Today Won't Go Down In History

Hey this is Nicholls...

So yeah editing is basically properly finished now. James might update the titles 2moz to make them a bit prettier :D but we're pretty much finished sound and editing now.

Therefore I am able to present to you our film 99% ish complete. Set in an age where one adolescent teenager can dethrone a government with just a really large black briefcase. With a debut role of emo cult icon 'Josh Sharman' and the directors of the epic 'Dagga'. Nicholls and Sibley present another film with the sexy beast 'Zal Jones'. The awesome 3 minute thriller classic HAIRISIS...



Yes I apologise for the crapness of sound but this gives you a general impression of the finished project just not in digital crystal perfection.

Please leave a comment after witnessing the future of filmage ... your opinion (yes YOU!) is very important to us.

Everyone have a good Friday, I'm in Belgium being ill and bored.

Tot ziens (Goodbye in Dutch)

Pig Snacks!

Today

We've basically done all of the editing of our footage now, I've perfected the cutting-two-entirely-different-shots-of-a-guy-running-through-trees-by-cutting-it-when-he's-hidden-behind-a-tree-trunk technique, and the making-up-ridiculously-long-strings-of-hyphen-connected-words.

So basically we just have to tinker around with the sound now, Jake's bringing in an Enter Shikari song tomorrow on digistick which seems sutiable for the sequence of shots in which the central character is approaching the meeting place.

What else? Erm, might film a shot of an arm tensing, for just before the fight scene, maybe try filming a mouth in darkness saying "we don't need him" - I basically feel the fight scene comes about too suddenly, without much narrative explanation.

But that's just my two coconuts.

Have you considered posting some stills of your film on the blog?

But so far I'm fairly chuffed with editing and our film in general, everyone who's seen it has been overwhelmingly positive. Which is usually good.

So good that it gets un ungrammatically correct They’re Grrrreat!!! rating from Tony the Tiger:

They're Grrrreat!!!

Catchup? Katsup? Catchup... Katsup?

Man I'm so nerdy for thinking of that title. Anyway, here's a catch-up of what we've done over the weekend and today...

Filming

On Saturday we got up at 7:30am and filmed all of the outdoor shots at Onehouse.

Apart from Josh laughing before every shot, a man using a chainsaw at impromptu moments and me going into my shouty-bossing-everyone-around-stressed-out-director mode it went well. We got it all done just in time (as we had to finish at 12:30 because two of our actors had to work) and only missed out one shot...

On Saturday afternoon we filmed the car sequence. Which I actually loved. Jake's new camera is brilliant and the close up shots were focused and crystal clear.

On Sunday we filmed the rest of the indoor shots that we either didn't film or missed, the ones over Josh's house worked.

But we need to re-film the shots in Jake's bathroom because Jake appears in the mirror in most of the shots.

Despite me joking around and saying he's a rubbish cameraman, (:P) Jake couldn't really help it as when he filmed it he didn't show up on the LCD display, so he couldn't do much about it at the time as he didn't know he was in shot.

Bloody technology.

Editing

Today, like the little nerds we are (at heart), we stayed in the media editing suite all break, lunch and last two study periods and actually got loads done.

We uploaded and chronologically ordered all of our shots. Moving on to edit them down and edit the sound later on.

I personally love the quick cut car sequence and the fight scene. Really liking what we've got.

One problem we've found is that the shots we filmed with Jake's camera are filmed in widescreen, and the other shots aren't, but we can easily add that effect when we're all finished.

I'm gonna eat 'cha

So overall our progress so far is vey niiice!!

Vey Niiiice!!!

I should so be a stunt actor

Hey everyone tis Jake,

Well we had a loada fun today ... testing whether our drumming actually went to running in film/visual/audio/creamage way. We decided to do a promo (again) but fortunately this time people it includes me. OH YEAH your thinking!

So here it is ... have a look if you want a laugh of how not to run in skater shoes:

So yeah off to do some filming now, trying to keep to our very manly timetable. Yes I know real men don't need timetables but we haven't got much time left.

Please don't tell the men in white coats I escaped (WATCH THE FILM).

Laters

Narp?

Changes

1. We've replaced our main actor with a new guy, as the new guy is available easier and can actually run.


2. Change of location, again, we're now filming the outdoor shots in Onehouse.


3. Another change of location. We're filming the indoor shots at Josh's house, as it's easier for us to get to (as it's 100 metres away from my house) and (I feel) it looks better (no offence Jake).
   

Onehouse

I did some location research on Onehouse, these are the pictures:












Just a shot to show the general location of the woods.

A shot inside the woodsAnd again.
A shot of the canopy, for the...err...shot of the canopy.

