Ideas

For this brief we kept with the emotion of anxiety and started coming up with ideas with our two minute in mind. We knew we wanted to keep the film light hearted and centred around relationships.
Our main initial idea was more of an elaboration of the two minute in which we would see the protagonist before the date getting ready, then we would re-write and re-shoot the actual date and work on the things we felt we could inprove from the first film and then further the story after the date.
We wanted to play with the idea of building the character up to over come his anxiety and then possibly have it return. I liked the prospect of shooting the character in the same locations and doing the same things before and after the date except things have changed. Using repetition to show the character's attitude.
At this point ideas were coming very slowly and then Tony came to us with a new idea which we had a meeting about and took further.

The idea was basically the a terrible speed dating event in a village hall. We follow an anxious young man named Tom to this event. When he walks in the place is dead, he is met by an eccentric woman who is running the night. She ushers him in and he notices that the only other person in attendance is a beutiful young woman sat at a table. As the older woman is getting the night started she is interrupted by the arrival of Dale, an arrogant man who walks in like he owns the place.

The story carries on from there to take the protagonist up and down through emotions. At one point setting aside his anxiety only to be brought down again.

5 - 10 Brief

5-10 minute fiction film

You will make a 5-10 minute narrative drama, which adheres to the rules of fiction; namely, a 3 act structure, with appropriate plot points, inciting incidents etc as studied on the module so far.

These technical elements need to be considered:

1).        Use sync dialogue as appropriate.

2).        There must be one scene where three characters are interacting. You must consider the staging of the actors and the placement of the camera here.

3).        Use a combination of natural and staged filmic lighting.

4.)        Use a combination of exterior and interior locations.

5.)        You must consider tone, style and atmosphere within the film with relation to camera, sound and editing.

 

Final Film

The feedback we recieved really reflected some of the worries we had about the piece. Overall the film was a bit too long so we could have spent more time in post to cut the run time. A major worry of ours was that the ISO was pushed at times and some of the quality was lost, especially in the establishing shot of the restaurant. Also some of the comedy didn't really come through as we would have liked it to which is my fault because I should have had a clearer vision of how each gag would playout. We weren't sure about how much exposition to use and in the end probably put too much in the phone call. Having said this, I feel we really worked well as a team and were ambitious with the short run time. I feel we can take the feedback and use it all to work towards a really good 5-10 minute piece.


The Set Up - 2 Minute Drama from SHU Film & Media Production on Vimeo.

Titles

We were struggling throughout the whole edit trying to think of a title for the piece but one suggestion was The Set Up and another which came from this was The Upset, we decided to use both and try to incoporate a title sequence which could tell the story of the film ie a set-up which changes into an upset. For this I had an idea of printing three wine labels saying The, Up and Set. Then sticking the labels to bottles and filming a scene in which The bottles are arranged to say The Set Up and then a waiter's hand comes in from the side, pours wine from the Up bottle into a glass and puts it back down only this time between the other two bottles to now read The Up Set.

There are numerous films that use title sequences like this to help quickly get you into the world of the film.

Napoleon Dynamite - movie titles from DYRM Daily on Vimeo.




"School of Rock" Opening Titles from Curiosity Shoppe on Vimeo.


Below are some of the designs I made for the labels. I included a back-up label which just read The Upset so that we could film a simpler version if the action didn't work.

We did actually film this but felt that the sequence didn't work well enough and that the footage was not of the same quality as the rest of the film so in the end we stuck with the name The Set Up

Continued Edit - Sounds and Music

Once we had the extra footage Dannny edited it into the film and we looked over it and decided we were pretty much happy with the visuals.

At this point we moved onto thinking more about sound. Joe sorted through all the clips and began to edit them together with the picture. We knew the music was going to play a big part in the film especially in the frantic bathroom sections. Jokingly at first we put the music from previously referenced scene from the film Bean but it really seemed to work, so we knew we wanted a high intensity classical piece and I had recently heard Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov. For the restaurant scenes we chose a piece of traditional italian music.

