jules

There’s not a great deal to say at this point. PP2 has definitely been the subject that I’ve enjoyed the most. It was refreshing to have a free reign with our ideas; choosing to follow the path we desired. It doesn’t seem that the other PP2 groups had this luxury. I understand that having constraints can be great; however it’s also as beneficial to see what you can come up with from a relatively blank canvass. It’s possible that some of the lecturers had an overbearing involvement in the direction of their groups. In contrast to this, Paul made sure we were all on track, but he understood that we are the students and the assignment is ours to tackle. He gave us helpful and constant feedback, but never tried to change our ideas or limit the creative base from which our films stemmed. It became quite an organic process in the end.
As far as our film goes, I’m really happy with it. I can safely say that it’s my best work to date. There have been some nervous moments and some creative differences along the way. Nevertheless, I think this has helped us create a more polished finished product. Our group consists of contrasting personalities with varying skills, and this has resulted in a film that I can safely say we are all proud of. I am excited to see what all the other groups have produced for the screening. It’ll be a happy moment when I’m sitting in the theatre watching something that I’ve put so much work into.

We were showing Paul the rough cut of our film when he mentioned something that hit home for me. It was one of those ‘oh yeah’ kind of moments when someone introduces a new way of looking at things.
In our film there is a moment where the main character is confronted by a checkout girl, who prevents him from leaving the store. The problem is that she isn’t introduced to the audience earlier in the film, and so it is unclear what the motivation for her actions is. Without motivation the audience is left with questions in their mind. It became apparent to me that I had written this character into the script purely out of convenience, rather than exploring her character and working out what was motivating her.
As this is the case we’ve decided to scrap this character all together. The narrative retains its structure, probably more so now.

This little interaction has highlighted a shortfall in my writing in the past that I will avoid in the future. I have tended to use characters to drive the story without looking into each character themselves. I have made characters do what I’d like them to say and do rather than how they would normally react in the given situation.

Monique, our makeup artist, did a great job. Especially with our female character Anne. When we had a meeting with Monique she showed us her work and Sussan and I selected the look that most suited our film. The finished product is what I had in mind. It’s a bit nerve racking waiting to see the outcome of the makeup. Thankfully it all came up well.

We didn’t have a mother until the last minute. Thankfully a friend Grace was happy to oblige. She did what was asked of her and I think this element of the film could help capture time passing and contribute to the film’s cohesion.

The second night ran much more smoothly. We were tighter with our set ups and more precise with the decisions we needed to make. We are probably the smallest crew so although everyone has their assigned roles it seems that we all end up chipping in wherever a gap appears. It’s definitely been helpful having Emma as 1st AD.

In a few of the scenes we’ve attempted to choreograph the characters’ movements. In this shot Matt and Jack are stacking their respective shelves and moving in unison. It came out really well, but for some reason we chose to shoot it in the soft drink aisle instead of the canned soup section. We may or may not be able to get around this minor detail. Sometimes the answers are in the edit.

One of the beauties about shooting in a supermarket is the set itself. The long walls of produce provide us with a myriad of ways to shoot each shot. Whether or not our film is a success is still uncertain, however I’m certain that we’ve shot some very nice stuff along the way.

For one of the scenes in our film we have 8 checkout girls all in a line with 8 customers wheeling trolleys towards them. All of the girls will be wearing the same outfits. We are planning to choreograph this scene, which will be our biggest challenge to date. Organising this amount of people will require clarity of thought and direction. I’m really excited and a little nervous to see how it will all come up on camera. I am also somewhat apprehensive as to who will turn up. I have spoken to all of then extras and confirmed their attendance; however I won’t be satisfied until I see them all standing behind those counters.

Something like the Daft Punk video clip Around the World is not far from what I’m looking for. Could probably model a few moves on this:

And of course OK Go’s Here it Goes Again:

Feist’s 1234:

Or this Riva advertisement:

It’ll problably end up looking more like this though:

Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much preparation you do, things can always go wrong.
It was a week before our shoot. We’d secured the male supermarket outfits and were on the hunt for matching female fitted shirts. I came across 2 shirts in this store called Hipster. They were the right colour and fit; we just needed 8 of them. The lady said that she could order more in for us and that they’d be ready well before the shoot. I thought ‘great, all sorted.’ I asked her to call me if there were any problems. She said ‘fine.’
The pick up day came. I went to collect the shirts, but when I got there the lady informed me that they were unable to get them. I already had little faith in people, but now I have next to no trust in anyone. Most of the time people are quite unimpressive.
Anyway, I had some thinking to do and some calls to make. All the stores I rang were charging more than we were willing to pay or had the wrong colour for what we needed. I was having dinner with my mum and her friend Gail. Gail is an arty lady and has good ways of getting around things. I popped to her the quandary we had and she suggested clothes dye. I was able to get the same shirts from hipster, but in whit not blue. So I considered her suggestion and thought it was worth a shot.
The last few days have been spent dying these white shirts blue. It’s taken a few separate attempts, but I think the colour I’ve got now will work well. When what’s done is done you’ve got to put it behind you and create the best solution for the problem at hand. Hopefully the shirts work on camera.

Took a bit longer than I’d like. The shoot went well overall though. We got some great shots and all worked together really nicely.

One of the groups broke the wheels that attached to the dolly. As this was the case we needed to employ a bit of last minute troubleshooting. The dolly wheels were much like trolley wheels, so the supermarket trolley seemed the obvious substitute. It’s difficult to say how it went because I’m not on camera, but Matt’s reaction would suggest a positive result.

So far we’ve used a lot of moving shots. I think this will work well as the nature of the film is meant to be quite disorientating at times. Both the dolly and jib have had a decent work out during the first shoot.

James and Matt (actors) are nice guys and got along well, which made the shoot far more pleasant and productive. They began playing around with their characters and a few useful things came from that. I was happy with how they acted. Things are shaping up well for day 2.

Now it’s time to start focussing on the little things, which can make a big difference. The main logistical components of our film are in place. So now we need to secure at least one makeup artists and also begin thinking about and collecting the costumes for our actors. We experimented with an olive brown shirt at the test shoot. It looks quite good on film. We didn’t want to go with white because that becomes problematic in films. We also need to be aware of the current supermarket colours and whether they mind us wearing those colours. I’m sure as we are shooting it in Safeway we could quite comfortably use the Coles blue. I would be highly surprised if Coles had any legal ownership of the colour blue that their employees wear. Cadbury attempted to claim the unique purple that they use as their own but lost their case in court.
Another small issue we may have is the fact that the boss in our film is very small. He is meant to be quite an intimidating figure. We will have to convey this through other means than stature. This is where a skilled make up artist could come in handy.