After discussing my idea, Robin advised that it is always better to have some notes or either storyboard for smooth flowing in the process of filmmaking. Thus I created one just now.
Note*: I’m not good at drawing
I know many of you may not understand, but it gives an overall view of 8 scenes of my film.
What do you think?
So today I experimented with my approach of improvisation. It turned out well. I described a situation to my performers and they acted accordingly. Here are the following videos:
Screen Test 1:
Screen test 2:
Screen test 3:
I think test 2 and 3 were up to Par and this is what I had in mind when I gave the situation to them. What do you say?
Introduction:
For the final project, I have thought of a short film idea. This project is a bit different as it won’t follow the conventional style of script and screenplay and then act. My approach is more towards improvisation and will have some elements from classic Italian Neorealism Cinema which means using of non actors, on spot locations and less usage of artificial lights. Regarding sounds, It will consist of both diegetic and nondiegetic sounds, usage of these sounds will depend when it comes to editing of what suits best.
Story of the film:
A man in his early 20’s has nightmares of a being haunting him in his sleep. He doesn’t know who he is and why is it after him. The images that appear in his dream are of fire and related elements and finishes with the word ‘You Failed’. Later he starts hearing the same voice and flashback images of that fire. He finally loses his mind and calls out to confront him. The devil being approaches him and he issues a statement of his dreadful past.
In the end the man losses his will and as it appears the devil is about to finish him off, The man wakes up from his sleep and is relieved that it was just a dream, it’s only when devil appears from the corner and laughs out devilishly while the man is not aware of his presence.
Location:
The setting of this film will be in a house.
Main Focus and reason for this kind of project:
To see whether working with non actors and improvisation gives out the desired results of what the director wants for the film.
D- Day:
Week 8:
-Formation of groups
– Decide the Location
-Finalising all of the crew roles
Week 9:
– Book any equipment (if required)
-Conform with the crew roles for the shooting in week 10
– Organise delicacy for the shoot in week 10
Week 10:
– Shooting over the weekend
Week 11-12:
– Editing the first draft and then see where to go from over there, (hopefully no re shoot is required)
Week 13
– Present the atrtifact
I’m still sticking with my original thought of film idea which is about this guy in his 20’s and his past is haunting him in his dreams and eventually starts to appear in day time. At first I thought to make a devil appear in his dream and later in physical form, but then I realised that would be too cliche, so instead I added a voice to my idea and later on this humanly figure at the end when this guy faces the being.
I think this is an interesting element, as it would appear to the audience that this whole situation is his conscious state of mind but then in the end the question will rise amongst the audience that is it still a dream for the main character or he doesn’t realise that voice has now become a part of his conscious state of mind.
In regards to the plan, I’m trying to take a different approach, It’s not conventional style of filmmaking where there will be a script and then things go along. I’m thinking towards improvisation technique and see where it leads to. So there will minimal script and screenplay as such. The whole film is focused more on impression and expression of characters.
Let’s see what more I can think about regarding my idea
So this is the idea if I ever want to make a documentary in future:
The story will revolve around a group of wrestlers who come daily to their practice area which is situated in a graveyard in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. Despite the lack of facilities, their mentor ‘Ustad’ provides his couching to students. Regardless being in a same sport and it is based on individual effort, there is no jealousy among the group and it is their bond that provides the joy of watching them perform. This documentary will focus from the preparation of the ‘Akhara'(square ring of dirt on ground) to their relationship, aggression and the excitement that they have in the ‘Akhara’.
Approaches to film this except for interviews.
I think the observational style as coined by Bill Nichols would be the appropriate way to shoot, as this style has no interviews with the subject. Many different approaches can be made. Following shoots comes into my mind
1, Mid shoot of these wrestlers coming to the area.
2, extreme closeups of their gear changing (Keeping it mysterious for a while)
3, wide shot of the empty ground.
4, closeups of preparing the ring
5, may be add elements of poetic mode with some music which would portray rushing towards finishing it up.
6, Mid shot to close ups of their emotions (aggression, laughter, the energy, excitement) while training
7, wide long shot of them leaving the ring and going back home.
Here is our Final Project Brief 4 Link. Do share your views guys.
When I first heard of last project being a group one, I was excited as I’m a team player and my confidence boosts up as many tasks are divided amongst us. I was hoping to either get ‘mediums’ or ‘audiences’ as a topic for the final project brief. Fingers crossed and bang here comes ‘mediums’. Now other question came into my mind who would be my crew for this project, obviously i didn’t wanted lazy ones cause then all the burden would have been over my shoulders. Luckily Sandy and Kristien were my partners for this brief. Each one of us really had put a lot of effort into making this a successful project, although, our original idea was different, we were working on website and talk about different mediums all together then changed to produce it in a documentary style but later on with the advise from Rachel, we focused on Video Games as a medium and how other different mediums incorporate into it. It all went smooth and easy, we narrowed down to one thing and it was easy for us to showcase our final presentation being inspired from ABC’s ‘Good Game’. According to me, the successful aspects for our project were firstly the script, Kristien worked immensely on script, putting up all the educational quotes together and to present it as a script is what I consider a tough job but for him it was easy as he is into story writing so I reckon that might have been the reason. Secondly the setup for the project, I took the responsibility to setting up for our shoot, at first we decided to book a study room at building 80 of RMIT, but Rachel suggested to check out the basement of building 9 where the editing rooms are. We all loved that area, it was exactly of what we were looking for, the lcd, the sofas and the ambience, it was quite so no unwanted noise could be captured in the sound for our video. By using three different cameras, the broadcast style angles and some extra lighting, it looked almost like a tv show setup. Apart form these, everything we collected for our production dossier (sounds, bibliography, pictures, Logos and drafts) is what made the our final outcome as a success.
