#mda2900

[captainsarcasm-blog1]

Production Paperwork Part 2

And the rest of the paperwork :)

And some extra documents:

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Production Paperwork Part 1

I will attach my production paper work in this post.

Please click ‘Read more’ to see all the images of my paperwork.

I example of Actors Agreement template

Breakdown Sheet (I will include 3 of many pages)

I will share 2 of the 4 examples of Call Sheets as they are all similar.

I’ll add the rest of the paperwork in the second post :)

[captainsarcasm-blog1]

Secondary Role

Before posting my film, I would like to talk a little bit about my secondary role in this term. At the start of this term, I was going to be script supervisor in someone’s production but in the end, I had to drop that role because they didn’t really know when they would need a script supervisor… Then I was offered a job as 1st AD on someone else’s production, a job that I think comes a lot more natural to me than script writer anyways. I happily agreed to that role. Not only did I prefer to work as a first AD but also did I think that this production was very interesting because they were working with kids. I’m planning at the moment a production for next year that would require me to work with children so I was very interested to learn more about it in that production.

I also liked very much how I really felt needed at the set and that I could fulfil my purpose there. Very often I would go to productions as a runner and then they would need me to do lights, maybe a bit of sound or they needed me to decorate the set but this time I could really focus on my job as a first AD. And I could really tell that the director and producer of that set trusted me because the director would often ask for permission to shoot a scene again or ask me if we have time to go again… The production was also well organized.

I’m going to post some paperwork after this post and then I will follow with my new production, ‘Something Catchy’.

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I am very happy to share the poster for my newest production: ‘Something Catchy’

The poster has been designed by Zack Wills with a little of my help :)

[moving-amoeba]

Adaptation assignment - problem solving

Three days before the shoot, we got an official refusal from the police, saying that we are not allowed to shoot in the front of our house, as our production involves a fight and actors dressed up as policemen. Such scene require to have an actual officer on the set, and arranging that would take a lot of time and money we didn't have. So we moved the set to our backyard. The only problems were stress and lack of space. I was afraid I won’t be able to adjust the action to the new scenery in such short time (I had to go to work in the meantime), but in the end, it worked out. Now we only have a small logical clash, as the friend was supposed to come in as he notices the father abusing his son, but now we have a fence in the way, so there is no explanation as to how would he now something was going on…

But the most problematic stage was the postproduction.

The postproduction was cursed. At first, everything looked alright; the day after the shoot, we reviewed all the shots. It seemed like we have covered the whole story, the shots looked good, we had enough to give it the right pace and the right look. But then the files starts disappearing. Every time we would open the folder, there would be less and less files. And so, from almost 100 files we were left with barely 30. That’s the worst scenario, we could encounter. We couldn’t reshoot - in few days everybody would leave for Xmas break, the media loan store and costume department would be closed, so no option of getting the equipment and the police uniforms. Our amazing editor found a software that recovered the missing files, the issue was that it wouldn’t recover them completely. The sound in most of the files was messed up, but that was alright - we had the separate sound recordings. The complicated part was that the recovered file would be just a part of the original. In some cases, there was one-third of the material missing, in some we would just hear the call for action and the recording would end. And we had to work with this. So we did what we could. I have a strong belief that the editor is a wizard after he managed to put everything together and it still made sense. There might be more blackouts, the shots aren’t always perfect (sometimes I wouldn’t even call them good) - one of them wasn’t supposed to make his way into the final work at all! The mother was supposed to be shouting in the background of the fight and be barely visible, so as a courtesy for the actress we shot one more take only of her, so she could use it in her portfolio. But all the other shots end up being unusable, so we had to put that one in. As if that was not enough, when we tried to render the film, it wouldn’t let us - no matter what extension would we choose - until we deleted one more shot, that was apparently still corrupted and was stopping the whole process. Which made us putting in some extra black screen… So, as much as a part of me is crying about how good the scene could be, I am greatly impressed with what we managed to create in spite of everything. And I sincerely wish no-one will ever have to endure this pressure as we did. Couldn’t be more proud of my team! I hope we’ll get to work together again.

[moving-amoeba]

Adaptation assignment, part three

We got incredibly lucky and met a stage combat instructor willing to help us out with the fight sequence. He’s been of great help, because although we had a rough idea what the character should be doing thanks to the description in the book, it is not very detailed and for every action bit like “brought him down”, we needed to imagine how exactly would the character do that, so it would look believable and wouldn’t interrupt the flow of the fight. Our actors were very eager to work and seemed to enjoy the rehearsal and our instructor was bursting with energy and new ideas. I’d rather not even try to imagine how bad the scene would turn out without his help.

Here is a clip from the rehearsal

[moving-amoeba]

Adaptation assignment, first problems

There’s always something. This time our main actor got a proposition to act in a major production. No way he would say no to such opportunity, and we wish him best of luck! But there’s always the tiny feeling of loss and fear we won’t find a replacement in time. Fortunately, we got lucky and one of our friends send us the contact details of an actor she was working with on the previous production. And he was absolutely amazing! He looked like we wanted our character to look and his acting was on spot. The only drawback was, that he was a foreigner and there was not enough time to perfect his accent to fit in. Nevertheless, he’s doing a great job.

[moving-amoeba]

Adaptation assignment, in between

We had a great workshop for drawing storyboards. It was pure fun. First, we wrote what we knew about the characters already from the book and then... Then just imagining the characters, deciding what were their most important traits, how to represent who they are through what they wear, how we would imagine they would look. Shall the hair be blond and curly, raven black or maybe the character is getting bald? We laughed a lot (mostly at impressive drawing skills) and in the end we got a bit better with drawing faces. Need to make time to go to the drawing classes regularly.

Then we chose a part of our script that we wanted to work on and drew every single action in at least three possible shot options. Put these on the wall and decided which ones will look the best. A bit too time consuming to do on every short project, but I think it’s a great idea when the big money is at stake and you really want to get things right.

In the meantime, we prepared the iron-on stickers for the shirts of our characters. Adam will be wearing a coca-cola t-shirt as he did in the books and we decided that Ronan should wear his school uniform with raven emblem on it to show clearly the class difference, which is one of the main reasons why Ronan and Adam’s father (who’s a mechanic) wouldn’t get along.