The Finished Film

Post-Production: Sound!

Tony (Sound Operator) here.

So I finished up the sound mix the other day and here's a quick post of what went down. Firstly, I read through the script and watched the rough edit to help me compile a list of sounds that would be needed (such as chess pieces being placed, footsteps, and sounds of hitting for the murder scene), then booked out the University dubbing suite in order to record them cleanly. There were a number of technical issues in the dubbing suite, and sadly only half the listed sounds were recorded there, with the other half  recorded in our house. Both our Production Designer and Writer helped out a lot with this part, such as helping me decide on useful items for the sound effects and even creating a lot of the sounds while I recorded them.

Once the recording was done, I met up with our Editor and mixed all the sounds into the edit. This took a good two days, as well as a third day just to polish little bits up after I'd gotten feedback from the rest of the crew. The final mix includes a large variety of post sounds, including sound obtained through the internet, such as a ceiling fan, ticking clock, police siren, birds outside and a caged bird for the inside. Overall there are 19 audio tracks, with some points in the film making use of all 19 for a huge multi-layered sound mix. Almost all of the sounds were altered, such as sound levels increasing/decreasing, the pitch being changed for some sound duplicates so they sounded different, and removal of gain on some speech after the levels had been increased.

In terms of the final product, I feel the sound mix turned out very well. I kept many of the sounds very low with the intention of them being subtle and unnoticeable, such as the variety of sounds for the murder scene (there are at least 5 sounds for each hit, including the poker hitting a cushion, a potato being smashed, and a bone cracking sound effect I found online). These sounds add to the overall feel of the film, and give a real sense that this room is busy and filled with life, even though on the day it was actually very quiet.

That's about it for the sound mix, bye bye!

Post production

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We are officially in post production, theres is a lot to do, both in image and sound.

The film length is to be from 4 to 5 minutes, essentially divided into three different scenes.

The first scene Jane meeting Victor, getting to know Victor. Second Jane playing chess with Victor, she is winning the game, and her life's in danger. The third scene is a flash back, where we se Victor killing her father and back to Jane confronting Victor.

To cut the film, in a smooth transition from one scene to another, i have followed the Edward Dmytryk two basic rue. Rule 1. Never make a cut without a positive reason. Rule 2. When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather then short.

I have followed the first rule throughout the film, but at times i broke the second one. The reason is the whole story unfold in one rom, which mean that we don't go out, to make it visually interesting. i have cut it short rather than long.

The chess game makes the transitioin from one scene to another smooth. The shots are edited based on action cut, which means we cut based on the movement of the actors, when their arm moves, or their body.

I have also made use of Eyeline match, cutting based on where the actor is looking, cut to what he or she sees and then cut back to the actor.

Behind the Scenes: The Wyatt Diversion

Filming The Wyatt Diversion

During our film shoot I had to ensure that we stayed as close to the schedule I had written as possible. On Friday I had scheduled rehearsals and a short scene to film and, although I knew you had to allow a lot of time, even this schedule underestimated those times somewhat. This was good practice for me before our main filming days on Monday and Tuesday when we had a set amount of time at our location.

Monday morning mainly consisted of tracking shots as we only had the dolly for a day. This led to a slow morning setting the big shots up, but once we started on static shots we thundered through the day and even started on some of Tuesday's shots, which was especially beneficial due to the time we lost the next day...

Planning a new schedule without Lewis

Tuesday did not start well, with a message first thing saying our actor for Lewis, the murder victim, was unable to reach the location. I spent the morning coming up with different options available to us, and what parts of the story could be adapted to accommodate these changes. Unfortunately none of my back up actors were available to step in at such short notice, and I spent the majority of the day trying to contact other actors who might have been able to help. In the end we decided that we could make the film work without the having to see Lewis directly in the short flashback scene, and could film some shots of one of our hands moving Lewis' chess pieces in case we felt the need for them in the edit. Our main actors were very understanding of the situation and despite the setback we still managed to get the essential filming done.


All in all we had a successful and enjoyable shoot. Problems occurring on Tuesday were a strong learning curve for me and a big reminder of the stress and pressure people are under on a film shoot. I had a lot of quick thinking to do but am pleased that this problem has not affected the film in too major a way - if another principal actor had pulled out it would have been a different story, but I am glad to have this experience to learn from if I ever face a similar dilemma in the future.

The show must go on.

Disaster!
Unfortunately, we lost an actor yesterday due to car troubles so today was our third, and hopefully final, day of filming on location.
The first day went by, more or less, without any negative incident. Mainly we worked on dolly shots while the equipment was available to us. Though we no longer were going to use the ambitious 270-degree shot that swung around the table we found the dolly very useful for tracking shots. I found it much easier to do this kind of shot than anything too ambitious, though it was a bit of a shame to lose such an adventurous shot. I really enjoyed working with the dolly as the movement was much more diverse than just the use of a slider.

