Directing on the EMP

It was a completely new experience for me on this project to attempt to direct child actors in acting out my own script. Trying to direct James,12 and Barney, 10 was made easier by the fact that they were chaperoned by their parents so they were instantly relaxed and they were able to get on really well with each other. So with their parents there if they weren’t doing exactly as I wanted them to do, the parents could persuade them to do what i wanted them to do much easier than I possibly could of done. It was very impressive how the boys understood what was happening in the story and they had a great understanding of what emotions the character they were playing was going through.

In terms of their acting styles they were very contrasting, in James(Robert), 12 years old he was very impressive in knowing his lines and he came across as extremely dedicated and hard working, the only thing i would say is that he probably needs to do work on making his delivery a bit more natural at times but for someone so young to learn the whole script in a period of 1-2 weeks, in which he has a lot of dialogue, was more than i was expecting. With Barney(Imaginary Friend) he seem to have a natural knack of acting and knew how to deliver certain lines and he showed an extreme amount of energy throughout the shoot which made it easier to direct him and easier for him to get along with james.

Watching back through the rushes I was dissapointed in myself in that at times during the shoot when we were on a particularly long piece of dialogue I didn’t show enough encouragement to the boys, i just said lets do it again when i should of been “excellent, that was brilliant” which i was at times but not often enough. I feel that I built up a good relationship with the actors but it could of been a bit better if i showed more encouragement.

Working with strangers is an experience I would of previously been extremely anxious about but this project as well as the specialist has been a big learning curb for me and I felt at easy during the shoot which enabled me to do a better a job. I have never had a job before so I have not great experience of dealing with strangers but I feel that one of my achievements on this project was dealing so well with the parents of the actors and it was so good for me to see during the shoot what a relaxed, happy and enjoyable time everyone was having which enabled everyone to get on really well. I am definitely improving on my communication skills which is slowly improving my confidence. An example of how my communication skills have improved and this may sound a bit stupid being something so small but I’ve agreed with James’ mum to make a showreel for james whilst maybe if i did this project 3 years ago at the end  of the project I would of just sent them a dvd and that would be that but on this project I have kept in contact and even just to get the dvd to them I will visit them in person to watch with them because I feel all these little experiences of  building relationships will bed me well for the future and make me more, relaxed, happy and confident!

Making The Music

So for making the music i used my Yamaha Rm1x sequencer to compose the electronic music.

It’s a fantastic piece of equipment which I find quite easy and simple to use because I have had plenty of practice. Here are a few pics.

This pic shows the complete set up of the sequencer..

This pic shows the keyboard at the bottom of the sequencer which also acts as the arrangement of bars from 1-16 so you can time when to play a certain key/keys or it can act as a metronome to time what you record.

This pic shows the display screen where it displays all your 16 tracks and this is where you scroll through all your songs you make, it holds around 50 or so. The file storage is stored on a floppy disc so if you run out of space you just insert a blank floppy disc. Here you also find your sounds and tweak them and adjust settings such as bpm. It’s also set up in sections for each song from section a-p so it enables you to scroll through sections of your song when performing live.

Here is a video which demonstrates how to use this piece of equipment, it’s not my own, i found it on youtube.

The sequencer was recorded through an iMic into ableton Live.

Then with the guitar- it was recorder first through a microphone then into a mixer, then through a piece of equipment called an iMic then into Ableton Live where I arranged the track. The guitar was played and written by my brother and I decided to use the guitar because it’s style fits better with the story and setting of my film. Here’s a few screen grabs…

  

EMP EVALUATION

Evaluation

 

First thing I decided after the specialist project was that I wanted to make a short film with dialogue for the extended major project. I saw that as natural progression from doing a silent short film.

I have no experience of ever having written a script and the last time I wrote something vaguely close to a script for a short film was writing stories in English lessons in  year 11 at school. I was excited, scared and to be honest not all together greatly confident about writing film dialogue but to get good I need practise of course!.

