January 2015
Come Rain or Shine…
We continue to shoot the films, most of today’s session was outside in the pouring rain…
Here we are getting colder and wetter…
Do you think these two have just found a way to avoid the rain?!
Capturing Movement and Athleticism
This session was a practical introduction to the skills needed to create a film, operating the camera,recording sound etc.
The basketballers were particularly keen to capture the sense of movement and athleticism in their sport, not easy to do on camera, but they are up for the challenge!
Basketball on Film
According to the guys in The Factory Youth Zone Basketball team , ‘Coach Carter’ is one of the best films about basketball. Do you agree?
Jim and Sue met with members of the team to discuss the project and start the practical sessions. We used screen shots from ‘Coach Carter’ to look at the literacy of the film-making i.e. how the Director and Director of Photography (DoP) choose to frame a particular shot in a particular way. The group identified that long shots can tell us, the viewer, where the story is set . No glamorous uniform for this team, and their body language tells a story.
A close up can be a powerful tool to convey emotion! We didn’t fancy being on the end of this team talk!
Filming in the Snow
It snowed this week so of course we had to film a snowball fight!
Working Well Together
As Callum skips away for a detail in his film, you can see the film crew working well together.
The film crew also interviewed Zelfa Barrett – a professional boxer in the Super Feather Weight category- again another excellent example of the crew working well together.
Work on the Mini Films Begins
Work on the mini films starts in earnest. Each person having written their own piece, they then had to work in small teams to become film crews for each other’s’ pieces. The roles in our film crew are: Camera Operator, Sound Operator and Director – as well as the ‘talent’, of course, in front of camera; some people made natural Directors.
Alex Lawler joined Jim as our other artist on the project. Alex is an ex- footballer and now an actor and filmmaker; he was in ‘Mike Bassett: England Manager’. Lucky we had already said it was one of our favourite football films!
On Location
Many of the drama scenes were filmed on location…
Getting the Right Shot
Framing a shot is very important and here’s Dom getting a little guidance from Alex. I think they are going for a mid-shot.
This is Jack as Camera Operator and Jake as Director checking a shot.
Some people’s films are very personal, about how they got into football or boxing, often through the interest of their Dad or Uncle or someone like that, whilst others are about the skills. This is a long shot of a long shot.
