Planning And Making A Film

I have undertaken making a short film in a group of 7. In my group there is Eve, Joe, Lucy, George, Ros, Daniel and myself. We have been given a script to work with and have equipment booked out for the 13th and 14th of November.

I'm looking forward to this project as i like the idea of taking a script that none of the production team have been involved in writing and trying to make our own interpretation of it.

I think every member of my group has reservations about the script and the story however so we've decided to rewrite the whole thing.

We have taken away the dialogue and decided to a silent film with the music directing the audience instead of forced conversations. This also halved our fears about getting good actors as the script no longer requires that much from the performers.

Here is a brief outline of the script as we are going to shoot it:

• Dan (the protagonist) is lying in bed. There is an argument happening in the room next to him that he can hear clearly. The argument is about him and is between his parents.
• He stands up and leaves the room through a door.
• When he walks through the door he is suddenly in a library. He looks back into his room and then curiously walks through the library.
• He walks through another door and is once again teleported but this time to a cafe.
• He keeps walking through doors and teleporting to various locations and as he does so he becomes more confident and almost cocky.
• He teleports outside and there is a couple walking down the street. The girl looks at him which sets the man off into a jealous rage.
• He runs through a car door and is teleported into a porch.
• He is visibly distressed and leaves the porch.
• As he walks home he sees the girl, they look at each other and the film ends.

I'm a little bit worried about the story but i feel that if everything is filmed well and the actors, in particularly Dan, perform well then the film will be a success.

Planning And Making A Film (research)

When I first read the script for 'choices' I immediately thought of the film 'Jumper'. In this film a teenager discovers he can teleport and sets about robbing banks (as you do).

I found this film very entertaining and, for me, the only reason was the characters ability to teleport or 'jump'.

The story wasn't that good and in parts made little sense to me but I couldn't get over how cool the idea is of being able to travel anywhere simply by thinking you want to go there.

I think if we can bottle that concept up in our film it would be very entertaining to watch.

The Disaster That Was Pre-Production, Production and Post-Production of My Group Project

As the deadline for my group project drew ever closer my group decided to make several changes to our project so that it would be a little easier to create and also to fit inside the 5-8 minute length requirement. We kept the theme of the story but got rid of the three separate narratives that meet at the climax of the film idea as it would require to many actors and locations and was really a bit out of our reach. We also decided to allocate production roles to each member of the group. Harry Symes and I would be co-directors and co-editors, Carlina Flood would be producer and Keiran Jones would be sound. This meant that each member of the team would have an exact idea of what the part in the production would be and so would know there responsibilities .
Carlina was quite successful at finding actors, she made a shortlist that got whittled down into the final cast, I booked out equipment and Keiran was able to gain permission to film in the Victoria Works. But tragically disaster struck; two days before filming was scheduled to start our lead actor pulled out. This forced us to use Matt, Carlina's Boy Friend and a music student with no previous acting experience. This also meant that we had to change pubs so i arranged for us to film in the Royal Oak.
Filming started on a Thursday and finished the following Friday. Along the way we pretty much had every single problem in the book happen including; sound problems, lighting problems, location problems, props breaking, transportation issues, script issues, running out of day light whilst filming the chase scene, a main character injuring himself etc..
Post production also lasted about a week and was acompanied by our group falling down many pitfalls, the most problamatic of which was the final edit of the film being 4 minutes over the required length. this meant we were forced to cut a third of the film, which made a barely watchable film even more difficult to follow. Any here is the result of our suffering:




This is not a film i am proud of. The only positives I can take away from it are that we attempted to make quite an ambitious film and failed doing it and I feel like I've learnt a lot from the mistakes we made whilst making it. We needed to give ourselves more time to film and edit, also we needed to prepare better in pre-production.

Personal Project Development

I found with my initial idea for my personal project that there was far to many major problems including; Copyright, security and access issues. I have decided to evolve my idea into something a lot more doable but still around the same subject: football fans passion/boarder line obsessions with their clubs. I watched clips such as this:



I thought this would be a nice idea but it'd require a lot of consent and form filling so i decided to something a bit more low key. I had an idea of doing a sports style interview so i looked into some interviews given by football players, in particular experienced footballers who have experience giving this style of interview:





I have taken ideas from both of these styles and decided to create an interview with a fan in the style of the sports press. Basically I'm going to make a fan seem as important as a professional footballer, I want this to reflect their importance to the club's success .