I wanted the idea to be centred around one or two children. I decided this because I thought it would be easier to write for children because what they say is not always serious so it gives me room to write almost meaningless conversation which is hopefully fun to watch but it’s just child’s waffle really and play talk so I didn’t have to worry too much about making it realistic. Doing it like this I thought it may be easier to write as I don’t want to give myself too big a challenge as I haven’t written a script before. One of the reasons possibly for why I wanted to use children as actors was because I felt slightly anxious about the possibility of working with a stranger of my age or maybe slightly older. I felt anxious because around strangers sometimes I feel I do not have an abundance of confidence for me to interact socially as I would like. Thinking about this situation I pictured myself as slightly tense but then again I also felt similar about working with children on this project and when it came to the shoot (and working with child actors) I was fine because I realised I just need to get on and do it to the best of my ability otherwise the whole thing is just a waste of time. In the future I’ll use actors of close to my age and I’m sure I’ll be slightly nervous about working with them but I’m happy in knowing that when the time comes as long I am confident in the idea then I’ll be confident I can do a good job. As long as I have confidence in my ideas then I’ll be more relaxed, work better, have a good time in doing so and the end result will be of higher quality.

The first idea I had was about two children coming across music for the first time in their lives. I felt this idea would be good for me because I could use my love of music combined with my academic work which would mean I enjoy it more which would overall make me more enthusiastic to work and that would hopefully result it a good outcome. The problem with this idea was that I felt I had a good starting point but that was it. I needed to know straight away what would happen at the end and work back but I didn’t have an end. With the last project the idea was that the sun was exploding and would destroy the earth. So with that idea I knew what was going to happen at the end of the film and that made it possible for me to work out what I wanted to happen throughout the story because everyone had limited time so it gave reason for things to happen. I know it’s best to come up the ending and work back but I deliberated for weeks working on the music idea because I liked it a lot but nothing was happening I couldn’t work from it and felt I was wasting my time so I scrapped it. At this point I felt under pressure due to the fact that I was around 4 or 5 weeks into the project and I had made no progress at all. So again using children characters I thought it may be fun to include an imaginary friend in my story. With some of the elements of my story I wanted to make it quite personal. The story is that there is a boy who lives with his mum and his dad passed away some years ago. He is about to start secondary school which he’s scared about it and he has an imaginary friend. His imaginary friend tells him that he has to go and they can’t see each other anymore because he is too old to have an imaginary friend and he has to brave it alone in the big wide world so to speak. The last scene is on the boys birthday after the imaginary friend has gone and he receives a photo from his mum of his dad when hid dad was a little boy. The boy in the photo is the same as his imaginary friend so that’s the kick at the end which I think leaves the story on a good note. It’s personal to me in how the boy feels about starting school, I felt like that at the start of uni. Also as corny as it sounds it’s deeply personal for me because it’s about losing someone close to you who you feel will always be watching over you. These are quite serious messages I wanted to convey in the film, at first I thought this would be light hearted and just a bit of fun but there is a lot of meaning. With the finishes film I don’t think I conveyed that meaning entirely. If I was to make it again I would attempt to write scenes which exhibit more clearly the themes I wanted to be shown.

It took a few drafts to get to the final script. Then I needed actors and actors between the ages of 10 and 12 are extremely sparse. So one of my proudest moment of this project is how much work I put in to find actors for the film. I had my dates for when I wanted to shoot so I had a time limit and set deadline in my head. I searched for actors by emailing and telephone and internet resources. I spoke with every drama school in and around Bristol, countless drama teachers, companies, family friends, neighbours, I posted adverts on extra and acting websites, I messaged actors on a number of websites. It was good to be busy. Again with the whole slight fear of speaking to stranger’s thing I spoke a lot to people on the telephone and overcame that hurdle fairly well. It was around 6 weeks into the project and I was a bit desperate so to be frank I settled on the first actors I found or the first to reply, they would have been better actors out there then the ones I used. If had a concrete idea from the get go then I would of managed my time better. If I worked as hard as I did at the start to following weeks then I would have had a solid story.

