Production Meeting and Recce

Today at 10am we had to pitch the drama a month project to a group of tutor's and a HE representative. We could get feedback and make changes based up this feedback. The pitch went pretty well and the tutors like the concept however it was clear that we still have a long way to go in such a short space of time. The feedback was

• Develop the script more (The script we showed them wasn't the final product, it was the 2nd draft as we aren't 100% happy with it)
• Develop the characters more
• Make story board
• What are the camera styles?
• What are editing styles going to be?
• Make a shooting schedule
• Work out the crew list better. Lighting is a major role and it's a role that someone can be assessed on

We need to make time for another meeting so that we can show them the progress.

After the feedback we decided that the best thing for us to do would be to have another production meeting to sort out these problems and solve them. As well as the producer (Becki Gill) I tried to make minutes but because of the amount of people in the group it was difficult. I did manage to write down most important points in the meeting.

• Aaron - How does everyone think the pitch went?
• Chelsea - We need to start working towards proving our work for assessment
• Matt & Emily - The script needs to be longer
• Ryan - More connection between the characters
• Matt - The script is too bare bones at the moment
• Ryan- Its too serious
• Becki - We want serious, its a divorce. we want it to be realistic with tears and fighting.
• Matt - Yes it's serious, but we don't want to make it to serious so that its depressing
• James - As long as we have faith in the project it will turn out fine
• Miranda - I think that we need to act it out so that it will help us get into the script better. We will find the problems in the script a lot better this way. (We decided to act out the script, from this we learnt some problems)
• Emily - We need to work out the roles and people need to start turning up on time and not leaving because they want too
• Becki - I vote that if the main script writer keeps being absent from meeting them we make Ryan and Miranda the main scriptwriters
• We all voted that this was a good idea. The producer and the director tried contacting the scriptwriter multiple times but he didn't reply so it was decided that Ryan and Miranda would take over
• Aaron - Did you manage to ask your mum if she could play the wife?
• Anthony - I forgot
• Aaron - we asked you to do one thing and you can't even do that. Start pulling your weight.
• Becki - Two members of this group need to start pulling there weight more, they need to turn up to meeting and get involved more. If they don't then we will have to have a meeting about there roles
• Aaron - Miranda and Ryan go off and start changing the script, whilst we sort out for the recce this afternoon.
• Emily - We also need to sort out dates for other things as well
• Aaron- Agreed.

After we had the production meeting we rearranged the roles and also came up with a schedule.

Roles

• Aaron Dunleavy - Director, Camera Operator and Editer
• Emily McGregor - Assistant Producer
• Becki Gill - Producer
• Samantha Scott -On Set Production Manager, Set designer
• Josh Bently - Assistant Camera Operator
• Matt Howard - Stills photographer
• Miranda Miles - Scriptwriter
• Ryan Baron - Scriptwriter
• Chelsea Martin - Lighting Operator
• James Hibbert - Assistant director
• Anthony Preston - Sound Operator

Schedule

• Thursday 10th January - Afternoon Recce for telephone box
• Tuesday 15th January - All day house recce and dressing the set as well as making a photographic storyboard.
• Wednesday 16th January - Make the storyboard, recce and test shoot the telephone box
• Thursday 17th January - Morning production meeting, fine tuning everything. In the afternoon we have a meeting with our tutor to go over our work.
• Monday 21st January - Film the telephone scene
• Thursday 24th January all day test shoot and lighting set up for the house
• Saturday 26th January - Film the house scene (this may change), once this is done Aaron will take the footage to edit.

Over lunch we found out some good news. Aaron had received a email from Marcus Bentley, the Big Brother voice, with the voice over that he had created for us. We couldn't wait for everyone to get back so with me, Sammie, Becki, Aaron and Anthony we listened to the audio file. It was Fantastic! We all literally started dancing round the room, when we calmed down we messaged out tutor and told him we had to talk to him. We were pretty sure that when we told him in the pitch that Marcus Bentley agrees to do the radio insert, he didn't believe us. When we played it to him he couldn't believe that we had gotten Marcus Bentley to do a radio insert for FREE!