Bean

 

Flight of the Bumblebee

 

 

When deciding how the music should be used I, at first, thought that the italian music should play up until the wine spill and then the music should changed to Flight of the Bumblebee when the character comes into the bathroom and then play out the rest of the film where as the rest of the group wanted the music to switch back and forth, from the calm of the restaurant to the panic of the bathroom. Joe and Danny put together an edit in which the music switched between to show me and I then agreed that this was a better option. I think if the music had played out as I was suggesting it would have only worked on one level and therefore my main role as director in this capacity was to know when I'm wrong and trust the group concensus.

 

We also put together a Sounds List for Joe to work off and so that he could assess whether he needed any Foley sounds.

 

Sounds

 

Scene 1

 

outside

 

Scene 2

 

waiter footsteps

wine being unscrewed

wine pouring

wine pouring 2

waiter leaving

putting top back on wine

guy pulling collar

guy tapping fingers

gabbing breadstick

bite

chewing

coughing

grabs wine

taking drink

puts wine down

brushes shirt

grabs napkin

wipes shirt

puts napkin down

moves chair

gets up and leaves

 

Scene 3

 

bathroom door

footsteps

tap

water spray

shirt buttons

restaurant atmos

lathering soap

scrubbing shirt

walking across to dryer

hits dryer

restaurant atmos

footsteps (waiter and girl)

brushing stuff off table

drying shirt again

throws shirt

restaurant atmos

girl taking jacket off

pants rip

restaurant atmos

walking across bathroom

wine sipping

wiping eyes

restaurant atmos

door opening

footsteps

breadstick snap

First Edit and Phone Call

In the edit Danny transferred all the footage on to the computer and labeled everything. He then put together an assembly and we discussed how we wanted to hone the footage and what issues we had. 

For the most part we went off the storyboarding and script to get what we wanted and then came to fine cutting the bits with which we had issues. 

The main problem we faced was the idea of getting the main character from place to place in a believable way. For instance he would be scrubbing his shirt on one side of the room and the we would have an issue with getting him to the other side of the room while keeping the pace up. For this we had written in that there would be cut away shots of the female character walking to the date.

The focus now was with getting a rough edit together so that we could assess what else and how much still needed to be shot. Danny quickly had an edit for us and we knew that we needed cut away shots of the female character walking and an establishing shot of the venue itself.

While this was going on Joe and I met with the two actresses so that he could record the phone call sound and I could oversee the performance of this. Again, luckily, our lead actress Laura brought a good friend from her course who also is an actress and we let them learn the lines and they had done some really good readings within the first two or three takes.

At this point we also organised to meet Laura to meet Laura later that day outside the Lyceum Theatre so that we could shoot the walking cut away section.

Shooting - Day 2

Setting up a shot

We arrived at Pizza Hut with all the equipment and began to set up. Luckily the restaurant was quiet meaning that we could set up in the back and have a controlled space. We first discussed how we were going to set up the tables so as to have the most freedom around the actors positions to get the shots we needed.

We decided to get the footage with just Laura first because that was going to be the easiest stuff to shoot. We then got the stuff with Tom and got the all important wine spilling. We used two cameras for a fair few sections so that there would be more to work with in the edit.

Again my job was made easier because of how professional and comfortable the actors were and how everyone worked as a team. For the main part Paul and I discussed with the actors what we all thought would be best and what they thought would be most natural for them. Shot wise I pretty much just used to storyboarding and shot list as an indicator and then Lucy lined up the shot as she saw fit within the space.

As we were working through the essential shots we also all came up with different ideas throughout to make the shots more interesting. Certain shots which were separate in the storyboarding ended up being achievable in one shot using a dolly or shoulder rig to track the actors and these longer takes should hopefully up the production value and aesthetic of the film.

Overall I think the shoot went well and look forward to seeing the footage in edit.