Current progress

Not posted for a few days. Not a great deal has been happening at the moment.
The story boarding is moving on but we won't really have time free to get moving properly until the play Rob is in has finished.

The play is called "Love Puke" and is being put on by a theatre group that Rob is one of the founding members of. They can be found at http://www.redhottheatre.co.uk/index.htm

Playing around with lighting post effects in premiere pro 2

Some techy bits from me too!

I filmed some actors giving a short series of speeches, to compile a short promo vid for a play I'm working on. Very, very basic setup - natual room lighting + a 12 halogen to bring up a bit of detail. I decided to shoot against a white backdrop sheet ( deliberatley crumpled - I guess i wanted that look.... ) When i pulled up the shots on in edit they seemed a little flat, so i deceided to play around with the lighting effect present in premiere pro 2. I've used similar effects in p/shop and AE before, but decided to have a quick fiddle - I was actually very impressed with the results (also a little colouring applied to give it a bit more of a cold feel) :

Without effect With effect

The effect can be found under Video effects/adjust/lighting effects, and is pretty easily controlled by resizing the splash ovoid ( or whatever!), you can spin, widen and move the effect closer and further away. All in all a quick, easy solution for getting really interesting results out of such scenes. even if your lighting was wholly inadequate in the first place ;-)

Oh, and the final video can be found at www.redhottheatre.co.uk/video/lovepuke.wmv

Basics: Lighting - 3 Point Lighting

In between film things going on, I thought I'd cover some of the lessons we have learnt over time. Some will be basic, some more advanced and I thought I'd start with something basic.

3 Point Lighting
If you understand 3 point lighting then you're well on the way to having a good handle on lighting (well enough to get by). 3 point lighting is a standard method of lighting and will give a pretty decent look.

For 3 point lighting, you need, guess how many lights? Yep, 3.

The first light would be your main light and is called the key light. It is placed so that it is to the side of the camera, illuminating the subject so that one side is well lit and the other has some shadow.

Light number 2 is the fill light and this is placed on the opposite side to the key light. It is used to fill in some of the shadows cast by the key light and soften them up. The fill light is usually softer than the key.

Light number 3 is the back light. The back light is placed behind the subject and is used to provide highlight and definition rather than direct lighting.

To see 3 point lighting in action have a look at the 3-Point Lighting Simulator

In between scene

Had a meeting with Rob yesterday and we had some ideas about a scene between the restaurant scene and the final scene. I think it will work nicely to break the piece up and run more smoothly. I'll write up the ideas into the script and publish it soon.

Jim is cast

The role of Jim, the mentor type dude, has been cast.

Andy Barkham has accepted the role. I've known Andy for about 6 years now, seen him on stage and also had the pleasure of acting with him, directing him and sharing the odd beer or two.

I asked Andy to sum himself up and he said:

Andy: Born -1963, started acting 2001.

Rich: Have you done much acting?

Andy: Well, theres Canterbury Tales, Neville's Island, Jack and the Beanstalk, Five Kinds of Silence, Twelfth
Night,The Merry Widow, Sleeping Beauty, God's Official, A Sentimental
Journey,The Merry Wives of Windsor, Up N Under, Hello Dolly
(Horace Vandergelder), One for the Road, The Importance of Being Ernest,
The Dining Room, Loot, Sweeny Todd, The Dumbwaiter, Dead Dad Dog. A Slice
of Saturday Night.

Rich: A couple of shows then! Anything else?

Andy: I've also worked backstage, done the ASM job, and produced productions.

Rich: I'll shut up now.

On a serious note though, Andy is one of the reliables. He is always the first to pitch in and help out, always the first to rehersals. If you can get passed his dry, sometimes(!) sarcastic sense of humour, you'll be fine.

Can I just add?

I failed GSCE art.

If you hadn't guessed from the below attempts!!!

Some Storyboards

I thought I'd post up some of the rough story boards that have been drawn up during our discussions:

End Sequence #1
End Sequence #2
End Sequence #3
End Sequence #4
Car Sequence

Next Script Update

Well, we're getting there. I've got the rough story boards that Rob has been putting together. I'll try and scan those tomorrow and upload them.

In the mean time, I have made the current set of script updates.

