27/Jan/10

Today i was researching substitutes for profanities on the internet. It's fine but to be honest i truly don't understand why a fully understanding, middle-class audience at the arts picturehouse would object to a well placed profanity here and there - it definitely CAN enhance a performance. Shallow as it may seem but profanities can open up characters to audiences often a lot faster than other methods. I do agree with our feedback however that our pilot did contain far too many - it's character structure was lost amidst pointless aggression and language. From our feedback we've focused on using them in a more precise manner.

rehearsals today

We rehearsed episode 2 today - it's going pretty smooth and we're all getting into character but to be honest, it's tough in a room that isn't sound-proof. I always find I can act better when i'm with friends but in seclusion - when i'm in a place that people can see, i often feel like it's my GCSE drama classes all over again. You could call it stage fright.

Our characters have been massively enhanced and enriched since the first PILOT episode (today i actually plan on renaming both the Vimeo and Youtube ep1's to "pilot" just to let the audience know it was in it's very early stages - it's kinda embarrassing knowing your work looks terrible but without a given reason, that's why i'll rename and rewrite the description.

Episode 3'll be even more developed, hopefully, fully imitating professional and commercial forms and functions.

24/Jan/10

EPISODE 2

Between Alexander Whitcombe, Matthew Hornby, James Walker, Laurence Smith and Hayden Martin

Hayden Martin 23 January at 21:09

Hey guys. Congratulations all on our first episode. Rushed I know but still a great introduction (for us) to the frenzy we'll be goin through on the next episode. BTW Matt, your title sequence was a work of art.

First of all I wanna say, we all worked very well and as hard as we could together! Good job! Especially without members on some days and with arguments on others.

Secondly however, we must discuss, in the time we have between now and Monday, what we're gonna refine within our group. I know the other group ARE our mortal enemies BUT, having watched their episode, I must admit their mainstream editing and filming techniques have definitely prevailed over ours. Feel free to disagree but realistically it's true.

Here are my ideas of our areas of improvement if we wanna look a lot more professional and totally live up to our hype:

1. Drop Joe as the cameraman. I know he filmed our whole first episode but he also lacks in actual filming skill - it's clear when you take into account the amount of times me and Alex had to zoom in to create barely acceptable shots.
For our next episode the 180 rule is crucial as well as complete and utter banning of zooms (unless necessary). We don't need to be "experimental" to look good.

2. Be as emotive as possible script wise. I know I'm guilty, I could have done a lot better. But now we're confident acting around each other as shown when shooting Ep2, we should definitely keep it that way.

3. No more "F******". The amount of bleeping was just too much. We don't need it - if you watch The Office, Mitchell and Webb, Extras, etc. you'll notice that, yes, they do swear but no where near as much as we did - we can convey the feel just as well with deeper jokes/script writing.

4. Exposure, white balancing, frame-rates and manual focusing can make our footage look sooo much nicer rather than having things set on automatic. Just imagine how we'd blow our opposition away with an amazing focus pull.. It doesn't take long to set that stuff up. A matter of seconds.

That is all. I do love all of you for creating this project, just get back to this and you can help me love you even more. I've already considered proposing to Matt on Monday. I bought a ring and everything! Don't tell him though...

X

James Walker 24 January at 15:41 Reply

let me discuss my feelings. firstly, i'll amplify on haydens point. i agree that joe shouldnt be trusted filming. it isn't because he lacks skill though, its because he tries to experiment.. and we need a better storyboard so we can rely on that.

i don't lyk the amount of cuts in our episode guys. again, it goes back to the storyboard, we discussed how it should be and the way it looks at the moment it could be a short film for god sakes. it just isnt nessesary. in sitcoms their arent tht many quick cuts because the acting and humour of the script makes it compelling, not the editing. we need to completely transform the edit technique for the second episode guys, just my feeling but it doesnt need to be as cinematic. we're at long road, quick cuts looked rushed.

