Friday 11 June 2010

Sleeping Man Winter 08


So this film was shot in my first semester of my last year. The idea behind this film was that it would be for a charity like Help the aged or Age Concern. I came up with the idea for the story and I co-wrote with writer Stephen Kelly on script. This was my first time writing with someone else and it proved to be a good challenge but I was glad to be working with a writer who was very talented indeed.

For me the main thing I wanted to try out with this project was a particular style. The brief was that we had to use a practitioner who inspired us and adapt his style to our project. I was heavily inspired by Mark Romanek who has directed some of the best videos in the music promo world, examples are Michael and Janet Jackson 'Scream' (which was the first most expensive music video of it's time), Nine Inch Nails 'Closer' and Johnny Cash 'Hurt'.
Romanek's lighting style for 'Hurt' is what inspired my film, I wanted to give it the same warm lighting which we created on set, no lighting was edited in post production. My cinematographer and lighting boys were Ewan Macfarlan and Chris Leese, two very good friends who I knew would help me deliver what I needed. We did some lighting tests prior to production and we found the best method to create this warm lighting.

Casting wasn't too much of an issue, I found Tim who plays my lead, he was just a star. He came with a wonderful attitude and humour and everyone had a good time. The two girls were great too.

I think the biggest problems I had was trying to get hold of paramedic uniforms, I rang round medical places but they wouldn't let me borrow any costumes for legal reasons, I tried ebay but they weren't convincing enough and time was running out to wait for delivery. In the end I had a friends dads Paramedic costume and I used that as a template to make them. I went out and bought the overalls, and bought a Hi-vis waist coat and cut it up to sow onto the overalls. The emblem and the letters are iron on transfer papers and were designed by my house mate Jen Lamb who is a very talented graphic designer. I must say a special thanks to Max who stayed up late with me to help me sow and iron on these letters, his help meant I got some good shut eye before the shoot.

I also must say a special thanks to JD who helped me out by running me around every where and picked up some props for me. I'm very grateful to the rest of the crew, they made the atmosphere fun and still we got the work done.

2 comments:

  1. cool blog! :)

    natalieoffduty.blogspot.com

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  2. wow well done on this!

    Helen, X
    http://areyoudressingupordressingdown.blogspot.com

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