Another Production Update!

Everything is going splendid so far! really couldn't be happier. Only down side is Silverburn STILL hasn't got back to us whether or not we can use their shopping centre even with Murray phoning them constantly! But we do have a back up plan of Buchanan Gallaries and Clydebank, so its not a total disaster if they say no, but it would be lovely to film there.

Today, we went to the prop store to try figure out some of our props. Fortunetly they have about 20 fake hotdogs so that will be really handy for our film. We are now just trying to figure out how we are going to do this hot dog stand as we cant rent one as it is far too expensive. Adam gave us a great idea about going to the cinema to see if they had an old one or broken one we could use. So fingers crossed when we go there tomorrow are worries will be gone. If not - its going to have to be a hand made one, but hopefully will be able to get some TPA involved and try get them to make one. Also, got the costumes bought from ebay at a very good price - and should arrive soon with any luck. 

We tried to make a budgeting schedule today - and everything is looking fine, at the moment we have about 100/200 left, so that should be plenty incase of any emergencies. We also tried to figure out what scenes we are doing on each day and divided the pages upto 8ths, which does really help when deciding what days to film each scenes on.

Meg is going to be doing the shot list tomorrow, so that will be great when it all gets done and we can now start focusing on what its going to look like - and hopefully we should hear back from silverburn tomorrow!!

The Root Of Love

Okay so production so far is going very well :)

We have almost sorted out our location (fingers crossed), managed to track down a carrot and hotdog suit for VERY cheap :D and held auditions and almost found our 2 main leads.

I am really enjoying producing the film with Murray and Lucy, and we are all taking the same amount of work load which is good - and everything is going smoothly so far!

On Monday we had our first production meeting - sorting what location and just going through the script figuring out what needs to be done. We had a wild goose chase with Adam and Ray - but managed to track them down after running up and down the academy stairs about a thousand times! (trackers defo needed for next year guys!) We also managed to find some lovely costumes on ebay for half we thought the price was going to be so that was a success!

On Tuesday we decided to go and look at our location we wanted - SilverBurn Shopping Centre. It is gorgeous - and just what Meg had pictured in her head for her location which was a very positive thing. We talked to the smoothie bar and got the go a head so all we need now in confirmation from central management, but fingers crossed we will get that. Now all we need to do is track down a hotdog stand from somewhere as there is not a hotdog stand in Silverburn.

On Wednesday we held auditions all day from 9am. Unfortunetly NO one turned up for their auditions between 9 and 10 which was a complete let down because only one said they couldnt make it and they were all RSAMD students. Our next auditions were between 12 and 1, and they were much more successful. We then went down to the Glasgow Acting Academy and auditioned more people down there between 2 and 5. These auditions went really good with a great turn out and saw some potential people here. It was really good to do the auditions and we defo got better at doing them as the day went on. On Monday we are calling people back for more auditions and pairing them up. So hopefully we will get two people on Monday.

This week has been really good - and i have fair enjoyed my self. I am sure next week will be more stressful, but I cant wait until we start shooting the film and to see the outcome of all our work!!

Production Class

Last week was Abigail's production class. I was looking really forward to this class as we had not done production before - and me wanting to be a producer, I was eager to know what it was all about.

First we looked at what a producer does in a whole and i had a fair idea of what the producer roughly does. But was interesting to know what other things they take care of too, and how many different types of people there is in a production team.
We then started looking at pre-production steps. I think this is going to really help the class when we are going into production into our films as she went through every point very clearly, and now I definitely have a clear understanding on how to produce a film hopefully.
After pre-production there is not that much left to do as a producer apart from fill in other paper work etc, and same with post production.

I loved breaking down the script - and never realised this was part of a job as the producer. Think of must of been the highlighters that got me excited!! Ha Me, Meg and Chris split into a group - and were the first people finished, so thought we hadn't done it properly, but we went back over it and only missed a few things out so we were quite glad. Then we had to do a shooting schedule which was also good fun, it was quite hard at times as you didn't know what shoot to choose between but we got there in the end and I think we managed to come up with a good shooting schedule.

There is quite a lot of maths involved in the budgeting side of things - but call me a geek - i quite enjoyed maths in school, I wouldn't say I was great at it, but I fair enjoyed it. So I don't think I would mind doing the budget and think it would be quite an achievement once you finally did it all.

I really enjoyed Abigail's classes and I felt they went by so quickly and wish we could get more of them. I missed her last class which I was pretty gutted about - but I am glad her notes are on moodle as i am very interested to read them.