i agree about the swearing too, the bleeps got on my tits and some swearing didnt even have bleeps. that is something we can change tho for episode 2. i think the credits and the title sequence are amazing tho. the songs work brilliantly, they're catchy. matt, welldone on the title sequence. it looks wicked.

going back to the editing, we are going to have no time to edit the next episode. so lay off the effects, lay off the sound fx, lay off the quck cuts, just try and get it looking good and then add effects. and there is going to be a storyboard for the second ep. and id lyk u guys to folow it. to my mind, aftr the second episode, we can compare it to the 1st and see which one looks better.

we all worked really well together guys, and we do whotever the project. we just gotta remember roles and remember responsibilies. love you all

23/Jan/10

So far over the whole production of the first episode, i feel that the group put in as much effort as possible, even though it was the first time we've ever done anything on such a tight schedule. It was truly mind-boggling how i managed to keep in synch with each other when i=t came to reorganisation and role-changing. Nick decides to "throw a spanner in the works" this was a very harsh decision.

But, I do understand that it was only to mimic the realities of the film/tv production industries. Still, considering it was our very first project i do still resent that choice. It was unnecessary - i should have at least had a chance WITHOUT any business simulations just to let us know how good it feels when nothing goes wrong. AFTER say, the first episode, then i feel it would have been acceptable to suddenly change the rules as that way, i'd have had the experience dealing with a perfectly smooth production already at hand and prepared for change.

Marketing has gone exceedingly well - beyond our predictions. So far we have around 170 fans (and climbing) on Facebook, as well as followers on both Twitter AND Vimeo...
I'm pleased with this steady increase of fans - it really feels great knowing people are tuning in to our productions. It gives me guts to even try making films OUT of college briefs/parameters.

Scripting has been okay. I do feel however that James' scripting methods are a little close-minded mainly focusing on his on comedic preferences - using a lot of profanities and canned-laughter sitcom layouts e.g. Friends, Frasier, etc. which personally I (and I don't know about the rest of the group) don't really find funny. When there is only one script writer however and your deadlines keep getting shorter and shorter to replicate reality, you really end up not caring and just working - putting as much effort into the script as possible, just to make it more amusing than it may possibly be...

HERE is a great link I found on Wikipedia to do with both timeline construction and production management...

21/Jan/10

Christ. Tomorow our movie needs to be finished n ready for broadcasting. our MAIN target is to finish our film!!! We gotta do this by composing the whole edit, adding sound and adding the title sequences. We also need to add the credits as well as some final censoring of our bad language in the vid. It should'nt be too hard. We need to get ourselves in gear big time if we want that vid to be as high quality and proffessional as possible.

20/Jan/10

Phew. Sorry I've been here so infrequently - the shooting, editing, continuity errors, re-shooting, re-editing and sound design have kept me occupied beyond belief. Most of the time at home i've been corresponding with James, Loz, Matt, Joe and Alex to make sure all of our information is solid in order to move forward in our operations. Right now me n Alex have pretty much finished our first ep but still need a title sequence with a jingle (being created by Matt and Phillipa). Once we've completed our episode the whole way through, minor alterations to transitions, colors and effects will be applied giving it a polished edge and render it professional looking.

Cant wait till it's aired!!!

17/Jan/2010

All day I've been working on jokes and researching how to edit comedy.

Joke 1:
After Keith explodes in a caffeine fuelled anger fit, he is left passed out on the floor - surrounding him is empty cans of "Monster", "Kick" and "Devil". The Characters walk up and check to see if he's okay. When they're around him they come across the cans - Sonny picks up the "Kick" can: "Jesus, Keith is getting totally hooked on this! He needs to KICK this shit". Valory Picks up the "Monster" can: "Totally, he's turning into a complete MONSTER". Pier interveines saying how "if you like something you should "JUST DO IT" (Nike) - like smoking". Which is when he pulls a fag out and lights it. Sonny (wearing a nike t-shirt with the slogan) goes on to say Keith's brain is "TOASTED" (Lucky Strike Cigarettes - Pier is freaked out) and Valory says some other accidental relevant slogan of something in the room. The joke continues until they are literally communicating via slogans and getting ever more freaked out by the coincidence of the brand being in the room some way.

