Character Descriptions – of Cast and in Film – 7th May Hand In

Posted by deadkingdom on May 7, 2014

Character descriptions of the cast

The actors we have worked with where friends of our own cameraman Niall and one of our own in crew Kyriakos Molivas/Domenic Moliva. His one friend Matias Greenwood and the other Tom Howell. Tom took the role of Alan a young fellow who owes money to some very dangerous people and Mat portrays a busker/musician who is broke and is living on the streets. Tom was very good to work with, he was quiet and open to suggestions to better his acting. If he had any questions he was not afraid to ask us. His style of acting was a really settle one. What i mean by this is that, most actors tend to overact and sometimes you have to ask them to supress that. In Toms case he would play his character so chill and mellow where at some points you feel that he is the one who is the heartless and ruthless dept collector. With his style he was able to put a twist on the character that none of us saw coming. In Mats case he was the complete oposite. He would not stop talking on set, he would overact, he wasn’t focused and oftenly was talking with somebody of set when we were about to shoot. Though again he was great at his role. Him beeing in constant motion all the time gave expressions to the character which made you feel sorry for him in a way you can’t hold back that “Aww” sound you make when you see puppys. Now our producer Domenic aka Kyriakos. He was playing the role of Bernard a cheesy off an old bad gangster movie character who collects dept and helps you collect it if you don’t have it. Domenic was also talktive on set but not whe rolling. He tried to give tips to the director, he always wanted the scene to be shot again and tried to help everyone with their jobs. He had a unique way of acting. He is a angryy but also happy person and that helped him give his character a funny but dangerous look. All in all they all did a great job and we thank them for their time to come and shoot this with us as this is really important to us.

Characters Description in the film

For the role of Alan
Alan is the main character in the film and he is a young man, skinny and at normal hight. He owes money to dangerous people. His character is a witty one. He is a problem solver. In tough situations he can think and tries to talk his way out of things. He’s not really a physical contact kind of guy and though he owes bad people money he is honest and kind of heart. At the end you see him realising that he should face his problems head on and that there is no need to involve others in them.

For the role of Bernard
Bernard in the film is a slight older man than Alan, he seems experienced at what he does, he’s build up and again at normal hight. He works for the dangerous people and in this case he is a dept collector. He is not very bright and finds it easier to resolve issues with his brute strength. He has a very chessy sense of humor and you often see him trying to portray some kind of old ganster movie mafia guy. He follows the orders he has blindly no matter what that might do to others.

For the role of The Musician
The Musician in the film is none other than a homeless guitarist who plays on the streets for money. He is an out of shape guy with old and dirty clothes. He has an old guitar which he uses to make money and get by every day. He was unfortunate in his life and that is how he enden up where he is now and as the film goes on you see that his luck isn’t the greatest still. He needs to get a ride across town and doesn’t have enough change on him, so he looks around and he sees a man holding a TAXI sign made out of cardboard over his head. He thinks that because of that he would be his easiest way of transportation. He is not very bright as well but a quick to response and reply.

Journal – TAXI – 7th May Hand In

Posted by deadkingdom on May 7, 2014

Personal Journal
( – An Extension to Things mentioned in the Critical Evaluation )

