Drawing With Light - Media Pathway

FAD Drawing with Light Project from Media Centre on Vimeo.

I no this a little late but I have literally only just got this copy of the full and final Drawing with Light Project I did In Media for Part 1 of FaD when we where doing Roundabouts. I Completed this piece of work 11th September 2012 and believed it was a really good success especially when I saw the final product a couple of weeks later. It was nice to have a go at doing something complete different in media and learn about how film used to be etc... Overall I did really enjoy the media part of the pathway and I thought the final product of everyone's scratch film put together looked Amazing.

Saturday 19th January: Final Script

Seems the production days are closely looming, I thought I would post the updated and Final Script we are going to use for the Drama:


Directed By Aaron Dunleavy
Screenplay By Josh Walker, Miranda Myles & Ryan Baron.

ERIC: A middle-aged family man, happily married to his wife, JULIE. He is lazy but kind hearted with a good sense of humour. He enjoys nothing more than sitting at his dining room table on a Saturday afternoon with a whiskey in his hand and the morning newspaper before him.

DENISE: A hard working mother of four, short tempered but with a sensitive nature. She juggles her family life with a 9 to 5 job down at the 5 day market. She is going through a rough patch with her husband and they are emotionally distant.

EXT. PHONE BOX - DAY 

As the rain pours down the glass of the empty phone box, we hear a radio playing in the background. We transition to the next scene with the same radio still playing. 

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

ERIC sits at his dining room table, a small glass of scotch whiskey by his side and a half empty bottle on the table. He takes a sip then looks back down at his half finished crossword in the newspaper, whilst humming along to the radio in the background. The phone suddenly begins to ring and he picks it up sharply. 

ERIC 

Hello!... Oh hiya love, you alright? 

His expressions turns from contemplation to pain as he tries to make out what is being said. 

ERIC (CONT’D) 

(Softly) 

Alright now just, just calm down will ya? Tell me what’s gone on. 

There is a pause as he listens intently to the voice on the other side of the telephone. He struggles to top up his glass of whiskey as his hand shakes from shock. 

ERIC (CONT’D) 

Now listen love you’re clearly upset, but let’s talk about this alright? What’s started this off? 

He sips away at his whiskey to try and steady his nerves but we can visibly see that it is doing little help. 

ERIC (CONT’D) 

Now ey ey, listen, you’re just getting yourself worked up. (pause) Let’s just be calm and take a step back. Denise don’t cry again, love. I didn’t even understand what you bloody said then... (pause) eh? 

EXT. PHONE BOX - DAY 

A hysterical DENISE stands alone in the phone box with tears still running down her face as she tries to compose her anger. 

DENISE 

I said what’s the point in talking it over. I’m fed up of walking in fucking circles, Eric! It’s getting us nowhere! I’m just, I’m just sick of everything! You know, I never thought it would ever come to this but I just can’t take it anymore! The lies, the.. I’m scared, I’m absolutely fucking petrified of what’s gonna happen next, I mean I’m running round constantly, putting my all in to everything and I’m getting nothing, no appreciation. What more can I do?   

There is a pause as she catches her breath and wipes away the tears from her face. 

DENISE (CONT’D) 

I’m just sick of trying, all I ever do is bloody try. Why is nothing ever straight forward for me? Why?  

ERIC 

Now come on Denise, don’t be daft like that. Where are ya anyway? Whatever problems there are we can talk about. What d’ya say love? Now come on. 

DENISE 

(Interrupting) 

No, I’m sick of all the shit, Eric. It’s too much for me to handle. I’m gonna get out, I need to! I can’t (pause) I can’t put up with it any longer... 

DENISE takes a deep breath. 

DENISE (CONT’D)

We need a divorce. 

ERIC almost chokes on his whiskey, pauses and stares into space. He takes a big gulp from his glass, wincing. He pours more whiskey from the bottle, almost flooding the glass. 

ERIC 

A divorce?! Now, now come on Denise, love! Don’t you think that’s a bit extreme? I mean every bugger goes through rough patches but divorce? It’s a big decision.  

