Session 8 - Confirming Roles, Script Content And Practicing Lines - 20/6/23

We started off the session looking at the storyboard to remind ourselves of the shots that we want to use in our short film.

We discussed whether everyone was happy with the script and everyone agreed that they liked it but they wanted to change the ending.

We finalised roles and re-arranged a date for filming as most people couldn't do the original date proposed. We have now all agreed that we will be filming for the whole day on Saturday 14 July 2012.

The roles are as follows:

Cast:
Tyler: Nicholas (Malachi stand in)
Paul: Michael
Mum: Actress
Dad: Actor
Gang leader: Paul
Gang member 1: Malachi
Gang member 2: Michael A A
Extras/other gang members/passer by: Nadia, Djed, Tom, Lanta, Karl

Crew:
Director: Tristan
Assistant director: Karl
Art director: Tom
Camera Assistant: Nadia, Nicholas, Michael A A
Edit assistant: Malachi

We had a run through of all of the scenes and practice lines. We made a few minor amendments to the script as we wanted the ending to be slightly different. We filmed the scenes whilst everyone was practising.

We finished up the session by going through our expenditure rationale forms for filming and promoting our campaign and filled in feedback forms.

Session 7 - Finishing Our Storyboard And Doing A Location Recce - 30/5/12

Going over roles:
We started off the session by going over everyone's roles and allocating characters for everyone to play.

Cast:
Tyler - Nicolas
Paul - Malachi/Paul/Michael
Mum - we will be getting an actress in
Dad - we will be getting an actor in
Gang leader - Karl/Paul
Gang member 2 - Micheal A.A
Gang member 3 - Lanta/Malachi
Girl (stabbing victim) - Nadia
Other gang members/extras - Nadia/Djed

Crew:
Director - Tristan/Karl
Assistant Director - Tom
Art Director - Tom/Lanta
Camera Assistant - Nadia/Nicolas/Micheal AA
Sound - We will be getting a sound man to do this
Edit Assistant - Malachi

Filming:
We looked at our schedules as there are a lot of exams going on over the next few weeks to see when everyone is available to film.

Filming dates:

- Thursday 21 June 2012 - 2.45pm - 7.00pm
- Sunday 24 June 2012 - We will film on this day too if we need to.

Storyboard:
Tom finished drawing the storyboard and it looks really great.

Paperwork:
We discussed and filled in an expenditure rationale form for our filming. This explained what we will need and how much it will cost.

Location recce:
For the final part of the session we went out to the locations that we will be filming at to do a location recce. We filmed the locations.

Session 6 - New Sessions - Finishing Pre-Production And Creating A Shot List - 23/5/12

We started off the session by having a look at the finished script and everyone agreed that it is really good and that we are all happy with it.

Actors and locations:
We all discussed who's house that we could use for the mum and dad bathroom/kitchen scene and Djed is going to ask his mum and take some location shots to show us all in the next session. We have all agreed that rather than using teachers to play the mum and dad that it will be better and more accessible to bring actors in to play them instead.

What is a storyboard?
We looked at examples of different storyboards including a scene from Toy Story. This was to help us to understand why a storyboard is important and that it helps to give a visual idea of what we want our shots for our film to look like and what impression we want them to give.

Creating a shot list:
We read through the script, all reading out a part each and the scene directions and discussed one scene at a time and how we want it to look. We created a shot list out of our discussions and agreed on what shots we want to use.

Forms and paperwork:
For our campaign there is lots of paperwork involved so we had to fill some in to be able to make our campaign happen.

We discussed the following for the purpose of funding and support:

What is our campaign about?
- Speak out and stand up for what you believe in
- Consequences happen if you keep quiet and don't help a friend who is under pressure to  join a gang
- Our slogan is - It stops with us!

What are our plans for the future?
- A launch party
- Talk at an event/festival and show our film
- Brochures for funders for future films through our group and production company, Ambition Films
- Go to talk in school assemblies with a police officer (build a partnership with them) about the dangers of getting caught up with a gang and show our film
- A website for our production company and campaign and put our film on it
- Expand our brand
- Get Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter
- Hold a day event to promote our campaign to schools and run lots of activities

We finished up the session on a positive note and excited that we will soon be shooting our film and making our campaign come to life.

