Monday, 10 December 2012

Tuesday 13th November- New Location



I started today by presenting Lewis with the script for our 3 minute piece.  I wrote this up over the weekend mainly because I didn’t think I put enough input towards the work last week.  This was due to my involvement in Aaron’s assignment. Whilst I was writing this up I kept Lewis involved at all times asking him his opinion on any changes I may have thought of.

 I really enjoy writing up scripts and I think the concept of the idea we are trying to produce is a very interesting piece but for some reason I found it very difficult to write this script. I have added a concept to both of the main protagonists.  The original idea was all the way through the piece.  It would be their inner monologue telling us the story and their feelings but I thought it would be more effective if they both had two inner monologues. One being themselves and the other being the somewhat “Evil” side of them. The evil side has been created from the struggles in the characters past and that’s what makes them think and do certain things they wouldn’t want to do, but this voice convinces them it’s alright to do this.

For this to work I have made the voice in the character “Ryan’s” head more powerful. It has more of an influence on him because he has done something wrong and feels guilty. The main reason is because I think it shows more character development for “Lisa”. It shows how innocent she is and it relates to the final piece of dialogue.

When I presented it to Lewis I expected adjustment to the script because I thought it was missing some element, or the dialogue was wrong, or I went too far in certain elements of the narrative such as the reason why Lisa doesn’t like her father. However he was completely fine with the script and thought it caught all elements we had previously discussed.  I decided to ask another member of the course to look it over because I knew if the other member of the course had a problem with my script he would tell me about it but even he really liked it. Once he had finished reading the script, Lewis and I talked about potential actors and actresses for our piece. I like to believe we both have a firm idea of what our actors have to look like to make the piece more tangible. I have some ideas on who to ask but if they are willing to be involved is yet to be confirmed. Also, we discussed locations.  From going over the script we need to find the following locations to proceed on with development;


  • ·         House (Lisa)
  • ·         House (Ryan)
  • ·         Cemetery
  • ·         Isolated alleyway and street.


With the house location, depending on how much we want to reveal on the shooting day, we could potentially record at one location. We just have to take extra measure that we don’t have any continuity errors that ruin this.

I had to spend the rest of the day working with Aaron on his piece.  He had pitched on a new location for the shot. We were originally going to use my mother’s bedroom as the set, this was because it would have made it easier for my grandmother to get comfortable and get used to performing as I am working with her on her acting.  Also, what was good about this location was that it gave us enough room to gain many camera angles as it has a lot of lighting and fits with the character development of Rose being wealthy. 


Aaron explained that the reason he wanted to work at another location was because he didn’t think my mother’s room fitted Rose’s character.  It didn’t seem old fashioned and that the set will be a major selling point to the audience. He thought it would be more productive if we used a house where an elderly woman has lived for some time and he knew of a place. His mother’s aunty has recently passed away leaving the house to his parents who have given us permission to use it.


I did want to work with Lewis more on our assignment but I thought it would be best if I went with Aaron to reccy the location with him so if he made a final decision on using the location, I could give him my input. I asked Lewis if he could ask Jamie to review the script to gain his opinion and also produce a character description so that Jamie would understand who the characters are.

On arrival at the location I was a bit worried.  The house had pretty much nothing left in it. Just stuff that wasn’t deemed of any value and it was really cold. We had a look around the house but the only important room was the bedroom. At first glance I didn’t like the room at all.  It was too small and littered with random stuff. I thought it would be best to empty out the room first then work from there. 



Once we cleared the room out and started rearranging everything around I realised that it was a better location because it really adds to the realism of the situation. We did a lot of rearranging of the bed because we had to keep a constant thought on camera positioning, 180 degree rule and lighting. It also became apparent that Aaron and I had different images on where Mick was sitting and we had to have a discussion debating why he should sit where I thought.  It was mainly because it fitted in with the script for him to sit right next to Rose.

We mainly just structured the large objects of the room such as the bed, cabinet etc. The next time we go for a reccy we will put the finishing touches, setting the set with pictures and ornaments. 

 I must remember to bring a heater to the house as it is fairly cold and I don’t think that the actors/actresses would be comfortable working in that environment. Today was a productive day and I now feel even better about being a part of this production.

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