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Well it's week four and it's nearly time to head home. Monday and we were supposed to start our film editing but our teacher Brian Blamey, failed to show up. Instead we jumped on the Avid Express machines and started editing our DV Rushes. We were told the basics by JP and made quite a bit of progress putting it in scene order. We went to the pub afterwards. Tuesday and Brian came in to teach us Film Editing. Physically taking the film negative, cutting it with a 16mm Joiner and sticking it back together with cellotape. He had plenty of great stories about Stanley Kubrick as he worked on "A Clockwork Orange". Wednesday and we were back editing on the Avid Express. A professional Editor named Catherine Fletcher sat in with us and was available to ask questions of but mostly, we were left to get on with it. We went looking for sound effects in the library and also borrowed the schools DV Camera to record some sound effects. We even got Will to produce some dialogue for us too. The day was pretty frustrating in terms of getting the film the way we wanted and Jessi and I had some disagreements over what we should put in or leave out. We went to the pub later and I forgot about it for the evening. Thursday and the edit was coming together. We had started to add titles and had layed down most of our soundtrack. We had both been hunting for music and sound effects in the library and came up with a couple of things which would work. We were pretty much there but after a quick look at the other films, I wanted to do more. Jessi and I were there to at least 6pm trying out different things. When I got back to my room I tried to get some sleep for the final day. Friday and I got to the school at about 9.20am and started making the credits for the film. Jessi came in a few minutes afterwards and we put together the cast and crew credits before arguing over the order. She won and I got moved up and Alex, our one-time Producer/Whiner got demoted to Runner. Ha. A few people turned up for the screening including Daisy, Lincoln, JP, Abi, Leon (one of the actors) and a couple of the Diploma students who are on their week off. They all seemed to enjoy the screening but I'm not sure if it was because of the films or the wine that Nicolo had brought. We went to "The Cock" afterwards for the real Wrap party and most of us ended up getting completely hammered. I ended up falling asleep in the pub and missed a good chunk of it. Saturday and I was up at 5am after being asleep at my desk all night. I went to bed but ended up getting out again at 8pm as I couldn't sleep. I decided I'd go to Euston to find my train times for tomorrow. Only when I was one stop away did I realise that I could have looked on the internet. By this time, Tim had left for Manchester and Zofnat had left for Cardiff. I came back and Austin and I went to Picadilly so that he could go to Lilywhite's to get some stuff to take home. He later left for his hotel at Heathrow and I went upstairs to see Jessi. We ended up chatting while we watched the altercation across the street involving some girl hiding behind some bins, I gather. Sunday and I finished packing for the trip home. I went to the Internet Cafe with Jessi and forgot to update my blog again. When we came back, Jessi and I said our goodbyes and I started welling up afterwards. I'm going to miss her. The train ride was pretty slow considering it was a tilting train and after Crewe it seemed as though the train company couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery. Well, I'm home and I've got to go to work monday. I would much rather stay in London so I'm going to try and get back there as soon as possible. The last four weeks have been some of the best of my life and so much of it is down to Jessi, Zofnat, Austin, Will, Mehdi, Nicolo and Tim. They are some of the greatest people I've ever met and I feel lucky to count them as friends. Well, See ya. Tags: film school, london
Current Location: In the Study
Current Mood:  bored
Current Music: Numb Encore with a Twist
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Week three has been really hectic as we spent most of it shooting. Monday was a production day, a chance for everybody to get some last minute work done before we shoot. Jessi and I spent it going over the few things we still had to get in terms of props and securing the location while Alex our producer was his normally useless whining self. We also had a final meeting with Daisy to look over the final script and preparations we had made. We then helped Medhi and Austin get the studio set-up for their shoot the following day. Medhi decided he wanted the set blue and brought in a tin of paint to our horror since we had to be out by 7pm. We had a quick drink at the pub before getting an early night for the next morning. Tuesday - Shoot Day 1. Medhi was directing Tim's Script "Bag Lady". I was allocated the role of Focus Puller which means being in charge of all of the camera equipment, pulling focus and zoom, changing lenses, checking the gate and a few other things. We had 4 slates in the studio upstairs and the rest of the story took place outside. It went pretty well and everybody including Lincoln thought we had done a great job. We ended up changing the set around to accomodate the next shoot and repaint it at the same time. Uhhh. Wednesday - Shoot Day 2. Will was directing Nicolo's Script "Blind Date". I didn't have a specific role on this one as Jessi and I had a final production day before our shoot but we spent most of the day on set helping out and watching the action. Margeaux (The director of phtography) was running around like a pretentious headless chicken without clue as to what she was doing. We all hate her. The shoot turned out pretty well and we went for a quick drink prior to getting of home. Thursday - Shoot Day 3. Jessi was directing Austin's Script "Recyle". The day started of pretty well as we started shooting at 9.30am before Lincoln came in and mentioned all the things that we hadn't thought of and started again. We had 3 or 4 slates in the LFA kitchen and the rest of the scenes were to be shot outside. We had a pretty good time animating the juice carton with a combination of nylon wires and hand puppertry. We also got in a 48fps waterfall shot that we wanted to try. I'm the DP on this one and I think I may have made a mess of the aperture settings and under-exposed it a bit. IDIOT!!!!! We all got drunk that night on Sambuca, beer and various other alcoholic beverages. Friday - Shoot Day 4. Tim was directing Don's Script "Identity Theif". All of the scenes were to be shot outside and it bucketed it down. we ended up having to waterproof the camera but the four actors had to make do as we couldn't reschedule. We spent 6 hours standing in the rain but it was great and the only one that complained was our resident princess Margeaux, we all took the piss. I was down to be 2nd AD but was instantly promoted to a variety of jobs as the unreliable whiners took shelter or failed to turn up at all. Afterwards most of us were so knackered that we just went home and the wrap party idea just fell to pieces. We ended up just sloping off home and going to sleep. Saturday. Austin, Zofnat, Jessi and I decided to see Children of Men which although there seemed to be some general disappointment regarding the overall story I loved it and we all thought that the cinematography and direction were both fantastic. Later we came back and Austin, Zofnat and I met up with Medhi at the pub and drank until closing time and chatted about the week into the early hours. We're editing the films next week and we screen them on Friday. I can't believe that were into the last week already but I've loved every minute of it and I don't really want to go back yet. Anyway, see ya later. Tags: film school, london
Current Location: Internet Cafe
Current Mood: awake
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We didn't finish shooting on wednesday until gone 7pm and still hadn't finished shooting Zofnat's film. We got together before 9am thrsday in order to get the exterior shots of the pub and the street. It turned out pretty well.
