. The first time - in 2007 - I put it down to an error that was so rare it was not worth checking for as standard practice. Now that it has happened twice, I reckon it might be worth it.
4) Try to get on the extras list about twice as many as you think you’ll need, especially at no-fees level film-making.
5) Have a Pre-Production Schedule. I had none on this production and several things were forgotten or left to the last minute.
6) Either have the call sheets prepared in advance of the first day’s shoot, or have someone working on them remotely while the shoot is going ahead.
7) Runners and extra pairs of hands are exceedingly useful
8) When providing catering, provide plastic cups! For next time - note to self - prepare a shopping list based on what we had today.
9) It might be useful for the Designer to double up with, say, Wardrobe. We had no Wardrobe person, and, in retrospect, that would have been useful.
10) The pre-production schedule must contain a day for the final (major) script redraft. We had a major redraft at the last moment which threw us considerably.
Apart from the issue with the tape not recording, this film has provided to be fairly successful so far. While I wouldn’t call it a smooth and well-oiled production, we got there in the end. Some ingenuity from Gavin at the very end of the shoot gave us a few minutes of battery on the camera. Occasionally there would be a moment of friction between crew members (not least between my good pal Phil and myself during the pre-production stage!) But certainly, once on set, everything looked particularly professional, and the comradeship between the crew members (including those from outside the class) was outstanding. Here's hoping all will go well for the reshoot this weekend!
Week Beginning 26/10
Monday was a class on Mise-En-Scene, coming right in the middle of a day of pre-production on An Riaghailt Or. We looked at the subtext involved in a characters movement across the screen, and also certain visual metaphors (such as the window blinds as Fargo becoming progressively more like prison bars). I’m not sure whether this is supposed to affect the audience subconsciously or whether it is a foible by which film-makers show off to other film-makers, critics and intellectuals. If I pick up on something like this in a movie, I feel immediately very clever for spotting it, but only in the sense of respecting the direction. I am not sure it makes me appreciate the story any more. The key film here for me is “Atonement”, which is full of such visual metaphor. Some of these I got, some I didn’t. It sort of added a new layer to the film for me, but only because there were so many things glaring at me.
Tuesday was a day of Factual Content, looking at the ethics of reporting on individuals to the public. I found this class particularly interesting, especially the little ethical puzzles given to us. I had never really considered the implications of undercover reporting before, but I’m not sure that, as a Christian, I could do it, or get someone else to do it. The lies, deceit and indeed betrayal involved make it very difficult to justify except by the old adage that “the end justifies the means”. And I’m not sure that it does.
Wednesday was a day off - so I tried to get on with post-production for Dust. I only got an hour or two in before I was evicted from the DTU again! I’m going to have to think of a way round this predicament. The fact that Client Services won’t let me in is perhaps an obstacle I should raise with Upstairs. My name isn’t on the golden list!
Thursday morning was a class on Lighting with Gaffer Derrick Ritchie. While I’m not sure I learnt any specific technical trick, I found the class quite inspiring. Like a Masterclass, we heard an industry professional enthusing about his life’s work. It reminded me strongly of some of the talks I had heard at Showlight. I don’t suppose it’s an easy thing to teach. It’s like getting an artist in to teach you painting for one morning. All he or she would realistically be able to do is inspire you to continue with your own paintings. And the class certainly did the lighting equivalent of that!
Thursday afternoon and Friday morning were a class on Storyboards: their use, misuse and creation. This is possibly the first time we have done something in Zam’s class we have not touched on in any other class, and I found it very helpful. Zam’s particular teaching style I also find very good: lots of assignments to work on and continual input in shaping these ideas further. We also had a chance to discuss some of what we were hoping to do at the weekend, with An Riaghailt Or, and he offered some helpful advice.
Friday afternoon was “The Searchers” - see other blog.
Tuesday was a day of Factual Content, looking at the ethics of reporting on individuals to the public. I found this class particularly interesting, especially the little ethical puzzles given to us. I had never really considered the implications of undercover reporting before, but I’m not sure that, as a Christian, I could do it, or get someone else to do it. The lies, deceit and indeed betrayal involved make it very difficult to justify except by the old adage that “the end justifies the means”. And I’m not sure that it does.
Wednesday was a day off - so I tried to get on with post-production for Dust. I only got an hour or two in before I was evicted from the DTU again! I’m going to have to think of a way round this predicament. The fact that Client Services won’t let me in is perhaps an obstacle I should raise with Upstairs. My name isn’t on the golden list!
Thursday morning was a class on Lighting with Gaffer Derrick Ritchie. While I’m not sure I learnt any specific technical trick, I found the class quite inspiring. Like a Masterclass, we heard an industry professional enthusing about his life’s work. It reminded me strongly of some of the talks I had heard at Showlight. I don’t suppose it’s an easy thing to teach. It’s like getting an artist in to teach you painting for one morning. All he or she would realistically be able to do is inspire you to continue with your own paintings. And the class certainly did the lighting equivalent of that!
Thursday afternoon and Friday morning were a class on Storyboards: their use, misuse and creation. This is possibly the first time we have done something in Zam’s class we have not touched on in any other class, and I found it very helpful. Zam’s particular teaching style I also find very good: lots of assignments to work on and continual input in shaping these ideas further. We also had a chance to discuss some of what we were hoping to do at the weekend, with An Riaghailt Or, and he offered some helpful advice.
Friday afternoon was “The Searchers” - see other blog.
Wednesday 28 October 2009
Othello
It's not a film so it doesn't get on the film review blog. But it's not a week-post, so it doesn't get that "week beginning..." heading. It is unique. How exciting!As Andy was telling us to blog about our artistic and cultural lives, I thought I'd post my thought on the Citizens Theatre production of Othello which I was ushering last night.
Shakespeare is obsolete. The language is obscure to the point of incomprehensibility, the attitudes the characters display are quintessentially Elizabethan and the humour goes entirely over the audience's head. In particular the racism and sexism demonstrated throughout the play (not by just some characters, but by all) made me think that unless Shakespeare had acheived some sort of mythical status in our country's heritage, such a script would never be permitted to be performed without protestors besieging the building.
Othello is a black man. He is therefore derided by everyone else, who is white. Possibly worse, he himself laments his base nature as an "Indian". When the characters praise him, they say he is almost behaving like a white man; when he does something wrong, they abuse his ckin colour, his parentage, his place of birth, anything except the obvious: his lack of moral judgement.
Iago's wife is an independant thinker. So he abuses her constantly for talking in the street, for speaking her own mind and for not obeying him in everything. There is a minor fluster when Othello hits his wife in public, but it's quickly passed over. Equally when Iago stabs his wife publicly, and she is bleeding to death in a corner of the stage, nobody pays her the slightest heed. They do send a constable after the fleeing Iago, but they don't care tuppence for the dying woman.
So why do people still revere Shakespeare? A great playwright in his day, no doubt. A bard who understood some of the great issues of human nature - true. But also a man strongly rooted in the prejudices, the values and the language of his own day. His stories have dated almost as quickly as his language. If they were being retold today, they woud have to be stripped down to their essential story and built up again from scratch, with new characters, settings, themes, values and plot twists.
As a piece of theatre, I would say this production was average, helped on its way by an intriguing set design and a very strong performance from Andy Clark as Iago.
Friday 23 October 2009
Week Beginning 19/10
With the constant background pressure of the Golden Rule mounting fast, I have not had a moment of relaxation this week.
Monday was a class looking at Sound Design. Having arrived back from a crazy weekend in Arbroath at 3am that morning, I was struggling to stay awake, but I fully appreciate how vital Sound Design is to a movie in producing realism and a sense of immersion. It seems so natural to include it that earlier films which placed less importance on it now seem slightly odd and flat.
Monday afternoon was a class with Richard, looking at non-3-act structures. For myself, I find the concepts outwith the three act structure to be rather wacky - not territory I'd be keen to venture into except perhaps for a non-chronological story or a story with multiple protagonists.
Tuesday was a location recce for Golden Rule, followed by some auditions. I begin to realise just how much preparation must go into an audition from our point of view. When that organisation isn't there, the audition becomes either just a blether, or full of awkward silences.
Wednesday was a day which I had set aside for editing Dust. (It's so close to being finished, but I have no time to just get in there and finish it off.) This time, I had just got myself set up after some nasty incidents with the Editshare, the network, old files, my external Hard Disc and every other thing conceivable. And then I got chucked out of the DTU to make room for the first years... Typical!
Thursday was a full editing class all day. I still feel that our total editing classtime has been rather vestigial in first year, so I'm hoping we'll get a lot more chance this time round to really get to grips with the software. I have to say, however, that Avid is not for me. It seems to be designed in a deliberately obscure fashion to continue to preserve the myths surrounding the arcane art of professional editing. I have no doubt that for professional editors who are using editing software daily, such a program is very suitable, but for a mere dabbler, such as myself, it is far less intuitive than Final Cut.
Friday was a TV content class, where we watched Life on Mars (always a favourite of mine) and discussed themes prevalent in Shameless, Teachers and Life on Mars. I find it strange that we can attempt to condense the themes of these programs to one word cliches like "family". Surely the purest annotation of the theme would be a statement about family to show how that concept is dealt with in the program. It seemed that we talked about how Sex was used in different ways in different programs, but still just lumped Sex as an identical theme in both Teachers and Shameless.
The afternoon was a screening of "12 Angry Men" which I will post about in my other blog.
Monday was a class looking at Sound Design. Having arrived back from a crazy weekend in Arbroath at 3am that morning, I was struggling to stay awake, but I fully appreciate how vital Sound Design is to a movie in producing realism and a sense of immersion. It seems so natural to include it that earlier films which placed less importance on it now seem slightly odd and flat.
Monday afternoon was a class with Richard, looking at non-3-act structures. For myself, I find the concepts outwith the three act structure to be rather wacky - not territory I'd be keen to venture into except perhaps for a non-chronological story or a story with multiple protagonists.
Tuesday was a location recce for Golden Rule, followed by some auditions. I begin to realise just how much preparation must go into an audition from our point of view. When that organisation isn't there, the audition becomes either just a blether, or full of awkward silences.
