Sunday, 12 May 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; CRITICAL EVALUATION


Final Unspoken Poster

Working on Unspoken, has been one of the longest projects we as students have ever worked on. Myself and my group originally came up with the basic outline for a story back in August 2018, so to be here 9 months later having written and produced the film is very surreal. As we are at the end of the project now, I will reflect on the positives that I achieved throughout working on the film, as well as outline the improvements that could have been made, before exploring what I think I have learn't from the film.

For the entirety of this project, I took on the role of both Producer and Writer. I have known since 2nd year that I would have liked to go down the producer route, and whilst this can still be a role with a creative element, I felt as though I wanted more of a creative input. When myself, Katie and Laura were discussing the project I suggested that I wrote the script, I was interested in expanding my knowledge on the scripting process and I thought this would give me more of a creative input into the project. It was daunting at first to take on two roles, as I was already focussing on trying to make my research more in depth and intricate, so to have to do this for two different roles was something I knew would be challenging. As we went on and advanced to the production stage, I knew I would need to find the balance between still considering and elaborating upon my role as the writer. The producer role would take up a lot of time and control in these stages, but I knew that I needed to still be thinking about my role as the writer. My research into what a screenwriter does during the 'a director might want a screenwriter nearby because she loves her work and wants to make sure she interprets the material accurately' (Set Etiquette for Screenwriters), I was on hand to answer any questions regarding the scripting in terms of the way in which words were meant to be contextualised, this was very effective in terms of making sure the film was created completely authentically. In order to make sure I was more balanced between my two roles on Unspoken, I decided to keep a series of blogs entitles 'Writers Perspective'. I believe that this was a very successful aspect of my own personal work on the project, because it allowed me to continue my work and reflect upon what it was like to see something I had written come to fruition. It also allowed me to document the script changes we had, whilst filming we had a few scenes that we began to improvise as well as the addition of two new scenes. These posts helped me keep organised and made sure I was making the necessary script changes alongside all of my producer work.
production period of a film informed me that it can depend entirely upon the productions needs and the directors wishes. I believe it was successful for me to set myself two goals that would enable me to think and extend my work as the writer. My research informed me that

I learnt in this project how the budget and the schedule of a film, go extremely hand in hand.

'A film budget is how much it is going to cost. If you get the budget wrong, your film will stall half-finished without cash. Get the schedule wrong and your film will suffer – either from loss of quality or remain unfinished because you have run out of time (and budget)' - (Raindance London)

As the producer, I had to make all of the schedules for the filming, and with this role I believe came both a successful and perhaps not as successful part of the project. First of, I was really passionate about filming as early as we could, whilst I did not want to impact upon our prep time, I knew I wanted us to film as early as possible to allow us plenty of time for both the post production and any reshoots. In lieu of my research I understood how the post production stage can be one of the longest periods of the entire production, so I wanted to give us the appropriate amount of time. It worked out well that to film in a school (one of our four locations) we had to film in the February school half term, I was really happy with this because it meant that I could adequately schedule us to be completed filming by February 19th. I had to consider the budget within the scheduling, as the more shoot days we had, the more of the budget we were using. As we were on quite a limited budget, I wanted to get the filming completed in the most effective and efficient way, whilst not making anything a rush. I decided on 4 shoot days because it made sense with the amount of scenes we had to do in each location, it was pretty much one shoot day per location. In terms of the days schedule, I timed each scene and confirmed the timings with Laura to make sure she was happy with them. Whilst the timings were tight, it was successful because our shoot days because we managed to complete everything that we needed to in the allotted time. My research informed me that 'Filming in chronological order will ensure a more refined and rounded performance by your actors' (Film Scheduling), so when planning the shoot days, I tried my best to plan us to film as chronological as possible. This was not possible in the entirety of the film due to logistics of cast availability and location allowances, but as much as I could this was the case.  On day one of filming, we got off to a slow start due to everyone getting used to the equipment etc, this was the only day that we could have run out of time. Due to this, I moved the filming of Scene 23 (Nova's death scene) to the 3rd day of filming. This was a successful decision because it elevated the pressure on the crew, this gained us an extra 2 hours to perfect what at the start of the day was going wrong. A lot of my producer research turned towards having a back up plan and making quick snap decisions, I believe that this was a successful extension of my research because it made our first day quicker.

