Commission Unit: Thats a rap!

Maddie and I had a very busy day yesterday with a 12 hour editing shift at the studios,  Maddie got to work on the edit, while I made a up all the graphics we needed on another computer and I also sorted out the music for our film, then Maddie and I uploaded all the music and graphics and set all the levels and it really gave the film the uplift it needed.

Now the only thing left to do is burn it on to a disc...............Go Damned Productions :D

Dean

Commission Unit: Editing/Essay

For the last few days Maddie and I have been in the studios editing like crazy, trying to get our documentary done, and its finally getting there, with writing and shooting last minute voice overs its been pretty hectic but we're on course and hope to be all done by Tuesday. If all this editing isn't enough to worry about, we've been trying to find time to do our essay, which is due in on Monday! No rest for the wicked! ha.

Dean

Commission Unit: Miserable Maidstone

Today Maddie and I were editing in the studios while Abbi went back to Brighton to get some more interviews off her family, Maddie and I decided that it might be a good idea to get a camera and hit Fremlin Walk in Maidstone to ask the publics opinion on teenage mothers! This didnt really go to plan! We thought Maidstone would be full of jolly Christmas shoppers! But it turns out the people of Maidstone where somewhat reluctant to get in front of the camera, so back to the edit we went!

Dean

Commission Unit: Workshop

Last week on Thursday we had a commissioning workshop and we created a short  documentry to practice our documentry techniques such as sequences and interviewing. I really enjoyed this project, I worked with Jo, Maddie and Jane and our film was exploring life as a mature student. Being a mature student herself Jane starred in our film. We went to Jane's house and the campus to film some sequences and pick ups, which turned out really well. We all deceided that we would like a presenters voice to be heard but not actually ask the subject questions. 

This is our final product: 

Commission Unit: The new comer

So I handed in  my script for the 'Login, log out' documentary today and it was decide by Simon and Helen that I was to change group, So I'm now part of 'Millennium Mum' documentary which i'm happy about as I know I've joined a hard working team that could do with a male prospective! 

So my first job today was to sit down with my new group and go through the script and try to make it tighter which I think we've all done very well.

They also asked me to look for a suitable song for the opening titles to set the tone of the documentary, so using my music knowledge I went on youtube and pick out 2 songs to choose from, the first one was from the film 'Juno' 'Anyone else but you' by The Moldy Peaches, or the one we as a group decided fitted the documentary best was 'Gem of a bird' by The View. and here is the link if you would like a listen.

Dean

Direction Unit: To add insult to injury!

Ha well I've just found out that youtube have recived a complaint from ITV about my 'Appropriate adult, and youtube have removed it! Tanks a bunch ITV ha.

Direction Unit: Finished

Its over, and one less thing to worry about, I was happy with my end result but could of been better, I lost 2 days worth of editing in the last week which couldnt be helped and I feel it would of looked a lot better with a few more tweeks, as I'm sure my titles dont match everyones and a few other bits that are eating away at me :( but its in now and I just have to await my mark.

Commission Unit: Production meeting

So Mondays production meeting didn't go to plan due to Zee taking his driving test which is understandable, but after us all talking on the phone everything looks back on track and we're planning on emailing a rough script over by Thursday/Friday. I've already made a start on a rough script with opening titles.

Direction Unit; The edit

So I'll be spending the week  at the studios editing my direction unit shoot, its all going according to plan at the moment and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product, I'm slightly worried about lack of shots but I'm sure it will all be fine in the end, I've attached pictures of my shot list/story board to show my ideas and what I've been working from.

Narrative and Genre unit; The essay

Today I went to the campus as I arranged a meeting with Rachel kitchen to discuss my essay and help me understand it a bit more, she is really helpful and gave me a lot of ideas on how to set up my research before my essay and how to set my essay up, if anyone is having difficulty with there essay I'd recommend going to see her, she's very nice and very approachable. She also sent me to see Richard in the library who showed me how to get online resources he is also very helpful and approachable.

Direction Unit: My shoot

So today was my shoot, I left it a bit late due to being let down by actors, which also made it difficult for me as I had no choice but to act in my own shoot, I would of much rather of stayed behind the camera as I felt very under-prepeared as I've spent the last few days trying to learn lines! But you've got to do what you've got to do. I had a great crew workingwith me so I'm confident everything will come out as I wanted it, now to get on with the editing.

Direction Unit: My shoot

After a manic week helping out a few people on there shoot, tomorrow is my turn! For some reason I'm slighty nerverse, I dont know why I've got some great ideas, a great location and a great crew working with me! What could go wrong ha.
I'm sure 'it'll be alright on the night' I cant wait to start editing it and it going live.
Wish me luck.

