2) You have to keep organised and plan ahead

3) Even though storyboarding is useful, shot lists are a lot easier and efficient

4) Listen to your actors, they come up with some awesome ideas. Even if it means editing the original script.

5) Research beforehand is the most important thing, researching into previous films that are in the same genre, research into the actors that are main idols of that genre, analysing specific functions of the genre and old and modern ways that the genre is represented

6) Before placing an actor in a role watch a lot of their previous work, it will show you what sort of style suits them and will also give you inspiration in writing the script. Taking note of what mannerisms they are strong at. Although don’t let that put their talents in a “box” if the opportunity arises try a new vision / take them out of their comfort zone.

7) Don’t be afraid to try something a bit different

8) If things don’t go the way you planned, stay positive, there is always a plan B

9) The lighter the filming equipment the easier it is to be a one ‘wo’man production crew

10) It is a lot of hard work doing everything, rewarding but also very tiring.

Before I discuss The Promenade I am going to discuss the reasons why I decided to write a second silent movie. I love the silent movie era, i love everything about it, the way that comedy was made out of anything that could be found, the way that everything was mainly done in only Long Shots or Close Ups and the fact that the camera was kept rolling non stop for parts of it with not many cuts because the editing was different and was cut together. 

I love everything about this era, i love love love films about the beginning of Hollywood Land before the talkies and after the talkies were introduced. I love the way things were edited, I love the way sets were created. I found it fascinating studying Jimmy Cagney gangster films and the way that the same set was pretty much used in each and everyone of his films. I love the way that sound was originally added to films, especially the cartoon industry. One of my biggest dreams is to visit the old studios in Hollywood. Just everything about the production side of this era just amazes me so much and I really wish i was there to witness it. That may explain why my favourite movies are all set around this era such as Singing In The Rain, City Lights and Roger Rabbit. 

I cam up with the idea of The Promenade one day on the bus to work, I had been thinking about doing another film short but i wasn’t sure what to do. Then I decided to bring back to life a character I created when i was 17, Mr Alf. Mr Alf is loosely based on Charlie Chaplins most famous character The Tramp, However, Mr Alf has different characteristics – he is upper class, posh, clumsy and spends a lot of time in his own world. He has a signature jump which happens at the end of each film to connote that everything has gone the way that he has wanted things to go.

The Promenade is a silent movie comedy based around 4 main characters – Mr Alf, Betty, John De La Mar and Scurvy. Mr Alf goes to meet Betty for his perfect first date but things start to go wrong when Scurvy realises there is no treasure at the beach and decides to make Betty his wife. Whilst this is happening we join John De La Mar on his first ever holiday at the beach. In the early 1900′s only rich people could afford to visit the beach and I wanted to bring this point to view. 

The silent movie does have a lot of modernisms to it, in the way that some of the characters are but I felt that this was an important vision to have to show that silent movies can be produced in modern day era. One of the main things that I wanted to focus on was the cinematography and the camera shots. In my last film I included modern day shots of Over-The-Shoulder and Extreme Close Ups. In this production I am including the same including running pan shots and low and high angled shots. I am introducing dream shots as well. There are two dream shots in the production and I have started working on them today and find that they are quite a challenge to emphasise in black and white. I dont want to use too much text to explain whats happening I want to use editing techniques as much as i can to emphasise feelings and emotions. I have fond blurring transitions a potential way of creating the dream sequences, once i have more footage i will work on this more. 

I am very lucky to have a great team of actors and actresses working with me on this project. One of the things I love about silent movies is the fact that expressions and characteristics are a big big part of the films and make the films stand out from the rest. All the characters in each and every film of Chaplin all have very strong expressions and characteristics to define these.  The actors I am working with are very good at being slapstick and emotional when needed and the great thing about silent movies are that you can direct over the top of the film and tell them things need to be emphasised. 

There will be more posts soon in regards to The Promenade but I am going to leave you with one of my favourite ever scenes in a a Musical . Its not a silent film but it is a film solely based around the transition of silent films to talkies. This is Donald O’Connor In Singing in the Rain. The dancing is amazing and the movement and facial expressions just make this absolutely amazing.

