Finished!

On the 10th of December I finished and uploaded the final cut of my film 'Stan'. Done
Stan from Lucas Warren on Vimeo.

My Progress

At the moment I am currently finalising the edit for the film, by watching over it with others and listening to their constructive critisism, and making changes accordinly, for example I recently watched the current editi with my dad, and we made a lot of changes to the film, some included cutting out moderatly large portions of the film. I am also adding sound effects to at the moment to help give life the actions in the film, I find the majority of the sound effects from the internet on websites like FreeSFX, and YouTube, which are free and easy to use. I recently recorded the narration for the film, but I think I'll have to re-record because my voice does not work as the narrator, and i would prefer it to have more character. To solve this problem, I plan on using my dad as the narrator, as his voice is more suited for the job. Once I have finished all of the editing and finalised the sound effects, I will move onto music. For this I plan on using quite comedic music as that is the kind of mood i am aiming for. To achive this I have asked for the help of my friend Charlie Tilley, who is very familiar with music software like Logic Pro.

Almost there...

Almost got all of the footage now, and only one more shoot to go (When I can get all the people I need in one place!). After a while of shooting, and listening to the dialogue, I often decide to change the script on set, which surprised me a little, as I had already done a read through with the actors, which sounded fine. Likewise there also some things that we are adding entirely, like small bits of dialogue and shots. However I am very pleased to see that after couple of days shooting, Stanley and his mother Helen, have both improved greatly in their acting since day one. But I'm not surprised that my writing needed adjustments in places, as it is my weakest area. 

I've now started my first rough edit, with no effects or colour grading, and so far it's definitely coming together well, reaching about 5 minutes 50. And again adding in some new shots or putting them in a different order.

Second Shoot!

Today we had another shoot at Stanley's house, which went a lot better than the last because we got a lot more done in the time that we had, we even re-shot the first half of day one in under an hour. Overall I think it is really coming together, and watching all of the scenes coming to life in front of me is very satisfying. The nest stage is to start a rough edit for the footage that I already have, then later next week I will film another portion of the footage.

The First Shoot!

Today was the first shoot day for my film and, I am quite pleased with the footage so far. At this point I've done most of the dialogue heavy parts of the film and will be moving onto some of the VFX parts tomorrow. However after looking at some of the footage I think I'll have to do a few pickup shots as well.

Shot List Done

Recently I went through the script and created the shot list for the film, first on Excel, then on an iPad app called 'Shot Lister' which is useful as I can take the shot list with me on set, and I can also schedule certain shots for specific days which means continuity will be less of an issue. I found this app after watching a Filmriot video (Link below) on youtube.

Another app I found from Filmroit is an app called Movie Slate, which is what it sounds like, but unlike a real slate it has a lot more features, for example it can note all the camera information (i.e. Resolution, FPS, Shutter speed etc.).

The third app I downloaded is the Celtx app which is the software I wrote the script on, which is good because I can take the script with me on set and edit on the move.

Floating Can!

Floating Can Test from Lucas Warren on Vimeo.

Here is test video I did related to a part of the new script. The idea is that the main character Stanley will be sitting at the table, watching a can float, mainly for comedic effect. I used Video Copilots Element 3D to make the can, Adobe After Effects to put the 3D can in the scene. The only trouble I had with this was making a shadow for the can, which would have really sold the shot if it worked.