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.

Film Posters

As a way of promoting our work we do at Artswork Media, Nic has asked if we could all create some posters for some of our ongoing projects.
Below are two posters, which I have created using Photoshop. The first one has been designed to support one of the three, three-minutes films for the Wells Cathedral Project. The second is to support one of my individual stories for my personal project ‘Myths, Legends and Hauntings of Somerset’.
The images featured on each poster are stills from some footage we have filmed over the last few months.

Vanessa and Virginia Meeting.

Last Wednesday (3-2-2010) we all met up at Paintworks to get all our presentation material together, ensure we had everything exported in the correct formats and Chris imported all our material into the computer programme Arkaos.
We then all headed over to Bath Spa’s Newton Park Campus, where we met up with Nic, Emma and the two actresses who will be playing Vanessa and Virginia – Kitty and Sarah.
When we first arrived the room needed to be prepped for our presentation. Dani had brought along his projector, this was then connected to the laptop and using Arkaos Chris projected our material onto the back wall.
To begin with we showed everyone each clip once or twice and after all the material had been viewed we had a brief discussion of what stood out to Emma, Kitty and Sarah and what parts they liked, what they wasn’t too sure about and why.
During the meeting Dani made some notes, which he kindly e-mailed to everyone.
These can be viewed below.

"Meeting V and V - 3rd Feb 201

Feedback from Beth -

Fluid - not hard breaks - each evolves out of the next - some hook into the next scene.

Can you reverse the 3d piece?

Least keen on tertris - stear clear of the the paintings

Really loved the paint.
Really loved the water.

possibility of - Live Camera on canvas as she paints

Nic - could be much slower - dream is always slower.
Beth - more distracting to see to see something fast - but I like the idea [ the paint ]

Nic - what if the screen had bits that stuck out of the side of it.

Beth - you don't want to to have contestant change- if you have a still image but the intensity of the light changes.

Beth - Certainly wouldn't want furniture

Nic - you could have a colour patin program.

Beth - I like the ideas of characters having colours.

Actions -

1. Develop ideas further by next weds
2. Film actors read through next weds"

I thought the meeting went really well, I believe we presented a variety of different techniques to the client for her to decide what she feels would work and what she would prefer to avoid.

The following day Beth e-mailed her thoughts on the meeting below you will see an extract of her e-mail stating some of her likes and dislikes.

"

Here are my thoughts so far and I'm sure Emma will have even more when she meets you next week (hopefully).

1. I liked the idea of having colours for characters, but only if it is appropriate to the mood. I mean, the colours shouldn't turn into a disco of people.
2. I think it would be best if we view the scene transitions as 'transitions' and not breaks. That would mean that (unless we want to create a shock at a specific moment), the new or altering images should evolve slowly so that the audience does not notice the changes or are distracted by the changes.
3. I liked the 3D feeling, but as I said, it mustn't be a room with furniture etc, but just a space with depth.
4. I liked the subtle movements that you put on some of the more painterly animations.
5. I did like the water and the paint on glass, but I realise this is slightly different to the more painterly stuff and so I'm unsure as to whether the two styles will fuse, see what Emma thinks.
6. The dripping paint was also interesting, but it was one of the most obvious of the ideas as was the tetris. I think perhaps we should avoid using her paintings too obviously. Not least because we don't have any money to pay for them as yet.
7. As for the amazing technical side of things I cannot comment and just stand in awe. I have suggested that Emma brings a theatre techie with her so that you can discuss that side of things.
8. As I have said I am in the process of applying for funding. I intend to ask for the cost of the equipment and for £1000 to pay you guys. Fingers crossed.

You have certainly caught the spirit of the brief. You are creating a living work of art."


It was arranged that Kitty, Sarah and Emma (the director of the play) would come over to Paintworks next Wednesday (10-2-2010) to film a read through of the entire script, performed in the Endermol Studio Space.
This will then provide us with an understanding of the duration and timings of the play, which will help us when creating the required backdrop.

Wells Project Update

Over the past few weeks over various moments I have logged and captured the Wells Christmas Concert Tapes into Final Cut Pro. This morning I began editing the footage to create a picture rough cut – as the sound will be imported later from other sources.

As my main focus was on the picture, I tried to use the best possible shots we had filmed, but found this was fairly difficult at times as some of our footage from The West Front camera was of low quality due to the limited lighting we had in the evening. However other parts of the footage looked really effective, yet we didn’t storyboard these images but I made a decision to include them within the first picture rough cut to help include a variety of shots from various angles.



