PRP Ideas

I've got two more ideas lined up for my PRP artefacts, one that continues in a similiar vein to the earlier videos, and one that explores the extent of sound's abilities in film from a slightly different angle.

The wondrous 20p and the evil penny (definitely a working title, haha!) –
A guy goes for a stroll and encounters two coins on the floor. The first is accompanied by pleasant, triumphant music whilst the second is soundtracked by an ominous, menacing theme. This video and it’s questionnaire will be designed to observe the soundtrack’s ability to create character, which is quite similair to my third artefact, 'Dog Whispers', but it has the advantage of starring two inanimate objects. In 'Dog Whispers', the music for each dog and their different voices are a large part of their character, but the dialogue itself is also a big factor. Here, I think it will be easier to see the effects of the audio itself without any extraneous factors to confuse matters.

The Laugh Track idea –
This idea is to take a scene from a film that is either very melancholy, harrowing, or disturbing, but definitely not funny at all, and add canned laughter to it. I was thinking maybe the scene from ‘The Shining’ wherein Jack Nicholson first confronts his wife, wielding an axe. The aim of this is to discover whether or not the laughter of others actually influences us to laugh, and whether it’s possible to recreate this effect in film. I would definitely think that the laughter of those around us has a strong influence, but this may be more of a social effect than a physical one, and so I think it'd be interesting to see exactly how canned laughter, detached from any kind of physical presence, affects us.

Filming!

OK, so I've acquired a viking costume (with satisfyingly large horns on the helmet!), got someone to act as the viking, and decided Bakewell is the best place to shoot for the forest location, all of which means I'm set to film this weekend. Now I just have to refine my hand drawn storyboard so I know exactly what shots I need to get, and finalise the script.
I'll be filming all day Saturday in Bakewell, and then Sunday morning/afternoon in the Heavy Sounds.
I'm still undecided on the soundtrack, currently I'm thinking I might record my own music so I can get it to synch up perfectly with the on-screen action.

Client Sketches

Here are a few sketches for my various client project ideas -



This is a storyboard for the viking idea, here's a quick sketch to illustrate my idea where there are two screens on screen, and the viking walks between them -



And here's the first half of a storyboard for the animation idea, along with a few ideas for the little animated character -

Njorl's Saga

Here's a Monty Python sketch that bares a large of ammount of similarity to my viking idea for the client project -



Around 2 and a half minutes through is the bit that's like my idea, with Njorl riding a horse through the wilderness before ending up in North Malden. The transition between the two locations is class, there's a zoom into a close up of Njorl and then we cut straight to the sign, and voila, we're there!
I don't have the budget to get a horse however, so in the ad the viking would have to wander about on foot. To make this idea work, I think I'd need a really good location too, maybe Sherwood Forest?

More Client Ideas

I've had another idea for the client project for The Heavy Sounds. We open with Clint (the shop's owner) sat in the store, reading a magazine or checking some stuff online. A series of different people walk into the shop, starting off with a few music fans, and then progressing onto some kinda iconic metal figures. I'm still a little unsure as to what I could have here, maybe people dressed as identifiable musicians, the viking from the first idea, and then maybe ending up with someone dressed as Satan walking in to browse through the CDs. Every person who walks in is greeted with a casual "hey man" from Clint.
I like this idea as it shows the shop as a kind of meeting place and kinda shows more of the social aspect of record stores. I don't think it's as good visually as the viking idea though, and the ammount of costumes needed could be problematic and would look really naff if the costumes looked bad.
I'm trying to think of some way of combining the epic voyage of the viking idea with the community element from this one, I'm not really sure if this current idea is the best way to make the idea of community look more visually interesting.

Online Location...?

I've been looking through a variety of different independent music shops' websites, and the vast majority of them are very basic, serving as an online catalogue of what's in the store, and none of them utilise any kind of video at all. All the sites are perfectly functional however, and serve their purpose, so this leads me to wonder where and how my video is going to fit into the site.
A YouTube video would be the easiest and most straightforward way, and would get around any sort of bandwidth issues. Having it near the catalogue section (which is pretty much the bulk of the website) doesn't seem hugely relevant, so I think maybe the best place to put it would be the front page, underneath the logo. (Here's the site, as you can see there would be enough space in this area for an embedded YouTube video.)
This would also maybe make the site stand out from other record store websites, as so far I haven't found any that incorporate video of any kind.

