Looking After Your Cast and Crew

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The cast and crew
The cast and crew of Stop/Eject

On a low budget shoot, it’s all too easy to overlook the welfare of your cast and crew in the push to get your story in the can. I’ve been on both sides of the equation, and I’ve put together a list of suggestions to keep morale high and leave your cast and crew with warm feelings about working on your productions. These things are especially important when you cannot afford to pay people much or anything. I’ve got all of these wrong at various times in the past, sometimes several at once. I’m trying to do better though.

  1. Be polite. Compliment people’s work whenever possible, thank them frequently and apologise when things go wrong. If people feel appreciated, they’ll go that extra mile for you.
  2. Feed them well. I was on a shoot recently where we were served hot, home-cooked meals every lunchtime, followed by delicious homemade desserts, followed by a pot of tea. Amazing! Sadly, I’ve also done shoots where there was neither lunch break nor lunch itself – we were all expected to just keep on going. It’s essential to feed your cast and crew well to keep up morale and energy levels.
  3. Let them see the rushes. The heads of department may all be buoyed by the creativity they’re getting to express, but what about the assistants and runners? Let them see the monitor while you’re shooting, or screen some rushes of an evening, and they’ll feel much more valued and engaged with the project.
  4. Try to stay on schedule. When you’re not a Bectu/Equity shoot, it’s easy to take advantage of the lack of regulations and power on through that scheduled wrap time. But you’re shooting yourself in the foot, because everyone will be more tired and work more slowly the next day. And don’t forget that some crew members – the DIT, for example – still have work to do after you’ve wrapped, and people may have a long commute to get home.
  5. Reward them. When the shoot’s over, do something to show you valued and appreciated everyone’s hard work. Throw a wrap party, or buy people little gifts, or send “thank you” cards.
  6. Keep them in the loop. Postproduction often drags on and on when you have little or no budget, but don’t forget your production crew. Keep them up to date, and if they need material for their showreels, get it to them as soon as you can. A cast and crew screening, even if it’s just at your house, will always be appreciated, as will a DVD or Blu-ray copy if you can possibly afford it.
Looking After Your Cast and Crew

My 10 Most Popular Videos

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Right now there are 120 videos on my YouTube channel, most of them behind-the-scenes featurettes. They range from video blogs and on-set reports – like this one on lighting a tavern scene in The First Musketeer –  to in-depth “how to” guides – like The Dark Side Guide to Building a Set. Here are the top ten most viewed:

1. 10: Cumbersome (Benedict Cumberbatch as Max)

Part of a series of fifteen podcasts covering the making of The Dark Side of the Earth‘s demo scenes, this episode focuses on the challenges faced by Benedict Cumberbatch in portraying the germophobic Maximillian Clarke. With nearly 70,000 views at the time of writing, this is far and away my most popular video. I wonder why this could be? 😉 Lots of women seem to be appreciating Benedict’s little dance at 1:37. If you want to know what Sherlock himself is like to work with, the fact that he put up with being in this suit without complaining tells you all you need to know.

2. Soul Searcher trailer

I still bump into people who know of me from following the Soul Searcher blog all those years ago, so maybe that has something to do with this trailer’s popularity.

3. The Dark Side Guide to Miniature Effects

This is one of four “Dark Side Guides” I posted during 2010 and 2011, giving detailed advice about stuff I learnt the hard way while making The Dark Side of the Earth‘s demo scenes. They’re my most polished behind-the-scenes videos, and at ten minutes long each, some of my most in-depth as well. This one focuses on the challenges of shooting miniatures, including choice of scale and lenses, and how to combine them with full-scale footage. A budget breakdown at the end reveals all the costs that went into creating Dark Side’s miniature shots.

4. A Message from Georgina Sherrington

Demonstrating the power of a star name, this video was posted during the second crowd-funding campaign for my short fantasy drama Stop/Eject, to promote a new reward we were offering to sponsors. Read my crowd-funding evaluation to find out how this helped our campaign.

