Proposal

Tea is a short film documenting the failing relationship of two lovers who share an intimate bond through tea. On the surface the couple look fine but as we follow their story the audience see the relationship deteriorating before they can themselves.

The length of our proposed film will be exactly 6 minutes long including the titles & credits.

For the schedule we have decided to complete all of the required filming in just one day as we only have the actors hired for this time slot between 8:30am & 3:30pm on Thursday the 18th of November. To ensure the shoot runs smoothly we will be staging a rehearsal at the University with the actors on Wednesday the 17th of November, to run through shots and ensure everything is as we planned it to look/feel. Editing will commence as of the 19th of November, and will be completed by the 3rd of December.

The script has been written by Julius Ayodeji. Talent that will be used in our short film will include professional actors Melissa Simpson & Jarrod Cooke, who will be playing the main characters in the script. As for camera crew we plan to use solely up & coming talent who are current students on the multimedia course at Nottingham Trent University. We are also planning to use friends as extras within our pub & cafe scenes, as well as some members of the general public is permission can be given and the necessary paperwork completed.

For the film shoot we have decided to use a Sony Z1, which we will be filming in HDV as well feel this well give better execution of the film & for it to stand up to industry trends. We will be using a Sennheiser K6 mic to capture the audio as we feel the Z1's built in mic does not record in enough quality, or give us the option to direct the audio with the K6 will.

The stylistics we are going for in this short film are going to be nice, clean, simple & crisp look, leaning towards a modern feel. We took inspiration from the program 'How to make it America' with the style of their credits & art direction of the whole show, with the characters being a young, professional trendy couple who you would associate with a certain clique of people.

Here are some links to 2 examples of how their opening titles look, as well as how they cut from scene to scene sometimes, which works really well if executed right.

OPENING CREDITS EXAMPLE

http://vimeo.com/16484536

SCENE CHANGE EXAMPLE

http://vimeo.com/16484207

When looking at our locations we tried to keep in mind the the general direction & feel of the film that we were aiming for. Keeping this in mind we have decided to use 'Lee Rosy's Tea Shop' for the cafe scenes, The bar at ‘Cape’ for the pub scene and a student house for the kitchen and house scenes.

Stuff

Rotoscoping

TODOR & PETRU from CRCR on Vimeo.

How amazing is this? This is how rotoscoping SHOULD be used. Immaculate execution, clean lines and compliment the original photographs perfectly.

Programme Credits

Looking over the projects for this year one thing that really caught my attention besides the dread of two 2000 word essays (wtf etc etc) was the title credits we have to make. So thought I'd stick a few cheeky ones on here that I like so I have them to come back to when it comes to it.

Dexter. Award winning credits, enough said.

Just good. No two ways about it.

Just cause its so famous.

Catch me if you can. This was fresh on my mind as I watched it yesterday, but I really like how this is composed. I want to look at more digitally generated title sequences.

WHP Idents

WHP 10 ROOFTOP from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.
One of a series of animations for www.thewarehouseproject.com 2010 in Manchester

Produced by the irrepressible Bonnie Anthony

Post by www.rossmcdowell.co.uk

Many thanks to Sam and Sacha, Paul, Cadi and Andy, Tim, JC, Nick and the gang

Music: Beauty by Silkie

WHP 10 STEPS from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.
One of a series of animations for www.thewarehouseproject.com 2010 in Manchester

Produced by the irrepressible Bonnie Anthony

Post by www.rossmcdowell.co.uk

Many thanks to Sam and Sacha, Paul, Cadi and Andy, Tim, JC, Nick and the gang

Music: 16bit

WHP 10 CASTLEFIELD from Chris Cairns on Vimeo.
One of a series of animations for www.thewarehouseproject.com 2010 in Manchester

Produced by the irrepressible Bonnie Anthony

Post by www.rossmcdowell.co.uk

Many thanks to Sam and Sacha, Paul, Cadi and Andy, Tim, JC, Nick and the gang

Music: Uranium by Radioactive Man

David Wilson

SKREAM - Listenin' To The Records On My Wall -Making Of from David Wilson Creative on Vimeo.

Making of for music promo for Skream.

David Wilson is someone who I really admire, I first found out about him a few months ago while researching for my blog and I just came across this music video which he directed for Skream, unfortunately this is actually better than the video itself which is a shame, cause you can see here the different effects they've used in the video but in the video itself they feature really briefly and the way they're spoke about in the making of clip I expected more. He's represented by Colonel Blimp, who I've looked at before and also Blink Ink, both of which I'm planning to look into.

Malac Filming

Malac filming took place on Wednesday. Of the bits of the film I've seen I think it looks really good, Tom did a really good job on the camera. The day didn't go too smoothly as we had to have an actor step in really last minute cause one didn't turn up, but we got there in the end.

Malac setting

Mega annoying, couldn't find the lead for the camera I'm using from uni. Just found it after nipping in saying I'd drop the stuff off at 9.30 tomorrow.. There's no uni tomorrow, what an idiot.

Rundance

I went to the Rundance filming with a few other students today, which was good/strange/fun. It was strange to be up and about at 9 this morning after a night out (ouch) but I'm so glad I did it. I really enjoyed the filming more than I thought I would and it's made me more excited for the coursework. Also got chatting to the woman behind the promotion side of it and it turns out she's running a charity fashion show at Baa Bar and invited me to film that too. Really excited about that and so glad I got out of bed rather than feel sorry for myself all day.
Also for the Malac script I'm on the hunt for locations. So far it's looking like my basements going to be the setting (pics on the way) I'm excited to get stuck in and I'm meeting my group tomorrow to discuss everything in more detail.

Finally

Finally have the internet back after a long week without it. In which I discovered there's more to it than facebook. Severely missed not being able to check out my uni timetable and bank online, and also having to go to the library to do stuff. ANNOYING. Anyway, apart from that I've been being a swat. I've rented some films from the library (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Once Upon A Time In The Midlands and The Fearless Vampire Killers - something I usually wouldn't watch) and a load of books. Most on the reading list and some other random ones about art in films and Stanley Kubrick. I've had a read of the ethics forms, it's mad I never really thought about it until it was there in writing how much there is to sort out to secure filming. Also sorted a meeting time for my group on Monday to start planning the filming for Malac, I've took a stills camera out as I'm sorting locations. Also planning to go to the Rundance filming on Sunday, which should be good to actually see something being filmed and be part of it, I really want to get involved with the possible Rock City filming as it's an area as the music industry is what I really want to go into. Also watched some good films over the summer which I never wrote about on here. Shutter Island, Girl with the dragon tattoo and Changeling. Those are the only ones I can really think of at the moment, but I'm making a consious effort to watch more films.