Helping out on set with Green Eden Productions’ short film project ‘The First Date’ allowed me to get some experience on set, keeping up my own professional practice. Helping out and shooting behind the scenes footage helped me to get into the mind set of shooting a film to a professional standard. This gave me an understanding of how to organise my production, and also how to direct my cast and crew during production. Although they used a small crew, they way they organised each other helps me to understand how I need to compose my own crew, as everyone needs to be on the same page during the shoot, as well as being aware of all risks thay may come into play during the shoot. I also want an efficient production plan, so during filming, I can rely on my team to stay on tagert through the production process. Due to helping out and shooting behind the scenes footage, this has given me the opportunity to create a poster for their film, also developing my own creative thoughts to how I will go about developing my own design work for my film. This design and style of poster has helped me with an idea for a poster for my project, giving a better idea into how I should develop my imagery, pre, during, and post production.
Author Archives: George Rees-Jones
Character Profiles
CHARACTER PROFILES
JOHN GORDON RATTENBURY: PROTAGONIST. PLAYED BY JAKE SUTTON
Aged 26, Londoner. John is a family man, with a wife (Eileen) and daughter (Margrett). He is proud of his family and will always put them first. He also has a similar belief for his friendships; always looking out for others and keeping his friends close to him. Johns journey shows how the soldiers didn’t always live in and around conflict and violence, his character portrays the more idle side of the war; waiting around for something to happen. As he only sees the enemy once in the whole film, this brings tension to the character, as he isn’t sure when he will interact with the enemy again, bringing suspense to the film. During the war, John proves his intelligence through rising up to corporal by the end of his time in the war. This is shown through him commanding the road block in scene 7. This shows how the character can overcome his fears, and become a strong role model to the other soldiers, as well as looking out for his friends throughout the film.
HOWARD REES: HELPER. PLAYED BY BEN NOTTINGHAM
Aged 28, Londoner. Howard is a sentimental character, and is very independent as he doesn’t like people doing his work for him. May be a sort of introvert. He has a wife and two daughters who he will put before him. Finding friendship is key for Him. Howard will always be looking out for John throughout his time in the film, but will never been to keen on anyone else. John has to leave Howard half way through the film, but their friendship is strong enough to last throughout their lives.
DAVID JONES: DONOR. PLAYED BY ALEX JAMES EARLE
Aged 31, Midlander. David is a strong character, a leader, Johns sergant. Although Davids main aim is to succeed in the war, doing everything in his power to achieve greatness, he also has a humble side, understanding the importance of respect. This is shown through David and Johns friendship (sergent and corporal).David is a family man, but prefers to keep it quiet. He believes in keeping family at home and out of the way of the brutality of war, which he has experienced from previous times on the front line.
Editing Images
1. Basic colour correction of the image, adding subtle changes so the original image isn’t completely changed
2. More advanced colour correction, adding a filter to the image to match the rest of the images used
3. Desaturating the image to black and white, suiting to the authentic style of the film, as well as giving a more 1940s feel to the images used.
(Example of similar colour and grain between images)
4. Adding subtle grain to images which have less grain than others; again to add subtle similarities between the images used, as well as a more authentic feel to the images used.
5. Putting images into a sequence, cropping the images slightly with changing the aspect ratio, to create a cinematic feel to the film.
Online Archive Images
So far, I have found images for the introduction sequence of my film; exploring pre-World War II Paris though various archive images found online, using Google Images’s advanced search for images that are free to use, share or modify, even commercially. More online sources include Wikipedias Wiki Commons and Flickr’s The Commons. These are both similar sites to find various images that are free to use and share, as long as the author is credited within your work.
These online sources have helped make my work a lot easier, by being able to use such vast archives, allowing me to find images from all over the world, from various authors to develop successfully depict my story. As I have found numerous images for Paris, I can now look into other locations I need for the film: London, South Africa, Burma, as well as transportation: Trains, Ships, Planes.
https://www.google.co.uk/advanced_image_search?as_st=y&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=663&q=world+war+2+images&dpr=2&bav=on.2,or.&tbs=sur:fmc&tbm=isch
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images
https://www.flickr.com/commons
Paris Online Archive Images
Character Portraits
Portraits of the 3 main characters; John, Howard, and David. I chose to create these portraits to help the development of the characters, to decide how they will look and act within the film. It also helps with the aesthetic process, helping me practice photo editing and also with how I will frame and coordinate with each of actors.
The styling of the images are based around classic 1940s portraits; black and white, faded, looking slightly out of frame, washed out and smooth skin, with also practising 1940s hair styles and clothing.
John Gordon Rattenbury (Jake Sutton)