where i am now

Well, in case you were wondering, and from the hits it received, you weren’t, I made the film and it was……ok.  The people involved really liked it, but they could have just been polite.  Every time I looked at it, I saw problems, but it was a story.  I learnt a lot doing it, and to be honest, I can’t be bothered to list it all here.  If you want to know what I learnt, you can read all about it in the filmmakers section on Raindance.  It will tell you all the mistakes that all first time filmmakers make, and it’s really worth a read. 

I have a made a film I am proud of now.  It’s called be all my sins remembered, and you can watch it here. http://goo.gl/BRdIX  There are still things I’d like to change, but as a learning experience it was very good.  I didn’t write the dialogue, I just adapted something by someone a lot better at it than me.  Bill Shakespeare, I salute you. 

Now I am working on something original, and this is something I want to be good.  It’s a short film again, my final practice film, ready for me to make not a film, but a movie.  If you read this, and you are intrigued, then you are invited to the public screening.  It won’t cost you anything, other than getting there and what ever you want to eat and drink.  

so it's that time again

Moved from old blog

So it’s that time again, blogging away (are there two g’s in bloging or just the one in blogging?)

Anyway, an update. 

I have written a short film, and by short I mean about 5 minutes long.  It may run even less.  The idea behind it to start learning how to make films properly.  The film I shot before was ok, but had no plan due to the time to do it. 

This one has a script, a shot list, an audio requirements list and even a plan for foley.  If you don’t know what Foley means, I suggest that you google it.  It’s an interesting field of work, and when it’s not done you know it’s missing.

Back to the story, it’s what my one reader wants to know about, I thank you whoever you are, you make it all worthwhile.

The story comes from a script I wrote a long time ago.  It’s nothing flashy, just a simple chase, one person after another, there are only 20 scenes in all, 5 pages long.  Sounds like it would be simple, right?

Wrong.  My shot list, which are the bits I know I have to film runs to 20 pages.  And that doesn’t include the shots that I will grab on the day.  All the little bits that go into making a film what it is.  Simple stuff, but a lot of it. 

It’s almost enough to make your head spin, but if you are directing a film, even a short one, the last thing you need to do is loose your head.  There is so much to think about, but the biggest problem I though I would have has been resolved.

The Cast.

Seeing that there’s a bit of action in it, I need to make sure my cast is believable in action.  I think I have that.  One of them I have directed before, and she is good on camera, but now a lot of it depends on here.  I need to make sure of a couple of things but I think using her will add to the film now, make it a bit different.

I now also have a crew.  I’ve directed another camera in the past, but this time I have a sound man, and he will also do the foley work for me (don’t forget to google it).  Mike Figgis said in his most excellent book on digital filmmaking, that the audience will forgive a bad image, but not bad audio.

I can believe that.  I saw the first Transformers movie in the cinema, and hated the sound on it, it was just…….too noisy! 

My first film, Purple Trip had lots of sound issues, mainly as I only used the on camera mic due to time problems.  I was going to make it silent, but it needed their sound.  Wish I had been stricter now. 

Still I have the plan for the short, and I will be making it in a couple of weeks, by which I mean over Easter break. 

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

p.s. If you’re wondering why the web address, it’s so I can find it later

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/28/charlie-brooker-rebecca-black-friday?CMP=NECNETTXT1349

Making films with students

This moved across from my old blog.

I wanted to make a film over the summer, and they have a performing arts group here, so you may think the rest just writes itself.  Well, it doesn't really.  They had put on a musical, it would translate really well to film, so I asked them, they said yes.

The amount of time to get the script off them just so I could re work it into a nice and easy film took three weeks.  This is three weeks after they had performed it, and they hadn't written it out.  I go it the day before  principal photography (did you like how I dropped in an industry term?) started.  The first day of filming went well, they all turned up, get ready and we filmed the first five minutes in about 90 minutes.  It looked like it would go well, but that was the last day when every one turned up for filming.

Well, that was ok too.  I was planning to film it Mariachi style, so I knew I could do pickups and work things out in the edit.  I had a plan and the plan would work.  I had a schedule, and that worked fine.

The problem was in organising the actors.  There were too many days when the most important cast members didn't turn up, or the day where they were told they had to hand in coursework or fail, right before they were due start filming.  I had told them coursework comes first, but they seemed to forget this.

My personal favourite was when one would bitch about another not turning up and not being professional, when the day before they hadn't.  I should have gone all director on them, a massive screaming fit, but the fact was i desperate to make a film.  I didn't care if it wasn't very good, the main thing was to make it so that I could get my bad films out of the way.

I should have realised that I had already made a lot of fils about lots of different things, so my mistakes were already covered.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I did make a film with them in the end.  I gave the ones who turned up ten minutes to come up with an idea, then we would film it.  They ended up using one of my ideas as a basis for it, they take some drugs, two go mad and kill the others.  It wasn't quite my idea, but it had some of it, enough for me to call it my own.

We filmed for two hours to make a ten minute film, which ended up 25 minutes long.

It's shit, but it's a start.  I'm going to post it on YouTube once I get the new music for it, now that they say I can post videos that are half an hour long.

If you watch it, just one thing.  Be kind.