Back to Derbyshire

Explaining how some of Soul Searcher's low-tech VFX were done
Explaining how some of Soul Searcher’s low-tech VFX were done

On Tuesday afternoon I headed up to Derby for Five Lamps’ Film Night at The Quad. The turn-out for the event was good, with several old acquaintances unexpectedly in attendance, plus a distant relative I’d never met before. After a nice selection of short films were screened, including Sophie’s excellent Ashes trailer, it was time for me to get up and witter on about Soul Searcher for an hour or so. The talk was well received and some intelligent questions were asked at the end.

The one that got away was this big...
The one that got away was this big…

Most importantly, the Stop/Eject donations bucket – beautifully decorated by Sophie with flashing lights – had nearly £60 in it at the end of the night. Big thanks to Sam and Carl at Five Lamps for hosting the event and to everyone who gave so generously.

The next day was to be an intense Stop/Eject recce day. But the first task was to shoot scene 20, a GV of the river in Belper with autumn leaves being washed away. This had to be shot while there were still leaf-less trees around, which there won’t be by the end of April when principal photography commences. Katie and I had collected the leaves before Christmas and now it was time for them to have their fifteen minutes of fame.

Raw screen grab from scene 20
Raw screen grab from scene 20

I set up the camera on a little dock and Sophie started sprinkling the leaves into shot. They did not wash away as I had hoped. They pretty much stayed put. And all the ducks and geese and swans came over and tried to eat them because they thought we were feeding them bread. D’oh.

After that we popped into a nearby furniture store to enquire about using their power supply and a space for hair and make-up when we film in the River Garden next month.

Checking out the weir at Willesley. Photo: Sophie Black
Checking out the weir at Willesley. Photo: Sophie Black

Then it was time to pay Sophie’s grandparents a visit and – after some subtle attempts to convince her grandma to play Old Kate in the film – we set off with grandad on a recce tour of the Derwent Valley. The main aim of this was to find a weir that was more suitable for filming on than the dramatic but inaccessible horseshoe weir at Belper.

A test shot of the weir
A test shot of the weir

Our first stop was Willesley, where we walked down to the river behind Masson Mills. And we immediately found the perfect weir. I spent quite a while checking out different angles and considering how my planned shots would work there.

Next stop was Magpie, the shop in Matlock that we lined up last year as the film’s key location. This was the big shocker. I knew from talking to Matthew, the owner, on the phone, that since last October he had purchased the building’s three upper floors and was in the process of expanding the shop into them. The reason I wanted to recce again was in case the ground floor had been changed during this expansion. And indeed when we arrived there we discovered it had, which will necessitate some minor changes to the shots and blocking.

But then we took a look upstairs. This used to be a B&B, and many of the rooms are intact and not currently in use by Magpie… Rooms that are perfect for filming the flat scenes in, and the nursing home. And rooms that we can even stay in during the shoot. All the outstanding locations and the accommodation problem all sorted in one fell swoop! Matthew, you are a legend.

After this we returned to Belper and the basement of Strutt’s North Mill, as featured in my lighting previsualisation blogs recently. There I conducted some quick white balance tests on the overhead fluorescents while Sophie measured the bobbin crates which we’ll be using as shelves for the cassette tapes.

Ye Olde Camera in Fridge Shot
Ye Olde Camera in Fridge Shot

There was just time for a chat about how the cassettes should be labelled and a look at the suitability of Sophie’s kitchen as the location for a brief scene before I had to catch my train home.

All in all, a very successful and productive trip. So much so that it seemed something had to go wrong to balance it out, and indeed I got some bad news yesterday regarding the cast. But more on that some other time.

Back to Derbyshire

Stop/Eject: Pre-production Update

Lara Greenway in Soul Searcher
Lara Greenway in Soul Searcher

Tomorrow night is my Soul Searcher lecture in Derby in aid of Stop/Eject. I’ll be talking about how I got my feature film funded, made and distributed, with plenty of clips and amusing anecdotes (that were far from amusing at the time, I can tell you). Find out all the details at the event page on Facebook.

There’s plenty for me to do on the train up there – most importantly going through the storyboards and altering them to fit the revised script.

Staying in Derbyshire, Sophie and I have a packed schedule for Wednesday, with lots of weirs to recce, some crates to measure, props to approve and a GV to shoot.

Get a sandbag like this for a £10 donation
Get a sandbag like this for a £10 donation

Meanwhile Katie is off to Smethwick for a costume fitting with Therese Collins, a.k.a. Alice, the character formerly known simply as The Shopkeeper. Expect a guest blog from Katie about that soon.

