Trailers

For Newcastle Film Festival, we had a choice of making a trailer for the film. This would be good for marketing as well as another box to tick on the application form. So I did a quick edit, luckily I knew the film well and what shots look good. With a bit of help from the director for artistic vision, we came up with this.

Cirque du Muerte - Trailer from Janice Lee on Vimeo.

The director liked this so much they requested a one of Onion Man (which I am 10x prouder of). Again had a few creative outputs as I didn't know the film as well, but it looks very cool. I think I have found my calling haha! Also had to alter the aspect ratio as the footage at the moment had the film peaking through in the back. I edited both trailers in Premiere Pro mostly for ease as I have it at home and also on all of the Uni computers. Basically made an adjustment layer and changed a few of the settings. Learnt a new skill!

RTS Awards

Cirque du Muerte (last years live project) has been nominated for a regional RTS award in Yorkshire, in the category of Entertainment/Comedy. So tonight roughly 30 of us went down to support it and the Uni. 

Glad to report that WE WON! CCAD have not won a category before (only craft awards) and we are now shortlisted to be in the national awards down in London. They did play the worst clip of the film though, guess they just picked the most 'comedic' bit. We got certificates and a trophy (hope this will be on a rotor), but we are getting our sound ops name engraved onto it. Sadly the certificates only say 'nominees' too instead of winners. 

It was a very good night and we have had an article on the CCAD website already. (http://hartlepool.ccad.ac.uk/ccad-film-students-win-rts-yorkshire-student-awards-2018/)When we were emailed about this we were told it might go into the papers too!

Circus - What Have I Learnt?

Cirque du Muerte has been completed in full and was a success. Even though it did do very well, I will also talk about improvements and what did go wrong.

1) Teamwork. This was very strong in this production, with the director saying she had her "dream team". We are all very organised and got on with research straight away. Me and the director work particularly well together, and coming up with similar suggestions. We has quite a few meetings to discuss shot lists and I would suggest how we could achieve them. I also suggested a few shots, sometimes on the day. My favourite shot of the Hook-A-Duck stall owner as a canted angle (on a slider) was suggested by myself on the day and looks amazing. 

2) Organisation. Even though this worked, this could have been improved. The director knew what she wanted from the actors, but not from the camera. I suggested a few shots of what the director had pictured (we seem to be good at this), but it would have been more helpful if we had finished storyboards so I could see visually what the director wanted. We also had issues with sound equipment over Easter, so communication here would have helped, and we could have avoided recording in camera.

3) Keep pushing! We were going to drop the trombone shot due to how hard and difficult it was, but we still tried, even after the clown dropped out (so we ended up doing it for about 3 shoots). The jib shot was also difficult to execute but we kept trying and did multiple takes at the end of the day until the card filled up. 

4) Continuity. We had to scrap some of my favourite shots due to continuity errors. On a big scale set, one person would be in charge of it, but we left it to the actors and the director, and said to everyone "feel free to go of script, but stick to your words and gestures for the scenes after that". It didn't go well. I'm not sure how we can avoid this in the future (since we are all busy doing our own jobs), we will just have to edit around it.

Circus - That's a Wrap!

We had a few reshoots to do to make the edit look smoother today (we were very lucky to get the actors back), including one of the knife thrower doing a faster throw and one of Sophie looking shocked/bewildered when the knife hits the board *no small children were hurt during the shoot, but Liam maybe scarred for life* as it looked very orange last time and we weren't sure why. Turns out it was because the gel was too strong and make it look orange on camera, so we toned it down using scrim (hopefully it wont be too much of an issue with continuity). 

We then got the Zoltar card shot and some mannequin cutaways and hands/stumps clapping. The shoot went quite well and was not stressful as we knew what we exactly we needed to help the editor out. And we are now officially wrapped filming on Circus, now I can focus on filming Tag tomorrow and doing my evaluation! 

We also had a small photoshoot with Sophie for the poster which looks terrifying, but I enjoyed doing taking the pictures for it. 

Circus - Ringmaster Shoot

Today is our last scheduled shoot!!!! We set up early and ended up waiting around a while until the actor arrived, got changed and did make up. We then got filming at about 11, everything still set up. We got all the slider shots done first since we were a little behind schedule as someone else wanted it on the afternoon. We then got the close ups (on the monopod, we did this for most of the close ups so I could track everyone's movement). Went smoothly, and we ended with people clapping for foley.

