As soon as I heard a part of the second year involved doing a similar residential trip to the one we did in the first year (where we went to Berlin and half of us made a documentary, the other half made a drama) I started thinking of several base ideas which I can elaborate on over a period of time depending on how I am feeling about each project. I started originally with some ideas, these were;
Initial Ideas
Pick Up Crime
Tagline - It's a love to die for.
Logline - A romantic, dark comedy set around the relationship between a serial killing hitchhiker and a serial killer who specifically targets hitchhikers.
I had imagined that the film would look like an episode of 'Inside No.9' (Inside No.9, 2014). The idea of finding comedy in darker themes was something that I thought would work with this type of story. It would be an entertaining film to write a script for as it doesn't directly need jokes for the comedy. The situation is where the comedy lies. In such unnecessarily bad set of coincidences of course there would be moments of entertainment. In this short, there is no damsel in distress, no coffee shop in which eyes meet. It's two serial killers who end up agreeing with each other on the 'mutually assured destruction' idea.
It starts off when an old, beaten up car pulls over in an isolated country road in the middle of the night. The cars lights being the only thing illuminating the narrow road. The hitchhiker lowers her thumb and picks up her heavy duty back pack of the dusty ground. The passenger door swings open further up with a little bit of rubbish falling out the car to the ground below. She walks up to the car and enters the car to be greeted by a very awkward man gripping the wheel looking straight forward. They start talking about where the girl was heading. After a while they discover that both of them are concealing weapons. This is where I had gotten to in the story before directing my attention to the other idea so I hadn't really thought of how I was going to end it. I would've probably gone down the route of the relationship not working out. There would be moments where it could've gone either way but ultimately, due to them being each others target demographic (not in a love sense, more in a killing sense), they would think it would be better if nothing didn't happen.
Why this idea; I think the minimal requirements for this film would really help with sticking to an almost non-existent budget. Being a student film, I was fully aware I couldn't make the next step in heavily CGI orientated cinema but that's good because I don't want to. That's not what I like about film. I heavily preference films that look more to character development and a story that is more grounded. I'm not saying that these things are mutually exclusive from CGI film. I just feel like when a production company doesn't have to worry about the budget and time that is required to this type of film then more time can be allocated to other things. This is where my idea comes in handy. If I keep most of the film 'basic' which this idea will allow then , then the project won't go on past hand in which ultimately what this whole thing is about. Working to a schedule to create a good quality which I, myself, is also trying to get better at.
Why not this idea; This idea probably wouldn't be the best for me. I want to get better at writing scripts and as I'm only in the early stages of doing that, I didn't want to risk it to much with this brief as it won't just be me messing it up for myself. I would've impacted everyone else as the whole class is having a role in it. To be clear, this isn't me saying I don't want to take risks with film as I know that's how you learn in the industry but I felt I could take the risk in my own time where other people's grade isn't at risk. This film would have been almost all been dialogue as it was about the development around these two characters. Dialogue between characters is something I'm constantly looking to improve on as, when I write scripts, the characters end up being quite similar to each other in the sense of how they act and talk like. Of course, this can be prevented by making the protagonists very different. This could be in a problem in this idea as the characters are naturally quite similar to each other, that's the overarching joke.
Long Distance Groove Buddies (The Original One)
Tagline - A long distance friendship has never felt closer / Be yourself they said while having a narrow idea of what 'yourself' can be.
Logline - Angered at the suppression of individuality, *insert characters name* must escape to somewhere that'll allow him to be himself.
That '(The Original One)' that hangs off the edge of the title like the bus on the edge of the cliff at the end of the Italian Job (Peter Collinson, 1969) does look odd, especially as the idea that was pitched was also called Long Distance Groove Buddies. So why is it there? It's there because originally the idea was something completely different. The original idea was semi-inspired by the film True Stories (True Stories, 1986), the 'Where The Wild Things Are' book (Maurice Sendak, 1963) and the song 'Pursuit of Happiness' (Kid CuDi, 2009). Wow, what an odd collection of inspirations, what was the actual idea about you are probably asking yourself/me?
The idea revolved around the main character having to deal with living in a super conservative community. It was going to be very clear from the beginning that he had already been vilified by the rest of the village. I had not decided on the exact reason why but it was going to be about him 'being in touch with his feminine side', to put it vaguely and that was not going to be allowed in this strictly traditional town with very narrow views on what it was to be a man. This whole negative view on life was going to be emphasised by the father character. A person who had also been brought up in a similar way to the rest of community and therefore wanted to instil the same values onto his child so that he would also conform to the same way of living as that's what he believes is right as he does not know any different. Of course, with the son being different there is going to be conflict not only with the rest of the village, but also conflict within the home. The father wanting to do what he believes is right and the son feeling claustrophobic in his own house. When these types of feelings are experienced, the son will find ways of trying to be himself. The film would feature many eccentric dream sequences where he would go to be the version that he wasn't allowed to be in real life. This where the term 'Long Distance Groove Buddy' comes in. This version of the son would feel so distance, given his real life circumstances, and yet every time he would 'visit' this true version of him he would feel untold amounts of joy as it was such a freeing feeling. This is where the 'eccentricity' would come from. Without the shackles of normal life, he would be able to be himself to the full extent. It was an opportunity to experiment and experience a free life that doesn't feature the persecution from narrow minded people.
The film was going to feature themes of toxic masculinity, being at piece with yourself and nature vs nurture. All this was going to be tackled by certain characters or events/actions. The dream sequences were going to represent the 'ideal self', the town was going to be a literal metaphor for the so called traditional values which will always be there to keep you in line. I think all of these topics are something that should be talked about in this type of media as it's only being recently that these type of things have been talked as before they were more of a silent issue. I'm not saying that making this will suddenly open a floodgate, I'm more trying to get the point across that it can be cathartic to talk about these themes/topics for the self.
