I'm Moving on up Now...

Since I'm now Level 5 I've changed blogs, my new address is:
http://jwaterallfilm.blogspot.co.uk/

See you there.

That's a wrap.

Well, after many many projects and mishaps I've come to the end of Level 4. Overall I feel like I have refined a lot of my technical and problem solving skills as well as added to my portfolio of work.

Tyrannosaur

Warp films' name has been synonymous with quality and gritty realism. Tyrannosaur is no exception to that rule, painting a grim and true to life picture of the lives of two people and the people they encounter on a rundown council estate in the Midlands.

The story centres on a widowed man who in a drunken rage accidentally kills his dog, grieving he befriends a woman working at a charity shop, from there it leads to friendship, sadness and shocking revelations.

As per tradition with Warp films the tone of the film is very grim, not holding back on any front, some of the events depicted are rather shocking and gory, including rape, a child being mauled by a dog and our main character decapitating the said dog. These scenes while unsettling successfully depict the harsh and unforgiving world in which the characters live, which while at times can be exaggerated is very believable   and all the characters feel as if they could exist in real life. I also think it was an interesting role reversal to make the male lead a widow as this isn't done often, while the main character tries to act masculine and stereotypically tough his human side eventually shines through

The acting in the film is also top notch, all the main characters and even the side characters and extras give engaging and believable performances that characterise them.

Whilst this type of story has been done in this style many times it's still done very well here, which isn't really something which can be faulted.

Editing screenshots

Here are some more screenshots of the editing process. I've successfully compiled a rough cut together, however it's WAY over time, currently running at about 7 minutes long. Whilst I have started to cut it back the director (who was absent) needs to view the rough edit before I can do anything too drastic that removes meaning from the story. I need to get the fine cut finished today so that the sound designer can work on the soundtrack.

Filming Complete

Okay, so yesterday after borrowing a suit from the fire museum we successfully completed principal photography for the drama project. Now we can finally use the footage and finish editing the film, ready for the sound designer to do his work. As I type this I'm waiting for the files to render in Final Cut Pro (which is one of the obstacles in the way at the moment.

Hopefully I'll be able to finish most of the picture editing today, giving us time to work on the sound and make any alterations, should they be required.

Hope for the best!

Drama Project Update 06/05/2012

To say we're running a bit behind schedule is an understatement, we still have footage to shoot and editing to complete, we also need a reshoot of scenes containing a cosmonaught (since the costume doesn't look very convincing).

On the editing front I think I'm working well with the limited footage I have available. Challenges I have encountered include:
- Converting DSLR footage in Compressor to make it editable.
- Chroma keying on green screens with differing lighting.
- File size limiting the transfer of footage.
- Having to edit without the director present, which can cause misunderstandings at times.

Here are a couple of screenshots of the editing process:

I have had positive feedback from the group, several other students and my tutor, so I'm confident that despite being pressed for time, if all other production elements go to plan that we should be able to get the project finished on time.

Drama viewing materials

http://www.gboyle.co.uk/aag%20qt.HTM

Whilst this film is well shot and edited it suffers from an unlikeable main character and a story that doesn't really answer a lot of questions that are brought up. The main character is a teenage girl from a northern council estate as she explains why she's unhappy and frustrated with her life, with her divorced parents, unpleasant surroundings and little to no opportunities. This character, although unlikable and "chavvy" with her vocabulary and accent does have a motivation: To get into the music business and move away from her current surroundings, she sings Britney Spears songs both alone and with her friends. However at the end of the film the girl drops a stillborn baby into the canal before leaving in a saddened state, the meaning of this is mostly left ambiguous though it may be implied that she herself had the baby and it was born dead.

Personally I disliked the main character due to the previously mentioned aspects and found her aspirations a little delusional, I also didn't like the ambiguity of the ending and its relative suddenness. That being said I think the film did depict life in these areas relatively accurately and I think a lot of people could sympathise and understand the main character a little better than I did.

