2015 - 2017
Featured: My first ever selection of films developed in my two years study at college.
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1. Project Enthral: 1st-year Film Studies production at Wyke College. [2016]
2. Plugged-In Magazine 1st-year Media Studies project at Wyke College. [2016]
3. Dial M For Murder (Parody): 1st into 2nd-year transition video at Wyke College. [2016]
4. The Case of The Byway Kidnapping: 2nd-year Film Studies production at Wyke College. [2017]
5. Remember The Days: 2nd-year Media Studies graduation production at Wyke College. [2017]
6. Psychological Malfunction: 2nd-year Film Studies graduation production at Wyke College. [2017]
7. Keeley's Choice: 1st-year short film in my Filmmaking course at Leeds Beckett University. [2017]
8. Into The Woods: 1st-year short film in my Filmmaking course at Leeds Beckett University. [2017]
9. The Island: 1st-year short film in my Filmmaking course at Leeds Beckett University. [2017]
10. Pollen: 1st-year short film in my Filmmaking course at Leeds Beckett University. [2017]
11. Times Like These: 1st-year documentary in my Filmmaking course at Leeds Beckett University. [2017]
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Please feel free to view my college portfolios via the links prior to each sections' introduction. These links display the full process in the making of these productions.
Project Enthral (2015)
Portfolio Link
Inspiration
In my first year of my Film Studies course at Wyke College, I undertook a short film practical project and portfolio that would cover the representation of antagonist characters through stylistic motifs explored by J.J Abrams in Super 8 (2011) and Scott Derrickson in Sinister (2012).
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I interpreted the super-8 style visual motif Abrams utilises through the use of SFX and celluloid film with tools available in Final Cut Pro X as well at implementing a super-8 film reel playing in the background to reinforce that the film is being recorded in 'watching-time'.
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The supernatural teleportation elements, flickering lighting and POV corridor shots used in my film were inspired by Derrickson's suspenseful tone apparent in Sinister, creating an overall uncomfortable feel to strengthen an intense environment.
Plot: Project Enthral takes a look into a man haunted by his dead wife in the early 19th century, exploring my first ever visual techniques.
Location
For Project Enthral, I wanted the location to offer a really quiet old-school styled office area where my protagonist would sit working at a desk. I imagined the visual elements of this office to appear old-fashioned and eerie from the lack of any personal items being present.
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I researched lots of areas in my home city that would best fit the visual idea io had in mind for thic location but not many seemed to hit the nail on the head. At the time, I was also undertaking some work experience at Hull University in the Film Studies department and was recommended to utilise their old on-site dorm building called the Loten.
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The Loten block used to host around 150 students over 30 years ago and ever since has been extremely haunted! Caretakers have said to have heard whispering and footsteps throughout the corridors of each floor even though it has since been abandoned.
I contacted the facilities manager Alan Hewitt at Hull University to ask permission to recce and use the building for filming. I was granted access a few weeks later and was taken for a tour where I explored the building and found my desired office space.
Recce
The photographs above from my location scout are of the rooms I utlised for the shoot! It was pretty tight spaced in these rooms without much furniture being present anymore, so it must have been a struggle for students living in these quarters previously. I loved the old-school aestehtic the buildings interior and exterior offered.
Casting
From early stages of pre-production, I was settled in casting Nadia as my ghostly ex-wife character, however as time passed I was was undecided on my protagoniost and had to work in my first ever screen test process to decide the best fit. I casted my good friends and other film students William Cross and Tom Dove covering a scene where my focal character apperars distressed from the haunting of his ex wife. I figured William fit this role best as his exaggeration of running his hands through his hair and convincing facial expressions.
Take a look into the process of me editing this film on Final Cut Pro implementing various SFX and transitions, arranging ands cutting down clips to reinforce the harrowing theme of the film.
Editing Processes
Final Outcome
Overall, for my first short film I had all-rounded I was really pleased with the outcome. I was awarded with an A grade for my techniques utilised throughout which referenced to my chosen inspirational films.
Plugged-In Magazine
Portfolio Link (no longer available)
Front Cover
The first creative project undertaken in my first-year Media Studies course was developing our own magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread.
