We had no idea who to use for actors as not many of us had previous experience with actors. Thankfully Emma used an actor from the Performing Arts course at uni. The first actor we got on board was Nathaniel McCartney. For the wife, Nat knew someone who would could use, Francessca-Mae Warren. And Paul played the boss.
All three actors performed really well within their roles and i was very happy with how their performances turned.
Thursday, 10 May 2012
Drama Project- Treatment
Programme: Drama Film ‘Journey’
Pitch -
This film charts an ordinary day, in the life of an ordinary man, and the decision he takes to escape his ordinary life forever.
Fed up with the relentless monotony of his humdrum life, and the relentless nagging from his humdrum wife, one man decides enough is enough and decides that the time has come to make a change.
“Today is the first day of the rest of his life.”
Duration: 1 X 5 minutes
Independent production suitable for evening screening on BBC4, Channel 4 short films strands, SKY Arts, competitions, festivals and webcast.
Format: Snappy, quick edits (Edgar Wright style), dual cameras, shot on location. Extensive postproduction.
Audience: Teenagers and adults.
Aim : The aim of the film is to be optimistic and show how a person can alter the course of their life and regain the control of their own destiny that they once thought was lost to them.
Resumé: The film address social issues of repression, and dissatisfaction and show how one man changes his life for the better.
Suggested Elements: The programme will use the depiction of early morning sunlight and the outside world beyond the windows of the character’s home and office to depict the entrapment that he feels. Use of colour and lighting will highlight the drab interior confined world that he spends the majority of his daily life in and the struggles and monotony that he faces every day.
The end scene will be ultra colourful to highlight his escape and his new journey in life and his new adventure, free from his trappings.
The carefully considered and manipulated use of sound editing will also build up the struggle of his every day life and then a calming soundtrack over the ending will emphasise the freedom he achieves.
Locations
Three locations:
- Norfolk Park overlooking Sheffield city centre
- Kitchen of working class home
- Office interior
Characters
Three characters:
- man
- wife
- boss
Costumes
- Man: shirt, tie, typical office attire
- Wife: dowdy wife casual, beige / drap colours
- Boss: smarter suit and tie
Props
- Kitchen: cereal, milk bottle, bowl, spoon, clock
- Hall: mirror, keys, bowl
- Office: desktop / workstation items, files, pc, keyboard, phone, mug, pens, stapler, paper, office clock
(END OF TREATMENT)
Drama Project- Synopsis
SYNOPSIS
Exterior: Norfolk Park. Early morning
Sunrise over city, city coming to life
Interior: Ordinary working class kitchen. Same early morning
Man sat at kitchen table. Cereal bowl and milk bottle indicate breakfast.
Behind him noises build (kettle, toaster, radio). Incessant nagging of wife. Quick cuts from both sides behind his head nagging him. He is being nagged from all sides. Man looks forward ignoring wife as best he can.
Close up of kitchen clock hitting 8am.
Man finishes cereal puts down spoon in bowl, stands up, leaves table.
Cut to: (snappy edits)
Int: Home hallway
- Close up: mirror reflection, man putting on tie
- CU: putting shoes on
- CU: hand picking up keys from bowl
- Wide: house door shuts as he has left for work
Int: Office corridor
Lift doors open, man piles out with numerous other people.
Int: Open plan office
Man walks down middle of office towards his desk
Int: At desk
In set up reminiscent of being sat at kitchen table, man has outside world view from window behind him. Inside all furniture is grey and artificial lighting harsh and washed out. Desk top paraphernalia indicates work station.
Around him noises begin to build (tapping typing on keyboards, printers, phones ringing) arms of unidentified person dumps huge bundles of paperwork on his desk with a thud. Phone rings, sounds of disgruntled client on phone. Behind him boss is ‘having a go’ at him in the same manner as nagging wife in kitchen. Same cuts in edit so that man gets verbal abuse from all sides. Man continues to look forward.
Close up of office clock hitting 5pm.
Man puts down last file on his mountain of paperwork, stands up, leaves desk.
Int: Open plan office
Man walks back down middle of office.
Int: Office corridor
Man gets into lift, doors close.
Int: Home hallway
(Snappy edits)
- Wide: Door opens as he walks in
- Close up: hand putting keys in bowl
- CU: taking shoes off
Int: kitchen
Man sits down at same table that he got up from this morning.