Why this idea; Pretty much to extend from the previous paragraph in that it would be an interesting film to make as it does express these issues in an unorthodox way, the dream sequences. I always will find it intriguing when a point is being made in not a way you have experienced before. The dream sequences themselves would be something very interesting to plan and have ideas for as, in the same experience for the son, there wouldn't be boundaries. Whoever is reading this can go to this dream sequence. Put on 'Shangri-La' (The Kinks, 1969), close your eyes and just imagine a place where everything is groovy. Here, you can be the person you were always told not to be due to race, gender, sexual preference or anything else.
Why not this idea; As the brief had said, the idea was to be presented to a professional panel. As I was aware of this, I felt that they might not pick the idea as it was kind of 'out there'. I wanted to present a film idea as clear as possible and I believe this is an idea that would work better if I just went off and made it with a few people rather than trying to get it approved by other people to be able to make it. It's weird that the part in which I felt the project was the strongest could also be it's own downfall in terms of being a presentable 'package'. Of course that would partly be on my own ability to get across the idea fully across in which I have plenty of time to get better at. So it's less of a self-inflicted criticism and more of a target I can aim for in the future.
So how did I get from ↑ to everything you'll read after this section ?
Like I said near the end of the the previous section, I felt like I needed to have an idea that was going to be easier to correspond to the panel. The film should also have a mixture of both dialogue, to work on my script writing ability, and 'action', to balance everything out. To be clear, when I say 'action', I mean more visual ways of explaining certain developments.
But, if you've read the 'Pitch' tab before reading this, then you are aware that whatever I thought of, happened to be picked. This idea was Long Distance Groove Buddies (again). I had this new idea during a lunch time when I was way to committed to describing someone having an idea as 'the D.V.D screen saver logo hitting the corner' of a person's brain. That's where Kenny came in, the protagonist of my new film idea. His name coming from well-known music producer 'Kenny Beats'. Furthermore, like I will talk about in what I had watched in research for the film, I had been watching a lot of kids orientated films, such as Lilo & Stitch (Lilo & Stitch, 2002) to look how a friendship can be developed over the runtime of a film. This is how I came up with the idea for Nat, who changed to a Nate and then back to a Nat even after that. The point being that 'Nat' could've been any gender as that wasn't important to the character (and also allowed us to open up the role to more people), I had thought of Nat as the 'Lilo' type character. They were there to be the connection between Kenny's world and the 'real world'. The father character had come from the original Long Distance Groove Buddies. He was going to act as the conflict between where Kenny starts and where/wants to be.
So now I've got the 'spectrum' of characters. But now I need a storyline. I had recently purchased two little trollies that you can put stuff like stationary in them. I had also been playing 'The Moon Song' by Beabadoobee on repeat. This was and is still one of my favourite songs so and with it being about space I just linked the two ideas. The film just went off from there. The story was going to be about Kenny building a rocket out of a trolley, Nat was going to assist Kenny as she see's the plan as an opportunity to 'be a kid' again.
Pre-Production
I like to imagine that the production of Long Distance Groove Buddies embodies the themes of what the actual film is about. In the same vein that Kenny had to build the trolley out of items he had found around the village of Beer. We had made the film by utilising our own skills rather than going to someone external and paying them to help. A prime example of this is the trolley itself. I had sourced a place in Swindon that were selling trolleys on the cheap. I had then given it to Rich, our props-man, who had done a fantastic job in turning it into a makeshift rocket. The fact that someone in our class had made it, has a really positive impact on how the production went as we had a sense of ownership over the trolley.
The Script Writing
Long Distance Groove Buddies was directed and written by me. The writing process was always going to be difficult as I had to start from scratch with the narrative. There were also added pressure due to a lot of people in the crew needing the script to carry out their job (such as 1st AD for the script breakdown and D.O.P for the shot list). If we were to do this whole project again, I would start a bit earlier on the script so I couldrefine the more dialogue-heavy scenes. However, I was pretty happy with the rest of the script, especially the final scene. I liked the similarities with the first scene, I wrote it this way to emphasize that not everything is meant to work out, even if it is a movie. But it was never really about if the rocket was actually going to the moon, because it clearly wasn’t (it’s a trolley), it’s more of the belief that the two main characters have in the trolley. It might sound cliché or whatever but that’s what it’s genuinely about. This outlook on the film is semi-inspired by films such as Stand By Me (Stand By Me, 1987) and Young Offenders (Young Offenders, The, 2018) where the goal of the story is revealed very early on and takes a back seat to focus on the development of the characters.
The directing side of this film was massively helped because of Liv Pierce, the D.O.P. She really understood what I was looking for in this film and really carried the project from the visual side of it. Even though sometimes I would suggest some real daft ideas (ask her about the rapid zooms), she grounded a lot of those ideas and offered viable solutions and I’m really happy with outcome. During the planning stage, if we got to a part in the script which we both knew how to shoot it but couldn’t explain it to others so we got a DSLR and went out to film it so we could explain it that way. (see below)
Another way in which we helped each other explain the vision we had for the film is that we watched loads of films before leaving for Beer. We had watched several films that were targeted towards children, such as Monsters Inc (Monsters Inc., 2002) and Lilo and Stich to look into how films, like the previously stated, developed friendships over the course of their runtime. They showed that staggering the development of the two main characters relationship with each. For example, having the initial contact between Nat and Kenny not be great. Instead, showing intrigue rather than friendship. This will allowed the film to have a more natural progression in how the two view each other.
I also showed Liv Moonrise Kingdom (Moonrise Kingdom, 2012). The aesthetic of that film was something that inspired me to write Long Distance Groove Buddies. The composition of the shots, with a heavy focus on symmetry was something I thought would complement the shot ratio really well. I had the idea that the film should be in 4:3 for several reasons. The first, is that I wanted to attempt to recreate the feeling that you get from looking back on old childhood videos. The tighter frame can invoke feelings of nostalgia as old VHS tapes normally had the same aspect ratio. Secondarily, the contrast between 4:3 (Long Distance Groove Buddies) and 1.85:1 (a very common aspect ratio in films) will make this film have a more personal perception between the audience and the characters. Having less dead space around the characters means that there is little opportunity for the audience’s eye to ‘wander’ so the focus will always be on the characters.