DENISE 

(Angrily) 

It’s all a fucking rough patch, I’m sick of being walked all over, Enough is enough Eric, I’ve made up my mind!

DENISE slams the phone down. 

ERIC 

(Topping up whiskey) 

Bloody hell! 

He shakes his head, contemplating about the situation. We hear the back door unlock and JULIE walks in with two handfuls of shopping bags. 

JULIE 

Ohhh that bloody market were a nightmare... I thought I would’a beaten the traffic going early an all but no it were still jam packed at that time. Eyy I saw Suzanne in Tesco’s, she was asking about ya, She ses “How’s your Eric?” so I ses yeah, he’s alright, he’s still a miserable bugger... (laughing)

She looks over at ERIC who is still sat motionless on the dining room table.

JULIE (CONT’D) 

What’s up with you...? 

ERIC 

I’ve just been on the phone to our Denise. She’s in bloody tears, she’s only going and getting a divorce! 

END OF SCENE.                                   

Friday 18th January: Last Chance, Last Hope

Today Me and Aaron decided to give it one last shot at finding the perfect Telephone Box. The last time we looked and went Location scouting we found the perfect location, Pay Thorne, a remote country village literally in the middle of know where.

It was perfect and was everything we wanted for a outstanding filming location, however there was one problem. There was no sign of a telephone box and the scene we wanted to film in this winter wonderland revolved round a telephone box. After Day's, Hours and Miles of looking for the perfect telephone, we failed to succeed and because of this it risked changing the idea completely and losing some of the details in the drama we wanted.
After Wednesday's 130 mile Journey Aaron found a website which showed all the locations of telephone boxes in Lancashire, however there was cases were the telephone boxes had been removed and where no longer in the location. After his research he tried to find some telephone boxes near are dream winter location on Google maps and eventually he found one, a traditional red one, in a place called Greystoneley Brook. He had a look on street view on Google maps to see if it was still there and it was, however Google Maps is a couple of years old so we were a little worried it might have been removed, the best thing to do was to go and see if it was there for are selves. If it was still there this could be the perfect location and would also keep the telephone box idea we all wanted still in the drama, So that is what we did, We travelled to Greystoneley Brook on the hunt for a Red Telephone Box we weren't even sure existed.

40 Minutes later we finally arrived and to are shock there was an old traditional Red Telephone Box. It was perfect, it looked like it literally was built for us, The actually place was called Dinkling Green and the Telephone Box was actually named the Lonely Telephone Box In the Middle Of England:

It looked old, it was traditional red and even some windows were missing on the door and side which would make it soo much easier for filming. We both knew then and there that this was the one, this was the location we had been hunting for.

The white background with the red main subject would look perfect on film, After inspecting the Telephone Box and realising it is the cleanest Telephone box ever on the inside we decided to get some medium close up test shots and even experimented with some small LED Florescent White Lights to show what the subject person would be lit like from different angles.
Here are the medium close up shots:

Medium Close Up Shot with just Natural Light

Here are the lighting shots:

This is the Test of the Key Light before we attached it to the door hinge for the real test shot. 

Test Shot Photo with Key Light in Place

Test Shot Photo With Back Light In Place

Unfortunately we couldn't test both of these Lights at the same time however we were still 100% satisfied with the location, the lighting and the set so we left it for that for today. We will be returning to this location once again on Monday to film the scene with are actress Heather Rowell.
Once we got back we told the crew the good news and showed them some pictures and they all agreed this is the dream location we had been after. Aaron also got 2 pictures, 1 from each final location and made them into the Super Wide Screen Aspect Ratio (2.35 which is the film screening aspect ratio to make the drama more film like and profession we are going to be filming in. These are the test shot pictures made into 2.35:

Overall I am extremely happy with how the Production is rolling, It's a hard task to get a full drama planned, filmed and editing within a month, And currently at the moment we are the tracks to getting it all completed by the 1st of February and sending it off to some British Film Festivals. I feel really confident in this project and I do believe once complete this will be the best piece of work I have ever got involved in, I can't wait to film it and see the final product.

