Me as a filmaker

Well, all I can say is WOW..... I cant tell you how much I have learnt this semester, in class and out of class working with some really talented people in all different ways. I have learnt how its not a huge un-managable task to make a film, Where I have been involved before in 10 man crews with noone really knowing what they are doing, here i have worked and created a pretty good film, single handedly. Mostly I have learnt that there are no restrictions when making a film, there isnt a need for any sort of reasoning for it, or storyline, or ideal presentation, film is an art that is reachable, befre when looking at 'film-art' I saw it as somehting beautiful, but completly unreachable, where as now I am learning that as long as you have the ideas you can create something. I think without a doubt as it is in my theatre world, my style is always going to be experimental, sticking to confines and boundaries are boring I want to break what people expect me to do, it might take some time, but I am pretty sure that I could and have made some pretty Kick ass Films!

I think the main thing I learnt in this class, is about what I want to do in Film next year when I finish my degree!!! I have always known that i wanted to be a theatre director at some point in my life, and have done a lot of work in that field. But was very confused when thinking about how and what I would love to do in Film, and thats being a producer, I know that I have a long way to go at the moment and there is a lot more for me to learn, but I really love everything thats involved in the process. Yer I might not be the person that gets the control on creativity, but writing production schedule, making sure everyone is actually doing there job, looking at shot lists and idnetifying any problems that may be involved with shooting, is what I am apparently good at. So this classs has taught me a lot!!!

I am really sad that I wasnt able to come to Jengos play house, but prior commitments meant that I couldnt get there at all, I wish i could have just said screw the play, but I just couldnt let that many people down! once again I am really sorry guys that I missed our screening, but I just wanted t say it was a pleasure working with all of you, and I would really really enjoy working with you again, so let me know if you need any hands next semester!

Film Festivals

So sending in my films to a film festival is kinda daunting. Mostly because I dont think I'd ever know if my film is good enough to be entered, but I guess the only way to know is to send them in. I think the most important thing about sending films into a festival is sending them into the right one. I could send a short film everywhere and not get it shown, and so i think what I am going to try to do is go to as many festivals as possible. To be honeset I wasn't aware there were so many Festivals out there, that I really should be going to or at least trying to watch some of the films entered. I think it seems that they do consider every type of film and so it would be cool, if i could try and make something that is really unklikely to be shown, perhaps try to film one of the theatre productions on campus, and make a mvie out of it and send it in to a festival! well thats been something i wanted to do for ages, but I still think it would be really really fun!!! so that is my next plan! I think Festivals are great, and soooo much fun! I would be really worried that i would be turned away from every festival i applied to and that would be pretty upsetting, so thats probably my main concern. other than that its just having the balls to say well heres my movie.... you should put it in your festival!

So Thats my plan sending of a film to festivals next year!

Excert from my paper!

I learnt a lot about the right and wrong way to infuse film and dance, some of the film-dance pieces just really didn’t work, they would have been great as two separate things but there needs to be that connection between stage and screen, and some of the earlier ‘number’s’ really didn’t have that connection, and some were just a little bit boring. The first number, ‘Runner’s World’ Choreographer: Anne Firmender, Filmmaker: Dylan Patterson, unfortunately really didn’t give me much hope for the rest of the programme, and therefore it stood out to me. The film was simply of a man in his ‘running gear,’ on a green screen jogging, as the background behind him changed, the dance was then based on this same idea of dancers in their, ‘running gear’ using movements clearly inspired by a race or people jogging. It was pretty boring and ineffective, obviously there was a connection between stage and screen but the screen was so simple you needed to look at the dancers, the 6 girls running across the stage perhaps with various leaps thrown in. It was just very simple and uninventive. This automatically lowered my expectations for the rest of the piece, “simple films with simple movements,” but I was wrong the films and dance just got better from that point forward with interaction between screen and dancers, correlation between colors and lines of dancers, as well as a narrative that ran both on screen and live in the theatre, which although a little dramatic was really great and was what I had expected.
The dance and film that really grabbed my attention was ‘Confusion’ Choreographer: Jennifer Raine Kostel, Filmmaker: Matt Maloy was brilliant. Both the dance and film were superb separately and so when put together they created new meaning that wouldn’t have been seen alone. The Dance was a solo performed by the choreographer; the film was set through a forest as the subject- a women who looked very similar to the dancer herself- took photographs of wildlife and the surrounding areas. The dance was a very powerful contemporary piece, the choreography mimicked the images on screen, and the positioning was perfect. At times the emotion on screen opposed the emotion of the dancer, which worked perfectly as it gave a new depth to the film, as an image of the women smiling and laughing came on screen, the dancer would rock and move to a lower consoling position giving a sense of lost to the film, which would otherwise have not been there. The piece was beautiful, full of hidden meaning, and inspiring, I would love to create an installation with that much depth sometime in the future, I feel that to do that I must show a connection between what’s on screen and the dance, not obvious but hidden, and give the audience that moment to see that connection and understand what it is trying to show.

