Professional Practice - Directorial Showreel & General Case Study Update

So today I finished my Directors Showreel, as part of my case study for my Professional Practice unit.

What I neglected to mention, is my project with The Nameless Foundation fell through at the last minute, so I have had to resort to doing the Case Study. For my case study, I am looking into the Director/Writer/Producer that is Tim Burton, and writing about his career, how he got to where he is, how the usual person would get to his level, and how I would apply it to myself.

I have found this relatively difficult, but have some interesting books that have helped. I have also found good quotes from websites such as the BBC Writers Forum, skillset and general interviews with Tim Burtons about each of his pictures. What has been more difficult however is writing about how to apply it to myself. Naturally I can say that I would take the same route as Burton if I can, but elaborating in more detail is proving difficult.

On top of that, a Directors CV and Showreel must be made.

I finished the showreel today, and am pleased with the result. To create this, I had to gather together all of the best of my past projects, and even some of the footage of my upcoming projects I have directed. I picked and chose clips from each of them, which I felt best showcased my talents, whilst putting fitting music over the top of them.
The music I chose is Gary Jules - Mad World for The Raven
Extreme Ways - Moby for Gullible
Superman theme for Behind the Cape
and
Guitar Flute & String - Moby for The Tale of Graham Beadle

I felt these fit correctly. It was difficult to choose the clips, and upon looking at other show reels, I felt I shouldn't include much speech. I was directed (ironically :P ) in the other way with this, and lowered some of the sound levels so it wasn't just clips of people with their mouths moving.

Anyway, here is the finished product. I hope you like it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohJ-N3BTTrI&feature=c4-overview&list=UU01lt6FJ5Lg9X4z-8BFFWeQ

2nd Year Major Production - Behind the Cape filming

From Saturday - Monday I did the filming of my Major Production, my mockumentary "Behind the Cape"
It kicked off quite well. After having spent £75 on costume the night before, I created the costumes from scratch, with the help of my housemate who is on the Creative Arts of Theatre and Film course at UCA Rochester. We created the Captain Justice costume. To do this, I got a green morph suit, printed off the Captain Justice logo, and stuck it on. We then fashioned a cape out of blue material, put blue boxers over the top of the morph suit, and used blue gloves. I was very proud with the finished product and my actor, Jamie Drabble, looked fantastic.

The costume was good and rather fitting. I also had to dye the lab coat over night for Doctor Z, the villain. Sadly, the coat was meant to be black, and the dye we got turned the coat a bluey/grey. It would seem the reason for this would be that the coat was made out of polyester, and it should have been cotton to dye correctly and turn into the Black colour I wanted. As much as I would have liked he coat to be black, it did work well having it grey. The red Z came out really nice on the back of the coat, and it didn't make the costume so monotonous, as if it was all black it could have looked quite bland.

On the Saturday, we filmed all of the Captain Justice scenes, his talking heads, and all of the bits of just him. We could not do the outside bits as it was raining. We brought a rain cover with us, but did not use it as it was too heavy. Checking the forecast, we waited for the next day, as it was meant to be clear skies.

Coming to the next day, Joz Norris, who played Doctor Z, arrived early in the morning and the weather was kind to us, and we were able to film the outside park scene, featuring the first confrontation of Justice and Z. We also did all the parts we missed the day before that should have been outside with Captain Justice.

The shoot went really well. We did run across a few problems however. The main issue, was casting.
I had enough actors lined up, mainly to play all of the villains come the Doom Troop meeting in Doctor Z's house. One of my actors, Dalton Mundell, had to drop out at the last minute. He was playing one of the Doctor's henchmen. As the henchmen was a necessary part, I recast the person playing the villain 'Jeff' and cast him as Fidel instead. Jeff was wiped from the script entirely, however, I liked his lines so much, I decided to keep them, and give them to the non-speaking role of The Terrorist. The other issue I suffered from, was my actor for the character of 'The Fiddler' - a gypsy pickpocket, had to pull out last minute as they couldn't do the Sunday when we were filming. They offered for the Monday, but all the other villains, I only had for the Sunday. This was quite upsetting as I could find no replacements and the character had to be cut, despite his talking head being one of my favourites. It was okay to cut him however as the part wasn't entirely necessary, it would just have been nice to have.