In terms of budgeting, we stayed within budget for the entire production and had £75 left by the end of the project. In my opinion, I think this is a really successful part of a project. Starting with a budget of £705 in the beginning, we knew our budget was small and I immediately looked at ways of cutting our costs in other areas to benefit the film further. Looking at our props, I tried to source these from low cost places, such as charity shops and supermarkets. This helped us massively because we didn't spend as much on the props. Similarly, on 2 out of our 4 shoot days I bought lunch to make myself for the cast and crew rather than buying pre-made meal deals. This cut our lunch spending by nearly 50% on those days so again elevated some of the pressure. My main concern was that we would not be able to afford a reshoot day or two when filming completed, however due to some of the cuts that I made we were easily able to afford a reshoot day that we needed. (Click photo to enlarge for better viewing)


I made sure to ask the cast and crew that they understood the information that I was trying to communicate to them through the call sheets and schedules. I had made these sheets myself, adapted through the points of my research into what I considered to be important information relevant to our production. I wanted to make sure these were suited for purpose, and the feedback that I got from the cast was great. Out of all 5 shoot days there was only one instant where a cast member turned up slightly earlier than they needed too, but this was just due to a last minute change in the days schedule and it ended up to work in our favour as Laura managed to complete some last minute unplanned shots with that character that were a bonus to the reshoot day.

As a group, we have worked well together over the last few years, so I was confident that we would successfully complete this project with little to no conflict. I believe our project came out the way we wanted too because we all understood each others and our own roles and we kept up good communication throughout which was very important. As the producer, I wanted to make sure that we had a clear and open communication line and that we all felt we were as involved with the project as possible. This is why I tried to make sure that myself and the group all met and watched through the different edits every couple of weeks. This meant we were all up to speed and we all knew what was going on in terms of the post production stage and we were all able to give feedback to each other together. Laura was a great director because she knew her vision straight away. It was especially helpful on the shoot days for Laura to know exactly the type of shots that she needed, this meant there was not any hanging around on the shoot days which really helped. In terms of editing, Katie was always really quick with turning around different rough and fine cuts based upon feedback that myself, Laura or Simon. In terms of the feedback that I was giving upon these rough cuts, I tried to look at it from an objective view of suggesting what made sense. Instead of saying I preferred something in  certain way, I would point out the logical reasons why something would make more sense in a different way. For example, I thought the music would sound better beginning at the start fo the film rather than 30 seconds in, as it is indicative of his mood in the powerful opening shot. This was a successful part of the project because it meant I was not interfering in Laura's directorial vision, but I was still having a creative input.

When I looked into casting, I decided to follow advice from my lecturers and research which was to keep your cast as involved and updated as much as possible - 'Getting cast doesn’t just happen. It’s the result of consistent preparation, patience, and persistence' (Top Hollywood Acting Coach). I felt as though we needed to be extra vigilant with keeping the cast updated as they first came onto the project back in November - December, this was a long time before I could even give them more information in terms of scripting and scheduling. I decided to keep the cast updated by sending them a draft of the script, the purpose of this was so that they could get a feel for what the project is about and could begin to craft the characters for themselves. Furthermore, we organised a script read through day for the 3 main cast members to come too. This was a great opportunity for myself, Laura and Katie to meet the cast and begin to build up a good rapport with them. Also, I wanted to ask the cast their thoughts on the script and to see if they had any suggestions, I thought that fresh pairs of eyes upon the script may bring new life and also make the cast members feel much more included. Moreover, I created a preliminary filming pack for each cast member. I wanted this to include and answer every question they may have around the project, including shoot days, contact numbers and scene descriptions. It was really good to meet the cast in a casual and comfortable setting before we started filming, it definitely made the process of actually filming much more relaxing, Laura was able to focus on directing the cast rather than worrying about meeting them for the first time and this was really effective in getting the most perfect performance from the cast that we could.

To make a film physically come together, it is the result of many different creators and workers coming together to contribute. Without one person in the crew, even down to lighting or a runner for refreshments, the film could fail and it was important for us to understand how important sourcing a crew was. The crew that we had for our film is one more big positive. We had decided to source our DOP because it wasn't a role that one of the three of us was going to take, as much as I as the producer was the one who needed to choose this, I wanted to make sure Laura was happy with who we picked because she was the one, as the director, who would be working with this role the most. We had our main DOP Aurelija, as well as Drey who came in to help when Aurelija had prior commitments. Both were extremely comfortable with the camera and very on board with the film. Laura could focus on directing the actors and the scene, rather than having to worry about every single camera movement.

