Director Chioce

Our latest assignment for our next project is to recreate scenes from a chosen director to last for seven minutes. We are to recreate these scenes using our own style of film making rather than just copying how the director originally directed the film. Therefore, we are given free reign to film the scenes in whatever style we wish as long as the overall plot within these scenes is coherent and that the themes stay the same throughout.

For my project, I have decided to choose the director John Glen. John Glen is most notable for his work on several James Bond films as well as directing the most amount of his own Bond films spanning from the mid-Roger Moore era all the way through the Timothy Dalton era of the series. John Glen has also worked on several other notable, successful and highly praised films such as Orson Welles's 'The Third Man' and Richard Donner's 'Superman'.



I decided to choose John Glen as my director choice as I am familiar with his works and I believe that he has a certain cinematic style, both through uses of motifs throughout most of his films and themes that occur throughout.

If I was to do scenes from one of his James Bond films, I would have to recreate some quieter scenes as I would not be capable of filming any big action at my current level of film making, therefore there would be no stunts and certainly high octane action being filmed. I will also have to have an appropriate cast to fill certain roles.

Musketeers TV Series Review

Musketeers is yet another adaption of the famous yet overly told tale featuring the famed protectors of France. The original tale tells of how three musketeers fight against evil forces to protect their royalty. Later on in the tale, a young edition steps in to become the fourth Musketeers, giving the title name 'The Three Musketeers' some question.

BBC's adaption is no different to all of the other thousand Hollywood remakes of the story. Three musketeers fight against an oppressive insider from the government and the blank space being the fourth musketeer is quickly filled during the very first episode. It is all very much the same but in a more abbreviated manner. However, something that does differentiate this series from Hollywood machine is a cast of British actors. Yes, the setting for the series is Paris but British accents in this setting appear to blend better than the sounds of American actors mostly trying to sound British or sometimes not even bothering at all.

But is the series any good? Surprisingly, yes.

When someone thinks of the BBC, images of people complaining about levels of violence or suitability for British television may come into that person's mind. This, however, is not the case. While some shows like Doctor Who have metaphorically died from a poor screenwriter who doesn't understand the simple concept of what the show is supposed to be about, slowly changing the show into an overly politically correct mess suitable now only for small children, Musketeers delivers what people actually want.

The stories are deep. The characters are very well developed without any sense of over-baring, not making any one character more important than the other. The merry band of musketeers all have their own time in the spotlight, each having moments of pure character building, highlighting potential flaws and character development continues as the series goes on. And where would great protagonists be without an array of despicable antagonists. The main villain changes in each season. The first is the Cardinal, played beautifully by Peter Capaldi before Moffatt could ruin him, a scheming criminal who wishes to gain power by getting rid of his king. The second is a Spaniard spy, plotting from inside the French government and the third is an Assassin who will stop at nothing until all of his foes are dead. Great actors performing for great characters.

The themes carried throughout the series convey a sense of justice, not only for the purposes of the characters but also justice in the fact that proper storytelling is being made here. Also the themes are very reminiscent of current social affairs, such as examples of a positive outlook towards female empowerment and having freedom beyond the rule of tyrants.

The visual style helps in keeping with the time setting and some great cinematography, although admittedly somber in comparison to a big Hollywood blockbuster, keep the pace running at break-neck speed to allow for an hour of excitement.

And then we come to the music. Throughout, the score is in keeping with the time setting: using wood instruments, string instruments and heavy war drums. The real highlight in music, however, is the main theme for the show itself. It truly allows for audience to become settled into the excitement.

Overall, the show might be very 'tongue-and-cheek' in the way it is presented to audiences but with enough great character development, deep stories, relevant modern themes and intriguing and exciting cinematography and sound, BBC's Musketeers is some fantastic evening drama.

Final Evaluation:

After finally finishing the editing process of my final two minute trailer, here is my evaluation on the experience, highlighting my strengths, weaknesses and improvements made and yet to be made in future projects.

Firstly, I was thankful that I did have enough footage to actually last for two minutes as this was a slight concern during the filming process. Use of titles against a black background was also helpful in lengthening the trailer to reach the required two minutes.

Editing the footage itself together was rather simple enough. I was able to easily put the footage together to create a cohesive, if still unpolished, story together using what I had captured. However, during this time, I did notice that some of the actions between shots did not match with the next shots, causing trouble with visual continuity. To overcome this, I was able to switch around certain shots at a later date after gaining feedback on  how I can allow the story to make more sense. In the end, I feel that all of the shots match up perfectly without any missteps in continuity.