Direction Unit: The planning.

So I've done my shot list and feel I've got everything in place for my shoot except the fact that I've got no actors confirmed and I cant really book a location untill I have a cast! Its a very deflating process trying to get actors with no budget! as the saying goes 'you pay peanuts you get monkeys!' With no peanuts to offer I should be greatful with what I can get.

Narrative and Genre Unit: screen language

Today we had an interesting lecture on screen language. Screen language is a complex set of image tools, codes and symbols.
Its purpose is to translate a script to the screen in an interesting way by adding  layers that are not on a script page.
Its aim is to engage the audience and keep them interested by adding layers and references the audience will appreciate and understand.

To help us understand this we watched the classic Alfred Hitchcock film 'Psycho' and after we went through the screen language that had been put into it like framing and lighting, sound, editing, forshadowing, iconography: symbolism and metaphor and homage/referencing. I found this all very interesting, forshadowing is very clever way of using screen language and I like the idea of using iconography and homage.

Doc Unit: Brainstorming

Today we got together as a group and had a good brainstorming session, we decided to start off our doc looking at the "Y2K Bug" and look at how people were scared of the Internet "imploding" (as it was predicted!) but instead it evolved and social networking was born!
we've also came up with so great ideas for opening titles and people to interview, now we need to make a start on a ruff script.

Narrative and Genre: What programme to choose????

I dont know what show to choose for my essay, Big Brother or The X Factor, both would be great but I'm not sure what one would be best.

Commission Unit: Log In Log Out

So here it is, peoples pitches have been commissioned and the teams have been pick, sadly my 'The XL Factor (do you want fries with that?) didn't get commissioned but I'm glad to be working with Zee and Alex on Zee's  idea 'Log In, Log Out. Its a great idea and one that interests me, and Zee has a great case study so it should be fun.

Dean

Commission Unit: The Pitch

Today we pitched our ideas for our commission unit, I felt mine went ok, I think they really liked my idea of the the rise and fall of Rik Waller with the title; 'The XL Factor (would you like fries with that?)., I was hoping by now I would of spoken to Rik Waller or at least had his number I'm guessing that the fact that I could'nt guarentee my lead role  its unlikley it will get commissioned :( , But I live in hope, and even if it doesn't some people have got some great ideas and I'll look forward to working on theire projects.

Direction Unit: The script

I handed my script into Simon and the general feedback was to try and cut down the dialog, the Fred West character dialog is very long so I think it will make easier for myself and the actor to cut it down.
I also need to put more direction in to it and then I think I'm ready to go :D

Direction unit: my script

This is my script that I've selected for my direction unit, I cant wait to get the ball rolling, I've cast most my characters but I am still looking for some to play the lead of Fred.

Appropriate Adult
"Interview Scene"
FADE IN:
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM
On one side of the table is Fred West sat next to his appropriate adult being interviewed by Three police officers, the room is dark/low lighting
POLICE OFFICER 1
The date is Friday the 25th of February 1994, the time is 16:57. Before we start off Fred I must remind you that you are still under caution and you don’t have to say anything unless you wish to do so, anything you do say maybe used as evidence, do you understand?
FRED WEST
Yeah.
POLICE OFFICER 1
Okay. You were arrested earlier today by my college here in relation of the murder of your daughter Heather. Can you tell me in your own words what you know about that.
FRED WEST
Right what happened was Heather wanted to leave home you see and she’d been knocking around with this girl with a red mini.[Fred turns to his appropriate adult] That’s a mini skirt not a car. And we were pretty sure she was a lesbian like, so me and Rose said, “hang on a sec you better think about this girl you know give it a night at least.” So next morning come up and Rose said, “let her go”, she said I’ll go to the bank and draw out six hundred pounds and she can have that and go. So Rose goes off and I’m left in the hall with Heather and her suitcase and shes got her hands on her hips, the big lady like, and I say “how about you get a flat up the road, you can have girlfriends up there” and she said “if you don’t let me fucking go, I’ll give all the kids acid [Fred turns to the appropriate adult and explains] that’s LSD like. And they’ll jump off the church roof and kill them selves. And I say “well that ain't very nice girl” you know threatening to do that to your own brothers and sisters” and shes got this smile on her face like a sort of smirk, like try me and I’ll do it, so I just lunged at her like that and then I grabbed her by the throat like that [Fred imitates holding someone by the throat] and I held her there for....[Fred Trying to work out the time in his head] I don’t know how long but it was quick, it was real quick, its surprising how long you can hold someone by the throat before they....before they....but I cant remember to that extent what happened next but the next minute shes gone blue. And I’m looking at her from head to foot and I’m thinking what the bloody heck has gone wrong? So I put her on the floor and I’m blowing in her mouth and I’m pumping her chest and shes just getting bluer and I didn’t know what to do, I mean I never meant to hurt her, and Rose is due back any minute and I’m thinking jeez I’ve gotta do something and I was scared. So I was gonna put her in the Wendy house, and then I though I’ll put her in the dust-bin, but I couldn't get her in there so I get this ice saw, you know with the two prongs at the top and the serrated edges, you use it for cutting blocks of ice and  I cut her legs off. And that was.... Unbearable....I can still hear that in my sleep. And then I cut her head off and well I closed her eyes first, well your not gonna take a saw to your own daughter when shes sat there looking at you are you. And then she sat neatly in the bin so I pushed it down to the end of the garden you know behind the Wendy house and I take her suitcase and put it on St. Michaels square on church day rubbish, and then I got Heather from behind the Wendy house and....berried Her. And I’ve been meaning to come down here and get it all sorted out before, but I never got round to it.

