Ollie Tristram

These are the four main characters of the film. None of them are any more or less important to the narrative than the others.

Warren
Played by: Sam Myddleton

Warren is a third year student on a Sports Science course at the University. He is a very confident individual who has a lot of friends who are equally as confident. He comes from a rich family who live in Herefordshire and is used to having his own way. His favourite activites are socialising, which he does to the extreme by going out partying every week and playing a variety of sports. He is known by most as arrogant, self-obsessed and vain but to those that don’t know him; he can come across lively, chatty and friendly. Another reputation he has is to be quite a stud with the ladies, and this is actually why Warren accepted the invitation to take part in the experiment because he quite fancies his chances with Sophie. Warren’s masculine persona is purely just a front, because the time spent filming in the haunted place gets too much for him and it is soon clear his original persona does not reflect his real feelings.

Peter
Played by: Josh Parker

Peter is a second year Music Technology student. He is quite laid-back and is a well-organised person. Peter’s main attribute is that he tries to make light of any awkward sitautions by telling jokes. He also tells jokes in front of new people he meets to try and impress them, sometimes they are genuinely funny, but other times he tries too hard. The joke telling comes from a low self-confidence that people that know him can’t really see because he is the kind of person to bottle up his problems. He has grown up living alone with his single mother so there is a side to him that is very fatherly and he would be kind of guy you would go to for advice. Peter is very sceptical of ghosts, so his reason for accepting the invitation comes down to the fact that he doesn’t get out much and having been invited by someone to do something quite important he feels obliged to. There is also a small side of curiosity inside him because if he was to see a ghost, he may just believe.

Martyn
Played by: Andrew Bradford

Martyn is a first year Human Genetics student. He is very much the opposite type of person to Warren as he is shy, quiet and studious. He is quite the geek that studies hard at University, comes back to his flat and plays World of Warcraft. He is not a complete nerd though, Martyn does have quite a large group of friends and regularly goes out for casual pints at the pub. One of Martyn’s favourite television programmes is Most Haunted and he has a fascination of ghosts. So when he heard a student was inviting a select few students to spend the night in a haunted location he jumped at the chance, so he can experience what the people experience on the show. Martyn’s overall personality sees him as one of those people who get straight A’s in exams, but is actually quite a nice guy who is easy to get on with.

Sophie
Played by: Steph Dawson

Sophie is a good friend of the Psychology student who is conducting the experiment and is only taking part to do him a favour because no other girls would do it. Sophie did have a past encounter with a ghost when she was younger so she is quite intrigued into the experiment anyway, but when it comes to the night she will be very scared and probably scream quite a lot. She is a third year Theatre Design student. Her personality is typically girly: quite loud, slightly confident, very little common sense and concerned of her image. She likes to keep up with the latest fashions and make-up and reads magazines to learn all the latest tips about fashion and ‘guides’ on men. She has a boyfriend who is not in the experiment so she has no interest in Warren.

I have changed the narrative of the film. It is now this:

A third year psychology student is conducting an experiment called An Observational Analysis of Behaviour and Effects of Prolonged Time in a ‘Haunted’ Environment. For part of this study there will be video data collected which will be my film. It will still be shot in the style of a documentary and introduced by the student himself, and act as a sort of diary of events. The student has advertised around University for students to take part in the experiment, but with very little response the choice of students has not been ideal. Although there will be an introduction to the students and location, the main emphasis of the film is now on the night itself and the interactions between the students.

This (pretty much final) idea is a mockumentary on the Most Haunted-style TV programmes.

Narrative/Theme

A TV show, which features different groups of people every week and takes them to haunted places to the spend the night, has this week chosen a small group of students from a the university’s paranormal society. The students will also act as the presenters of the show.

Pre-production

The program will be scripted although I do want some of the scenes in the building to be improvised to add a more realistic feel. Also, apart from all the usual pre-production that is expected (character studies, recces, health and safety, etc.) I plan on having the actors and I spend a night at the haunted location for us to experience the same situation the characters in the film will be in, therefore helping the actors understand their roles better.

Structure

• Introduction by students on this weeks show
• Introduction of the location
• Tour round the location in the day with site owner telling stories
• Students spend the night at location
• Next day, students reflect on the night and a scientist gives his opinion on what occurred.

Characters

There will be 4 main characters of 3 males and 1 female (as we want more humour and less screaming). There is also a secondary character of the scientist.

• Character 1 (male): Cocky, cynical and outspoken, but when it comes to the night, is actually a scared little girl.
• Character 2 (male): Average, laid-back and curious. The character most people would relate to.
• Character 3 (male): Fairly sceptical, tells jokes and makes light of most situations. Will act as the main source of comedy.
• Character 4 (female): Typical girly-girl. But really wants to see a ghost because of a past experience with one, so a strong believer. Gets scared easily.
• Character 5 (male): Old man aiming to disprove any ghost theories.