Every thing else in the shoot went well. In retrospect, I next time would sort my casting out a bit earlier, and have dates ready and sorted knowing exactly when I will shoot, so I can make sure people will come exactly when I need them (although to be fair, they were sorted a while before, it was just last minute pull outs).
Maybe I should get back ups just incase.

Here are some of the costumes from the day.

2nd Year Major Production - Character Inspiration 2

Next up I will post some of my inspiration from another couple of characters. The first being the main villain of Dr Z.

Whilst I have built Dr Z up on my own, I suppose a good representation of him would be Dr Evil from Austin Powers, only again, not as eccentric or over the top. Just in the sense that he is a comedy Super Villain. I will post a video of him regardless, so you can understand a small bit of a villain that inspired me.

This is an introduction for Doctor Evil, doesn't give you a huge character reference, but it shows who he is.

The second is for Dr Z's two henchmen. First you should know, they are named Fidel and Benito, both of which are named after dictators, Fidel Castro and Benito Mussolini. This is just a fun reference. They are in fact just two bumbling idiots, that are completely useless at anything. Fidel is the smarter of the two however, while Benito just doesn't really know what is going on most of the time.
Benito himself does have some inspiration drawn from the character of Kevin Malone, from the US version of The Office. I shall show him here:

Kevin doesn't have much common sense, which I have amplified slightly with the character of Benito, despite him just being a bit part, though he is one of the more Major Supporting Characters.

The rest of the characters I have created haven't really got an inspiration as such, I didn't loosely base them off of anyone, but these were just a few examples of characters I have based and got inspiration from other shows off.

2nd Year Major Production - Character inspiration

When I came  up with the characters for Behind the Cape, I had a few inspirations for some of my characters. I took my influences from certain characters from television and film, and have very loosely based some of my characters on them.

The first is Captain Justice. He took inspiration from 2 of my favourite cartoon characters. Captain Hero (from Drawn Together) and Sterling Archer (from Archer). I have toned him down a lot though as the characters of Captain Hero and Archer are quite extreme. I shall post videos to give a better idea of who they are and what I mean. Captain Justice has taken some of the arrogant personality traits of Archer, with him believing he is amazing and the best at what he does, whilst taken the 'really awful Super Hero' idea behind Captain Hero. Personality-wise, Justice isn't much like Captain Hero, who is a disgusting individual, I just liked the idea of a really poor Super Hero.

This is some best bits of Captain Hero

And some of the best quotes and moments from Sterling Archer.

If you tone these characters down a bit, you get Captain Justice, only he does have his own personality traits, and he is individual in his own rights. This is just where I drew inspiration from.

2nd Year - Major Production - Casting

So I began the other week, looking for someone to play the main role of Captain Justice. I posted an ad on casting call pro, and wrote an audition script which I sent out to a few of the people who applied. So far I have only had one video audition response, which quite frankly, was nothing like I had hoped or I had imagined, so the actor who sent me that will not be getting the part. I am now hoping and waiting on the other actors to get back to me.
The role of the villain, Doctor Z has also been cast as Josiah Norris, who is a comedian and writer, and who also hosted my Studio Production project 'Punchlines'. I feel he will bring a good amount of comedy, warmth and depth to the character of the villain, and help portray him in the way that I imagine him to be, which is why I cast him.
I just now need Captain Justice to be cast. A few extras have already been cast, I just need to find a few more, but that should not be too difficult. I shall bring updates as and when I receive more audition pieces for Captain Justice, and eventually post who I have cast as the role.

2nd Year - After Effects Workshop

On Wednesday, we went to Rochester campus to have an After Effects Workshop with Simon Holland. This was the first of a 5 week tutorial to help us understand how to animate certain things to help us with graphics and possibly some basic special effects we may wish to use within our pieces. We learnt how to impose images into other images, and give them certain effects like glowing, make it seem like it was raining and other such things. We then were given a logo for a fake company, and asked to animate a couple of things within it, such as gears which were shown in it, and we made them rotate.
All in all it was a good morning, that helped as previously I would never have known where to begin with After Effects. We also learnt how to render the files. The things I made are on the computers back at the campus so I shall upload them when we are next in.

