Writing a Script

I have recently completed writing a script for 'my planning and making a film' module. This was something I found very challenging as I hadn't written a short story since I was about seven.

I knew I had this project coming up so I had plenty of time to think of a story I came up with a few basic ideas but eventually I found a news article about a man who had been wrongly diagnosed with cancer. As soon as I read the article I knew the story would be perfect for a short film so I straight away set about writing a rough draft.

Here is a brief outline of the story:

• James (the protagonist) is diagnosed with a terminal illness.
• He struggles to come to terms with his sudden death.
• He Meets with a friend called George at a pub.
• George is concerned that James isn't taking the situation seriously enough.
• James leaves the pub and returns a few hours later having sold all of his things.
• Him and George go on a massive bender, drinking, buying expensive clothes, eating in expensive restaurants etc....
• After a massive night out James wakes up in the morning and walks to the hospital.
• He is then told he doesn't have cancer.

Before I started writing this script I thought it was going to be a comedy but as soon as I gave it some real thought I realised that for the bulk of the story there isn't really much to laugh about. I mean guess it could still be seen as quite a dark comedy but that is really up to the interpretation of the reader.

Editing and End Product

After the weekend of filming set about editing the film pretty much straight away. The Chief editors for the film were myself, Daniel Dearing and Lucy Baker. We took shifts each having a crack at the editing over the space of a two weeks. I'm very pleased with our edit and also the fantastic music written by George Turner specifically for the film.

Here is the finished product:

The production of this film went incredibly smoothly which is a stark contrast to some other productions I have worked on. I believe this to be down to extremely good planning by the director and producer and also because we never bit off more than we could chew. We scaled down the script and made the film a lot more achievable. On my next film however I would like to be a bit more ambitious and try to push the boundaries a bit more.

The Big Weekend

As planned my production team filmed the newly named short film 'Exits' on the weekend of the 13th and 14th of November.

We had sorted everything out (more or less) before the beginning of the shoot and had gained permission to film on the Saturday in:

• Just Beauty.
• Waverley Cafe.
• Bath Spa Library.

We had also planned to film the street scene on Saturday evening but due to a travel mix up we were stranded at Bath Spa library.

Filming went really well with the library scenes in particular standing out as the best looking shots of the weekend.

On the Sunday we filmed at the following:

• The Salamander.
• Posh n Not.
• A privately owned flat.
• A public street.

This filming went very well and saw all of the actors up their games and out in really believable performances.

Here is a rough behind the scenes of the weekend filmed by Lucy Baker.

Its mostly Lucy babbling like an idiot and us eating but I like to feel it gives a good impression of the feel good atmosphere around the production.

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 .