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.
1 April 2009
1 March 2009
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.
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.
1 February 2009
Captive
I was planning on showing another video, but unfortunately the web page isn't working. Hopefully it will be fixed by next month though so I can show you it then. In the mean time here is what I class as my first unofficial short film (up until now they have just been practice).
This film is actually based on a poem that I read years ago. When I was trying to think of a short film idea to make for my A-Level film, I wrote down a few random bits of ideas and one of them reminded me of a poem that I read some time ago. So I decided to combine the piece of idea that I had with the basic story that the poem tells and thus Captive was born.
I then searched for some music that I thought would fit well with the story. The two tracks that I use in the film are from Black Hawk Down. The first track is called "Hunger" and the second is "Ashes To Ashes". Neither of them are in their original form, as I re-edited them to fit better. However, when I was still developing my idea I listened to these tracks (although mostly "Hunger") unedited again and again. This once the main source of my inspiration.
I visualised the film in my head whilst listening to the music I had chosen. I then storyboarded out the opening sequence and the end sequence and wrote the voice over.
The next part is where I wish I had a producer because I found that I had to do literally everything. Once I'd picked my actors (who were just some friends that I'd asked) I had to work around their schedule which was very tiresome because my main actor (Tom Law) who is also a musician was doing a lot of gigs so he didn't have a lot of free time in when I could film. This was tough because I had a deadline to meet. But we managed to find one and a half days where we shot the entire film. It involved one very long day and a lot of travelling where we filmed the cliff scenes and the flashback scene. The scenes of him at home were shot on the second day which luckily didn't take too long because we only had a couple of hours.
I put a lot of hard work into this film and I am very happy with the end result. There are of course a few things I would change if I were to do it again. But these are only minor things. And for my first unofficial short film I think it is rather good.
This film is actually based on a poem that I read years ago. When I was trying to think of a short film idea to make for my A-Level film, I wrote down a few random bits of ideas and one of them reminded me of a poem that I read some time ago. So I decided to combine the piece of idea that I had with the basic story that the poem tells and thus Captive was born.
I then searched for some music that I thought would fit well with the story. The two tracks that I use in the film are from Black Hawk Down. The first track is called "Hunger" and the second is "Ashes To Ashes". Neither of them are in their original form, as I re-edited them to fit better. However, when I was still developing my idea I listened to these tracks (although mostly "Hunger") unedited again and again. This once the main source of my inspiration.
I visualised the film in my head whilst listening to the music I had chosen. I then storyboarded out the opening sequence and the end sequence and wrote the voice over.
The next part is where I wish I had a producer because I found that I had to do literally everything. Once I'd picked my actors (who were just some friends that I'd asked) I had to work around their schedule which was very tiresome because my main actor (Tom Law) who is also a musician was doing a lot of gigs so he didn't have a lot of free time in when I could film. This was tough because I had a deadline to meet. But we managed to find one and a half days where we shot the entire film. It involved one very long day and a lot of travelling where we filmed the cliff scenes and the flashback scene. The scenes of him at home were shot on the second day which luckily didn't take too long because we only had a couple of hours.
I put a lot of hard work into this film and I am very happy with the end result. There are of course a few things I would change if I were to do it again. But these are only minor things. And for my first unofficial short film I think it is rather good.
1 January 2009
Vanish
This is the first film that I've made which I co-directed. It was an interesting experience, although if I were to co-direct again I would have to get to know the person first and make sure that we both worked on the same wavelength, because the person I was working with was a bit of an idiot.
He was very arrogant and was making that actors do take after take when they didn't even need to. The whole reason for doing another take is that you want the actors to do something different, because you need to re-do the camera movement as it wasn't smooth enough, or because something else went wrong.
However, each of the takes that this guy did was exactly the same so I started to get slightly annoyed with him as he was just waisting time, and the actors were getting annoyed with having to do the same thing again and again when then didn't even need to.
My directing was much better I felt and I got on much better with the actors which I think is an essential thing when working with actors. Anyway here is the film.
He was very arrogant and was making that actors do take after take when they didn't even need to. The whole reason for doing another take is that you want the actors to do something different, because you need to re-do the camera movement as it wasn't smooth enough, or because something else went wrong.
However, each of the takes that this guy did was exactly the same so I started to get slightly annoyed with him as he was just waisting time, and the actors were getting annoyed with having to do the same thing again and again when then didn't even need to.
My directing was much better I felt and I got on much better with the actors which I think is an essential thing when working with actors. Anyway here is the film.
1 December 2008
Built & Crushed
A 30 second animation that I made in the space of about 10 minutes.
Not much to be said about this really other than I made it in college whilst we were looking at animations. I can definitely say now though that I don't think I'll be going into animation simply because, even though the animation was fun to make, I'm more of a live action person myself. I'll leave animation to the likes of Nick Park. Although I have been thinking a lot about motion capture film recently. I'm not sure I'll be making motion capture films until I'm an established director though because of the availability of the technology. But who knows, experimental motion capture shorts could be just around the corner. I doubt it though!
Not much to be said about this really other than I made it in college whilst we were looking at animations. I can definitely say now though that I don't think I'll be going into animation simply because, even though the animation was fun to make, I'm more of a live action person myself. I'll leave animation to the likes of Nick Park. Although I have been thinking a lot about motion capture film recently. I'm not sure I'll be making motion capture films until I'm an established director though because of the availability of the technology. But who knows, experimental motion capture shorts could be just around the corner. I doubt it though!
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