The Auditions & Introduction to our final Cast Members

After finally finding the actresses and actor that we needed for our film, we decided to audition them to find out whether they were a good choice so that we could  access how they acted with each other and whether they looked the part when side-by-side. We also took a camera to film them acting the parts out as proof to put on our blogs.

The Auditions:

Introduction to our final Thespians (Cast Members):

Rebecca Chapman - Y10

Rebecca plays the leading female role in 'Behind Closed Doors'. We thought Rebecca was the best fitting actress to play Alice because she looks the part of an innocent and mature woman who is settling down with her boyfriend. She played the role of Alice more effectively than the role of Stacey because not only does her appearance give her the edge but the way she presented herself and also her voice, being more adult-sounding, just matched the persona of Alice. 

On top of this, Rebecca matched the appearance details that we wanted for Alice such as her hair colour being dark brown instead of blond or highlighted. She is also tall for her age and matches the height of our leading male role, which is vastly important. 

Millie Russell - Y7 

Millie plays the secondary female role in 'Behind Closed Doors'. For the role of Stacey we needed somebody young looking but at the same time looked very much old enough to go alongside our leading actor and actress, and Millie fits the role perfectly and is willing to do it. Although Stacey isn't a leading role she is incredibly significant to the story line and is important she is played correctly and during the auditions myself and my team decided that Millie had the right look and character to be our Stacey. 

Millie's appearance details match those of Stacey much better than we had hoped for in the beginning. Her long highlighted hair really helps bring out Stacey's character, as well as the clothes Millie has picked out really helps make her look older than she is and match the part even more. Her voice also matches the idea we have of Stacey because it has a soft and almost shy edge to it, which can be used to create the promiscuous and sympathetic tone that we sought. 

Alex Marks - Y12/College

(Alex isn't present in the footage above, as he was chosen after the auditions because our previous actor Ryan (present in the auditions) didn't quite fit the given part and also became grounded by his mother the first day of filming - which put a halt on filming once again.)

Alex Marks plays the leading male role, Richard, in 'Behind Closed Doors'. Being a year younger than myself and my team, Alex best fits the role of Richard because he looks mature and intelligent. His glasses make him look much older than he actually is and once dressed in his suit he looks much more like the character we need. 

Actor Release Forms

These documents are important to have signed by each of the actors in our film as they are proof that the cast members have agreed to being in our film by their own free will and that they are okay with being on youtube and having others watching them in our film. Before they sign the documents they must read the terms and conditions at the back of the release form, and also must have their parents or guardians sign the form as well. 

Alex Marks = plays Richard

Rebecca Chapman = plays Alice

Millie Russell = plays Stacey

Daniel Dabbs = plays Newspaper Boy

Terms and Conditions are agreeing to

Obstacles We've Faced So Far

So far, we have been hitting a couple of obstacles that have impeded our progression towards our final goal. The most prominent of them is finding the actors and the timing issue.

Casting Issues

Our film needs three main actors - 1 boy and 2 girls. The actors/actresses needed to be able to express emotions as our film consists of both wrath and sorrow, which also needs to be mixed in with love and lust. 

The two actors we first 'hired' told us they could do it and then both pulled out a day before we needed to complete our animatic and couple of days before filming began. This left us with no actors and a mad rush to get more on time. 

The following two agreed to do it, and then again with a matter of 4 days the girl pulled out saying she didn't want to do it anymore. This left us without a main character. Therefore we had to go hunting again for another girl that would match the look and age of our boy actor. 

This had proven difficult and so we have had to search for complete new actors that are all of similar ages that stand a chance of pulling off the look we need. We have found three; two girls that are eager to do it and a boy who is also eager however he is still to tell us whether he can do it or not. 

Timing Issues

Another issue we now have, and time is running out to film, is the amount of time the actors are giving us to film as they all have things to do after school and weekends. So far we seem to only have  2 days during a week to film our footage and we are worried that this will not be enough time, as last year it took us a week and a half to film for a 2minute film = and this year it is a 5 minute film so we feel we need much longer than 2 days a week and a possible weekend.

Preparing for the Shoot

So now everything is complete, this post is to quickly cover the fact we are all ready for shooting on location starting next week. In the post we will be showing evidence of booking equipment for our filming sessions, whether or not transport is sorted, who is responsible for printing documents (namely scripts), if crew roles are are sorted etc and if there are any shots or effects we need to practice.

Equipment booked:
It's important that every production team in my media class book out what equipment they need and when so that they defiantly know the equipment they want will be there and ready to use to film whatever their shooting schedule has in store for them.
Here, a member of my group has booked at all of the filming equipment we will be needing through scene 1,2 and 3. Should their be any problems like the other teams need a piece of equipment (as their is only two of everything and there are 3 groups) then we may be able to surrender an item for a while to help them out.

Screenshot of the equipment list my group have booked out for filming

Transport:

As of yet transport hasn't been discussed as the location we are filming at is rather close to the school and everybody lives more or less within walking distance apart from 3 who may need to be picked up and brought to the location, as it takes longer than an hour to get there. However, we will probably get a lift off Daniel's or Cameron's parents to get the filming equipment up to our filming location to stop us hefting it through the streets. 

