BFI Distribution

As a happy coincidence, the distribution work I'm doing for my A2 Media work with posters, magazines reviews etc also coincides with the same style of work I'm doing with the BFI course in Norwich distributing our three films;

Ebony

Cecil

The Revenge Cycle

So thought I'd show you the material myself and my team have already generated for the three films.

Our task was to get the most views on each video as possible before the 6th December 2014 where the winner would be announced at the Premiere event for the films at Norwich Forum!We were up against our rival documentary team.

Videos were uploaded at 5pm on the 19th November.

We began by creating individual posters for each film:

Ebony poster:

Cecil poster:

The Revenge Cycle poster:

We were given the logos for the BFI Film Academy and the Culture Works East which we had to place in our posters according to the copyright laws about where they could be placed and to what specifications (size, positioning etc). 

Ebony & The Revenge Cycle both adopted to taking iconic stills from their respective films as this would better sell what they were about and their genre.

Cecil opted for a fresh drawing so as not to draw to much about what the films about and was easier to create an iconic individual image in such a short space of time.

These three posters were then posted up anywhere we could get to be posted.

We then turned to another form of media. We managed to pull together a deal with SNYA radio in Attleborough where we would be able to place an advert on their page with the links to the videos on youtube for people to click on and watch. They estimate they have about 1000 visitors to their site daily! 

But most interestingly and exciting for us is that we were able to place an actual audio advert within the ad's they have in their shows! They get played every half hour, to which we are the first advert played! 

This is the advert itself:

SNYA Radio Advert 2014

And this is what our advert looked like at the time of when it was posted:

Mini Advert on main page

Full article

Now obviously the whole point of this was to gain as many views on each of our videos as possible. The day the advert went up, we saw an immediate increase in views, particularly on Ebony and Cecil. Within 2 days we had closed the 150 view gap on our rivals!

The Elliot Sauverin Show

We featured on the Elliot Sauverin Show! A weekly film news show which myself and some of the cast were interviewed on our time working on the film. Don't think we gave away too much? Have to admit, never knew we were that well known! Must be doing something right in the advertising...

Though, we did have some trouble broadcasting. In response, we got this pictogram:

Pretty neat right? Despite it being late airing but never mind. Still a broadly successful broadcast non the less.

Magazine Design

another step toward a final magazine page, here is the latest in line.

Magazine design - concept

Placing up here my first draft of my magazine double page spread to show how much its going to change as I work on it further until the deadline. Current colour scheme is Black and Red to match the title of the film and the cinematography of the film itself.

Final Poster design

Taking in mind the criteria I set myself on creating my poster; Image must not be still from the film, writing must stand out and away from image etc.
I have created this as my final poster:

I've managed to capture the feel of the film by the two main characters being the centre of attention but also keeping in the other aspects to the film; the chatty friends, the 'laddish' father figure and smooth brother. I've also managed to capture the viewers attention toward the two main figures by blurring slightly the other figures, allowing your eye to be naturally drawn to Charlotte and Luke in the centre.

Poster Design

Now we've made the film, its now time to create the products which will aid the distribution of the film. We begin with the poster:
Obviously, posters aren't as popular in such a digital age where video trailers and vox pop interviews can become far more wide spread reaching far larger audiences, posters only really capture a very local audience, depending where it is sent out to and distributed. Even so, they still remain the most recognisable and traditional method of advertising a new film.

For my short film, I took inspiration from posters for some of my most favourite films. Posters for:

Scary Movie:

The Hobbit:

Love Actually:

What you may notice from all these posters is how there is one main image above the main bulk of the text and legal writing. They're also all featuring an after market image, where the main actors from the film have been placed in special photography set specially for the poster e.g. they aren't stills from the film. I really like this layout, as often I find I cannot read or make out the writing where its been placed in with the poster image. I also find it looks a lot neater and more pleasing to my eye at least. Hence, I shall develop my own poster with these criteria in mind!

Sweet 18 - Editors Cut

So the original cut of the film has been up for 2 weeks now, and in that time I've been able to collect people's thoughts and opinions on it and any suggested improvements and this cut aims to correct them to make the film the best as possible.

This will act as my final piece of work!