Table set for evening meal: water jug and glasses, place mats, cutlery.
As breakfast, noises build behind him (this time boiling pan, microwave humming, washing machine whirring). Incessant nagging of wife. Quick cuts from both sides behind his head nagging him. He is being nagged from all sides. Same as breakfast.
Man looks forward ignoring wife.
Calmly gets up and leaves table.
Cut to: (snappy edits)
Int: Home hallway
- Close up: mirror reflection, calmly, man takes off tie
- CU: putting shoes on
- CU: hand over keys in bowl
- CU: man takes off wedding ring and puts it in bowl with the keys
- Wide: house door shuts as he has left leaving keys and everything else behind him
Ext: House
Noises, and all other environmental sounds, fade as we follow him walking away from house, onto pavement, and set off down road
Ext: Norfolk Park (same location as beautiful sunrise)
Man walks away. Camera stays at park gates as he walks off into distance up the park tree lined avenue. Leaving the city, and his old life, behind.
(END OF SYNOPSIS)
Exterior: Norfolk Park. Early morning
Sunrise over city, city coming to life
Interior: Ordinary working class kitchen. Same early morning
Man sat at kitchen table. Cereal bowl and milk bottle indicate breakfast.
Behind him noises build (kettle, toaster, radio). Incessant nagging of wife. Quick cuts from both sides behind his head nagging him. He is being nagged from all sides. Man looks forward ignoring wife as best he can.
Close up of kitchen clock hitting 8am.
Man finishes cereal puts down spoon in bowl, stands up, leaves table.
Cut to: (snappy edits)
Int: Home hallway
- Close up: mirror reflection, man putting on tie
- CU: putting shoes on
- CU: hand picking up keys from bowl
- Wide: house door shuts as he has left for work
Int: Office corridor
Lift doors open, man piles out with numerous other people.
Int: Open plan office
Man walks down middle of office towards his desk
Int: At desk
In set up reminiscent of being sat at kitchen table, man has outside world view from window behind him. Inside all furniture is grey and artificial lighting harsh and washed out. Desk top paraphernalia indicates work station.
Around him noises begin to build (tapping typing on keyboards, printers, phones ringing) arms of unidentified person dumps huge bundles of paperwork on his desk with a thud. Phone rings, sounds of disgruntled client on phone. Behind him boss is ‘having a go’ at him in the same manner as nagging wife in kitchen. Same cuts in edit so that man gets verbal abuse from all sides. Man continues to look forward.
Close up of office clock hitting 5pm.
Man puts down last file on his mountain of paperwork, stands up, leaves desk.
Int: Open plan office
Man walks back down middle of office.
Int: Office corridor
Man gets into lift, doors close.
Int: Home hallway
(Snappy edits)
- Wide: Door opens as he walks in
- Close up: hand putting keys in bowl
- CU: taking shoes off
Int: kitchen
Man sits down at same table that he got up from this morning.
Table set for evening meal: water jug and glasses, place mats, cutlery.
As breakfast, noises build behind him (this time boiling pan, microwave humming, washing machine whirring). Incessant nagging of wife. Quick cuts from both sides behind his head nagging him. He is being nagged from all sides. Same as breakfast.
Man looks forward ignoring wife.
Calmly gets up and leaves table.
Cut to: (snappy edits)
Int: Home hallway
- Close up: mirror reflection, calmly, man takes off tie
- CU: putting shoes on
- CU: hand over keys in bowl
- CU: man takes off wedding ring and puts it in bowl with the keys
- Wide: house door shuts as he has left leaving keys and everything else behind him
Ext: House
Noises, and all other environmental sounds, fade as we follow him walking away from house, onto pavement, and set off down road
Ext: Norfolk Park (same location as beautiful sunrise)
Man walks away. Camera stays at park gates as he walks off into distance up the park tree lined avenue. Leaving the city, and his old life, behind.
(END OF SYNOPSIS)
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
Drama Project- Locations
The first location that we thought would be ideal for the final and beginning scenes would be Norfolk Park. The entrances were both ideal for the idea that i originally saw it being. the green of the grass along with the grey of the pavements was ideal. Plus there was a great view of the city from up at the top of the park which we used for our opening shot.
