BIFE film Students - Chase scene

11/11/09

In this chase scene which is college project for camera and sound, I will be exploring addiction. In the town I am currently living there are many "amusement" halls, where many gamblers go to chase their highs daily. So I will be shooting a film around this theme. The idea of the chase ties in well within this, and I am now certain that this is what I want to base my story on. Only problem is that none of these places will allow me to shoot in their establishments, even with me sugar coating my pitch to them and excluding the nature of the theme I will be exploring within the project. They have no intention on letting even students of film making come anywhere near them in order to avoid any bad publicity. So I have to resort to my plan B.. to capture sound and interlace it with visuals of my character's distress as he runs through the streets of Bray in search of distractions. I am hoping to build tension through sound and have it reflect his state of mind. I am lucky to be working with a very talented actor on this project, Richard Kirby who is very active but has assured me that he would lend me some of his time for which I am very grateful for.

 This exercise is primarily one to evaluate our skills on camera as well as our ability to capture good sound and edit it using protools. My camera skills are somewhat underdeveloped so now that I have my theme, once I have finished doing up the script and rough storyboard I will do a mock shoot with my handycam to see what shots are logistically possible and work best visually. It is going to be difficult to run with the actor and keep the camera steady enough for the viewer to see close ups of his face, so I shall be doing something I have not done since my mid teens... rollerblading!  That’s right you heard me, I am going to rollerblade alongside Richard while someone holds me steadily into position and rolls me down the street avoiding pot holes, empty cans and passers by.  I reckon it will be a more gritty kind of tracking which will still give a handheld feel to the scene. Rest assured the camera will be perfectly safe as we will not be going at the speed of light, just fast enough to have the background moving as well as having Richard running convincingly through the streets and under bridges and wherever else. My primary focus in these shots is to show his angst.

 As for sound, I do have a little problem.. I now know that I will not be able to walk into one of these “amusement” joints to record the sound off their machines with their blessings.. so if my plan B of asking one of my classmates who knows someone in the industry to help me capture sounds doesn’t work out either, I may have to go guerrilla on them. Take from that what you will. Getting sounds off the internet kind of defeats the purpose of the exercise and I’m not going to change my theme. I’ve been building it in my head now for too long, it wouldn’t be fair to me!

 I will update this blog with my step by step progress..

11/11/09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPnOZ3WgLVI  is the background track I have chosen for this scene.. I love the repetitiveness and intensity!

12/11/09

I have now secured a location for my pub sequence.. it's a little upmarket looking which means my character will look out place but I can make that work. Also it's looking like I'll be able to get my slot machine sounds recorded with the approval of management at one of the local amusement halls, although this is not 100% confirmed yet.. fingers and toes crossed! The whole thing will be severely undermined otherwise..

16/11/09

Still waiting to hear back about the sound recording.. grrrrrr. I'm trying to focus on other things in the meantime though, I have to get a production schedule down as soon as I know when Richard is available. Also I need extras for the pub sequence, so I will put up some posters around the college once I have a time nailed. 

I've been thinking a lot about shots in the last few days, I want it to look like it's him vs the world and everything is spiraling around him. I have a feeling that I'm going to be speeding it up in the editing, at least for the bar sequence where the camera position will not change to underline the idea of stagnation in my character's mind. Everything will slowly get out of control, including camera movements, I will be going from POVs to that gritty tracking following him through the streets. Eventually when he gets to the beach, I'll do a wide shot and then run up to him (also sped up) and circle him (close ups) until he lets out a painful gasp as he looks up at the sky.. then a blackout. I want to make sure that my ending shows a release within him, but stays ambiguous enough to make the viewer ask whether the end of his perturbation and struggle is down to something dark or merely a resolution within himself. 

I have much to think about and it's only meant to be a minute long.. potentially if I get some good footage I'd like to extend it so I am starting to take this more seriously now and I don't just see it as a college assignment anymore. In fact I've come to the realisation that I can make myself really interested in any exercise as long as I work on it on a conceptual level also, and I spend enough time gelling with a potential protagonist before preproduction begins. 

20/11/09

So Richard has confirmed availability for late next week, which gives me time to iron out some logistics.. I have done a mock shoot this past week, and have extracted stills to make a photographic storyboard.. which I then turned into an animatic set to my chosen segment of the backing track. This is the first time I've ever done up an animatic and I have to say it's possibly one of the most beneficial steps towards sorting out a shotlist, as well as being able to check for pacing issues. So happy I did it.. now I need to organise my extras in the coming days; the performance arts course students from BIFE have expressed and interest so it might be easier than expected! 

