Evaluation update for The meeting project.
There has been a story update for the meeting project.
The project's story idea was originally meant to be a spy thriller, with 2 agents from different government agencies sent on an investigation of an international criminal organisation with alleged ties to a terrorist organization, where they find out that the main contact and suppliers for the organization is a high ranking official of MI6, who then frames the 2 agents as sleeper agents for the criminal organization.
The plot scene of the story was to be where the 2 agents would meet at a local cafe and share information in regards to the organization they investigated. Upon deducing the link between the criminal organization to the terrorist groups in the middle east, both agents realize that there are members in their own intelligence agencies who are sleeper agents one of them being one of the agent's superior. Upon discovery of the possible threat, police under orders by one of the agencies arrive to arrest and restrain both agents on the charges of espionage and potential terrorist links.
That was the original idea for the short film, however, due to the fact that the idea itself fits more in a full feature length film than a short film the idea had to be largely replaced with a more simple idea. That simple idea, became the current idea that I am now working on.
The second idea is again to focus on two specific characters. One character is Rachael Conroy, a 22 year old student who studies photography at a certain university. Rachael have lost her memory 12 years ago after a certain incident took place. The student has lived 10 years of her life in normality completely unaware of her family's past and involvements in the criminal world. The student is being targeted by an unknown group who then reveal themselves as one of the mafia families who had previous conflicts with her family until they perished at the hands of the mafia. The student is unaware of the danger, and proceeds to live a normal life until the second character interveenes later on in the sort film.
The other character involved in the second idea is an ex-military professional that was hired by a surviving member of the family that perished 12 years ago. The ex military professional's jobs was to watch over the student and protect her from all threats posed by the mafia. Character 2 is known as Andrew Walkington/Walsh aged 23, born in Plymouth, United Kingdom. He is shown to be kind hearted in public to drive away any suspicion, however when in business, he is considered to be quiet, calculating and ready to act if necessary.
The request for location at the Rochester Campus has been sent and is now awaiting response from the appropriate staff members.
The original time for the filming was meant to be on Wednesday 11/11/15 to Friday 13/11/15 but, the shooting has been postponed for Monday afternoon between 17:00pm - 20:00 pm due to complications involving the availability of casting members for they had understandably higher priorities, involving their own coursework and their jobs.
As a result I will now be requesting for replacement casting members for the shooting of the short film for both Monday to Tuesday both at 17:00pm-20:00pm if anyone is interested. The actors needed are 1 male actor and 1 female actor. The male actor should have a smart casual attire, while the female actress can have anything from casual to smart casual.
The script is under final adjustment at the recommendation of Steve Coombes after the script analysis and feedback. The script requires improvements in terms to the style. The script currently takes the format of a storybook instead of a production script in terms of style and that the script is to be made in a present tense.
In regards to the script feedback, the improvements for the script are as follows:
- Reduce or trim the amount of dialogue of the plot.
- Convert the dialogue to a visual context.
- Have 6 pieces of dialogue per scene
- Take out any unnecessary pieces of dialogue
- Make one of the character's dialogue more natural
- Add shot types as a guidance in the action dialogue
- When re writing the script be the camera and write what you see to use a a guide.
- Adjust the script dialogue to have a present tense style instead of a storybook style.
Evaluation Update 26/11 2015
This is the final evaluation update for this project.
The filming location has been confirmed and guaranteed, the cast required for the shooting of the short film were available for the filming of the short film and everything was all set, equipment, cast, location, transport and the script. Though the script was ready for the filming, trouble arrived. The trouble is that the script that was ready for the filming has been corrupted from my usb drive which caused a large setback of the filming time. Of course we still managed to film on the day however a different script was used for the filming instead of the original. The second script was a back up script in case there was something wrong with the first script.
The filming has been finished on the 17th of November and editing has been finalised on the 24th of November. We managed to film at the Rochester Campus for the short film and there were no problems travel wise. The filming went above schedule however we managed to get most of the filming down on time before the university's doors closed at 20:00pm. Though I still believe that we could've done a bit more of filming focusing on smaller areas and making the shots look better as possible extras, however we got the important parts taken care before we had to leave. The filming started about 1 hour late due to the missing original script, however the cast was sympathetic in staying longer to ensure completion of the filming.
