On Location with Swansea Film Productions

The Doll had a cast over over 20 actors and extras and was shot on located around Swansea in South Wales, the UK. We shot over a February weekend and were extremely lucky with the weather. It was so good that we were able to film outdoors and have a real barbecue on the beach as the script dictated.

One scene was in a pub and the manager was most kind in allowing us to make up a corner after the lunch-time rush had finished and to have his staff be filmed serving drinks. The scene involved one main character and two others sitting down at a table having a drink and cutting a cake. Most of the camera-work was hand-held in this scene to add a feeling of reality. 

We used two cameras and some shots were taken from above with the camera-man standing on an adjacent table. We had some five takes but I'm not sure whether this was to have an extra drink or because the director wasn't happy with previous takes. Carly was directing this scene and she had grown in strength in the job taking total control of the actors and camera crew. 

Another scene was in the local very busy Diner. The owner was so helpful and let us have full reign, even though they were busy. The diner is a long room and we used a table towards to rear so we weren't too much in the way. We had our waiter working from behind the counter and delivering a coffee to our actor. Then a group of her friends came in and were crowded round and talking. The scene was quite cramped in the narrow room but the shots worked really well. 

There was a great feeling throughout the filming and I believe much of this was to do with the day we all spent together about a month before when we did the read though rehearsal and familiarisation. We did this over a complete day and organised a buffet lunch which gave everyone time to talk to the others. I had an office for my business and this was an ideal place, just big enough for everyone to sit down. 

We needed a club or other venue where we could simulate a rehearsal room for the Salem Witch play. There was a play within a play. I'd arranged to use a community hall but when I sent someone along to prepare the room, they phoned me to say that the building was locked up and there was no contact phone number or address. As everyone had come together from across the UK it was really essential that we found somewhere.

As luck would have it I was involved in managing a Show Girl Dance Group and they had performed just a couple of weeks ago in a local city pub that had space at the rear of the bar where they put on cabaret. I went in and spoke to the manager who immediately agreed for us to use the space.

This was amazing as I expected to have to visit several venues to find a willing owner or manager.

This was a dramatic scene and our director was playing a main role as well so I was a bit concerned. The scene was rehearsing a section of the play The Salem Witches and involved dramatic action both in the rehearsal scene and also drama in the film script. It also involved the entire cast and obviously costumes as the scene was set in times gone bye. There was quite a bit of shouting and the cast needed to show some good reactions. Everything went well.

We had scenes on a grave-yard, on the beach where we had a real barbecue, in a local busy pub in the evening and outside the Dylan Thomas Theatre. We also had a scenes in an amusement arcade, on a river boat and in a home . It was quite varied but luckily we had planned everything very carefully. There must have been some hitches but I can't remember any. 

This all happened 4 years ago and I am really disappointed to say that the editing was never completed.  All filming incorporated sound via wireless mics if I remember correctly so there is no synchronization to do. The editing was promised by two professionals but both were unable to complete the job.I have now committed to completing this by the middle of February. So I have 6 weeks. Watch this space.

If you enjoyed this article or found it useful please leave a comment. If you have a question please ask in the comment box. 

And please subscribe to our YouTube Channel and notification of our forthcoming course. Both are to the right of this post.

Good luck in any dramatic film you are or intend to produce. If you are working on a project let s know, we will be pleased to include this in future posts.

Making of an Indie Short Film

Film making comes in many guises. You may want to just produce family video for friends or you may want to produce a drama like this short indie film. 
 
The following will give you an insight into how and why this film was made.The idea was conceive at a visit to Swansea beach just looking for ideas. Coming across the railway arch on the beach brought back vague memories of the short story by Dylan Thomas and we went from there. It was a tight schedule with script written within a day, the filming took just 3 hours in a studio using a simple black backdrop (incidentally the studio was used recently for some of the green screen work in the latest Star Wars film, The Force Awakens). The editing kept Brian Marijena working over several full nights, his favourite time for this work. I hope you enjoy and learn both ideas and techniques. Please make any comments and ask any questions. And we hope that you will be inspired to make your own dramatic film. You don't need huge sets, costumes, lighting or cameras. Although this was made in a professional studio with a professional camera and lighting that was for convenience and not necessity.