Personal Project

I have recently undertaken the task of creating a video project by myself. I thought of several ideas for this project including short films, animation, but have decided to create a short documentary about a football fans passion for his club and the sport.
I am planning to film a documentary on my friend Lewis. He is a madly devoted Aston Villa fan who lives in Birmingham. The documentary will be about his passion for the club and also the build up and aftermath of the Birmingham city derby at their home ground (Villa Park). I have purchased a ticket for this game and have confirmed everything with Lewis. This game is known to be one of the most heated fixtures in the world with Aston Villa and Birmingham City being very old rivals (image from weblo.com), so it is perfect for the kind of content I was looking for.
My main concern is being able to film inside the stadium. I'm not sure what their regulations are on this kind of thing. I was thinking of using some of the highlights but then there are copyright issues which are very complicated when it comes to sport what with the BBC and Sky wrestling over the rights.
Before I begin production of this piece I want to get a better background knowledge of the rivalry between the two clubs and how far it runs down their history.
The rivalry is known as the Birmingham city derby or the second city derby and has produced heated matches for over one hundred. The first competitive match between the two clubs was in a 1888 FA cup game that Aston Villa walked away from 4-0 winners . Since then the rivalry has grown and more and more often there have been acts of violence before and after games which has resulted in the premier league arranging all of the fixtures to be played at lunch time to stop supporters drinking through the day and acting anti-socially at the stadiums.





Obviously I'm not hoping for a repeat of any of this kind of violence but i will attempt to capture the atmosphere and a bit of the hatred going around the stadium on match day.

OMG Final Piece

A while ago we filmed a short project named 'OMG' (oh my god) as small groups of three or four. The idea was that we'd shoot a person hurrying to get somewhere in separate groups and then edit two groups footage together to make a final product. Our combined groups edited the footage to make it seem like one person was chasing the other and then filmed an ending that complemented this. I decided that the film needed something extra to make it seem complete so I used soundtrack pro to add some sound effects and music.

Here is the outcome:

OMG Full Version from Tom Charnley on Vimeo.

The ending that was shot after the films were edited together was quite humorous so I decided to use the music to give the whole thing a kind of comical feel. I felt this went pretty well however I have received some feedback from my peers that suggest that it is a bit difficult to grasp why the music changes so drastically between Chloe's footage and mikes. This was meant as a joke and not a serious soundtrack and most people got it but I'd have been happier if it had been a little bit easier on the ear. I think this would have been achieved if it was edited with this gag in mind. However i was very pleased with all the footage we collected and was happy with the final Piece.

After watching it I looked for another example of a amateur chase film. When I found this it gave me a massive ego boost and I thought it was so bad it was almost good. But not quite.

I think what alarmed me most when I saw this short film was that it used the same joke as me at the beginning. Maybe that's something for me to be concerned about.......

Today a group of us filmed an interview between two of our classmates. We filmed in the morning using a Sony z1 camera and a 416-shotgun microphone that required phantom power. We choose to use a shotgun or rifle microphone because the 416 dampens and blocks out sound from around and behind the microphone and focuses on picking up the sound in front of it, this makes rifle microphones ideal for capturing interviews.

Here is the finished interview.

Mike And Kirsty Interview from Tom Charnley on Vimeo.

The film was edited Using Final Cut and took around forty minutes to complete.
I have mixed feelings about the final product. The negative points would be; the interviewee found it hard not to giggle (MIKE!) the room was pretty dark and some times the sound could have been better in part. Positive things I would have to say are that I like the shots and also there is a good feel to the interview, even when mike laughs it kind of makes it more entertaining.

Sound-Editing

This week I have completed adding sound to a clip from the film 'City of God'. To do this I used the sound-editing program Soundtrack Pro. I was interested to find out more about sound editing and thought that animation would be a good area to look at as the sound is obviously added separately to the motion.




This is the trailer to 'Kung Fu Panda' an animation film made by DreamWorks studios. I though this was quite a good example of sound editing as there is lots of action scenes with punching falls and the sound of limbs swinging through the air and also atmospheric sounds e.g. the wind and sounds of cymbals. There is some good dialog in this film but I was more interested in looking at the natural sounds.

Here are basic instructions to adding sound to animation.

Treatment

Our piece is going to be a short gangster film. We want to have a classy feel to the piece and also want it to have comical edges to it. We have sighted Quentin Tarantino and (more importantly) guy Richie as major inspiration for the project. We are aware that these are amazingly successful directors but we have decided to aim high and hope to perform as best we can. The piece will be clever and humorous with excitement provided through action scenes/chases.

We want the film to be clever yet easy to follow. To achieve this we have decided to file down our original complex storyline into a more manageable yet still engaging narrative.

Here is a taste of the storyline;