As with any project, not everything went to plan. However, reflectively I have to look at what was important about aspects not going to plan, which is how we reacted. On our first shoot day, we found the sound wasn't going entirely how Laura would have liked. We were using a boom pole through the tascam and we also had one clip mic. However with these, we found that the cast member who was not wearing the clip mic was not being picked up enough by the boom pole. After speaking with Laura it was decided that we needed another clip mic, myself and Aimee who was helping us on the day needed to go and retrieve the lunches, so as we did this we also went to collect another clip mic. This worked well and meant we could record with a much high quality of sound. This was a good, snap decision that we made, allowing us not to massively impact upon our filming schedule as well as have a permanent fix for the rest of our filming. Furthermore, we had issues with loosing light whilst filming certain scenes. We would be filming the scene and have to stop because it became too dark in through the lenses. In my opinion, this was an unavoidable issues due to the nature of the scene. Most of our film is based upon a strict timeline of one day, I created a chart for me to understand exactly what time of day each scene takes place, in order for me to schedule the timings appropriately. Scene 20, which is the scene we had most issue with due to loss of light, takes place at round 4-5pm, before leading in to the next scenes that take place in the dark of night. We needed to film scene 20, in the dusk type lighting, it needed to look as thought it was going to soon be the nighttime so we had to film it around the similar time. I think a lot of the issues we had, could have been solved but more prep or test shooting. Due to the type of locations we were using (public places and a school), we had to get appropriate permissions and licences in order to film there. This is something that takes a lot of time too receive because there is paperwork to film with and people (in this instance the Kent Film Office) to liaise with regarding. Due to this, we perhaps did not have enough time to prep and actually plan at the location, foreseeing and planning back ups for these reasons.

Example of one of our dark shots 
On a personal note, in hindsight I would change the way in which we filmed scenes 22/24 (the scenes involving Marlo and Julie by the memorial side). In the end, even after a reshoot, these scenes came out very dark. I think that visually they are our worst scenes. Even after a reshoot with extra lighting that we had prepared, and after extensive grading by Katie, it is still very dark. Perhaps the location we filmed at was just too dark in the night, due to the surrounding tress and lack of street lights, to perhaps we needed to have even more lights than what we had used.

Aside from the above two main areas of improvement, there was also some minor errors that we noticed throughout. When we were reviewing the footage after our first two shoot days, we noticed that Liam's (Marlo) clip mic was visible during scene 14. This was an outside scenes that we had trouble with filming, mainly because the area of which we were filming in (a side alley of a house) was quite a tight space, perhaps we were all distracted by trying to get the scene right in this space, therefore we did not notice this error. Furthermore, we noticed how Marlo leaves his house without a coat on, but when he arrives at the park with Nova he is wearing a coat. Again, this is a minor continuity error that is most likely the result of filming in different locations in different days. Whilst I made sure we were filming chronologically to avoid these mistakes, it was something that we just did not notice on the day. Lastly, we also found that on a close up shot of messages to Nova on Marlo's phone, it reads 'last active today'. Nova, at the time of the film, has been dead for a few months so this shouldn't have been the case either. This errors are minor continuity errors, they do not ruin the cinematography of the film, nor disturb the flow of the narrative, so after advice from Simon, we decided we did not need to worry about these aspects.

To round off my evaluation, I thought I would create a summary of the most important things that I have learnt from the project, different to the shorter term projects we have worked on before.
- The importance of balance and organisation. This project needed immense attention to detail, as someone who took on two roles, this required me to balance between the two, making sure that each and every job still had that same attention to detail.
- Communication is key. This is our first small group project where each person was responsible for singular parts of the project (rather than previously where we would all help on all aspects). Some of the work one person had to do, would depend on another piece of work that someone else in the group would have to do, this is purely a collaborative effort. For example, if I did not complete the schedules in time, this could jeopardise the coordinating of the shots by Laura.
- Prep, prep, prep. If I look at the improvements that we could have made on this project, most of them could have been avoided by some extra prep or planning. This is most likely always the case, and also time and money constraints are sometimes unavoidable too.
- This was the first project (apart from our short transitions unit) where we worked with budding actors. This was a massive weight lifter because they are so professional, the level of creativity they bring over their characters is great to see and massively lifts the project.
- This project showed me how creative the role of a producer can be. Previously, I always thought of the producer as the role which carries out the 'paperwork' and 'organisational' aspects of a production. I aimed to research the role of the producer extensively and I began to understood how much this role has a creative input, in the form of casting, crewing, locations and props.

Overall, I am really happy with how my roles came together to produce a great final film with the rest of the group. I truly believe that everything comes down to how organised every aspect of a production is, and I kept as on top of everything as I possibly could. Through previous projects, I have not used my research aspects to my advantage, I would do the research but not apply it as much as I should. However in this project I am certain that my research has informed most of the decisions I have made and thus aided me in successfully creating the project. The group and I worked really hard and well together on this project and I am really happy with our the final film has come together.



MAJOR PRODUCTION; FINAL EDIT REVIEW

Before we exported the complete and final version of the film, we decided to watch the film as a group in a big room with a projector, this way we can clearly see any issues that may arise and make notes from it.

My notes from the edit:

- Sounds in middle of scene 3
- Muffled Audio Scene 3
- Car wheel is really quick outside house scene
- background noise on ironing scene
- Dialogue on scene 2
- Footstep sounds Scene 20

These are the short notes that I found when watching the final edit. 