Sweet 18

So here is the first cut of my short film. I must stress however this may not end up being my final cut as I intend to produce an editors cut based upon any criticisms I receive about this cut with the ultimate aim in improving the film to its full potential!

Ebony

The Fruits of our efforts over this week! Short horror film 'Ebony' starring Liam Walpole and produced by Guy Myhill. Directed by Alex Bird, Edited by myself.

As for the rest of my team, from Anna and Hanna, the courses first ever animation short!:

From here now we are to develop our advertising campaign, complete with trailers, posters, interviews etc. Should coincide nicely with my work with Sweet 18 so I can learn how the professionals go about it!

BFI Film Production - What now?

So thats that, production week over, short films all made and ready to go, so what now?
Well, myself and my team will now become heavily involved with the distribution of our short films, by means of posters, trailers etc which we will then post up on social media, youtube etc. The idea will be then to be in friendly competition between the documentary and fiction teams to see who can generate the most views on their videos! Result will be we will all have a comprehensible and near professional experience working on all aspects of film making, from pre to post to distribution production. The final presentation of our films will take place on the 6th December at the Forum in Norwich to a live audience where the course will finish. Very sad but go out on a high!

Following this though, perhaps even more exciting. Since we have been accepted onto the Film Course, we now each qualify to take part in a two week, intensive film course with the BFI in London again working with industry professionals and other young film makers as we work to create another short film, whilst still receiving far more in depth use of industry standard equipment such as cameras, sound equipment, editing platforms etc! We get to choose two areas of speciality, choice from Directors, Cinematographers, Editors, Sound, Writers & Producers with the most popular choices being Directors and Cinematographers! I myself would chose Editing and Sound as these are the two areas I feel most accomplished in and areas I would most like to take on in a professional environment in future.
From the successful applicants, we will be put into 11 groups of 6, each containing at least one of the choice specialists as above.
If successful, applicants could be considered the top 66 young film makers in the country!

I myself I am extremely tempted by the offer as it may open up many different routes into the industry which may prove valuable when trying to break into such a competitive industry.

BFI Film Production - Day 5

Day 5
And so this is it, the final day of production week! Slightly sad really, enjoyed every day, especially working in such close proximity to not only the industry professionals but also other local and enthusiastic young film makers like myself on a daily basis. Made some valuable contacts for any future projects I may wish to partake in!

Anyway, today just consisted in creating titles for the film such as the BFI logo at the beginning and ending of the film,

credits to particular people and actors involved in the film and the company's who facilitated its creation. Had it ready by mid-day! Even had time to create a rough poster for the film.
Managed to also gather some audience feedback from random members of staff at Epic Studios and my fellow film makers, all thought it was extremely tense and thrilling, though you will have to wait to watch to see it to see if you agree with these opinions.

So from here we now work on a weekly basis working to work on the distribution of the film creating posters, trailers etc, all of which will be invaluable experience not only toward this, my A-Level work but in general for future projects to come! I believe the idea is to have a friendly rivalry between the fiction and documentary group to see who can generate the most views on their video(s). Documentary will have to up their game to compete with the accumulation of our 3 videos!

BFI Film Production - Day 4

Day 4
The Editing continues, got to work a lot closer with Guy today on the editing of the piece getting his professional input on the film, on how best to build tension in the shot. I've certainly learned that sometimes in fast paced action sequences, more is actually more! Taught me not to keep the shots so short as I had previously thought, rather to extend some of them to allow the content to sink in with the audience and create a more diverse range of clip lengths.

 I've also been able to develop my Director-Editor communication skills. Previously in other productions I had been both the director & editor and so I've never really needed that skill before to be able to communicate different sequence ideas to another person. I do personally prefer being the editor to the director, think its a far more enjoyable experience just by the fact you can focus on the actual sequencing of shots and leave the order of all of it to the director, think it makes for a much more effective & efficient work environment.

The film is now so close to be finished, reckon only needs a few more hours just checking the grading on a few shots, checking audio levels (as they need to comply with the Forums audio standards, I'm guessing so we don't blow up potentially several thousand pounds worth of sound equipment!) and of course add the all important credits.

