Unit 2 – Part E

Review

I feel that this was a very successful project and I have greatly benefited from it. This project allowed me to develop my editing skills and allow me to gain feedback from others on how to improve. It also was a great experience with allowing me to see what all goes into creating a short film. It showed me what to do and what not to do when planning/ filming one. I have also networked with a large group of people who I will be able to work with in the future. We all have made plans to make more short films together. I also loved the masterclasses that this course offered as it allowed me to listen to industry professional’s and I gained a lot of knowledge and tips from them. I am very happy that I was able to take part in this course as I feel it was a stepping stone in my journey to pursuing my dream career.

Feedback from others;

Noah- “Ciara met all the deadlines given to her involved with editing and also kept the group involved and updated with everything that was happening”

Phillip- “Ciara kept in good contact with me and we went on Skype sometimes to give feedback on the editing. Ciara worked well within our group”

I felt the feedback was really positive and I was thankful they had good things to say about me. Patricks feedback was also very educational and encouraging.

Overall my leadership on my editing role was a success and was very worth while. This was my first time working on an edit that was not fully my own. I have now went on to editing other short films which are not fully my own which is amazing. Working in a team is very important as it gives you a great insight into how your future in this industry will work. Working in a team to create a film means my main focus is on one thing (editing) and everyone takes on a role of their own. This is what it will be like when I hopefully have a career one day as an editor/filmmaker.

What leadership skills did I develop?

I learned to voice my opinion and to know that my ideas are worthwhile. I developed my management my skills by organising our makeup artist and taking a lead role by communicating through WhatsApp and getting feedback on my edit.

What did I enjoy most?

I enjoyed the whole process on the making of ‘DAVE’. I especially enjoyed obviously the editing but also being on location with the rest of the crew. This project was also a great way to meet like minded people.

What did I find most difficult/complicated in my role?

During the process of our film making my laptop broke. As an editor my laptop is extremely important to me as I need it to edit the film. I resolved this issue by digging into my bank and splashing out on a brand new laptop. This is something i’m extremely passionate about and was an opportunity i did not want to miss out on. As an editor I rely on my laptop so it would have been important for me to get a new one anyway so it was a real investment.

Another difficult issue within the process of the edit was that my co editor was on holidays and we where going to split the edit. However the footage the other editor was meant to send to me failed to send over the internet so I then had a lot of pressure on me to do most of the edit myself. we did Skype a few times to help resolve the issue to get feedback on any ideas and on how the film was looking so far.

What have I learned about communication?

I have learned that not everybody has the same opinion and it is important to let everyone voice their opinions. Sometimes compromises have to be made so everyone is happy with the final outcome

What have I learned about planning and my art form?

I have learned that I have to work within a time frame and to meet my deadlines. Schedules are important within planning so everything will run smoothly on the day. I have learned a lot about my art form through advice given to me in this project and it has only convinced me more that this is what I want to do.

What would I do differently next time?

I cant really think of anything I would do differently. I feel that ‘DAVE’ was a huge success and the feedback we are recieveing on it at the moment is amazing. Some of the audience members have even commented wanting a ‘DAVE 2″ which I would really love to do.

Overall the BFI networking project will be one of the most memorable times of my life. It has been a great stepping stone for me ,I have met so many amazing people whilst gaining new skills and developing old ones. I would seriously recommend anyone interested in filmmaking to take part in this project!

Unit 2 Parts C+D

Deliver

Evidence of what you did to make your project happen

DAVE <- Click here to view our final Film

The above link will direct you to our final film ‘Dave’ which has been uploaded to Youtube.

Below I will upload some stills of our Make up on set. I helped arrange the make up artist for film.

Info about how you encouraged and communicated with others

We made a WhatsApp group chat which allowed us to communicate as one whole group. This allowed us to exchange information to each other in one message. As everyone has different opinions about certain aspects of the film compromises had to be made and everyones agreement had to be sought.

I communicated with Patrick Maxwell by email. Below is an example;

I was happy with Patricks feedback and I took on his advice as it was very helpful. There were difficult moments as well. It was difficult to find music for the film that didn’t have a copyright. Also as I live in the country the internet is very slow so I had to take my laptop to a Starbucks in another town to get my film uploaded to Patrick.