Above is an example of the 4:3 ratio being used in film. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
Props and Costume (and a trip to Swindon)
Something that we had to look at was the props and costumes that were going to be used for the film. The two most important items for the film was going to be the trolley (obviously) and the 'astronaut' costume. I will explain the process for each thing individually;
Trolley - The trolley was the prop that the film was going to based around. It was Kenny's method of escaping real life and it was how Nat was going to meet Kenny and their friendship blossom. Therefore, we had to get it right for the film. When I had pitched the idea, the most difficult part was trying to locate a place that was selling/renting trolleys for an affordable price. This had been a problem as I had found out that trolleys seemed to be worth more than organs and I was fully aware I couldn't pitch the idea of just getting one from a nearby Tesco's for a pound to the panel. Eventually, I had found a shop on Ebay that was selling them for £36 (see slide 10 on the pitch) . Which I was fully prepared to put my own money towards it, as it was my idea to feature a trolley in the film. It was crucial that we got the trolley as early as possible for many reasons; the first being that securing a crucial bit of prop would save me stressing about it later on. the second reason was that the earlier we get one, the earlier Rich can start to experiment with how it was going to look.
As you can see from the fact that the project was filmed and the above pictures that a trip to Swindon did take place and the trolleys were acquired. The first thing you might notice is that we purchased two trolleys, I had agreed with the group that if we had two of them we could 'decorate' one of them and keep the other blank. This would save a lot of time when we actually got to Beer as Rich at the beginning of the week could build the rocket, store it somewhere safe where the parts wouldn't get damaged and we would use the spare in the scenes where the rocket hadn't been made yet but the trolley had been acquired. This spare trolley would also come in handy with transporting the filming equipment around the village as well up and down the almost vertical slalom we called the road to where our hostel was situated. I would like to draw your attention the exhibit 1, the two trolleys hanging out the back of Josh's (producer and sound). The whole journey was a stressful one as we had to go to Swindon. Getting to the actual trolley place (it was literally a place that just sold trolleys in a business estate), we had realised that even though me and Josh were avid Tetris players there was no way we could wiggle the two into the boot to make them fit. Now may I introduce exhibit 2, a picture of the trolley's in the boot of Josh's car with a very handsome face in the bottom right corner of the picture. We had negotiated with the place about getting the smaller option (we made sure someone could fit into it) and hightailed it back to Loxton Campus before it closed but not before we took a crucial stop at a drive-through subway (I know right A DRIVE THROUGH SUBWAY).
When talking to Rich about what I was looking for in the trolley, I had given him a brief idea that I wanted it to be made out of stuff that anyone could get there hands on. In the film, Kenny wasn't going to be an aerospace engineer, he was just going to be an ordinary person that wanted to be himself. I wanted the rocket to look really homemade in the sense that the audience wasn't going to question where a certain part of it came from or whatever. I knew I could trust Rich with doing a good job with the trolley, he was and is super inventive with sourcing props. I had given him the opportunity to make it any way he wanted. Another thing I wanted out of the trolley was for it to be comfortable for the person who was going to end up sitting in it. The primary purpose for trolleys is not to be sent to the moon so it's not built for comfort. You got to keep the talent happy and if that means purchasing some extra pillows for the trolley then that is perfectly fine.
Astronaut outfit - This was the other important prop for the film as I had imagined some sort of grand reveal of the trolley, all decorated, while Kenny walks out in slow motion as if it was from a space film (this would act as almost a parody of them type of films). To keep in theme with the rest of the film, I had told Tabitha (Costume) to make the whole outfit deliberately 'amateur'. I had shown Tab screenshots from the music video 'If You Pray Right' by BROCKHAMPTON (BROCKHAMPTON, 2019). In it they wear these types of shiny-silver boiler suits. I thought this had the perfect type of look for Long Distance Groove Buddies that I wanted. I had asked her to find something similar to them and also to research actual space suits so we can see what stands out about them and see if we could make something similar in our own style.
Certain insignia was something that really stood out and I felt having badges over the suit would be a nice touch to the whole thing. Just something little that we could add to the film that makes things seem less one dimensional. Of course the outfit wasn't just complete at the suit, we also had to find a helmet. This was an interesting task which most of the crew got in on as we had to find something that Kenny would be able to find around the village so no 'actual' space helmet or a replica one. It all had to have that homemade feeling to it. We had settled on a white, open face helmet which Tab did a really good job of painting the 'NASA' emblem onto either side.
After reading the previous segments, it would seem that the costs were adding up relative to our budget (of nothing). A lot of outgoings while nothing coming in would be an awful business model so we had the idea to raise a small bit of capital through an impromptu cake sale. This was something everyone on the crew could attribute to so it felt more like a group effort to the whole project and pretty much everyone did. In hindsight, however, we didn't account for vegans and people who are lactose intolerant. As most (almost 80% of all the cakes) were homemade, we could've designated someone/people to accommodate these peoples needs. The cake sale had been set up in a prime area, the entrance to the cafeteria, and I felt that it was a great success. Raising £47 be the end of the day. It was such a good idea, in fact, that the photography class also had a cake sale roughly a month later. The money raised there was put back into the project for the props and the decorations for the trolley. We delegated the job to keeping track of what people paid for what and how much everything cost to Leah who had made a clear excels spreadsheet of every transaction for the production.
The Test Run
Once I had written the script we had the idea of doing a run through of a scene from it. The purpose of this was to test certain areas of filming and find potential issues early on and hopefully address them. As I had previously mentioned, I had wanted the film in the aspect ratio 4:3. Of course the default setting on the camera was not that, so Lewis (Camera Operator) had the idea of putting a piece of tape either side on the cameras screen to replicate what it would look like with the desired ratio. We were rehearsing it in uni so we had settled on an inside scene of the film as we could use the furniture the uni had to offer in an attempt to replicate what we imagined it would look like in the film. Me and Liv had worked together to sketch up a story board for this particular scene (see below).
