The Final Piece

After months of hard work, we have finally finished 'Black and Blue', while it has challenged us at every point and changed quite a bit since the initial idea, it is still a piece of work that my group ad I are immensely proud of. The course overall has been a pleasure, giving us ample freedom and opportunity in order to produce a highly successful short film, if I do say so myself. I hope you enjoy:

Editing & Rough Cut

In our group, Elliot is the one who is in charge of the editing, while the rest of us will help and give input whenever and wherever we can. So far, things are looking good, if anything our biggest issue is that we have enough footage for a 15 minute film, which we can only use 4 minutes of, therefore picking which bits to use and which bits to sacrifice is currently and will continue to be rather difficult.

We therefore decided it would be most effective to simply make the film as we had originally intended, and worry about the length once everything was in place. After having done this, although we all enjoyed the film and thought it looked brilliant, we realised that we were around 2 and a half minutes over the limit. In order to remedy this, we ultimately decided to cut more or less the entire first section, where you see Sophie walking home and encountering the drug deal, the chav and the homeless person. As much as we liked these sections, we realised that, in terms of the overall plot, they didn't really add anything, it merely set up the idea that the protagonist lived in a rough area, however this fact can be established through the inclusion of the parents arguing later in the film.

After having removed that, and rounded off a few corners with some shots, we were left with a  film that lasted dead on 4 minutes, excluding the credits, of which you can see below:

From watching this, there were a few things we still wanted to do, such as colour grade the shots, emphasizing the black and white more in the flashback shots, therefore making it look less grey, and emphasizing the blue's and pinks in the rehearsal shots. We also still needed to add the sound effects of the parents, played by Myself and Amelia, in over the shots of the protagonist at home.

After showing this to our tutor, he suggested removing some of the parts earlier where the camera goes out of focus unnecessarily and to change the last shot to something that looks more determined, as he felt the protagonist looked scared, which rather defeated the point of her building up the confidence to perform at the end of the film.

Filming Session 4

This session was our biggest one to date, consisting of three separate shoots, one in the rehearsal room in the morning, one in the Aphra storage cupboard and the final one in Kg's house in Parkwood. While it was certainly a long day, it was a highly productive one as it resulted in us having captured everything we would need for the film, and calling it a wrap.

The morning session went just as well as the first rehearsal section, we booked out the room, managed to get there with the equipment without any hassle and filmed everything we needed to, and with the time we had spare, we went over a few things we thought might look good on camera, some worked and some didn't, but the more footage we have the better. Below are some screenshots from the shoot.

The second shoot of the day was in the storage room that's connected to the Aphra drama studio, and again this went very well. We managed to get some very interesting and unique looking shots in this room through using the large cage-like doors inside, and through using the overall 'grottiness' of the room to our advantage.

The last shoot of the day, and the last shoot we did at all, was a very small amount of shots set inside the protagonists house, and mostly her bedroom. We were barely there for half an hour before we had finished, and yet again, there were few issues. We filmed everything we wanted to relatively quickly and again grabbed a few more shots that we thought up on the spot. To grasp how what exactly we accomplished that day, please see the below Call Sheet.

Filming Overall

While there are many things that can go wrong with filming, other than a few small mishaps, filming went smoothly and to plan overall. We had no issues with the crew, the locations all worked well for the film and the cast were beyond brilliant, both in effort and efficiency. If anything, we had some issues with the equipment, being given the wrong cables, or missing a battery, but nothing we couldn't adapt to and overcome. I am very pleased with everything that we have filmed and am looking forward to seeing how it looks when everything is stitched together.

Filming Session 3

For this shoot we were in the Aphra, filming the very end where the Protagonist steps out in front of the Judges to do her dance. This required us to attempt to work in, practically, the dark, and so had to come up with some inventive lighting methods, most of which were done through the use of fairy lights, for instance, in a medium close up shot where we see all four of the Judges, we placed the fairy lights in their laps, just out of shot, therefore illuminating them from below. Overall, yet again this shoot went very smoothly, the cast and crew all worked hard and efficiently, resulting in us actually finishing earlier than expected.

Below is the call sheet for the shoot.