Things I specifically really like the edit:
- I really like the way in which Katie had weaved the music in and out. I know that music can be a difficult task sometimes as sometimes it is a case of editing the music so that it fades in and out when the film requires, rather than when the song actually finished. The fades in the music are very seamless and work really well.
- I think that the effect added on to when Marlo is in need of help (a ringing, uncomfortable sound) is a strong part of our piece. It is a nod to when Marlo is feeling anxious and in need of help, this reoccurring imagery throughout the film is something that I think will help the audience understand the film and Marlo's character. 
- I am really happy with how the flashback scene weaves into the memorial scenes. From the start we knew we did not want to use writing on screen to suggest that there would be a flashback scene, so we knew we needed to think of something else to emphasis this. The panning camera shot that Laura decided to do on the day is perfect for showing and emphasising this process of going back in time to the flashback scene.
-Furthermore, I think the grading particularly in the school scenes is really good, the aesthetic and colors are very bright and vivid

Improvements:
- I think as a group, we can all agree that we do not like the lighting of Scenes 22/24, it is very dark and doesn't view very well. This was due to the fact that it was a big struggle to light that particular location in the way that we wanted, we struggled through this on both the shoot day and the reshoot day. Katie has edited the grade of the scene as much as possible, but obviously in some scenes it cannot be perfected. 
- Sound, I think for me our sound levels can be up and down, I think perhaps we should have paid more attention the way the sound was being recorded in each scene as I feel as though the sound (dialogue) varies slightly in scene to scene and this could affect the final quality of our film. 

Overall, I am really happy with how our editing process has developed. It has been a good collaborative effort throughout with everyone suggesting new ideas and points that could be developed upon. 

Tuesday, 7 May 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; FINAL SCRIPT

After making all of the changes necessary, including:

- Dialogue Tweaking
- New Scenes
- Removal of some aspects

This is the final script -











Thursday, 2 May 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; FINAL BUDGET

As with previous post regarding the budget, I have been updating as and when needed with reshoots and post production costs etc, to culminate in the final spending tracker, leaving a total of £76.86.




I am really happy with how we have managed to stay in budget, I think we did well to stay in budget and cut costs where was necessary.

Tuesday, 30 April 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; CHARACTER INTRODUCTIONS

The research that I have undertaken upon what a producer does during filming, illustrated how producers should have a hand in the marketing of the film. With our project, it was agreed in the pre-production stage that Katie, our editor, would handle most of the marketing for the film through the posters and social networking sites. This was great because it meant that our advertising was really visual, with lots of posters and teasers that she created. I had the idea, just to add to the advertising that Katie had already done, to create some posts that derive from our character profiles. I thought it would be good to tease the audience more about the characters in order to generate more interest around the film.                        

Marlo: Marlo is a young and intelligent young man. He has everything in life going for him, his education, his future career and his girlfriend of 3 years, Nova. As life moves on, Marlo's world begins to crumble around him.











Nova: Nova is the strong willed and loyal girlfriend of Marlo. She is kind and knows exactly what she wants in life, and will stop at nothing to achieve this. She loves Marlo with all her heart and wants to be with him forever.








Julie: Julie is the single mother of Marlo, he is her whole world and she will do anything for him. She is determined to help her son, she understands what he is going through more than he will ever know.










Mr Shipman: Mr Shipman is Marlo's year 13 teacher. He's the first to notice Marlo spiralling out of control and quickly takes action to help him to solve his problem,











I think that posting these, along with some stills taking from the film of each character, will just reveal that little more about the film, helping to further the buzz and generate more interest around the film. The aim of the sentences are to be short and snappy, in order to inform and engage the audience around the characters



                                                                                 

Tuesday, 23 April 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; FINE CUT EDIT 1

After seeing the previous rough cut, we sat as a whole year group to view the fine cut. So far, we were really happy with the feedback that we had received from both Beth and Simon in our tutorials. We felt that we were practically there in terms of the picture, we needed to just start adding more sound design and perfecting the grade. The main focus of this cut was getting the music right, we had a composer Brandon Sands on board to create the music for us, myself and Laura were keeping in contact with him to make sure it was all going well, and he got them to us in time for the deadline we gave him mid April. The feedback that we got from the rest of the class was as follows -

- Half of the film looks really nice and cinematic, some scenes do not quite match this 
- Really good cast
- Good access to locations (school etc)
- Great editing
- Music needs work in terms of placement

With this feedback in mind, myself and the rest of the group spent the next day in a lecture room trying to collectively sort some of the issues we had. We played it through a projector in a lecture room as this allowed us to hear the audio better, informing us to know exactly which sound aspects need work.  The first suggestion that I had for the music, was that we used a different song for the beginning. I felt like the first song that is played throughout the film is perhaps too sad/slow, I felt we needed something that was slighting more upbeat, something subtle that still fits in with Marlo feeling sad, but something that will be a stark comparison to the more sad and slow music that we will hear further on in the film. I felt as though this needed to happen so that the overall tone of the film wasn't compromised. Katie started this song 'The Walk' much earlier than it was originally and I think that this fit in much better. 