Client Project Ideas

Here's some initial ideas for my client project, which I'm doing for the Heavy Sounds in Nottingham -
- A man puts on some headphones and presses play. The camera zooms into his eye and then a short animated sequence takes place, maybe with a little devil character travelling through scenes reminiscent of classic metal album covers. At the end we cut or fade to black, and see the tagline “....because life’s all about The Heavy Sounds.”
- A customer walks into the shop and as he picks up various CDs, different metal legends (or people dressed as them haha!) appear behind him. For example, he picks up a Motorhead album and Lemmy appears, and says something like “Ooh, that’s a good’un, that one!” [I have a feeling this idea would look pretty tacky, so maybe it's back to the drawing board for this one....]
- We see a viking out in a forest, who tells us about a 'sacred' place. He then goes on an epic voyage, eventually ending up outside West End Arcade, and then ventures into the Heavy Sounds.

Here are some other things I'll have to consider as well -
- If the video is designed to play on a site, how will this be done? It could be embedded on the site, or the site could link to a higher quality version. Will there be bandwidth issues here?
- Copyright....that old chestnut! I was originally thinking of having some classic songs to soundtrack the ad, but this may not be a possibility if the ad is being used for commercial use. Maybe I could get in touch with some local bands to provide music for it?
- As well as (or maybe instead of) focusing on the musical aspect of shop, it'd be nice to be able to show the shop as a kind of meeting point for like minded people, but how to actually achieve this is something I need to think about.

PRP Artefacts Ideas

So, one of my initial ideas for the first one is to re-edit a piece of existing film with different music to change it's atmosphere. I'm still not entirely sure whether to do this with just one scene from a film or attempt to make a re-edited trailer instead. Another idea I had is a short scene that I can edit in subtly different ways to make it either appear as a comedy, a horror, a drama, etc etc. but at the moment I'm having a few troubles trying to think of a basic, easily adaptable scene. It should be something fairly mundane to allow scope for the sound effect to drastically change our perception of what's happening on screen.

Intro / Outro Idea

Whilst looking through all the file sharing footage, I thought this could make a cool little intro or outro to put on the end of films that I make -

I'm not sure what kind of sound to put on it though.
And here's an edit I did purely for my own amusement, and to try out reversing footage. This won't be handed in, as it's really stupid, but enjoy -

Problems With Idea 1

After discussing my idea for the simulated client project, I feel a lot clearer about the idea. However, there are a few small problems, the main one being whether or not the fact that the second guy has copyed the first guy's CD is clear enough. I'll have to find a way to show this that fits neatly into the story, and doesn't disrupt it's flow. I'll also have to think some more about the aesthetics of the film, and exactly how I'm going to make the two stalls. They need to look home made and amatuerish, but not look like I've just kinda rushed them off.
Also, I need to emphasise the point that something wrong is taking place here. At the moment, I'm thinking the first guy should maybe burst into tears eventually or something, or perhaps, going with the idea of 'damage' to recording artists, that the crowd of people rushing to the free download stall damage or destroy the first guy's stall, or trample and damage the environment around it. These are just ideas at the moment, I need to solidify them a little bit.

I had another idea too, based around the idea of intimacy, for instance, when you download a CD, and miss out on the artwork, physical object, even the excitement of something like finding a rare album in a record store, you're losing out on the intimacy between you and the product. For this idea, I was thinking you could have two guys at a fairground, one with his arm round a CD, and clearly having a great time, and the second guy with his arm round a harddrive, who looks really miserable and keeps glancing jealously over at the other guy. I don't think I'll use this idea, but thought it'd be a good idea to have it in writing!

EDIT : I've had an idea for this, if we show the first man’s CD as clearly being a well produced CD, with artwork and packaging etc., when the second man buys it, and after we see the first man glance across at him, the second man puts the CD down on his stall, and points next to it and another identical copy appears in it’s place. He points again and two appear, then four, and so on. Then everyone rushes in and gets them. Still just a possibility at this stage, I'll try and think of some more ideas.