Wednesday was a day which I had set aside for editing Dust. (It's so close to being finished, but I have no time to just get in there and finish it off.) This time, I had just got myself set up after some nasty incidents with the Editshare, the network, old files, my external Hard Disc and every other thing conceivable. And then I got chucked out of the DTU to make room for the first years... Typical!
Thursday was a full editing class all day. I still feel that our total editing classtime has been rather vestigial in first year, so I'm hoping we'll get a lot more chance this time round to really get to grips with the software. I have to say, however, that Avid is not for me. It seems to be designed in a deliberately obscure fashion to continue to preserve the myths surrounding the arcane art of professional editing. I have no doubt that for professional editors who are using editing software daily, such a program is very suitable, but for a mere dabbler, such as myself, it is far less intuitive than Final Cut.
Friday was a TV content class, where we watched Life on Mars (always a favourite of mine) and discussed themes prevalent in Shameless, Teachers and Life on Mars. I find it strange that we can attempt to condense the themes of these programs to one word cliches like "family". Surely the purest annotation of the theme would be a statement about family to show how that concept is dealt with in the program. It seemed that we talked about how Sex was used in different ways in different programs, but still just lumped Sex as an identical theme in both Teachers and Shameless.
The afternoon was a screening of "12 Angry Men" which I will post about in my other blog.
Tuesday 20 October 2009
Week Beginning 12th September
I thought I had posted up this week previously, but obviously I was mistaken and now shall seek to rectify that unfortunate lapse!
We started off with a look at Editing in Andy's class. We looked at the relationship between a cut and a blink, and saw that a cut must replicate the same psychological effect in the mind of the audience that a blink does in the mind of an individual. One info-bite is over, another is coming.
The afternoon was a tutorial with Richard, looking at the two outlines I'd provided him with. One is getting scrapped. The other is getting shunted sideways for the Enter the Pitch competition coming up very soon. This means I'm back to square one and am hunting around for premises.
Tuesday was a full day looking at directing. This was quite intense, but very helpful at the same time. We each read out our neighbours treatment, which highlighted especially the difference in language styles that there are from person to person in the class. Altogether I found that a particularly helpful assignment to work on. I had been looking again and again at the same scene from "Hero" by Zhang Yimou, looking at different aspects each time: the sound design, the camera movements and angles, the composition of the shots, the colours used and the special effects. Each time I watched it I discovered new stuff about it - this has only increased my love of the film. We continued with some work on storytelling, a lot of which was previously covered by Richard, but it was helpful to hear it again from another point of view.
Wednesday was a different kettle of fish, where I was called in to be an extra on low budget feature Day of the Flowers. There was a lot of good banter amongst the extras, but it was altogether a lesson in what not to do. The whole system was chaotic. We were filming just off Buchanan Street along a wide section of road. However, the road was not blocked off, and the two runners were utterly swamped with crowd control, cueing the extras and traffic control plus the usual duties of tea and coffee, etc. The problem were not helped by the fact that the 1st AD seemed very ineffective. Certainly he was not running the set with a rod of iron, leaving the main drive of the day coming from the 3rd AD. This left the 3rd unable to work with the extras more closely. So lesson: always have enough runners to cope with the extras and the public!
Thursday was a full day on Sound. Again, it was a very intense day. I took reams of notes. Cammy has a completely different - I might say better - style of teaching to Simon (and has the added bonus that he has not taken my flat keys home in his pocket. Not yet anyway...) I have yet to work through all my notes and type them up, but generally I found this day very helpful. In contradistinction to many in my class, I quite like Sound Recording.
Friday was a screening of the Conversation. Having already seen this film - it got a three star review in my blog last year - I will not blog on it specifically again. Suffice to say I was very glad when it was finished, and I hope not to have to watch it again. An influential film is not the same as a good film, as Strike demonstrated rather more clearly.
The Weekend was a crazy weekend away in Arbroath, returning at 3am on Monday morning, ready for another round of classes. Great fun though.
We started off with a look at Editing in Andy's class. We looked at the relationship between a cut and a blink, and saw that a cut must replicate the same psychological effect in the mind of the audience that a blink does in the mind of an individual. One info-bite is over, another is coming.
The afternoon was a tutorial with Richard, looking at the two outlines I'd provided him with. One is getting scrapped. The other is getting shunted sideways for the Enter the Pitch competition coming up very soon. This means I'm back to square one and am hunting around for premises.
Tuesday was a full day looking at directing. This was quite intense, but very helpful at the same time. We each read out our neighbours treatment, which highlighted especially the difference in language styles that there are from person to person in the class. Altogether I found that a particularly helpful assignment to work on. I had been looking again and again at the same scene from "Hero" by Zhang Yimou, looking at different aspects each time: the sound design, the camera movements and angles, the composition of the shots, the colours used and the special effects. Each time I watched it I discovered new stuff about it - this has only increased my love of the film. We continued with some work on storytelling, a lot of which was previously covered by Richard, but it was helpful to hear it again from another point of view.
Wednesday was a different kettle of fish, where I was called in to be an extra on low budget feature Day of the Flowers. There was a lot of good banter amongst the extras, but it was altogether a lesson in what not to do. The whole system was chaotic. We were filming just off Buchanan Street along a wide section of road. However, the road was not blocked off, and the two runners were utterly swamped with crowd control, cueing the extras and traffic control plus the usual duties of tea and coffee, etc. The problem were not helped by the fact that the 1st AD seemed very ineffective. Certainly he was not running the set with a rod of iron, leaving the main drive of the day coming from the 3rd AD. This left the 3rd unable to work with the extras more closely. So lesson: always have enough runners to cope with the extras and the public!
Thursday was a full day on Sound. Again, it was a very intense day. I took reams of notes. Cammy has a completely different - I might say better - style of teaching to Simon (and has the added bonus that he has not taken my flat keys home in his pocket. Not yet anyway...) I have yet to work through all my notes and type them up, but generally I found this day very helpful. In contradistinction to many in my class, I quite like Sound Recording.
Friday was a screening of the Conversation. Having already seen this film - it got a three star review in my blog last year - I will not blog on it specifically again. Suffice to say I was very glad when it was finished, and I hope not to have to watch it again. An influential film is not the same as a good film, as Strike demonstrated rather more clearly.
The Weekend was a crazy weekend away in Arbroath, returning at 3am on Monday morning, ready for another round of classes. Great fun though.
Wednesday 14 October 2009
Week Beginning 5th October 2009
I managed to squeeze some preproduction for The Golden Rule into Monday morning before class. While this felt like a great achievement at the time, the major redraft that is continuing as I write this blog means that most of the work could potentially have been pointless.
Our class was on Production Design and the importance of that in making good films. While we spent some time looking at Metropolis and the influence that has had, we also looked at more modern movies. In particular, I noticed that when we were looking at the contenders for Oscar for Art Direction in one particular year, I had seen all the films mentioned except The Aviator, about which I have heard a lot. It’s a fluke, of course, but it makes me feel a little more confident about my film knowledge.
The afternoon was Screenwriting: a recap of what had being done last year, with a few extra little exercises thrown in to keep us amused. It all seemed to go OK.
Tuesday morning was our first TV content class, which I have to say was quite disappointing. Our brief for the term is to come up with two outlines for comedy soaps in the line of Teachers and Shameless. However, I fear it will be like Jane Austen trying to write a sequel to Trainspotting. The “lowest common denominator” humour of these programs and the obsession with sex as a punctuation to the narrative are both huge turn offs for me. Is it possible to write a comedy soap where the story points are not found from the characters getting drunk and having sex? It has been done many times and the only way to go (as the playwright Berthold Brecht pointed out a century ago) is to get more and more outrageous. But once we have kidnapped a goat and kept it in the cellar as a sex slave, once we have force-fed a toddler LSD and laughed ourselves silly at the tripping toddler, once we have caught the red-faced vicars wife handcuffed to the confession box, then we are back to the same problem. The same thing is no longer any use. We need to get more extreme. And then some. But then shows like Dad’s Army, Yes Minister and Father Ted are still just as funny today as when they first went out. Their humour doesn’t rely on being taboo-busting - it is based on character, dialogue and situations. I wait with caution to see how this pans out, but I am not expecting great things from my attempts.
Tuesday afternoon was a look at the internet as a research resource. I’m not sure I learnt anything in this class I didn’t know before, though it was the first time I had heard Wikipedia being (partially) ratified by an academic institution!
Wednesday was our second class with Zam and again was quite good. We watched the remaining scenes the class had brought in, and despite the lack of co-operation one expects from AV technology, we struggled through and it was very interesting to discuss all the films. We also watched Mashed, one of Zam’s shorts, and dissected it from the original material upwards to the finished cut. This was very helpful, as was getting a template treatment that a director would write to explain his vision to the HoDs.
Thursday was a Technical day. We had an exam in the morning. (Don’t call it a quiz… we know what it really is!) This was obviously intended to stretch us, but I’m fairly certain we were never taught some of that stuff. Other stuff I remember Ray mentioning casually, and me immediately thinking “Well there’s no possible need for me to know that!” and immediately discarding the information. Such as the length in mm of the CCD chip within the DSR570. The afternoon was a look at new tripods: much the same as the old ones but a bit more hard core. One has a little light on the spirit level which I liked. We also looked at changing bulbs. That will be a very useful thing to be able to do.
Friday was a screening of Strike (see other blog)
Also generally this week: “Dust” remains in limbo until Editshare is back up and running. “The Golden Rule” has been put in limbo until the script is redrafted. This is now taking Phil five times longer than I expected and I am getting increasingly worried about the rapidly approaching shooting dates. Meanwhile Phil is singing in the Mod…
Monday 5 October 2009
Week Beginning 28th Sept
The craziness of Freshers Week was far more intense this time round than it ever was when I was a Fresher. In fact, last year, I seemed to miss out on it entirely. I never even found Freshers Fayre.
So I started off on the previous Saturday, helping the Christian Union carrying boxes and bags into Halls for the newly arrived Freshers. It’s a vast amount some people are packing: a spare toaster in case the one in the kitchen breaks…
On Monday I was disappointed to discover Editshare has been taken off the network. This means I am not able to finish editing Dust this week.