Filming Session 2

Our second filming session came quite a while after our first, simply because work outside of digital filmmaking seemed to build up for all of us towards the end of February, however it was easy to pick up where we had left off. For this filming session, we were starting with the rehearsal sequence inside the dance studio in Woody's. This therefore meant booking out the room with the School of Arts, of which we did with ease. Once we had set up the equipment, and most importantly the LED's, of which had blue and purple filters on them, we got to work. For the most part, we simply allowed Sophie to perform her Dance to the music, all the meanwhile we would work around her with the camera, therefore collecting a plethora of various angles and shots of her, of which we an cut in and out of when it comes to editing later on. On top of the tracking shots, we also did various still shots from different points in the room, some wide angles, some close, some in focus, some out of focus, all in all resulting in us having captured the dance in its entirety.

Below is a copy of the call sheet for the shoot, despite it saying call sheet 1, it is in fact the second one, this is merely a typo.

We had a few technical mishaps that day however, but we manged to improvise and pull through, for instance the LED's had to be plugged into the wall sockets and so weren't able to move very far, therefore to do closeups we used fairy lights in order to illuminate Sophie more clearly.

Below are some stills from the shoot, each one showing how we attempted to use the LED's on set to give the shots their own unique look, that being said, in the final version we will still probably colour grade it slightly in order to fully cement the contrast between the rehearsal sections and the flashbacks.

Filming Session 1

For our first filming session, we decided to go with the shots that showed the Protagonist walking home, therefore showing the downtrodden area that she lives in, then later on we filmed the scene where she arrives home and runs upstairs after hearing her Parents arguing.

Overall, the shoot was very successful, we managed to film everything we wanted to film, and also got plenty of extra shots that we may want to use later on. The equipment was simple enough to book out and use, and all of our cast and crew worked efficiently and without complaint. We did have a basic shot list that we followed, however for the most part we came up with interesting shots on the spot, hoping to capture each moment in as many different way as possible.

Below you can find the call sheet for the shoot, describing which scenes we filmed at what time, who was needed etc.

Aquiring Extras

For our piece, we required quite a few extras for small roles here and there in the film, this of course required us to find and hire said extras. In order to do this, we simply cast ourselves where we could and also asked some of our close friends and acquaintances to take part, getting each one to sign a consent form, and telling them when and where they'd be needed.

All the consent forms have been gathered, and each gives us the information needed to contact the cast, and gives them the information as to what it is they're signing up for.

Risk Assessment

Before being given permission to use the equipment, we must be sure that we fully understand the risks we will be taking in accordance with the locations we have chosen, and understand the repercussion's should anything go wrong. In order to establish this, we created a Risk Assessment that applies to all of our shoots, therefore letting both the University know that we know what we're doing. Once we had it made, we got a member of staff to check and sign it, therefore giving us permission to use the equipment.

Initial Schedule

Having secured everything we needed for filming to begin, we discussed and decided amongst ourselves which days would be best for filming, and Amelia made a basic Schedule, covering everything we would need to do filming-wise over the next few weeks.

Workshops

Throughout the course, there have been multiple workshops available for us to attend, of which should help us to gain a better understanding of how to both book out and use the equipment, along with the basics on editing. While I and other members of my group had previous experience in filmmaking, it was still beneficial to us to attend these workshops.

Not only did learn the fundamentals as to as to how to book out the equipment, but we also gained a better understanding as to how to use the specific equipment that we would have access to during the project. We were also given the chance to practice using it, of which helped later down the line when we were on set, therefore reducing set up time and allowing us to keep punctual.

Choosing the Music

One of the key elements of our film is the Music that will be playing over the top of it for the majority of it's duration. It is a decision we made in early pre-production as we felt it would minimise the risk of having poor sound quality when it came to dialogue or sound effects, therefore making the whole thing seem more professional. This however, came with a tough decision - what piece of music to use.

For obvious reasons, we couldn't simply pick a song from our favourite artist and plaster it on top of our piece, as it would infringe copyright. Plus, even if we did try to gain the rights to use it, we haven't got the time nor the budget to accomplish this feat successfully. We therefore turned our attention to the internet, and such websites as AKM and Audio Jungle, where you can purchase music for small prices to then use however you see fit.

In terms of the type of music we wanted, I was dead set on getting an instrumental piece, preferably consisting solely of Piano that had a Sad, Somber and almost whimsical feel to it. The tempo couldn't be too slow however as I still wanted it to have almost a sense of urgency, as if time was running out, again linking back to the theme of the film.

