Creative Digital Video: Project Blog

Finishing

2010-08-18T16:05:00.002+01:00

This is it, my film is done and my folder just need to be graced with this blog and my evaluation and it will be complete.

I can't think of anything else to say apart from, that this project was really hard but was alright in the end, mostly.

Old Habits and New Ideas

2010-08-16T19:54:00.002+01:00

Well well well, I got in a bit of trouble today; I was a bit too cheeky and avoided paying for an edit suite (as usual) but this time "the guy" wasn't too happy about it and sort of told me off but still let me go without paying, but tomorrow I’ll have to pay £8.25 for a Mac in the computer room there as a suite would cost me £20! And they don’t accept a tenner for half a day for some crazy reason. Erg, "the guy" was kind of icy about it as well, but I guess it was literally all my fault, but either way he could have been a little bit nicer about it, its not like I messed the whole place up and was inconsiderate and unfriendly or arrogant the whole time I was there...

If I ever run a place like the Phoenix media centre, which I hope I do at some point because it's literally THE coolest place in Exeter for film students, I would have a 'firmware' style price list, like I'd have set prices for commercial users and random individuals/professionals/freelancers but with students and trusted users (people who've been using the facilities for a long time and know procedures) I'd have a negotiable price list, so if a person couldn't afford a whole day, they could just pay half the price of a full day and work for a half day, its simple, logical division. Obviously people will try to exploit these floating prices and things could get out of hand, but if management (aka me) is mellow about it and friendly, people (unless they're really full of malice) will be nice back and generally follow the rules. And when I say trusted users, I mean, people who have been around the centre, going in and out, contributing for a few YEARS, or like me, have grown up around these places and got to know a lot of the people and how things are done. I just think the decision that someone can or cannot uses facilities for creativity shouldn't be based on how much money that person can spend, but more on their value as a person and trust... I think the relationships between people in a place like that could be worth so much more as well, it would feel like a home or something instead of a workplace for the employees and a club or something for the users.
There wouldn't be a set strategy either for new comers to read up on and know that that this is what the needed to do to get stuff cheaper, that would really encourage the greedy exploiting people, people would prove their worthiness for a cheaper price by having the initiative to negotiate...

blah, I'll find out who sets the prices at the phoenix and make a few suggestions, I mean even if they had half day prices a lot more people would come along, and if they were a bit nicer about it all.

So I might

2010-08-16T01:44:00.002+01:00

So I might use that last post as my evaluation after all. Clean it up a bit, make it less mocking and more professional sounding when criticizing myself and the course...

I've been feeling a bit ... Lost or I duno, maybe constricted. I think I'll go for a walk tomorrow.

I've been listening to the soundtrack of Bodysong, the british documentry on life, directed by Simon Pummell. but the album was scored by Jonny Greenwood and its amazing.

The stuff I've written lately about my final edit has been really great, I've really enjoyed thinking about my documentry and how its not all bad, and how this last edit(s) is really going to make it better.

This almost was in the EVALUATION (a.k.a A look at the brief)

2010-08-14T21:07:00.006+01:00

It’s an often occurrence that I only inspect the details of the project brief when I’m in the final stages (of course I do read it at the start as well, but I have nothing to compare it to at those early stages) of the project and previously it has only served as a reassurance that I have in fact done everything I needed to do and in a very nice way too. This time however, when I read the project brief, I found my folder to be a most unimaginative response to the briefs instructions. It implies in the ‘SHORT MODULE DESCRIPTOR’ that I am to “investigate the depiction of real events in moving image”; examine “how the form has developed in recent years and has embraced other forms such as drama, animation and music promo”, additionally the brief encourages me to “reference identified exhibition routes”. This is starting to sound like I’m blaming the brief in some way for my own failures, I’m not, I’m just trying to procrastinate. (It was at this stage in writing this paragraph that I realised it probably wasn't the best evaluative material, but none-the-less still worth saying, therefore I transferred it to this Blog). If your looking at my folder: The first section is my production brief, suggesting that I hold the goals of this project in priority and return to the front of the folder often to dwell on the projects direction and progress; this is an inaccurate description of current practices concerning my production work ethic. Immediately following the production brief is my PRODUCTION PLAN, written in all capitals in a imposing, sturdy font and receiving a whole title page to rule and proclaim its importance over, only then overleaf is the reader treated to a very well thought through and clear production table, broken down into weeks and blocks of work groups and time specific production dates. This layout may once again suggest that the author holds pre-planning and production organisation in high regard and proceeds to obey the efficient and effective schedule religiously thus completing a full and whole folder and supporting film in the time given. It's true I do hold planning in high regard, but only place it near the front of the folder because its one of the first things I do. I don't think I have ever, EVER followed a production plan to the letter, but then again who has?
Another title page follows the production plan; the introduction, which I've yet to write. Initial research follows that, I said initial, it really is my only primary research; hand written and generally not touched again since plugging them into my folder. Erg, I've just realised half of the stuff isn't even research; it's just my notes on what I should make a documentary on. There I go straight away, falling into the trap of immediately associating 'Non-Narrative' with documentary, something that I thought I expressively tried to avoid throughout the whole project but ended up doing anyway... O hang on, there IS some good mentions of various Non Narrative stuff in these Hand written notes, perhaps I should write up some proper stuff from these or something over the next few hours, couldn't hurt.
BANG next in the folder is the TREATMENT, there we go no lolling around in this folder, no I get straight to the problem in hand and solve it in one fell swoop and punch the production in the face with my 'Twits' idea and run with it. Oh what's this? next up is PROJECT DEVELOPMENT, looks like a bloodied nose of a production caught me up and sat on me, thwarting my initial elation and vigour to create a ground breaking and edgy 'On-line TV' based short comedy series based on peoples real life experiences as professed on internet social network and worldwide craze, Twitter, hence the play on words title 'Twits'. Ho Ho Ho. So yeah, it fell through, basically I'm not a huge production company and in the end unless I acted out everything myself (could've been done quite effectively to think about it now) I just couldn't feasibly produce the film(s) I wanted to. So as usual, I fell back on the standard way of doing things and decided to make a fairly normal talking heads Doc on what the people of Exeter thought of twitter OR what my friends who didn't mind being filmed and also had twitter thought of twitter... (hmm this is actually turning out quite nicely, I might stick some of this in my evaluation) So that's why I literally have a treatment right from the get go with pretty much no explanation and then some "project development" and a less interesting treatment, which is also followed by two pages claiming to be 'Critical incidents', I can't see any blood or anything on the pages and they're in good nick apart from some printer errors, so I'd just treat them as standard 'Incidents' or even 'Stories'. Yeah, that sounds a lot better.
Wow! Look at this next part! A whole section on planning! WOW! It's true I'm genuinely proud of this section of the project, because even though I didn't end up filming the majority of them and none are in the final film, I am very pleased with 'Episode structure' pages as well as the 'Tweet Boards' section; they just did exactly what they need to do, no fuss. The subsequent planning pages are still good but not as conclusive and clear as I would have liked, although reading my 'Sound design' notes again now, I think I did a good job there. I feel like there is a lot missing, but I can't put my finger on it, maybe I feel this way because a lot of this folder is geared to creating the 'Twits' films and because now at the end that didn't get made, I feel like all the supporting documentation for it doesn't count and the film I have now is just balancing dangerously on a few poorly chosen interview spaces and unthought-of bias, but that's not true, if anything it supports me even more!
The next section is a bit weak as I have mention before; Research is never really my strong point as I always find it spoils the fun a bit when researching as you always end up finding something far better than what you’re trying to support... Anyway this research section is just some wikipedia copy and paste jobs, nothing special. Although the production notes from Wisconsin Death Trip (obtained from they’re own website) was quite interesting. None of the films I chose to research helped me in any real way, which was a shame. After research we see the tweet boards, which are like storyboards but more general and more conceptual. I enjoyed making those, even if they didn't get used. The next section; Shooting, was around the time in the project where I realised I just couldn't continue with my 'Twits' idea which threw me off course for a bout a week or two. I wrote a little explanation or apology for the lack of documents in the folder a few weeks after that, since it was looking so bleak and "head down in the sand looking retched", it really was the lowest point of the project. Then comes the editing section, the most detailed and interesting of all the sections, apart from maybe the BLOG, but that hasn't got its own section yet. It was in the edit suite that the film I will hand in and that this folder will support, was born. I've still got to write a good chunk of the 'progress' and 'development' style documents in this section so I'm gona cut this non evaluation short but also cuz I'm tired of over describing events and processes of this project in the unnecessarily witty, incredibly accurate and humorously eloquent fashion I do so well and love to exploit.

Well Well Well

2010-08-14T00:31:00.003+01:00

So in my Independent Study Evaluation I was pretty harsh. With this projects I may end up spitting on it!

Hahaha. Naa its not that bad, but this is pretty serious, I've tried not to do too much work to be fair to the circumstances of this extension, that is, not completely overhauling the project and massively exploiting the extra time and just completing an adequate amount of work, enough to pass.

Generally I haven't kept this Blog as up to date with my progress with Non-Narrative as I would have liked, but I guess this is just the way it has turned out and I don't think I can specifically blame myself in any way, just generally really. There are all kinds of explanations I can think of that might have contributed to me not doing all that well this term for example; loosing my home editing suite, being nervous about doing a better job this term (backfired), being nervous about moving to Plymouth next year, working too hard on other projects, worrying about other projects, worrying about not doing other projects. All this and more I guess just really got to me this term and hit this project particularly worse than the others, apart from maybe my essay, of which I'm terrified of.

Back to Non-Narrative, there are a few detailed 'progress' and 'development' type posts/documents I need to get out of my head, just so your a bit more clued up on the way this film has turned out. I want to see if I can fully explain the intricacy's of the films bias and eventual message/base concept, I want to discuss whether the film is balanced in its current state(half edited) and whether I need to edit it differently or add some more insightful commentary to make it feel more like a genuine comment on twitter and not just my very opinionated opinion.

'Commenting' and such is very popular these days in a variety of modern endeavours.
From the most outspoken review to the subtlest of remarks from Youtube to rotten tomatoes. I just want to make sure that my comment on twitter isn't just another standard rant and genuinely something worth listening/watching.

2 months later

2010-07-27T15:20:00.002+01:00

In Summary:

I filmed the beginning and end bits for my documentary last week, consisting of me talking about twitter... It's turned out quite a lot more bias than I intended but that's OK.

I found I've lost some of the interviews I originally edited into '140 character' lengths when I returned to editing a few days ago. however I still have the original mini dv and I think with a bit of clever re-capturing I can accurately create some new files to replace the missing ones... I 'll explain more on that later.

I've finished my independent Study and now realise the full extent of how this project (non-narrative) may not be of the same standard folder-wise but none the less will carry on and complete the project, although I'm not sure I'll get round to improving what I have already done.

Ideally all I need to do is a few edit accounts/finish the film/make a dvd and do an evaluation.

Will do some more editing tonight.

Illness

2010-06-04T15:09:00.000+01:00

So im ill. im currently blogging from my ipod in bed and i cant move for too long, ive got somekind of annoying thing which makes me dizzy if i move and headaches. Yes i left a lot of my editing and written work till the last minute and now im ill during the last minute, unable to work properly. Im going to get an extenuating circumstances form thing so when i inevitably miss the deadline i wont be in too much trouble. When i do recover, probably in the next few days i will only do whats completely necessary that is; my evaluations, the documentary edit, the dvds, my marketing report for PP and my essay which i actually had a good start on until i first got the headaches and couldn't move( started being ill on tues went to hospital on weds, rested all day thurs at home, its now fri and im still woozey but getting better cuz im able to at least write this blog) . Depending on how much extra time im given, thats pretty much all ill do. note to self: paste this into other blogs since this concerns them too.

Week 13 - not looking great

2010-05-26T15:50:00.004+01:00

O boy, this projects folder has really fallen through... In the next few paragraphs I'm going to try and explain why:

I think this project was just doomed from the start like my independent study, I tried to make something far too complicated and expected too much of myself and of the people around me. I thought I could make a whole load of really short sketches based on what people say on twitter, I thought I could get all my friends and family to act in it to make it interesting and dynamic; a different person for each sketch, I wanted to have five minutes of funny, intelligent response with aarguments on both sides literalising the meaning of twitter. It was my first good idea, I wanted to role with it, I knew exactly what I wanted to film, where I was going to do it, and how they were all going to fit into each other in the final film (although I didn't write much about it this time) However when it came down to it, I just couldn't find the man power to help me, no one was up for it and if they were it was a mammoth task to try and organise everyone to be in the right place at the right time to save eveyone being in one place waiting for me to ask for them, I guess everyone saw that before me and decided it wouldn't be worth saying they could help and then only get told be me that I didn't need them anymore... Anyway enough of feeling sorry for myself and my complete lack of loyal friends.