Drumming

Recorded the tribal drumming for the chase scene, actually sounds immense. Zal is the god of drumming.

Nearly good enough for me to forgive him screwing us over last Friday...

But that's a different story.

Timetable

1. Film most of the indoor shots at Josh's house tomorrow


2. Film the remainder of the indoor shots at his house on Friday


3. Film the entire outdoor shots at Onehouse on Saturday, from 8:00 til 12:30ish.


4. Film the car shots in Saturday afternoon.

I couldn't get Sunday off work, but we have 4 hours of sunlight after 2 (when I clock off) to finish off any shots (hopefully it won't even be neccesary).

Name

We've finally settled on a name (I think). I'm thinking a one word title of "Hairesis". Which is an ancient Greek word that means:

1. act of taking, capture: e.g. storming a city


2. choosing, choice


3. that which is chosen


4. a body of men following their own tenets (sect or party)


5. dissensions arising from diversity of opinions and aims

I just like the idea of a heretic: which in the overall plot of the film, the main character is, as he is going against the government.

I told you I don't like bagels!

So after a brief scare of us not being able to film anything at all, everything is fine. So good in fact that it gets an "eyyyyyyy" rating from Fonzy:

EYYYYYYYY!

Anything can happen in the next half hour ... STINGRAY

Right so yeah only John Rose is gonna get the title ... this is Jake by the way.

Decided to work on blood packs in our last double period because our film will look much more 15/18 rated if we get the slit throat scene looking well.

I was playing around with making blood earlier, didn't really get the viscosity (thickness) right or the colour. Just managed to make a pinkish liquid which was slightly thicker then water. I didn't wanna waste anymore flour or red food colouring so I decided to stop. Then I remembered I had some fake blood in this Halloween scream mask so I decided to go find it ... that’s when I had a brainwave.

With the mask is this heart filled with the fake blood which u can squeeze to spray blood over the mask. I was thinking:


Not to actual size...

If I cut the tubing and stuck it to the bottom of a knife, then as you squeeze the heart the fake blood would rush up the tubing and spray out of the end which is stuck to the knife. With the right practice and time you could film a really realistic scene as the blood would spray out and as the knife is moving it would look as if the blood was spraying from where the knife was touching the neck.

So yeah that little brainwave had me quite chuffed, as with a little practice I believe you could get a really realistic throat cutting scene if the sound was done well. It would also work wonders for the films verisimilitude.

By the way we don't both share the negativity for how our films gonna look, thats just James ... I've got much more faith lol.

Laters

Changes

Two changes to report:

• We're filming (most) of the house scenes at jack's house now. I hope. It looks better basically.
• We're filming the wood shots in Rougham. I hope. Thetford Forest just wasn't practical for everyone to get to.

But then it can all go wrong. And will.

So yeh fingers crossed this should work...

Hey media peeps this is Jake, hope everyones' films are like going totally awesome.

Right if I am as big a nerd as I think I am then below should be a video of like a promo of our film. This isn't the real thing because Zal decided to cut his hair so we're gonna have to shoot everything again. I apologize for like the frame rate and the quality and that you can't read much of the text but thats only because I had to shrink the film.

Enjoy...



Hope you all have a wicked weekend to anyone whos filming.

Laters x

Let's drive to Brighton on the weekend

If you could see me now I'd be chopping Jake's hands off so he couldn't do the Ali G thing...

So yeah, we did film last Saturday, it's not all lies and conspiracy.


I was happy with Zal, he did well - despite his self awareness, but we soon sorted that out by all stripping half naked as well.

I was happy with the clock shots - sexy.

I was happy with most of the mirror shots. Mainly the ones in which Zal could open and close a mirror properly. He kept on popping the mirror in only for it to open again mid shot and smack him in the head. Which was hilarious but yeh.

I was happy with Jack's camera - sexy.


I wasn't happy with some of the lighting, got a feeling it might look dull. But hopefully all shall be well.

I'm not too happy with the feeling that we may well have rushed it. We got good shots and all, but I've got a niggling feeling that we've missed some. But we've got 5 weeks left to fill in any gaps. If there are any when it comes to editing...

I'm not happy with some of the shots, which I feel could've been more stylised, like the newspaper date one and the milk bottle top opening one...but still, good editing can prove me wrong.


I wasn't happy with Tesco's new policy of hiding the Ginster's sausage rolls either. Corporate pigs


Jake won't be happy with my cynisism. But overall, Saturday's filming gets a "Nice" rating from the Fast Show Jazzman:

NICE!

Quality Morning (if you could see me now I would be doing that Ali G clicky fingers thing)

So yeah this Jake doing my first blog so expect spelling and grammar errors a plenty. And yes I am sorry to the intellectuals reading this post that don’t understand text talk.