The new script can be found here:
http://www.normanwildman.com/shortfilmscripts/Hit me baby-20070218.pdf

I have also typed up the first of the alternative endings we were discussing. Here is a script contining alternative ending #1 :
http://www.normanwildman.com/shortfilmscripts/Hit me baby-20070218-alt1.pdf

Alternate Endings

Just had a few ideas and a quick discussion. The thought is to film a couple of alternate endings. Use the original ending for the normal film and then to set up a Flash version that will play alternate endings. Okay, so this is a future plan, but its good to think ahead.

Also, we have a possible actress in mind for the role of "Woman". She is interested in the idea and Rob is going to have a talk with her about it. Will post some more info when I have it.
As Rob says, "the more i see the plot the more i can see her in it - I've mentioned the idea and she's well up for it"

The story boarding has progressed too. Will post it here as soon as it is scanned in.

Will write up the first alternate ending this evening and post it up tomorrow.

"Introductions" and "Loss of virginity"

Hi, I'm Rob, and I'm a filmmaker.

Thought I'd introduce myself. This is my first ever post on a blog.

I've been "doing" video for about 6 or 7 years now - I'm quite heavily into power kite sports and theatre, and i bought a dv camera to play around with, and things just started to happen. I stopped doing "shaky cam", started thinking about my shots and spent hours fiddling with helmet cameras, fish eye lenses and wireless links.

I've produced quite a wide variety of stuff over time, including two DVDs on kiting which have gone on (limited) retail sale over the globe, backdrops for multimedia theatre, little corporate jobs, historical building profiles, training videos and a music vid or two. All whilst working away at my IT job during the day. I think my IT skills have done me well in the film arena - I shoot, edit, author and promote all my stuff, but it can get pretty manic at times.

I upgraded to HDV with a sony FX1 at the start of 2006 and have been getting amazing results from it lately, and just upgraded my edit suite to handle the memory hungry requirements for HDV output. I edit on Prem Pro 2, which I get on well with - i also dabble in AE and flash, but quite regularly forget how to do the basic stuff!!!

So, as you can see, we're moving at a good pace with the new short film idea - it's quite funny really, even though I've been so involved with theatre over the last decades, drama film is always something I have shied away from, i guess scared by it's potential complexity. Hopefully by starting out with this small project it will give both Richard and I a feel of things to come.
He's jam packed with crazy ideas and imaginative scripts, whenever I read them I can visualize the scenes in detail ( i think personally that it has come from too many years of reading 2000AD comics ) so I'm really looking forward to working this up.

Anyhoo, keep checking back on progress, and if you're in the maidenhead area and fancy getting involved at all, give us a shout!

Cheers, one and all.

Rob

www.treborsnave.com for some of my older works - new site coming soon!!!

Narrowly avoided trouble

Email conversation with Rob yesterday, arranged to meet up on Wednesday to work on the story boarding.

Could have gone horribly wrong as we both forgot Wednesday is Valentines day. Remembered with a jolt whilst driving home. Lucky that, otherwise our respective other halves may well have inserted our story boards into places they were never intended to go!

Script Update

Just done the latest script changes...
It can be found here: http://www.normanwildman.com/shortfilmscripts/HitMeBaby-20070208.pdf

Feedback

Hello. I posted up the script onto a writers web site that I am a member of. Its a great little site and a good way to get some feedback on your writing.

The script and its feedback so far can be found at: http://www.writewords.org.uk/groups/show_article.asp?group_id=60&article_id=16897

Storyboard

Yesterday evening Rob and I had a meet up to discuss the script and any thoughts we had had.

We ran through it and came up with some tweaks and changes, which I will be applying tonight. We then went through some of the scenes and did some storyboarding, discussing how we both saw the piece running. Thankfully we had a lot of complimentary ideas and were able to identify some motifs to to have running through. Also we were able to come up with solutions to some of the technical problems we had found, e.g. the face morphing part of the restaurant scene.

The next steps are for me to update the script and for Rob to draw up the remaining storyboard elements we had discussed. I'll post up a scanned version of the initial storyboard when I get it. Bear in mind neither of us are particularly gifted in the drawing department!

The First Draft

I fired up my long since dormant word processor and started to put together a first draft of the script idea. As it was such a short piece (4-5 pages) it didnt take very long to get a starter for ten.