We quickly looked back at the edited footage so far and there are two concerns; a cutaway of the Zoltar card and also the scene about arguing whether to go to the show. The wide has completely different lighting to the close ups (we tried our best to recreate it but I guess it wasn't good enough, time may have been a issue here), so the editor had to use all close up shots, but we only have one of Sophie. The scene drags and needs something else to cut to. So we will have to go to Production Design for these last shots next week for an hour or so. 

The actor playing the Ringmaster took a few pictures on his camera so I hope he will send us them! (I didn't bring mine in, and we were rushed for time once again)

Circus - Knife Throwing and End Scene

Today we got the knife scene in the big show done. We did lots of test footage for this so we knew what we needed, including one shot we didn't get last time. We got a lot of shots today, including a really nice lens flare of the knife against the red head with a red gel. 

After that, the actor playing the Dad arrived and went to the director's house to do the final scene. We took all the equipment over in the pouring rain, and set up. It did take us a while to figure out lighting as when we imitated the lighting in the living room, it shone against the window (we ended up having to live with this as literally everywhere we put it, you could see the shine. We will just say it's from a lamp). We also had another one to imitate the TV (we put a blue gel on it, but it didn't do anything, so we just used scrim on it). We got a few wide shots and some really tricky ones which were a pain to get. 

One of them was a low angle shot, including a pull focus from the remote to Sophie's face, her delivering her line (static) then sliding forward, focusing (as it kept loosing focus) and moving the camera so her eyes were central framed. It took a while, so we decided to cut it up and maybe cut to a cutaway in edit, so now it's just the remote pull focus, cut, and then the slider shot of Sophie's eyes. I'm not sure if it worked still, so we will have to find out. We ended up having to use Moshi Monster plasters to we knew where to pull focus to.

We also struggled to get a shot of the dolls in the case. I did say to get the shelves as it would look better and would have been easier to get. Basically, we had to slide really close to the Lacee doll (slider was on a high angle), slide up, keep focus and also move it so the case would be in shot. We ended up getting one possible good take but we may have to reverse it in post. We also got a few static ones just in case.

Circus - Big Show Cutaways, Pick Ups and Car Scene

Today was the last day we had Lacee and Dad so we got all their cutaways in the big show (e.g. them walking up for each act, coming back, walking into the show, etc) and also Lacee's doll scene without the make up (as it comes on magically half way through). Went well, no issues. We were originally going to do the car scene first, but we couldn't get the LED's.

After the show cutaways, we did the car scene. Went well, even if it was a bit cold. The fact we shot it during the day maybe an issue so we may have to do "day for night". 

We had to go back to the big show as we forgot one cutaway, then we got some pick up shots the editor wanted at the circus set. We were very tired and rushed so we did them as quickly and as best to our ability as we could. 

Special thanks again to Tori for helping us out on sound today. Didn't get a lot of production stills today as we were very busy.

Circus - Some Possible Issues

While the editor was doing the skeleton edit, there was a few errors about continuity and movement in shot. They have made a list of what we are missing and I have put forward what I personally will think will work visually and also that won't involve a lot of actors or make up. On a huge set, people would be in charge of continuity as their only job role (we also had a huge issue with this for Allurement and it's the same actor!) 

We are having a meeting later to discuss what issues there are, what would look visually better and what we will have to compromise with.

Circus - Big Show Filming

Today we filmed most of the big show scene at the end of the film. Most of the actors were late and it took us longer than we thought to set up, so we didn't start filming until 11. The director had to go home then, so I had to direct (but I rang/messaged her for important stuff) today as well as do camera. Special thanks to Tori for doing sound, Chloe for doing production logs as well as just helping out in general, and Beth for taking a few production stills.

It all went really well. I wasn't very familiar with the script due to various updates and new dialogue so the actors helped me out with their lines so I knew when to get a close up. I'm thankful to them for being patient with me and everything went really smoothly. We need a few more pick up shots of Lacee without her doll make up and shots with Sophie as we couldn't get her this day.

Circus - More Filming

We were going to have two days this week to finish the circus/street and maybe start the big show, but we have had to just get one day due to actor availability. We still contacted reception last week to let them know we were filming the next week on the Thursday.

We had a bit of a hassle getting in. I booked a taxi for a little bit earlier so makeup was on time (as I live with them, they can hop in with me, as I needed the taxi to transport the tracking dolly), but they refused it. But the actor didn't turn up until 10 anyway (I was however stood outside by myself (they were going to help me in with it) with a suspicious looking tall bag, and no one to help me in, and I did get a few weird looks). Tori helped me soon enough, and was our sound op today!

