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2018 - 2020
Featured: Productions made at Leeds Beckett University from 2018-2020.
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1. Alienation: 2nd-year Filmmaking short experimental production at Leeds Beckett. [2018]
2. Chimaera: 2nd-year Filmmaking short horror-comedy production at Leeds Beckett. [2018]
3. Try to Remember: 3rd-year Filmmaking short experimental surreal production at Leeds Beckett. [2020]
4. Home: 3rd-year Filmmaking graduation project at Leeds Beckett. [2020]
Alienation
Alienation is my second-year experimental short film which I assitant directed, location managed, costume designed, pull focused, and acted in. This project is by far one of my favourite productions I have worked on during my studies at Leeds Beckett University.
Plot: A young man's desires to attend a social music event are conflicted by his symptoms of social anxiety disorder.
Pre-Production & Planning
Warren and I had arranged three meetings per-week at our university's library during the pre-production stages of Alienation to ensure we werre on top of our game, creatively flowing ideas and developing the story as much as possible.
A very popular topic at the time during 2018 was films based on mental health, mbut usually covered elements of suicide, depression and anxiety. Myself and Warren were very passionate of this topic and had agreed to focus our film in this field.
However, over the past decade or so, films orientating around mental health have become very common and follow similar story formats, so myself and Warren addressed that it was crucial we took a different pathway to delve away from following trends and giving people what they have already seen plenty of times.
After a team discussion in one of our meetings, we all agreed to focus our film on social anxiety as we had each suffered with it in some way or another throughout our lives and could utilise relatable situations and feelings to connect with our audience on an emotional level, addressing this worldwide concern as in our own way.
Taking a Lead
One of the topics I addressed after some research to my team that we should interpret into our film was the idea of metaphorically "hiding behind a mask". It is incredibly powerful. Every day, we all hide our emotions inside of us so others cannot identify how we truly feel; this is something that people who suffer from social anxiety disorder do moreso than others and I felt it would work brilliantly in our narrative.
Warren agreed with this idea, and asked that I figured out how we could address this. After some long thinking and drafting various sketches on metaphorical masks, I thought of using animal masks in the film. This is then representative of two things, both the hiding emotions behind a mask and also displaying what sort of animal represents an individual. For example, someone who is fiercly dominant and owns a lot of self-confidence would be reresented as a lion, and someone who is delicate and wholesome in personality would be represented by something more gentle like a butterfly.
Our focal character would wear an alien mask as he himself feels "alienated" to everyone around him from, being unable to interact with others from his severe social anxiety disorder. He feels alone even when surrounded by others.
With our films' budget, I went ventured around various stores in Leeds until I came across Luvyababes, a huge costume shop based in Leeds city centre. I found a pack of simplistic animal masks which would fit the ideology we were focusing on brilliantly. After purchasing them and arriving on set in pre-production rehearsals, I explained this idea to our actors when on set so they understood the reason for wearing them.
Location Management
Once we helped and left Warren to draft the remainder of the story and script, I began to look into potential locations we could utilise for the shoot. Our locations in the script consisted of a uni accommodation, an events facility and originally some rough city streets which were cut out due to focusing the story moreso on our character's experience with being unable to leave his room. Our budget from this particular production was not supplied by The Northern Film School, and so therefore had to be very careful with our expenses.
I looked into a cheap events faciltiies acrioss Leeds, contacting the likes of Beaverworks, Wire Nightclub and Old Red Bus Station, but each of these venues were either unavailable for short time hire or above what we could afford as a collective. After some more digging, I stumbled upon Blueberry Hills Studios which offered an overall quiet area beneficial for recording audio, a bar to order refreshments, an open indoor music events area featuring a stage, dance floor, tables, and chairs as well as their own recording studio facilities for music and foley recording.
I spoke to my team about investing our budget primarily into this location due to it offering everything we needed for the shoot itself, plus the studios to record foley and guitar audio to which they agreed to shoot here too.
