Initial Ideas – FMP Project Choice

 

In arriving at my final idea for my FMP, my thought process can be divided into 3 sections really:

1. My thoughts and plans before coronavirus lockdown

2. My first thoughts and brainstorming when coronavirus lockdown started

3. My revised and final thoughts and FMP decision

 

So, I will explain my thought processes for each section in turn.

 

Section 1 - My thoughts and plans before coronavirus lockdown.

For all my projects this year, even though we each had to create and shoot our own film, I have enjoyed working in a team to help each other by being cast and crew for each other's films. We have a good group who have developed, from our first films from being not as professional as we could have been, into a very organised, professional team. Before there had been any suggestion of college shutting, it had thus been an obvious assumption for me that we could again all help each other by being cast and crew, and this was what my initial planning had included. Hence, my first ideas had been

1. Fiction film – Camping in the woods. With no dialogue. Pros – Let me show off my cinematography, lighting and story-telling with a camera without words, bit of comedic twist (which I like doing)  (Mr Bean) Downsides are time consuming and need certain times of the day for setting the scene, i.e. night-time for fire shot, early morning for sunrise, could be difficult to get the cast and crew together so many times. I wondered about actually camping somewhere for a few days with a few friends to film this, but I realised that all of us would be hard at work on our FMPs so trying to get our group together for a few days to camp could be unrealistic.

 

For example, some shot ideas that I had for the main part of the film was that as the main character is packing up his tent the wind blows it away into a tree - we see it being blown away off screen, him running off screen after it then the next shot is a high angle looking down at him looking up, with an out of focus branch just in shot as a hint of what has happened. Then a long shot including the back of him so that you can now see the tent in the tree with him on the ground. Then it would cut (not fade) to him trying to jump and grab the tent. The shots from here would involve the camera being stationary on a tripod in the same position. Then another cut to him trying to climb the tree, he falls out, then he walks off screen, cut, walks back on screen with a ladder, but that is too unstable. Cuts to him trying to throw a rope to get the tent down. The cuts, rather than fades, are to show that amounts of time are passing in between these shots, which I felt would add to the comedic effect better than fades, in the same way that having the camera stationary showing a fixed frame that he walks in and out of and we don’t see what is going on out of shot from then on would add to the comedic effect since knows what he is going to get (e.g. the ladder) but we don't. It is the opposite of Dramatic Irony (also known as Audience Superior Knowledge), it is Audience Inferior Knowledge and can add to the comedy effect. There may be other shots after this but it would end with a cut to him reversing his car towards the tree, cut to him standing on top of his car getting his tent down, then cuts to a medium close up of him happy that he has his tent back.

1. Fiction film – A Chase Scene. Since the start of this course, I have been fascinated by camera movement in films and TV and I thought this would be a good way to incorporate them in a fiction film. I wanted to practise more with the College Laing p-4s stabilizer (Steadicam), or maybe get a camera gimbal myself (my parents are buying me some filming equipment for my 18th Birthday), use the College Slider and see what other types of camera movement would be appropriate to make a chase scene look professional and exciting. I was looking forward to learning much more about camera movement, how to do it, the effect it has, and why directors chose to use it at what points and when/why they chose not to use it too.

2. Promotional Video – the Exam Centre (Tutors and Exams, Coventry) where I sat my GCSEs, knowing that I was going to be studying Creative Media Technology and Production, has asked me to do a promotional video for them, once I have learnt enough techniques.

 

I had settled on the Chase scene using camera movement techniques. I really liked the idea of the camping trip/losing his tent idea, and I think it would make an entertaining film. However, I felt that the chase scene would allow me to really develop my knowledge of camera movement as an increasingly useful technique. I felt it is very relevant to what I would like to go into in the Film Industry, since ultimately I would like to become a director, and the path that I would like to take to get there is a technical route of cinematography. So developing my knowledge of camera movement techniques would be useful for that, and I felt that it would allow for a deeper and more challenging FMP, with further reaching usefulness than the Camping Film.

 

I ruled out the promotional video for the exam centre since, although I would like to do this for them sometime, right now is (or was going to be, before coronavirus) the middle of their busiest time of the year, exam season. I would still like to do the promotional video for them sometime, and some footage of exam season would be useful, but I felt that I need to get footage throughout the year to show the progression to be a really useful video for them. They weren't in a rush, so I think it is better to use the knowledge I have been gaining this year, and will gain through doing my FMP,  to make a really good video for them at a time that suits them better.

 

So, I had decided on the chase scene. Then along came coronavirus and lockdown, which I talk about in my first blog entry.

 

Section 2 - My first thoughts and brainstorming when coronavirus lockdown started

In my blog, I also discuss how I felt I needed to rethink my idea in the light of coronavirus and lockdown. As I talk about in my first blog entry, I used the extract that my tutor, Tom had sent from the book called "On Being a Photographer" by David Hurn in conversation with Bill Jay, (Hurn and Jay, 2001) about choosing a subject for a Photography Project.

 

Following the process that I explain in my first blog entry, I came up with the following 5 topics.