Talking about sound, we had an issue finding the equipment. We had the boom pole (well... two!) and some XLR cables but couldn't find the Tascam or Zoom anywhere. We tracked down the Zoom to be in Hull, and the Tascam in Sunderland. So, we had to use the mic in the camera with an XLR cable. No ideal, but we can dub if necessary. 

Equipment for us over Easter was a huge issue because of this. We were also given a dodgy tripod (very dodgy! It went wonky every two seconds), one of the lights bust on shoot today (luckily we had two sets of red heads), and we were missing the bungees for the tracking dolly, so we had to use gaffa tape and a sitting Tori to secure it down.

One of the actors didn't turn up until very late (3 hours) and one had to be away by 2, so it was a rush to get all of the scenes they were both in done. We got most of them, but had to drop another as the actor playing Sophie was in a bad mood. 

Looking back at the footage, some of it seems to be a bit dark. Not sure how. So we may need to reshoot that too (mostly Lacee and the Clown). We would have liked to finish the circus and street this week, but stuff happens! I will give the editor all the footage and wait for their opinion to see if we should reshoot. We also didn't get a lot of production stills today as we were very busy. One of the actors did take a quick video of us, but I am waiting for that to be sent over. *update* Turns out he accidentally deleted it, and we have no production stills of this day either. :-( 

Note to self: Do lighting and floor plans

Circus - WORMS

We were lucky enough to get into the Uni to film over Easter so we went in today to do more shots of the circus (we were going to do close ups of the street and the trombone shot, but we were strapped for time. We were also going to film tomorrow but we couldn't get the actors for long.)

We were also given a dodgy tripod which even though locked off, moved. So Beth had to step in to hold the slider and the legs in place. This also put more time on the shoot and was an inconvenience.

We were slow to start due to make up, so I got a LOT of cutaways (I was filming them non stop for about 2 hours). We then did a close up of Sophie with the tickets. We then did the candy cart scene and some clown shots. We got quite a lot of shots done on the morning! Even Liam had a cameo!

The most chaotic part of the shoot was at the end. The director went to get worms for the match cut of the strawberry laces at around 2. The caretakers then suddenly said that they were closing at 3:40 (we were told we could film until 5) so we rushed to get all the shots with the worms done as they may not live another day (one sadly got beheaded in the process of dropping the cup, RIP). 

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/cce150d9-567f-4c8b-af9e-122a193e189c/gif

Overall, filming went well. Organisation could have been a bit better, such as letting us know sooner we had to be done by 3:40. Me and the director are coming in tomorrow to tidy up. I'm slightly concerned if the shots can be edited together as they join onto certain scenes and lighting or the 180 degree line may differ. We were careful about continuity, so this should be fine (I worry all the time so it's probably fine). Brad was kind enough to film some behind the scenes shots (I did some for him yesterday, so was a whole "I scratch your back" thing) and even Tillie got a few pictures (most are out of focus, the rest are not relevant to the production).

Circus - Send in the Clowns!

Today we did a few more scenes in the Circus with our newly cast clown! We did the carriage scene (minus the polaroid), hook a duck, and also when Sophie shows her Dad the tickets. We also had a few more people to fill up the hook a duck and a stall owner (who is also the knife thrower, but we can get away with it as he has a shirt over his eyes or something for the knife throwing). 

Make up did take a while, I suggested getting some clown shots while the stall owner gets his make up done, but the director needed to go and see if the makeup was what she wanted. I think next time we are getting the clown in early (or late) to get the trombone shots again. We only had time to shoot one shot (8 takes though) of the carriage on the morning.

We got straight back into it after dinner and got the remainder carriage shots, the hook a duck stall, and some of the ticket scene (we stopped as one of the actors was getting restless and it was effecting performance), so next time, we will have to grab some close ups!

Minus a lot of drama from today, the shoot itself went really well. The make up today was stunning and the shots also look fab! I can't wait to see the edited product.

Circus - Street Shoot #2 and Circus

Today we planned to do some of the circus (sadly without the clown as we have had to recast). We also had to redo the tracking dolly street shot again as looking back at it yesterday, it was a bit of a mess. 

Weeeeeeee

Thanks to Beth for this video!

We did a few takes (close up and wide) but if I got it so all three of the actors were in, we could see the classroom no matter what. So we fixed this by finding a curtain and putting boxes on the floor. 

