Tour of ATRG

Today's tour of NTU's Advanced Textiles Research Group provided much needed insight into the internal client project. Luckily, the facilities that are currently in use by the innovative task force are extremely close to those I'd previously envisioned. When it comes to shooting on Wednesday I hope to get plenty of shots of the facility, as well as a short interview with some members of the ATRG such as professor Dias. This interview will hopefully churn out some useful buzz words that I can interlace with the footage of their equipment.
In my opinion, the work being done by this group has the potential for great applications in not only the medical field, but also sporting, military and even fashion. Hopefully, due to this, there will be very little narrative needed, as the advanced technology will speak for itself to a certain respect, my job here is really to make it speak up.

Behold, The Collective.

My latest film-making feat, known in its triology as 'The Collective'. Enjoy, and please post feedback.

'The Choice'

'The Chase'

'The Charity'

Justification

My idea for the DepicT project is to create a series of short films, each with independent issues but all holistically similar. The general theme, if I had to give the series one, would be that it is a crime drama, seen from the victim’s perspective, as well as that of the alleged perpetrator and the individual investigating the crime, something that I’m not entirely has been done before, at least not in the way I plan on creating it.

            In the beginning the series began as the final film on its own, being orbited by other, separate ideas to include in my pitch, and the advice I got for making that film, ‘The Chase’, was to cut the familial connection as my tutor believed that there would not be enough time to make it clear that the murdered girl was his daughter. I, myself, thought that this wouldn’t be a struggle, so, against my tutor’s recommendation, I began rewriting the story to strengthen the fact that the girl was his daughter, while at the same time fixing my other ideas to be pitched. I later realised that one of my ideas had a similar vibe, as if it was another chapter in this story. Once I realised this, the third, but chronologically first, film came to me.

            I like to think that the series possesses a contextual relevance as crime is a daily occurrence in any city on the planet, everyone will at some point be affected by crime, and everyone will at some point be accused of a crime. Anyone who does not believe this is either in denial of the  national and international crime rates or lives in a closely guarded bubble. For this series the crime is murder, which reduces the scope, as far less people will be affected by murder in their lifetime. However, as a species, we are fascinated by death; This observation is strengthened by various multicultural occurrences, hence the number of “CSI” and “Law & Order” type shows, not to mention Professor Gunther von Hagens’ frequent televised autopsies. Death is such a common occurrence that Mexico celebrates it annually as the Día de los Muertos or, “Day of the Dead”. Therefore contextually speaking, I believe that creating this series would draw an interest from various demographics.

            In terms of available resources, this shoot will be extremely low budget, as the only necessary props, such as a knife and fake blood, are already available to me at no cost, with the only foreseeable spending being that of the taxi fare between locations, which is unlikely to exceed £10. The actors will be informed of this, under the pretence that the series will  provide them with good exposure and will be a beneficial move in their career

            The expertise necessary to produce the series is something I already possess, as I am more than familiar with using both the Panasonic 151 and the Edirol R-09 having used both various times in the past. I will also be prepared for the post-production treatment in Adobe Premiere Pro, having experimented with the majority of Audio/Visual effects in the previous, ‘Projected Visual’, project. In terms of sound, I have thought of three tracks that would work well with each of the films. A jazz number, Nicholas Payton’s cover of Chinatown,  to accompany ‘The Choice’ which will give it a film noir feel. I’d like Hans Zimmer’s Mombasa, from the film Inception, to play alongside ‘The Chase’ and as for ‘The Charity’ I wanted to use something ethereal. I originally thought that Clair de Lune would be good but will probably use Max Richter’ Autumn Music instead. I have requested permission from all of the artists and am awaiting a response.

            In relation to time, I’d like to mention that this entire series could all be shot on the same day, permitting roof access for ‘The Chase’, and I imagine that editing will take, at maximum, one day per film, however I can see it being drastically less time than that. Therefore production time is estimated at between four and five days, which seems like an especially short time to create three short films, but I have no doubt that these predictions are feasible.

Storyboards

A little treat for all you who can actually sit through my drivel, Storyboards from each of the 3 upcoming films, so without further ado:

 The Charity

The Chase

The Choice

The Choice

The Choice

A Short Film by Oliver Smyth

The Cop – Voiceover

The voiceover will be accompanied by a collection of shots, starting with a close up of The Cop’s face taking up one half of the shot, the other half shrouded in rain.

“This city is Diseased.

The vermin that call it home infected it with crime.”

The camera observes as he walks along the canal-side, unaffected by the rain.

“Theft, rape & murder are just a daily occurrence, as sure as the sun will rise and set.

Half the police are paid to turn a blind eye, but I see it. I always see it.”

He stops on a bridge and looks at a photo, it’s of a girl. His daughter. The Girl.

“It took the disease to affect me first hand however to do something.”

