Kill It Kid Edit Research

Having reviewed the footage we shot of 'Kill It Kid' live at Komedia I've started to think about the way me and my co editor, Harry Symes, can cut it together.

Firstly we've decided to take a song the band have recorded in a studio and piece together a music video using the footage we took of them performing live. This wasn't our initial idea or preference. We wanted to do a live music piece, but there was audio recording problems on the night and after listening back to the recordings we immediately realised we couldn't use any of them. Its a shame but we are going to make the best out of this change of direction.

I've been looking through music videos that use the same technique as we are about to adopt to try and get some ideas/inspiration.

This video is exactly what I picture when this sort of music video comes to mind. I did enjoy watching it but I found that in some parts the footage is so disjointed from the music that it can be a bit jarring.

I really like the way this video has been produced. It uses the footage of the track being performed live and manages to splice in some of the footage of the rest of the gig. I think it works really well, the footage of them playing the track live gives the piece a back bone whilst the footage of the rest of the gig makes the performance more exciting. This is definelty a technique we will be using for our edit. I really like the idea of focusing on one song whilst still getting the most of all the footage we shot across the gig. The main decision now is which song was filmed the best so we know which to ask the band for.

Preproduction of My Retake

For my product production retake four members of my class and I will be filming 'Kill It Kid' live at 'Komedia'.

'Kill It Kid' are a band from Bath and have been described as a blues, rock and soul group. They have attracted quite a bit of national attention with NME rating their debut album 8 out of 10.

I have prepared for the upcoming shoot by familiarising myself with the 'Kill It Kid' material available online.

Here is a music video for their up and coming single, 'Pray on me':

Komedia is the venue in which we will be filming 'Kill It Kid'. Komedia Is a small chain of venues that put on stand up comedy, theatre and live music shows.

As you can see from the image, Komedia is a relitively large venue for bath, especially since it has balcony that seats around 100 people and can be seen at the top this picture.

When the balcony is open to the

public the venues capacity is around 600.

I did a rece of the venue and spoke to Komedia's technical adviser who discussed with me the possibility of rigging a camera to the lighting rig and also ran through with me the areas in which it would be best to set up static cameras. He also informed me that it would be highly unlikely that the balcony would be open so my group could set up a camera up there for a wide angle shot.

A Fresh Start

So a new project! I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in to this one and learning from the mistakes we made last time and hopefully improving on our film and grade.

The production team has changed slightly since our last production, sadly Daniel Derring is no longer working with us, also our production teams name has been changed to 'Deaf Defying Productions'. This is a reference to The film that we are about to produce.

Our roles within the team have also been altered with Joe Wedgebury taking over the directing duties, Lucy Baker becoming the official producer and Eve Beddows is joining me in the edit.

We choose a script from a pool of scripts created by both second year 'Planning and Making a Film' classes. We toyed with the idea of choosing the script, 'Connect 4' a story set in a restaurant, but decided on the script 'A Good Listener' because of its flexibility and also because we felt it would be more achievable to make.

Our first decision as a group was to rewrite the script. This was done by Eve Beddows. Eve also renamed the script 'Talk To Me'. I really feel like Eve has greatly improved the script, the dialogue in particular is far more believable.

Before we started production on this film I wanted to take a look at previous examples of deafness in cinema, so I watched the 1986 film 'Children of a Lesser god'. Before watching the film I knew that Marlee Matlin had become the first deaf person to win an Academy Award so I naturally had quite high expectations. I was not at all disappointed. I found this film an invaluable watch as the story really shows the plight of a young woman in here situation, trying to deal with relationships with people with hearing, without relying on gimmicks. Here is a clip from the film:

This clip shows the way the film really understands how deafness effects a person and also people around them. We should definitely be thinking about the subjects when creating our short film.

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.