As we approach the shoot we have found the film evolving further. After struggling to find a dancer at the Northern Ballet School, the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, and Leeds Beckett (all students at the former two schools have an extended Easter Break well into the timeframe in which we will be shooting, and the latter have their end of year exams at the time of the shoot), we have decided to use Jada (our producer) as the performer in the piece. She has some experience with hip-hop and street dance and because she is less trained than a full-time dance student here performance will be more natural and seem a little less “rehearsed”.
We have now collected most of the footage we want to project on set during the shoot and are in the process of editing these clips. We have sourced three projectors from the library AV store and will use VGA to Thunderbolt adapters to plug them into our MacBooks in order to project the footage. We have also booked Studio One at Prime Studios for three days at the end of April to shoot the film, where there is an infinity wall that we can put to use for our film. The only problem with this is that FTU are in the process of moving all of the materials from Prime for the summer so there will be no flats available for our shoot. Instead we will find a way to hang fabrics that can be projected onto.
We also have not had time to find an appropriate venue to film the ending shots in a theatre, so we have come up with a more simple ending for the film. We have refined the narrative in general and now have five principal sequences:
In the opening sequence, we begin with the dancer silhouetted in darkness. We then see her warming up in an empty space, shot in black and white. She then demonstrates awareness of the camera and begins to dance - the dance symbolising a conversation between two people. She then introduces us to a new environment and we move into the next sequence.
In this sequence, the dancer performs against a projected background of a white minimalist space. We will also have glimpses of brutalist structures projected alongside this environment to represent the initial coldness of the conversation. Her dancing will be slow and somewhat awkward. After she sees a glimpse of something more personal to her projected nearby, she invites us to the next environment.
In this sequence, the dancer is now wearing a white dress. She performs against a projection of her own bedroom, while projected “memories” appear around her. These memories will be footage that we have shot with Jada at home and around Leeds, as well as some footage she has provided for us of her first meeting with her half-sister. This sequence will represent her becoming more at ease and sharing more of her personal history. At the end of this sequence she takes us to the final environment of the film.
Here the dancer will perform against a variety of abstract projections. The projections will be vibrant footage of ornate buildings and tiled patterns, as well as natural forms such as plants, flowers, and sea creatures. She will perform energetically and this will represent her opening up her creative, imaginative side.
In the ending sequence of the film, the projected environments will disappear. The dancer will have a field of flowers projected onto her from above, and she sit down into this field with an arrangement of real flowers surrounding her. The projection will disappear, leaving her in darkness. After this, a projected version of the dancer will appear on the wall behind her - the projected dancer will stand up and walk out of frame, leaving the real dancer to lean forwards into a pool of light, looking directly into camera. This will be a bookend of the initial shot of the film and represent how she is now comfortable with the audience.
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