Printing Documents:

All important documents have been printed out by myself and handed out to the actors and actresses already so that they can now learn their lines a little more before we start filming. Shooting schedule I am printing out multiple copies so that we have back up should we lose one or it ends up a mess.

Crew Roles:

Crew roles have been sorted out mostly: myself will be taking on the role of Director and making sure everything is going well and on schedule, directing the actors/actresses with help from my team and making sure there are no problems during filming. 

Cameron will be filming most of the time, possibly switching with somebody else if they are slightly better at a particular shot type or camera movement. Last year during the AS media course, Cameron did majority of the camera work and he is much better equipped at it then most of us in our group as it is one of his strongest qualities in media.

 Daniel will be in charge of sound recording as he did last year. He understands the equipment perfectly and seems well suited for the task. 

Charlotte hasn't got an assigned crew role as of yet as she sort of floats between all three however we may need her to take control of lighting if we use reflectors and artificial lighting in our shots. she will also most likely be helping to direct the production alongside myself.

Practice for specific shots &/or effects:

Myself and my team know that focusing in general could be our hardest challenge throughout filming, constantly making sure that every shot is in full focus and not slightly off. We may also need to practise with the crane shot, but we are not sure if we are going to use the crane in our film any more as we have altered the story line a little and the story board seems to work well. 

We may need to play around with the new FCP X again to get ourselves used to where everything is on it just in case we mess something up while editing our film.

Shooting Schedule

The shooting schedule is a very important document that all the members of the production team, and quite possibly the cast also, need to be aware of so they know what props to bring, what equipment is needed, when and where the shots will be filmed and of course, they need to know what shots/scenes are being filming on what day.

The shooting schedule was one of the last pieces of production work that we needed to complete, as we couldn't do this before we had the storyboard. Myself and my group will be filming for roughly two weeks, of which we are hoping - if everything runs smoothly - only seven days will be needed. This means the next week can be used for touching up any loose ends or changing camera angles or dialogue used. 

For my AS media course myself and my production team had to come up with a shooting schedule also, if you want to check out this you can do be clicking this link: Jarlinc's Shooting Schedule.

Example of a shooting schedule

Shooting Schedule Part 1:

This part of the shooting schedule is initially consisting of shots from scene 2 which will be the first scene that myself and my production team will be filming as this is the most important scene of our film, and it is more convenient for us as after school this time of year it gets darker quicker - and so because we need a long period of time to film when it is dark outside, the weekdays are the best suitable time. These scenes will be filmed from 4:30pm till 9:00pm.

Shooting Schedule Part 1

Shooting Schedule Part 2:

This shooting schedule is carrying on from the part 1 but it consists of scenes 1 and 3, which are the slightly smaller scenes to shoot and the ones we are going to be filming during the weekend as we will have the time to get up early and film from the morning through to either when we feel we can stop filming or when it begins to get too dark for the scene we need. Scene 1 will be filmed from 8:00am (roughly) - 1:00pm while Scene 3 will be filmed 12:00pm - 3:00pm.

Shooting Schedule Part 2

Animatic for "Behind Closed Doors"

Now the storyboard is completed, myself and my production team were able to create and complete our animatic. This is our storyboard in motion with a rough soundtrack over the top, foley noises (such as the sound of a door slamming) and also, a new addition this year is dialogue. Last year in my film "Shadowed" for my AS course, we never used dialogue so this year we wanted to attempt it.

Example of a real film media animatic:

My AS Media Blog Animatic Post This is a link to my last years media blog if you want to find out more research about animatics in general.



I have used this example of a real media film animatic because I think it's the best one as you can see the storyboard and how the film actually turned out right next to it so you can compare.

Our Animatic

Evaluation of our Animatic

Overall, I feel that our animatic really resembles what we want our final film to look like. I think that the drawings tell the story well and are detailed enough so that the viewer has a rough idea of what is going on in each shot. The soundtrack chosen goes well with the genre of the film and helps to set the mood and tell the story as it goes along. The gentle, sad classical piano music at the start "Mary" helps to portray the carnage that the scene shows and really goes hand in hand with how Richard is meant to be feeling and the tragedy of Alice's death. The loud ticking sound of the clock as well as the tense soundtrack alongside it in "Approaching the Hour" adds to the effect that Alice is waiting for Richard to come home and is feeling tense and angry that he isn't back yet. In "Celestial" the slow to intense and frantic beat helps portray how the characters went from calm to angry to violent throughout the course of the argument. At the very end of our animatic in scene 3, we are using the end of "Mary" again, because the end has a more intense sound to it and the music ends on a perfect note a little like a "boom" noise which we felt suits the shot where Richard drops the necklace and picks Stacey over Alice. The "boom" almost symbolises the idea that its a shock to the audience and the wrong thing to do. 

The dialogue went really well when we recorder the voices, however due to unfortunate happenings, we had to ask two people from our media class to fill in for the actor and actress so that the sound recordings were completed for our animatic. The way both of them did their character was brilliant and really helped us to get a feel for how our film we look like when we actually come to film it. It also helped us make changes to our script and adapt how the characters could say certain parts. 

