The Coin: Assistant on Camera/Sound

I was an assistant on the filming set project: The Coin. A short script about a girl, Patricia and a boy called John searching for photos of students from the past for the current website for the University of Bolton. Patricia finds a photo that matches John, a flashback occurs of a photographer taking a photo of John. The twist is his lucky coin that keeps him young forever.

Helping out on set was a joyful experience since i got to give my ideas, help other people and have ago on two seperate pieces of equipment too see which i liked best:

The flashback scene:

This particular bit in the film was the most important, since it mainly explained what the film was about and the twist that the film had. I suggested the flashback scene to either be grainy or black and white to connote the past.

Sound:

• music 
• sound effects
• voices

These must be balanced correctly, or one or the other may be more dominant depending what emotional you are trying to portray. Sound is much more important than people may think, for this filming process i suggested we mainly use diegetic sound- since there is a lot of dialogue and the dialogue mainly tells the story; very important in the coin since there is not much emotion displayed within the script. 

Too improve/ideas:

To have used more synchronous sounds too our advantage. merging and the synchronizing sounds of the door opening to the stockroom, coin rolling, camera flashing increasing the volume of these three things would show the audience that they are important to the story line (opening the stockroom- raises questions, coin rolling- something special about the coin, camera flashing- showing he is frozen in time/ a time loop). this would help the audience engage with the situation more. 

 

Documentary: Art Director

My mind map ideas: 

This is the spiritualist church located in Bolton centre:

We picked this place since it is something that we all sort of believe in and hasn't yet or cant be proven. So we thought it was very interesting to document, many people shy away from spiritualism since they do not understand it or are scared of it. Thought it would appeal to many different types of audiences.

Typical codes and conventions for a documentary:

• A voice over- this helps people connect better with the documentary as you get footage with someone with specialists knowledge.
• Real footage- non-fiction footage which shows you what its actually like within the spiritual church if they would ever visit. 
• natural sounds and lighting- helping you emphasis yourself being there and what you would feel being there, helping yourself feel good when watching the documentary- wanting you to visit the centre 
• unobtainable information- interesting facts about the history that the man (who spoke the majority way through e.g. voice over man) did, since the public may not be able to find that information for themselves. 
• interviews- interviews with the public, too get the truth and since people trust public recommendations over someone who is an expert (seems that they are trying to sell the place too you/ not get their opinion) 
• Text- quick way of getting information across ( interviewers questions, title of film and end credits) 
• Non-diegetic sound- towards the end, hymn songs, since this has a strong link with worship and spiritualism 
• Mise-en-scene- not a big part since we wanted to show how casual the people are dressed, comfortable to visit- members of staff or clairvoyants are clearly dressed differently to easily distinguish the contrast of the visits too staff. All the props we needed were already there. - we wanted to make it a very natural, casual and real setting. 

Spiritualism is coming i believe in dearly and had much fun going into the centre; i still go now.
Here are some photos of the two sets of Tarot cards I own:

Spiritualism gives you something to believe in afterlife, being able to contact the dead through mediums giving you hope and closure to any given situation. To believe that goals and too carry on living once as a spirit and also believe in some kind of god.

Tarot cards (78 in a pack) helps map out a mental or spiritual path. Past, present and or future. 

Short film- Directors role

This is my short film that me and my group created. The short film is based on a women who comes in from a long day at work- and finds her husband cross-dressing. My original directors vision was too make the short film have horror based conventions at the beginning e.g.  dark house, strand noises, jumpy cuts which the women can play up too and act scared- only too find her husband upstairs cross dressing  this would create tension and contrast between humour and horror. basing this short film on a spoof like Scary movie 1,2,3,4 and now 5.

          conventions of a horror- low angle shots, dim hallway, and her body langue shows she is uncomfortable

we had to work with what we had, the only problem i found with this scene was the lighting and how quickly the actress walked up the stairs (did not edit this film).

