Just a couple of films to pass the time

I discovered a couple of days ago, after waking up with a swollen jaw and thinking that I'd had an allergic reaction to something - catching the bus to a walk-in clinic, sitting in a waiting room full of people for an hour - and after finally seeing a doctor; that I have the mumps.

What is this, like sixteenth century England? Excuse me for being a little naive but I thought we didn't get that anymore thanks to the MMR?

Well anyway, as I'm bed ridden and avoiding all possible human contact for the next week, there really isn't any better way to spend my time than catching up on 'those' films that somehow complete your life. (I sound a little cynical, I'm just feeling sorry for myself).

I remember seeing 'Sherlock Holmes' a month or so ago and thinking how unlike Guy Ritchie the nature of it was, but I had made that assumption having never seen 'Snatch' (which I finally watched today).

Well obviously I was blown away. I know people have been talking about it for years, but I'd just never got round to seeing it. The cinematics directed by Tim Maurice-Jones are inspiring, I think he's working on that new 'Kick-Ass' superhero film by Matthew Vaughn. The entire look of 'Snatch' is so glossy. I wouldn't say that it glorifies crime but it certainly makes it funny. It still keeps it quite chilling. I actually came out of it feeling quite uplifted, and wanting to spend the rest of my life with Bullet Tooth Tony. Marry me please?

'Memento' on the other hand... I was not so impressed with. I remember discussing our shorts and deciding that even though they were only shorts the audience doesn't want to feel cheated. They want to feel like they can take something away from it. Well Christopher Nolan, I would like all the 109 minutes of my life back please.

I don't understand it, because the concept was great. It was such a good idea, and the way it was put together... the whole repetition thing, I thought that was really clever. It reflected his character's condition perfectly. But the ending is just such a cop-out. Whatever happened to Natalie? Did I miss something massive there, because I'm sure she was just forgotten about. He killed her boyfriend, we presume that she has figured that out since he's driving her boyfriend's car and wearing his clothes. Yet she starts sleeping with him because it's gonna mess him about? Seriously love? He has a 5 minute memory... he doesn't care.

I got really wrapped up in the 'who can you trust' element, but I was then let down at the finish line. We knew all along why he killed JG so we had no sympathy for the character... it was never created in his make-up anyway. I was just left feeling hugely disappointed, and I would love to know if anybody else felt the same, because the people who recommended it to me raved about it.

Scriptwriting: R.S.V.P.

I really enjoyed the scriptwriting part of this module, more than I had expect actually.

As we approached the 2nd part of this module, we knew what was in store for us. Everyone had to write an original script, that was to produced a 5-8min film. I guess I hadn't expected that to be too difficult in terms of length, but I found the context extremely challenging. Writing a student film is potentially one of the hardest scripts as there is no budget. Everything has to be film-able, especially as it is to be shot over a weekend.

At the beginning of the year I was inspired by a music video for the Cinnamon Chasers called "Luv Deluxe" (2009) [Dir. Saman Keshavarz]

What captured me in this film was the amazing way in which it is cut together. Despite it only being 5min long it manages to tell 3 different stories.

What I then decided I wanted to do was take that real, fast paced element from Luv Deluxe and combine it with a party atmosphere in which the story is told through two separate characters; the 'Host' and a 'Guest'. The visual idea being that each time their paths crossed physically the story-line switched character perspective too.

Of course, there is no fun in that, unless it is the party from hell. I was thinking, Rules of Attraction (2002), Donnie Darko (2001), Skins (2008) all squashed into one. Keep it really messy and absolutely abusive; sex, drugs and rock'n roll to its extreme.

Hopefully the party will bring the two characters together, minus the love interest. We've seen it before.

I think in total I spent about 3 weeks writing my script. One week researching; I appealed to loads of my friends to share some of their party horror-stories with me. Then two weeks writing, drafting, and re-writing. Eventually titling it: R.S.V.P (Original, i know!)

I felt as though the script I wrote was ambitious as a student film, mainly due to the vast amount of cast required. However I thought the nature of it, might have been quite appealing to some.

Rules of Attraction Unofficial Trailer

Skins Trailer

Post Production: Editing & Final Cut.

Editing

This has to be one of my favourite parts of the filming process, putting it all together.

Luckily I’ve been brought up using Mac’s and final cut pro so this wasn’t foreign territory for me. We uploaded all of the rushes onto one of the Macs at Uni. But because everyone in our team had different weekly commitments we did most of the editing on my laptop using final cut express. This just allowed us more freedom for when we could get together and work, and then we weren’t restrained to booking time in the editing suite on campus.

Everyone in the team seemed to have similar ideas of how we wanted our film to look and feel, so making discussions was easy.

A mutual friend of Elspeth and I is a musician and he very kindly wrote the main piece of music. We did also use some music from K.P.M. Music Company, which we needed a licence for. Unfortunately this licence hadn’t cleared before our film was uploaded to you-tube. So these 'corporate bastards' were surprisingly quick to catch onto this, and flagged us for copyright. Hopefully this is all sorted now.

