Totally Maisy - Day 2

we have just completed our second day of filming. Today we were at my house and we were filming the scenes in Maisy's and Cassie's bedrooms. Today was a pretty relaxed day as we did not have as much planned to film. We managed to get everything we planned filmed and also a few scenes which we had scheduled for other days which will hopefully save us sometime on our other shoot days.

I am really pleased with the performance of all of our actors and I am so glad that we found them.

Totally Maisy - Day 1

Today was our first day filming Totally Maisy and it went brilliantly. Today was one of our busiest filming days as we had alot of extras and we knew that today was the only day we had to film at the school and we had alot to get done. Jordan's way of filming was very different to the way we had been taught and when I questioned him on this he said he was filming to to edit and so as I had confidence in him I allowed him to carry on I just hope it looks good in the edit.

We stared off the day with a meeting with the whole cast and crew to discuss how the production was going to run and to go through health and safety. Then we quickly rehearsed and blocked out the first scene with the 3 main girls and then began filming.

If I Was King - Logo

For If I Was King we wanted a rough regal look for the logo. We gave our graphic designer a copy of the synopsis and sent them this picture of Notorious BIG to give them an idea of what we are looking for.

We also sent them these logos which I made to give them ideas of what we thought would look good.

The graphic designer came back with these ideas:

We liked the logo on the below on the right but thought it was a bit too dark and so we asked them to lighten it.

The graphic designer sent over the following 2 logos and we have decided to go with the bottom one.

Totally Maisy - Working With Teens

It is very important that we know the laws when working with under 18's. This is the information I found regarding this and the laws I need to make sure we stick to.

16 and 17 Years of Age
Sixteen- and 17-year-olds may be employed for unlimited hours in any occupation other than those declared hazardous by the Secretary of Labor. Examples of equipment declared hazardous in food service establishments include power-driven meat processing machines (meat slicers, saws, patty forming machines, grinders, or choppers), commercial mixers and certain power-driven bakery machines.

14 and 15 Years of Age
During the school year, hours are limited to 3 hours a day and 18 hours a week. On days when there's no school and in the summer, working hours increase to 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week. There are limits on when children can work, too - no later than 7 p.m. during the school year and no later than 9 p.m. between June 1 and Labor Day. Fourteen- and 15- year-olds may be employed in restaurants and quick-service establishments outside school hours in a variety of jobs for limited periods of time and under specified conditions.

The local council would be Dartford and so I have sent them an email to see if they can help me.

If I Was King - Platform

Backdoor Pilot — "Not a Variety creation, pilot episode filmed as a standalone movie, so it can be broadcast if it is not picked up as a series" - http://variety.com/static-pages/slanguage-dictionary/#b

After researching to try and find a platform and a format for If I Was King. Dean and I finally found out that the way the script is written actually fits the format of a backdoor pilot. A Back door pilot is a stand alone film which if it is picked up by a commissioner that it could be stretched out into a series.

Totally Maisy - Logo

For Totally Maisy we have managed to find a graphic designer and animator who will be working together to create the title sequence and the logo, booklet and poster for our show.

Below is the information we gave to the graphic designer and animator to give them an idea of the show and what we were looking for:

Here is the synopsis for ‘Totally Maisy.’

"This brand new 25 minute pilot tells the story of awkward 15 year old Maisy’s life. She lives at home with her single mum who is much cooler than her and is going on way more dates. Now shes going into year 11 with her BFF’s Cassie and Gemma, and she has a whole new set of dramas to deal with. The girls spy new sixth form hottie Jack, and Maisy knows she just has to make him hers! Luckily she has her boy best friend Rob to walk home with and tell him all about her problems but Maisy just can't see how much Rob likes her. There's the coolest house party on Friday and Maisy and the girls just have to find a way in to it! Meanwhile whilst this is all going on Mums stared to date again, and Maisy can’t work out why her hot new history teacher is being so nice to her…"

There is also a strong multi-platform element within 'Totally Maisy,' as Maisy often makes vlogs through out the series. 'Totally Maisy' is live action but animation will feature during each episode. A strong USP of 'Totally Maisy,' is the language she uses. Maisy is a slave to current words (e.g soz and embaz!) with her favourite catchphrase being 'cringe o'clock.'

Think cross between Inbetweeners and Angus, Thongs and Perfect snogging.

The audience is 12-30 olds.

I made the following logos to give the graphic designer an idea of what we were looking for in the way of a logo.

This is the final logo and me and Maddie both love it.

How To Make Independent Films

I have just found this website and it has really given me good advice on what kind of people I need to hire for my project and also helped me define my role a bit more. It explains everything to think about when making an independent film and it has helped me to decide what credits everyone involved should get.

http://www.independentfilmadvice.com/IndependentFilmAdvice.com/Filmmakers_Home.html

As I was reading through the website and they were giving me advice on certain parts of the production I realised that these were actually the steps I took when making Love Always and they are also things I need to remember when making Totally Maisy and If I Was King.