Easy Rider

Well being opened up to a the whole new world of the 70s the last few weeks i have really enjoyed watching some of these great movies - espesially Bonnie & Clyde which I had never thought to of watched before.

I started watching Easy Rider which an already dissapointing head on that it was not going to be a good film with already two people telling me it wasn't great. But I tried my hardest to keep a honest view of the film. But as soon as Born To Be Wild came on - I knew it wasn't going to be a film that I would rave about in this blog.

Easy Rider is about men wanting freedom. Once they sell drugs to get the money, they take off on the biggest adverture of their lifes. It wasn't a gripping story line for me but one thing Easy Rider did show me is what the 60s were like and I have learnt a lot from just watching this one film. It shows a good potrayal of the use of drugs in the 60s. It shows it in great depth and it goes in to great detail of the hippie movement and how much of a big deal it was in that decade.

Easy Rider was very slow at times - and felt myself getting distracted easily while watching this film - and this is not a good sign to any film!

Overall - I guess it was an okay film, and I do see why it was a hit but I would much prefer to see any of the other films we had watched in class than this one as it never grabbed my attention at all.

Stagecoach

I haven't seen many westerns in my life, as normally if they are on the TV i would just switch over and find something different to watch that interested me. But actually sitting down and making the effort to watch Stagecoach I never thought it was as bad as i was thinking it would be as I just have the idea of westerns in my head being bad. I always think of westerns being very repetitive and does get dull after a while, with it just being about cowboys and indians - good vs evil etc etc etc
It was set very well and the scenes in the film were very beutiful with really nice scenery.
I really enjoyed the music in Stagecoach and it really fitted in with the genre and gave tension through out the film with it keeping in with emotions the actors were going through. It was used really well at the end scene of the film - where the tension of the scene was made by the music and the stillness of the surrounding area.
After watching all the silent films - especially Charlie Chaplin, i have definitely had more of an open mind to different genres i wouldn't normally watch, which is why when i was watching this i tried not to think of it as a western. I did really enjoy it and can see the quality and good acting in the film which made it such a success it was and still is today.
Overall, i enjoyed the film - and was kept fully excited all the way through with all the tension that was built up and i am glad to say, stagecoach is a good film.

Peter Pan

Well a few of us girls went and saw Peter Pan at the Kings Theater last week.
One word to describe it - amazing.
I didn't really know what to expect as the only version of Peter Pan i have seen (apart from hook) was the disney version - and after seeing the poster for it I knew straight away it was not going to be like this.
The set was very basic with the set being the forth road bridge - but unfinished which was really nice and set the time of the story very well, then when we were in Neverland it turned round into trees etc.
The technical side of Peter Pan was shown to the audience which I thought was going to ruin the magic of "Peter Pan" but it made it really different and really enjoyed it because of this. The wires that made them fly were really thick and obvious but this did not take anything away from their performance cause you never concentrated on this. They also made tinkerbell into a fire ball - which i still have no idea how they did as it magically floated around the stage and into the actors hands. I thought this was very imaginative as they could of easily just had an actor play the part or even a little light.
Another part that was a "talking point" after the show was when Peter Pan lept in to the water when thrown off the ship. This was done with blue lighting and smoke. He lept from the boat (on his wire) and jumped into 4 peoples arms and they acted as waves while Peter tried to get out of the water with sound effects etc. This was extremely imaginative and i really enjoyed this part of the show.
I just loved the show so much and would of defo of paid to see this - (we did get free tickets!!)

Has TV effected the Election?

Well in short, Yes.
I feel that definitely with this years live debates, it has definitely put a different view on the candidates up for election. I never really watched the debate - only caught 10 minuets of it in the middle. But even without watching it I knew it had a massive affect on the election as their was results after the debates with an in depth look at what they all meant and who stood out from the rest which then they decided - who "won" that debate.
This would of made people think about who they were voting for, as if your candidate never "supposedly" won the debate, you would think to yourself are you actually voting for the right person.
Also the polls that were shown on television on the news has a great effect on people too as this tells you who is winning so far and really i think we shouldn't know who is "winning" - as we all have our own opinions and if someone never knew about the election and saw for example, the lib dems were winning at the moment, they would just go and vote for them just because they think they are a good party because everyone says so. So this does have a huge affect on the votes too.
I also feel that the different channels have favorite parties, so are very biased when it comes to showing news about the election etc
Overall, the election is very much powered by television these days and i feel without television the election votes would be much different.