With regards to the narrative, I have decided to have the character win a jackpot in the opening shot.. we hear loud jackpot sounds and we see a close up shot of the masses of coins piling into his backpack. He then zips it shut and hurriedly exits the casino. He then sits alone in the bar with his bag on the counter. He finishes his pint in one gulp and we hear a glass smash during a short momentary balckout. He exits the pub with this heavy bag and this is where he starts to get haunted by the sounds of the slot machines as he passes by the casino neon lights that seems to be everywhere. He starts to run faster and faster down laneways and over bridges, he crosses the train tracks and stops to catch his breath.. He then gets terribly angry and fights to get the bag off him and rid himself of the weight of his addiction. He then releases the bag over the bridge far away where he can no longer see it. He then ends up on the seafront by the water, alone and away from his troubles. We hear the jackpot sound again now as the screen blacks out.

I went into the bar I will be shooting in to iron out a few details with the owner. He will be coming in two hour early in order to cater to us and has not requested any payment. He is willing to lend us the name of the place and is willing to feature in it as "barman".. lol So in order to thank him I will be requesting that most of the extras buy one non alcoholic drink while I am filming, (as I'm broke I cannot pay for them myself) and I will throw a party in their honour in 2 weeks time once I am able to. I hope they will be ok with this, it's a strange request but I see no feasible alternative unfortunately. I want to thank the owner of the bar by compensating him for his time and kindness by at least giving him that.. if not just a bit of promotion for his bar! 

29/11/09

Everything is now confirmed for this coming thursday.. I am hoping to use the college's steady cam for the day, although I still have to iron out whether or not that still officially makes me the camera person if it's strapped onto my actor. This is a grey area and I might fail my assignment if the teachers regard it this way. That said, it would be a much more interesting way of filming the non POV shots of him running.. I might film this both ways and then re-edit once the assignment has been submitted that way I can have the option of including those shots for myself. Anyway Yaaaaaaaaaawn.. must sleep :)

02/12/09

T-10 hours to go before the shoot. I've had to find somebody to replace the actor due to a prior commitment on his side. But everything else has worked out, just about. All I need to do now is make sure I have all of my shots sorted in my head, and have my fingers crossed that the weather stays on the dryer side.. I'm feeling excited now about shooting, capturing and editing in the coming days  :)

07/12/09

I'm missing some shots.. I manged to mess up the first half an hour's worth of recording! My actor has thankfully agreed to come back to help me finish it off in the coming days. (what a star!) In the meantime I am sorting out all of the POV footage, which I've decided will be nighttime shots. I want to make it that we see his struggle isn't just in the moment but something he lives with constantly.. I just hope the end piece doesn't look too arty (in a bad way) :S I am not entirely happy with my footage, I need to reshoot a few scenes of my character walking and running.. only I will have to get a lot closer to his face in the later shots. And my long ambitious ending shot was difficult to nail due to the fact that my home made steady cam isn't any good and hasn't helped me to achieved the smoothness I am looking for. On the plus side though I have access to the camera for another few days and I can spend some time working on it before getting down to some serious editing!

12/12/09

It's 4am and I can't sleep.. I spent the afternoon trying to sleep off an intense headache and now I find myself restless; what better time to edit!?

 Overall I'm feeling ok about the footage I have, just ok though.. I think if you're unsure of your abilities but you have time on your hands you should plan the * out of your shoots and be generous with the amount of shots you go for and then hopefully you'll have enough to go on in the post production stages. I am editing this to a segment of the piece of music I chose, and I'm not including any foley for the moment.. I have a sound assignment coming up in January so I'll sort that out as a second step towards having a proper finished short. But as it stands it works quite well as a mini music video. The sounds in the song itself help define the actions and I'm not too unhappy with this.. I'll be submitting it one week from now but as I have other deadlines I want to get at least the core of it finished off for polishing by Sunday. 

I find myself procrastinating quite a bit though.. I am highly motivated but every few minutes I start to doubt myself and then I find it all too easy to click to a tab that isn't my editing suite and get distracted. But at least I'm procrastinating on this website and not stupid social networking sites.. this way I can think things through a bit before hammering at the chase scene again. Thanks Crewger! x

18/12/09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6FDhbX4TC8

(first draft) to be handed in on monday.. eeps!)