Cucalorus..

So now its official, I have decided to write my experimental part of the paper on Danc-a-lorus... pretty obvious why ... I LVOE DANCE!! and to see it intertwined with film is just ganna be great, kinda my aim somewhere along the line of the future! Im excited to see what they do with that, whether it is films abotu dance, and then with live dance, or maybe just complete experimental film, with simple lines and colours put together with live performance, almost like an installation?
either way i'm pretty sure Its going to be very very interesting.

On the other hand of feature length movie... I'm going to watch alot of them and so I ahve no idea which one I'll do my paper on yet, because I havent really had a chance to know much about them yet so we shall see.

but Precious: based on the novel, calvin marshall and TiMer are movies that I think seem really interesting, and so I reckon I'll probably write up about one of those but I'm not sure I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I've also signed up for the stop by shoot thingy and that sounds like alot of fun so im looking forward to that, it will be cool to take home something for the reel you know?

so yer this week is going to be crazy!!!! kinda scared as its going to be so busy ... but it should be fun!

Dance-a-thon

I meant to say... that even at first glance, I will without a doubt be watching Dance-A-Lorus, It sounds amazing, and if anyone wants to go but isnt really sure what to do or if there'll enjoy it , Go!!! This is what i really want to do!!!! create Physical theatre, -dance and theatre together, and use film to create this three tierd art piece!!! ahhh im sooo excited to see this!


O and also "trust us this is all made up" I havent heard of them before which shocks me, I like to keep up with my theatre scene! but this sounds brilliant, will be very interesting to watch, I might just go and try and catch them live if i can!

Cucalorus...

ahhhhh I can't decide....

As soon as i came back from getting my pass I went straight online to try adn figre out what i wanted to watch, and tbh there is far tooo much too choose from, I dont know how I'll choose, but I'm really excited to see alot of the films that are up for offer...

So I guess ill write another blog, once I have a more defined choice!

our shoot...

All i can say is... "well done Guys" It went soo well, we came across as really proffesional, and the band are really excited to see the results, so good job.

It was pretty hard because we were dealing with extras, a band and all sorts of drama in that sense. But we were really organised, we made sure we had refreshments for everyone, and had planned everything out so that it could be a simple shoot. Also because we had such all our shots organised when we go there, we were able to bash out every shot needed meaningwe didnt run behind schedule-----tooo much haha!

I think everyone did their roles superbly, and we worked reall well as a team, we did have like a hundred production meetings before hand so hopefully they would have paid off.

Hopefully when we get everything edited and completed we are going to have a really good professional film that we can enter into alot of festivals, well thats the plan anyway!

The only thing im worried about now in post, is that we ave alot of footage we bought another three cartridges and so i think there maybe a few disaggreements as to whats shots we use, But Im sure well get through that and keep the video tio wihtin the time frame!!!


Just want to say thanks alot to you guys, Will, Alex and Brian... it was a really fun shoot and i think we did AWESOME!!
haha o yer and not forgetting Darion for his superb extra-ing and all that jazz!!!