The biggest problem with the project is that it was not planned as well I could. One of the main problems that arose from this was that a week before shooting I found out I would be filming on a HD camera. But not until after shooting did I realise that I had no idea of how to export the files off the card into final cut and then into after effects in HD quality so I spent a lot of time with a purchased software converting files off the card so they were adaptable to edit. This took a couple weeks of failure before success, more time lost. Then I had no knowledge of codecs in final cut so after cutting it together in final cut it took a a lot of trials before it came out HD. So it was a mistake of mine to not read up on how I should be exporting HD footage.

With the finished film I’m happy with it in that it’s prime purpose is to build up my portfolio for the search for future employment and this piece of work does a good job in exhibiting my skills in editing, creativity with the images, how to make a story fit together and also importantly the sound and music. I had fun doing the music, it was one of the most fun moments of the project. I obviously don’t want to make short films that are generic of popular culture and bland and I feel the music I use is definitely a plus point in the film and helps make a difference. I’ve learnt a lot from this project, even though I may not be entirely happy with the final film, it has been the most valuable experience of the past 3 years.

Simon Hutchins

LEARNING AGREEMENT

learning agreement

Name: Simon Hutchins

 

Course: (BA Hons)Digital Media Production            Level: 6

Unit: Extended Major Project

Reference number:

Credit points: 60

Study hours: 600

Tutor(s): Liam Birtles and Phil Beards

Synopsis of study

So continuing on from doing a short film on the last project I will make another short film. The last one was a silent so now I shall attempt to write a script for this next one. Which will be a big challenge and something I have no experience of but find it extremely exciting. I have learnt a lot from making my first short film and that will benefit me immensely for this upcoming project. In this project I will be making music to accompany the film composed on my sequencer. I realize to make the best use of the music I need not to over use it as that would diminish the affect of it. So I will be putting in a lot of work into what points of the film the music will accompany the images. My location will be using the countryside as a location so working outside will mean I’ll come across a few problems so I must be prepared. Also using dialogue for the first time means I need to work out how to record the dialogue to the highest quality. As this is will be one of the hardest parts to get right I will need to plan it carefully. On this project I will work with children as actors so at times it may be completely improvised and I may just have to do lots of rearranging to work out how the story will best fit together after I have captured my footage. I have decided to use children as the central characters because I would like to play on the element of their imagination and that will make the film more fun and likable for the viewer hopefully. In trying to get kids to say my lines may be difficult but I have experience in dealing with little ones. I have lots of younger siblings/relatives and like to think I’m good with children so I shan’t be phased or scared at the prospect.

I’m undecided on the tone of the film and feel sometimes I would like it to be emotional and sometimes just a bit of fun so for it to work out as one polished well fitted piece I will do lots of watching of films to get ideas on this topic.   I felt on the last project I managed my time very well which benefitted the project so I must do that again if I am to succeed in acquiring a piece of work I can be proud of. Most importantly I hope this project will turn out well so it will be a strong piece I can add to my portfolio. The short film will be around 10 and 12 minutes and like the last project I will also create the music for the project.

Aims

A1 To provide myself with the opportunities to exercise and enhance your knowledge and abilities in the development of a body of creative and technically competent work appropriate to your course aims and criteria at Level 6.

A2 To provide opportunities for me to learn from the increased complexity and rigour of creative production required for this unit.

A3 To encourage me to apply the advanced level of discipline and time-management which are required during the unit.

A4 To encourage me to work independently, albeit with supervision, in the development of your work, in a way which reflects contemporary professional practice. You are also encouraged to work effectively as a team member where this is demanded by your project or subject specialism.