Sign Language

"Sign Language" is an enjoyable short concerning people with one of the most mundane jobs in Britain; standing around with advertising signs. Told in the style of a documentary it follows a man who claims to be "an advertising technician", the man is very upbeat and optimistic about his extremely boring job and keeps his spirit higher than anyone in his position in real life might do. The whole film has a tongue in check style, from the man describing his "co-workers" with terms that certainly seem very misguided. The penultimate scene where the advertisers turn round is a rather amusing twist to the story as it goes someway to confirm the man's claims of his co-workers being nice after he himself has started to lose hope in them.

I enjoyed this film and how different it was filmed, and the main character was very likable with his optimism and upbeat attitude.

Audiotour

This film again has a very tongue in cheek value to it and made me wonder what it would be like if machines had thoughts and a personality. While the audio tour starts off normal enough it soon becomes clear that this will have a humorous tone to it when the machine starts describing a man stood by the woman who is listening. From then on the device starts to describe a lot of the aspects of life, objects and behaviour that the woman encounters, eventually accumulating with a small character study of herself, making her realise that she is a flawed character. The audio tour recording is an interesting character in his own right, acting very cynical with a lot of dry humour and despite his obvious limitations of being a machine he does seem very human and is the only character in the film with any dialogue as such.

An Empire of Dreams, aka George Lucas is GOD!

I love Star Wars.

Well, when I say that I mean the original movie from 1977 (now referred to as "A New Hope"), I've not watched "Empire Strikes Back" that much but I think it's okay, I like "Return of the Jedi", "Phantom Menace" is mediocre and feels like a kid's film, "Attack of the Clones" is unbelievably boring, "Revenge of the Sith" was flawed but enjoyable and I really don't care about the expanded universe.

But enough of my thoughts on the movies, today I'm going to talk about the documentary made for the 2004 DVD re-release of the original trilogy (remastered) "Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy".

The Documentary is what it says on the tin, a chronicle of the making of the original Star Wars movies and how they changed film making processes, the shift in culture they inspired after their release and the various challenges Lucas had to overcome in order to bring his vision to the silver screen.

The film does a particularly good job of showing the uphill battle Lucas had to endure to get the first movie made, from studio executives saying it would never work to trouble with the pioneering technology and other production problems. It does the same for the following two films though in a more abridged fashion.

The narrator (Robert Clotworthy) does a good job adding tension to the "story" through its more tense and uncertain moments, aided by the music and while it is all music from the films' soundtracks it is used appropriately, emphasising the emotions the filmmakers want the audience to feel.

In addition to clips from the movies the documentary features interviews with not only Star Wars cast (Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher etc) and members from all areas of the production team, but also American historians who add to the historical context and filmmakers who the trilogy inspired such as Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Peter Jackson. This aids the films argument that Star Wars was "inspirational to a generation". Concept drawings and rarely seen unused posters are seen along with audition tapes from casting.

All these elements make the documentary rather fascinating to watch as it provides an interesting  account of Star Wars' creation, it's production and legacy.

Don't mention THESE!

However, since the documentary is meant as a tribute to Star Wars there's A LOT of information missing. David Prowse who was Darth Vader's body actor is only mentioned a few times, probably due to his bitterness of having his voice replaced without his consent.

Though can you blame them?

 

There is also no mention of Mark Hamill's car accident between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, which scarred him for life, nor is the behind the scenes drama surrounding Return of the Jedi covered in any great detail, the film also attempts to make Star Wars seem like a Godsend to the world and anytime something apposes Lucas he's always portrayed as the victim, in a situation which usually resolves itself in Lucas' favour. The film also emmits the less well received elements of the franchise, including the infamous Holiday Special from 1978, the lukewarm reaction to the prequels and generally it feels like the film iconises George Lucas rather than tells the entire story.

That being said the documentary is still enjoyable for a Star Wars fan and for anyone who is interested in science fiction filmmaking. I'd recommend watching it.

