Filmmaking- Influences

When writing the script for the Go Outdoors advert, I was already starting to visualise how certain shots would look, and how we would achieve certain moments and scenes. When I started thinking about what influences inspired certain aspects and shots, I noticed music videos seemed to be incorporated quite a bit, as just like an advert, many are trying to tell a story in a limited amount of time. The opening shot to the Go Outdoors advert and and which helped inspire the storyboard from it comes from Coldplay's music video for the song 'Paradise'. Until I started thinking about it, I had

Shot from 'Paradise' music video.
Copyright Coldplay, Parlophone Records, Mat Whitecross
Source: Youtube

 no idea about the similarities, and then I realised I had been striving for a shot, similar to this. The shot is centered to show the road in the middle and this canvas of land and hills behind it, with a man in an elephant costume riding a unicycle in the middle of the shot. I loved the depth to this shot and the build up of layers. The colours are also very strong and paint a temperature in the shot. The first shot in the Go Outdoors shoot is a boy riding is bicycle towards the camera, but he would be riding by the side of the road and not directly in the middle
and the camera is also shifted so its not centered with the road but more in line with the edge of the road to show the boy coming closer to the camera. The framing and placement of this shot from 'Paradise' stuck with me and gave me a better idea of how to maybe represent certain scenes better and in new ways.

Shot from 'Before Sunrise' 1995.
Copyright Castle Rock Entertainment, Columbia Pictures
Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Another influential piece of film I feel affected my work on this shoot, was from the film Before Sunrise (1995). This film is very much about the dialogue and the characters chemistry, and thats what the audience respond to the most for this film, I looked into how they were framed and shot in this film and how they were always positioned side by side. I liked the use of this side by side technique and decided I wanted a similar outcome for the characters in the advert.  The shots are also very long and many in one take, which is another technique I liked but wouldn't be as effective in an advert as it needs to be short and quick in 30 seconds. I adapted this idea and developed the shot into a longer and more moving shot as I thought maybe we could have the couples children walking behind and we could pan around the couple to reveal them.

Shot from 'The Fault in our Stars' 2014.
Copyright Fox 2000 Pictures, Temple Hill Entertainment,
TSG Entertainment, 20th Century Fox
Source: TheGuardian.com

Shot from 'True Romance' 1993
Copyright Morgan Creek Productions, Davis Films
A Band Apart, Warner Bros.
Source:Vancouversun.com

As well as the look and style of the film, I also had influences when it came to writing the script and the characters. The story is kind of heart warming and romantic, and the characters living this romance throughout the years need to develop as well as there romance, but also stay the same and have the same and recognisable qualities for the audience to know they are the same couple. I took influence from two on screen couples from films I've seen, the first been Hazel Grace and Gus from The Fault in our Stars (2014), and the second been Clarence and Alabama from True Romance (1993). Their relationships are quite different but I wanted a balance, what I liked from The Fault in our Stars was how intelligent the relationship was and the dialogue between the characters, and from True Romance, I loved the spontaneousness of their relationship and the need they had from each other, making them very clingy and together most of the time. I wanted to use these qualities in the characters in the Go Outdoors advert but with obvious little time to do it. Throughout the advert the characters have this routine/habit of kissing on the cheek which can help show the audience they're the same couple throughout, and I also have them been close like Clarence and Alabama from True Romance.
 

Filmmaking- Target Audience

When creating any product or film, it is important to know and understand the target audience, so you can market it and attract your audience to buy or show interest in the product. The commercial we're creating is for Go Outdoors, so it needs to appeal to Go Outdoors target audience and be in theme with something that would interest them. From research into Go Outdoors previous advertisement campaigns, I've found out that my concept is not far from something they'd already tried, so it would fit in with the style and tone of what they've been doing. Go Outdoors sells a wide variety of outdoor activity wear and equipment and sells to men, women and children who are interested. It's audience is anyone who loves the outdoors, it hopes to intrigue and show off how good the outdoors is and then supply the necessary equipment. Although Go Outdoors does sell children's clothing and equipment, the idea is to peak their interest in the outdoors and the equipment, as there parents will probably be the ones paying and the ones with the money.

Go Outdoor's appeal and audience is very wide, as can be seen on this website here, that features a presentation about marketing for Go Outdoors.

Marketing Presentation: https://prezi.com/vsw8y1zwqulw/copy-of-marketing-go-outdoors/

The presentation states that:

• Go Outdoors is aimed towards an audience who enjoy an active lifestyle, such as walking, hiking, camping, fishing and climbing.
• Variety of ages (depends on the product).
• Aimed at all classes with affordable prices.
• Products for both genders.
• Stores positioned next to popular outdoor activity locations.
• Stores also located according to income statistics; low income and high income areas.  

The presentation also goes into how Go Outdoors is now active on social media, such as Twitter and Facebook to reach more people with it's deals, and how it hasn't reached a huge audience through social media. Leading me to believe Go Outdoor's audience are less in to technology and social media and even more about the outdoors than originally thought.