Joke 2: All of the students are in detention for misbehaving in English. During the detention the start dissing English and how pointless it seems via accidental famous Shakespeare phrases (in modern English). This is a dry ironic joke. Later on it comes back to that theme and they're using very long-winded English-lnguage terminology to have an argument and/or say why they don't like their English teacher ("Oh, I bloody hate the way he sarcastically uses youthful colloquial slang in all his interoggatives - he's so uncool."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH good one Hayden!"

Today's Teaser! 13/Jan/10

For the better part of today I've been working on our short teaser trailer (roughly 15 seconds long). It's a slow artificial zoom into a class room window - you cant see any students. As the camera zooms in, the audio begins to muffle in much like the audio in Saving Private Ryan. As this happens, we realise the audio is of a giant student argument - they're all yelling their heads off behind the door, as it escalates even more a student yells "NO!" and a chair hits the window that the camera is peering through. It fades to black giving the title of the series as well as a link to our blog (www.detentiondeficit.blogspot.com).

I'm pretty proud! although, If I were there when filming, I would've made sure they color corrected more by white balancing and exposing properly. I fixed that well enough in FCP however. Experimenting with audio was fun - I used a lo-pass filter, making the audio fade in via bass, coming from sub-sonic into perceiveable sound creating a good transition in rather than a simple volume increase.



Keith:
Keith is a troubled caffiene addict who suffers from anxiety attacks. he causes conflict from annoying people with his mood swings and excessive talking. and when he get's angry, boy does he flip out.

Sonny:
Sonny doesn't quite understand the meaning of detention, but enjoys the thrills that go with getting himself in it. He's certainly the most agressive out of the characters. This guy likes to shout.

Pier:
Pier is one of those people who always wanted the excitement of life to be like the films. He also loves freedom, and because of this, draws up ways in which to escape detention. obviously, his ideas are better than simply walking out the front door.

Valerie:
This girl feeds off everyones problems, causes conflict, and sits down and enjoys watching the mess she's created. She enjoys a good old shout as well, so her and Sonny don't tend to get along.

Vince:
The best way to descibe Vince is he's a paranoid pesemistic who believes that people are watching him at times. If he's reading, it's about conspiracy theories. Though he's obviously troubled, he's very calm in his approach.

13/Jan/10

Our plan today is to work on our teaser trailer, audio, casting, clothing design and internet publicizing. I'm on the teaser trailer n audio.

First, i need to upload the footage onto a Colleridge computer making sure the quality is okay and at HD levels.

Next, I need to colour key, edit and add titles to the teaser.

Finally, I need to upload the video for internet streaming via quicktime conversion at 800kbs to allow quick online viewing.

7/Jan/2010

James, Matt and I all worked on the script plan today - we nailed the first episode!! great news!! As James, now with the plan in his hands shall be working on the script - hopefully posting it on the blog tonight for us to make edits to and repost, therefore completing it (-: (-: (-: (-:
So far the episode is 3 minutes long, excluding the intro title scene which'll probs be about 25 seconds. I'm currently working on the title story board so that'll be up soon as well as the actual episode story board, although, to be honest, i actually believe that the whole idea of making a proper story board for the episode may not be a hundred percent necessary, since it is only 3 minutes long and set only in a class room (except the flashbacks). Maybe instead of spending a load of time storyboarding, we could just write what angles or moods we wanna provoke into the script - seeing we'd have a clear image in our heads writing it n all... for flashbacks with a lot more motion and action we probably WOULD use a storyboard.

Otherwise, today was ok - Nick (our teacher) was managing the class n all was going smoothly - we were split into our groups and it all was just... nice... no bitching, aggression or spite... or MIND CHANGING! which was a great help - it seems that we've got over the hump of who's doing what and how it's gonna get done and we're all doing what we've been assigned to do. It seems like pairing off and grouping up can be a real help if time is at stake.