Amelia and I spent the majority of an evening listening to countless tracks online, but not many seemed to fit what we had in mind. Some were too short, others were too long, some were too happy, others too sad etc. In the end, we managed to narrow it down to three pieces that we felt could work in the film that weren't too long or too short. However, rather than simply picking our favourite, we decided to consult Sophie, as she was the one that would have to come up with a dance for it. In the end she said she liked a piece simply entitled 'Sad Piano'. This piece of music is therefore the one we have chosen for our film.

Auditions

Once we had a script, the locations and the title, it was time to find a cast, or more specifically a protagonist for our film. In order to do this, we booked out the Parkwood Dance Studio and set a date for the auditions. Then it was time to market them.

In order to spread the word, each of us reached out using social media by setting up an event and sharing it with our friends, [A], on top of this we also used word of mouth to spread the event through our own friend circles. We also specifically asked a few people that we knew enjoyed dance, or had done similar things to this before.

A - Event page on Facebook for the Auditions

On top of this, we also got in contact with multiple dance-based societies in the University, including the Musical Theatre Society and Kent Dance Society, in hopes that they would tell their members and someone would be interested.

By the time the auditions came by, we had two people that had officially signed up, which isn't as many as we hoped, but we were still happy that we had anyone at all auditioning. We asked those who wanted to audition to prepare a short dance piece to a song of their choice, and also told them that we'd be asking a few questions, just to try to understand them better as both Dancers and people.

After having watched and recorded both auditions, we went away and thought about who would be best suited for the piece and ultimately decided on the second person to audition, Sophie Beard. We felt as though her chosen song and dance style matched the kind of character we had written for the film. It was evident while watching her that she was passionate about what she was doing, and had clearly put a lot of work into it. She also came across as very expressive while she danced, a quality that would be very useful for the kind of scenes we wanted to film. Below you can find a video of her audition.

After telling Sophie the good news, we got her to sign a basic consent form that would allow us to legally use her image for our film:

Location Ideas

In terms of ideas for locations, there were plenty of places around Canterbury that we felt we could use for the various scenes within our film, however the restriction of only being able to film on campus forced us to think harder. In the end though, we feel as though we have been able to locate and secure ideal spaces for our piece.

One of the most important areas is that of the rehearsal room where the dancer is shown to be practicing, in which about half of the film is set. Around campus there are plenty of rehearsal spaces for Drama and Dance, and so it took little time to find one that we liked, the Parkwood Dance Studio in Woody's [A]. Not only was this ideal, with the mirrors running along the entirety of one of the walls like we wanted, but it was also within walking distance to the house we'd be using for our protagonist's home, [B, C & D], and the alleyways/paths we wanted to show them walking down, [E&F]. Securing these spaces will be simple enough, the house belongs to Kg, a group member, the streets are for public use and the rehearsal room requires one of us to go to the School of Arts reception and book it out.

A - Parkwood Dance Studio, Woody's

B - Parkwood House - Outside

C - Parkwood House - Hallway

D - Parkwood House - Bedroom

E - Parkwood Pathway

F - Parkwood Alleyway

As well as these locations, there was one more space that we wanted specifically, them being the Aphra [G&H], and it's conjoining storage room, of which we unfortunately couldn't take a photo of. This too will be simple enough to book out, another visit to the School of Arts reception in Jarman will allow us to gain access for two separate shoots, one for each space. The two spaces will be used for the final scene where the Dancer is about to perform for the judges, and another flashback scene where we see them practicing.

G - Aphra Studio 1

H - Aphra Studio 2

Once we had decided on our Location's, we realised that a couple of them would require us getting permission, and so we printed out some location forms and got them approved and signed:

'Black and Blue' Storyboards

After having received the script from Elliot, I started drawing the Storyboards for the film. Storyboards are a vital part of any pre-production, as it gives the very first, albeit crude, visual representation of your piece, and so I took it quite seriously. Below you find photo's of each page I drew, along with captions that somewhat explains what should be happening aurally, visually and narrative-wise for each shot. I didn't go into too much detail however, as I knew things were subject to change, and I didn't want to limit ourselves exclusively to what I'd drawn when it came to filming.