Final Media Product – Latitude: Presentation

The Crew: Video

Here is a short video of some of the key roles involved in the making of the film. This was filmed in our ‘meeting room’. As you will see it looks brilliant with the right lighting set-up.

• Peter Woodbridge – Director.
• Mick Le Mare – Producer.
• Adam Davies – 1st AD.
• Sam Soane – 2nd AD.
• Jame Humbles – DOP.
• Rebecca Pittam – Executive DOP.
• Alex Hacking – Camera Op.
• Richard Neal – Editor/Casting.

Latitude: The Website

The website for our film is currently in development. Click on the about section for more details.

http://www.lattitudethemovie.com/

 

Final Project: Latitude Feature

For the past few months we have been meeting for the California Road Trip in large numbers, however recently it has become apparent that maybe have not been so heavily involved in the project so we have set up a CORE team which includes the main key roles for the project. It is our heavy involvement within the project,  these roles which will be classified as our FMPs. I am 1st Assistant Director.

After many discussions in our secret cave/basement storyboarding room beneath our University building we have come up with a detailed story for a film, with plot twists and in depth character representations. In short, it is a feature length film which follows two geeks across countries to search for the ultimate technology, through the form of geocaching (see earlier video). They encounter many situations/characters along the way that either aid or seek to destroy their mission.

Pitch

Here is the pitch for our film, which can be found on our website.

Title: Lattitude

Logline: Two tech geeks go on a quest for the ultimate piece of technology in a Lord of the Rings for the Google Generations.

Max and Percy, the unlikely heroes in our story, are tech geeks through and through. As best friends since school they spend all of their spare time, and much of their work time, involved in a modern day treasure hunting game called Geocaching- in which participants use GPS to hide and seek containers that are hidden across the globe.

Percy (mid 20s/early 30s, overweight) is an awkward IT man, he works in a computer store, and thinks he knows everything- with character traits based on a Windows PC.

Max (mid 20s, stick thin, better looking) is a hipster-geek-apple-fanboy who worships everything Apple do- and has many of the characteristics of the brand he models his life by. He claims to be a blogger- but really he is on the dole.

Their best friend, Linux, died in a mysterious geocaching incident and while out retracing the geocache mission that killed him- they are visited by a ‘technological God’ (whose character is modelled on Steve Jobs) who tells them about a piece of awesome technology that was created in the early 1980s out of the experiments of the Homebrew Computer Club.

This piece of technology is so powerful, and dangerous, that he had to hide it from the human race back in 1983 (when he departed Apple). The world just wasn’t ready to deal with its consequences and until now the secret had been hidden- and was known only to a few.

The problem is, that since that time, a few other ‘evil’ companies (Google and Facebook), with their hearts set on technological domination and power- have rediscovered the secret and want to find it- so that they can use it to take over the world.

As the chosen one’s, Max and Percy must stop them by going on a modern day treasure hunt- that spans two continents- to find a series of hidden objects that will unlock the code to the greatest piece of technology the world has ever known.

Context

The story portrays just how much we rely on modern technology to guide us. There is a section in the script whereby they are rendered unable to use thier geeky devices and they have to discover things for themselves. Being the nerds they are they cannot come to terms with this reality and are driven apart. As the plot of the film progresses, we will see the two friends fall out and it raises the concerns of friendship values and how they truly need each other, though they have their differences. The symbolic ‘Apple’ will have references throughout, as well as technology-related puns and in-jokes such as “Percy you take forever to wake up” etc. The use of character representations being personifications of well known technology should enable the audience to interact with the characters.

Distribution

The finished film is guaranteed to be shown at the Third Year Media Production Degree Show in June, which is to be held at BAFTA in London. As well as this it will also be shown at the Coventry event venue around the same time. I’ve also had a look at London Independent http://www.londonindependent.org/ and Zero Film Festival http://zerofilmfest.com/.

Budget

We have been Granted £300-$500 per person for our trip. This all depends on the numbers we have. But we currently have around 9 people thoroughly involved, coming to a total of £2700-£4500 coming off the cost of the film.

• £8000 flights (9 crew 2 actors).
• £1500 equipment costs/insurance.
• £3850 catering (10 days for 11 people ~£35 a day).
• £2500 hotels.
• £1000 car hire.
• £500 petrol.
• £250 script editor (unless we get Clifton on board).

The total budget comes to around £18,000.

Sponsorship and Fundraising

This section is vital for our film to be developed it the way we envisage. Currently we have had a response from Jaguar willing to provide transport while we are out there and we have heard back from ByBox http://www.bybox.com/ who are willing to put in some money for the project. We are thinking we could perhaps use their product in one of our scenes, as well as label them in the credits at BAFTA for their advertisement campaign. We have also contacted Geocaching themselves who are supportive of the project however will not be offering us any money towards the budget. We still have a couple of months to raise the money, and we are in the process of producing documents to send to more companies related to our film such as TomTom, Sony, Apple and even Google. This will be done within the next few days.