The story in our Go Outdoors advert is quite good at showing most ages and both genders enjoying the outdoors. As it shows a boy and girl growing up, becoming teenagers and then adults, and eventually parents, it does a good job at showing all age ranges and even families enjoying the outdoors together.

Visual Culture- The Golden Age of Illustration

This weeks visual culture lecture focused on The Golden Age of Illustration, between the years 1880-1920. As you could guess, it heavily featured the art of illustrators and a brief history of illustration. An interesting point that was brought up that I found enlightening was the fact that the term illustration is quite problematic, we've always had drawings and pictures, they just weren't considered illustrators at the time. Being an illustrator didn't exist but illustrations did. The German painter and theorist, Albrecht Durer was mentioned for some of his early contributions to the world of illustration and print work, such as his piece 'The Horsemen of the Apocalypse'. Once illustrations and printing became popular, many printing houses hired artists to create illustrations to go along side stories, such as novels by Charles Dickens. There was also a point where we explored The Golden Age and Japan, looking into how Japans illustrations were formed and how they impacted on the golden age. Artists like Katsushika Hokusai were mentioned for his input to the golden age, and the link of Japonisme which was when the japanese style was eventually introduced to the western world.

When coming back for our lecture with our film tutor, we looked at this from a narrative point of view and looked into topics like Ideology. We had already explored Ideology last year but only briefly. Ideology being the shared set of values and beliefs within a given group. In todays culture, ideology has become certain things we've learned to accept, such as religion, politics and morales. Karl Marx introduced the idea of the Dominant Ideology, the ideology that exists within the largest group. John Berger, an English art critic known for his documentary realism and advertising fantasy ideas, got us discussing adverts and how false and pretend they are by selling you something that it's really not. Once we caught on to how everything is a product of time, we were split up into groups and each given a different decade. We then had to come up with events and impactful pieces of work that happened in that decade and how its influenced the world or art or anything since. My group was given the decade of the 1990's and we listed off such things like:

NWA (American Hip Hop Group)
Star Wars Episode 1- The Phantom Menace
CGI in Animation- Disney and Pixar
The introduction of the Internet
Y2K
First Gulf War
Nelson Mandela Freed
Hubble Telescope
Princess Diana's Death
First Harry Potter Book Published
James Cameron's Titanic Released- Most Successful Film at the Time


Although there are many more events in the 1990's these were the ones we thought of first, from the list you can see technology a major player in affecting the life's of people in the 1990's with the internet connecting people for the first time, and it revolutionising animation how we know it, with the likes of Toy Story being released. The other decades that were split off to the other groups were the 1970's, 80's, naughties and the 2010's.

Visual Culture- National Identity

This weeks visual culture lecture focused on National Identity, and specifically looked closely at Hermeneutics. It did this by going in depth with what we mean by the word 'culture' and how we define it as a society. It was explained that Hermeneutics was the difference between literal and intended meaning, and was developed more when talking about American Anthropologist, Clifford Geertz. We were shown images of people from different countries and how they are stereotypically displayed and known by the rest of the world, such as the British gentleman always been portrayed in a smart suit, very stylish and suave, but in reality we know thats not true and we know the true British culture as it is now. A major topic in the lecture looked into Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood, three major businesses and industries that have a ginormous impact on culture. Hollywood being one of the worlds leading film industries and distributors, producing blockbusters and earning billions every year. Bollywood being an impactful power in the Indian cinema industry and changed hindi cinema since its invention, creating hundreds of films each year. Recently Nollywood has become a major player in the industry, being Nigeria's cinema industry and rated the third most valuable film industry in the world.

In our second lecture with our film tutor, we looked closely into foreign films and their impact on the film industry, as well as there similarities and differences to films of our culture. We talked about the variety of foreign films and the cultures involved and were tasked to go off and write about a foreign film we had seen or known about in our group discussion page. We then all came back and went through all our films and talked about what made them different and interesting. My choice was the 2011 french film The Intouchables, I remember seeing this a few years back because of all the awards buzz and critical reception it had being receiving. Once I saw it I understood why many critics and fans were raving about it, and also understood that language is not a barrier on film, that you can still enjoy and follow a film, even if it's in a foreign language or from a different culture. At its core, The Intouchables was a character piece, it had great character development and you just became invested in their friendship. The comedy used was universally understood and enjoyable and not just centered to its own nation and culture, but still had the feeling of a film from French Cinema, it's background and world it developed was very foreign to say someone like me from Britain.  

Visual Culture- The Self

This weeks visual culture lecture was titled 'The Self' and was an introduction to Representation Theory. The theory covered over many different areas including, form, semiotics, iconography, art history,ideology and culture. The topic is very personal towards you yourself as an artist and how you choose to represent yourself and your work, your style and your work communicates to the audience a message and a point, it's key to do this in the most artistic representation of yourself possible. The street artist Banksy was brought up in the lecture with many of his works, which take pop culture references and cross them over with political and world issues relevant at the time.