5. Stop/Eject trailer starring Georgina Sherrington

We promoted this combined trailer and pitch video very heavily during the seven months the postproduction crowd-funding campaign was running. Note how this video, along with others in this top ten, has the actor named in the title to maximise the chances of it coming up in a search by one of her fans.

6. Stop/Eject tape #7: Make a Sandbag

Stop/Eject’s costume designer Katie Lake demonstrates how to make a sandbag for weighing down lighting stands. This video’s popularity was given a huge boost after it was featured on Indy Mogul’s Moguler Made.

7. Soul Searcher

Soul Searcher is a fantasy action film about an ordinary guy who is trained to be the new Grim Reaper. It was picked up for distribution by a small UK company, who sold it to several territories for DVD release. When my contract with them expired, I posted the whole film on YouTube. It’s quite possible that, with 3,699 views to date, the film has reached more people this way than it did through the formal distribution deal.

 8. The Dark Side Guide to Digital Intermediate

When making The Dark Side of the Earth’s demo scene, which was shot on 35mm, I struggled to find a single, reliable source of information about the DI process. This inspired me to start the Dark Side Guides and to make this guide in particular. It takes you through the whole process, covering all the decisions you’ll have to make and the issues you might encounter, and concludes with a budget breaking down all the costs.

9. Editing Stop/Eject

Another one that was boosted by appearing on Moguler Made, this is a brief but effective demonstration of the big impact that relatively small changes to an edit can have. It shows how I addressed issues that were raised in test screenings to make the narrative clearer.

10. 3: Suit You

This is another in the original series of Dark Side podcasts, going inside the workshop of FBFX to see how they constructed the germ suit which would be worn by Benedict Cumberbatch. Kevin Giles, seen modelling the suit and remarking on how comfortable it is, has been stuck with the nickname “duvet” ever since.

If you’re hungry for more, I’ve compiled the following list of all my videos, organising them by topic in roughly the order those topics crop up during the making of a film.

General

Writing

Development

Fund-raising & Budgeting

Pre-visualisation

DIY Builds & Rigs

Casting/Acting

Costume & Wardrobe

Scheduling

Production

Camera & Lighting

Stunts & Action

Sound & Music

Special & Visual Effects

Editing & Post-production

Distribution & Festivals

Miscellaneous (i.e. not behind-the-scenes videos)

My 10 Most Popular Videos

“The Art of Dramatic Writing” by Lajos Egri

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On the advice of my friend and mentor Carl Schoenfeld, I’ve just read Lajos Egri’s The Art of Dramatic Writing. Penned in 1946, it’s a manual for playwrights, but it drills to the core of what’s important in drama, and as such is just as useful a read for a screenwriter or filmmaker.

The book is divided into four sections: premise, character, conflict and general.

What Egri calls premise I would call theme, though he soundly argues that calling it premise forces you to think of it as almost a pared-down logline, which may make you more inclined to treat it with the appropriate importance. He suggests that a premise should have three parts, indicating the dominant trait of the lead character, the conflict and the ending. Examples he gives include “honesty defeats duplicity”, “bragging leads to humiliation” and “poverty encourages crime”. Reverse-engineering a few recent movies along these lines might give us “instinct trumps conformity” (The Heat), “love transcends human flesh” (Transcendence) or “the powerful triumph over the weak” (Captain Philips). Egri emphasises that the premise must be the very DNA of the script, informing every line and every action.

We have all heard people saying that characters in a film must be three-dimensional, but have you ever wondered what those three dimensions are? Egri’s answer is: physiology (physical appearance, health, heredity), sociology (class, job, religion, home life, etc.) and psychology (morals, ambition, temperament, IQ, abilities and so on).

The premise acts as a goal to your characters, especially your lead, and powers their development – Sandra Bullock’s loosening up in The Heat, for example. Egri reminds us that character development must be a smooth process, so a character who goes from anger to love must pass through many intermediate stages such as irritation, ambivalence, interest and affection. Missing out these transitions, Egri warns, will result in melodrama.

