Alex Potter-Creative Media Practice Project: May 2014

Creative Media Practice Project End of Semester

2000-word Individual Self-Evaluation

City Canvas

City Canvas is a short documentary, which focuses on street art from artists’ perspectives. Through a series of interviews with local Liverpool organisations as well as the artists themselves, the film will aim to document the idea that art on the streets should be celebrated. The intended target audience for the documentary is people who are involved with or are positive towards street art. A sub target audience would also be people that live in Liverpool. Our main inspiration involving the theme and visual style is Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010) Dir. Banksy. However the narrative style is going to be more like Skateistan: To Live and Skate Kabul (2010) Dir. Orlando von Einsiedel.

I think the documentary is visually very appealing; with the graffiti walls and art work in almost every shot. I think it raises an interesting topic and includes some points from very different characters in the street art world. The soundtrack was created from scratch which is impressive and the idea of using sounds recorded on the street to build that was very interesting. However I still feel the structure is not as good as it could be. Also I think it is too light. I don’t think Urban Canvas is urban enough. I would have liked a soundtrack like the soundtrack in Dark Days, which would give it a more dangerous and raw feel to it. I also believe we should have taken more cutaways and closes of things like pouring paint and paint brushes ect, accompanied with sharp nice sounds. This is what is stopping it from being really good, as I think fast paced, fast edited cutaways in Exit Through The Gift Shop is what makes it.

On of the problem we encountered was the number of interviews we had to do. This is because all the artists in Liverpool seemed to know each other and after we interviewed them, they would recommend another person. This gave us lots of interview footage, which was great, but I felt we sacrificed the extra shots such as cutaways in order to do this. One the final day at Zap Graffiti invited a lot of people to come in and do some work. This meant that we all got talking to a lot of different people while we were there but we only had one zoom so while everyone was saying good things I only managed to capture a fraction of it, and I literally had to occasionally ask them to stop and move onto the next person and if heard something good from the other side of the room I had to asked them to repeat themselves, never the less I collected a large range of sounds and different interview monologues in that short space of time. In Post-production we were having difficulty with the structure of our documentary. Transcripts helped to a certain extent, but due to the 5 minute time constriction and the vast amount of interview footage, we needed a way of efficiently deciding which bits where vital and which bits we wanted to put in if there is space and which bits to leave out. I recommended we all watch the interviews back and listen out for good points in terms of sound bites and monologues/sentences. This helped and we formed more of a narrative. The unfamiliar setting of Liverpool was also a problem, but we soon sorted it out together.

Originally I wanted to be the Director or Cinematographer as that's where I believe my main strengths lie, but eventually decided to take on the regarded lesser role in terms of amount of overall work: Sound Recordist. This is because I believe the other members of our group were also more than capable of undertaking the other specific roles and thought for the benefit of the project as a whole I would focus my efforts on making the less familiar sound part of production as best as it could be. Another incentive was that we agreed as a group that I would also input in the creative process helping out both, Noah (Director) and Alex (Camera) in production, and Oliver (Sound Editor) and Saul (Editor) in post-production.

I have experienced a little with sound in the past, but this project has made me much more confident with sound in film. It’s made me now completely comfortable using a zoom with all the audio attachment, and I am now more experienced in sound editing for programs like pro-tools and soundtrack pro etc. I think making this documentary has genuinely broadened my mind creativity. This is through experiencing different types of art that I might have not necessarily thought of as art before. Throughout the process my viewpoint was changing and it has effect my day-to-day life in Sheffield as I start to notice the street art even on the way to uni that I have never noticed before. During the interview of Zap Graffiti I wanted to pick up a spray paint can and have a go myself, I just hope that’s what the audience feel when watching the documentary.

I think I contributed well to the group, capturing a wide range of sounds, as well as getting clear interviews. I also made sure I helped out where I could in pre and post-production. The group all got on really well and worked very well as a team. Creative tension might have caused a few heated discussions, but after the take we were chatting like nothing had happened.