The Auteur Theory is a good mention when talking about Representation of Self, as it centres around the idea of a film or a piece of art reflecting the primary artist's (Director) personal creative vision. Examples like Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick are the best arguments for this theory as their work is so unique and their style is so personal to them, that it cannot be recreated. In our second lecture with our tutor, we looked into the Idealised Human Body (Originated in Ancient Greece) and John Berger. Berger said nude was 'Naked yet not exposed', meaning physically you can be naked but to be exposed is another thing altogether. We also talked about portraits and what it means in different contexts, an example of a definition given in the lecture was 'Planned and considered composed image of a person in still form.'. A link back to film and a way we could maybe create portraits is by character profiles, when building a character and writing a profile you're painting a portrait of who they are and how you want them to be seen.

Further into the discussion, Sigmund Freud was brought into the talk and his idea of the Pleasure Principle. Freud had said ' Human life is engaged in a constant battle to repress our desires' meaning we don't allow ourselves to enjoy what we want, we try to avoid them and hide them. The Pleasure Principle is a structure of 3 stages, the Ego, Reality and Instinctive. This explains how at our core we know what we want and instinctively want to get it, but our ego and reality get in the way and deny us the pleasure. I very much am intrigued with the Pleasure Principle and agree with its structure and basis. The very in-depth and relating topics and subjects brought up in this weeks lectures was quite engaging, it offered a lot more for an open discussion and was very interesting to learn about.        

Filmmaking- Old Commercials and Campaigns

When making a new product for a client or company, it's always good to look back at the previous work that has been done for them. Whether is either to help you stay consistent and carry on with a certain style, or to make sure what you do is completely different and avoid what maybe didn't work in the past. Although Go Outdoors started around 40 years ago, It hadn't reached national or branded status until 10 years ago and is fairly new in the eyes of everyday people. With it being a young company finically and commercially, it's television adverts are fairly recent. I found a popular Go Outdoors advert from 2013 titled, 'It's Safe to Go Outdoors' that was broadcasted on television. It's a comical advert about how now the snow has melted it's safe for people to go back outdoors and do all outdoor activities. It's very funny and appeals to its target audience of people who are happy the weather as changed, and also just the average television watcher will appreciate the comedy. It features the Go Outdoors logo at the end of it which is the intention with our advert, but ours will be taking a different tone throughout the commercial.

It's Safe to Go Outdoors advert- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzmSVqp3Igc

They key to a good advertisement is making it rememberable, and I think if you can make your audience feel, then they have a high chance of remembering it. If you can make you audience feel happy, sad or even annoyed, theres a good chance they'll remember it for those reasons of feeling that way.

A more recent Go Outdoors advert released in May 2015 followed a different theme, it was more of a montage of people and families participating in many outdoor activities, while a song played over the top. It was good advert for showing off what you could be doing, and maybe inspiring you to want to do it, which is good for the store as they can supply a lot of what you need. This style is very similar to the idea we're hoping to execute, except ours will be telling a story and has a narrative of some sort with the same characters throughout. It's reassuring to know that Go Outdoors has tried a similar approach to what we are attempting, but ours is still original enough for it to be something new and worth a try. The advert also has a BTS video to show how they went about filming it and the locations they used, its interesting to see the amount of tents and clothing they we're able to use but they were probably supplied by the store themselves.

Go Outdoors May 2015 advert- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP1La6E9O1w
Behind the Scenes of advert- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8dxxT_xdlc

A second advert from 2013 from Go Outdoors titled, 'The Race' is another comical advert showing everyone who is interested in the outdoors and naming them all off in a list, in a way so you can point out which one you are, running across the countryside in a race to Go Outdoors to make the sale. It's very much in the same tone as the first and plays on that sense of humour to get people to go outdoors. One thing that is common to all these adverts is that it ends by featuring some kind of discount with a numbered percentage, it's never just advertising the store or the outdoors but advertising the sale that is ending soon. It's a good advert but doesn't feel that impactful or rememberable, but the concept and effort but into is very admirable.

Go Outdoors The Race- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMESB4sMuvo

Out of the three adverts, I feel like the second advert Go Outdoors May 2015 worked the best. This advert felt more professional and that more thought had gone into the production process than the other two. Though the other adverts are funny, they feel like throw aways, something on TV that you're not really watching. The second advert was trying to accomplish more in the way It really wanted you to connect with the people and the experience of going outdoors, I feel like audiences would have followed this advert more than the others. It was filmed and shot really nice, so it looked great to watch and seemed quite engaging in watching these people enjoy what outdoor experience they were having.

