#filmnarrative1

Original screenplay by me created using Celtx. This was the first version of the screenplay that I wrote which was later reviewed and adapted for our second film for Film Narrative 1 - A Dialogue.

This trimester has really helped me, I think, when it comes to my creative choices in my storytelling. I’ve always loved writing and telling stories, so this module was the one I was most excited for. Specific things have really stuck with me: the shot we analysed from The Headless Woman, the feedback on the tone used in my script and how my group connected and created our films. While I feel I’ve learned a lot of practical skills, I think my main take away is how this module has encouraged me to think a bit deeper about how the stories I love are told. The limitations on our films have pushed me to think more about how a film will be told before it’s even conceptualised. While my group didn’t go with my story ideas, I was quite happy with what I came up with within the limitations. Here are the ideas I had:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18mOWN5VyvHqAGEoVVOdTOzqcTqeohaUzZ5w69vgEmd8/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j5rLgpMB3asL5DXwQbAGPHyVV6sjqX_vKPbeHquSqFM/edit?usp=sharing

Collaborating with others on the course was another highlight for me. I learned a lot from watching others in their roles and how they responded to my ideas. 

I’ve already analysed and reflected on most of the projects on this blog already, so, to the learning outcomes:

Acquire an understanding of the main concepts and principles of narrative structure in film making - Pretty sure I’ve got this one.

Gain an appreciation of complex narrative ideas in well-structured and coherent practical filmic outcomes - I have got a new love for off-screen action and single camera position scenes and how they can be used to tell a story effectively.

Develop an awareness of the main theories, concepts and principles involved in sound recording - I’m still not 100% on this one, having never been in this role on set, but in theory? I think I’ve got it, as much as I can.

Collaborate effectively in the development and realisation of creative film projects, accounting for and responding to your own and others’ roles and responsibilities - Hope my group think the same, but I think I collaborated well with others and while I sometimes overstepped into others’ roles, I did try to give them the chance to do it first before I had to go ahead.

Single Shot Sound Film - ‘I don’t like peas’

ONE LINER

A teenage girl (Liz) has concerns that her father won't accept her as gay due to a lack of understanding, but when she comes out to him during a tense dinner conversation he quickly reassures her with a hug.

ROLES

Producer: Samuel Duner Director: Bonnie Sanderson Writer: Orla Murray DoP: John M. Morelock Production Design: James Stevenson

PREPERATION

Due to covid, planning and indoor shoot was rather stressful. The script we had chosen featured a teenage girl coming out to her dad, David, at dinner. Finding the dad was our biggest worry but after a Facebook ad and 3 replies, we held online auditions pretty quickly and found our David. Orla’s flatmate helped us out and played Liz, the daughter. 

Picking up the equipment was also a challenge, we carried it all the way back to accommodation and James’ dad had to pick it all up in his car. 

James and John took pictures of the room we would be filming in with Cadrage so we could all get a sense of the setting and shot sizes. We decided to go with 17mm as we felt the wide lens would create what feels like a bigger distance between Liz and David. 

Myself and Oral made a mood board together to help get a sense if the characters and ‘mood’ of the scene.

FILMING

We arrived at James’ house 2-3 hours before the actors arrived to give us plenty time to set up equipment and figure out lighting. We also had to ensure the room was well ventilated due to covid, and that only a maximum of 6 people were to be in the room at once, meaning myself and Samuel had to watch the takes from a monitor in another room. 

As I was the director I made the final decisions during the shoot. We made slight changes, mainly with direction, but was overall happy with the script we were going off. 

We had roughly 11 takes with the 11th being our best, we all knew pretty quickly that this was the take we were most happy with. 

CHALLENGES

A few challenges we ran into along the way:

- it took a long time to set up the lighting, moving around lamps and trying to bounce light off white walls etc.

- the room we shot in was rather small so fitting all equipment inside was a struggle, we had John sitting on a counter when filming so he could move the camera back as far as possible. 

- the actor we had playing David was a lot taller than expected, so when he walks back from the sink to the archway, we had to ever so slightly pan up so we didn’t have too little head room. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Our group had a pretty positive response during the crit. I am glad we challenged ourselves a bit more than our first tableau, I feel it paid off. Our group works very well together and we all have an equally important input into the projects. 

LINK TO FILM

Pitch to camera:

This was good to make, helped streamline my ideas and vision and see how everyone saw the film and their roles in it. Also good to practice using AVID. While I think there are things in this pitch that haven’t made it into the film, I think it was very useful to make.

Choosing lenses and camera placement:

Options - 

final choice -

We chose a wide angle, side on. This gave us a nice two shot that would let us see both characters equally and allow for big, physical performances. This was the idea on our first location which we ended up not being able to use.