Direction Unit; Direction Workshop

Today we had to take it in turns directing performers to create drama in a scene taken from the film Atonement but at the same time we had to think of what camera angles we would be using to capture the drama. I decided I ask one of my performers (Maddie) to have a bad attitude, just to make it a bit different, wjat do you think?

Director Unit: A change of heart!

Right. I've changed my mind! I'm now no longer doing Shameless or Lost I've now choosen to do Appropriate Adult! And already have got loads of ideas, I was really struggling for ideas with lost!

So here is a video from Appropriate Adult its a bit long but I think I'm gonna use 3mins from 5mins 54sec - 11mins 07secs  

Documentary Unit: Ideas

After a tutorial with Helen yesterday we discussed my 3 ideas,  we narrowed it down to 2 ideas as one would of been to difficult to gather information or reliable information. So now its a case of choosing from my 2 ideas or working out if I combined my 2 ideas into 1!

Direction Unit: Research

After spending hours choosing between Lost and Shameless I have finally decided to go with Lost and I think I've found a scene that  I can work with although I've still got a few I like the look of. I think the scenes I've been looking at I can put my own stamp on, but still have a lot of thinking to do.

Today was the lighting workshop, where in groups we had to film different scenes using different lighting tehcnices and film them, we had to shoot; a portrait lighting shot; a hero lighting shot; a villian lighting shot; a experimental lighting shot and an expressive portrait shot, follow the links below to see what we came up with.

Director workshop

Today at the studios Simon gave us a Directors workshop, where we had a lecture about all the roles and responsibilities a director has, and like Simon says "You cant learn how to be a director, you just become one!" So he gave us all 1min to direct the rest of the class I whatever way we saw fit, this varied from dancing, running, jumping, the list goes on. Then he set us all a task to get in groups of 5 and you get 20mins each to come up with a scene each which had to involve the passing of a note, so we had 20mins to direct the other 4 in the group and film it, see the link below.

file:///Users/dross/Desktop/Dean%20Ross%20The%20note.mov

Back to uni :D

Well today I went back to uni after having 13weeks off, and I've missed it big time.
Today Simone gave us an introduction into or Directors unit, it was all a bit mind boggling at first but I think I've got my head around it now and think I've got a good idea!
Simon also set us a task to come up with a 3min film called 'Summer Is Dead' and to be fair my group fell well short of the mark,  I don't think we were nowhere near as prepared as we could of been, but I learnt a lot as I found the viewing very embarrassing, and hopefully this wont happen again, although it was fun working with the cameras again.

Catfish the trailer

http://youtu.be/m3EDxgecC14?hd=1

Guess whos back, back again!

I'd like to start by apologising, I haven't blogged in yonks! sorry!

Anyhow, The journey!!!!!!! Its been doing my nut in! I had agreat idea about the journey to a bbq/party, but my friends are usless and let me down so I had to scrap that idea, then I had a brain-wave!!! I thought if people are goning to let me down I wont use them, I'll use my nephews toys! But I ended up writing a funny script for it and after a chat with Simon we decided it would'nt work for this project, So I came up with the idea of an emotional journey and I turned to my good friends Hennie and Maddie for help and went around Maidstone and took loads of pics of Hennie and myself having a "barney" we've still gotta shoot the ending as we ran out of day light but that will be getting done this week, and in the mean time I've been getting thunder storm sounds to go with it. Exciting!

