FINAL FILMING

I got the filming done!!! 

On Tuesday I filmed in the Green Studio all day. With just 45 minutes sleep from completing the final storyboard, the night before. 

I was still coming up with new ideas at 4 in the morning, but decided that it was too late to start anything new. So i chose to refer back to one of my earlier storyboards and just enhance and tweak the ideas a little.

What i ended up with was a flowing story looking into the personal spaces of multiple characters, which entered into three different locations.

I started by filming each of the 3 scenes separately, with the adjoining characters going off screen, then coming back on in the new scene to create cuts in the footage.

However, i decided to go risky and attempt to film the whole film with no cuts from start to finish. This meant that the actors had to come on set at certain times, usually when one of the other characters was 'in their personal space'.

Amazingly, on the 2nd try of this mammoth shoot, i got a perfect take, with all the characters remembering when to come in and when and where to move to and from.

Thanks to the help of Margarita, Lexi, Duncan, Caz, Steve and Maggie, i have a seamless 6:30 minute take of my film. 

I'm feeling 90% less stressed now that i have all of the footage i need from the green studio.

I just have to go out and re-film some of my backgrounds, then it's edit, edit, edit!!!

Timecode

http://www.videodetective.com/movies/TIMECODE/trailer/P00132543.htm

'Timecode' is a 2000 experimental drama film, directed by Mike Figgis.

The film is constructed from four continuous 90-minute takes that were filmed simultaneously by four cameramen; the screen is divided into quarters and the four shots are shown simultaneously. The film depicts several groups of people in Los Angeles as they interact and conflict while preparing for the shooting of a movie. The dialogue was largely improvised, and the sound mix of the film is designed so that the most significant of the four sequences on screen dominates the soundtrack at any given moment.

This is another film idea that i love. The realtime aspect of this film makes everything so 'REAL'. Everything is happening at the same time, which means that you can be in multiple places. 

Although the idea is very clever, i don't think that the film really works. It is very busy and the sound is messy, which i guess is a technique that Figgis may have intended, but it is a pain in the brain to watch and keep on top of. There is a lot of information to take in from each of the 4 screens at the same time.

The parts of the film i like the most are the earthquakes, to see how all of the different people react to the same disaster, the phone calls between frames, i like the way that you can see both of the characters body language and also the points in the film where characters pass from frame to frame. I found it kind of like a game to chase the actors through the frames and to see them from different perspectives.

Slacker

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OrRQ9rraq0o

'Slacker' is a uniquely-structured and seemingly plotless film, following a single day in the life of an ensemble of mostly twenty-something bohemians and misfits in Austin, Texas. The film follows various characters and scenes, never staying with one character or conversation for more than a few minutes before picking up someone else in the scene and following them.

I love the idea of this film. Not concentrating on one main character frees the film up to make its own path through the set. The audience is also made aware that different things are happening in everybody's lives at the same time. The world does not revolve around us as one person.

 

This is the kind of idea that i want to pursue. I like the fact that the characters just come and go. They are involved in one anothers' lives/personal space's, sometimes for just a few seconds, then they just carry on with their own existence. Everyone of the characters is on their own journey for their own reasons. You may not know where they have come from or where they are going, but i think that is one of the feature that intrigues and excites me about this film.