Original Storyboard:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16rIXedmcTiN5s-gXcm2cxaT9KsMEyuDRVXFRyQnx4dM/edit

this was mainly scrapped due to the change in location and the improvisation needed in the new space.

Mood board and Inspirations:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NRkLuVfAO3qtKBY8jjHNARwTCBE5wDJOv-pL9jphWdI/edit

Master Doc:

Much like the first tableau, I learned a lot about organising and working on a busy set with a proper crew and equipment. While there are many flaws with the final film, I am very happy with it, we managed to get the comedy across and the class seemed to enjoy it. I directed this one.

The rest of the crew - Ben McMorran, writer/ actor; Mary Hanna, DOP/ actor; Katie Cox, Sound/ Actor; Euan Millar, Camera Operator; Jack Weir, producer/actor.

What Have I Learned?

So, so much. This is my first time directing a full cast and crew and I was very anxious. I was really lucky that Ben and Jack already have such an easy chemistry between them and they were both a joy to direct, they listened to my notes while also coming up with ideas. I think I’ve learned a lot about working with actors, be decisive yet open to change. Some things I missed were properly checking the framing before the takes. While I’d given feedback when setting up the camera, I did not double check the framing was still accurate when actually filming. Luckily, Ben caught this and Euan reframed with less head room. I’ve also learned how to be efficient in a small time on set. We had 2 hours for set up, filming and clear up. We had to be fast. We still needed a few takes to get into the rhythm of the scene but I think I kept us quite energetic and urgent which meant we could get a good number of takes in while still having room for notes after each take. Also, because this was such a hasty shoot, there was not a lot of planning specific to the location, so I had to improvise and come up with better blocking for the space. We added in quite a few lines and ad-libs on set which helped add to the scene.

What were the challenges?

As previously mentioned, the location was only sorted a couple days before the shoot. This meant all the planning we’d done - story boards, blocking plans - was left behind. We had to improvise camera placement and blocking on the day. The camera placement and the framing in the final film works at some point but not for others, I think because we had a lot of movement with the characters, it was hard to choose a frame that best portrayed every moment of the film. The corridor was very narrow which didn’t leave us much room for lights and the overhead lights were bare bulbs so were hard to flag This meant that outside the door looked very flat, not atmospheric or interesting. This was the main complaint in the feedback. We did try to address the bland image that dominates the film by breaking it up with Jack half exiting (another bit of improvised blocking), and using the wide angle lens and low angle to create a creepy, off kilter, warped effect. However, this was not enough to create interest. As suggested in the critique, using props and paying more attention to mise-en-scene would help add interest. This is something I completely overlooked. This will not happen again, Alex Caldow will pay attention to everything when directing.

What were the successes?

The performances worked very well and at times the cinematography did well to accentuate the comedy and the atmosphere. 

How was it recieved?

While the blandness of the visuals was a real problem for everyone, lots of people remarked that it was very funny which is a definite win. Comedy can always be hard to pull of so I’m glad we managed to make something enjoyable for everyone.

This week we had our second film critic altogether on zoom, I found it really interesting to see everyone’s work and I felt the standard had gone up by so much from Tableau 1. I was even a little intimidated by some of the other people’s work because I felt they were so good, especially technically speaking. But some of the narratives were really sweet and thought out too, often the more simple storylines worked better, but the emotional ones are always my favourite, because I find it so beautiful and powerful that someone’s work can move you to the point of feeling emotions. I think this is the whole point of any artform, to make yourself heard and to put yourself and your ideas out there.

On that note I was not thrilled with the script I had made for this project, as it did not feel of the standard that I would like to make. It was meant to be funny, because we were trying to show that we had range, as our first piece was quite emotional and my script that I wrote for a previous assignment was a similar tone to that so we decided to go with something else that I wrote specifically for this. I felt overall this piece was not taken in as well as the Tableau 1 and I think this had a lot to do with the narrative. In our critque the narrative was described as unclear and I can see why it was percieved as such, I think if the main prop would have been as initially planned it might have been funnier, but this was an organsiational issue on my part. Another issue that was pointed out was the pacing and I think the issue with that was that when I wrote it and when we later blocked it most of the actions and dialogue were aimed to take longer so that the footage would be longer, rather than what seemed natural, I think this was an issue because it then seemed unnatural and less smooth. Technically on my part as DOP there were a few points that were noticed that I had thought had gone better during filming, such as the head of the lead actor being slightly cut off at the beginning and a wobble during the opening pan. These were fair comments and I think its just a question of shooting for a longer time period and being more critical while filming, although at this point my hands were already getting cold, so I think I would have had to have warmed up a bit again. Another issue was that the audio only came out of one ear, which was due to all the newer TASCAMs being booked out so we had an older one that Tom had to figure out how to use on set, I think he did a great job of figuring it out quickly, but the buttons were different so it was a difficult one to figure out. Another thing we learnt during the critique was that smoking on camera is not strictly legal, and we had absolutely no idea about this, but I guess we have learnt for next time. Aesthetically our shot was praised for how it looked, having been described as cinematic with a particular mood, so I am glad that our vision did translate in that way, I think that with practice the other parts will run smoother and work out how we envision them.