Green Screen Test

 

In preparation for my editing role on the drama project I've been experimenting with chroma keying effects. The following video was made in Apple Final Cut using the bare basics of plugins and effects, since the effect is far from perfect (the image is all interlaced, which I put to being a formating issue, and there is a dark outline around the head) I may resort to using Adobe After Effects for the scenes using green screen, though this may cause more problems than it solves due to the format differences from Mac to PC and just a general risk of loss of quality during rendering.

Update on Drama 25/4/2012

Since I last posted here we have a finished copy of the script and we're due to start filming this Friday through to next Wednesday, giving me about a week to edit it. In the meantime I'm contemplating coming in and trying out some of the effects that we'll be using in the project, so I'm not scratching my head when it becomes heated.

I'm also slightly concerned about not having much to write about on this blog until the editing process begins aside from reviewing some of the drama pieces we were shown.

Drama Project

Well, after dare I say a bit of a false start with a lack of information we've got ourselves organised with our drama project. We now have an idea which we think will work as a short piece (this idea may be subject to change), the story is of a man has a sort of epiphany, ending on an ambiguous note.

I've been assigned the task of editing the film, which is both exciting and daunting at the same time: the exciting part is that this will be my first time on one of these large projects where I have had this role, so it will an interesting and maybe enlightening experiance for me. On the other hand the script is quite advanced and heavy on special effects, this means it will have to be cut carefully to keep the desired feel and tone, as this type of story while done a lot is quite difficult to pull of "right" and often ends in failure or a lower standard than hoped for, the special effects side of things is also slightly concerning as I don't have a lot of experiance with special effects.

It has been suggested that we edit the footage as it's shot so we have plenty of time for the effects, the problem is that as a film is being shot the tone and feel can change, meaning a lot of reworking may need to be done.

To keep communication during the process we've set up a facebook group to suggest ideas, arrange meeting times and make sure everyone is up to date with what's going on.

GUARDS!!

"The Guard" is a film I've been wanting to see for a while now; as stated before I'm a fan of shows and movies featuring the emergency services, seeing how "Hot Fuzz" worked I was eager to watch "The Guard" and while I didn't expect the most exciting and action packed movie I still thought this would be a good laugh since everyone has been raving about it and praising it.

And I have to say...I found it pretty underwhelming.

Granted, some of the characters were enjoyable; my personal favorite was Sergeant Boyle, played by Brendan Gleeson, he was the definitive old policeman who does things the "old way", who may be an arse on the outside but deep down he's a good man.

I also found the FBI agent enjoyable, simply his reactions to this new environment were quite funny at times, him and the sergeant aren't exactly close and don't see eye to eye, this can work well but in my opinion it's one of the film's downfalls, they don't spend enough time together to get a friendship or mutual respect going, there doesn't feel like enough chemistry between the two or playing off each other for the relationship to work.
It may just be the style of comedy that I'm not a fan of, most of the jokes revolve around the FBI agent being black and American, not fitting in with his new surroundings, this joke can work and it made for some funny moments but it felt like that was the only joke they had and they overused it a bit too much for me. Then there's the swearing and there's quite a bit of it. I'm okay with swearing in films if it's necessary and here I felt it was a bit too over done, it would make sense if just one character swore a lot as it would aid their characterisation but instead most of the characters have potty mouths, it just feels unnecessary.

Now to be fair the film isn't terrible and it's not even that bad, it just didn't click with me as it did for a lot of other people, still people enjoy it and they're welcome to, again it's probably just my taste in comedy. Then again this is more of a serious black comedy than a laugh out loud flick, so maybe I just had my expectations set for the wrong sort of movie.

Eh, that's a wrap.

Well it's taken many hours of planning, discussing, travelling, filming and editing but our Liverpool project is just about finished. Jordan and Sam have spent hours if not days in the edit trying to tidy up the footage and make it look as good as we can get it, as I speak they are composing the musical score and with a bit of luck it should be burned to disc by tomorrow. Today I have been there supervising the edit, offing a bit of input and I was also able to see a rough edit of the film, which considering what we had to work with I think was very good.

However, our sound man seems illusive today and left Jordan with a good deal of work to do in his absence.