For the office location, we had no idea where to start. We thought about using one of the rooms in university but dressing it up, but then realised that the brief states that the drama has to be filmed outside of uni. Ruby then had the idea of using an office where her mum worked as they often rent them out, This was called SOAR Works. After a phone call they confirmed that we would be able to use the office free of charge. We took out deido and Keno lights to make sure that it would be bright enough and that we could then manipulate it to the time of day that we were trying to show.
The last location, the house, that we wanted to do, we were a little unsure of as well. We had a strong idea of how we wanted it to look aesthetically and decided to go with my house in the end. It was a pretty good location but as i pre-warned the group, the kitchen was small and a little dark. We once again had the full light set up to hand.
For the office location, we had no idea where to start. We thought about using one of the rooms in university but dressing it up, but then realised that the brief states that the drama has to be filmed outside of uni. Ruby then had the idea of using an office where her mum worked as they often rent them out, This was called SOAR Works. After a phone call they confirmed that we would be able to use the office free of charge. We took out deido and Keno lights to make sure that it would be bright enough and that we could then manipulate it to the time of day that we were trying to show.
http://artspace.org.uk/studios/knutton-road-studios
The last location, the house, that we wanted to do, we were a little unsure of as well. We had a strong idea of how we wanted it to look aesthetically and decided to go with my house in the end. It was a pretty good location but as i pre-warned the group, the kitchen was small and a little dark. We once again had the full light set up to hand.
Drama Project- Evaluation
The drama project was another project that I
enjoyed. I think that the only problem that we really encountered were when we
were ready to film, our actors were busy with uni, which left us short on time.
Thankfully we had a very hard working group who were all involved in every
stage of the process, making sure we got everything done as set by our schedule
and made sure we had plenty of cover shots for when it came to edit. I think
things worked as well as we’d imagined, but the male actor was a lot better
than we ever thought. He put a lot of time into our project and his acting was
natural and exactly what we asked of him. I took on the role of editor for this
project. It was as I expected to be but due to filming so late, I had to put a
lot of time in during the end to make sure we got our project completed on time
and to a high standard. One of the parts that I’m not overly happy about is the
fact that several of our shots were out of focus, I’m not sure whether this was
due to the camera man not being used to the camera, or that it looked different
on the little camera screen than it does when it goes onto a bigger computer
screen. I am pleased with how the final piece came out and I think it is a very
strong drama. If I could change anything about the piece I think I would have
liked to have been given more close ups to work with and to integrate into the
main sections of the piece to break up the longer sections. From this project I
think I have learnt that it is important to film early on, to minimise the risk
of running out of time and the actors not being available.
Drama Project- Production side
Despite minor typing errors, this was our planning schedule for this project. Drama Project- Editing
We first started by going through each clip and deleting the one's that weren't great and had to be ruthless for the next process. The next stage was to pre-res each of our clips through MPEG-streamclip as we recorded on the Canon DSLR's. This was one of the most tedious and longest processes of the editing as we had a lot of clips!
Once the pro-resing was complete i started with the first edit by going through the clips and placed them onto the time line as they would appear in the film, without clipping them down too much, but removing the clapper board from the start of each of the clip.
I then moved on to cutting down the clips and neatened them up by removing the parts that we didn't need and sped up the opening shot of the city. I had to times this by around 7000% to be able to see the difference in the light, which left about a 12 second clip.
In total, including all of the clips that we wanted, i ended up with a 7 minute video so had to chop a lot out. I had to removed a lot of sections that i would have liked to have kept in if the time limit wasn't on the project. I then went on to colour and change the dream sequences to make them more dream like and to add transitions to smooth out some of the sharp cuts.
Once finished i handed over the final edit to the boys for them to add the sound on and complete it.
Once the pro-resing was complete i started with the first edit by going through the clips and placed them onto the time line as they would appear in the film, without clipping them down too much, but removing the clapper board from the start of each of the clip.
I then moved on to cutting down the clips and neatened them up by removing the parts that we didn't need and sped up the opening shot of the city. I had to times this by around 7000% to be able to see the difference in the light, which left about a 12 second clip.
In total, including all of the clips that we wanted, i ended up with a 7 minute video so had to chop a lot out. I had to removed a lot of sections that i would have liked to have kept in if the time limit wasn't on the project. I then went on to colour and change the dream sequences to make them more dream like and to add transitions to smooth out some of the sharp cuts.
