Shooting Day Preparation

Toady we had our last meeting before our first shoot day tomorrow, the most important job was to change the layout of the room and decorate it. Hannah the art director had bought posters and stars for the room, and Ellie had managed to get hold of some toys. We started off by clearing the room and just leaving the furniture, we then decided to move wardrobe so it would be easier to film near the bed but give us more room. I was in charge of moving all the big items of furniture while the others placed the toys around the room and put the posters up. To me the room still felt a little bit bare and could tell that it was still a student flat however we where still missing some key items such as the bed sheets and items that Louis was bringing.

After sorting out the room we had a look at the storyboards that Beth had created and talked about the plan for the following morning, we still had to pick up equipment so we decided to meet at university at 9 as Louis was getting at the house for 10.30.

Sound equipment

Rode microphone 

Mixer

Zoom  

Boom pole 

Directing Workshop Week 4

In this weeks seminar we took part in an acting workshop. We where given scripts in last week’s seminar where the director and one other member of the group would perform this short scrip. We had decided that Beth and Ellie would act and that we would all take it in turn to direct. However when we arrived at todays seminar Ellie wasn’t feeling very well so I had to do her part.

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The scrip we where given was very basic, we weren’t given any directions or character bio’s so working out the persons motifs where part of the challenge. We started off by just reading the scrip, the scrip it self was quite simple as it was about a person who lost his dog but the other character didn’t believe the first character.

We had decided that character A was called Bob a stereotypically chav type character who lives in the estate, we had decided that Bobs motif was that him and his friends where robbing house next door and he was on look out. Character B was called Margret she was quite an old lady and court Bob snooping around her garden, she is unaware of Bobs intention and decides to confront him. When we had decided what the characters motifs where it became a lot easier to act. When reading through the scrip again we decided to change a couple of lines which Bob said instead of saying “Pardon” he now said “what” and the line where he says “that’s envy not jealousy” he now said “whatever man” as a group we just thought that this is what Bob would have said as he’s quite rough.

Before performing it in front of everyone we decided to add a couple of stage directions so that Margret would approach Bob while she’s delivering her lines. I was a little nervous about preforming it in front of everyone, as I hate acting. However it wasn’t too bad and the feedback we got was pretty good.  The workshop was to show us the difficulties that we might face on set with lines not working or actors not feeling confortable in the environment. I wish that I had ago directing as its something I’ve never really done and it would have been the perfect opportunity to try it.

Bag Man

BAG MAN from (a) TWIN (thing). on Vimeo.

Bag man is an incredible short film I saw vimeo. What I like about the film is that the narrative is quite ambiguous, you see the boy back his back and you expect the worst, that hes leaving his home, I really didn’t expect the ending. The film is shot incredible well, and the sound design is brilliant. The sound design is quite subtle, but has a big impact on the film. the really like all he little sound effects which the gun makes too.

Meeting with actor

We all met up before we met the actor later today to discus storyboards and look at the scrip Ellie and Beth had put together, as we are still unsure what was happening in each scene the script was a little bare, but clearly showed the emotion we where trying to achieve.

Ellie had organised a meeting with the actor. The young boy Lou who would be playing the role of Dylan was brilliant and exactly what I imagined the he would look like. He really positive about the script and understood the emotion of the two minute piece. We all explained what job role we where doing.

I’m really happy with the actor we’ve got and think he’s perfect for the role, my only slight concern is that he’s a theatre and has very little in acting in front of a camera, hopefully the skills are transferable. Apart that slight problem im very happy with the actor we have got.

After Lou had gone we quickly check Star Now to see if we had any response to our ad about an actor to play the mum. We hadn’t had any responses of anyone who we think where suitable, its not too important at the moment but I would quite like to find one as soon as possible as the last scene is vital, and we need a strong actor to play that role