Overall, this project has been a huge learning experience: we've been in a city many of us are unfamiliar with and as such we had to face up to problems as they occurred rather than retreat from them into our comfort zone. It was a very advanced location shoot with more crew and equipment than we've used before. I do wish I wasn't ill on the first day and subsequently more of an idea of what we were going to do on the second day but I suppose it couldn't have been avoided.

Parashoot form

This is a section of the ParaShoot form I filled out in preparation for our trip to Liverpool.

Some pictures of Liverpool

Whilst we were preparing to go to Liverpool I was tasked with looking for locations that would convey not just the deprived and derelict areas of the city but also it's rejuvenated and modern buildings associated with its culture and heritage. (These were taken with Google Street View.)
The recently redeveloped and heritage heavy Albert Dock.
The new Liverpool Echo arena, a symbol of wealth and culture as it hosts a lot of events.The Metropolitan Cathedral, a symbol of religion with a modern design aesthetic. In contrast, Liverpool's Catholic Cathedral has a much more traditional and maybe Gothic appearance. The derelict and rotting Edge Lane is the first thing that people see when they enter Liverpool via the motorway and is off putting. Most of these houses were undergoing demolition when we arrived, however some were still standing and created a nice juxtaposition with the new houses which had taken their place. The Liver building and Titanic memorials both hold significance for the city, the former being one of Liverpool's most recognisable buildings and the Titanic memorial being a symbol of a disaster that claimed the lives of many Liverpudlians. Liverpool One, a vast redevelopment of the city centre illustrates the amount of money that the city had when it became the city of culture and is a hub for retail and social activity. This marina is close to the Albert Dock and usually has some watercraft in it, some vintage.
Some more wealthy and up market residential streets not far from the Catholic Cathedral and Chinatown. These industrial units are further out of town and have just been left to rot.
Lime Street is awash with large victorian buildings including the train station, Empire theatre, Walker Gallery and City Museum.

A Review of a review (paradox?)

As a rule I don't listen to a lot of radio as I don't believe that a lot of the programming caters to my interests and enjoyment. One programme that I will willingly sit down and listen to though is Kermode and Mayo's Film Reviews, broadcast on Fridays between 2pm and 4pm on BBC Radio 5 Live.

The show features interviews with filmmakers who might be promoting a new film or just in the public eye at that time, a list of the top 10 films at the box office, letters from viewers and of course reviews of the latest films, both mainstream blockbusters and smaller independent films.

Mark Kermode is the main film critic on the show and certainly has his own style of presenting and criticism, making him unique and often fun to listen to. Though at times he can come off as picky, opinionated and on the odd occasion slightly immature, it is still interesting and entertaining to listen to his thoughts. Where most critics will judge a film solely on its visual elements and story, measuring a movie's pros and cons, Kermode does not just this but also analyses the film as an experience and whether or not it was forfilling enough and worth your time to go and see.

Simon Mayo makes less of an impression, seeming a lot like Kermode's right hand man or dare I say 'sidekick', although he offers his thoughts on some films they very rarely have the same comic or thought provoking nature of Kermode's. That being said it is still a lot of fun to listen to the banter between the two critics and how they play off eachother really makes the show special, you couldn't have one without the other, they're almost like a double act.




Unlike most reviews this show doesn't take itself too seriously and isn't scared of adding humour, as previously mentioned the banter between the two critics is fun to listen to and reminds me of Siskel and Ebert to a degree. They even dub their show "Wittertainment", they know what they are and they embrace it. They even have running gags such as: Kermode's hatred of 3D, impressions of actors and film characters (done by Kermode), Kermode's apparently large hands, the duo's comic attempts at avoiding spoilers and they have even created their own code of conduct for cinema patrons.

What's also great about the show is that blockbusters at the multiplexes aren't always the main focus and independant films likely to be shown in local independant cinemas are given more focus and generally get better reviews than the mainstream films, this is brilliant because they're using their large audience and popularity for the good of the smaller budget filmmakers struggling to make a name for themselves and a positive review from this show is likely to make more people enclined to go and see it.