War of the Roses Evaluation

War of the Roses is a short dark comedy, which takes the concept of rivalry from the historic civil war in England between 1455 and 1487, known as ‘The War of the Roses’. It incorporates the rivalry of house Lancaster and house York, but these are instead represented as rival florists rather than armies. This Dark comedy involves two opposed Florists who are the top two florists in England. When the news that the annual award for the best florist in England has been awarded to the rivals house York, greed and ambition overcomes logic for house Lancaster, as they decide to kidnap the son of the owner of the York florist and make them bankrupt through ransom. A case a mistaken identity occurs and through this comedy is created. The target audience is quite wide for this piece, but we would mainly target a younger audience, especially fans of the thriller/crime genre, as they will be familiar conventions that we break to create comedy.

The main issue we encountered in the creation process was casting and acquiring the actors for the film. The Director- Danayet, and I worked together on the casting and found it difficult to find the actors in the age range we wanted. We posted on a casting website called StarNow and messaged people on that site and various other casting sites. We didn’t want to just use the student actors at Hallam as we thought it wouldn’t be right for our film and we wanted more mature actors. On many different occasions we got in touch with people who just would just suddenly stop replying, which was frustrating, but when we eventually did get two actors that we thought were good and fit the role and could do it on the dates we planned to film on, one of them pulled out last minute, because of clashing paid work he found. We tried to find match for the days they could do but we had no luck and time was running out. Finally we found two different actors who could do it later that week, but one of them was younger than we hoped and was quite nervous and not as eerie looking as we hoped, and the other wasn’t very good at learning lines. The location was also another problem we encountered, as the original warehouse we found, I tried to get permission, but they refused because of health and safety. The second warehouse I couldn’t find anyone to get permission from after extensive research. The third we were quoted £300 for the two days even with pleading that we were students. The final location was perfect, but we would’ve had to use a less visually appealing room if we didn’t have to change the filming dates because of the actors, which was a silver lining in the end. Another problem we faced was a banner we were going to get made, but it would have cost over £100. We decided to solve the problem with a bit of added dialogue and the use of an extra. Another set of problems came from the fact that one of the actors wasn’t very good at learning lines. In production this was an issue, as we couldn’t just keep the camera rolling, we had to break up the script and do lots of short takes. This may have made our film better in a way as it meant we had a bigger range of shots to choose from in the edit. The second issue occurred in post-production during the edit, as he got so into character he would digress from the script occasionally, which in some instances would work well, but it made it more difficult to piece together. The final problem was timing. We were as prepared as we could be thankfully, but even so, the Easter break forced the post stage of production to speed up as we were left with less than two weeks to edit.

I took on the role of producer for War of the Roses, which was a relative new experience for me. I wouldn’t describe myself as a particularly organised person, but this process has taught me that it is essential for a producer to be completely organised and on top of everything or the project simply just wont happen. I enjoyed this role as it meant I was involved throughout all stages of production. It hasn’t worked out exactly how I envisaged the film in the early stages of pre-production, but I don’t think it is worse, just different. I think the final draft of the script is good making the narrative work well. The cinematography is good making it visually appealing. The sound is good and created the right tone to the piece and the editing is good creating a sharp flowing piece. The two locations were spot on, creating the opposite atmospheres we were going for. The acting in the piece was the only thing, that if I could change I would. Although both actors did a good job, especially the actor who played Henry, who brought a different side to the character I didn’t see at the start. I only say this because of how crucial the two main character were to the film, as visual I imagined the character Henry to be shorter, a bit older and larger, with the character Percy being a lot more menacing and a bit older.

What I have learnt most from this project is that preparation is the key and actors can be unreliable and a pain to work with. I have also leant through taking care of expenses that the budget quickly adds up, feeding the actors, costume, props etc. I have also learnt that efficient blocking is essential for saving time and money and that location makes or breaks a film.

I really enjoyed working on this project and think the success has come from how passionate we were about the idea at the start of the project. All of the members of the crew worked well as a team, with everyone bringing something different to the table helping us create a piece of work we can be proud of.

Alex Potter-Creative Media Practice Project

Friday, 9 May 2014

War of the Roses-Final 5 minute draft

Thursday, 8 May 2014

Final Presentation Powerpoint I Created

Thursday, 1 May 2014

Self-Evaluation-Documentary and Drama

First Crit

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