Lawrence Sedgwick UCA/Television Production: February 2015

When I first heard that we were going to be copying a style of a director of our choice words could not express my enthusiasm and excitement for this project.

Many director's came into my mind:

Alan Parker, director of my favourite musical "Bugsy Malone". Nothing but kids in an adult environment by having them dress up and acting out as gangsters, shooting people with spurge guns and then they would start singing and dancing and everyone is happy. To me I could do something but to me it could go into too much detail with acting and choreography.

Tim Burton, a very creative and dark director. For such movies as "Nightmare Before Christmas" "Edward Scissorhands" and "Dark Shadows". Doing something fun and creative but making it dark and quirky was quite a fascination of mine, and was wondering of the possibilities and outcomes of what I could come up with and how I could pull it off.

Some of these Director's had something I could work with but I wanted a director with a recent great cinematic. I wanted someone I could relate to in the world of film, a director that had a great taste in story and adventure. Then, it hit me, an idea started flowing within the swirling battlefield that is my mind. As the dust of the fallen directors cleared, a beam of light shone and there was one man who came out on top.

PETER JACKSON!!!

He had a great sense of story telling and to me he had a great achievement in film and has a lot of adventurous sprit to him. I also wanted to push myself to make something new and exciting involving countryside backgrounds, powerful orchestral music, and most of all a hero. Because to me, that is film, it is an adventure that takes you out of your seat and makes you want to be with the characters and journey with them as they go from beginning to end of their amazing story.

"Lord of The Rings" was no acceptation. It was without a doubt my favourite trilogy, if it ends up on television one day, I would pout down whatever I am doing and just watch it and get immersed into the adventure.

I also wanted to go for something unique that I haven't done before when it came to film making that I have done in the past. To do something more cinematic and powerful.

I was bubbling with excitement and I couldn't wait to get started...

The Journey Begins - (I'm going on an adventure!!!)

Over the winter holidays I thought long and hard about WHERE I wanted to film for my project, I defiantly wanted something resembling The Shire and countrysideish to give the feel of middle earth to the piece.

I decided to visit several locations over the winter so I could narrow down where a bouts I could film and if weather or not it could work for what I filming.

First I went to see a farm in Rainham where I spent a lot of my childhood and early teenage years playing and exploring, and the name, Gore Farm. The place had so much freedom to it, I knew I just had to have it for my shoot so I went down with a friend and we did a little investigation around the location and... It wasn't what I was expecting, my childhood was taken down and was made into a petting zoo, and a business for weddings and the main restaurant that they had. I couldn't do anything with the backgrounds and surroundings all this cut off fields and animals in their little pens. It was terrible and I knew I had to pick somewhere different.

The second location was more to research, I was told of a place called Kent Life, which is a farm in Maidstone, near Maidstone Studios quite coincidentally. I looked more into it and saw some great images. I really liked what I saw and put it down on my list of locations just incase I could calm it for shooting.

But then... I found it, a local country park in Gillingham with fields galore, a farm, wooden fences, beautiful scenery. "Yes", I said to myself. I turned to my friend Andy Pearce who was with me at the time and told him, "This is it, my location, we've found it".

Capstone Farm Country Park, I finalised it as my location as it was local to me and was easy to get to, and by the end of the day having a couple of shots taken, I truly felt like I went on an adventure, which in terms of my filming, I wanted my audience to feel the same way.

The Idea:

I had a plan to use a book like in Lord of the Ring where Frodo in in the forrest and reading from a book when he is weighting for Gandalf. Also my sister had a replica of the sword Sting from the movie as well which I thought I could work really well to amp up the action and epicness to the production.

My Idea was to have this Hero character to have a journey throughout a daily commute sequence to find his true propose in life. I thought it round as like a director finding his voice and showing what makes him or her stand out most then other directors.

Like with Peter Jackson, this is what I wrote on the website I made about him...

What made Peter Jackson stand out more then any other director is that he has a great sense of story telling and to me he has a great achievement in film with a lot of adventurous sprit to him. He also likes to take you behind the scenes of his work and show you the journeys he has done for each of his films. It feels like you are learning as you are watching him in action. But most of all, through his vision he takes me to a whole other world beond my imagination and the detail and the magic he brings into each scene is just outstanding. When I watched Lord of the Rings for the first time, I was instantly hooked, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. After the first film of the trillogy I have always wanted to watch the others so I know what happens next. I can't think of any other director's who have made films of such a particular length and that have the same epic proportions like Peter Jackson.

