First artifact....

After doing my essay i have  a new outlook on my artifacts. My first one for the research module is going to be a viewing of Un Chien Andalou the surrealist film referenced in my essay. I will ask five people to view the film and then try write down as much as they can remember from the film. The film was deliberately made with no meaning or structure so it will be interesting to see just how much of the film the audience can remember. There are a few "shocking scenes" which i'm sure will stay in the audience's mind but that will then lead me onto a new area of research into shock television. 

I'm still unsure as to have to collect the information. I am thinking about doing a set questionaire.....  

Merry Christmas

Made this last night, i done it for business but then made this little personal one.....

it's four layers of different noise and blur in photoshop put into imageready and animated for the snow effect......

Online submissions

well this thing has screwed me ! my file was too big (my fault) so i had to break it down and email it in in different parts, so now i think chapter's 1-5 have been submitted but my appendix i emailed to david downes might not be accepted and my title page, abstract and acknowledgements must just be lost forever !!

why couldn't we have handed in a bound piece of work along with this online submission ? i know about the Plagiarism thing, which i think is a good thing, but now the paper won't be read or marked as a whole piece as it was set out to be, surely ?

don't like the way i could be punished for a computer error, even if it was my responsibility for the file size, but because i've spent so long working on this piece of work i've got a feeling in the bottom of my stomach i could be fucked !

Power Cut !!

Student Living has decided we would benefit from a new kitchen put in half way through term time. I did not benefit from last week without a kitchen and eating take aways every night but this afternoon i started to really play about with the structure of my essay and made some significant changes to it. After a while moving chunks i thought 'i better save this as a new file' quite literally five seconds after i did save my changed the builder's cut off the electricity.

I would have cried......

Person

This evening i wrote a paragraph linking the work of Salvador Dali to James Joyce via Sigmund Freud.

Sometimes i surprise myself, i really do.......

Personal Research Project

Recently i have gone through and organised my research into specific areas ready to start my first draft of the paper. I'm behind my schedule at the moment but i've created a calendar that pops up every time i turn my computer on to keep me focused. All green, blue and red blocks telling me what to do and when.

Does the relationship between narrative and reality effect the audience's understanding of the arm form and how important is the value of narrativity in the representation of reality ?

My categories are as follows :

Television/Interactive Cinema :

Pop Idol
Interactive Cinema History
Tony Sherman's Dracula Unleashed
"Culture without Context" - American television consumption
Sex, Desire & Power - MTV Portrayal of women
Samuel Beckett Plot theory
"Blurred world of television"
MTV Influence in editing
Monty Python's dip in and out of character & audience interaction


Computer Games :

Writing interactive media using the rules of the english language
Designers use of the 'verb set'
Writing non-linear narrative
Ancient sources in relation to contemporary linear stories
Case study : Nancy Drew computer games
Storytelling in games
Full Control in computer games ie : Grand Theft Auto
Computer games to the silver screen

English literature :

Lawrence Stern, William Boroughs, Mark Z. Danielewski
James Joyce - Founder of the hypertext.
Hemmingway & Faulkner in relation to interactive text.
Aristole structure theory
Samuel Beckett - 'Dream state'
"Trappings of the novel" - Robbe-Gillet
Jean Baudrillard - Reality of the gulf war

Drama, Theatre & Arts :

Luigi Piranello - Six characters in search of an author
John Krizane - Tamara
Peter Brook - Experiments in reality
Herzog & Wenders - Influence on MTV
"Pulling film closer to theatre"
Vertov, Bunuel, Dali - Reaction against narrative

Film :

Rashomon
Memento
Dr. Linda Segar - Film & Narrative structure
Classical linear narrative
Cremaster Cycle
"In the digital age, what is real ?"
Jean Luc Goddard
Robert Altman - Nasville
Hyperdrama
Louis Lumiere & George Melies
Creating reality
Dardonne Brothers
Silent Period

Now all i've got to do is structure it into an essay......

EASY !

