Need some opinions on this location

First of all I'd like to apologies for the  2 months of silence. This has mainly been because while we've been scouting for locations there hasn't been much to talk about.

So after traveling far and wide, we think we've found a location that could work.  I say could as I'm still not 100% sure this is right. So this is where we need you're opinions.

The house is meant to be set in the 80's.  We can add props and set dressing but we are limited in certain things. For example, we can't go pasting up wall paper or changing the floors. Although there's no reason why we couldn't lay some carpet.

I've attached four images to this post that are of the Kitchen, Hall, Bedroom and Bathroom. My main concern is the Kitchen and Bathroom as there always appliances that can give away the date of the house.

Kitchen cabinets seem quite good to us because you can't really tell what era they're from, what do you think?

The Cooker and washing machine could be an issue so we may have to make sure they're always out of frame.  Other than that, do you guys think this kitchen could work?

The bathroom appealed to us because you can't really date the sink, bath or toilet.  The window isn't ideal there as it's high up and ideally we wanted one just above the sink as one of the scenes has a boy opening it.  But we could always re-work the script so that this isn't an issue.
What about the mirror, do people think this is too Modern?
 The radiator definitely is but we're hoping to be able to hide that out of frame.

The hall and bedroom work well and I don't see any issues with it looking too modern, But again if there's anything in this shots that you think just wouldn't look right if the film was meant to be set in the 80's then please let us know.

We'd like to hear some advice before taking the plunge on this, so any tips you can give would be great.

It's surprisingly hard to find a house that can be set in the 80's without large modifications.

Thanks for your support

An Update

Hello Again!

Here is a short but sweet update on some of our more exciting news. Although we want to do everything we know that we can't, and as per our blog Find A Man Who Can (Or Woman) we began to look for a crew.

We are very pleased to announce that we have secured Phil Lee, Assistant Sound Editor on 'Jack Ryan' working for Paramount Pictures. You can find details on IMDb although its not out till Christmas. He will be helping us with the sound recording, although we will probably acquire the use of a Foley artist or Foley studio to record the sound effects ourselves. An area we will concentrate on during or just prior to post production.

We are also very pleased to say that we have found a solution to our location problem. We have found several properties which will be suitable by looking through holiday homes to let. Far more cost effective as in most cases we can rent them for a short period of time and they don't carry the extortionate price tag of dedicated broadcast/tv/film locations.

It should be easy to dress the properties to suit the late 80's period and because we have only a few scenes concentrated in 2/3 areas of the house we found that by concentrating on finding a suitable kitchen, where the climax of the film takes place, we could compromise with other areas.

Stay tuned for our next blog and thanks again to those who have been following.   

Try and remain objective!

It can't be denied that we are passionate about making this film, mainly because that is what we like doing but also for the challenge of doing something properly, compared to our normal think of an idea, film it, edit it and post it on YouTube. But personally this has become a project that is a lot harder than I initially thought.

After several discussions between the two of us we both agreed and felt that the script/story was missing that all important hook to grab the audiences attention from the outset. We thought we had one with the initial first scene but as this film is a physcoligical thriller we both could see that it needed something stronger in the beginning to capture the audience and get them asking lots of questions. Several ideas have been bounced around, problem is that one of us wanted something very dramatic which could potentially give away the ending, or at least have the audience thinking the ending was predictable. The other wanted something subtle, more physcoligical and leave the audience asking "what potentially has happened to Alex?" Which wasn't going to be enough to grab the audiences attention and brings us back to square one. The most annoying thing was that we both could see a need for a change and both could appreciate where the other was coming from with their own idea and we both knew there was a need for some middle ground... but what could it be?

Well it was actually an amalgamation of several little ideas we had, when we picked our way through them we found we liked a bit from one and a bit from another and the rewriting process took place. I think it was a case of not being able to see the wood for the trees, standing back and having a fresh approach helped, but so did asking others for their input. We knew there was a failing in the script, so asking others for their ideas kind of helped, so the script is still evolving, no doubt there will still be rewrites up until the day of shooting, but we will still remain objective, nothing is perfect and there is always room for improvement.

As we are a bit late this week with our blog, there will be another one following shortly, how we have made progress with our location hunt and also some exciting news regarding finding a member for our crew.

Thanks for following us.

Location, Location, Location

Here we are again, another week has passed and here we are ready to update you on what has gone on. Well... we are desperately trying to push on with the film, we have had to draw a line under the script/screenplay for now and move onto the next task in hand. Well the task for this week has mainly been about Location.