BFI Film Production - Day 3

Day 3
So day 3, editing! Ben is now filming his film today so it's just left me to get on, leaving me with 3 whole days to get this one done! Straight down to it though, had a first draft done by mid-day. Basically sequenced the events of the film and added in rough ambient audio for the film. This acts as a basis on how we build up the film from here. As things are currently going, expect to have most of, if not all the film finished by the end of tomorrow!

BFI Film Production - Day 2

Day 2: Filming

So today we managed to film the entirety of our first film! Myself, Alex, Lili, Guy and Liam all went out onto Location along with Ebony the dog. Very successful. Lili and Alex took up the main roles as Cameramen/women whilst I took care of making sure Ebony worked well with Liam and was able to act correctly on set. I also took up the role of being main sound guy ensuring we got all the necessary audio we may need later in post.

We shot on the Sony Z7, a new camera to me which shot onto tape which is also a new one on me. It did of course mean we could only shoot in Standard Definition compared to High Definition, though I do feel it will add a certain style to the film which we won't see in our rival films and keep it in genre for the film. Using the camera, we went almost entirely hand-held seeing as it is a very fast paced film and the camera needs to reflect that. Fortunately the camera has its own shoulder mount and hand held capabilities which made it much easier to do run-and-gun style shooting for the piece.
a new camera to me which shot onto tape which is also a new one on me. It did of course mean we could only shoot in Standard Definition compared to High Definition, though I do feel it will add a certain style to the film which we won't see in our rival films and keep it in genre for the film. Using the camera, we went almost entirely hand-held seeing as it is a very fast paced film and the camera needs to reflect that. Fortunately the camera has its own shoulder mount and hand held capabilities which made it much easier to do run-and-gun style shooting for the piece.

I was particularly excited about this shoot as I finally got a chance to use in a serious production my fake blood I had made a few months ago out of food colouring and glucose syrup which I think actually came off really well in the shot, not as light as ketchup while still keeping its glint and viscosity.

A few shots from the shoot:

Now we have the filming down though, it does mean we are well on target for getting this film done on time, if not several hours before the deadline of 18:00 on Friday evening! Feeling extremely pleased. All concerns from yesterday concerning the timing completely gone.

BFI Production Week - Day 1

Production week with the BFI where I my other 5 colleagues would create a 5 minute or less short film within the space of 5 days!

We had already been set our teams the week before, I myself was going to be working on the fiction film along with Alex, Lili, Anna, Hanna & Ben. I was very excited and keen to get on.

Day 1: Ideas
Day one began with a quick ideas session from Bell again, designed to get our creative minds rolling! We were asked to chose a picture at random and generate from that a sci-fi story behind it. I chose a picture of an oil rig moored up on a coastline, to which I created the story of how an alien species had hijacked the rig and stolen all of its oil, leaving it drifting out in the ocean and had been doing this for centuries, explaining the massive oil crisis we are currently experiencing.
As a group though, I think we found this exercise rather restraining as we all felt ready and rearing to go create these films and so thought it was a slight waste of time.
Anyway, moving on, myself and my team were introduced to Guy Myhill,

Guy Myhill - Writer/Director of 'The Goob'

our production manager and industry expert who is currently in the process of releasing his latest film 'The Goob' featuring a new, upcoming and local actor, Liam Walpole.

We quickly got to each other's strengths/weaknesses, roles etc. I was deemed most suitable at being sound and editor of the piece we would finally create as these are the two areas I personally feel strongest at and most experienced in. Alex and Ben both opted to be the Director of what we would eventually create while Hanna and Anna would be writers/producers.

Liam Walpole acting in his recent film 'The Goob'

We then began brainstorming. It quickly became clear we each had different ideas for what film we should make. My own idea involved more technology based stimuli while Anna's involved an animation approach and Ben's focussed more on futuristic style setting.
We tried combining all these ideas but we felt this undermined each individual idea. So to solve this, we decided just to create all three! We split up into sub-teams with myself and Alex working on my own developed idea, Ben and Hanna working toward the futuristic film and Anna and Lili working on the animation.

Group members (clockwise), Myself, Ben, Lili, Guy, Hanna,
Anna, Alex

Me and Alex soon decided for the best chance for getting the film done in time that we would have to film the next day on the tuesday. Our idea we had already set down, where there would be a man and his dog walking through the woods when the dog runs off and is eventually abducted by a mysterious being leaving the man fleeing in terror for his life. So in order to be able to do that, we were required to complete our entire pre-production in less than half a day! That included writing up a shot list, call card and organise actors to act in and be on location! We divided up again, I took care of the shot list while Alex wrote up the call card.