Filmmaking- ASA Rules and Guidelines

The Advertising Standards Authority or ASA,  are a organisation in the United Kingdom that regulate the intentions and content in advertisements, by following their Code of Advertising Practice (CAP). The ASA considers over 30,000 complaints each year on around 20,000 adverts, if the advert is found to be in breach of CAP, then it is to be withdrawn by the advertiser. The ASA are very strong and have a lot of influence in this industry, which is why we need to make sure we're up to code with everything appearing in our 30 second commercials. CAP have two published documents with rules and regulations for advertising, one is called 'The CAP Code'  which is The UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing. The second is 'The BCAP Code' which is The UK Code of Broadcast Advertising. Now our 30 second commercials are entering a film competition so they won't be broadcast on television in the UK, but they're been filmed with the purpose and intention of been a television advert, so it's best we follow both set of advertising standards.

Both set of standards are very similar but the 'The BCAP Code' offers a wider range of sections and rules due to it been broadcasted on television.

You can find 'The BCAP Code' at this link here:

https://www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/~/media/Files/CAP/Codes%20BCAP%20pdf/The%20BCAP%20Code.ashx

You can find 'The CAP Code' at this link here:

https://www.cap.org.uk/Advertising-Codes/~/media/Files/CAP/Codes%20CAP%20pdf/The%20CAP%20Code.ashx

It states under the compliance section of 'The BCAP Code' "The overarching principles of this Code are that advertisements should not mislead or cause serious or widespread offence or harm, especially to children or the vulnerable." This is a main regulation to keep in mind because your advertisement will be flagged instantly if it breaches this. It may seem like a very obvious and easy rule to follow, but if your advert tells a story or features any works of fiction, then it may be easier to confuse or mislead audiences about your product than you thought.

During our brainstorming session for various different ideas for adverts, many of them would possibly have breached 3.12 - Advertisements must not mislead by exaggerating the capability or performance of a product or service. Many of the Scunci Instatwist ideas that floated around the room, may have been stopped due to this code. Harm and Offence is a category that is very easy to cross and many adverts have been pulled because of it. Although you are mainly targeting towards your target audience, you must be aware that many other people will view this too and you must be aware about the people who can get access to it and not to offend them.

Many of the later categories don't seem to affect what we're advertising or come into how were advertising it, such as Alcohol, Medicines, Distance Selling and Political and Controversial Matters. We seem to be following the codes and standards very well to this point, due to the nature of our advert which centres around family, it is likely to receive less complaints than say one of our other adverts we're making, the Scunci sex toy ad, which because of it's implying imagery and content, you may have a few complaints. The CAP website actually offers advice and gives notes on how to follow the advertising standards, it has it's own AdviceOnline database which you can search to make sure you're not using anything incorrectly in your advertisement.

Filmmaking- Location Scout (Guisborough Forest and Walkway)

Two separate shots in the 30 second advert take place in a forest, a short camping scene and walking through the forest with kids shot. I tried to think of a place we would be able to film and get permission for near me and my first thought was Guisborough Forest and Walkway. It's quite a large area of forest with many different paths so there are plenty of places to film, It has its own car park so we will be able to access it and move equipment from there. I visited Guisborough Forest recently to see if it's what we need for the shoot and had a quick look around to see if we would be able to accomplish what we want for the advert. There are plenty of places for us to get the walking through a forest shot, with there been hundreds of trees always around, at the time I was visiting around 3pm-4pm, it was very empty with hardly any visitors around which is good for filming.

My main concern was trying to find a place to set up a few tents and achieve this camping shot. On my way out I noticed a small field/picnic area behind the visitors office that has amble of space to set up tents and make it look like camping. Also in the background is a lovely view of the hills and more forestry so I thought this would be a perfect area to film. I asked some of the employees about filming in the area but the person who could help authorise it wasn't around, I left my details with them and they gave me a number for the Pickering Office, whose permission I would also need if I was to film here.

These a few pictures I took of areas I feel would be great to film at for the certain shots. I'm hoping to be granted permission to film here in the next few days when I enquire more about the permission.

Both areas give the potential to show off the bright colours in the location. They are very bright and strong greens all over, and If the weather keeps up, they're pleasant blues in the sky which contrast well with the greens.

Depending on the hours we film here, there is a visitors office which is open with a cafe and toilets for our cast and crew. There is a car park but it charges so we need to make sure we have enough change for all the cars. This location isn't too far from another one of our locations, Carlton Bank so it may benefit it us to try and film on the same day while were in the area.

Filmmaking- Location Scout (Summerhill)

Continuing our location scouting, the next location to find was a place where we could film a climbing scene, with a rock or boulder of some sort. My initial location research had places like Brimham Rocks and Twisleton Scar for this shot, but before locations are quite a distance away and would be unnecessary to transport everything that far when they're a locations nearer. A fellow student John Hartill suggested Summerhill Country Park which is located right here in Hartlepool, it contains an area of the park called the Boulder Park with multiple climbing boulders that would be perfect for our shot. I recently went and visited the Boulder Park and take numerous pictures to help understand how it might be best to shoot it.