Another problem which had arisen from the shooting process was the change in weather, meaning a change in lighting between various shots in the trailer, also disrupting continuity. However, after learning how to properly use the colour correction tools, I was able to match the lighting and colour of each shot. This also allowed me to brighten the picture in certain areas where the actor's faces could not be seen very well. There are one or two particular shots that I do feel don't match the colour of the shot immediately after or before but I did the best job that I could to match them up with the best of my ability.

Sound also proved troublesome. the very first shot was a longer take which I wanted t use as much of as possible. however, there was a loud knocking of the camera in my hands during one part of it. to overcome this, I was able to access the individual sound levels and tweak them so that the knocking sound was absent.

Because we were shooting near to a busy road, here are faint noises of passing traffic throughout the trailer. However, this problem was partly fixed due to the microphone we were using having a cover which muffled any unwanted sounds in the distance, meaning that the traffic is not as loud as it would have been otherwise.

One problem which I couldn't fix for a very long time was the music in the background. I wanted my trailer music to resemble the ambiance of a thriller, used for creating tension for an event which will happen near the end of the trailer. I sampled several royalty free tracks but non seemed to work. A one point I even thought about re-editing the whole trailer to better compliment the soundtrack but I decided against this. Instead, I tried using the same trailer music which I had used for my trailer for the short film 'Soft'. It seemed to fit in quite well with the actions on screen and minor tweaks to the timing of the shots meant that they would compliment each other during moments of higher and lower tension. I added a faint boom sound towards the end of the trailer to cut away from he climax and present the title. I wish that the transition between the soundtrack and the boom sound was a bit smoother but I am still happy with the end result.

One major problem I have with the trailer and the footage that was shot is the fact that sometimes the actors are smiling when they are not supposed to be. I could have overcome this by doing reshoots but instead I tried to cut out as of of it during the editing process. I know now that I must leave consideration for reshoots in the future.

Other aspects of the trailer that I am happy with are:
-Use of a black and white filter to represent a a flashback.
-Uses of fades between shots, signifying a different time and giving the trailer a more cinematic quality.
-Using colour correction to give the picture a more cinematic style.

Aspects I would like to improve during further projects:
-Checking each shot during the filming.
-Using a wider variety of shots.
-Allow more consideration for reshoots if necessary.

However, I am happy with how the final film has turned out to be despite its problems.

I have also reacted upon feedback of my screenplay so I could improve it further. Here are some changes I have made which have hopefully improved my screenplay:

-There is now a prologue to the main story:
A criticism that came up with my first draft was that I has telling the audience what had happened in the past without actually showing them. This time I have included an entirely new sequence in which the events told by the characters in the original draft are actually being performed an shown for the audience o see for themselves.

-Omitted the flashbacks:
My original screenplay consisted of flashbacks to a certain event and then going back o the main event before doing another flashback. For this redraft, however, I have decided to make these events entirely in sequence rather than disturbing the main events in the story. Also dialogue has been cut down considerable to get rid of some of the more exposition heavy parts and help the flow of the scenes.

-Changed how the ending is carried out:
Although the moral of the end of my screenplay is still relatively the same-'finding the good in the bad'- I have changed the ending so that certain revelations are a lot more subtle and no longer exposition heavy. The scene is also a lot less cliché (a major problem I'd had with the ending personally) and decisions made by the characters to be a lot less far-fetched.

-Attempted a more consistent tone throughout:
A major problem that was highlighted in my first draft was that the tone was very inconsistent. It was originally supposed to be a serious thriller but had a few moments which appeared to be more comedic. I have changed tone  be more light-hearted than before, with certain characters having more of a sense of humor and having more faults comedic faults. Hopefully this lighter tone does not make the screenplay too comedic.

-Show how characters act/ consistency with character's actions:
My characters are now more consistent in the way in which they act and why they act in that way. my main character's use of language is more consistent without faltering and seeming to turn into a different character entirely I have also shown why my characters do certain things. For example, my char talking to himself is a lot more common throughout the screenplay.

-Omitted certain plot-holes:
Certain plot-holes arose in my original draft concerning why characters could or couldn't perform certain actions. I have improved this by omitting certain plot points which created these plot holes (partly helped by decisions made during the editing process of my actual trailer).

-Changed certain locations:
Certain locations have been changed to make the premise a lot simpler and also to create a bit more consistency between the screenplay and my two minute trailer.

I found it unfortunate that I was given my feedback for my screenplay on the day of shooting piece but I have tried to incorporate the feedback and changes made into the shoot and made through my editing process.

Overall, I have found this entire experience to be rather helpful in filling my knowledge of how to write for, shoot and edit a film properly using a wide range of techniques to fulfil all of my filmmaking goals.