Getting my actors - (Gathering the Companions)

In my experience in media I have met many actors, not well known ones but still people who could act. With my resourcefulness I came across my friend Mr Jacob Poole, an actor who liked to do manly action roles. When I told him about the idea for Peter Jackson he kept at the chance and then said to me, "I have a Hobbit/ Warrior costume, would you like me to wear that to save you some trouble?". Of course I agreed and so I made Jacob my lead actor for my production.

Jacob Poole as "The Hero"

For my other character, I wanted a girl and remembered my friend Lisa Huntley who had experience in acting, even getting a GCSE in theatre. I called her up and told her about my idea and she was glad to help. I had most of Lisa work and knew her acting style which is what I wanted for the conversation scene.

So Lisa became my second actor...

Lisa Huntley (Second Actor)

My Crew:

By the time I organised the dates for filming most of my classmates already where chosen to participate in each others films, so it was up to me to find the right people to hep me with this project.

But then I thought this could be a great chance to practice my directing by doing the one thing I hated doing most when it comes to filming a production.... Relying on other people. I know how I want to shoot things but when it comes to explaining my vision to other people in my own language, thats a whole entire different story.

But I set myself this challenge and started finding the people who could help me...

Cameraman/ Cinematographer -

Anthony Goldsmith

I met this guy at a place is was working at the time and he and I just clicked, one day on set of an event down in Rochester and his photography was really brilliant and his camera work even though was a little sluggish I felt that I could direct him to get the best out of his camerawork. When it came to my shoot all I can say is.... He did his job as a Cinematographer but I still thought his camera work could have been better so I took it upon myself to do the camera work next time for filming another project.

Sound -

Kyle Terry

Being a very good friend as well as being a part time radio DJ for Chatham Maritime Hospital, sound and music for radio as well as film has always been in Kyle's blood. When he puts on a pair of headphones for film shoots he excels in giving the best quality of sound as possible, and he defiantly delivers when he is set a challenge.

P.A -

Matt Park

I know Matt from my school days and he has shown a lot of promise in the world of media and film, he helps out anyone in need when it comes to film and he follows directions nicely. With a wide knowing of the world of film I wanted him to help me with some of the equipment carrying which he did nicely.

Days 1 and 2 (Some Stories Don't Always Have a Happy Beginning)

On the day of the shoot I made shore to focus all I could on the background and tell the story as we were shooting... That was where I made my first mistake, I was using too much of my voice and focusing too much on The Lord of The Rings then Peter Jackson himself. Plus the weather I had was absolutely horrible, it was wet, it was cold and my actors were very patient with me but I could tell they were freezing their butts off. I provided some hot tea in a flask to make sure my actors were hydrated as well as warm.

On the second day Anthony did some pretty damn good cinematography in my opinion, because there was a lot for me to work with especially when he took over 1000 pics and captured the whole shoot of the second day.

That day I was also planning my cameo which took some time and thats when I really had to direct Anthony. The focusing had to be in the right place and the zooming had to be timed just right for me to make a nice entrance. I decided to go for a more Gandalf feel to my character as an old man walking in the woods and then Jacob the hero helps me out when something went wrong.

But all in all I thought the shoot didn't go as planned at all. I looked over the shots and some weren't even in focus and some shot were not as I had envisioned at all. when it came to the editing process every single click of the mouse to me was just a cry of agony. The shots where terrible and although the sound for the conversation was very nice I just wished that everything could gone more smoothly.

Tutorial Feedback

Hearing the feedback from Simon my tutor was like waiting for my head to get chopped off from the guillotine. I knew it was coming for those words to come out of his mouth... then, it happened...

"Lawrence... would you consider re filming it but this time, MORE Peter Jackson, LESS Lord of The Rings, when does PeterJackson use hand held camera? Maybe it would be better using your other camera that you had for "The Meeting" you have a wide angle lens and I think it would bring out more of Peter Jack because you know he is a big cinematic director and uses wide lens and make it more EPIC"...

In my heart I knew he was right and I had to take the criticism with pride. But they say in life you can only learn from your mistakes and improve them. So until the next weekend, I planed the shoot again my got my actors and crew back in and got more into depth into Peter Jackson.

Days 3 and 4 (The Return of The Director)

After watching Peter Jackson films over time some which included:

Heavenly Creatures (1994)
The Lovely Bones (2009)
King Kong (2010)
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
The Frighteners (1996)
The Lord of The Rings (2001 - 2003)
The Hobbit (2012 - 2014)

To help more into my storyboarding I dove into some reading material, one book included "Directing the Story" by Fracis Glebas.

I set up my storyboards just like a Peter Jackson film and changed scenes around my location which I thought could work better then the location soundings from the first draft.