“A weak character,” says Egri, “is one who, for any reason, cannot make a decision to act.” He goes on to explain that, in theory, any character can be strong if you choose the right “point of attack”, in other words if you write about a period in their life when they HAVE made a decision to act, when they are ready for conflict.

Lajos Egri
Lajos Egri

To generate rising conflict, Egri asserts the need for “a clear-cut premise and unity of opposites, with three-dimensional characters.” He defines a unity of opposites as a scenario in which the protagonist and antagonist want precisely the opposite things. This can apply not only to the overall thrust of the story, but to individual scenes within it too. Egri urges the reader not to fall into the trap of “static” conflict, where characters argue back and forth without escalating the situation.

Being aimed at playwrights, the book considers dialogue as the only means of revealing plot, character and conflict, but in a film conflict could be literal (as in an action film) or expressed through some other non-verbal means.

Overall, Egri’s breakdown of a script’s essential elements provides me a with useful template with which to begin interpreting a screenplay. Many people have produced books attempting to distill the essence of good writing, and it is largely a matter of taste which one you find most useful. Personally, I found The Art of Dramatic Writing clear, concise and refreshing, and I’m sure I’ll refer to it frequently.

“The Art of Dramatic Writing” by Lajos Egri

Cow Trek: Director’s Log

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Back in 2000 I directed and co-produced a surreal Star Trek spoof written for me by my old schoolfriend Matt Hodges. Although it was made a few months before I started blogging, the website did feature a retrospective production diary, and today I’m going to share that with you. But first, here’s the film…

Who is that handsome young fellow?
Who is that handsome young fellow?

To find out how the project came about, in a strange little Malvern pub called The Prince of Wales, read the production notes on Cow Trek’s film page. And here’s the shoot diary…

Sunday, December 17, 2000

There are two Hereford-Worcester roads. Each one has a pub named The Wheatsheaf on it. These are facts. I know them. I did not know them before this day. And that’s what made us an hour and a half late as we roamed the Bromyard Downs in my mum’s little Peugot, with an unfeasible amount of equipment (and lard) in the back, at a unfeasibly early time on an unfeasibly cold Sunday morning, trying to find an unfeasibly unfindable farm.

All of this time, Matt was sat in a very uncomfortable position in the rear right seat, or what would have been the rear right seat, had it not been folded down to fit more gear in, effectively encasing the unfortunate Mr. Hodges in a metal box constructed from grip equipment and plastic poles. And a piratical wheel. Sometimes, I suspect Matt may regret writing Cow Trek.

Mike Hodges as Farmer Blackbeard
Mike Hodges as Farmer Blackbeard

Still, we got there in the end, and eventually filmed our first shot, with Mike (Farmer Blackbeard) having quickly learnt the intricacies of tractor operation. It was then that Julia Evans, head honcho of Longlands Farm, asked us exactly what we needed to film. When I mentioned a cow in a field, she was very surprised. She had no idea. The cows were in barns. Fields would be tricky. Very tricky.

Closing my mind to the fevered panic which threatened to engulf my very soul (and a fair bit of my hair as well), I pressed on with the two farmyard scenes featuring the main dialogue twixt brothers Hodges. Once Matt had donned a flat cap, he looked more like a farmer than you could possibly imagine. Big sideburns are surprisingly agricultural. (Perhaps Matt’s next script should be about a ska band that are also farmers.)

It didn’t take long for me to start getting paranoid and shooting far too many takes and angles of everything, but we weren’t on a particularly tight schedule so it didn’t really matter. The first yard scene had that tacky low budget look with the two actors looking at a cow “that’s there, honest, but it’s just out of frame so you can’t see it”. Oh well.