                                    turns out to be a ridiculously funny face and scene!

found that the edits with her walking up stairs and finding her boyfriend like this were not dramatic enough and told more of a story of continuity rather than getting the points across of the genre, reason and what inspired me.

unfortunately our filming did not turn out like this, since everyone else in the group agreed on making more of a serious short film with not much dialogue whereas I as the director tried to put across the puns and visual gags which would of made the short film funny and scary at the same time creating a much bigger contrast for the humour of the whole film.


Other films inspirational films:  Mrs.Doubtfire (1993)

This film is an all time classic directed by Chris Columbus who also like David Zucker (director of scary movie 3) bases a lot of the comedy effect on visual gags:

 These unexpected situations make the humour much more effective since it is more visual with little dialogue. Our film had this type of effect- not much dialogue and with an unexpected visual gag at the end.

Since the short film was not very long, too get across the imagine that the man dressed as women is actually her husband- not a friend, family member etc is by the way the actress acted.

1. We know it is her home, since she acted comfortable, looked after herself and the home
   
   
   
   
   
   
     
   
   
   2. The dialogue of "Phill" 
   3. Reaction when seeing Phill- concerned and shocked, if it was a family member you would instantly laugh. Also can see his work clothes. 
   
   
   
   David Zucker bases his comedy on visual gags on people often getting hurt which in effect lets us laugh at these people. My question is can I respect and be inspired by this director even though it lets me laugh at other people in a cruel way. I do agree with his comedy but realistically it can be seen as controversial. This can be shown in other shows such as Friends which i grew up with. I agree with David Zuckers comedy as it lets you find pretty much anything funny within people and peoples personalities and not take anything too seriously and being able to laugh at the horror genre in general. 
   
   
   Horror films can be very controversial  people who were scared of War of the Worlds (1938) would be shocked at today's violence on the screens. Films that were seen as violent (exorcist 1973) are looked at now as boring. Even recently a new Evil dead hit our cinema screens. How would people back then react too the human centipede?  This is what makes films these days very exciting since directors are constantly pushing past the boundaries of how much can they get away with. 
   
   
   Earned millions in the box office and banned in many countries: 1973

The Tapes (2011) classed as a B movie- but very similar too Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the poor shots, acting and horror conventions- but back in 1973 it was the scariest film out- but The Tapes is quite unknown.

What has inspired me overall:

I am inspired by other experts within the industry field. Directors such as Quentin Tarantino (Kill Bill), Ben Affleck (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Wes Craven ( A Nightmare on Elm Street) which all inspire me too the suspense/horror part of the short film. Wes Craven uses a lot of strong female actors within his films and often contain a lot of elaborate violent scenes which entwine with social issues. He also always tries to make his work better by working on the remakes of: Hills have eyes, The last house on the left.

Quentin Tarantino is known for his brutal gory scenes in kill bill and reservoir dogs."violence in the movies can be cool" "its just another colour to work with. when Fred Astaire dances, it doesn't mean anything. violence is the same. it doesn't mean anything. its a colour" Hari, J. (). The tragedy of Tarantino: he has proved his critics right.Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-tragedy-of-tarantino-he-has-proved-his-critics-right-1777147.html?fb_action_ids=4684039697417%2C10151341711655750%2C1015120. Last accessed 1st May 2013.
even though Tarantino inspires me, how can he when i disagree with all of his beliefs about and towards violence. one this i agree with within his movies is that he shows real life people, how crude some people can be...he shows a different side to violence which other directors do not. We are also satisfied by his films that connote horror and evil people, because they always end up out worse than the violence that they commit- but that not always the case. His statement on 9/11 "it didnt affect me because theres, like, a Hong Kong action movie...called purple storm and they work in a whole big thing in the plot that they blow up a skyscraper" Hari, J. (). The tragedy of Tarantino: he has proved his critics right.Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-the-tragedy-of-tarantino-he-has-proved-his-critics-right-1777147.html?fb_action_ids=4684039697417%2C10151341711655750%2C1015120. Last accessed 1st May 2013. He is claiming that 9/11 did not affect his because he saw the same thing happen in a movie- even though i disagree with these views. He still inspires me because im finding it more and more difficult to find a good, unique expert. 

This ambient lighting gives an Erie feeling too the mood. Making it seem horror like, the only thing that would have made this scene better is flashes of lightning and being dark outside.