The audition process took us quite a while, we had about 20-25 girls come in to audition for the roles of Megan and Jessica.
And a few men come in for the role of Charles.
Originally I wasn't meant to have any part in it. Why would I? In the words of our producer "no need to have lots of people there gawking at them", so as for some reason on the project I became the "printer guy", I came in early to print off the posters and place them up though the uni pointing the actors to where they were meant to go (which thankfully worked).
I was ready to go home when I asked to stay to be the line-reader opposite them... for the entire day.
So here I am, no acting experience, not prepared and tired. But I did as I was asked and tried my best. Tried being the best word, how actors are able to remember their lines is beyond me, still after three days I couldn't remember the scene.
I felt pretty bad about it, I was the impression the actors were getting of our group, as I looked down nervously on the paper accidentally reading their lines.
Of course I was able to see actors first-hand doing their thing.
One tried to hug me, of which I got confused and another started crying. Of course she wasn't actually crying, she was just acting in the scene. But I got scared real fast as I thought I did something wrong and caused it. It would be a typical me thing to do.
Most the actors were between 12 and 16, although one walked in and was tiny, as in smaller than my waist line, she was seven years old. She was able to remember her lines.
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Blog #8 - No wonder films are expense
I am a new(ish) driver.
Being told I had to drive hours wasn't great for me, not at all. Driving into Melbourne was chaos, finding a park in Melbourne was chaos and driving through Melbourne was chaos (although I did find a whole new appreciation for good radio).
But put aside the torturing uncomfortable nature that I had to be the one with the SUV and couldn't go home as I couldn't drive it in a night, the cost was something all new as well.
Petrol, that one night in a motel, Food on the way. Normally my costs are the Myki card and the $3 coffee's at 7/11.
But now I had to pay for petrol, parking spots, a lot more food, accommodation and all of this isn't including the $150 something I must of overall put into the project in either direct or buying props.
Of course ours was the cheapest possible film we could do, no wonder that big films cost stupid amounts of money.
Being told I had to drive hours wasn't great for me, not at all. Driving into Melbourne was chaos, finding a park in Melbourne was chaos and driving through Melbourne was chaos (although I did find a whole new appreciation for good radio).
But put aside the torturing uncomfortable nature that I had to be the one with the SUV and couldn't go home as I couldn't drive it in a night, the cost was something all new as well.
Petrol, that one night in a motel, Food on the way. Normally my costs are the Myki card and the $3 coffee's at 7/11.
But now I had to pay for petrol, parking spots, a lot more food, accommodation and all of this isn't including the $150 something I must of overall put into the project in either direct or buying props.
Of course ours was the cheapest possible film we could do, no wonder that big films cost stupid amounts of money.
Blog #7 - Comm Link
"Communication is key", a phrase I have heard many times in my life and communication was a subject that came up quite a bit through production.
At first it was simply a matter of all getting to class on time, but it went beyond that quickly.
The biggest issue faced was not being totally honest with each-other about our handling on a subject. For example, telling our producer "yes" in response to his questions when we didn't actually know or weren't sure we could do it.
The other was saying we would have a task done by deadlines, but not or getting things told to us. I was pretty good at writing everything down in a notebook, but the problem became I had two notebooks and not much organisation inside them.
Being able to stay in contact was another one.
Email was the largest way on a grand and personal scale. Early on our producer requested that we all respond to his emails so he wasn't left in the dark and that we all use email.
I don't think I have used my phone (as a phone) as much as in the last trimester, texting and calling a lot more than I normally do.
Facebook was good early on, but lost a lot of its use later when texting was more guaranteed a response.
At first it was simply a matter of all getting to class on time, but it went beyond that quickly.
The biggest issue faced was not being totally honest with each-other about our handling on a subject. For example, telling our producer "yes" in response to his questions when we didn't actually know or weren't sure we could do it.
The other was saying we would have a task done by deadlines, but not or getting things told to us. I was pretty good at writing everything down in a notebook, but the problem became I had two notebooks and not much organisation inside them.
Being able to stay in contact was another one.
Email was the largest way on a grand and personal scale. Early on our producer requested that we all respond to his emails so he wasn't left in the dark and that we all use email.
