Kodak Awards: Time/ Modern Shoot

So now we had the final shoot for the Time project and i was reprising myt role as the victorian man from the first shoot. as well as helping out any other way i could. So to start the shoot off me and Andrew went and collected the costume from Preston Park and then headed up to Sunderland.

Once we arrived at Brads house we then began to set up and i headed to go and get into my outfit, Once dressed i helped out with Tony's costume and got him painted up outside. Once everything was ready they began to shoot and got the first scenes out of the way.

Me and Tony headed outside so they could practice the angles and the synchronization of the blinds being pulled down together. This was quite a quick shoot definitely the quickest out of the bunch of shoots we had done so far, and there was no issues with this shoot at all really except from trying to get the camera balanced with the slider, other than that the shoot was a success and we had now leave both adverts to be sent off and await there arrival so the editing could begin.

Kodak Awards: Popcorn/ Third Shoot

Now we only had a pack shot left to finish off, but before we could shoot i had to make a trip to Paper Chase and pick up a few cards and accessories. I bought pens, pencil case, key ring and a selection of cards. The cards were the hardest thing to shop for due to that there were no specific Valentines day ones so i had to improvise with the most vague cards they had.

So now i had the items i just had to stop off and buy some popcorn, i then went into the studio to help set up, Janice had cut out some confetti to drop of the cards and popcorn and found some pillows that made the background look more aesthetically pleasing. i was in charge of the shimmer effect so that we have that effect running through the whole advert.

The shoot went well and we had several takes using no confetti then using confetti and slow motion as well. Overall i was happy with the design of the pack shot, the gels that we used really added to that warm feeling we were going for and the end product i think will end nicely with this pack shot.

Kodak Awards: Time/ Caveman Shoot

So now we were off to Seaham beach to start the second scene of the time advert. Me, Andrew and jack arrived there to await Rachel our actress, whilst Liam, Shaun and Brad went to pick up Tony our actor from the Seaham train station.

Once we had all met up we took the actors to the cafe up top where they could get changed into there costumes. Once dressed we grabbed the equipment and trekked down to the location, we then dropped the equipment and began to set up. i was going to be taking the role of sound that day but was not needed in the end so i was moved onto clapper boarding.

so once the equipment was set up and the actors were almost ready brad added some make up to the actors whilst a few of us got the fake blood and practiced different techniques of splatters and designs, to then move onto creating a love heart on the cave wall. So now that everything was ready we were ready to shoot , the day of filming went by with no major hiccups except some wardrobe issues with the whites of t- shirts coming through under the fur. we also had an issue with a dog running into one of the shots which though was annoying was also rather funny.

Overall the day went very well and the shots that were needed were all done on schedule but something did catch our attention that we were almost through the film and would not have enough to shoot the roman scene. This meant that we would have to be careful with how much film is used on the final shoot.

Kodak Awards: Popcorn/ Second Shoot

So now we only had a few shots to finish off for the main section of the advert but one problem we encountered was that the extras did not get back to any of the emails i sent, they did say they would struggle to get the whole group together again outside hours but in the end we had to work around it.

The actors turned up though and were ready for the shoot wearing what they were on the first shoot which was great, not having to worry about continuity errors in costume. Though we had only a few shots to do it took a little longer than expected due to the fact that we had to work around the extras not being in shot due to there absence, so we had to capture some lower and higher angles with the film camera which because of its weight and size did cause a small amount of difficulty to achieve.

We did eventually get the shots we needed and hope that the shots come out okay with no glaring errors with the missing extras but we will have to wait and see what the results bring for us. The only thing we now hqad left to shoot was the final pack shot. So i was now off to paper chase to find some items to buy and use in the final pack shot.

Kodak Awards: Time/ Victorian shoot

So now we had Brads advert, with his first location being Preston park. But before we got there we found out that one of his actors was not going to be turning up, so instead i took his part as the Victorian role.

so after all the drama subsided from the opening impressions Andrew gave to one of the workers at the park, i went to get dressed for the shoot and picked out the clothing Brad felt was suitable for the part. i was told what i would be doing and got in place whilst they got the camera set on the tracking dolly. The shoot itself went fairly smooth after the opening and we got everything from this scene shot in time.

My role was to draw the actress in front of me to reveal a terrible image and then receive a slap, and after the shots were done we packed up and left Preston park leaving the outfits behind. The experimentation of the shots was quite nice especially the shot running along side the flowers which then pulled focus onto myself and the actress.

Overall i thought the shoot was a success and we were ready to move onto the next shoot at Seaham with two other actors playing a cave man and woman.

Kodak Awards: Popcorn/ First shoot

We were now ready to go with the first shoot i had told the actors in advance the shooting dates, they all showed up on time except from one which was replaced with one of the extras "Alan Parry" at last minute. The extras were all ready to go so we got in and set up as fast as possible remembering where we had the equipment set. So now we started filling up the props with popcorn and filling the cups with soda, whilst we finished off the rest of the prepping.

