It's not been an easy semester for me. I don't want to get too self pitying but I was going through some very difficult problems in my personal life during this semester. I was working hard at uni and I was having to work hard at home as well which wasn't easy. I do feel like during this year the one thing I've learnt is my limits. I know how much pressure I can take before I snap, and it pleases me to say that it's quite a lot, which I know will be a useful skill heading out into the industry.
It was probably the lowest I've felt over the three years, but it forced me evaluate what it is I love in life, and I've found it's this. Making films and TV shows. Working on Beaulieu has been the most fun I've ever had on a production, and I am incredibly proud of the final project. That's not to say I'm not proud of my other work, but I have to mention Beaulieu especially because we were so sure we had bitten off more than we could chew at points, and we just supported each other on this crazy production.
Through experiences working on the two films I was involved with I've discovered a lot of problems within myself. One major problem I have is with my temper, I can be very quick to snap at people, having lashed out at multiple points throughout the year. Since I've managed to sort out the problems in my personal life I've definitely felt myself being able to keep my temper under control more, and it's definitely something I know I will not be letting come into my future work as it only causes far more problems.
I feel like I've really become a better film maker over this semester. I think because they were our final projects at the university I was really invested in making sure they showed the best example of what I am capable of. With Beaulieu I've really come learn a lot more about story, and how to tell that story visually without having to rely on dialogue to keep the viewer watching. And with Love in Your Pocket I've learnt so much about making a documentary. With both I've learnt about what problems you can encounter and some ways around those problems.
Coming out of the end of it all, I'm going to miss it, but I'm looking forward to trying to become a grown up.
Thursday, 29 May 2014
Post Production.
This is going to be quite a long post as I'm going to be talking about the post-production process for both of the projects that I was working on. For the two projects that I was working on for the end of third year, I was more involved with the editing process than I had been on any project I had worked on before.
The obvious challenge with Beaulieu was that it was just the two of us in the edit suite, and we would have to go through the entire process, from logging all of the footage through to delivering the final product by ourselves. Luckily, after a meeting event organised by one of the lecturers, we had met a first year, Natalie Janicka, who was interested in our project and gave us some money as part of crowd funding. She then offered us her help if we wanted, so she was a lot of help with the editing process, as well as helping out on some of the shoots. Between the three of us we managed to work really well to make some difficult decisions.\
Due to the way we had shot the film, we knew that editing was going to throw quite a lot of challenges our way, and like shooting, we had taken the approach of allowing ourselves enough time, but also making sure that we were really utilising every minute that we were going to be in there. Because we were allowing the location to inspire us about certain things to do in the film we had made some decisions during the production process that we would change certain bits. Fortunately for us, because we had no dialogue, or really any solid plot points that needed to happen in a certain order we allowed ourselves the chance to be really creative with the editing.
If you look at the film as it turned out, it’s actually very different to how we had imagined it, but in my opinion it’s actually far better than I imagined it would be, and I’m really proud of the three of us for that. Having logged the footage properly, noting down what was good and bad about each take, we already had a head start with the editing process in a way that we just couldn’t do with the shooting. As soon as we got the footage in, we made a rough assembly based on the story we had originally planned for and taking into account that changes that had decided to make whilst shooting.
After making the rough assembly and decided what we really like and what we didn’t like about the film and then made some changes. As we did this more and more we started to find our attitudes towards certain parts of the film really changing which was interesting. I think it was just us becoming better editors, because of course, considering that we had shot the film ourselves there were certain shots or sequences that we found ourselves becoming really attached to because we were so proud of how we had managed to achieve it during production. But as we watched them more and more we started to lose that attachment and started to watch it more as a viewer, and how it was as a piece of entertainment. This meant us really trimming down some shots, that before we had held for a really long time before cutting to something else.
Also because we didn’t have any dialogue, apart from one line in the last shot of the film, we were able to move clips around from the original order we had them in. The other thing we’d done because we weren’t going to have any dialogue was to pick some music that we really liked that we would be using as the soundtrack for the film. We picked these songs fairly early on in the pre-production process so by the time it came to shooting the film we were really familiar with them and knew what sequences we wanted to use them for. Having this in mind whilst shooting and then taking that into the editing process has allowed us to come up with some really interesting sequences that really compliment that music that they’re with.