One shot both Adam and I were concerned about was the Time-Lapse (seeing the Cathedral light up with candlelight) because when the camera was set-up at some point during the filming, it got moved and we both thought this would ruin the shot. However when I was editing today I discovered that the shot was not ruined and was still usable.

Below you will see I have adjusted the speed of the shot; making it faster to create the time-lapse.
(This is still rough and needs some adjustments and is still in working progress, but it gives you an idea of the effect we are trying to create.)




At the moment the rough edit is just over four-minutes long, and our required brief is to produce a three-minute film so we need to make some alterations and adjustments to the length of the film. Overall the edit is coming along well.

Moving on from the Christmas Concert Edit, I have also been researching and planning for the next three-minute film; which Adam and I have chosen to base the film around The Choristers and possibly focusing on ‘A Day in the Life of a Chorister Boy’.

After some research I thought it might be a good idea to focus the film on a Girl Chorister, as they are a recent tradition to the Cathedrals. However after some discussion with Adam we decided it would probably be best to focus on a Boy Chorister, as it’s more traditional and less boys are showing interest in becoming a Chorister than the girls are, so this film could work slightly as a promotional video demonstrating what a Choristers role entails.

Below I have uploaded some copies of my notes and a first draft storyboard to document some of my ideas for the second film.










Before we can really move on from the planning process to the production stage we have to await Ali’s response to the idea, which means we have to await her return to Wells Cathedral as she has been working away – until then we will continue brainstorming and developing ideas.

Experimenting with Painting on Glass

A couple of Thursdays ago Dani ran a workshop on ‘Abstract Film-making’. In this workshop we looked at various pieces of work from different artists such as Hans Richter, Man Ray, Reiniger, Guy Sherwin etc; All using different techniques and approaches to experimental abstract filmmaking.

Two of the techniques I particularly liked were placing objects on film and painting on glass. I thought either of these techniques could work well as a backdrop for the Vanessa and Virginia project.

I decided to carry out some research into Painting on Glass, looking at various work online from other people to get some inspiration and ideas of how I could create some abstract images. Below are a few links to some videos which I looked at, which I thought had some good effects and designs in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-xWvpLat00&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw00u6afIew&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tMDzFhVppQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLJoNMfpnto

Last Monday and Tuesday with the help of Ollie I experimented with creating abstract images using the technique of painting on glass. Before we began painting, we lit the glass table with two lights from above and one light below to create a white canvas effect and placed the video camera underneath the glass table.


























We then began experimenting with the paint, creating a couple of different effects using brush strokes and pouring the paint onto the glass. After a couple of goes, we captured our footage into Final Cut Pro, then imported it into Motion, where we began manipulating the images using different filters, masks, and mattes.






























As you can see from our first attempts, my hand, arm and the paintbrush appear within the image- this is something I wanted to try and get rid of.











We then experimented with using only black paint this was o.k. when we imported it into Motion but we still had problems with trying to remove my hand and arm. The other problem we encountered was the top of the paint bottle - this too was appearing in the image. Experimenting further we found the best way to remove my arm, hand, paintbrush and paint bottle from the image was to cover everything in white and use only green paint. Improvising with the materials we had, we wrapped my arm in white toilet roll, placed both a latex and white glove over my hand, covered the paint bottle in white paper and wrapped white tape around the paintbrushes.

We then experimented with different consistencies of paint, from thick to liquidly to try and create various abstract images from brush strokes to splashes of paint. Importing the footage into Motion, using effects of mattes, masks and various filters and behaviors we managed to achieve our goal of removing my arm and hand from the images. We did still have the small problem of trying to remove the paint bottle top from the image, but after more practice and experimenting we final managed to get rid of this by transferring the paint into another shaped bottle.

This is one of my favorite images we created, because I like the look of the brush strokes, the effect the noise (flickering parts) creates within the image. I personally think this could possibly work well within the water scene during the Vanessa and Virginia play.



Another one I particularly like is this one. What I like about this image is how the paint eventually fills the screen. – I feel this image could work well at the part where a violent image is seen.




As I mentioned above the best way to create the abstract images is to use green paint, and cover everything else in white. The background and paint colours can then be changed within Motion. If we decide to use this technique as part of the Vanessa and Virginia backdrop we could possibly think about using Vanessa Bell’s colours from her paintings.

I have exported the different images as QuickTime Movies to take with us to present to Beth at the next Vanessa and Virginia meeting.







I loved experimenting with this technique and I feel it could work really well within the Vanessa and Virginia Project.