Moby

Well, well, i suppose it's never too late to change your mind on someone. I always thought Moby was a pretentious little idiot (Although i do like Play). But he's recently given away a lot of music for independent film makers to use free of copywrite ! i think that's a brilliant thing to do.....

so go here for free music for your videos

http://www.mobygratis.com/film-music.html

Personal Development Planner

Background :

My background is based around the lens. My secondary school was fortunate enough to have it's own photography department with fully working darkroom. Both photography and media studies were offered at GCSE level and i have been involved in the creative process ever since. After passing GCSE level i continued both courses into A-Level and achieved what i still think is the best piece of work i have ever done in the 'creative problem solving' module of my photography course, starting with a standard pin-hole camera and transforming it over many months into a pin-hole lens projecting onto slide film in the back of a camera. I did not drop one mark in the examiner's marking and would love to achieve the same at a higher level. In the summer after my first year in multimedia production i applied for work experience at the photography studios Venture in Coventry. As my sister working at the studios i was granted a few months work experience sitting in with clients on the shoots, taking the occasional picture and learning the techniques in photoshop to make everybody look beautiful. It was in this summer a handful of my friends in coventry set up a mixed media arts group called Dialectic. This group was started by a few friends as a way to showcase all of our work. It has been active for four years now and i have always used it as a way to show my work to the public. Both university work and other extracurricular activities. Being involved with creative people has allowed me to work on other projects including a road safety video for coventry city council and countless university projects for my friends. I feel my strengths are photography, cinematography and video editing. However, part of video editing is audio which is one of my weak points. My knowledge of audio has hindered some of my previous work and it has not been as well as it could have with the correct audio.

Transferable Skills :

I have completed the VLP skills record which can be found here

Learning Style :

My learning style record can be found here

Goals :

As i have stated in the previous post, last year i set myself the very basic goal of completely a piece of coursework i would be proud of in months to come. So far, i have discredited 90% of my university work. I feel that as i improve in the area, i am embarrassed by the standard of the previous work. I realise that this is the nature of improvement and as i improve i should see the previous work as a stepping stone to the standard i am at now. I always think that you are not learning 100% until you are actually doing it yourself. First hand. Most of my knowledge has come from 'learning as i go'. Of course, i have done tutorials of the software....etc.... but nothing can prepare you for the first time you are attempting a piece of work without the aid of an american voice guiding you with his mouse to which buttons to click. Going back to the 'learning styles' section, i sometimes wish i could re-shoot entire projects when i'm looking at them in the edit. I think once you start to edit together the piece of work you really see all the pros and cons . This may be a goal in the future, to do full run through, dress rehearsal shoot and film it. So i know exactly what to improve or add in on the actual shoot. Once again, i come back to these two words. 'Time Management'. Another goal is to really do my research on audio. Maybe really get to grips with audacity or soundforge. As mentioned in the post below i also plan to master 'Motion'. The possibilities are endless with this program and could really be the difference between marking classifications at the end of the piece of work. Also, i have recently acquired 'Apple Colour', a colour grading program. I rushed through a few scenes on my client project correcting the colours but if i knew the program better i could have done the whole film. This is another goal i am setting myself before 2008.

Your Insect's Worst Nightmare

That's that then. Just handed in the 6 week client project. I think it's my favourite piece of work i've done so far. I'll start at the very beginning.....

I had agreed with the costume shop at the top of alferton road to hold the spider costume as i would be coming in to collect it on Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning arrived but upon collecting the costume i was told that my card had been declined. After a short venture into town i found out that my landlord had cashed a cheque for the whole term's rent she said she wouldn't until my loan came in. Making my bank balance look.... well rather undesirable to say the least. Any penny of money i had was out of the window and £50 is a lot of cash to ask to borrow. (£25 deposit. £25 Hire) So it was time to get my thinking cap on. Many phone calls later i had the equipment to make a fly costume, albeit a crude one.

1 x Tennis Ball
1 x Black spray paint
1 x pair of tights
1 x black hat
2 x straws
1 x band of black tape
1 x black gloves
1 x set of bat wings !!

Crude as it is, we done it in two hours. I think it looks alright, but i can't even imagine what it would have looked like if my cash situation had have been better.





Jack was only too happy to don the tights and buzz around the set and for that i thank you Jack Brown.....



The filming went quite well. I had to slow things down a little bit as Tom and Jack were getting pretty aggressive. "Slower, Slower". Once again, i kept thinking about Matt Damon describing his Bourne fights as like "a dance". As i said in previous posts, my knowledge of lighting is not the best so i made sure i read though a few of the old hand outs of lighting a scene before we started shooting and i am quite pleased with the way the scene is lit.

