One shot film: The Box

The box is the name given to my first film idea. This film appears to have stepped far from the boundaries of the brief but i think it is still an effective film. when making the box most of our time was spent with the lighting, it was important to light the environment whilst still keeping a dark and atmospheric mood. Another problem was shadows, as the camera over cast a shadow upon the actors.



After about an hour of setting up lights we found another problem, trying to get the voice over in time with the actions. in the end we used a recording of the voice over as a guide and re-recorded the voice over to fit the motions, this also improved the clarity of the recording.



Apart from straying from the brief i am pleased with the final outcome. the lighting works effectively lighting only what needs to be seen in keeping with the film noir style. Originally i did want the film to be black and white but the orange lighting was important as it was mentioned in the script. Jays voice acting is excellent apart from a few minor stutters, but this was only because he needed to rush some parts to keep in time with what was happening on screen.

Children of men one shot

After thinking about the the idea of what we see being a constant one shot film I thought of a scene in the film children of men. There is a 6 minute one shot scene of a gun battle and because it was filmed in this way you could feel like you are actually there.

The Captive final

After editing this film I found it was quite long and alot of the dialogue was not needed. This is why I have made two versions of the film, the first with dialogue cut out where the captive appears to pass in and out of conciousness only catching little bits of the kidnapper's conversation. I realise that some might not consider this a true one shot film which is why i decided to make a second version where i keep all the original material with no cuts.

Here is the first version...



And the second version...



Using one shot it does appear as if you are watching from the captive's eyes, as in real life we cannot cut to another scene, what we see is like a constant one shot film. I feel I have achieved what i set out to do with this film and more. I feel a sense of terror watching this film back, from the shadey lighting the chilling breathing sounds it is quite easy to feel like you are in the captive's shoes. I do how ever think the sound of the paper keyhole being pulled away does effect the overall quality and the punch at the end does not feel like it is making contact with the victim. Otherwise I am pleased with the end result.

The Making of the captive

The shot for this film was actually inside Danny's cupboard, I squeezed inside with a camera and filmed danny pacing around on his phone inside his room. Unfortunatley his cupboard didn't have a keyhole. The keyhole shot was achieved by having the cuboard door open and placing a sheet of paper with a keyhole shape cut into it over the cupboard entrance. At the end danny has to open the cuboard door and assault the captrive within, this was achieved by danny placing his hand over the keyhole, whilst the camera was obscured the paper was removed and the door to the cuboard was shut, with the door now shut the film can carry on as normal, but to make full effect of our lighting equipment we backlight danny from behind whilst the cuboard door was closed so the when the door opened it looked like the captives eyes where adjusting to the level of light.

One shot film second idea "Captive"

The initial concept behind this piece was by Danny Peachy, a captive is held in a dark room looking through a key hole while his kidnapper attempts to free himself of guilt by reassuring the captive. We took this idea and adapted it slightly, the captive was still looking through the keyhole but this time spying on his kidnapper discussing his plans on the telephone. This way you feel like you are the victim fearing for what might happen to you as you listen to the man's diabolical plans. Unlike my first film idea this shot will not involve the camera moving, this keeping in with the brief, with my previous idea I'm slightly concerned I have stepped to far outside of the boundaries. Below is a transcript for the film "Captive".

phone rings:
hey
yeah i got it sorted
my place
yeah thats right
stupid son of bitch never knew what hit him
yeah thats right
tomorrow 12 o'clock
yeah if he's not there with the money... the kids finished
if you screw this up i swear to g...
alright fine
the truck should be here soon, then we can move him to the warehouse
yeah... then your boys can take good care of him (ha ha ha)
so what we talking 50/50?
sorry?
no i don't think so i need 50 grand by the end of this week or i'm a dead man
you better not screw me over you fat son of a bitch!
***guy is closet: ring tone
i'll call you back i have business to attend to, don't think i'm through talking with you
(cover keyhole, remove card,close door and turn on studio light)
if you were smart you would have kept your mouth shut... (punch)

One shot film idea

I hope to base my one shot film on a short story i wrote about a year ago inspired by film noir such as Brick and Sin City. Below is the script for the voice over that has been adapted for use in a one shot film.

She lay down upon the bed and gazed at me… sitting there, with my head in my hand and my hair fallen across my face. I tried to lighten the mood “I’m gonna get a bite to eat, that always makes me feel better” it was forced and she knew it, hell anyone could see that, she looked straight threw my words like a god damned pane of glass.
I looked into to her eyes and touched her lips with the end of my index finger, let her know I still cared and I did, I just couldn’t stand to be in the room anymore, she was always watching. Watching me when all I wanted was to be as invisible as that pane of glass.
I gently closed the door behind me and sighed, the landing was dark, the street lights outside were the only source of illumination, every single object was picked out with a faint orange glow. Thank god, I thought to myself, in that moment I felt like a 60-watt bulb could burn right threw me. I lumbered through the hallway into the kitchen like some kind of washed up drunk looking for his next drink. my bare foot twinged as it touched the cold cheap vinyl floor. There wasn’t a sound except the dull monotonous drone of the refrigerator, I pull it open and the light lit up my face, I stared into it blankly hoping that “bite to eat” would just fall into my lap… there was nothing, “shit” I mumbled to myself.
I turned and old pizza box caught my immediate attention… it would do. I grabbed the box and set it down on the table and looked at it with a glazed expression, there was a note, it read, “life’s tough… at least there’s pizza”, no shit. It was like the whole world was a joke and I was the god damned punch line.

More Pixilation

Here is a film I made with Jay, it explores essentially the same techniques as my previous film except being filmed on stairs its easy to loop, so it would appear to be a much larger stair case than it actually is. The film is edited by Jay and the music is by Aphrodite.

Pixilation Project

Here is the result of my pixelation project. The film was made using near 1500 individual stills and results in a 2 minute long film. The music is from Over Clocked remix and the action figures belong to my house mate Mr.Trow.



Over all I'm pleased with the film. It is a good sustained length and as a group we tried many different techniques and made an effective use of experimental processes. I have done pixelation before in my own time but never at this length or with so many different methods. This time I actively went about putting the footage in time with the audio, I feel this worked quite well, although I would have liked to use folie techniques but I didn't feel this would have been appropriate with the type of music I put with the film. The problem with putting video into time with music is its difficult to develop, if i wanted to change the music I would have to completely rearrange my footage or if I wanted to add a new effect I would have to re-sequence the film again with a new folder of images. Next time I should develop my work with short samples of film to compare and contrast my ideas.