First Semester and the SUMMER!

So today marked the end of my first semester at UCA I have loved every minute of it and am already looking forward to getting back in September. BUT I do have a lot of plans to keep me going over summer. I will be remaking my sound project Journey into the Great Unknown but as a 90 second short film for an online competition. I am also in the middle of drafting my 2nd short film Seven Minutes and will be casting people in the coming weeks. I plan to shoot Seven Minutes on the 2nd week of july and have it ready to be sent to a couple of horror film festivals by the end of July / August. I will be trying to make this new film as professional as possible and I am still raising money to fund it so far I have reached £95 which is amazing considering I didn't think I would get any! I will keep updating this over the summer to keep everyone up to date on the films.

MY NEW SHORT FILM!

So I have decided to make another short film during the summer break. The film is called "Seven Minutes" the name will make sense when you watch the film. I have started a project profile on Sponsume.com to try and raise money for my new project. If people donate to the project they receive a lot of extras that the general public will never see. So far I have raised £70 of my £800 target on the first day which I think is amazing. Even if I ended up with £1 I would be happy that even that one person wanted to help with my project. 
My profile can be seen here.


http://www.sponsume.com/project/seven-minutes


Please Share or Donate if you would like. 

RODE VIDEOMIC

So my most recent purchase for my filmmaking antics is the RODE Videomic. I know there is the RODE Videomic pro but after researching into it and watching reviews of both products the RODE Videomic proved itself to be more what I am looking for as the sound quality is exactly the same and the wire has better build quality and its UNDER £100! I have this plugged into my Zoom H1 and the quality is incredible. I will be using the set up of the Videomic and the Zoom H1 in pretty much all my uni projects and productions I do outside of uni.

SOUND UNIT: Experimenting

I have been experimenting with making different FOLY sounds for my sound project. I wanted to make my own rather than take them form the internet. I made my muddy footsteps by beating cereal with water mixed in to give it a slushy sound. I also got my actress Jennie to say a couple of lines of dialogue for the story also. I have been recording all my sounds with the ZOOM H1 a handheld recorder that records in stereo it is a great piece of kit and it has done me wonders for this project. I have also been editing my sounds on Adobe Audition which is great software for mixing sounds and music and dialogue. 

The Meeting Full Film

So here it is, my first every attempt at a short film. I hope you all enjoy it!


Click the link and watch in HD :)


http://vimeo.com/41386669

SOUND UNIT: Development

When I was taking my photos in the forest for "Journey into the great unknown" I came across a man made Faerie Circle. This put the idea to incorporate forest folklore and mythology into my sounds. So I researched folklore and mythology and found that in many legends, the fairies are prone to kidnapping humans, either as babies, leaving changelings in their place, or as young men and women. This can be 
for a time or forever, and may be more or less dangerous to the kidnapped. So after my research I am going to have a section of my story where my character is being loured away by the faeries in the woods. Symbolizing that she is getting deeper into the  with the ears and tails of horses or assewoods and more lost. I have been hugely influenced by director Guillermo del Toro and his movie "Pan's labyrinth" and his use of mythical creatures such as a faun in the story. The faun is a half human - half goat (from the head to the waist being the human half, but with the addition of goat's horns) manifestation of forest and animal spirits which would help or hinder humans at whim. Romans believed fauns inspired fear in men traveling in lonely, remote or wild places. They were also capable of guiding humans in need, as in the fable of The Satyr and the Traveller, in the title of which Latin authors substituted the word Faunus. Fauns and satyrs were originally quite different creatures: whereas fauns are half-man and half-goat, satyrs originally were depicted as stocky, hairy, ugly dwarfs or woodwosess.

SOUND UNIT: Journey into the great unknown Development.

I decided to change the character of my story to a girl as my Fiancee Jennie said she could model for me.
So today myself and my Jennie set off to Shorne Woods to take the forest section of my photographs. It was raining out of the heavens as we arrived which made taking some of the photos a pain but in the end the rain added more atmosphere to the shots. When I got back I decided to edit my favorite shots on Adobe Photoshop. I also started experimenting with different sounds and layering them together on Sony Vegas Pro 11 for a trial attempt to then take what I have learned here to Final Cut Pro.