24.09.12

Production Meetings

24.09.12

We had our first production meeting today. Everyone made it and we actually managed to get a lot done. We started by establishing the rules that our film has to abide by

Theme: love

Title: 'Something New' (Must include dream sequence & period piece)

5-7 Minutes including titles. 

IDEA(S)

(AVOID CHEESE) Merge period scene & dream sequence together - 

LIAM  

1. Two little boys (70's - tale of friendship continued in future)
2. Two For Joy (Boy sees a magpie "one for sorrow" and makes it his mission to find a second magpie "two for joy" - instead he finds the love of his life (joy/love)

 ALEX 

1. Love Bed (You love your bed, what if your bed loved you),

2. Walkie talkie - two friends, childhood friends - one dies (car crash perhaps), one day the living boy hears his walkie talkie, his dead friend speaks (late 80's/early 90's). 

HANNAH 

Receiving new computer (Elderly person introduced to technology - finds family tree, reunited with old relative)

RACHEL 

Premonitional dreaming (Speaking with the dead when dreaming - attached to dead lover 

(climactic reveal),

The idea we all agreed to expand and explore - KEY IDEA - (ALEX) - Walkie Talkie boys. 

"Two boys (70's) childhood friends, they frequently speak via walkie-talkie regardless of being neighbours - we see them play and develop a relationship - one of the boys dies (car crash, illness, falling from tree), the surviving boy distraught - desperately, tries to talk in his walkie talkie - to his amazement, his friend speaks...... 

His friend speaks for a while, eventually - the batteries in the device run out, so does his continuing relationship with the voice. 

Years pass by and the surviving boy is now an adult - he is married with kids and moving into a family home - as he is unpacking (moving) boxes, he discovers the walkie-talkie - he smiles, curiosity takes the better of him and tries new batteries - the walkie talkie emits white noise. 

The Camera cuts" (written by Liam Swann)

My idea was chosen as the back up.

Incorporating love: Traditional, rom-com, Bromance, unconditional, couple, affair, romantic, family, break-up. 

Film References

Mystic River, Stand By Me, (500) days of summer, The Road, Waiting for Godot, The Man Who Fell From The Moon, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind,

The division of Gravity (love this short - here's the link

25.09.12

Today's production meeting was quite short. We only met up to discuss our film idea in more detail.

It was agreed that Liam would write up a rough draft of the script then hand it over to Ben for approval, who would then hand it to me to edit. So it's basically become my job to say what I think we can shoot and what we can't. FUN.

We also established what each crew member was responsible for and how long we had to get each task done. I took it upon myself to put this information on a spreadsheet.

26.09.12

Today's meeting was again short. We all seem to know what we're doing now and mainly keep in contact over facebook.

We also came up with a Log-Line for 'Something New'

'A young boy is amazed when the voice of his recently dead friend speaks to him through a toy walkie-talkie'

What I Did This Week

I did quite a few things this week. I started by getting everyone's availability and putting it into a colour coded sheet. This made it easier for me to see when various crew members were available. I discovered that our schedules are a bit all over the place. It might be quite challenging to sort out shoot days.

I also created a 'task' spreadsheet. This showed what part of Pre-production each crew member was responsible and how long they had to get things done. I find it easier to read things when they are on a spreadsheet and it's so convenient to have one sheet jam packed with so much information. Makes it easier to compare documents.

More paperwork - I also created a rough production schedule for the meeting with the Execs on Thursday. I understand that as we identify more issues and things move forward it will change. But it's nice to have something rough to refer to.

I wrote my back - up script for 'Something New' and have it ready in case our first plan falls through. It's a nice simple idea which can easily be produced in a few days. I'm quite happy with the story idea and Webster has spoken to me about possibly shooting it at the end of 2nd year.

The script was sent out early this week. I think I did about 3 re-writes this week. I didn't change the story, just cut out scenes I felt were unnecessary and other just would just not be possible to shoot within our budget and time limit (ie - a funeral set in the 70s, Young boy coming home to an ambulance outside his house. I also cut down on a lot of the dialogue some of it was really 'on-the-nose'. I didn't cut everything I had in mind because of Ben and Liam's objections but we all compromised and agreed on the final product.

Now that I have what seems to be the 'final version' of the script, I can start breaking it down with Ben. Discovered some great Breakdown sheets on this online site I found for Film production paperwork templates - http://www.docstoc.com/search/film-production?catfilter=1

I've also broken down the script a little without Ben. I just divided the scenes up into Days and Nights.  

Thoughts of The Week

I was very happy with my performance this week. I managed to stay on top of all my work and even had time to help others with theirs. It's good to get off to a good start because you get an instant confidence boost. I feel like I'm finally proving my worth. It's nice to complimented by course mates.

 It was a bit disappointing in the exec meeting when Chris thought we had set the bar quite high for ourselves and could possibly fail. We are all very determined to make this film great. We work well together and the presentation of what we have done so far should have been more than enough to convince the Execs that we're very prepared for this. I love how excited they were about the walkie talkies, had never seen Chris Leonard smile that much before.

I think for the first time I'm really connecting with my peers. We all want the same thing as this point (Make a great pitch film + get preferred role for feature) and that makes it easy for us to relate to each other. I think we're going to do quite well with this film - I have a good feeling.

Overall it was a great week which kind of foreshadowed what is to come. If we continue working this hard, I have no worries about actually shooting this film.