At 9am we had our actors workshop with Rachel Tilliston (Actress/Director) and professional actors Sally and Andrew. We were split into groups and went through auditioning the actors for roles in a script we were supplied with the day before. We auditioned the actors one to one and went through the internal / external masks of the characters. I was working with Sallly who said that my introduction and thoughts about the character and teh situation were very good but I wasn't able to get across how I wanted her to change her performance. At lunch we took the actors to the pub and talked about how we were getting on and the industry in general.
After lunch, we went through blocking, which is planning an actors movement through the scene and where the camera considering camera placement and the script. It was really useful to be able to see two actors being directed and how a scene can be changed dramatically by a few notes from the director.
Afterwards we saw the movie that we were auditioning the actors for which Rachel directed. It was good but we had all directed in a way which was different from Rachel's. At the end of the day we had a short talk with the actors and each other on some of the issues we were experiencing during the direction.
Rachel was to be recommending people as directors for the moving image project in week 3, I wasn't confident of being one of the four.
Friday would be the day that we would get our slides back and show our movies to John, our Directing Tutor and Bruce Webb, our Production Tutor. First, they went through the moving image project, roles on the shoot and the time and resources we would have available to us. The slides came back at around 10am and I was pretty excited about seeing mine but nervous about how Wills turned out as I shot his. Everybody's came back fine except Jessi's which were slightly over-exposed. John and Bruce said this is only the second time that this had happened as there are usually some blank film rolls.
We had to show the still silent movies to Bruce who had no knowledge of what we had been making so he could be an objective judge. The stories were all really good and Bruce said he liked how I had put the narrative together and the shots that I had used to convey what was going on to the audience.
After lunch they went for a chat and decided on the four films they wanted to make. They chose Donald's "Theif", Austin's
"Recycle", Tim's Bagladies" and Nicolo's "Blind Date". Based on Rachel's input, they picked four directors and assigned them to scripts. They then named myself and three others to be Directors of Photography and had the Directors choose who they wanted. Jessi got first pick and chose me to shoot Austin's script. I think it's going to be the most challenging as it involves an inanimate object which becomes alive but I didn't want an easy shoot. the producers got to choose their projects and Alex chose to join us.
Afterwards we went to the pub with John and Lincoln and talked about our projects. They had some good advice to give us specifically regarding the story and how we could go about manipulating the character to best effect.
We've got an awful lot to do and I'm going to meet Jessi a little later and go through some ideas with her.
I'll tell you more later. Tags: film school, london
Current Location: Internet Cafe
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Yoko Kanno - Strangers
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First day of Film School. First of all, got down to Earl's Court and saw off Austin's friend Andy whose going to Africa for 4 months on a AIDS Education program from with the University of Arizona. Seemed like a nice guy. Got to the Film School around 0920 and waited for everyone else to arrive. We seem to be a mixed bunch on the course. 2 Americans, 1 Venezuelan, 1 Israeli, 1 Italian, 1 French, 2 English, me and 2 others whose nationality I can't remember. We kicked off with a talk from our resident directing tutor, John Le Broc. He's pretty passionate about film and gave me a sense that we would be working hard for the next four weeks. Tonight we have to storyboard a short silent film were going to make with our 35mm Stills cameras. I not entirely sure what I'm going to do but I've got a few ideas. We went to the local pub for lunch and I was glad to find ideas were pretty thin on the ground elsewhere too. The afternoon was taken up by Lincoln Ascott, our Course Leader and Cinematography tutor. We went through stills cameras and he assembled a Super16mm camera to have a look at and change lenses, film magazine etc. I going to go back to my room and work on my storyboards but I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow. See ya. Tags: film school, london
Current Location: Internet Cafe
Current Mood: working
Current Music: Some background Dance
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