We had the fantastic opportunity to attend the Encounters international film festival in Bristol this year! It was held in the beautiful and iconic Watershed theatres right on the harbour in Bristol City Centre.
It really was a phenomenal experience. We attend for two days, Thursday and Friday. Those days were filled with thrilling speeches and workshop master classes by leading industry professionals, with vast wealths of knowledge.
But I think my favourite class was called 'Directing Actors'. It was taught by a lady started started off from young as an actress, and then transitioned into directing when she was older. Because of that successful background she was able to give hands on experience on how actors act, what their process and insecurities are, and how to direct them to get the best possible performance out of them.
I also really enjoyed the short film screenings. I did however notice a trend to show male genitalia in the films. I think this is because 'back in the day' woman's bosoms were shown to give films a shock factor. But no they've become commonplace. So penises are used instead.
I also got to attend a cinematography master class held by a highly acclaimed cinematographer. Working on films such as World War Z! It last a couple hours and we got to see him expertly light a set for a demonstration all short film.
We were tasked to our short film ideas in front of the class and our tuto, Tom Gray. My film was to be called 'Minius'.
Minius is a henchman in a human trafficking ring, preying off vulnerable migrants. But his heart grows heavy with the guilt of seeing these migrants being treated poorly. He eventually snaps and kills the head henchman just before he killed a poor migrant woman. This causes the migrants relief, however temporary. But it just adds more guild for Moses. He now has the emotional burden of having blood on his hands. And having to run away for the human trafficking ring leader.
In my short film idea, I take inspiration from the account of Moses killing an Egyptian slave driver to protect an Israelite. I want to focus more on the emotional impact on himself due to his actions. I want it to show how a normal human being would feel after killing someone, because after all Moses was just a human, and felt the same emotions we feel. So the film revolves around the themes of compassion, anger and guilt.
It follows the story of Minius who is a henchman in a human trafficking ring. Their aim has been to fool vulnerable migrants who are in desperate need of a better life into think they’re going to get one with them. When in fact they’re being trafficked as modern day slaves.
Although Minius works for these horrible persons he can’t help but feel guilt when seeing these migrants being treated worse than animals. He eventually snaps and kills the head henchman just before he killed a poor migrant woman.
In the story, this head henchman, who is a really horrible character deserved to die, and everyone knew it. But it is said that no matter how much they deserved to die it still changes you forever, killing someone. And Minius find himself in turmoil over this, having blood on his hands on top of everything else.
His act caused the migrants relief, however brief. But Minius now has to run away to the authorities to get help to uncover the human trafficking scheme before the ring leader finds him. And that’s where I plan on ending it, with him running for his life under heavy gun fire.
Bible Connection This short film is takes inspiration from the account of Moses killing an Egyptian slave driver to protect an Israelite. He hated to see the Israelites being treated horribly and even though he was raised as an Egyptian he had to take action. The ending focuses on Moses’ guilt of killing the Egyptian slave driver, and then Moses running away for his life. How It Went I think the pitch went fairly well. I was able to be myself which I think is important and also incorporated pictures to help the panel visualise the universe my film is set in and it's characters.
What I Need To Work On
For my future pitches I need to work on being more comfortable on stage. I tend to get very awkward when in front of people and I think that showed, especially in the beginning.
Also I need to work on giving a fluent delivery. As a few times I stumbled over my words, mainly because I was just talking faster than my brain could output words!
The other day I pitched to my class and tutor for the roles I wanted to pursue for our upcoming IMP, a producer & an editor. I pitched myself by speaking to the class without the use of a powerpoint presentation. I tried to make it very natural, and only had a few visual aids by means of a slideshow projected behind me.
5 key responsibilities of a film producer:
organised
networking
business minded
communication skills
efficient
5 key responsibilities of a video editor:
long attention span
focused
organised
creative
motivated/good at problem solving
Organised
I demonstrate being organised 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! I’m always organised. I make sure to have everything written down in the cloud, I have a reminder for everything in my life.
Communication Skills
I demonstrate this each day when I pick up my phone to text or call someone. Also when I speak to people throughout the day. I make sure to speak clearly and get what I have to say accurately across to the person. I also take a weekly class in public speaking which trains me in all the skills needed to be confident, fluent, and engaging in front of a crowd. Something in front of thousands!
Efficiency
I demonstrated this when I built a website for a business owner, in 2 days and that website was infinitely better than the first one they had that was made by a professional, which took a year to make and £2,000. I never take the long way to do things. I think it's my impatience that makes me so efficient, as it drives me to very quickly think of an easier, quicker, and more efficient way to do something.
5 skills I want to develop whilst in this role:
Better people skills
Better paperwork skills
more networking contacts
better directorial skills
better communication skills
In my pitch I was able to keep calm and collected despite being very nervous inside. I was also able to express my passion for the roles which I think really worked in my favour. Having a good introduction I find really helps with this. If I am able to nail the introduction, once I get that out of the way, I find I'm much more relaxed.