On Tuesday, we had a formal introduction to the School of Drama by Maggie Kinloch. This was not exactly rivetingly exciting, but I suppose it helps to think of us all working together. This led on to a Department meeting. I’m still trying to memorise names and faces of the new first years. Again, nothing revolutionary was mentioned, except that Adam wants to stop us making films... at least for the moment.
After a free lunch, courtesy of the Christian Union, the afternoon was our first proper class, looking at Factual Content. Researching Andy was an intriguing task, and it shows that a narrative thread to the information is more important than the sheer volume of information.
Wednesday was our first class with Zam, where we looked at several clips from favourite films and tried to say what we found particularly gripping about these scenes. While I don’t think I learnt anything specific from that class, it was a good start, and I am confident that it will prove to be a very helpful class in the next few weeks.
Thursday was a day off. (Sorry, Richard, a writing day...)
Friday was a screening of Metropolis. (See other blog)
It’s great to be back at the Academy, and into some sort of routine after the long days of Summer. I would have liked to have Dust finished before we started back, and we are very close to it, but hopefully we will get that finished without long delay. And I am looking ahead to production of The Golden Rule, our entry for FilmG, assuming we get the green light from Adam.
Monday 13 July 2009
Dust and Garrow's Law
Having finally completed the shooting of Dust and with the editing coming up soon, I think I should note down some points I have learnt from the experience. Also having been a supporting artist in set for BBC Period-coutroom drama, Garrow's Law, and having been carefully watching the set protocol, I have learnt some point from that too.
Dust
1) It's vital to have a fully committed and competant Producer. Phil was grand as a Producer - when he was available. But I think neither himself nor myself realised how much time commitment there is from the Producer. The Producer has to do more work than the Director in bringing it all together. The Producer has to be self-motivated. The Director has to be answerable to the Producer, not the other way round. The Producer must be setting timetables and deadlines and the Director must be trying to keep to them. The real energy and impetus for a production should come from the Producer. When - for whatever reason - the Producer is unavailable to provide the fuel for the project, the stress levels of the Director go through the roof. Stressed out with logistics, there is no way the Director can be properly creative in working with the actors to get the best performance.
2) It is vital, in any scene involving lights at all, to have a full run-through without the actors, preferably on a previous day. The DoP can try out various lighting setups and the technical issues can be explored without the same time constraints, and when the actual shoot takes place, the lighting design is as meticulously planned out as every other part of the scene.
3) It is much better for scenes where the lighting is used as an effect, to have 100% control over the light (i.e. to block out all natural light)
4) A set works much better with a 1st AD present.
5) You need a lot more set dressing material than you think. Otherwise you have a bare room with a couple of things in it.
6) Within the TPA department, there are certain reliable and certain unreliable students. It is good to know which are which.
7) I do not know enough good, local make-up artists. Everyone on my (rather short) list was working elsewhere when I approached them, except for a couple of Clydebank students who said they would do it and then never showed up on the day without so much as a text message to say where they were. I have been turned off Clydebank students in general by my experience with them.
8) Things work ten times better if everyone on the team trusts the others to do their jobs efficiently and without fuss.
9) We all have a huge amount to learn, especially in terms of lighting and sound recording.
10) Our class is woefully inadequate at Sound Recording. Only Graeme has an interest in the discipline, and most of the rest of us - either through fear or ignorance - will not even attempt being a Sound Recordist. So if Graeme is unavailable, I have to consider using TPA students, non-students and other options. We all could do with a bit more experience on the mixer. We are fine it it is working fine. But if something goes wrong, we have no idea how to fix it.
11) Exteriors and scenes without lights are vastly faster than lit interiors, though there is far less control of the image.
12) For a C-stand to function properly, it needs to have sandbags in readiness.
Garrow's Law
On the set we had 2 cameras and three boom mikes (plus radio mikes) and were getting through about 10 pages of script a day. I found this process of filming fascinating, as it was a drama, filmed on a multicamera studio system. Standard practice was to cover the scene from two angles in wide, mid and close up. We did long, long takes. If a mistake was made, we did not restart from the beginning, but from a pick up point, and thereby we bulldozed our way through it. Either this process was meticulously planned out beforehand, or the director had a lot of confidence.
Each set has a standard lighting design (mainly relying on kinos from the roof and diffused fresnels through windows), which then was tweaked with flags and reflector boards for each scene.
Carpet scraps were stuck to the soles of our feet to deaden sound. Takes were halted for pazzing aeroplanes whose engines I could hardly hear.
Smoke was used throughout the entire thing in every scene to define the beams of light and add atmosphere.
Despite some obvious tension between the DoP (a rather unpredicable irascible Bohemian continental) and the 1st AD (a rapid-fire efficient, enthusiastic, straight talking Londoner) the personality clash did not prevent them work working very well together. A couple of sparks would fly from time to time, but it was all kept very low key and you could tell they were both committed to the project and were just coming at it from different points of view.
Make-up and constume were called on for final checks just after the last rehearsal and before the first take.
Each department looks after their own continuity: cue endless photos.
There is a huge amount of dialogue and very limited number of sets in a standard TV episode.
Both cameras were using a particularly wonderful tripod, which included a 1m long tracking component, allowing for short camera movements without setting up a dolly. It also allowed for far greater flexibility and control when they did set up the dolly with the camera mounted on this second track on top of the tripod. I'm trying to find an example of it on the net, but its not too easy.
Dust
1) It's vital to have a fully committed and competant Producer. Phil was grand as a Producer - when he was available. But I think neither himself nor myself realised how much time commitment there is from the Producer. The Producer has to do more work than the Director in bringing it all together. The Producer has to be self-motivated. The Director has to be answerable to the Producer, not the other way round. The Producer must be setting timetables and deadlines and the Director must be trying to keep to them. The real energy and impetus for a production should come from the Producer. When - for whatever reason - the Producer is unavailable to provide the fuel for the project, the stress levels of the Director go through the roof. Stressed out with logistics, there is no way the Director can be properly creative in working with the actors to get the best performance.
2) It is vital, in any scene involving lights at all, to have a full run-through without the actors, preferably on a previous day. The DoP can try out various lighting setups and the technical issues can be explored without the same time constraints, and when the actual shoot takes place, the lighting design is as meticulously planned out as every other part of the scene.
3) It is much better for scenes where the lighting is used as an effect, to have 100% control over the light (i.e. to block out all natural light)
4) A set works much better with a 1st AD present.
5) You need a lot more set dressing material than you think. Otherwise you have a bare room with a couple of things in it.
6) Within the TPA department, there are certain reliable and certain unreliable students. It is good to know which are which.
7) I do not know enough good, local make-up artists. Everyone on my (rather short) list was working elsewhere when I approached them, except for a couple of Clydebank students who said they would do it and then never showed up on the day without so much as a text message to say where they were. I have been turned off Clydebank students in general by my experience with them.
8) Things work ten times better if everyone on the team trusts the others to do their jobs efficiently and without fuss.
9) We all have a huge amount to learn, especially in terms of lighting and sound recording.
10) Our class is woefully inadequate at Sound Recording. Only Graeme has an interest in the discipline, and most of the rest of us - either through fear or ignorance - will not even attempt being a Sound Recordist. So if Graeme is unavailable, I have to consider using TPA students, non-students and other options. We all could do with a bit more experience on the mixer. We are fine it it is working fine. But if something goes wrong, we have no idea how to fix it.
11) Exteriors and scenes without lights are vastly faster than lit interiors, though there is far less control of the image.
12) For a C-stand to function properly, it needs to have sandbags in readiness.
Garrow's Law
On the set we had 2 cameras and three boom mikes (plus radio mikes) and were getting through about 10 pages of script a day. I found this process of filming fascinating, as it was a drama, filmed on a multicamera studio system. Standard practice was to cover the scene from two angles in wide, mid and close up. We did long, long takes. If a mistake was made, we did not restart from the beginning, but from a pick up point, and thereby we bulldozed our way through it. Either this process was meticulously planned out beforehand, or the director had a lot of confidence.
Each set has a standard lighting design (mainly relying on kinos from the roof and diffused fresnels through windows), which then was tweaked with flags and reflector boards for each scene.
Carpet scraps were stuck to the soles of our feet to deaden sound. Takes were halted for pazzing aeroplanes whose engines I could hardly hear.
Smoke was used throughout the entire thing in every scene to define the beams of light and add atmosphere.
Despite some obvious tension between the DoP (a rather unpredicable irascible Bohemian continental) and the 1st AD (a rapid-fire efficient, enthusiastic, straight talking Londoner) the personality clash did not prevent them work working very well together. A couple of sparks would fly from time to time, but it was all kept very low key and you could tell they were both committed to the project and were just coming at it from different points of view.
Make-up and constume were called on for final checks just after the last rehearsal and before the first take.
Each department looks after their own continuity: cue endless photos.
There is a huge amount of dialogue and very limited number of sets in a standard TV episode.
Both cameras were using a particularly wonderful tripod, which included a 1m long tracking component, allowing for short camera movements without setting up a dolly. It also allowed for far greater flexibility and control when they did set up the dolly with the camera mounted on this second track on top of the tripod. I'm trying to find an example of it on the net, but its not too easy.
Thursday 25 June 2009
Film Festival
This might be a long blog... I'll try and keep the extraneous information to a minimum
I was at the EIFF from Monday to Wednesday and quickly picked up the hang of it. I got to see several features and shorts, an animation and a documentary. I attended a couple of conversations with important directors and also attended a couple of seminars on financing film. In terms of networking, I can't say I managed to swap numbers with Roger Corman, but I did forge contacts with an Skillset student doing Producing and with a Bournemouth graduate looking to become a writer-director. So if either of them go on to bigger and better things, expect to find me attempting to cling onto their coat-tails.
Monday
Missing Person (USA, HD-Cam, 95 mins, English Dialogue) **
After an early start to catch the 0715 from Queen Street, a slow moving film noir that meandered from boring to baffling was perhaps not the wisest choice. The protagonist was always either drunk, exhausted, injured or in emotional turmoil and frequently all four at once. This resulted in a continual shuffling performance throughout. Coupled with heavy brow furrowed in concentration, drooping jaw and slurring voice, he was a spitting image for Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. For myself, however, this didn't seem to bad. At 9am this did not seem too bad as the protagonist's state of mind and focus was on a par with my own. But seen as a sane and composmentus indicidual, I fear it would lose its charm. The lighting, occasionally spectacular (the last sillhouetted shot against the green is particularly excellent) is often grubby and sometimes it is too dark overall to actually see anything.
