Trick of the Dark- Shoot 2

When a filming day starts off with an actor telling you he can't shoot because he has to got to A&E, it doesn't particularly set you off to a good start, however, there are two reactions, find a solution or cancel the shoot, I chose the former. My solution to not being able to shoot a three person scene because one of my actors was in hospital? Easy, just shoot two of them instead. The plan for the day was to shoot close-ups in the studio to mimic the look of the cave interior so that we could minimize the amount that needed shooting in the real cave. So my intent from the beginning was to shoot each character on a mid and close-up so the obvious solution was to simply shoot one less character. It is worth saying at this point that there weren't any production stills taken by me so this will be a fairly short post as I have no images to talk about. So I will say this for starters, the actors where fantastic, I was a little worried because I had worked with neither of them before and hadn't seen a great deal of their work. However any worry I had quickly left me as I saw that these were genuinely great on screen together, this is definitely attributed to their real life friendship and the fact that they do theater together often. This made everything run much smoother as they instantly had an a chemistry that will definitely be beneficial for the film. It would have been nice for Gary to have been there to see how he fits into that equation given that he doesn't have previous with them, this fact could play out quite nicely on screen as he may feel excluded from the three which will definitely be better for him in terms of living the character. Logistically, the filming itself was done with two cameras, I had one on a tripod which me and Liam set up and framed and then there was another camera that Liam was using handheld to shoot the other character, this meant that the shoot itself went quickly and efficiently once we had everything set up, I wills say that the shoot took a lot longer than it should have but that is because it took us a while to get sound equipment up and running as we were using radio mics which was very beneficial because they captured some great sound, however, they did take a while for us to work out. In terms of content,k we shot the close-ups and mids for 3 scenes this coupled with our first shoot we have a third of the film at best, unfortunately we didn't have Gary which limited what we could get, but this was definitely progress we can build upon.

Trick of the Dark- Light Contrasts

Throughout Trick of the Dark, one thing I want to play on and to manipulate is contrast, this is both visually and in thematically. So firstly I would like to talk about visual contrasts; my biggest influence for my biggest visual contrast is Lord of the Rings, specifically the final film in the trilogy, the Return of the King. In the final act of this film we see exactly the visual contrast I want to emulate in my own work.

So in the first shot we see Frodo in a dark setting and everything is bleak and dark, there is some light in the scene as the orange glow surrounds his face but this is to reflect the fire and lava surrounding him which only serves to highlight his desperate situation. This is how I want to portray Scott in the cave, though minus the fire I want the visuals to reflect his desperation and the bleak outlook on his life that I am presenting. In Trick of the Dark there will be a much darker surrounding around Scott and the people in the cave as they are trapped and it is a dark scenario, the only light in these scenes will be from the hole in the cave that represents the light that is out of reach for them, just like their hope and how it is distant and faint. The other light in the scene will be from a lantern, which in all honesty isn't really symbolic, it is simply a practical light to explain why the characters are lit the way they are. Almost straight from that scene in Lord of the Rings they cut to a brightly lit room which is filled with lots of whites and creams and we see Frodo on the mend from his exertions on Mount Doom.

The above screenshot shows the wide shot from this scene and though it isn't the first shot in this scene, it does highlight my point pretty well. We can now see Frodo and the fellowship whom we have gotten used to wearing dark colours now all wearing mostly white or certainly brighter colours than previously, this is symbolic of how darkness has literally left there world and light is returning, this is essentially the crux of the ending in that darkness or the main source of evil (Sauron) has been defeated. My film will feature a similar theme and visual because when Scott leaves the cave it is the beginning of his recovery and he is on the road to eliminating the darkness in his life. I will visualise this with a vibrant white hospital and a brightly lit room where everything has a glean to it and appears to be clean. This is to represent the cleansing of Scott's life. It would be naive for me to say that he is cured of his problem simply from the events of the film, however, it is a film with a hopeful message and what I am wanting to visualise is that hope and thus light have re-entered his world after he has acknowledged and sought help for the damage he and his destructive brain have inflicted upon himself and those around him. So in essence by making the scene vibrant and bright it shows the audience that the light has returned to his life and it is no longer far off and unobtainable, instead it is right there to behold and enjoy again. Now this is not a fairytale where everything is suddenly better but it is the start of that journey and I want to leave the audience on the happier feeling coupled with the impact of the ending that it was all in his head, thus again being symbolic of his health. So that is what I look to do visually with the film, hopefully it shows through and we get this emotion form the lighting.