Holz

Its been quite a while since i wrote a blog, i do apologise I have been very busy sorting things out and creating new projects. Right *deep breath* here is what has been happening in the Bartolo Creations Lab:

+ Firstly! I have been creating a brand new animation project called Dreams In An Unstable Atmosphere, It was due to go live in December but due to events that have happened the release date has been slightly delayed. The animation is about the different phases of dreams that people can have when they are filled with many different emotions. It mainly focusses on how dreams can create dark emotions when you are feeling pain or heartache. I decided to write this script because I always create upbeat productions and wanted to explore the darker side of animations. I use a lot of dark colours to emphasise these emotions. The narrator of the project, Walter Mirkss is very good at changing his voice for different situations and he was able to pull of a creepy and dark voice to project these emotions. Below is the trailer.

+ Secondly a random fact about me – I love Silent Movies. Recently I spent the whole evening watching Charlie Chaplins’ City Lights. It is such a fantastic film, the comedy is perfect and right on time and event though it is now very old the comedy is still very funny to watch.

It gave me the inspiration to write my own silent movie. Back in 2007, I created a silent movie for my A Level Film Studies. I created a character called Mr Alf who was loosely based on Charlie Chaplin, i decided to bring him back and create a new film. The new film is based around the beach and features a lot of different characters including a posh man on holiday, a dirty sneaky pirate and a damsel in distress. Even though the story has stereotypical characters in it from the 30′s the production is going to be brought into modern day by using modern cinematography. I am really excited about this project as i love love love editing to music and found when filming and creating the first silent movie as a challenge that I spent a lot of time on due to it feeling like my baby. This will be no different. I love production process and when you see your script come to life, it makes you a very proud creator.

+Finally, I am going to spend the new year producing mini video projects, My first one will be based on Chicago. I am going there for Christmas and plan to spend a lot of time filming where i have been!

I would like to wish all my readers a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year! Will see you in 2012!

Holly

]]> http://holz182.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/updatetime/feed/ 0 holz182 Charlie Chaplin in City Lights, 1931 http://holz182.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/bartolo-creations-productions-update/ http://holz182.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/bartolo-creations-productions-update/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:44:40 +0000 holz182 http://holz182.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/bartolo-creations-productions-update/ ]]> Hello!

Its been a long time since i last wrote on here! Been busy producing a lot of new productions and design. The first thing that has been re-designed the past couple of months in the Bartolo Creations website. It is now designed using HTML and Javascript and will be going live in the up and coming months. It looks a lot different from the last design and will show off the style of work that i specialise in.

New BC logo

As well as producing my own website I am also currently working on another website for my friend who is starting up an interior design company. I have designed the logo for it as well which I am very excited about it going live! It is a website that is being designed out of Javascript and HTML as well. I have enjoyed creating this website because it has allowed me to gain more of an understanding as to how Javascript works.

I have been using Illustrator a lot recently, i hadnt used it for a long time and actually really missed using it. I love love love my Wacom Tablet and love using it. I have recently been using it to draw and design random artefacts. Here is an example of a card I designed drawn all in Illustrator. I have recently learnt QuarkXPress which i found an easy programme to learn. Its a bit like InDesign but a bit simpler to use.

Mucking Around on Illustrator

I have been editing a video production about the air show as well. Due to other work commitments I haven’t been able to finish it yet but should be finished by the end of today. It may be out of date but it is another piece of video work that has got me using Final Cut Pro.

I have also started to use Flash again on a regular basis. At the moment I am creating a project about dreaming that is going to based on the theme of surrealism. The production is an interactive narrative and is based around the different phases of dreams and the darkness they can create. It’s very different to the sort of animation that I usually do but I wanted to explore a new area. It is voiced by Walter Mirkss, who is a talented actor based in Bournemouth. The projects aim is to be eery and the sound and visuals are to be as important as each other. The production will air in the up and coming months.

Dreams in an Unstable Atmosphere

I have started to write scripts for a new and exciting children’s animation series that I have come up with. It is aimed at children between the ages of 7 and 8 years old and is going to be animated entirely in Flash. Each episode will be a maximum of 10 minutes long and is based around two main characters who will be revealed soon.

The last project I will soon be working on is another script. When I was in A Level Film Studies I started to plan a film and wrote the synopsis and storyboarded part a tiny section of the project. I have been thinking about it recently a lot and in due time I will start to write the script for it. Again, I am interested in doing this because it is a completely new sort of project for me. This is not an animation series this time which excites me.

So as you can see I have been a busy bee in the past few months and i will continue to be so as all the ideas are bubbling up in my head and it is time to put them down onto paper and make them reality

Holly

The last few weeks have been busy and have been filled with a lot of thinking and worrying about what the future may hold. I have been worrying about job potentials and about what is going to happen in the up and coming months. The main thing I have been keeping in my mind is that everything happens for a reason and to make sure that I keep on target I have to keep busy and motivated mainly to build up my portfolio.

