Filming!

On Monday I helped Ved out with his shoot for his individual project, which was a scene from the first episode of a drama he has written called ‘Freshers Week’.

This was really good fun, it was great to see the actor and actresses from t

he casting session, which I helped out with on the Monday before portray the characters Ved had created. It was surprising to see the main character – Emma, who we were

unsure of in the casting session take on her role, I thought she did a really good job and made the character stand out.

During the day I helped out with various different roles and tasks but I probably spent most of my time, helping out with sound by taking on the role as boom operator. Although when we first started we did encounter a few technical problems with the sound equipment, for some unexplained reason we couldn’t get the Boom Mic to work, it wasn’t sending any sound levels to the camera. Not having any other Mics with us, we had to record the sound using the camera mic. At first t

he mic was struggling to pick up all the dialogue, however Sam had a an idea of placing the camera mic on the boom pole and holding that closer to the cast – which is what we did for the rest of the shoot.

Overall I thought the shoot went well, although I did think there were a few minor organisation issues with call times. Two of the actresses had the same call time as the other cast members but wasn’t being filmed until late afternoon. They spent quite a few hours sat around, looking a little bored. I personally think it would have been better to have given them a later call time, although looking on the positive side it did provide them with time to run through their lines. The other minor organisation issue I noticed was, when the other two actresses started filming their scenes, the rest of the cast were left hanging around waiting to complete one final shot. I think it would have been better to film the final shot before moving onto the next scene, allowing them to finish up and leave on time. I think this could have also caused a few problems with lighting as the set needed to re-lit due to the lights being moved to film the next scene.

Apart from them issues I though the day went really well, the location was brilliant, and the actors and actresses were all good and co-operative. Everyone worked well as a team, all helping out with various different roles and I think Ved did a great job in directing the shoot.

On the Tuesday afternoon, Adam, Tom and myself all went over to a primary school to film another part of Adam’s individual project, working along side the Avon and Wildlife Trust. The aim of the day was to film some primary school children taking part in a wildlife walk around their school grounds, which was run by the Avon and Wildlife Trust. The purpose of the film is to provide other people / schools with a taster of what the project / walk involves – teaching children to explore the different types of wildlife species. I took on the role of Still’s photographer and helping Tom out with the sound equipment and cables. As we were following the children around we needed to ensure they wouldn’t fall over any loose leads and wires from the boom mic.

The shoot went well, although I think additional material maybe needed at some point during the edit to establish the main points of the project – possibly using quotes from the children, teachers and Avon and Wildlife Staff.

Group Meeting and Vanessa and Virginia Update.

On Wednesday 24th March we all had a group meeting to discuss and organise a timetable for each of the group projects; scheduling days of work so everyone knew what projects they were working on and what needed to be done on each day. It was decided we would have all of the group projects completed by the 28th April, to allow us all time to focus on finishing and finalizing our individual projects. The majority of us have chosen to work through the Easter break in order to keep on top of the schedule and workload.
It was a good idea, to allocate certain dates to each project so we could work in small teams to get the production and post production completed, as everyone knew that on that day they were focused on developing that various project.

Last Monday I made a list of all the scenes we needed to make for the Vanessa and Virginia project, listing estimate timings for each one, this was done using the recorded read-through. Then on the Tuesday and Wednesday Sam, Tom, Chris and myself focused on creating and making some of the scenes. Sam and myself each brought in a variety of different props and materials to experiment with creating different affects. One of Beth’s requirements was she wanted the projection to look dream like. Baring this in mind we experimented with different materials in front of various shades of light. Below you will find a couple of examples we created.





Outside we all began experimenting with the exposure and colours to try and create this dream-like effect.
Another requirement Beth wanted was she wanted the production to be abstract and experimental so we played around with different lights, fabrics and textures to try and create these affects.
Below you will find an example.



We also created various images and scenes using Motion to create some different styles. Below is a clip I created using two colours from Vanessa Bell's paintings to represent Vanessa and Virginia's mother and father.



This week we are going to continue experimenting and creating other abstract images using paint, powders and liquids to create various textures, designs and affects.