This particular story takes place entirely under a railway arch where the locomotives ran along the beach road before turning inland and towards Manchester. Although the track ran parallel and next to the road it was constructed on the sand. There was a drop from the road and path to the beach and anyone standing under an arch would have their head just above the level of the road. The scene is night-time and of course there was little, if any, street lighting at that time so the characters are lit naturally from the elements and occasionally from a match or glowing cigarette. The magnificently descriptive narrative includes many cameos and these can be filmed, or a montage of multi-media or just narrated over the face of one of the three characters. Dylan has broken the story into two sections: the first part being mainly descriptive and scene setting; whilst the second part is the story of the two strangers. Both sections can be incorporated into the film so that anyone who had read the book would instantly recognise not just the setting but each and every detail.

It is important to note that the book is set around 1933 and that it would be expensive to replicate scenes, costumes and props for the entire production. This then sets limitations for the film-maker but also gives him the opportunity to use his imagination and ingenuity. An opportunity to go back to basics. Like the original silent movies where the director used gestures and lighting to convey translation and moods, so here glimpses and suggestion can make us believe we have been transported back in time without the associated usual high costs. 

This is project particularly relevant here in Swansea and at

         

 

 
this time because Dylan Thomas was a Swansea man who died over half a century ago, was and is generally regarded by the majority of the local inhabitants as a drunken layabout but who is now regarded as the second most quoted poet in the world and who is highly regarded across the world on the celebration of 100 years since his birth in 1914. The stories are good entertainment but also, because of the factual descriptions, are of historical importance.

There have been other great short story writers such as O’Henry, John Steinbeck and F Scott Fitzgerald who have crafted beautiful stories that are like gold nuggets to film makers. Interesting, however, is that few films have been made based on stories of any of these writers. They are all of a similar period but can be adapted at little cost to the story line, characters or background. We have had the same characteristic traits since time immemorial, love, hate, greed, love of companionship, morality or not, lust and fear to name just a few. The great writer manages to weave many of these traits into their stories to give in-depth real people who often seem to stride off the page. So it is with surprise that few of these stories have been transposed into movies. Longer stories such as The Great Gatsby, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s  have worked well. Some short stories have been adapted for TV in the past.

Dylan Thomas’s stories in The Artist as a Young Dog for example are vivid descriptions of the actions and raw emotions that he experienced as he grew up in Swansea suburbia from a small boy and through his teenage years and abound with such vivid description that images just fall off the page. On first reading his stories one is struck by their simplicity and reality. It is as if you are there, in fact his stories have become woven into other peoples reality. People who read his stories whilst they were young have found that they have become part of their own memories. An incredible skill that is only obvious in others such as Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, Truman Capote and James Joyce.

It is a fact that all these writers were describing current events and so are a living history that is often far more interesting than most history books, adding fine detail about real lives, places and back-drops that bring the book, and hence the film to life.

This skill makes their work perfect for the short-film maker who can almost shoot off the page. Taking “Just like Little Dogs”, a story from Dylan Thomas’s “The Artist as a Young Dog” is a typical example. Let’s look at the opening paragraph.

Standing alone under a railway arch out of the wind, I was looking at the miles of sands, long and dirty in the early dark, with only a few boys on the edge of the sea and one or two hurrying couples with their mackintoshes blown around them like balloons, when two young men joined me, it seemed out of nowhere, and struck matches for their cigarettes and illuminated their faces under bright-checked caps.

Interestingly the whole paragraph is made up of one sentence, comprising of 77 words. It’s as if Thomas’s imagination or memory was running at break-neck speed. This could be transposed into an opening scene of long moving images fused into one silent night-time atmospheric take such as the opening sequence in the famous Orson Wells “Citizen Kane” with matching music straight off the page. Or it could be run as a single shot within the confines of the railway arch (where the entire story is centred) with a voice over reading the words as if reminiscing of a past experience. Both work, the latter more suitable for a low budget production.

This is followed by a descriptive paragraph about the two young men so that they can be cast to perfection. In fact the only drawback in filming the work of theses authors is that the images conjured up are so real that by miscasting the spell over those who have read the story will be broken. And interestingly the attention to copying the detail from the book by Truman Capote in creating “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” has brought the book alive for many readers. And it was possible because so much detail was included in the book.

“Just like Little Dogs” is a typical well crafted short story (of just half a dozen pages)  that has a beginning, middle and end, complete in the old-fashioned style compared to many stories nowadays that leave the reader baffled and confused. This also helps to  make the film-maker’s work easy because the finished product will be rounded and the film-maker can concentrate on film techniques rather than interpretation of the text. He can make small additions or changes if he wishes without unnecessarily altering the wording or style.  