Writer Matt Hodges in his role as Farmer Giles
Writer Matt Hodges in his role as Farmer Giles

As the sun went down, we repaired to the farm’s study, where we promptly set up a whole bunch of lights in an attempt to make it look like day. Muchos comedy ensued as Mike improvised a sequence in which he swapped his hook hand for a biro appendage to sign his cheque, and then impaled it on the aforementioned appendage to hold it out to Farmer Giles.

Monday, December 18, 2000

Having discovered, to my horror, that sound man David Abbott’s car had broken down, I was forced to get my mum to take us to the farm today.

Arriving at the delightful time of 8:00am, we were kindly provided with a cup of tea by Julia, who then dutifully got two cows from the barn and put them in the paddock near the farmhouse. Sipping our tea gratefully, we watched Julia and her husband chasing one of the cows around, trying to get it into the field. We opted to make the other cow our star.

As Matt had been saying for some time, the cow’s action consisted primarily of eating grass and walking along. This would not take all day, he insisted. Always the professional (read: know-it-all), I was more conservative. However, that cheeky bugger Matt turned out to completely right. Julia helped us out with the walking bits, shooing the cow up and down the lane. We were completely unable to get the beast to stand still next to Matt (a cutaway for the yard scene), but you can’t have everything.

The starring cow
The starring cow

I was loath to broach the subject of bovine sexual congress with Julia, as she had been so helpful thusfar, despite having clearly not been briefed as fully as I had hoped on what we were going to need. An effect, I decided. It would be tricky, but what the hell?

And at about midday, we realised we’d finished. Buggery. Mum wasn’t picking us up till 6:00pm. We killed the afternoon filming extra cow shots, recording sound effects and sitting around in the farm house.

In the evening I went up to Chris Jenkins’ abode, for ’twas he that was providing a basement as a studio for the spaceship interiors. We had spent all of Saturday working on the set, but had progressed considerably less quickly, and considerably more expensively, than I had anticipated. Even the Hodges’ input on console construction had not brought us up to speed. But by the end of Monday night I was confident that we had done enough groundwork to allow Tuesday afternoon’s filming to start on time.

How wrong I was…

Tuesday, December 19, 2000

Actor Si Dovey (in red shirt) and I (in gillette, I regret to say) move a set panel into place while David Abbott adjusts the jib. Actor and composer Chris Jenkins, whose mother owned this basement, is in the yellow shirt.
Actor Si Dovey (in red shirt) and I (in gillette, I regret to say) move a set panel into place while David Abbott adjusts the jib. Actor and composer Chris Jenkins, whose mother owned this basement, is in the yellow shirt.

I can’t for the life of me remember what took us so long on Tuesday morning. We had been scheduled to finish the set between 10am and 2pm, then film the Engineering Room scenes until 5:30. In the end, we didn’t shoot a thing until 4:00pm.

Late in the morning, I sent David out to get some gerbils. Directing him to the only pet shop I knew of in Malvern, with additional instructions to pick up some extra hardboard for the set, I was extremely pleased when he turned up an hour later with three hamsters. It was around this time that Chris’ sister Sarah became an inpromptu member of the crew, looking after the gerbils and making (occasionally) helpful comments as we affixed three plastic wheels to the fake walls and inserted rodents into them. Praise the Lord, the little blighters actually went round in them! Sadly we couldn’t get them all to go round at once, but I was happy enough.

Finally Jim got to do some “acting”. The script described Engineer McHaggis as “an overly Scottish man” who does “overly Scottish things”. Jim’s interpretation of the character, combined with the poor selection of Scottish items which were available to dress the set, is best described as “a barely Scottish man doing barely Scottish things”. Not only was he incapable of doing the accent, he also couldn’t deliver a long line, forcing me to cut the scene.

Oh Jim, why?

Lee Richardson (Captain Lightstar), Chris Jenkins (Ensign Lancer) and Si Dovery (Lieutenant Steeljaw) rehearse their lines.
Lee Richardson (Captain Lightstar), Chris Jenkins (Ensign Lancer) and Si Dovery (Lieutenant Steeljaw) rehearse their lines.

