Re-mold of the script, making it ours

We held a group meeting at Myles and Gus's house regarding ideas of a re-write. Mark was unable to make the same time as Elspeth and myself, so he went earlier and discussed some of his ideas with Myles and Gus. Elspeth and myself arrived about 15 mins before he left. We were informed that they were very keen on the idea of us showing the protagonist losing his mind in the form on an interview. Many of our ideas run very close to Luke's actual original script, as we where looking to show 'a day in the life' of this character with him losing his mind. However, our main idea was based on him trying to get a job interview.

I suggested that we have an extra character that he would bump into at the beginning, which he had not seen for a long time. This extra character could be with him through the day, attending all of the interviews with him. The film could have been shot from his their perspective throughout the film with this extra character prompting him to say certain things. The final image of this film would be the first perspective of an outsider who sees what appears to be this main character on a park bench talking to himself. We could then have cut to back to seeing them both talking on the bench on old times, and the days events. I thought that this was how it could have visually looked from one perspective...

However the general group feeling was that this would be too predictable. So we went back to the drawing board...then it hit me. We could put a twist on the interview with it being him getting interview by the police about a series of events. The group liked this idea, Myles thought of a good introduction, Starting from the cell and heading for the interview room. Initially I thought that this interview could be shot from our protagonists perspective with him trying to explain his events which lead to his arrest. We could then have shown these two police characters leave the room and showed them discussing how the character they had just interviewed made no sense. The final shot could have been one from a CCTV camera looking in showing the character to be mad. In affect, this film would have been in two, an initially coherent interview where our main character justifies everything rationally, which is from his perspective. Finally we would have jumped into a rational stance of the police...highlighting that nothing the insane character was saying made any sense. Gus and Myles again ruled this out...as they used a CCTV in their last film and didn't want to use the same idea.

Group Decision: Picking the Script

After reading trough all of the classes scripts there were a few that really stuck out. Our group organized a meeting where we would discuss the scripts that we thought contained good potential. As a group we finally narrowed the potential scripts that we could use down to three. These were three very different scripts that provided us with three very different films. Here are the three scripts that tickled our fancy...

1. The Industry- Liz Scott’s script is a mockumentary, which is set on a film set. One problem with this option is the comedy element. Our group where very split about this, as Gus and Mark thought that this would be a style and look that we would be able to achieve. I on the other hand felt very uneasy in taking on a documentary, especially one that relied so heavily on humor, for if we failed with the humour elements, the film would be a disaster.
2. A Justified Presumption- Lyndon Mcgukian’s script is about a friendship that is formed between a boy and an old man. The old man has a bad reputation when paedophilia is implied. The old men ends up dead, but was this murder? Or was he a miss-conceived individual that was simply isolated to an outcast? This strongest element to this story is also its weakest, the ambiguity. It would also be difficult to find the older actor as our provisional actors option are predominantly younger.
3. The final option is Luke Phillips story of a young man suffering from schizophrenia called Treatment. This is probably the strongest option, as the story seems to be the least worked, but also contains a strong theme that could lead us into many options. All of our group are also film students, which means that we are very interested in the aesthetic of the film. Schizophrenia is certainly a topic where we could do a lot visually to amplify the protagonist’s state of mind.

After much discussion we ruled out the Mockumentary because I felt very uneasy on making a comedy. This left just Lyndon's and Luke's, one being very deep and emotional with the other being about mental health. We decided that out of these two options that Luke's had the best potential in terms of us making it our own, especially visually. It contained a topic that gave us great possibilities of re-working the script. It was final, as a group we decided to commit to The Treatment. Now onto the re-write and making it ours.

The Group

This film is the first chance that we have at selecting our own group. This is something that I am excited at as I encountered some problems in our first film before Christmas in that many members of our group were not as committed as others. I personally felt that the two people involved in our group really, was Abi and myself. Yasmin played a strong part also, but got a little distracted on the actual filming weekend by other members of the group.

I had actually talked with other members of our group and organized our filming group with them last November. I wanted to be in a group with Miles and Gus as well as Elspeth. I also wanted Abi to be in our group, although all the other members in my group wanted somebody called Mark. I had not really had an opportunity to work with Mark before this group, but everybody else seemed to be good friends with him. Mark also had a lot of experience in the actual practical side of filming as he was heavily involved with Liquid soaps in both years. He had experience in operating camera's, as well as setting up lighting. Abi had found another group, which meant that our group was decided. This group was extremely different when compared to the first one. It excited me that everybody in this film seemed as committed to the film as me. It also helped that we were given the choice of picking from all the other courses scripts, opposed to being given one that we had to rework.