I don't think I have used my phone (as a phone) as much as in the last trimester, texting and calling a lot more than I normally do.
Facebook was good early on, but lost a lot of its use later when texting was more guaranteed a response.
Blog #6 Editing
Editing is something I thought I was good at, well I am pretty decent at the technical side of things, but one area I have found to be lacking in is the “Feel” of being an editor.
I guess I just think about things in a different ways, some people are good at breaking down a scene, getting all the metaphors, subtext, ect out of it, while I just try to enjoy things. So when it comes to editing, it seems my gut instinct isn’t quite what everybody is looking for all the time.
Pacing, feels and looking at things a grand scheme of things is something I need to take into more consideration in future, but I think management as well.
Calling the editing process of Ritual ‘non-liner’ is a understatement, instead of importing all the files into neat folders within Premier from the start, I pretty much just dragged in the files I liked from the master folder and imported them in that way. Which works fine enough on Windows, but since in the editing bay I am forced onto the awful nature of Mac, it isn’t as simple because if you struggle with making a mouse which double-clicks, everything else is a mountain to climb for an operating system.
But I do know that in future I will manage the folders better, import all the audio at once into their own folder, all the video and other assets to be placed into their own neat section.
But I think the biggest thing I have figured out is that I should sync the boom audio to the footage straight away, while I did the typical Mark thing of cutting the vision first then adding the (good) audio later on. Which was not the best thing to do.
I guess I just think about things in a different ways, some people are good at breaking down a scene, getting all the metaphors, subtext, ect out of it, while I just try to enjoy things. So when it comes to editing, it seems my gut instinct isn’t quite what everybody is looking for all the time.
Pacing, feels and looking at things a grand scheme of things is something I need to take into more consideration in future, but I think management as well.
Calling the editing process of Ritual ‘non-liner’ is a understatement, instead of importing all the files into neat folders within Premier from the start, I pretty much just dragged in the files I liked from the master folder and imported them in that way. Which works fine enough on Windows, but since in the editing bay I am forced onto the awful nature of Mac, it isn’t as simple because if you struggle with making a mouse which double-clicks, everything else is a mountain to climb for an operating system.
But I do know that in future I will manage the folders better, import all the audio at once into their own folder, all the video and other assets to be placed into their own neat section.
But I think the biggest thing I have figured out is that I should sync the boom audio to the footage straight away, while I did the typical Mark thing of cutting the vision first then adding the (good) audio later on. Which was not the best thing to do.
Blog #5 Audio
Audio makes or breaks things, it’s an annoying fact of things.
If you go onto YouTube it’s common to find that people will deal with low quality visuals, but the one thing people cannot stand, is bad audio.
Audio in many ways has a far profounder effect on the brain that images do, audio changes the tone, mood and everything about the piece.
This of course doesn’t just effect Film/TV, but every other medium from Video Games, Web and Live Production.
A great soundtrack can in specific stances can elevate a mediocre product into a great one, it can stick in such an iconic way.
Star Wars, Jaws, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park without the score of John Williams? They’d be totally different feeling films.
The thing is, I am not an audio student, in fact I know very little about the technical side of audio.
I know what I know and I like what I like, but I couldn’t play an instrument to save my life, let alone fix the background buzz of ducted heating, they’re proper wizards in their own way.
One advantage SAE does have over other places is that all the students are dumped together in the same building, this can be annoying when the audio people play sick-beats which shake the whole building or that every computer is a Mac (when if you’re doing games, Mac is like worse than a Windows 95), but one plus side of it is that you’re able to find people who know their stuff about areas you haven’t a clue.
Nobody in my ground, myself very much included is audio minded or skilled, however thanks to a crewing night we were able to get two very talented audio students who have been invaluable. Not only are they just two good people, but without their stuff we’d be boned.
See the camera’s in-built audio is just hot-trash, it doesn’t sound good and it seems in our case in a bunch of cases the audio just doesn’t exist.
The boom mic just sounds far better.
Now that we’re into post-production, things going to get a lot better. With proper mixing and balancing of the audio from the people who actually know what they’re doing (when while I am an editor, my effect on audio isn’t great).
This of course isn’t at all mentioning the score which is also being done for us, now that’s neat.