More File Sharing Risks

In terms of the risks of file sharing, I had so far only really identified damage to artists, the risk of finding spyware or viruses in the material you download and the possible risk of arrest. But I found this on Wikipedia that has given me a few ideas -

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing

"Recently, there has been a drastic increase of inadvertent P2P file sharing of personal and sensitive information. This became evident in 2009 at the beginning of President Obama's administration. On February 26, 2009 the blueprints to the helicopter Marine One were made available to the public through a breach in security through a P2P file sharing site. Access to this information has the potential of being detrimental to national security.[47]

Two days prior, the Today Show reported that more than 150,000 tax returns, 25,800 student loan applications and 626,000 credit reports were all inadvertently made available though File Sharing.[47]

Over the last six years identity theft has become more prevalent. On July 9, 2008 there was another inadvertent revealing of vast amounts of personal information through careless use of a P2P site. The “names, dates of birth, and social security numbers of about 2,000 of the firms clients, including Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer were all exposed.”[47]

In an attempt to avoid these security leaks, current legislation in the United States is being debated, the Informed P2P User Act.[48] According to this act, it would be mandatory for individuals to be aware of the risks associated with peer-to-peer file sharing before purchasing the software. Informed consent of the user prior to use of these programs would be required. In addition, this act would allow users to block and remove P2P file sharing software from their computers at any time.[49] The Federal Trade Commission would enforce these regulations"

An advert illustrating this risk could be a lot more sinister and scary than the current ideas I've been having. For example, my first idea was to have someone downloading material online, and then a shot of over their shoulder where you can see bank details and personal information on their screen as they're downloading. Then cut to another shadier individual downloading these personal files, and then maybe, I don't know, the original man finds all his bank details stolen and becomes bankrupt, or gets kidnapped and bundled into the back of a car whilst the other guy steals his identity. Needs a bit of work this idea, but thematically could work really well and be quite unsettling. I'm not 100% sure if this is the route I want to take with my film at the moment, but it's something to think about.

More Ideas!

I had a few more ideas for the simulated client project, which are -

1. A man stands behind a home made stall, selling some CDs. Another guy comes up to him, and buys one. Both men seem pleased. Then the guy who bought a CD sets up a stall right next door, and starts running off loads of copies. Whenever people walk past the two stalls now, the second guy hands everyone a free CD-R. The first guy looks a little bit uneasy, and gradually more and more people flock to the second guy, whilst the first guy starts to look more and more exhausted. It ends with a tagline along the lines of something like "Don't take the easy way out. Sharing copyrighted files online is harming musicians."



2. We see two characters, one representing, say, an independent band and one representing file sharing, presented as two characters in a fighting game like Street Fighter or Tekken. We cut to clips of people downloading music, and after each one cut back to the fighting game style footage where the file sharing character starts to pummel the band character. A voiceover could say something like "File sharing is harming music. Help it fight back - buy a CD", and then we cut to footage of someone buying a CD. After this the band character begins to start beating the file sharing character.

EDIT: Here's a rough script for this idea -
Flashy intro, showing two names and character’s faces bursting onto the screen. There’s Independent Band, and Download Dan (names not final, haha!). Band is shown to be very heroic looking and noble, Download Dan however resembles a villainous, cackling madman.
VOICEOVER – It’s the rumble of the century! A brave Independent Band with bills to pay takes on the mighty tyrant of internet file sharing software! Who will emerge the victor? Let’s find out.....FIGHT!
Cut to the two characters standing next to each other, with their names and health bars at the top of the screen like Street Fighter. The two size each other up, then Download Dan lunges, and we cut to footage of someone downloading an album online. Cut back to the fight and Download Dan attacks Band.
VOICEOVER – Oh, and that’s a nasty hit!
Cut away again to someone else downloading music, then cut back to Dan attacking Band again.
VOICEOVER – Ouch, and that’s another whack in the gut! Band isn’t taking this very well! Let’s see what our ringside commentator has to say about this!
Cut to a man stood in front of the pair fighting.
COMMENTATOR – Well Larry, file sharing is certainly battering independent music! If this continues, he could be outta the ring all together! So come on music fans, let’s help the big guy out!
VOICEOVER – Wise words there, but is all hope lost for our plucky pugilist?
Cut to someone buying a CD, and then cut back to the fight where Band begins to fight back.
VOICEOVER – I don’t believe it! What a turnaround!
Continue to cut away to people buying music, and after each one cut back to Band unleashing more and more intense attacks on Download Dan. Eventually Band beats him, and the ringside commentator runs in and awards him a medal.
COMMENTATOR – Ohhhhhhh, and it’s a knockout! Well done, music fans, I knew you’d do the right thing! Winks at camera
NEW VOICEOVER – Downloading copyrighted material harms independent artists. Help support art and the people that make it.

It's Kyle Cabinet!

A reeeeeeeeeeeeally rough idea for a character -



I'm still not really sure if it's a good idea for the character to be a literal visual representation of a 'file', I toyed with the idea of just making it a file with googley eyes and legs, but I couldn't really make it look very likeable at all. Then again, how likeable is Kyle Cabinet here? I'm not too sure...