Our producer sticking up the curtain

11 takes later, we moved on to the circus shots. There was a huge white block in the middle of it, but it could be moved (luckily! They also refrained from putting music on for us for sound). We did the Zoltar scene first and the director came up with a new trippy angle involving the crystal ball on the right side of the frame (to dirty the shot) and using the slider to get a close up of Lacee. We had to put the crystal ball on top of some ladders, on top of some duct tape, on top of a container (sadly no pictures of this!) and the shot itself looks pretty impressive. 

The director directing Lacee

Moving onto the next scene, where the Dad gives Sophie money for sweets and the rides. This took some time as batteries were running out. And we needed to buy strawberry laces. 

Tillie helping me dirty up the pick and mix cup so it fits with the aesthetic

Actors also needed to hit marks spot on otherwise they went out of frame. It took a few takes, but we got it. We also did each scene with various angles, close ups and cutaways. We also did a demon eye cutaway for the editor to play around with.

Overall, a good days shoot! Can't wait to look back at the edited footage. 

*update* Turns out some of the close ups for the street scene have a tiny soft focus. It was hard to focus as they were moving around a lot, ideally I would have a focus puller, as I could not tell and I was busy tracking the actors.

Circus - Street Shoot

Today we filmed some of the street scenes (apart from the Clown since we can't get hold of the actor, so we may have to recast and do the trombone shot again (noooooooooo)). One of the actors turned up a few hours late and another one had to be done by 1:30 so this wasn't the best of starts, but we got everything set up and we were finished on time for the actor to leave.

We were going to do the jib shot with the actors walking in, however, the focus is completely out for the actors and I can't change it as it's too high and I will be operating the jib. So we decided to do this last and without the actors.

Credit to Janice for the picture

We did the dolly shots and also a few close ups so there's variation to cut between. I'm slightly worried that the dolly has some of the classroom next door into it and also the framing might be a little off, but I can't tell until we watch it back. *small update- yep this did happen, but the wider angle looked better than it zoomed in as I got everyone in... even if I did get some of the classroom in. If the Dad moves slightly to his right, it may cover it. We will probably have time to reshoot tomorrow, and hopefully with better sound*

Sound was also a huge issue. We asked if they could keep quiet for a minute when we call "silence on set", but they didn't and drills and all sorts kept going off. Dubbing maybe a good option here. 

We only got one production still today sadly (we had our hands a bit full).

Gerry and The Cancelled Street Scene

Just realised the title of this post sounds like a Harry Potter movie title.

Anyways, we filmed Tag on the morning, which went well even though we had a bit of a late start. Nothing much really to report apart from the interrogation scene is DONE!!!!!!!

I helped the director put gels on our cardboard cut out of the goblin (now baptised as Gerry the Generic Goblin), so it would look awesome as a silhouette and with a light shining through it.

We got the equipment for filming on the night out in plenty of time in advance as we got pretty such all of stores out. It's a good thing we did too as there was a screw missing from the jib. After everything was set up, me, and both the sound op and boom op waited at Production Design for a bit them realised that the actors were being a while. We headed back over and realised we were missing the actor who plays the girlfriend. We waited an hour after call time to see if she would turn up or contact us. She didn't, so we had to call it off, and possibly recast.

Here's proof of all the equipment being up 

Circus - Car Scene

Today we filmed the car scene. It was all going really well, all the actors arrived and we had all the equipment out. And then it started torrential raining. We persevered and still filmed (as much inside the car as possible, and covered the equipment where it was possible). We did originally want to use red heads as streetlights but could no longer do this today due to the rain. 

We also couldn't do production logs or production stills due to to the weather and lack of bodies willing to go out in the rain (which is understandable). We just wanted it all done quickly and well, and get warm! We made sure the actors were also warm.

We were done fairly quickly since we have done so many test shoots of the car scene before, so we knew what we wanted and could be done really fast. We looked at the footage back on Friday and most of it looks great in my opinion (the slider shot was very dark though). The lecturer wasn't very happy with the lighting and the windows of the buildings outside (and also the make up), and now that the actress hasn't turned up to the next day's shoot, and has gone incommunicado, we may have to recast. 

I will update this post with screenshots of the clips, or maybe the edited scene, even though it maybe irrelevant. 

Clown Trombone Shoot

Today we got just the actor playing the clown in for just the trombone shot, as it took us a whole day to do it last time. We set up in the morning and got the actor in on the afternoon. We picked up the costume from Fashion and got him straight into make-up. We had Zoe and Danny from Production Design (my housemates too) to do his make up. The director contacted them in advance with what she wanted and they did a few tests until she was happy with the result. It took about an hour to get the actor into make up and costume which is good to consider for the other shoots. 