Professional Practice - Dissertation Proposal Presentations

Dissertation Proposal Presentation from wilderb33st

2nd Year Major Production - Behind the Cape Presentation

Behind the cape from wilderb33st

2nd Year - Major Production - Behind the Cape

With my collaborative partner - James Ogden, we were thinking of names for the Super Hero Mockumentary. We have decided to call it 'Behind the Cape'.

It is going to be a 15 minute long piece, featuring two main characters, the hero - Captain Justice - and the currently unnamed villain. We know he is going to be 'Dr' though, its just a matter of what the second part of his name is going to be.

The start will feature 'The Professor' - only briefly. He is the character/person who is making this documentary on the lives of heroes and villains. He will give a brief explanation as to what he is doing at the start, before the title sequences. He will also wrap up the documentary briefly at the end. Throughout, we will give the idea that The Prof. is always present, by having his voice over asking occasional questions to the characters, from 'behind the camera'.

The main elements of the story haven't quite been worked out yet. We know that for the villains segment, an 'evil council' style meeting will be held (though not in the traditional sense), where many villains will gather round to present ideas for the capture and killing of Captain Justice, and even for World Domination.

Other aspects are Captain Justice replacing his tactical Computer 'J.U.S.T.I.C.E.', a talking supercomputer that can hold proper conversations and provides great amounts of intelligence for Captain Justice. He replaces it with Apple's 'Siri' computer on the Iphone 4s/5. This upsets J.U.S.T.I.C.E greatly. The initials below are what J.U.S.T.I.C.E stand for. We must bare in mind that Captain Justice himself is an arrogant, self obsessed, moronic idiot, so the name is a reflection on this, with him trying to make it sound 'cool'.

J ustice's
U ltimate
S uper
T echnological
I ntelligent
C omputer
E xtreme

I should say more about Captain Justice, as he is the main main character of the documentary, and the most developed character so far. Firstly, he is very fit and well built. About 6ft tall, with short brown hair, and really big arms and muscles. As I said above, he is very arrogant - everything he thinks and says is law to him and he won't accept anything anyone else says - he is self obsessed, which is pretty self explanatory, and essentially he is just a bit of an idiot. His 'Super Power' is having a very profound sense of Justice, so even the smallest of things he considers unjust, he will do whatever he can to make it right, even if there is no need to interfere at all. Personalitywise as well, I wanted him kind of loosely based on 2 fantastic animated characters, Captain Hero from "Drawn Together" and Sterling Archer from "Archer".

To help aid in this, I will be watching many different mockumentaries, and even some "Archer" and "Drawn Together" to help formulate Captain Justice's character. Mockumentaries I will watch include "The Thick of It", "The Office" (Uk & US), "Summer Heights High" and many more. Those are just a few examples.

Watch this space for more updates!

Professional Practice - Dissertation Proposal

Having followed on on Thursday and spoken in more depth with Chris during a tutorial, as to how to go about researching it, and what each of my chapters in the proposal should be about.

The first chapter will be based on the History of South Park and other animated shows that may have sparked controversy, such as Simpsons, Family Guy and King of the Hill, and why such shows can get away with what they do (mainly as they are animated, it is easier to get away with being offensive as it is fictional drawn characters doing the talking) but obviously a lot of research will be going into that.

The second chapter, I am going to talk about regression and the concept of it. And also go into detail in the controversies and even the taboos that the shows creators have broken, and how and why they have done this. Also, why they keep pushing the boundaries further and further. Many people have complained that it warps their children's minds if they watch the show (despite it being rated 15/18 so they shouldn't be watching anyway) and one of my favourite quotes regarding this is from South Park co-creator Matt Stone:

"KIDS ARE NOT nice, innocent, flower-loving little rainbow children;
Kids are all little bastards: they don't have any kind of social tact or etiquette, they're just complete little raging bastards."

This was said in response to people complaining about their children and what this new cartoon does to them, which I think is a brilliant response, yet also again, displaying signs of controversy about the show. Is he referring to children in general, or the four 8 year old kids he's created in his show? Or maybe even both?