In terms of the audio issues we were having with some scenes sounding very echoey, Katie tried and tested different effects, changing levels many different ways whilst me and Laura gave our opinions as to what sounded better and what didn't. This worked really well, as eventually we found the right level that made the audio sound much clearer and more pristine. In the end there was only one piece of audio that we couldn't quite perfect, so we will need Angela who plays Julie, to rerecord and send us this file.

Overall, I am really happy with how our edit has come along. I think it stays true to the script and is a good culmination of everything we have worked on.






Tuesday, 26 March 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; ROUGH CUT EDIT

As the producer and writer, I was unsure of my place during the editing stage. Katie, as editor, would be using her research to fit the shots together in the best way possible, whilst Laura would be casting her creative eye over the film ensuring it is her vision.

I decided that for the edits I would try to just make sure the film was still authentic to our original message and research, I wanted to ensure that the tone would still be right. For the rough cut, I tried to focus on just writing down basic notes that I had. Simple aspects such as audio being out, because at this point it was more about getting the footage right before considering other detailed aspects such as music etc;



I thought it would help me to research aspects of producer works in editing. Whilst it was good I could get myself involved in making notes for each edit, I wanted to try and add more value to my role during the editing process. I found it quite difficult to source interesting guides and pieces of work that I could use to research, until I came across the title of - 'Post Production Producer'. 
Post Production Producers are responsible for the post production process, during which they need to maintain the authentic process of information and good methods of communication between the producer, director and editor. The post production period can be one of the most time consuming part of the production, so it can be very difficult and challenging. The post production producer will have to make sure everyone is communicating successfully to aid the project. Skills needed for this role

- Empathy
- Ability to make tough decisions under pressure
- Working to deadlines 
- Time keeping
- Motivation to work long hours

The post production producer can start work anytime on a production, dependent on the needs of the film. For example, they may start work during the pre-production because they are needed to liaise with certain third party companies regarding preliminary costs. During the post production, they keep the producer informed of the timeline, noting how they are keeping to the schedule as well as if they keeping to the budget. 

To further my research on this role, I tried to find a job description of this role, something that would outline the skills required and jobs involved: 









Whilst I am the overall producer and writer, I can take the skills from this role of Post Production Producer to add to my role. In lieu of this research, I thought I would set myself two objectives that would aid me in the editing process and get myself involved more, these will be: 

1) Set up a time every few weeks where the group and I can watch the edit together to discuss certain points, this will help with communication between all of us
2) As the writer, make notes and perhaps use the script, to make sure the film is authentically put together in a way that portrays the overall research and messages decided upon in the pre-production period. 

Monday, 18 March 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; RESHOOT DAY

As previously mentioned, we had to complete a reshoot day to correct some errors and scenes that we were not happy with. Our reshoot day took place on Friday March 15th, we had the following scenes to re-film:
- Scene 14
- Scene 17
- Scene 21
- Scene 22
- Scene 23
- Scene 24
- Scene 28

We had to re-film at 2 different locations, so as normal I planned the timings and sent the cast and crew the call sheets and schedule. Schedule for reshoot day:


The first set of scenes that we did, taking place in the house in Allhallows. These were quite easy as we didn't need to record sound (as we already had the original sound from the first shoot day), and it was all outside in daylight, so this worked really well. The next scene we needed to re-film  was the death scene. We needed to get the timing better of the car coming down the road and Nova stepping off of the pathway and we also needed to catch a more emotional reaction from Marlo. After a few attempts, we managed to catch this perfectly. The last set of scenes that we needed to film, was the memorial sequences. This was where we found our most difficultly, as we lose the light very quickly and it was difficult to light a pitch black area with LED lights. 

Overall, I am really happy that we re-filmed these scenes. I was happy with how the new ones came out and I am now confident that they match the calibre of the other scenes that we have filmed.  




Thursday, 14 March 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; WRITERS PERSPECTIVE 3

In hindsight to the filming, when considering the reshoots, there was a few things as a writer that I needed to consider. The first was a new ending, we all felt that the ending was very flat and not as cinematic as the rest of the film, so we needed a new ending. At first I considered the idea that we could end on Marlo and Nova saying goodbye at the park, but I felt that the audience really should see Marlos bedroom. For me, Marlo's messy bedroom at the start of the film is a symbol of his life, it is representative of how Marlo's life has been completely messed up and turned upside down. At the end, the idea of seeing his now clean, tidy and empty room demonstrates the change Marlo has had in his life. He has accepted his life now and made a positive change to move forward. With this in mind, the new idea for the end to is keep it simple, have the clean room, followed by Marlo loading his stuff in to Julie's car (ready to move out) and have him and Julie drive away. Whilst I think this is a very generic ending, it feels right for the story that we are trying to tell, it shows the story come full circle as Marlo ventures off to his new life.