This is how our lessons had been beforehand:

How Creative Practicioners Have Exhibited their Works (1000 words)

All famous (or underground) media practitioners have exhibited their work on way or another. Right now, most commonly it is via the internet – the infinite scale of it allows people to literally find anything they want. In other words, if you search it, chances are you’ll find it, or at least something related to it. Websites like Youtube, FlickR, Vimeo and Facebook as well as the more niche marketing sites like 4chan and Facepunch (targeted more at the internet-savvy geekier ones of us).

An artist that has come to fame this way over the years is Kate Morosse – she is a graphic designer that has worked on many productions including (most majorly) Simian Mobile Disco’s new music video “Synthesise” and her work with Nylon, Silver Cross, Super Super magazine. Her illustrative and overall aesthetic appeal is very minimal and naïve – she uses geometric shapes and circular ones to create imagery reminiscent of cell-division and kids drawings. A lot of her work looks very similar to So Me’s Ed Banger Records artwork, publicized the same way via web 2.0 socializing capabilities.

“I run ISO & Isomorph Records which you can read about here. I have a fascination with three sided shapes, illegible typography, and freeform lettering.”

With a good few years of experience of churning out designs for bands, clubs, gigs, record pressing, live show co-ordination and rare boutique product design for music projects, Morosse runs a team that covers all mediums of the modern music market in order to maximize their stylistic influence on the world. Vice and NME magazine have often regarded her as the future of uprising music and design, constantly referring to her works both online and in their publications.
ISO are always creating internet based media pages and channels for upcoming artists and musicians. Filming gigs, backstage footage, featurettes, documentaries and interviews. The whole of each production is done ISO’s team of avid young practitioners (in their own right) who all have a great interest in film, video and music.

Morrose's artwork is pretty much always by hand. She is renowned for not starting over again with her work and instead persisting with it until the visuals she was initially after return, like a happy accident. She finds working on the computer can be hugely satisfying but often acts as a barrier between her minds eye and the finished product by taking out the emotion that goes into her pen or brush strokes.



The information above was found on an art blog from a post written prior to her media explosion proving that to some extent, blogs, just like the one I found the post on, have a very big impact spreading the word across the world for all people on the same wavelength to pick up and look at. Art like this happens almost secretly due to it’s extreme lack of mainstream features but a weird hive-mind pre-conception begins to spread, leading to word of mouth, eventual blogging takes place documenting the underground uprising and from there on it’s projected into the thick of the mainstream, sucking up everything and labeling it for mass consumption – this can also be the death of many once highly controversial artists as when it is picked up by everybody (like the sudden craze for triangular shapes in graphic design and fashion right now) it becomes old news and then therefore becomes naff.

Some artists however remain underground constantly, surfacing now and then for fame and then sinking back down into their zone of forward thinking, constantly coming up with new styles, ideas and aesthetics – a perfect example would be a guy called John Greenwood. All I can ever find out about him is his date of birth (1959), the name of the exhibition he did at the Saatchi gallery in 1992, his album artwork for Orbital’s “In Sides” album and some other pieces of art on online auctions. He is extremely hard to track. I developed an obsession with his work after seeing his album artwork. It often has an organic yet geometric concoction of organs and machinery – the “In Sides” piece had aspects of the human ear’s anatomy and magnified bacteria alongside octogons, pentagons and triangular rockets. To find out about him I looked all over for some information on the album, from that the artist name was given and from there I rigorously sifted through Google, very occasionally coming across something related to him.



