Kodak Awards- Popcorn Director

Popcorn director sounds like a fancy name for someone who works the counter in a cinema, but no, what I mean is that I am directing the popcorn themed advert, the original title of which was "cheeky handful" but our lectures refer to it as popcorn so that's what we have adopted. As I wrote a post last year about how to be a good director, instead I would like to write one about what I learnt from doing this.

So my main directing experience comes from Brush Stroke which I directed last year, this was very eye opening for me as it gave me my first real look at the job I want to do, well, here I am directing again so that gives you some idea of whether I enjoyed it or not. What I did learn was that it isn't always smooth sailing. Some shoots were immensely fun and flew by without a hitch and stress free, one such was the above one where it was fun, everyone worked well and the location was nice.

Others were not so fun, there were days when it was just miserable, morale was low, people were getting stressed and it just wasn't fun to be making this film, it happens. The above was the lowest of these times, we were filming in freezing conditions on a very windy day, sound was a nightmare and it started snowing, also on this day we were late and one of the actors went home, as a result of this we had to re plan and shoot the script on set. However, it was times like this I feel I learnt the most as it meant that I had the most direction to give as things didn't just fall into place.

Another thing that was new to me was working with actors that I didn't already know, this had mixed results, without naming anyone, in the interest of professionalism, some of the actors were a dream to work with and some where a nightmare. I worked with some who were very professional and some who I got along with very well and got good performances out of, this was good as when you have professional people who are receptive to what you're telling them it always makes directing easier.

However, like before, it was the bad times that made me learn more, I had one actor who wasn't very responsive to what I was telling him and also was often quite pushy in telling me how I should do things when it is in no way his job to tell me how to do mine. As a result of this I learned that at the end of the day I need to have more backbone and demanding of my actors and not settle for what they're giving me if I'm not happy. I did a lot of learning on that production and I look forward to benefitting and making things of a higher standard as a result, that's all for now, until next time.

Kodak: Job Role Producer

As you know from my previous post, I have been given the role of producer, this is a job I have never done before and as such I thought it would be a good idea to do some research into how I can do this job effectively and what makes a good producer.

Firstly I will look at what a film producer actually does. If we consult the Wikipedia, it has this to say:
"Film producers fill a variety of roles depending upon the type of producer. Either employed by a production company or independent, producers plan and coordinate various aspects of film production, such as selecting script, coordinating writing, directing and editing, and arranging financing."
Put simply then, a producer runs and organises the whole production, they are in charge of hiring, booking, scheduling, paperwork. Essentially the work of a producer can be boiled down to, all of the work that isn't creative and is vital for the creation of the film.

How to be a good producer and what qualities should a producer have:

• Well firstly and possibly the most key thing a producer needs to be is organised, if the producer isn't organised then how can the rest of the crew be. This is something I am going to have to work on as, with me working on two projects, it will be harder to stay on top of both of these jobs.
• A producer must also be a good leader, from working on other things as a director (another leading role) I know that again perhaps this needs working on, however, I do think that I have some leadership qualities that I can bring to this. It is important for a producer to be a good leader as they are essentially the boss of the film.
• Problem solving is also key, as in this role if something is going wrong then it is more often than not, up to you to fix it and quickly. This is a skill I do feel that I have and am good at, I have demonstrated this on many occasions and many films I have made.

I think that about wraps up my research on how to be a good producer and what a producer does so I will finish this post there, until next time.

Level 5: Kodak Awards Intro

Just a brief post to introduce the my latest module which happens to be the first of the year. This is the Nahemi Kodak Awards. Essentially we have to shoot and edit a 30 second advert on 16mm film for real clients that have sent us a brief. The companies were, Centrepoint (a charity for homeless people), Paperchase (a company who sell cards and stationary) and WeSwap (a kind of card used for the exchange of foreign currency). Of these three two were chosen to make an advert for based on individual pitches within our group, none of my ideas were chosen but I did get the role I wanted of director, the other role I got on a different advert was producer so I will have a lot of work on my plate but I am looking forward to throwing myself into it.

Level 5: Kodak Awards Intro

Just a brief post to introduce the my latest module which happens to be the first of the year. This is the Nahemi Kodak Awards. Essentially we have to shoot and edit a 30 second advert on 16mm film for real clients that have sent us a brief. The companies were, Centrepoint (a charity for homeless people), Paperchase (a company who sell cards and stationary) and WeSwap (a kind of card used for the exchange of foreign currency). Of these three two were chosen to make an advert for based on individual pitches within our group, none of my ideas were chosen but I did get the role I wanted of director, the other role I got on a different advert was producer so I will have a lot of work on my plate but I am looking forward to throwing myself into it.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #10

The final film shoot. it seems like such a long time since we started (actually about a month) but its very nice to be at the end, but there was still a shoot to do so we rallied one final time to do it and wrap up.

