Filming Schedule

Wednesday – 30th April

4pm – Meet at Owen, collect equipment from stores.

4.30 – Meet Ryan and Thomas

4.40 – Set up and film Boss scene in Uni

5 – Meet Coral

5.15 – Walk to Hallam Booze, film scene 4                                 

5.50 – Walk to Park Hill

6.10 – Film last scene

7 / 7.30 – Finish

Thursday – 1st May

12pm – Meet at Owen, with Ryan and Coral

12.15 – Take the bus to Ecclesall Road

12.45 – Set up at 8 Khartoum Road

1.15 – Start filming scenes 1 and 3

3 – Lunch break

4.30 – Finish 

Unfortunately I could not be present to film for the scenes on Wednesday due to having to go to work, but I was present for the filming on Thursday for the main scenes that featured Ryan and Coral's argument.

Slight problem with one of the actors

Although we had managed to find 3 actors to fulfil the roles of Lla, Larry and Larry's boss, we kept having problems with finding a time when all 3 had a free pace in their calendars. When we were back at University after week we had to film straight away in order to finish editing in time for the presentation the week after. Unfortunately Thomas was due to have an operation and could not attend filming so Ryan took the role of Larry while Heather decided to go in place of the Boss.

Problems/Delay with filming

Over the second week of Easter, we had arrange to all come back to Sheffield so that we could get on with filming. However, due to a lack of communication we found that we were not able to get any access to booking out equipment over Easter and this meant that we had to wait another week in order to film. This panicked the group, most particular Heather, as it wasn't long before the presentation and Alex and Tom still had to edit the footage and sound.

Finding Actors

After our Blocking seminar with Dom and the actors, we were keen to find our own actors for the film. As producer, Billy was set the task of contacting actors and we continued to work on the characters in the film. However, after a couple of weeks we weren't having much luck finding actors due to busy schedules and sometimes no responses. During one of our meetings, I decided to get in touch with my brother's friend also on the course in 4th year, Helena Beeson, for any help/suggestions. Almost immediately, she replied with a number of names who I could contact on Facebook to ask if they would like to feature in our film.

Despite a couple of the actors not being available due to hectic schedules, I eventually found 3 actors for the film and happily let the rest of the group know. I was very pleased with this as, not only had we found actors after worrying over the deadline creeping closer, but I feel my input has been very useful/appreciated after not having as much input as I would have liked to in the Documentary.

Actors:

Coral Young - Lola 

Thomas Kitching - Larry

Ryan Meehan - Boss

Blocking/First run through with actors

In one of Dom's session, we had a Blocking sessions and met 3 actors who would read through our scripts and act them out. This was very helpful as it meant we could make any changes to the script that were necessary, as well as seeing the scenes visually in preparation for filming. The actors helpfully gave input on which lines should have some changes in and we found this very beneficial. After the blocking session, we stayed in the classroom to discuss locations for filming as well as making more changes to the scripts.

Planning the mise-en-scene in the living room location

Making slight changes to the script

Drama Research: Sign Language (Oscar Sharp)

Another Drama short that I really liked from Debbie's seminar, was Oscar Sharp's 'Sign Language' (2010) as the narrative was intriguing the whole way through and the narration from the protagonist, Ben, a guy who holds up an advertising board for a job - a 'board guy' as he explains. The video opens with the narration coming from Ben introducing himself to the viewers. We see many scenes where there is a pull focus and even from the beginning of the short, there are a variety of bright colours featuring in the film.

Ben seems like an overly-cheerful character from the first impression and draws the audience into immediately liking him as he talks to the camera in the style of a documentary. He introduces the different 'board people' who he claims to be friends with. The first friend he introduces is Harry and describes him as a 'joker' and we see him with the most miserable facial expression; providing a sense of humour from this ironic explanation. We then are introduced to Chris and Steve, then Alex; a work experience advertiser and feel as though this character knows everyone on the street in the same industry. Then we are introduced to Anna; who turns out to be Ben's love interest. The music that is played underneath the film is relaxing and signifies the uplifting theme throughout the narrative. It also connotes Ben's optimistic attitude, despite his job coming across as not fun to many people.