Wednesday, December 20, 2000

I don’t know at what point I realised that this day had about 50% of the film’s total running time scheduled to be shot on it, but I was brown-trousering when I did. However, I reasoned with myself, there were no animals today. Just lots of big dialogue scenes. But all in one location. Easy, right?

Two and a half hours after our scheduled start time, we had finally constructed the sliding door for the bridge set and were ready to shoot. Once we got going, we rocketed through it. Again, loads of takes were needed – this time because my shotlist called for complex tracks/cranes combined with multiple focus pulls, and I kept arsing them up.

I was annoyed when, about five scenes in, I had to rearrange my lovely lighting set-up in order to make way for an extra wall section. It never looked as good after that.

Lee managed to get his arse out. A deliberate out-take – the sliding door opens and there are the hairy cheeks of the Tuxman’s posterior.

Somehow we wrapped five minutes ahead of schedule, but there was then lots of clearing up to do. The mighty director was reduced to scrubbing the carpet, as it transpired that the dust sheets I had used whilst painting the set were of insufficient thickness, and the paint had seeped through to the carpet. I am told that those patches are now the only clean areas of the carpet.

Cow Trek: Director’s Log

The Visual Effects of The Abyss

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It’s time for one of my occasional asides celebrating the world of traditional visual effects – miniatures, matte paintings, rear projection, stop motion and the like. For a film using all of those techniques, look no further than The Abyss (1989). Arguably James Cameron’s most underrated film, it can also be considered his most ambitious. Whereas Terminator 2 had bigger action scenes, Titanic had a bigger set and Avatar had more cutting edge technology, these concerns all pale in comparison to the sheer difficulty of shooting so much material underwater.

The hour-long documentary Under Pressure makes the risks and challenges faced by Cameron and his crew very clear.

The Abyss won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, and is remembered chiefly for the then-cutting-edge CG water tentacle. But it also ran the gamut of traditional effects techniques.

The film follows the crew of an experimental underwater drilling platform, led by Bud (Ed Harris), as they are roped into helping a team of navy divers, led by Lt. Coffey (Michael Biehn), investigate the sinking of a submarine. Underwater-dwelling aliens and cold war tensions become involved, and soon an unhinged Coffey is setting off in a submersible to dispatch a nuke to the bottom of the Cayman Trench and blow up the extra-terrestrials.

When Bud and his wife Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) give chase in a second submersible, a visual effects tour de force ensues. The following methods were used to build the sequence:

abyss1

  • Medium-wide shots of the actors in real submersibles shot in an abandoned power station that had been converted by the production into the world’s largest fresh-water filtered tank, equal in capacity to about eleven Olympic swimming pools.

abyss2

  • Close-ups of the actors in a submersible mock-up on stage.

abyss3

  • Over-the-shoulder shots of the actors in the submersible mock-up, with a rear projection screen  outside the craft’s dome, showing miniature footage accomplished with….

abyss4

  • Quarter-scale radio-controlled submarines, shot in a smaller tank. These miniatures were remarkably powerful and, due to the lights and batteries on board, weighed around 450lb (204kg). In order to see what they were doing, the operators were underwater as well, using sealed waterproof joysticks to direct the craft. The RC miniatures were used when the craft needed to collide with each other, or with the underwater landscape, and whenever the audience was not going to get a good look at the domes on the front of the submersibles and notice the lack of actors within.

abyss5

  • One of the custom film projectors inserted into the miniature subs
    One of the custom film projectors inserted into the miniature subs

    Where a more controlled camera move was required, or the actors needed to be visible inside the subs, but it was not practical to shoot full-scale, motion control was used. This is the same technique used to shoot spaceships in, for example, the original Star Wars trilogy. A computer-controlled camera moves around a static model (or vice versa), exposing film very slowly in order to maintain a large depth of field. The move is repeated several times for each different vehicle under different lighting conditions, before compositing all of the “passes” together on the optical printer in the desired ratios, to achieve the final look. For The Abyss’s motion control work, the illusion of being underwater was created with smoke. In shots featuring the submersibles’ robot arms, stop motion was employed to animate these appendages. But perhaps the neatest trick was in making the miniature subs appear to be inhabited; the models were fitted with tiny projectors which would throw pre-filmed footage of the actors onto a circular screen behind the dome.