Editing for Love in Your Pocket wasn’t such an easy task. There were countless technical issues encountered for this project which ended up setting us back quite a bit, as well as people in the group (including myself) having personal problems that ended having an effect on the group. These problems combined ended up with us having to ask for an extension which we were lucky enough to receive. This allowed us more time to edit the project and I joined the edit after Lawrence and Hannah had compiled a rough assembly, and I’d finished work on Beaulieu.
This project took a lot of work, and was moved around and reshuffled a lot of times before the final cut was made. Again, similarly to Beaulieu, we had filmed the same action from multiple angles, and had filmed each somewhat separate from the others so we ended up having the opportunity to really shuffle it around. The biggest challenge with the edit for this project was getting the film to a point where it felt like a complete package. During the rough assembly Hannah and Lawrence had just put together each scene separately from the other one and hadn’t put the back on the timeline. This meant that when we did get to the point of putting them together there were no real transitions between the scenes, it would just suddenly cut.
It also caused a problem for the voiceover Hannah had been hoping to add, because there just simply wasn’t any screen time to cover the dialogue she would need to record. So this meant having to go back and play around with every scene again. Hannah then wrote her voiceover clips and recorded them, and we added them in, which really brought the film together in a way that wasn’t there early on.
I really learnt a lot about the editing process with the two projects, and combined with the fact that I directed both projects (co-directed with Elliott on Beaulieu) I think it will make me a better director on any future films or programmes I’m lucky enough to be able to direct.
Production
Production on Beaulieu was by far the best experience I've had working on a project for university. It wasn't easy, actually at times it was incredibly difficult, but in the end it was totally worth it. We spent four days shooting at our location in Kent and then two days shooting at a house in Hitchin for our interior scenes.
Because the crew was so small, it meant that transport ended up being very easy. I drove us all down to Kent on the first day, and after that Elliott was staying with our actor, whom also happened to be his girlfriend. This meant driving two hours there and two hours back every day for four days, which was really draining but I was so excited to be shooting this film that I didn't really feel it. I had some personal problems I was having to deal with at the time we were shooting which unfortunately did impact on the production on one day in particular, but the crew were very professional and although filming was delayed we all got our heads down together and got what we needed to get done done.
As I said previously, we didn't have everything planned out and we were following quite a loose structure. We'd decided what scenes we would be shooting on what days, but we deliberately wanted to leave a lot of it until the day we were filming to decide how to shoot certain scenes. We allowed the location to inspire us and we managed to come up with some really creative and beautiful shots when we were filming.
Another part of the filming process was the fact that we really wanted the character of Beau to be reflected in the film. For this we would give the camera to Merrin (our actress) and allow her to shoot certain bits that we would be editing to look like footage shot on her super 8 camera that she carries around in the film. Merrin did a great job really making her character a three dimensional being, considering she wasn't going to be having any dialogue. We would then ask her to repeat her movements with the super 8 camera and we shoot around her, which helped create a really nice continuity for the action and reflect the character.
When you look at the film, the weather looks absolutely perfect. Which is somewhat true, the sky was mostly beautifully clear and gave us some really nice natural light to shoot with, which was great considering we weren't in a position to have a full lighting rig with us. On top of this it was actually really cold, as we had a strong breeze coming in off the sea, but Merrin did a fantastic job hiding it on camera, we just had to make sure one of us was ready to run in with her coat as soon as we called cut.
Because the crew was so small, it meant that transport ended up being very easy. I drove us all down to Kent on the first day, and after that Elliott was staying with our actor, whom also happened to be his girlfriend. This meant driving two hours there and two hours back every day for four days, which was really draining but I was so excited to be shooting this film that I didn't really feel it. I had some personal problems I was having to deal with at the time we were shooting which unfortunately did impact on the production on one day in particular, but the crew were very professional and although filming was delayed we all got our heads down together and got what we needed to get done done.
As I said previously, we didn't have everything planned out and we were following quite a loose structure. We'd decided what scenes we would be shooting on what days, but we deliberately wanted to leave a lot of it until the day we were filming to decide how to shoot certain scenes. We allowed the location to inspire us and we managed to come up with some really creative and beautiful shots when we were filming.
