Moving Image Evaluation

Five weeks ago I was teamed up with Graeme, Katie, Yingxi, Frazer and Parastoo. We were given five weeks to make a 3 minute film based on a script by Jools titled "Ticket". At first the script was rather hard to understand as at points it seemed to just have two unrelated sentences juxtaposed. The other thing I noticed was that it didn't end conclusively, it just cut off mid-dialogue.

So once we had been given the script we allocated ourselves jobs, and with Katie, Frazer and Paras all competing for director/producer/editor roles I jumped onto lighting as I had done that in the one shot project. What differed between this project and the past one was that this time around everyone had different ideas on what we could make of this script, whereas last term there was generally a creative drought. None of us wanted to do a "sappy" romantic film, however after assessing the script over and over it soon became clear that it would be very difficult to stay away from the romance genre.

We all agreed that we wanted there to be a dark twist on the film, and i think it was Paras that suggested the idea about the book, and having a character come to life. The team decided that this would be a good story to tell and an enjoyable one to create and we started work on it immediately, with Graeme studying up on Cameraman tutorials, Katie contacting Nottingham City Transport and myself taking the job of adapting the script to fit what we were looking for.

We met up as a group two to three times a week to discuss how each of us were doing with our roles and it wasn't long before we had secured a bus to shoot on as well as actors to play our protagonists. The day of the shoot was a mixed bag of emotions to say the least, as when we arrived on location there was some debating with the general safety manager about whether or not we were permitted to film. However Katie stepped up to the challenge and solved it. The shooting itself went well as both of our actors were fun to work with and enjoyed being a part of the creative process.

 From there we went into editting, where we encountered a few problems with background sound as well as some of the videos. It seems we were a little ambitious to strive for shooting on the bus with green screen, however I'd argue that at least we tried it, and Frazer seemed confident that given a little extra time he could sort it out. As for the sound I brought in a friend to do the voiceover for Lisa, which went well.

Overall, I enjoyed working with this group on this script, it was a lot of good fun and there's very little I would change. I'd definately have gotten more shots on the bus though, as in the editting there were concerns that it wouldn't work out. However in terms of feedback everyone has reponded positively, saying that the narrative was very clear and the general idea was clever. Our best feedback appears to be for the location, the fact we managed to obtain a bus has been labelled as "an impressive achiement".

Quick update on filming

Okay, should've updated this earlier but what the hey.

On friday i tried my hand at screenwriting and rewrote the script to something which we, as a group, found more understandable.

That'd be this:

Ticket

Written by Julius Ayodeji

Adapted for film by Oliver Smyth

Blurb – read at bus stop

Lisa (v/o): In a city with a population approaching one million, each bus sees roughly 2,500 commuters a day. One of them must be the one.

On the bus – book open

Lisa (v/o): Adult. That’s what the ticket says. So I’ll act like one. I’ll act like an adult. I never understood why tickets are valid until half four in the morning. Do buses even run that late? And what good could possibly come from being out of bed and in a bus at such a ridiculous time? As if travelling on a oversized metal rectangle that claims to “fit 45 persons comfortably”, 83 on a double-decker, can be productive in any means. Not for business [short pause] or leisure [long pause] certainly not for romance. To even humour the notion is insane, meeting the man of your dreams in a shipping container on wheels. And how would that go exactly, to just turn around and he’ll be there with his [insert colour here] eyes and his cheeky smile. It’s not as if he’d even notice me, tell me he’d seen me before.

Sam: I’ve seen you before.

Lisa: It’s all very well saying that but why should I believe you?

Sam: You probably shouldn’t, this notion that another human would show any interest in you is absurd, isn’t it?

Lisa: you’ve seen me before, like what, watching me?

Sam: No. Well kinda, but not in a funny way.

Lisa: In a sad way?

Sam: That’s not it either. It’s just I’ve noticed you. You get on the bus, go round for hours, then get off at the same stop you got on.

Lisa: You don’t even know me, how dare you judge me.

Sam: I wasn’t try-

Lisa:                - wasn’t what? Expecting to work at carpet land for three years?

Sam: Huh?

Lisa: Recession hit hard, and your girlfriend might leave if you lost your job.

Sam: How do you know about- my girlfriend?

Lisa:                                        - Keyring.        (Camera goes to picture of keyring with girl’s face)

Long pause. Sam is speechless. Lisa looks smug, but then recoils.

Lisa (v/o): so even when someone cares, she scares them off. One by one.

She closes the book, Sam is gone

Lisa walks off the bus

Camera pans to Sam’s seat, there is a ticket

Yesterday we filmed at the NCT bus depot, a two hour shoot that made up the majority of the film

We also filmed at a bus stop frazer helped to find that was isolated as well as picturesque, so easy to film and what we were looking for.

The end result is currently in post production and requires the little finishing touches (piecing together, sound, credits, etc.) however a poster has been made. Ticket-Coming soon

Tuesday's work

Decided to add some props, a giant penny, a swinging pendulum and last but in no way least, a jack in the box
This jack in the box was 3 hours in the making and looked a little something like this.

However when i tried to save the entire program froze before crashing, resulting in 3 hours of my life i will never get back...

Haunted house update

Haunted House Project

I think for this i may try a Batman ride, maybe start in the Batcave and then travel around to fight crime in a cart designed as the Batmobile. However, i was thinking of going for a vintage feel, using the 1966 Batman movie as inspiration, and perhaps filling the Batcave with all of the strange equipment Adam West had to deal with. I also thought that, for villains, the joker would be an obvious choice, however rather than have a Jack Nicholson/ Heath Ledger Joker, go for in 1966 one as well...
More to come later

eXistenZ

This film officially wrinkled my brain for lack of better words, which I suppose was the intention of the director. However I doubt he intended for the film to be watched by university students capable of laughing at the slightest bit of deranged innuendo. Anyway, I'm not here to review the film, I'm here to discuss what the purpose of watching it was in terms of narrative, interactivity and convergence.

Narrative- The storyline is filled with plot twists, the largest of which is when the protagonists finish the "game" and leave eXistenZ to reveal that all of this was a different game, transCendenZ. This then rasies the question, how do we know that we're not in a game right now? When I left the lecture I immediately said to myself "40% Matrix, 50% Inception and 10% any film with Jude Law."

Interactivity- I think the best part of the film to express this would be when Allegra convinces Ted to keep playing, stating "There's nothing happening here. We're safe. It's boring." That's exactly why people play video games, because there's nothing better to do and they have the ability to take whoevers playing somewhere else, and I'm not saying they need to be as elaborate as the one in the film, when i was a kid I could play Crash Bandicoot for days and not get bored.

As for convergence I'm not entirely sure what it means...


Happy New Year!

Finalised Ident (now with sound)