The sub chase demonstrates perfectly how visual effects should work: mixing a range of techniques so that the audience never has time to figure out how each one is done, and using an appropriate technique for each individual shot so that you’re making things no more and no less complicated than necessary to tell that little piece of the story.

My favourite effect in the sequence is near the end, when the dome of Coffey’s sub cracks under the water pressure. This was filmed over-the-shoulder using rear projection for the view outside of the dome. But the dome was taken from a real submersible, and as such was too thick and too valuable to be genuinely cracked. So someone, and whoever he or she is is an absolute genius, came up with the idea of using an arrangement of backlit sellotape on the dome to create the appearance of a crack. A flag was then set in front of the backlight, rendering the sellotape invisible. On cue, the flag was slid aside, gradually illuminating the “crack”.

crack

Now that, my friends, is thinking outside the box.

The Visual Effects of The Abyss

Blackmagic Production Camera 4K: Pros and Cons

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My BMPC on a Pro-Aim shoulder rig
My BMPC on a Pro-Aim shoulder rig

I recently bought a Blackmagic Production Camera, having twice found myself in the position where I was scrambling about trying to hire one at short notice. Blackmagic Design have since announced the Ursa and the Studio Camera, but for now even the Production Camera is still pretty hard to get hold of.

I haven’t yet used the camera enough to review it in any depth, but I thought this summary of its pros and cons might be useful to those out there considering their own purchase.

The BMPC has two advantages over its predecessor, the BMCC (Blackmagic Cinema Camera):

  • 4K resolution (or 3840×2160 to be precise) rather than 2.5K.
  • Global shutter rather than rolling shutter, so you don’t get any of that “jello” effect in handheld footage, quick pans, etc.

But the BMPC also has several disadvantages over its predecessor, namely:

  • Native ISO of 400, rather than 800, meaning it needs more light.
  • Twelve stops of dynamic range rather than thirteen.
  • Greater power consumption, though not as horrific as I’d been led to believe. My 6.9Ah battery goes dead about seven hours after call time.
  • ProRes is currently the only recording format. No DNxHD, no raw – though presumably that will come as a free firmware update at some point.
The screen is sharp but reflective.
The screen is sharp but reflective.

The  BMPC shares many of its predecessor’s problems:

  • Highly reflective screen that is unuseable in daylight or any well-lit space, unless you put a cloth over your head like you’re using a Box Brownie.
  • Internal battery has a very short lifespan and isn’t removeable.
  • Utterly unergonomic form factor, but that’s true of many cameras nowadays. Even supposedly ergonomic ones like the Sony F3 and the Canon C300 are in reality too heavy to handhold for any length of time.
  • Terrible audio circuits, but again that’s par for the course.
  • For monitoring, SDI and Thunderbolt outputs only, no HDMI. (Though if you’re upgrading from a DSLR, any monitor output that doesn’t shut off the camera’s own screen is a bonus.)
  • Can’t shoot highspeed.

But it also shares many of the BMCC’s strengths:

  • Excellent value for money. (The BMPC is currently £2,300 inc VAT.)
  • Lovely organic image with relatively little moiréing and a logarithmic look for the most flexibility in the grade.
  • Comes with a free copy of DaVinci Resolve.
  • No need to transcode footage before editing.
  • Although reflective, the screen is sharp and good for focusing.
  • Simple, uncluttered menus.
  • EF lens mount, so if you’re upgrading from a Canon DSLR you can keep your old lenses.
  • Uses ordinary 2.5″ solid state drives to record onto, rather than proprietary media.
One of my V-lock batteries, mounted on the back of the rig in a vain attempt to make it balance.
One of my V-lock batteries, mounted on the back of the rig in a vain attempt to make it balance.