I've also been chipping away at my essay, I think I'm getting there, I hope! and helping the 2nd years with their 'as live' project 'The Pub Game' where I was very kindly asked if I'd have a go at presenting it for the rehersals, and I jumped at the chance, I've never done any presenting before and I think its fair to say Ant and Dec's jobs are safe but I really enjoyed it, and I was very happy landing the Assistant floor managers role for the live filming of The Pub Game. For me it doesn't get any better than working in the studio I wish we could do more of it!

I've now got to tackle power point, for our presesntation, that should be fun! Oh yeah I watched Catfish last week, I dont want to tell you what its about because it will give the game away! but its well worth a watch!

here it is!

http://youtu.be/P6eckp1tfyI

2 x 10 + 1 Romeo done!

FINALLY! its over! got all my story telling stuff in and on time yesterday, i really enjoyed it although I'm over the moon i haven't got to watch my trailer for a while, the last 2 hours turned a bit panic station, but i got there :) and I've already got a good idea for my sound unit!watch this space.

The Meeting trailer

well after a week of  editing, my trailer is finlay finished, and if I'm honest I'm sick of looking at it, but i am also very happy with the outcome, so all in all happy days

The re-shoot!

So I had the re-shoot this weekend and i think its fair to say it didn't go as planned! with people letting me down at the last minute and not being able to get the mic working, it was a bit of a disaster! but i got to the studios nice and early this morning so i could get cracking on my edit and i decided to start from scratch, i think it looking a bit sharper so than it did so that's good, still got a lot of work to do on it this week, and I'm now at home working on my pitch and synopsis, and I'm hoping to have a new draft of my script done before our trip to The Dam!

Editing!

after filming my trailer for The Meeting this weekend, I got it all up loaded on final cut  today, and was gutted as there's some scenes with really bad sound! so i think a re-shoot is in order! better luck this time, its all a learning curve!

I'm past out in your garden, I'm in i can't get off I'm so Soft!

the finished product! 

edited by Lauren Woodfall and Dean Ross.

The Meeting script!

have i tried to be to clever with the ending? should i just stick to basics?

The Meeting script!

just finished my script, what a relife! i know its still a way off from being perfect but i'm very happy with it so far, its 12 pages so i've really gotta get rid of some dead wood!

shamu, uni project

My first attempt at final cut!

Camera Workshop

despite feeling like crap all day yesterday, i really enjoyed the camera workshop yesterday, it was great getting to see how different ways of framing and useing the lens to there potential can tell such a diffrent story! i feel abit silly not thaking advantage of booking the camera, but i'm defiantly going to start! now i'm spending the rest of the day on my script for the meeting!

Synopsis & Pitch!

i got everything in on time today, now awaiting the feed back!

J'ai fini

Just finished my pitch and my synopsis for "the meeting" just need to get it all typed up and printed off for thursday and then i can start going over my script and story-board, cant wait to get it filmed.

big wheels keep on turning!

finally got the wheels moving on "the meeting" today, slowly, slowly catchy monkey, onwards and up wards!

Spaced Synopsis!

                                    Spaced Synopsis!

‘Spaced’, is your classic “guy meets girl” but with extra bite, a difference!

The lead character Tim, an aspiring comic book artist, spends most of his time dossing, smoking weed and playing video games; so it comes as no surprise he is somewhat child like!

Tim meets Daisy in a busy café one day where due to lack of seats they have no option but to share a table, Daisy lives in a squat that she is desperate to get out of! Daisy is a quirky, trippey, highly emotional character but she is very likeable. They soon realise that they are stronger together than apart and together stumble upon a genius idea to set up a fake relationship in order to rent a flat together, so with their brilliant plan in action they somehow manage to secure an interview for a flat where they manage to pull the wool over the eyes of there soon to be land lady Marsha, but how long will the wool stay over her eyes?

Marsha is a loopy, odd, alcoholic who Tim and Daisy think maybe be sleeping with their new neighbour Brian who is an artist with a split personality; who instead of using conventional watercolours for his work he opts for blood! This makes him quite weird and he comes across as very serious. And of course not forgetting Tim’s best mate Mike who is ex-army - or is he? He definitely talks the talk but not sure if he’s ever walked the walk as Mike is prone to bullshitting and is very immature. One of Tim and Mikes pastimes is having imaginary gun fights with each other hence Mike may not be as trigger happy as he makes out!

Set in an urban, shabby flat, you never know what’s going to happen next with its dry/black humour, loveable characters, unusual camera angles, comic strip animation features and pop-culture references from Scooby Doo to Jurassic Park, its all in there.   

Spaced synopsis!

I'm finding it hard writting the synopsis without it sounding like a reveiw!

blogging!

uuummmmmm never blogged before?????!!!!