My aim is in a years time from now to either be working for a company for the BBC or getting noticed in America for an internship. It does seem like a big thing to dream but I am a believer and I really do believe that everything happens for a reason and that if you work hard at what you do you will achieve what you want in life.

So what has the last weeks involved? Well to be honest they have been filled with a lot of stress and looking for a job. I am a very creative person but the sort of jobs that I want are either not appearing or I am not being successful. I am hoping by re-designing my portfolio website and getting my name known a bit more may lead to some exciting opportunities.

The first thing that I did was film the Bournemouth Air Show at the end of August, the aim of this was to create a mini information documentary for people to know how the air show started and why it happens every year. It is still in the process of being edited but going well.

The aim of this year is to film a lot of different events in Bournemouth that are happening to build up my portfolio. Dorset has a lot of different events so I think it is going to be an exciting year. I have been asked by my friend to create her website to start her interior design company. I am excited about this because I have not designed a website for a starting up company before so i am very excited about the creation.

A competition has come up as well to create an interactive piece of narrative or an inventive way to portray a digital narrative. I am very excited about this and entering this competition for many reasons. The main reason is to explore the potential of interactive narrative with animation. I have been writing poetry and lyrics since I was 13 years old and have sat here tonight reading through poems I wrote as a teen. Some of them being very “teeny” about love, life and relationships and some more about characters I made up or areas in the world that I love. Some of these poems have given me some really good ideas and I will start work on this project tomorrow. Pigmy and Friends has helped me develop my ideas on how to produce an interactive narrative.What works and what doesnt (if you havent seen it already please visit www.pigmyandfriends.co.uk) so i am excited to improve on these matters and get my hands back on Flash.

One of my main goals at the moment is to learn as many tutorials as I can for After Effects. I used After Effects for the opening of the mini documentaries for Pigmy and Friends  and fell in love with some of the stuff that you can do. I now want to expand on these skills and learn more about the programme and the advances that it can take a video to.

Today I filmed my friend Joe playing around with a toy light saber so that I could change the light saber into a “real” one, I was really interested in the way that the saber was designed and was dying to try it out. I am very pleased with the effect. As you can watch below.

Tomorrow I am going to follow a tutorial in how to make someones head explode, its not the nicest thing but a very helpful skill to have if I want to go into freelance video editing. I am going to use this year wisely so that my portfolio can be built up very strongly. I am to also produce music videos for fun, film trailers for fun, write some new scripts and also turn my poetry to life.

Holly

Well since the last time i wrote I have been trying to sort my life out; packing up my last ever student house i will live in to move into my new house, trying to find a job, building up my freelance portfolio, working on my website and so much more.

As you can prob tell from this blog, i like to keep busy, if i dont keep busy i start to feel either all stressed by the fact i havent got a job yet or i get bored and “itchy feet” and have to do something. In the past few days i have scrap booked my photos from camp, taken all my photos of America off my wall and put them in a photo album, and started packing up my room ready for the move. I moved house this time last year and thought i got rid of quite a lot of junk considering i was at my last place for 2 years and it built up, but yet again, junk has built up in a year, and even more so that uni is over it means all paper work can now be destroyed.

Anyway I was packing up this morning and found this awesome awesome book i completely forgot i had, and it is now going to be my “bible”

The Cities Book

I dont see this as just a book, i see this as a challenge. I was looking through it and out of the 200 cities that should be visited i have gone to a measly 8. That is depressing. Once I get a job, my aim is to spend weekends here and there going to some of these cities to see what they are like and to travel the world / europe a bit more. I love travelling and from travelling America last year by myself i actually quite enjoyed going to new places by myself, i found it achievement to go somewhere and not get lost, find something new and be a somewhat “alien.”  I know that people say its more fun to travel somewhere with someone so you can both experience the same feeling and i agree that is awesome but when you travel by yourself you tend to be a bit more daring and more on your toes.

Anyway, I have decided that to get my name known a bit more for video editing I have started writing down the dates of all the important events coming up in the Dorset area to get involved and create short films about them. At the moment I am in the process of creating a video about the Bournemouth Air Show aimed at both children and tourism to gain more interest form people even though it is a big event already. Once the product is created, i am going to approach the air show board to see if they would like to use the product for next year.

Holly