Shooting Week - 24th-28th October

Monday 24th October

Today we went over the final version of the script that Matthew had written and storyboarded all day. Matt, as producer, also sent out some casting calls as we have quite a racially diverse cast, which is more of a challenge to cast but worth it.
Mozart copyright and health and safety

Here is the final script:

Here are some of the storyboards:

Tuesday 25th October

Today we did production paperwork and casting calls. I posted a call to the Film London Talent Connect Facebook group, which was answered by a couple of actors, so I have been emailing back and forth with them to sort that out.

Iona and Matt worked on the call sheets for all 3 shooting days. Here is an example of half of one of them:

We also set up the Trello, which enables us to keep in touch and share important documents in a clearly set out way. This should make the production process much easier.

Wednesday 26th October

1st day of shooting - Classical music scene and bolex
Here are our photos of our first day of shooting, we mostly stuck to the shot list but as the classical music scene was the only thing we had to film today we were able to spend a bit more time discussing ideas on set. I feel we worked really well together and now we'll be more cohesive as a team by tomorrow, when we work with outside actors. Here are the photos of the day:

Thursday 27th October

2nd day of shooting - Date scene with Taj Atwal and Erin

Today was our second day of shooting and we had decided prior to today to shoot at 'magic hour' as the lighting would be nicest at this point, which would have a romantic feel to it, working nicely with the date scene. Today was also the first day where we worked with actors outside of our group so as director I had to ensure that they were happy as the shoot progressed and had to build a relationship with them, as well as making sure we were on track and getting the shots we needed. Unfortunately, the decision to shoot at magic hour was a mistake as it was cloudy so although there was a lovely sunset, the lighting was not what we wanted and it disappeared fast. This means that some of our shots are much darker than others. However, overall it was a very enjoyable shoot and I'm pleased with what we got. Taj Atwal, one of our actors, said that we were a very professional crew, which was nice to hear and I agree as everyone did their jobs really efficiently and well so we got the best footage we could. Here are the photos from the day:

Friday 28th October

Final day of shooting - Lucy scene

Today was our final day of shooting. This was also the first day where we had to dress a set so under the guidance of Production Designer Michael we all got to work setting up LS2 to look like a classroom in which one would have a hallucination. Here's the photos from that:

Shooting in this space was really interesting and different to what we had shot so far as we were able to experiment with lighting in a way that we hadn't been able to do on the outside shoots. We also spent some time after the actresses had left just shooting in the empty room, to make sure we had enough footage to get the quick cuts that we wanted. 

That's a wrap! This has been a really good week and I've learnt a lot about directing and both pre production and production. 

Script Editing and Location Scouting

In today's session, we spent the day going over the treatment that Matthew had written and building the narratives around the core ideas that he had created. It was a really interesting day as we were all able to think about how to get an idea across in the best way without making it over complicated. We also had a scout around the Southbank area for locations.

Matthew is now going to write up the script, ready for production week that begins on Monday!

Born in Flames and Q&A with Lizzie Borden

Today we watched 'Born in Flames' which is a 1983 film by Lizzie Borden. I found it fascinating as it was about a group of feminist women who rebel against their socialist government, and tackled issues such as racism, sexism and classism. The film, although made in the 1980s, felt very relevant to the current times, with extremism on the rise again and the very prevalent and well documented police brutality in the US.

We also had the privilege of having a Q&A with Lizzie Borden herself, which was really interesting as we found out that she hadn't extensively scripted the film but rather given the actors the opportunity to craft the story themselves. She made the film with a very limited budget and shot most of it on the streets of New York. It had experimental elements in that there wasn't a specific point of view that the film was told from, which left the audience to make up their own minds about the characters. Additionally, the dialogue, music and other audio would often overlap, meaning that the audience never got the full picture and thus the meaning was not carefully and clearly laid out for the audience as it often is in modern cinema. I found this refreshing.

Here is the trailer for the film:

Screenwriting Masterclass

Today we had our screenwriting masterclass with Gabriella Apicella, wherein she took us through the 10 basic steps of writing a short film script.

Gabriella spoke about being a screenwriter and how the writer shouldn't put the shot types in the script, even if they can visualise it as the shots are the jobs of the director and cinematographer, which was something I hadn't considered before when writing scripts.

She also helped us with the idea of not having dialogue in our films, as is a requirement this year, by showing us a clip from "All Is Lost" (2013) dir. Chandor. The film has only a couple of lines of dialogue in the whole piece and so the visual storytelling is really what carries it. This is something we'll have to focus on a lot in our films. After the session, I found the script for All is Lost and read through it to get an idea of what a dialogue-less screenplay looks like. Here is the page from the excerpt we watched:

Gabriella also spoke a bit about her experience getting into the film industry, as she studied English first at university and then took a screenwriting course, which she found she was interested in. This is different to all the other industry people we have met so far. 

We also found out our groups and roles today. I'm working with Iona, Matt, Matthew, Murray and Michael and have been given the role of director which is very exciting! Edwin Mingard is our tutor and as Matthew is the screenwriter he'll be bringing some ideas to Wednesday's session which will be a script developing evening. 

The Use of Music in Film

Today we had a session with Dr Vasco Hexel (http://www.vascohexel.com/) about the music used in films. We watched a clip from Tron both with and without music which showed the massive effect music has on film. I found this session very interesting as we had a discussion on the hidden meanings of music, how it can make an audience feel a certain way about a character or how it can guide their attention to something specific in the scene. It got me thinking about how we could use music in the short film we make and although we aren't even in our groups yet, its an exciting thought.

We also got a masterclass from Dave Darch in using the Thumbjam app on iPads, which allows the user to really easily compose music for a film. I think its great that this is so easy and accessible.

Here are the posts in the Facebook group about this session.

no.w.here- Learning to work with 16mm

Today we went to no.w.here in Bethnal Green which is a creative space for experimental filmmakers. They do a lot of work with chemical film and this is what we learnt to use. The day began with a masterclass in how to use the Bolex cameras and then we split into groups and went out to film 3 minutes worth of 16mm footage around the area. This was really fun and it gave me a whole new perspective on filming as we had to take time to consider exactly what we wanted to shoot because it used valuable film, as opposed to shooting on digital, where there is a great deal more space for footage. Shooting on film also means we couldn't review the footage we had shot, so it will be interesting to see how the footage came out. We also had to work together to make sure that everyone had their time to use the camera. In the end, it ended up being more of collaborative effort than we had first intended, as we were giving each other ideas and helping each other with both the camera and the light metering. Below is a video of us drying out the black and white film after James had given us a demonstration of how it is developed.

Tyburnia - Q&A with James Holcombe

Today we watched Tyburnia which is an experimental film by James Holcombe about the old Tyburn gallows in central London. It was really interesting to get an insight into the world of experimental film and allowed me to begin to think of ideas for the experimental film we will be making. We had a Q&A with James Holcombe after the screening of the film and James spoke about why he chose to make the film and how he did it. I've never seen an experimental film before nor had much of an idea about how they are made so this was a fascinating Q&A. We'll be seeing James again on Saturday to try using chemical film for the first time, which we will be able to use when making our experimental films.