 

1. D&D (the fantasy role playing quest game Dungeons and Dragons)  - How D&D is helpful in real life particularly when it extends into being online. Informative video.

2. Scouting – I am an Explorer Scout and was selected to go to West Virginia last summer to the World Scout Jamboree with around 45,000 scouts from around the world, it was amazing.

3. Stop Frame Animation – I have done some Stop Frame Animation and it is a process that I am interested in.

4. Camping – I guess this ties in with scouting but I like camping generally, not just with scouts and spent nearly all my summer holiday last year camping.

5. Star Wars – who doesn't like Star Wars?

 

A limitation that I felt I had was that I generally think I prefer to film fiction, but you do need at least one actor for that, and preferably more. My tutor Tom suggested that I could use my parents, but neither of them felt very comfortable being in front of the camera, acting. They had offered to crew for me, so I felt it was better to go with that, since it was kind of them to offer that.

 

You may wonder why I didn't just decide to act myself in my film, in order to be able to do a fiction film. Well, that's because although I am happy to help out my friends by acting in their films, I'm not actually that comfortable with doing it myself either. I much prefer being behind the camera. I joke about being the best actor, but I actually don’t think that I am a very good actor. So I decided that if I am going to have to be in front of the camera then I would rather it was as myself, rather than trying to act. I'd prefer to focus as much as I can on what I feel are my strengths, e.g. setting up shots etc. This meant that I was mainly looking at documentary style filming under these circumstances.

 

 So I kept my list to things that I felt I could do something with film-wise.

 

For example,

 

Scouting, I could focus on the World Scout Jamboree and try to do online interviews with scouts from around the world about their experience. But I wasn't convinced that I could get the quality of footage that I would want by using zoom etc. I know the content is just as important, but I thought there were better ideas, so I ruled this one out.

 

Stop Frame Animation, I liked it when I did it, and of course I could have made it fiction. I would definitely like to do some more of it, but I felt that for my FMP I wanted to get out and film something in real time if possible.

 

Camping, I could do a documentary about our family and camping, since we have camped for many years, and my parents have camped since they first got together. I could interview them (that may be preferable to them than getting them to act) and it would mean that I could film in real life. It was a definite possibility. But a problem that I could see was who is the intended audience? Who really is interested in my family's camping holidays?

 

Star Wars, I thought maybe I could do a documentary about the history of Star Wars (using some clips from online), how I got into it e.g. Lego when I was young, then Star Wars Lego games on the Wii and finally the actual films. There are definitely more people who are interested in Star Wars than would be interested in my family camping. But there is so much already on the internet about Star Wars that I couldn’t think how I could make it novel, new, and still interesting. And yes I do know quite a lot about Star Wars, but not as much as many other people.

 

So that brought me to D&D, which I am passionate about. I thought that maybe I could do an informative video about how the skills that you gain in D&D can actually be helpful in real life. This is something that I am interested in, and there is a huge audience out there for all things D&D. Fans and Players like lots of different angles on D&D so maybe that would let me have novel and new content. This felt like the best option out of the 5, so I decided to go with it.

 

However…

 

Section 3 – My revised and final thoughts and FMP decision

I explain in my first and second blogs about the doubts that I was having about my D&D idea.

So, as I say in my blog, I tried the brainstorming process again but without limiting myself to what I thought I could film. Here is the list that I came up with.

 

1. Camera Movement in films

2. Comedy in films

3. Technology and equipment

4. Studio Ghibli

5. Hats – particularly trilbies

6. Waistcoats

7. Owls

8. Fight scenes in movies

9. Jamboree (World Scout Jamboree last summer, West Virginia, 45.000 scouts from around the world)

10. Nintendo Switch

11. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (game on the switch)

12. Star Wars

13. Marvel

14. Minecraft

15. Lego

16. Brecon Beacons (Camping there)

17. Mission 00 Bucks (a County Jamboree May last year, about 4000 scouts, I did videoing and manned a crane camera for the main stage bands)

18. D&D (the fantasy role playing quest game Dungeons and Dragons) 

19. Critical Role (D&D game run by Matt Mercer, streamed on Twitch)

20. Steam Trains

21. Board games

22. Space

23. Camping

 

I realised that most of the ideas I had had in Section 1 included camera movement in some shape or form. Even the Camping in the Woods shots that I describe above considers the idea of camera movement in that the shots that I described DELIBERATELY chose NOT to move the camera for that sequence of shots. I could have had the idea to use different types of shots e.g. long shot of him looking at the tree then a mid-shot of him trying to climb the tree etc but my idea for that sequence was very much a sequence of shots with the camera stationary and in the same position to get the effect that I wanted, i.e. short passing of time and comedy value.

 

And camera movement was the main premise behind the chase scene that I had originally settled on, to explore and see how different camera movement can add realism, professionalism and emotion to scenes.

 

As soon as I started thinking about camera movement it seemed by far and away the best option. And whereas I couldn't see in my mind what the finished product for the D&D idea would have looked like, I have loads of ideas for where I could go with the topic of camera movement.

 

So, my FMP idea is now chosen.