Thursday 17th January: Drama Production Meeting

After finding the most perfect location ever Me, James, Josh and Aaron had to tell the rest of the group the good news but also the bad news. We decided to break the bad news about the location Me, Sammie, Emily and Chelsea found last week when we went out location scouting. 

When we told the crew that we couldn't use this location because we decided we needed a telephone box that was open not closed in they didn't really seem to happy, as you can image, all them hours of looking for telephone boxes suddenly seemed like they were wasted until we told them and showed them the good news. 

The new wonderland location, they all loved it and thought it would be brilliant, however we did have a dampener on this, we couldn't find a telephone box in this location, most definitely not a open one. However Aaron had been doing some research last night on a website he found that had all the telephone boxes in Britain on, He started hunting for telephone boxes in area we wanted to film in and eventually found This telephone box:

Photo Used With Permission From JDSvault - http://www.flickr.com/photos/7985255@N06/2130773947/in/set-72157601416165120

This telephone box is in Dinkley Green/Higher Greystoneley around the Trough/Forest of Bowland so this was ideal really. It was about 20/30 minutes away from where we were looking and everyone loved the look of it however there was some questions, Seems we decided we needed an open telephone box everyone was wondering why the sudden change. After a lot of  explaining people soon understood that this telephone box would be perfect, The pure white background from all the snow and then the sudden splash of colour with a red telephone box, the contrast would be amazing on film. Obviously we couldn't just take pot luck and turn up on the day of filming (Monday 21st) to see if these telephone box would be okay so Me and Aaron decided we would go and recce it over the weekend sometime. Hopefully it'll still be there but if not we are unfortunately going to have to go with the back up idea of having are actress on her mobile either on a bench or getting out of a car in the middle of nowhere but this just wouldn't add the same effect. We want the audience to see how alone she is, she's secluded, in the middle of no where, on her own.

After this we had an Advance Lighting Workshop with Graham. He went over simple 3 point lighting again with us to just to make sure the full group understood it:

• so a back light would go behind the subject to add highlights to them, this is also known as the hair light.
• a key light would go to the left or the right of the subject is the main source of light on the subject
• and a fill light would go on the opposite side of the key light to fill in shadows of the subject, this is the light that makes the subject look 3 dimensional and is the second main source of light on the subject

Graham setting up 3 point lighting

Graham showing us the effects of 3 point lighting. The Subject now looks 3 dimensional because of the Key, Fill and  Back Lights/

After this Graham looked at are Floor plan and still shots from the house recce and suggested we put a light in the back living room to make it look like natural light is coming in from the window but to bounce it off the ceiling not the walls. He also suggested adding 2 CTB Gels(Colour Temperature Blue) of the same colour over this light with some diffusion paper, by adding these gels it makes the light look like natural daylight instead of fake Tungsten.

here is are up to date floor plan

After this I had a Tanzania Meeting with Graham about the treatment we are making for when we go to Africa. I showed him the Idea's we managed to jot down last time and he really liked them, He though there is some good Documentary opportunities here but he wants us to be more specific with are idea's. By this he wants us to work out filming styles ect... He also wants us to make are out little treatments about the final products we want to make out of the footage seems I want my Tanzania footage to go towards my FMP (final major project). Graham also wants us to do a little more research and said he will try and find the names of the companies where going on Safari with ect so we can send some email's and organize interviews already for when were over there.

This is the link to the Idea's that we showed Graham.

http://rebecca-gill-fadmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/monday-14th-january-tanzania-production.html

Wednesday 16th January 2013 - We Found The Real Life Narnia!

Today me, Aaron Dunleavy, James Hibbert and Josh Bentley went to recky the Telephone box location in Whalley that me, Sammie, Emily and Chelsea found last week while out location scouting.

Because of the recent weather change from rain to snow we all decided this would look really good with all the surrounding fields and hills to be white and snowy, however when we got there the telephone box was literally iced stuck, frozen solid and was a tad too dirty to be honest, since last time there was a lot more mould. But we thought we would de-ice it (with car de-icer and my car window scrapers which are now ruined) and have a little look with possible shots just to make sure it would be accessible for a crew to film in to get the proper shots. 