Unmade Beds (UK, 35mm, 92 mins, English, French and Spanish dialogue) ****
Despite this being a film centred around the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle of assorted teenagers squatting in a London house - a life of which I have no experience - I still was affected by the evident nostalgia the film-makers feel for their teenage years. There are several teenagers in the house, but the story focusses on Axl - a Spanish guy looking for his father - and Vera - a Belgian girl who takes pictures of all the beds she sleeps in. Despite living in the same house, they lead seperate lives right up till the end. And even then Axl is too drunk to remember the next day. None of the characters have family. They are all vulnerable, good-hearted hedonists trying to find a place for themselves in the world. Instead they find each other. With an awesome soundtrack and a compelling beauty to each character, I think this film could end up as a cult hit.
Seminar on getting Public Funding for Films
This was a particularly long event, during which I got a free cookie and cup of tea and got to meet my first contact. We first had representatives from BBC Films, UK Film Council and Film4, then later had reps from Scottish Screen, EM Media, Screen Yorkshire, South West Screen, and the Screen Agency for Wales. Finally we had a couple of producers (including Soledad Gatti-Pascual of Unmade Beds) talking about building relationships with key folk. This seemed to mainly involve getting drunk...
The main points:
The Secret of Kells (Ireland, 35mm, 75 mins, English Dialogue) ****
Based on the history of the Book of Kells and its associated legends, this is the most Irish film I have ever seen. It is a refreshing chance to hear Irish actors being Irish, as opposed to Irish actors being English, or American actors being Irish. The artwork is based on the flat, heavily stylised calligraphy in the actual book. This at times is distracting, at times breathtakingly beautiful and occasionally so stylised it becomes difficult to get a grip on the action portrayed. The story is nicely done with elements of Celtic myth and Christian rationalism intertwined, both backlit menacingly by the invading Viking army. The inclusion of a fairy and an offensively cute cat put this firmly in the kids camp, but I was enthralled and I reckon there is plenty to keep adults involved. It challenges all of us to work out what are the most important things in our lives.
Tuesday
Boris Ryzhy (Netherlands, HD-Cam, 59 mins, Russian dialogue) **
A quiet and controlled documentary set in Russia. A woman trawls through the tough neighbourhood in which she used to live. She is looking for anyone who remembers her brother Boris: a poet and gangster, who committed suicide during the turmoil after the fall of the Soviet Union. Certain things stood out. There was first the nostalgic way in which they spoke of the USSR. It was, they said, a good place to grow up. So different to the way the regime is portrayed in the mainstream media. Then there was the fact that the search for memories of Boris, and the doors slammed and the interviews refused were far more interesting than the interviews themselves once she found them. Third, the fact that he was an award winning poet was only secondary (despit the boring montage sequences where his poems were read out). THe real story came from a sister and a widow remembering the one they had lost. Melancholy and with some beautiful photography, I liked the organic style to this. It was very natural. You even saw the camerawoman in the hallway mirror and she didn't seem to mind. Ultimately though it was a little uneventful for 9am and at 60 minutes, it felt long.
Black Box Shorts
The film equivalent of CPP, I was bored so utterly mindless by this collection of shorts that I left half way through the screening, along with half the audience. The ones I saw are mentioned below.
After this I left. Life is too short. If I thought that the auteurs were playing a con, laughing up their sleeves at the gullible art lovers who pay to watch this sort of thing and rave about it being "new", then I might be prepared to watch it. At least I'd be in on the joke. But the last thing I want to do is encourage any of these film-makers from making any more of this useless junk.
Masque of the Red Death (USA, 35mm, 95 mins, English dialogue, 1964)
Due to a mix-up, I arrived 20 minutes late, so missed the crucial set-up of this truly bizarre film. Bust ladies and hammed up villains wandered around a medieval castle, screaming, selling their souls to Satan, dressing up in gorilla suits, screaming, torturing prisoners, falling in love and did I mention screaming... I found this film rather entertaining, but exceptionally dated. There were more laughs than jumps from the packed out audience. Despite the overblown acting, the wobbly camerawork and the piercing screams, this film still has the ability to entertain (albeit in a different way to when it was first devised). If more Scottish film-makers aimed for this kind of B-movie, instead of the bleak and gritty hyper-realism we are known for, I, for one think our films would be far more popular, both here and abroad.
Seminar: New Producers Alliance on Funding Low Budget Features
The key thing coming out of this meeting was that a feature film is not something to try wandering into with a few mates. You need a lot of premeditation, of planning and of sweet talking.
Some points:
An Audience with Bill Forsyth
Unashamedly going to namedrop, one of my friends in work is the son of this director, so I was particularly interested to hear him speak. I have never seen any of his work expect for a clip from Gregory's Girl when I was 13. But having seen little clips from his films, Gregory's Girl, Local Hero and Being Human have all jumped onto my list of Films to See. I was struck by his modesty and humility. He didn't like the idea much of three act structure. He said it was Hollywood trying to tell the world that everything can be wrapped up in two hours. Life wasn't like that, and his movies tend to have a very ambiguous ending, because there never really is any sort of ending in real life. Not until death, anyway. He hasn't made a film in ten years, but he said he had another project in development with HBO. He refused to give away any details of it whatsoever, because he was still trying to get the idea clear in his own head.
Wednesday
International Shorts
Another compilation of shorts, but so different from Black Box. These were in general some of the best shorts I've ever seen.
A Conversation with Shane Meadows
I very much enjoyed being one of the audience for Shane and his producer Mark Herbert talking about their films and their rigidly independant way of going about film-making. I found them both very inspiring, and instantly took to them as very down to earth, ordinary guys, passionate about making movies.
His message in a nutshell is as follows. In the UK, a lot of film-makers sit around waiting by the phone for a reply from the UK Film Council offering them money to make their film. But what people really need to do it just go out and do it. Do it for 1p if you have to, do it for £1million if you can, but just do it. Never complain that you don't have enough money. Make do with whatever money you've got. Even if your finished product isn't very good, it will be a lot better than the zero that has been produced by the film-maker next door who is still waiting to hear back from the Film Council. Traiditional film-making standards (caravans, PA's stylists, etc) haemhorrage money and can't be afforded unless you have a massive budget. It's much better to rent out a community hall, and have soup and sandwiches provided. The more money you are given, the less creative freedom you have. In fact, getting £2million can work out as being less money than getting £1million. With the lower budget, people expect lower standards and are happy to work for less. When they hear £2million, suddenly everyone is wanting the full-on treatment. Commercials should not be looked down upon as only worthy of small-time directors. They can be great fun, they allow you to experiment and you get to meet lots of wonderful people. Shane confessed that one of his ambitions was to make an advert for carpets. They are always atrociously bad and he wants to make one that just takes that cheesiness to a whole new level. The launch party they had for their most recent film Le Donk is an example of the style they are going for. Rather than go for the standard corporate event with salmon and champagne that would have cost about as much as the film itself, they rented out a school hall, got some cherryade and pickled onions, set out some board games and charged everyone 75p to enter. The whole event cost £300.
A Conversation with Roger Gorman
One hour later I was back in the cinema to hear another low-budget filmmaker talk. He is arguable one of the most influential filmmakers in the world, not so much for his own output as for his proteges'. He was obviously far more used to public speaking than Shane and Mark. He radiated a certain authority and wisdom which might just have been a persona but which worked very well for him. The interviewer, Kim Newman, was rather geeky and giggly, which irritated me, and the event went on half an hour longer than it should have done, with the questions from the audience getting more and more inane, but it was a good experience. Joe Dante was sitting in the seat behind me.
All in all, EIFF has been a great experience for me, and has really inspired me to keep the goal of a feature film on the horizon and not to lose sight of that during all the focus on shorts and on coursework.
I was at the EIFF from Monday to Wednesday and quickly picked up the hang of it. I got to see several features and shorts, an animation and a documentary. I attended a couple of conversations with important directors and also attended a couple of seminars on financing film. In terms of networking, I can't say I managed to swap numbers with Roger Corman, but I did forge contacts with an Skillset student doing Producing and with a Bournemouth graduate looking to become a writer-director. So if either of them go on to bigger and better things, expect to find me attempting to cling onto their coat-tails.
Monday
Missing Person (USA, HD-Cam, 95 mins, English Dialogue) **
After an early start to catch the 0715 from Queen Street, a slow moving film noir that meandered from boring to baffling was perhaps not the wisest choice. The protagonist was always either drunk, exhausted, injured or in emotional turmoil and frequently all four at once. This resulted in a continual shuffling performance throughout. Coupled with heavy brow furrowed in concentration, drooping jaw and slurring voice, he was a spitting image for Boris Karloff in Frankenstein. For myself, however, this didn't seem to bad. At 9am this did not seem too bad as the protagonist's state of mind and focus was on a par with my own. But seen as a sane and composmentus indicidual, I fear it would lose its charm. The lighting, occasionally spectacular (the last sillhouetted shot against the green is particularly excellent) is often grubby and sometimes it is too dark overall to actually see anything.
Unmade Beds (UK, 35mm, 92 mins, English, French and Spanish dialogue) ****
Despite this being a film centred around the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll lifestyle of assorted teenagers squatting in a London house - a life of which I have no experience - I still was affected by the evident nostalgia the film-makers feel for their teenage years. There are several teenagers in the house, but the story focusses on Axl - a Spanish guy looking for his father - and Vera - a Belgian girl who takes pictures of all the beds she sleeps in. Despite living in the same house, they lead seperate lives right up till the end. And even then Axl is too drunk to remember the next day. None of the characters have family. They are all vulnerable, good-hearted hedonists trying to find a place for themselves in the world. Instead they find each other. With an awesome soundtrack and a compelling beauty to each character, I think this film could end up as a cult hit.
Seminar on getting Public Funding for Films
This was a particularly long event, during which I got a free cookie and cup of tea and got to meet my first contact. We first had representatives from BBC Films, UK Film Council and Film4, then later had reps from Scottish Screen, EM Media, Screen Yorkshire, South West Screen, and the Screen Agency for Wales. Finally we had a couple of producers (including Soledad Gatti-Pascual of Unmade Beds) talking about building relationships with key folk. This seemed to mainly involve getting drunk...