Another part of the filming process was the fact that we really wanted the character of Beau to be reflected in the film. For this we would give the camera to Merrin (our actress) and allow her to shoot certain bits that we would be editing to look like footage shot on her super 8 camera that she carries around in the film. Merrin did a great job really making her character a three dimensional being, considering she wasn't going to be having any dialogue. We would then ask her to repeat her movements with the super 8 camera and we shoot around her, which helped create a really nice continuity for the action and reflect the character.
When you look at the film, the weather looks absolutely perfect. Which is somewhat true, the sky was mostly beautifully clear and gave us some really nice natural light to shoot with, which was great considering we weren't in a position to have a full lighting rig with us. On top of this it was actually really cold, as we had a strong breeze coming in off the sea, but Merrin did a fantastic job hiding it on camera, we just had to make sure one of us was ready to run in with her coat as soon as we called cut.
Love in Your Pocket Pre-Production
I really enjoyed the two projects I worked on, mainly because they were so different and it allowed me the chance to pick up a lot of different skills, and learn a lot about being a director. I've said before that there were quite a few hiccups when it came to the pre-production for Love in Your Pocket, at least from my perspective.
Pre-production got properly started quite a bit later than I had anticipated and it was a very different experience to Beaulieu, because the project was a completely different beast. It meant scouting a lot of locations as we'd need somewhere different for every contributor we met with. It was a really great experience going to different locations and meeting people, and it really showed me how much we've all grown since the first year.
Having met people about locations we then had to meet the contributors whom Hannah would be talking to in the film. Hannah, Ben and Lauren managed to get a lot of the contributors on board without an issue, but there was one that we were worried about. The plan was for Hannah to meet a colleague of hers called Steve, who we had planned to chat to, at the pub they both work at, over a drink. He highlighted to us that he can get a little out of control around alcohol if he's nervous so we decided to sit down with him to make sure that he was fine with what we were doing. After meeting with him we decided that it wasn't going to be a problem and he was just being overly cautious.
Unfortunately parts of the film weren't planned as well as they could have been. There was a scene we wanted to shoot on the streets of London where we would be taking the concept for one of the dating apps and applying it to the real world to see how people's attitudes changed when it became face to face. The planning for this wasn't focused on properly, but I was assured that it would all be alright. We did end up facing quite a few difficulties on the day, never mind we were shooting this scene a week later than we had already planned. We ended up having to completely abandon our original plan and come up with something on the fly, which did end up working. It did show me that when it came down to it, we're all very good at working under pressure and getting it done.
Pre-production got properly started quite a bit later than I had anticipated and it was a very different experience to Beaulieu, because the project was a completely different beast. It meant scouting a lot of locations as we'd need somewhere different for every contributor we met with. It was a really great experience going to different locations and meeting people, and it really showed me how much we've all grown since the first year.
Having met people about locations we then had to meet the contributors whom Hannah would be talking to in the film. Hannah, Ben and Lauren managed to get a lot of the contributors on board without an issue, but there was one that we were worried about. The plan was for Hannah to meet a colleague of hers called Steve, who we had planned to chat to, at the pub they both work at, over a drink. He highlighted to us that he can get a little out of control around alcohol if he's nervous so we decided to sit down with him to make sure that he was fine with what we were doing. After meeting with him we decided that it wasn't going to be a problem and he was just being overly cautious.
Unfortunately parts of the film weren't planned as well as they could have been. There was a scene we wanted to shoot on the streets of London where we would be taking the concept for one of the dating apps and applying it to the real world to see how people's attitudes changed when it became face to face. The planning for this wasn't focused on properly, but I was assured that it would all be alright. We did end up facing quite a few difficulties on the day, never mind we were shooting this scene a week later than we had already planned. We ended up having to completely abandon our original plan and come up with something on the fly, which did end up working. It did show me that when it came down to it, we're all very good at working under pressure and getting it done.
Beaulieu Pre-Production
In preparation for Beaulieu we decided first of all to have a look at some films we wanted to take inspiration from. Two directors we were going to take particular inspiration from were Wes Anderson and Richard Ayoade as we both liked their style of filmmaking. Both have a very visual style which is quite similar.
The approach we wanted to take was to make a film that didn't rely on a script or dialogue to tell the story. We wanted to push ourselves to tell a coherent story with nothing but visuals, and to make it beautiful. Even though the films we were going to be taking inspiration from had dialogue, they used the visuals to really help keep the viewer interested.
