DIRECTIONS: Lighting Workshop

Following last weeks lighting workshop with Ferg, we continued and used more lights and different types, such as an LED light. This time we picked a scene from someones directions film and recreated the lighting in the scene. My group did a scene from Gone Girl for Callum's project.

DIRECTIONS: Project Development

The first scene of my film is in a bedroom, for this I will have my character dressed in causal, 'boyish' clothes like she does in the original film. I will also limit her make-up as the character doesn't wear a lot of it. While she is in and out of the bedroom when the time is passing I want the curtains to be open on the window the whole time because I want the amount of light coming through to also suggest what time of year it is.

DIRECTIONS: Finding My Locations

I have three locations in my parts of the film, two of them are in and outside a house which I will be able to arrange easily. However, one of them is set outside a cinema which makes this one slightly more difficult with how busy a cinema can become just before a film showing.

DIRECTIONS: Finding My Cast

After thinking about whether to use friends or go through Casting Call Pro, I decided to go with friends as I had some people in mind. Bella is the main part, being a young girl I found her easy to cast as I have a friend with dark brown hair who has done some camera work before. Bella's dad was a bit harder to cast as I needed to find someone I knew who was old enough to have a 18 year old daughter.

DIRECTIONS: '2 Women' Script with Steve Finn

Today was the day I directed my script, 2 Women, which we received from Steve last week. I had planned my script out and knew how I wanted the first page set out, I had also made a pink bakery box to hold the cake and brought in plastic plates and cups because one of my actors, Kristin, is setting the table for a party. 

DIRECTIONS: Script

I found it quite easy to find the New Moon script online, finding the scenes were harder but once I got them I copied that part of the script over to Final Draft and changed the scenes to how I want to direct them. This included changing the part when she is sitting in the chair with the camera going around her and looking out the window to her walking in and out of the room, going to sleep and then just rolling over and getting up as if it was a new day. I was happy with my changed version of the script and felt like I could pull it off in a couple of weeks time.

DIRECTIONS: Research Into Similar Films

As I am recreating a scene after a break-up, I thought it would be best to look at films and TV programmes which have a huge break up in them to see the emotion the characters go through and the way the director deals with the situation. Initially, I thought of Ross and Rachel in Friends, Notting Hill, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. (1)

DIRECTIONS: Editing (Lecture)

This afternoon we had an editing lecture with Simon. We have looked at editing with Louis in contextual studies so I had an idea as to what this was going to be about. The art of editing isn't just about joining shots together, its about creating emotion, drama, rhythm and action through the combination of shots - its about the story-telling.

DIRECTIONS: Lighting Workshop

Today was a lighting workshop with Ferg, I really enjoyed todays workshop as it was all new to me and I learnt a lot about how to put up the lights and the different types of lighting there are. After Ferg showed us the basics we did it ourselves in small groups. Sophie, Callum and myself set up our camera and lights. We started with one light and then progressed to two and then three to complete our three point lighting.

CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Metaphor & Meaning (Lecture)

In todays lesson of contextual studies we were going to learn about metaphor and meaning in film and television. We started the session by watching the pilot episode of Jessica Jones. This was created for Netflix for 2015 by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the Marvel comics character, Jessica Jones. I thought this pilot episode was quite good and got me interested in the rest of the season. 

DIRECTIONS: Workshop with Steve Finn

As I was ill on Monday today was my first session with Steve Finn. I was looking forward to meeting him and hearing his stories and what he had to say as he has directed a block of Eastenders recently which I love watching. The workshop we did today included getting a small cast and crew together and filming one page of a script.

CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Postmodern TV (Lecture)

To start our first contextual studies lesson of this term we watched the pilot episode of Twin Peaks. This showed a man finding a young girl tied up in plastic on the beach and then they had to tell her family that she was found dead. We then watched them examine her body and find some evidence under her nails. This sort of show interests me as now I want to keep watching to see who killed her. They're bringing out a new season this year so I think I will watch the rest of the two seasons and then watch the new one.

DIRECTIONS: Director Presentation

Who is he?

Chris Weitz