Learning outcomes:

On completion of this unit I will be able to:
LO1 Demonstrate the ability to rigorously apply specialist knowledge, understanding and creativity in the production of your extended major project.

LO2 Demonstrate the ability to manage the complexity of practice demanded by the extended major project by managing your time and work efficiently.

LO3 Demonstrate ability in the coherent use of various representation techniques, documentation and presentations to specialist and non-specialist audiences.

LO4 Demonstrate my awareness of the ethical, social and cultural issues appropriate to the concept of a responsible professional practitioner, whether working independently or as part of a team

Assessment Requirements

Body of work to be identified through and in the negotiated Learning Agreement 100%

Assessment Criteria

Evidence of realisation through the application of technical knowledge and skills – Specialist knowledge and understanding are evident and applied in the work (LO1)

Evidence of understanding through critical evaluation and reflection – Informing the development and management of the project (LO2)

Evidence of realisation through presentation – The communication and presentation of ideas reflects best contemporary practice (LO3)

Evidence of knowledge of concepts, contexts, criticism and theory – The work demonstrates awareness of concepts relevant to the responsible professional practitioner (LO4)

References

Internet

Books

Magazines

DVDs

CDs

Action plan/time plan

Week starting-

10th January-Work out solid idea and start writing script.

17th- Go over script and get feedback about it.

24th- Research into how to build stories. Start experimenting.

31st-Fine tune script. Experimentation.

7th Feb-Storyboard. Experimentation.

14th-Find Actors, location and props.

21st- Visit location to brainstorm ideas. Visualize problems how to counter act them. Experimentation.

28th- Test shoot with actors see how they deal with script and plot.

7th March- Start shooting.

14th-Shoot, capture and edit test footage and real footage.

21st-Go back and do more shooting, more editing.

28th-More shooting depending on whether I have enough.

4th April-Get footage together to make story and reflect whether it is what I had hoped for.

11th-Get feedback on footage.

18th-Fine sound and editing. Try promote video on youtube, vimeo etc. to get some feedback.

26th-Critique

Actors

The points in the film I like most are when the actors aren’t actually acting but just chatting normally which was usually when they didn’t realise we were actually still filming. The conversations are more fun than what I wrote and the acting isn’t particularly great in the film to be honest but they did a good job in memorising  the lines and it was a challenge to find actors of the age of the characters so I would of been extremely lucky to find the next Freddie Highmoor ala time of Finding Neverland. Probably the most amount of footage we had was of the boys playing and chatting normally but I decided not to use too much of  of this because a little is ok but with a numerous amount of childs waffle in the film it would of been too much. I believe working with non children would of benefitted this film more because it was more likely I could find some good. But one of the bonuses about working with child actors compared to someone older was that they were instantly relaxed and comfortable. Whilst maybe someone older may of been slightly more on edge and took it  overly seriously whilst the kids just had fun running about the fields. The parents both mentioned how much they did enjoyed the days of filming which was great to hear. So it was a very relaxed couple of days filming really just enjoying the beautiful countryside. Another plus from using child actors meant that the parents were extremely helpful because they are so keen for their child to succeed their happy to be involved because for the parents they saw it as a chance for the child to get practice and build up a show reel. Everyone got on really well especially the two boys which hopefully shows in the film in some scenes.

Music to accompany the film!

So as I edited in after effects I started to write and perform the music I wanted to use in the film. All music I made was written on my Yamaha Rm1X Sequencer, my most prized possession! All guitar music was composed by my brother from which the film benefits a great deal. The process of adding the music to the scenes is done by first rendering out one scene from after effects and then I would watch it through to get an idea of the sort of thing needed and this also depends on the theme of the scene.  I would then come up with a few ideas for each separate scene and try them out to see what would work best.  Blade runner is a film I much love and especially the sound track composed by Vangelis, I find the music creates a sense of perculiar soft sci-fi melancholy  to the images so the sounds I like to create are definitely of an 80s period, the time of the synthesizer. I first found out about sequencers by watching a documentary about the beginnings of chicago house and the instruments they used were of a similar vintage as mine, they were used to created mainly for a bass line, the beat and the synth. I love chicago house so I after a lot of research I found the yamaha and managed to nab one off ebay for hundred or so quid, bargain!

