Major Studies B2 – Studio project
Assessment
Pre-production – Planning and research
We started knowing that as a group we would function very well. We all have similar work ethics and standards, but at the same time can bring individual strengths to the project. At an early stage we sat down and brainstormed on ideas. We said that we should present some ideas on the table and take it from there. All of us fell in love with Johan’s idea straight away. It was good, had a twist and seemed like a good challenge. We set about dividing roles:
- Director – Johan Peter Kraugerud
- Producer – Tom-Daniel Laugerud
- DOP – Laura France
- Art Department – Lauran Belcher
- Sound Department – Iain Rose
As soon as Johan had finished the script, we sat down and started to review it and tweak it. It ended being five versions, with the feedback from Chris Buxton and Timi O’Neil on the script. After that I started breaking it down into pieces, assigning important keyword to each department, so that Art Department for example could start planning. Laura, Johan and me met up and started devising a shot list. When that was done, I started breaking it down into a shooting schedule that seemed logical. Soon as the script was done I set about putting a advertisement on Star Now (casting website). I got a few replies and found several good candidates that we had seen preform in other productions. We said we’d pay travel expenses and food.
Closing in on the shoot days, Art Department needed some assistance since this turned out to need a lot of props and set dressing. Laura and Lauran went out on prop shopping and came back with loads. We booked the studio for five days, because we believed that it would take a fair share of setting it all up. And boy was we right. We got a massive help from Lauran’s dad Gary, who helped with building the set and Laura’s boyfriend Luke who was kind enough to acquire the flooring we needed. Also several of our classmates came in to help us strip down the five layers of paint that was on the studio walls from earlier productions. We had to use over two layer of white primer before two coats of the bedroom colour, coffee. Our “wooden” flooring from Poundland went down with little frustration, except from a couple of nice words. The wardrobe and bedside table was borrowed from our house, seeing as we had all matching furniture. Lauran did a great job designing the set. All of us put a lot of hours into this set, working 12 hours every day. I would especially like to thank our classmate Brych Rees who came to help every single day, even though it wasn’t even his project. We were lucky to have such great friends to help us.
When it came to doing the new set for the police interrogation room, the foundation was already set, so it went a lot quicker compared to the bedroom. I designed some posters to go on the board behind the suspect. Went on South Wales Police website and found some press releases and took the logo from there and volà. We even went as far as to fitting light switches and power sockets in the wall to make it look authentic.
Production
We started off with the bedroom set first. Our friends Dan Short and Henry Smith had volunteered to play the role as forensics. And mine and Johan’s housemate, Ieva, had agreed to play the dead victim. Again here, Lauran Belcher did a great job dressing the set. Truls Telle helped out in the control room together with Johan. Whilst me and Laura was in the studio itself. I managed the schedule and made sure we weren’t too far off and Laura made the shots happen. She would say “Tom I need that extra shot” and I would answer “Fine, but you got 15 minutes”. So there we would stand and “bargin” on time. After a long day of shooting, we called it a day and prepared for a new set. We had two first years, Samuel Hinton and Matt Gaze, as runners on both days. Sam was my assistant during the shoot, marking the shots and helping Laura with the cameras.
Like I mentioned, we found our actors on Star Now, Darren Swain and Neil Fowles. The lover was supposed to be played by a student with drama experience, but he decided not to show and a backup plan had to be devised. The group member Iain Rose, had some experience from drama productions before, so he took on the responsibility to play the lover. And did a good job I must say. Before the shoot I had made sure we had enough refreshments and fruits and for lunch we took our actors to Subway. We went a bit over schedule with a couple of hours, but the actors said it was fine and we finished happy, but tired.
On the last studio day, Friday, we all came in to take it all down and make sure it was all clean and ready to go for the next student to use it.
Post-production
It was decided that Johan was to edit the film and Iain to find sounds. I was set to handle “publicity”, meaning DVD orders. I also handled the expenses and the settlement of that. We budgeted £50 each and ended using £260.65, which quite reasonable. Johan had a very hard time fitting the whole film into five minutes, so we will have an extended version for online use.
Overall
Am I happy with the final product? Yes indeed. I feel we accomplished what we set out to do. We had some trouble with the studio cameras, but we managed to work around those. The DVD cover and disc looks great. I made sure the order was sent so that we’d get all in time. I feel that as colleagues and also as friends, we have all become closer. We now know even better each other strength and weaknesses.
Again thanks to all our volunteers that helped out, we couldn’t have done it without you!