I knew I still wanted to stick with this twitter idea so I went and got a few random opinions from various people I know and stuck them together in the edit, and hey presto! I've got the basis of a documentary, its nothing great, quite simple and you can find more insightfulness in a jar of fish eyes. But it was a start, now I'm going to get two very opposing opinions (hopefully) in the next couple of days and edit them in with the others, stick some interesting tunes (I've got some of my own non copyright stuff I can use) maybe stick a short introductary voice over and bish bosh bash I got myself a hopefully five minute long documentary that can pass off as something I've worked really hard on, hahaha no really, but thats what I'm aiming for now; a very standard talking heads documentary about twitter. I might include this BBC radio 4 debate as well because its amazing:
Its Charlie Brooker and Lee Mack dicussing the complexities or simplicities of Twitter. It's hilarious.
Twitter is the present tense
Twitter is a zombie curse film
CB: Almighty sheet of bubble wrap - vague satisfaction in popping each individual bubble. but its pointless
LM: its a load of people popping the bubble wrap and going 'Look what I've done!'
I think I will use something like that, I want to make it quite funny...

I just hope I can get everything done in time and present some kind of decernable back up for it...

WEEK 7

2010-04-11T16:51:00.003+01:00

Or the end of Week 6. Work has been relatively slow, although I've been doing ALOT of thinking and theorising over varies subjects/issues/films/theories and the future which has taken up time I should've used to do the more practical side of my projects, that is writing down stuff.

I watched a very interesting speech by Peter Dekom on the relationship between the filmmaker/distributor and the audience and got some very relevant and facinating notes both from my own ideas from what he said and some notes I quoted from Ted Hopes Blog 'truely free film'. I shall write up the notes and post them on this blog, however I wrote them primarily for my Professional Practice Module.

Documentary wise, I've been talking to people about my idea and most people seem to like it, Its been rather enlightening talking about it because I, as well as the people im talking too, come out with comments which I think to myself 'o i should write that down'.

I was thinking about my Super 8 camera and realised that perhaps getting one and using as part of my research was quite counter-productive in terms of my future, yes its fun and important to value the roots of cinema and indie film making but the super 8 was then, I should be focusing what what is now, or according to Peter Dekon I should be thinking about Whats Next.

Speaking of whats next, I think I will create a production company as an umbrella sort of thing to eventually produce all my work from and call it 'Whats Next? Productions' I've also had a few ideas that I would one day open an indie cinema either here in the southwest or somewhere more cultured (or less for that matter). Anyway I'd either call it 'Whats Next? Cinema' ot 'The Whats Next? Media Centre'.

ive done some designs roughly on paint: Copywrite belong to me ... eventually anyway

I've been thinking about/loosely researching the state of british cinema and the lack of audience parcipitation/interaction/knowledge of the british film industry, this is probably one of the issues I will spend my life trying to resolve.

Back to my Documentary... Ive done some episode planning and printed some storyboards and will proably do some thourough shot planning over the next week.
Actually I will do that, I'll even write it down that I will do that and have it done by the end of this week, then at the end of the week when I haven't done it I'll know that I meant to do it this week and subsequently feel more guitly and proceed to do it next week. hahaha, Or I'll just do it this week. I also need to deliberate the core features/look and how I want to present this documentary so I dont just film a load of shit and put some captions inbetween...

I'll be editing together the 97 lovers music video early next week which should be fun.

Blog posts to come:

How to train your Dragon: a review
Kick Ass: a review
Whats next?
piracy/DEbill
more future thoughts

Update

2010-03-24T17:11:00.004Z

I thought it would be better if I only write an update after something significant happens, like a shoot or a particular creative development I experience, this saves me worrying about how many week updates I haven't done and trying to remember what I didn't do. I think I remember talking briefly about the 'twits' idea for a series of short documentaries where I would recreate some tweets randomly sampled from twitter with a particular hash tag. So far I have collected tweets from the following tags:

#VeryBadSituation
#Itsreallyannoying
#thankstwitterfor
#Imthekindofperson

I think I'll structure the docs with 5/10 tweets per episode, have actors play out a short action to go with the tweet which will be spoken in a voiceover, I'm not sure on the aethetcs of the doc yet, whether to make it surreal or funny or something, I'll decide that later.
This is the best Idea I've got so far and its quite original so I think I'm gona go for it, first step is to get a treatment off and then find some actors and voice over people, then I will probably shoot during the easter holidays, then I'll have four weeks to edit/make changes etc till its due in.

Ideas and Purchases

2010-03-21T13:49:00.005Z

So I was thinking that actually this 'documentary' module is actually super easy, to begin with anyway, I'm just gona go out and record some journey, or event or, I dunno, someone eating lunch and then that’s a documentary! But then I could edit it into a VJ Doc! or I could record a voice over of me throwing my opinion about 'lunch' and why I'm right about it and that can be a 'Michael Moore' type doc...
I had this idea yesterday to find some really crazy/funny/stupid things people have said they did one day on twitter and recreate what they did in like a comedy/mocumentary/ Wisconsin death trip kind of way. I think I'll make a series of shorts of that idea, each one focusing on a particular 'hash tag' from twitter.
I'm gona call it 'Twits' because all the people in it are stupid and also its like they're trying to say something on twitter by 'tweeting' but all they end up doing is making 'twits' hehehe. The first 'hashtag' I’ve done so far is #imthekindofperson.

Here are some examples of what you get:

#imthekindofperson Who is terrified of falling over in public

#ImTheKindOfPerson who leaves the house with the tv remote.

#imthekindofperson who walks into stuff and then apologises haa

Another Idea I had was to make a documentary about myself and see if I discover anything/find anything out about myself. But if I was going to do something kind of serious then i wanted it to look nice, with like proper(ish) lighting and a good HD camera, which I would have to book, and thus kind of ruining the whole 'unplanned' feel of documentaries.
So just now I bought a light to mount on a camera for 'interview' type shots. It works in a similar way a photographic ring flash does where by it removes all shadows on the face and prevents red eye, here’s is a picture of something like what I bought (its called a 'Rotolight' apparently):

Although the one I got is white, and is made by ARRI, which is a bonus because I heard they're pretty good when it comes to lighting for filming, they're standard lights I've heard are like a reliable/nicer version of red heads... however where the one above is £99 I got mine for £22 including postage which is very nice indeed!!!

anyway, this light will encourage me to shoot some cool interviews of people or with myself. Can't wait!

Photography doc

2010-03-14T23:16:00.003Z

I had a brilliant idea while lying in bed last night... I was thinking about filming my friends who are artists/filmmakers/photographers and splicing them together into a kind of 'case study'/interview based/ feel good short documentary for my non-narrative module. And then I started to think about how much I loved the vibe at Victoria yard photography dept when I was studying there and the interesting characters and relationships between the lecturers and the students and then I thought I could just make a documentary about that?
Mainly about one student and his (or hers) ideas about photography, his reasons about why he took it up and what he'll do in the future then ask similar, simple yet insightful questions to the lecturers (mainly the lead dude, Stuart Barker who is SUCH a character, (i want to ask him hard questions like "what is art?" or something like that)and also happens to be the lead examiner for A level photography in the UK). Then also maybe have a section on the student(s) working at home/traveling to/from/on a shoot etc.
A nice balance of people/activities/locations all put to a 'feel good' soundtrack and BAM I got myself a sweet documentary, I dunno how long either 3 minutes or 10 minutes, I've got to research what it a good time for these things. I'll put together a short 'treatment' for this idea which should include like the structure of the doc, and what I intend to communicate to the audience, whether it will be open ended or bias etc, that kind of detail.
I'm also going to think about what other kind of non-narrative
stuff I can do obviously because making a doc is a bit well, obvious...

New Project - Non-Narrative

2010-03-05T00:24:00.002Z

I now begin my second major project of my second year of this wonderful course. It is called CDV... eerrr I forgotten the numbers, probably 503 or something... But mainly and more importantly it is focused on creating a non-fiction or non-narrative film. Which on first inpection presents itself as a 'documentary' but can also be interpreted as a promo video, showreel project, VJ films etc. Although I have not yet focused an entire project on a non-narrative ideal before I have filmed 'documentary style' in some previous home made films and I have experimented in creating some cool VJ films.

To begin this project I will start a new folder and start writing some ideas down and asking around for feedback on those ideas and developing them into something solid and workable.

I have thought of the idea to make a documetary about everyone else in the class making a documentary but although in my favourite theme of 'paradoxical situations' I thought it wasn't partucularly mature and also a bit too easy...

this project is in, I believe, the second week of june so I have 14 weeks to complete it. My first task before I do anything else is to create a production schedule, at least a rough one, until I sort out my ideam just so I know I'm on track. Week ONE will begin on Monday 8th March. Bring it on.

Coming to an end

2010-03-02T18:35:00.002Z

This Blog hasn't been as exclusive to my current project as it has been to the others in the past but I think I prefer it this way. Its been kind of a get away of my ponderings, instead of officially writing up something in a weekly update with almost proper vocabulary... No, this blog has been a sanctuary of little nuonces of thought which have helped me to comprehend and articulate my own understanding of not only my perception of the world and arts around me but also myself...

Thinking about how much I've learned over the past few months, there is no way I could have fitted it all into this blog, I wish I wrote about more, I wish I understood more... still I've got another project to worry about now, and this time I've got a bit more focus and experience than last time, like everytime...

The main purpose of this post was to round off the 'blog' section in my project folder, so ignore it if you wish...

Shout out

2010-02-18T03:08:00.002Z

Hey to all you readers out there ( i think theres about 2 of you who actually read this). thats it, just thought I'd say hi.

Play

2010-02-18T02:04:00.001Z

Samuel Beckett – Notes on ‘Play’ – Anthony Minghella’s version

The first time I watched it I was astounded by the extreme fast paced cutting and quick delivery of all the lines, I’d imagine that would be how Samuel Beckett would have wanted them delivered. It wasn’t just the fast nature of the lines though; the content and actual words had a sharp and accurate tone.
I first watched it a few months ago and I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about it now. I found it to be a bit long and to repeat itself too much, but perhaps that’s one of the things it’s meant to make me feel, bored and tired?

As such was the content; a spiteful love triangle, a tale from the characters own perspectives of which they did not discuss between themselves only complain to the viewer through monologues, occasionally syncing up with or reflecting each others comments, almost perfectly creates the metaphor for the situation they describe, one which is also all too common in this modern, fast-paced society.

Oooo that’s a nice sounding paragraph…

It’s true though, and I’ve found it increasingly clear that truly great pieces of art (or films in this case) seem to create deep metaphors about themselves using themselves… I’m pretty sure that’s a poor way to explain how I feel about it but it’s the best I’ve got at the moment, I’m sure to think of a better way to explain it the moment I cease to need to explain it, as is always the case.

When I said ‘the first time I watched it’ that implied that I have watched it again since, I haven’t. It’s peculiar because as much as I feel I should enjoy watching it, I cannot bring myself to watch it fully again, not at the moment anyway. It could be that I’m living through a fairly lazy patch in my life at the moment, in fact, that’s probably the only reason. I should really watch it again sometime.

future

2010-02-12T18:37:00.003Z

I've been asked these questions or something simular to these questions a lot latley;

1. Why are you interested in film, why do you choose to look at the world through a camera lens?

2. Upon creation what is foremost in your mind- the concept/literal image or the editing and effects which you can apply after?

3. What defines you as a film maker, stylistic qualities or your ethos?

I don't quite know the answers just yet, but I'm REALLY looking foward to thinking about them, I think it will really help me to foucs next year and also help me to create better pieces of work. I've also borrowed some new books from the library to help me think deeper into my reasons/loves for this art. the books are:

Post Classic Cinema - An Internation Poetics of Film Narration
Dogville vs Hollywood - The war between independant film and mainstream movies
Disaster and Memory - Celebrity Culture and the crisis of hollywood
Film - the key concepts
Lighting for television and film

Can't wait to get my teeth into those.

