As I mentioned in a previous post, I thought the idea of a script editor was something we should look into. My original idea was to have everyone write a script and then we’d swap them all around and edit them so that it was fair. The only problem is I thought it might not be too beneficial to the story as it would take a lot of swapping around scripts to ensure they all connect together well enough (like we planned in our original concept). With this in mind I then proposed to the group that perhaps I should become the sole script editor, I wouldn’t write a script but I would read and edit the scripts that everyone else had created, making sure that they would all fit together nicely. The group agreed and so this became my new job title in the pre-production phase.

Once the first drafts of the scripts were written up they were sent to me and I got to work. I read over them several times trying to get the main themes of each individual story, although similar there were things which didn’t quite add up when looking at them in unison. For instance there was an alliance that had to be formed between two characters, an unlikely alliance because they despised each other. In the Noir genre the alliance took place at the party; however, in the rockumentary that alliance takes place the day after. It was just little things like that which I had to look out for. When I did find something that needed to be fixed I scribbled some notes on the side of the script addressed to the writer explaining what changes needed to be made, that way they could re-write it and it would still be coming from the same voice.

Here are some examples:

It was really refreshing to listen to what everyone else in the class was doing for their Project. There is a real diversity which was nice to see, it seemed that genre was a key concept in a few group projects but others tackled ideas like specifically pre-production elements or character development.

One idea that I picked up from another group was having an editor for the script writing, someone who would go through the script, edit in and out different things, making sure the flow was there, having a more technical perspective to that of the main writer. I really like this idea and think implementing that into our plan would be beneficial. As I have figured out in this course, the more pre-production you do the better and faster you can work through the actual production, which in a time critical project like this is a big help.

At the moment we are all writing a separate script for each character, once we have done that, if we simply pass it to the left around a circle and the all edited one, marking up certain things adding notes, checking the flow of dialogue it might help refine some of the rougher points in each episode. It would also help us to take a step back from the project and analyse it from a distance.

Another idea that was proposed was to broaden the differences in the way that one goes about creating media. There is the classic Write, Shoot, Edit sequence that we are all going to be using in our project however some suggest that it would be interesting to change up the sequence. One might begin with shooting and then come back to the writing afterwards to piece everything together. Others might write and shoot at the same time. The problem with this is it might be a more disruptive work flow and may take a lot longer to shoot, which could be a major downfall in our tight schedule, especially seeing as we are working with Actors who are generously giving up their own time to come and work with us. But an interesting concept nonetheless.

A similar idea was brought up in the group meeting we had on Monday with our teacher. From this the idea is being tossed around that the Mockumentary genre should actually be filmed parallel to the filming of the other genres. I personally like this idea because it would easily give it the right stylistic elements, have a kind of behind the scene feel with the shaky cam and darting in and out of different locations fairly quickly. Then we’d film the interview segments at a later stage like a reality TV show like Master-chief or the likes do. This would change things up because then a script would be unnecessary for this character, taking snippets of dialogue from other scripts (the only thing that would need scripting would be the interviews to camera).

A few interesting ideas that are worth bringing up in the next meeting we have.

 

For those who did not have the fortune of seeing our live presentation here are the slides.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1nl2Sv3JhhR2EdMWwuskxZ2gNM1rl410sOXnJ7S5E93E/edit#slide=id.p

I think that the receptions was really positive from our other class mates. They seemed to like the idea of exploring genre through different points of view and the whole story arc. I think the main concern was what we could produce in the small timeframe we have compared to the the giant task that filming the 6 part series would be. Because this was still under debate within the group it was hard to answer the question as a matter of fact, instead giving a few options that we’ve been toying with: either filming a series of scenes that we can then juxtapose together or create a short trailer. Although similar each have different qualities that could effect the experiment in very different ways.

In terms of what I noticed during giving the presentations: I’ve come to realise that context is going to be everything when it comes to actually creating the content. I came to notice this after watching the reactions of the different videos that we played for the different characters. All of the videos had people laughing, which is good because it was entertaining, however some of the genres that we want to explore aren’t necessarily meant to be making people laugh.

For example the Horror Genre with its character Vincent got a lot of laughs due to what he was saying, and I also found it amusing in this context. There are a few factors that would’ve contributed to this reaction, the biggest being the way that it was presented. Looking like an online dating profile isn’t exactly the scariest thing; this is obviously an easy fix when we get to filming it, because we will have a much more dynamic way of filming, not straight face to camera. Other contributing factors may have been that everyone knew who was acting, the setting of the presentation and the videos that had come before it.

Most of these aren’t a problem and will be ironed out fairly easily when it comes to filming the actual final product. The one that i’m most concerned about is the videos before it creating certain expectations for the audience, in this case to laugh. Different genres should be evoking different types of emotion from their audience if we are looking at them in their true form. This could become problematic for a few reasons. The first being even though we are working on characters separately they’re a part of the same story arc, which may connect the audience to certain motifs identified in other genres, so we’ll need to try and keep those separate from genre to genre. The second being trying to change the audience expectations halfway through a series.