New Last Scene:




Secondly, Simon felt that we needed to see Julie one more time, demonstrating that she knows he is missing and is looking for him. I have therefore added a new scene before Marlo gets to the memorial. The scene entails Julie in her car trying to call Marlo and leaving his a voice mail. This inexplicably portrays the idea that Julie is trying to find Marlo and I think creates an intensity around her closing in on him, almost like a clock running out before she reaches him and he has to admit to his issues.

New Julie Scene: 




These scene additions are something I'm really happy with, the ending specifically is something I think helps to round the film off in a more round way. It is a lot more cinematic for us to have the car drive away outside into the landscape, than end on a line of dialogue in Marlo's bedroom. With these new additions, I also needed to make sure the script was up to date with the changes that we were making on the day. This involved Mr Shipman's dialogue, as well as the 2 scenes that we ended up improvising on the day. For the scenes that we had improvised, I have wrote a description in the script describing what they would have been talking about in the script. For example this is the scene that Marlo brings a bottle of vodka to Nova.


Finally, since filming, there are two parts of the script that we have decided to scrap completely. The first is the idea of having the figure speak to Marlo by the memorial. Once we had filmed this part it didn't look exactly how we thought it would, it came across as slightly cheesy and gimmicky. Also, it didn't have a massive impact upon, or bring anything to, the story. Secondly, we decided to scrap the idea of the pocket watch. For me, the pocket watch was a symbol of Marlo's father, because he died when Marlo was young, Marlo has always struggled with loss and death and has always felt like something is missing. Nova's death brings back and emphasis these feelings upon loss and struggling with death, the pocket watch was meant to be a reoccurring symbol of this struggle before it is revelled in one of the final scenes how Julie and her husbands last conversation is very similar to that of Nova and Marlo's. However, it didn't seem to come across like this in the film, it seemed very random and almost like an unanswered question that the audience was had. As we have such a definitive end to our story, it doesn't really make sense to leave anything unexplained and unknown in this way, so as a group we have decided we will scrap the idea of the pocket watch.

Friday, 22 February 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION: REVIEWING FOOTAGE

2 days after we completed filming, we had a footage review. Put simply, all three of us sat and sifted through every clip we had filmed, matching them up to the specific scene and making sure that they worked. As a group we had to make sure we were happy with each clip, considering factors such as


- Lighting
-Acting/Performance
- Dialogue
- Framing
- Sound

As we were watching through, I was really happy with the quality of the camerawork that we had. I was quite taken aback at how clear and concise all of shots looked. On some of the shoot days, especially the ones that we did outside, we were slightly worried about how the lighting of the sky was affecting the shot. Obviously the clips always look different when viewing during an edit in comparison to the slight graininess of the viewfinder and I was really happy with how the majority looked. As we went through it because obvious that there was a few issues some a small amount of the scenes we had filmed, this was as follows:

Scene 14 - The coverage wasn't enough at the start of the scene, didn't have enough shots to show Marlo getting from one side of the garden to the other.
Scene 22/24 - These 2 scenes were filmed during the night, and whilst we had some lighting, they still appeared very dark, we and worked hard to prepare a memorial for this scene and personally I didn't think we saw the memorial clear enough to do it justice for the scene in the script.
Scene 23 - The reaction shots of Marlo were not working adequately enough, as the character had just witnessed his girlfriend being hit by a car we needed more of an emotional reaction perhaps with some more coverage.

These were the scenes that we knew we needed to re-film. As we had over 25 scenes to film I was quite happy with the outcome of all of this. I had another look over the budget and worked out that we had roughly £130 left. This meant that we were able to get our actors down for one more day and re-film! After liaising with all of the actors I worked out that we would be able to re-film on 15th March. This was the perfect time because it gives us around 2-3 weeks to make all of the necessary arrangements, it gives Laura a chance to rejig the scenes and make them work before the reshoot day and it is still in plenty of time for all of our edit deadlines.





Thursday, 21 February 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION: FILMING DAY FOUR

Day four of filming took place on Tuesday 18th February. This was our school shoot day, taking place at The Victory Academy in Chatham. I was really looking forward to the days filming, because I had put in a lot of work to get the location of a school that we were all happy with. At the beginning of the day I had to meet my contact at the school, who I had been corresponding with, she took me around to run me through health and safety for the day etc before everyone arrived. Whilst the majority of the filming was taking place in the classroom or just outside of, I was clear with everyone that I wanted everyone to stick to our classroom as a base, and only leave when we were filming outside. This was so we caused the least attention and disruption to the school on the day.