Main characters: Johnny & Adrian

1. Johnny finds lots of unpaid bills, electricity goes, milk off etc. Everything going wrong. Chats to Adrian, suggests dealing drugs to earn some more money. Adrian against the idea, too much at stake ie girlfriend.
2. Adrian meets girlfriend Cheryl, for lunch, she looks fed up. He asks if she can pay. Then asks if she can sort out his rent. She's pissed off and leaves him. Also leaves her wallet. Adrian eyes up the wallet & takes it. BINGO!
3. Adrian calls Johnny tells him to meet him at certain street.
4. Walking shot of Adrian telling Johnny he is now keen to deal and that he has money to do it but doesn't go into detail. They walk to their old dealers, Oily Pete.
5. Inside their oily Pete's house, he thinks he's a bit of a G will try and make it funny(?) Both want to know where they can get hold of something stronger. Oily Pete says he is about to go down to Big Druggy Raggy who may be able to sort them out. Oily Pete calls Raggy and gets the go-ahead.
6. Johnny, Adrian & Oily Pete go to Raggy's and negotiate a deal. Adrian hands the briefcase of money to Raggy, Johnny appears shocked that he has all that cash. Raggy barely checks it but remains intimidating. Raggy eventually hands over the drugs, saying something like "I like you guys, I feel like I can trust ya".
7. J&A exit Raggy's. Johnny asks how Adrian got the money but Adrian says to start running.
8. Back to Raggy & co, one of his cronies checking the money. "Boss, we've got a problem..."
9. Raggy & co "OOOOOIIIII!!!!" Start to chase them.
10. Big chase scene Raggy & co vs J&A
11. Police notice Raggy & co with gun so chase them & arrest them
12. J&A get away, with drugs.
13. Stills of successful drug deals with captions underneath.
14. Stills of the other characters, Raggy & co behind bars. End of story!!!!

This is a general outline of the narrative and changes will surely be made during production. We are thing of filming in bath and Bristol. We believe that the piece would benefit from filming in Bristol when filming some of the outdoor shots due to bath looking to posh. Reconnaissance has been performed on possible shooting destinations. Are main issue at the moment is finalising the script and casting.

Product Research Into Short Films/Gangster Films

I am researching for ideas for a short gangster films to further my understanding of the genre. i intend to look into not only gangster films but also films by other british directors.

First off I took a look at Jamie Thraves, who has directed such short films as 'I just want to kiss you'



and the video for 'Coffee and T.V.' blur.

I liked a few things about 'I Just Want to Kiss You'. I liked the very British feel it had to it, this film oozes working class England, with its rough settings and jazzy music and that’s really the kind of film I’m hopping to create. I also found the editing style interesting, the way it cuts sharply between scenes is something I could see being a stylish way to edit our groups project, which is essentially going to be a British gangster film.

I found the 'Coffee and TV.' music video less helpful as it was a film based around a carton of milk. Having said that it still had that very English atmosphere about it and that is something I have become interested since taking a look at some of Jamie Thraves work. Though I didn't find much to take from 'Coffee and T.V.' I still found it interesting to look into as my initial idea was to create a music video.

After looking into Jamie Thraves I moved onto another more obvious director, Guy Ritchie.

I’d seen a few of Ritchie’s main classic gangster films such as; ‘Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, ‘Snatch’ and ‘Rock n Rolla', but the film I wanted to take a look at was one of the first Guy Ritchie made called 'The Hard Case'.

What interested me more about ‘The Hard Case’ than other Ritchie productions was that it was one of his firsts and also it was a short film (it only runs for twenty minutes). I found it interesting to get an insight into where one of the most successful English directors in the world started out.

Watching ‘The Hard Case’ was very useful to my research. It clearly had a lot smaller budget than you’d expect from a Guy Ritchie film, yet it still showed the class and griminess that he often brings into his work. It also had a very British feel akin to Jamie Thraves work. Though this piece was closer to what I would like to create than ‘I Just Want to Kiss You’ it was still a bit too heavy for my liking. I want the film my group creates to be slightly more light hearted and humorous.

Paintworks Pitch

Our group has recently pitched our idea for our short film at paintworks studio, due to illness the only members able to give the pitch were me and Harry.

We decided in the meeting prior to the pitch that we would go ahead with the drug deal story line as we both understood it the best and it was the most developed idea.

The basic idea for the film is three short story lines interweaving with each other and eventually coming to ahead at the climax of the short film. The story is based around a drug deal with the dealers, the undercover police and the buyers all having the separate narratives that join together at the end. I cited Guy Ritchie’s work as an example of the kind of thing we are taking inspiration from. The working title for the piece is ‘The Smart, The Serious and the CID’.

We still need to decide on the main structure behind the film but we are at this point laying down some firm foundations for the piece. We also need to decide on cast and settings. The film will all be shot by Kieran, Carlina, Harry and I.

Proposal For My Groups Short Film

For project production we have been assigned a short movie project. The movie should last between 5-7 minutes. Are class is to do this in groups so I have teamed up with Kieran Jones, Carlina Flood and Harry Symes, as we all want to create a short fictional movie.

I choose to work on a short film because I have only done a couple in the past and I wanted to branch away from making music videos as that is what I usually choose to do when given this kind of free rain.

As a group we have discussed several different options for the story line, here are some of our potential ideas;
• A gritty film based around a homeless persons love for a woman/drug
• A horror film about a killer ghost
• A action/comedy involving three separate storylines that come to a head at the climax of the film which would be a drug deal
I find myself leaning more towards the last idea than any of the others. I believe that this idea would be a lot easier to make look believable and would be more entertaining idea for a short film, though I should stress that a final decision on the storyline is yet to be made.

Our main intentions for the film are to make it entertain and captivating through out and every member of our group is well aware that it can be difficult to achieve this.