This show is unique amongst radio schedules dominated by current affairs, music and sports programming and whiles I'd be lying if I said I listened to every episode it is still an entertaining show and podcast which is a must listen if you have an interest in film. (I usually only listen if there's a particularly interesting film being reviewed or discussed, perhaps I should listen more in case a gem that I could enjoy gets mentioned).

My final piece from last year

This is the final film that I produced for my course last year; a parody of the opening of the CSI programmes. Fast paced and colourful, featuring many forensic images and songs by "The Who" these title sequences have been spoofed time and time again. My version, like many of the episodes begins with a "Previously on..." segment, which features random clips that are seemingly unrelated to anything cohesive and structured, making it confusing. A small segment of the "episode" follows with the main character suspecting a murder, putting on his sunglasses before the opening titles roll. In retrospect I wish it was a bit longer and polished than it currently is, the fact it was filmed on an OLD Sony Handycam didn't help and I wish I could have synced the sound up better (rerecording the sound on a marantz). But on the whole it was well received by tutors and the rest of the group.

(sorry for the poor quality, i lost the original file and had to rip this off the DVD)

Possible inspiration:

http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk/showcase/assets/showcase_items/sea_change

This is one of the inspirations for how our Liverpool documentary could be structured in terms of editing, showing transitions between various locations from day to night or showing minor similarities between places that otherwise contrast with each other.

However, since the editing for this project is quite experimental in terms of what we're trying in terms of structure, pace and so on this may change at some point.

Post Documentary shoot.

I'm just going to come clean and say that I don't think I contributed enough to the actual production stage of our documentary project, the main reason being I was ill and unable to attend the first day of filming, when I arrived the day after quite a bit of footage had already been shot, I had missed the production tutorial and from what I can gather the idea had been altered slightly to resemble a sonic postcard style.
Yet despite these problems I think the production went relitively smoothly and we got done what we needed to in good time, mostly thanks to the director knowing what he wanted to accomplish and took charge very well.

From the Archives: Extended Degree

Since it's been a while since I posted any of my prior work on here I thought I'd show some of the films produced last year on the Extended Degree in Media course. These films served as good creative practice that has helped me this year.
"The Policeman and his 'Balls'"

The first film I every made for university was for a project in which we had to produce a film based on an urban myth, my contribution to this film was sourcing the story we would base it on, provided the policeman's outfit (from where I work) and of course acted in it. While at the time it was interesting to work in such a way that we hadn't done previously in retrospect it feels very amateur: The white balance and exposure constantly changes (due to the time of day it was filmed at and the lack of ANY white balancing) due to a lack of audio equipment and the music is too loud, the editing looks amateur (with Windows Movie Maker and a change in aspect ratio), the sound design is awful (the background noise drowns out the dialogue) and the acting on my part is bad as I keep looking at the camera, (the cameramen were snickering the whole time). That being said it was quite fun to do and it was an interesting outing for our first project.
"The Terror Mutant Robots"

This project was produced entirely by myself, the brief was to create something that resembled the style of a particular filmmaker or genre. For this I chose the style of B-movies from the fifties in which a lot of badly acted and written sci-fi films were shot with virtually no budget, rather than producing an entire movie I decided it would be more practical just to make a trailer for one. I watched some trailers for this type of movie (like "THEM!", "Plan 9 from Outer Space" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still") as well as the movie "Be Kind Rewind". All the special effects shots were done in front of a blue screen using Dalek models, Star Wars figures and just general bits and bobs, the effects are deliberately bad and cheesy and the use of stock footage and over the top narration only add to the campiness. On the whole I'm personally proud of it. (Even though it looks crap, I spelt 'Mutant' wrong twice!).
"The Times are Changing"

This film was mostly inspired by the opening credits of "Watchmen", we were tasked to make a film about time in some way, being a sucker for history I chose to do it on the changing face of Sheffield, using footage from "Sheffield a City on the Move" and other documentaries I think it shows a good comparison of how much the town has changed, I just wish I could have made some of the shots match up better.