My favourite Tableau 2 this week was I Don’t Like Peas by Group E. I found the narrative very beautiful as there were many layers to the story and technically I found it very pleasing as well. I also found the performance of both actors very convincing, with the father talking non-stop but then comforting his daughter when she needed it and the daughter was very clearly petrified which makes sense as she was coming out which is such a big deal. What really spoke to me with this piece was how it made me feel emotionally, the story was very beautiful and it really touched me. I had a very strong feeling that all I wanted to do was give the daughter a hug, which I thought showed how well they had executed this piece because I know when you come out all you really want is a hug. Technically I found the piece very pleasing, with the sound quality sounding as if it had been worked on in protools as the audio was so crisp and there was little to no unwanted background noises. The blocking had been very clearly thought through and I found the pacing was naturalistic. My only criticism was the lighting, I felt the scene was quite dimly lit and I would have really liked to see warm lights, because this is a very intimate event and I feel at the dinner table this is the lighting that fits. I am however aware that the group did their shoot before they had a lighting workshop which if you think about it is very impressive that they used lighting equipment without having been professionally taught and instead  taught themselves by watching youtube videos. Overall I was very happy with this piece and I found it very touching and well executed.

This week I watched the second season of Pose by Ryan Murphy. It is a series about the queer underground ballroom culture of New York, focusing primarily on transgender women of colour. I found the episode in which one of these transgender women is killed really stuck with me. Amongst the LGBTQ+ community transgender women of colour are the ones against which the most hate crimes are commited. I found this episode so striking because it wasn’t just a death in the series but something that happens even today 30 to 40 years after the time in which this series takes place. So this is still a problem and I find it very powerful that they addressed this in this episode as it is something that people including myself need to be more aware of.

Below is our Tableau 2:

After watching the other groups tableaus, it quickly became apparent just how much of a challenge we had found this task. 

Similarly to the last tableau one of the main areas of critique was that the action didn’t sell. Apparently the relationship between the brothers was a promising enough start but it wasn’t developed nearly enough. Instead of developing this, we chose to try and add in a stunt which, watching it back, didn’t work but instead detracted from the story. 

Additionally, the performances were mismatched in terms of energy, which can be partially put down to last minute arrangements with actors dropping out etc, but also partly down to poor casting on my part. Perhaps dedicating more time to this in the future would solve this problem. Despite this, I think the performances were an improvement on the last tableau, and isolated, each actor did a good job. 

The lighting and sound were also criticised but we knew that we had struggled with this already, and I think we learnt from the difficult conditions on the day. One way in which we could be better prepared would be to bring hand warmers or put the batteries in our pockets to keep them warm. 

This week was shoot week so there were no lectures or seminars.

I had booked out the kit and so I brought it to the shoot in my family car, I think it’s very lucky to have that option in this course because even at an early stage we use so much equipment that it is hard to carry around on foot around town. The initial part of the shoot was an absolute disaster. I couldnt find any Basil plants in the shops in my area, and I had planned to buy it on the way to the shoot so we didnt have our key prop. And we were going to film on a Close right off the Royal Mile, filming from the pavement of the Royal Mile itself but we ran into a number of problems. Firstly when we went for our scouting on a week day a week or two before due to covid it there was no one about, no tourists which is unusual but quite common these days, but when we were there on the actual shoot day there was a bagpiper who did not stop playing his bagpipes so we realised that if we recorded the audio would be compromised. Then we realised the batteries of the TASCAM weren’t even working so we bought new batteries and then it started raining. So we had to cover the camera and couldn’t shoot for a while. We almost decided to pack it up and come another day, but then it stopped raining. But the bagpiper kept playing his bagpipes so we changed location to our back up Close in which the bagpipes were inaudible. From there the shoot went smoothly and we then reblocked it and started filming and recording audio. We also recorded a voice over in case some of the far away conversation was inaudible, but decided against using it because we felt it sounded better and more mysterious with the audio being less audible when the exchange takes place.   

This week I also handed in my script which was due, I had edited it over the last month and changed the characters names entirely, even swapping round some of their stories and changed the story to what feels right to me now. I also had some friends look over it after I felt it was finished and they gave some insightful comments. I hope that the dialogue has improved and that it is more naturallistic. I also find the story much more poignant and realistic this way. It is still inspired by my own way of expressing personal events even if the story has changed entirely.