Professional Practise- Business Cards and Letterheads

For my professional practise module I have created some promotional materials in the form of business cards and letterheads, due to the small nature of the two I have decided to condense them into one blog post. So first up is the business cards. I would like to talk first about the content on the cards, I am deciding to market myself as a graduate film maker, though I haven't yet graduated this is all done as preparation for when I do graduate and I do not wish to describe myself as a film director as of yet as it feels somewhat like a lie. As such I decided to add graduate so that there are no false pretences about my experience but I am still able to market myself to my skillset of being a director.

 The design of the card itself was done to mimic the style of my website (see the other post for this) by using the same shade of blue which I have incorporated on my site. I have also used the same grey and then took the diagonal lines from the top and added them in my website, the lines themselves are there to mimic the look of a clapper board to add to the film aesthetic, this is then coupled with the film reel in the corner and the film stock border that surrounds my contact information, all of these aspects really add to the synergy of my promotional material.
The letterhead was a little more challenging to make fit with my promotional package because my initial thought was to have it the same colour as the website and the business card, however this would be impractical as it is a difficult colour to see writing on and would be expensive to print. Instead I went for an off white (I would do this by printing on this colour of paper instead of printing onto white to save ink).

So then to make this letterhead fit in with the rest of my work I added the clapper board effect to the top and bottom of the page and made them somewhat transparent so that they can be written on and to further add to the links between my works, I made the writing at the top the same shade of blue to add to the synergy of the whole package. There isn't a great deal to say about the letterhead in all honesty because of how basic it has to be realistically, however, I do feel that the two pieces I have spoken about do work well and when you couple this with the website I feel I have created some solid resources with which to sell myself.

Trick of the Dark- Shoot 1

Film shoot one, boom, here it is, finally the ball starts to roll on this, to be honest this is a huge overreaction to a tiny shoot but it feels fantastic to finally get some final footage for this film done. So, full disclosure, this will be a fairly small post because firstly, there was no sound, we didn't have the equipment on set and even if we did it would be basically useless because we were shooting in the sound stage and it is both pigeon infested and the slightest bit of wind makes the huge metal door start very loudly banging.

Having said that, this means that the scene will need to be dubbed at a later date but with there only being the one line in the scene so there should be no problem in doing this. So given that that has been highlighted I would now like to break down what they scene was and what happened. So, we were in the sound stage and there is a bar in front of a huge cartoon mural that serves as the perfect backdrop for a kids TV show so I got the two actors in the scene to dress brightly and then we gave the two actors a paintbrush and had them imitate painting something, then after getting some coverage shots from sides and getting cutaways we got the the films closing shot of Susie delivering the line while looking into the camera and holding the stare so that we can make the audience uneasy and also to give her words more weight. It is worth mentioning at this point we made a very conscious decision to frame differently from the rest of the film as this scene appears on a TV screen so there would be no cinema-scope because a kids TV show wouldn't have this so we had to frame differently. Performance wise there was not a great deal to be done in terms of direction, we gave the actors a jar of water and some paintbrushes and they painted the panel in front of them with water to mimic making something so on camera it looked like they had been painting. Then there was the line from Susie and then we held the camera on her face to get the most from her performance and to make it feel a little uncomfortable as that's what Id like the audience to feel in order for them to feel the weight of the reveal. There's not a great deal more I could say about this considering it will amount to little more than 30 seconds of screen time.