So audio folks, some people might diss at you, but really we need you a lot more than you need us.
You can make music without film, but you cannot make film without audio in most cases.
If you go onto YouTube it’s common to find that people will deal with low quality visuals, but the one thing people cannot stand, is bad audio.
Audio in many ways has a far profounder effect on the brain that images do, audio changes the tone, mood and everything about the piece.
This of course doesn’t just effect Film/TV, but every other medium from Video Games, Web and Live Production.
A great soundtrack can in specific stances can elevate a mediocre product into a great one, it can stick in such an iconic way.
Star Wars, Jaws, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park without the score of John Williams? They’d be totally different feeling films.
The thing is, I am not an audio student, in fact I know very little about the technical side of audio.
I know what I know and I like what I like, but I couldn’t play an instrument to save my life, let alone fix the background buzz of ducted heating, they’re proper wizards in their own way.
One advantage SAE does have over other places is that all the students are dumped together in the same building, this can be annoying when the audio people play sick-beats which shake the whole building or that every computer is a Mac (when if you’re doing games, Mac is like worse than a Windows 95), but one plus side of it is that you’re able to find people who know their stuff about areas you haven’t a clue.
Nobody in my ground, myself very much included is audio minded or skilled, however thanks to a crewing night we were able to get two very talented audio students who have been invaluable. Not only are they just two good people, but without their stuff we’d be boned.
See the camera’s in-built audio is just hot-trash, it doesn’t sound good and it seems in our case in a bunch of cases the audio just doesn’t exist.
The boom mic just sounds far better.
Now that we’re into post-production, things going to get a lot better. With proper mixing and balancing of the audio from the people who actually know what they’re doing (when while I am an editor, my effect on audio isn’t great).
This of course isn’t at all mentioning the score which is also being done for us, now that’s neat.
So audio folks, some people might diss at you, but really we need you a lot more than you need us.
You can make music without film, but you cannot make film without audio in most cases.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Blog #4 Of Teenagers and Goats
The script stars two girls, one 12 the other 14. The actors playing them are 13 and 15 respectively.
At first we were under the impression that we all needed Working with Children's Cards, which seemed simple enough at the time.
The process is quite simple, you fill out the details on the website, print our the form, take it to the local post office with some ID to prove it's you, they spend it off, do a police check and then bang you get it.
At least that is provided the Post Office likes your photo, they didn't like mine. See I got my photo taken at the Kodak shop because they get better photos than the Post Office does, the lady at the photo shop has a bit of plastic which shows how big the photo is meant to be in the frame for the ID, the exact same big of plastic is in the post-office. The problem was the two different ladies each had their own interpretation of the SAME government-issued guide. So that was a thing, thankfully they did finally spend it off.
Being that I have no criminal history, I got approved quite quickly and got my card.
But other members of my group not so lucky, oh don't worry none of them done anything bad. Just that they took a very long time process their cards for some reason.
Although while we were stressing out about the other crew members outside our core group (i.e. audio), Child Services told us that only one personal actually needs it to be a supervisor... and that person can be the parent who doesn't even need a card. That would have saved us a lot of trouble!
Still I have the card for 5 years, so I cannot complain, might come in handy if I ever decide to become a Lifeguard or something.
Child Services themselves are interesting, while we all know why they exist, they can get a bit strung up about certain things.
See I don't really care about someones age, I am very much of the opinion that one shouldn't be judged for their age and that many age-based laws are nanny-state nonsense (I have a lot of opinions about things), but the things they talked about just confused me.
At first we couldn't have our youngest (who let me remind you is 13, a teenager, not a young kid), couldn't be near a goat because apparently goats a wild beasts who cannot be unleashed.
Although now they say it's cool as long as she isn't holding it.
Oh and the themes might be too spooky for her or whatever. Let me tell you, I hope child services never goes to read the type of fan-fiction actual tweens/teens write themselves, they'll need to really re-think how they view that age-group.
At first we were under the impression that we all needed Working with Children's Cards, which seemed simple enough at the time.
The process is quite simple, you fill out the details on the website, print our the form, take it to the local post office with some ID to prove it's you, they spend it off, do a police check and then bang you get it.