In the original treatment, the idea was for the woman to make it to the top of what she's climbing and find an engagement ring in a box, having the man propose to her there and then, but some of these boulders are just unrealistic and unsafe to have our actors climb to the top of, we also wouldn't be able to get our equipment up there to film the shot anyway. Since viewing Summerhill I've decided it might be better to have her find the box inside one of the holes/grooves you put your hand in to climb up. This way she can find it immediately and turn around in surprise when he's down on one knee behind her.

The day I visited was quite bright and shows the boulders in a great light, this is how I'd hope the weather will be like for the actually shoot. As you can see the boulders are quite large and are quite isolated away from each other and other objects which is good so we have less to worry about in the surroundings and background.

There is an obvious healthy and safety assessment to be done here to make sure all members and crew are safe around the area, and make sure none of the actors actually attempt to climb, only make it seem like they're about to climb.

On my out of the park, I spoke to someone in the
office about the project were doing and the hope to film at the boulders. He seemed very okay with it and said it shouldn't be a problem as long as we don't film any of the public, he gave me an E-Mail and I offered and agreed to give him a weeks notice for the shoot and have him sign a location release form when we have a specific date for the shoot. So it appears Summerhill is one of our definite places to shoot and which is fantastic due to it being fantastically close and exactly what we want for the film.

Filmmaking- Location Scout (Carlton Bank)

I've begun looking for locations to shoot our Go Outdoors commercial, and have started visiting certain ones to see how much potential they have for the shoot. An important part of the production is where the two kids climb a hill of some kind together. Due to some of the difficulties of filming this with equipment and such, I've been looking for the best way to do this shot. Recently I went out and visited Carlton Bank,  a hill in the Cleveland Hills on Carlton Moor. This hill has a great view looking out over Cleveland and looks all the way out to the sea, you can also view Roseberry Topping and other hills and greenery and if you catch the weather on a good day, you can get an amazing view. It is also an easy place to access as you can drive to the very top, making carrying out equipment a lot easier. This location would either result in changing the script to make it look like they bike up to Carlton Bank or we just film them walking around the greenery up there making the audience assume they walked up.

I managed to take many pictures up there so I would have a better understand of what shots I could get and what views I could take advantage off. Also the pictures give my crew a better understanding of the visuals of the shoot and where we will be filming. Glenn, who is the cameraman will be able to understand better how to film and capture certain shots from looking at these images. As you can see the view stretches quite far and you can fit an awful lot of scenery into frame and if we manage to get a day where the sky is clear, you'll have a contrast in colours to show off on the 16mm.


Other than the main view looking out, there also other attractions and views around Carlton Bank as well. As you can see to the right, there is a collection of boulders/rocks which might be interesting to work into the commercial, maybe having the kids hide behind them and chase each other around.







There are also other hills around and behind Carlton Bank that could work there way into the background of certain shots to maybe add that extra layer to the shot, to have something to build up a nice composition in the frame. Underneath is a picture of the area you walk through to get to the view, its a nice little area to maybe show people walking through the gate with some hills in the background, and has also been used for helicopters to land on which maybe interesting if we catch on film.


 

I really like this location and think it will be perfect for the shots we need if we can just manage to organise it on a day where the weather is nice. With the place been easy to access by car we can drive to to it without carrying the heavy equipment, it has an eating area if the shot has a scheduled lunch and also has on site toilets for all crew and actors for when they need them.

Visual Culture- The Rhetoric of the Image

This weeks visual culture lecture was called The Rhetoric of the Image, and focused on semiotics and realism. It dealt with the idea of constructs and the difference between reality and reality in photographs, the perception of what we think is real, this is what a realist takes for granted as reality. There is a graphic to represent what makes up a sign and how we view it.

The signifier is the word or sound that gives the meaning, and the signified is what is evoked in the mind, the concept that you can see mentally. This is all visual symbolism, a photo of a smoking pipe was shown and the room was asked what it was, the reply was a pipe when in fact its a picture of a smoking pipe, not the actual thing itself. The lecture was quite good as it was all about finding new meaning within art and objects and it's inspiring to try and give your own work new meanings and find new ways to symbolise them.

In our second lecture with our film tutor, we went more into the film aspect of this and discussed French New Wave Cinema, as well as British New Wave Cinema. These were new styles that were created to go against the typical studio produced film, as they had no studio funding and embraced youth. This was around the 1950's which saw the birth of television which saw parents and adults staying in watch the TV while the younger generation went out more to the cinema, the youth had a greater say at what should be played and viewed at cinemas. Main films we focused on was Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, along with A Taste of Honey. These were two films we took a look at to get the idea of the style and the content at the time. The whole new wave cinema style was about new trends and making statements and you could tell that by the topics they're tackling, many followed a domestic/relationship theme and appeared almost episodic.