First day of shooting
The weather was lovely, the costumes and props where ready, camera fully charged , and everybody on location. The shooting begins and before you realise it so do the issues! First the batteries of one of the microphones die on us. Second the quiet little place i thought we where shooting at came to be a very busy road whenever we where shooting and last, it was raining! It wasn’t a problem you see cause we where all dedicated into the film so a little water would do us no harm we even used umbrellas to cover up the camera! You see the problem was that, the sudden change of weather altered the colours of the film. So we had to sit around and wait until the clouds had passed so we could shoot again. It took time that first day but the first day of shooting was over.
The second day of shooting was arranged a week after the first day we shot because of the group members busy schedule. But we where faced with kind of a big problem. My co-actor Johnny had something he could not get out off and had to leave Bristol for a week or so. Seeing as we could not get this done by losing a whole weeks worth of shooting we thought that the best way to go was to re-cast. We call up friends, acquaintances anyone who could do it and we did. Tom again a friend of Niall’s ( impressive connections that Niall, good friends ) was able to shoot it with us. Again a group meeting was at large. We talk and discuss if everybody is ok with the date arranged, and again once more we where on set!
Second Day of Shooting
Fully stocked on batteries, checked on the weather and it would be lovely, took photos of the actors clothes to avoid continuity errors, practised are lines (threatened the new actor that if he suddenly dropped out of this project we would kill him….haha lightening the mood a bit hahaha….ekhm) and BOOM 2 and a half hours later we where done.
When going home our editor Jaden was kind enough to do a rough cut of the film to see how it looked so far. Trueth be told it looked alright! So now we where excited to go on! Texts where texted, calls where called and facebook messages where…facebooked messaged? (again haha but now serious again) This was actually one of the things that where the most tiresome about beeing the producer, you have to call everybody and text everybody and make sure all is good and all are okay and ready for go! And so we find our second location. An empty road in the middle of nowhere that looked perfect for the scene we had to shoot. And it was at night and inside a car. So that meant we had to be able to figure out the lighting. Cause actually none of us where assigned to it so we all took care of it! We tried to use a lighting device that had to be plugged in the smokers car lighter so it could be generated. We tried it and…it was MAKING A HORRIFIC NOISE! we could’t shoot it like this so we all took out our smart phones put the flash light on and tried for us and our shadows to stay away from the cameras eye!
Third day/night of shooting
At night in the car as mentioned erlier. We did the scene a couple of wasy not being afraid to work around the script and improvise where the director thought we should. After our first location we had gone to an alley behind a student accomodation residance where Johnny Yates told as it would look apropriate. I told him to take photos of the place and send it to the rest of us. He did we liked and we went to check it out. On our way there we spotted a place that looked even better and decided to use it instead of the other one. We started shooting. We used our phones and even the cars head lights for lighting and we ended up with a great look. We finished and that’s when you hear the magic words…”That’s a wrap people” we all got very excited and started to leave. Until we all stopped when we heard that the cars battery we used its head-lights for lighting was dead and the car would not start.
Memorable experience
We all had to push the car up and down a road whilst the driver keeps trying to start it and all this because these kids didn’t have any cables so we can jump start it from another car. Alot of laughter was involved and a bit of cardio and at last the car WAS ALIVE!
I had gone home and shaved the beard i had left for this role, and it wasn’t until the next day the director, editor and myself realised we forgot a scene. and that scene involved me, and I JUST SHAVED! We would meet up a week later hoping my facial hair was to grow as fast as the beanstalk in Jack and the beanstalk! But the actor who had to do the scene with me couldn’t make it. We started freaking out until i had a little chat with the lad and next day he was up and ready to shoot.
Fourth day/night
It was a Saturday and the place we where shooting at was quite busy. My co-actor was actually just about to go out but he had bring his clothes with him. We tried to make the shot in such a way that the shaved beared insident would not show so much threw various angles and tests we did. And for the second and last time the shooting was over!

Producers Research – 7th May Hand In

Posted by deadkingdom on May 7, 2014

Producers Research

First of i begin my research by simply trying to define what is a film producer and what does he do? A film producer is the man who is responsible for the entire movie to be done on a certain deadline inside the pre-thought and pre-decided budget. He sometimes hires the director, the actors, assistances and basically almost everyone. He has to be able to avoid trouble for the shooting to check if all is going by schedule and as planned and if not to resolve the issues.
He is there to secure financing for the film, if it is not being made for a studio, to determine locations and budget, to develop a shooting schedule, to cast the actors, for pre-production, post-production, and this is because he is the one who usually buys the rights to a script and or book and has to transform it into a high-grossing profit investment. Also most importantly to have a good working relationship with the director.
His relationship with the director would be that one of a chef and a manager in a restaurant. The manager has to make sure that all is in place that the chef will have all that he needs and then have it ready to be working until it’s time to serve the good people what they want, hopefully a delicious film.
Once the film is shot the director is responsible to review the fine cut of the film after it is edited. He than has to work with a distributor to secure distribution for the film which may include showing the distributors the final cut of the film. And well after that he must review the distributor’s advertising campaign for the film and if all goes well the only thing left is to wait for cinema gates to open up and see what the people say.
I started searching for film producers others than Spielberg and Christofer Nollan and such. So i thought i should first search for films i like and begin my research on the producers of those movies.

Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy
Frank Marshall was born on September 13, 1946 in Los Angeles, California, USA and Kathleen Kennedy was born on June 5, 1953 in Berkeley, California, USA.
Kennedy and Marshall have worked with amazing director and producer Steven Spielberg for decades on such signature films as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List.
The Sixth Sense a 1999 production movie was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan and produced by the amazing duo of Frank and Kathleen grossing around 293 million dollars domestically and 379 million dollars internationally.
Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy both together are worth over 300 million dollars
Trailer for “The sixth sense” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9AGf66tXM

Jerry Bruckheimer
Jerry Bruckheimer was born on September 21, 1943 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. Jerry produced the film “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” a 2003 production film that made $305,413,918 domestically and $348,850,097 overseas.
Jerry Bruckheimer is worth today 850 million dollars
Trailer for the “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z1XpfbuZOA

Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola was born on April 7, 1939 in Detroit, USA. He is a wolrd renowned director, writer and producer. He is famously known for his amazing directing of The Godfather. The Godfather, was made in 1972 and gave him three Academy Awards. Two years later in 1974 he decides not just to direct but to also go with producing, in one film both sequel and prequel, the movie “the Godfather part II” . The film won 6 Oscars and was nominated 11 academy awards. He does this again in 1990 co-writting once more with Mario Puzo directing and producing “The Godfather part III”. This film grossed 136 million dollars and was nominated for seven Academy Awards including the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Francis Ford Coppola is worth today 100 million dollars.
Trailers for
“The Godfather” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY1S34973zA
“The Godfather part II” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJr92K_hKl0
“The Godfather part III” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCAcWDDPdNY

Joel Silver
Joel Silver was born on July 14, 1952 in South Orange, New Jersey USA. He is known for famous action films like “Lethal Weapon” franchise, the first two “Die Hard” films and my personal favourite “The Matrix” franchise. The Matrix franchise is compiled of three movies, “The Matrix” 1999, “The Matrix Reloaded” 2003 and “The Matrix Revolutions” 2003. These movies together grossed over 1.5 billion dollars.
Joel Silver is worth today 300 million dollars.

Trailers :
“Die Hard” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TQ-pOvI6Xo
“Die Hard 2” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUg4gWjOgXs
“The Matrix” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8e-FF8MsqU
“The Matrix Reloaded” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVrGMnk5E_M
“The Matrix Revolutions” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhoaoTZJSX4

Broderick Johnson
Broderick Johnson was born in Athens, Georgia, USA. He is a famous film producer, co-founder and Co-CEO of Alcon Entertainment and alongside his producing partner Andrew Kosove they are producing touching and thought provoking movies to this day. His most latest movie he produced is “Transcendence” out in Cinemas now. He has also produced “The Blind Side”, a film staring Sandra Bulloch and was nominated for an Academy Award and grossed over $300 million.
Trailers for :
“The Blind Side” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I24d30buecw
“Transcendence” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCTen3-B8GU

Emma Thomas
Emma Thomas is a British film producer.She is known for co-producing films such as The Prestige, Inception, as well as the Batman film franchise from 2005 to 2012. She frequently collaborates with her husband, the well known Christopher Nolan. She also writes and directs. The films she works with are one of the films that you have to whatch twice to fully understand movies like “Memento” 2000 , “Prestige” 2006 , “Inception” 2010. “Inception” staring actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page grossed over 800 million dollars and It won 4 Academy Awards and was nominated 4 more.
Trailers for :
“Memento” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vS0E9bBSL0
“Prestige” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4gHCmTQDVI
“Inception” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66TuSJo4dZM
Top 10 Films you have to watch twice :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u550YOIfT0

Jerry Weintraub
Jerry Weintraub was born on September 26, 1937 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He is an American film producer and is known for the production of the “Oceans” franchise. Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s 12 and Ocean’s 13 staring great actors such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon. The Ocean’s franchise all together grossed over 1 billion dollars. Weintraub is also producing his latest film that will be out sometime in 2016 Tarzan with association with Warner Bros Co.
Jerry Weintraub is worth today the amount of 200 million dollars.
Trailers for :
“Ocean’s Eleven” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imm6OR605UI
“Ocean’s 12” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze4WPu2kHus
“Ocean’s 13” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-EyG12LxME

Philippe Godeau
Philippe Godeau is a french film producer, director and writer. He caught my attention for his film “Mr. Nobody” 2009 staring Jared Leto (also lead singer for the band 30 seconds to Mars) this film was a real head scratcher for most. Once people viewd the movie they where asked a question “did you understand it?” and most of them answered “No” cause the trailers wheren’t specific about the meaning and main idea behind the film and it was difficult to follow. Philippe Godeau at an interview with Movie Weekly he said that his intend for the film was such. He didn’t want just anyone to get and enjoy it so as his role of producer he had to steer the audience as far away to the story so they could comprehend it themselves as he stated ” The rest of the team and i didn’t want to hold the audiences hand threw this”. “Mr. Nobody” grossed 47 million dollars and though it was not such a big success as box offices go it’s considered a brilliant film by many film critics.