This was the first time I had gone through a scene with people and with everything set up. I'm not going to lie I felt really out of depth while directing it. It felt that everything came down to me as it did and it was super uncomfortable the whole time. The idea that I had in my head was not translating well to what I was saying/describing. This was an issue as, even though it was a trail run of just one scene, it I didn't want to be in the same situation when it really did matter. This also happened to be the day that the trolleys had to be picked up so I had to leave early and therefore didn't have an opportunity to voice my concerns on the day. But the show must go on as they say. This was also the first time experimenting how to shoot the scene while cutting someones head off. No, that's not me attempting to rise up against the bourgeoisie. I had the idea that the face of the father character would never be shown. I had this idea as I didn't want it to be a 'father' issue. I didn't want to show it's a certain demographic halting a persons protest. I wanted it just to be a figure that the audience can put a face on, not necessarily their dad's. He just acts as a literal metaphor for the idea of someone who has been raised in a certain way so they don't know any other way. This is where Ross, one of our tutors came in, Ross is tall. Like Iron Giant tall (Iron Giant, The, 1999). This meant it would be so much easier to cut off his head as he would naturally be taller than most people.
Auditions and Actors/ress
This is a nice segway into talking about the process of getting actors/actresses for the Long Distance Groove Buddies. So like previously mentioned, Ross was going to play the dad. He had acted in previous residential films but only really as an extra. Nonetheless, this experience meant I felt comfortable having him play the father in it. This now meant I could focus on looking for people to take up the role for Kenny and Nat. We went about this by posting on social media about auditions for the film to see who was interested (see below)
-The first image is the poster made by Gui (editor) after Isobel (assistant sound) had added the extra details for people looking to put themselves forward
-I had made the character profiles to be attached to the post so people reading it could get a clear idea of what sort of role they would be applying for, hence why I added general appearance, characteristics, desires and drawbacks (The 2nd and 3rd image)
This seemed to have worked to moderate success as we were notified that we had people interested in the roles. We arranged a day to meet them all after sending them a copy of the script (and the scene we wanted see from them) and do staggered auditions throughout the day so once we had seen one we could discuss what we liked about them. I had decided that I didn't want all of the crew there, so it made sense to have only Leah and Josh.
On the day, we only had one audition for Nat. However, that person, Alice, was really good in her audition, she had shown key interest as she had talked about the reading through the whole script which was really nice to hear. For Kenny, we had 5 people audition for the role. However, 2 of them couldn't make the dates for the residential and the other one we auditioned the day after. This was when we met Sean. Sean was the only person to ask for a prop (some coins as it was a scene that took place in a shop) during his performance. Something about that to me made him slightly edge out the other person we had on that day. I had decided for everyone to do the same scene as it would make the process standardised. This would make it easier to compare peoples performance. The person on the day after was still good but again Sean slightly edged him out as well.
*I do have the footage from this day of the peoples auditions, but due to the virus I am unable to retrieve it from uni, but if I did have it, it would be right here*
I had come to the conclusion, with the help of Josh and Leah that Alice was going to play Nat and Sean was going to play Kenny. Well this was until we were meant to have a final meeting with them. On the way into uni I had received a message from Alice about being unable to be in the film. Meaning we had less than a week to find someone to replace her. I didn't feel the pressure of trying to find someone else until I had gotten into uni and Liv had asked something along the lines of if I was alright about having to find someone else in such a narrow time frame. Then it sunk in about the immediate challenge I was about to face. But, as you know, I'm writing this evaluation instead of talking about what could've happened if Long Distance Groove Buddies was made like some sort of 'the one that got away' type of story, we had managed to sort something out. By directly asking the performing arts section of Weston Uni, we were able to get an audition with Olivia from there and Mel (1st AD) had messaged her friend to see if she was able to make it for an audition the next day (we were that close to running out of time).
The fact that these auditions took place the day after is a massive credit to both of these people to be prepared like that. As Josh was unavailable at this time, Liv took his place which also explains why above this paragraph is the videos from their auditions and not an empty gap where my filming of the original auditions should be. I had preferred Olivia's audition as she had brought something different to the role. She had offered this range that I think would work really well for the character of Nat. You could say that if we had a contingency plan then there wouldn't be this manic rush to try and sort a replacement out but as a counterpoint to that, we might've not have found Olivia and that would be a real shame as I think she's a really good talent and can see her going on to do big things.
Music
Music plays a massive part in film and plays an even bigger part in student films. You've seen them films when they are unsure of what to put in it audio-wise so they play a song over the whole thing. I do this, sometimes a short film doesn't need someone speaking. But of course, when finding that song it has to hit the right note (see what I did there), we are taught to keep everything above board, be aware of trademarks and all that but sometimes you have made a film that just needs that certain song and all the royalty free music just isn't cutting it so to quote Super Hans 'The secret ingredient is crime' (Peep Show, 2004). But I couldn't do that with this film. If I were to submit Long Distance Groove Buddies to a competition, there would be a lot of problems as the criteria for the majority of competitions is that all music in the film has to be cleared. The first idea was to go to the music department and get them almost to compose a piece for the film. As we had not filmed it at this point, I started to work on a music mood board that was going to be sent over to that department so they can start to have an idea of the kind of thing I was looking for in this film (see below).
After watching the above video, hopefully you can see what I was looking for. I wanted the sort of calming, sweet music for the film. The IDLES CHANT (IDLES, 2015) obviously stands out but for good reason. This was the sort of tone I was going for when Nat finally agrees to start helping Kenny with the rocket. This was going to the point of rebellion and therefore required a song that was going to represent this departure from the path of normal life. As I was making the mood board, I was talking to my other tutor Rich. He had worked with local artist over his career and had helped make music videos with them (his children even featuring in a music video) I had asked him about if we were able to contact some of these artists and see if we could use a song from them in our film. Below are the messages between Rich and Tara Clerkin (left) and Rachel Dadd and ICHI (right).