Obviously this doesn’t matter too much for when we deliver the project but if we were looking at creating the full piece then it may become a big problem.

Other than that it looks like we’ve gotten the approval from our fellow students to steam ahead with our idea.

In Preparation for the presentation we had a group meeting the week before during the holidays to cement our project idea and to divide up the talking up. We decided that seeing as everyone had their individual character that they had been working on it would make sense for everyone to introduce their own characters. Early on in the discussion someone made the suggestion to make a little introduction video of that character, as a kind of, online dating profile. So it was up to me to introduce the characters as I didn’t have designated character. My job was pretty simple, seeing as we had a multitude of writing from our group meeting it was almost a case of copying and pasting the idea from that. My main problem was that I had to keep it all short and concise because we had 5 minutes worth of video that we had to get through in a ten minute presentation.

Because some of the characters didn’t match the gender of their writer I was asked to step in and do some acting as the Stoner/Class clown in the Teen comedy genre. Niamh, who was writing the short script for me, sent through a draft of what she’d like me to say in the video. From there I was able to figure what kind of character she wanted. Niamh gave me some creative freedom with this, she said I was free to throw in a bit of improv in if I liked so I put in a reference to finding Nemo and tried to make it seem as natural as possible.

Here is the video that I did to introduce the Stoner character in our group project.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3atcmZODt1UWHdjMmcxd3hIcEk

I think it was definitely a big help being a part of the creative team to really understand exactly what Kind of Character Niamh wanted. Being in the meetings and knowing exactly how he fit into the big picture, what he needed to be like, everything thing that wasn’t necessarily in the script that I was reading off helped me out tremendously on delivering the final cut. The problem with this revelation is how to convey that type of understanding of the character to an actor that hasn’t been there during the development stage of the project. For instance when the stoner is explaining his nickname he gestures with his hand which reveal a lighter and a jay. This wasn’t in the script but is the type of comedy that we’d like to implement in the character, so we’ll need to figure out how we can convey those types of actions that make the character. I’m thinking perhaps a separate character briefing that we can give to the actor so that they know some background to the character that isn’t found in the script.

Whilst working on this group project it seemed hard to string all the ideas into one cohesive story. Once I thought we were all on the same page but then, after we kept talking, we still had very different ideas of how the project would go down. This was the hardest when we were trying to come up with the story arcs and relationships between the 5 character in order to create some conflict. In my original concept pitch I brought in the idea of 5 characters and a love triangle type idea that connected all the characters together with their separate traits. Since the original pitch some of the characters have changed but the concept would still work. So after two weeks of running through different ideas and playing with different concepts I suggested that we should try again with this Love triangle type idea, only this time, I had a secret weapon! A white board!

Being able to draw out the character relationships on the white board helped me explain the general idea to the rest of the group members on how each relationship would work. Who loves who and who hates who. After we had the skeletal structure that I had conceptualised then the group immediately understood where I was going with it and we all set out to fleshing the characters relationships out. Soon everyone was putting ideas on the board. This diagram definitely helped get everyone on to the same page and I think that it made life so much easier being able to see the relationship lines visibly.

Important lesson learned: when working on a group project, seek visual aids to help explain your concepts.

This was the board at the end of the day, once we had all worked on it together. It is fair to say that at the end of the day we were all really excited, seeing the potential for our project project.

This picture was then created digitally so that we could all keep on the same page as to any changes that we might need to make in the future.

 

 

In our groups for the week we did some more filming, this time from scripts that the creative writing students had written. First thing I notice is that my scripts are nowhere near the creativity of the the writing students, the way that they write gives the script a lot more depth. However I would like to take this reflection to look at the actors side of things.

In this exercise I was acting for the other group of people who were practicing their technical skills behind the camera. The first thing I learnt as an actor: it can take a while before you’re actually needed. The crew take a while to talk through their idea and set up the camera and readjust minor details before they even think about involving the actors. So, acting can be a waiting game.

In terms of getting my character from a script: I can see how much easier it is to have it all written out in front of you. Not just your dialogue but the motivation behind actions as well. By knowing this it’s a lot easier to act in the way that the director wants you to. So, the key to a happy actor is a proper script.

Because I still had my director’s hat on from when I was filming my scenes, it was difficult not to throw in technical ideas into the mix when I heard the crew talk about their plans, not having much to do in between the takes also didn’t help. Although props to the director because he asked me and the other actor to rehearse our lines so that we’re confident enough in our performance, when we stopped he’d ask us to run through one more time; which did seem to make the time go faster and the repetition did actually make me more confident. So, a preoccupied actor is a good actor.