As you can tell from this picture, we could not see through the glass clearly, even after de-icing it the glass froze up almost instantly. When we did finally manage to stop it from freezing back up the glass was that dirty and mouldy the camera could still not get a clear image of James that was inside.

Unfortunately after close inspection we finally decided we could not use this telephone box, or any other telephone that was closed in. We needed one like this:

This was at Wilpshire, unfortunately this can't be used seems it's on a busy main road

An open telephone box which would have easy access for everything and where the actress would be able to turn round and we can see her face reactions better. It would be too hard to get the right shots in a close in one, we wouldn't be able to see her emotions and face reactions while shooting in such a small combined space. Because of this, we then went off on another location scouting trip. On the way into Clitheroe we found the perfect Public Telephone:

This was the one! The perfect public telephone we had been after, It even had no glass in the side which would make it easier for filming because we wouldn't need to worry about reflections etc... We decided to test some camera shots out to make sure it would be fine:

It was perfect, the box was, the location was, the background was however as usual there was a problem... It was based on the busiest main road into Clitheroe, this meant almost every 15 seconds there was a car flying past at 40 mph. This meant every time a car went past us it would be picked up on the audio which would ruin the full drama. Unfortunately because of this, we had to knock this location on the chin and carry on hunting for the Perfect location.

Eventually on the other side of Pendle Hill we literally did find Narnia! It was the most perfect location you could imagine, It didn't look real it was that perfect, We travelled (by chance) to a little village called Pay Thorne (incidentally we where looking for a pay phone but found a different type, a village instead) and it was surrounded by snow, meters of the stuff! It look like a real winter wonderland and that was it, we all fell in love with the location, it really was beyond perfect and made us feel like we were in a completely different world.

 Unfortunately there was no public pay phone except for this one which was out of use when we were on are way back to Blackburn:

Seems this was a SOS Phone it couldn't be used anyway but after literally search all around Blackburn within a 40 minute car ride journey we gave up on the telephone box idea and have decided to either have the Sister in the drama pulling over, getting out of her car and talking to her Brother on her old mobile phone or waiting at an old wooden bus stop or sat on a wooden bench in the middle of know where, however we well and truly found the know where today. Pay Thorne is being are location, It was beyond amazing and we couldn't find somewhere as beautiful as that and not film there, any other location just wouldn't match up to it.

So technically we didn't achieve are goal of finding a telephone box today but I think we were really lucky to come across this location where we can use one of are back up idea's in, Even though it won't give the same intimacy that Aaron originally wanted, I think it'll still give the feelings of loneliness, quietness and being all alone in the middle of no where for the Sister character. 

So today we came across a speed bump with the full telephone box dilemma but managed to fix it with the back up plan and we also found a location. So even though it doesn't sound like a right productive day, it really was, we travelled over 130 miles, through hundreds of towns today to find the perfect location and in the end we finally found it. Here is the list of places and other locations we had to visit in are 130 mile journey:

• Blackburn
• Brown Hill
• Lammack
• Salmesbury
• Salmesbury Bottoms
• Bamber Bridge
• Preston
• Lostock Hall
• Langho
• Wilpshire
• Billington
• Barrow
• Old Langho
• Whalley
• Pendle View
• Waddington
• Chatburn
• Grindleton
• Sawley
• Forest of Bowland
• Bolton By Bowland
• Gisburn
• Pay Thorne
• Rimmington
• Houghton
• Ribchester
• Dinkley
• Darwen
• Ramsgreave
• Tocholes
• Wheelton
• Brindle
• Chlorey
• Leyland
• Higher Walton
• Ribbleton
• Longridge
• Balderstone
• Mellor Brook
• Hurst Green
• Stony Hurst
• Brockhall Village
• Mill Hill
• Ewood
• Lower Darwen
• Guide
• Eccleshill
• Belthorne
• Clitheroe
• Greystonely
• Dutton
• Dinkling Green

A lot of places but it was all worth it, we have seen some amazing places for future locations shoots, so I think this trip did us all good and will benefit us for future projects.

