Arts University Bournmouth: Bolex project: The Film shoot

I am currently enjoying my off time after an intense shoot for the Bolex-project, before I will start to write down my documentation.

The day after the 2 hours of rehearsal-day with the actors, we got together to shoot the our film. It has been quite a journey, from developing the idea from my one still-project, to planning the shoot, and to finally rolling the camera.

We started the day at 9, where we split our crew into two units. The actor unit, and the crew unit. While the crew unit drove off to location to prepare for the shoot, the actor unit stayed at the university to put on make-up and costumes.

It was a thrill to keep track of time. We needed to get all the shots done and delivered at 1630, but also hope the weather stayed the way we wanted.

When we finally arrived at the location, it took some time t set up the first shot. It was almost ironic, we had been worried about the rain, but because it was perfectly sunny and nice it was too bright for the film camera, and it was therefor really hard to expose it properly. It didn't help that we had to wait for clouds to fly buy, to get the sunlight back.

After finishing the first scene, we where far behind our shooting schedule and we started to rush through the shots of the 2nd scene. and mostly only filmed one take for each shot.

In the end we discovered we had plenty of time, and plenty of film, but the sun had become so low, that continuity with the light would have been a problem, if we wanted to shoot pick ups.

In the end we where all happy and pleased that we where finished, and celebrated with eating chocolate and fooling around with the rest of the film we had left.

It felt almost unbelievable to go from being original 6 people in the group, to suddenly be 10 people, and all of them very good and talented people that it was great to work with.

I must say that I am very thank full for every single one to step in to make the film, and that they also allowed me to post some of the picture from the shoot in my blog.

The next thing that happens will be starting the next project, and the edit of the film. Lets hope everything goes well!

Arts University of Bournemouth: The Joy of film-making

The One-still Projcet

After finishing off our one still project we are finally starting with the pre-production of our Bolex-camera project. With both changing and developing and reinventing the original story, you would all ask yourself "what's the reason of all this work?". I say it's all about knowledge and fun!
I am pretty pleased with my still image, even though it turned out to be quit un-filmable on a bolex camera. I told my current Main-Producer: "had we just had another day to shoot, and if we just could use light and/or a digital camera, the scenery would have been perfect!

But since that's not the case, the location was scrapped for the Bolex-camera shoot, and an (maybe) even cooler idea ans concept was developed with in our film crew. I'm very exited to see if everything turns out the way we want it.

The final one still is still a pretty cool image, and I have to thank all the people who helped me achieve the final result. Maybe the lights (and some of the colours) could be t tweaked a little bit, but the costumes and the angle is awesome. Please let me know if I should post my process in developing this image.

The Bolex-Project
Since we just started, the Bolex project is still under pre-production face. I have to say that I'm awfully happy that the producers in the crew are masterfully handling the paperwork. I got so lucky that my storyboard was chosen democratically in our group, and therefor also got to direct my small piece of fantasy. The production is currently one step away from getting green lit to shoot, we only need to sort out costumes, props and actors, rehears with them, and then we're should be good to go!

The last days we've been discussion how we could change the location for our opening scene, to make it easier for us to shoot. And I am happy to say that the final verdict has given us opportunities I could not have dreamed off.

I am sadly to say that I can't post the final film online, because of product placement and similar issues, but will happily show it to any individual who comes and asks me personally.

In the end I'm adding a Small teaser from our behind the scenes for you. This is a part of our pre-shoot, where we test angles, counting shot duration, all without actors and props. Just to give us a visual reference. When we're finally able to roll the film, we have a good base. combine that with a shot list and a well made storyboard, and in we know exactly what to get when we pull out the Bolex camera.

Sucker Punch, Does it really suck?

Sucker punch IMDb

The first time I saw the movie Sucker punch, I thought, this movie looks cool, but nothing makes sense or has reason in the plot. What is real? What is a dream? is it just a big waist off money an talent?

Every review I ever read said, this is totally bullshit! the only thing this is the perverted childhood fantasy of the director (Zack Snyder) on the the movie screen. And I was totally confused, because very I was sure that this could not be the reason this movie was made.

After some research I found an article that linked me to this video on youtube, wutch stated that zack Snyder confirmed was an accurate analysis of the movies plot.

Afterwards I have had argument countless times with people about the plot, so I wanted to make my own summary of the plot to clear up some issues people have had:

The main character speaks to the audience at the beginning: "This is my fantasy guardian angel, sometimes a little girl, sometimes an old man. They help me through life".
When the "angel" goes to the mental institute, she sees the main character on the stage, where she just re-acted the opening scene.The "angel" goes through all the same problems that the main character did. Only this time as a mental journey, through layers of fantasy.
the main character has been under pressed by men all her life, and that's why she imagine her angel living in a brothel. Later she makes her "angel" take control over the situations where usually the men are the dominant one. The "angels" "dance" is her mental way to be free from a mans dominated world, but she just re-appears in another fetish mans fantasy world, but this time she has weapons to take  the control herself. The old man that appears is just another "angel" that tells her to be strong, and take control.
In the end the main character (not her fantasy "angel") is the one that is able to escape mentally from the brothel, the world of being seen as an object.In the mental institution, her "angel" ends up the same way as she did, mentally gone, no men can harm her or tell her want to do. The movie ends with the Main Character basically finishing with the words: "now it's your turn to fight for who you are, and don't be suppressed and used as an object by others" 

Borunemouth England, Film production: The first weeks in University

I have been here for some weeks now, and I'm starting to get used to the English life style. What I notice myself is that I understand more English, than what I can speak myself, so I try everyday to be a sponge that sucks in new words in my vocabulary . Does it work? No idea!

Since last time I wrote, the International orientation week has ended, and we have got our first projects. We ended the International Orientation week with a Jurassic tour, witch took us into the English country side with castle, village, mountain side and beaches. It was a beautiful tour, with a lot of walking. The most exiting part was the bus trip, because part of the roof of the duble-dekker bus was missing. driving through the the trees was a totally new experience, both joyful, exiting, and a little bit dangerous.

After a quick tour of the film-production part of the campus, we where introduces to our tutors, and we got both our first two projects with our first two unit books.

In the unit Production processes we are currently working on the "one still"-project. Find a location, shoot an image, based up on one of two words: Solitude or suspicion. Afterwards we are going to make a storyboard. This will later lead us into choosing a storyboard within selected groups, and shoot on real film with a Bloex camera. Very exiting!

 In our storytelling unit, every student has got their own picture and/or word(s) on a piece of paper. This  project is called: Idea factory, and last until May, end of this school year. It is all about gathering as much as information and research as possible out of the piece of paper. In the end our howl journey should be documented in details.

At the same time of these two projects, we are going through some health and safety lectures, that is all about preparing us for a test we have to pass, to be allowed on to a movie set.

Every week has been interesting and new, and I just can not wait until we finish the introductions part, and start on the real work. producing movies.

Before I end this post, I want to add the beautiful experience I had with helping prepare and plan a surprise birthday party to one of my classmates. He should have know how much pack and forth, confusion we had, and so on, but it was a success, and he seemed pretty happy with the result!