NB

Unfortunately our sound logs have been irreversibly ruined by water, and therefore we will be unable to hand these in. We could attempt to fabricate some, but I think it is better to be honest in situations like this.

The End Is Near

Well everything is pretty much finished now, so a big thank you to all of Hot Thrust Productions for a job well done.

The film is looking good, unfortunately we have had to edit out some of the jokes to get it closer to five minutes, but we still have a film to be proud of.

I was planning to put the evolution of our script on the blog, but formatting issues won't allow me to do this properly.

Also, at the bottom of every post it states that it was me (Scott) who posted them, but this isn't true, as everyone accessed the blog through my user details. You can probably tell who wrote what due to the nature of the research, and subsequently who didn't write at all. I did ask everyone multiple times to put their research up on the blog, so no-one has any excuse for not doing so.

Anyway, it is almost over, and I think that this has been a valuable exercise in the film making process, and we have truly made a film to be proud of.

Roll on the post screening party!

Location, Location, Location

Here are some of the Location Shots and Production Stills:

Shooting Schedule

Friday 24th April
12.30pm
Meet at The Pinnacles, equipment check
1pm
Football Pitch – Football flashback
2pm
Hallam Booze – Shop scene
2.30pm
Postbox – Posting letter
3pm
Sheffield station tram stop – entire wallet sequence
5pm
Break for dinner
6pm
Interior scenes – Letter writing, Letter opening, Party scenes – birthday, drunk scenes
7.30pm
Collect Props for next day

Saturday 25th April
3pm
Meet at station, equipment check.
Take tram to Arberthourne
3.30pm
Interior scenes in Arberthourne – Entire working from home sequence
(3.30 – 5pm = line readings and set construction)
7.30pm
Break for dinner
8.30pm
The Pinnacles – Night time drunk scenes

Sunday 26th April
12pm
Meet at Liberty Works, equipment check
12.30pm
Reception and hallway scenes
2.30pm
Break for lunch
3pm
Kathryn’s house – Insult sequence, actors get into costume
4pm
Kathryn’s house – Entire interview scene
(4-5pm = line readings and set construction)
8pm – Shooting finished


Editing schedule
Images and sounds logged by end of Monday 27th April
First cut by end of Tuesday 28th April
Finalised rough cut ready for morning of Thursday 30th April
Finished Film ready for morning of Thursday 1st May

Camera Movement

The use of static camera in the interview room has already been discussed in a previous post (entitled 'The Interview'), so I thought that I would put a little bit of information on what I would like to do in the flashbacks.
I want to use a lot of camera movement in the flashbacks to contrast the static camera in the interview, also complimenting the difference in colours. By keeping the camera moving it also adds to the dreamlike/reminiscent quality I hope the colours in the flashbacks will give it, while also holding the audience's interest and displaying the passage of time. Good examples of this constant flowing movement are Edgar Wright's 'Hot Fuzz' and Matthew Vaughn's 'Layer Cake', which I have added a link for below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHKI8zMHCjE


The problems with trying to include constant camera movement are the thorough planning needed for smooth editing and also the lack of experience I have with a camera, not to mention, the lack of a steady cam.

Mise en Scene and Colour 2

Colour
Colour can be used to not only decipher what is flashback and what is not, but it can be used to highlight the morality in our film. There is a lot of discussion about the use of colour in 'Amelie', for example, suggestions that the colour blue is used to indicate happiness. In this style we could use different colours to pinpoint when the protagonist is acting moraly wrong or morally right in the flashback sequences.
'Run Lola Run' shows repetition of the colour red throughout the film.





The red acts as an indicator of importance moments and objects in the film. It can be argued that they act as checkpoints in Lola's journey to save her boyfriend, with red being shown when she has to make decisions.
I think we should take influence from this.

Mise en Scene and Colour

Mise en Scene
Office Sequences
In terms of the mise en scene of the office, I am aiming to make it look bleak and boring. I want the shots to hold a lot of space around the characters. In doing this I aim to create a view of the office as an unappealing, monotonous space. It is limbo after all. The two pictures underneath help display my point.




'The Office', especially, does a great job of creating a very unappealing aesthetic.

Interview Room
As the interview room is St. Peter's and the equivalent of the gates to heaven it needs a bright almost Holy look to it. Giving the audience a hint of what the real meaning of the film is about, but also acting as a taste of heaven for the character Simon. The image below gives an example of a screen filled with white.


We need a white room, and also to fiddle with the exposure to give it a supernatural glow.

Flashbacks
To contrast the mise en scene of the scenes in limbo, I would like the flashbacks to contain a lot more colour and look a lot warmer. The warm colours can also give the flashbacks a dreamlike quality, making it look less daunting, and also suggest that these scenes are in Simon's head. This also makes the cuts to flashback clearer, because the colours of each time frame are so different. The two images below are a good example of the sort of rich, warm colours I want to replicate.