Shooting Alienation
As soon as we arrived at our main location, we checked in our actors and had them get to know one another as well as exploring the top floor we were filming in with Ellie who played our secondary character in the film so they could be as comfortable as possible.
I also spoke to all of our actors after Ellie had introduced them to the location, revisiting the the filming process with them so they were aware of how the day would pan out and when they were permitted to depart, as well as confirming the meaning behind wearing the animal masks so they were confident in their roles and actions. This was done reassure and keep their mindset fresh for filming.
I then fedback to my director Warren and we began to set up with our crew for the shoot. After some intense planning in the shotlist and shadowing with our actors, we were able to shoot all the required scenes at this location in a day with time left over to record our foley and music in one of their studios.
It was super exiting seeing our vision come to life throughout the shoot and all our hard work paying off the shoot
Key-Grip Camera Work
This shoot was my first experience multi-rolling on a university production and working as a key-grip. Before initialising the shoot, I had a few practice sessions with our camera operator Julia Quintana on the Sony Black Magic camera so she could teach me the best ways to focus and zoom on subjects and their surroundings at a range of different angles. These sessions including a go-over prior to the shoot really prepared me for the shoot and helped me to feel more confident working in a role I did not specliase in.
The results of my practicing are evident rhoguh the final version of our film as seen below in this section, everything was nicely focused and the zooms were smooth which I was really pleased with.
Overall Experience
Shooting Alienation has to have been the most fun project I worked on through my second year and first year at Leeds Beckett. From pre-production through to post, the full shoot to run so smoothly. This was due to me taking on a role I had became comfortable in thanks to my directing classes and having support from such a fantaastic group of open-minded individuals. The opprtunity to undertake a topic I am incredibly passionate about too was such a blessing..
This was also my first time working with actors outside of education which was thorughly enjoyable as everyone was well prepared resulting in successfulm acting outcomes.
Final Outcome
I hope you enjoy wathching the final product as much as I did making it!
Anchor 1
Chimaera
Chimaera is my second-year university horror-comedy project which I undertook as was a producer during late stages of pre-production due to this crew having a producer who departed. I did not have any producing experience since production management on my first year on Keeley's Choice (2017), and did not have any producing classes either due to not undertaking it as a speaclaism so I had to work from my previous exeprience to power through.
However, as exected the responsibility levels were much more advanced this time around, I was responsible for:
- A raised budget of £600.
- Arranging transportation for equipment and crew to location and back.
- Arranging transport for actors to set and to home on the same day over a three-day period.
- Storing all equipment safely in our own designated locker room after each shoot.
- Looking after our actors catering requirements.
- Create daily production reports.
- Arrange health and safety emergency requirements.
Although this was a major step up from what I was used to and not trained in, I was determined to do my best to make this film a success.
Plot: A deadly science experiment has escaped Chimaera Inc. labatories and is causing choas throughout the facility. Control Officer Derek needs to step out of his comfort zone to pursue saving his team's lives.
Pre-Production & Planning
Due to being placed on this film in the late stages of pre-production, I had to create a plan of action in a very short time frame when having my first meeting with the full Chimaera crew.
I met everyone around a conference table at the Leeds Beckett Library, and projected my full script breakdown on a whiteboard, analysing where each of the points above would be relevant so myself and took on any feedback and ideas to ensure myself and my team were on the same page.
Together, we then assigned the relevant jobs to the best suited crew role and went over documents to be completed, as well as developing a pre-production plan together to allow fuyture rpocesses to run smoothly. We also decided to cater for ourselves and arrange our own transport methods to locations to save money on the budget.