I made a rough edit of the film and this is where the panic hit me ! it looked awful ! because the film is one continuous fight/dance, it was impossible to cut parts of it without compromising the film's continuity. There is a technique used to hurry scenes along where the editor chops out large portions of the take leaving in small, important frames and the audience's brain fills in the rest. One example of this is in 28 days later where a character gets into a car and it jumps from his arm on the door, to the slam of the door, to him with his arms above his head looking for the keys then to him hitting the wheel in flustration the audience does not need to see him reach, only see his arms in the air searching. Inspired by this i began chopping up the edit, concentrating much more on the pace of the advert instead of the continuity.

Here is the rough/bad edit......



At one point, i toyed with the idea of having the fly's point of view as an actual insect eye when finding the effect on Motion. I decided against it in the end for the following reasons :

the shot is too short and would throw the audience
it looked a bit tacky
didn't fit in with the feel of the advert

have a look.....



I am not happy with the audio at all. Audio is NOT my strong point nor my friend. I need to improve on it drastically. Although all of the sound you hear on this was done afterwards. I've tried to make it quite light hearted (think TV Series 'bottom' when the fly gets hit) but i'm not happy with it. Using 'Apple Colour' i tweeked a few off the scenes from really golden colour to match the same as the other scenes. Given more time i would have done them all but am only getting used to apple colour at the moment.... Maybe something to learn over christmas.

Aims over christmas :

Get to grips with Apple Colour
Master Motion
Improve my audio knowledge
Get some good footage for my live client project in New York !!


With the advert beinng semi-graphic in places ofcom could rule a possible water-shed or ban. Throughout my research i discovered that due to today's readily accessable internet and the way the public use video sharing sites, it is near impossible to keep 'banned' material away from the public eye. Take these 'banned adverts' for example. The first being for x-box :



I like this advert a lot, although it is quite graphic in places and could see how some people could be offended before the watershed.

This banned mastercard advert however, was soley made to be banned and gain notoriety and publicity.



If successful, the advert could grow into different fight scenes with different insects. Each getting more and more elaborate as the audience's familiarity grows.

Overall though, i am happy with my video. I've been very keen to get my housemates in to view it and give me feedback with i have been somewhat reluctant to do in previous years. Maybe my confidence is growing. Maybe i'm getting better. Or maybe i've done it completely wrong and am barking up the wrong tree..... All i know is this, if you look back on my older posts you will find one written on Monday 18th Decemeber 2006 and it reads,

"Once again, within a few views of my own coursework i don't like it anymore. I don't know if it was seeing everyone else's in the presentations or if i just over-analyse my work too much, But everyone's their own worst crictic aren't they..... Maybe 2007's new years resoultion will be to make a piece of work i actually like one month later...... we'll see what i can do."

I think i have accomplished that.....

I HOPE i have accomplished that......



You can see the difference in the 'golden scenes' from the rough edit to the final edit. I know what you're thinking, the WHOLE thing is golden David !! well, I mean the colouring in the shots not the quality of it.....

Client Shoot.....

I have put my client shoot off til Monday...... i think it's for the best now but will i come back to bite me in the arse when i want those three days back at the end ?

Stupidly Clever !

This was created with 987 polaroids and no computer compositing.

Brilliant !

SPP Setting Goals Presentation.....

My aim is to create a final year piece of work where the style and cinematography is instantly impressive. If this is achieved i hope to go on to work as a cinematographer hopefully working my way up become a director of photography. I feel that my knowledge of the lighting equipment is stopping me from achieving this goal. My past work has suffered due to my inability with the lighting. In The Holding Pattern, a piece of work from last year, a few scenes did not look as good as they could have been due this.

In order to gain more experience in this field i could try and lend my help to as many of my peer's projects this year, helping out on friend's work and offering to set up the shot. Without overloading my own work load, obviously......

People in the industry could help me achieve this goal and gain experience.

If i reach my goal i could be able to create work that is synonymous with David Sexton. One person who i feel have achieved this goal is Edgar Wright. Director of the television series Spaced and films Shaun of the Dead & Hot Fuzz. Below are some examples of his work. There is a consistent feel to all of his work no matter what style.