Carl setting up the chair for the final scene when he hangs.

This scene was to fill in the missing gaps of what we had missed when we were in the garage before and to shoot the final scene. This was a fun shoot as we had the slide so we had the chance to experiment a little bit with movement and how we could create emotion in a scene. For example the final shot of the film  as we track in from his limp body 'hanging' from the ceiling. This for me is the perfect closing shot for the film and it is because we had the slider that it happened.

This is Liam framing up a shot of the painting so that Carl knew where to paint it.

Carl was very cooperative on this shoot as it was probably the hardest for him as he had to hang from the ceiling as well as looking distressed, Carl was fantastic to work with on this shoot and to be honest throughout the whole film he has been, considering his relatively small experience I found him to be very professional and would definitely consider him for future roles.

Thus the shooting is concluded and on to the edit.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #9

The penultimate film shoot, only one more to go after this one, what a feeling. However, we still had work to do even though this was a very small shoot we still put the effort in and made sure it was of a good standard so that the film didn't suffer. 

We took out the redheads for this shoot but Richard was on Janice's shoot so  I stood in as sound Op on this shoot.

The lighting on this scene was crucial because we had used this room previously and because of this had to make it aesthetically differently from the lettings agent scene, I feel like we achieved that, however, watching the clips back, they will need to be colour corrected as they are too orange and look unnatural but this is a relatively easy fix.

Single of Carl for his side of the conversation.

The actors in the scene were easy to work with, it was Carl and Stephan so they knew each other and already knew what I expected from them and how the characters play off of each other, so I was happy with the performance they gave, we had the same problem of actors overstepping their mark but this was such a small scene it didn't really pose an issue. Sound operating was easy enough to work in conjunction with direction as I already know the script inside out so I had no issue making sure the mic was on the right person. The only issue was that I had terrible headphones because I had left my own at home, as a result I didn't have a very good representation of the sound quality but there are no issues on playback so it worked out fine.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #8

 This is a blog post for the 8th film shoot for Brush Stroke, and holy shit was this shoot a nightmare, before we even get to the real problems on this shoot it felt like the temperature is in the misuses and it one point it started snowing during a take.

Doing a take, Richard very cleverly blocked the wind to a degree with a post.

However, the big issue with this shoot was that the actor for the scene that was supposed to play the Fisherman came and then left because Andrew got lost driving us to the location three times and we ended up being an hour late, I have no issue with the fact that he left like he did, we were very unprofessional and couldn't have expected him to wait as long as he did. What made it worse however, is that he must have gone to the wrong car park because Shaun walked around the car park with his film hoodie on looking for him, but theres no use in crying over spilt milk.

Liam showing me how we can use this part of the front to make it look like we are filming from in the Lake.

At this point we couldn't afford to not shoot this scene so me and Liam quickly planned a new scene from what we had available to us, I am not happy about this because within the narrative, this scene doesn't have much need, however, we adapted very well and this scene was nicely done given the problem we had. So concludes the account of my nightmare film shoot, although to be fair we still shot what will probably turn out to be a good scene.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #7

This was the shoot for the two cafe scenes, these had to be shot in two separate shoots during that day because the cafe we were filming in was open over dinner time but not in the morning or after dinner so we could film then. However, this worked out nicely because the two scenes were set at the time of day that we were shooting them in.

Liam and Richard during a take.

This was another stress free shoot as both actors were really nice to work with and were very receptive to suggestions I had on the performance they were giving. The only issue we did have was the time, as we were working to a non-negotiable timeline of the cafe, it meant that we had to quickly do everything so they could open on time. We also had a small problem with sound appearing to be mono instead of stereo but it turned out to be just the headphones.

Liam spent a while getting this shot to be perfect for Carl's single.

There was an issue with space at this point as we couldn't fit into the gap to get the shot as we wanted, to counter this Liam spent a good amount of time balancing and raising the camera on top of a pile of books, only to have Richard pick up the camera, thus meaning he had to reframe and rebalance the shot.  Annoying but I guess the cables had to be plugged in.

Directing from below.