It’s such a helpful piece of equipment to have because I find it easy to lose myself in it and just use it endlessly so I have many hours of experience of it so am confident in using but their is countless amount of other things it can do as well which I have yet to explore. It’s helpful because it means that I can score my own little videos or short films, and the more original material I use in my work the more skills I can show to potential employees. It’s important to stamp my own mark on what I do to set me apart from someone who may be competing to get the same job for example.

What I like most about the film is the credits as I like the shot, there is good mise en scene. It also shows a nice image of the boys because in that shot they are just chatting normally, even when they walk down it’s because they think we’ve finished filming and there just being themselves. So with the chatter there is the guitar music written by my brother which is my favourite song in the film. It works well at the start as it fits the story and images and to have at the start and the ends works as a nice parallel to close off the story. The other guitar music playing is in the river scene where again I think it works well with the images because we are seeing the boys just chatting and being themselves so it’s more fun and real because it’s more natural and more spontaneous then anything I wrote in the script.

The guitar was recorded in Ableton live using a microphone through a iMic to my apple macbook, the mic also came through a mixer before reaching live so I’m happy with sound quality of the guitar. So with the theme song, that consists of 3 layers of guitar tracks which I would tweak each one separately using effects offered by ableton to increase feedback or bass.

The sequencer was recorder straight through the iMic into Live which just shows what a great piece of equipment the sequencer really is. It’s between 10 and 15 years old so to be able to record it perfectly onto my laptop is fantastic, the iMic is also just as good. When I record it for the scene I would have it all planned out to how I will perform the music then render out a mov from after effects then watch the scene in quicktime whilst I record so I know the music fits with the scene. With the guitar I would edit the track in Live so I could match it up with the visuals.

Editing + Sound

So I have now completed the final edit of the film with music. The process of editing took 3 weeks approximately first working in final cut to get a cut so I can work in after effects and tweak it. I used after effects for a great deal of editing which is not it’s primary function. I pretty much rearranged the whole thing in after effect to good affect because when grading shots and applying effects it changes shots you thought not useable into good shots so that is why I prefer editing in after effects to final cut. Because it gives you more options of how you want it to look, especially for me because I need to demonstrate my skills of editing and AE gives me a lot chance of doing so than Final cut. When editing I always like to get a second opinion so I often ask a friend after I’ve edited a scene to have a watch and I would ask them whether what they see is exactly how want them to see a scene. A second opinion is always helpful especially if you’ve been staring at the same scene for too long. I concentrated in the process of editing of trying to link the scenes together via the imagery or sound and I think I achieved. The edit doesn’t really have the same theme throughout, there isn’t a distinctly constant style of edit that runs through the entire film. I did it on purpose because I wanted each scene to be it’s own but it still works I think because the transitions work well between the scenes so they fit but in some scenes they develop into different themes and styles from other scenes but at the end of the scene it would come back and hopefully they will be seen as smooth transitions between the scenes.

Editing the sound was very tricky especially having never used dialogue before so that brought about a new experience. I had a sound man using a boom. Also the camera I used was a Canon Xf305 which is HD. Cutting the shots of dialogue together often meant that the the sound would suddenly drop out or a new sound would suddenly jump in. I definitely have a new found respect for sound recordists and mixers because it’s fine tuned art and to get movies sounding so perfect is impressive. Working outside meant recording sound was trickier then if we were in a closed environment indoors because I had no control over sounds that would be heard. To get over the problems of sound between cuts I  had one atmos track from the shoot which was a couple of minutes of outdoors of birds and cows which I used over the cuts of the shots to smoothing out the sound which worked well so I used it often, cows feature prominently in this film. In one of the scenes indoors their weren’t great acoustics. So in future I will now test just the sound in locations for filming before hand.

