The First Creative Day.

Hey everyone.

Last Saturday myself and my group of friends from Media professional studies decided to get our creative juices flowing by having an appropriately named 'Creative Day' at Becca's flat in the center of town. 

The aim for the day was to create an open forum where ideas for our individual projects could be discussed with friends, and new ones can be born.

Pipes and bobble hats are of course a crucial part of the creative process.

We began the day by taking a part in an excersie that involved us listing as many scenarios as we could think of one by one as fast as we could such as:

- A man walking a dog finds a treasure box.

- A woman falls into a painting.

- A detective discovers he can only concentrate around pies.

- An artist robs a bank.

We then decided to develop some of these scenarios in a story formatting exercise. In particular the girl falling into the painting, which became a complete narrative by the end of the day and may even be shot in the future, perfectly illustrating how ideas were born.

Mark Nugent on the prowl for his 'Photo of the Day'.

After this warm up, people who wanted to could present their ideas for projects and have the rest of the group challenge, develop and give feedback on the ideas. For example we helped James Dunn work on his new stand up routine and helped Mark Nugent in deciding how the final battle between two characters in his upcoming project should be conducted. I also presented small idea I've had for the 'Guardian Shorts' competition involving paper and creativity.

After the feedback circle, the rest of the day was used by everyone involved in different ways, some built a fort to test for an upcoming short, others filmed a new short sketch and some of us continued to develop the story of the painting girl. All of this was concluded with takeaway, banter and of course, the x-factor (sigh). 

All in all, I think the first creative day was a huge success, it's exciting to think of the possibility's of future days, and also what we can achieve as a group when we sit down to dedicate our time to our ideas.

The guest appearance of Slenderman was also surprising, although if anyone has seen James Dunn though contact me because he is still missing. 

Hopefully as more of these days happen, even more ideas will develop and grow in this space.

Thank you to everyone involved, and to you for reading this post!

Joe C

Practice Makes Perfect.

Hey guys.

So its been a busy fortnight. Over the last two weeks I've done everything from attend meetings, produce test shoots, attend awards nights and begin to plan a few new projects. This post is sort of like a diary of whats been going on, with some more dedicated posts about the individual projects coming over the week.

Smiles at the awards night soon vanished upon discovering the trophies were not edible.
(Pictured with Becca Fadden, winner of 'Best Factual Film').

The first order of business was the 'Avid awards' night, hosted by the university, where various awards were given across a wide range of categories to young film makers. My production team from last year received three nominations during the night, walking away with 'Most Original Short' for our film 'Dead on Time'. Which you can view below.

'Dead On Time' Is actually the first short film I have ever made, so it was looking back on the project, and how far I have come since then as a film maker that made the entire evening a real pleasure. (Besides seeing my lecturer in a tuxedo, that was priceless). It was also really nice to get together with friends and celebrate our successes from last year, before we all began to enter the fun, but admittedly stressful cycle of production again in Autumn 2012.

Myself with fellow producer on Dead On Time: Jamie Morris.

When attending university, meetings become a huge part of your life. Over the last few days I have attended the 'board of study' where I converse with university staff as a representative for students in order to improve the quality of the degree. Whilst this isn't strictly relevant to film making practice, I enjoy my role and as it allows me to practice professional and social skills which will contribute to my personality in the industry such as voicing others opinions and articulating ideas to others. 

Tea is a vital part of meetings.

Meetings are also an important part of production, as without them all shoots would be a complete mess. 

During the weekly planning sessions with my new production team '5F5' we produced a screenplay, character profiles, shot lists and research notes in order to prepare for our short film 'Damp Patch' we then as part of our assessment produced a test shoot for the film.

A test shoot is almost like a draft of an essay, we filmed a scene from our screenplay in a standard location, using ourselves as actors just to test our script, shot lists and lighting. The shoot went according to plan, and feedback from our tutors was mostly positive. We are now looking to cast actors and find a location to bring the real drama piece into the desired time period, combining the positives with needed improvements from the feedback in order to make our best short yet. 

The shoot was also the first time we have used a Camera frame to stabilize our shots, which will help us achieve smooth camera motion and make difficult shots possible without resorting to a tripod, this has really helped our freedom in cinematography and it shows in our shoot. 

I will be posting the test shoot up online after the finished film is released in order to write a comparison between them. I am also working on some brand new projects that I will outline in a more dedicated post, but I am really excited to be on some really exciting teams. 

Thanks for the catch up.

 Joe.