Filmmaking- Developed Treatment and Crews

After pitching our treatments and ideas the first time, a certain few of the best ideas were told to develop them and come back next week with more information and more problems solved for production. The best ones will then be green lit to start producing for the Kodak Commercial Awards. I went away and thought more about my treatment and about how possible it is and isn't to accomplish. It's on a very large scale and needs a lot of work to accomplish it, I started by rewriting the treatment and focusing on some more details. The revised treatment can be found below:

Go Outdoors Treatment

‘Go Together, Go Outdoors’

7-11 year old boy finds a new bike in his garage with a bow on it.  The boy instantly takes the bike out on to the street and begins riding it. He notices a girl his age riding a bike all by herself as well, and decides to go join her. The two are seeing having fun and getting on.

Cut to the two kids walking up a hill of some kind (Roseberry Topping, example) they are seen helping each other make it up. Once they make it to the top, they share their first kiss.  Next cut to the kids grown up a bit, they are now teenagers camping with friends in a forest, all-hanging around a bonfire having a laugh. Now in there 20’s, the couple are climbing a rock of some kind and once the woman makes it to the top before the man, she finds a box with an engagement ring it and he proposes.

Now a married couple, the two are seeing hiking through a forest, when the camera reveals two small kids behind them, showing the couple now has children of their own. Cut to the mother and her daughter horse riding and then the father and his son fishing out on a lake.

Go Outdoors Logo fades on to screen.

‘Go Together, Go Outdoors’.

After the treatment I began looking into locations where each scene could be filmed, and looked closely at props and clothes which would be needed for the actors and the scene. I got in contact with Go Outdoors at Stockton and I'm awaiting and E-Mail with a response. All these documents can be found on the VLE. 

After pitching all this research and writing, the project was given the green light and a production crew to help make it possible.

Producers- Simon Douglas/ Dan Whalen 

Director- Mikey Barker

Sound- Dan Whalen

Camera- Glenn Wilkinson 

Editor- Steven Brown

  

Intro to SR3 - ARRI Film Camera

For filming our Kodak commercials, this year we will be using the ARRI SR3 film camera to capture all our shots. We have previously used the ARRI SR2 last year when filming parts of our Me, myself and I's but more recently our course has got their hands on the SR3. We were given a tech dem on the SR3, pointing out any differences and similarities between this and the previous camera. All the lenses from the SR2 will be used on the SR3 and it comes with two batteries, which unfortunately don't last as long as the SR2, due to the fact it's practically powering a digital camera because of the viewfinder and video assist attached. The video assist can be found on the right side of the camera, this is to stop the film door from unexpectedly opening.

There are three main control buttons on the left marked:

Mode- Scrolls through the different modes on the camera (Black Button) 

Select- To choose a specific mode you want (Blue Button)

Set- To confirm that specific mode and lock it in (Blue Button)

A red light can be seen at the back of the camera to signify the camera is speeding up and changes to a green light when the camera is at speed for filming. I paid a lot of attention to the tech dem so I could try and understand which shots the SR3 can capture best and if any of my shots might become jeopardised from using it. I'm not the camera man on any of the shoots this time around but it's best to pay attention for any future shoots and so I can communicate to the camera man so we both understand the technical side of the filming.    

Visual Culture- Colour Theory

Visual Culture this week focused on the idea of Colour Theory, also it's representation within art and as well as the world. In our more focused lecture we went more into topics such as colonialism which then followed into discussions on slavery and ownership over cultures. Colour in films is a huge talking point, it has such an impact on how we subconsciously feel and think about certain images were seeing, weather its a complete overkill of colours and a lack thereof, were always influenced by them.

Many a times colour has being used as symbolism in films, to suggest or imply certain actions or meanings to characters and objects in the frame. When were thinking of making films, colour should not be something we skip over, theres so much choice with it coming to different colour filters or using different film stock to get a new interesting look, this is an important part of pre-production. This is the first week out of four where we will be basing one of the topics from the first four weeks to be our final piece for the lesson. I'm still undecided on what I want to do for this piece but I'm thinking of different ways I can produce something that plays to my strengths but stands out and doesn't look effortless. I'm hoping maybe I'll be more inspired by the upcoming lectures and might give me a better context or better material to produce something with.

Filmmaking- Pitching Treatments (Kodak Commercial Awards)

After coming up with and producing our treatments for the Kodak Commercial Awards, we were to pitch them on Monday 28th September to our tutors to see which ideas have potential and need to be developed. When roughly writing down my ideas, I had two ideas for the Think! campaign, one idea for Go Outdoors and one idea for Scunci. When it came to pitching I only pitched my strongest idea for the Think! campaign and my only idea for Go Outdoors. I wasn't confident in my Scunci idea so decided to leave it out and focus on my strongest and favourite pitches. 

My first pitch was for the Think! Campaign and the basic premise was about a cast and crew getting ready to film a commercial about people using their phones in the streets and being careless. The director tells the actor what he wants and then yells action to start filming. The actors real phone goes off causing the crew to halt filming and moan, the actor walks off screen but is still hooked up to microphone so we can hear him texting and talking. From the crews reactions we know he's walked onto the road and from the sound we hear him being hit by a car. The director believes this to be acting and was the perfect shot, not realising whats happened. The screen cuts to black and we hear an ambulance coming from the distance. I tried to be original as I could with this and wanted it to stand out amongst the other great ideas. The reactions and responses from the tutors and my classmates seemed positive and I am to further develop this idea and merge it with Drew and John, who have similar ideas.