Tuesday 15th January - House Dressing and Recce

Today me, Aaron Dunleavy, Anthony Preston, Chelsea Martin, Sammie Scott, Emily McGregor and James Hibbert went to recce the house and also dress the set ready for the test shoot and filming.
This is the space we had to work with:

To be honest even though the house is quite small, we did have a good amount of space to work with. We had all the down stairs kitchen, dinning room and living room. However we only needed to use about 1/3 if the space in the living room seems the rest of it won't be seen on Camera.
Here is the floor plan:

It's not the best in the world seems its only a quick doodle I did after dinner, Over the day I added parts to it like the location of the tree, cabinets we moved and lighting, I will make a better one in a couple of days on my computer

After us getting acquainted with the location fully we decided to look through all the decorations we had collected and started to decorate the house.

We wanted to have a simple but traditional Christmas theme so the motto of the day was 'Less is More', this motto came from Aaron's one to one with Douglas Hart after he did the guest lecture series in college. We also looked over Douglas Harts short film 'Long Distance Information' a couple of times while on set to help us get inspiration for the set design and shots we wish to use. This video is the main piece of inspiration for this drama project:

Long Distance Information from Richard Simpson Film on Vimeo.
After this we set the Dinning room table up in the right position and used James as are test subject so we could test how much of the Christmas tree we wanted in the background and what angle the best shots would come from, as we did this Sammie (are set designer) started on a cabinet in the background and added some little extra's to the tree.

After this we decided it was pointless getting test shots now ect until the set once complete, so we thought it would be better to come back to testing shots later, however even though we didn't spend much time on testing shots this did give us a little insight to what level and angle we should have the camera's placed. We also tried to see if we should have the dinning room doors open or not seems they were glass.

With the glass door shut it did give a nice effect but we decided it just wouldn't work with the drama, we liked having the Christmas Tree in the background blurry and out of focus to show the depth of field in the shots used. After this we carried on Decorating the set and also decided that there should be a mirror above a cabinet behind the Christmas tree to add more depth of field and also to make it look more homely/realistic.

By this point the house was looking more or less perfect, we did add some other little extra's like some Christmas Cards onto the side of the double door frame just to make it look more Christmassy. We also experimented with some fairy lights round the door frame as well, however we agreed this looked too modern so we took them down, they would also effect the camera's when trying to white balance (Tungsten and Fluorescent lights don't really mix too good).

As you can tell with this picture, the fairy lights messed up the white balance on my camera  so the image turned out blue.

Once this was complete we finally started getting some proper test shots so we could see what the set would look like on Camera from different angles of the room.
Husband On Phone Test Shots Of Set Design:

Wide Shot From Left To Show Only Husband At Table And Surroundings

Close Up From Left Showing Only Husband Concentrating Either On Phone or  Crossword

Wide Shot From Right Showing Other Half Of Kitchen,  Good Shot For When Wife Walks In

Close Up From Right, This could be used to show extra emotions  and face reactions when on phone to sister and also when wife walks in, have her in the background out of focus so the audience focus on the main subject - the husband.

This Picture shows the problem we have with the Sun on location,  In the living room there is a door and big window that lets lots of light into the room and even though this picture looks warm and good, it could cause continuity problems on the day of filming so we are going to block out the light coming in from the window and make are own lighting with the college lighting kit, it is easier this way because we have full control of the lighting.

While trying test shots for the camera angles and locations, we also started to try and find the right places to place lighting, we needed a Flood, Key and Back Light at the minimum for a basic 3 point lighting. Aaron also suggested using a reflector board to bounce the light from the living room onto the subject, to give us an example of this Aaron found a small mirror and bounced the light onto Chelsea. The mirror made the light look like natural light coming from the kitchen window, this worked really well.

 At the end of the shoot Aaron made a Floor Plan on his I Pad that included all the props, lights and camera's:

Overall Today has been a very productive and quite exciting day, we got the full set dressed and ready for the test shoot on Sunday 19th January, we also got a floor plan set out which includes lighting and choose certain shots/angles we want the camera to capture. It's starting to become clear now how much of a good team all of us actually are when we can have such a good productive day like today.