In order to achieve this goal i must continue with my reading into cinematography and continue to get as much experience as possible between now and the end of the year.

Costumes......

I've found myself a spider costume to rent for my shoot. It was looking more and more likely that i would have had to go with the bee costume after all the theatres i contacted couldn't help...... But now i think, hopefully, i should have a spider costume this week. Possibly filming on Wednesday...... The spider costume looks really good and i think a human fighting an eight legged spider will be quite funny. Although i mayb have to change my script to 'An Arachnid's Worst Nightmare' ?

I'll be in touch.....

Bug Spray

This is a rough little script for my client project advert..........

An Insect’s Worst Nightmare.


Scene 1. Int. Living Room. Day.

The main character, Jack, is sat down reading a newspaper/watching television. Suddenly there is the sound of a door being open aggressively.

Cut to:

Scene 2. Int. Living Room. Day.

A giant insect is standing in the doorway. One arm on the open door. He is staring at Jack.

Cut to:

Scene 3. Int. Close Up of Jack’s face. Day

A look of extreme, over dramatic fear comes over Jack’s face. Soon followed by rage.

Cut to:

Scene 4. Close up of insect’s face. Day.

The insect has not moved an muscle.
Cut to:

Scene 5. Int. Living Room. Day.

Both character’s charge for each other colliding in the middle of the room and falling to the ground together. They continue to wrestle for 15-20 seconds, forcing each other into different rooms.

Cut to:

Scene 6. Int. Hall way. Day.

As the fight is reaching it’s climax, Jack reaches for a can of insect repellent. In the background the buzz of an alarm clock gets louder.

Cut to:

Scene 7. Int. Bedroom. Night.

The alarm clock gets louder as we can now see the bedroom it is in. There is a big double bed in the middle of the room. A hand reaches out and turns it off. Then we see the insect in bed. He sits up, wipes away a cold sweat from his brow and falls back down on the bed.

Cut to:

Scene 7. Int. Living Room. Day.

Jack is pointing the can at the camera in an angry face while the text reads. “Fly Swatter – An Insect’s Worst Nightmare”.



The End


I'm really looking forward to making this bad boy, if i can get it looking how it is in my head i think it'll be really cool...... One word that is ringing in my head though, choreography. I'm currently storyboarding but i need my actors to know exactly what they're doing and where they're going. I read an interview with Matt Damon about the fight scenes in the new Bourne film (which rocks by the way) and he said it was just like learning a really fast dance....... So maybe i'll get my actors to pull out their dancing shoes......

Advert

This is an advert i saw a few months ago now but i just think it's absolutely amazing..... it's got that Usual Suspects thing of two different performances. One for the first time you watch it and a completely different audience experience the second time you watch it.

Anyway, enjoy ! and try not to watch it again the second it's finished.....

Web Help

Today Deborah Tuck gave us these websites.....

http://del.icio.us/

http://clipmarks.com/

they have already proven to be quiet useful.

You see !? three posts in one day !! i'm back to the good old days......

The Holding Pattern

I think having the one piece of work for this whole module really helped me. In the same way i am looking forward to my third year work, i was concentrating on one particular project for many months. This meant that for all of my time spent on the direction module was focusing on one goal. One 'vision' if you will.....

I drew out plans and stuck to them, allowing me ample time to re-write, re-shoot and re-edit the film in a hope to achieve exactly what i set out for at the start of my documentation. With no disrespect to the other modules, I was quite passionate about my film and would never have forgiven myself if i had handed in a copy i thought could have been better. Obviously, and somewhat ironically, i have grown to dislike parts of the film. One scene in particular where Bogdan changes the radio station from the backing song to a Russian song. The character's dip out of the narrative and into the audience's third-party view now feels out of place. Similar thoughts were echoed in Jool's marking of the film. I also think the film lacks a shot of the radio Bogdan is using.