I got all of the cast and crew to meet me and Laura in the car park, the school is very big so we had to make sure that everyone knew where to go, we took turns walking them in and getting visitor badges for everybody. Filming was underway, it was quite an intense day as we had 8 extras, as well as our full group of cast members all for the first time. As the filming happened, everything ran really smoothy. Myself and Laura made sure the room was covered in our own posters, with the school logo that we had created. As we were only there for about 5/6 hours, I had set up a table with drinks and snacks on it for the cast and crew to pick on throughout the filming. The one main issue that we were faced with throughout the day, was the classroom had one window covering the entirety of the left side of the room. As we filmed the last scene of the day, we had to change the setting slightly and Laura had to change the shots she had planned. This was so we avoided the window completely as we didn't want to show that it was getting darker outside, as we needed it to be 11am.

What did I learn from Day Four of filming? 
- This day of filming reinforced the ethos of how important it is to meet your cast before you film and build up that relationship with them. This was our one and only day with Mike Kelson who was playing Mr Shipman, whilst the day was fine and he got on well with everyone, I think it perhaps would have made it all the more comfortable if we met him beforehand, as this was out last day filming everyone had already been with each other for a while and our morale was high to complete
- I was really happy and felt really proud of the location I had gained access for us to film in (this school) the location was great for all of our scenes and it went really well
- Importance of having extras was emphasised to me. I tried my best to advertise and get as many extras on this day of shooting as possible, due to the fact we wanted it to look like an authentic school. However, it was a struggle to get the perfect amount of people, so whilst it wasn't ideal, we worked with what we had. Also, after speaking with this group we hope to use the post production period to emphasis this picture of a school using sound design.

Call Sheet for Day Four:








Wednesday, 20 February 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION; WRITERS PERSPECTIVE 2

Now that the filming is complete on Unspoken, I thought I would do my next writers perspective based upon the filming days. At first, it was really strange to see my work come to life and have so many people work on it to bring it all together. Over the filming days I was on hand to help with understandings of certain lines.



For example, the dialogue above, our actress portraying Nova asked us whether or not this line was meant in a sarcastic or serious way, I was able to confirm this so that the scene had the correct tone that it needed.

Also on the shoot days, I was on hand to confirm and tweak some lines. For example, our actor Mike who portrayed Mr Shipman, wanted to change some of the lines to feel more natural, as well as another line because it didn't make sense. Example:




During the filming process, I also had to change the location of Scene 16 (originally taking place in Marlo's bedroom). As we were filming I thought that because of Scene 15 taking place in the garden, it seemed strange to have Scene 16 take place upstairs due to day lighting, Scene 16 takes place immediately after 15, so it felt more natural for Marlo to go into his kitchen rather than his bedroom. Other changes include improvisations, I had the idea of filming to film Scene 19 in a vlog style, with the characters filming themselves on a phone. I thought this was a fun and different way of showing these characters in a fun and happy environment. This was an unscripted part that me and Laura briefed the cast on, allowing them to simply have fun together on the camera. 

I liked having the input from the cast because it showed that they cared about the project, i know that not everything I write will stay or make sense, sometimes I find looking at the same dialogue for a while as the writer it becomes difficult to come up with new and different alternate lines. This was beneficial for me. I was really happy with how the filming went from a writing perspective. Everything that I felt was important in the script managed to translate on camera, certain actions that I wrote such as the way Nova stood in contrast to Marlo (which was important due to Nova's character) were included throughout and I felt as though everyone really understood the meaning of the script. 

Sunday, 17 February 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION: FILMING DAY THREE

The third day of filming was on 15/02/2019, it was our must complex day so far as we were filming in 2 different locations. As the producer I knew that I needed to be prepared for the day logistically. I had arranged for the cast members to meet Laura at her house, to come with her to the locations so that they didn't have to worry about driving to and from different locations. The filming was first taking place in Binney Road in Allhallows, this was to film the following scenes

- Scene 14: Marlo and Nova garden scene
- Scene 17: Marlo and Nova kitchen scene, following out into the road to have conversation.

These were very simple and easy scenes for us to complete, I had schedule around 2.5 hours at this location to complete these scenes. Darcy (Nova) and Liam (Marlo) work well together as do our crew, this was our 3rd day of shooting therefore I was confident we would be able to complete these scenes to a great standard in the time allotted. We did however, have 2 unsolvable issues whilst filming. Scene 14 takes place at the side of the house, this meant that we had to compete with outside noise from the neighbours, this held us back slightly as all we could do was wait and film in the time that the noise went silent. As we moved onto Scene 17, we had some more noise issues. We had a few more shots left to complete the scene on the side of the road, however the issue we encountered was that it was bin day, this meant a bin truck was going up and down the road, stalling our filming for about 20 minutes. Luckily, this didn't delay us too much in getting on with the rest of the day, it was important that we waited the time so that we could get the shots Laura wanted without the issue of the noise. It was at this point of the day that we needed to travel to the next location for filming.

