The Cell

The idea for this next film came from another person in my group. However, the idea was very vague and so I wrote it up into a proper screenplay, changing a few bits as I went. The song at the beginning was something that I wanted to add in as the director. This was the biggest directing job I had done to date in terms of working with actors and whilst I found the cell scenes very stressful because my crew was doing fuck all, when it came the gallery scenes they actually had decided to do there jobs and so it went much smoother.

I also had to direct extras for the gallery scene. Unfortunately though the two main extras shots were cut out of the final cut, however, you can still see them in the first cut.

This film is an art film in my opinion as it has many different interpretations. I've shown it to many people, some of them don't get it and others do, but quite often they don't get it in the same way. Even I myself have managed to interpret the film in different ways as well. This is one of the reasons I really like this film.

Unfortunately though this film isn't perfect. There are many shots which are out of focus due to the camera operator. You could say that I am putting blame on the camera operator to avoid putting the blame on myself. However, as the director I never really looked through the camera. For all the shots I would check the framing, but that would be it. I would use my own digital stills camera to find the shots. Take the picture and then show it to the camera operator. I only ever glanced at the camera shot to check the framing. All the technical aspects such as focusing are the job of the camera operator.

Whilst I do find these out of focus shots disappointing when I watch the film I just ignore them, because I know that in the future it won't happen. When you work on films with a big enough crew, you have a person who's specific job is to keep the shot in focus, this is called the focus puller.

Another major issue with the film is lighting. I refused to move any of the lights as the director, because I didn't really have time to between checking the framing on the camera and telling the camera operator to change it slightly if it needed changing; and directing with the actors. The film uses lighting throughout it's entirety, however, if you watch it, it only really looks like it is being lit when you get 31 seconds in. The lighting crew were awful. When I told them to sort the lighting out they wouldn't do it. And then when I was ready to shoot after talking with the actors, etc. they suddenly got up off their asses and said, we need to change the lighting it looks shit and so they would. This lost us precious time in our studio shoot (the cell scene). On the other hand, once they had actually bothered to do the lighting it look quite good.

Although this isn't the reason for the crap lighting from the beginning up to 31 seconds in. That was just down to inexperience with lighting. For the shot 31 seconds in, one of our university lecturers came in to see how we were getting on and taught us how to properly do lighting. She then left and we were able to light the rest of the film quite well. It is just a shame we didn't have time to re-shoot the first 30 seconds.

There are a few other minor bad points but these are the main ones.

When ever people watch it they never really seem to listen to the lyrics of the song. I wrote the lyrics myself to the The Well theme from Hans Zimmer's score to The Ring. This is the music you can hear behind the lyrics. There are actually already lyrics to this song and I think subconsciously this is perhaps one of the reasons I chose this song. However, the original lyrics wouldn't have made any sense and so I decided to write my own. Here are the lyrics as written my me.

Oh so trapped, with in our own world.

Why we can't, escape when we're curled

Up so tight I can barely breathe.

Why did you run away and leave

When I was in need of your help?

Please, please, please, will somebody save me.

These lyrics actually sum up the whole film, when sung by Katey (the main character) which they are, and they tell us how the situation she is in and how she feels. Although you might have to watch the film (and understand it) to understand the lyrics fully. Now I'm not a song writer and so I'm amazed that I was actually able to even write these lyrics, as I've never written a song in my life. However, some how it just came to me, even if I did have to google "words that rhyme with world and breathe". I wouldn't really recommend it as a song writing method though.

If you want to see the first cut of the film then here it is. However it is obviously unfinished and therefore it doesn't have things in such as the re-recorded dialogue and the children's laughter when she turns around and looks at the suit case. Although it does contain the full scenes from the gallery, which unfortunately we had to shorten because it made the pace of the film too slow.

I quite enjoy making art films and I'm definitely going to be making more in the future. However, this is the last I can actually show you as I haven't made anymore yet. But I do have a few scripts that I am developing, so hopefully it won't be long before I'll have another one complete.

Next months film is going to be a comedy.

The Snowman Killer

This is a shitty little film that we made. Other than the concept it was all improvised. The camera we used was a down grade to the ones we normally use as it didn't have manual focus. The only advantage it had was night vision, but even that was amazing. Overall I think the film is pretty shit. But it just came from the necessity to make a film.