There were a few problems during the filming and the editing which mainly involved the sound. Though the microphone was installed correctly on the PMW during the filming, it seems that the internal microphone on the camera was doing the recordings. As a result, the sound during the edit of the short film became a bit of a nightmare. Either the voices were echoing through the shot or the noise in the background was picking up more than the dialogue which also caused problems. During the editing of the sound I had a hard time trying to drown out the unwanted sounds and keep the dialogue. Though I managed to slightly lower the background noise by a small margin, there was a large risk that the sound as a whole may get worse if further editing was conducted, which then left me to the point of having to keep the slightly edited sound for one of the final parts of the short film. Other than the final parts, the rest of the sound editing was ok aside from the echoing which was caused by the internal camera.
Another issue during the filming was the tripod. The tripod was already damaged at the stabiliser piece where the head wouldn't stay still at the stabiliser as well as one of the legs to be missing screws to hold in place. These 2 tripod problems caused some complications for the filming. However, that didn't stop the filming and we still managed to slightly work around the damages. Back to the sound, I enjoyed working with the music during the final edit of the short film when I found some fitting music by miracle on incompetech.com. They both fit the scene well and helped compensate a small bit on the sound trouble. There was one complication in adding sound to the final edit and that was finding the right sound effects for a near empty cafe which unfortunately I couldn't find neither on the sounds provided by the computers or online at the time. all of the cafe/ restaurant sounds involved crowded/busy people in the background and that didn't reflect well on the edit.
I enjoyed the filming and the editing sessions for the project though they were hell to finish off. Gathering the cast together was a nightmare though since there were last minute cancellations from the cast due to other understandable priorities, but it did throw a wrench into the filming and planning. As a result of last minute cancellations I immediately turned to the second years to see if they were interested in the filming.
This is the final evaluation update for this project.
The filming location has been confirmed and guaranteed, the cast required for the shooting of the short film were available for the filming of the short film and everything was all set, equipment, cast, location, transport and the script. Though the script was ready for the filming, trouble arrived. The trouble is that the script that was ready for the filming has been corrupted from my usb drive which caused a large setback of the filming time. Of course we still managed to film on the day however a different script was used for the filming instead of the original. The second script was a back up script in case there was something wrong with the first script.
The filming has been finished on the 17th of November and editing has been finalised on the 24th of November. We managed to film at the Rochester Campus for the short film and there were no problems travel wise. The filming went above schedule however we managed to get most of the filming down on time before the university's doors closed at 20:00pm. Though I still believe that we could've done a bit more of filming focusing on smaller areas and making the shots look better as possible extras, however we got the important parts taken care before we had to leave. The filming started about 1 hour late due to the missing original script, however the cast was sympathetic in staying longer to ensure completion of the filming.
There were a few problems during the filming and the editing which mainly involved the sound. Though the microphone was installed correctly on the PMW during the filming, it seems that the internal microphone on the camera was doing the recordings. As a result, the sound during the edit of the short film became a bit of a nightmare. Either the voices were echoing through the shot or the noise in the background was picking up more than the dialogue which also caused problems. During the editing of the sound I had a hard time trying to drown out the unwanted sounds and keep the dialogue. Though I managed to slightly lower the background noise by a small margin, there was a large risk that the sound as a whole may get worse if further editing was conducted, which then left me to the point of having to keep the slightly edited sound for one of the final parts of the short film. Other than the final parts, the rest of the sound editing was ok aside from the echoing which was caused by the internal camera.
Another issue during the filming was the tripod. The tripod was already damaged at the stabiliser piece where the head wouldn't stay still at the stabiliser as well as one of the legs to be missing screws to hold in place. These 2 tripod problems caused some complications for the filming. However, that didn't stop the filming and we still managed to slightly work around the damages. Back to the sound, I enjoyed working with the music during the final edit of the short film when I found some fitting music by miracle on incompetech.com. They both fit the scene well and helped compensate a small bit on the sound trouble. There was one complication in adding sound to the final edit and that was finding the right sound effects for a near empty cafe which unfortunately I couldn't find neither on the sounds provided by the computers or online at the time. all of the cafe/ restaurant sounds involved crowded/busy people in the background and that didn't reflect well on the edit.
I enjoyed the filming and the editing sessions for the project though they were hell to finish off. Gathering the cast together was a nightmare though since there were last minute cancellations from the cast due to other understandable priorities, but it did throw a wrench into the filming and planning. As a result of last minute cancellations I immediately turned to the second years to see if they were interested in the filming.
If I were to redo the shooting for the short film, I would double check the equipment's condition, the sound settings, choose a different time of the day to take the filming, most preferably mid day to the afternoon where there would be people to add a bit more life to the location and make sure that the original script was present and NOT missing.
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