The EIFF

Before going to the festival I was informed that it was not at all how I'd pictured it; basically the film equivalent to a large music festival in a park with lots of tents and people buzzing about going in to 'the feature tent' or the 'international short tent', etc. It was strange to realize it was just in your average Cineworld, and that there weren't lots of celebs buzzing about on red carpets.

The first film we went to see was Ollie Kelpers Expanding Purple World - from the overly-long synopsis we managed to come to the expectation that it was some kind of time travel, wacky story. This, my friends, was not the case. It was described similarly to Donnie Darko, one of my favorites, yet it was different in the sense that it was not as serious or 'dark' as Donnie Darko. The basic plot was that Ollie, science geek, loses his wife as she dies of a blood clot which sends him in to insane schizophrenia, convinced he killed his wife in the freezer and as a result, the government have planted a chip to freeze his brain. It was sad at parts, sweet at others, and had some absolutely hilarious scenes where he was screaming and abusing his kettle. It was a strange film - the inside of his mind as he spiraled out of control. There were some cheesy bits where it was a large galaxy with his face in the middle of it which I wasn't too keen on, and I found it hard to imagine it being shown in Cineworld as a regular feature. It was fairly slow to start and almost clever in the sense that you weren't actually sure if what was happening to him was real or if he was actually insane. Overall, it was lighthearted then sad, just a little crazy, and most importantly it had me laughing out loud the whole way.

Next, we went to see 'Superhero Me' which was a documentary, not exactly the most exciting music to my ears. However - I really enjoyed it. It was like a real-life Kick Ass, featuring Steve Sale and his quest as he fulfills his destiny as a real life super hero. It was hysterical, providing real life super heros who honestly believed they were saving the world. I couldn't believe some of these people exist, such as MASTER LEGEND, superhero straight out of LA who patrolled the crack houses and dedicates his life to being a real life superhero. Although it was done on a very low budget and some of it recorded on mobile phones, it was very effective and looked as though it was done on purpose. The only annoying thing was that the subtitles didn't fit on the screen so we had no idea what was being said by some Mexican superhero spider. Shame! In general, I really enjoyed the documentary and it shone a different light on them for me as it was funny and lighthearted, and didn't put me to sleep.

I was keen on seeing some short films as for me these are educational - an insight in to what other students are producing all over the world. They were strange, I'll give you that. The first one, Birthday, was absolutely beautiful and the props were gorgeous, along with the music making your mind jump to sinister conclusions. However I felt that it didn't seem to follow any of the rules we are taught by Richard - no in sighting incident, no character development, no general theme. I still loved it though because it was just so pretty and I enjoyed coming up with new creepy theories of my own. The next three were just generally weird - one was about a bank robbery in France which I thought looked more like a re-enactment from a documentary with only a few funny moments. The next, I don't think I've ever been so irritated by a short film or character than I was with this one. I felt the short had absolutely no point to it, it was long and dragged out and the main character had absolutely no interesting or likeable qualities. It looked more like a 16 minute insight in to a boring middle aged americans day-to-day life and I thought it had no good qualities for me. Perhaps the film maker wanted to convey the feeling of frustration and uncomfortableness, which they succeeded in doing.

The weekend at the film festival was interesting, It was good to see what kind of films are being made all over the world and an insight in to what kind of films we can expect to see soon. I was gutted I didn't go on another day to try and catch The Runaways, which I have been waiting on for months. When looking at what was on before we went, I noticed a film called 'Cigarette Girl', which was said to be like a low-budget sin city with an interesting premise of smokers being banned and seen as rebels, set in 2050. Unfortunately, it wasn't on when we went. However, at the Hair of the dog event, the director stopped me and Amelie to ask us if we got the chance to see it and if we liked it. When we explained it wasn't on, he kindly gave us his email address along with his producers in order to access the full feature online! It was good to be approached just for our opinions - something I'm sure we'll all have to do when we go to make our films or even have a rough premise idea as Richard has always said we should be asking random people what they think. In general, it was a fun way to end our own short films and made me feel inspired and excited for the future as hopefully one day we'll be watching something we have made.