Silent Witness

2010-01-30T19:09:00.004Z

I've recently managed to stumble into a brief spate of organising myself outside of my course work and got back into watching the BBC pathology themed crime/drama program Silent Witness! And I saw my favourite episode ever the other day; it was called 'Shadows' and I wont give it away what happens but it reminded me of something I used to do with my toys when I was younger. I used to create these large scene of devastation, then meticulously pick at and examine every aspect of the aftermath and imagine each story behind of every piece of evidence. There was a scene in Silent witness where Harry(same name i know spooky) was walking through a corridor(moments after the 'devastation') and seeing little bits of evidence; blood spears on a wall, an odd shoe with more spats of blood, a smashed pane of glass and finally a body. Evidence of Chaos I called it, (after I remembered what I did as a child) even today I find it incredibly fascinating to imagine the details of how that blood smear or shoe ended up there and why the wearer had forgotten/lost/discarded it and what situation they may have been dealing with, whether they were calm/terrified/in shock or drunk. Of course when I was younger I probably didn't imagine quite such harrowing scenes as the ones that were fascinatingly depicted in Silent Witness, I probably would imagine Lego men getting crushed by their collapsing house or jenga brick meteors crashing into micro machine cities, but nothing with any real connotations or palpable relevance to the world I knew then to exist. I think I might twist my Independent study research(or even non narrative) to gear towards an idea like Evidence of Chaos, I think it could be a fantastic way to experiment with the viewer and their perspective of a situation, causing their perceptions to change and warp through as a film progresses, eventually manipulating them into pity, regret, remorse, dread, guilt, loss, confusion and fear. Emotions which cause that certain kind of prolonged and uncertain squeamish feeling that sticks to your chest. O K, I am REALLY psyched to make something like this now!

So yeah Silent witness is coool.

future

2010-01-30T18:45:00.003Z

I 've been thinking a lot about the future and what kind of job I'll have after I complete my studies, whether that be after my final year of this course or after I complete a masters in something... I've not always enjoyed the thought of being freelance, yeah its gives you freedom to do what you want but it's also unstable and most of the time unrewarding? I dunno, Perhaps I'm being a bit materialistic and squirming at the thought of living a life without much 'money' (that is money in quotation marks, that I'll have enough to live but not enough to spend). that would be the 'right' way to do it will it? to not be materialistic, to not to want to get rich, to not want to be really, overly successful? Yeah. But I still want those things. I guess I'm just feeling a little bit aof despair at the moment, when questioning whether I really am doing/learning about what I'm meant to be learning about, spending all this time, the only time I can really, before I actually have to start doing things for myself to survive, not just learn (21 and over). Maybe I'm feeling this way because I haven't really been spending alot of time learning or spending the time I need to spend on learning/making films on just laying around, maybe I'm feeling a bit inadequate, like the world is taking over me, like I can't possibly mke a difference, especially as this industry has recently exploded into the public relms through youtube etc. yeah I'm feeling a bit of the old despair...

I'm in Plymouth at the moment, visiting my friend whom I'm hopefully going to live with when I move down here for my final year. Its weird being here, I'm in the library right now(I'm in the 24/7 computer room) and I can't help feeling like I don't belong, like I'm invading the space of everyone around me and that they're all looking at me and thinking "an outsider!" Classic Paranoia, of course I just look like any other student, and probably am older than most of them, or in a higher year. I can't help feeling like I've just been tacked onto the end of this uni, I still count as a student, but only just. I'm appriehenisve about relating to the other students in the same year as me next year, to compensate for my shyess recently I tend to be fairly abrupt and introduce myself straight away to almost everyone I'm around for more than a minute and I don't know who they are and need to. But if I say, " I'm a bit shy" what the hell do they say to that? "oh ok, hello would be a good start"... o geese, this is starting to sound like my script. Quinten Tarantino said that writers who base their work on their own lives are rubbish (or something like that) but I say if I'm honest(and I mostly am) then I could write some pretty good stuff based around me and my life, for example what I've just been blubbering about.

First Commercial Gig this year

2010-01-30T17:47:00.005Z

Well it wasn't really commercial and I didn't get paid so it was more like me hanging around this particular function occasionally filming people and saying "smile!"...

So My good friend, Daniel Hall, is the the assistant manager and public liaison and social organiser for Exeter's 'Jack Wills' shop.
He mentioned to me back around Christmas time about he was finding it hard to run the jack wills Christmas social at the same time as trying to film it for the JW website. So I said I wouldn't mind doing the filming next time if he wanted, that 'next time' turned out to be the Jack wills spring launch social and fashion show, and Dan asked me if I wanted to shoot it, I said sure why not.

I booked a HD camera from Till for four days (the gig was on the 28Th, i booked from the 28Th to the 1st) to allow for capture etc). I also booked a H4 Digital Audio Recorder but testing before hand showed that either the mic wasn't working with the H4 or the H4 just wasn't picking up any sound whatsoever... BLAH

My main tasks at the social was to film the shop, the customers browsing and buying and the two bands playing some of their songs + some interviews with them and the staff. The Band (the Quails) were quite good musically and very nice to interview ( i didn't interview them myself but they did what I told them to do in front of the camera) It was great at first just filming around the shop with the customers browsing and buying etc because no one actually paid much attention to me even though I had a massive camera and was clearly invading on their space( which was a first and was a nice change) but then I tried to get some nice interviews, just little tit-bits of the JW staff, but most of them were having none of it and were treating me like I was crazy, even repulsive (which might have been because most of them were Preppy Twits). But some of them were nice and responsive and did what I told them to do, which I now REALLY like. Its surprising how hard it is to find people who actually do what you tell the to when your filming them, some people ESPECIALLY PREPPIES and other self orientated cliques and social groups just don get it.

Anyway, I kind of enjoyed it but if I do have to do it again I would prefer to get paid to endure the hideousness. it wasn't all that bad I suppose... I wish i could just bypass all this learning and climbing up the industry ladder and get to the point where I have a really great reliable production team who do what I say and a producer who lets me do what I want and then get paid a bunch for doing what I love, making FILMS!!!

a night of sleeplessness, music and whats that? A script? Hell no!

2010-01-04T16:36:00.005Z

Oh YEAH!

I've actually done it and in less than half an hour!

It seemed so simple and obvious in the end, what with my latest (draft 3) script starting with the main idea (not knowing what to talk about then talking about that idea) and without context (it was just that conversation and nothing else) it seemed to just stand there metaphorically awkward and unsure of its place in the world, not knowing what to do with itself, it didn't even sit down and relax it just stayed still perplexed at its own existence...

Ben B or Bartleby, the man I asked to adapt the draft just out of desperation helped me realise the potential of my idea and eventually lead me to write this new draft which I know is gonna work a treat.

I had previously decided to split draft three into 3 adaptations, two 3 minute long short films and a very short animation(if i get time) I chose Ben's adaptation first not because he did most of the work but because I loved the freshness of the ideas he fed into my original idea. I felt compelled to develop it visually (which is what I do best) and make this joint effort of a script into a reality.

The second 3 minute short film will be the script I wrote last night.

I also previously decided that this adaptation will involve me playing all the characters, which I now know are all one person in different locations, all deliberating and imagining how to approach a girl, their love interest. Character "1" named simply because he came first, but now seems more relevant since hes now the focus of this story, starts his other selves off by declaring he doesn't know how to start a conversation which will lead onto friendship with a girl he likes, "2" offers help which is helpful but not necessarily right, hes potentially the 'good' side of 1, "3" is unhelpful but truthful, effectively the 'bad/evil' side of 1. 1 also is a relevant name since he is the 'whole person' in the situation and the only one who interacts directly with outside characters like the girl. 2 and 3 will be in different locations than one and each other, and will stay more or less in those locations as hopefully that will reflect their individuality a bit more. 1 I have decided in college age and is in a lesson with the girl on the other side of the room, this both makes sense for the story and is easy to find a location for since I have access to classrooms through Exeter College. throughout the film, there will be very short one shot flashbacks of 1 failing to strike valuable conversation with the girl. I'm still unsure as to how to end the film whether I should have 1 strike a conversation and then cut to black, or have the girl ask 1 for 'a coffee or drink sometime' and fade to black, but I'm worried that might be a bit cliche, these days I love to reject happy endings just because they seem happen to all the time...

So this week I will be working on developing that script to a solider form as well as a whole load of other things. January is going to be super busy. I can't wait!

Pre into Prod amoung other things

2009-12-22T12:11:00.002Z

I'm not sure how to handle this stage where Pre-production begins to morph into Production, I'll get there eventually. I saw this awesome documentary about the making of Nowhere Boy, Directed by Sam Taylor Wood, and I really connected with her and some of the ways she described how she became a director and how she is inspired, I wish I could have recorded it, it was just such a great inspiration, it was a british film too!!!

Knowing what I'm not doing

2009-12-19T16:53:00.001Z

I can't take it anymore, I have this thing where I spend ages, up to weeks worrying about work, a project, or even social events, worrying about what to do and when to do it and how, then when I know exactly what I need to do ... I don't do it! and then it builds up and now I've got a tonne of stuff which when I actually end up doing I'll love it but i just can't start!

GEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!

So for CRYING OUT LOUD I'm goning REALLY DO SOME WORK NOW!

Reason to Live

2009-12-09T23:22:00.002Z

I found it, my reason to live, but before I tell what it is, I must first recount how I came about to my decision...

It's been a slowly developing thought process in my mind for a few months now, well I could say my whole life has been building up to this decision but only recently has it been accelerated by a few key events. the first event was my camera jobs on the Imps in July and Tera Toma in early September, these were my first real experiences on the sets of short films and convinced me I was making the right choice in moving into this industry, I loved every moment I was there, I was Hooked. My work on Non-Calculator helped me to funnel my gaze into the industry, IE I don't want to produce anything which was written by someone else, on my own, ever again. Secondly, meeting all the great people around all the events during the two short nights film festival really encouraged me to throw myself out into the industry and get stuck in, then again at the media mash up conference I found myself depressed at how hopeless the industry seemed. This lead me to an article in the observer, i think, about the decline of truly British films and general British public interest in their own industry, therefore making it now very unlikely to make films that are funded completely by British institutions, even cooperation's.

anyway I'm getting depressing...

there was some other reasons, and something about hearing some sweet tips from my tutor but overall i came o this conclusion after seeing a well disappointing ending to 2012, which turned out better than i expecting so OK, instead of abysmal.
So...
My goal in life is to revolutionise the British film industry!
I dunno how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna be bold, cheeky and awesome at it, and I'm gonna WIN!!!

3 people/3 screenings

2009-11-30T20:25:00.004Z

I've beent thinking alot about the various different bits of advice and information I've gathered over the past few days via the Media Mash up conference and various screenings. Most prominantly I've been thinking about what area of the industry I feel I should develop into, whether it be Directing, editing, camera work or otherwise. There were a few individulas during the conference that stirred me and inspired me to really get stuck in. The first was a Director of photography by trade called Terry Flaxton. I had not heard of him before but he was a bit quiet to begin with, but once he was talking about film making and the aspects of it, particularly the relationship between a director and the DOP he was fascinating, and quite a bit 'stick it to the man' ish or in his terms, not playing 'The Game'. this was all very nice and refreshing for a student like me but when I talked to Stuart Mitchell from the Phoenix media centre he brought me back to reality by saying its ok to be like that with 25 years of work behind you, but its best to stick WITH the man and play them game when your starting up.

In terms of aspiring to be a director, two people who have most inpired me over the past few days are Rachel Tillotson and David Salas. Tillotson has been a successfull director since 2001, working mainly on TV programmes and Short films, recently shes been screen writing and lecturing. Most of all Tillotson has inspired me to really technically excell in the directing profession, so that all of my work comes out looking professional and polished every time, even if the story may be rubbish. She didn't actually say much about that but she made me feel that way. At the conference we were shown her 13 minute short called 'Safer' which was about a single mum and her small boy trying to move away and the consiquences that has on the people they left behind. It was beautifully shot the acting was pretty much perfect, a fantastic example of British film making.

Which leads me on to my next thought process. One of the harder subjects we had to chew on during the conference was that of distribution and profit. Either we went down the mostly non-profitable festival route or tried to market and distribute outr films to make some money. Both option were delt with rather depressingly for the very true and haunting reason that there just is not an interest by the british public in their own film industry, even less in the short film industry, which is barely an industry in itself outside of advertising and Aardman! Made me want to give up kind of, and find a job with a better end result, because at the moment, all that happens is people get ideas, have a horrible time finding funding, have a great time making films, then either have a horrible time trying to distrubute it or have a big success in a load of non-profitable festivals then move onto the next idea... Its all too much of an anti-climax.