Each shot I try to show Peters work like in the daily commute scene where Jacob is running to save someone. I took inspiration from The Hobbit (An Unexpected Journey), The scene where the main character (Bilbo Baggins) is running through the shire and is trying to get to his companions to start his adventure.

Full Scene:

When it came shooting for day 3 I have to admit, worse things have happened before. When it came to sound, the digital recorder I booked out was not working right.

Patricia Dixon (my sound person) could not figure out what was wrong with it. Luckely I was resourceful and brought in a attachable microphone that I had on me just in case, although it worked well for getting the characters voices, I guess the only thing was that because of the weather the quality wasn't as good as the boom mic I used in the last recording.

But when it came to using my Nikon D5200, I found it more comfortable and in some way better quality then the Sony EX and managed to get shots that made the work of Peter Jackson's style stand out more then the last shoot.

Also my actor Lisa Huntley couldn't make the shoot so I had to bring in Matt Park who was with me being my P.A, unfortunately when I got the call from Lisa who could turn up I told Matt that he had to stand in line for Lisa for the conversation scene.

So he agreed and started learning his lines with Jacob. But unfortunately with time flying by and coming up for noon we had to get the shoot started. Jacob to he performed really well but for Matt…. When it came to learning his lines, he couldn't remember curtain things and I had to do one thing I don't like doing when it comes to a conversation shoot… Doing separate takes.

When it came down to editing the scene looked too jumpy and the ambience in the background was terrible. Then anything thing went wrong I only had one battery for my camera. Not only was there only one of it's kind and I don't have any others, but it was already running low on power.

Then came to day 4, and despite of the horrible weather, it went rather well. I managed to get my daily commute scene done and to a near professional level by using a track and dolly for the first time in a filming project that I have done.

But the worst thing was the lens got wet and often had a rain drop appeared while recording and then we would have to do another retake of a shot.

After all that drama I finally had all of my footage ready to be edited but to me I still had a feel that I didn't do Peter Jackson justice. To pull of a realistic movie with normal people with normal problems can be hard to do. But to make a movie based in the impossible like magic and monsters, that can be even more challenging still.

Peter Jackson has many quotes I like to work by when doing film making but I think this one can some up my experience:

If I were to compare the two films I have done, I could sum it up in these two images...

Image (1) Rough cut of first recording - Days 1 and 2 using the Sony EX

Image (2) Final film - Days 3 and 4 of recording using the Nikon D5200

Editing Notes:

Research sourses:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001392/

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/peter_jackson.html

Critical Reflection:

What Went Well?

The second time round using my equipment which had a better impact on Peter Jackson then the Sony EX.

Using the script to my advantage, this helped me plan out my story more before the actual conversation scene commenced.

Also changing my location scenes which really helped bring out more of my film. The shots were more focused and some shots came out really well and smooth.

Using more tripod which really brought more of Peter Jackson out then the last version I did using the Sony EX.

Using my own equipment, I felt more comfortable and I knew what I had to focus more on then last time. Even using the focus was improved and brought brought more life into the background as well as my characters.

What Didn't Work So Well?

Rushing with more on the story and my voice as well as making it too much Lord of The Rings when I should have been focusing more on Peter Jackson himself.

The weather on the days were horrible, some of the shot were shaky because of the wind but that couldn't be helped. My second actor Matt could have been directed a bit more strongly in terms of how he said things.

The camera shots using the Sony EX looked absolutely dreadful I had to admit, some shots where not even in focus or tracked well at all.

Using the camera handhelded instead of using more tripod.

What did I learn?

Well what didn't I learn? I learned to be more analysing when seeing someone else's work and to sometimes don't always focus of the goods things and focus on the small things that made the film so enjoyable. The way is framed, the way it's set, the way the directors decide to put things they way they are.

I have also learned to record things that I am most comfortable with and even though it is good to try something new, it can sometimes not turn out the way you expected and it all comes down to practice.

All in all I have learned I am not Peter Jackson, and I don't have that attention to detail the way he does and even though I like to focus on the stories in films, I need to know that quality is now looked for in film and analysed for each shot, the music, the focus on the camera, everything.

This has got to be the hardest project I have ever taken part in and even though I would like to be a director I know I still have a long way to go when it comes to find my voice. When it came to using my voice I feel more confident but when your following someone else's voice, god after what you record I feel like you have not done them any justice and it can take a lot out of you. Thats why I will try and do more film making and journey forth to find my edge that makes my work sand out more then others. But thats how I can some up my experience as well as my actors saying to me after each day, it was....... "A Journey".

Link to Peter Jackson Webstie:

http://lawrencesedgwick.wix.com/peterjackson