Also when we came to export our final copy of the film we discovered that a few scenes were letterboxed whereas others weren’t. This was only so weird because we hadn’t adjusted any of the settings between edits. The looking at the original footage they were there too. So perhaps this was something that actually happened whilst we were filming. It only occurs during the bedroom scenes, which was the first location we shot in.

I felt really pleased with the final cut, and I believe everybody else in the group did too. I think we got as much out of the film as the effort we put into it.

And for something a little bit different.... Here in all it's glory is our finished piece.

Script Writing

Now that the editing process is over, I have already started considering the next project, for which we write our own scripts. Until this year, I had never written a script in my life. I was encouraged by my creative writers workshop tutor Joe Roberts to start reading and writing scripts now to help me focus my ideas. I was also really excited when my screenplays from amazon came through, Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards, Ritchie's Snatch, Curtis' Six Weddings and Two Funerals (a collection of Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral) and Singer's The Usual Suspects.

I have been researching other directors and their work/careers. Floria Sigismondi particularly fascinates me. I have become such an avid fan of her style. Sigismondi began her career as a fashion photographer, and then made the jump to directing music videos. Her clients have include artists such as David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Bjork, The Raconteurs and Christina Aguilera to name a few. This year she brings out her first feature film The Runaways (2010) based on the story of the band of which Joan Jett was part of. The Film stars Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart.

Below are a couple of her videos, Postmortem Bliss is a short film she directed in 2006 and Sigismondi's music video for The White Stripes Blue Orchid (2005)

On shoot

Our filming went really well. Better than expected I believe, considering the weather conditions were so awful.

Over the 48hour time slot we were given, I think in total it took us 15hours to get everything we needed, and all the crew members did a brilliant job with their assigned roles.

Being director was more challenging than I'd anticipated. I've made a few films in the past, but they were all solo projects and animations. Actually having to express my ideas and to the rest of the crew I found quite difficult. It forced me to think about shots, and set-ups a lot harder. Also I think continuity nearly blew my mind.

Working from our shotlist and schedule, we managed to keep good time, and got more than we needed for the editing too. There were certain things which I think we hadn't taken into account during our meetings which then became a bit of a surprise during the shoot:

Firstly, whilst writing the script we'd meet up at Elspeth's and decided that her room would be perfect to shoot the bedroom scenes in. However when we actually stuck the camera in there (on our first day of shooting) we discovered it would be impossible to get any of the wide shots we needed as there wasn't enough room. In the final cut this is very clear.

Then we had our tripod break too. Quite a lot of our scenes ended up being hand held, especially where there wasn't really enough room, or when we needed a particularly high angle.

Our lead actress Evie McGuckian Jones was excellent and really easy to work with (despite her diva demands). We got a great performance out of her despite the nasty weather conditions and not letting her wear a coat.

I personally found the weekend draining, but this was mainly due to traveling to London sat night, and consequently having to get up at 5am in order to be back in Bath to start filming at 10:30am

Mega Catch-up

This is the blog that I'm meant to be avidly keeping up to date since starting my planning and making a film module in October. It's now December and the end of term... I think an update is well over due. Woops.

Lets start at the beginning. Once upon a time, there was the beginning of term when we were looking at shorts that had been submitted to various film festivals/ competitions (see my first post). This was to provide us with an idea of what would be involved when we came to make our own films.

Over the weeks that followed our tutor Mike, assigned our film groups and gave us the script "What would you do for a pair of shoes?" written by Pascha Hanaway. Our adaptations could be interpreted however we liked, bearing in mind that our film could only be shot over a weekend and had to have a running time of 5-8mins. There was also no budget for our films, so we had to be extremely practical.

"What would you do for a pair of shoes?" Tells the story of a teenage girl who falls in love with a pair of shoes in a shop window. She can't afford them, so takes on various jobs to earn money. Whilst working as a waitress she takes a woman's purse and using the money she finds in it, buys herself the shoes. However, after purchasing them she is no longer satisfied and desires other inanimate objects.

This is the original Shoes (2009) [Dir. Gemma Huntingford]

When I first read through the script I felt there were a lot of directions that it could be taken in, such as replacing the shoes with something more symbolic? Or focusing more on the idea of morality. But finding one that would be easily accessible whilst being entertaining proved more difficult than I'd expected. Especially with Mike telling us we needed to add suspense!

Looking over our first draft the outline was very similar to "What would you do for a pair of shoes? " I believe we stayed true to Hanaway's script whilst adding a sense of realism to the story.

I think that I was really fortunate to work with the people in my group as everyone seemed to have a similar vision for our film, and we had a lot of fun working together.

A Dozen Shorts

"As I Was Falling" dir: Rachel Tillotson

This short tells the story of a man committing suicide by jumping off the building. The development is in the title; 'as i was falling', this was happening... And the film concludes as he hits the ground.