When the time did come to shooting our scenes the director took us through step by step what the camera was going to do and how we should react within the frame. Knowing this helped us streamline to the quick schedule as we didn’t have to go for that many takes. By giving me specific instructions like: wait a beat after his line, make your arms bigger, seem more crazy, all helped me deliver what the director was looking for. So, a well informed actor is a fast actor.

It was interesting to be on the other side of the lens for a change and it has given me a new found respect for professional actors and their craft.

In the past few weeks we have learnt certain skills and techniques in class about how to create and use a script on a film shoot. I decided to bring those skills and techniques to a small project of my own to see how it was working in a different environment.

The team that I worked with I have worked with on multiple occasions so already we know how each other works and we work well together. Generally though, we have an idea that we loosely all understand and then we work out everything else while we’re shooting. Obviously it’s not the most efficient way of working but its done well in the past. By changing things up and working more on the pre-production and the use of scripts and marking them up was different and difficult at first, mainly because it’s not the exciting bit and you just want to go out and film something, but nevertheless, I stuck at it and found a few revelations.

First off, it almost halves your production time something I couldn’t really learn from the small exercises that we do at school. By giving an actor a full script instead of saying “say something like . . .” the actor seems more confident in less takes and although I don’t like the way that it restricts a few creative freedoms it definitely helps to streamline the process. By giving your crew the mark up of a script and listing exactly what shots you want you can move quicker then when you’re trying to picture what shot should come next. So what would’ve taken a whole weekend to film actually only took us about 6 hours, which is such a great thing to know now that free time to film is dwindling in the midst of uni and work.

Another thing that surprised me was the amount of input I got from my crew when we were marking things up. I would’ve thought that me providing the finished script wouldn’t have aloud the others to add their creative input however I decided to have a read through with the actors and crew where we could mark up our individual scripts with what was needed like we had done in a few of the class exercises. Surprisingly, I would even go so far as to say there was more creative input when we were marking the script up than when ideas were just thrown around during the shoot.

Finally in post production, as I was learning in the class exercises, by having a marked up script to go to when editing together the shots made that process so much quicker as well.

I guess the main negative that I found is that even though you save time on the shoot you gain time in pre-production, which is good for the crew but bad for you when you’re up in the early hours of the morning trying to finish the script before your shoot! It does also take away those few strikes of brilliance that you get when you’re actually on location, things you can only really think of when you’re there.

In conclusion, its probably best to use the pro’s of each style and morph them together in order to create a successful shoot.

 

In Class for the past two weeks we have been working on the one project. Moving from writing and filming in week 2 to post production in week 3. I really enjoy post production but the main problem that I had is shifting from Final Cut Pro, my weapon of choice, to Premiere. Just having to get used to the different keyboard shortcuts tripped me up a little and made it stressful trying to work on an unfamiliar platform.

Everything else in class was straight forward enough, I will mention how important it was that I was there for the shoot, that way I knew what we were trying to get so when it came to post production there was no messing around about what shot goes where. In week 2 we were told to mark up our scripts with the different shots which made post super easy and not having to guess. We did, however, end up shooting different shots on the shoot as well just because we thought it looked better or interesting and hadn’t thought of it previously. I think that this is an important thought when thinking about the difference between the writer and the director, neither one knows exactly what the others thinking and once you actually put it on location and add the actors to the scene you can never really know what is going to work better than others. The main lesson here is to learn to be flexible.

One thing that we didn’t do, which we should’ve, was mark down the footage that was usable on a list so that when we went into post production we could easily choose which clips were usable and which ones weren’t. It would’ve just made the process a lot smoother than having to go through all the clips one at a time, often revisiting some, to choose the best.

For a bit of extra work I decided to find a script of one of my favourite movies and compare that to the final product and see what kind of things I can pick up from that. I decided to look at Animal Kingdom by David Michod as I have analysed this film very closely.

One of the first things that I noticed is how much of the story is lacking in the script. Not that this is a bad thing, it just goes to show how much you can actually do with a script, and it doesn’t necessarily tie you down too much. It’s interesting how much story I could pick up from the movie that wasn’t exactly defined in the script.

Having said that, the script’s dialogue is extremely similar to how the actors performed them, in the way and mood that was set by the script. When I was reading the main character J’s dialogue it came with the exact same performance that was given in the final film. Not to say that the performance wasn’t anything but incredible, but you could really feel what the character was like during the dialogue of the script.

Obviously the big problem with this is I know the movie and I know it well. It’s a benefit to see the difference however having already seen it I was always drawn back to the visuals when reading the script. If I were to read a script of a movie that I haven’t seen before it might be a different story and I might find out a few different things from this experiment.

I shall therefore endeavour to find a movie that I haven’t seen before, find the script and read it first before I watch the movie, hopefully I will have some more revelations!