Stanton Drew Shoot 2

On Tuesday 23rd March, I had organised to re-shoot at Stanton Drew but this time with a different contributor. Tom, Adam and Rob all helped out as crewmembers taking on roles of camera operator and sound recordists.
When we first arrived we made our way over to the Stone Circles to get ourselves organised, and have all the equipment set up ready for when Leon (contributor) arrived.
We began testing the sound equipment to get the correct sound levels when Tom noticed a slight buzzing sound; after talking with Rob they decided to remove the sound mixer as this seemed to be causing the annoying buzz. The sound was then set-up to be recorded straight into the camera.










































Once Leon arrived we were ready to start filming, however that’s when the weather decided to take a change for the worse and began raining. After waiting for a short while, the rain did die down, but there was still a slight shower I decided to carry on with the shoot, holding an umbrella over the camera to try and avoid any water going on the camera and lens. Although at times some shots were unusable due to this problem.
Once all the stone circles shots were filmed, we moved into The Druids Arms Pub where I got a few more takes of Leon telling the story of The Stanton Drew Dancers.
Leon was a fantastic contributor, he defiantly knew his stuff on Stanton Drew and was very confident in telling the story to camera – he had real character.



It was just a shame the weather was not as lovely as the previous Stanton Drew shoot, but then again the contributor, content and sound was a lot better so I guess it’s swings and roundabouts.
Adam, Tom and Rob were all really helpful on both shoots, all helping out with different problems that occurred, everyone was really organised and overall I was happy with the way the shoot went.

Stanton Drew Shoot 1

After speaking to Gordon about my project he agreed to contribute what he knew about the myth of the Stanton Drew Stone Circles. After getting permission from the local Stanton Drew farmer (who owns the land) it was arranged with Gordon I would meet him at the Stone Circles on Tuesday 16th March where he would tell the local story to camera.

I organised a small crew again to help out with the shoot. Adam took on the role as camera operator, Rob and Tom both helped out as sound recordists and Sam took the role as stills photographer.

When we arrived it was a beautiful day to film, the weather was gorgeous. However when we first began setting the equipment up, we came across a technical problem with the camera – the picture was all grainy. We tried to resolve this problem but were having great difficulty; but Adam rang Dani and managed to resolve the problem over the phone.
Below is an example of what the picture looked like, before the problem was resolved.



We finally got started with the shoot, and began filming Gordon telling the story. Gordon had brought along a local poem / song about Stanton Drew, which he read to camera however he read from the piece of paper – although this wasn’t ideal. I thought I could use the poem as a voice-over replacing the visuals with different shots of Stanton Drew and the Stone Circles.
Due to other commitments Gordon could only say with us for a couple of hours so the shoot was quite short, and I was a little concerned and disappointed with the amount of content we managed to film, but felt I had enough to create a small feature for my documentary; however I did think we had shot some great cut aways of the stones, church, signs, etc.

The following day I went into Artswork and began capturing my material when I discovered that the majority of the material shot was unusable due to distorted sound. Unsure of why this was, I asked Dani he seemed shocked at the quality of the sound and told me that the levels would have been too high on the camera causing this problem. At the shoot, all the sound was set-up to go through the mixer, and on the day Tom, Rob and myself all thought the sound, sounded fine.
It was later discovered that the distorted sound was down to a technical problem with the clip Mic.

Due to these problem I was unable to use any of the material shot and needed to rearrange another shoot, to re-film everything.
I then received a phone call from Tom, who had a friend - Leon that was very knowledgeable about Stanton Drew and it’s local myths. After speaking to Leon, he agreed he would be a contributor for my film and would tell the myth to camera. It was arranged I would re-shoot on the 23rd March.

Stanton Drew Update

On Tuesday Sam and I headed over to Stanton Drew to follow up some leads in regards to finding a local contributor to participate within my documentary.
A previous Artswork Media student had given me the name of a local landlady, who was very helpful during his personal project. I decided I would visit Stanton Drew to complete a recce and talk to her about the possibility of using her pub – The Druids Arms to film in and find out whether either herself or one of her regulars would be willing to volunteer to tell the Stanton Drew story to camera for me at some point.

On our arrival (after taking a few wrong turns) we found ‘The Druids Arms Pub’, I noticed on the wall the previous landlady Trish had left and the pub was now being ran by someone else. The new landlord came across very cheerful and friendly so I asked him whether he would be interested or knew of someone that would be willing to help me. He informed me that recently they have discovered Stanton Drew’s Stone Circles are around 10000 years older than Stonehenge and therefore the Stanton Drew story has been confirmed a myth. He told me that he wasn’t sure about the story, but one lady in the village might be able to help me so he took my number and said he would get in contact after speaking with her.

Moving on from the pub Sam and I visited the Stone Circles, where I took the opportunity to take a few pictures and make some notes in order to complete a recce.













Feeling a little disappointed with the result of not finding a contributor we decided to visit the village church, to see if I could find anyone there who would be able to help me, unfortunately there wasn’t; however I did managed to find the Stanton Drew Parish magazine, which listed all the local contacts of different groups and associations.