At least that is provided the Post Office likes your photo, they didn't like mine. See I got my photo taken at the Kodak shop because they get better photos than the Post Office does, the lady at the photo shop has a bit of plastic which shows how big the photo is meant to be in the frame for the ID, the exact same big of plastic is in the post-office. The problem was the two different ladies each had their own interpretation of the SAME government-issued guide. So that was a thing, thankfully they did finally spend it off.
Being that I have no criminal history, I got approved quite quickly and got my card.
But other members of my group not so lucky, oh don't worry none of them done anything bad. Just that they took a very long time process their cards for some reason.
Although while we were stressing out about the other crew members outside our core group (i.e. audio), Child Services told us that only one personal actually needs it to be a supervisor... and that person can be the parent who doesn't even need a card. That would have saved us a lot of trouble!
Still I have the card for 5 years, so I cannot complain, might come in handy if I ever decide to become a Lifeguard or something.
Child Services themselves are interesting, while we all know why they exist, they can get a bit strung up about certain things.
See I don't really care about someones age, I am very much of the opinion that one shouldn't be judged for their age and that many age-based laws are nanny-state nonsense (I have a lot of opinions about things), but the things they talked about just confused me.
At first we couldn't have our youngest (who let me remind you is 13, a teenager, not a young kid), couldn't be near a goat because apparently goats a wild beasts who cannot be unleashed.
Although now they say it's cool as long as she isn't holding it.
Oh and the themes might be too spooky for her or whatever. Let me tell you, I hope child services never goes to read the type of fan-fiction actual tweens/teens write themselves, they'll need to really re-think how they view that age-group.
Blog #3 - Location, Location, Location
Attempting to find locations for the film proved quite hard.
We looked at a place called Kirth Kilm, however being a public area it meant that other members of the public could be camping there or just walk though, with no way to stop them or close the area off.
Not to mention having to go through Parks Victoria would be a nightmare, submitting the files our producer never really got an answer back from them and aspects like the goat could never work.
Also there would be a lack of power, toilets and not really any real way to feed or keep warm our crew and more importantly our cast. Child services would not be pleased.
I was personally sent to inquire about Treetops scout park, however as we thought we found a location I was asked to not bother going after it, in hindsight maybe that was a mistake as we could have used the location and it might have been quite ideal with power and shelter. Not to mention perfect for me as I am very close to it, while every other location is like a three hour drive for me and I hate driving, along with the fact I am made to carry the gear because I have the SUV.
Regardless after much faffing around looking at locations, we settled on two places.
The first being the house of the family friends of our Production Manager, the house was perfect visually and some of front areas proved quite useful.
The second location is the neighbor property of our director, quite handy and there's a goat nearby.
But the drive for me personally is utter hell. The one thing I will be glad once this shoot is over is that I don't have to drive for a long time. Because SAE lacks a proper car-park of sorts, parking in Melbourne is hell and attempting to pick-up/drop-off gear becomes more of headache than it really should.
We looked at a place called Kirth Kilm, however being a public area it meant that other members of the public could be camping there or just walk though, with no way to stop them or close the area off.
Not to mention having to go through Parks Victoria would be a nightmare, submitting the files our producer never really got an answer back from them and aspects like the goat could never work.
Also there would be a lack of power, toilets and not really any real way to feed or keep warm our crew and more importantly our cast. Child services would not be pleased.
I was personally sent to inquire about Treetops scout park, however as we thought we found a location I was asked to not bother going after it, in hindsight maybe that was a mistake as we could have used the location and it might have been quite ideal with power and shelter. Not to mention perfect for me as I am very close to it, while every other location is like a three hour drive for me and I hate driving, along with the fact I am made to carry the gear because I have the SUV.
Regardless after much faffing around looking at locations, we settled on two places.
The first being the house of the family friends of our Production Manager, the house was perfect visually and some of front areas proved quite useful.
The second location is the neighbor property of our director, quite handy and there's a goat nearby.
But the drive for me personally is utter hell. The one thing I will be glad once this shoot is over is that I don't have to drive for a long time. Because SAE lacks a proper car-park of sorts, parking in Melbourne is hell and attempting to pick-up/drop-off gear becomes more of headache than it really should.
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