Once finished i handed over the final edit to the boys for them to add the sound on and complete it.
drama Project- Shoot Day 2
On the second day of the shoot, we filmed on location at my house. We started the day fairly early around 12 ish to ensure that the actors would be done in time to go to a lecture. We started by setting up the room into how we wanted it and how it would look best for the camera. We then set up the lights to be in accordance with the day/ morning scene and got the actors doing their thing, loosely following the script but also allowing them to improvise with it to make it sounds more natural. On this location i took a sideline to the filming as the kitchen was so small, there was just enough room for the camera man, director and the two sound people.
In the second half of the day, after the lecture, Nat came back to film with us in Norfolk park to get the lasts few scenes.
In the second half of the day, after the lecture, Nat came back to film with us in Norfolk park to get the lasts few scenes.
Drama Project- Final idea
For the final idea, we decided on basing it around a guy who has a boring repetitive life, with a nagging wife and boss. We wanted to show
Drama project- Shoot day 1
Following our schedule, we arrived at the park for 5am. This was a shock to everyone's system but thankfully we didn't experience any rain. We set up both camera's at different shits to see which we would like better when it came to edit. We left the camera's to film until about 6:30am. For some reason both DSLR's would't let us film for more than 12 minutes at a time, so we had to keep restarting the filming. I think in total we must have had around an hour of good footage to use. Unfortunately the sun didn't rise from over the city (like we first imagined) but a clear difference in time is obvious and i think that it was worth the effort.
After we left Norfolk park, we decided we deserved a nice warm McDonald's breakfast to talk about how we thought the morning went and to check over our plans for the rest of the day.
We arranged to meet Nate (Our main actor) in the town centre at 9, which gave us quite a lot of time to spare. We first recorded some safety shots in case we would need to fill any gaps in our film then Paul and I went to get ready for the office scene. As Paul ended up having to be used as the boss in the office, he put on a suit and collected some office things as we weren't sure what the office space would have.
We arrived at the offices around 9:20 and after signing in, went straight up to the space we were thankfully allowed to use. It was perfect. It already had everything we needed to make it look like a genuine office, plus it was quiet for our sound recording. We shot all of the office scenes on the same day, as was recommended by Debbie in one of the first semester lectures.
After we left Norfolk park, we decided we deserved a nice warm McDonald's breakfast to talk about how we thought the morning went and to check over our plans for the rest of the day.
We arranged to meet Nate (Our main actor) in the town centre at 9, which gave us quite a lot of time to spare. We first recorded some safety shots in case we would need to fill any gaps in our film then Paul and I went to get ready for the office scene. As Paul ended up having to be used as the boss in the office, he put on a suit and collected some office things as we weren't sure what the office space would have.
We arrived at the offices around 9:20 and after signing in, went straight up to the space we were thankfully allowed to use. It was perfect. It already had everything we needed to make it look like a genuine office, plus it was quiet for our sound recording. We shot all of the office scenes on the same day, as was recommended by Debbie in one of the first semester lectures.
Drama Project
The brief for this project is to create a 5 MINUTE DRAMA FILM which conveys the notion of ‘JOURNEY'.
JOURNEY
1. a travelling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time; trip
2. a distance, course, or area travelled or suitable for travelling
3. a period of travel
4. Passage or progress from one stage to another
As a group project, you have the opportunity to be far-reaching and ambitious in a way that you might not undertake in an individual project. However, your project must also be realistic and achievable within the time available to create the work. This is a chance to engage and involve others in your work via cast, contributors, and your fellow group members. It is important to clearly communicate throughout the planning, production and post-production of your project, in order to get things done on time, and at the best of your ability, and to avoid misunderstandings, complications, or bad time management.
You will have:
– x3 WEEKS PRE-PRODUCTION (including 2 weeks in the Easter holidays)
– x1 WEEK SHOOT
– x2 WEEKS POST-PRODUCTION
PROJECT RESEARCH AND PREPARATION
Think carefully about your chosen approach and research works using this theme.
Some points to think about:
- Suggestion of movement - beginning in one place or state, and ending in another
- Suggestion of narrative
- Is your journey physical, emotional, or metaphysical?
- Is your journey through linear time, or jumps back and forth within time?
- Is your journey in the past, present or future?
- Is your journey personal, or that of another person, object, or thing?
- Think about the notion of quest?
- Think about the notion of pilgrimage?
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