Here are the members of our group...

Lord Myles

Gus

Elspeth

Mark

And Myself...

Script-My first own nurtured idea

My Script.

Script writing for me seemed like one of the most boring and non important activity within

the whole film making process when I first signed up for the 'Planning and Making a film' module at Bath Spa. However, over the duration of this course, it has really hi

t home how fundamental scriptwriting is. For script writing fundamentally concerns the ability telling a story. It is certainly not one of my strongest areas, as I am familiar with studying directors and filmmakers, considering their themes and intentions hidden within their films. But to completely create an idea from the beginnings, and to then transform it onto paper is something I don't find easy. Although since this module begun, I have had two opportunities to submit scripts. This current script I am finding much easier than the first. One element that has played a significant influence in this current script for me is the fact we have just finished our first film. On the one hand, it has helped me produce a simple concept that would be very practical and easy from a production point of view as the filming locations are fundamentally set in just one room. Although, this film might have been restricted to some degree by this, as I was ruling out anything that I thought would have been difficult to shoot. To some extent this could be seen to have restricted my creativity. Although in terms of filming, it could be hard to get marked well, as there is little to do in the pre-production phase.

1st Draft

My first draft was ok for my first script writing attempt, however there were some weaknesses. For one, the script struggled in that it was not correctly written, littered with mistakes where it did not abide to the strict script formatting. I receive feedback from Mike (our lecturer), and also from some members of our class. My fellow student stated that they liked the script and that they thought it had good potential. They said that it reminded them of Groundhog day. Which is ironic as this was not going though my mind when I came up with the concept. Mike suggested that the script was lacking in terms of a good ending, he also suggested that the main character Leo could try and use this strange cycle to his advantage. With this in mind, I went back to the drawing board and re-worked my idea.

Final script

In this re-write I tried to think of something that could be used in the cycle process. Something that would it in, which leon could take advantage of. When sitting in the lecture it occurred to me that there was a very simple concept which could fit with this idea, Leon's incomplete Homework. Although this idea would fit with the morning sequence, I wanted to keep the initial shock and panic that Leon would have felt before he realized he could use it to his advantage. I was struggling with the repetitive cycle, as I didn't want the script to seem boring and repetitive. In terms of the ending, Leon needed to break the cycle. However, I didn't want him to get everything his own way as he after all neglected his college work. I thought it would be good to finish on his realization that all of the work and effort he had put into his homework in the morning, was wasted. I was contemplating him getting his homework done and returned to the point when he breaks the cycle and begins to get ready for school. I thought that it would have been pretty funny if his dog came up and ate his finished work. This would have been ironic as it is a typical excuse for many students. I didn't implement this in the story as I did not have enough time because I thought of it just a day before the final script hand in. Generally, I am really impressed with my first script attempt. I am grateful for the constructive feedback that my peers and lecturer have given me. I am hoping to film this script in the summer as a short film. I am a little disappointed that nobody actually decided to use the script for the second film on the course, however, I am a little relieved that nobody has attempted to film it as it is something that I want to film in the near future.

Editing.

This was the phase that Patrick and Chris had said that they wanted to do. I was being overwhelmed with other assignments from other modules and felt guilty in thinking that I should have let them take more control on the weekend. However, after contacting them a week after the edit it became clear that nothing had been complete, well apart from what we had done in class. Mainly Yaz, Abi and myself performed most of the editing with little help from Patrick. At this point it became a rumour that Chris had left University and that was the reasons for him not making a show. I do feel that he could have contacted us at some point to let us know that he was no longer playing any role in the group.

Down to the editing....

I love the fast cuts that represent an event that without passing through the lengthy process of something. Requiem For a Dream shows great example of this with the fast cutting that shows them taking a drug. In our film, I thought the scene with her preparing the pot noodle would be a to attempt this with. Here is a clip from Requiem For a Dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_3BXG3texY&feature=fvw

This clips demonstrates this at the opening.

Another aspect of this film I liked was the speeding up sequence. This is something that would be easy to apply in our film. I tried this in our montage when Claire delivers the newspapers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0TedJ56L_w&feature=related

After fitting everything into a chronological order, it became clear that their were some key shots that we really needed. It also became clear that we had to much footage that we wanted to use,without the key linking shots. This meant that we had to make a last minute alteration with out script as we did not have enough time to re-film the missing shots. This was devastating for us as we had to remove our key idea due to lack of footage (well, usable footage). The weather really impacted us on the first day, distracting us from the story and shots. However, we did re-arranged the order of what we had and also used a large array of transitions to try to cover this up. I regret not going through the shot list with a fine tooth comb before we moved into the production stage as it would have made everything else that followed much more effortless. I am so happy that we have another film in which we can learn from our mistakes, hopefully resulting in a film I am more happy with.