The camera films Anna in the distance and then a pull focus shows Ben turning to look at her; signifying his interest for her. The camera shots in this film seem as though they are handheld, signifying that it is a single person filming rather than a film crew. The colours in this film are full of bright green, reds and yellows which also signify the optimism that is shown by Ben. Towards the end of the film, we watch Ben finish his last shift and when he thinks the others aren't interested, we see them all with personal messages for Ben to say goodbye. This creates a sense of friendship and makes the audience feel that the other advertisers also find Ben a lovable character.

In the final scenes during the credits we see a close up of Ben describing how he still 'loves mondays' before we see him getting into a plane to advertise a golf sale. The film then switches to Anna who has taken Ben's old job and is smiling while looking up at his advertisement in the sky. Overall I really liked the brightness of the colours and the optimistic feel to this piece; with the camera angles varying from close ups to long distance shots.

Drama Research: I Do Air (Martine Amati 2010)

In one of our sessions with Debbie, we watched a number of short Drama pieces and one of them that I particularly enjoyed was Martine Amati's 'I Do Air' (2010). I liked how there was no dialogue throughout the piece but I was constantly attentive to the storyline throughout. There are a variety a shots, from wide shots to those filmed underwater. I found it very interesting how the sound effects were used to connote certain feelings in this film; such as anxiety and panic. For example when the protagonist, a little girl at the local swimming pool, is stood on the diving board looking down, she is filmed at a close up angle and the sounds have been amplified to connote a sense of panic. From this effect, we gather that the girl is too scared to jump off and therefore scared of heights; a common fear among many people.

At times, we are also shown scenes from her point of view on the board such as the synchronised swimmers as well as a little boy jumping off a smaller diving board. This angle signifies the height that she is stood at so that we can empathise with the little girl. A repetitive action that we see the girl does throughout the film is her breathing in and holding her breath. This signifies that she is aware of what is needed when jumping into water but she still can't get over the fear.

When she is in the changing room, there are many close up shots but the one that stuck out to me was the one of her feet stepping up and down in the water. This emphasises the fear that she has towards water as she is not calmly standing in it, but tapping it so that her feet keep moving out of it. More close ups are shown of her eyes, which often connote emotions such as fear as these are the features of a person that reveal the strongest emotions. We then see the little girl close her eyes and soft music begins to play as she is somehow floating in the air; signifying her imagining she is in the water.

After this scene, she comes back to reality and is seen next to the swimming pool watching divers calmly swimming up and down. Suddenly we see the girl run down the lanes and miraculously gets into the water, before emerging herself completely under. As she does this there are various different angles underwater as well as light-hearted music playing to signify happiness.

I enjoyed this drama short as it used sound effects to create the narrative, in combination with a variety of different shots such as point of view angles, underwater shots and point of view angles/

Filming the News Report

For our first scene, we had to film a News Report that would appear on the TV in the opening scene of our film. When looking for an actor for the minor role as a news anchor, Heather was able to get her friend Johnny to play the part and we booked out a variety of equipment from a green screen to lighting equipment. In order to use the green screen we booked out a camera that was able to have LED green lights placed around the lens. This reflected a green light onto the green screen behind Johnny so that when it came to editing, the background could be edited to another background. I felt that Johnny was the perfect person to act as the news anchor as he sounded and looked very professional. Although it took him a few attempts to correctly pronounce the difficult words when discussing Russian and Ukrainian issues, we finally got the scenes we wanted.

To create a different, more realistic background Alex and I went to film outside The Showroom Cinema and we stood the camera onto a tripod the film the view of traffic passing in front of the train station. We felt that this was a realistic background that would be seen on a typical news item.

Cinematography Research: 'Cinematography Learn From A Master'

In preparation for my role as cinematographer, I have actually been quite hesitant/worried about the lack of practical experience/knowledge in comparison with many others on the course. Due to this I decided to do some research online and although I've started from watching Youtube videos of basic camera knowledge, it has greatly expanded my perception of certain camera techniques I would use.