Evidence on how you are developing your leadership skills

I developed my leadership roles as I was an editor within our BFI movie. In the future I really want to have a career as an editor. Having this role in our BFI film allowed me to gain new skills and allowed me to receive feedback and advice from others. I had deadlines to meet as an editor which allowed me to take control of my role.

Evidence of the editing process

Editing process of the Shop Scene

A technical highlight in this film I was quite proud of where the freeze frames at the end of the credits I put in for the actors. I was inspired by previous comedy films I had watched and seen similar ideas in. The image below shows someone actually commenting about this;

Unit 2

PART A + B

My Project plan

I am going to work with my group to come up with a 10 minute short film. We will all come up with ideas that will help us all develop a storyline which we will then incorporate into a script.

Evidence of Brainstorming Idea’s

We will all have designated roles in our group. They will be as follows;

• Rebecca Deane and Philip Doherty – Directors
• Kieran Faloone, Mike Robinson – Script writers
• Mark Ferris – Camera Operator
• Jenna Robinson – Producer and Sound
• Ciara Mc Larnon (Me) and Susan Mc Cartney – Editor
• Noah Demauldre – Set design and Props

I will be editing our short film. Editing is something I am really passionate about and is something I am very keen on developing my skills on. I hope to pursue a career as a film maker and editor someday and I feel this is a perfect opportunity to use my skills and also develop them by learning from others. I am also looking forward to having Patrick Maxwell as a mentor on the programme as he will be able to give me feed back and also advice on my film and editing skills.

The group met at the BBC to discuss the production of the film. During the pre production we discussed the storyline,props,locations and schedules etc. I found the Makeup Artist for the film and organised a lift for her as she lived quite far away from the locations. I was also given a deadline for my editing role which I met.

What are the aims of this project?

I believe the aim of this project is to allow me to gain a better understanding  of working in a team to create a film and to give me experience in working in a professional environment. The project will also have deadlines I will have to meet as an editor so it will also provide a more professional atmosphere as I will be working under pressure. This project will also allow me to add a lot of experience to my C.V which will benefit me greatly. I will also be able to network with others who I have the same interests with and can hopefully create more short films with in the future.

What resources will I need?

Of course for starters we will need equipment to create our film with. This will include the following;

• Camera
• Boom
• Lighting
• Editing Software

We will be able to get all our equipment off people we know we will all work as a team to find equipment. Mark will be able to borrow a camera off his course and Patrick will provide us with a Boom mic and I own editing software on my laptop. We will also need cars to bring us to our locations so we will organise car pools or trains to take us there.

Health and safety?

Things that could go wrong;

• Cars could break down = people arriving late.
• Unexpected Weather
• Technical difficulties

To make sure none of the above will take place Jenna will provide a call sheet with all the times we need to arrive at our location at. The crew should leave an extra 15 minutes earlier incase of e.g road diversions that may cause them to be late. Jenna will also inform the crew on what the weather will be like on set the days of filming. We will be filming mostly outside so this will be very important. This will allow for the crew to dress appropriately for the weather. To avoid technical difficulties we will bring spare memory cards and batteries etc for all our equipment.

How will we promote our film?

We will upload our film to youtube and enter it into Film Festivals. We will share the film on Facebook to allow a wider audience to view our work.

Update – 17/09/16

We entered our film into the Film Devour Film Festival and came second in the audience choice award.

How will you know the project has worked?

Once the project is over we will be able to listen to feed back on our film. We will also be able to network with others once the project is over.

Evidence of some positive feedback on our work;

 

 

 

Unit 1 Part A,B + C

ARTS CHALLENGE

Describe your Arts Challenge

The Arts Challenge which has been chosen is to write a 5 to 10 minute screenplay which I will present to the rest of the BFI participants and mentors. I will be presenting my pitch in December then writing the screenplay over the Christmas Holidays. I will then present the final draft in January.

I have set this Challenge for myself as scriptwriting has always been a challenge to me. I always find it difficult to come up with a story so I found setting this challenge would help me develop my skills in a key area in which I don’t normally find my self working on.

Notes:

My Strengths:

• Once I have an idea in my head I can develop the story well.
• I know how to write a script in the correct format.

My Weaknesses

• I find coming up with an idea for a script really hard.
• I sometimes find creating an interesting dialogue hard.

This challenge should take approximately or the equivalent of three months, spending one to two hours a week on the activity. I will start my first draft in November and I will then have a final read through of my Final draft in January.