The third chapter will be a case study, where I focus on a couple of episodes of South Park, and talk about my main subject of controversy and taboo. I have already decided which 2 episodes I will do, being the 2-part 200th episode special, cleverly titled '200' and '201'. In these episodes, Matt and Trey decided they would make fun of every single person they have in the past, mainly celebrities. However they have become known as being the most controversial episodes of all time, having been banned from Public Access and even Cable television in the United States and United Kingdom, only available on either their website, southparkstudios.com or via DVD format. This is because the whole premise of both episodes was about the prophet Mohammed, and how they wanted to show his image, which is obviously not allowed within the Muslim community.

It raised so many questions and controversies, it is by far the best thing to talk about for my case study.

As my research progresses, I shall post up here what I find out.

Professional Practice - Dissertation Proposal

After our initial lecture last week with Chris Hunt, he taught us how to properly research, and helped us come up with ideas for what we could do our dissertation proposals on, so we can then follow through and transfer our proposals into our actual dissertations for when we start our 3rd year next year.

Having had no idea what I wanted to do, it narrowed it down when it was confirmed it needed to be Broadcast related (obviously!)

Chris told us it is good to write about something you are passionate about, but at the same time where a lot of deeper research could go into it then you have ever done before in a particular subject, which is where I came up with my idea.

It hasn't got a distinct name yet, but I wanted to do the Controversies behind the Animated TV Show - South Park.

The creators of South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, are known as too of the most controversial celebrities in the world, having made fun of in their show and in their films, almost every single group in the world, ranging from other celebrities, muslims, jews, rednecks, christians, scientologists - you name it, they've made fun of them!

Despite this as well, and the amount of abuse, death threat letters and the such that they receive, Matt and Trey continue to push the boundaries more and more, having each series, (and the show has ran for 18 years now) more and more offensive and controversial as time goes on.

I feel there is a lot I could write about in regards to this subject, so the research into it begins. Chris told me I should start watching South Park in a different way, taking notes as I go along, so I am going to start doing so whenever my favourite television show goes on :)

Professional Practice - Work Commission

While trying to find what to do for my Work Experience or Commission, I had a few leads which could have ended well.

Freemantle Media was a possibility, having been in contact with a lady who works there after working on Take Me Out last year. Sadly this fell through.

However, I was approached by my father's business partner, Arnoud Denooy, who wanted to commission me to come out to Africa, and shoot a promotional video for his Telecommunications company 'Gearholdings'. He also wants me to make a video for a new company his brother and he have set up, 'The Nameless Foundation'. They have gathered together top writers, illustrators, poets and photographers from 12 African Countries, and they wanted a video to get an overall feel of what they are trying to do and achieve as a company.

This works alongside my Professional Practice, and I am now definitely doing it for my work placement/commission project. I am very much looking forward to it, and I shall bring more details as they come, and as I research into each of the companies.

2nd Year - Major Production Ideas

So now we are in the final part of our Foundation degree, in the last semester, we have to start planning and coming up with ideas for our Major Production - a 15 minute long production to be shown online. With this we also have to make a website to go alongside with it, to promote it.

I had 2 ideas: My initial idea was to do a mockumentary on Super Heroes and Villains in the real world, essentially mixing the surreal with the real. However, the idea is that they wouldn't be very well known or good at what they do, and they have atrocious super powers, if not even super powers at all!

The 2nd idea was to create a parody show of reality tv shows, such as Dragons Den, Masterchef etc. One example would be 'Loserchef', in which the contestants have to make the worst meal they possibly can.

After consulting with Helen and my collaborator, James Ogden, who is co-writing and editing for me, we decided to go with the initial idea of the Super Hero mockumentary. One main reason is because it is a lot more original - parody shows have been done all the time, and there is a lot more that I would be able to do with the idea I have now chosen.

Fiction Adaptation - Music Mashup and Location

My music mashup is complete, 6 minutes long. I was very happy with the end result after the first day of doing it. I just squeezed a few more minor edits into it and am pleased with the result. I used the song '1 Winged Angel' from the Advent Children soundtrack, and cut it to a fight in the TV Series Dragonball Z, using 4 different episodes to get the footage together.

My location shoot didn't go amazingly well as originally planned, doing it to 1984, and it is also all in a powerpoint presentation. All i need to do is find some backing music, and put them on Final Cut Pro into a movie, which shouldn't take long, as I know the music I am using, and then I shall be done!

