CSD Productions

Hey! We're a student film group currently in our first year at Aberystwyth University and this is our blog of reflections on our productions as we go on. We are: Hannah Campbell, Naomi Coller, Lloyd Buckle,Ciaran Campbell and Jacob Brewer. Our video projects: Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Youtube Channel

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Naomi Coller - 500 Word Evaluation

When we first met I found the best thing about Group D was our ability to get along. We were immediately able to produce our first film, Chestnut the Horse rather easily. We all knew from the get go that we wanted to do something funny rather than serious which is where the idea came from.

For our final film we decided to take our very first film, Chestnut the Horse and remake it into something new and completely better. We took the criticism that we received all the way back in the first week and very meticulously planned the next version of Chestnut. We met up beforehand and created a detailed sheet of information of everything that we would need, a storyboard, and a script. 

The biggest thing we had to improve on was the actual chase scene itself, and since I was one of the main cinematographers on this project I was determined to break the chase scene up by getting as many shots as we possibly could. Originally we left the chase scene as three long shots just showing the two main characters bouncing along, tripping, throwing things at eachother, etc. We did have a lot of the same action occurring we decided that for the remake we would hire out a dolly. The dolly was a fantastic tool for us to have because it gave us a much wider range of shots that we could actually do instead of us being limited to pans, cut aways, etc. It was perfect for the chase scene because of all the movement that was occurring in the scene opening us up to trying even a moving master shot.

This was my first time working with the dolly and I ended up finding it extremely enjoyable.

I found that the colors of the corridor we filmed in worked beautifully on camera and added a whole new level to the images that were produced. I’m very proud of the shots we managed to capture and how the film came together in the end through all of our efforts.

I want to go into cinematography later in life so overall I found this an extremely beneficial experience. Working in the different positions in the group, such as director, editor, sound, and even actor I found enjoyable and informative.

The main thing about making these ‘Chestnut’ films is that as a group we had fun making them, and it’s easy to recognize that when you see the film itself.

Overall as a module while it seems intimidating it ends up being a lot of fun to do. Because of the time constraints each week for making a film as well it forced us to improve our skills in time management and teamwork. 

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Lloyd Buckle - 500 Word Evaluation

For our final submitted piece we decided that we wanted to use our initial ideas from our very first film Chestnut the Horse and use the feedback gained on the negative aspects to create a much improved remake. Whilst many people found the original to be amusing, many technical aspects let us down, in particular the overlong shots used during the chase scene towards the end which is generally the type of situation which requires a fast editing pace in order to capture and sustain the audiences interest. Also in terms of narrative, the original film didn’t quite make sense as due to very limited preparation time during our first week we were thinking on our feet and largely had to make it up as we went along.

Now that we had much more time to spend in pre-production, we were able to conceive a backstory which would help give reason to the plot of Jacobs’s character wanting to fight my own character. We decided I would play the antagonist and steal a hat just as Jacob is about to buy it provoking him to want to challenge me to a showdown in which we were able to use conventions of the spaghetti western genre, such as the close ups of the eyes and twitching hands reaching for guns.

We also thought it would be a good idea to borrow a dolly in order to film some much more interesting shots during the chase down the bright corridor allowing a smooth tracking shot. We also used green screen for the first time right at the very end as Jacob is reunited with Chestnut who turns out to still be alive.

One criticism still remains for me however in that we didn’t have time to film a shot which established how the two characters meet at the showdown so the scene still seems unexplained slightly, as in the original.

Obviously as I was acting in this film, I wasn’t too involved with the cinematography but having played the role of cinematographer in previous weeks as well as having also been director and writer for another of our films, I feel that I have had a good shake of the stick at the majority of film making roles during the course providing a good opportunity to experience the responsibilities of each.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed the time spent on this production module purely due to the amount of time which has been spent hands on making films, putting into practice many of the techniques learnt both before university and last semester.

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Ciaran Campbell 500 Word Evaluation

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Hannah Campbell 500 Word Evaluation

This is not a spoiler free post!

It has been 7 interesting and intense weeks producing a new film each week but I have very much enjoyed it. The best thing has been to try out all the different hands on roles that are involved when making a film and I must say that it has been both challenging and awarding.

My main roles throughout the weeks has been director or cinematographer which I have been more than happy with because that is what I want to do in life. To be able to practice cinematography and directing in a serious environment has in my eyes helped to improve my skill and I have truly enjoyed it.  I have also had the chance to work with the sound, acting, and I have done most of the editing throughout the weeks which has been challenging as well but not as fun as directing or filming.

