Production Diary
By Brandon Shears
I’ve chosen to pair up with Charlie-Dixon-Philip for my research project. We’ve collaborated previously in the past on multiple projects and we feel like we work quite effectively together. When discussing potential ideas, we started with what we’ve been inspired by recently; wherever it’s flm,television, media etc. Coincidentally, both myself and Charlie have recently watched the newly released Netflix film, “The King”. It stars Timothée Chalamet who portrays King Henry V of England showcasing his rise to power and his conquest of France. We both found the fim highly entertaining, especially with its authenticity and respect of the history. Especially when it came to the costume department, as the amount of detail and craftsmanship was incredible.
When we were discussing about this element, Charlie brought up an idea for a film that he recently jotted down. It was about this knight who runs away from the battlefield after being heavily injured from a lance. The knight believes he’s escaped from the danger, until he’s teleported away from his forrest surroundings to on top of a hilltop. There he’s confronted with death himself and they have a discussion about life and the meaning behind it. I found this absolutely fascinating and was extremely eager to work on this as a short film. However, we weren’t too sure how this could be linked into our research project, or if we could even complete the film in time for the hand-in. That’s why I came up with the idea of just focusing on the costume design element of the film, suggesting we could document ourselves purchasing and then constructing a knights costume. We both were extremely keen on this idea and set out to do some background research. I initially focused on the historical element of the costume, as it’s crucial for myself and Charlie to create a costume that’s as historically accurate as possible. Furthermore, since we were inspired by “The King”, we decided to base our design and research on the 100 year war between England and France; specifically about Henry V’s crusade.
I found multiple videos and articles going into more particular detail about reasonings behind certain design choices that English soldiers would wear, plus more context about the actual war. Charlie conducted his own research into the actual logistics and cost of all the materials. Going from website to website comparing prices of each material and wherever they’ll suit our needs. However, once the list was completed, it soon became clear that the actual cost of everything we needed far outweighed our budget. More concerning was, once we researched into how we would construct the Knight’s armour by watching tutorial videos online, it became even more apparent that we may not have the necessary skills to achieve the standard that we wanted to hit. With heavy regret, we made a unanimous decision to scrape the idea and move onto something more plausible.
We quickly had an idea of writing up a feature-length script for a film that we would potentially make in the future. It would follow the lives of five university students and all their crazy antics from initially meeting, to the last day of term where they all have to say goodbye. I ran this concept up with Charlotte (one of our tutors), to see if this was doable in the context of the mark scheme and how we would relate this to our research project. She replied to my email and this is what she said: Me and Charlie both discussed this and came to the conclusion that we would be making the project even more harder and complicated for ourselves. So once again, we’ve had to move on.
After having another discussion with Charlie, we finally came to a decision of what our research project could entail. I’ve recently watched Speilberg’s “Empire of the Sun” and there’s this one scene between Christan Bale and John Malkovich where it’s all in one-take, until Malkovich says a pivotal line. The scene then cuts to a close up of Bale’s reaction and I remember thinking, how one little cut could be so effective and impactful. I described this scene to Charlie, specifically about the effectiveness of the editing and suggested we could research into just that; editing. I’m fascinated by both the theory and practice of editing, so I was completely on-board. The idea was both plausible and interesting for us both so it was the perfect topic matter.
Straight-away, I started looking into editing theories, as I still wasn’t certain about what aspect of editing I wanted to tackle personally. The Kuleshov effect was the first research that I delved into. Essentially, Kuleshov demonstrated that editing can determine feelings and desire without the use of dialogue, just editing. I found it fascinating and this basic theory encapolises the power of visual storytelling and it’s all through simple editing techniques. We delved into how editing can affect the style and narrative of film. Edgar Wright was an early inspiration as his unique style of editing really became an inspiration for a lot of inspiring editors. Why he implements these high paced cuts was a subject of interest for me. Soon, we realised that there was endless possibilities of what we can due to the numerous different techniques that we could recreate and research into.
With our research in place, we’ve started the pre-production to get ready for our shoot. When conversing about what we should actually film, Charlie had the idea of keeping it extremely simple. Because we were focusing on the editing aspect, the context of the film didn’t need to be complex whatsoever. In-fact, the more basic it was, the more it would increase the province of the edit. This would help emphasize how important editing is to a film. We came up with the most mundane story we could, a person getting ready in the morning. This would still allow us to get a range of different shots that we could utilise into the edit. As for the majority of people, there’s a lot of tasks that one must complete before being ready for the day. Each different editing technique will show how many possibilities there are to construct the same scene. We’ll have different edits placed next to each other, so people can really grasp the differences between each version.
We created storyboards so we could get a better visual understanding of what shots could be implemented into the film. Because we were going down a more simplistic route, we didn’t spend too long worrying about each shot type or camera movement. For example, the majority of the shots will be on sticks (tripod). Once completed, we converted our storyboards into a shot list, to help better organise us when on set. As a shot list can go into greater detail about the specifics of every shot. Me and Charlie managed to complete all our pre-production work for the actual shoot fairly quickly, as there wasn’t too much to plan. We will only cast one actor, a close friend of ours called Joe Flowers.. We've both worked with Joe in the past so we knew that he would be perfect for the role. Also location scouting went with ease also, as we only needed to acquire a kitchen and a bedroom. Sine Joe and Charlie lived together and their flat was situated right by my University, it made complete sense to film there as it had everything we needed. From the gear store, we booked out the Sony A6300, one CAM TV light, plus a 35mm and 50mm lens.
Filming went well on the day. We managed to get everything we needed shot wise and felt like we've gathered enough enough coverage to compile enough edits that back up our research. A problem did occur however, which was due to the time of day that we decided to film. Myself and Charlie chose a call time of 16:00 due to the availability of everyone on the day. What we didn't anticipate was how fast the amount of light would change during filming. This was a huge issue as the whole concept of the video was a man going through his morning routine, but because we filmed it so late in the day, our lighting was getting darker rather than lighter. I was getting quite concerned over this as the kitchen in which we were filming didn't have any blinds so was completely exposed to the natural lighting. Again, the video didn't have to be the highest of standards, I still wanted to keep a decent quality which I thought we were losing. So, I persuaded Charlie we should keep filming within the bedroom, as there's a blind situated there meaning we could better control the lighting. I believed this greatly improved the footage, as when reviewing the footage the quality definitely improved in my opinion. I was extremely happy with the lighting and mood that was set from filming in the bedroom. We did go slighting off script, as we all started to implement more comedic elements into the story. Charlie was hesitant as first, but myself and Joe managed to persuade him. As filming went on, I gradually figured that adding more narrative to the film would help better entertain the audience member to carry on watching, as I was worried that our research alone wouldn't be enough to engage anyone.
We began the editing process and we’ve released a few problems. Due to my suggestion of implementing more narrative into the film, I feel like the original point of the video has been lost somewhat. While it does add some nice comedic levity the film, with Joe’s performance being the highlight, it does distract from the edit. Also it’s become clear that due to me and Charlie researching into different elements of editing, the video feels a little disjointed at times. I’m worried that the different edits don’t compare well at times. We’ve just about managed to fit both of our edits into one video because of the duration restrictions, which we didn’t foresee as being a problem in truth. Nevertheless, the edits do look good to a certain degree. I feel like our research did pay off, as the amount of different edits that me and Charlie were able to achieve proves the importance of editing. Each edit gives off a unique feel to the last, yet we’re both using the same footage.