I found it very fun to work with the lovely actors as it made the project feel much more real and lively. I found it very interesting to see what nuances within their acting was actually picked up by the camera.

Back in January we had talked about using a jib shot that would begin focused on the table and the chess set, that would then travel upwards to a mid shot of the characters. We’d also talked about the possibilities of a contra-zoom (though this was impossible with the Panasonic AF101as it is reliant on interchangeable lenses. These shots were not used in favour of more static shots that meant that the filming production process would be easier and faster to allow more time for post-production. Though this was less adventurous I feel the shots we did achieve create a real sense of stillness. It gives you a real sense of the loneliness of Victor’s character, in the eerie tranquility with his mother’s photograph always watching over him.

Yesterday we were sadly without our third actor but we managed! It was a case of using the slider to get some more artistic extraneous shots. The carvings around the fireplace were particularly beautiful when lit so it was nice to capture those on camera though I doubt they’ll get used as they’re not necessarily relevant but it’s always nice to have something just in case.
Though today was a little stressful, having only a half-day. Without Lewis’s character we had to try and find ways around the script in order to keep the project making sense so there were a lot more close ups and non-character oriented shots today which I particularly enjoyed. I really enjoy getting little details on camera and the location was full of great details. Overall I’d say the group overcame problems well and worked hard to get to the goal. Though I hadn’t had much experience with the camera the practice was really useful and I really felt I learnt a lot. It’s been a hard few days but now it’s on to post! 

Lighting The Set

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Once the ceiling lights, were turned off (which were yellowish) the room was pretty dark. THere is one big window on the left side , it gave us good natural light, although it was not enough to light the scenes. The light coming from the window was also not reliable source light, to keep the same constant light, we used the two diva, the less light we got from the sun, the more we increase the light on the diva.

We had one diva , lighting the back of one actor, while also light the other actors face sitting opposite. Lighting the actors only on the left side of their face, while having little shadow on their right, gave the image some depth.

The dedo where used only to light the background, one dedo pointing toward the painting hanging on the wall, the other on the fireplace.

What i wanted to create was a simple natural look, where you don't even notice that we are actually lighting the set. The night scene, we shut the window curtains, placing the dedo and the diva on different angles to get a different atmosphere, because there were no other lights except those coming from ours, we were able to give the impression of the night time.

The Official Set

We have very nearly finished filming! I only had a few production design issues which included a bit of last minute shopping. Also, it was sometimes difficult to keep track of continuity with lots of chess pieces everywhere and the fire place lit. Other than those, it went rather well so here are a few photos of the set. Enjoy... 

Check back soon! 

Production: Sound!

Hi everyone, Tony (Sound Operator) here!

As you can see from Beth's previous post, production for The Wyatt Diversion is almost over! The management at our location, Hanbury Manor, have kindly allowed us to return for a few hours tomorrow to film some extra shots (such as cutaways), and as Sound Operator I'll be recording any extra useful sounds, provided I have the time.

So far the sound for the production has gone fairly smoothly, although we had quite a scare Sunday night from finding out some sound that had been recorded last Friday was of an absolutely awful quality, and was practically unusable. We found out that our camera was recording sound badly, and luckily we managed to get hold of a Zoom H4n to record sound onto, just in time for more important shots with dialogue being filmed on Monday.

Mondays shoot went very well; so well that we even finished the days scheduled filming and had time to film scenes that were planned to be done today. There were some issues, such as a few early shots having the boom inside the frame, but sound came out well, and I'd previously been to the location and done a sound recce, so was prepared for how well the sound would turn out on the day.

As for today, things didn't go quite as smoothly. The cable connected to the sound kit is beginning to wear, and at one point the sound disconnected during a take. We managed to solve this issue by laying the H4n and its wires flat on the ground throughout recording, and as long as they weren't nudged the sound was recorded crystal clear. As well as this I also recorded some atmos tracks; I've recorded fairly good tracks for our exterior scene as well as our interior 'night' scene, however I was unable to get a clean atmos track for the main interior day scene. Hopefully I'll be able to get this tomorrow... Wish me luck!

Sound Operator signing out.

That's a Wrap! (Nearly)

We have spent the last two days at Hanbury Manor, and have completed the majority of our filming today, with some pick-ups still to do tomorrow.

Stay tuned for updates on how the shoot went!

Action!

Well today was our first day of shooting at the magnificent Hanbury Manor! I'm stressed, I'm tired, but I've had a great time so far and it's been an absolute joy working with Ashleigh and Rod.

One of the challenges of the day was setting up and packing up the track and dolly without delaying the shoot. We also had to have it returned to the loan store earlier than we wanted to wrap for the day, but Claire was the hero of the day and drove it back and then came all the way back to help pack up everything else.