The most challenging thing overall has been to use the time we were given wisely. As most of our films didn’t require too many shots or locations it was easy in that sense, but to get everything right and set up the camera for each shot was the hardest and most time consuming. Another challenging thing on my own part has been to try and agree with the other group members as we had different visions in what we wanted from this module. As I am a fan of more serious films and that is the type of films that I like to make it was quite difficult in my mind to accept that the others did not aim for those films. However, I did get to write two of the films, which I aimed to be more serious, and I did realise that making comedies and light-hearted films is easier at this level.

Our last project was Chestnut the Horse: The Remake, which was incredibly fun to work on. I was sceptical at first but in the end I am more than pleased that we decided to remake it since the story was strong enough for a remake which we planned a lot more than the original one which took about 20 minutes to plan. The challenge this time was to stick to the original concept and not to make it look like we tried to hard to make it work.

As cinematographer I used the critique we got the first week and used that to improve the camera movement and what shots were used and it really worked. Instead of a chase scene with two long shots we shot the same scene over and over again using different angles but also using a dolly. The dolly was a great prop as it allowed us to have steady shots throughout the case and we could move with the characters instead of being in a fixed position.

We realised that we needed a proper story for it to be a good film and the original idea was that Lloyd steals the hat that Jacob wants to buy and then the chase starts ending with Lloyd being killed and Jacob taking his hat back. However, due to time limitations we changed the ending in editing, as we did not have a shot of Jacob taking the hat back. The new ending was the reuniting of Jacob and Chestnut, as the Jacob and the audience are lead to believe that Chestnut has died the shot to Lloyd’s head is revenge for killing his beloved Chestnut, but finally in the end we see that Chestnut has not died and her and Jacob ride towards the sunset. This change that was made in editing was taught me that the final product is never what it initially was set out to be, but also that rethinking the story can be ever so rewarding as it opened up to a deeper meaning.

Overall I am extremely happy with out final film and I really believe that it is the best thing that we have produced over the past 7 weeks. I also think that I have improved my film style and use of camera and also found that my way is not always the best way.

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Jacob Brewer - 500 Word Evaluation

I directed the original Chestnut the Horse in the first week which I found was difficult as there was no script. Our challenge was to create a film with a 'chase' in it. We had no time to prepare for this and the group had never met before. We were given two hours to film a two minute video. After a quick brainstorming session we decided to go to the props room to see if we could find anything to use. We found some horsey hoppers and from there I began to imagine a script in my head. A lot of the first film was improvisation on the ideas in my head and in the end it turned out to be one of our best films from the seven weeks.

I have also done other roles in the group throughout the module such as being the sound operator. I operated the boom on a few films and I found that this was the easiest of the roles. The only challenge from this was keeping the boom out the shot, but the director would always tell me when this occurred. I also acted in most of the films we produced as well. I am not a very good actor but I am happy to make an idiot out of myself so I was normally chosen to act. When I directed, I was usually the cinematographer as well because I knew how I wanted the shots to be so it made sense for me to be operating the camera too. I found I enjoyed being the director and cinematographer the most.

We decided that our best film was the original Chestnut the Horse we made in week one. We made the decision to remake Chestnut with better preparation so we could submit it as our final film. All of the group got together to create a new script based on the first. The original Chestnut was well received but did acquire a few criticisms which we took on board. We were told that the chase scene seemed to drag on a little long and we needed different shots to edit together quickly to add a sense of urgency. This was one of our main priorities when it came to the remake. We also wanted to add a little bit of a back story to the film as it was originally unclear why the two men were trying to kill each other.

After we had created the new script we decided on what roles everyone would do. We decided that because I acted in the original, I needed to act again, and it would be beneficial to have a different director so they could concentrate solely on directing and not acting and directing as I had to do in the original. Although my role was only acting I did have a small amount of input because Chestnut the Horse was my original idea. I enjoyed acting in this because it involved no dialogue and I was basically a stunt man for most of it.

I think I could have improved my acting as I had to do it so many times but I remained a bad actor throughout the seven weeks. I also think I could have directed the actors better especially in our week 5 production. In regards to improving our final submitted film, I think we could have added muzzle flashes to the banana guns for more effect but we didn't have the time to do it whilst editing. I also think we could have included a few more shots at the beginning of the film such as how the two men got the the showdown.

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Cinematographer (Hannah): Instead of a storyboard for this film I just used the previous Chestnut The Horse that we did the first week and used that as a template to what to do/not to do shot wise. It was also the first time I used a dolly and it kind of worked, but because it has 3 wheels it was hard to control it so maybe next time I want movement in my shots I'll try and use the tracks instead. I'm quite happy with how the final product turned out and as I was quite against remaking it in the beginning I am quite pleased with what we managed to do as it appeals to everyone who's seen it which is always nice to hear.