Problems, After Effects is a bugger, Final Cut Express is my saviour

So I tried importing all my footage straight into after effects which took days converting the files, first I tried movs in after effects, no sound, then avis, this time with recognized audio but blank then with mpegs, where i after a few days editing I have found the footage is actually slightly distorted but now! I have imported all my Avis into final cut and before when exporting them to quicktime I found the videos lost their quality but with AVIS the quality is perfect. Again I have to start from square one editing and have 3 weeks tomorrow to have a completed film so with final cut working the editing will be much quicker and I have set my target to have the whole film edited for a first edit by sunday this week. This is the first time I have worked with HD footage and cards but I should of been prepared so I would of known how exactly I would import the files and where I would edit them. My organization of the filming, finding the actors and writing the script was rushed so I did not think twice about how I would get the footage onto my laptop to edit but now it should be an easy road to the finish but my lack of organization has cost 2 weeks. On my previous project I edited pretty much the whole thing in After Effects which I found worked well, I realize after effects is not first and foremost a editing software so having to work with final cut I am slightly anxious as I may of edited it slightly different in after effects which I feel gives slightly bigger scope because you can experiment with it more whilst editing.

This is where I’m at….

Ok so I did my filming two weeks ago now over the period of the whole weekend of the 19th March and 20th March. Filming started at 9.30 each morning and ran to around 4.30 in the afternoon. The whole process was very enjoyable and extremely tiring. Each the actors playing the boys James,12 and Barney,10 were accompanied by a parent who were extremely helpful and said at the end of the shoot how much they enjoyed the experience which made me feel better about the whole project and it was a joy to share it with them. The end result should hopefully be beneficial for the actors and for myself. It will go to building up my portfolio and that of the young aspiring actors. Looking back over the weekend I regret pushing the actors at time where we had a scene with lots of dialogue and I would just say again when I needed to be more encouraging at times, but I’ve learned from these mistakes and it will bed me well for the future. By the end of filming I felt as I had built a good relationship with both actors but it could of been better during takes.

The filming was filmed using a canon xf305 which is hd. I have alot of problems trying to convert the files off the card to get the footage into after effects, many times I have spent 4 or so days converting it into the wrong format but now, 2 weeks on I have finally managed to convert it into the right format and now I have finally started editing. It has been frustrating how much time I have wasted but now I have 3 weeks to complete editing, sifting through 2 hours of footage and doing sound and music as well so it’s going to be a 12 hour a day solid haul which I am kind of looking forward to because I’m fairly excited that I could have a good piece of work out of this by the end. Here are the first few seconds of editing done today.

Finding actors

I have my actors and we are all set to film on the weekend 19th and 20th of March. Both actors have theatre experience but no experience of paid roles. I found one of the actors to play Robert, James on the website called http://www.kids.castingcallpro.com/

Then on the website http://www.starnow.co.uk/ in which I am a member of, I posted an advert for actors in which I have had numerous replies and quickly moved to contact a applicant who will now play Robert’s imaginary friend.

Here is the advert I posted..

I have corresponded a lot via email and telephone with the parents of these two actors which is good for me to get more experience of doing because it’s improving my communication skills. Overall the whole process of searching for actors is personally rewarding because it involves lot’s of talking on the phone with strangers and emailing which previously I may of been a bit timid about but now I feel more comfortable in doing. Through this process I have had experience of dealing with theatrical drama teachers,  professional adult actors and drama schools so it’s interesting to find out what these people are like, what their business is like and how children go about becoming professional actors, some of them maybe a bit more pretentious than others which makes the challenge slightly harder but most of them including the young actors seem to be very grounded and hopefully that proves tot be the case when it comes to the day of filming.