In terms of problematic aspects, I think being my greatest strength becomes a problem for me sometimes. Editing is where i excel but its the sound part the troubles me. During the editing stage I discovered that by using different cameras, the sounds that were recorded were in different different frames per second, one source of sound was a bit speedier than the other one. So I had to make sure that proper lip syncing is present in the video and most importantly to normalize the sounds together so that it is clear for listening. I knew that with Sandy and Kristien on board, they would help me out with finding the background score and other its and bits of it. Overall, I think for me that would only be the problematic aspect. I’m not sure if this counts as a problem or not, I have some reservations on the acting part, although Sandy and I did well as per our consensus, but I think some elements were missing that could have really made it to the next level, other then that, I think we all are like minded which maintained a good outcome of our project.
what I learnt in the making process about collaboration that might be relevant to my broader development as a media practitioner is the understanding of your team mates as it is the team work that reflects onto your projects. Listening is an another aspect to it as everyone puts their thoughts and ideas to the table. It is not about whether I like it or not, it is about whether the idea works or not? With Sandy and Kristian we made sure in our contract that we would listen to our ideas and would discuss will it work or not, and in this process i learned that you have to put your ego aside even though you want something to be added into it cause in the end, it is not about your work, it is about our work. Other than that, I believe that one must only take responsibility of certain areas where they are good at utilizing their key skills, Kristian took responsibility of writing and the direction, Sandy took responsibility of maintaining production dossier and inputting his expertise of gaming into it and I took the responsibility of post production stage. Each one of us were good at these areas and in our project it reflects that how well we did.
To comprehend, my experience has been amazing working with these guys and I’m sure that by going through this collaboration process, it would benefit me as media practitioner.
Today was our shooting day. I must say I thought this thing would be over in like half an hour or so but took us 2 hours to complete. It’s interesting to notice that just a mere 5-7 minute video takes that long. During the shooting process we had to face sound issues from the outsiders (people were walking in by, shoe taping, chatting). We sorted it out and then started with it. We managed to set up the three cameras, two microphones and one lightning source for that place. We connected a laptop to the lcd at the back to display footage. Kristian was holding laptop nearby the camera so that we don’t mess up the dialogues. After the filming, the footage was saved in my laptop and now I’ll start the rough cut over the weekend, whereas the rest of the crew will have to find royalty free music/sound effects to be added to the edited video later on. We are satisfied of what we have done so far, lets hope the video in the end comes out good. Rachel had a look at our video, but she would only comment when she sees some editing done.
Today Rachel and the crew gave us feedback of our prototype that we made earlier this week. All knew it was very rough but gave them an idea of how we are approaching towards our brief 4. Rachel gave us the idea of using the basement of Building 9 as a location, we never thought of it before, so we checked it out and decided we will be going for it. Also she told us to incorporate our bibliography in our show and we covered it way early in our script.
So for next week we will be shooting for our project brief 4. Following things are to be noted before coming to the location:
I have to find footage for Grand Theft Auto and Sandy is to find footage for Resident Evil. This footage is to be used for the final media outcome.
Have hired lighting, camera and 2 tripods for our filming date.
I’ll bring my own camera from home as well which is a more professional camera.
By next meeting:
My Self: to have footage all found, and credited for GTA.
Sandy: to have footage all found, and credited for Resident Evil.
Kristian: to produce the logo for Game Scope.
Yesterday we all met to finalize the script, location and the production for our final piece project brief 4. So Sandy and I will be hosting the final piece. The following video is a basic idea of how we will be doing this. There are some mistakes (lighting, location and script is not final yet). Lets see what happens this thursday with Rachel and how she finds it.
 
Movie on 11-05-2015 at 12.53 pm from Kristian Grigoriou on Vimeo.
-Everyones annotated bibliography is completed and uploaded into a single doc (not yet put into alphabetical order, but that will be done soon)
-Further discussed what we found in our sources.
-Talked about ideas for artefact
-Concept of a Mockumentary abandoned
-Rachel gave us the idea to make a TV style report similar to the ABC program “Good Game”
-We unanimously decide this is a good idea.
-Brainstorm ideas, settle on showing/comparing how different mediums are used in two different games. As well as talking about how games are different to other mediums.
-We decide to use the Games “Grand Theft Auto” and “Resident Evil” because they are very different in their atmosphere, scope and use of other mediums such as sound.
-Before meeting again on Monday we have the following jobs:
Me: Find quotes and add them to the quote Doc
Kristian: write a rough draft of the script
Sandy: look for possible ways to get Resident Evil (possibly buy the ps1 classic to play on ps vita)
During our meeting on Monday at 12:00pm we aim to review the prototype script and record a read-through to see how it flows and length.