My second pitch was for Go Outdoors, the idea for this didn't come to me until a day before the pitch so I wrote a quick and rough treatment to pitch on the day. The basic idea is that it's a love story between two kids and shows their relationship growing through their shared love for the outdoors. From having their first kiss to them getting married and having kids of their own, while incorporating all the great activities and hobbies Go Outdoors supplies for like, Camping, Hiking, Cycling and Climbing. This idea seemed to go over quite well with my classmates and the tutor, and might be the chosen for the actually commercial if I can develop it more and provide the right amount of research and work to back it up. 

Overall I feel the pitches were a success and there and many of my friends pitches such as Drew, John and Glenn were really good as well and I would love to help develop their ideas as well. If we manage to narrow down which ideas have the best potential and develop them in the right amount of time, we should hopefully finish with some interesting and quality commercials for the awards.  

Filmmaking- Rough Treatments (Kodak Commercial Awards)

Kodak Commercial Awards Ideas-

Think! Campaign-

A man is walking down the street on his phone and he stops in the middle of the street to watch a video, he puts his earphones in and starts playing the video, from over the shoulder we can see the video is of people walking around the street doing nothing and the sound is very ambience of that. We then cut to a front shot of the man looking down at his phone and loud action music starts to play and action starts happening all around him, such as two men having an epic sword fight, a policemen chasing an escaped convict, parkour stunts and flips, a Mexican stand off. Very exaggerated over the top movie clichés happening all around him.

The man then takes out his earphones and all the loud music and action stops and is very much like what he was watching on his screen of people just walking around. He puts the earphones back in and start watching the same video and the world around him changes back into action, with bank robbers running out into a getaway car and zombies roaming all over the place and the second a zombie gets close to him and almost bites him, he takes the earphones out and a normal man bumps into him. The man looks confused and puts his phone in his pocket and walks away.

The screen will read something like ‘Missing out? The real world has no pause button’ and then the Think! Logo.

Another idea where the commercial is a film crew getting ready to film a commercial about awareness while using your phone is the streets. The crew is all ready to film and the director is talking to the actor, going through everything that will be happening in this scene. The actor is supposed to be walking down the road on his phone and forget to look when crossing the road in get in an accident. The director then moves behind the camera and yells action! The actors real phone goes off and he pulls it out and apologizes for it and asks if they can cut, he starts reading a text and laughs and says he’ll be one minute just got to text his friend back, the crew all moans and the actor walks off camera, his microphone is still working so we can hear him laughing and talking to himself as he steps out onto the road. We can hear the crew asking what’s he doing, and does he know where he’s going? We hear a car brake really loud and a thud from where the actor has been hit. The crew all screams in shock and we hear the director yell Cut! That was perfect! Tony that was brilliant you damn method actor. The director turns to the cameraman and asks if we got it? The cameraman says he thinks we missed it and the director shouts damn it! We’re going again! From the top Tony… Tony? The screen cuts to black and we hear someone ask to call an ambulance and the director saying, those damn method actors.

Go Outdoors-

Young boy gets a brand new bike and starts riding it down his street and starts to make friends with all these other boys who have bikes also and they ride them around the streets and town until he meets this girl riding by herself on a bike, he starts to ride with her and then it cuts to them walking through a forest and up a hill (Roseberry Topping) and they have their first kiss. Then we cut to them older in teenage years going camping with friends, all hanging out around a bonfire. Then climbing a rock with a wedding ring at the top and he proposes to her. Then the two of them walking through a forest and the camera shows two kids walking behind them, now they’re married and have children, one boy and one girl. The girl having horse riding lessons with her mom and then end on a shot of the boy fishing with his dad.   End line- Go Together. Go Outdoors

Scunci UK-

Commercial about two women, one who is using the Scunci InstaTwist and one who isn’t.  Shows a bunch of scenarios where the one who isn’t using it is late for a lot of things that the one who is using it, is on time for. Showing her turn up late for work while the other woman made it on time with her perfectly braided her. Late for the bus home while the other woman is already on the bus as it pulls away. Late for the cinema and runs everyone’s experience while the other is sat at the back enjoying it. Late for a restaurant so she has to cue outside while the other is already in there eating. Until she finally has a break down. The woman goes outside and gives her the instatwist and tells her to keep it.

Don’t lose your head, Stay ahead with the Scunci InstaTwist.

Filmmaking- Kodak Commercial Awards (Briefs)

This year for part of our filmmaking assignment, my class will be entering the Kodak Commercial Awards. This is a 16mm film competition where a number of students from the UK compete to create the most creative and professional commercial following a brief. This year there a three different briefs from three different companies to create commercials for, at the minimum we need to do at least two commercials or we could even do all three, depending on time and quality.