Locations
After the brief was initially set, a day trip to Beer, Devon was due for our class. Now do note this was before any of us had any solid ideas for what we were going to pitch. The trip had been put on to inspire us for the brief. As I was so in the dark about what I was going to do, I had brought a camera and took photos of anything I could see (see pitch slide 12). To me, without an idea, it was just a seaside village so I had no real direction with what I wanted to look at. To be fair, we did get to have a look around the hostel that we would be staying at, however, the front room was blocked off (this will come back later).
I felt that I could've used my time more efficiently, so after we found out that Long Distance Groove Buddies had been picked to be the year 2 residential film I had organised a trip with just a few people to go down to Beer once again but this time with a purpose. I had chosen the following people for these reasons;
Josh - He can drive and is the producer on the film Liv - D.O.P and is great at photography Charlie - Director and fantastic taste in music for the car journey Amanda - As she wasn't part of our class, I would talk her through the settings and what sort of make up was needed for them.
This trip was much more worthwhile as we knew what and where we had to visit for the film. I knew I wanted to have a look at 3 locations, the hostel for some interior scenes, the village shop which would act as a key location in the film (it's where Nat works and where the two main characters first meet) and try to find a suitable hill for the scenes that start and end the film.
I had talked to Ross about contacting the hostel to see if they would allow just us 4 students to have a look around one more time and especially to look at the front room we were previously not allowed to enter as I thought we could use it for the scenes that are set inside Kenny's house. Unfortunately, the person was unable to get back to us in time so we were unable to have that much need extra look around. Second on the 'to-visit' list was the village shop. We had already been in contact with Deb, who ran the shop, about using it for a day's filming. I thought visiting her in person would be a professional move, as the only contact we had before was over email so her being able to put a face to a name. While we were there I explained what sort of time period we wanted to film for at the shop and to my surprise she said we could have the whole as long as the shop was still able to 'run'. This was great news as it was just another thing we didn't have to stress about when we got there. A stop start production would make the whole process so much longer than it needed to be and we were only going to be filming in Beer for a week. The final location I wanted to look at was to try to find a hill that was suitable for the film. If this was a dating show and I was looking for the perfect hill, the qualities I would be looking for would be; plenty of actual hill go down (size matters), nice & quiet (like previously mentioned, stopping and starting for external reasons will slow the days filming) and overall nice view (doesn't matter if it's a decent hill but you get a lovely view of the M5, that's not really what I'm going for in this film).
Week In Beer
After what must seem like an unnecessarily long pre-production, now comes the actual trip to Beer in which we actually filmed Long Distance Groove Buddies. To keep it clear, I am going to break it all up to separate days that we were there almost like a cute, little diary.
Monday
After all the previous mentioned preparation for the film, the time had actually come to film the thing. Me and Josh's Tetris abilities once again came into hand while loading the metric tonne of; props, food and people into their respective vehicles. Once we arrived at the hostel, one of the first things I did was have a look at the front room. To my surprise, it looked like a front room. This was alright but as it was a hostel it was a front room to accustom several people rather than the two that was needed for the film, so we did a bit of rearranging. We took a quick trip into the village to meet with Deb again to organise the best time to come down the next day to film before setting up for the first scene we were going to film.
This was going to be the first time I was going to be properly directing again, I had felt that uncomfortable feeling again as there was quite a lot of people in a closed environment and at the beginning it was hard to control people (even though I know that's the role of AD, sometimes it had just felt easier for me to do the job). However, as it went on I felt better and once the whole session had ended I just wanted to work more but people wanted to go to bed so we called it a day. We did have one more thing to do before bed and that was a crew meeting that was lead by Mel where she talked about the plan for tomorrow. Throughout this whole meeting, I had gone into my own universe not believing that this idea was being made before my eyes. It had come along way since what I talked about right at the beginning of this whole thing.
Tuesday
So after sleeping for a grand total of not much time at all we were out early to do the filming in the shop. This was a crucial day as it was the only place in which we had to ask permission to film at and therefore had to get everything, that was needed in the interior of the shop, filmed by the end of the day. The shop had worked quiet nicely once everything was set up. The inside area was in the shape of a 'L' which had worked well for us and the shop in terms of when a customer came in, we were in the other 'end' of the L. This helped speed up the stop start flow of production that we encountered in the shop. We were allowed to film and the shop was able to keep on running which was the best of both worlds. To keep Deb even happier, I had encouraged everyone to buy food & drink from the shop itself while onset. (11 students plus 4 actors all consistently hungry throughout the day adds up to a decent amount). This extra thing we did could help us later on in the week if we needed to go back and re shoot some shop scenes. Building this relationship with people of the town was essential, in my point of view. As I was aware, at some point later on in the week we had to get a gathering of golden oldies to act as extras for the final scene. If they deemed as us friendly people they were going to be much more approachable when the time came to ask them for help than if they viewed as nuisances. Overall, we had to be professional with the whole production.
The filming at the shop went quite smoothly, with the great help from Lewis and Liv, we had managed to glide through some early scenes. As the shop, itself, was quite small I had asked people who weren't required on set to not wait outside and they will be called in. I had learnt from previous sets that looking after the crew is essential (not leaving them in the cold, asking if they needed drink/food) and I did that. When Sean had been waiting outside I would ask him between takes if everything was all good. An issue I had realised was keeping track of the outfits for the different in film 'days' as that task, it seemed, came down to me which added more things to deal with. I wish I had passed the task onto someone else so I could focus on other things but alas I didn't. I was so used to working by myself I wasn't used to asking people to help me out. This is something I have to take forward into future projects that it's okay to ask for help when you needed it as either you don't know something or you need help as there is too much work for you to do.