But first, we had to study the relevant conventions used by professional magazine creators in the media industry to market their brands and topics. We were given the subject of music artists as our focus, where we would create our own brand for the magazine and our own musuc artist within our chosen genre.
My chosen genre was electronic dance, and so I chose to analyse the likes of DJ Mag, EDM Weekly and MixMag as these were three of the most successful magazine brands of these genres. I analysed a wide variation of issues in each of these brands to ensure I included as many codes and conventions as possible across the spectrum to achieve the highest marks.
Contents Page
I called my brand "Plugged-In", reinforcing the idea of electronic dance production and live performance-based equipment being entirely reliant on being physically plugged into an electronic input to play out. My artist was called DJ Reform, which symbolised the idea of 'bringing people together' in harmony wth his music. I then later interpeted this artist into my music video for second year.
Double Page Spread
Aesthetically I wanted to interpret universe and galaxy elements to aesthetic to further establish the idea of being together, we are all as one.
Dial M For Murder (Parody)
Portfolio Link (no longer available)
As we transitioned into second year Film Studies, we were presented with a task to create a parody of a chosen Alfred Hitchcock feature film. Our options included Rear Window (1954), Dial M For Murder (1954) and Psycho (1960).
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Myself, my two friends Sam Kemp and Tom Dove created a parody of Dial M for Murder, Yorkshire style where we played out one of the mopst iconic sequences in the film. We shot on a Canon 750D in my dining room and each dressed in suit attire with click hair to live up the best we could to the setting and characters. I played the victim, the murderer is played by my best friend Sam Kemp and Tom Dove played the investigator. This was great fun and a great way to start the year!
The Case of The Byway Kidnapping!
Portfolio Link
'The Case of The Byway Kidnapping!' is short film-noir, end of college production directed, edited and produced by my fellow film student Keiran Mortimer which I assistant directed, helped produce and acted in as the protagonist character at Wyke College.
The film endures Private Investigator Dick Wolf's task to uncover the "Case of The Byway Kidnapping" in England 1950. Though he is smugly assumes he has solved it, things take an unexpected turn...
Inspiration
Factory in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
Normal Bates, end scene of Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Two shot character conversation in Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1929)
Flood Bridge and Marina view in Hull, 'The Case of The Byway Kidnapping'
Myself, opening sequence in 'The Case of The Byway Kidnapping'
Two shot character conversation in 'The Case of The Byway Kidnapping'
I was really interested in Keirans' inspirational choices in this project. He had chosen to study and reference the visual styles of classic film noir legend Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and early filmmaker master Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). As you can identify in some of the above screen grabs, Keiran has successfully demonstrated direct reference to these films with his shot types and noir visual style created in Final Cut Pro X.
Location
High Street, Hull's Old Town
Outside The Inkwells and Lion & Key pubs, Hull's Old Town
High Street West, Hull's Old Town
Scale lane Swing Bridge, Hull's Old Town
I supported Keiran with finding the most suitable local location which had a 50's-like environment when looking around Hull's Old Town. We utilised the cobblestone road, alleyways and bridge crossing over a small part of the River Humber for the majority of the film's sequences. For the coloured sequences, Keiran utilised a field and his friends house in colour for the fnal scenes of the film to represent present day.
Casting
Keiran had sussed out most of his roles in early pre-proaction stages, but had undergone three screen tests for his protagonist character Dick Wolf. He stated he wanted the character to be portrayed as slightly arrogant to reinforce his 'know-it-all' attitude to his investigation work. After review, he believed my performance was strongest and cast myself for the role!
Keiran's Film Blog
Keiran had worked super hard on this project and it was great to see it all paid off in the outcome. To discover the full process of how he went about producing 'The Case of The Byway Kidnapping', check it out on his Tumblr blog! Just click this icon:
Final Product
Remember The Days
Portfolio Link (no longer available)
Inspiration
Breathe Carolina
Breathe Carolina - Savages Album
'Remember The Days' is my end of second year college project I produced for my Media Studies course. Our brief was to utilise an original piece of music and interpret our own music video from it, focusing on one or two of the three primary music video styles: performance, narrative and abstraction.