None Of Them Knew They Were Robots

I've been thinking more about the original script and how I would actually film it. Fitting the story into six minutes is gonna be pretty much impossible given it's complexity, but would split nicely into three short films, the first ending just after Roger goes forward in time, the second ending just as Roger gets into a fight with the robot, and the third part would be Roger returning home and changing his life.
I was talking to my flatmate Elliot about how much this film could end up costing, and Elliot estimated around £500-1000... I'm not sure if this guess is a little too high, but either way I'll have to raise a bit of cash to help build the set for 'Chuck Voyager' and the robot. The set will be appropriate if it's really cheap and tacky looking, so with a bit of imagination I'm sure this wouldn't end up costing a great deal. The robot, on the other hand, could be a little trickier. It's okay if it looks a little cheap, as after all it was made on a budget in the actual plot, but I don't want it to just look like a load of cardboard boxes...
The robot should be humanoid, and as non-threatening as possible. Maybe a robot that looks sort of like this would work -

It wouldn't be too hard to make a reasonable robot suit by sticking chunks of painted card onto a jumpsuit for added flexibility, and then modifying a bike helmet a little to act as it's head.
A robot like this would be quite easy to achieve too -

- but I'm not too sure I want the robot to look like this. It doesn't have much of a personality, and looks quite ominous in a way. Even the robot in this film is meant to be slightly incompetent, it's still supposed to be quite a lovable character. I want the audience to feel kinda sorry for it when Roger has a go at it, and I'm not sure a big chunky box would be able to convey things like this...

This is a kinda classic robot style, which I think would work really well given that 'Chuck Voyager' adheres to so many sci-fi stereotypes and conventions, so the film will be quite consistent stylistically. I also like the idea of robots getting more and more complex as the human race advances, then cheaper and poorer as it declines, meaning that the final robot that was produced does resemble something out of 'The Jetsons' rather than 'I Robot'.

This is a similar design to the last one, but I like the rounded head! If you were to make this into a costume, you could put eye holes in the mouth bit, and then put big LEDs or something in the eyes to give it a little bit more personality.

Another pretty classic design, this robot looks awesome and is actually quite a basic design - human body shape with dials and switches on the chest, and connections on all the joints, it's just the head that could pose a problem. However, I'm sure with the right lighting, and from the right angle, something like a bunch of bottle tops and old loo roll tubes stuck to a box and painted silver could look like a fairly convincing robot face...maybe?

Whilst searching about for robot examples I found this awesome picture too -

More Scripting Fun!

I had another idea for a script that may make a good film, about a guy who feels the music scene in his town is sorely lacking, and goes about putting on a gig to showcase local talent. However, the only venue he is able to secure is an old lecture theatre, which is less than ideal, and all the bands he wants to book are unavailable, leaving him with several poor, but well meaning bands. The gig looks like it's going to be an absolute disaster, with members of the different bands not getting on well, the music sounding generally terrible, deadlines looming and a mountain of logistical nightmares. Eventually however, the gig turns out to be shambolic fun and is enjoyed by all.
This is just the bare bones of the story at the moment, there needs to be several good obstacles in the man's way, and the bands also need to have their own distinct character, and be bad in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. I was thinking sort of like the battle of the bands scene in Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke mixed with Spinal Tap, but with contemporary sounding bands. At the moment, some of my ideas include an aggressive but woefully out of time straight-edge hardcore band, a drug guzzling drone/doom band that are more than happy to let a single sustained note ring out for about 50 minutes, an pretentious art-rock kinda band, and a kind of gabba or breakcore DJ. These characters would all find conflict with each other, but eventually find a kind of middle ground to all get along...possibly? Still needs a LOT of work, but I'll keep thinking about it!

I've been reading 'Adventures In The Screen Trade' by William Goldman to help me with the scripting, and it's been really useful. There's a chapter where he takes an old short story he's written, and then tries to adapt it into a screenplay. Seeing the thought processes he goes through and the changes he makes the initial story is really interesting, and I'll apply some of the questions he asks about his own work to my scripts. I'd recommend this book and it's sequel ('Which Lie Did I Tell? More Adventures In The Screen Trade') to everyone on the AV course!