The look of this camera’s images are definitely its greatest asset, and coupled with the affordable price tag, it’s hard to beat.

If you’re going to buy one, bear in mind that you’ll also need to buy:

  • SSDs – at least £70 each, depending on the speed and capacity you go for.
  • Docking station for the SSDs (at least £20), unless you want to open up your laptop every time you ingest footage.
  • Battery system – I paid £500 for two unbranded 6.9Ah V-lock batteries, a charger, a plate and a D-tap cable. (Thanks to Richard Roberts for his advice on this.)
  • Rig – even if you’re never going to shoot handheld, you’ll need something to keep the camera and battery together.
  • Either an electronic viewfinder, a monitor or a cloth to put over your head so you can see the built-in screen.
  • An HDMI converter (at least £25) if you don’t have access to an SDI monitor.

More on this camera coming soon.

Blackmagic Production Camera 4K: Pros and Cons

Designing Amelia’s Letter

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Amy Nicholson
Amy Nicholson. Photo: Colin Smith

Production designer Amy Nicholson is no stranger to period settings and low budgets. I spent all of last September in France lighting her impressive work, so when I came to crew up Amelia’s Letter, she was the only person I considered to create the script’s four distinct periods. I’ve asked her to share her experiences of the design process on this demanding short film. 

I met Neil as a DOP on The First Musketeer, a rather intense but wonderful project. He instantly won my respect and acclaim with consistently superb lighting, a real appreciation for prop details and generally being a nice guy to work with. [Neil quietly slips Amy a tenner.] So when he approached me about designing Amelia’s Letter which he would be directing, I couldn’t help but say yes, despite a recent promise to myself not to take on any more freebies.    

Amelia (Georgia Winters) in 1903
The eponymous Amelia (Georgia Winters) and her equally eponymous letter, in 1903

The script filled me with a mix of excitement and dread. On the one hand it was my dream job with four different time periods (including my favourite, 1930s) and a gothic style, but on the other hand the level of art required to do this project was massive.

The original budget set by the production wouldn’t cover the acquisition of the named props let alone any effective dressing. Luckily for me they listened to my cause and agreed to increase the figure to a point my most optimistic budget might stretch to. This was fantastic but of course still set me up on my biggest challenge ever! 

Barbara (Tina Harris) in 1939
Barbara (Tina Harris) in 1939

I was part of early conversations and visits to locations, and with Neil agreed what could work best.  This collaboration between a director and production designer is fantastic and really builds the strength and vision of a piece. The chosen location was a little semi derelict cottage at Newstead Abbey. The architecture was stunning and although the worn state and small size of the building would present big challenges, the opportunity to do whatever we wanted and really transform the main room for each time period was incredible. 

Charles (Francis Adams) in 1969
Charles (Francis Adams) in 1969

The main focus of the design and plot revolved around a period desk. Therefore it was important to get this piece right and plan all other design factors around this key item. I spent days searching for the right one, regularly sending images back and forth to Neil for an opinion. I wouldn’t normally bug a director in this way but the desk really had to support the action and shots effectively, so was crucial. I was pleased to learn that Neil was of the opinion that in this case the look of something was more important than the true accuracy of period, so this gave me a little flexibility. I eventually found the perfect piece, a 1909 roll top desk. The age and style was ever so slightly too modern but the detail and quality of wood far outweighed the five years of inaccuracy. Unfortunately the desk was 150 miles away and featured quite a bit of damage. So a road trip to collect the desk and some renovations by my dad ensued. Dad also constructed a bespoke locking drawer needed for the action. This proved a great deal of effort but worth it to get the right piece. 

There were a few other items I had to buy, including a 1930s radio, but on the whole I was able to source everything else from my personal prop store and generally doing a bit of beg, steal and borrow from friends, family and the crew. I also befriended a local antique shop and was able to hire many dressing items really cheaply. Having many sources in this way really makes a budget stretch but always involves a lot of time spent collecting, sorting and returning.