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I knew from the get go I wanted to interpret all three of the elements to both challenge myself technically and creatively, as well as achieving the highest grade possible in reference to achieving everything else in the brief. My inspiration for this piece was American Punk-Electro brand Breathe Carolina's 'Please Don't Say' featured on their Savages album released in 2014.
I broke down the lyrics of the track and explored the relative idea of memories in friendships and how truly powerful they are, so powerful to even heal and reignite a broken friendship.
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Unfortunately my online portfolio has vanished so I sadly can not present it on here!
Location
Wyke College Music Tech Studio
Wyke College Dance Studio
Hull Fair
When storyboarding this project, I had to consistently consider the focal theme of "memories", so obtaining the most suitable locations was key. I drafted ambitious ideas of utilising kaleidoscopic visuals and footage of Hull Fair to create a euphoric sensation for the memories, filming at Wyke College's Theatre space for the DJ performance to really enhance the effort Isaac goes through to fix his friendship with Rich, and at my house to bring make the narrative situation relative to the viewer.
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I planned that my two focal characters were each at separate houses on a phone call, one trying to resolve the issues in the friendship and the other being stressed and hanging up the call. For convenience, I utilised my own house, operating in the front bedroom, staircase and hallway for these scenes.
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My college allowed me to book filming time in the Dance and Music Technology Studios so I could record my artist/performer obtaining his equipment for a live DJ set and the performance itself.
Casting
College was a great opportunity to start developing my early directing skills and learning as much as I possibly could from my first ever productions. After some research on Screen Skills online, I learnt that in production having a diverse range of crew and cast covering different age groups, sex types, gender and race can all hugely benefit a production as it encourages a wider creative flow, strengthened skill sets and enhances problem-solvong and decision making.
I wanted to start working with a more diverse range own people rather than just my friends for convenience to enhance my directing skills in working diversely; so I challenged my original way of thinking by working with the Music Technician, Dance Caretaker and the choosing two of my fellow students in my year that were not previously acquainted and that I had not worked with before. I chose Callan Cartilage who played Isaac, and Billy Jones who played Rich.
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During pre-production, I shadowed and practice recorded varous scenes with Callan and Billy to ensure I had them performing at their best to create a strong display on screen. They listened carefully, took the time to understand each other and both showed their individual skills when it came to lip sync and acting in character.
Final Outcome
Psychological Malfunction
Portfolio Link:
Inspiration
The Elephant Man (David Lynch,1980): Slow motion delay
Psychological Malfunction (Lewis Spencer, 2017): Slow motion delay
The Elephant Man (David Lynch,1980): Desolated focal character
Psychological Malfunction (Lewis Spencer, 2017): Desolated focal character
Erasherhead (David Lynch,1977): Gritty industrial environments
Psychological Malfunction (Lewis Spencer, 2017): Gritty industrial environments
The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980): Opacity editing overlay
The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980): Physical abuse to the mentally ill through quick cutting
Psychological Malfunction (Lewis Spencer, 2017): Opacity editing overlay
Psychological Malfunction (Lewis Spencer, 2017): Physical abuse to the mentally ill through quick cutting
Psychological Malfunction is my all-rounded college graduation project which was inspired by dreamic and nightmarish sequences and editing techniques interpreted by David Lynch in "Eraserhead (1977)", "The Elephant Man (1980)" and "The Straight Story 1999)". It also utilises classical German Expressionism in wider context terms as it follows a low-budget scheme offering dark themes such as depression, desolation and isolation whilst communicating a social concern: the mistreatment of mentally ill and disabled people within the grounds of mental institutes and outside them too.
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Plot: Christopher Wood suffers from numerous mental health disorders including Psychosis, Schizophrenia and Delusional Disorder rooted from previous family trauma, we witness his literal psychological malfunction over time and how it back-dates.
My coursework question of focus I had to answer across my portfolio and display in my own film utilising Lynchian techniques was: "How do the films of David Lynch consider representation of mental illness and disability in the films of "Eraserhead (1977)", "The Elephant Man (1980)" and "The Straight Story (1999)"?