We got the trombone shot in the very first take, which looked the best compared to the other takes. It looks very scary and the effect works! 



(not sure what the bump at the end is! Might be me hitting the clamp on the track)

We also did a few close up shots for the editor to experiment with. I think the director might scrap the eye effect as it may cheapen the film, and the lighting I used is a bit too dark. I decided to go for a noir kind of effect with one side of the clown's face in shadow as it gives that bit of darkness to him. 

Puppet Filming!

Also today, we had two people and eight puppets from Prague Marionettes pop by to help us get some pretty cutaway shots for the Circus film. It all ran very smoothly, filming four of the puppets in different backdrops and scenarios. The director knew exactly what she wanted, and I helped camera wise for what looked the best, e.g. black trousers instead of colourful clown ones as it detracted from the puppets on camera. I ended up just using the slider on the floor so I could get down with the puppets and the tripod didn't go down very far. It was hard to control on the cobbles but I like to think I did well considering. For the shot with the two puppets, I decided to just do it stationary as the slider was too bumpy and it was hard not to get any legs in while sliding. The director was fine with it, and thinks it looks just as good.


Overall today was a very good shoot and was lots of fun to film. Looking back at the footage we have some really nice shots. I kind have wished we got more, but we ran out of backdrops (we had to use ones that the actors wouldn't use for continuity; we could only get the puppets this week).

We also got a very sweet message from the Prague Marionettes saying how much they enjoyed themselves. And the film now have a Facebook page!

Glidecam Test and Trombone Shot #2

We have been putting off doing another trombone shoot after how much of a pain it was last time, but we decided to bite the bullet and do it today, and also test out the glidecam for a few test shots ducking in between the crowd in the Circus. 

We started with the glidecam. I had a vague idea how to set it up watching a few tutorials the night before (this one was particularly useful) and also watching Ethan test it from Allurement last year. We attatched the harness no problem, balancing it however was a lot more difficult. We thought we had it sussed, moving the adjustable plates underneath the camera (left and right, and back and forward), but it kept swaying and spinning around on its own (even when I walked carefully and straight). So we went to find the lecturer and balanced it on a tripod and also handheld/not on the harness. We were going wrong with the weights and we needed it to be a lot lighter. We also need to do a drop test (lie the camera horizontally and see how long it takes to drop down) which should take 2-3 seconds to fall. You can also move where the weights on the bottom are to add to the drop test.

It was very time consuming, and still didn't 'glide', but the director liked it bobbing up and down to create uneasiness. We will have to decide whether it was worth all the time to set up, or use the spider rig or a tripod with wheels attatched instead. 

Special thanks to Drew, Mikey and Chloe for helping out as a crowd for this bit.

After lunch, we tacked the trombone shot again. We figured out that last time it wasn't as dramatic as we hoped because the clown was stood too close to the background. So we had Chloe step in and come a bit closer to the camera to test out whether we figured correctly. We did it from a few different distances to see which worked best. The first one where Chloe was stood a bit further from the wall we could see an instant difference. We then decided to bring her a bit closer, to where the track ended, and this one worked the best! We also tried even closer, but it was a bit too much. I also had to push the dolly, zoom and also tilt up to get all of Chloe in at the same time. I managed, but the shot just wasn't as good as the previous one.

Special shout out to Chloe for helping us out in this bit!

Jib Test #2

Today we had another test of the jib in the street, and also a bit later in the circus with wheels on (Lee and I both had a few concerns, which I will talk about more in this post). 

The jib test for the street went really well, and we have a lovely shot. We also used the lighting set up/already built for the street. The director originally wanted to use the bird in the lamp post as a framing device. We still included it, but couldn't get the jib at the right angle for the originally planned shot. So we started it on some textured wall, track to see a sign of a shop, reach the bird on the lamppost, track down the lamp post (this was to avoid the wooden canvas in the background, which we later fixed by shining a red head through it so the painting on it would shine through. It looks fab!), and keep going down until we see the people entering the circus. We did a few other variations too starting from the sign of the pub, but this one was our favourites. We also got Chloe to light up the bird on the lamp post with an LED lamp (on 5500k to match the other lights).

We then moved the jib into the circus to try out the shot again. The director wanted to try putting it on wheels so we could move back away from the wall we had to track up last time. This turned out as a huge fail, as we just didn't have the room, and was really awkward to wheel back. 

Blurry pic but you get the idea!

Special shout out to Yiannis and Chloe for helping us out on this test shoot!