Shot listing

Guy then suggested we bring in Liam from his film as to be the actor in our own, as he would be easy to bring in, work with and thinking further ahead, would be easier to advertise the film if we had a professional and recognised actor taking part in it.
Only thing remained was our location, we knew we wanted to film in a woodland area but were unfamiliar with any local woodlands which we would be able to use without interruption from other dog walkers and recreational users. Elli was thankfully able to help us there (the programme leader) as she knew her parents had recently bought up several acres of woodland in local Coltishall which we would be able to use free of charge (which was extremely useful as we had already used 2/3rd's of the budget paying for Liam to be on set leaving only a 1/3rd left for the other two sub-groups!)!

So everything was set! We would use my own dog as the dog in the film as I would be able to handle her and I felt she was well trained enough to be suitable. We would also bring in Liam as our main actor for a price of £100 for the day! We'd then be filming on Elli's parents land, just 7 miles from our base at Epic Studios in Norwich and we would use equipment from both Guy and Culture Work's East.

The Cast, Crew & Gear - Episode 7

In this episode, we go more into the finer details of the different roles there are on a film set and the ones I intend to have and manned by who. We also discuss my choices for the roles of the film and why I think they're suitable for the roles.

Location Research

So got my idea. It's a rom com set in a pub, the most romantic location I know(!). Though in order for that to be the location, I will need a pub to film in. Luckily, a few of my friends do work in the local pubs, one of which has caught my eye as an ideal location for my film. Here are a few snaps:

I do enjoy how good the cinematography is within the pub, theres also quite a few possibilities on where abouts in the pub we could film, especially when we film the pub is fairly busy and there is limited options on where we can go. The name of the pub also bears a certain sense of irony to the films plot.

One draw back of the pub that I can see is that there won't be much space to put everyone as we film, especially during the bar scenes. It will be difficult to get everyone in whilst allowing general customers to pass us, seeing as it is quite a narrow corridor.

Having spoken to the landlord, surprisingly we will be allowed to film during serving hours from 12 till 4, which is a real bonus. Allows for genuine ambient noise to be captured all adding to the atmosphere of the piece.

The Final Idea

And so, the moment we've all been waiting for! My final idea:
Following on from my previous post, I've decided to go with idea 2 as I decided it would be far easier to produce the film whilst on one location. It would require less of the actors time, less permits from local councils and parents for use of areas to film in and also would mean far less time would be taken up filming it and mean more time would be available for editing.

The final script: Sweet 18 Script

For a cast, I've chosen:

Amanda MacKinnon as Charlotte, as I feel she suits the role in her demeanour, her acting style and also because she's very pretty. This allows the idea that she could turn heads to be made more believable.

Ben Woodier as Luke, I've worked with Ben before on other projects and I've really enjoyed working with him. He also has the right personality traits I'd associate with the character of Luke, being fairly shy and easily embarrassed.

Duncan Rowe as John, as the father to Ben I needed an older actor who looked fairly similar to Ben and his brother Ed whilst also being very brash and out going. Duncan suited all these criteria and so made him perfect for the role.

Jake Doughty as Ed, the actor for Ed needed to have Ben's shyness whilst the confidence of his Father. This made Jake ideal as in real life he displays these types of characteristics and whilst being a new actor onto the scene (this will be his debut film) he full fills all my criteria for the role.

The whole thing I've managed to secure being filmed in the Heart pub in Wymondham, Norfolk. This makes the setting ideal as the cinematography of the piece is something I won't have to think of too hard seeing as the location itself is a pub. It does raise issues about filming in such a cramped space however but to combat I will hire a much smaller crew.

So far now, I have also managed to write up a storyboard outlining the key shots I hope to capture in the film.

Sweet 18 Storyboard

I haven't done each shot as I do prefer a certain level of freedom when coming to shooting my films but these key shots I thought I had ought to give myself so that on the day in the heat of it all, I can still refer to it for best accuracy in the look I want to get.