A Bit on Geocaching and California Road Videos

Here is the link to the Geocaching website. The focus of our storyline.

http://www.geocaching.com/

This is an in depth guide into what Geocaching actually is for those of you who are unaware of it:

Here is the road we will be aiming to travelling along.

And another of the scenery and locations we will be encountering:

 

1st Assistant Director Role: LA CORE TEAM

I’d like to start off by saying that I have had experience in the assisting director role throughout the duration of my course. I have worked on short films, documentaries, format productions and individual projects all of which have involved directorial elements. If there is one thing I have learnt from these experiences, it is that it is important to voice your opinion, as it could well improve the outcome of the finished product. It is better to be heard than to stay in the shadows being a sheep. Input and communication is key.

FIRST YEAR – MARK WOOD DOCUMENTARY

Being 1st AD for this I took part in the research and pre-production, planning, production and post-production (primarily editing using Final Cut 7).

All of the development for this project can be found here:

http://addavies.wordpress.com/category/111mc-media-research/

SECOND YEAR – OVER THE HILL

During the pre-production and production of ‘Over The Hill‘ – a short film produced in my second year – it was my responsibility to keep things in order to the schedule, make the actors feel comfortable around us, allow them feel less under pressure and treat them as friends rather than just colleagues who were helping us on a student film. I briefed them on the script, went through it with them before the shoot so they knew exactly what to do. We saved a LOT of time by doing this.

I timed shoots, and if they were too long I consulted the director to let him know we had finish up and move on. Executive decisions have to be made in order for progress to be made, for the greater good of the final outcome.

Along with our director, I kept the team to a strict timeline, as we had to get shots done in time before either the lighting changed dramatically or the actors got bored. We stuck to our shooting schedule to ensure everyone knew what was expected of them, where we had to be and when, when our breaks were etc. I also took control of the budget:

Not only this but I created a detailed storyboard for the film:

http://addavies.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/short-film-the-storyboard/

And also made a list of ALL the required items for the shoot:

During my format production module I attended a session with Philip Lewis (http://www.philiplewis.co.uk/) a 1st AD with over 25 years experience who works for BBC and ITV on various drama soaps – Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Casualty – (and Narnia) who taught me many techniques about the role of 1st AD.

THIRD YEAR

Being a First AD requires a knowledge of every single other role on the production team, from lighting, sound, camera all the way down to the runners. I have experienced aspects of all of these roles. I have worked in format production as a presenter, floor manager, camera operator, sound engineer and assistant director.

When teaching the television studio to the chinese students I made sure that everyone was happy with their roles and even had a go at directing; if anyone had a problem I could understand their issue as I had had the experience. I am currently working as DOP for the Culturae Mundi projects and producer for the BBC Big Screen Olympic Sports videos and although I enjoy these roles, I want to be in the directing side of production; that is what I am more interested in. Without presenting myself as big-headed, I would say I am a good communicator. I am not shy and I like to talk with people and crowds. This is vital for a 1st AD to possess.

I have worked with members of the CORE team already and am more than comfortable with working along side them again on this project. I cannot wait!

So far I have shown that I am reliable, efficient, organised and hard-working. After trying my hand at many different, diverse roles within a variety of production teams, I have discovered that I am truly passionate about becoming an assistant director once leaving University, therefore I want to build up a profile of professional work to add to my portfolio. LA is my shot at this!

Posts For Assessment

5. Conclusion:

http://addavies.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/power-spectacle-memory-conclusion/

4. Reflection and Evaluation:

http://addavies.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/power-spectacle-memory-evaluation-and-reflection/

3. Research:

http://addavies.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/memory/

http://addavies.wordpress.com/2011/11/05/power-spectacle-memory-processdevelopment/

2. Analysis:

http://addavies.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/power-spectacle-memory-analysis/

1. Process and Development:

http://addavies.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/making-a-spectacle-of-yourself/

Conclusion

I have successfully created my three artefacts for Power, Spectacle and Memory. I am happy with each of them, though they are not finished ready for my showreel. I feel that my understanding of the themes behind each word has greatly improved.

I aim to re-film my power artefact and focus it more around the themes of male dominance rather than a simplistic music video. I believe this will add to the meaning of the piece. With my power piece I was looking at what was personal in terms of what was powerful to me, music and emotions. After researching into power further, I now understand what I should have done in producing my artefact.

I will be going out and filming much more footage for my spectacle artefact. After critical analysis and feedback from my tutors and peers I understand that it should be longer, have more of a flow in terms of dialogue and include people other than students; it should include the everyday people, (adults, pensioners, children etc). This is in order to allow the piece to relate to a wider range of spectators/an outside audience, not just University students. I shall re-name the project “Me” and will research deeper into narcissism.

