Reshoot Repeat Shoot.

Funny how today was almost a repeat of our original shoot. Zak brought the lights and then didn't have a clue what he was surposed to do, while Evans turned up two hours late (again). Crazy times. Luckily this time the actors and extras weren't around to witness this becaue I had asked them to join us a bit later. The day went smoothly and we were done within 3 hours. We got all the shots I wanted and some really good visuals of drinks pouring and lots of red cups. I forgot to ask if any of the guys had a white shirt we could borrow as we needed to dress a different guy up like the Stranger and luckily Evans was wearing a light blue one that in post we could make look white. My housemate Jess was a very good stand-in for Georgia's hands and feet and the shot from the bathroom looks lovely. Well worth doing the reshoot.

Plan C it is!

With the reshoot scheduled for next Monday 30th we had already chosen Plan C as the plan of action. This was due to it being the easiest and the only option available to us as our actors are completely unavailable. We went into our tutorial knowing this but wanted to get David and Eddies views on the situation before we told them our problems. They agreed with us and gave us some very helpful ideas regarding what to get out of the reshoot. They suggested more emphasise on the drugged cup and a PoV shot from the bedroom watching Jenny being sick. They have defiantly been added to the shot list for Monday. We discussed the problems we were having with Zak as our producer and they said to credit ourselves problem solved. The grainy shot of Stranger outside they suggested we reinstate into the film as they feel we need to establish as face to the voice. It was unanimously decided we cut the car crash scene but the film needed an inciting incident that Jenny would be affected by. I suggested a text or phone call from the guy mentioned in the script saying he can't come. Ben recommended we have the Stranger drug the cup throughout the montage which is a great idea. We both feel really positive that these little bits and piceces will take the film up a notch.

Plan A, B or C?

Spent the day editing with Ben and even though as Eddie says "I'd rather have 5 minutes of quality than 10 minutes of crap" we are barely at five minutes. That's the bad news the rest is mostly  good. It flows much better now. We have several options for the tutorial tommorrow with David and Eddie. We tried to edit to the sugestions made in the screening though we just need to run a few things by them. We had thought about doing a reshoot before speaking to them but have postponed until after becuase we can then cater the reshoot to their feedback. Below is the options we can take to make the film better -

A few opinions regarding the film...

"I like the style"        "Style over substance"

"GET RID OF THE CAR CRASH

IT'S CONFUSING"             "I don't get it"

"You should keep 'INSERT PARTY MONTAGE HERE'bit"

"What's the point?"             "Story first"

"The smily faces make it look dated"  

We survived the Rough Cut Screening with David and Eddie and our fellow film makers. We weren't the best but certainly were not the worst (some groups showed sweet f-all!). All the suggestions have been noted and generally the feedback was helpful and positive. People embraced the style but didn't understand they story. As Mckee states in Story "Like music, dance, painting and sculpture, poetry and song, story is first, last, and always the experience of asthetic emotion." If the story fails, no matter how good it looks, the film fails. Simple.



Rough Cut Ready.

It's not great but it's not awful so fingers crossed it's not ripped to shreds tomorrow by everyone. I think they should be aware of us being fucked over but I'd rather not make excuses. Basically it's a case of we tried our best and now we have to deal. I do feel if this film was a point in human evolution it would be a caveman after starting off as a monkey in a tree. It's so exciting watching the film grow in the edit. We might just make it up the evolutionary scale to modern man, you never know!

The fog begins to clear.

I spent yesterday looking on flickr and facebook for suitable images I can photoshop. I want to use still images to highlight that the party of the film is one to remember before the audience is even a part of it. Most people take photos of a night out to show how much they enjoyed themselves but for the main character Jenny these photos become evidence of a crime. Examples of the images are below. They appear so quickly (barely often 3 frames) that they hardly register with the audience.

To focus on the Red Cup as a object hazard and fun I've made the images black and white with only the Cup a vibrant/warning shade of red. I need to push the cup as part of the action and cause of enjoyment and danger simultaneously.