So, you can look forward in my next post to its upload! Watch this space.

Audience Research - what the critics say

Its filmed and set to be uploaded, but will the audience like it? I go out to answer this question by quizzing my peers on what they think and whether they like the idea of the film.

The Trailers

It's here! The first trailer for Sweet 18. Make sure to watch and share for the first glimpse of the latest and biggest short film of 2014!

Second trailer I released one week before the film's premiere on the 1st November!

Designed this trailer to be more focussed on the romance side of the story compared to the previous trailer I designed to be focussed on the comedy so to attract more views and potential audience members.

BFI Film Course

Delighted to say I've been accepted into the BFI's Film Course at Norwich Culture Works East!! Will be learning all the tips and tricks to making a professional short film with professionals from the industry! And with any luck be able to attend another course with the BFI itself in London making a feature length!! Exciting times.

Few shots from the first taster session. Me and team working to create a short stop motion piece. Became reasonably successful.

Sessions running every saturday and wednesday until half term week which is film week, 5 days to write, shoot and edit either a short fiction film or a documentary piece! Personally, hoping for the fiction film.

First session:
Script Writing, led by industry expert, Bell, we mainly focussed on actually generating ideas and expressing different emotions in our scripts. We began with a sci-fi stimulus of how an habitably planet had recently been discovered in the vicinity of Earth and we were to create a story around what would happen back on Earth. Me and Alex decided we would go with the most plausible outcome, of how the U.N would commission exploration missions to the planet to discover it and learn about it before allowing everyday civilians to relocate there as a chance for a new life. We then turned on the sci-fi at how a new pathogen would infect all the colonisers with devastating effect on them and ultimately board a supply ship back to Earth to infect all the human race!
Moving on, we then turned to the actual writing of scripts and how to write effectively. It did feel like a rather prolonged english lesson.
We volunteered to be given an emotional stimulus on how to enter the room. I was given the emotion of anger. Once everyone had finished, we were then asked how we would best describe each others entrances without using any adverbs e.g. Henry angrily entered the room would be deemed inadequate, rather: Henry stormed the meeting room and began insulting his colleagues.
We finished with being set our film task which we would attempt to complete over production week (27th - 31st October). We were set to create a sci-fi short film, lasting less than 5 minutes which was to be completed within the 5 day time span, all the way from pre to post production.

Second Session:
This week was all about our skills at directing actors and how to best work with them and get the best performance out of them, with help from the assistant director of Anna Karenina!
We began by pinning down what qualities we would expect a director to have:

We decided a director should be:
Trustworthy, have great people skills, be a perfectionist, determined, have a clear vision of what it is they want to create, organised, confident and resourceful to name a few.


The point of this exercise was to make us aware of what type of person in our group we would most likely be, as in which of us would be most suitable to be director, editors etc.







Up next was a far more practical exercise, where volunteer directors were given a scene to recreate by use of anyone of us to act as either characters, props etc.

Point of this exercise was to show us it can be harder than we might imagine to get even the most co-operative people to act and behave in the way you may want them too.

Here (left) you can see Ben trying to direct myself, Rhys, Peter and Jessie to form a military line up, with Jessie being the sergeant.

Following this, we then each had a turn in verbally expressing what we wanted each actor to do, different from the previous task as we were allowed to physically move actors into position. We were set a task for us to make the other one do and attempt to explain it to the actor as simply as possible without using the sentence, or any of the words in it, which we were given the task. So for mine I was asked to make Peter hope on one leg. I therefore asked Peter to act like a kangaroo but on only one leg. Very successful I believe in comparison to others, however was deemed extremely laid back in approach and not involved enough with my actor. Just the type of person I am. 

This contrasts with Rhys's directing of Lewis where he was given the stimulus of getting him to crawl under a chair. Rhys opted for the more hands-on approach to directing Lewis by actually showing him the action he would need to do without actually telling him.

The exercise showed us the importance of directing actors as simply as possible in order to avoid confusion, but also to interact with them as much as possible, not only in order to become more clear in your instructions, but also to form a sense of trust between the two.

Overall, I feel both sessions went really well for all of us. Certainly developed my skills in directing and in generating ideas for scripts from both days. We were all certainly feeling confident for production week!