Thursday, 26 November 2009

Script Ideas for film 2

Emptiness describes my head at the moment as I cannot think of a proposal for my short story, I have two weeks to come up with an idea for a script. Unfortunately my major problem is I keep going into Hollywood mode with explosions and gun fights. Not only this but small simple things that one might think would be easy to do, become challenging such as, a train ride. For this there is the task of getting permission to use a train and film on it, once you have done that you would have to find a realistic way of filming on a train without it deviating from its times. Then getting the shots on a moving train without it looking like the 'Blair Witch Project'. Not only this, but you would then need release forms for any one who is in the shot, stopping people from messing up shots. All of a sudden a 15seconds sequence on a train to show a journey becomes a month of work to get it shot.
What is challenging is to get a great simple short film to be simple and shootable. It is all well and good writing a script that Spielberg would say is good if you cannot shoot it on a students budget and equipment. For example I have always wanted to do a World War II film, but this would be extremely difficult, just to find the right locations for it, let alone the costume and slight issue of War; guns, explosions and amputees.
To over come the challenge of writing a good script I feel i am going to have to rein in my thoughts and create something simple yet inspiring.

Wednesday, 25 November 2009

The Filming Weekend... "HEAD OVER HEELS"

DAY ONE: 21/11/2009.
09:00 the day begins with having to collect all of those who did not have cars and get them too the first setting of the film which was the University and as i am a nice producer i thought it's best to get them rather than make people wait in the cold for the bus which would have not been on time.
After collecting every one from various places across Oldfield Park we descended on Newton
Park Campus.
The first scene of the film was to be shot in the class room of our planning and making a film seminar room, this was chosen as it has good lighting from a wall of windows, as well as the artificial lights. The shoot got off to a slow start as the nerv's of the group started to kick in, nevertheless after a few takes the filming got under way and the ball rolled well from there.
After the class room we moved over to the library for the the opening scene of the movie, this scene was a good laugh to film as Andy and Emma had to have their on screen kiss which brought a good laugh and kept the mood high amongst cast and crew. Despite a few little rain delays we managed to film both the opening and closing scenes of the movie plus two others 2 hours ahead of schedule which was great for me as a producer, not having to move things along.
By far the best scene of the day was the 'bedroom' scene with Andy and Emma this time they are in bed together looking like they have just had sex, portraying this in my small, cramped, cold, single bed with the two looking naked under the covers brought both great laughter, and awkwardness to a very good scene of the movie.
Over 3 hours ahead of schedule we stopped for the day as I did not want to push every one too hard on the first day so all enthusiasm would be lost for the second.

DAY 2:
10:00 On the second day we started later as we had done so well the day before, we arranged to meet at Becky's house to do the outfit scene. This only involved Natasha as it is a scene all about her getting ready for a date. She was a superstar she did several costume changes, hair and make up changes and a million pairs of shoes for the take and did it really well each time and came into her own when the camera was rolling. This meant again we finished early and moved straight onto the Little Theatre this was one of two very short scenes which we had to do but it was also the first time we had to worry about the general public being in shot. For the Little theatre this was not so much of a problem, the problem came when we went over to Victoria Park as there were many young children in the park who we had to keep out of shot, for obvious reasons.
THAT'S A WRAP, after this scene that was it all of the scenes had been shot, all on tape and ready to be logged and captured.

The actors in the film were all fantastic and i would like to say a huge thank you to Natasha Ball, Andy Henry, Emma Reeves and Douglas McDougall who all did a wonderful job over the filming weekend and did not complain when it was cold or about to rain but just got on with the task in hand. So thanks Guys!!!

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Being the Producer!

the trial's and tribulations of being a producer.

This role is always vital to the film making process, not only in ore production but in production and post production. At this current time in pre production i am having to a lot of paper work, this including the unenviable task of risk assesment, scheduling, casting, location sourcing and much more.


Location Finding: With our film having a love element to it i felt it necessary to have picturesque beautiful locations, which is why on the university campus we will be at the lake, and castle. Then when in town shooting at the little theatre rather than the Odeon as it is more inkeeping with the style of the film.
As you can see from this picture the grounds of the university are a beautiful tool right on our doorstep, it would be foolish not to use it, in all of its glory.