The main points:
- UK Film Council aren't interested in development. They want a project proposal handed to them with everything in place, ready to go if the money is put in. BBC Films on the other hand, want editorial control all the way through development.
- Money is available to us from more places than just Scottish Screen. For example, if we had a producer, writer or director involved in the project who either was born in Wales or is now living there, we would be eligible for up to £750k from the Screen Agency for Wales and from Finance Wales.
- If, as looks likely, the Tories get into power, they have pledged more control to city councils for film generation. Glasgow City Council would therefore have funds available to give to filmmakers who want to tell Glasgow's stories.
- After 2013, public money is going to dry up significantly.
- Regional public money is all about building and sustaining a local economy. Film is not sustainable, so you have to show how your film will benefit a particular area.
- Is it worth saying to the newly formed Creative Scotland, "You need a new image, to set yourself apart from the gritty hyper-realism of Scottish Screen films. How about an all singing all dancing musical?"
- Regional funders can't just fund a project because it is a good pitch or is commercially viable. It must also have a regional angle and must show innovation.
- The hard sell to funders is a thing of the past. It's all about building relationship with them.
The Secret of Kells (Ireland, 35mm, 75 mins, English Dialogue) ****
Based on the history of the Book of Kells and its associated legends, this is the most Irish film I have ever seen. It is a refreshing chance to hear Irish actors being Irish, as opposed to Irish actors being English, or American actors being Irish. The artwork is based on the flat, heavily stylised calligraphy in the actual book. This at times is distracting, at times breathtakingly beautiful and occasionally so stylised it becomes difficult to get a grip on the action portrayed. The story is nicely done with elements of Celtic myth and Christian rationalism intertwined, both backlit menacingly by the invading Viking army. The inclusion of a fairy and an offensively cute cat put this firmly in the kids camp, but I was enthralled and I reckon there is plenty to keep adults involved. It challenges all of us to work out what are the most important things in our lives.
Tuesday
Boris Ryzhy (Netherlands, HD-Cam, 59 mins, Russian dialogue) **
A quiet and controlled documentary set in Russia. A woman trawls through the tough neighbourhood in which she used to live. She is looking for anyone who remembers her brother Boris: a poet and gangster, who committed suicide during the turmoil after the fall of the Soviet Union. Certain things stood out. There was first the nostalgic way in which they spoke of the USSR. It was, they said, a good place to grow up. So different to the way the regime is portrayed in the mainstream media. Then there was the fact that the search for memories of Boris, and the doors slammed and the interviews refused were far more interesting than the interviews themselves once she found them. Third, the fact that he was an award winning poet was only secondary (despit the boring montage sequences where his poems were read out). THe real story came from a sister and a widow remembering the one they had lost. Melancholy and with some beautiful photography, I liked the organic style to this. It was very natural. You even saw the camerawoman in the hallway mirror and she didn't seem to mind. Ultimately though it was a little uneventful for 9am and at 60 minutes, it felt long.
Black Box Shorts
The film equivalent of CPP, I was bored so utterly mindless by this collection of shorts that I left half way through the screening, along with half the audience. The ones I saw are mentioned below.
Film Quartet-Polyframe (Spain, Beta SP, 9mins)
After about a minute of simple flashes bangs and clicks, we saw clips
from great films such as Singing in the Rain, butchered with distorted sound and
grainy picture. Every couple of seconds these were interrupted with a loud bang.
Not only was this painful to watch, it simply made me wish I was watching
something good such as Singing in the Rain.
George (UK, Beta SP, 4 mins)
Shaky shots of building, furniture and so on, from different angles
to show the difference lighting can make. If the sun is bleaching everything
out, it looks horrible. If the sun is blocked by a windowframe, everything else
looks very pleasant. The point was made in the first thirty seconds. The
remaining three minutes and thirty seconds were pointless.
Deux Regards (USA, Digibeta, 3 mins)
Microscopic-style imagery combined with numbers, drawings and
soundwaves. Instantly forgettable.
Autumnal (USA, Beta SP, 6 mins)
To start with I found this film rather beautiful, with images like
marbled oil playing over the screen. After two minutes of this, accompanied by a
dismal electronic experimental piece, I was done, and I still had another four
minutes to go. The first people started to leave the cinema now.
The Sound of Crickets (USA, Beta SP, 6
mins)
A blue wash. The noise of crickets. For six minutes. The noise was
courtesy (according the credits) of the Freesound website. All the film-maker
provided was the blue wash. You wonder what sort of people come up with
this...
Phatogram (USA, 16mm, 9 mins)
Abstract black and white images. No sound, no beauty, no insight, no
comprehension.
After this I left. Life is too short. If I thought that the auteurs were playing a con, laughing up their sleeves at the gullible art lovers who pay to watch this sort of thing and rave about it being "new", then I might be prepared to watch it. At least I'd be in on the joke. But the last thing I want to do is encourage any of these film-makers from making any more of this useless junk.
Masque of the Red Death (USA, 35mm, 95 mins, English dialogue, 1964)
Due to a mix-up, I arrived 20 minutes late, so missed the crucial set-up of this truly bizarre film. Bust ladies and hammed up villains wandered around a medieval castle, screaming, selling their souls to Satan, dressing up in gorilla suits, screaming, torturing prisoners, falling in love and did I mention screaming... I found this film rather entertaining, but exceptionally dated. There were more laughs than jumps from the packed out audience. Despite the overblown acting, the wobbly camerawork and the piercing screams, this film still has the ability to entertain (albeit in a different way to when it was first devised). If more Scottish film-makers aimed for this kind of B-movie, instead of the bleak and gritty hyper-realism we are known for, I, for one think our films would be far more popular, both here and abroad.
Seminar: New Producers Alliance on Funding Low Budget Features
The key thing coming out of this meeting was that a feature film is not something to try wandering into with a few mates. You need a lot of premeditation, of planning and of sweet talking.
Some points:
- Make use of the Tax Credit (about 20% for UK, but higher for other places. 40% in New Zealand and Canada) This means that you regain 20% of the money you spent in production and can recycle this back into post-production. There can be considerably legal fees in this, but the money that is returned to you, if you had a large enough budget to start with, should vastly over-ride this.
- In the budget, make use first of "non-recoupable" money, such as the Tax Credit. This is money you don't have to pay back. Secondly use public money. Thirdly and finally, look at loans. The final aspect is something you want to use as little of as possible and pay back as soon as possible. Otherwise any profit your film might make will go straight into the interest on the loan.
- A pre-sales document (for distribution in one of the 30 areas of the world) can be hugely influential in getting funding for production. It can be difficult to get this sometimes, as you are marketing a concept, not a finished piece, but having a line of distribution open means investors can see immediately where they return will hopefully be coming from.
- It is a bonus to have known and established people attached to the project as either cast or crew from very early on. This greatly increases investors' confidence in the project.
- Do not expect a cheque for £1million and then artistic freedom to go off and do whatever you want with it. Expect to get the money bit by bit as you need it.
- An Enterprise Investment Scheme is maybe not for first time producers, but (with a mound of paperwork) allows rich people to give money towards your film project rather than paying taxes. I didn't get the full details of this, but it sounds a very interesting avenue of investigation. There is a cap of £2million on each EIS.
- International co-productions are eligible to apply for funds from both countries, but there are implications in terms of where you need to shoot and who you need to hire.
- There are four reasons an investor may give money to a project. (1) Profit (2) Kudos amongst corporate peers (3) Advertising (4) Eccentic philanthropism. In addition to this, large US firms have CSR budgets (Corporate and Social Reponsibility budgets) to invest without return. This is something maybe coming into the UK, but I imagine the credit crunch will have impeded this significantly.
- TV has a more assured audience than film, so investors see it as a lower risk option.
- There are intermediary companies out there who can link up film companies with brand companies looking for product placement. Some brands are very much up for this. But make sure all brands are cleared for use if they are seen on screen.
An Audience with Bill Forsyth
Unashamedly going to namedrop, one of my friends in work is the son of this director, so I was particularly interested to hear him speak. I have never seen any of his work expect for a clip from Gregory's Girl when I was 13. But having seen little clips from his films, Gregory's Girl, Local Hero and Being Human have all jumped onto my list of Films to See. I was struck by his modesty and humility. He didn't like the idea much of three act structure. He said it was Hollywood trying to tell the world that everything can be wrapped up in two hours. Life wasn't like that, and his movies tend to have a very ambiguous ending, because there never really is any sort of ending in real life. Not until death, anyway. He hasn't made a film in ten years, but he said he had another project in development with HBO. He refused to give away any details of it whatsoever, because he was still trying to get the idea clear in his own head.
Wednesday
International Shorts
Another compilation of shorts, but so different from Black Box. These were in general some of the best shorts I've ever seen.
The Eighteenth Birthday Party (Taiwan, Beta SP, 20mins,
Chinese dialogue) ***
Despite some dodgy subtitles, this holds together well in the typical
Oriental style of being horribly and utterly twisted. Cooking a live cat in the
gas oven is only a minor plot point. Some nice photography at the beginning,
very influenced by paintings of still life.
Betty Banned Sweets (New Zealand, Digibeta, 14mins, English
dialogue) **
The teenage protagonist, lost between the alien worlds of childhood
past and adulthood future, is rather unsympathetic. In many ways I felt more
sympathy with his despised mother. Perhaps that was the intention. Its difficult
to tell. Really nice design work, but I'm not sure this ultimately holds
together.
Eiko (Austria, Digibeta, 13 mins, German dialogue)
****
One of the best shorts I've seen. Intriguing characters, sustained
tension, a bizarre plot and wonderful characters. A naive, teenage girl with an
explicit manga comic under her arm hitches a lift with a rather grubby van
driver. But genre expectations are overturned when the sexual predator
turns out to be the girl.
Short Term 12 (USA, HD-Cam, 21 mins, English dialogue)
****
When I saw the advert for this one, I wasn't expecting much. A group
of nurses try to keep things ticking over in their refuge for mentally disturbed
kids. But it turned out to be a very haunting film, with memorable characters,
raw emotion and an engaging story. In an asylum, it's not just the patients who
are a little mad.
