Films I made before University
Hey everyone!
I wanted to start off by saying that I have fooled you with the thumbnail for this blog post. Yes, that is a real still image that I took while I was filming something I made before University, but the film itself doesn't look like that. I made some mistake when I was exporting, and most of the film actually looks awful. When I first made this site, I put up a lot of content that was stuff I look back on now and.. Lets just say, I don't want it to be employer's first impression of my work.
I've recently started a new module all about the industry, and they encouraged us to have a solid online presence to attract work. So, I came back to the actual website part of this site (as since 2017 I've been using this as more of a blog than a place to actually advertise myself), and started re-designing the look of it. Upon doing this, I came across loads of films I made before I went to Uni. Some of them I made for my A-Level in Film Studies, but the bulk of them I made in my year out 2017-2018, while I was studying to re-sit my Ancient History. Still bonkers that Ancient History was the subject I had to re-sit to go off and do a Film Degree.
Anyway, all of these films (with the exception of one) are fiction. Although some of them really are not good, what's progression without looking back on some stuff with embarrassment? I'm proud I did these and was able to practice a little before studying film at a degree level, and I'm thankful to all the people that helped out with these films. Without them, this practice simply wouldn't have been possible.
So, without further ado, here's the films in chronological order! Lets start with the film I made in college... Note: links to all these clips are in the first images of each section!
Jeremy Wren
For film studies, we had to compare 2 films and then make a film that was somewhat inspired by them. I chose to compare the Coen Brother's 'Barton Fink' (1991) and 'Hail, Caesar!' (2016) and their presentation of Old Hollywood. Because both were about the filmmaking process, I wanted to apply their approach to a story about a delicate & over-worked British director: Jeremy Wren.
Jeremy Wren is clearly begrudgingly directing this film, and struggles to handle his crew, and goes home to reflect upon the situation. I had a crew of 8 people, and this project took around 8 hours: 2 afternoons doing the chapel scenes & a couple of hours doing the scenes of Jeremy heading home. This was the first time I'd directed more than 1 person, and it was really rough to find that sweet spot between being bossy and assertive. Again, though, great experience in that regard!
I've gotta criticise the fact that the camera lens was dirty on what was the best shot of the whole thing (the tracking shot following Chelsea, played my Samantha). Generally the faming on a lot of these shots are fairly solid, it's the fact that I was too ambitious and trying to do movements that I wasn't actually good enough at to do well at this stage. I really enjoyed this project honestly!
Rebirth
When I finished college and didn't get the grades I wanted to attend University right away, I was really keen to spend the free time I had away from my part-time job to make films. At the time, I wasn't dead set on if I wanted to be involved in documentaries or fiction, but my only experience was of fiction. So, I decided to write a script called 'Rebirth.'
I guess a synopsis of this film would be that a young woman works on her declining farm and begins to understand why she's alone. Being completely without dialogue, the idea was supposed to be that the audience would figure out that this was a post-apocalypse world where her parents had died, and she wanted to leave to figure out exact what happened. Morgan (their dead-name is credited for aspects of the narrative) and my dad were the ones that actually helped me iron out the details.
I think it was a maximum of 2 days of shooting, and Emily wasn't actually sick of me when it was done so that was a bonus. Looking back, I wish I'd used a tripod more - I think having a hand-held effect multiple times made it seem like there was someone actually with her and made her seem less alone.. The props, like the map & record of produce should have been easier to understand too. You can tell the numbers are going down between each report but the map especially is shot at mid-level at the closest, making it really hard to see.
Though, I've gotta give past me credit for using a hand-held POV shot, and I'm happy with the actual pacing of the film in terms of shot duration. The 'VEGAS' logo that keeps moving is pretty distracting though.. The woes of trying to edit with the free versions of software..
I learned a lot from this film. It was just awesome practice to figure out how to show things without having the actors speak them.. I find the script/storyboards I'll be sure to upload them!
Anne Lisbeth
Now this, is probably the most fun I've ever had on a film except from at FilmLab (blog post coming on that!)
Frankie and I both were taking a year out from Uni, and we wanted to do some kind of collaboration that allowed for both of us to practice the sorta thing we wanted to get into at Uni. They were hoping to go off and do Archeology and Sheffield (and got in!), so we had a few coffee dates were we brainstormed different ideas.. Eventually deciding for what we called 'The Scandinavian Project.'