I feel very lucky to be working with Ashleigh and Rod, as they are both extremely patient and are always offering help. I have been focussing most of my attention on working with the actors as it is an area I have little experience in, and I have confidence in my crew to be able to work without me constantly looking over their shoulders.

However, as I have been concentrating mainly on rehearsing with Ashleigh and Rod and fine-tuning the script, I have not spent enough time on storyboarding. I would have appreciated an extra week to make a really tight storyboard but as it stands I have sadly left our camera operator a little lost, which is unfair to her, but either way I would have had to compromise on either the script or the storyboard. Tonight I have been putting some more work into it and hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly.

But overall I have already had a great experience on set and I hope my cast and crew are enjoying themselves also!

Laurence.

Pre-Production on The Wyatt Diversion

Pre-production seems to have been largely successful, with the crew ready to shoot during our designated filming week. My two main jobs in the run up to filming have been to find our major location (Victor Blake's house) and to find a cast.

Location
When developing the script I recognised the need to find Victor's house as an opportunity to find an exciting location that would look impressive on screen, and would be somewhere that Victor would be proud (and smug) to call home. After some extensive research into what grand houses there were in the county, I emailed about twenty different places, from museums to hotels, colleges to conference venues. I was sure to keep these emails polite and flattering, as well as hinting that we didn't have a budget as such!
I ended up receiving four or five replies from venues that were both available during our filming week, and willing to hire. A couple of locations were even kind enough to offer a discount on their usual hire rate in understanding of our financial restraints. All in all I am really happy with our final location of Hanbury Manor.

Casting
I posted a casting call on StarNow as well as researching and emailing quite a few actors I thought would be suitable for the roles needed. The important aspect of this task was to be able to sell our film idea and characters in an engaging and brief way. Although we started out getting a good number of applications, the number of actors who then both responded and confirmed their availability soon declined, and I was relieved that I had asked so many people as filming week got closer. There was also one instance when a potential actor had been injured and could no longer take part in the project, at which point luckily we had some alternatives.
In retrospect I would have liked to have started looking for actors a week or two earlier than I did in the end, as it would have increased the chances of an actor being available, and not having already taken another job.

From these experiences I have learned to always have back up plans backed up, even if everything seems to be sorted. I have found that it is useful to always anticipate something to go wrong and to have a solution to that problem if it arises.

Let the production commence!

So the first day of filming is here!
We took a couple of shots of our lovely actress to illustrate her search for her fathers killer. It was interesting to go from doing what were more or less mid shots to close ups of the individual newspaper cuttings that Charlotte had made. It probably doesn't seem very interesting now I think about it. What I mean to say is that, though I'd had experience changing out the lenses for the camera I hadn't really been up close and personal enough on previous projects to really get a feel for the dramatic differences between them. I particularly liked shooting the extreme close ups of all the props as the details seem really important to the story. It would also be a shame to waste Charlotte's awesome designs.
It was a bit challenging working in as small a space as we were (the whole crew in one bedroom! A large bedroom, but nevertheless) but, having seen the grandiose location I don't foresee cramped conditions being a problem from now on.
It was exciting to really start the filming process and I'm looking forward to more. Nothing seemed to go dramatically wrong today and nothing blew up so I guess it will all be fine.
Cheery-bye!

Let's Dress this Set!

I'm well in the depths of Production Design and below is a photo my little Production Design table with most of the props and set. There are still bits and pieces to sort out but I'm getting there and it's looking good! 

I have tried to buy from charity shops but this was not always possible meaning a lot of these objects look quite new. So, before Monday,  I need to make them look as used as possible due to Victor Blake having been living in the manor house for a rather long time. 

Here is a drawing of an ideal layout of the chess scenes. This is not set in stone but gives me something to work from.

Luckily a lot of the big furniture is being provided by Hanbury Manor which will save us money and having to cart a load of heavy furniture along with the equipment. 

Most of the props and set for the chess scenes are ready so my main focus for today is Jane Wyatt's bedroom scene which we will hopefully be filming tomorrow. 

The main filming will be next Monday and Tuesday so not long. I will take lots of Behind the Scenes photos and footage so check back soon! 

The Changes from Earlier Drafts

In the 1st Draft we opened the film with Jane at 15 and her father Lewis playing chess with her, and Lewis showing her a move which was called The Wyatt Capture which was also the initial title of the script. This leads to Victor and Lewis playing their match, and Victor murdering Lewis as Lewis had beat him at chess. It would then reveal the motives, and reasoning, the problem was that there was no mystery. The ending was also not satisfying.

As more Drafts were made the film had been written more as a mystery which works a lot better as it gets the audience thinking and trying to understand what is happening when the film begins. As the film progresses there would be quick flashbacks, however the audience would not know this until the murder is shown in a flashback near the end. The ending now also holds up a lot more. The title has also been modified as The Wyatt Diversion.