A flashback of when The Cop finds The Girl plays, before cutting to int. of a dingy shed/garage/basement with The Boy tied to up on the floor.

“But what do you do with the scum when the justice system is unjust; they’re barely behind bars before they’re back on the streets.”

A series of close-ups of The Boy, The Cop, His Badge and His Gun.

“I want to remove this tumour from my city surgically.

But I can’t.

Can I?”

Cut to Title Scene

The Chase

The Chase

A Short Film by Oliver Smyth

The Boy – Voiceover

The voiceover will be accompanied by a collection of shots, starting with a steady cam following The Boy through a forest. Various different shots will be used during this chase scene.

The Boy never looks back.

“It was never intentional.

She was a friend who tried to help me.”

Cut to Title Scene

“And now you’ll come for me.”

The Boy leaves the woods and appears in a Retail car park, the camera pans as he looks around.

“You’ll never believe me.

All I can do is run.”

A wide angle shot watches The Boy run across a bridge.

“I’ll run until my heart burst and my legs give out.”

Various shots of The Boy running through an urban environment.

“Then I’ll run some more, because I know it’s nothing compared to what you’ll do to me.”

The Boy is on a rooftop.

“Handing myself in to you would effectively be signing my own death warrant.”

The door handle to the roof turns slowly before the shot fades to black.

The Charity

The Charity

A Short Film by Oliver Smyth

The Girl - Voiceover

The voiceover will be accompanied by a collection of shots, starting with a close-up of two children (The Girl & The Boy).

“You were always unreliable as a friend, but this was different. This was serious.”

Then a shot of The Boy being held against a wall by The Shark.

“When we were kids “trouble” was a school bully, but we had to grow up. I suppose a loan shark is like a bully, but five grand is a bit bigger than some sandwiches and a packet of crisps.”

Then int. cupboard as door opens and washing detergent is removed, the next shot shows The Girl remove a large sum of money.

“But of course I bailed you out, what choice did I have? Dad’d hate me for using the last of mum’s inheritance but It was what I had to do.

It was my money, so I needed to set things straight…”

Int. a modern family house, The Girl is with The Boy, ready to hand the money over to The Shark

The Shark – “It’s all there?”

The Girl – “£5,000. Now you’re even and he’ll have nothing more to do with you.” She turns to face The Boy “Isn’t that right?”

The Shark – “Not quite” He stabs The Girl and as she falls he wipes the knife handle and throws it to The Boy. “This is your mess” And with that, he exits.

The camera focuses on the knife in The Boy’s hands, and then fades to black.

DepicT Update

I may be running behind on this project but that's because I've gone into A James Cameron-esque, perfectionist mode. However, I've finished the 3rd and final drafts of the Three short films I intend on shooting, I have cast all four parts and I'm currently in the process of acquiring certain locations for filming. With any luck, by this time next week I should be in the Editor's chair with plenty of footage to work through, and hopefully finish off everything the week after, knock on wood.

So now I'm going to upload the Three scripts for the general public to inspect and give me feedback. Enjoy.

Projected Visuals Evaluation

I’ll admit I wasn’t too keen on this project. The Idea of it being fully abstract is what I think put me off, as I enjoy being narrative in my work, and so I suppose it was just an adjustment that meant working outside of my comfort zone. The song I wanted to use was the second track on the album, Which I nicknamed “Don’t Go” however it originally didn't work as well as I'd hoped so I dabbled around with tracks 1, 5 and 8. In the end I realised that none were quite right, so I tried “Don’t Go” again, and I actually found that, with what I wanted to attempt, I’d made the right choice from the start.

            As I was so unfamiliar with this type of project I tried to gather research on what the audience themselves would expect and enjoy. To do this I attended underground Hip-hop shows in and around both Nottingham & certain parts of London, ranging from breakthrough acts around North-west London to bigger events in Elephant and Castle. Recurring motifs I found were the use of graffiti, riot footage and live footage of the audience in the back drops. All of these had various effects ranging between colour correction, image distortion and various mirroring effects to name but a few.

            Once I had collected this information I went in search of various local graffiti hotspots around Nottingham. I found Hyson Green was the best area for this, however, that was only one  of the three commonly found pieces of footage, and I wasn’t prepared to start a riot purely to gather footage of it. I decided instead to try me hand at some shutter-delay photography, which I’d seen used in the smaller events, such as ones in Nottingham. I hadn’t used this before though, so I made sure to take the camera out for a weekend to play about with the various different functions so that I would know what I was doing when I needed the photos taken.

            I decided to start with the shutter-delay work, as it was still getting dark around 5pm in February, so it would be less dangerous than walking around Nottingham with a £110 camera around my neck at 10pm in march. Once that was done I moved onto the graffiti portion of the project. The place I noticed with the most diverse collection of graffiti was the Skatepark in Hyson Green, so I began going there every few days to photograph the work there. I went every few days for a week and over that time a number of new pieces had gone up. The other place I gathered photos from was discovered on accident. I was on my way home from ASDA and stumbled across several different pieces of a different style behind the community centre. I luckily had a camera with me and took some shots of them.