Remember, even if you can’t get to Derby, you can still contribute to the production by clicking the donate button in the righthand sidebar. And we’re still offering a free sandbag with mainland UK delivery for every £10 you donate. See my earlier post for more info on that.

Less than four weeks to go until we shoot…

Stop/Eject: Pre-production Update

“It’s a Film.”

Recently I revisited the Stop/Eject script. Yet another advantage of delaying a shoot is that you can get some distance from the project and come back to it with fresh eyes.

I’m still very happy with the script in most respects, but one thing stood out to me. The shopkeeper, one of the three main characters, appears out of nowhere on page six. (I took great delight in being able to write the stage direction, “As if by magic, the shopkeeper appears.”)

Eject
Eject

This now seems extremely convenient. It’s deus ex machina. Where was the shopkeeper when Kate and Dan first came into the shop and looked around? Where was she when Kate started experimenting with the tape recorder?

Because the shopkeeper is a magical character, I felt like I could get away with her being mysteriously absent from the first few scenes. Subconciously, I was thinking, “It’s a film.”

“It’s a film.” As in, “It’s only a film.”

If you’ve ever been involved in a low budget movie project, you’ve probably heard this phrase more than once.

A well-meaning crew member asks, “How come John didn’t notice when Susan was writing that text?” The director shrugs his shoulders and replies, “It’s a film.”

A producer asks, “How did Anne know when Bob was going to walk by?” The harassed writer replies, “It’s a film.”

It’s a film, so we can accept massive coincidences. It’s a film, so we can accept logic problems and the odd plot hole. It’s a film.

Stop
Stop

I have come to loathe this phrase in recent years. Because what it means is, “I’m a lazy filmmaker and I do not respect my audience.” And if you don’t respect your audience, they will not engage emotionally with the story, and your film will fail.

I want people to watch and enjoy Stop/Eject more than once. I don’t want them taken out of the story by wondering why the shop is completely unstaffed for the first five minutes.

So I’ve written her in. It took a bit of effort to come up with reasons why she wouldn’t interfere with what Kate’s doing, but that actually led to a richer and more believable characterisation. Win, win.

So next time you’re tempted to answer a legitimate logic query with “It’s a film,” ask yourself: if you don’t care about this movie, why should your audience?

“It’s a Film.”

Taking Decisions Lightly: Part 2

Lighting concept #1 for the basement
Lighting concept #1 for the basement

Following on from my last post, here’s what I was going for when I created the above lighting previz image for the basement scene in Stop/Eject.

As DoP Eve Hazelton lucidly explains in this video blog, one of the keys to great cinematography is creating depth, even (and especially) when you’re shooting in 2D. The basement location already has great depth with all those pillars tapering into the distance, but how can that be maximised on camera?

  • I’ve added smoke. Smoke creates depth because there will be more of it between the camera and a distant subject than between the camera and a close subject.
  • The light illuminating the smoke gets bluer as it gets further from camera. (This will be achieved by layering increasing numbers of blue gels on the lights.) This simulates the effect you can see when you look at the view from the top of a hill, whereby other hills in the distance seem bluer due to atmospheric haze.
  • I’ve thrown alternating pillars into shadow. This makes each “layer” of pillars contrast with the ones behind and in front of it, highlighting the depth. (We can achieve this on the day by simply turning off or removing the tubes in every other fluorescent light.)
Colour wheel
Colour wheel

As the characters walk through this shot towards us, they will go in and out of smoke and shadow, and become clearer through the smoke. That gives us dynamics, which are also important in good cinematography.

Now let’s look at the issue of colour contrast, something which I must admit I’ve only got to grips with quite recently. To cut a long story short, images look more interesting if they contain contrasting colours. Typically this means choosing two colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel, like blue and yellow as in the above previz. Or I could have gone with orange/red and green…

Lighting concept #2
Lighting concept #2

… though green daylight is hard to justify! It does fit nicely with the colour palette we’ve already established for the costume and production design though.

I also tried orange daylight and green fluorescent light, but since the scene doesn’t take place at sunrise or sunset that’s hard to justify too.

Finally I tried orange and blue. One is a warm colour and the other is a cool colour – another classic way of creating colour contrast.

Lighting concept #3
Lighting concept #3

The jury’s still out on this one. A lot will depend on what colour I’m able to make the fluorescent light appear through white balancing, since we’re unlikely to have time to gel all of them to my desired hue, and also what colour costumes Katie puts the characters in for that scene.

Okay, that’s all for today. Once the film’s in the can, there will be lots more about how the scenes were lit. In the meantime, perhaps I’ll share some of my lighting plans in a future post.