As seen in my Tumblr portfolio on Post I. Short Film Research, my film was also inspired by various filming techniques, character behaviours and locations across some short films including inSANE, Poppies - (Mental Health) Sylvia Plath Short Film and festival award winning Closed Doors. inSane offers shaky handheld footage to reinforce the focal characters mental instability suffering from pyschosis and losing touch with reality, as well as being set in an abandoned building asylum-based environment. Poppies takes a concentrated look into the mind of a person suffering from delusional disorder and interprets nightmarish flashbacks, and Closed Doors orientates focus around family trauma of the focal character and how it still haunts him in present time.
Location
Lord Line, exterior, Hull
Lord Line, interior 2nd floor, Hull
I was adamant that I wanted to film the present sequences in a gritty, rundown, industrial-based setting, and so during location research I started to look at possible areas in my hometown of Hull to save costs of travel and of convenience for my actors to arrive on set. St. Andrew Quay's Lord Line abandoned fishing port building caught my eye instantly. It was huge in size with four floors, completely abandoned and aesthetically pleasing to me with broken windows, torn down crumbled walls on the inside and spray painted areas to present an overall delapidated and mistreated visual. It was ideal for my asylum location where my focal character would dwell. This inspiration would reference almost directly to David Lynch's rustic, industrial, factory-like environment as seen in Eraserhead.
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The white walled scenes where Chris loses his mind were filmed at Wyke College's film and media studio to reflect a seclusion room in a sanatorium, or the possibility we are seeing what is occuring inside of Chris' head; and finally the dining room shots were filmed at my house as we were able to create a stunt of Chris being thrown onto a table by his father and breaking it due to my table already being broken.
Recce
The scouting of Lord Line was incredibly spooky. We attended at night so I could test different lighting techniques in the dark for some of the nightmare sequences. We searched each individual room, the roof and the surrounding area and found lots of interesting sights. Although it was highly dangerous filming here with the building's physical condition being very poor, I was determined to film here and so ensured I had friends cover the entrances when filming to ensure we stayed safe filming on the inside, as well as cleaning the areas we filmed in from broken glass and brickwork to avoid any harm coming to mysef or my actors.
Final Outcome
Psychological Malfunction is my proudest project of my college productions. I was able to interpet all of my filmmaking skills developed over the two years of study in this subject and in Media Studies to obtain a solid outcome with a solid grade.
Wyke College MAFTAS Award Winner
After an immense amount of hard work in extra curricular and standard coursework, I won 'The Best Research Project' Film Studies MAFTA. This was an incredibly proud moment for me as it really proved how my attention to detail and determinatuion paid off as well as obtaining the A-Level grades I desired across my other subjects.
Keeley's Choice
Portfolio Link (no longer available)
To kickstart my degree in Filmmaking at Leeds Beckett, we each had four different specialisms to choose from and undertake across four short films with pre-made scripts. This was done to challenge our abilities in following an unfamiliar story with little preparation time and learn as much as we could about professional filmmaking.
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My four specialism in order of the films I worked on were Production Manager, Lighting Technician, Director, and Sound Recordist. In my first production Keeley's Choice, I had the opportunity to experience the role of the Production Manager or "Producer" in depth, managing my crew, the budget, shooting schedule and location.
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I took lots of advice from my producing tutor at the time to ensure I was taking the best course of action at all steps in the filmmaking process.
Initially, I found this role a massive struggle as I felt overwhelmed with the amount of work I had to multitask, so I spoke to my producing tutor for some support. She advised that I delegated various tasks to my crew such as the shooting schedule to my Assistant Manager and budget being supported by my director to relieve some weight from my shoulders so I could tackle the other tasks more efficiently and effectively. I put this plan into action but ensured I was reviewing these files every day to remain on top of the process and make sure it was running as smoothly as possible.
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Unfortunately, I made a big mistake in early pre-production stages which I came later to regret in post-production, I had delegated most of the budget to my Production Designers so they could buy set materials and outfts for our characters and just asked that they broguth the reciepts so we could ensure the float was correct when finalising out film with the finance office. They had overspent on the budget and were inconsistent with obtaining reciepts each time they made a purchase so I had to cover these costs in my own money for the film. This was indeed a very valuable lesson learnt in that I should always control the budget fully to manage the outgoings of the account properly.
