Shooting short part II

So, I shot the first half of the short film I've written, it was a great day of shooting too. We started early to get the morning light and ended up having a consistent cloud cover for the rest of the day, so our light stayed even.

We got to work with a couple of actors, who are fairly new in the game, that did a fantastic job at playing their character's. One of which came on board last minute thanks to Mooregrace Acting Studio.

The great thing about shooting digital, we got to watch the "dailies" as soon as we got to a TV. Great fun!

Keeping consistent with my "resolution" to make it a year of film making, I've started production on the next short. As production is halfway done on this I don't want to stay idle for too long.

Next is a call centre scene, still trying to get a location that I'm happy with and a funeral home, same deal, location, I won't have too much of a gap, I am trying to get the film finished before April. A friend from Germany who helped with producing is going back to his motherland at the end of April, I wont to be able to send it with him.

These pics are two stills from the shoots. Rob our guy on camera, in charge of DOP did a great job, with a bit of post work from Chris (also one of the actors) they came up quite cool.

Story Time

OK, so I've been a bit slack and I'm a bit behind in my blog entries. What's the ratio, 28 days to make a good habit, 3 days to break it?Well, I'm not doing too bad.

I've got 5 stories together now, to go in my ebook for publishing, now all I have to do is illustrate them.

Title: The Aretalogus
1. The Prince in the Castle
2. The Heart in the Hand
3. Mirror
4. Brian the Centipede
5. The lady in the Shoe

So my next task in this little project is to do the pictures. I've put some of them up here, in previous posts, well, really those are more like production sketches. I may ad more as time goes depending on how it all goes.

One question: When its all finished, should I offer the ebook for free, ask for donations or charge a normal price?

Let me know what you think?

LA Confidential: Characters with layers

A film that illustrates a good use of character ark and character development throughout the action and story of the film is LA Confidential. The film allows its characters to look at themselves and reflect on their actions and moral standards.

The characters achieve a step by step progression on their journey, with only a gradual change allowing the audience to see the actors perform these subtle changes over the course of the story. The acting in this film is brilliant. When an actor can make the slightest of changes in their eyes and express so much in a scene without saying anything, you know you're watching a great performance.

Good cop, bad cop, postitution, corruption, racism, ethics, personal morals all feature heavily in this mystery. Written by Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson (Also the director) and based on the novel by James Ellroy the characters in this film have layers, the story is intelligent and it is beautifuly shot, with a great look and smooth, tight camera work, the cinematography by Dante Spinotti.

Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey are all fantastic in their roles. They blow everyone else out of water in this film. They create so much dramatic tension in their scenes that you can only imagine how brilliant it would have been to work on the film with them. That is to say, that the other actor don't do a great job, because they do. James Cromwell is fantastic in his role as the antagonist which he does do very well. He's the quiet bad guy, who are always the most dangerous.

If you haven't seen this film, add it to your list and enjoy.

On Character

Talking about characters and writing in discussion and contemplating, how much of one character has a small part of the writer in it? How much of the views and opinions of the character are similar to the views and opinions of the writer. Some people my argue that a character is only an apparition of the writer and is based only on the imagination of the writer, their experiences and knowledge of people. Some may Argue that a writer can't help but put part of them selves into each character along with the people they meet and know.

Aren't some of the best characters based on people the writers knew? Or are the best characters ones that have been created with the restrictions of only the mind of the person doing the creating?

When writing a character who may be a lesser liked person by the other characters around them and the audience, is there something of the writer in that person? It has been said that a writer can't help but take from themselves when creating any character. So does that mean that when writing, the mind of the person creating must delve into the areas of their most unsavoury thoughts in order to bring out the most unsavoury character's.

Is a writer then deemed to be unlikable because people know the extent someone has to go through to then put together a fictitious being. Or could they be praised for there ability to create all different kinds of people and imagine there ways of thinking and being, whilst staying separate from their "real life" character.

Many people will love to watch or read about characters that do horrible things yet may be "freaked out" or "disturbed" when a friend may tell them about an idea for a story about a serial killer, saying with distain "how could you think of something like that?"

On characters and there portrayal by an actor, well, this is an art very different to writing. An actor may take a written character and ad to that character. Is the actor in some way inclined to be like the character they play? The actor takes an idea of a character and gives it life with personality and a face.

Actors sometimes give a lot, emotionally, to their roles and can really delve deep into the person they want to become in order to give a brilliant performance. Does that make them actually become the person or is it just someone they have to pretend to be, where they can distinguish from the character and their reality with out taking any of it across, either way.

Character, especially those with a less likable nature are loved and hated by many people. Sometimes they are based on real life people and sometimes they can be completely fictitious, does the writer or the actor put themselves into these types of character? Is there somewhere, deep down inside the actor or writer that is like the character they are designing? Maybe.

Characters can be shallow, indifferent, boring. The best characters have layers, writers and actors give them layers. Weather or not there is some part of the writer or actor in each character, all the time, is hard to say. Characters make a story interesting and make the action in any story mean something. Without anyone caring about the character, the action of the character doesn't mean anything.