Throughout the edit i tried to make editorial changes in order to stay true to the film's overall feel and mood. Drawing back to my passion for the module and determination to hand something i would be proud of, i decided to cut a scene i had re-shot three times in my final edit. The scene was one added to the script my myself in order to create more sympathy for Bogdan when he encounters a group of British youths and things turn nasty as they abuse him, racially and psychically. As a director i did not fully control the scene in the first take and allowed the actors to move freely around making editing through the camera shots virtually impossible. The second take was choreographed much better but problems occured again with the takes and audio problems were also apparent. The third take was a lot better, having already made two quite crucial errors in the first two takes i knew exactly what to do with the third.

With the scene edited i umm'ed and ahh'ed about whether or not to keep it in it's original place in the film. I moved the scene around into different parts, each time watching the whole film through and asking myself is it really relevant ? what does it bring to the story ? and where does it take the story ? My answer.... to an overly aggressive and un-nesessary area. It was hard completely cutting the scene i had laboured over for so long but looking back now i 100% agree with my decision. Also, with the flash back sequence right at the end of the film i was able to include a few frames from the scene in order to tell the audience Bogdan's life was not a pleasant one. I had so much footage that did not make the final cut most of the flash back sequence is fresh, new footage of 'filler' scenes. Ideas i came up with on the shoot, like Bogdan crying on his bed, Bogdan packing his bag, Bogdan coming home after the encounter with the youths. With these scenes included in the final cut the film was aprox. 7 minutes long. So using them to move the story along was very satisfying. I painstakingly edited that final scene, watching every flash before adding or deleting one or two frames so the audience did not see some as clearly as others. For example, the first frame of the envelope was only short, to grab the audience's attention and maybe brace them for the flash sequence. Whereas the first flash of the altercation is much longer than those that came before it. I wanted to get the pace of the attack portrayed in the flash so the audience sees Bogdan's flinch backward as the youth approaches him. Then three flashes of the back being packed, the photograph left and Bogdan's final look of the room brings the story right to the present as my new best friend from Coventry City Council calls him back to reality. The lady, Rita, really stole the show i think !!! i owe her everything. My main concern for the film was not being able to portray the 'government building' correctly but having a member of staff from an actual government building with a rather substantial speaking role told me i had nothing to worry about !!!

I wanted the audience to connect in some way with Bogdan and hopefully sympathize with him. I asked myself what does an audience need in order to connect with a character ? Sympathy ? the character's possitive attitude in a negative situation ? or a clear understanding of the character's aims and needs ? I am in awe of writers who can draw in the audience's relationship with a character before taking the story to it's climax. A few of my favourite examples of these are Bjork's character Selma in Dancer in the Dark. Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream and Tim and Dawn from The Office. Drawing on my experiences, when all three stories reach their emotional end the audience is either in highest ecstasy or trying to shake a horrible feeling from the bottom of their stomach. This kind of story telling really inspires me, you would not feel these emotions if you were not emotionally connected to these characters and i think by the end of a story if you are not feeling anything for the characters, either it be positive or negative, the director has failed. I hope the people watching The Holding Pattern felt something at the final scene.

You can view the full film and the deleted scene below..... Hopefully you'll agree that the scene is just faaaaaaaaaaaaar too aggressive for the finished cut. (Excuse the quality, i haven't really mastered the compressor)

The Holding Pattern :



Deleted Scene :

ohhhh this quality is awful !! i'll replace it when i get the time....

My days !

has it really been January since my last post ? good lord that is embarrassing. Well i hereby go on record as saying i will try and keep this up to date no matter what work piles up, which should be none ! i think that is what caused lack of updates. The whole animation thing, me and animation did not really get on too well. I will certainly not be putting any of my animation work on here for the world to see..... I was semi-happy with my web design work overall, very embarrassed by the animation work overall but, thankfully, quite pleased with my direction for camera work. So i will fill you in on the blanks.......

Direction Stills Video

So, after much deliberation and lots of re-takes and photo editing.... Here is my direction stills video. It's my little attempt at being a soppy idiot like my friend below.... although mine pales in comparision (i really should have put mine on here first and then put his on a week later) ! The three sounds are 1.) A Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds song called 'Love Letter' which inspired this whole story. 2.) Recording i done at the train station and 3.) Becks recording some breaking up catchphrases. I had to tweek them in soundforge and put some effects on them which i am SO bad at doing it's unreal ! sound really isn't my specialist subject. OK then, here's me being soppy.... I don't know whats happened to me ? my first year narrative had my housemate running upstairs and throwing some chicken soup out of his mouth then DYING on my bathroom floor ! and now i've got some loser mopping about looking at a love letter from his girlfriend..... maybe i'm getting old. (although i hated that after i done it and i actually quite like this)

ENJOY !