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Other than this factor, I had successfully managed my crew by ensuring I was making daily reviews with each member to ensure they were operating well and if they were struggling I would offer my support, I also arrived earlier each day on set then my crew to encourage them to do the same, imprving their attendance and to fix any issues that occured early on to avoid a potential chain reaction of problems. I thoroughly believe a producers' attendance to each and every aspect of the filmmaking process is vital to control all measures effectively.
Final Outcome
Plot: Keeley has a choice to make, whether she takes her old life back with her lover in a circling toxic relationship or to start fresh and earn the right to see her son again.
Into the Woods
For my second short film in my first year at Leeds Beckett, I worked in the role of a Lighting Technican utilsing Myzar and Redhead lights with coloured filters and pollyboard softeners in my first studio-based set. At this time, I only had very limited knowledge on lighting other than standard three-point-lighting techniques, so I had to experiment the best I could to make it work for each shot.
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Surprisingly after an hour or so setting up and testing different lighting angles, I figured out various different ways to light a scene all on my own. A prime example included a set up of: two Myzars at each side of the studio behind the set, one small Myzar at the forefront pointing backwards against a pollyboard acting as our key light and a Redhead at the back of the set which acted as our back light. This film was a great opportunity to learn as much as I could with lighting so I would move the lights at my own and directors accord to obtain the best results.
As much as the final result didn't pay off so much, I was happy with my efforts on the film and learnt a great deal of lighting set ups in a studio scenario.
Final Outcome
Plot: A woman is concerned over the disappearance of her father and gets in touch with a private investigator; clues begin to arise over the suspect...
The Island
The Island is the third short film I worked on in my first year, but this time working in the role of a director. This experience was very daunting for me as I was directing a much bigger cast than I had previously with six members, as well as managing a crew of over thirteen people due to a lack of 1st AD to support me at the time. However, I made sure to utilise my previous directing skills from college and those I learnt from my directing workshops to fulfill my role on this shoot.
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This film had deemed to be the most challenging short I had worked on so far. My cast and crew were part of a large friendship group which diverted away from the idea of having a diverse team. The team were 90% white males with two females who all lacked effort and care for the prodiction as they were too focused on recreactional behaviour. I strongly feel if I had a more diverse team including members who were not previously acquainted and of different cultures and genders etc. we would have had a stronger channel of creativity, innovation and ideas to put forward.
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Planning & Stepping Into Character
Planning & breakdown of script notes
Planning & breakdown of script notes
Production design notes
Production design notes
As a director, one of my primary responsibities was to spend some quality time in pre-production shadowing with my actors to share my vision for these characters and help them become as believable as possible in these roles. The Island was supposed to be set in the 1920's and orientated focus on the brutality of IRA soldiers against against a British hostage, set in an Irish war camp focusing on the mental and emotional delapidation of an IRA Medical Chief.
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I worked with Dominic McIntyre who I cast as the IRA soldier, Warren Moore as the Medical Chief and Harley Matthews as the hostage. Each of them really took interst into my vision and also implemented some of their own ideas to really enhance these characters as much as possible.
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I researched these types of real life characters of this era with my 1st AD, Production Designers and Makeup Artists to be as close to the real deal as possible and list down the required materials we would need. Take a look at some of my notes during this process above.
Practice Shots
To get a stronger visual sense of how the film would pan out in reference to the shotlist, I created a storyboard with photographs using myself as a character guide. I headed to the Victorian Cells prior to the shoot with my Cinematographer who I instructed on how I wanted the shots to look like.
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As seen in the storyboard to the right, I had an array of shots lined out with notes of any movements so I could interpret these into the finalised shot list.
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I intended to capture the intensely chilling aspects of the script as much as possible, and so included a variety of low angles, close ups and medium shots to witness the true terror of the doctor.
Set Design & Location
Leeds City Hall: Work Room (Main Room), Victorian Cells
Leeds City Hall: Corridor (Lead to Cells), Victorian Cells
Leeds City Hall: Work Room (Main Room), Victorian Cells
Leeds City Hall: Torture Room (Cell 1), Victorian Cells
Final Outcome
Plot: An IRA Medical Officer is deeply traumatised of the ongoings at a hostage concentration camp, we literally see his nightmares unravel over time...