Here is a link to the script as it is: http://www.normanwildman.com/shortfilmscripts/HitMeBaby.pdf

The beginning

I've been wanting to make a short for about two years now. I got quite excited about it about a year and a half ago but then I was not able to get any interest from anyone else and the idea sort of ended up getting put on hold, especially as my life went a bit crazy. My mum died, I got a new job and my son was born!

My girlfriend is in a play with a local Am Dram group and was talking to one of the other actors who is heavily into film and video. She mentioned me and my interest and suggested we get together. This happened and after our first meet up, we decided to go for it and make a first film. We agreed to start with something short, probably 1 to 2 minutes. We bashed some ideas around but didnt really come up with anything concrete and our conversation drifted off to discuss Lost and Battlestar Galactica.

The next morning during my drive into work, I had an idea for a short story. I had been working on developing my screenwriting skills for about a year before things went crazy and it was great to find myself resurrecting it. I got to work and scribbled down the outline I had come up with. I bounced it off my co-conspiritor (Rob). I sent him an email with it in.

Here's the idea chunk of the email:

The idea I had sort of goes like this.

Working title:
Hit me baby, one more time.

It opens it a restaurant or wine bar,
with a well dressed, businesslike woman and a similarly dressed man sat having
what looks like a romantic/couply meal.
They exchange a few
pleasantries. The man looks distracted.
The woman picks up the wine
bottle and moves to pour a glass for the man. He stops her.
MAN:
I don't
WOMAN: I forgot
He stands up suddenly, a decision finally
made.
MAN: I can't do this anymore.
WOMAN: We've talked about
this before.
MAN: It's over.
He pauses, checks the
waiter/nearby patron out quickly, then begins to walk out.
WOMAN: You
don't just leave like that. Not after 20 years.
A series of short
flashes of victims, i.e. people getting killed, flashs up, as if they are being
remembered by the man. The man winces. The last image is of someone
being held under water in a bath.
Cut to the wine being poured in the
glass.
WOMAN: You don’t do this kind of work and then just walk away
like that. Not in this Organisation.
He carries on
walking
WOMAN: You know we'd find you. .. but there is a way.
He
stops
WOMAN: We have a special job.
MAN: And…?
WOMAN:
If you do it, we'll let you go, forget you ever existed.
MAN: And if I
don't?
WOMAN: That would't make a good after dinner discussion.
He
returns to the table. She pushes a folder over to him. He opens it,
sees a photograph and is shocked.
Cut scene of the person in the
photograph. MAN and PERSON are together outside a house. MAN is very
shaken:
PERSON: Don't worry, we're all like that first
time. After 2 or 3 they all blur into one.
Cut back. As he looks
at the woman she blurs out and is replaced by several different victim faces one
after another.
WOMAN: It’s the only way
----
Dusk/dark.
Stairwell, up to a door. A light above the door lights the top part of the
stairwell. MAN emerges from the dark into the pool of light, a few steps
away from the top. He pauses. He checks his holster, the gun is
there. He checks for his backup weapon, its there. he takes another
step, then stops. He withdraws the photo and looks at it.
MAN:
This is a trap isnt it old friend. She said there was only one way out of
the Organisation, didn’t she.
He takes his gun out and lays it down on the
step.
MAN: I said I'm leaving and one way or another.
I will be, on my terms.
He straightens his tie, takes a deep
breath. He walks up the remaining steps, striding boldly into the
room. He stands in the pool of light. A pause. The room lights
suddenly go on. The room is full of suited people, all looking a bit
reservoir dogs, all staring at him, emotionless, all with their hands inside
their jackets. The man from the photo spots him. everything goes
quiet. All the people in the room look on. A moment of spaghetti
western style staring takes place.
There is a bang. .. a pause…
It’s a
cork from a champayne bottle, all the people in the room pull out their hands,
each holding a glass. They raise their glasses and shout hooray! The
rest of the lights go on and the "Sorry you're leaving" signs, etc can be
seen. The person from the photo steps out and is carrying a cake. On
it is a suited figure.
PERSON: Welcome to your retirement.
You're in good company.

He liked it and so I agreed to write it up as a first draft script.