This is the magazine cover created by the graphic designer (Sergio Mansilla) for the magazine that my character Frederick will find in the flat. The key element is the sentence "How the financial crisis will affect us all" which suggests that Frederick lost his job, and that he was a business man. Besides, by the action happening in the poker table, we guess that it was actually his brother who snatched his fame. The sentence "Reclaiming a legacy" suggests that Frederick bought this magazine after the situation. The fact that he finds a small picture of his wife among the pages, is a metaphor of how little attention he was paying to her wife.
Script completed at 24th January. Expected days for shooting: Thursday 4th and Friday 5th March.
Things yet to do: Meeting with Eddie for lighting, Magazine cover.
Recruit actors: 28th January to 11th February for auditions on the 12th February.
Preproduction: Lighting and shooting rehearsal 2 at the studio and the flat. Storyboards, floorplan,shot list and more to be done in two weeks (17th February to 3rd March).
Crew
Producer, writer, director: Me 1st AD: Navarro Aydemir Camera operator: Carlos Garcia Boom operator: 'Awaiting confirmation' Editor: Carlos Garcia, Me. Music by: Gutxi, Moby.
A few days ago I contacted Ludovico Einaudi -composer of the score for "Dr. Zhivago" and "This is England"- in order to get permission and information regarding his song "Primavera" (http://www.myspace.com/ludovicoeinaudispace). As Fortune is a non-profit film I asked him whether I can use the song for my film for free. He fowarded my message to the Synchronisation Manager for Film & TV of "The Music Sales Group".
This person gave me an estimate of £50-£100 with a license for 1 year that allowed me showing my film on film festivals -subject to writer approval-. I would also need to obtain permission from Universal Music with regards to the master recording and a licence from the PRS for Music if I wished to upload my film to youtube. This license is, at the moment, out of my budget, so I'll have to find alternatives.
And I did find them. The artist Moby has a variated collection of free music on his website (http://www.mobygratis.com/gratis/list). The only requirement for using the music was to complete a form with information on my film. After a week, I got today a confirmation email and a link to download the songs. Radio station seems the most appropiate to transmit the anguish that the character is feeling in the first two scenes where he finds himself in the empty flat. Here they are:
This is a rehearsal made at the university studio to test several options in terms of lighting, camera position, color correction in post and more. It took us an hour to set up the lighting and dolly tracks. One test was planned but not rehearsed, this is having two Arri 300w fresnel tungsten spotlights, each behind the subjects, this will make for backlights and also for fill lights of both subjects, a Pampa2 fluorescent light would be used as key and placed 3m away from the table, matching the middle of it. This presents an issue, as two different colour temperatures are being reflected on both sides of the subject's face. This could be corrected attaching a blue gel (frost) to both Arris, this gel softens and diffuses and reduces light intensity by approx. 2/3 stop. Although the effect I'm looking for -dark background- is achieved when the CC is applied, we should attach the black curtains available at the studio, in order to be able to add more light on the subject without getting a blueish background. The fact that the Poker table and chairs are blue could also make a good match with the blueish background, however, I still don't know if this would match the story visualwise.
This is a simple test shot I did with the Canon 7D. 3 point lighting, Key:pampa at 80%; Fill: Pampa at 40%; Backlight: Arri 300w. This was shot on NTSC 720p at 60fps. No.85 color correction. This test has been carried out to clarify whether my computer supported .Mov files of this type. Tomorrow further tests will be made at the University's studio room.
Frederick was a bussinesman who lost his job, apparently snatched by his brother, Chris, who will not be revealed as so until the end of the film. Now, Frederick plays Poker against him in order to either get it back or lose it all. Throughout the film we see that there’s more in play apart from his job, and he will have to make some changes within his mind in order to recover it.
1 . Frederick and Chris face each other at a poker table. At this moment Chris has more than a half of the total chips on the table. They have a conversation, Chris ends up calling him “Fred-the-dick”. Frederick gets very annoyed and we are taken to scene 2.
2. Frederick opens his eyes, he’s sitting on a sofa at an unknown room of a flat. This flat is mostly empty, only the sofa and a table can be seen. White is the predominant colour. Glass walls all over the room. Frederick stands up and looks around stranged, walks towards the room’s door and tries several times to open it, but it will not open. He walks back to the opposite wall, where the door for the terrace is place, it will not open either. He gets very nervous and unstable, he does not know what is going on. He starts shouting and walking in circles.