But its the middle bit, making the film which is the hardest BUT the greatest most bestest part of this industry and after all that depressing attitude of going nowhere-ness I'm still here, and looking forward to getting into the industry. Especially now more than ever since straight after the conference over the next 3 days I saw 3 screenings which really blew my mind. The First was the D+C (Devon and Cornwall) film open Screening where a number of amazing films (six of them animations) were shown, all from from around the world and really showing off some fantastic talent and variety. The second and third screenings I attented were the premiere screenings for 'The Imps' of which I was DOP for and 'Non-Calculator' which I produced, co-directed, shot and Edited! Both films recieved fantastic receptions, Non-Calculator in particular got a much more jubilant and laughter orientated response than I was expecting and pretty much obliterated my previous dislike and loathing for it. During the Imps credit sequence, I had the whole screen to myself as DOP and I just thought that was AWESOME, seeing my name up there.

But that was nothing compared to the star films of that night, Directed by my good friend David Salas and partly written by my other good friend Ben Borley, 'Uncomfortable' is a brilliant and morbid story centerd around an old man who finally talks to his wife after her years of servitude but only after she passes away and for 24 hours he painfully comes to accept her fate. I was simply blown away by the brilliance of this film. I may be over rating it just because David is my friend or because this is only the second piece I've seen of his, and the first was pretty poor, but still I as very impressed with him and can't wait to get invovled with his next project. David won joint first for the best bursary film for 2009 (Dali by Tom Austin won first with him and also won the audience award and was also a fantasticly astonishingly well done film).

Well thats all I have to say about that at the moment, I actually only meant to write a little bit about Terry Flaxton but got a bit carried away... o well, hope some body reads this...

Media Mash Up Conference

2009-11-27T16:20:00.005Z

I may have mentioned before that while I was doing some editing at the phoenix the week before last, I was approached by Peter Snelling, a writer and kind of workshop facilitator, about presenting to an audience a panel of young professionals in the film industry as part of the media mash up conference. He didn't sell it quite like that otherwise I think I would have been scared off, but I said yes, mainly because I was to be paid £30, which was a bonus considering I haven't a job, but otherwise because it was something I could do which would benefit others as well as myself. Funnily enough I had actually just purchased a ticket to the Media Conference myself, but I didn't mind thinking about that loss anyway since I was getting paid and there was to be a free Lunch!

So two weeks later the time came for me to go up and introduce a group people who all seemed a whole lot more experienced than me in front of a very British audience (although I found out later there were a few Russian girls) so it seemed no one wanted to ask any questions. But anyway I was cool, I started off smoothly and introduced the first guy nicely, he talked for a bit about Chew TV, which I think I might get more involved in, but no one asked him any questions, so I moved on to the next guy, Peter Snelling butted in every now and the with something to encourage the guys to talk a bit more, which I felt I could have done if I had a little more confidence but I was really nervous for some reason... But I did get some nice comments in which I was quite proud of, like "Every performance is a practice for the next", "its OK to make mistakes because your students" - which a lot of the panelists agreed with me on and finally I just reiterated what I felt the whole conference was saying and that was to just throw yourself into the industry, which is how I've got into a lot of work recently, kind of being out of my depth in a way, forcing my self to swim and keep my head above the water, although, keeping with the same metaphor, I'm only in the toddlers pool at this stage in my career.

Anyway, At lunch, I tried networking a bit but that was with a load of the professionals and they were talking about stuff which I felt a bit inadequate trying to join in. Later I thought it would have been better to straight out introduce myself and do the old confidence handshake at least then I would have made myself a bit more noticeable. But O well, I gave my buisness cards to the Russian girls who attended the conference with Caroline, who I met through the Phoenix and Thirdwave, who teaches them film Studies. I also got an email address off Josh Randal who runs the YDFM? YDFS? I dunno but they're churning out some fantistc stuff and I'd like to get involved with that.

Now I'm killing time (about 2 and a half hours) writing this post, and waiting until the D + C open Screening which is showing some animations, which should be cool, then its the 48 Hour film Challenge Screening which is going to be well exciting!

Generally with work, I'm a bit behind still, but I should be filming next week and hopefully ready for the rough screening the week after.

Writing Stuff down

2009-11-22T12:46:00.002Z

I have a lot of ideas and thoughts a day so I would like to start writing them down more often. So there.

Second paid professional job

2009-11-16T22:26:00.002Z

So I'm on this panel at this conference about how to go about breaking into the film and television industry. Its an hour long and I'm supposed to introduce it and ask the other guys on the panel some questions then get the audience to ask some questions too. It's a bit daunting, especially since its the same conference I bought a ticket for the day before the organizers approached me to lead the panel, which consists of young professionals all older than me. They're paying me which is nice, but only £30 which is still good, but its hardly consistent, I need a real job before i start talking to other people about getting one.

New Favourite Director???

2009-11-08T02:12:00.000Z

Lars Von Trier director of the latest film to inspire me(Dogville) also wrote and directed the 2009 film ‘Antichrist’; a controversial film to some people and was to my eyes until now just another one of those ‘one-up’ films to come out of the Hollywood horror market, but I may pay a bit more attention to it now, but I am still wary of it.
It’s hard to find favourite directors since it seems they always do a film you hate, Tim Burton and Edward Scissor hands, Luc Besson and Taxi, George Lucas and all the latest star wars films… But no ones perfect and I’d hate to think people were expecting all my films to be just as good as the last ones or just as bad for that matter…

48 Hour Film Challenge

2009-11-08T00:59:00.003Z

The prop was a yo-yo. The theme was freedom... I don't know whether it was in spite for the pure vagueness or whether I was just not very clearly inspired by this "challenge" but we (Me and Sarah) made a short 48 second clip paradoxadly explaining that in acting on our own sense of freedom we decided not to make a film based on the theme of freedom. I chucked the yo-yo over my shoulder to symbolise my pure contempt for the object which we then multiplied by portraying our indifference towards it by completely obliviating it from all significance with the simple dialogue 'what was that' and 'o nothing'... I guess the yo-yo could also be made a symbolic representaiton of my opinion of the "challenge" overall this year, I'm not sure where this has come from but I feel somewhat let down.
On the other hand, I feel I could have made a more significant film but I was held back again this year by organisational clashes (I renamed this 48 hour challenge my 22 hour challenge since I was unavailable for sunday) and technological problems, particularly I've only got enough disk space on my PC for 4 more minutes of footage, and I did not have the funds available to purchase an emergancy HDD...
AAAAAAAAAh well..... we had a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to seeing what other people would have achieved and hopefully they will have been just as if not more inspired as me and avoid the easy/cliche things people do when confronted with such vague themes. And a yo-yo...

I can't even use a yo-yo

Dogville

2009-11-07T23:38:00.002Z

Written and Directed By Lars Von Trier, A man who I am now showing a considerable more attention to, Dogville is quite astonishingly and indescribably the best film of its kind I have ever seen, in fact it seems to have opened my mind to recognise it as a whole different and standalone film separate from other kinds of film and certainly alone from any other (like I said) I have ever seen. The most obvious reason someone might consider my reasons for singling out this film is the way it has been shot; cleverly the location or set, in the films case a street with a few houses, has been constructed like a theatrical presentation exposing the houses and its occupants to their bare bones. The effect I instantly accepted as the correct and most effective device to best convey some of the films most underlying themes, which only really reveal themselves at the very end, two hours and forty nine minutes later. But the unconventional length did not put me off watching it, obviously, though at the hour mark I realised i had another hour and fifty minutes to go I did consider having a break, but I am glad I did not, the length is yet another metaphor or 'illustration' of how dedicated this film is to its messages... I don't posses the articulated patience to write more about this great film, I wish I did but I feel at this time it's far more important that you watch it and enjoy it as it really is truly one of the best films ever made...

Star wars Uncut

2009-10-31T01:50:00.003Z

I finished!

With only two days spare, I mangaed to knock a quick one off and so far its been a massive success!!!

Star Wars Uncut - Scene 347 from Harry Willmott on Vimeo.

Only 5 days old and already almost 600 views!

Gritted Teeth

2009-10-31T01:03:00.006Z

Well, I've finally found a motivation to fulfill my intentions with my idea, where before I just had a basic idea of an idea with no reason to do it apart from I had to.

My first idea which came to me through a series of discussions with my classmates about what I needed this movie to be and how I could realise that. I needed a script heavy short film that would still be visually appealing and not very boring, we settled on the idea of a monologue of a crazy old woman, possible Jamaican and homeless.

I wasn't that psyched about it so I conceded to continue with my personal motivation program, that was to continue watching films and reading books that inspire me and put off trying to think of ideas and any work at all for that matter until I became motivated or inspired to develop that first, original, joint idea, and make it my own.

I began to worry since this process was taking far longer than I remembered it usually did.

HOWEVER! At last, after a particularly long stretch of not thinking about my idea and after watching the very script heavy and very non boring film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and awoke from my subconscious dream engine to a fantastically inspired development for my idea;

Visually focusing on themes such as paranoia and social contrast while verbally exploring themes of discrimination and of course my own brand of comedy (whether it exists in the real world or not) The development of my original idea introduces two or three new characters who through their own personal monologues and interactive conversation (between each other, not with the woman) create a tension of paranoia, fear, misunderstanding and pity towards the woman. At the same time, exactly the same themes are disclosed within the woman’s mind through discussions with her three separate personalities towards the two/three other men. All this happens in one location, I don’t know where yet, it's going to be significant though.

Yeah, it’s an awesome idea, thank you.

The only problem is at the moment I haven't actually done any official documents for pre productions. This isn't a major problem at this stage in my plan, but I do like to stay on track otherwise things pile up and I get less likely to do the work.
But I've taken steps to rectify this, the first of which was to write a blog update, which has gone very well so far. I have done some research, just initial inspirational stuff, like I watched a cool documentary by Paul Merton on BBC FOUR about Alfred Hitchcock, which was VERY helpful. I got a nice A4 page of notes on that. I've also been trying to find visual inspiration through stills photographers, which has been fun. I've also thought about presenting this movie in 2.40:1 aspect, just to experiment with how composition with this aspect might affect the feel of the movie...

So technically at the end of this week I should have completed draft two of my script, when actually I haven’t started draft one... So I'm two weeks behind, but at least I'm gritting my teeth and moving forward at last!!!

Struggling

2009-10-21T20:12:00.000+01:00

I'm really struggling to find inspiration for this project, I've got the idea, I just can't seem to develop it in a satisfactory way, and thinking up a good solid script is REALLY hard. I just went on a bit of a walk down the lane near where I live to try and stimulate my brain in a different environment than my workspace/computer; I got some interesting plot dynamics, like paranoia and hallucinations to be experienced by the main character, but no dialogue.

I just had a thought to see if I can find any clips of crazy people ranting in films, or maybe in any books. My favorite writer; Graham Linehan (writer of IT crowd, Father Ted and Black Books) says writing is like going for a poo, its really hard if you don’t want to go, but you have to go eventually. He also talks about not starring at a blank page but feeding the subconscious for up to a matter of weeks, until finally you’re bursting with stuff to write. I got that from a special edition of Charlie Brookers Screenwipe where he interviewed a bunch of writers. He does say somewhere else (but I don't know where) that it’s VITAL to read as well as watch things for inspiration and generally learning to write...

This is week 4 and I'm supposed to have the first draft done by the end of the week, urg.

Social Media

2009-10-18T00:36:00.003+01:00

the Like minds Social Media Conference blew my mind, now on twitter all the time, and have two emails + talking about setting up friends charity with social media marketing,

notes from conference coming soon

Skins mash up

2009-10-13T20:58:00.002+01:00

As well as the many other side projects I've decided to take on this term, I have taken on the challenge to edit a cool looking and professional skins mash up for E4, with the chance of winning a week of intensive training/experience on the set of the next skins series shoot!

48 Hour Film Challenge

2009-10-13T20:50:00.002+01:00

So I've entered into the 48 Hour Film Challenge, my team name is TEAM HAZMUS.
I can't wait... I had an idea to incorperate my crazy tramp woman into the challenge but then i realised I can't think of ideas until the 48 hours start so I'll be sure to remember to think of it again then.

Ideas?

2009-10-13T20:34:00.004+01:00

So I suggested me and a couple of people from my class had a bit of a brain storm on monday, just to get things rolling, for those of us who were still stuck with ideas...

I went first and eventually I was given the idea to make a film about a crazy person, which I tend to try and avoid because its almost a bit too easy, but because this time round I'm focusing more on dialogue than visuals it should be a lot more challenging.

The idea centers around a crazy old tramp woman who's ranting at someone about most things worth ranting about, then it turns out shes just ranting to herself, but I might not include that twist because it may turn out to be a bit cliche, we'll see.

During this brain storming session I also couldn't resist coming up with a whole storyboard of ideas based on one of my class mates ideas, which she apprechiated, and now what i think i'll do is be cameraman on hers if she act as the crazy women in my film.

Now I've just got to write a bloody script!!!