In my short film 'Malfeasance' there was quite a bit of audio edits that I had to make. For example in many scenes the weir overpowered the dialog audio. To counteract this I used a nose reducing audio filter on the Weirs audio. I thought long and hard about it but came to the conclusion that the filter actually made the dialog audio worse, making it sound 'tinny' so I decided against it and just turned down the volume. As seen throughout the scenes screenshotted below.
I also played around with the audio effects levels on the different clips to try making the sound even throughout the film. This was because in some scenes depending on where the microphone was, it would picked up different volume levels. In the final orchestral piece, I chose to sample a piece from a song I fell in love with a while back and had to use in a film (You & Me - The Flume Remix). I also chose to have all diagetic sound fade out to silence when the song starts, isolating just the song, giving it a more dramatic affect. I made sure to remove any loud and random disturbances in the audio, like a car honking its horn. I did this by detaching the audio clip, cutting the sound out and then layering a background audio track under it that I recorded on the day.
For what it was, yes I think it was successful. I did not set out to create a Hollywood level film, that would be very unrealistic. The perfectionist i me had to convince myself of this over and over again. I didn't try to cram an immense plot in that short time frame, resulting in a complicated and rushed film. So instead I set out to make something three minutes long that used context clues and broken dialog to give the audience a vague idea of a bigger plot, leaving the rest up to imagination. I was proud of what I produced, definitely a far higher standard of production for me. I was able to apply what I learnt about cameras, microphones, script writing, and directing over the last few months all into 'Malfeasance".
What feedback did you receive from your peers?
What my peer had to say:
"Wow that was so epic, it's a shame about the noise of The Weir but that's just a problem with the location, the rest of it was epic, I loved the use of extreme close ups and the music, also the story was really good!" - Tom Arthur, 19 (YouTube)
What would you change/do differently?
I would definitely try to improve the audio next time. The weir is far to overpowering most of the film. I thought I had the right microphone set up but maybe Lavalieres would of been a better choice over directional microphones. Or I could of overdubbed all the dialog.
How will you improve for your next project?
I will use more interesting camera set-ups and movements in my next film. Like crane and tracking shots. Also I will get better audio and costumes.
What did you enjoy/not enjoy?
What I Enjoyed - Directing, I love directing! Getting to film in such a beautiful location. Also I enjoyed every aspect of editing the film as I find it fun and incredibly relaxing.
What I Didn't Enjoy - My cast letting me down. They all forgot their costumes which I thought, really broke the characters. Jillian is supposed to be a hugely successful and influential politician, but is wearing ripped jeans, and our private detective is wearing a t-shirt under his blazer, instead of a shirt and tie.
How effective was your production team?
At times they were very productive, and we were able to get a lot of filming done quite quickly. But at other times they completely switched off and no matter how frustrated I got or how much I begged they wouldn't cooperate.
How effective was your planning in terms of execution?
Pre Production was definitely the most important part of the filmmaking process. It was critical that every aspect of the production is thought out and psychoanalysed Doing that saved us a lot of time and money. It also made the filmmaking process as smooth and hassle-free as possible. On the day of filming, besides them not having their costumes, everyone had their scripts and knew their lines and what they had to do, and where they had to do it.
Day 1 - Friday We got to meet Alex on our first day. Due to the Bath Chronicle's new room being quite quiet my group and I were able to work on the spare computers in the office. We were tasked to rewrite some newsletters into a newspaper article. Fairly simple and menial job but good experience none the less.
Day 2 - Monday Today we got asked film a news video on police officers that were going to the Royal High School to show the students their police horse and dogs. It was a lot of fun filming the videos and then coming back to the college to edit it! I learnt a lot about team work and communication from this experience and would love to do more of it.
Day 3 - Tuesday Alex asked us to scan the city of Bath for various landmarks that we can screenshot and put in an online gallery for people to guess where it is. This was quite a fun thing to do and I enjoyed doing it.
Day 4 - Wednesday
As it was a bank holiday the following Monday, we were asked to come up with a list of activities around Bath that the family can do on the holiday. Going to the Clavedon Weir for a swim (pictured) was one of the 19 ideas we came up with.
Day 5 - Thursday for our final day we were asked to go all around Bath and compile a list of places that offer lunch specials for £10 or less. We tried our best to come up with a list of very popular places like, Wetherspoons, but also places people might never of heard of like a quaint little Thai restaurant in the back streets of town.
For this assignment we had to pick a scene from a film as a group, and then try to recreate all the audio as exact as possible. Here is the scene we picked: And here is our overdub:
So as well as all those who were part of the cast having to learn our lines, those on the crew also had to figure out the best way to make the most accurate recreating of all the foley sound. Such as the cutlery clattering and the phone camera's shutter going off.