This shoot went fairly well and apart from the time issue was completely stress free. So yeah, thats all for shoot 7.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #6

This was the exterior of the restaurant scenes with Carl and Stephan, aka Michael and Cipriano. We were back at a full crew for this shoot and we were filming both scenes that featured the two of these characters (we intended to shoot the office scene with the two of them but decided the location wasn't good enough and thus decided to reschedule that).

Me directing Carl on the path he should take to get where I wanted to frame him.

This was another relatively easy shoot because both actors got into their characters well and were easy enough to work with. I had a bit of trouble at times getting one actor into place and making them stay there. Also one actor kept suggesting how we shoot the film, to be honest while I am not a complete dictator, I don't appreciate actors who over step the mark, for example I have no problem with actors suggesting things but when they tell me that their idea will look better, they're overstepping the mark so I politely asked him to stop, there was no issue from this point on so no hard feelings and we could continue from there.

This is the afternoon shoot when we got the wise shot of Michael arriving. (a rare sight of our producer on set)

The second half of the shoot went down without a problem, except the public were out a lot more and the wind picked up so sound became an issue, this meant that we just had to wait between takes, this wasn't really an issue, it just felt as though we were wasting time. 

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #5 (actually 4)

This Blog post is for what should be the fifth film shoot for Brush Stroke but actually it was the forth and I had just forgotten to put it in, my bad. This was for the Lettings agency scene with Michael, the Landlord and the Lettings agent. This was a new experience for me as it was my first time working with semi professional actors, as opposed to people who just do it as more of a hobby.

Roger and Carl in place between takes.

This was a bit of a learning  curve for me as I knew I would have to be more professional than my usual self on set, however they are really nice people to work with and they didn't seem to be unhappy in any way with how I was directing them. Although they may have been too professional to say even if they were unhappy.

Me directing with a pint of water in hand, (no thats not Richard, Allan stepped in on sound)

One issue we had was that through no ones fault (although perhaps Richard could have planned his travel better) Richard couldn't be on set as he couldn't get travel to be there, luckily my friend Allan was on hand to help out and he took over on sound for this shoot, luckily it was interior so relatively easy to get sound, although having checked the clips there were no issues with sound so I suppose I no one will know we had an inexperienced sound op.

A relatively simple shoot but fun for me to work with a high quality of actor and get good results from the shoot. It is worth noting that on this shoot I was quite ill and had been sick that morning and had to change, hence why I am dressed relatively scruffily, I regret this but was almost unavoidable.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #4

The fourth film shoot for Brush Stroke was in the Hartlepool Marina, and was scheduled for 6.30 pm, in actual fact we had split into two groups as my producer and sound op went to pick up the main actor and me and the camera op went to get the equipment, this would have been no problem but as my group walked, we over estimated the amount of time it took and we were late, this wasn't a huge issue but it did mean we wrapped later than expected.

This was what the lighting was like at the marina about half way through the shoot.

One issue we did have was that it got dark quickly so there is a very clear difference in the beginning of the shoot and the end meaning we needed something to mask this change and show time passing, luckily whilst I was directing Liam was going around and getting cutaways and he got a nice shot of the moon that can be used to show time passing without it being a huge issue. 

Sometimes you just have to grab the camera yourself, this is me getting a shot that Liam was worried about getting due to the water.

The picture above as you can see shows me getting a shot of Michael wetting his face from the sea, the reason I got this shot was because it was very close to the water's edge and no one seemed willing to get close so I got my camera operator (Liam) to set up the exposure and settings so that all I had to do was go down and hit record and shout action. That way I wasn't taking his job from him but still got the shot I wanted. This is one of the most fun shoots I have been on and I really enjoyed every second, one of those days when I'm happy to make films, thats all for now, until next time.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #3

This is a blog post to document the events and quality of the third film shoot, this was the one we did for the forest scene, this took place at Penshaw monument and was in general a good shoot. The weather was a minor issue at times but generally there was no huge problems with this shoot.

This is Carl standing staring at the picture on the tree before the character of Michael is transported out of the forest via the picture.

The first things we shot were Michael walking through the forest as he is transported into a picture for the first time. These were easy shots we just found nice bends in the path and gaps in trees for Carl to walk towards and pass to simulate a long walk. The only issue with this is another way we are trying to show time passing is by tilting to the sky and fading to a new sky then tilting down again. However, we will not know if this worked until we come to the edit.

Over the shoulder set up for the shot on the previous production still.