But I was thinking about it, and to make the tramp womans rants more fluid I could just script a basic guideline of dialogue and let her improvise some of it aswell.

Projects

2009-10-10T18:05:00.006+01:00

This is a list... Because I like lists, OK?

Projects to be completed for the Course and their hand in date this term:

5 minute film - 29JAN
Work Placement - sort out what your doing - 19DEC
Independant study - decide what to study independantly - 19DEC
Professional Proactice - some kind of boring essay - probably - Annoyingly soon
Contextual Studies - hopefully a less annoying essay, and a fun presentation - around JAN

Additional films to include in a showreel to be handed in with my 5min film(29JAN):
Thirdwaves
4 - this is still a secret
Star wars uncut
Non-Calculator - coming soon
tera toma behind the scenes
the imps
experimental films - random films I make to experiement with techniques/lighting/anything

Possible areas of further study/research for Independant Study:
Hypercubism
the future of internet hosted films (online media)
cymatics - visual sound
And manyy moore...

Work Based learning?

2009-10-10T17:52:00.003+01:00

Isn't that just work?
...
and didn't I just do a whole summer of it?
...
And now I've got to write a whole load about all of it! and probably do more and write about that to!!!

Oh well i guess it's all a 'learning experience' QUOTE OF THE SUMMER.
I Think most people in my class are contacting series producers and getting placements where they make tea for everone for free, I was hoping to do some stuff a bit closer to home and in the spirit of film making, IE: since everyone knows everyone round here, i happen to know a few people who make films for a living so I think I'm going to just hang around with them for a day or two, and film it all maybe? then I wont have to write anything? probably not, I like writing really, its just like a big fat man who looks scary but is actually really huggable... or something, anyway yeah, contacting series producers sounds like it could be fun on like the set of a major production, but that would be more like an actual job. and I'm think economically and efficiantly here by trying to find work closer to home and with people you can trust and who trust me, to make the right kind of tea anyway, theres a knack to it...

Starting Point

2009-10-08T20:56:00.004+01:00

Dammed! I love and hate this stage in filmmaking! I don’t know what happens to me, I just can't think of anything suitable to create for a film.
The 'IDEAS' stage of making a film should be the most dynamic and interesting and fun part of preproduction and it still is for me, but minus the ideas! It's not that I can't generate ideas, I can do that easy, but I find it difficult to pick and mould the right idea into a film that I then have to fit into my assessment criteria (which for this first film is only that it has to be more than five minutes and of an improved standard).
I didn't think all this ideas block... or funnel or filter really was that bad until this Monday when we were tasked with pitching our ideas on the Street in town to random strangers. A very interesting task and extremely useful, IF you have an idea of what your film is, which I didn't, but EVERYONE else did, which made me feel super embarrassed and even inadequate.
I realised today that I think I've been putting myself under pressure, subconsciously, to come up with 'the prefect idea' which will generate 'the best film' possible which of course is my ideal. But I’ve been worrying about it far, far too much, which on top of the ideas filtering 'stage' of this project has kind of created a wall which I couldn’t get through for about 2 or 3 weeks.
Luckily I'm gifted with an unusual amount of insight and perspective into my own mind so I can spot these things developing and get past them quicker than the average crazy person... *twitch*

So yeah, after worrying about making a 'ground breaking' and 'collaborative' catwalk flash mob through the town centre or a funny and insightful mock top gear short based in Exeter exhibiting toy cars... I have settled on....

ANOTHER EXPERIMENTAL FILM!!!

It is what I'm best at, but this time I'm not trying to create anything new with the outside world in mind, I'm going to be making a film using skills and techniques I'm not used to (creating something new by looking inside at myself... Oooo) like a script and proper lighting as a few examples. See my next post about furthering my ideas from this nicely ambiguous starting point.

Ive got 30 days

2009-09-29T03:12:00.001+01:00

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

I chose the death star scene with a wilhelm scream in it! Woop! i got 30 days to make it!!!

First Day!!!

2009-09-28T23:52:00.003+01:00

Wooop!

great fun! I was on time, and everyone else was to, I think...

Our first Project is to make a 5 minute film. Thats it!
Or could be it, we've been advised to make a series of additional films aswell just to show what we can do, in like a kind of showreel? which is great because i was planning on making a Showreel this term anyway. I'm gona go down the experiemental route again, but because its me doing the experiementing, I'm gona do stuff I'm not so used to, as in a proper script or something, we'll see. we've got to think about our ideas and pitch them to random people in the street next week, which sound like fun.

we had Professional Practice after lucnh, which was at like 2!!! the very talented Mr Luke Lovell is back this year and teaching us PP this year instead of Contextual studies. Wooop! our task for the next couple of weeks is to come up with a commision to propose to a potesial (and imaginary) series producer. can't wait.

more vids

2009-09-24T23:38:00.001+01:00

Heres my term 3 video from last year:

Experiemental Film: The Quay from Harry Willmott on Vimeo.

A couple of my videos from last year are now online!

2009-09-24T19:11:00.002+01:00

A group video:

EP - Rough Edit from Harry Willmott on Vimeo.

My term two film:

The Internet Stole my Face from Harry Willmott on Vimeo.

Yay! first day!

2009-09-24T12:30:00.002+01:00

Overslept

phoned Matt, he said I missed the explaining

I love the explaining

he also said this years gona be hard

Excellent

but still fun

Brilliant

... Punched the wall

Ouch, I love/hate being late

so late that I miss everything

But i saved a trip into town and back!

ok, I better wake up in time for Mondays session

starting at 10:45

be there

or be late.

A few Sneak Peaks at Tera Toma:

2009-09-21T02:44:00.003+01:00

Tera Toma: That's a Wrap! from Syndrome Pictures on Vimeo.

Tera Toma - Tuesday's Production meeting from Syndrome Pictures on Vimeo.

Tera Toma - Day Four - Walkthrough from Syndrome Pictures on Vimeo.

2nd year begins in 10 hours

2009-09-21T01:46:00.007+01:00

Holy Crap those 4 months went fast, but not because I wasn't doing anything! HELL NO!!!
I've been busy busy busy, and not just busy being relaxed! I've been that proper kind of busy, work busy, but not that boring kinda work busy, its been that relaxed fun and learning/awesome experience work busy... yeah, you heard me.

So I started the summer back at the end of May when I gave in all my coursework, finished(mostly) and on time. So startlingly my first year of Creative Digital Video was over OH, and guess what guys? IT DIDN'T EVEN COUNT.

But that was cool because I had 4 pretty much full months of pure relaxation to look forward to; June, all the way through to the end of September...

But then suddenly JUNE was Packed, full of these random things I was doing for people for free!!! Some of the time I was a full time DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY for a exeter phoenix supported project codenamed The Imps, I had meetings with the directors, I went to dance workshops (I didn't dance, I needed to get to grip with how the 'imps' moved) I helped design sets, decided most of the shots, designed the storyboards, AND shot it MOST OF IT on a camera I'd never used before(panasonic GH1, I'm very good with it now though). So that was fun as took up alot of June...

I also agreed to be the PRODUCER for a short film called NON-CALCULATOR written by a boy(well, man now) called John Martin who won £500 to make it. Something I've now regretted since even through I like to jump in the deep end, it seemed this film was determined to strap itself to my legs and refuse to swim. More on that later.

I also made several more thirdwaves and also HOSTED their Bi-Monthly interactive Radio show on PHONIC FM 106.8 Which was Very fun!

JULY was mainly quite Lax (relaxing). But it was jabbed often in uncomfortable places by the now ever present and whimpering/fidgeting 'NON-CALCULATOR'. It was all good experience and I needed to experience it but it was still unpleasant, but i don't want to go into reasons why it was unpleasant, most of them are just subjective and also could detriment the film, when you guys watch it...

I also filmed and agreed to edit an ENTIRE wedding, but I got paid (only £15 (voucher)) but still fun times. - currently still editing...

AUGUST was nice for the first two weeks because I had allotted them to chillax in... though I was still pestered intermediately by NON-CALCULATOR and its many nuisances, particularly the "director" going on holiday every other week and basically having me organise EVERYTHING... URG I was beginning hate that bloody film.

But it was alright in the end, we shot it in the last weekend of August and its turned out better than I thought, I'm currently editing it now at the Phoenix, and John has agreed to share the last £100 with me for my pay(i get £50)... I leard recently that a Camera Operators daily pay is £400 - £500, and I practicaly did everything on NON-CALCULATOR, which is why its gona suck.

More on that later.

SEPTEMER now, and the week before last I was part of my favourite film production in my life so far; TERA TOMA. - it was so cool it deserves a whole blog post to itself(also a whole eveing when i can be bothered to write about it)

Now, 02:40am 21st September, in just over 10 hours I'll be enroling on my 2nd year at Exeter College studying the Creative Digital Video course run by Plymouth university woop woop... Looking forward to it, but it better not be as hard as my summer 'break'...

Thought I might aswelll

2009-05-16T03:31:00.002+01:00

Exeter phoenix's ECO 2009 -

An established event on the contemporary art annual calendar, Exeter Phoenix is inviting entries for eco 2009. The aim of the show is to provide a platform for emerging talent to exhibit alongside more established artists. Submissions are invited in all media.
Prizes for 2009:

• £1,000 HW Chartered Accountants and Exeter Phoenix, Overall award-open to all participants;
• £500 St Austell Brewery award for a South West based artist;
• £500 DNA Advertising for New Media;
• Exhibition Opportunity with istormmodern, Exeter;
• Editorial feature in PROOF contemporary arts magazine;
• Student/Graduate award.

Closing date: Fri 19 Jun 2009.
For guidelines and application form email:galleries@exeterphoenix.org.uk or send s.a.e to: eco, Exeter Phoenix, Bradninch Place, Gandy Street, Exeter, EX4 3LS.

- thought i may as well enter, you never know someone might like my work, and maybe just MAYBE they'll pay me for it???

City of Ember

2009-05-13T23:38:00.003+01:00

City of Ember is a film which came out last year I think, and at the time, sort of came and went without many people taking any notice. I read a review of it in Empire but they didn't make too much of a fuss about it. Based on the book of the same name by Jeanne Duprau and directed by Gil kenan.

The film is about an old 200 year old underground city built to project a small example of mankind from an unknown(in the film)danger or darkness that has consumed the world on the surface. The 'builders' of Ember left instructions with the mayor of Ember detailing how to leave once the 200 years are up but unfortunately those instructions were lost along the line and the box they were in was soon forgotten. the film follows how two young friends find this box one day and then how they figure out how they get out of Ember before the massive generator providing the city with power and light breaks down (due to old age).

I thought the film was AWESOME and considering its initial reception feel it deserves much more recognition. Most films that come out for cinema release these days are often imbalanced and shallow, however City of Ember had just the right amount of everything for it to be genuinely a really enjoyable experience; The characters felt real, The story was told right, the history of Ember is so exciting and believable yet the fantasy is still riveting and engaging. Top marks for the Director who could have made a bit of an alright film(and you'd think he did considering the films reception) but no he clearly worked really hard to get the best out of everything in this film and I really feel City of Ember is very underrated for what a great watch it is.

Have you seen the Light

2009-05-09T14:38:00.008+01:00

So I arrive late to Wednesday mornings lesson as usual last week and find most of the group all surrounding one table. Turns out Ben set us a random task to make a film in two weeks, which has to contain the line " Have you seen the Light ", A Mobile Phone and have a theme of a 'Celebration'. Naturally the story, they had made up before I had arrived, to me immediately didn't work on a number of levels, but I kept them to myself at first since, Although I am more assertive with my knowledge of film making, I could have been wrong or not yet properly informed. Any way i did contribute a few improvements to the script and offered to be director of photography (a camera man with more say). The film after a few changes that day and the following Tuesday ended up being about a guy (played by Ramsey) who was in an Alcoholics anonymous meeting and the leaving with the excuse 'I'm going to the loo' as he leaves, he notices further down the corridor a party going on and peers inside, he is rather promptly greeted by an enthusiastic party goer who offers him a drink which he gladly excepts, upon entering the room, Ramsey skwints at the pulsation party lights and mumbles 'have you seeen the light?' the party goer's face lightens up and he says, 'You have seen the light', apparently mishearing Ramsey, and directs him towards the windows where the rest of the party goers have gathered, now all chanting 'the light, the light' and getting their mobile phones out and directing them towards the window. As the main party goer leads Ramsey to the window a bright light engulfs the whole room and all that's left is everyone's clothes and mobile phones on the floor. An alternate ending would be that Ramsey would be left on his own in a room full of party items, clothes and mobile phones.