We just had a rather quality morning. We filmed five pages of story board and we pretty much nailed everything we wanted to do indoors. Even if it did take us from 9 till about half 11 and numerous takes for filming mirrors and Zal's face.

We filmed about 30 or maybe less (5 pages with 6 boxes on each page) shots this morning which should pretty much cover the first 30 seconds of our film.

If you've read the basic plot summary we put on here then we've done everything up to the car journey part.

Zal looked amazing, as predicted, topless in pretty much all of the shots ... so ladies beware this towering ... erm ... tower of testosterone is captured in perfect quality, light and film!

Sorry Mr.M or Mrs.B whoever tried to call me and James about there being a camera free because I think you called us when we were out in bury stealing Lees green present box thingy. If your wondering how we filmed this morning ... well Jack Stanton ("do you know why your here?" L E G E N D) let us borrow his and fingers crossed the tapes used in his will work at the ones at school so we will be able to use the schools editing software. Also we borrowed a tri-pod of me dad so no need to worry about wobbly filming ... massive sigh of relief Mr.M I know!

Back to the serious stuff. James has drawn up all the storyboards so we might upload them on here sometime if we need to even though our posts aren't as frequent as ‘idea pikie’ group (Rob Henry Jon and Tom). As for our questionnaire we were thinking of doing a focus group type of thing at either mine or James house (probably mine because of my DVD collection) to get some research and hopefully by then we're have a rough edit of our film to show as well so we can get opinions on what to improve.

I say hopefully because we should (if everything goes to plan) be filming in Thetford forest on either Friday or Saturday (whenever is good for everyone concerned). Also we need to do a little more research into blood packs ... but internet research in class has been slightly useful. Don't think our female contact will enjoy a condom strapped to their neck which we explode by tugging some string. Plus we need to find a decent recipe for blood that looks good when it’s sprayed out of our make shift blood packs.

Also we I had the idea that should the tribal drumming idea with Zal running not fit and they we could use Assassin – Muse as it has quite a high tempo drum start part …

Also with the idea of continuing with the Greek mythology theme I had the idea that it would be really cool to start with a quote from ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer as the opening of our film which was inspired but such films as ‘Ronin’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’.

Me and James had different views of which quote we should use but we decided to settle on:

“A small rock holds back a great wave.”
Homer, The Odyssey

This would reflect the perilous start our protagonist has in our film. To put it in context it would be that our main protagonist, the as yet unnamed character played by Zal, has to fight off the many faceless attackers that ambush him. He is the small rock that holds back the great wave of attackers.

We also have started choosing a name for our film. We haven’t found anything yet that just you know FITS but we have started researching Greek words with related meaning to our film. Something that doesn’t sound too Greek but still sorta sound cool and has meaning to the film much like our previous film ‘Dagga’ which, according to some website, is a street name for marijuana.

So yeah everything is really well going well … with only six weeks left. Looking back on the green sheet in front off me I can confirm (in an extremely boastful manor) we have:

• Carried out research into what makes a thriller.


• Took into consent and analysed cinematic thriller openings and other students work.


• Brainstormed our film with physical proof in the forms of a few sheets of paper that I wrote.


• Completed a storyboard for everything we’ve filmed.


• We haven’t assigned roles because me and James pretty much do everything in a 50-50 manor e.g. filming, director etc.


• Got prop and shot lists.


• Discussed iconography lighting and special effects.


• We have discussed the mood we wished to create, possible plot trails for what the film will take after the end of the opening.

However we have still yet to:

• Choose a title/Discuss titles but this is due to the fact we haven’t sat down on the computers and look through different fonts and effects and entries etc.


• Decided exactly where the music is gonna be in relation to the film. I.e. we haven’t said we gonna have THIS SONG in this EXACT BIT.

If we haven't done something or left something out Mr.M and Mrs.B please could tell us in the form of a comment ... Thank You.

So yeah you can see why were pretty chuffed with our progress. Also gives us the thrills of hopefully being ready to edit when we get back after half term giving us 5 weeks to perfect the editing process.

We have slightly discussed doing an online poll for a possible title for the film but however we might instead do this part in our focus group night.

Sorry to be so boastful to anyone else who is doing coursework and reading this because there bored or actually generally interested in our film ... but seriously the end of this morning just left me so chuffed

BRING ON FRIDAY/SATURDAY

Signing off. Have a good holiday everyone…

Magik

Alright then, this is Sibley posting our first blog on here...

We've basically had the idea for our film from the very start. So right now we're going over all the details and storyboarding. As well as deciding on shots, music and who's actually going to act in it.

I'll go through where we stand on everything then...