Plan:

I will prepare a 5 – 10 minute script which I will work on which I will then present to my peers, My peers will then give me feedback to help me develop my script further. I will also attend a Q&A session with Ryan Rowe who will give me and the rest of the BFI a lot more insight into script writing. Once that session is finish I will begin to develop my script more until we all meet up again and can discuss each others scripts.

What Resources will I use?

• On the 3rd of November I will have a Master class with Maire Campbell the Scriptwriter of Cinemagics film ‘A Christmas Star’. Hopefully this Masterclass will give me a much better understanding on how to develop ideas for a script.

Who is Maire Campbell?

Maire is well known for being the screenwriter for ‘A Christmas Star’ ,Northern Irelands first Christmas feature film by Cinemagic.

Update: I found it difficult to come up with an idea and to elaborate on it for my script. After listening to Maire I realised I needed to put a structure in place. I needed to have a beginning, middle and end to the story. This made the process much easier.

• On the 4th of November we will have a Q&A session with Ryan Rowe who will answer a lot of our questions on script writing.

Who is Ryan Rowe?

“Ryan Rowe is a graduate of the UCLA Film School, he has written feature screenplays for Universal, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Disney, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers, New Line, and Miramax, among others. His produced feature credits include co-writing the indie classic “Tapeheads” starring John Cusack and Tim Robbins and co-scripting the first “Charlie’s Angels” movie starring Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, and directed by McG. In the world of TV movies, Ryan wrote the remakes of “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” and “The Love Bug” for ABC’s “The Wonderful World of Disney.” Ryan has also performed uncredited work on such feature films as Zach Snyder’s “Legend of the Guardians” and “Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore,” as well as punch-up work on numerous TV shows and TV movies. His award-winning short film “I’m On Fire” played on the Fox Movie Channel and at festivals around the world, including the prestigious New York Film Festival. As of 2011, Ryan is re-writing an animated feature for an Australian company, as well as co-writing two TV pilots – one for NBC International, and the other for HBO, with David Fincher attached to direct.”  Resource:IMDb

---

• On the 5th of November we will pitch our scripts to Patrick Maxwell who will give us feedback on how to develop our scripts even further

Update:  We had a pitching session with patrick and we all read our scripts to him so he could give us feedback. I was extremely nervous before this session as I didn’t feel overly confident about my script. When I started to talk about my script I felt a bit more at ease as Patrick seemed to be approachable and interested. See below to see his feedback. His feedback was very constructive and I learned a lot from it.

---

My Progress so far:

November 16th- So far I have created a spider diagram of ideas I can use for my script

November 25th- I have began the development of my script. I have came up with the briefs for my beginning middle and end I just need to develop my dialogue now.

November 27th- I now have a final draft of my script and will be reading it to the rest of my peers at our next session.

3 drafts of script

The story I developed was about a girl called Paula and a drug dealer. Paula is a 16 year old girl who is addicted to drugs. She struggles to gather the money for the drug dealer and gets herself in bother. She decides to go out onto the streets to busk to collect this money. Paula finds a passion in this which takes her focus away from drugs which betters her lifestyle. The script ends by her telling this story to a support group. Everyone applauds at the end.

Click this link to view the final script.

Review and Feedback of my work:

Patrick Maxwell – The feed back I received from Patrick was that there was a good idea behind my script however in every scene I should create some more drama so the audience’s attention will be more drawn in.

Noah Demeuldre- The feedback I received from Noah is very similar to Patricks, Noah liked the idea behind the story but felt the need for more drama.

Over all I found this challenge quite hard as I find it really hard coming up with an idea for a script and developing the dialogue. Patrick liked the idea for my script so that went well but I knew I hadn’t developed the idea enough to hold the interest of an audience. I still feel that my main weakness is coming up with an idea However, it has made me more interested in trying to create some scripts in my spare time to see if I can develop my skill and will hopefully someday turn one of them into a film. 

PROMOTING DAVE

Above you can see Cinemagic promoted our film Dave on their Facebook and congratulated us when we came runner up at the Film Devour Festival.

REVIEW OF ARTS AWARD EVENT

Belfast Film Devour Festival

Film Devour is a local film festival in Belfast so local filmmakers can show of their talents. We recently entered our BFI film ‘DAVE’ into this festival which had taken part on Wednesday 5th October.