Pollen
Pollen was the final first-year short film where I worked in the role of a Sound Recordist and assisted the production design aspects of the project. I was really excited to work on this film as our team was totally diverse and the script was really interesting, covering the initial stage of an infectious alien outbreak at a science lab.
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This was the first opportinity I had to have full creative freedom with the Production Designers during pre-production to totally re-design the Victorian Cell rooms and tranform it into a wild biology lab, as well as it being the first time I operated the SQN 4S series Broadacast Audio Mixer.
Set Design
As you can see above, we went full scale with the set dressing for Pollen. We really paid close attention to detail and reinforced the wildness and complexity of the science lab by plastering the walls with diagrams (both poster and chalkboard written) filled with various formulas and experiments, hazardous and caution signs and having our focused experiment of a plant covered in alien goo sealed in a glass jar with a hint of purple in its own room.
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Our focal character, the Apprentice Scientists' work area was rustled up and filled with crumpled paper, comics and food wrappings to reflect his carlessness and laid back attitude to work, contrasting to our secondary character, the Clinical Lab Scientist as we made his desk appear clear and work-focused with biology equipment including a micoscope, tongs, pipettes and test tubes as well as his laptop and paperwork all being neatly in order to indicate he takes his work very seriously.
Capturing Crisp Audio
Prior to the shoot, myself, Boom Operator and Director visited the Victorian Cells to make test recordings of the sound due to the location being quite echoey. To overcome this issue, we had created temporary soft walls top seal off spaces we were not using during particular shots, compacting the space as muh as possible, overall reducing the sound from bouncing around the different rooms and back to us which would majorly affect the qudio quality and confuse dialogue from overlapping sounds. We also added a slightly thicker windscreen to the microphone to reduce the echoes too. These two methods in place stopped the echoing completely!
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On set, placement of myself and Boom Operator during various scenes to capture audio was certainly interesting. We had to squeeze in various spaces including crawling underneath the main working desk of our Clinical Lab Scientist, sit in small corners and even climb ladders as the space was filled to the brink with the crew and we needed to give the actors the space they required to manoeuvre in the lab space.
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Although it was stressful being in awkawd places from time to time, it was absolutely worth it as we caught crspo clear sound. This was the first short film I had worked on which went incredibly smoothly thasnks to the great efforts made from eveyone in the team to make it work. Still to this day, Pollen stands as the strongest of the first-year short film projects.
Final Outcome
Plot: An apprentice biologist is left to his own devices to carefully examine the remains of a gooey alien substance, with little knowledge on the black slime, the consequences are fatal.
Times Like These
Coming towards the end of our first year, we were briefed with our first documentary module where we could explore any topic of interest in Leeds. I had teamed together with my friend Warren Moore alongsde some of my other fellow students to work on a project which studied what life was like in Leeds during the reign of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe.
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My role was a researcher, so I had to study and retrive facts and evidence of the Yorkshire Ripper's life, the murders, their locations, and the victims themselves. I spoke to my father when initiuating this project as he was interested to hear what my next work-in-progress was. On the very first mention of Peter Sutcliffe my dad told he he worked with him! He mentioned of tools going missing at his workplace at HGV and Peter often oddly atttending a graveyard. He also told me how his family were actually all very friendly people, he even went onto saying how he had a short relationship with Peter's sister, Jean Sutcliffe.
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To obtain more information and material, I watched several documentaries on YouTube, read old newspaper articles covering Peter's reign as the main article and headline and even reached out to some women of 50+ years with Warren to ask for interviews on this subject which we could intepret into our documentary.
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Our goal was to create a feeling of a traumatic time in British history.
To really fulfil our goal capturing the feeling of what life was like living in leeds during the reign of the Yorkshire Ripper between the years of 1975 and 1980, we interpreted original photographs taken from the streets of Leeds as well as interviewing two women in their late fifties who had experienced living in Leeds during this era. We even gained permission from the BBC to utlise an offcial voiceover recorded of a presenter announcing Peter Sutcliffe's charge with murder during the late 1970's.
The two women we interviewed had such interesting stories to tell, expressing their terror living through a literal killing spree focused on women happening in their home town. Watch the full documentary below!
Final Outcome