In the afternoon, we had decided on doing a few smaller scenes as there are no exterior scenes during night time and we didn't have much sunlight left. This afternoon was a frustrating one as there was a communication issue with the people already in the village and the crew back at the hostel. We had organised where to meet but there was a misunderstanding with what the people had to bring from the hostel. Basically, we were ready to shoot but the crew from the hostel that had come from the hostel had only half the props that were needed (I remember a piece of Sean's outfit was something that was left behind) which definitely was an issue as it meant we couldn't do the scene we wanted. Some, won't name any names, of the crew wanted to move onto the next scene as we were ahead of schedule but I protested to them that all the extra time we have now will mean diddly squat later in the week when we have to do the scene I wanted to do on today [Tuesday] on a different day, I knew we weren't going to be able to fit it in. People had such a long lunch that if we didn't do a few scenes in the afternoon the it would have felt like a waste of a day. Said people didn't see it this way which didn't really make sense to me at all. So I told everyone we where going to do the scene, I had sent some crew to run back to the hostel (was like a 12+ minute journey walking) and we set up the shot. I feel like I had made the right decision here as if by magic as we were waiting a villager had walked past asking what we were doing and I explained what was going on and that we actually needed an extra for this particular scene. In the time it took to set things up and do a walk through with the extra, the crew that were sent back to the hostel had returned with the props needed for this scene.
That night I had a meeting with Amanda, Josh, Liv, Ross and Lewis. we had talked about what the exact plan was for the next day so we could work out how we were going to work during the day and see who was needed where and when. I can see this is a problem as we should've worked out way before the full plan of the week so we wouldn't be having such meetings. However, this meeting was essential as we had learned we did not have access the shed that was on the hostel's ground. This was a major blow as we had some scenes that were going to be filmed inside that particular shed (it was locked) so I had to think of alternate location. This is where the second recce trip turned out be really helpful. We had found a little park that overlooked the beach/sea. In said park, was a swing set in which I thought would be a really nice shot with Kenny and Nat swinging while looking out to sea. In this meeting I had also talked with Amanda about make up. I knew and still know absolutely nothing about make up so I left it up to her with how she did things but I had the idea for Nat to have space themed make up on her eyes as I would think that would like nice on camera and would add that extra edge to Nat's character.
After this meeting, some of us went to the pub.
Wednesday
Hopefully, by the end of reading this 'diary' you will realise I did this whole film on very little sleep. This made everything feel way more stressful than it had to be. Wednesday was no different. I knew we had to be leaving the hostel at 9ish to get up to a particular place in Beer but external forces making me wake up at around 6 while getting sleep that can only be described as 'intermittent' did not help. But at least I was prepared I guess. The location for the morning shoot was discovered when we had gone on the second recce and Josh ended up parking at the highest point in Beer for reasons only known to himself (I think he saw signs for a miniature railway and followed that). We had taken the coach up to the place as it would've required some herculean strength to haul all the stuff required to where it needed to be.
This scene was going to be the one where Nat films Kenny using the camcorder. It had seemed everyone had arrived in high spirits as getting the trolley over a chest high gate, just to realise that gate was open after we had got over it, didn't dampen the moral. I think this helped with the speed in which we went through the shots. As only some of the crew came with us, it took less time to set up, even allowing us to test out a drone. I later said that even though the drone footage was really nice, it wouldn't fit in with the rest of the film. I had talked previously about how keeping the talent happy was essential for this film and after looking at the weather report that morning I had realised it was going to be a cold one. To combat this, I had asked Liv and Josh to help me put the duvets from the spare room in the hostel into the coach we were using to transport us to the hill. This ended up working well as the weather report was correct and the talents would use the covers to keep themselves warm when they weren't needed. The extra time that we had worked hard for was put towards re shooting some of the scenes but with the camcorder instead of the c300. This meant in the editing stage we could either use the footage from the camcorder or use it as a reference to perfect the grade we will add to this particular footage.
As you have learnt, communication is key throughout this whole production and I didn't want a repeat of the day before (forgetting some vital things for some scenes). I had rang back to the hostel as we were packing up from this scene to organise what was needed from the people that weren't on set this morning. This meant we could rendezvous at the beach relatively soon as I knew that it was going to be an extra important scene as the plan was to film the first, chronological, scene in the film that afternoon. This worked well as not even 5 minutes after we had arrived on location, the rest of the crew arrived with everything needed.
A nearby pub allowed us to set up in the back with Amanda there sorting out the make-up for the actor/ress. This allowed the crew to stay warm during down times of filming. This session went alright. There was some issues which I never figured out on set. For example, trying to get Kenny to look as natural as possible as he lets go of his longboard. No matter after how many attempts we had, it just rolled away way to slow as the hill just wasn't steep enough for it to pick up enough speed. In hindsight, I could've written a distraction in to the script which would make the flow of the events look much better. Alas, I didn't and we ended up with the footage we did, I need to be more aware of if something looks good enough and be able to think of alternates to improve the quality. The one thing I and no one else could predict was that the sun was going to set even earlier today. This meant that to fit the final shots of the day (the actual crash and Kenny finding the helmet) had to be wrapped up really quickly. To not toot my own horn and everyone that was there that afternoon, we all put in a shift and got everything done relatively easily. The sun setting actually worked in our favour, the natural tint that cloaked the beach was really visually appealing. It also gave the 'finding the helmet' scene that extra je ne sais quoi.
Thursday
Another day, another night of not much sleep. This was the day of the joint most important day. If the shop scenes were important for the fact we it was someone else's property and we only less than a day to fit everything in. This was a crucial day as we were filming the last scene of the film. This is where all the work that had been put into props was going to be showed off. The trolley in full glory was going to be sat in by Kenny and sent down the hill. Lewis had kindly volunteered as a martyr for this film by saying he would sit in the trolley as it went down the hill. To be safe, we had got several members of the crew to hold onto the trolley as it went down the hill. Not a few seconds after I waved the trolley off like some wife waiving off her husband as he goes to war, everyone at the top of the hill had heard shouting from the people working with the trolley at the bottom. The trolley had gone full scorpion and Lewis had been thrown to the floor. But as a testament to Lewis as a camera operator, the camera didn't even touch the ground. A thing that did touch the ground was the glass light fixtures that were the rockets 'boosters'. Glass had gone everywhere to the dismay of the local grumpy men. It was promptly cleaned up.