Our screenplay is set in a family home with three main scenes, a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. You would think this would be easy to find somewhere to shoot a rather simple short, so did we in some respects. The location of the location is quite relevant because this will affect where we will be casting and coupled with the fact half of us lives South East and the other half in the Midlands (in the UK) trying to find a convenient spot for all has some challenges. The other challenge is that although we require what first appears to be a simple location, we did have a few requirements. Although our screenplay is set in modern day we want the audience to believe it is set in the 80's and the house itself needs to be a shrine to the 80's period. Before anyone mentions "dress the set" we have taken into account that with a few props we could make reference to the 80's, however, like most properties they have evolved with the times. Our bedroom, bathroom and kitchen scenes need to scream 80's, most places have been modernised. We find a place with an 80's looking bathroom only to find the kitchen is something out of the future, or we find the perfect kitchen and the bathroom has a modern wet room installed. See our problem?

The kitchen scene is the pivotal scene and is where the family congregate, so it has to be big enough to host a table for a family to sit around, which ultimately means that we are looking at a larger family home. We both generally believe if we can get the right kitchen we can probably get the rest of the scenes looking right, so this was/is the area we are focusing on.

We are on a micro budget so filming at different locations isn't practical nor financially possible, so going back to the theme of our last blog, lets find a man/woman who can we thought we should look for a professional. Well we did and we found a number of companies specialising in sourcing specific locations and a few looked like possibilities, until that is when they gave us the price. Unfortunately we have found that although these companies can source locations for filming, specific film locations carry a very hefty price tag. We would like to thank UKfilmlocation.com for entertaining our request and providing us with some possibilities. Their website can be found here. www.ukfilmlocation.com

So back to the drawing board. We made an appeal via some of the online communities and forums to see if anyone could offer us any ideas and thank you to +David Ollerton for giving our request some exposure, unfortunately this avenue didn't produce any results.

Ultimately we have decided on renting a holiday home which offers us with the best balance of 80's/modern day presentation. We hope that with a few strategically placed props we will be able to convince the audience that this film is set in the 1980's. Which conveniently leads us to our next blog, copyright. We have quickly discovered that using simple everyday products, a rented holiday home for a location and branded products in our film opens up a very deep pit of legalities of what can and can't be done. So much so we are surprised that any film ever gets made. Oh, where have those days gone where in our childhood naivety we thought we could make films how we liked, where we liked and when we liked.

Well thanks again for reviewing our blog, please, please get more involved, we want your comments, questions and advice and promise that we will make every effort to reply to all of them.

Find a man who can. (Or woman!)

The same two characters were sitting in a corner of the bar, this time with a pint each! (It was one of our birthdays so we thought we would treat ourselves) The discussions deepened over the mass of papers strewn across the table, "So...." one of them exclaimed, "What next?"

Well that's the big question, we have our story, we have turned it into a screenplay, we have all these ideas about where we are going to place the camera and what type of shot we want and the mood we are trying to create, but seriously.... what next?

There is a danger that we are going to spend more time talking about it and never actually getting around to do it.  Well this is where someone has to step in and take control to move the project forward, but again how?

We know how to make video shorts, we have been playing around with making short films and sketches for over 20 years, because we love it, but I wouldn't call us film makers. Even though we have both spent time on various television sets and in studios and picked up techniques on the production process, if we were honest, we haven't got much of a clue how to be film makers. So, we don't know, there must be an expert out there who can help, so we turned to "The Guerilla Film Makers Movie Blueprint" book by Chris Jones.

Buy The Book Here

 
After reading this book you quickly understand why the credits at the end of a movie goes on and on and on. Very rarely do you see the same names appear in various different roles, unlike our films, scripted, directed, produced, editted etc.etc. by one of us. Well that is for two reasons, firstly, because we are the two who get together and love making films so we of course do all the work. Secondly, I feel this is more important, because we cant let go. We want to do everything and don't want others muscling in on our little production.

Together Forever is different, we know this is our film and no-one will be able to take that away from us, we are the ones who sweat blood and tears and have all the passion to see it created, but, and it is a big but, to make this film be a success we do need help.

This book breaks down the key individual roles in the film making process and highlights what skills this role demands and how that role influences the film making process. So one of the early, harsh lesson we have learnt before we have thought about all the other aspects is that we are going to need help from people who know what they are doing and relinquish some of the responsibilities to other people. Just like in life, you can try and repair your car yourself in order to save money, but ultimately the repair will take you longer, may not be repaired, car could be off the road longer, if you was a driver for a living that could be more expensive than the initial repair bill a professional would charge you in the first place. What we are getting at is that each of us have a skill set and your time will be better spent and more effective if you operate within that skill set and allow others concentrate on applying their own skills in the most effective way. Looks like one of us will be on tea duty then!