Taking Decisions Lightly: Part 2

Taking Decisions Lightly

I’m DOPing Stop/Eject as well as directing it, which means I have to be well prepared. I’m not going to have time to stand around on location figuring out how I want to light it. I need to do that in advance.

Last year I drew up some lighting plans, and thanks to the postponement of the shoot I have more time to work on these and get them just right. And recently I had a previsualisation idea: to take recce shots of the location and photoshop them to show the lighting I want to achieve.

So here’s the image I decided to work with, from the basement at Strutt’s North Mill in Belper:

Raw frame grab from the basement recce
Raw frame grab from the basement recce
Ceiling fluorescents
Ceiling fluorescents

So, how do I want to light the basement? How does a DOP decide how to light anything? For me it always starts with three questions:

  1. Realistically, where would light be coming from?
  2. Creatively, where do I want to put the lightst?
  3. Practically, where can I put the lights?

Let’s try to answer these for the basement scene…

  1. The basement is only partially underground, so it does have some windows, but I don’t ever have to show them if I don’t want to (an advantage of being director too). A room like this would have regularly spaced ceiling lights, probably fluorescent. Perhaps the characters would have a torch or lamp of some kind too.
  2. Soul Searcher's car park scene, lit almost entirely by the existing overhead fluorescents
    Soul Searcher’s car park scene, lit almost entirely by the existing overhead fluorescents

    I’m going to choose to include the daylight, to provide some contrast with the ceiling lights. This is our most impressive location and perhaps the scene where the film’s fantasy side is most apparent, so I want it to look magical and cinematic. More on the creative side later.

  3. We would have access to the areas outside the windows, so I could light through them if I wanted. (In practice I’ll probably never show the windows, and the lamps representing the daylight will actually be inside the building, just out of frame.) Our time at this location is likely to be extremely limited, so although the ceiling is suitable for hanging lamps from, I’ll probably just have to go with the existing fluorescents. I’ve done this before – the multi-storey car park in Soul Searcher – and it looked good.

So with all that in mind, here’s what I came up with in Photoshop:

Lighting concept #1 for the basement
Lighting concept #1 for the basement

In my next post I’ll explain what I’ve done and why, particularly with reference to creating depth, and show you some alternate versions of the above image which will demonstrate some of the basics of colour theory. Sounds intriguing, huh? Better not miss it.

Taking Decisions Lightly

Tape Recorder

Mmm, the eighties.
Mmm, the eighties.
Eject
Eject

Thanks to David Bidwell of The Monster Company, we now have our hero tape recorder prop for Stop/Eject. It’s a classic eighties model, very similar to the one I had as a kid, which I had in mind when writing the script.

Last year we bought 400 empty cassette cases for a crucial scene in the film, but we still need more. Do you have some old cassette cases kicking around? Would you be kind enough to donate or lend these cases to the production? If so, please get in touch with me: neiloseman [at] googlemail.com.

Elsewhere in art department land, Sophie tells me that work is underway on the wooden carving for the top of the alcove set. And Katie keeps shopping for the Shopkeeper’s costume, so to speak. And you can’t get quicker than a Kwikfit fitter. And she sells seashells on the seashore. And so on.

Tape Recorder

Soul Searcher Lecture in Derby Coming Up

Just under four weeks now until the next Soul Searcher lecture in aid of Stop/Eject. This one is part of Five Lamps’ March Film Night on the 27th. If you’re in Derbyshire, come along and see some great short films and hear about how Soul Searcher was financed, made and distributed, all for just £2. (Entry to the event is £2, that is. Soul Searcher cost more than that. But only a bit.) Donations to the Stop/Eject cause will be welcomed at the end of the evening.

Soul Searcher Lecture in Derby Coming Up

Wheels Within Wheels

One of the great things about DSLRs is that, being so small, you can put them in all kinds of unusual places and, being so light, you can rig them to things with relatively little hassle. Stop/Eject is not the sort of film where we’ll being doing a lot of this (unlike Act of Valor, which I strongly suggest you check out), but there is one shot that needs a custom rig…

Shot 69, as drawn by Sophie Black
Shot 69, as drawn by Sophie Black

In this shot, the camera needs to be attached to the bike in some way so it moves with it, maintaining the same framing on the wheel throughout. This is part of the film’s visual theme of circles, which I discussed earlier this year on the blog.

Rigged for the rear wheel
Rigged for the rear wheel

If the shoot had gone ahead last October as originally planned, this shot would probably have got dropped or replaced with a similar but less effective version achieved by simply steadicamming along next to the bike. But one great advantage of a shoot being postponed is the opportunity to prepare so much better.