Below are some images from the programme on that night:

 

Dave is number 16 on the programme as you can see above. Our film was up against 17 other very well made films in the festival. As an audience member at this event I noticed the crowd was largely male and around over 25’s. We felt the other filmmakers in the audience where a lot older so may have had a lot more experience than us. This made us quite anxious however we where just hoping to get a good reaction from our audience more than anything at this festival. Once we watched through the other films we had to select our favourite. I am very delighted to say that ‘DAVE’ got an amazing reaction and on top of that we came second in the audience choice award which I could not be more delighted about. I have only ever been to the Cinemagic festival before this so this was the first time going to something different. It was an amazing experience and a great way to network with people. I cant wait to go again.

My thoughts on the festival-

It was really good to watch other local film makers short films which I thoroughly enjoyed. I also find this sort of event is an amazing way to network with people. There was nothing I would have changed about this event. While I was at the event I learned the power of going to events like these. Its a great way to present your talents to other passionate film makers who I will be able to network with in the future. Most of the films where of a very high standard with some very creative ideas. I would certainly recommend to all young filmmakers that they should go to events like this and submit their films as they would learn a lot from it.

Below you can see evidence that I have shared my review with my fellow BFI friends;

Call sheets and schedules

Before we began filming Dave Jenna our producer came up with call sheets and schedules so our schedule will be more convenient and practical. Please see them attached below;

Call Sheet

 

Shedule

Schedule

Schedule

 

Introduction of myself- BFI Academy

Hi, My names Ciara Mc Larnon , I am 19 years old and I am from Creggan in Co. Antrim. I have a huge passion for film making and I hope to one day pursue a career in film making specifically in editing. I am a very keen and determined person which is I have decided to apply for the BFI so I can learn from others, improve my skills, gain experience and network with others. Recently I have been very lucky enough to gain a place with the British Film Institute Academy and through this I will be achieving the Silver Arts Award. I want to work in the film Industry because its something I love to do. When I was younger I absolutley loved watching films and not much else interested me, I then decided to take on Moving Image Art as a GCSE which is where I found my love for filming. I especially loved the editing side of film making as it allowed me to be visually creative which I absolutley love. Since I found my passion for filmmaking I have been determined in improving my skills and gaining as much experience possible ever since.

Below you will see the dates and events I will be attending with the BFI:

Monday 19^th October with BBFC

4.30pm – 6.30pm in The Boardroom, Belfast Met, Millfield

 Wednesday 28th October Arts Award and Induction Session

4.30pm – 7.30pm In BBC Broadcasting House, Ormeau Avenue

Thursday 29th October – Directing Masterclass with BAFTA winner Michael Lennox

10am – 2pm in The Board Room at Belfast Met, Millfield Campus

Friday 30th October                            – TBC

10am – 4pm in the Europa Hotel

 Tuesday 3rd November –  Film Production Masterclass with OSCAR winner Gareth Ellis-Unwin and Jessica Malik

12pm – 6pm in the Europa Hotel

Thursday 3rd December – Arts Award Session

5.30pm – 7.30pm in  BBC Broadcasting House, Ormeau Avenue

Saturday 16th January – Academy Training, Pre-production and further Masterclasses

11am – 5.30pm In BBC Broadcasting House, Ormeau Avenue

Sunday 17th January – Academy Training, Pre-production and further Masterclasses

11am – 5.30pm In BBC Broadcasting House, Ormeau Avenue

 Saturday 23rd January – Academy Training, Pre-production and further Masterclasses

11am – 5.30pm Location TBC

Sunday 24th January – Academy Training, Pre-production and further Masterclasses

11am – 5.30pm Location TBC

 Saturday 30th January – Group 1 Filming

9am – 6pm meet at Cinemagic Offices, 49 Botanic Avenue, Belfast

Sunday 31st January –  Group 1 Filming

9am – 6pm meet at Cinemagic Offices, 49 Botanic Avenue, Belfast

Saturday 6th February – Group 2 Filming / group 1 edit

9am – 6pm meet at Cinemagic Offices, 49 Botanic Avenue, Belfast

 Sunday 7th February – Group 2 Filming/ group 1 edit

9am – 6pm meet at Cinemagic Offices, 49 Botanic Avenue, Belfast

Saturday 20th February – Signposting Session, Filmmaker Panel and Showcase

10am – 5.30pm  In BBC Broadcasting House, Ormeau Avenue and the Queen’s Film Theatre for the Final Showcase