My Memory artefact is a difficult one for me to assess. I do not think I could potentially add this piece into my showreel (aside from obvious quality of the footage and aspect ratio) as it is far too personal to me; I will be re-thinking of a new idea all-together and making it more ‘beautiful’, but at the same time, less personal to me, as audiences aren’t interested in what is important to an individual person, it has to satisfy their needs as they are watching it. After this module I now have much more in-depth knowledge about memory. The concept of personal and collective memory was completely alien to me.

The link between the three themes is now obvious to me. In hindsight I perhaps should have tried to connect my three artefacts more. I now understand the importance of spectacle, and how it can be used to establish a collective memory, and enable those in power to maintain that power.

I believe this module was primarily about exploring new concepts, and after researching into new areas of theory, applying them to our own artefacts to produce something we haven’t attempted before.

The lectures and seminars for this module were extremely helpful; they really enabled me to understand what was expected of me.

You must attempt something you haven’t tried before.

This is what I tried to do. I have never attempted to re-create a music video before (maybe next time I should compose the music myself too). I focused the visuals around a soundtrack. This is how most film makers work, but this is the first time I have attempted it. I had problems with focusing due to fast movement from the characters but I don’t believe it effected the outcome.

I have never attempted such an arrogant and controversial piece as my spectacle artefact, and I have never attempted to edit in such a way as I did for my memory artefact. Regarding each artefact, I decided to push myself and try new ideas and techniques.

In terms of my memory artefact portrayal, I wanted it to remind the viewers of their childhood, through the use of moments from my brothers childhood. I know it is a generally personal piece, solely to myself and my close family, but there are themes and moments within it that will engage with an audience. For example learning to walk/talk/ride a bike/swim/lose baby teeth etc. Never before have I attempted to remove a soundtrack but keep the audio of dialogue. That was interesting to learn how to do on Final Cut X.

I think that this module has proven that I have tried to produce these artefacts to the best of my ability, even in areas where I don’t have much artistic or technical experience. Throughout the duration of this module I believe I have definitely moved slightly out of my comfort zone and attempted new methods of production, and I think I have been successful in doing so.

Sky News Trip

Today, along with a few others from the Media departments travelled down to Sky News in London for a tour of the main 24-hour news building. I opted to go on this trip in order to see first-hand how the production of the news was researched, organised and presented to the millions of viewers worldwide.

One of the first things that I noticed was the sheer numbers of people involved behind-the-scenes. There were so many people that were in the research department, gathering news from various sources from around he world; whether it be phone calls, online, face-to-face or in the field. The second thing that shocked me was how open the main studio was; the presenter was sat in the middle of the room surrounded by cameras, but also just 5 or so metres away people were sat at their desks doing work, chatting away. I thought that the presenter would have been in a much more closed off environment in order to present without being distracted, but because the tie-mic was so close to her, it did not pick up the sound from all around her.

Our tour was led by Sarah Whitehead, the Head of International News at Sky, formerly of BBC. She mentioned how everyones ideas count, from Tea-Runner all the way through the ranks to Executive Producer and Head of Sky. I was told how the main source of income comes from advertising, however Sky News is still a loss-leader. It is distributed on Free-view and the website is also free. She went on to raise the debate: ‘Is Twitter right in providing free, fast news? Is it reliable?’ We all sat down and were told about the reliability of sources, as many sources cannot be proven for some time before they are distributed by a presenter. Sarah told us about Reuters Wires, who are apparently an extremely reliable source, with quick intel from a world perspective. She also mentioned how they are continually in competition with other news channels such as BBC, ITV and Channel 4 and how she was in contact with such a reliable and trusted source for the Berlusconi story that Sky got the information worthy of distributing on air 15 minutes before the BBC. She went on to say how sources are based on trust, reliability, past-experience and performance.

I also learnt about fixers. Fixers are people (usually locals) who are picked up by the crew on location and know the local area and people; they often speak the language and can get you out of a mess if something is about to happen. From this she went on to mention the conflict in Cairo where reporters are at the moment and the importance of: ‘If things go wrong, what is your exit plan?’

In the past there have been critical responses to Sky News suggesting that they focus too much on distributing the news the second it is found by researchers, however while I was there it really shows how things have changed. Sources is checked, double checked, triple checked and so on. Sarah admitted that things are not what they once were and that it is ‘better to be right than first; we only use trusted sources’ – and many of them. It’s unbelievable the amount of people soaking up the news through either phone calls, meeting the people involved, speaking to them, and actually being there.