The C.O.V Projects

This is my friend from Coventry's final year piece for audio engineering. He's doing it down in London but we shot this film in Cov. He had to make a film with the main focus being on the sound, inspired by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind he has used slow down and muffled audio to create a sort of inside the character feel...... He's a bit of a master of pro tools and a talented little boy so it's his song in the background aswell. He is also the multi-instrumentalist i mentioned before who's gonna help me out with my music for the Holding Pattern.... so.... i scratch his back, he scratches mine.....

I like this video. I think he's done really well and it gave me a little taste of acting.... which is very hard work. The out-takes could literally go on for about 25 minutes ! We recorded it over about three days. The first of which had SEVEN in the pissin' morning wake up call !!! Had to be out in the countryside by sun-rise but the weather was exactly as he expected. Foggy as.... Which looks really, really good for what he wanted. I do actually look DEAD at one point ! Anyway, enjoy.....

He should be proud of it so i thought i'd put it on here so.....

Consequences

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and the making of........... (his Brummie TWANG in the first scene doesn't represent Coventry on a whole. We're far, far away from that place.)

The Making Of Consequence Documentary

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It's back !!

It's back !! It's back in my life..... I have in my possession the first six episodes of day six !! Every single year i wish away 24 weeks of my life and pray for them to go faster and faster.... Everyone should have a Bauer in their life.

Stills

The sequence of stills and audio track portfolio gave a great taste into what people are going to create for their direction piece. Over the videos I watched there was a wide variety of styles and techniques. Everyone who has attempted the stills exercise brought their own unique ideas and vision to it. Although some did not meet all of the criteria set on the brief I think all of the stories managed to tell a story very well. It’s hard to get a story across in still image form which is why audio was so important in this task. It’s easy to put a song over a piece of film and let it play out but to really tell the story to the audience you mean other sounds in the film. One film in particular used the sound of a shop till over a still image of crisps and chocolate bars. By using this technique the viewer’s mind automatically connects the sound and image and you have told them that the character has left his house (where he was in the last shot) purchased sweets and returned home. This is all done in a second, maybe less.

One of my favourite films was the fast paced weekend story. It moved at speed always kept the viewer’s attention. It would be very easy to have a fast paced film with lots of talking and loose the viewer half way through. It reminded me of the Rules of Attraction scene where they sum up a whole years travelling in a three minute piece of fast talking accompanying fast images.

Composition plays a big part in the stills images task as the audience must see clear, well composed shots to understand the story. It’s not like in moving film where the director can ‘reveal’ parts of the shot when he desires, the still images are all the audience is looking at so if the audience is unclear as to what is on screen the film is going to suffer.

Animation Man

yesterday was my favourite animation lecture of the whole year. I was so impressed again by what you can do on 3DS Max if you just know what your doing. We started with this box.....

And then by extrude and bevel the right polygons from it i created this little man with hands, knuckles, feet and toes !! mental !!

Mise en Scene

Due to the lack of dialogue in The Holding Pattern story I feel the main way to get an emotional response from the audience will be in the form of close ups. Although the script was presented with no character speech I have the opportunity to add some in my script re-write, which I plan to have done by before the Christmas holiday. However, at this point in time I feel with the use of close ups, especially on Bogdan’s face I will allow the audience to make up their own narrative for Bogdan’s inner-monologue. However, in order to portray Bogdan’s social actions I will have to use long or medium shots to show the environment he is in and how alone he is. Showing close ups of the face and hands will juxtapose the long/medium shots used to show Bogdan’s solitary existence.