Setting

• Outside University
• Inside and outside haunted location like pub.
• Interview room/computer room for scientist analysing footage.

Cinematography

All interview sections will be done using Sony Z1 on a tripod. As will the tour section, but probably be handheld for that. During the sleepover there will be a small, handheld, night-vision camcorder to film the haunted antics.

Post-production

The film will be edited using typical clichés like creating atmosphere using video effects to make the locations look darker and scarier than they actually are. There will also be fast cuts and direction changes in camera to add a disjointed feel to some shots, particularly those outside and inside the ‘haunted’ location.

Audio-wise, I plan on producing the title and/or credit music myself and using royalty-free atmosphere sounds and noise samples to add to the scary tone of the film, which is another cliché.

It's been a while since a post, but I thought this video was worthy of a Blog post. It is very cool.

This is the finished version. The quality is pretty bad because YouTube loves to compress everything to do death, but its not too bad.

If you have me as a friend on Facebook there is a much better quality one on my videos there.

Anyway, enjoy!

Project/ Assignment title: Documentary, “Soul City”

Self-evaluation is a reflective process assessing and describing your learning experiences and the results you have achieved in your project. A transparent (fair, candid) and well-written self-evaluation will help you identify and recognise your strengths and areas for improvement. It will also help you become more familiar with your own working and design process for the purpose of improving and implement strategies for your future projects. (word count- 500-800)

The main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were:
In terms of narrative, I wanted to get across to the audience that being a busker is an interesting life and that the relationship between them and the public can be unique and sometimes special. In terms of my own intentions, I wanted to make a film that showed that I can be part of a team that can create an artistic piece showing I have a good eye for composition. Also, I wanted to show that I have a talent in sound recording and mixing, as the live recording of the busker playing turned out very good quality and authentic and the interview turned out quite crisp (via means of equalising, compression, speech enhancing etc.)

The methods I use to develop my ideas were:
Online research was my main method for developing ideas. Watching existing short documentaries, particularly on FourDocs, enabled me to gather ideas for the film, and in the end the artistic style we went for came from a couple of films on there.

I took a risk by trying something new.
I think the biggest risk we took as a group was clinging onto the idea of documenting a busker as the idea was initially disliked as it didn’t have much potential, but since we pitched a new direction to pull it in the idea grew on people. However, the technical ‘risks’ we took were using quite a lot of pull focusing as I for one had never really used much of it before so to get the film looking good via this method was somewhat of a risk.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were:
As I was in charge of sound there were a couple of problems we came across. The first problem was when we were recording the interview with the busker on the street there was way too much background noise. This was partly because the microphone wasn’t held close enough to the subject’s mouth, but also because the street was generally too noisy, so when I came to cutting up the interview the audio too obviously stopped and started when the backing noise came in. Another problem with the sound was getting the levels correct. When we heard the film for the first time on large speakers, instead of headphones, it was too hard to distinguish what the busker was saying.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were:
To fix these problems, we had to rearrange the interview and one of the sound booths were booked out. This way we wouldn’t get any background noise at all and in the end I recorded a clear sound. As for the levels, well they were simply adjusted so that the ducking of the backing track was more severe.

The most interesting or challenging thing that I achieved was:
What I am most proud of achieving on this project is spotting and filming interesting shots that excite the audience and keep up the pace of what could have potentially been a slow, boring film.

The things I have learnt from this particular project were:
I already knew to use manual white balance and focus but one thing I have learnt is to use manual exposure as well. This is because there are a couple of shots in our film where the iris changes from light to dark when someone in a dark coat walks past the camera. I suppose the other thing I have learnt is to allow for more contingency time as things like having to rerecord the interview and even getting hold of the busker in the first place proved to be somewhat of a setback. Another point to add is that we probably needed to film a bit more footage. We had enough, but maybe just a few more shots to play with in the edit could have helped boost the artistic-factor of the film.

If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently:
Probably do a new idea. I think more research and inspiration was needed so the rest of the group and I could have found a subject with more potential to be interesting and entertaining. Although our guy turned out to be quite interesting, he could have also been very boring so it was a risk.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe:
I think after this film I could make another documentary. I have never made one before but it is quite a good way of storytelling and interesting to make. It has necessarily inspired me to create a new film, but I will take with me all the experience with the cameras and sound so next time I have more knowledge on how to be more efficient and more productive. Except for what I may create, this project could and should benefit me when looking for work experience with established production companies. It is another project that shows my potential and hopefully people will pick up on it and will lead me into a career in the industry.

I have achieved the following learning outcomes for this module and my evidence is:
I have learnt to be consistent with technical skills and also to work well with your group. My evidence for this is the actual final film we have produced but also all the posts on my blog that show all the research and pre- and post-production I did to go with the rest of the work from the group and into the final production file.

Here are some action shots of us producing our Documentary. These will be included with the rest of the paperwork when the project is finally submitted.