After lunch we went to recce the telephone box on Long Lane Pleasington. All the guys go into Matts car whilst all the girls got into Becky's. Ryan and Miranda stayed behind to get the script done. When we arrived at the original telephone box it was clearly evident that the telephone box was unusable. The first problem was that wouldn't be able to see in the windows. The other problem was that there is a electrical box next to the telephone box. This is creating sound that we wouldn't be able to mask. We were all disappointed as it was in the ideal location, no traffic and in the middle on no where. 

Long Lane

We agreed that we would go and take a look at he telephone box in Langho. We all agreed that this wouldn't work because the windows are the dirty and moldy that we we wouldn't be able to film through them.

Langho

After we rules these two telephone box's out we decided that we would split up and go on the hunt for suitable telephone box's. Becki decided to drive to Billington, Whalley, Old Langho, Barrow, Clitheroe and Pendle View. Matt drove over to Ribchester and the other side of Clitheroe.

The first location Becki drove to was Billington. 

It was a clean telephone box, but wasn't what we had in mind. It was on a council estate and didn't appear like it was in the middle of nowhere. It was also quite noisy because it was on quite a busy main road. We thought that we would get some shots to see if there were any problems with reflections etc.

As you can see there are major
problems with reflections

The second location was whalley. The telephone box was surrounded by houses but the road was quiet and there is room to be able to film. But because it is on a street and near houses there may be a problem with pedestrians. We could only film through one angle and this was with our backs to the road because of reflections. Another big problem was the BT logo that I couldn't get out of shot no matter what angle I tried to get.

We then went to old Langho. Here we found what we think is the perfect phone box. It is basically in the middle of nowhere with amazing scenery. It is a better location that the first phone box we wanted to use on Long Lane. It is on a road called Mitton Road. It's a quiet rode where hardly any traffic goes by.

The windows are little dirty, but nothing
a sponge can't fix

An advantage is that the door is behind the actress this
means that we can get an over the shoulder shot easily. 

 

We couldn't get in touch with the guys to talk about the location because of signal. Instead we visited a couple more locations.

We found an old red telephone box in Clitheroe. We only got a glance at it so we didn't know what it was like until we got to the phone box. I then realised that it was unusable  I couldn't see through the windows and the glass was broken.

We went to the next phone box on our way back to Blackburn. We found this one in Barrow.  Certain angles make it look like it is in the middle if nowhere but on the other side there are a row of house. If we filmed from a certain angle then we could get the 'middle of nowhere' appearance. However there is also a problem with the road. It can turn into a busy road depending on the time of day. Another problem is pedestrians. We could use this as a backup telephone box but the BT logo may be a problem.

After this last phone box, on our way back to Blackburn Sammie spotted an old red phone box. It was just a quick glance so me and Becki went to investigate. It was very much like the one we found in Clitheroe. The windows were that Mouldy that at first we didn't realise that there was a person in the phone box. The location was perfect so if it wasn't for it being dirty we would have been able to use it. 

After this we went back to Blackburn where we met up with the guys. We showed them all the photos we had taken and told them what we thought would be the perfect location. We spent more time going over the Mitton road location because we thought that it was the perfect location. The guys had found a good location but we thought that we had found a better one. After discussing all the possibilties we decided that the best location would be the one in Old Langho. (The Girls find)

A couple of us went to see Miranda and Ryan to see how the script was coming along. Miranda was the only one left. She showed me, Sammie, Beck and Chelsea the script. We read through it and Miranda told us why they had chosen certain things and lengthened certain things. The script is much better now but it was decided that we would say it is draft three until we have anther production meeting and go over it as a group. 

Overall it has been a very productive day, as well as a very productive couple of days. However today I did end up getting into a few heated discussions with a member of the team. This was because I felt that they were trying to take roles away from people, that could be assessed on these roles,because they thought that we should all do this role.