I am sure by increasing the crew size will have an impact on our non existent budget, but that is another whole chapter carefully reserved for another one of our blogs.

So as we leave our latest production meeting we each have a number of tasks to action, using our screenplay as a guide and breaking the tasks down into bite sized chunks we have decided to each decide what roles we need fulfilled by other people, sort out what sound effects are in our script, what key props are required and get some ideas for location, which in turn will decide on what area we are going to hold casting sessions. With regards to casting this is going to have an impact on our budget. Even if the actors are devoting their time for free, we have two children in our script which means they will need to have parental supervision, which ultimately means hotel rooms!!! We feel it is better to recruit/cast locally to where we ultimately decide our location is so we can save a little on this area and only pay for out of pocket expenses such as local travel etc.

We will report back shortly and let you know how we get on. Thanks for reading and following our blog.

A Teaser Poster

Well it appears that we have kind of got the script locked down now. There is still room for it to evolve and improve, particularly where the dialogue is concerned. We are aiming for some of the dialogue to be improvised to make it appear more natural, but we are a little concerned it could be a recipe for disaster. Any thoughts on this?

We are soon to move onto finding suitable locations and casting for our characters and will blog how we get on and the process we go through to find our "talent" but seeing that this is a little or no budget film short you can be assured that there will not be any A Lister's in the credits!

For this post we decided we will show you a teaser poster we have designed for the film and would be really interested in what you think, after all, a poster should conjure up some ideas about the film you are about to watch.

We have come up with a number of log lines for the film, some are still being worked on, but our last blog gave a brief description of what the film is about, so check out our first post if you missed it.

We would really appreciate any comments on what thoughts the poster conjures up for you, leave comments below or email us at bubblegummonsters@gmail.com 

 

Thanks for following our blog, there will be more to come... we have a production meeting tonight!

The Beginning

It was a cold dark night, snow was softly falling on the ground outside... in March! Two figures sat in the corner of a dimly lit public house, papers spread across the table in front of them. A solitary half full pint glass with two straws was being supped by one of them. (We are aspiring film makers... cant afford a pint each). The scruffy, unshaven figure turns to his colleague and announces, "What a great idea, and we can blog it as well"

Hi guys! Thanks for reviewing this blog which is going to be all about how we are going to make this short film. We are looking for as many of  you to contribute and advise as we make "Together Forever" (Working Title). It is a short film about a young boy who is coming to terms with the split of his parents and goes to extraordinary lengths to prevent it and keep his family together forever. The idea came from a short story Peter put together nearly 7 years ago. At that time we both knew we wanted to make it into a movie, now here we are going to try and make that happen. All of our challenges, successes and failings are going to be openly published so we can learn from our mistakes, request a helping hand and hope the large community of aspiring film makers can share in our experiences and learn from them too.

So the first challenge, how do we turn a short story into a workable screenplay?

Neither of us have written a screenplay before and to be honest, all those images and pictures in our heads of camera angles, set design, characters and dialogue, had to be put on paper, but how? Well the first thing we would recommend is research, if you don't know where to start there will be someone out there who does and in our case it was a book by Blake Snyder titled Save The Cat! This book is an excellent place to start, a very insightful and easy read. From the outset it dispenses with the waffle and takes you straight to what you need to do. At the time of writing we are still trying to nail down a few elements of our screenplay but this book has already evolved our story and the suggested rules in Blake's book has got us to really focus on our screenplay and probably changed it for the better. There will probably several references to that book in our posts

Check out Blake Snyder website here

 We bought the book form here

O.K. What now?

Well we had our idea, with Blake's book we discovered some of the screenwriting process, techniques and rules, but how do we physically present it. My god... this is a minefield of abbreviations and yet more rules. Well, I am almost 100% sure our presentation of the screenplay is going to be wrong in most ways, we have concentrated on the content and still to learn the acceptable format. I think this area is another one for our book list! However, there is a piece of free software available from Celtx which has gone to make the process a little easier. It is very intuitive to use and helps keep all those notes we have made in one place. Notes on character, scenes, sound fx and set dressing etc. are all stored in the Master Catalogue with templates to add additional notes to each individual element, ready to be completed and printed as and when required. Although the free version is missing some of those tools and extras you wished you had, for the time being this is suiting us just fine. Once we have released our film we will publish up an example of what our script looked like.

You can download Celtx from here

Well that is probably it for our first blog, but more will follow, including a teaser poster we have made for the film. We would love feedback on what you have read so far!