The killers

My Cineworld card has been growing cobwebs lately, however I managed to squeeze in Killers, the latest rom-com. I'll keep it short and sweet, but basically if the main role was played by anyone other than Ashton Kutcher, it would have been a complete FLOP. It was enjoyable yet completely unbelievable throughout, until the ending which was so ridiculous even Ashtons abs couldn't save it. I think that if we handed the script over to Richard he would have smacked us over the face with how hideous and anti-climactic the ending actually was. Its amazing to see how many great scripts probably don't get made because of movies like these, and how much a film sells purely based on one mans six pack. I wasn't impressed with Katherine Heigl's performace, it was very weak and just, I repeat, completely unrealistic. It had a few laughs and I liked the distant similarity to The Truman Show, where all the killers were actually people planted in to their lives as best friends and neighbours etc, however they never played on this interesting concept. Overall, thumbs down for me.

As the end of first year draws nearer, our first (important) film is coming in production. I have had the opportunity to work as a producer for one of the films, 'Two Seconds', and day one of two is complete. After two weeks of everything running smoothly, we began to see some cracks in the production which we came and saw and conquered.

• Days before the shoot, the agency supplying us with 7 extras decided to smoothly 'dingy' us by not replying to emails or picking up the phone. For a so-called casting agency, I thought this was disrespectful, just plain rude and extremely unprofessional. However, we contacted another agency 'All Talent UK' who promptly got on to it and we had our extras within hours.
  
• Sound. Sound, sound, sound. As we are all completely clueless with this, we had the trouble of having to find a sound person days before the shoot. In the end we had to ask Michael, our editor, to do sound for us today and Gav to do sound for us tomorrow. H-O-W-E-V-E-R. Today, halfway through the shoot, we suddenly realize the sound has not been switched on or some strange thing that basically meant we were screwed. We took a break, ate some food or a million cookies, and popped some caps. I had the lovely job of making sure we didn't run a second over schedule which was hard, as even though we want to get the best shots and performance possible, time was of the essence and its hard not to feel like your sucking all the creative energy out of the film, however the show must go on! In the end, we managed to complete the scenes and re-shoot, all in the nick of time, along with taking down sets and what not. It was a good experience and I'm sure we'll never make that mistake again.
• The battery charger broke. Which meant, of course, the monitor died. We could live with this, however the cameras death swiftly followed, luckily we were aware of it and managed to complete the shot list. We just had to miss out the voice over which wasn't major as it was only going to be a rough guide anyway and will get touched up in sound later.
• Carrying the kit up and down 7 flights of stairs was horrific, why oh why did the lift decide to break on the worst possible day? Bonus - I'm sure we'll all sleep well tonight.
  
• We handled obstacles well and have managed to stay calm in rubbish situations, can't hold us down!

These are of course the obstacles we faced, missing out all the good points. We have a lovely actress who played the part well and was great off-set too, and the costume was great! I think the make-up girl Rachel had a ball putting on all the chavy make-up. The footage looked great and I can't wait to see a complete copy, its a lot of fun and amazing how different it feels when its your own project your working on. Its obviously more personal and your efforts are far more invested in it. Having Ally from 4th year was a massive help, I think he made us feel safer as he had more knowledge and experience and we really appreciated his help.
Producing is fun - but stressful. Its a lot of work and its amazing to see how much a producer actually has to do for a film. I find the budgets and shot lists hard to follow because of having dyscalculia, but hopefully it will get better from now on with a little help. In general, day one had been good fun and I don't think there's anything too awful that could happen tomorrow. I'll report back soon with the verdict!

l.o.v.e

As series three of gossip girl came to an end, my love for it has most definitely not. This series has been very dramatic and having to watch trailer trash Taylor Momsen with her rats tails down to her knees proved to be quite a task indeed. But what a series! Everything about Gossip Girl is fabulous, the people, (I prefer to think of it as real life instead of referring to them as actors or characters) the clothes, the music, the setting, everything!! Its a brilliant sense of escapism as I'm pretty sure every girl wants the inside scoop of Manhattans upper-east side! The series finale was heartbreaking, Chuck and Blair are so tragic, I felt awful for them both. But fear not, minions on perez hilton assure us all that Chuck does indeed live after being shot in a seedy alley in Prague, and sets out to win his beloved Blair back, which i really hope he does because I'll just die if he doesn't. Talk about dramatics! However, I would like to see some fresh storylines as I'm beginning to see the same stories crop up, Dan and Serena were so over and should stay that way, along with Georgina coming back to haunt them! Anyway, I promised this would be short and sweet but I just wanted to reassure anyone in doubt that I am in fact still completely obsessed with Gossip Girl and one day I will conquer it! xoxo