Lastly I had a stroke of inspiration and filmed a western style showdown for the remaining alcoholics (Clive, Luke D and Matt) in the AA session. (who at the beginning with Ramsey were all sitting round a single can of larger chanting 'resist the beer')After about a minute of sizing each other up and resisting, eventually they all gave in but Clive got the beer.

The main aim of this random make a film in two weeks thing was to really get to grip with having specific roles in a group and learn how to work as a real team. At first I wanted to be the director because I wanted to make all the decisions but then cuz i was late and didn't really know the story that well, Clive got the job, which I thought in hindsight was a much better way of doing things because I just wanted to find the right look for each shot, not tell everyone where to be and what to do each time, although I did advice Clive on some aspects of the film. I learned a lot about what its like to be in a production group and also what I'm like in a production. Particularly in editing, i found i prefer to do everything my own way and unless someone suggests a really cool thing to do i wont do it in my edit. It was a valuable experience, fo show!

A few research links

2009-05-08T01:19:00.001+01:00

Time Lapse Photography:

http://www.vimeo.com/4505537
Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party
By William Castleman

http://www.vimeo.com/3156959
Bathtub IV
By Keith Loutit – also uses tilt shifting technique

Lush Looking:

http://www.vimeo.com/3415586
From the Tower
By Stephen Lewis

(Cool presets for Canon AH X1)
http://www.vimeo.com/846830
Canon XH-A1 Custom Preset Movie
By Gert Kracht

Slow Motion:

http://www.vimeo.com/3547494
Gerolsauer Slow Motion – Using Canon AH X1
By florian petry

Tilt Shift:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallgantics - For Tilt-shift effect in Post
http://www.vimeo.com/2233770
Tilt Shift Test 02
By CeeDee

Simple Experiment videos:

http://www.vimeo.com/2719942
Trajvan 23
By CeeDee

http://www.vimeo.com/2405588
Time-lapse summary 08
By antti rastivo

So

2009-05-07T21:22:00.003+01:00

its been a while again, since I've done this.

I've been ill the last couple of days so I've been using that as an excuse to not doing any work, but i started to feel bad (i know, weird...) so i decided to write this update. I found out I got an A for my first project, which is great but i did soooo much more work for the second project that I'm pretty sure they will have to invent some kind of 'Ultra A' grade, or maybe I'm being too confident...

Anyway I thought I'd be able to do this next project just like that *snaps fingers* but it seems just like my facebook project I've been having a lot of trouble getting an idea going. A couple of days ago I thought of a cool idea of a kid walking around this abandoned building/landscape then either getting in trouble or hurting himself at the end, that then would fit in with some of my previous work. But now im having second thoughts because 1) I have no immediate abandoned locations i can use 2) if i do find an abandoned location i will most likely have to break into it to film since getting permission usually takes a month(the film needs to be done in less than a month) 3) my actors is quite young and the locations will probably be dangerous and finally 4) I've got very little time to finish the whole thing.

So I probably wont to that idea because also once i get that discouraged about an idea i usually don't follow through with it, something I'm working on...

Another idea I've had is to further my experimentation with time lapse filming, I've been doing a lot of research (on Vimeo) and have found some really cool techniques i can explore, the only thing holding me back on this idea is my lack of technology and powerful enough software (although I could do it with just a camera at home, but the results would be pretty average) and secondly I've got to find somewhere interesting to film, i was thinking maybe Princesshay or the estuary.

One of the time lapsing techniques I have found which really does look AWESOME is done using a super high quality stills camera (and a super steady tripod) controlled i guess via PC which allows zero movement while taking a picture and finally a 'tilt-shift' lens (or a post production technique called 'Smallgantics') which makes the images look like they were shot in miniature:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HarrowdownHill_Factory.jpg

Shit! I almost lost this entire post when firefox crashed!!!! thank goodness for the draft/saving feature on this site!!!

Anyway so yeah, Either I film a creepy abandoned urban environment with a monolingual kid at the center in response to my Haytor Quarry film or I MAX OUT on time lapse filming and make a cool ass film but have to settle with possibly crappy locations aka Exmouth marina or something...

I'll do both of them eventually cuz their both Awesome ideas!

I'm feeling well bad as well for this project cuz I've literally got like HOLY FUCK 3 WEEKS LEFT!!! I just realized that's a shit whole load less than I thought I had! Dammit! Now I feel even more like crap! I was gona say I feel bad cuz i've not done as much paper work this time round...

O well, Im gona play Halo for a bit to chill out, chilling out is gooood...

ARG

2009-04-30T13:16:00.002+01:00

ARG! I haven't written a blog in aaaages, its been so annoying.

Update:

Bens 103 - Oh My... I still haven't got an idea of what to do for this project and its really getting stupid now, I managed to quite successfully get started on it by looking through my previous work like since i was born, that was really fun. And I've also managed to do a couple of those 'bulls eye' exercises to find the most common themes and motifs in my work which didn't tell me anything new really, just organized my thought into some kind of vortex? I dunno, so basically I haven't done anything in the way of proper production work and i haven't even thought of an idea.

Although I have come across some very nice time lapsing films by a guy called Kieth Leitard or something but his films are made buy taking super high resolution photographs with selective focus and collating them together so they almost look like a super real model animation, the technique is astounding,and something id really like to explore with this project. -especially as time lapses and using new technology has been a recurring theme from my previous work.

Jon: I have been fairly optimistic with this project but now as we come nearer to the end and still no production on the way, I'm getting a bit more apprehensive about it. - the rest of this section is in my weekly diary in my folder for jon.

Luke: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hate writing essays, and now a day before my take on film history is in + a corresponding presentation I am nowhere finished, but i have to get it done otherwise I'm screwed.

Russ: I haven't done any work for Russ in so long, I'll do it later i always say, then something much more important comes up and it gets shoved down. still theres not much i need to do for him at the moment, oh wait i do have to do a presentation about my creative process for tuesday, shit, there goes my weekend...

Planet Narnia

2009-04-16T23:43:00.003+01:00

I am utterly astounded and inspired by the shear vastness of meaning and imagery that is hidden in C.S Lewis' The Chronicles Of Narnia. Not only does his seven books wonderfully illustrate beautiful biblical metaphors but also incredibly orchestrates a tremendous amount of symbolism and deep philosophical imagery hidden very poetically within an amazing interconnected structure of historical meaning and metaphysical science.

I watched a documentary on the book revealing the secrets of the Chronicles of Narnia just now on BBC Two, and every person they interviewed was so interesting to listen to and they all knew exactly what they were on about and none of them seemed to be talking for or from anything else, they were only speaking from their own knowledge and understanding. Under most of their names was the term 'Expert in....' and that has inspired me to get to a level of such vast understanding of a single or group of subjects that I can be called an Expert in them.

Particularly I can see myself researching and getting my own personal understanding of the culture of film and the philosophies surrounding why and how our experiences can be so clearly defined in film.

I hope that someday i will have a vast level of understanding of film.

But the problem is at the moment I cant seem to keep my mind consistent, thats the problem with modern life, its one thing after another ALL the time, it was so much simpler in C. S Lewis' time and when he was studying and learning to become the great academic he is remembered for today he didn't have all the distractions we have today, even when Mr Lewis was having fun he was learning, debating and furthering his knowledge. Although I am always learning and everyday I feel a little more wiser, there is just a much wider (much too wide) areas as too which I'm learning; like today as well as furthering my philosophical understanding of the universe, I also learned that scrubs is on 4 times a day on E4...

I just wish i had the concentration and discipline to devote more time to the things that I will do later in life(and ultimately enjoy it with supreme satisfaction), instead of procrastinating with the small thrills of life at the moment.

Now... Back to work.

urg

2009-04-14T22:56:00.003+01:00

I've been trying to chill out this Easter, and I have quite successfully avoided doing any work. I've also been trying over the last couple of weeks to change my mindset towards this work. At the moment I see all this course work as just work and everything else i do as just like my life and what i do, But as I'm pretty sure about working as a film maker, I thought I should really be thinking and treating this work as what i do and therefore, some kind of fun... but its hard motivating myself to do all the documents etc.

At the moment I am fully intergrating myself with the doctrine of thirdwave, that is making a 2 min film in 90 mins. its a nice relief to do something spontaneous once in a while.

ive got so much i need to update on here, did you know i was on the radio? probably, but i need to tell you about it, etc... stuff like that needs to be put up here, also with bens 103, ive done a bit towards it, but still i need to update this freakin blog! lol cats,

o yeah ive also got into the habit of saying 'lol cats' instead of actually laughing... im so facebook... i mean sad!

Things are coming together

2009-03-27T22:10:00.003Z

Three whole days left before all work regarding MP2 is in.

My production folder has to be one of the biggest I've ever done and I am quite proud of it, however it is not yet finished, there is still a few things I need to finish/add including my Evaluation and editing notes.
Speaking of editing I had to cut short my session today because I had savage indigestion and a headache, although I did manage to finish arranging the shots etc with both major and minor films I still have a lot of work to do with sorting out the sound. Overall I'm not that happy with my major film... Although its still early days and it might grow on me. Having said before that I was worried about the integrity of the story because of a lack of script, a couple of days ago I sat down and wrote down a detailed script of the internet stole my face and I realized there could be a lot more depth to it than my what I had first perceived.

As for my minor film, it was very enjoyable filming and editing the footage and I look forward to experimenting more with professional cameras like the Canon XHA1 I used.

I'm planning on spending most of Monday (normally a day off) editing and burning my films onto to DVD ready to hand in on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to handing this project in so I can get my hands in a new project, which will also be my last for this year.

Tuesdays shoot

2009-03-27T00:26:00.000Z

Tuesday s shoot started off quite pleasantly; I got up more or less on time, got ready, got on the bus (because I couldn’t carry the camera on my bike) and got into college ready to film with time to spare. When I arrived on set (in Russ’ lesson for convenience) there was only Amber in the lesson, who had arranged with me to borrow my camera for the week, So I contacted my lead actor and various extras to say that I was ready for them to arrive. And they did and we did the classroom, library and street scenes all within an hour with very little problems.
I did realise that I had not completed the storyboard for all the scenes shot today, although since I was the only one filming and in charge of framing etc I didn’t see the point in worrying about it, I will finish it later.
The only real thing worth mentioning is my lead actor just couldn’t get the line right then complained AT ME for being a poor director! This one line was all down to subtle emotion and timing and I clearly demonstrated it to him more than once yet he still couldn’t get it right. It took about 7 or 8 takes before he did one which was OK and by then he was fairly agitated and convinced I was the one who couldn’t make my mind up. Anyway it was all alright in the end apart from one take where I did the amateur thing and leave the camera on record after the previous take and pressed pause when I planned to record the next. Bit silly of me.
I was very happy with some of the final shots I did today, one of them being a long POV of the man who walks down a path oblivious to people waving at him, which I shot the guy waving out of focus and then when the girl arrived from around the corner I skilfully adjusted the focus to make her clear. I’m very much looking forward to editing this film, shooting it has reignited my psyche for it which was on the same lines of what Liam said later that day about editing relighting a filmmakers passion for their film, which I thought was very true.
I lent the camera to Toby for a short while after that so he could do some cut away shots he forgot to do on Monday. He returned it to me while I attended Ben’s lesson, where we went through what we had done for our production portfolio so far.
Compared to the rest of the group (those who were there at the time) I think I have completed a good amount of work, although it was clear I still had much more to add to or improve on ready for hand in one week.
After Bens lesson I spent about an hour and a half capturing all my footage into final cut, it was at this point I realised that my shooting log was useless as I had only recorded the beginning and end of each take and not noted down the individual shots within those takes. However, since I was more used to just capturing everything and editing ALL the raw footage later rather than capture everything individually, hardly any time was wasted.

I decided to leave the camera in the edit suite over night to save me lugging it all the way home and back again tomorrow, especially since I wouldn’t be using it in the evening like I did on Monday.
Tomorrow (Wednesday 25th) I will be editing all morning and chilling out in the afternoon.

Woo! Script tastic

2009-03-26T15:30:00.002Z

If you could call it that... yes I finally got myself together and wrote a script! and its awesome! I even incorporated a whole load of stuff about what the shots could represent and everything, and it sounds well good! still got a lot of editing and production documents to write up yet but im pretty relaxed about it all. at least im trying to be as relaxed as possible which is helping me stay calm and clear about what i need to do. though not necessarily getting things done.