If I Was King - Production Meeting

Today Dean and I had a production meeting to talk about the shoot as it is a week away now. When we spoke to Simon this morning we still hadn't spoken to our DOP but I didn't see this as an issue as I had been communicating with him through email and had scheduled a phone call with him after Simon's meeting with us. I did however start to panic when Dean said our actor playing Stef still hadn't confirmed and neither had the locations and also that he was not confident in the script. Me and Dean had a meeting to discuss our communication issues and to talk about our plan of action for the project. We decided to move the dates of the shoot until after Maddie's shoot so that we had more time to prepare, confirm actors and locations and for Dean to improve the script.

We also had our phone call with our DOP today and he really seemed to understand the style we were going for and it sounded like he really knew what he was talking about. We looked at some of his previous work and we were impressed and were glad that we had found him.

I am hoping that this extra time will allow us to get everything perfect and make an amazing pilot.

Love Always - Shoot Day 4

Today was our last day of filming at Kent Life and Love Always.

The day started off quite slowly as we did not have a room to set up in and so had to be outside on 2 picnic benches as all the function rooms were being used for school trips.

This is the hair and make up station.

Also there was quite alot of traffic which also slowed us down but once everyone was there and hair and make up was done we were ready to go. We knew today was going to be quite a simple but intense day as we still had 13 scenes to film but 9 of them had no dialogue and were quiet short which made things easier. But we also had to get voiceovers and establishing shots which we tried to do during costume changes.

We scheduled the scenes with just Mary on her own last so that we could wrap the other actors as soon as possible.

Some of the scenes performed today were very intense as Tara gave an amazing performance as Mary and I hope that the emotion that we all felt on set translates well into the final piece.

We had a few more issues with Kent life about what time we had to be finished by but we managed to get everything we wanted done so thats alright. 

We then had to head off to Aylseford and Boxley for 2 quick scenes which we managed to get before the sun went down.

Love Always - Its A Wrap

We've finished all the filming for Love Always and I am really happy with how everything went. It has made me realise that I want to be a producer even more.

I did learn a few things like how important it is to get a location agreement so that you have in writing what times you are allowed to be on site.

I also learnt the importance of a good crew. We had quite a large crew for a student production on the shoot days alone and they were all phenomenal no one let the team down, we all worked really well together and everyone was lovely to be around.

Now the filming has wrapped it does not mean my job is over. I need to supervise the edit to make sure Tim is creating the story in the way we discussed and I also need to find certain people to make different sound layers.

I have put a casting call on Music Network Pro for a composer to score the film. I have contacted someone about producing some Foley for the film and I need to find a sound designer to make sure all of the dialogue is clear.

I am really excited about seeing all our hard work come together and see how well we have achieved a period piece on a student budget.

Love Always - Shoot Day 3

Today we had a different hair stylist and we had 2 extra cast members. We had Ollie playing Arthur and Louie playing Johnny.

Today Dan and I decided to use 2 cameras so that we could speed up the filming of each scene.

We had never worked with children on a shoot before and I have to say it was quite and experience and we all learnt a lot. At the beginning of the day he was willing to do a lot but by the end he didn't want to act anymore. I changed the schedule round a bit so that Louie would get lots of breaks. These breaks ended up being quite long and so I think he tired himself out. In hindsight we should have made his breaks shorter so that he was willing to do more acting but still getting time to rest. In the afternoon when he said he didn't want to do it anymore we still had 5 scenes left to film with him. 2 we tricked him into doing by creating a game out of it and we managed to get a good shot as we had a 3 camera coverage. The other 3 we decided they could work without him and so we had to quickly write him out and plan to film those scenes on another day.

On some of the scenes I had to put in my creative input as I did not like the lighting in the shot and so I was suggesting how we could create a better look by using different lights and positioning them in certain places.

Today there were a few more members of the public and so we had to make sure we told them what we were doing.

We had more issues with Kent Life today to do with times and areas we could use. Today they said we could stay till 5:30 but they also said that we could not use our base room tomorrow as they had schools coming in and so we had to move all of our stuff. So we had to make sure we had as many scenes as we could filmed by 5 so that then we had half an hour to pack up and get out.

I went home and amended the schedule so that we could make sure we got any scenes we hadn't filmed  on the other 3 days filmed on the last day as filming.

Love Always - Shoot Day 2

Today was our first day at Kent life. The location is absolutely perfect.

Once everyone had arrived and settled down I gave a speech about health and safety and what was going to happen that day.

I over looked every scene making sure everything was done like we planned and was looking the way we wanted it to. I was also making sure everyone was happy and getting sufficient breaks.

Everyone worked well together. Costume changes and certain scenes were taking longer than expected which meant that we ended up running behind schedule. When we got to the end of the day there were a couple of scenes we had not managed to film. Either because we ran out of time or they included our actor who was playing Arthur who was ill and so was not able to make it today. Also Kent Life came and told us that we were supposed to be out by 5 when originally we had been told we could stay until 6 and so this also cut our schedule short as we had to make sure that we were out earlier than planned.

As soon as I got home from the shoot I amended the schedule so that we were filming the scenes we missed out on today on another day. I realised that we needed to speed things up if we wanted to get everything filmed.

If I Was King - Finding a DOP

Finding a DOP is proving to be really really hard and I fear that we are running out of time now with less than a month away from the shoot. I have searched everywhere. I have asked people I have worked with on professional shows in the past, I have put out several casting calls, emailed lots of uni's and I can't find anything.

I have searched through Film and TV pro and emailed a few people I found on their and so I am praying that one of them get back to us.