LAUNCHPAD AND THE FINAL EDIT

LAUNCHPAD AND THE FINAL EDIT

I spent some time making  the changes to the film, even going so far as to go back to Lanjore Farm to get some more footage with one of my actors. After this I realised that I needed to find a way of solidifying why " The Very Dead " failed upon its initial release, So I wrote and directed an additional scene with the distributor of the film, who is seen selling pirate films from the boot of his car. while perhaps not entirely realistic, at least it helped to stitch up a glaring plot-hole, when people saw it, they didn't make any comments afterwards about why it was there, so I took that as the new footage had integrated itself into the film.

My Editor who was also my sound engineer on the project, was unavailable to work on the film until after the public screenings which were held as part of the summer show. So I did my best to tighten the edit and adjust the sound levels  so it could be shown effectively. The film was shown towards the end of the evening amongst some very good work that had been receiving massive applause throughout the night, so I was anxious to be showing my " rough cut " when everyone else's film had been properly finished. I think a problem that may have been unique for me  from everyone else was that I would know within the first minute whether or not it was working because if there was no laughter, I'd be sunk basically.

Thankfully, the film seemed to go down very well, people laughed and kept laughing throughout the film until the very end. I was told by a fellow student that the changes I had made had the film way more effective that before. I did enquire as to whether anyone thought it was too long, but no one gave any indication that it was. I was surprised by the reaction, it was very positive. I was even offered the services of an actor for future work, which was a massive confidence boost for me, Knowing that someone was actively seeking me out for work.

The night was strange , in the sense , that whilst everyone was finished , I still had work to do and if anything the reaction to the film encouraged me to go back into the edit suite and to try and get it in the best shape possible.

Russell, my editor/sound engineer was only available on the very last day before all the edit suite computers would be wiped of all work and data ready for the next academic year. With no available hard storage or way of editing the film any further effectively outside college, I had to rush to make any final changes to the film before my submission date, I knew that I could always come back later in the year and make more changes, as I'm planning on taking a PGCE placement at the college, but at this current time, I knew that this was the last day I had.

Russell made some suggestions about the edit ,that were quick and effective and even taught me a bit about how to label  and organise my audio clips, to make it easier to clean up sound elements in the future. Overall, he said that he felt that the film worked very well, which I really took as a compliment  as his work is regarded by peers as being of very high quality. After some work, we actually finished earlier than expected, so I then set about uploading it to my vimeo page and finally be able to share it with my friends and anyone else who would be willing to spend almost 19 minutes of their lives watching it.

On Reflection, I have lived with this film for the last few months, thinking about it, I have been building up to this film for the last three years. In that time I have experienced some amazing things and I have been afforded opportunities that I thought I would never have as well as having to make sacrifices in my personal and social life to try and complete this degree. Ultimately this film is tainted by  some of those trials and although they will forever be woven into the fabric of this project, this film is meant to be fun, I see it as a culmination of my practice, my love of script writing, low budget film-making techniques, acting, comedy and horror. It's a celebration of my time in PCA and a tip of the hat to my peers and my heroes. I wanted to make people smile and laugh and perhaps act as an antidote to all the stress and seriousness of  the importance of the final module, so although the process was extremely draining, physically, emotionally and mentally, I wanted the final result to be fun, I think I suceeded.

THE FIRST SCREENING

THE FIRST SCREENING

At the time of the first screening of our work, I knew I had a lot of work to do, I had more or less captured all the footage that I had wanted according to my planning, but it was clear that  the assembly was a bit muddled.

There was certainly potential, the jokes seemed to hit their mark and the performances seemed to work. The two central characters needed to be seen as delusional idiots, people who appear to have lost their perspective on reality. The horror footage came across as authentic, no less aided by the rather wonderful soundtrack given to me by Neil Rose and Cafe Concrete.

I think the film lost its direction when I decided to include lots of still photographs from other sources to try and fill the gaps where there was narration but no visuals to accompany them. Although they did get some laughs from my peer group, I think there was concern that I had lost sight of my original intention, which was to try and set this in some sort of reality, i.e. a fictional documentary. This idea could only work if I were to treat the content of the film as a real thing, I needed to give it its own sense of Verisimilitude.

This meant that whilst the dialogue was highly absurd , the film footage ridiculous, the voice over somewhat pompous, the documentary had to be presenting these element as if they were real and the content of the film had to obey those rules.

I don't think that this really occurred to me until the second screening, by which time I had written an opening and closing statement for the film to try and give the audience an bedrock on which they could anchor themselves and also provide a more fitting coda for our characters.

By including these additional elements and not changing anything else, holes started to appear in the flow of the project.

The voiceover delivery was stumbling at some points and missing the mark on others, I realised that my direction of Guy could've been a little more developed. The opening scenes were taking too long to get into the story and I felt that there could probably be more footage of the " The Very Dead ".

I Realised very quickly , that I had become too close to the project to really be able to edit it objectively. After all, I had more or less been steering the ship on my own , so to speak, perhaps the benefit of having others involved in the creative process was to let me know where changes could be made  and to give advice as to what could be done to maximise the potential of the film.

So I decided to do several things

1. Remove most of, if not all, stills from the film

2. Shoot more "horror" footage

3. Cut down some of the scenes , especially near the beginning, with the intention of including the new "horror " footage against the interview dialogue a bit more, if just to give the audience something more interesting to look at.