Scene Breakdown :

1.) From day one I have always had a clear idea in my head about how I will shoot this scene. The scene will start with the sound of whizzing cars on a black screen then fading in the audience will see Bogdan stood at the side of the road. The audience hears nothing but the cars, each one rejecting Bogdan’s plea for a ride. As soon as I started to think of locations I imagined this scene being filmed on the main, busy road leading out of Nottingham towards the motorway. With the backdrop of the nuclear power plants and nothing but desolate landscape I think the location will tie in with the forthcoming story. Fading back to black the intro to the song will play. The shortlist reads Gong by Sigur Ros, All Things to All Men by the Cinematic Orchestra or Transmission 1 by DJ Shadow. All of these songs are quite slow and will hopefully establish the film as a sad tale from the off. However, for the sake of copy write and showing the film at festivals I have decided to create my own music for the film in a similar style. For some reason I have always pictured Bogdan in a suit while he is hitchhiking. Although the script says nothing of a suit I just pictured Bogdan in a suit and tied loosened. I’m not sure whether this will work in the overall story of the film as I see Bogdan’s living conditions as slightly run-down and his living situation just as bad.


2.) This is the most important scene of the film for me. The scene where Bogdan is awaiting to be seen at the government offices. I am struggling to think of a location for this scene. I want the office to look professional but filming in an actual government building would be very hard I imagine. The last thing I want is the film being dragged down by one scene shot in a shoddy location. I am currently designing the posters mentioned in the script to put on the walls of the office. Bogdan’s lunch is critical to this scene. I think it gives a great insight into his life. The sandwich will be very plain and half eaten already. Instead of Bogdan taking water from a cooler I think it would give more of an insight into his life if he also had a bottle of water from home, not a purchased mineral water.


3.) For this scene I have been trying to keep my eye out for a tabloid paper with a racial headline. I think this would work very well with Bogdan’s personal situation being portrayed in the national newspapers. I have been keeping my eye out for newspapers with immigrant headlines. I think having Bogdan reading the Daily Mail or The Sun newspaper might add to the story. Again, Bogdan’s bottle he re-fills is present in this scene and this time he is eating a small pastry, maybe a cheap supermarket sausage roll. I don’t see Bogdan buying his pastries from Greggs or another high-street bakery.


4.) This scene is very important to the film as it is Bogdan’s link to home. The scene will be filmed in his bedroom, instead of the living room where he was reading the newspaper. Bogdan will be hanging up his clothes or doing other daily tasks but then when flicking over the radio to the Romanian station his will abandon his simple household task and dance around the room. The only time the audience will see Bogdan genuinely happy. Bogdan’s room will be very cheap room with very basic furniture. The walls will be bare but the bed-side table will have a small picture of a female. The picture will be old and sepia but will play a great part in the film.


5.) Once more, when there are other characters in the scene they have nothing to do with Bogdan. This scene has a football game being played in the background. These characters will be at a great distance from Bogdan and will not acknowledge him. Bogdan will be counting the little money he has out onto the bench. There will be plenty of coins, lots of silver and not a lot of pound coins. Bogdan will be sitting on the bench or maybe he will get up from the bench and walk around to where the football is being played with maybe a literal barrier between them.


6.) Once again, the location of this shot if vital to the film. The easy option would be to have Bogdan writing the email in the university computer rooms, its quiet at times and I can film in there very easily. However, it could jeopardise the film is Bogdan is this outsider character but then all of a sudden has access to student computer faculties. So I am thinking about filming this in a public library, if permitted. Bogdan will not have a great knowledge of computers and his typing will be slow. I imagine Bogdan to be sitting right up close to the computer as well, absorbing the information, presumably sent from home. Maybe a link to this picture we have previously seen.


7.) Again, back at Bogdan’s house. He will receive this official letter that decides his fate. I think I will film this in the living room again, with maybe Bogdan collecting the letter from the hallway. I think this mise en scene report is not really what I’m going to put in this scene but it’s more about what I am taking out of my locations. I will be removing the vast DVD and CD collections on show in my living room and taking down the film and women posters associated with most student houses. The room will be bare. Apart from this picture Bogdan has been looking at all film, maybe a loved one from Hungary.


8.)The Holding Pattern really only has a handful of locations and once again we are back to the government building in scene two. Having already set the scene earlier in the film I can now concentrate on Bogdan’s facial expressions in this scene. The audience knows he is dealing with the government so his face should be all they want to see in this scene.


9.) The film has came full circle as we are brought back to the first location again. Bogdan is standing by the side of the road again but now we know his story we are much more connected to him. Bogdan will tear up the letter and take another look at his little picture. (See scene one)