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For week 6 of the module, we were tasked with making a film in the genre of British Social Realism. The genre is typically associated with everyday happenings of working class people in Britain and generally doesn't concern any fantastical elements in terms of the narratives. As a group we discussed ideas for our film and realised a few of us had already studied British Social Realism previously or had seen films associated with the genre. Ken Loach is one of the most prominent directors of films in the genre and was therefore one of our biggest influences. We looked to films such as Ae Fond Kiss (2004) and Looking For Eric (2009) in particular, mainly looking at the issues and conflicts dealt with. We eventually decided to make a film with only a voiceover as opposed to diegetic speech following a man named Charlie over the course of a day, The voiceover itself was inspired by Ewan McGregor's character, Renton's speech in Trainspotting (Boyle, 1996) in that it was intended to be quite fast paced, natural sounding, and matching the tone of the film. This however came to be a problem during production as we found it difficult to make the voiceover seem natural, and attempts at improvising didn't work out as well as we had hoped.

Lloyd Buckle 

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"Its okay not to be okay"

By famous philosopher Jessie J

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Director (Jacob): 

For this weeks video we had to create a soundscape. I decided that with the sound effects to my disposal, a tongue in cheek haunted house type video would work effectively. I had a clear idea of what i wanted to do when creating the script but when it came to actually filming it ended up being nothing like it was originally meant to be due to technical and physical constraints. Reflecting back upon the script writing process, i should have foreseen these constraints and changed the script accordingly. This would have meant that the final production would have been made to a better standard.

Actor (Naomi):

Acting in a film Jacob has directed is always a lot of fun. As a director he's extremely fun to work with because of the attitude he approaches the film with. There is lots of joking about but when we get around to the work it goes rather smoothly with a lack of arguments and a great deal of teamwork. Jacob makes sure his scripts are always very flexible meaning we could improv at any time we needed to without worrying about his reaction. I particularly liked filming this one because of the locations that we used. There were quite a few, making it a fun day running around the uni pretending we were in a haunted house. 

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  Scriptwriter's reflections (Hannah): 

Well my idea came from the fact that we as a group spend a lot of time in the union on the pub quiz games. Also I had just watched an episode of Bones where one of the characters loses all of his money (see the making of video) and has to talk to his wife about it. Not wanting to copy the whole scene from Bones I chose to make it a bit different in the way that his girlfriend leaves him because it's happened one too many times. 

Comments that were given in class was that it's good visually but the drama has got to improve. I do agree on this point because I see everything through the lens of the camera and often forget the actual characters and I focus more on the cinematography than the story. This is something that I will have to improve on, otherwise the comments were quite good. 

Director/Cinematographers's reflections (Naomi): 

What I found particularly challenging about this film wasn't actually filming it, it was taking the ideas that our teacher had given us and incorporating them into our original script. We found it difficult to mold the two together seamlessly but did our best to make it happen. 

Directing the actors was something else that I found challenging. In previous experience I've normally always been the cinematographer in my films, meaning I'm used to making the directors vision come alive under their direction. Never before have I actually been the one in charge and I'll admit I found it a bit difficult to get what I wanted and my points across. Though my actors were very understanding and performed as best as they could I feel that, looking back, the film could have been better if there had been more direction. 

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So this is the video of The Making of the script for Week 4 Project "Inner Image".

The inspiration I had for this was the fact that us as a group has spent a few hours in the Union playing on the gambling machines. I also remembered one of the latest Bones episodes where one of the characters loses all of their money, and they have to deal with it by talking to his wife.

The difference between this script and the Bones character is that he had to choose between saving school girls from dying or keeping all his money, whereas our character is just a gambling addict who has spent all of his money which has sever consequences.

The pictures in this making of is the set of the bedroom which the film will take place in. I used the pictures to be able to draw the storyboard. And I apologise for the horrible drawings.

Also, for a good cause I put the latest One Direction song onto this which if you buy it it will donate money to Red Nose Day, and if you text 'YES' to 70005 you will donate money to the same cause.

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For our third film we had to recreate part of a Swedish film called Persona. This heavy, bright lighting in order to get the high contrast shots we needed that were seen in the film.

For this film Lloyd was the Cinematographer, Jacob was the Sound guy, Ciaran controlled the lighting, and Naomi and Hannah acted.  

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Our second film had to be made under the theme of an Encounter.

For this film Hannah wrote and directed, Jacob was the Sound guy, and Lloyd and Naomi acted.  

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The making of our first film, Chestnut the Horse. 

During the first week of our Media Production task we were given the task of making a silent film with a chase scene in it. While we played around with many (silly) ideas for the chase scene we eventually came up with inspiration when we went to the costume department and found a box of Hoppy Horses sitting in the corner.