One point we needed to make sure we really focused on was the location, so we started by scouting possible locations online. We knew we wanted the film to be set at the seaside so we started thinking of seaside towns we thought would be able to provide us with a beautiful location. Being students, we immediately went down the cliche route of choosing Brighton, but after doing a bit of research we found that we would have to spend a lot of money to get permission to use this as a location so we started looking elsewhere.
We found that Kent have a fantastic film council that is very supportive of student productions. Their website has a great search feature that allows you to search for the types of locations you would like to use. After finding a location that looked suitable we decided to pay a visit and see if it would be suitable.
So this was the first thing that spent money on, after managing to raise over £600 on our crowd funding page for the film. The location was perfect and easily accessible with my car, so we knew where we would be setting the film.
The two of us wanted to take a different approach to the filming, and actually a lot of that came down to the fact that we didn't really know the location all that well. Although we had visited the location we just didn't have the time to properly scout the location for particular points we'd like to use for certain scenes. As I mentioned in a previous post, the fact that we were both on the same page meant that this wasn't going to be a problem, it was just going to be difficult. So we made a rough plan, and made sure that we'd allow ourselves enough time to get it done.
The approach we wanted to take was to make a film that didn't rely on a script or dialogue to tell the story. We wanted to push ourselves to tell a coherent story with nothing but visuals, and to make it beautiful. Even though the films we were going to be taking inspiration from had dialogue, they used the visuals to really help keep the viewer interested.
One point we needed to make sure we really focused on was the location, so we started by scouting possible locations online. We knew we wanted the film to be set at the seaside so we started thinking of seaside towns we thought would be able to provide us with a beautiful location. Being students, we immediately went down the cliche route of choosing Brighton, but after doing a bit of research we found that we would have to spend a lot of money to get permission to use this as a location so we started looking elsewhere.
We found that Kent have a fantastic film council that is very supportive of student productions. Their website has a great search feature that allows you to search for the types of locations you would like to use. After finding a location that looked suitable we decided to pay a visit and see if it would be suitable.
So this was the first thing that spent money on, after managing to raise over £600 on our crowd funding page for the film. The location was perfect and easily accessible with my car, so we knew where we would be setting the film.
The two of us wanted to take a different approach to the filming, and actually a lot of that came down to the fact that we didn't really know the location all that well. Although we had visited the location we just didn't have the time to properly scout the location for particular points we'd like to use for certain scenes. As I mentioned in a previous post, the fact that we were both on the same page meant that this wasn't going to be a problem, it was just going to be difficult. So we made a rough plan, and made sure that we'd allow ourselves enough time to get it done.
Progress.
When it came to the final projects, I was taking on major roles in two ambitious films. There was obviously a lot of responsibility on myself when it came to the drama I was working on, Beaulieu, because there was only two of us involved it meant that we had to make sure that we were managing to cover all the work that another person would normally take on. We were managing to make it work very well mainly because both of us understood that we were taking on a huge task, whilst working in the smallest team either of us had been part of.
Whilst we were making good progress on our film, we were both involved in another project; Love in Your Pocket. This project was a documentary about dating apps for smart phones that I would be directing. The team for this project was considerably larger than the team for Beaulieu, with around 8 people being involved. I felt that after the Christmas break progress on this project didn't move as quickly as I had anticipated. As I was directing and Elliott would be camera operator for the project the two of us spent time researching how similar documentaries were filmed so that we would be prepared for when filming would start.
I don't want to pin blame, but there were a few member of the team that were involved with a studio project that would be filming in mid-March. From my point of view it seemed that they were waiting for that project to be over with before focusing on Love in Your Pocket. There had been some progress made on the project but the speed definitely picked up once their other project was finished, and from my point of view I felt that they weren't appreciating that just because they were now focusing on one project we, and other members of the team, were still focusing on two. This did lead to few arguments and people's investment in the project being questioned but after I explained how we felt it was quickly sorted out.
What I learnt from this is that having more people in your team doesn't necessarily mean that it is going to be easier, as I felt the work I was doing on the two man team was a lot less hassle than it was working with a bigger team. I think the main thing that helps make everything easier is communication and making sure everyone understands the attitude the crew should be taking to the production. Myself and Elliott knew that were doing things differently to everything we'd been taught over the past 3 years, but because we were both on the same page there was never any problems. A big problem I had with Hannah, the producer of Love in Your Pocket, was that I didn't know how involved she wanted me to be with content, considering that she had an assistant producer, who I assumed would be helping her get it covered. After we discussed this I became more involved, but I feel like if that had been addressed from the beginning then progress on the project would have moved faster and would have been easier.