This film, Anne Lisbeth, was the first instalment of the project (that as teenagers, we predictably did not complete). We wanted Frankie reading out the story of Anne Lisbeth, with me doing some visuals. You see this very unrealistic blood? That was a bucket of water with far too small of an amount of red food colouring in it. I had to splash Frankie with that twice. In the November cold.. Frankie, I am so sorry.
To be fair, it achieved the exact effect I wanted: Frankie looking insane.
But yeah, my criticisms of my past self for this are mostly
You should have continued this project.
Please, for the love of god, get better at colour correction.
Understand how to export videos better.
But seriously, what was going on in the exporting phase? If this is the quality of image I was working with in the edit, I don't understand exactly what I did to make the images themselves so bad.
Gotta give some credit to the fact that I was alright at showing a 'vessel' in a storm, despite not having access to a boat or sea. I should have given myself more time to find things that worked better as things to film, but I think the extreme close-ups of 'the boy' actually helped make him seem more sympathetic in the story. They do say the eyes are the window into the soul...
Hats and Things (ad)
My mum is a really talented designer, and studied Fashion at University before working in the industry. In the meantime, she knits various garments. At the time, she was trying out having a stall at different markets, thus I made this film to showcase some of the products she was going to be selling at a market in Lytham.
This certainly didn't take long to make, especially since it was a montage of still images. As you can tell, I just hung up towels/sheets behind my models that were contrasts/compliments to the colours of the hats. Took maybe 2 days to make, and I remember that we had to blu-tac the backdrops to the wardrobe for them to stay up (not great).
My piece of advise to my older self would have been to iron the damn sheets before you use them as backdrops! The colours are great but it's a very unprofessional background. The thing I've gotta give myself credit for if that the choice of fonts is actually really cute and eye-catching.
My hope with this project was to use it as a means to advertise that I could make little advertisements for those who wanted, and I intend to do some more of those in the future - this was great practice! My Sense of Place: Catpawchino isn't explicitly an advert but I certainly made it with the intention of making the café look appealing, so if you're interested to see how my advertising style has developed then it's worth checking that out!
The one documentary...
In March 2018, my cousin Jack invited me to film is ensemble, Propellor. My task was to interview them, talk to them about the project and their individual interests within it/how they came to be involved. I met some incredibly talented people that are always awesome to see on my timeline.
I had no clue what I was doing in terms of filming interviews or documentaries at all. The biggest crime of the whole thing is how awful the lighting & video quality are. I mean, what is this? It looks like someone rubbed dirt all over the camera.
I'm also 90% sure I didn't have a microphone for this, so the quality really just is not there.
I will admit, I do like the framing of a lot of most of the shots and the way the sound is used as a track underneath the interviews is quite nice. I remember getting up really early the next day to go down to the beach to take some shots of the ocean as b-roll which was great because I was able to take shots of things that I though, in some abstract way, would compliment what the musicians were saying (before I even knew you really needed b-roll, so well done 18-year-old me!).
Having the interviews take place in larger groups was actually really great because it meant that they started to ask each other questions that were more specifically related to the instruments/music in a way I wan't any where near as versed in, such as at around 5:00.
Luckily, I remember that Elly Lucas, their photographer, was able to give me insight into how ISO & white balancing worked. hen she changed the ISO of my DSLR I was genuinely amazed because I had no clue how to do that. Catch me throughout the rest of the trip fiddling about with that. Big thanks to Kay for blowing my mind that day! It was how I was able to actually get some nice still shots..
They're actually working on a new project, and there's a Kickstarter for them here they I'd really encourage you to donate to if you're at all able. The music they produced and performed while I was there was absolutely incredible, so if you have any spare money, it's going to an awesome project! Their website is here: propellorensemble.com and their latest Kickstarter is here: Propellor 'flight'.
This isn't a detail you need to know, but it was also another first: the first time I'd taken 3 trains!
That was that!
That actually brings me to the end of this post. I found it really nostalgic to look back at these films after 2-3 years.. I remember having so little confidence in the stuff I was making, but having so much fun making them - it makes me very grateful for the group work I've been able to do during my time at University that was just as fun. It's nice to see how I've changed & how much I've learned! I hope you enjoyed this post, and I hope that it makes you feel a bit better about any projects you made when you were younger and cringe at now. Do you have any tips for how I can improve on these projects in ways I haven't listed here? Do you have any films/projects that you made a few years ago that embarrass you? If you have any feedback please do comment below!
Once again, thanks - and see you in the next one!