Session 4 - Adjusting The Script, Allocating Roles and Improvisation - 9/5/12

Icebreaker
To kick things off we all did an ice-breaker. We had a few new faces so we decided to go around the circle and get everyone to say their name and favourite TV show.

Reading through the script
We all read a part in the script and discussed what we wanted to change about it and how we wanted to end our film.
- Add a fight scene
- See the knife - gang close in - then he's on the floor (closing shot) - followed by an interview
- POV (point of view) shot - everything goes blurry - blackout - you hear voices talking (this is our idea to end our film)

We discussed some dialogue that we wanted to change.

Line of production
We stood in our line of production to see how far we had got in our film process. We agreed that we were coming to the end of the script stage.

Ideas > script > writer > producer > camera person > sound person > director/assistant director
                                  ^
         This is the stage that we are at

Improvisation for dialogue
We did some improvisation for a few scenes so that we could pick out some natural dialogue for our film.


Roles and locations
We discussed roles that everyone wanted to do:
- Nadia - Supporting actor/co-director
- Nicholas - Main actor/camera
- Karl - Main actor/camera
- Malachi - Main actor/co-director
- Sedigi - Supporting actor
- Thomas - Co-director/art director

Locations that we will use are:
- Student's house
- School (Pimlico)
- Street
- Bathroom at student's house

We finished up the session with paperwork and agreeing on the things that we are going to need for our campaign.

Session 3 - Working With A Screen Writer To Write Our Script - 2/5/12

We started off the session with a name game. Everybody said their name and their favourite film. We all had really great taste in films.

Introducing a script writer:
We were introduced to Tom who is a screen and script writer. He told us a bit about what his job entaled and answered any questions that we had for him.

Where have you written plays for?
The Arcola Theatre

How much money do you get?
Not much for theatre but there is much more money in writing for television.

Introducing our story to Tom:
We broke down our storyline for Tom. It is the story of a boy and his friend, the boy is under peer pressure to join a gang and his friend wants to help so seeks advice from his parents. Will he or won't he? Our message is: it stops with us!

We discussed our feelings on gang culture:
- It's wrong
- Parents need to think twice before they let their kids out

What does a script look like?:
We looked at a script from a scene in Spiderman and read through it. This was to give us an idea of what everything meant and how it all worked.

We then watched the clip that the script was from and everyone agreed that it was really clever and that they had changed some of the dialogue. Scripts are to give everyone direction and act like a blue print. Sometimes improvising means that you get some brilliant dialogue.

A script describes what the scene will look like and sets it all up.



Improvising dialogue:
For the final part of the session we did some improvisation for our first scene. This was so that we could get some dialogue for our script.

Session 2 - Restart Sessions - Starting Work On The Script And Allocating Roles - 25/4/12

We started off the session by welcoming another two new members to the group.

Recap on the last session:
- Focus on two friends in different scenarios
- Came up with loads of ideas
- Watched videos of other campaigns

Stages of creating a film:
We discussed the different stages of creating a film.
- Pre-production (storyboards, ideas, scripting, allocating roles, actors, etc)
- Production (the pysical creation of the film)
- Post-production (the edit)

Proposal paperwork:
We discussed the proposal form which is needed for the funding for the project. This helped us to straighten out specific elements of our campaign.

How does a film set work?
We did a really fun activity to demonstrate how a film set works and who's who.

Each one of us represented each of the elements of creating a film and stood in a line to see what stage we were currently at :
Ideas > script > writer > producer > camera person > sound person > director/assistant director
               ^
This is the stage that we are at

Then we acted out different roles to see how a film set would work during filming:



Roles:
Everybody wants to be in the film as actors and Djed wants to be the director.

Discussing the script:

The story is about peer pressure, bullying and decisions that a young boy faces to join a gang.

It will be two seperate stories being told at the same time:
- Shot identically
- Split screen
- Message - It stops with us

The story is about a young boy (Max) who's friend (Billy) is being bullied and contemplating joining a gang. Max speaks to his mum/dad about the situation but will it be to late to help Billy?

- The gang wants Billy to be a runner of cash (£1000)

We worked on putting a rough script together as we have a script writer coming into our next session to help us write it properly.

Feedback:
We filled in feedback forms and the session came to an end.