Pitch - Sunshine Calling

It was suggested in the first pitch we change the name as The Trip is to obvious and cliche. Hannah came up with the idea of Sunshine Calling. This was because Yellow Sunshine is one of the street names for LSD. I thought this was a really good name and for the piece without giving away what the film is about.

In the feedback for the first pitch is was clear that we didn't have a clear structure so Alli has written this structure to use in the second pitch.

Also in this next pitch we added another slide about the characters and their profiles to help illustrate what they are going to be like. As our second pitch was to Mark who hasn't been shown anything yet we used Alli's tablets with the Pinterest board on so help him see what our piece will visually look like. 

Film and Video Editing - Roger Crittenden, 1995

Editing Procedure.

Logging is an important preparation in editing as it helps organise all the shots so that you can quickly find shots by their reference. "the prime purpose of your log is to enable to find material from a simple number reference."

Example of Log Sheet - pg. 72

The next stage taken by an editor is usually marking up of script. If there is a continuity notes then this process is just to check the coverage of all the scenes. These notes may also be taken during the viewing with Director of the sync rushes. This stage is to help "get a feel of the material and to begin to relate the script as written to the film as realised."

It's always better to look at the sync footage then to jump straight into cutting without a clear understanding of the material in mind. When cutting a fiction you have a draft in the form of a script but cutting "to a script may lead you up a blind alley which you can avoid if the viewing is held first."

It is very important to have a good relationship between a DIrector and Editor. This can be illustrated as some Directors have changed their schedules to fit when their favourite Editor is available. This can also be shown as some director frequently use the same editors for several of their films. For example Truffaut works frequently with Martine Barraqué and Scorsese's frequently works with Thelma Schoonmaker. Some Directors prefer having a more creative director while others prefer a reliable technician but all editors must follow the following points made in this book:

pg. 83

The Language of editing: giving you material form and refining its meaning.

"Editing is directing the film for the second time"

Selection
Editor have three main decisions to make when cutting their film. The first is to choose between the different takes of a shot. Every time a shot is retook it gives more room for selection for the editor. The second choice involves different angles. Most action is filmed in more then one set up therefore the choice to change angle or size of shot. And the third choice an editor has is what to cut to next and when exactly to cut.

Structuring
When editing a film you must first understand the structure of each scene and its relation to the rest of the film. "If the writing and/or shooting of a film is meant to convey more than just words and actions of the characters then the cutting must be used to serve those aspects of the drama that lie beneath the surface. if you edit merely to ensure that the dialogue is heard and the actions is seen then your structuring will be only something mechanical."

Balance and Emphasis
"The real contribution of editing is to provide support to the inherent drama through balance and emphasis." The shots in each scene must be kept balances.

Pitch - The Trip

Our Pitch was on Wednesday 2nd October with Annie and Chris. We picked to pitch to them as Annie is mainly drama and Chris is editing. We thought this would be helpful in gaining both visual and narrative suggestions from them. We used the Mood Boards from the networking event and created a Powerpoint to help give a visual as to what we want to create.

The Pitch went really well and we got some good feedback. Here are some notes made during the pitch:

• Nail characters development - more about them then the drugs ?
• Background on characters
• Finding the line between Fact and Fiction - to entertain or inform?
• develop story /script more
• Filming in woods - Time? Lighting?
• Drug takers - one pretending? from other perspectives.

Feedback Sheet Given After Pitch

Shrooms (2007) - Paddy Breathnach

During the networking event many people had said that out idea was similar to Shrooms. none of us had seen it before so I thought I best that I go watch it.

"3 couples go to Ireland woods to collect magic mushrooms and trip out. On their way they meet some strange inhabitants of the woods and it doesn't take long until a creepy story is being told at the campfire which might be more than just a story. So strange things happen, people start disappearing, silhouettes move through the woods and the creepy story starts to melt into reality. The horror kicks in along with the effect of the mushrooms."
Source IMDB

I think this narrative is really good and we could take aspects from it. They seem to have to one character that is knowledgeable about the drugs teaching the other characters and thus giving the audience a bit more background information about the drugs in use.

Watching this film I do see similarities in this and ours but this is much more darker and a thriller where as we want something a lot more light-heartened. Editing wise I think the Trip scenes are really well done and a lot more realistic compared to Across the Universe. As you can see in the screen shots they have use a lot of overlay on the scenes with a slight delay and change in opacity in the different layers. I really like this effect and think this would work well in ours. It a simply effect to apply but I think is very effective in distorting the image.

Shrooms is a very dark film with a lot of the trips happening at night in the dark woods whereas I think a lot more of ours is going to be set in the day. This will mean i can still play around with this effect but also there will be a lot more colours for me to play around with in the shots.

Networking Event

It was the networking event on Monday 30th Sept and it went really well. Our table looked really good as we had our mood boards and everyone that we talked to got a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve through the use of out mood board. Ali had talked to Mike Haywood from Norton and he seemed to be interested in being our cinematographer so this meant the only main role we had to fill was producer.

 

After talking to everyone we had a number of people interested:

Possible Producers:

• Georgina
• Katie
• Amber 
• Ellie
• Joe

Assistant Editors:

• Lewis
• Poppy
• Christie

Assistant Camera:

• Leon

As we hadn't worked with Amber, Ellie and Joe we asked Mike for his opinion on producer and in the end we decided Ellie. We called a quick group meeting and both Ellie and Mike said they would join us in Pitching this idea on Wednesday. 

Across the Universe (2007) - Julie Taymor

"Across The Universe is a fictional love story set in the 1960s amid the turbulent years of anti-war protest, the struggle for free speech and civil rights, mind exploration and rock and roll. At once gritty, whimsical and highly theatrical, the story moves from high schools and universities in Massachusetts, Princeton and Ohio to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Detroit riots, Vietnam and the dockyards of Liverpool. A combination of live action and animation, the film is paired with many songs by The Beatles that defined the time."
Source IMBD

This films appeared on my the list of films about drugs to thought this would be an interesting one to watch. the main drug scenes in it are when they are on the hippy bus travelling around. They use a lot of animated effects to create a trippy feel to the scene. It seems as thou they gave put a negative effect on the shots. I think this is effective in creating a weird effect but personally I don't like it as I think its too much, its not realistic. In our film we want more realistic effects so I think I can play around but wouldn't use a negative this extreme but it could possibly work on a smaller scale.

Earlier on in the film there is a scene when they smoke a drug. This scene is a lot more realistic, it doesn't show any viewpoints of the character but I think that is had portrayed the characters on drugs really well. I think this is due down to the directing and acting from the character more then the edit. If we want to create a realistic effect we are going to have to rehears over and over until the actors are comfortable with they roles.

Films about drugs

In our purposed film the main influence that pushes the plot is drugs. So therefore I thought this would be a good starting point in my research, looking at previous films and how the interpret the use of drugs and the ways they portray the effects. On Wikipedia I found a list of films involving drugs and here is a shortened list of the films involving LSD that I am going to look at in further detail:

• A Name of Evil (1973)
• Across the Universe (2007)
• A Home at the End of the World (2004)
• Almost Famous (2000)
• Apocalypse Now (1979)
• The Big Lebrowski (1998)
• BongWater (1997)
• Bully (2001)
• Conspiracy Theory (1997)
• Day Maker (2007)
• Flirting with Disaster (1996)
• Gambling, God and LSD (2002)
• Harvard Man (2001) 
• Majic Trip (2011)
• Shot List (2009)
• Taking Woodstock (2009)
• The Tingler (1959) - The first featuring LSD
• The Guard (2011)

(Wikipedia)