I've used some photos taken by Roy Perestrelo to convey the many levels that the characters of the film are reckless. They use alcohol to numb pain, forget problems whilst putting themselves in unintentional danger. Now I'm not against theses things (we've all been there) but if that's all you care about who is there to care about you? The shallowness of the characters places them in serious danger because they are distracted by their own selfish aims and desires.

These red images are from porn, specifically with girls who look the same age as our characters. I've blacked out their eyes with a bar to make them faceless, it's just sex no feelings just desire. I really want to emphasise this objectification of our bodies through over sexualisation. This mixed with alcohol can be enjoyable but everyone seams to glide over the consequences in favour of having a good time. I may not be able to address those issues directly in the film but I can use the visuals to place a deeper resonance if the viewer wishes to see it.

The numerous pictures of nights out that people have are often indistinguishable from each other. I've covered individuals faces to highlight this and to convey a non-specificness to our party and it's events. Do you know everyone at a party? No, but you trust that they are non threatening.

I'm really pleased with how using these images in the film enhances confusing drunken atmosphere of the party. These, along with subtitling specific dialogue, add to the mixed media visual concept I wanted when rewriting the script. By each character having a different font I hope to distinguish them and convey their personality in a basic way -

With the restrictions placed upon us we can't develop them above shallow individuals which does work within the context of the film. I'm very happy with how the film is evolving.



Fitting the pieces together.

Went round Ben's yesterday for the first edit and I'll be honest it's a marathon not a sprint. I found it really interesting to piece the film together bit by bit. We experimented A LOT. We had to and more important I wanted too to convey something a little different. Scott in his book Writing, Producing and Directing a Low-Budget Short Film has gave me a few pointers to think about when reviewing Ben's skeleton -

• Story flow (It doesn't but we discussed ways to help such as the addition of still images to distract from a lot of the jump cuts)
• Mistakes in the shots (Ben had already selected the best shots and removed those with Boom shadows etc.)
• Sound levels/consistency (Again Ben being skilled with sound had addressed any issues)
• Colour Correction (I must say Ben had done a great job by giving a slight bleached effect to the the footage and taking away the yellowness.)

This morning he posted the scenes we had ripped apart and vommited back into a visual treat. I have a good feeling about our progress. I posted this on facebook -

"MUCH, Much better! Great start. Interesting way it juts about visually. I'm looking through peoples images now. That shot of Adams face outside isn't good I'm thinking cut it completely and just have his voice off screen with maybe his dialogue subtitled. The flashes arn't right. I'm thinking of using party images and then saturating them one neon colour and using them instead of just block colour. Will do some experiments and get back to you tonight. It's looking good :)"

We decided that we would use subtitles for chracteres key dialogue to disguise some bad-ish acting and distract the eyes away from a jump ut or unfocused shot. Before our next edit day I'll create some still images to enhance the party/hedonist atmosphere and select the character fonts. Our next edit is planned for the 15th to give Ben time to go through my notes.

Not Good. Not Good.

When your editor is going through the footage creating a rough cut and states the following it's soul destroying -

"I am going to be honest Tom - I am starting to get a little worried going through this footage as I'm putting this rough cut together.

Party scenes are essential and we have next to none.
What I have uploaded so far in the rough cut scenes are using the best footage we have (obviously). The rest of the footage is rather out of focus (close ups) - grainy (outside) - boom/crew shadows&reflections - acting (all cast). There isn't a great deal to play around with.

When are you next free? We need to have a meeting ASAP to set up for some form of potential re-shooting.

I'll continue you to make what I can out of what I got here, and who knows the rest might turn out fine and it may just be the tinniest bits needed to re-shoot."

Not good. Needless to say we have aranged a editing session for Mon 9th to give him enough time to mae a skeleton. I'm very worried though even if we hand in a pile of shit we will pass so at least we are looking at that at the very least. Bring on Monday....