Once set up we were ready to go, so i got myself ready with the production log and timer, and we began almost on time. we did the first shot with a few hiccups, like the ND filter being on which we did spot luckily enough before the next shot, the rest of the shots went fairly well except one of the red heads blew during the shoot in which we had to quickly replace the light, so we let the actors go for a quick break and tried to fix the issues at hand.

We got the replacement light in a hurry and set back up as fast as possible, the extras and actors started to come back and we placed them back in there seats taking photos of where they were sat before hand just in case any body forgot.

Other then them two issues the shoot went rather well and we almost got all the shots needed but one of the actors had to leave slightly earlier than the rest, and we wre running out of time and still needed time for packing up. so we called it a day and left the final shots of the main section of the advert like close ups etc.

I was happy with the way the shoot went the actors were mostly great except from a few extras being a slight distraction. so we only had to move onto the final shots of the advert and put together a pack shot.

Kodak Awards: Lighting Test

So after we had got the location we then needed access to the building to follow through with a lighting test which would help us figure out exactly where the actors would need to sit as well as the placement and intensity of the lighting on the day of shooting.

so on the day we had liam, jack, Janice, myself and a few others to help out with the sorting of all the equipment. Once inside we started placing the equipment in different locations around the room, we placed one red head at the top left hand side of the staircase and the other on the bottom of the lecture theater facing diagonally from the left hand side. We placed the Cool lamp in the center at the bottom and tried different volumes of the intensity whilst taking readings on the light meter in the spot where we were going to be placing the actors.

We tried using a dark blue gel but it left the half of the seating area to dark, so instead we used a lighter blue just to bring the white out of the light to make it look more like its coming off the "Cinema screen" at the front. This worked quite well but it did feel like something was missing, the lights were to static, so i got the reflector and tried different techniques of shaking and wafting to try and gain the effect of the screen shimmering light on the actors. i tried using the gold side and the silver, i much rather preferred the silver side as it looked more organic with the aesthetic we were trying to achieve.

we did also use a variety of different scrims to take away some of the harshness of the light we have a few photos of the different looks that we came out with.

Kodak Awards: Auditions

So now that we finally had our location to shoot at we then needed our actors, so i begun searching on both Facebook and acting agencies like Star Now. i received no replies from Star Now and for a while didn't receive any from the Four Bridges Facebook page. We then did discover another Facebook page in which we found several actors and thanks to Janice's connections with her daughters classes of actors we had started a Facebook group chat with around 20+ actors.

After informing them of the dates we were planning on shooting we then decided to set up the auditions which lasted most of the day, we had 5 turn up out of the ones in the group chat some better than others, we recorded the sessions and tried them out for both Time and Popcorn. We had found our actors and were still in need for extras especially for the Popcorn advert. We managed to get a hold of a class at teesside uni that were willing to be extras for the shoot.

Of the actors that showed up for the auditions we chose to have Susie Flinton, Toni Elwin and Tony Winward. we are now moving onto the process of lighting tests and maybe a practice test on the following week. We are still in need for a fourth male actor, in which i have contacted one of the actors on the digital live stream.

Kodak Awards: Popcorn

We have now established the groups that we will be in for our projects. To start three ideas have been chosen, Brads "Time" concept, Jamie's "Window" concept & my "popcorn" idea. I'm happy with the role i have been given as i pitched to be a producer on any of the following ideas above, I am very excited to be producing my own idea and have full trust in Jack as director on my concept to bring it all together. The first thing that has been assigned for me is a location, but before we got the location we decided to remove the bar scene at the beginning of the advert and only focused on the cinema as the main location because of the advert only being 30 seconds long.

Jack started on his shot-list and storyboards whilst i started to search for different cinemas in the north east area i found a website that had all the closest cinemas listed in which i could grab the email and other contact information. after emailing several places i decided to go over to VUE cinema, though it was a long shot in which i spoke to the manager and got shut down half way through asking, i tried Showcase cinema in Tees side park as well but again i was told "No". I did not ask Cineworld as they are a major cinema that was always packed and considering being told no by the other two smaller ones.

Below i will list the email screenshots i took to show the responses i was receiving from different cinemas, though some didn't even reply. I then decided to try the FE as that was our last resort.

Kodak Awards Introduction

For our first semester in level 5 we have been introduced to what we will be creating for our first project. We have to create a few ideas for the Kodak Award briefs, The first is for the company known as Paper chase in which the theme is valentines day. They asked for a creative advert that is cheeky and playful, i came up with a few ideas which i created with a power point presentation. below i will post the screens of the different ideas i created.

The other brief was for the Centrepoint charity and revolved around the homeless at Christmas time as the theme. i had a few ideas for this brief, they were looking for something that got the the audiences attention to donate to the charity to help these poor souls on the streets and show them what they can do for them just by donating a small amount of money.

the last brief is something that i did struggle for ideas for as i did not fully understand the concept of WeSwap. I did not come up with any ideas for this brief but i think i established some good ideas that could work for the other two briefs.