I thought the use of black and white for the shots with the man falling, and coloured shots for everyone else was quite poignant, adding another level of separation. And what particularly caught me was his body's reflection on the different surfaces as he fell, the pot, table and teapot. The fact that no one pays attention makes him all the less significant.

The message is strong, and the film is shot from some great angles.

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"Big" dir: Sara Dunlop

Another suicide. But I really liked the script from this film, everything is big. His life is big, his problems are big, and his actions are big. The film is actually very charismatic. The music is moving and really helps change the atmosphere, and the visuals are very crisp. The colour is quite washed out and unsaturated adding to the effect. This film was Depict's 90secs winner from 2000.

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"Fine" dir: Michael Akerman

This short in-particular is very clever, and is reminiscent of the saying "Keep calm and carry on". I think the audience can really relate to what they see here; A man sitting in a bath having a panic attack. The voice over describes all the things 'we' generally panic about when suffering from a panic attack. The visuals actually show what goes through our minds in graphic detail. The development is the cause and how he deals with it, whilst the ending is very dismissive, "...everything is going to be fine. Next!"

This short manages to get it's story across very well in only 90 seconds.

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"Dogboy" dir: Ed Edwards

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/films/film/dogboy/

A man finds a dog mask, puts it on and becomes a dog. He finally wakes up not knowing what happened to him, and the mask is passed on.

The opening music for this short was great, and really set the scene. The idea is creative and quite unique. I didn't think the acting was great, but it still conveys the story which overall is entertaining. Shot in black and white the visual contains good light contrasts, but i'm not really sure whether black and white really adds anything, other than making it less silly?

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"Smooth Line" dir: Declan Taaffe

I quite enjoyed this short. The plot was clever and the script was well written. Guy meets girl, guy tries to impress girl, guy goes too far! The title is played off on both the train ride and his chat up line, which is quite clever. The acting was good too. The camera work and sound was well edited, and overall the story worked very well as a short.

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"Fishtale" dir: Darmar Baumunk

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/films/film/fishtale-2/

1. Girl wakes up on a beach

2. Girl walks into a fish and chip shop

3. Girl returns to the sea and is secretly a mermaid.

dun dun duhhhhh.... This was quite an obvious plot. The camera work was interesting, and the light source was very fresh. But I'm not really sure that i understood the significance of the side plot with the salt and pepper shakers and the shop keeper with the knife? was it really just meant to imply she thought he would fry her up?

I did think this one really held it's own.

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"Bounce" dir: Mark Weeks

http://www.virginmediashorts.co.uk/films/film/bounce-4/

I found this animation quite fun. It was silly but enjoyable. It starts with rabbits bouncing, which was probably the wrong opening in my opinion, because then it moves onto the professor. I think this should have been the other way around. Because after this the professor proceeds to make 'bunny juice' and finally turns into a rabbit.

The animation is very basic, and i'm not sure whether it was just my connection, but the audio was out of sync too.

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"Fantaisie in Bubblewrap" dir: unknown

I Personally thought this was a bad example of a short film. The concept was good, but in general i thought this was put together in terrible way.

It starts with talking bubblewrap and the development is the bubblewrap being popped, ending with it being thrown away. In my opinion i thought it was horrible, and to my own disgust it succeeded in making me never want to pop bubblewrap again.

The footage and animation were of poor quality and the sound was irritating. I forced myself to sit through it.

I saved my favourites for last:

"The Girl with the Yellow Stockings" dir: Grzegorz Muskala

What I love about this short is the playfulness that develops within the story. Boyfriend proposes to Girlfriend, she repeatedly turns him down. Their physical relationship then progresses through various stages of childish playfulness to forceful violence, and back. The viewer is unsure how to feel observing this.

The film is also shot beautifully. I personally feel as though it works better for being subtitled too.

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"Who's Gonna Save My Soul" Dir: Chris Milk

This must have been a well written script, the dialogue in it is fabulous. Again, a romantic storyline, this time a couple breaking up. The effects in this short really add to the feel of the piece. It's sentimental, strong, and soulful (In more ways than one, thank you Knowles Barkley).

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"Light" dir: Dan Rubottom

This short shows the different perspectives of city life. Theoretically through two men and their narratives, but visually through the city itself. It is visually beautiful and I thought the soundtrack was apt. The start, development and end of the film are all linked. There is no twist, just reflection. I thought it was well scripted, repetitive... but what i enjoy most about this one is the way it was shot. Different camera angles gave 'physical' perspectives to the narratives.

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"Luv Deluxe" dir: Saman Keshavarz

From the dozen or more shorts that I viewed, I enjoyed this one the most. The start of the film links in full circle with the end, but where the story begins is 'some' guy leaving home. We assume the character is male because it's all shot from his eye view. The film begins to develop when he meets a girl and their companionship forms. What follows are the parallel roads their journey could take. However the ending for all three paths is still the same and they end up shooting each other.

This film was much faster paced than most of the others i watched, and again i was really impressed by the visuals and audio. The light contrasts are well done and i found it very easy to watch.