            With that done all that was left was the editing process. I’d briefly done a run through of the editing tools in Premiere and decided to see what I could do with them. Before long I’d pieced them together in an order that I think best complemented the music, as well as images to fill the extra two minutes as requested by urban angels. Then I just added the effects to jazz the whole thing up. I started by using mirrors as they were what I had mainly practiced with, but soon found the colour correction tool and that quickly became my favourite.

            The only issues I had with the editing was that it was difficult to have each image unique, I didn’t like using the same combination of effects however it got to a point where I had no choice, all I wanted to do was keep the footage fresh. The main problem I encountered, however, was the repetitive clicking, dragging, and rearranging of images, edit tools and keyframes. I think that the final outcome is worth those few minor issues.

            The feedback I received was mostly positive too, which, given my first opinions of the project, was a pleasant surprise. One person said that it was “very professional” and a friend told me it “at some points perfectly connected to the music.” So at the end of this project I can happily say that I am pleased with the work I did, that it best reflects my ability when working on an abstract project such as this. It was a tough project at times, but by the end I enjoyed not only working on it, but the work that came out of it. I’d certainly do something like this again, however not for a while, I definitely want to get back to working on narrative projects as I believe that is where I am more talented in general.

More Depict Ideas

Treatment for 90 second Depict entry - “The Chase”

Plot- The film begins in black, with a voiceover [ ”How did I get into this”]. The shot is wide, in the centre is a man, running, towards the camera. When he reaches the position of the camera he jumps over it, and the camera follows him continuing to run. There are multiple shots of him running, none are more than 2 seconds. {A shot following him running up forest road filmed from a car would work well here}The shots take place in a vast variety of locations, from an urban city to a forest. Eventually he jumps over a wall, runs into a back door and sprints up stairs. He reaches the roof, the camera pans around him panicking with nowhere to go. He stops, walks towards the edge of the building. There is a POV shot of the ground below. Then a noise while the camera is extremely focused on his eyes growing wide. The next shot is of the roof door’s handle turning.

Need to work on voiceover so long weekend in store

Depict Ideas

Treatment for 90 second Depict entry - “The Cop”

Plot-      The film begins with an extreme close-up of a man’s face, half of his face is outside of the shot. The other half of the frame displays heavy rain. [VOICEOVER BEGINS]The man is smoking a cigarette and appears not to have slept in days. He throws the cigarette down and stomps it out. The camera is behind him on the floor as he does this, and follows him walking off. The shot changes to an establishing shot. We can see him from across a canal. The next shot is over the shoulder, then stops following him to observe a newspaper in the water, the headline reads “Teen Murder” or something similar. [Until now the voiceover has been focused on the corruption in the city. Now the man speaks of a young girl forced into prostitution and killed for disobeying her handler]. The camera focuses on the man’s pensive face, and then moves to a photo in his hand. The photo is of a young girl, there is a bloody finger print on it. The shot fades into a flashback. It is all one shot, filmed over the man’s shoulder, following him getting out of his car, walking into a crime scene, seeing the girl, falling to his knees and vomiting violently. [It is now clear that he is addressing someone in his narrative] The next shot is a silhouette of the back of a man’s head. The camera pans to show the full body of our protagonist. He is holding a gun In his right hand. There is a police badge in the other. The scene fades to black.

[“Which do I use?”]

Showreel

Looks like I've made ground on the Context 2 project after a week of computers crashing whenever any form of progress had been made. My 1st edit is available to view here http://youtu.be/-S12ChUklM4 so give me some feedback to imprvoe it.

Quick Idea Example

Just a rough idea of what I'd like to do, perhaps editting the sky to move as well but still early days and we'll see where it goes

3 Gust Concepts

Struggling to find the line between abstract and overly stylised, non-narrative garbage, but I think I may have something.
In no particular order, my ideas are as follows:

1. Whiteboard- Using a whiteboard follow the lyrics of the track, possibly including doodles decorating/following the text

2. Night/Day- Showcase city life at night photography but use a mask to change the night sky to daylight. (Perhaps include vice versa)

3. Hybrid- Showcase afforementioned stills interchanging with Whiteboard stills of final words in sentence blown up and decorated

These are just the initial ideas I have had, I am still unsure as to what track I may be using and trying to determine which one would be complemented most by either of the concepts .

More to come so watch this space.

Return to uni

Back after winter break and gonna jump in straight away with a new edit I did today, just some arbitrary shots taken around Nottingham City Centre. Had to do a little editing on them in photoshop just because i didn't like the way they came out, then with a little Premiere Pro magic made this, enjoy.