Before I start the edit stage of my blog I thought it would be nice to get the view of Katrina (Sian) on what she thought about the script, story and characters of 'Press Play'.
"Upon first reading the script for 'press play' I was intrigued by the idea and exited! I thought it was a very interesting and compelling storyline. One that is very much relevant to someone of my demographic, yet with an interesting exploration of the pressure students face and need for a release. I particularly liked the expressionistic quality to the film that gives it an edge!
On set I was very nervous but was made to feel at ease and was given directions thoroughly which made everything a lot more enjoyable! All in all, I absolutely loved working on the film with everyone who was involved and I'm excited to see the final edit."
So now that shooting is over I had the misfortune of logging my rushes - industry speak for footage - and this is my least favourite thing to do right after story boards!
It does however give me the chance to look over my footage again and see what shots I like for each scene, so when it comes to editing I have an idea of what I like and which shot to use.
How I first went about logging the rushes was by putting them in chronological order from scene and shot; labelling them as such: Scene 1 - Take 1 etc. then I gave a brief description of each shot such as: MS Jack vacantly starring at screen, and so on. This will make it easier to find which shot I am looking for when it comes to editing.
Reason to celebrate: myself, Niamh and Anya have just wrapped up on my short film 'Press Play'!
We finished shooting scene 2 and the film on Wednesday the 30 April. Originally we were suppose to finish a day before on the 29th (which is when we booked the room for the library scene, before we left for Easter but then when I went to confirm this when we got back, I was told it was being used for a class) so we had to postpone a day.
We started filming at around 14:15, and as scene 2 was a relatively short and easy scene to do, as I knew exactly what I wanted the main time consumer would be getting the shots from different angles, so that I had something to play with and cut from when I went to edit.
As this scene is the set up for the problem and is mainly a conversation between Sian and Jack, I just wanted it shot like your classic every day Hollywood conventional conversation, with cuts between each character as they talked because there was no real call for anything else.
In my last blog post I talked about sound and music and what I was thinking about for my own film, I also said that I was doing sound on another film, 'Dislocation' by Andrew McComb.
We'll I recorded the sound and dialouge for Dislocation and it went well. Because unlike mine, this film has a lot of natural sound such as footsteps on gravel, twigs breaking, leaves cracking under boots etc. because it is shot in a forest, so there were a lot of rich sounds to capture.
Where as mine has more man made sounds such as: gun shots, explosions, electrical sounds etc. so it was fun working on two different films with two different sound tracks and really made me think about how which sounds, no matter how subtle, can really add to the over all viewing experience.
Below are some snaps of me working on sound for Dislocation
So I have started thinking about the music for my short for a while now and although I have a rough idea of what I want, I'll have to wait to the actual edit before I decide what goes well with the film.
On my script are notes with song ideas and where I'm thinking of putting the song in the film so I have an idea of the effect it will have on an audience.
I am also sound on Andy McComb's film 'Dislocation', which I am doing the same thing on the scrip of his film, scribbling down song ideas, the effect I wand the music to have, what sound effects should be placed where and most importantly, how the dialouge should sound etc.
So I was looking through the drafts of my blog and found this draft I forgot to post of research for my film...
For research for my upcoming short 'Press Play' I looked up some films that have the same subject matter of my film, which is about gaming; a boy getting lost in a game world more specifically.
One film I found was 'Stay Alive' (2006) which is about a group of friends investigating the death of their friend after he is found dead the same way he died in a mysterious game. As the group of friends play the game they start to discover that the way any of the games players die in the game is how they will die in real life, and together they must beat the game and destroy the evil countess to stay alive.
This game has similarities with my film in the sense it is about a game world but they have differences in the way they are treated, for example this film is treated in the genre of horror where mine is more action/adventure/fantasy. So this film would be more dark, gruesome and grotesque with scary scenes and jump scares to frighten its audience and build suspense, whereas mine will be more brighter, louder and faster pace and build tension through action packed sequences.
I can still learn from this movie however, even though they differ in style and genre. I can apply the cinematic technique they use in their game sequences and one thing I've been thinking of particularly was how to film a screen, I can see how they do this and try to learn from that.
The next film I researched with the same subject matter of mine was, 'Gamer' (2009).
'Gamer' is about a world were death row inmates must play in real life game were they battle other criminals, controlled by gamers and much reach it to the end in order to win their freedom.
Like my film this is more action/adventure and about gaming so I can use the cinematic style, camera technique and cinematography etc to inspire my film and make it better and a more cinematic piece of film.
