Sightings on… Horfield?

Working Title: Sightings on Horsell
Project Leader: Tom Kiely
My Role: Script Supervisor & Effects Director

Tom called a production meeting today, which was useful to find out exactly what his ideas were for the direction of his piece, since I only had a rough idea before. He also went through his production plans, which seemed too set in stone for this early stage in my opinion, and didn’t seem to have alternatives. Still, I guess that the meeting brought this to light early enough, which was good.I’m the effects director and script supervisor, but I felt I should speak up about other things anyway, since other people seemed to just nod at everything he was saying. I hope Tom didn’t think I was trying to be too controlling – it is his project after all – I just thought it would benefit everyone to hear other suggestions.

After hearing Tim talk about building sets in the TV studio, and it only taking 2 days (?!?!… more like 2 weeks!) I suggested filming in a real house. He suggested lighting would be too hard to control, but lighting is portable and it would, in my opinion, look much more authentic. I suggested Longleat, Tyntesfield and Clevedon Court, the latter 2 local. He was pretty cautious of this idea but I don’t think he had time to give it a lot of thought at the meeting. He said that I should phone all the places to get permission and prices etc. I declined, as that is not my job, but his as the producer.

Related Thought: Tom seems to want to delagate randomly within the small team he has set up. I can understand wanting to keep the team small for organisation purposes, but it would be best to get in people who specialise in certain areas, such as set creation and model making, rather than getting current members of the team to do it when they are not confident in that area.

Tom put me in charge of effects and seemed to have a lot of ideas already, which helped me get started with ideas. He wanted stop motion aliens (done by Simon the animator) on scale models. He told me to get to work on creating the scale models of the house and garden. I think it could be a bad idea for a number of reasons:

• Will look poorwhen intercut with real footage. The difference will be obvious.
• I have no skill in making models, especially realistic scaled locations.
• Extremely time consuming!

I suggested using green screen animation, and Simon agreed. Tom, however, seemed very sceptical, but said that the final descision was up to me. He did offer the suggestion of using a real surface to allow for shadows, which is a good idea, although I’m unsure if the lighting I had in mind would create shadows on the ground. I’m thinking a weak side light and some bright rim lighting from behind to create some stunning silhouettes, yet with a hint of detail. He also gave me the task of coming up with how the finalé will work, where Dan’s character is killed. Thoughts so far:

• Concentrate on Dan’s eyes
  • Fear
  • Darting left and right
  • Sweat on brow
• Short quick cuts to movement in the bushes
  • We don’t see exactly what is in there
• Post-Processed point of view shots from the Martian’s perspective
• When he’s attacked, closeups on a puppet tentacle hitting Dan
  • Fast cuts so that the quality can not be scrutinised
• Viewers eyes are distracted by various lighting and pyrotechnic events in background
• Dark for the majority, brief flashes of action are seen (almost freeze-frames) as flashes of light occur
• Viewer knows Dan has seen the monster, but the viewer never gets a full real look at it.
  • This increases suspense/mystery whilst also taking into consideration the fact that realistically we can not create a convincing martian.
  • The “flashbacks” are in his imagination so animation could work here more convincingly – it can be explained.

Overall I think the meeting was very successful in giving everyone a clearer idea of the project and their roles within, and I feel a lot was achieved. It was well organised and structured – an example to us all!

~ by Ben on 17 October, 2007.