Lowland Fell (Ireland, 35mm, 20 mins, English dialogue)
****
I'm noticing this was shot on 35mm and there is an immediate and
obvious difference in photographic quality to those that went before. The light,
the detail and the colours (some of which is no doubt done in grading)
immediately give this depiction of Ireland the air of mystery and intrigue for
which is is reknowned. The over-convenient premise (three co-incidences) is a
drawback and the director obviously didn't think his prop bog-man was very good,
as it wasn't shown until the last third of the film. Maybe it got damaged during
the shoot! But its a film about beautiful people doing interesting things, and I
liked it.
A Conversation with Shane Meadows
I very much enjoyed being one of the audience for Shane and his producer Mark Herbert talking about their films and their rigidly independant way of going about film-making. I found them both very inspiring, and instantly took to them as very down to earth, ordinary guys, passionate about making movies.
His message in a nutshell is as follows. In the UK, a lot of film-makers sit around waiting by the phone for a reply from the UK Film Council offering them money to make their film. But what people really need to do it just go out and do it. Do it for 1p if you have to, do it for £1million if you can, but just do it. Never complain that you don't have enough money. Make do with whatever money you've got. Even if your finished product isn't very good, it will be a lot better than the zero that has been produced by the film-maker next door who is still waiting to hear back from the Film Council. Traiditional film-making standards (caravans, PA's stylists, etc) haemhorrage money and can't be afforded unless you have a massive budget. It's much better to rent out a community hall, and have soup and sandwiches provided. The more money you are given, the less creative freedom you have. In fact, getting £2million can work out as being less money than getting £1million. With the lower budget, people expect lower standards and are happy to work for less. When they hear £2million, suddenly everyone is wanting the full-on treatment. Commercials should not be looked down upon as only worthy of small-time directors. They can be great fun, they allow you to experiment and you get to meet lots of wonderful people. Shane confessed that one of his ambitions was to make an advert for carpets. They are always atrociously bad and he wants to make one that just takes that cheesiness to a whole new level. The launch party they had for their most recent film Le Donk is an example of the style they are going for. Rather than go for the standard corporate event with salmon and champagne that would have cost about as much as the film itself, they rented out a school hall, got some cherryade and pickled onions, set out some board games and charged everyone 75p to enter. The whole event cost £300.
A Conversation with Roger Gorman
One hour later I was back in the cinema to hear another low-budget filmmaker talk. He is arguable one of the most influential filmmakers in the world, not so much for his own output as for his proteges'. He was obviously far more used to public speaking than Shane and Mark. He radiated a certain authority and wisdom which might just have been a persona but which worked very well for him. The interviewer, Kim Newman, was rather geeky and giggly, which irritated me, and the event went on half an hour longer than it should have done, with the questions from the audience getting more and more inane, but it was a good experience. Joe Dante was sitting in the seat behind me.
All in all, EIFF has been a great experience for me, and has really inspired me to keep the goal of a feature film on the horizon and not to lose sight of that during all the focus on shorts and on coursework.
Thursday 18 June 2009
Little Clown
So much time has gone by (for obvious reasons) since I last had time to blog, that I can only drift vaguely over the intervening time.
Preproduction was hard work. My responsibilities as producer were mainly directed towards casting actors and extras, finding a make up person and preparing day schedules. I also helped on the other areas of production: risk assesments, call sheets, location scouting, endless reams of paperwork, and providing input on logistics. In the end, we found two great actors and a decent kid, along with a host of cheerful and happy extras. My make-up contacts fell through, so we settled for one of Gavin's contacts (although I know her brother... it's a small world). In retrospect, I feel it was foolish to think I could continue producing/directing the shooting of Dust while in pre-production for Little Clown. I am very glad I took the decision to postpone it until afterwards. I am now gearing up to begin again a week on Monday. I did, however, have a church conference which I was hosting on the Saturday which was a horrible stress for me as I had been dumped with the task of doing it (having never done anything like that before) and only then heard that my friends in the church, upon whom I would be relying for support, were all going away that weekend or were otherwise engaged. In the end it wasn't a disaster, and given the circumstances that is as much as I could hope for.
Monday: Day One
It was a bad start to the shoot. I was driving several folk there and was picking Phil up first and then the rest from the halls. Phil slept in. (He was still in bed when I arrived at the door.) Once he was into the car, ten minutes later, he managed to get us completely lost in the one way streets of the city centre. (He got us completely lost again on the way back. It's the last time I'm letting him navigate!) Arriving at the set for a production meeting at 1000(30 minutes late), Gavin and myself had to rush away again immediately after to collect various things in the centre and to deal with some paperwork. Due to heavy traffic and a bottleneck-diversion at the Colliseum, by the time we arrived back it was about 1200. Andy seemed unimpressed at how late we were in arriving at set, but time gets eaten away when you are driving around.
After grabbing a sandwich I was into my role as boom op. Despite some initial disagreements between Graeme and myself on the best way of doing things (it seems we both got some things right and other things wrong) I soon settled into the role. I enjoy being involved both on set and in logistics.
The afternoon was the outside scene. We took the risk of filming outside, despite the heavy rain we had experienced in the morning. In the end it paid off, but it was quite a high risk. All the extras turned up to play their part, and we had the rather annoying addition of three kids from next door. They had poor English, miniscule attention spans and a somewhat perverse sense of humour, spanning everything from sitting in the middle of the shot, waving at the camera to grabbing the football off the other kids and chucking it over the fence into the next close. Fortunately two of the three wandered into the close at one point. Closing the door after them, we quickly got Galina to arrange a last take, while I held the door tightly closed. I felt mildly illegal as I held the door tightly closed while two kids were on the other side fighting to get back out, but at least it meant we got the shot, and I gave them both a balloon afterward.
Tuesday
This was a long day of shooting in a rather stifling room, and the kid was not the only one getting grumpy. Tempers were short and frustration rife, but Galina kept us all to schedule and with the occasional rant and firework made sure that we didn't ponder too long over any one shot. In retrospect I think we worked the kid too hard this day.
Wednesday
This was an easier day, and there was a more upbeat mood among the crew. We were over half way there and we were only filming till 3. Lunchbreak went on too long. We finished early in the morning, and the hour's lunchbreak therefore came closer to 90 minutes and it was a real struggle to get motivated again for the afternoon's session.
Thursday
Just the last scene to do and it went moderately smoothly with some cheated juggling shots. We got the kit and props wrapped, the van hired and the flat cleaned. (Can I just put on record that I have never seen a dustier room in my life. Two whole bucket loads of compressed dirt came off that carpet. The landlady gets not too bad a deal out of this, as she would have been left with all the dust if two of our crew hadn't slept in the room for a couple of nights and we had therefore felt obliged to clean it.)
General Comments
While I think Little Clown has been a success, there were some issues, both good and bad that I think deserve to be highlighted.
1) I think Charlotte is an amazing director. Very calm and controlled and gets exactly what she wants from her actors.
2) I think the crew as a whole was too big (certainly at this stage). Communication between indiviuals and departments was a particular issue.
3) I think the camera department in particular seemed to have trouble with communication. Perhaps there was a lack of clarity in the respective roles, in the heirarchy, and in the overall plan for the day, but often I found myself frustrated by how long it was taking to set up a shot. Having said that, I have every faith that the footage we have recorded will be very good. It's more a comment on the method than on the results.
4) It's very useful having someone doing Gavin's role. Someone not involved on set particularly, who can deal with catering, with phonecalls during the day, with planning tomorrow while today is still happening. Especially having burgers ready for everyone on Wednesday lunchtime was a huge boost to morale.
5) A couple of folk said to me they hated their job and felt redundant on set. It seems to me that this was possibly sometimes to do with some confusion over their job description. Of course, there are some jobs which have less responsibility than others. But there was a tendancy occasionally for us who didn't have such strenuous jobs on set to descend into childish banter, which wound up the kid and stressed those who did have more responsibility.
6) Having folk stay on the set was really useful for maintaining focus and for ensuring that mostly everyone was ther eon time at the beginning of the day.
7) There were times (probably over 50% of the time) when the crew really seemed to be working well together, and working like a properly professional team should. These were the times when everyone concentrated on their own role without coveting someone else's, trusted others to do their own without interference and maintained good communication without descending into chat, banter or grumpiness which only distracts.
All in all, it's been a great experience, and I can't wait to see the edit.
Preproduction was hard work. My responsibilities as producer were mainly directed towards casting actors and extras, finding a make up person and preparing day schedules. I also helped on the other areas of production: risk assesments, call sheets, location scouting, endless reams of paperwork, and providing input on logistics. In the end, we found two great actors and a decent kid, along with a host of cheerful and happy extras. My make-up contacts fell through, so we settled for one of Gavin's contacts (although I know her brother... it's a small world). In retrospect, I feel it was foolish to think I could continue producing/directing the shooting of Dust while in pre-production for Little Clown. I am very glad I took the decision to postpone it until afterwards. I am now gearing up to begin again a week on Monday. I did, however, have a church conference which I was hosting on the Saturday which was a horrible stress for me as I had been dumped with the task of doing it (having never done anything like that before) and only then heard that my friends in the church, upon whom I would be relying for support, were all going away that weekend or were otherwise engaged. In the end it wasn't a disaster, and given the circumstances that is as much as I could hope for.
Monday: Day One
It was a bad start to the shoot. I was driving several folk there and was picking Phil up first and then the rest from the halls. Phil slept in. (He was still in bed when I arrived at the door.) Once he was into the car, ten minutes later, he managed to get us completely lost in the one way streets of the city centre. (He got us completely lost again on the way back. It's the last time I'm letting him navigate!) Arriving at the set for a production meeting at 1000(30 minutes late), Gavin and myself had to rush away again immediately after to collect various things in the centre and to deal with some paperwork. Due to heavy traffic and a bottleneck-diversion at the Colliseum, by the time we arrived back it was about 1200. Andy seemed unimpressed at how late we were in arriving at set, but time gets eaten away when you are driving around.
After grabbing a sandwich I was into my role as boom op. Despite some initial disagreements between Graeme and myself on the best way of doing things (it seems we both got some things right and other things wrong) I soon settled into the role. I enjoy being involved both on set and in logistics.