Easy Rider

Over the past few weeks, I've become a bit of a fan of the 70s, especially after watching Bonnie and Clyde and seeing the amount of real influence the time period had on cinema. However, I'm not sure how well Easy Rider has aged. Honestly, I was a little let down by it and I thought for the most of it, it seemed as though it were a continuous music video for 'Born To Be Wild'. I can appreciate the way in which it explores various elements of its time period such as drugs, the hippie movement, free love and the communal lifestyle. The way it explored the communal lifestyle creeped me it out, I thought it was just so strange and uncomfortable for some reason. As far as the story goes, I thought it lacked, for me, any real drive. I think however that this was on purpose and the real character goal was to achieve what it means to be 'free' and liberated, but I felt it wasn't as exciting as other films of its time such as Bonnie and Clyde. It was rather slow and I don't think I'd ever want to watch it again! The ending felt like an anti-climax as they had achieved freedom physically and financially, yet not spiritually as Wyatt says 'We blew it.' Minutes later they die which felt a little pointless, perhaps this was the point, to enhance the way they were killed so effortlessly simply because they were different.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a gorgeous film about the complexities of human relationships and after watching it for the first time, I love it already. The film is based around two best friends, Vicky and Cristina as they spend their summer in Barcelona. Vicky is very traditional in her views of love and life, and plans to marry her very 'safe' fiance and live happily ever after. Cristina, on the other hand, is very fluid and spontaneous in her views of love, becoming a very likeable and interesting character. Here, they meet a very complex and mysterious spanish painter, Juan Antonio. He tells them he is attracted to both of them, invites them to spend the weekend with him and after hearing of his troublesome times with his ex wife, Cristina agrees. Penelope Cruz gives an absolutely fantastic performance of Juan Antonios ex wife, Maria Elena, who is psychotic, full of passion and complexities, a very different role for Cruz. Cristina, Juan and Maria all engage in a relationship together which is an interesting topic to tackle, handled very passionately and exciting. Vicky, having fallen in love with Juan after a weekend of love, gets married to her 'safe' husband against her deepest wishes. The film tackles the complexities of human emotions and the way they can be so fragile and delicate, and being situated in Barcelona only adds to the romantic feel of the movie. The witty voiceover worked very well, the style of the movie was gorgeous. The way in which people seemed so humane in the film was fresh, after Cristina learns of Vickys love for Juan Antonio, she doesn't do your typical 'you bitch' scene, but stresses that if she had known she would have stepped aside which I thought was very understanding. The way in which Vicky was torn between this passionate, romantic spanish artist and her safe but kind husband was such a 'worst nightmare' crossroad situation. The four main characters were fantastic, they were cast brilliantly. The contrast between Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz worked beautifully and their performances were delivered with elegance. Javier Bardem played a great sexy, exciting, 'tortured artist' that worked well with his accent and tall-dark-&-handsome looks. In general, I think the movie was fantastic and I really enjoyed the way in which the girls returned from the chapter of their life in the same place as they started but feeling completely different life in general, making conscious decisions about what they want in life, and more importantly, who.

Producing

Over the past week, we have had our introduction to production with Abigail. This was exciting for me as I have taken a keen interest in producing and I'd like to learn more about it. The classes with Abigail were not as intense as they could have been, I was soaking up everything that is involved in production and really enjoying it.

• I had a vague idea of what exactly the producer does, but I did not expect the amount they actually are in charge of. Actors, budgets, script breakdowns (which was actually really fun, but hey, don't quote me on this if we have to breakdown a feature), dealing with locations, catering, legal issues, absolutely everything you can think of involved in organizing a shoot. This pleases my inner control freak.
  
• The amount of forms that need to be filled out is insane. Poor trees! After only one class on budgeting, I have already nabbed a few budget sheets and have attempted to budget my own life, its a really helpful method. The thing is, I'm good at budgeting and looking after other peoples money, but with my own, well thats another story really.
• After our script breakdown, we were told to make a shooting schedule. I found this really hard because I couldn't seem to keep up and understand all the sheets of paper, I understand how it is done and what is involved but my brain physically could not process it there and then. So I found that quite challenging but I'm sure I'll get it soon.
• Maths. Numbers = A complete problem for me. I just can't seem to understand them, so when told a script is split up in to 1/8's was not exciting. I managed to understand it, but I don't UNDERSTAND why it is 1/8's? Luckily, Abigail said she doesn't really 'get' it either and its just an old conventional way, which is fair enough.

In general, I've really enjoyed the production classes with Abigail and look forward to gaining some more production experience in the future!