The Plot

Briefly:

• Man wakes up.
• His character and appearance is slowly revealed as he gets ready around his house.
• After hearing a mysterious answering machine message about "the package being ready" he drives (there's the standard 17 year old "what can we do that we couldn't do before?" moment for Mr. M) to a wood.
• He then gets out and walks to a clearing in the wood where he meets his female contact. The package is then handed over.
• Then, both of them are surrounded by mysterious people who come out of the shadows of the trees.
• The men ruthlessley kill the (unarmed) female contact immediately (something about "we don't need her" blah blah).
• The man makes his escape, (not through brute force but through wit - influence from The Odyssey. Havin glavin) although we're undecided on what act he does to escape, meh.
• Then we have our chase sequence through the woods, with plenty of weaving camera movement between the trees, over and through the long grass etc. thrown in.
• Man escapes, for now. Main titles come up.

Locations

We'll be filming the house shots over Jake's house. - Certainty.
We'll be filming the woods shots in one of three places:

1. The Perfect Location - a while ago we went paintballing in this place on the outskirts of Thetford forest, on the dirt track that led to the place we skirted some forest that I think would be perfect for our film. Straight, strong, vertically parallel lines formed by the tall Scot's Pines, long grass and the sun shining piercing through the canopy. The only problems are how we film there without being arrested/shot/killed by felled trees and finding out who we'd call about it.
2. The Second Choice - there are wooded copses around Thurston that would be suitable, they have the right trees and ground cover. The problems that I can see are that the copses are quite small, meaning you could see vast tracts of Suffolk through the trees which wouldn't be very atmospheric, the other problem is that I have a feeling this places are owned by farmers, who in my experience aren't the most teenager friendly people on this world.
3. Third Option - Bradfield Wood. It would be easy to get to from both Jake's house and mine. The problem is I seem to remember the trees in the woods being tiny, both in height and trunk diameter. Which isn't that impressive. But then I might be imagining things.

- We'll be getting pictures of the 3 locations (me hopes) up here soon.

Actors

Looks like we'll be using our 'muse' Zal again. He'll add that certain Johnny Depp sex appeal factor as well...

HAHA

Still deciding on the other roles: heavies and contact.

Sound

We're thinking of using Mogwai - We're No Here (link to a dodgy live video of the song on YouTube here) for the main bulk of our film, it was used in Miami Vice, and quite annoyingly in Top Gear last Sunday as well, so it looks highly original. Cheers Clarkson.

But I had an idea about using the ending 90 seconds or so of The Beatles - A Day in the Life for the ending part of our opening. In which the orchestra spaz out into a a crescendo culminating in about a second of silence, then there's this huge piano chord played on about 3 pianos (me thinks) which lasts forever. My plan is to slowly fade up the orchestral spaz out, then as Zal rests with his back to a tree, the camera will track around him to face him and when it rests fully on his panting body the silence will come in. Then the piano chord and an incredibly fast fade to black will bring in the red titles on a black background. Opinions?


I also had an idea of recording an original score, with Zal doing some tribal drumming for us. The problem is the sound quality would be abysmal. But it's not out of the picture completely; we could still resort to recording him in Tom Frankson's basement...

Shots

Well, any interesting ones anyway...

• The opening shot we have is a Extreme close up of the numbers on a digital alarm clock. We'll then gradually draw out to reveal what this thing is, as to begin with it will looks like blurry lights. Between each reveal we'll put in a title (with a straight cut leading into each one). Then the alarm will go and our main character will hit it to stop. Fitting in the conventional countdown, ticking clock thing there. Might even hint at 24. Oh and before you say, we thought of this whole CU, MS, WS thing before we watched Memento, so drop those thoughts...

• Another shot we plan to use is the mirror shot, a la Shaun of the Dead, in which our main character closes the mirror to reveal the flashing light of the answering machine.

• Another shot we'll use is the "trunk shot" - nod to Jake's obsession, Quentin Tarrintino there (examples of Tarrintino's use of trunk shots here, in Pulp Fiction, and here, Reservoir Dogs). But instead of a trunk we'll put the camera in a fridge, when Zal opens the fridge this will be the first time we see his face. Part of the whole "Concealment" thing Mr. M drills into our brains, leaving the audience to wonder what the main character looks like for about a long time...

• Right, last shot I'll bother to talk about... We plan to have a long sequence of shots in a chase scene. With the camera weaving between the trees and the long grass tracking Zal as he is chased, all edgy and tense like. The only reason I mention it is because there's apparently a similar shot in M:I3 according to Jake as I've never seen it.

Anyway, now I'm gonna stop cos I'm tired and my brain is eating itself. I'll upload the storyboard when I finish it, it'll help yous to understand what I'm on about. Comments most welcome.