3. Frederick is back at the poker table, visibly more worried than in the first scene. After a hand Frederick loses almost half of the chips he had left. He is close to a nervous breakdown.
4. Frederick is back at the flat’s room,out of control he starts looking behind the curtains and under the carpet. Here we see a flashback of him crying in that room holding a cut picture of his wife. After the flashback Frederick calms down and steadily goes to the sofa and sits. We hear his tranquilised breath while he closes his eyes.
5. Back at the poker table Frederick seems more confortable and goes all-in, winning the hand. This annoys Chris, who takes off his pocket the other half of the picture of his wife, this half shows Chris holding his wife’s arm. The picture is shown to Frederick, who asks Chris for explanation furiously, but Chris does not wanna collaborate, he is actually taking the piss out of Frederick, telling him that his wife left a note behind the picture and how dirty she is in bed. Fred beats the table with his hand. This act takes us to scene 6.
6. Back at the flat’s room Frederick goes straight to the sofa and searchs in between the cushions, he finds a bussiness magazine under one of them. The words written on the cover of the magazine read:“How the economic crisis will affect us all”. He looks though the pages as if he knew perfectly what he was looking for. He founds what he’s looking for, the other half of the picture, which shows her wife. He looks the back of the picture, there are things written, but he needs the other half to understand the message. By the way the picture is cut and the words written, it makes us undertand that his wife left him for Chris when Fred lost his job.
7. Now at the poker table Frederick demands Chris the other half of the picture. Chris notices his special interest for the picture and proposes Fred to either put it in a bet for the last hand or he’ll burn it. Fred accepts reluctantly. Both go all-in, it’s all or nothing for both of them. The cards are dealt by Fred. The audience don’t get to see who has won.
8. Frederick is back at the empty room, goes quickly to grab the magazine and takes his wife’s picture from it. He takes the other half showing his brother off his pocket and connects them both. Now that the message is clear, we understand that his wife would never abandon him despite he lost his job. Someone knocks the door, when Fred looks up towards the door everything is back to place in the room, his laptop and case on the table, decorations on the wall and more. Frederick’s wife opens the room door and asks him whether is he too busy with work or if he would like to go for a walk with her . Fred smiles and stands up.
Combining a extensive zoom range featuring wide angle and telephoto plus a 4-stop Image Stabilizer, the EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM provides outstanding performance and flexibility. The wide angle will allow me to shoot the scenes in the flat more confortably, as there is no much space in the room for camera positioning.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II
This is the lightest EF lens of all at a mere 130g, very compact and providing a high-performance for a standard lens. Its Gaussian optics provide sharp delineation from near to far focusing distances. The color balance is excellent for a standard lens. Although most of the film could be shot with the EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6, this lens is always a good choice, specially for the shots that do not require for the wide angle effect. The fact of being lighter means that this lens could be the most appropiate for moving shots.
There is a high probability that I will be using a Canon 7D DSLR camera for the shooting of my film. It has an astounding video quality and its easier to handle than the camcorder with the DoF adapter that I was previously going to use.
Full HD Video is captured at 1920 x 1080 resolution at 30p (29.97), 24p (23.976) or 25p frames per second, for up to 4GB per clip. Movies are saved as .MOV files. Other recording sizes include HD at 1280 x 720 (50p / 60p (59.94) fps) or SD/VGA at 640 x 480 (50p / 60p (59.94) fps).
The film will be recorded on 720p at 50 fps, this frame rate will allow me to do slow motion shots much smoother than at 25p.
The camera also has a great performance under low light conditions, whereas the DoF adapter on the camera makes you lose 1 stop of light.
Here is an example of what is the 7D's footage like:
This is one of the tunes the music designer made for me. It may be used for the scenes in which the character is within his mind. It kind of transmits that lonely feeling. However, I'll be collecting more music in order to have more possibilities in post.
Following the last post, this are some of the main qualities of my secondary character (Chris):
- He hates someone who has something that he hasn't. - Vengative person. - Life itself owes him satisfaction. When something lacks for him, he feels anger. - He is able to destroy himself in order to destroy the other. - Cuts everyone's head to be taller. - Competitive, also with love. - Arrogant. - Very persuasive person. - Provocative person.