Sadly I still haven’t come across an actual website specifically on him, nor have I managed to find him on any web 2.0 sites – there are many John Greenwood’s on Facebook. Over 500 in fact. Finding him among all of them without any idea of what he looks like, where he lives or where he works would prove nigh impossible. Google advanced searching has proved pretty handy too though – putting in search criteria like “John Greenwood “artist” “1959” “Saatchi” has often come up with Yahoo questions where people have been looking just like me and are questioning the world for some kind of answer. It is only auctions where I’ve found more pieces by him, tempting me to get in touch with them instead as it would be likely they have his contact details (if he’s still alive that is)…

I’d say John Greenwood has managed to defy the powers of mass media communication very well. I’m pretty stunned that he just isn’t anywhere considering the fame he must have earned Orbital for HIS great piece of art. In a way it’s slightly upsetting – I know for a fact that there will be something official out there whether its just a minor interview, a biography or an autobiography even! It’s just a matter of intensive looking.
Funnily enough though, John Greenwood could well be famous, either in his circle of friends and mutual friends or just from the fact that possibly hundreds of other people have been searching for him too with a “where is he now?” motive.

Screen Writing

I've officially become a screen writer/possible actor. Screen Writers are the people on a film set who actually write the scripts for the films themselves - it is potentially the most lucrative job in the business. Getting famous in the industry from screen writing however is tough work - it is all down to networking with people at the right place, at the right time. Often, multiple writers work on the same script over the course of pre-production and actual production ironing out continuity errors and writing aspects that have the writer's best suited themes too e.g. romance, drama, action, etc.



There are several main screenwriting theories which help writers approach the screenplay by systematizing the structure, goals and techniques of writing a script. The most common kinds of theories are structural. Screenwriter William Goldman is widely quoted as saying "Screenplays are structure". When sifting through wikipedia and Google I came across a structure often used for films featuring a hero of some sort, when I looked at it I realised that our 3 minute short doesn't really follow any of these:

1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline
2. A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails
3. Achieving the goal or "boon," which often results in important self-knowledge
4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail
5. Application of the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world

Instead, I feel our upcoming episode will feature a structure more like this:

1. 3 characters in detention and very bored, an subject of excitement occurs in which they make use of
2. The characters explore this subject leading into a detailed story leading into a narrated flashback showing how they'd failed in some way
3. The characters find some form of comedic philosophical, moral value from this story
4. The moral values obtained are accepted by some and argued by others, either resulting in group comedic dismissal or acceptance
5. Later on, this moral value is ironically used against their final opinions beforehand e.g. Sonny and the group agree that karma exists - later on when Sonny helps someone, instead of getting something good in return, something falls on him (or whatever).

So, today we properly wrote up the character's characteristics - some inspired by real life people, film characters and others entirely original.

Keith (inspired by Keith at our local cinema):
After working with Keith on multiple occasions it became apparent that he was a major caffeine addict. He'd often be very jumpy and somewhat stressed, fidgeting and twitching a little under pressure - I often thought he'd explode if anything else negative was bought up. That is what inspired me to create him - I loved the idea of someone just succumbing to years of pent up rage and letting it loose. Especially around other people, locked in a detention room.



Next was a rudeboi-toughguy-badman called Sonny, which is funny as I actually know a kid called Sonny who is just that. His attitude and aggression make him the most feared in the class. I kinda thought it'd be hilarious if he were a bit deaf, making him really loud - probably due to a firework/explosives accident with his friends.



We then came up with Pier. He is a near silent french kid that is obsessed with escaping every detention and is extremely easily bored. His character was slightly inspired by those from Shawshank Redemption and The Great Escape but also from a typical 1950's kid, raised in the country with zero interests in computers of maths, just living off the land and building things. He is always devising ways in which he can break out of school on IN to somewhere else, etc. He's essentially a young, French Ray Mears.

Democracy in Class.

Today we tried organising the roles of our individual class members. It pretty much 2 hours to get anywhere and we still didn't finalise everything.

Alex was chair in this, recognising people when they raised their hand, letting them stand and explain any queries without interruption - this all seemed very well and we got on with it nicely. We agreed on characters, their names and subtle side-stories. However, after a while of debating and actually getting somewhere, the other side of our desk began raising points setting us back to square one e.g. not liking characters, stories, themes, etc. This became infuriatingly tedious and with this boredom and argumentativeness we all began to lose the hands-up one-at-a-time structure until it was a slow moving row.