The three briefs came in recently and each client is hugely different from the last. The first client is Scunci UK, they have a product called the Scunci InstaTwist that is an electronic hair tool that helps create braid effects. They are looking for a 30 second TVC that communicates the fun, cool nature of the brand and is aimed towards their audience of girls who are teenagers to early 20's. Upon first glance I was initially put of by this brief, but after been given time to think, this brief offers room for a lot of creativity and gives experience at working to a brief where I'm not the client and not making something for myself.

The second client is Go Outdoors, the UK's largest outdoor retailer for equipment used in camping, walking, cycling and climbing etc. They're looking for a commercial that is aimed towards anyone who enjoys The Great Outdoors and anyone who could or should as well. They want to communicate how fun and rewarding all these activities can be and that Go Outdoors is the place to get your professional equipment at great prices. It should be a confident, encouraging and fun commercial that shows all the important activities that Go Outdoors caters for. The first impression for this brief is that this will be a fun, outdoors shoot that will look great on camera, but looking further into it, many of the ideas for this are just so grand and epic and without any of the important equipment from Go Outdoors, it might just be too big for us to take on at the moment. I think weather or not Go Outdoors can supply us with equipment may make or break this commercial.

The third and final client for the commercial briefs is Think! the road safety campaign. Due to an article from The Daily Mail claiming pedestrian mobile phone injuries have doubled in the past five years, Think! want to make a film to make people stop and think about their behaviour when walking along streets looking at their phones. The audience for this is huge because everyone is guilty of doing this and although Think! want to get across the seriousness and the danger of this situation, they are also allowing room for comedy with how irritating this can be to over pavement users. The key is to show how dangerous this is or how much their missing out on by been sucked into their phones. The idea for this commercial is very open and allows for a lot of creativity, I'm drawn to the more comedy aspect of commercials and films so this helps me play to my strengths in many ways if I can find the right idea.

All three briefs offer the opportunity to make a creative and professional commercial and I'm so happy were been given the chance to maybe work on all of them. It very much comes down to which commercials can we make the best and execute with the highest quality. After we pitch ideas, this will become more clearer.  

Filmmaking- Film Initial Ideas

After just returning back from summer and starting level 5 on the Creative Film and TV Production course at university, the first lesson back with our new timetable is Filmmaking. With the two new pathways that were introduced we had the choice between Digital Production and Filmmaking, I choose Filmmaking and this first lesson was to just introduce us to our new briefs and what we should expect and what is to be expected from us this year. Once we understood what each brief entitled and what we would be producing, we were asked to just briefly right down some quick initial ideas for any films we might try to write or create this year. We then went round the table with everyone sharing one or a couple of their ideas to see which ones stood out and got the room talking about it. These are a few of my quick ideas I wrote down.

Film Initial Ideas-

TRASH- Trash is a short film about the broad stereotype that is trash. It explores how people are viewed and what it means to be trash, some people embrace the term trash such as punk rockstars and also filmmakers who create trashy movies (Johnny Rotten and John Waters). Trash can also be used as a demeaning term to make people feel bad, because of maybe the wear people dress or if they don't have a lot of money. Trash would follow the story of two students who have recently started education in either college of university, these students will be the opposite of each other. One student will have moved out and living somewhere and struggling to get by and have a job, whereas the second student will be continuing to live at home and not struggling or working thanks to their parents. The first student will be judged for what they wear and how they look whereas the second student will be favoured upon greatly due to having nicer and more socially acceptable clothes. Then the story will start to examine how they act and how they treat others and show how the first student is much more caring and appreciative to people and life whereas the second takes things for granted and treats people mean because he thinks he's better than them. The film will try to show as much as possible between these two characters and allow the audience to decide at the end on their own definition of Trash and which if either they think is classified as it.

Critics- Critics is more of a feature length film idea that revolves around these three critics who are best friends. A film critic, a restaurant critic and a hotel critic, who once a year schedule one amazing weekend a way together because their jobs happen to cross over. They use this to their advantage to get away from wives and girlfriends and get a free weekend a way at a fancy hotel, with an normally expensive but free meal at a high class restaurant and finished off with a movie premiere. The plot is still under construction cause there needs to be something happening throughout this weekend or something to go wrong but still undecided.

Untitled Journalist/Political Drama- A more recent idea I had follows a young journalist who receives a tip from a source that this business tycoon turning politician is laundering money out of his companies. The politician of course denies all claims and tells the journalist to stay away. The journalist begins investigating and manages to get records of the companies income and spending expenditures and sees the missing money been moved to an unknown account. He then takes this information to a established newspaper/ news company to see if they would be interested in the story, a second journalist sees interest in the story but knows he needs more evidence, he points the first journalist to a man who might be able to see who owns the account and where the money is going. It is discovered that the account has been used or draws similarities to an account used by a hitman and that the politician might be trying to assassinate someone. The journalist has to uncover weather this is true and who the target is before its too late.