Fiction Adaptation - Essay

I have managed to finish the essay! The feedback I received after Easter from Helen helped a lot. I went out and got two books: Literature and Film - A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation by Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo, and, Literature through Film - Realism, Magic and the Art of Adaptation by Robert Stam.
Both have proved useful for quotes, as have, as usual, many websites with could papers on adaptation I have found. All I needed was to up my word count by a few hundred, structure it more soundly, and add in more quotes and there sources. I have managed to do that all over the past weeks and am very happy with the result. In the end I reached 2150 words, out of a 2000 to 2500 word limit. I am pleased with the result and hope it goes down well.

Fiction Adaptation - Editing!

So I have pretty much finished the editing. I stayed behind after filming Urban Review to do some, after also doing some on Thursday.
It went well. I decided to make it black and white, as I felt it added to the horror aspect. It is still quite bright, as I was going for, but it didn't look right in colour to me, I felt this has helped a lot.
I was right, the commentary I chose was fantastic, and helped me out a lot. I edited it first without anything, then added it in, and the whole piece came together. I have some dark, sinister music, and lots of sound effects, and am hoping that i am even able to get a visual effect on it before hand in on Monday, which my friend Sam Creamer is going to be helping me with.
I couldn't be happier. It is over the time limit by about 20 seconds (30 with the Fiction title sequence that is required to go on all of the films) but I have spoken to some third years, after fretting about it, and they assured me it will be fine. I tried so hard to cut it down. It originally came up at 6 minutes 30, but after cutting out over a minute, The extra 20 seconds I have are integral, there is nothing more I can cut out without it not making sense, so I have left them in. If i get penalised for it, then so be it, I would rather have something slightly over the time limit than to have something not making much sense.

All that is left now is to make a cover sleeve for it, and to upload it onto a DVD. All that can be done on Monday, as I do not have the capabilities to do so at halls.

The Raven - Filming

So filming went extremely well today! I had my friend who does Creative arts of Theatre and Film doing make up and costume. It all went extremely well, and I am now ready for my edit. The acting was dynamic, the shots I got were fantastic, so I hope I can edit it well to make a great video!
Here are some pictures of the make up I had done for the part of Lenore. Looks fantastic in my eyes! So scary and disgusting - just as I pictured it!

Fiction Adaptation - Recast

So upon not being able to finish off the filming, I have instead recast and found a different location. Instead of my actor Matt Rosell, I am instead using another friend - yet good actor - Dale Mundell for the role of the Man.
I was unsure as to who to get to do my reading, but I found a good reading online from a man named Tay Zonday. His reading was powerful, epic, and well recorded, exactly what I needed! I shall be using him instead.
The new location will be at Lizzie Glaisters house, who has also agreed to appear in it as Lenore for me, as all that is needed is for her to stand and look dead/evil. And she does it well!

The Raven - Problems

So I experienced some problems after my first day shooting The Raven over the Easter Holidays. I was unable to complete it all at one time, as half of the contributors I was getting to help act in it and do make up, were unavailable to come on the day. I attempted to still film with just my main actor, but with no-one for him to interact with, there was not much we could do and I had to call it a day. I am going to need to rethink how to do this, as I am unsure whether or not I can get down to his house again where I was initially filming, ready for hand in.

Fiction Adaptation - Script

So I have finally finished the script for The Raven, or the first draft at least.
It took me a while but I am proud and happy with how it turned out. It is however, 7 pages long, so may need to be shortened, but I think I might film all of it and then just edit it down to 5 minutes with the un important bits.
I am going to make costumes tomorrow ready for recording in April during the Easter break.

Fiction Adaptation - Essay Question Choice

The question I have chosen for my adaptation essay is as follows:

In adapting a novel the adaptor inevitably infringes the integrity of the original text  –  discuss with reference to at least one text adapted for broadcast on television.

I have begun to research this and plan on writing my draft on the weekend to come. The Adaptations I am going to discuss (maybe not all, but just some ideas) are:

Terry Pratchett's Hogfather - Sky One - Adapted from the Hogfather in 2006
Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic - Sky One - Adapted from The Colour of Magic in 2008
Terry Pratchett's Going Postal - Sky One - Adapted from Going Postal in 2010
HBO's Game of Thrones Series 1 and 2 - Sky Atlantic - Adapted from George R. R. Martins Game of Thrones series - I can talk about a lot here, having read the books through and through and being a major fan of the series. Season 1 was very literal to the original book, Season 2 went off on one and only stuck to the story very briefly - could be very interesting to talk about.
Sherlock - BBC 1 - Adapted from the Sherlock Holmes stories
Elementary - Sky Living - Adapted from the Sherlock Holmes stories... This and Sherlock I may do a comparison to!