While the trolley was being repaired we didn't waste anytime and set to work on the swing shot I had talked with the little group on the Tuesday night. This was my probably my favourite shot. The two characters swinging just slightly out of time. Looking out to what seemed to be a never ending ocean. This specific shot could be prescribed to someone to heal their soul.
After I received word that the trolley had been fixed up and ready for it's screen time. It required much of the group to pull together and get these final shots done. An issue I was sceptical about had to be faced head on. The last scene requires and audience to watch Kenny as he goes down the hill. Thankfully, as we were setting the equipment up many people of the older generation had taken an interest in what we were doing and when they enquired, we asked them if they wanted to be background characters. This all worked surprisingly well and after a few minutes we had quite the crowd formed. As things were coming together, I realised that if I split everything into groups and treat each of these groups individually then the management of it all will be much easier. Instead of trying to talk to everyone at once, I would go between 'crew', 'Kenny' and 'crowd'. This was a lot of things that all had to be ready to get this shot done. But as everyone knew what had to be done, we managed to get this particular scene done in under 5 takes. The only shot I was unsure of for the rest of Thursdays was filming a wide of Kenny in the trolley itself. Of course no one could hold onto it for safety as they would be in frame. To combat this we had everyone that didn't need to be behind the camera (Me, Liv and Lewis behind the camera) to stand in a line just out of frame to 'catch it'. Amazingly, no one was injured and after only two attempts we got the shot that was needed.
That night we had one more interior scene to shoot. This was one of the most stressful scenes as there was way to many people in this relatively small space, the windows would barely open so it was really stuffy and it was hard work to keep most people quiet. In hindsight, I should've bluntly told some people that they weren't required for this particular scene. Like I said before I need to realise that I can talk to people if I need help but also ask people to leave if they are not helping. This discipline will be something that will come with time I believe. As this was my first time directing multiple people both in front and behind the screens it just took some time to adjust. Which in reality, isn't much of an explanation but that's how I felt about the experience
Friday
This was our final day in Beer and hopefully the last night in which I had sub 5 hours sleep. All we had to shoot was the slow motion walk with Kenny and the trolley rocket emerging from the shed. After that, the only other thing that was to be filmed was a short montage scene in which Nat and Kenny push the trolley from either side of the frame with the contents gradually being increased.
The shed shot was pretty plain sailing as it was a straight forward piece to get through. Like previously mentioned, the shed is on the same site that the hostel is on (it's pretty much around the back) so even though it was a prop heavy scene. I didn't have to worry about getting the stuff/crew there on time. This massively helped with the general speed of things. We were at a race against time as we had to leave the property by 11. This might seem generous to fit just one scene in at that location but it was going to be kind of close. It wasn't just that one scene, it was also packing everything up from the hostel and into the vehicles. By dividing labour we had the people that were required on set while others would go around the hostel making sure nothing was left behind. To cut a long story short, we made it. If I recall correctly, we even bumped into the owner on the way down from the hostel who was coming up to make sure we had left at the agreed time.
The montage scene also was helped out by the fact the evening before, me and Liv had taken a walk around the village to scout for more locations that we may have missed on our previous recce's. That previous evening, we had discovered a little lane that featured a grand total of four houses. Due to the lack of activity and the nice village house backdrop, we had mutually agreed that this location could work for the montage scene we were aware that still needed to be filmed. When we got there on the Friday, we had realised a slight issue. Even though the lane was so small that I didn't see much foot traffic, it was so small that it was hard to find a location too set up the tripod. I had to pick a place that was particularly quiet as the plan was to continuously have the camera rolling and do the whole backwards and forwards montage all in one shot. A pedestrian walking into frame would mean that we would have to empty the trolleys contents and restart the whole thing. But after organising two members of crew to stand out of frame, either side, a plan of action was set up and we had managed to get the whole thing done in two takes.
That was the final shot we did of our residential trip. We packed everything up and travelled back to Weston-Super-Mare.
Couple pictures of my time in Beer. If the picture is good quality it was taken by Liv or Ella (our behind the scenes photographer).
Trailer
To save someone else the work, one afternoon I had put together a teaser trailer for the film. This trailer was heavily inspired my the trailers that were made for the film BOY (2010). These homemade trailers very much embodied what that film was about and was a super inventive way of advertising the project. I thought it would be great if I had made something in the same style. As everything to do with Long Distance Groove Buddies was homemade; from the costumes to the trolley. The style of the trailer was going to be an extension of all that. Other trailers had become too formulaic. For example, the next time you watch an action movie, try and predict when the music will cut and a joke will be told. It normally happens half way or three quarters the way through. This was something I wanted to change with this film.
I had got the footage from the Wednesday in which we shot some extra scenes with the camcorder. While I was working on it, I had got Rich (originally on props) to start working on the animation of the title cards. Even though I was planning on doing the standard white text on a black background, I thought having a little bit of movement to the whole thing might add to the viewing experience. I had asked Rich to do the text as if I someone was writing it. This was to make it seem as if Kenny himself had made the trailer and that this trailer took place in the same universe.
After finishing it, I had sent it unlisted to all the crew to see the feedback from them. Everyone had seemed to like it. Some people had raised a little concern that the original was a bit too dark and the end credits went to quickly. This was something I agreed on and promptly altered it. The version above is the edit I had made after I had received the feedback from the crew.
Overall Evaluation
This whole experience was a weird one. Even though I was incredibly stressed for about four months solid and completely burnt myself out for said months, it was a very rewarding experience. I'm not even talking about seeing the final film, I'm talking about the moments that felt great along the way. The presentation, seeing people read my script, just being on set, I could go on. It couldn't be made without some key members;
-Lewis, as the camera operator was amazing to work with and was a massive help in teaching me about the technology side of film (which I don't know much about). His dedication to getting the whole project finished was really motivating (See putting himself in the trolley).
-Liv, even though I've already talked about how great it was working with her but I'll say it again. She really understood what I was looking for this whole and I would really want to work with her on future projects. I would recommend her to anyone looking for a D.O.P as the work she puts in to the film internally (behind the camera) and externally (all the research and paperwork she did in her own time). So yeah, if you're looking for cinematographer. This is the person you want.