Choosing paint colours should have been quite easy but the best colours are always the most expensive and with four colours required in just three days it took careful consideration. Neil and I agreed a pallet of colours which would look good on camera and distinguish each period. He requested that the colours get bolder throughout to suit the narrative, but on a practical front this also ensured only a single coat was needed on the walls, saving time and money. I bought patterned rollers to achieve an easy wallpaper effect for both 1903 and 1969. This was a new toy for me and proved a fantastic effect that I will certainly be using again. 

Some of the present day set dressing
Some of the present day set dressing

On set I had a superb team to support with all the redressing. It was like 60-minute makeover each time we transformed to a new period and I was so impressed and grateful that all the crew got involved at some point to help us out. Once each transformation was complete the cast and crew consistently let out a genuine ‘wow’ making the art team feel very proud. 

I was truly pleased with each of the sets and it was really special seeing them combined with some effective costume design by Sophie Black, impressive lighting by Alex Nevill and intense actor performances. I can’t wait to see the finished film, as I’m confident it will be something of beauty!

Visit Amy’s website at www.amynicholson.net.

For the latest updates on Amelia’s Letter, like the Facebook page. The film is produced by Sophia Ramcharan of Stella Vision Productions.

Designing Amelia’s Letter

Firelight: Revenge of the Cyclotron

neiloseman, ,

Back in early 2012, gaffer Colin Smith and I built a wagon light – or Cyclotron, as it was soon dubbed. Alright, Colin did most… all of the building, despite what this video may appear to show.

The dimmer board controlling the Cyclotron sits on the arm of the sofa next to the tungsten avenger itself.
The dimmer board controlling the Cyclotron sits on the arm of the sofa next to the tungsten avenger itself.

Somehow, the Cyclotron never got used. The 100W bulbs and clip-on fixtures that comprised it did get used, however. They were scattered throughout the shop in Stop/Eject, hidden behind a bed in Ashes, and used to create a sunset in The One That Got Away. And last weekend, they got turned into something which the moniker “Cyclotron” seems to fit even better.

Shooting Coffin Grabber, directed by Claire Elizabeth Alberie, we needed firelight to play on the face of a character called Phil. I asked Col to rig up a bank of eight 100W bulbs, running two of them into each of the four channels on his dimmer board. During the takes he would oscillate the faders in random patterns to suggest the flicker of flames.

In front of the bulbs I hung a sheet of Urban Sodium gel. Given Phil’s character, I didn’t want the sunny feel of a straw colour or the homely orange of CTO (Colour Temperature Orange). I happened to have some Urban Sodium in my gels bin and I felt that had just the right dirty, gritty and a little bit hell-ish look for Phil.

There are many ways to simulate firelight. Check out this blog by Shane Hurlbut about how he built an elaborate rig using gooseneck microphone mounts for The Greatest Game Ever Played. And look out for a forthcoming post from me on simulating candlelight when The First Musketeer is released.

Phil (Ross O'Hennessy) basks in the warm glow of the Cyclotron.
Phil (Ross O’Hennessy) basks in the warm glow of the Cyclotron.
Firelight: Revenge of the Cyclotron

Thank You

neiloseman
Georgina Sherrington ("Kate") and Oliver Park ("Dan") during the weir scene
Georgina Sherrington (“Kate”) and Oliver Park (“Dan”) during the weir scene

Thank you to everyone who made Stop/Eject‘s third crowd-funding campaign such a huge success. We set a target of £400, but we smashed through that early on and ended up at £600 when the campaign ended on Sunday. That makes £4,800 raised in total for this little fantasy-drama since 2012. The new funds will pay for entry into another 20 or so film festivals around the world.

It was also an opportunity for the small but loyal fanbase we’ve built up over the last couple of years to get their own copies of the film. I’m now in the process of getting the extra discs duplicated and I’ll be posting them out as soon as they’re ready.

Thanks again for your support, everyone.

Thank You