A video that I came across was Hugh Fenton's 'Cinematography Learn From A Master' featuring Richard Michalak. He has had 40 years experience as a filmmaker, 30 years as a Director of Photography and has filmed news documentaries as well as music videos. This video taught me a lot about camera techniques that I hadn't thought about specifically before, for example with framing; placing an object/actor 1/3 along the side or 1/3 from the top or bottom part of the frame. I felt that this video provided a lot of helpful tips and as well as the videos, I had Alex to be at the side while filming to help with any queries I would have.

Pitch

We presented our idea at the pitch to Dom and a couple of other groups in the class and we found that most of the class seemed to like our idea. Initially, I was a little worried that our explanation of the political theme running through the film (a loose link to the political issues between Russia and Ukraine) would confuse the others and that they would not be in favour of it but to our delight, they were. After presenting our idea, I felt more excited about putting a film to our ideas.

Park Hill/Camera Practice

While we still had the spare time before focusing most of our attention on the drama project, Alex and I decided to go to Park Hill, in Sheffield, to practice filming various camera angles. I was very keen to do this as I have not had as much practical experience with cameras as others on the course; due to my course in Sixth Form being mainly essay-based.

Alex informed me that Park Hill would be an interesting place to capture footage as it is a spacious estate allowing us to film from different heights and angles. We walked up to Park Hill with Alex's camera; a Canon 60D with 50mm lens, and he went through all of the features to capture the best footage possible. I was very happy to be getting to grips with the camera and we sometimes switched the 50mm lens for a 18-55mm lens; specifically for wide angle shots and long shots as it produced a better image. I learnt how to set the right exposure and focus for each clip.

We spent around a couple of hours in the estate both taking it in turns to film various parts of the location; from the entrance, low angle shots and pan shots. Luckily for us it was a sunny day, which meant we were able to capture clear footage and we agreed it would be a good location to suggest to our group for the drama project. Alex decided to edit together all of the footage we had shot that day and posted it as a short film on Youtube (link below). Although the footage we had were only basic shots of the estate and not planned to be made into a short film, it lifted my confidence about using a camera in various ways and allowed me to gain experience for when it came to filming the drama project.

Link to 'Park Hill' Short Film

Facebook Page and Pre-Pitch Meetings

We were given a week to create a rough idea for our Drama piece before pitching it in front of our tutor and class. We created a Facebook group for all of us to arrange times and days for meeting up and we decided to meet over a couple of days to decide on a rough idea for the pitch. We all discussed various ideas and in the end decided that we wanted our Drama to feature a strong female character alongside a male character who, isn't a stereotypical weak juxtaposition to the female, but someone who needs to stand up for themselves.

Heather and Tom suggested ideas loosely relating to the current issues in Russia and Ukraine; with forces in Russia taking charge over Ukraine and we found this a slightly similar theme in our Drama ideas with the female character taking a more dominant role than the male. We decided to come up with names to make it easier talking about the characters' roles and after much deliberation, we decided to use the names I suggested which were 'Lola' and 'Larry'. In comparison to the Documentary, I already feel more involved in the group and with project ideas as we were all given equal chances to share ideas.

In the end, our final idea features Lola; an independent female, and Larry; someone who has just lost their job but is told by Lola that he needs to stand up for himself in the future. We all favoured the idea of giving the female a stronger personality than the male and decided our third and final character would be Larry's boss; seen firing him in one of the scenes. Finally, in preparation for the pitch we discussed what we were all going to say and were happy with the final idea.

Roles

After sorting out groups for the project we arranged our first meeting and discussed which roles we would all like to have. We were told by our tutors that we had to be different roles to what we have been in past projects, such as directors and producers becoming involved in the editing side of the project. Since being the editor in the Experimental and Documentary projects, I have wanted to be involved in the cinematography of the film.

Therefore, when we all met up I put forward my desire to be the cinematographer and everyone agreed to this. I'm happy with the role I have been given and also find my group very easy and enjoyable to get on with.

Heather Kelland - Director
Billy Jackson - Producer
Myself - Cinematographer/Camera
Alex Kentfield - Editor
Tom Noonan - Sound Editor
Luke McKnight - Sound Recorder