The afternoon was the outside scene. We took the risk of filming outside, despite the heavy rain we had experienced in the morning. In the end it paid off, but it was quite a high risk. All the extras turned up to play their part, and we had the rather annoying addition of three kids from next door. They had poor English, miniscule attention spans and a somewhat perverse sense of humour, spanning everything from sitting in the middle of the shot, waving at the camera to grabbing the football off the other kids and chucking it over the fence into the next close. Fortunately two of the three wandered into the close at one point. Closing the door after them, we quickly got Galina to arrange a last take, while I held the door tightly closed. I felt mildly illegal as I held the door tightly closed while two kids were on the other side fighting to get back out, but at least it meant we got the shot, and I gave them both a balloon afterward.
Tuesday
This was a long day of shooting in a rather stifling room, and the kid was not the only one getting grumpy. Tempers were short and frustration rife, but Galina kept us all to schedule and with the occasional rant and firework made sure that we didn't ponder too long over any one shot. In retrospect I think we worked the kid too hard this day.
Wednesday
This was an easier day, and there was a more upbeat mood among the crew. We were over half way there and we were only filming till 3. Lunchbreak went on too long. We finished early in the morning, and the hour's lunchbreak therefore came closer to 90 minutes and it was a real struggle to get motivated again for the afternoon's session.
Thursday
Just the last scene to do and it went moderately smoothly with some cheated juggling shots. We got the kit and props wrapped, the van hired and the flat cleaned. (Can I just put on record that I have never seen a dustier room in my life. Two whole bucket loads of compressed dirt came off that carpet. The landlady gets not too bad a deal out of this, as she would have been left with all the dust if two of our crew hadn't slept in the room for a couple of nights and we had therefore felt obliged to clean it.)
General Comments
While I think Little Clown has been a success, there were some issues, both good and bad that I think deserve to be highlighted.
1) I think Charlotte is an amazing director. Very calm and controlled and gets exactly what she wants from her actors.
2) I think the crew as a whole was too big (certainly at this stage). Communication between indiviuals and departments was a particular issue.
3) I think the camera department in particular seemed to have trouble with communication. Perhaps there was a lack of clarity in the respective roles, in the heirarchy, and in the overall plan for the day, but often I found myself frustrated by how long it was taking to set up a shot. Having said that, I have every faith that the footage we have recorded will be very good. It's more a comment on the method than on the results.
4) It's very useful having someone doing Gavin's role. Someone not involved on set particularly, who can deal with catering, with phonecalls during the day, with planning tomorrow while today is still happening. Especially having burgers ready for everyone on Wednesday lunchtime was a huge boost to morale.
5) A couple of folk said to me they hated their job and felt redundant on set. It seems to me that this was possibly sometimes to do with some confusion over their job description. Of course, there are some jobs which have less responsibility than others. But there was a tendancy occasionally for us who didn't have such strenuous jobs on set to descend into childish banter, which wound up the kid and stressed those who did have more responsibility.
6) Having folk stay on the set was really useful for maintaining focus and for ensuring that mostly everyone was ther eon time at the beginning of the day.
7) There were times (probably over 50% of the time) when the crew really seemed to be working well together, and working like a properly professional team should. These were the times when everyone concentrated on their own role without coveting someone else's, trusted others to do their own without interference and maintained good communication without descending into chat, banter or grumpiness which only distracts.
All in all, it's been a great experience, and I can't wait to see the edit.
Saturday 6 June 2009
Week Beginning 1st June
A rapid-fire blog on the last week.
Monday was a tutorial with Adam on my webseries. I am very pleased with the progress I am amking so far. By that stage I had done out a logic diagram for the first episode. As I am working on an interactive concept, with different paths based on different choices. I am now half way through writing the script for the first episode. Because of the parallel storylines, with the same events shown from different angles, there is a lot of cut and paste going on.
The afternoon and evening (up till midnight) were taken up with preproduction for both Little Clown and Dust, interspersed by a class with Kim and a 45 minute break over dinner to watch Ashes to Ashes.
Tuesday was a day of chasing up actors for auditions.
Wednesday was a day of auditions followed by a brief class with Abigail. I feel that, having been out of the loop last week, it is taking me a bit longer to get into the rhythm back at the Academy.
Wednesday evening was a location recce for Dust. Phil and myself checked out a church down in Partick, while Benoit, who was supposed to be joining us, got lost up in Jordanhill.
Thursday was a very stressful day. Firstly I was dealing with actors, giving feedback on the auditions. Its always a hard thing to tell an actor they didn't get the part. Then I was helping Galina deal with getting Rab in for Disclosure. The evening was triple booked for me, with auditions for Little Clown clashing with a shoot for Dust and a BBQ with the Christian Union. I helped Paul in gathering needful items for the auditions, made sure the kids were all assembled for the workshop-style audition, then headed off into the West End with the crew for Dust. All was going well until we discovered the camera was broken. (See previous rant!) So we stood down and I managed to get along for the last part of the BBQ. I took the decision with Phil to postpone any further shoots of Dust until Little Clown is over. This may mean we are shooting in the Summer.
Friday was a calmer day. I gave feedback to the kids regarding the audition. It's even worse with kids. I dealt with Nikki's Disclosure form and sent the Dust cast and crew information on what was happening with the shoot. I also attended a Film Festival meeting (after it was over) and had a class with Abigail to update her on proceedings. In the evening I continued work on Adam's assignment and ate far too much pasta.
I am heading out momentarily to meet with the parents of the child we have cast and then to scout out Queen's Park as a location.
Monday was a tutorial with Adam on my webseries. I am very pleased with the progress I am amking so far. By that stage I had done out a logic diagram for the first episode. As I am working on an interactive concept, with different paths based on different choices. I am now half way through writing the script for the first episode. Because of the parallel storylines, with the same events shown from different angles, there is a lot of cut and paste going on.
The afternoon and evening (up till midnight) were taken up with preproduction for both Little Clown and Dust, interspersed by a class with Kim and a 45 minute break over dinner to watch Ashes to Ashes.
Tuesday was a day of chasing up actors for auditions.
Wednesday was a day of auditions followed by a brief class with Abigail. I feel that, having been out of the loop last week, it is taking me a bit longer to get into the rhythm back at the Academy.
Wednesday evening was a location recce for Dust. Phil and myself checked out a church down in Partick, while Benoit, who was supposed to be joining us, got lost up in Jordanhill.
Thursday was a very stressful day. Firstly I was dealing with actors, giving feedback on the auditions. Its always a hard thing to tell an actor they didn't get the part. Then I was helping Galina deal with getting Rab in for Disclosure. The evening was triple booked for me, with auditions for Little Clown clashing with a shoot for Dust and a BBQ with the Christian Union. I helped Paul in gathering needful items for the auditions, made sure the kids were all assembled for the workshop-style audition, then headed off into the West End with the crew for Dust. All was going well until we discovered the camera was broken. (See previous rant!) So we stood down and I managed to get along for the last part of the BBQ. I took the decision with Phil to postpone any further shoots of Dust until Little Clown is over. This may mean we are shooting in the Summer.
Friday was a calmer day. I gave feedback to the kids regarding the audition. It's even worse with kids. I dealt with Nikki's Disclosure form and sent the Dust cast and crew information on what was happening with the shoot. I also attended a Film Festival meeting (after it was over) and had a class with Abigail to update her on proceedings. In the evening I continued work on Adam's assignment and ate far too much pasta.
I am heading out momentarily to meet with the parents of the child we have cast and then to scout out Queen's Park as a location.
Thursday 4 June 2009
Dust: a series of unfortunate events.
Once again I have been thwarted in my attempts to make my movie, and this time I have decided to postpone production for a while.
I think it is therefore worth me considering what has gone wrong so far (and indeed what has gone right) and what I have learnt from the whole experience.
Dust was written in first term here, and passed by the class for consideration. It received a fairly mediocre response. After doing a significant redraft, cutting out 30-40% of the material, I proposed it to Adam and Ros towards the end of 2nd term as a possibility for a TPA/DFTV collaboration. I had done a deal with Phil in that I would produce his "Lord of the Rings in 60 seconds" if he would produce "Dust", and there was a fairly solid group from both DFTV and TPA interested in getting involved in both projects.
However, the project did not meet with favour from "upstairs" and we decided to plough ahead on our own. We knew the last half of third term would be busy so decided to attempt it for the first three weeks of the term. Over Easter some work was done, but as Phil was away, some things were pushed back which should have been done then, most especially in terms of location recce's, risk assesments and gaining filming permission.
We hit the ground running after Easter. Our storyboards were done and auditions were successfully held on the first week. But then we started to run into difficulty as we began to plan shoots. Both Phil and myself have particularly busy lives. When this is combined with actors going into shows, TPA students working 9-9 five days a week, weekend jobs for half the cast and everyone in DFTV wanting to take out the camera kit, things ended up getting pushed further and further into term 3.
Tuesday 28th April was rehearsals for the project, and despite me feeling outclassed talent-wise by the two amazing actors I'd chosen from the auditionees, I felt the session was very useful in bringing them closer to how I had imagined my vision for each piece of the film.
Wednesday 29th April was a session of recording voice-over and additional dialogue, and despite my reservations, it went fine.
Wednesday 6th May (lunchtime) was our first scene to be shot. It was very simple. One shot. One actor. It went like a dream. No problems whatsoever. The acting was wonderful. The scenic art backdrop was very nice.
Monday 11th May was when things started to fall apart. This was supposed to be our shoot for two of the simpler external scenes. One actor. One location. But due to a breakdown in communication (new numbers, last minute clarification, no single individual in complete charge), the crew didn't realise something was happening and the actor turned up without any costume. So we had to abandon filming for the day.
Wednesday 13th May was a slight upturn on the project's fortunes. We managed a double location recce and also filmed two scenes. The second scene was particularly rushed. The lighting wasn't great and although I haven't had the chance to watch the footage back, I am unsure how it will turn out.