I am looking forward to writing this essay. There is a lot to talk about and I get to rewatch a lot of adaptations that I am a big fan of!

Fiction Adaptation - Actors Found!

So I have been in contact with friends from home, some of which who are now at Uni, or have finished Uni. Rather than using casting call pro, or starnow, I figured it might be nicer to work with people I know, who are all studying or have studied acting, and are at a semi-professional level, so I know they are good.
I have cast the lead of the man as Matthew Rosell, and the role of Lenore as Kirsten Elizabeth, both of whom I know have acted in the past and will present a stella performance.
The role of the Reaper is not that important. Realistically any one can play him, as they just stand there in full costume, barely moving. The voice for that can be any nice deep voice I find, and I will digitally alter it to make it more sinister and demonic, as all that is said is 'Nevermore'.
The extras for my bus stop scene can be anyone, I shall find people of all ages, shapes and sizes.
The shop I will be using has also been decided. A family friend runs a local Co-op in the village I will be shooting in, and has agreed to let me use her shop for the couple of scenes and sequences that so require this.
The village it is all being filmed in is North Baddesly. As soon as I return home over Easter, I shall take pictures and post them all up, so you can see the locations I am going for within my piece!

Fiction Adaptation - The Raven

So I have written a summary of what is going to happen in my adaptation piece. I shall post it up here. More will be added I am sure when I come to scripting, but that process starts tomorrow! I shall keep you all updated with the process and upload my script up here as it gets done, from draft, to second draft, to final script!

The Raven

• ·      Starts with man waking up and getting out of bed. He jumps and hearing the knocking on his bedroom door, but dismisses it. He has just woken up.
• ·      Before answering he looks over to his bedside table, at pictures of him and his girlfriend, Lenore. Maybe set out as a memorial to her. There is a photo album he picks up and looks at remembering Lenore.
• ·      He hears the tapping once again, and draws the curtains in his room. Looks confused, he lives alone, stares at the door talking to it, trying to assure himself no one is there. Camera pans round and you see Lenore behind him, image as a White Woman spirit, ragged hair, black eyes, pale face and blood dripping from her wrists.
• ·      Announces to whoever is tapping, no-one is there. See behind him and Lenore is not there. He opens the door and see’s nothing.
• ·      He opens the blinds behind the curtains to let the light in. He turns around and is face with the Grim Reaper – Death.
• ·      He talks to the bird, before it simply announces ‘Nevermore’
• ·      He talks at the Reaper once again, before running into his dressing room. He is now dressed and runs out the house, refusing to accept what he sees.
• ·      As he opens the front door, it is stood there again, and he talks at it ‘Prophet, thing of evil…’ Once again as we see this we see Lenore behind him.
• ·      He quickly exits the house to a bright and sunny day. As he crosses the road he notices Lenore. Looks away before looking back and she is gone again. The Reaper appears behind him again as he asks it a question regarding Lenore. The Reaper again states ‘Nevermore’
• ·      He starts to walk to the shop, as he passes a road with the bus stop, he sees people standing at it, and Lenore amidst them. He shakes his head, refusing to believe what he has seen, before he looks back and every person at the bus stop is suddenly Lenore. Quoth the Reaper ‘Nevermore’
• ·      He makes it to the shop, seemingly seeing that Lenore is everywhere he looks. People keep changing into her. He enters the shop, goes to buy some milk. Shop attendant asks for money. He looks up, once again it is Lenore. Quoth the Reaper ‘nevermore’
• ·      He runs back to his house, Lenore getting closer and following him. We realise he cannot accept that he is seeing her, because he is the one who killed her. Eventually both Reaper and Lenore surround him. They drive him to the floor, crying, screaming after Lenore, before he is seen and assumed to be dead. Quoth the Reaper and Lenore, the very words ‘Nevermore’