The story continues with superb description that could narrated over material using a mix of new and old photos, live and historic film blended to match the descriptive text straight off the page. This should be in the style of the opening of Under Milk Wood. Thomas is the master of plays for voices so that many of the images used in this sequence could be suggestive and a background to the rich text. The narrative should be that of a deep male voice with a soft Welsh lilt.

Within this paragraph there is action descriptions how the two young men lounging against the wall under the archway, their cigarettes glowing and sparking in the wind. This will give the camera the chance to return to the two strangers within the descriptive filming and cement it together.

Paragraph four continues in the descriptive vein with Dylan lighting a cigarette so that the light reflected in the two strangers faces and gave Thomas further opportunity to describe Swansea life as it was then.

Here Dylan’s thoughts about each stranger and what he should be doing and where he should be builds a lovely picture of Swansea “where girls were waiting, ready to be hot and friendly, in chip shops and shop doorways and Rabbiotti’s all-night café, when the public bar of the “Bay View” at the corner had a fire and skittles and a swarthy, sensuous girl with different coloured eyes, when the billiard saloons were open, except the one in the High Street you couldn’t go into without a collar and tie . . . . “

The overall story finally becomes a dialogue between Dylan and the two young men and a story within the story is drawn out. This is a simple story about the two young men and their marital arrangements but Dylan has managed to embroider some fine detail about area and social aspects.

In fact this story, more than any other Thomas wrote, is so descriptive that it can be compared to Under Milkwood in that both are really plays/stories for voices but both have transformed well, and I have tried to follow the narrative with as much descriptive period photography as possible. I have produced this film using a single set, black and white throughout and with a montage of old photographs and some movement where I caught some people having a barbeque under the arch and was able to shoot them as if they were vagrant characters from the Thirties as described in the short story.

Looking at other well written stories they show remarkable authenticity for the period and everything associated so that clear descriptions of speech, people, clothing, furniture and other background detail is included. Interestingly the films made have become of historical importance. Included are Breakfast At Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, the story of Holly Golightly a larger than life character, the Great Gatsby about the young mysterious, but larger than life,  millionaire Jay Gatesby, and the range of John Steinbeck’s stories with what appear to be humdrum normal families but are in fact big personalities – in Grapes of Wrath which grew out of a series of newspaper articles about the Great Depression of the Thirties.

As I said before. Your comments are really appreciated as are you questions. This could have been filmed with a smartphone, in either a home studio or on location in the open using either street lighting or a low cost portable video light, costing around £20 ($30). We used a full black backdrop. You can buy a set of 3 backdrops (black, white and chromakey for greenscreen with a stand from around £40 or $55 on Amazon)

5 Reasons You Must Have Video on Your Website

Hi Guys

Just a couple of years ago you could decide whether to have video on your website or not. It wasn't that important. Now it's essential.

And the two big problems are that most people don't want to appear in a video online and they don't know how to shoot a video that is interesting. I've just looked at a selection of videos on local business and community websites and all are boring and monotonous. Not boring to the video makers who are usually proud of their effort but boring to surfers who arrive at the site, start the video and are faced by someone

sitting down, with little facial expression or hand movement, change of camera position or change of image.

Most of us have been brought up in a world of professional slick TV. Just take a look at the adverts which are usually master-pieces and made at a high cost by cutting edge film-makers. So when we see a clumsy video put together by someone without any knowledge or experience we are really disappointed and just switch off or move on. 

But it doesn't take much to put together something interesting. And when you have, here are some golden rules.

If you are not comfortable to be in your video then get someone else to do it. This could be an employee or friend. But then you have to be critical and accept or reject the finished work. You will need to be specific with what you want them to say. You can hire a professional and this can be really inexpensive. Try www.fiverr.com where you will find a

number of presenters who will produce a video for you in their own studio from as little as $5. They often charge extra for a fast deliver, props, different clothing, backgrounds etc. I do feel it's worth looking at exactly what you want and paying a little extra if it means you get more orders. 

You can also buy clips of an actor presenting your type of business, for example as a plumber or dog groomer. These are usually unbranded but your web master or  can add your logo in the background or even a photo of your premises so it looks like the presenter is in your business, right there. I feel its important to find an actor with the same accent, it isn't good to have an American voice if you are in the UK, although the UK accent is liked in the USA so I think the opposite is ok.