Then we came to a clearing where I put the photo up for Carl to look at as a reference. There weren't many issues at this point except some things we saw in hindsight when we looked back at the footage, for example we got a shot that pulls in on Michael's face as he stares at the picture, however the bag on the tree in the background wasn't moved and somehow we missed it so it ruined the shot.

Me directing from under my coat to compensate for the rain.

As I said, the main issue was the rain, although this wasn't an issue during takes it was during transportation between spots when people were slipping and almost falling with the equipment, luckily nobody did fall and the equipment was unscathed. The only other issue with the rain was Carl slipping during takes but this only happened twice and was pretty funny so we just laughed and reshot.

Brush Stroke- Film Shoot #2

This was the second shoot of the film when we shot the garage scenes, not all of them but we made a good chunk into them. Sadly there is no production shots on this one as we were at the bare minimum of a crew, there was just me (directing and on camera) and then Richard on camera. Had I known the trouble this would have been, the chances are I wouldn't have done this shoot and would have waited until the whole crew was free.

The crew itself worked well, but on the whole, I felt that it caused more problems than it was worth. Mainly these were continuity issues that I missed because I had too many factors to think about. I have no problem in holding my hands up and saying this was fault if what we shot needs re-shooting but we did get some good shots in and amongst so it wasn't a wasted trip.

Due to the fact I eventually wrapped the shoot before we had shot everything as I didn't feel comfortable without a full crew we do have to return but this isn't a problem.

This was only a short post due to the lack production shots but all the same there was a rundown on the second shoot.

Brush Stroke- Film shoot #1

These are some thoughts and some images from the first shoot of Brush Stroke, in this shoot we filmed the sequences where Michael is in his home. These are very short sequences to shoot so we could be more perfectionist as we knew we had time to spare.

Me directing Carl (playing Michael, whilst checking the framing)

A lot of these segments were close ups and extreme close ups so it was a relatively simple shoot and the only complications came when we went to film the exterior of the house we were filming in.

This is an over the shoulder shot of Carl reading the letters.

Carl is a really easy to work with actor, he was patient while we set up the shots and gave exactly what we asked for when the camera started to roll.

These two photos show me and Liam setting up a hallway shot and checking the lighting.

Liam was particularly good on this set as he is very good director of photography, this made my job easier as I trusted him to get my artistic vision into the shots, which he did without fail.

This was the production set up for the second shot we filmed.

As I said this was a very easy shoot as everyone pulled their weight and we all worked efficiently, there is not much for me to say other than that, one more thing I can say about this is that there were issues with sound and the public when we went outside. The public kept deliberately ruining shots and the wind kept ringing the sound.

That's all for now guys, bye.

Brush Stroke- Director Influences

With the fact that I am going to be directing Brush Stroke I decided that I wanted to look at some directors that influence me and that have influenced the script during the writing. The first of these is my favourite Director(s) the Coen Brothers, famous for such films as No Country for Old Men and Fargo, they have a unique visual style that I wish to emulate that comes from their very close work with their cinematographer Roger Deakins.

This is an example of how Roger Deakins sets up his shots for the Coens, he shoots with a wide lens on but always makes sure that the background is still interesting so that the "shot appears more personal". This is something I would definitely like to mimic as I agree with Deakins that it adds to the personality of the shot but also I think that it will add to the intimate drama of the conversations.

Another director who influenced me was Christopher Nolan, particularly the film Inception, which I have referenced before when talking about Brush Stroke. Although this is an action film, it does feature some interesting character development and some similar themes to my film, predominately the 'is it a dream' feel to the film as well as the debate of whether you could kid yourself that you aren't in a dream to be happy.

This is an example of a shot that is similar to the Deakins shot from above how it is a nice wide shot with an interesting background. I also like how this film utilises close ups to show important aspects of the story with a basic shot of something small in a close up. The prime example being the spinning top in the climax of the film. One example I can think of where I will do this is when I will exaggerate Shannon's engagement ring. I will exaggerate it by getting an extreme close up that pulls the focus onto the ring.

Brush Stroke- Paint effect trials

When I come to make Brush Stroke I would like to add an effect where Michael paints over the lens of the camera as though the lens is the canvas, in order to capture this effect I did some tests to see what the best way to do this was. These are the results.

This was with a sheet on acetate over the lens secured on with celotape. I think it worked well but the paint needs to be thicker or perhaps a different paint, this was oil paint.

This was a second attempt with acetate but as you can tell the acetate wasn't secure and as a result the illusion is broken, again the paint wasn't thick enough.

This was an attempt using cling film, it didn't really work, the application of the paint is good but there is way too much movement of the surface and as such there is no illusion because you easily notice that something has gone wrong.

