Colour. Like. No. Other.

In the last two years or so I have realised how important colour grading is when it comes to film. Colour grading can help identify narratives, genres, values and ideology's, even time and place, which is why I am going to make sure I spend time making sure my piece is graded to its specific genre correctly. By doing test upon test of different colours for different scenes I will make sure I get the correct meaning from the end result.

Here are some colour grade tests I did with my footage using Red Giant's Mojo plugin.

1. Raw footage.

2. Warm tones.

3. Dark tones.

Day 2

Today was a very short shoot as I was only filming three shots.

The reason for this was due to my make up artist only being able to make it today, as she is kindly travelling from Leicester, and obviously I have to work around her as I needed this shot out the way and completed with it being a vital part of my film.

Sian, the make up artist, was really easy going and great at her trade, and she kindly agreed to let me film the make-up process of Tom.

Here it is sped up, including a colour grade tease to show what I want to achieve come May 4.

Second Teaser

First Teaser

Day 1

Day one of shooting is officially over, I am extremely happy of the shots I have captured today, and the simplicity of direction I was able to give Joe and Reise. They were both able to adapt to my directions and surroundings, thus enabling them to give a great performance and bring my story to life in the vision I had penned in the beginning.

I shot everything today on the Nikon 3100, 720p at 25fps, which looks incredible. One of the major problems I had today though was being ale to see the camera's LCD screen due to the sunlight, so it was difficult to tell if shadows were getting recorded by accident.

For example these shots will need to be re-shot as the camera goes extremely out of focus and shadows are clearly evident :

Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of today and will be playing around with some footage tomorrow which I will upload after the second day of shooting wraps up.

Dress Up Mark II

Final Dress Rehersal. Battle Ready for February 23.

Shooting Schedule

Shooting Schedule

My shoot will begin on Thursday February 23; this is when I will have all of my equipment, costumes, and Actors ready.

This Thursday I will go to Nottingham and shoot the first half of my film. Reise and I will be getting the train down early Thursday and meeting Joe, then heading out to our first location and shooting will begin.

The second sequence I will shoot will be the shot inside of Andrew’s house (my house) on the 24 of February. I have managed to acquire a make up artist, which will be needed to show that Andrew has been murdered by the Sentinel. Sian Revill is currently doing a make-up course in Leicester, and will pursing her career furthermore in the Summer with plans of studying further in LA.

Here is an example of her work.

  

Hardware & Software

After my development project last Semester I realized something very important when it came to my lightning whips. The fact that shooting in 24fps wasn’t accurately picking up the markers I stuck on to the skipping ropes, resulting in always second guessing where the rope would be frame by frame in Adobe Flash. Luckily my friend has a Canon 60d, which films at and optional 50fps in 720p, and has kindly offered to lend it me during the course of my shoot. With that I can easily get some quality shots, which will also have much better readable markers on the new ropes, allowing the editing process for me to be easier than it was previously.

So basically I am aiming to shoot everything with the Canon 60d in 720p. Although the camera and I are perfectly acceptable to work in 1080p, I feel it isn’t that necessary when a lot of my shots will be shot at 50fps rather than 1080p’s native 24fps to fully capture the motion of the Sentinel’s electric whips. Also editing something in 1080p would mean rendering would be very time consuming, and time is something I am against unfortunately.

When it comes to software I aim to use After Effects as my main body of work to do all the teleporting and Lightwhip effects. Red Giant’s Starglow package will be utilized too as I have seen many people use it for Lightsabre and lightning effects which look amazing for The Sentinel’s Lightwhips. Adobe Flash will be used to trace the Lightwhips movement, then later rendered out as an alpha layered PNG, overlaying it on video footage in After Effects and beginning the Starglow process. Once I have all my VFX shot’s complete I will bring them all into Final Cut Pro X to bring the final master together, this will be where I bring in the sound elements, like the narrative voice over and non-diegetic music.

Scoring "The Sentinel"

I had this idea of using a voice over as the film’s main sound track. This was due to my film being under 4 minutes long and I felt it would serve a better purpose to have narration coming from the central character Reise, by letting him guide the audience through what exactly is going on in this story and why. This route being easier than one where I would have to create dialogue for my actors, go through rehearsals, and take microphones on set.


Reise's Narration draft (THIS WILL CHANGE)

It’s happened again. And I can feel his presence. He is coming.