Customer Testimonials are real winners. It is proven that having customers talking about the great service you give will increase sales dramatically. Not everyone will do this but ask all your customers and you'll come up with some good stuff. If they visit you in-store video them there and then. But if you sell online still ask.Ask them if they are pleased with the service or products. Then ask them if they would be happy to give you a video testimonial and you will find you have success. They can take a selfie and send by e-mail by clicking on share. Testimonials only need to be a few seconds long with the person looking straight at the camera. There have always been testimonials around, you will have seen them in print. Always try and get the persons name and address but there is no need to include this on the website. It's just in case anyone queries that your testimonials are genuine. You might have a separate page for testimonials if you have a number but one should be on the front page or a photo and link.

Get videos on the front page above the line if possible. Surfers seeing a video will usually take a quick watch. If you can keep them interested then you have a good chance of increasing business. If you can have a separate relevant video on each page this will help. Our whole way of wanting to absorb information has changed. People do not want to read, look how YouTube is now the hub for information. Want to find out how to do something? Turn to YouTube. Look at the huge number of online courses, all based on video teaching. So you could have an introductory video on your front page and a video showing products on another page. These should all be regularly updated, particularly if customers come back over again. 

Theme your videos. It makes sense to have a standard opening sequence , maybe just 4 or 5 seconds. This is a good branding platform. You might care to add some background music too.

Try to be Different. You can have videos where you talk straight to the camera. But you could try having interviews. This is a different viewpoint and is easier for anyone who doesn't want to be filmed because they can concentrate on the interviewer and don't have to look at the camera.

The ideal way is to get the interview to look at he camera to do the introduction. The take shots of the interviewee sideways. Depending on what you are trying to achieve you might just have the person being interviewed or you may show shots of both either together or individually. 

Finally
These are just some ideas that will improve your video. Watch out for more to come.

Better Selfie Videos

Talking Heads are a great way to tell viewers about whats on, what's coming, your thoughts, describing events, greetings for your family when you are out and about, places of interests, greetings and much more.

Talking heads are easy to make, just need a smartphone, so you can take yourself. But you need to think what you are going to say first so you can give a clear straight presentation without stuttering or pausing or worse, saying um or er. None of us re perfect but we can all take some simple steps to make it as good as we can.

Watch these mistakes in action.

So here are my top tips:

•  Think about what you are going to say before you start to avoid stumbling over your words
• Try to have something interesting to say to keep the interest. 
• Look at the lens and not the screen.
• Have an interesting background, but one that isn't too distracting
• Try to link the background with what you want to say.
• Have the sun to the side if possible, certainly not shining into your face so you have to screw up your eyes
• If the sun is shining brightly get in the shade if you can
• A cloudy day is best
• Check out for wind and background noises before you start. We have become programmed to ignore background noises but th camera doesn't
• Look happy and not miserable. So smile if its appropriate
• Be consistent if you are running a series
• Talk loud and clear, don't mumble
• Remember nobody is perfect and we all learn from our experiences. The more experience we have then the better we will get.

This list is not exhausted. If you can think of other ways to improve selfie video then please make a comment. Your input is most valuable. It's by making a contribution that everybody learns and improves.

Keep your arm steady and extended. If you are too close to the camera your nose ill looker bigger and out of proportion to he rest of your face.

Use these videos on Facebook and Twitter. It's not coincidence that I just talked to a local grooming parlour owner just 30 minutes ago and asked her about her website. I wasn't looking to design one for her but just curious, she had just opened after working from home. She said she just used Facebook and I asked her if she had any video there. "No" she said. and went onto tell me that she had photographs. I told her about very short video testimonials mde on a phone and her face lit up. She thought it was a great idea. Just then a customer came along to have his dog groomed. Even before I had moved on she asked him if he was happy with the service and whether i would do a testimonial. He said he would and I left. I hadn't met this woman before and it was just my usual chat that I always told people about, but it inspired her to take action. You could do the same.

I'll even give a critique to anyone who sends me a link to any video made as a result of reading this. This offer is free and valid until the end of the year.

Now just grab your phone and try it out. Practise and you will soon be good, maybe not perfect, that will come. But if you don't stat you wont even be good.