The task for this blog was to say what we feel and I cant help but bring up negatives as only a few things came out well (like who was director, post production manager, actors and cinematographers) but there were still many more roles to be filled. Luckily in this task it's easy to multi-task, taking on both editing and, say, acting as while acting you can visualise the look you want to accomplish in post prod, thus giving you the correct movements, dialogue, etc...

So really I'd like to create a better and stricter structure to our conversational structure. The idea was to stay the same fundamentally but add more equality and evenness.

Here is my plan:

In the image I have placed 12 people plus the chair person. The way it should go is that the chair person raises a point or question FROM THE BOARD and asks Number 1. Number 1 then goes on to say his query (if they have one) and the rest of the class (including the chair) can put up there hand and be recognised by Number 1 (making them the chair) in order to answer their questions - If a dilemma is created, the original chair shall raise their hand and re-adress to the class with the new problem (if there is one) starting from Number 2, thus allowing each number to be addressed with an important question that airs their view. This way it can go the whole way around the class without single class members constantly getting a say. If a point is made by the chair and it is fine with everyone, they'll start from 1 and pass around the circle until a flaw is identified. If there is no flaw the chair can move on to the next issue FROM THE BOARD.

Today's Session

Today we watched a whole bunch of short films (all very geeky and post-modern) created b like-minded students and young people. They were The Guild, We Need Girlfriends and and Living With the Infidels. They all featured trivial and cult culture based humor parodying and pastiching modern medias forms like video-games, internet blogging, TV shows and films (often sci-fi).

The humor targets a niche-market of kids n teens on the same wave-length that are able to be an active audience that pick up on the jokes easily...

They usually promote themselves via Youtube, Vimeo and Daily Motion featurettes/banners linked to the users recommended viewing. I also expect (from the looks of these kids making them) that they'd have blog and social network advertising too e.g. Facebook status updates linking people to videos, Twitter updates, etc. I think this as like the geek niche they're marketing to, they probably geeky too - utilising many forms of both mainstream and lesser know social networking/advertising websites.

We Need Girlfriends is by Rag Tag Productions and is a sitcom based on the the adventures of Tom (Patrick Cohen), Henry (Seth Kirschner) and Rod (Evan Bass), recent college graduates struggling to understand the complex world of the New York dating scene after all three are simultaneously dumped by their long-term college girlfriends.

The humour here is typically American. Recycling the commonly used "frat pack" Anchorman-esque, sophomore styles . it also reminds me of Friends too, maybe just due to the New York setting, or the shallow characters.

My personal favourite microseries online are any of the ones created by Fronk 'n' Dego.

The short below is called Black and is a parody/pastiche of current blockbuster films - the most similar i can come up with is Freaky Friday.

Urban Dictionary's description of Fronk 'n' Dego:

1. Movies you watch to feel better when; you realize your a social reject, you disappoint your parents, your girlfriend/boyfriend dumps your sorry ass, all your friends decided not to like you anymore on the same day 2. Two film student's table scraps from the buffet of cinema I like to watch Fronk N Dego Films while scarfing my fat face with Ben and Jerry's Fossil Fuel ice cream.

Short Film Ideas

Our group consists (right now) of me, James, Dave and Loz - I think this group'll change however as we all usually stick in other ones. It's most likely me and James and Matt will be together.

Our Idea so far however is revolving around a detention room. In it there a say three regulars and in every episode there is a guest who sparks up conversation by explaining why they've been sent in to the room. While the conversation unfolds, Family Guy styled flashbacks occur, making the trivial stories told far more entertaining and funny. Everything from the actual reasons why they're there to other random subjects would be portrayed at some stage via a flashback...

Welcome

This is my new blog documenting my progress in creating an approximately 1 minute long short with a group.

Here is the main SHOW blog:
www.cmdiploma.blogspot.com