Trailer for “Mr. Nobody” : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpi0qsp3v_w

Bibliography for Producers Research

Critical Evaluation – Taxi

Posted by deadkingdom on May 7, 2014

Critical Evaluation

The actual Evaluation you know what this means? This year has come to an end. The last thing i had to do was to work with some class mates who i am proud to say i worked with to create a short film portraying a story that our groups director has told us. His idea came from a friend of his whom once he got mugged by these guys who once he told them he didn’t have any money except that of some change they gave it back to him and let him go unharmed.
So after beeing assigned this project all that was left was to make it happen. First of all each individual in the group had to take on their role for the production of this film. At the first meeting i was ill and did not know what i was assigned for. When i went in at the second production meeting we had i found out the roles of everybody. Jamie Ashcroft was to be the director, Johnny Yates responsible for sound both on set and editing, Niall Alexander on cameraman duties, Jaden Randall on editing, and there was one position open. That position was none other than the producer. First i hearing about it i thought to myself “well that’s not bad! seems easy enough! i guess this will be easy” BUT LITTLE DID I KNOW this was a bit of hand full.
I get home and i search what is the role of the producer in a film. The main answer that keeps coming up is the producer is the guy who is responsible for keeping the movie going, finding the actors, sets and locations and keeping it all in budget. First i did was to meet up with the rest of the group but most importantly the director. After sending them a message on facebook, we met up in the cafeteria at Bower Ashton, a place we called ground zero! We meet up and i ask the director how do you picture the actors? His honest answer was “I don’t know” where i replied “don’t worry when you see them you’ll know”. So for him to “see them” and “know” we first had arrange auditions. The way we went for doing so we’ve put up adverts in all kinds of social media asking for young actors wanting to play the roles we wanted and whoever was interested should give us a call and we will arrange a day to host the auditions who people who also couldn’t contact us could give it a shot. This DID NOT WORK! Only a hand full of people contacted us for the parts and none where able to make it to the auditions. Niall (camera man) suggested we work with some of his friends that might be able/willing to act in it. We all agreed for so but Jamie (director) and myself insisted on having them audition first. We tried to arrange that but Nialls friends where never available. So we head on to PLAN C. We act in it!
Though usually this is not the best way to go i knew we had a talented actor amongst us that is non-other than Johnny Yates (sound) whom i saw act before and thought him to be great, and i had also done some acting in the past. We actually auditioned for the rest of the group at a group meeting we had, the rest of the group liked our performance. We where missing one more actor, and that’s when Niall’s friend came threw and so the show was ready to hit the roads.
My part as producer was to figure out where to shoot? The scene was held outside of a house, so i ask the rest of the group if we know a place meeting the requirements for the shoot. One of the group members said that his house would actually work perfectly. I arranged a pick up for us all and there we where. The set actually looked good. It seemed like a quiet enough neibourghood where we could shoot at ease.
First day of shooting
The weather was lovely, the costumes and props where ready, camera fully charged , and everybody on location. The shooting begins and before you realise it so do the issues! First the batteries of one of the microphones die on us. Second the quiet little place i thought we where shooting at came to be a very busy road whenever we where shooting and last, it was raining! The problem with that was, the sudden change of weather altered the colours of the film. So we had to sit around and wait until the clouds had passed so we could shoot again. It took time that first day but the first day of shooting was over.
The second day of shooting was arranged a week after the first day we shot because of the group members busy schedule. But we where faced with kind of a big problem. My co-actor Johnny had something he could not get out off and had to leave Bristol for a week or so. Seeing as we could not get this done by losing a whole weeks worth of shooting we thought that the best way to go was to re-cast. We call up friends, acquaintances anyone who could do it and we did. Tom again a friend of Niall’s ( impressive connections that Niall, good friends ) was able to shoot it with us.
Second Day of Shooting
Fully stocked on batteries, checked on the weather and it would be lovely, took photos of the actors clothes to avoid continuity errors, practised are lines and BOOM 2 and a half hours later we where done.
One of the things that where the most tiresome about being the producer, you have to call everybody and text everybody and make sure all is good and all are okay and ready for go! And so we find our second location. An empty road in the middle of nowhere that looked perfect for the scene we had to shoot. And it was at night and inside a car. So that meant we had to be able to figure out the lighting. Cause actually none of us where assigned to it so we all took care of it! We tried to use a lighting device that had to be plugged in the smokers car lighter so it could be generated. We tried it and…it was MAKING A HORRIFIC NOISE! we could’t shoot it like this so we all took out our smart phones put the flash light on and tried for us and our shadows to stay away from the cameras eye!
Third day/night of shooting
At night in the car as mentioned earlier. We did the scene a couple of ways not being afraid to work around the script and improvise where the director thought we should. After our first location we had gone to an alley behind a student accommodation residence where Johnny Yates told as it would look appropriate. I told him to take photos of the place and send it to the rest of us. He did we liked and we went to check it out. On our way there we spotted a place that looked even better and decided to use it instead of the other one. We started shooting. We used our phones and even the cars head lights for lighting and we ended up with a great look.