Take a look at some of the documents I had created to prepare myself for the shoot below (click to view):
Locations Plan
Organisational Processes
Town Hall Shooting Location Map
Producer's Script Breakdown
Locations Checklist
Catering Plan
Shot List
Shooting Schedule
Casting
Breakdown
Movement Plan
Form
One mistake I made early on in this shoot is taking on too many tasks and being thoroughly involved with the directing side of the pre-production processes as I did not have adept knolwdge on my reponsibilities. These are just a few of the many forms I created for this shoot.
Leeds City Hall
Leeds City Hall, Modern Prison Cells
Leeds City Hall, Prison Corridors (connects Modern Cells to Victorian Cells)
Leeds City Hall, Victorian Prison Cells
Myself, my director Ryan Lewis, and our costume designer Olivia Johnson made our own script breakdown, covering the items we would require for the set and location.
We initiaally considered renting our own office section at Spire Offices in Leeds due to it being local and fitting for the control room with some adjustments to aesthetics in the master room such as computer monitors and walls with paperwork pinned up etc; however, we were unable to negotiate an affordable price on behalf of our budget and were denied the freedom to attach posters to and add fake bood for the killing sequences. I suggested to Ryan about renting out Leeds City Hall Prison Corridors, Modern Prison Cells and Victorian Prison Cells as they had the visual aesthetic we required with some phyical tweaks and lighting adjustments, it was very local to The Northern Film School building where we stored our equipment so it would be convenient for travel, and it would work out cheaper than renting any other location as the univerity had a renting discount in place, benefitting our budget massively too.
This worked out as the overall best option which we all agreed on due to the benefits above plus the staff allowing us to use fake blood on the floors as long as we cleaned afterwards.
Shooting Chimaera
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The pre-production processes were solidified with each crew member completing their delegated tasks and individual jobs. I had worked very hard to ensure each of my responsibilities were covered as early as possible to ensure prioduction could run as soothly and stress-free as possible.
Unfortunately, on the first shooting day I was really unwell and unable to make it on set. This caused me a great deal of stress as I was worried about physically supporting my team on the day and had to revert to it all being digital.
I explained my situation to my head of year and recieved advice about just staying in contact as much as possible via over the phone messaging in our full crew group chat, heads of departments chat and calling where nessesary.
I took on this advice and began to create a backup plan as I was unable to attend the set. I then spent the first two hours of my day contacting all departments in a circuit format to help my crew as much as possible where needed, keeping on top of eveything in case there was anything problematic on set that needed dealing with.
After some sufficient rest, I was well enough to be present the next shooting day.
On arrival to the set on day two, I was stunned with the efforts my crew had put into equipment set ups, greenroom areas, and scene set dressings - it looked stunning!
I immediately opened my documnts folder and began to get to work on overseeing the shoot, looking after our crew with catering requirements and helping set up scenes to save as much time as possible in case we needed to dedicate it to longer shots.
The overall result was quite successful considering the time I was placed on this shoot and being absent for a days shoot! See the production reflection document and final film below.
Production Relflection Document
Final Outcome
Try to Remember
I produced and edited this short production for my third year Experiential Learning module at Leeds Beckett.
This was my first stab at working in the Surrealism field. There are only hints at a set narrative within - the focal character Justin is being questioned if he murdered a man named Matt by "Unknown". To try and remember his past experiences, he has to undergo a process of 'retracing' his steps where doing so resurfaces nightmarish visions resurfaced from his unconscious mind.
In Final Cut Pro, I experimented with various quick cutting and flashing transitions techniques, as well as utilising special effects such as opacity layering, colour dampening and exposure to reinforce the nightmarish tone of the film.
Home
Home is a short British gritty drama production that follows the story of a 15 year-old foster child called Jason from the moment he finds out his foster mum has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Unable to face her inevitable early death and the fact he is going to have to be moved into the hands of social services, a troubled Jason runs away in the middle of the night in attempt to leave his fears behind.
Homeless and on the move, an unexpected friendship is made along the way which teaches Jason, although we can't prevent adversities from happening, what we can control is how we respond to them. That is where the true power of this film lies.
[COMING SOON]
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