Friday 15th May was another big downturn. We were all ready to film two fairly major scenes in a shoot planned to run late into the evening. We were all assembled (with a new sound guy drafted in at the last minute) and we were poised to go, but after waiting a little to get kit from the kit room, we tried phoning the tutors. Only then did we discover that our emails had gone un-noticed and that they were both out of the building. With no way of getting the kit signed out, we had to stand down for a second shoot within a week.
On 21st May, Little Clown was commissioned and I was thrown into pre-production for that, concurrently with continued planning for Dust. In between each shoot, I am examining every day (every morning, lunchtime, afternoon, evening) for any slot where the required people are available simultaneously and the kit is available too. For example, our big shoot of six scenes, planned for a long time for the holiday on the 25th of May, was cancelled the moment Ray saw our kit request.
Following a hiatus, I tried again to film a scene tonight, 4th June. We had the crew together. We had the actor in costume and make up. We had the set dressed (it had taken 40 minutes of work by three bodies). We had the lights in place (sort of). We had the shot framed up. We tried to put the tape in. And.... no. Errors and warning lights and after further investigation a little piece of plastic that had somehow snapped and was now just dangling instead of playing its part. So the camera was packed away, the set was undressed, the make-up was wiped off, the actor and make-up lady drove off, the equipment was all put back in its boxes and we were back to where we started. Except now we have a broken camera to report. It wasn't us, honest...
I think my new plan is to postpone Dust until after my visit to the Edinburgh Film Festival. By then Little Clown will be over (from a Production point of view), the actors and artists should be free of other pressing commitments and classes for DFTV should have completely come to an end. We can see what can be accomplished in these last few days before term ends officially. But for now, Dust is put back in the box.
So what have I learnt?
1) Don't attempt extra-curricular projects in Term 3.
2) The producer must be focussed 100% on the project and must be taking the initiative in planning shoots. The producer must be communicating with all cast and crew. The director must step back and allow the producer to do this without interference. A daily update for all cast and crew from the producer is a good idea, though in a long running saga like Dust this could get wearisome quickly.
I think it is therefore worth me considering what has gone wrong so far (and indeed what has gone right) and what I have learnt from the whole experience.
Dust was written in first term here, and passed by the class for consideration. It received a fairly mediocre response. After doing a significant redraft, cutting out 30-40% of the material, I proposed it to Adam and Ros towards the end of 2nd term as a possibility for a TPA/DFTV collaboration. I had done a deal with Phil in that I would produce his "Lord of the Rings in 60 seconds" if he would produce "Dust", and there was a fairly solid group from both DFTV and TPA interested in getting involved in both projects.
However, the project did not meet with favour from "upstairs" and we decided to plough ahead on our own. We knew the last half of third term would be busy so decided to attempt it for the first three weeks of the term. Over Easter some work was done, but as Phil was away, some things were pushed back which should have been done then, most especially in terms of location recce's, risk assesments and gaining filming permission.
We hit the ground running after Easter. Our storyboards were done and auditions were successfully held on the first week. But then we started to run into difficulty as we began to plan shoots. Both Phil and myself have particularly busy lives. When this is combined with actors going into shows, TPA students working 9-9 five days a week, weekend jobs for half the cast and everyone in DFTV wanting to take out the camera kit, things ended up getting pushed further and further into term 3.
Tuesday 28th April was rehearsals for the project, and despite me feeling outclassed talent-wise by the two amazing actors I'd chosen from the auditionees, I felt the session was very useful in bringing them closer to how I had imagined my vision for each piece of the film.
Wednesday 29th April was a session of recording voice-over and additional dialogue, and despite my reservations, it went fine.
Wednesday 6th May (lunchtime) was our first scene to be shot. It was very simple. One shot. One actor. It went like a dream. No problems whatsoever. The acting was wonderful. The scenic art backdrop was very nice.
Monday 11th May was when things started to fall apart. This was supposed to be our shoot for two of the simpler external scenes. One actor. One location. But due to a breakdown in communication (new numbers, last minute clarification, no single individual in complete charge), the crew didn't realise something was happening and the actor turned up without any costume. So we had to abandon filming for the day.
Wednesday 13th May was a slight upturn on the project's fortunes. We managed a double location recce and also filmed two scenes. The second scene was particularly rushed. The lighting wasn't great and although I haven't had the chance to watch the footage back, I am unsure how it will turn out.
Friday 15th May was another big downturn. We were all ready to film two fairly major scenes in a shoot planned to run late into the evening. We were all assembled (with a new sound guy drafted in at the last minute) and we were poised to go, but after waiting a little to get kit from the kit room, we tried phoning the tutors. Only then did we discover that our emails had gone un-noticed and that they were both out of the building. With no way of getting the kit signed out, we had to stand down for a second shoot within a week.
On 21st May, Little Clown was commissioned and I was thrown into pre-production for that, concurrently with continued planning for Dust. In between each shoot, I am examining every day (every morning, lunchtime, afternoon, evening) for any slot where the required people are available simultaneously and the kit is available too. For example, our big shoot of six scenes, planned for a long time for the holiday on the 25th of May, was cancelled the moment Ray saw our kit request.
Following a hiatus, I tried again to film a scene tonight, 4th June. We had the crew together. We had the actor in costume and make up. We had the set dressed (it had taken 40 minutes of work by three bodies). We had the lights in place (sort of). We had the shot framed up. We tried to put the tape in. And.... no. Errors and warning lights and after further investigation a little piece of plastic that had somehow snapped and was now just dangling instead of playing its part. So the camera was packed away, the set was undressed, the make-up was wiped off, the actor and make-up lady drove off, the equipment was all put back in its boxes and we were back to where we started. Except now we have a broken camera to report. It wasn't us, honest...
I think my new plan is to postpone Dust until after my visit to the Edinburgh Film Festival. By then Little Clown will be over (from a Production point of view), the actors and artists should be free of other pressing commitments and classes for DFTV should have completely come to an end. We can see what can be accomplished in these last few days before term ends officially. But for now, Dust is put back in the box.
So what have I learnt?
1) Don't attempt extra-curricular projects in Term 3.
2) The producer must be focussed 100% on the project and must be taking the initiative in planning shoots. The producer must be communicating with all cast and crew. The director must step back and allow the producer to do this without interference. A daily update for all cast and crew from the producer is a good idea, though in a long running saga like Dust this could get wearisome quickly.
Monday 1 June 2009
Week Beginning 25/5
This has been un unusual week for me. Monday's highlight was filming Black Cats and Blue Angels, which I found quite enjoyable, though I wasn't impressed at my handheld camera skills. My hands are too shaky to hold a cup and saucer steady, let alone a camera.
Tuesday to Friday was working as a runner for STV on a documentary about the murderer Peter Tobin. He is going on trial for his third murder this June and the documentary is to be released as soon as he is found guilty. (I appreciate it is odd that the result is a foregone conclusion, but the body was found buried in his back garden alongside someone else for whose murder he has already been convicted, so his chances of being acquitted are very slim.)
One highlight from the week was wandering round the STV store up in Ruchill (a vast warehouse of props and pieces of old sets). Also, wrapping a mannequin up in black tarpaulin and carrying it around in the boot of my car for a week, along with spades, a high chair and several sharp knives and other assorted goods was fun. I was glad it wasn't a van I was given to drive. Even the People carrier I had took a bit of getting used to. I almost got stuck in the low roofed Somerfields carpark and the turning circle required is ridiculous.
At one point, I was told "Go and buy a pick and get it to Aikenhead road as soon as you can". A pick, I though? Where in the world can I buy a pick? I was in the middle of the West End at the time, and it's not the sort of thing to be found in Eau Naturalle... Eventually I found a Jewsons in Anniesland which did the trick, but I looked even odder stowing a pick in beside the tarpaulin body in the boot.
I was surprised at how low budget the reconstruction was. The actors were not professionals: they had been found from extras agencies and colleges. Indeed the lady playing Angelika Kluk was none other than our very own Jennifer Joyes of "Love, Mugs and Stickmen" fame. We were filming in the houses of crew members and their friends. The crew were extras (including myself!). Everything was done on the cheap. But it was a good experience because at that low level, with a much smaller team, it was easier to get chatting with everyone from the Director to the Camera Assistant. They seemed happy with my work and I was asked to pass on my details to the director in case more work came up.
But I'm glad to be back. Saturday was a huge catch-up period, talking with Charlotte and Gavin about all the stuff which I felt I should have been diong instead of floating around with STV. Hopefully I should be able to pull my weight now for the duration of production.
Tuesday to Friday was working as a runner for STV on a documentary about the murderer Peter Tobin. He is going on trial for his third murder this June and the documentary is to be released as soon as he is found guilty. (I appreciate it is odd that the result is a foregone conclusion, but the body was found buried in his back garden alongside someone else for whose murder he has already been convicted, so his chances of being acquitted are very slim.)
One highlight from the week was wandering round the STV store up in Ruchill (a vast warehouse of props and pieces of old sets). Also, wrapping a mannequin up in black tarpaulin and carrying it around in the boot of my car for a week, along with spades, a high chair and several sharp knives and other assorted goods was fun. I was glad it wasn't a van I was given to drive. Even the People carrier I had took a bit of getting used to. I almost got stuck in the low roofed Somerfields carpark and the turning circle required is ridiculous.
At one point, I was told "Go and buy a pick and get it to Aikenhead road as soon as you can". A pick, I though? Where in the world can I buy a pick? I was in the middle of the West End at the time, and it's not the sort of thing to be found in Eau Naturalle... Eventually I found a Jewsons in Anniesland which did the trick, but I looked even odder stowing a pick in beside the tarpaulin body in the boot.
I was surprised at how low budget the reconstruction was. The actors were not professionals: they had been found from extras agencies and colleges. Indeed the lady playing Angelika Kluk was none other than our very own Jennifer Joyes of "Love, Mugs and Stickmen" fame. We were filming in the houses of crew members and their friends. The crew were extras (including myself!). Everything was done on the cheap. But it was a good experience because at that low level, with a much smaller team, it was easier to get chatting with everyone from the Director to the Camera Assistant. They seemed happy with my work and I was asked to pass on my details to the director in case more work came up.
But I'm glad to be back. Saturday was a huge catch-up period, talking with Charlotte and Gavin about all the stuff which I felt I should have been diong instead of floating around with STV. Hopefully I should be able to pull my weight now for the duration of production.
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