The Filming Weekend.

Day 1: the living nightmare.

Sometimes life can be cruel, especially mother nature. It was the first day of our filming weekend and everything had been set up. I thought everything would run smoothly and that it would be a breeze. But how wrong I was. I didn't notice how bad the weather was until I was loading the Z1 into my car. I didn't have an umbrella as I usually bare the rain in a hooded coat, although I had never been solely responsible for a £3000 Sony Z1 before. I thought that other members of our group would have a solid umbrella, especially as half of our team are females. I'm not being sexist, but it is a known fact girls usually have amazing umbrella's due to their hair. But not in this case. All we had were small delicate fold down ones that did not stand a chance in these conditions.

Anyhow, the first location on the schedule that Abi had drew up was the Post office. So at least we would be inside for our first scene. In the post office everything seemed to go well, apart from the constant flow of customers. But we managed to find a gap and get the shots that we needed. The ladies in their were lovely and polite, however, it was only the first scene of our two day filming weekend and I already knew that nobody else apart from Abi and Yaz would contribute to any decisions regarding the scenes and shots. In fact, rather contrary happened. As the weekend unfolded it became a constant battle to keep the attention of all the crew. At points I felt like Abi and myself were like school teachers, struggling to keep to the schedule due to other members of the cast distracting our actor and other members of the crew.

Moving onto our worst scene of the whole weekend. This was the scene outside the Job centre when the weather was at is climax. What made things harder was the fact we were still very much ammeters in setting up the equipment promptly. It was hard for me as the director to pay attention to the framing due to the worry of the Z1 getting wet, especially as droplets kept collecting on the lens. Many of our shorts on this scene had flaws, either the umbrella was falling down into shot, or their was reflections of members of the crew in windows (Yaz's white coat). I like to think that these mistakes would not have have slipped through given a normal filming environment. I hope that even in these early scenes I would have spotted these silly mistakes. However, everything improved from this point. I am proud that we covered so much ground and did all the hard slog in our first day. We finished off at my flat to complete the end of the first day. Everything seemed set for the second day. Abi had previously arranged actors for the final day, and Mike contacted us to inform us he was going to be meeting with us early the next day.

Day 2: Town

The weather was so much better than our previous day on set. However, this was another day I was dreading because I imagined that there would be at least one member of the public looking at our camera in every take. Although, looking back in hindsight, things were not as bad as I had envisioned. There were obviously takes where people did look into, but on the whole...it was good.

On the downside, everything was a struggle due to the fact both of our actors did not show up and Treds was closed when we had scheduled to film. However, we did manage with these problems by simply shuffling around the schedule and filling these acting performances by members of the cast, with me included. I do like the idea of appearing in this film as both Hitchcock and Tarantino both make performances in all their own films. Generally, I am really pleased with today, especially considering how we have overcome certain problems.

This weekend!!!! My Official Directorial debut

This week has been mental as weeks go. I have so much other work to do from other modules as well as all the troubles that have faced us about our film.

Abi did not have much luck with any shoe shops as they all said that they were unable to allow filming to take place. Luckily I had spoken to one of my friends Elspeth who had managed to organise a filming slot with the newly opened Treds in Southgate. I decided to go into the shop in person and managed to talk with the area manager who said he was happy for us to film their, permitting we did not take up much room, were organised and did not disrupt his trade as it was going to be a busy weekend. He also wanted us to show the brand name in our film (i.e. the brand on the bag). This was such a result, especially considering that is was our last possible option of finding an actual shoe shop to film in.

Another location that has caused us a headache is the Job centre. I have been trying to organise a meeting with certain members for weeks now, but they don't ever seem to be around. I had eventually give up and passed the number onto Abi. She had more luck as they said it would be fine for us to film, although they would not be open any time over the weekend of our film. They did give us permission to film outside though.

In terms of Post office, Yaz managed to sort this out weeks ago. We had also arranged to use Yaz's garden for another scene. Abi has also arranged some actors from the drama department to come down and take part in our film which is great.

One aspect that really annoyed Abi and myself was the fact that Chris had not taken on any responsibility outside of the classroom, but had also failed to show up to the Camera demo, which was his only commitment to the project.

Luckily, Mike had arranged a practical workshop earlier this week which really helped put everything into perspective, and also allowed us a chance of a mock run through. It also provided Chris a chance to practice and pick up some key points in using the Z1.