Our next location was on York Road in Maidstone, this is the location for the following scenes.
Scene 22/24 - Marlo standing over Novas memorial, emotional before his mum (Julie) turns up to console and take him home.
Scene 23 - Known as our flashback scene, this is the death of Nova.

We arrived at this location in our two different cars, on the way I had picked up lunch for everybody. We had just meal deals with sandwiches etc, as everyone could pick exactly what they wanted. Everyone was happy with this. Overall, the main issue that we had with this day was lighting. Scenes 22/24 take place in the night, so we knew we would have had to lit the scene. We had to play around with car and phone lights (as well as LEDs) to make it look as lit as could. This will depend upon the edit in terms of how this scene looks.

What did I learn on Filming Day Three?
A lot of these filming days are teaching me a lot about scheduling and timing constraints, this is the first project where I have been solely in charge of the timings and I have had to schedule each scene with allotted filming times. Thinking about day three, it would have perhaps benefits for us to split the locations into two different days. At the start, it made sense to have the both locations on the same day, they both only required half a day each so it made sense to do it all in one. However in hindsight I think we would have benefited from having them on 2 different days, yes the days would have been shorter but we would have been able to focus more on the locations and have more time to prepare for things such as sound issues and lighting.


Call sheets for Day Three:



Friday, 15 February 2019

MAJOR PRODUCTION: FILMING DAY TWO

Day two of filming took place on 12/02/2019. On this day we aimed to complete the majority of the scenes in the script that took place in the house. We were filming in Binney Road in Allhallows, our 2nd day with Liam as Marlo and our first day with Angela Harvey as Julie, Marlo's mother. I had created the schedule and emailed this to everyone involved, it was a tight day and I knew that we needed to try our best to stick to the schedule, mainly because of daylight.


Day Two Schedule

The day began with me collecting Angela from the train station. I had to bring with me lots of props to help with the set design of Marlo's bedroom, this included a box of different school and textbooks as well as sacks of clothing. The rest of the house is already very minimalistically decorated, which was part of our reasoning for choosing the house. We needed to make sure that the bedroom was specifically decorated for what we needed it to be, the scenes at the start of the day took place when the bedroom needed to be messy, books and clothes flown over the floor and the bed unmade. However further scenes that we were filming meant the room needed to be completely transformed into a clean, tidy and empty room. As the producer I was making sure that the room was looking the way it should in each scene, whilst other scenes in different rooms were being completed I made sure that Marlo's bedroom was set how it should be. 
As we were going through the scenes, I was overlooking the timings. We had to make sure that each s scene was being filmed in the correct lighting, as some of the scenes take place during the day, others in early evening and finally some in the nighttime. I had made, for the purpose of filming, a timing chart, detailing each scene number and the time of which it was going to be taking place. As we were filming I suggested that we change the location of scene number 17, originally it was going to be taking place in Marlo's bedroom. However i realised that with the daylight timings it probably wouldn't work as well, so I thought it better for Marlo to go straight in the kitchen for scene 17 (following on from the living room in scene 16) and for the scene to take place there. This worked well because it meant that we had sped the timeline of the day up, and the later scenes we had would be able to be filmed in more dusk light rather than having to wait for the pitch black dark of night. 
Overall day two of filming went really well, the scenes all worked in the way they should have, the location was dressed exactly how we needed it to be and the cast worked well together. The only slight issue that we encountered was with sound, the house is in quite a rural location and we had 2 dogs and chickens in the house to contend with. I made myself useful by keeping the dogs out of filming and keeping them quiet in the background whilst the camera was rolling, whilst also filling out my checklist of scenes. We had high winds also due to the rural location, which we had to just accept and film with anyway, something we will look to fix in post production.

What did I learn during Filming Day Two?
I learnt during this filming, that if a crew and cast are used to working with each other, a schedule can work well. On this day, our schedule was still quite tightly packed, but because of the fact we were in one simple location and it was our second day filming, we were all in much more of a filming flow which meant we stayed on schedule. Also, I perhaps learnt the importance of having a runner/someone to help up. Due to now fault of their own we had no one to help us on this day, it just meant that I had to do a small bit of running around, which I was happy to do so because it meant that I knew everything was getting done at the correct time. 

Call sheets for day two:




MAJOR PRODUCTION; CRITICAL EVALUATION

Final Unspoken Poster Working on Unspoken, has been one of the longest projects we as students have ever worked on. Myself and my grou...