Fourth day/night
It was a Saturday and the place we where shooting at was quite busy. My co-actor was actually just about to go out but he had bring his clothes with him. We tried to make the shot in such a way that the shaved beard incident would not show so much threw various angles and tests we did. And for the second and last time the shooting was over!
It’s been a couple of days now i hope they don’t call me in!
The Look
The look and feel we wanted to bring into this film was mostly comedy. We wanted to combine a serious look with a touch of body language and script comedy. With the directing and some improvisation from the actors part i believe this was achieved.
For the actors to act we/they had to sign a document that states they agree to shoot this with us and we will use the footage for the creation of a 5 minute film for our final project.
In total for this film we had to use a minimum of 3 characters and 3 locations and we used 3 main characters and 5 locations.

As to the film as its own and each speck. For starters ill go with the lighting. The lighting i didn’t love and thought we where sometimes unprepared for it. No matter how many times i used all kinds of techniques we couldn’t get it just right. Perhaps if i had thought a bit ahead and tried to book some lighting equipment from the university i could have avoided some of this issue, now that i know ill keep it in mind for next time. My second worry is the editing. Though all of the actors and the director tried their best for this film, the editing could have been a bit more complex.

Editing
At the beginning once the characters get in to the car there could be more cutting from one character to another as on of them doesn’t say really anything for a while and in that way making the audience aware to some kind of verbal and non-verbal conversastion. Also at some points you can clearly see the actors braking out of character just before of a scene where it could be easily cut just a second earlier. In addition i also think that the editing doesn’t really show that witted fast paste that i thought we where going for, for example there is a moment when the character closes the door locks and the camera is literally waiting for it to happen, when it should happen instantly cause he is doing something that to a regular human being is by that age second nature.

Acting
As far as this experience on acting, i have to confence that i don’t feel i gave it my all. I didn’t feel that connected to the character i was portraying, except from when he got physical.

Producing
With the producing element in a whole this experience was a great one. It was a chance to get to know one another and it felt like an actual production company. A very low,non budget, amateur one but a production company none the less. I’ve been used to creating my own ideas and directing them myself and it’s rare for me to work on someone elses idea. I found myself at the begining to not be that in to it at first but until the end enjoying myself threw the process. I believe that i did ok for my first producing job. Could i do better? Yes. I believe that if i had tried to arrange more group meetings everything would be much better. If now i have problems with the editing but the sound has already overlapped it, i blame myself. Perhaps i could have asked them to show me the final cut before going to sound.

Sound
The sound editing was a really good job. The foley for it was seamless and not to loud. The one issue i had was with the score. The music used towards the ending of the film where our two main characters are trying to rob the musician, was not bad but i felt it a bit to loud going in and perhaps not all that clear, giving the feeling that i was forced to feel scared which because of that it contradicted and didn’t give it to me. They way that this could be resolved would be by having the score go in a bit more smooth and perhaps not to the level that it went and maybe if there was some kind of music(score) in the background of the film from the very start setting a tone before hand(though this could not work i would like to have arranged a test if we had more time). This happens only at the very beginning once those 15 seconds pass by the sound is good again.

Conclusion
Though it had its fun moments it was alot more challenging than what i originally thought it would be. To be able to keep threw a deadline and trying to keep up with everybody’s daily schedules it was mind boggling experience. I would like to do some work on producing again sometime, and that time i’ll wont underestimate it not even for a bit.

DeadKingDom

Filmmaking course is making me do this! So let's have fun with it!

Category Archives: Final Hand In – 7th May 2014

Character Descriptions – of Cast and in Film – 7th May Hand In

Journal – TAXI – 7th May Hand In

Producers Research – 7th May Hand In

Critical Evaluation – Taxi