-Rich, working on the trolley was a testament to his inventiveness. He had managed to turn every day appliances into the perfect rocket for the films style. His attitude on set was also something that should be commended as he was in charge of the trolley and acted professional to when it partly broke on the Thursday. Getting to work straight away on repairing it with what he had on hand and did an impressive job with it.
If I were to do this whole process again there's a few things I have learnt from this experience that I would carry forward. The first would be organisation of the days on set. As the call sheets were done the day before they had to be used, this led to some confusion between crew members which is completely understandable. I should have sat down with the 1st A.D before we had left for Beer and had gone through everything day by day and work out everything we were going to while also think of back up plans if something had not worked out on a particular day. This meant a clearer plan of action for when we got there and would've minimised such incidents as forgetting equipment and people not knowing where they have to be at certain times as they could've just consulted the call sheet the day/night before. This improvement in scheduling may have allowed us more time for each scene ergo more time to think about how to deal with certain situations we couldn't predict and had to deal with on the spot.
A thing that went well was the moments where it seemed like we were all on the same page. I think the 'catching the trolley' is the greatest example of this. The vast ridiculousness of the whole situation made it even sweeter. From the point of view of a village member, a group of students coming to this usually quiet village and seeing one of them dressed up as an astronaut outfit hurling himself down a hill in a trolley. I guess this isn't necessarily a piece of evaluation for the film but more of my feelings to how it went overall.
Another part I probably would have done differently is something I have slightly touched upon right at the beginning of the pre production section. The writing of the script. I feel like I shouldn't have taken the role of the lead scriptwriter. If I were the co-writer, I could have some influence over the script to make sure that it was close to my original idea but I wouldn't have to be putting all my time into this one section of production when I could've been spreading my workload more evenly. This could've normally flied on some big budget production but not with Long Distance Groove Buddies. We had the budget that the Tory Party wish they could give areas such as social and health public services (by that I mean absolutely nothing). This meant we had little time to do everything and that's why it seemed that, as you read through the pre production, it felt that little time had passed from start to finish. That feeling would be correct as we relatively didn't have much time. Especially as Christmas took place in the middle of it which meant that a lot of peoples focus went justifiably elsewhere. I'm not saying move Christmas to a more convenient date. It's more like an explanation to what I was dealing with and how that may (or may not) have influenced the pre production process.
Something that worked really well with the film is the 4:3 overlay. I liked that it would make it vastly different to the films that had already been made in years prior for the residential trips. This little addition introduced a different challenge to filming everything. The frame which we had to work in was much smaller. This meant that scene which were already the more visually appealing have that extra something as with the tighter framing they remind me of moving postcards. This, weirdly, is something I kind of talked about in my presentation when I was asked about what style I was going for. I had said that I wanted to make something that felt like when you found some footage from your childhood. In the sense that even before you even start it, this little bit of tape holds such personal memories to you and it's just there, right in front of you. This containment of a feeling is something I want tied in to the visuals of a postcard.
To conclude the conclusion, I really enjoyed the whole thing and I'm grateful that I was given the opportunity to make Long Distance Groove Buddies.
Film Evaluation (or lack of one)
Unfortunately, a pandemic occurred just as post production of the film was starting. This caused the Uni to shut and everything to go online. We tried our best to make something out of a bad situation but it was making the whole process much longer. The original deadline of the 1st of June seemed unattainable therefore the decision was to made that the film was going to be made for the end of June instead. This will give us more time to refine the film.
In the meantime, I can look at some footage that hasn't been edited and go through my thoughts. Do note that the footage below hasn't being edited apart from a slight touch up on colours and with the tighter frame template put over it. They also won't feature sound.
Framing wise this is one of my favourite shots of the whole film. It's a mixture of how the swings look like they are hanging off the top of the frame and the difference in movement of both characters. As there is no sound (there will be in the final edit) the stuff you see is amplified. The gentle swinging of Nat while Kenny posses more erratic movements. These little things just make everything more complete and make it seem that these characters actually exist.
I'm really happy with this segment as it turned out better than I had imagined. The time of day was just right when we filmed this.
This was a scene which was done in the shop. I chose this particular footage to talk about as it's one of the few shots in this film that isn't locked off (Stationary). I felt this one worked incredibly well and the pull focus was very much the cherry on top. This is one of better shots when looking at all clips. This whole scene was quite important to the story as it's when Kenny and Nat first meet so nailing it was key so it can act as a 'trampoline' to propel the rest of the two characters relationships.
To speak about looking at the footage as a whole I felt like it's overall positive. But of course I have to talk about things that I'm unsure of or things I might not like. The shop scene in particular is something that is going to really need refining. Trying to get the timings right on everything is going to take some time get it how I envisioned the scene going while writing the script and going through the 'creating the shot list' stage. A way to resolve this could be by making editing the scene in several different ways just to experiment with how the scene should flow.
From what I've seen I'm pretty happy with how the grading is going (this was done by Gui when uni was still open and not the edit in the two videos above). However, as we didn't have much time from getting access to the editing suite and lockdown we only really found a good edit on outside footage. Something that still needs to be done is to focus more on the interior scene and more particularly the interior night scenes where light was harder to use.
The major issue I have is the scene right at the beginning in which Kenny loses his skateboard. It feels really awkward and unnatural which is a real shame. The issue was that the hill wasn't steep enough for the board to immediately speed off at the required speed. A way we could of resolved this would be if I had written in that Kenny gets distracted or something that would mean the board would have more time to pick up speed.
Of course lockdown has impacted the post production stage of this film, one of them ways is the lack of support given to the editor from the uni to be able finishing the film. This means that the work has to be spread around to other people in the crew who can access the equipment that's needed. Another way in which we could've improved the film if the virus wasn't around is that we figured that we needed more establishing shots. Under normal circumstances, a few of us could've gone down to get the required shots.
Overall, the footage is of good quality and I'm looking forward to seeing all of it put together. This whole thing has been quite the experience and it's going to be weird seeing it all finish.
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