Reading through the magazine I found a small piece on the Stone Circles with a name and number to contact for further information on the latest report. I followed this lead and managed to speak to a lady called Elizabeth. After explaining my project to her she told me to ring back tomorrow and I would be able to speak to her husband who would possibly help me, either by contributing himself or putting me in contact with someone else.

Hopefully I will get to speak to Gordon (Elizabeth’s husband) and I will be able to feature the story within my documentary as originally planned.

Scriptwriting Workshop

Yesterday we took part in a scriptwriting workshop, which was run by Doug Chamberlin. Doug is a professional scriptwriter and has worked on many projects writing for both T.V and film, one of his well-known projects is Toy Story 2.
The workshop began with Doug introducing himself giving us a brief outline of his background and experiences as well as him finding out a little bit about each of us, our interests and what we do at Artswork Media.

Once the introductions were over, we moved on to discussing good and bad sitcoms, looking at their premise. In this discussion Doug read out some sitcom premises and we had to decide whether they were funny or not. From his short exercise we discovered that the more successfully sitcoms such as Friends, Father Ted, Fawlty Towers all had simple premises that didn’t come across as funny; more of the unsuccessful sitcoms that may have ran for only a few episodes or possible one season had a suggestive funny element to their premise such as My Mother the Car.
What we learnt from this exercise was a sitcom premise doesn’t have to be funny it’s just to provide an outline of what the programme is about. The comedy elements slowly develop within the re-writes and with the character developments.

The second exercise was to list things, which can differentiate different characters within a sitcom. Some example we came up with:
- Gender
- Age
- Race
- Morals
- Religion
- Height
- Weight
- Hair Colour
- Type A / Type B
- Relationship Status
- Fashion Sense
- Class
- Regional Background

We then discussed the three types of humor different characters can portray. These were:
- Machine
- Child
- Animal.



Using these exercises we began planning and brainstorming for our own sitcom.
First we all needed to decide on a location of where our sitcom would be set.
After brainstorming, it was decided our sitcom would be set in a Theme Park.
Keeping this location in mind we had to work together and decide on what job roles would be available to use within a theme park. For example:
- Ticket Officer
- Car park Attendant
- Ride Operator
- Snack Bar Girl
- Manager
- Cleaner
- Maintenance Guy
- Cartoon Character
- Security Officer

We then discussed what characteristics and personality traits would work well with each character, using the examples from the first exercise.




We decided that we would have a paranoid ticket officer, an old car park attendant, young manager, beautiful and smart snack bar girl, lazy security woman and a posh cleaner who is on patrol, the cartoon character’s identity would remain a mystery.
Having decided these first draft character traits we discussed possible situations that could happen within an episode of the sitcom. One main idea everyone seemed to be drawn to was the idea of the electricity being cut off and the problems and disruptions it would cause to the theme park and between the different staff members.



After that exercise the workshop came to a close. But I found the whole workshop to be very interesting and fun to take part in. It has provided me with a greater insight of how sitcoms start of as very simple, unfunny ideas that can develop into something very comical, just by taking the time to develop the characters, stories and the key thing is to keep re-writing.

Vanessa and Virginia Shoot - Read Through

On Wednesday 10th February the studio was set up for us to film a read though of the ‘Vanessa and Virginia’ script. A green screen was set-up for Emma and Sarah to stand in front of whilst reading the script. This was done so we could edit in different images during the editing stages to see whether the images and techniques we had been working on would work well and would look right within the play and performance.








One of the main aims of the shoot was to get an idea of how long the actual play will take in order for us to work out timings for the different images we are going to create for the backdrop.



During the shoot I took on the role of Sound Recordist, where I had to monitor the sound levels. To be honest I was a little nervous about doing this role, as I haven’t had much experience in using the sound equipment before. However Dani and Tom explained exactly what I had to do and I seemed o.k. with it. To begin with they showed me the sound mixer which I was using up until it completely decided it wasn’t go to work any longer and went dead. We then discovered the batteries had died, and to save time and messing around it was decided we would record straight into the camera. Once all the leads were in place and we were ready to start shooting again my role was to ensure that each of Emma and Sarah’s microphone levels didn’t peak. Listening through the headphones everything sounded fine, levels were fine until about half way though the reading when Emma’s clip mic decided to also stop working. Alerting Dani to the problem, he decided it would be best to keep sarah’s mic running but capture the rest of the sound through the boom mic. I don’t think we encountered any further technical problems after this and were able to complete the shoot.














Overall I think the shoot went well it provided us with a greater understanding of the length of the play and scene timings, all things, which will defiantly help us when creating the required backdrop.