We went on to question about the necessary requirements when applying for experience at Sky. She stated that:

You must have a clear idea of WHAT you want to do, which department you want to be in and your short/long term ambitions. What can you offer? It is important to be specific and use your most unique skills to the best of your ability (and beyond), whether they be technical, presentational or research based. Be different, be PASSIONATE. If accepted, research into your role well in advance; you must completely understand what is expected of you before you begin. In terms of being a runner:

Be energetic, passionate, on-time and engaged. Bring ideas with you - WANT TO BE INVOLVED.

While we were there we even had the opportunity to meet the Head of Sky News, John Ryley and even enter the gallery while the news was being broadcast live. We could not make any noise whatsoever for obvious reasons, but we got to experience the roles of Director, Executive Producer, Technical Director, Vision Mixer, Sound Engineer etc. All in all, it surely was an experience to remember, and I for one am definitely interested in applying for work experience.

The Sky News Website can be found HERE.

To follow their Twitter click HERE.

Power Spectacle Memory: Evaluation and Reflection

Power Artefact:

So I decided to go for the theme of music as an influential power, as well as themes of the alienated male struggling with his past. I’m not sure if the message is completely obvious for this artefact, but it something I have never tried before, and I can only improve from here. The video itself was originally intended as a laugh with a few friends, but as I researched into power, it became relevant and I adapted the piece around themes of power. The lead male in the video is often seen improving his strength, reminding the viewers of his continuos efforts to regain strength and power in order to fight back against his enemies. He begins the process on his own, as an alienated individual, but soon is accompanied by two friends with whom he forms relationships with in order to become stronger. Strength/power in numbers. I think some of the shots are beautiful, but some I struggled with the focus at times, due to the fast movement of the characters. I don’t think this effected the overall outcome though.

Spectacle Artefact:

After researching into the portrayal of vlogs, psychoanalytical theory, themes of arrogance and what makes people think they are better than other people I have attempted to create what I believe represents spectacle. I went out and asked people to hold the camera (Canon 5d II) at their own face and say something arrogant. I have never attempted this camera technique before and I think it paid off. The shots look how I intended, and it is obvious they are holding the camera. My initial idea was to just tell them to say whatever they want, but everyone I asked was shy in thinking of something to say. To get around this I drafted out a rough script and asked each person to repeat what I said in a cocky and aggressive manner. Looking back, I perhaps should have made a detailed plan and scripted out the dialogue, as well as taken more clips of each individual. On this topic, I also should have included a wider range of subjects, rather than just friends/students. There are also a couple of shots which I forgot to white balance for, but I know now for future reference to always white balance when there is a change of location/lighting. The soundtrack I used was just plonked on afterwards as the lyrics are relevant. I should probably avoid doing this in the future. I thought a soundtrack was required, though thinking about it, it was not really necessary. I chose to use the ‘recording camera’ effect in order to reinforce the fact that they are arrogant in knowing it is recording and also to enable it to appear more ‘home-made, sort of. Overall I am pleased with the outcome, yet there definitely will be a longer edit coming in the future. It is clear what the message is and the visuals are strong, but it could have been better if I had more convincing ‘actors’ and a wider range of people involved.

Memory Artefact:

As mentioned in previous posts, memory for me is personal and emotional moments from our past, as individuals. I chose to focus on personal memory as opposed to collective memory. When I was home one weekend, I asked my dad to dig through his old footage so I could create an artefact on what I remember from growing up with my brother Leo. Being my younger brother, he means so much to me (although yes we have had our moments of scrapping and arguing – but didn’t we all?). I have always been protective over him, sometimes too much, and now he is getting older I feel that I shouldn’t need to any more, now that he is able to look after himself. Anyway, back to the evaluation… I had to go through 10 hours of footage, ranging from 1990 (before I was born) to 2009, so it was definitely a tiresome process. On a personal level it was well worth it, as, ironically, I recovered many lost memories – which sure was emotional for me and I didn’t think I was an emotional person! I had many problems with the footage, as with it being old and filmed on many different cameras there were issues with varied frame rates, aspect ratios, image distortion, lag and most annoyingly, sound. Not only was the sound sometimes too quite/too loud/distorted but on several clips there were pre-added soundtracks, as my dad had previously edited some of the clips. I had to attempt to remove the soundtracks from the clips I wanted to use, but keep the dialogue. This was a near impossible task for me as I had never tried this before (I managed it slightly – but admittedly did cover up some issues with a couple of soundtracks of my own). In my opinion this artefact could not portray my view of memory in a more meaningful way, but then again, it is only meaningful to me, so I suppose I could do with rethinking of a new idea for my showreel at the end of the year.

All three artefacts were edited in Final Cut X, which I had never used before until these projects. Before now I have only used Final Cut 7 (which in ways I prefer as there is more to do), however I enjoyed the background rendering on X.