Mondays shoot and UPDATE

2009-03-23T21:14:00.000Z

Today started off a bit shaky after I slept through my alarm and ended up rushing to leave the house. I had to walk to college to pick up my camera because I would not have been able to carry it and a tripod on the return journey, I didn’t have any change for a bus either. But it turned out I was actually quite early and had to wait around for Till to turn up. When he arrived, he scared me for a short moment by saying someone hadn’t brought back the camera before me but he soon realised that wasn’t the case, he showed me the basic camera bits and sent me on my way. I stopped quickly at the library to buy 3 brand new DV tapes and get some change for the bus journey home. I thought I’d stop buy at the phoenix media centre to talk to the guys there but they weren’t in so I made my way home, buying some chocolate for my actors before getting on the bus.

When I got home I got straight onto putting my set together, I unplugged, unconnected my pc from everything and hauled it along with the desk into the spare room where the ‘Bedroom’ scene of my movie takes place. Setting everything up was pretty easy and it got exciting when I started to set the camera and tripod. But no sooner had I finished setting everything up about an hour before shooting starts, I get a call from my runner(Matt Webber) telling me my lead actor (Chris Knab) had pulled out, whimpering about doing coursework and about how desperately he needs to stay at home… I asked him very nicely and explained that I could rearrange the shoot to last not as long and have Matt pick him up and take him home, and that this shoot would be like just a short break in his apparently busy schedule.
But he wasn’t having any of it and adamantly denied any further involvement in my project.

I was very angry with him, but I was also quite angry with myself since I had not officially confirmed him as the lead to him, but I had still told him about the shoot a whole week in advance. After a rather regrettably loud and perfuse rant around my house I sent a ‘call for last minute help’ text to three of my potential back up actors, but after sending them off I realised I had effectively set myself up for three more disappointments and soon buried myself in the latest addition of EMPIRE (which arrived this morning) and munched begrudgingly on the chocolate I bought.

Two disappointing texts and 7 blocks of Cadburys Milk chocolate later I received a text from my good friend Liam Daly who thankfully said he was free and was happy to help me in this great time of need. Hoorah! My film was saved! Although it was never really in great danger, if I couldn’t find anyone to replace Chris I would have had to act myself, although I really didn’t want to because acting and directing was something which I find very hard because if I want a handheld shot the person who ends up doing it, does it wrong.

But it was going to be ok Liam was here to the rescue! And I still had Matt as well to help me log the shots! I made my crew some tea and I talked through what the story was, which shots we were going to do, what they were going to look/feel like and then I showed them the set, and the camera, I then briefed them on some safety points before starting to film. I started filming some of the later shots since the scene needed to be lighter in general to simulate the sun rising. It started off nicely, although as an artist I find filming very stressful since the shots I film never seem to be just right and each time that happens I get down-hearted. I think that’s one of the lessons I’ve learnt from this shoot, try and be more assertive and confident on set, don’t let little things get you down since that can affect the rest of the shoot.

The rest of the shoot went pretty good, although I got some scales wrong while thinking about camera angles/positions in pre-production because the room was quite small and I couldn’t quite achieve some of the more distant shots. And apart from having to wait for the sun to go down everything went pretty well considering it could have been a disaster!

Retrospectively I’m deeply regretting not getting myself in motion quicker on this project although so far it’s still been a lot more intense and educational than the first project.

Tomorrow is an earlier start but a hopefully a shorter shoot, I might even try and do some editing. The sound on this project was and still is going to be various electrical/pc sounds combined with other stuff, but I’m worried at the moment if I’ll ever get it all done and in on time. So far my production documentation is more or less up to date but to tell the truth I’m uncertain as to whether I can complete this project to my best standards, which re-assures me in a weird way because although this project has been good, I know I can do SO much better. But on the other hand I’m quite disappointed in myself that I didn’t try harder THIS time rather than leave it till next time.

list of blogs to expect:

2009-03-19T23:48:00.002Z

1.My revelation of planning shots
2.I love to plan things
3.I know what I'm going to shoot? ALREADY???
4.Story revelations
5.Plea for help
6.Cutting it close
7.Blog = diary?
8.Dancing project?
9.Red riding = OMG
10.Give me cameras

My Minor film

2009-03-19T19:34:00.002Z

AHAhaha! I have at least seen my intentions through with my minor film haven't I!!! I have managed to get hold of a sony HD camera, A1 i think, for friday afternoon.

For my minor film I chose to base it on the 'technology bit?' of the brief and more specifically aim to shoot some very nice looking flowers/spring-like scenes in HD!

The shoot takes place at 12:00 - 15:00 on Friday 20th March (which is officially the first day of spring). and I will edit it hopefully straight after.

Video???

2009-03-16T02:30:00.001Z

A snowy day on Haytor from Harry Willmott on Vimeo.

Thirdwave

2009-03-16T01:18:00.002Z

Just made another one! from 11:40 - 01:10. 90 Mins. Its quite random, but I'm gona submit it with my project to ben because its got some very similar shots to what i want in that film.

link to my vimeo page to view it? or thirdwaves vimeo...

http://www.vimeo.com/hazmus

http://www.vimeo.com/thirdwave

go to both anyway, their tip top.

Research

2009-03-15T22:53:00.002Z

So I finally got round to doing some research and My Word there is so much awesome info I can pack into filming this project I wish I'd done this earlier!!!

I've been thinking, just thinking, for a very long time that I would base this film on David Lynch/film noir. But I was very unsure for a long time of how to incorporate my idea into these themes/styles etc. a David Lynchy style film seemed like I would have to put a lot of effort into packing my film with subtext and meaningful metaphoric shots. So I thought maybe doing a film noir because that's more tying in with my idea.

So I started some research literally just now on Wikipedia and I'd thought I'd start off with film noir and lo and behold it turns out there's soooo much cool stuff to film noir that it even incorporates David Lynch!

So as my film stands now, its being heavily influenced by Film noir.

Update

2009-03-15T01:01:00.002Z

Ben: Done/started a lot of the main documents aka: Script treatments, storyboard, H+S, Locations etc. Just need to do some filming which should be going down on Monday evening and Wednesday lunch time. tried doing some recording for 'atmospheric' keyboard typing and mouse clicks and pc wrrs but the mic only seemed to record stuff for the left speaker...

I need to write up some story development documents as I'm probably changing a few things to take in time restrictions/change of camera type/change of actor/ general things going 'offt' plan.

I'm quite worried at the moment because I've only done a little bit of research for David lynch and hes the only guy on the brief who might be called an 'influence' to this project. I know that's a bit of a backwards way to look at it but I came up with this idea after about two months of idea-less dribble, wrote up everything and then suddenly realized I had a brief to follow...

I think I'll go to the library on Tuesday and see if they have any books on him.

Russ: Have to do a presentation on what I've learned about tech so far, already planned it all out, s'gona be awesome, the title is the best thing.

Luke: Had to plan our essays that we're giving in at the end of the year, Ive chosen to do the escalation of violence in film and the desensitization of the audience today...

Jon: So much going on, cant write it all, but basically every things going quite good although i want more meetings.

Essays

2009-03-15T00:36:00.003Z

Of the Academic kind.

Lately I've been thinking about the kind of things I could write about for my dissertation. This has been surprisingly fun, I have thought about the British film industry and it's almost instantly recognizable films as well as its reputation generally for very good cinema. I went to their website and found lots of very helpful information for students researching film and even an online archive of free down loadable old-school clips!

I'm looking forward to writing my dissertation, despite...

The Writing of essays have never really appealed to me. I believe ever since I was turned down from doing A Level psychology in the first week because of an essay we wrote on the first day, I have found it increasingly difficult to write academically/argumentatively, I've tried to do some essays for Luke in our Contextual Studies classes, which I really enjoy, but I gave up cuz i just ended up describing everything on the screen instead of talking solidly and meaningfully about it.

urg. I dunno, part of me really wants to write the stuff but the other part screams that it will take ages, be rubbish and eventually lead to my untimely death.

ARG! FINE!!! I GO BLOODY WRITE THAT BLOODY ESSAY

I think it must be all in my head because once I get started I can write loads!

Lets see...

2009-03-15T00:13:00.005Z

2 WEEKS and 3 Days. That's how long i have to finish Ben's film.

I'm quite proud of myself for being, as I have said before, quite well organized for this project; I have separated my rough notes and doodles etc(in a sketchbook) from the main production documentation(in a folder) quite nicely and I have been fairly good with keeping up this blog/diary thing which is not only very practical but also therapeutic and has helped me better understand myself and the way I do these things.
I even put up a make-shift calendar the other day which, visually, has help a lot with seeing when things need to be done by... well duh that's what a calendars for...

Something I began to noticed I was fairly good at when i was half way through high school was making time work... I'm not sure how to completely explain it but one aspect of it is very useful and rewarding. Its not necessarily 'blagging', there seems to be more finesse to it... Anyway a part of this, 'Blag-esse'ness awards me with the ability to make the best out of situations.

urg. Its very hard to describe.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that lately in this project I've ran into some problems with actors/cameras/films that have nothing to do with briefs but I've found nice ways to iron them out.

The prickly scales of time:

2009-03-09T22:44:00.000Z

This project so far has been fairly unorganised in nature and quite slow in both ideas generating and actual shooting. Its not that I don’t have time, I have almost too much of it. I have had lots of time to think about the entire how, why, where and when bits of this project but I have an incredibility annoying gift which prevents me with impressive ease from ever really doing anything productive. So this project is just sitting in my head getting slowly more and more organised while not actually ever being implemented.

Urg…

Normally, as I’m now quite aware of this gift, I would force myself just to get on with some kind of Real or physical, productive work, by picking up my camera and doing an odd bit of filming for example. But the thing holding me back in this project is mainly the availability of the HD camera I want to use, although I suppose I could have filmed some test footage on my own camera.

Dam it, I always figure out solutions to problems I’ve had for ages just when I decide to write about them weeks later…

But still I need the HD camera A.S.A.P for at least a week for filming.

Another small snag in this project is as soon as I though of a pretty neat idea and shot off a couple of script treatments, I realised I needed to have based my ideas on David Lynch or a Noir film or something like those on the brief… My idea can be best bent into a Lynch piece but I haven’t got round to researching him properly yet…

Hmm, I found an answer to that one, ‘Duh just do the freaking research then!!!’ The answers to these things always seem so much clearer when I write about them…

The third thing on my mind at the moment is the integrity of my story/script/idea etc, I’m never too keen on involving too much emotion/talking in my movies because they never come out the way I want them to or they turn out really rubbish etc. In this project I’m not sure whether it should have a voiceover or any talking at all. What I would really like to do is just get the camera and get the filming over and done with, I hate just hanging around waiting for my precious ideas to eat themselves alive, eventually making me hate them and make a huge mess when I eventually have to rush them into some kind of comprehensible sense but ultimately fail to produce anything like what I had originally intended.

My first project went quite well and I’m probably just freaking out because this ones going a bit wrong and I’m slightly lazier in the whole back up work etc. At least I know it now and hopefully fix all this before the beast and his prickly scales of time, his rearing deadline teeth and gaping mouth of absent work destroys my soul and forces me to get a job…

Matt?, Luke? WTF???

2009-03-09T22:42:00.001Z

I feel o so lonely in this blogging world as my partners in blogging have abandoned their blogs, i almost did, but then i wrote a massive one to make up for everything...

Things I want to do either as a career, as a hobby, or just be able to to eventually...

2009-02-16T16:57:00.002Z

.Make successful films
.Make Animations
.Coordinate productions
.own lots of cameras still and digital
.draw REALLY well
.paint well
.digitally paint quite well
.digitally draw well
.record wildlife with BBC
.travel with a camera
.be a camera man on a BBC documentary
.fix cameras
.talk at length about film/digital/stills cameras
.record Foley
.edit really well
.design really nice soundtracks
.design buildings

generally i don't want to be stuck doing the same thing till i die, id like to be a student of the modern arts as well as the old ones, dipping in and out of things all the time...

update

2009-02-15T19:57:00.002Z

things are going ok, work wise.

Ben: Thought of idea just need to write up script treatment and storyboard

Jon: Had lots of team meetings, homework for this week is to make a story board of all the cool ideas id like for the nightmare montage...

Work experience: did some more, was just a helper/runner type person for the guys who ran the motion capture demo this Saturday, none of the people i invited came even when i said it was free!!! Got a a lot of experience eg. had practice taping wires to floor, getting my 'safety' on! learned alot about mo cap and how digital puppeteering came about and what its doing in the industry today(a lot for British children s telly)
Advice of the week "Lie" and "do anything for people".

thought id just say how luke and matt cant criticize me for not writing in my blog, i have guys! and much more than you!!!!