Alternative Endings

I've now come up with a few ideas on how to end my current script, and I'm going to try scripting them now and seeing which one works best. The one I'm liking the most at the moment, is that when the robot sent itself and the time machine forward in time, the two merged without the robot realising. The pair find out when the robot inadvertently points at Roger and they're sent back in time by a few seconds. However, once Roger finds this out, there are several possibilities for what could happen. One idea is that he returns to the exact spot where he left the studio, and comes to appreciate his life a lot more, kind of like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol I guess, heh! Another is that he goes back to the original audition for 'Chuck Voyager' and does his best not to land the role...? I'm not sure if that's really a solid, satisfying ending though.
As well as this, I'm also going to try scripting another idea as a back up plan. It's kinda hard to leap into a totally new project after putting so much thought into this one, but I think it'll definitely help having a few good scripts to choose from, just in case one of the ideas is too complex, expensive or ambitious, but also if any of them turn out to be kind of weak as stories.

A Trilogy?

Several good ideas came up in the script workshop today for my script. Even though everyone agreed that my script was going to be much longer than 6 minutes, it was suggested that I could split it into parts. This would give me a lot more space and time to develop the characters too, and the script could be cut into at least two, maybe three parts. However, I'm not sure if the brief will allow this?
I also need to make all the characters a little more solid. The character of Laura at the moment isn't able to extend much further than just acting as a plot device whilst Roger reads the newspaper aloud. I'll try and build more on their relationship, as well as writing up some character outlines to help me get a better idea of who they are too.
Another idea that was brought forward was that instead of a TV crew, the sci-fi series could be being made by an internet based company instead, filming in their basement, as a full film crew will be harder to film, and this will make the show seem even more tragic. I like this idea, but I'm not totally sure I need to make a point of it, as just seeing a smaller crew filming him will achieve the same effect.
It was also mentioned that when Roger goes to the time travel interview, the scientist could recognise him from the show. This could lead to some good dialogue and could potentially strengthen the connection between Roger's 'fake' sci-fi show and the reality of his time travel experience, but it could also make Roger out to be more famous than he actually is. I'm not totally sure whether this would help the story or hinder it yet.

Film Ideas

I've been thinking of some ideas for the second term project, and so far have come up with a few vague starting points. I've been trying to think of ways to achieve the fantastical and outlandish on a student budget, rather than just thinking of a basic story. This may prove to be too ambitious and more of a hindrance, but here are a few ideas (more for my own benefit than anything else) anyway :

- A zombie film! More an urge to fulfill a childhood dream than a fully fledged idea, really. A few props and a little imagination could go a long way here, although there's a always the danger it could just look way too crude and rubbish, haha!

- A sci-fi spoof? Still not entirely sure on this one, but I had an idea that basically involves some guy that plays a role in a TV series like Star Trek or something, with really terrible looking sets and effects, then goes home after getting off the set one day and is abducted by aliens, who then steal his body and go to his place of work and then, erm....do something. With hilarious results. Needs a lot of work if it's gonna be a worthwhile idea, but it'd be fun to film a really poor looking sci-fi show (along the lines of 'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace' or something similar), and then contrast this with more understated, mundane looking 'real-life' aliens. I dunno, I'll give it some thought.

- The use of basic props to convey different time zones or eras, for example 'Planet Of The Apes', a replica of the statue of liberty gives the impression of the absolute desecration and destruction of planet earth. I'm not entirely sure yet how this could be used to my advantage, but it's a good thing to start thinking about. Maybe a film about cavemen would be good fun, or a primitive race in the future finding remnants of our civilization. In fact, how about a film where someone is chryogenically frozen, wakes up in the future, and finds the earth totally devoid of mankind's influence apart from a few select artifacts? I dunno, that's an idea that just popped into my head whilst typing this, haha!

- A film that drifts between someone's conscious and unconscious thoughts, like reality and dreams. To create a dream-like atmosphere wouldn't be too hard to achieve on a small budget. 'The Science Of Sleep' achieves it through the use of stop-motion animation and some fairly elaborate props, but Chris Morris' 'Jam' manages to get a dreamy, delirious feeling simply through editing, relatively simple effects in post-production to manipulate the footage and audio, an ambient soundtrack and the sheer surrealism of the sketches.

I'll keep thinking through ideas, it would be silly to build the plot around an idea for a special effect, but I'm really drawn to the idea and challenge of making something bizaare on a budget. I have a few ideas for simple stories too, but I'm not really too happy with any of these at the moment, so they'll need a bit more thought. I'll post them up on here within the next few days if I can think them into anything relatively solid.