Before ever writing the 1st Draft I researched more into chess. In the earlier Drafts the game was not accurate as it was just a game I myself  played trying to put my movements within the script, this did not work as I was and still am not a brilliant player where Victor is so for the most recent Draft I followed an actual match watching the exact moves of two players and making notes, then adding them into the script as well as this as our prop chess board for the film is a professional board numbered I would note down the exact squares specific pieces would have to be on for the film to have a cut where the characters are near the end of their game and the pieces are in the right places.

My research has actually gotten me more into chess and I feel that I am a stronger player than I ever was before.

I am very happy with where we are at with this production and cannot wait for the shooting days.

Auditions

Hey everyone, Laurence here, and I'm going to be directing The Wyatt Diversion.

Yesterday we had our main auditions for Jane and Victor. We had a handful of actors to meet, who had each been presented with a trimmed-down version of the script to become acquainted with beforehand. I had selected key moments of the script to run through, so as to gauge how each actor would transition through the emotions their characters will be going through.

At the start of each audition I chatted with the actor about their background so we could get comfortable with each other, before going for a simple read-through of some of the script, with me playing the part of the opposite character. In this initial read through I just wanted the actor to become familiar with the dialogue. I then spoke to them about the character they would be playing and offered them the opportunity to express any confusion, or any criticism of the script. I feel it is very important to let the actor make an input to their character's dialogue, as the more comfortable they are with the lines, the more natural performance they will produce. Also, being inexperienced, I appreciate any outside opinion.

Once any tweaks had been made, we went through the dialogue a couple more times. Now I was really looking at how the actor spoke the dialogue. It will be very important that they can show enough emotion to hold the audience's attention, as the dialogue will be the driving force of the film. The more powerful the performance, the more impact our film will have.

I met some very promising actors yesterday and I'm pretty sure I'm ready to cast our two leads. We'll get a Jane and a Victor together for an audition soon enough and I'm looking forward to it!

Laurence.

The Final Location

Today, we looked at Hertfordshire Golf and Country Club which was a beautiful location from the outside. It looked like the home of a disturbed man like Victor Blake with it's creepy, twisted vines crawling up the walls and castle-like features around the door. 

We only saw this at night but we can imagine it looks just as scary in the day. We are hoping to ask about filming just the exterior of this house. 

We were even greeted by a little friend in the surrounding grounds.

The interior wasn't quite as grand with a fireplace unable to be lit and very plain walls. 

So the winner for interior (maybe exterior too) is definitely Hanbury Manor which is currently being held for us!

Check back for more updates! 

Locations

Today, we started to look around some possible locations and there were some very lovely finds. I shall take you through them... 

First we looked at Shendish Manor which was beautiful from the outside. It would really suit Victor Blake as it looked powerful yet creepy with all the grey walls and twisted vines. 

The Internal space was also nice with a large fireplace and windows. However, the decoration may not suite Victor Blake with the plain walls and flowery curtains. 

The second was West Lodge Park which was also lovely on the outside. It has a slightly more modern feel to the others but still fits Victor's character.  

The inside was good but didn't quite fit the grand look we were after. 

The last was Hanbury Manor and this really was grand. The Manor was huge with plenty of character including the turret feature which almost gave it a castle feel.

The inside was just as good. The room was large but had a slightly more closed in feel with the dark reds and oranges. This is prefect for an intense chess match. We could really imagine emotions spiralling out of control in such a room. 

There were many interesting features in the room such as engraved images of violence on the fireplace and a poker leaning against it.

Another bonus is that there is a giant chess board in the beautiful, surrounding grounds!

Hanbury Manor is undoubtedly the best location so far but we still have more options to look at so check back soon!  

Casting Call

If you would like to take part in our film, we are currently looking for actors to play our three characters. Click here to apply.

Script Research

It has been fun and intriguing researching for the character Victor Blake, where I had researched into different kind of killers, I found that there are known to be two types of killers: Organised, and Disorganised. You can see their differences in the lists below.

Organised Killers

They are prepared and plan how and when to kill their victims.
They carry weapons for the murder.
They assure the body is hidden. 
They also usually follow in the media what the latest news is with their crime.

Disorganised Killers

Their victims are usually in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They don't have weapons with them; they would look for the closest thing to a weapon and use it at that moment.

They can take souvenirs.

They can be easier to catch.

Our killer is more of a Disorganised Killer.

From my research I also discovered that there is a difference between people who are Psychotic and people who are Psychopathic. Their differences can be seen below.

Psychotic
They lose reality. 

They have hallucinations or delusions.

They are insane.

Psychopathic
They are manipulative.

They lack emotion.

They know what they are doing.

Our killer is more Psychotic.