Gloucester Cathedral

This is the first documentary that I've made. Whilst I did shoot my first film Brave Story like a documentary, it was in fact a fictional film.

I wrote the documentary and did the sound for it. These were originally my only two roles on the film. However, after the director turned out to not have a clue what he was doing and literally was just standing still doing absolutely nothing a lot of the time. I ended up as the unofficial director.

This is the first film where I've had to work with someone who doesn't know how to do there job. If I were a studio executive then I would have fired the person whom was supposed to be our director on the spot for some of the stuff that they did, or didn't, do.

A word of advise to anyone who wants to be a director, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons. Why do you want to direct the film? And most importantly why do you want to be a director? If you don't know, then you shouldn't be doing it. And even if you know the answers to these questions, you have to be honest with yourself and say, do I have the creative vision for this film? If you don't know what you want to do with the film then either take it away and think about what you want to do until your sure about everything; or pass the role to somebody else, even if it means taking on a different role or not working on the film altogether. The most important thing is the film, not yourself.



We filmed this on mini-DV, using Canon XM2's. These are digital film cameras which proved quite challenging to work with inside the cathedral. With digital cameras you need to white balance the camera for the light source that illuminates the space you are in. If you get the white balance wrong then your image can look blue or red. Most of the time this happens only slightly, however if when you come to edit the footage together you have a slightly blue shot followed by a slightly red shot (or the other way round) then you can easily see the change.

This is the reason the cathedral proved such a challenging location to film in, because there were several different light sources illuminating the inside of the building. There was the sun light shining through the windows, as well as two different types of lights used inside. In the main room, the ceiling was lit with one type of light, whilst the rest of the room was lit with another. This meant that we were unable to get a wide shot of the interior of the cathedral that had an accurate colour representation. Either the ceiling ended up very red, or the windows ended up very blue. As a result we tried to film the cathedral in sections.

Saying that, the cathedral is a very beautiful building. However, if you wish to capture the true beauty of such a building, I would recommend filming on actual film stock, instead of using digital film. Whilst digital film does have many advantages, this is one of the areas where film stock shines through.

Dark V Light

I've now finished showing all of the films I've made on my own and I will now be showing you some of the films I have made whilst being at university.

When we were given the brief for this film, all we had to do was produce a high key (low contrast) and low key (high contrast) scene. They could tie into each other or be completely unrelated.



I'll leave you to decode any meaning from it!

I was the director of the low key scene for this film and I'm very proud of it as it is the first 'art' film that I've made. I'd quite like to do more experimental films like this in the future and I'm in the process of writing a few at the moment. However, I'm currently in the middle of making some other projects right now, so it might be a while before I get another chance to make a film like this.

Monster In The Woods

This is the film I wanted to show before Captive since it was the last one I made before it.



This film was very spontaneous and it came about because I really wanted to make another short film as I hadn't made one in a while. However, I didn't have a film to make, so I thought I'd try and familiarise myself with the camera a bit more. I ended up wondering down to the woods to test out some of the camera's functions.

The only function I really had a go at was the focus and this was the first film I made which had a pull focus in it. However, once I'd played around with the camera's functions I still really wanted to make a film so I decided I'd have a go.

But since I didn't have any actors the only way I could really make a film was if I did it Blair Witch style. Combined with a bit of inspiration from The Village I came up with the idea that the woods was filled with monsters. Original I know! However, since I had no actors I thought I'd make them invisible monsters.

The reason the camera runs away is because our character hears one of these monsters. And then at the end he gets attacked and eaten by the monster.

If you're wondering why the character has a camera then stop, because they don't. I wanted it to feel as though the camera is the persons eyes. Obviously filming in 4:3 doesn't make this easy and you just have to use your imagination to make the jump from, why is this person holding a camera, to there is no camera and we are seeing through the characters eyes (think of it like a computer game, e.g. first person shooter).

If anyone manages to get this story from the film then I will be very surprised. The only reason I understand it and still quite like it is because I know the bigger picture (which I haven't told you).

I still quite like the bigger picture of this film and have thought about developing it into a feature or half hour short. If I did then it wouldn't be shot in first person, but normal third person. We shall have to wait and see if I actually take this idea beyond this tiny little piece. Although if anything does come from it, then sadly you'll have to wait a very long time.