Whilst we were making good progress on our film, we were both involved in another project; Love in Your Pocket. This project was a documentary about dating apps for smart phones that I would be directing. The team for this project was considerably larger than the team for Beaulieu, with around 8 people being involved. I felt that after the Christmas break progress on this project didn't move as quickly as I had anticipated. As I was directing and Elliott would be camera operator for the project the two of us spent time researching how similar documentaries were filmed so that we would be prepared for when filming would start.
I don't want to pin blame, but there were a few member of the team that were involved with a studio project that would be filming in mid-March. From my point of view it seemed that they were waiting for that project to be over with before focusing on Love in Your Pocket. There had been some progress made on the project but the speed definitely picked up once their other project was finished, and from my point of view I felt that they weren't appreciating that just because they were now focusing on one project we, and other members of the team, were still focusing on two. This did lead to few arguments and people's investment in the project being questioned but after I explained how we felt it was quickly sorted out.
What I learnt from this is that having more people in your team doesn't necessarily mean that it is going to be easier, as I felt the work I was doing on the two man team was a lot less hassle than it was working with a bigger team. I think the main thing that helps make everything easier is communication and making sure everyone understands the attitude the crew should be taking to the production. Myself and Elliott knew that were doing things differently to everything we'd been taught over the past 3 years, but because we were both on the same page there was never any problems. A big problem I had with Hannah, the producer of Love in Your Pocket, was that I didn't know how involved she wanted me to be with content, considering that she had an assistant producer, who I assumed would be helping her get it covered. After we discussed this I became more involved, but I feel like if that had been addressed from the beginning then progress on the project would have moved faster and would have been easier.
Getting back into it.
In my Semester review post I said that I was tired and felt like I couldn't handle it anymore. I came from that, after taking a well needed rest over the Christmas, with a new attitude. The way I'd seen it, I had been down as low I had ever been and didn't want to hit that again. I wanted to come back and prove that I can do this, and I can make something brilliant and worth watching.
I'd spent a lot of time over the Christmas break thinking about the projects that I'd agreed to be a part of, and whether or not they were something that I actually wanted to be a part of. It wasn't that the two projects didn't interest me, or that I thought they were bad, I just realised that it would showcase what I'm actually interested in pursuing in my career, which is single camera drama and comedy. After speaking to Elliott, I realised that he felt that same way and we decided to branch off and start our own project.
This is how we came up with our film Beaulieu, which was bred from both of us having a desire to create something that really focused on being visually interesting and not relying on characters giving dialogue to carry the story. We were allowed to pitch it to the tutors and they really liked the idea and quickly gave us the green light.
We then had to consider the people we would like to be involved with the project, considering so far it was only the two of us involved. We selected a few classmates we'd be interested in having on board, but they didn't seem interested when we first pitched them the idea so we decided to go it alone. After the project started to pick up some steam we had these people come back to us saying that they had changed their minds and would like to be involved, but we'd already started making great progress with just the two of us and we didn't want to mess it up, so we decided to carry on.
I'd spent a lot of time over the Christmas break thinking about the projects that I'd agreed to be a part of, and whether or not they were something that I actually wanted to be a part of. It wasn't that the two projects didn't interest me, or that I thought they were bad, I just realised that it would showcase what I'm actually interested in pursuing in my career, which is single camera drama and comedy. After speaking to Elliott, I realised that he felt that same way and we decided to branch off and start our own project.
This is how we came up with our film Beaulieu, which was bred from both of us having a desire to create something that really focused on being visually interesting and not relying on characters giving dialogue to carry the story. We were allowed to pitch it to the tutors and they really liked the idea and quickly gave us the green light.
We then had to consider the people we would like to be involved with the project, considering so far it was only the two of us involved. We selected a few classmates we'd be interested in having on board, but they didn't seem interested when we first pitched them the idea so we decided to go it alone. After the project started to pick up some steam we had these people come back to us saying that they had changed their minds and would like to be involved, but we'd already started making great progress with just the two of us and we didn't want to mess it up, so we decided to carry on.
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