New film up: Jeremy Wren

Hello again!

I'm very excited to say that the film I made during my Film Studies A-Level coursework is finally up on YouTube! You can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN_JZi2eOZo

I absolutely loved working on this film. Although, recording individual type-writer sounds and pain-stakingly matching them to the text on the screen at the beginning was very time consuming! On a more positive note: I loved making it for 2 main reasons:

1. I made this as the Creative Realisation part of a project I did on the Coen Brothers. The important thing about our study project in Film Studies was that you had to be interested in whatever you chose to research, but it had to be something you didn't know loads about. So, for me, the Coen Brothers were perfect because Barton Fink (Joel Coen, 1991) is my favourite film, and I really enjoyed Hail! Caesar (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2016) because it had such a grand scale. My project was the Coen's 'Post-Modernist representation of Old Hollywood,' so my short film is full of references to both Hail! Caesar and Barton Fink, and the shot-styles are inspired by their auteur signature.

'Elizabeth'/'Chelsea' is a reference to Scarlett Johansson's 'DeeAnna' in Hail! Caesar, in the same way 'William'/'The Vicar' is an actor version of Mr Lipnick in Barton Fink. 'Detective Charlston' is a reference to Barton Fink's LAPD cops, and last, but certainly not least, 'Jeremy Wren' is an English homage to Barton in Barton Fink. Additionally, I loved the way the Coen Brothers drew the audience in with Hail! Caesar, and swept you up in the magic of the Golden Age of Hollywood - but simultaneously questioned just how true the image of 40s/50s Hollywood was to the reality of 40s/50s Hollywood. In Barton Fink we are, again, swept up into 'Golden Hollywood' - just as Barton is. So much so that you, and Barton, never quite know when he's gone mad. I tried to capture the idea of being 'swept up' at 1:21, when the camera tracks Chelsea's transition from the world of Period Drama (my English version of The Golden Age of Hollywood) in a 'sweeping' motion. Further, I tried to capture the Coen's cinematographic signature of tunnel shots by tracking back from Jeremy Wren's hands at 1:18. Perhaps I shouldn't go into too much detail here as to the theory behind Jeremy Wren, not so much because "a magician never reveals their secrets" but because I may write another blog post on this idea of 'The Coen Brother's Post-Modernist representation of Old Hollywood' inspired by my A-Level project.

2. It gave me the opportunity to work with a bigger crew. So far as I know, I had the biggest cast and crew of my year-group for this film! Previously to this, I had only worked on films with, at most, two other people. I was always the sole camera-operator and boom-mic operator too before this, but on Jeremy Wren I had two other camera-operators who worked on different occasions, and six actors, all directed by me. Plus, we had to book out the college Chapel 3 times as a location. Further, I even had to DIY a police badge for Detective Charlston, who the actor now gets to keep! It was a great experience, and taught me a lot about how to communicate what you really want from your crew.

Annoyingly, a lot of it is out of shot.

I owe a lot to the cast and crew of Jeremy Wren. They took the time out of their own busy college schedules, some even doing film or media coursework themselves, for free. So again, thank you all

Thank you very much for reading,

Blink Whiskers