The animatic is 4 minutes and 28 seconds long, which is a little close to our cut off point of 5 minutes, so we are hoping when we film the rough cut it will either come to the same length, only a little bit longer to give room for our Volcanic Productions ident, or if possible a little less time. If it goes over 5 minutes we will need to do a lot of cutting and getting rid of needless shots. 

Storyboard for "Behind Closed Doors"

This post is the storyboard for our 5 minute short. Each drawing is an idea of how each of our shots will look throughout the 3 scenes of our film. The next post will be our film's animatic which is the drawings from our storyboard put into motion with soundtrack and sound recordings of our actors reading their lines.

Storyboard Research:

Storyboards are a time-consuming process that takes weeks to do properly, especially for those million dollar films out there which could have other a thousand shots (much more) for their entire film. For our film we only have five minutes and so our storyboard isn't as long as some of those of real feature films. Storyboards allow any improvements to be made to the film before it begins to be produced, any problems can be found out much easier on the paper and if there are any new ideas new shots could be added in or old shots taken out to create the perfect film.
For more research on Storyboards again you can check out my AS media blog where I did a little more research: Jarlinc's storyboard for "Shadowed".

Storyboard Conventions:

- The Scene Number: This is needed to sum up exactly which part of the film the shot is in. Within our film "Behind Closed Doors" there are three scenes altogether and so having those scene numbers in allowed us to quickly figure out where each scene belongs. It stops any confusion from happening also.

- The Shot Number: This section of the storyboard is important because it tells us exactly which shot it is: near the beginning, near the end etc, instead of having to name every single shot. It makes things a lot quicker and easier for when we do our animatic also because if you have loads of shots (films will have thousands) numbering each one is vital to keep track of them.

- The Shot Type: The shot type displays how the shot will be portrayed in the film, whether its a mid shot or a close up etc. This is shown in the drawings of the story board and is often wrote underneath as well.

- The Drawings of the Scene: These drawings allow the producer to see what the film entails way before production/filming properly starts. The drawings allow your film idea to come alive on the page and you are able to see if something works or needs improving or completely changing.

- The Camera Movements: Camera Movements refers to such things like panning, tracking shots, tilts etc and is often displayed as an arrow on the drawing or written underneath the box as a little reminder type thing. You would use the camera movements on a storyboard if you want to show that the camera will be tilting to follow somebody bending down for example.

- The Extra Details: The details box is where you can put a very brief sentence or two about what y that particular shot includes so that any drawings the producer or production team cannot understand, they have the writing underneath to refer back to.

Behind Closed Doors - Storyboard

Next on my blog I will be posting my animatic for Behind Closed Doors.

Production Review

This post is basically an overall update on the goings on within Volcanic Productions on the subject of production. I will be stating my opinion on whether my group is ahead or behind schedule, truthfully, and what we are doing to maintain or improve it.

What's happened so far/ How's it going:

Okay so, assuming you have followed my journey through my media course so far you will know that myself and my team have had to learn how to use new equipment: DSLR training post and new software like FCP X: FCP X training as well as already producing a small documentary on the subject of litter as an extra part of the training. 

So now we are pretty much left to our own devises to sort out everything we need before we start shooting: that is everything from the treatment to the animatic and storyboard as well as making sure we have actors and the actor release forms all before the 28th November when we are sent out to film our rough cut. 

I am enjoying this media course and am really looking forward to filming however it is becoming very stressful and panic is really setting in, especially as I am hoping to live up to the same standard myself and my team achieved in AS last year.

Are we ahead or behind schedule:

Honestly, at this moment in time I think we running behind schedule because certain posts that are assigned to people are not being done when they are meant to be completed by, which then effects the rest of our team as they are waiting upon those posts. We are still yet to complete our storyboard, and animatic which takes a while to finish, especially if you want it at high standard. I am starting to panic as the deadline for R&P posts is in 11 days - rather a nerve raking thought - so I will be assigning extra hours after school either with my team or on my own to make sure everything is done by the 28th November. 

Some sleepless nights are on the horizon I see :) 

Our group discussion with Mr Hood

Each production team went in for a discussion on how we were getting on and Mr Hood identified/agreed with us that we are behind. He also pointed out the fact that I could be becoming rather bossy and controlling because I want things done straight away, which could mean that the rest of the group could be feeling a little unsure about doing anything without my say-so or worried its not done perfectly. 

He also said that because in our group there is myself who is the control freak and another who is a lot more laid back, which means because we are opposite ends of the stick, there could be problems that could occur which means we need to find a way of balancing it out to make it easier for us to manage as a team and get things done.

The following days after discussion/Areas to improve:

I am trying not to be as controlling and giving the members in my team a little more space to do things without worrying about me turning into some demon, however while in doing this I am still making sure everything is done and helping them if they need help.

We have now completed our storyboard, which gives us a week to complete our animatic... with all hands on deck, we should get this done - no, positive thinking, we WILL get this done :).