4. Cut some of the voice over where I felt it was becoming garbled and misleading

5. Enlist the help of another editor to give advice and make additional changes, this person would be an external party away from the production, so as to give the post-production a fresh perspective.

Reflections

Reflections

I have to say that I found this module difficult and it could actually be argued that I have had an easier journey than most others. At the start of this module I was fairly hopeful that I would be moving to Plymouth University to start my teacher training and thanks to the amazing support from my lecturers and my peers I have been accepted. This gave me a unique perspective on where my future after PCA would take me.

Whilst listening to the guest lecturers that came to visit, plans were already afoot to take the next step in my professional career and listening to the struggles that these people had to go through to get to where they were was sounded incredibly intimidating. It was through observing my lecturers throughout the last three years that really got me thinking about where I wanted to go after i had finished.

For me, I thought that teaching would be something that could provide a solid sustainable base where I could not only continue to investigate my interest in contextual theory but also provide me with an avenue to continue making films and collaborating with others.

I saw many similarities in the professional struggles as told by the lecturers as well as the accounts of the established professionals that I have worked with outside of college i.e. Mark Smith at The Dark Box. I knew that I didn't want to try and struggle to keep my head above water financially and worry about when the next bulk of work would come in. At my age with a responsibility to property  as well as having to fight for work outside of my film work for the last few years, the notion of uncertainty is not attractive, it's not something that I would consider to be a viable option, essentially i wanted to utilise this opportunity to forge a new career for  the long term future.

The way I saw things was that If I could become a lecturer in  contextual theory it would serve to fulfil a lifelong goal of being able to teach people a subject that I love and after almost sixteen years working as a professional within the care industry, I know that I couldn't pass this opportunity to start the next chapter of my working life.

Being a lover of film for as early as I can remember, it always saddened me my working years before I enrolled at PCA that I would always be an appreciator rather than a contributor, I always assumed that the opportunity to be a creative force, no matter how big or small, would never come.

I would always argue that I have valued my learning experiences over the last three years more than any of my peers, simply because I never thought that I would ever able to express myself creatively within this medium. I felt lost and disillusioned before I started my studies and now, three years later I have made my own films, been given freelance work, been given chances to work at major music festivals and meet some extraordinary people. I never been an academic person, I was told it was maybe because I had never found something that I was passionate about to really learn about, now I am receiving grades that are very notable and people outside of college seem to be genuinely impressed by what I do, which , although not the reason I took part in my studies. does go some way to helping me feel validated and significant after many years of feeling insignificant. whilst running the risk of sounding trite and overly earnest, I feel like i have taken an advantage of the chance to pursue my chosen path rather than so many others who will settle for less and never take that step towards finding something that really makes you happy.

This screening event that I am a part of, is the culmination of three years of hard work from everybody in my peer group and I intend to help out with the organisation as much as possible. I intend to screen my final film, although due to circumstances beyond my control, is not totally finished. More importantly I intend to celebrate in everyone's achievements peers and lecturers alike, knowing that a large chunk of our lives has been devoted to making something that we can all step back and be proud of. Although my personal life has been thrown into upheaval within the last few months my passion for the subject and the experiences I have had though my studies have  kept me going.

I look forward to an tough and intense year and hopefully a bright and prosperous future

CPD Lecture 5

Sergei Kosin

Sergei had previously been a student at PCA and had come in to talk to us about his work with green screen effects, also he was wanted to talk to us about our roles and what we wanted to specialize in once we had left.

He asked me personally what I wanted to do, my response was " I do a bit of everything" he then explained how that may not be the best way to market myself to the film industry simply because employers are looking for people with specific skill sets and knowledge, hence how the industry has become more freelance orientated within the last few years. He concluded by saying that maybe I should pick something and continue to learn new things i.e. editing then I can effectively market myself with a confirmed job role.

Sergei went into detail about his experiences  as a visual effects artist and went into detail about how to combat the ever increasing work load that can suddenly come in. He talked about when It's best to bring more people in and how to effectively manage a team of employees. He went on to help us set up and direct a shot in green screen, essentially a head replacement on a character.

Whilst I found the lecture interesting and insightful, I did find that the job role he had described was not something that particularly peaked my interest. By then i knew that I would most likely be staying to study my PGCE at the university and that my heart and my professional passion was rooted in artistic theory and contextual study rather than an industry where I would expected to develop myself within technical roles

CPD Lecture 3

Amanda Blueglass

Amanda Blueglass gave a lecture on her previous experience working for the BBC and  how she ventured out to become self-employed. Her story involved the making of the short documentary

" Ray" and a promotional film for the 2012 Olympics featuring Tom Daly.

She explained how difficult it is to get a foothold in the industry as self employed film-maker. what was interesting about this was how she had to find a happy medium between  offering a competitive service and yet making sure that she was asking for the right amount of money and time for her work. It was evident to me that her early work was not well paid, she sacrificed asking for larger amounts of money, simply so she could get her herself noticed, once established she could maybe afford to negotiate a little more.

It was good to hear about the political machinations of not just the film industry but the bigger business world who may hire you for work. I have had some dealings with these kinds of issues in the past with some of the freelance work I have done, needless to say it was very helpful to be able to get some further insight into how to approach and work with people when you are just starting out.