Next time you read or watch something think about this discussion and how much of real people may be in the characters. What lengths do writers and actors go to to make a character most interesting?

Shooting short

I've written a few short films over the last year, all with the idea to eventually shoot them. Some are just small stories that wont go past their short film life, others are short films written with the idea that they will be made into feature films.

I've decide that it's been too long between films for me, so I set some dates to shoot one of these stories and I'm aiming to get everything together in time. I have no money for it yet, its never easy to get funding for short films, but if gets shot with no money then at least it gets shot.

A good team of talented, motivated people is the most important part. So far there are some really talented people getting involved in this project which is great!

I'm still looking for cast at this stage, but I have a few people in mind, we'll see how it goes...

The sort will shot at the end of this month and edited, coloured etc by the end of Feb. It'll definitely be up on the net for all to see when done. I look forward to the feed back.

On Writing

I found that there are many different books and opinions on writing. Structure, formatting, rules to follow, rules to break, more rules and rules you should never break, then you see or read someone breaking them.

The best rule, that seems to work across the board of formats and structures is: Always write for your audience.

This one seems the best to follow as, unless it's your diary, your always writing something that other people need to be able to at least follow.

That is to say, it's fine if your audience changes while in the "Creative Process" of writing. You may start writing a horror/thriller but instead it takes a natural progression into a romantic comedy. This is fine and a writer can often discover new and exciting stories by allowing this to happen. But always reassess who your audience is.

Is it mothers telling their daughters to see or read your story? Is it boyfriends dragging along their girlfriends to the film? Is it the other way around? Is it teens, tweens or little kids? Are you aiming at family's, couples (young or old)?

Keeping this in mind will often determine the action of character and the plot of your story. Does the protagonist kill the love interest? Does the love interest even exist? Most of the time yes, that's just drama for you... But is there going to be a fight scene with lots of blood and martial arts and swords? How old are your characters?

I have found it frustrating to watch, when a film doesn't know who it's intended audience is or if it's intended audience is quite specific, the action and characters don't fit or relate to the intended audience. The story doesn't work and the film is passed by.

Of course, as mentioned at the start, there are rules and rules get broken all the time. If you know your audience at least it's a good place to start.

Children's tales, grown up fables...

Regarding the stories I I've told my children: As I said previously, I've decided to right them down. I've realised that as I write them down they are less like children's stories and are becoming much darker. I might pass a few around and get other peoples opinions.

I've done a concept sketch for one and the scene looks much darker than the story really is. I need to work on it a bit more, change a few things. See below...

Yeah, really, way to dark... anyway, the end result will lighter. I might post the story here tomorrow once i get a chance to revise

The Heart in the Hand and stories for children

I tell stories to my kids at bed time, most of the time the tales star them, occasionally I create something, on the spot, that doesn't have them in it, rather, some other group of characters doing strange things and going on strange adventures.

So, I decide that I need to write these little tales down. Compile them in a group and illustrate them. It'll just be one or two pictures per story. Once they're all finished I'll publish them online for your veiwing pleasure or hatred or delight or disgust or facination or indifference...

The above picture may seem kind of violent when talking about children's stories. I do recall, though, being told about old women that eat little children and Queens that want to have heads roll off peoples bodies and evil witches putting curses on babies... So I think, maybe minus the blood and knife (don't get me wrong the stories I tell my kids aren't violent... not that much, really, at most PG rated) it will go quite well with one of the stories.

I'll keep you, ah, posted...

The Hunger Artist

I was watching Julie and Julia last night and Meryl Streep, in character said something that peaked my interest. "... we almost had our own Kafka experience..." (it may not be exactly that). I know the comic Automatic Kafka, illustrated by Ashley Wood, but I never knew what it meant. So, hearing that in the film I had to go look it up, as the comic wasn't around in the period the scene was set.

In doing this, I mean, googling, I came across Franz Kafka, the German writer. I found a website* that has been put together for the purpose of translating his work, uploading it, discussing etc... I read one, a short piece titled The Hunger Artist. And drew a picture.

The picture represents a part in the story, I found some ink I owned had spilt in the box and gone thick. I used the ink to make this pic with a Quill and a dry, fine tip Sharpie. It's a bit scratchy and messy, all in all, it turned out OK.

The story is a great allegoric tale of what it's like to be an artist sometimes. Also, it could be seen, the problems associated with mental illnesses such as anorexia and other eating disorders. I also found the tale fascinating as it scraped the surface of the mind of it's character. As the story develops it's interesting see what he thinks of the people around him, concerning his own performance and how the various reactions and opinions to and of his art, as the hunger artist, precipitate different feelings from him.

I haven't had a chance to read through any others, if I do I might mention them here... I did read the start of one, A Report to an Academy, A man reporting to "The Academy" about his life as an ape, that he recollects from five years previous... very interesting so far.

* www.kafka.org