Professional Practise- Website

This is a blog post to outline and explain my website and why I made some of the decisions that I did during its creation, in order to make it professional and in order to sell myself as a director within the industry. So without further ado I would like to take you through a few key sections of my site and what they are for and why they are the way that they are.

This is the first thing you see when you open up my site on a desktop.

I went for the image of me using the camera mainly because it gives a clear indication that I am a film maker and have made films without them having to investigate further, if there were to be any early confusion at all about me they would leave my website and I would lose a potential opportunity or client. However this is eliminated swiftly with this picture. On top of this with the font I have chosen and the layout I feel it looks very professional and sleek. In addition to this you may notice the chat box in the bottom corner, this allows visitors to message me directly, admittedly this was added under advice of my lecturer but that doesn't mean its value is underplayed, it is immensely valuable that if a client would need to they could message me directly at any point, this gives me opportunity to show how committed and available I am to potential viewers of my site by replying quickly to their chat messages.

 This is on the home page and is a tool to build a database of contacts.

 This is the last section of my homepage showing screenshots from my work.

The two above screenshots are from my homepage and are examples of the two things my website is designed to do, firstly sell me as a director, and secondly to build up a database of contacts that I could potentially draw upon for work and/or to help me make my films in future. With regards to my previous works section I decided to split into two sections: commercial work and creative work, the reason I did this is to make it easier for the two types of clients I expect I would work with, people who want adverts and other such commercial work made and then there are people who will want me for creative works like dramas or perhaps television, it is this line I would rather specialise in, however, it would be naive to limit my scope by only doing the one thing.

 This is my about me page.

This is a whole page to talk about myself, if people have gotten this far enough that they are interested in me as a person it means that my home page was successful and they are in some way inclined to want to know about me. The about me page is then very useful because it is my main way to sell me as a person. With regards to the content itself I wrote it somewhat like a covering letter for a generic job, however, having done this I then decided to make it a bit more personal and add something of my own voice in there which may come across as a bit pretentious to some but at the same time I do feel it distinguishes me and sets me out, the quote I used from myself really sells my vision as a director and as such sells me as a product for people who may want to hire me. That being said I am still not selling a lie because I am still marketing myself as a graduate because I feel like if I was to simply call myself a director then it would be spotted as a lie and I wouldn't have much chance  at all of getting any work. 

 This is my showreel page.

There is not a lot to say about this page as the main attraction of it is the showreel itself which will have its own post so there is literally the motive of this as well as its layout. It is now worth me mentioning why the constant theme of blue and grey with the diagonal lines, this is to tie in with my business cards and other promotional materials as they feature the diagonal lines from the top of a clapper board to push home the film aesthetic and the blue is purely a preference thing, I like the colour and how it goes with the grey, I like my colour scheme and will hence use it to promote myself in a way like a brand. Anyway, to go back to the page itself, the showreel page is important because it sells me based upon my work, unlike the about me that sells me based on me, and it is important to sell me based on my work as well as on me because some potential employees will look for a specific style or theme, this is my chance to portray my work and basically show them what I can do. On top of this, it would be naive of me to think that producers with tight schedules will have time to read my about me or even for that matter want to, whereas they can watch my showreel or more importantly part of it and get a feel for what I am about from that.

This is the fourth and final page, the contact me page.

The final page is the contact me page, this is done through a contact box rather than handing out my details simply so that I can stop myself being susceptible to spam, if data farming companies were to get my email from my site there is a good chance I would be inundated with spam and miss potentially important messages or have to change email address as a result. As such, a contact box is much more handy because I can go to them once contact is initiated through the box, they aren't initiating personal contact without my consent. In addition to this a contact box will store their information and because of this they will be added to my database of contact which in theory I will be able to draw upon as I have mentioned previously. To summarise this, I must ask myself whether my website does what I need it to do, does it sell me to people, only time will tell, but I feel it does. And does it allow me to build a database? Provided people go on my website and engage with it, it definitely works as a platform for this, whether it will prove fruitful remains to be seen.