This was the final attempt, for this one I used a sheet of glass and got my dad to hold it against the lens while I did the painting, this is by far the best of the lot and I think the best thing to do with regards to the paint is to use acrylic instead of oil as they are more translucent but stick better so it will give a better effect.

Just a side note these are in poor Gif former because I had trouble uploading to youtube so had to use Gif.

Brush Stroke- Painting photoshop

As one of the central aspects to Brush Stroke is the paintings that appear in and amongst the plot, it is obvious that we will need some paintings. Due to the fact that we have neither the budget nor the time for professional oil paintings or high quality paintings of any kind I have had to get creative with photoshop. What I did was take some photos (from the internet and in one case from our recce photos) and then I applied an artistic filter, and after this if I wasn't pleased with the outcome I adjusted the other settings like contrast, saturation, hue, etc.
This is how my experiment turned out:

 This was my first attempt and actually one of the best that I did, I think this may be due to the quality of the original photo. This is a very simple application of the angled strokes filter.

In this one I again applied the angled strokes filter but I widened the stroke and upped the saturation when I felt it didn't look 'painting' enough.

 As I knew that late on in the film there would be a painting of a cabin with the two lead characters stood outside I experimented with adding people, in this case it didn't really work, however, I think this is because of the colour contrast between the people and their background.

 This is an attempt at a forest which I thought looked quite good but when I showed my crew they said that it looked too "blocky" so perhaps if I was to used this effect then I may have to reduce the stroke size, it should be noted this wasn't angled strokes.

This photo was taken from a recce at a lake in Sunderland that we are thinking about shooting at, for this one I used angled strokes and lowered the saturation before changing the brightness, contrast and vibrance.

I then added this man in the boat to the painting, he was crudely cut out and quickly edited to have similar aesthetics to the painting. I don't think this looks too bad considering it was a test and when it comes to the real thing I will take much more care over it. I then lowered the brightness to integrate the two images better.

Production Module- Brush Stroke

So after a few months away from Brush Stroke (the script I wrote for the screenwriting module) I have no got the chance to direct and make it. The deadline for which is May 8th, so its an 8 week turn around, not a huge amount of time considering the vastness of this script, with many locations and a fair few actors, this is definitely the biggest production I have been a part of. Therefore to be the creative drive behind this is only adds to the magnitude of what I have to do in such a modest amount of time. However, this is by no means impossible and I fully expect to come out with the film I want to make and it will not have been unnecessarily cut down for ease of time or as a way out of working harder on it.
That's basically the end of this post as I did it to serve as an introduction to my new module.

Live Project 1: Final Location

This is a short post to show the location that we shot the music video at, this was actually written before the shoot, except this line of course, it has just been in draft format.
In this post I will show you the location which we have decided to shoot the music video at.

This is The Studio, in Hartlepool, it used to be our university's bar so we have  a connection to the bar and we used this to secure it as a filming location relatively easily. The building itself is also very good for us as it is quite big inside and has plenty of access to plug sockets for our lighting. Also rather importantly we will be able to use a smoke machine inside as we have checked with the owner and he is completely okay with us using one.

This is the interior and again it fits what we need almost perfectly, there is a wide open dance floor that will be easy to skate and dance on for our actors. Also there is a huge bonus to this location in that they have their own lighting which we can utilise as we see fit from the light mixer seen in the foreground. The last good thing about this location is the stage which is well elevated and open meaning it will be easy to film both the actors and the band in one shot, in addition the openness of the stage also means that the crew will be able to easily navigate the band and film them without tripping over them. These are all the reasons that we chose this location, I think that we have picked the perfect location for what we are looking to film. 

Live Project 1: Film Shoot 18/02/16

This was the final shoot and it was a very short shoot so this will most likely be a very short post as the main parts of this shoot have already been covered in previous posts. This is because the shoot just consisted of the UV paint and the poster which I have already talked about in previous posts so I will touch on the filming aspects of these.

This is the UV light we used for the neon paint effect. This was easy to film as it was a case of turn the light on, frame the close up and then press record. This was a really simple and quick part of the shoot which was done in around 20 minutes and was really effective on screen.

Again this was the poster lit up which we then got multiple shot of from a few different angles, the high angle shots like this were done handheld from the top of a ladder which we had to get help for as we needed someone to foot the ladder for health and safety. These are some more shots that looked great and were really simply done.

That really all there is to say about this shoot as it was really short and went down without any trouble really.