I cannot remember how I got here, or where exactly I am, that’s the problem I have with this gift I have. I can’t really control it, and at times it seems to control me. Though one thing I know for sure is that this thing that’s stalking me right now wants what I have or what’s to kill me.

So I guess it’s about time for you to see what this gift I am talking about is.

I am a teleporter.

The thing that’s chasing me right now is what’s known as a “Sentinel”, and there’s an army of them it seems.  The Sentinel’s have been assigned to chase me of which they have been doing for the last year and a half.

Though I prove difficult to catch.

Catching Public transport is now my best option of being undetected. The Sentinels tend to stray away from the public eye, and are very good at it.

An old friend of mine, Andy, is studying at Sheffield University. He has a place that I could probably crash at for a few days whilst I get my head straight and figure out my next move.  it’s been years since we last spoke, hopefully he hasn’t appeared on The Sentinels systems yet, otherwise this whole trip was one hell of a risk.

Not many people have heard or seen much of me for the last eighteen months, friends or family. I have been “missing” in Nottingham for quite some time, coming to grips with this whole situation, I don’t even know if my friends or family are alive, The Sentinel’s have probably got to them…

Nothing. I don’t have a phone anymore so I can’t get a hold of him and tell him I’m here. It’s too dangerous. I must move.

Too late.

This was it, he had me.

As I starred him down I could feel my heart exploding, how was I going to be killed I thought.

He wasted no time,  no words, he unleashed his Death whips.

Why won’t my body teleport I wondered, save me, like you have done before.

As he crept closer I determined my fate was set, I closed my eyes and thought of happiness.

It must of worked.

Without reason, just pure instinct, my body told me to pull the wires on the back of his head.

It worked. And he crumbled to the ground.

I was safe… For now.

As I crawled over and looked into his eyes I could see nothing but death. Maybe it should have been me rotting under this disgusting underpass. Maybe.

Whatever happens next I will be ready, and I will be waiting, to die.

Non-diegetic sound will accompany Reise’s voice over track to create a sense of angst and tension in the film’s crucial moments. Though these sounds won’t include noticeable crescendos and epic ballads, they will be there to help tell the story.

Examples of Sound I may use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWD7k6TrJ-g&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSVDcw6iW8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lpg8Mgnb6kg&feature=relmfu

CASTING UPDATE

JOE COLLINS WILL PLAY “REISE” 

 REISE DAWSON WILL PLAY “THE SENTINEL”

THOMAS HARRIS WILL PLAY “ANDREW”

Dress Up

I have received my items for the Sentinel's mask in the past couple of days and this is what it looks like:

& A quick example of what it will look like combined with a suit.

Bringing The Concept To Life

Finding the materials to make the Sentinel’s mask wasn’t that difficult. I eBayed many different styles and pieces for the mask, looking at such categories as motorcycle wear, mascaraed designs, paintball, and airsoft.

After a few hours of searching I had purchased the following:

   

Concept Art

In my first developmental stages of the project I had firmly decided on a look for my evil character. With the updated narrative I felt like changing a few things and making his appearance much darker and edgier.

BEFORE

AFTER

Lightwhip Mark II

UPDATE.

As I realized with the test footage of my lightwhip’s for my bad guy (Dark Sentinel) The skipping rope I had previously experimented with wasn’t the best rope for what I wanted to visually achieve. After all the rope was black and it wasn’t and really shouldn’t have even been classed as a

“skipping rope”.

I have bought a new rope and added different markers onto it, which will hopefully give me better results this time. This time the rope feels like the person holding the handle can have more control and flexibility, which should look fantastic when edited with the effects.

Updated Sypnosis

“ T H E   S E N T I N E L ”

The power of teleportation, a power so dangerous, uncontrollable, and fragile, anyone who holds the power is a threat and also a target to their own personal existence…….

Reise knows he holds this extraordinary power, and must become an unknown for the time being, forced to disappear, as a force known as the Sentinels are after him and his power. The Sentinels have assigned their best agent, Dark Sentinel, to find Reise and extract him mercilessly dead or alive….

The Festive Thinking Process

UPDATE.

Over the Christmas period I have been balancing up my idea over and over again in my head, things like ideas and themes felt like they could be tweaked and changed. I felt like before Christmas my story’s narrative was just awkward to understand with it being a short “ sci-fi fight sequence. I have adapted my original idea to something with more of a story.