Stills from footage

2009-02-07T19:12:00.003Z

Pic

2009-02-07T18:17:00.003Z

My dad and my brother ready and syked to do some snow kayaking!!!
If you can see it the track we went down is the one you can see right in the middle of the pic between them. from just below the very top ridgy thing, then snaking its way down quite steeply eventually to a long flat 'slow down bit' just behind them...

Snow Kayaking

2009-02-07T17:41:00.002Z

Me my dad and my brother just went snow kayaking down Haytor in Dartmoor, it was awesome. I also had a body board which i sat on and recorded them with my video camera, the footage is awesome, but understandably shaky in places. I'm absolutely exhausted now.

Check Youtube in the next couple of days for the video.

Cool Snow

2009-02-06T00:44:00.003Z

Ha, i just got my own pun! but anyway, been trying to capture snow in any way or form, heres a pic from my phone of my garden, snows pretty deep! 'worst snow for 18 years they're saying' more like 'best'!!!!

Ha, i just thought of another one! 'Snow place like home' ho ho ho.

Great news

2009-02-05T18:06:00.004Z

1. Ashley Thorpe, a local animator was in the paper today and is currently enjoying quite a bit of success! Go Ashley! I helped Ashley teach animation to primary school kids last summer in June I think. Hopefully be seeing him more in the future.

2. The Picture house filming thing I helped Alex White film is finished and can be found here:

http://www.vimeo.com/3084333

I did it!!!!

2009-02-03T02:10:00.002Z

Shouted private, hes a penguin?

Never mind that! I, ME!!! Harry Willmott!!! Have done it!!!

Ive finally completed all last semester's work!!!!

HOORAHH!!!

Ill give you a taste of last bit of my evaluation for MP1 because I'm quite proud of it

At the start of this course I heard a quote which has inspired me so much during this semester, it doesn’t necessarily go with most of what I was doing but the idea behind it really gave me a boost as to what I felt was a part of what creative film making is all about.

“I’d rather be confused for 10 minutes than bored for 5 seconds”
- Jimmy McGovern

In conclusion this project has asserted me in what I do best and that is making films. It’s helped me refine my production development diary to be efficient and effective; it’s taught me the importance of team work and how vital being part of a team in this industry really is. Overall this project has been a great success to me whether or not they think it passes or not.

No stealing

Friday again, already

2009-01-31T01:56:00.001Z

And I still haven't cracked my out of sync sleeping habits, incidentally its Saturday!

Look what I just drew!!

2009-01-31T01:51:00.001Z

I called the machine, but its generally just an experiment to see how well i can draw on a pc with a mouse instead of a stylus... not very well...

I want

2009-01-31T01:21:00.002Z

One of those things which allows me to draw on the pc... not a sharpie, a touchy pad thing... Luke, lend me yours

Projects Update

2009-01-31T01:03:00.004Z

(BEN)MP102 - Earthworks, Terence Malick - thinking of furthering Haytor Experiments, also incorperating some arty Lynchy (david) evil shit. Razor head, blue velvet etc

(JON)PP105 - Team Project, group of 5/7? (We'll see) ANIMATION!!! get idea(possibly Horror genre) sorted before end of feb, so we can submit application for bursary for 750 extra quid!!!
(we thought of it first)

(LUKE)Contextual - still havent started Lukes essay, Im well scared of writing essays...

(RUSS) Continue with tech stuff...

Study Skills - Done and dusted

Work Convergence + I like planning

2009-01-31T00:23:00.002Z

Urhg, I've left all the 'brushing up' work for tech 1 and MP1 all to this weekend, I'm gonna work through it and get it done by Sunday evening, then I can have Monday to relax...

This is really important I think, you've got to have at least one day of the week when you don't do any work, you can think about work(even organizing when your going to do it) if you want, but if you can don't worry about actually doing it. This works as a nice 'mini-holiday' incentive to get work done, and also keeps you chilled out.

So I'm gonna get all last terms stuff done by the end of the weekend then organize what work I need to do for the rest of the week on Monday... Yeaaaah...

They Loved it!!!

2009-01-28T00:09:00.001Z

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6ztqq42gF7E

Everyone significant I met At this filming sesh tonight had somehow seen my 48 hour film competition submission and loved it!!!

XL1s!!!

2009-01-27T23:33:00.003Z

Fairly easy to get to know, the menu screen was straight forward once I found out which button was 'selected' (click in the Iris wheel, spin it for up n' down). Alex had forgotten to turn of the mics for the first interview with Toby so we had to check the footage from this camera to see if we could hear him, luckily we could.

The XL1 safely underneath the tripod. Incidentally this tripod could only just hold up the XL1, tip for the future, always use heavy tripods, no matter how much you've already got to carry.

Hand Held

2009-01-27T23:28:00.002Z

Tom with the hand held (a Sony Hdv of some sort, though we were shooting in standard) I think he could of spoke a bit more, as he seemed to know more than me at this thing I tried to get him to check my cameras settings etc, he didn't change anything, so it must have been alright!
The stationery XL1 in the far left of the picture was picking up a nice shot of the Interviewers.

The Set Up at the Picture House

2009-01-27T23:22:00.002Z

Alex and the 'female presenter' who've I mega annoyingly forgotten the name off, sitting on the right, interviewing Jonas on the left. the camera in the foreground is one of the XL1's I was in charge off, this one was at first a little difficult to find the right composition especially as the first interview involved two film makers, so I tried to switch in between the two, but I think I should have just left it, Tom with the Hand held was dealing with the close ups, but hey, you cant learn from your mistakes if you don't make them in the first place!

First live action set experience

2009-01-27T22:49:00.006Z

It all started last week when I went into the phoenix media center to show the guys (Jonas and Stuart) my Haytor Movie for MP1. They thought it was great etc etc. But while we were hanging out afterwords, This random guy came in and was talking to Jonas about this project hes working on which was an interview with film makers and Jonas himself before and after the Devon and Cornwall film festival bursary screenings at the Picture House. Basically he asked for some help and I said sure, why not... Random.

Anyway I met Alex in the pouring rain at 16:45 today and helped him carry these two massive cameras to the picture house. We arrived and it was quite a relaxed beginning with Alex's partner buying me a refillable coffee, which was very nice. Then Alex came up to me just when I got out some work to do before filming and said, "You've got 60 seconds to finish that before I start telling you to do stuff". What an efficiant director I thought, and downed the coffee.

Very quickly I found my self in charge of setting up two cameras (did I mention these where Canon XL1's!!!) , making sure they worked, had clean lenses, set the right white balance, iris, shutter speed etc. Having not worked with XL1s before this all was a little too much, but I relied on my basic knowledge of cameras to get them set up and stuff, so I got there eventually. With the Lighting on and everything on the set(two sofas positioned on a right right anlge so the guest and interviewer were diagonally faceing eachother) I managed, eventually with a little help from Tom(the professional camera dude in charge of the handheld) to sort out white balance and screen size on both cameras to get them mostly the same for continuity.

I learnt alot about where and how to use the various buttons and settings on the XL1's quite quickly, thats one of my gifts I think, I can comprehend(figure out) stuff quite quickly. I also picked up on some health and safety tips while I was there: When not in use the cameras were taken off the tripods and placed undernieth either in their bags or beside them, Gaffer tape was used to tape the wires from the lights to the floor to prevent tripping over. The set had to be fairly compact to allow for the public to still manover around the tables etc. It was a little scary occationly because the tripods stuck out a bit but as long as we kept an eye out everything was tip top.

While the screening was taking place we put the cameras away and turned the lights off and chilled out on the sofa and talked about all kinds of stuff, from which film stars we've me to how Alex had also been invovled with the 48 hour film competition and loved my snake video. Great fun!

Alex does all this filming work for the benifit of people who work with him(actors, camera men etc) and to create films for people not usually exposed to the industry, distributing the experience of film making and the use of film making equipment to people who like me, just starting out and to people who just want to know more about this kind of stuff!

By the end of the evening I had had so much fun that I was shaking, then I realised it was the coffee, but I still had a great time and what a great experience!

The Meaning of Life

2009-01-25T03:27:00.000Z

According to Monty Python

It's nothing very special really: Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.

Advice

2009-01-25T03:24:00.003Z

So remember when your feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
Because there''s bugger all down here on earth.

Ben told us off

2009-01-24T02:29:00.003Z

I think really we all knew when the deadline was and where and how to find out when it was if we somehow forgot, but in the stresses of 'hand in time' most of us just wishfully went on with the main 'complainers' (you know who you are) in the group to try and squeeze some extra time out of Ben.
It worked, kinda. People who didnt give in their work get an extra week. But he sent us all an email telling us off for being wishful lazy basterds. not really but thats the basic gist. I feel a bit stupid at the moment since, really, this is a university course and we should be maybe a little bit more independant?

Because i didnt really look at the deadline much, nor did i manage my time that much, I lost out a bit for the first project. I got the production work in but failed to get my film in, luckily bens given us another chance, but still thats no excuse to continue being too laid back on this course, Yes i heavly believe that a relaxed attitude is key but im going to try and be a bit more professional from now on.

For a start, Im going to bed.

College Portal is almost useless

2009-01-24T02:26:00.002Z

The college portal is useless, it took me aaages to get into it from home, then i had to dodge random password change request thingys then i could even locate our course! Bloody hell. I found it in the end and it actually had some really useful documents on there so yeah.

Almost Useless

Media practice two

2009-01-24T01:35:00.001Z

Brief, Showreel project.

Create Two films, one major relating to an influence of some kind and revolving round a central theme. The second film is only a minor one but should be related to the major one and be an example of your technical ability. one of the main thing to do before i start this project is to identify themes in my films so far.

Looking foward to it.

Note to self, try not to make blog into full blown diary...

The future

2009-01-24T01:30:00.001Z

Today I was watching videos on youtube on a 50" T.V and i thought "This is the future".

I might add to this thought later, My thought processes sometimes take years, like one time some guy said something to me at school 6/7 years ago, and I thought of a come back/put down to say back to him just now. But mostly its only a couple of days for minor philosophies and maybe a few months for the major ones...

The Art of Editing

2009-01-24T01:09:00.000Z

Learning about the heart of editing oppose to the brainy stuff. Two main videos sprang to my attention, both by Sergei Eisenstein a super awesome russian film maker, his editing is astounding compared to the crap we see these days. Oktyabr (October) is a film made in 1927 about revolution and is revolutionary being one of the first films to utilise additive editing (adding stuff in post). Eisenstein Added shots of moving wheels and gears during an uprising in the narrative to symbolise that things where in motion and not gona stop anytime soon. Its very successful in conveying its intentions, something I need to improve on in my films.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EgKQTtLTbsg&feature=related

I love the music the most in this clip i think, I think because it fits the flow of the story SO well, and I really like that kind of music, or expression of force and hope with sound and voices...

another clip from the same movie has some sweet ass shots in it, my favourite being stationary camera level with the bridge and the cart with the horizon if-skew. The horse hanging off the cart is also cool and more famous.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=h0ebWlaFu58

Around 2:55 is the where horse and cart bit starts.

The second movie by Mr Eisenstein is ofcourse Battleship Potemkin, and the famous scene with the pram.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=euG1y0KtP_Q

Brilliant.

Clever Ad

2009-01-24T00:58:00.000Z

Theres this new T mobile ad, not really promoting itself more the way people share things with their mobiles, which is a great advert technique, promoting ideals. Honda have done it when promoting their company, cadburys did it with their gorilla, though i prefer the runway race to queen.

Basically in the crowded liverpool street station in london on the 15th of january at 11:00am one guy started dancing and it looks like everyone else joins in.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM

Amazing.

ME2

2009-01-23T01:10:00.000Z

I'm a bit behind on my notes for Media Practice 102 but I'll fill them up here soonish. At the moment I've just come off of a savage seven hour work-a-thon to get my study skills portfolio done. I've done it but just I haven't been able to print it, which sucks. I've known for aaages that our printers were low on ink but I failed to do anything about it, now I pay the price.

Second Lesson of the Week:

ALWAYS BUY SPARE INK

Luckily I'll probably have time to print the stuff off in the library before giving it in...

2009-01-22T21:37:00.000Z

Lesson of the Week:

NEVER LEAVE WORK TO THE NIGHT BEFORE

It Begins

2009-01-22T20:44:00.000Z

Me being recorded.

So I've finally given in to the great tide of tinternet 'letting everyone know what you did today' that is blogging, and I'm looking forward to it. So far its taught me I cant spell and that simply arranging your thoughts into readable words on a page looks kinda nice and when a couple of your friends do it before you, it can get a little competitive, no pressure. Although, this is no ordinary blog, this will hopefully be a complete account of my film making ideas/development/production/completion/failures and successes over the coming weeks. again, looking forward to it.