To that end, Colin and I borrowed his mum’s bike this morning to test the shot. Under the pressure of a low budget filming schedule, you can’t mess around trying to figure out a rig like this. You have to work it out in advance.

My plan was to use a C-stand arm and a cheap tripod to get the camera in the right place. First of all we tried clamping the arm to the frame of the bike, but it was too thick. So then we clamped it to the pedal (which meant roping or clamping the pedal to another part of the bike so it wouldn’t turn). The bottom of the tripod was clamped in turn to this arm. The handy thing about using a tripod, of course, is that you have a pan-and-tilt head for easy adjustments and a quick-release plate too.

Rear wheel shot
Rear wheel shot

Initially we filmed the rear wheel, but then I realised filming the front wheel would allow us to get a wider frame, since the pedals (which had to be framed out because the arm was clamped to one of them) were further away from the front wheel.

The rig worked out really well. We had to use a lens with an image stabiliser, and when we shoot it for real we’ll put someone on the bike to weigh it down and reduce the bumps further. I’d imagined we’d have to use a second clamp and bungee cords to keep the camera in place, but the sturdiness of the C-stand arm and the low weight of the camera made this unnecessary.

Yeah, we got a bit of the pedal in shot, not to mention Col’s feet. But those things are easily fixed.

Just before I sign off, I have to give you a link to Tony Hill Films, a site I came across while researching bike rigs. He’s built a number of unique and fascinating camera rigs which you can see in action on the site: http://www.tonyhillfilms.com/rigs

Front wheel rig
Front wheel rig
Wheels Within Wheels

Advance Preparations for Stop/Eject

Alright, so you’ve seen the podcasts on making a wagon light and sandbags, but what else are we doing to specifically prepare for Stop/Eject, now that most of our funding is in place?

Firstly, we’ve pencilled in some shooting dates: April 21st-25th. Hopefully by then the weather will be nice and the trees will have leaves on.

We’ve also been sorting out cast and crew, as much as is practical this far in advance. For the most part this is the same line-up as last year, but the crowd-funding campaign did bring a few extra people to our attention.

(As time slips away and you hurtle towards production on a low budget project, you often wish you had had more time to prepare. But the reality is that when you’re not paying people, you can’t plan too far ahead, because a key person might suddenly get some paying work that clashes with your dates, and then everything’s thrown out of whack. It’s just the nature of the beast.)

Sophie Black's alcove design
Sophie Black's alcove design

Colin has priced up the alcove set which needs to be built. It’s a fairly simple piece, not much bigger than a portaloo, but hopefully more enticing. But it does raise further issues of where to build, who can build, how to transport and where to shoot, all of which we’ll gradually be addressing over the coming weeks.

We’ve already started weighing up the costs of hiring a van, to get the equipment and set around.

Sophie has written off to local food businesses in the hope of getting sponsorship to help feed the cast and crew.

And finally, as the podcasts make clear, I’ve been thinking about the equipment we’ll need. I have some, Colin has some, we’ve built some, we’ll borrow some, and if we can afford it we’ll hire some.

As things progress, there will be detailed blog entries about many of these topics. For example, I’m planning a run-through of all of my equipment and what it does, a look at the ins and outs of scheduling a shoot, spotlights on some of the crew and their roles (if they let me!) and a blow-by-blow account of the set build. And I expect there will be some more podcasts too.

So stay tuned.

Advance Preparations for Stop/Eject

Homemade Sandbags

Recently Colin suggested I talk my wife Katie into making some sandbags to weigh down lighting stands on set. One of us also had the idea of making them out of canvas shopping bags. Like me, I think Colin envisaged Katie simply filling a canvas bag with sand and sewing up the top.

As you can see, she went to a lot more trouble than that…

Some of my new sandbag collection
Some of my new sandbag collection

Considering that you’ll pay the best part of £20 on eBay for one of those, I think £3.55 is a pretty good deal.

Once Katie had started making them, she couldn’t stop. I ended up with five of the one stone saddle bag kind shown in the video, and three smaller ones for counterweighting arms. Thanks Katie!

If you want to see some prettier things Katie has made, be sure to visit her shop at Katiedidonline.

And once again, if you’ve enjoyed this post or found it useful, please do consider clicking the Donate button in the righthand column. All the money goes into making Stop/Eject and you’ll get a credit on the film, an invite to the premiere and access to my super-useful indie film budget exposé How to Make a Fantasy Action Movie for £28,000. (UPDATE: PLEASE NOTE THIS OFFER IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.)

Homemade Sandbags