Unit 1: Section D - The showroom

I have taken Part in The BFI Film Academy at The Showroom, which is one of the UK's Largest independent Cinema's and is situated in Sheffield's city center. It's described as 'Sheffield's leading business center for creative and digital industries'.
The showroom offers so many opportunities and isn't just an ordinary cinema. It shows so many different styles of film, some mainstream, some incredibly independent and unheard of! They also have a stage on screen program where they show pre-recorded theater, ballet and opera. I really love this as there aren't many places you can go and watch ballet, and I think really important for people to see how wonderful it is, and the showroom promotes it very well.
 I also love the way it caters for people of all ages, for example 'early doors' an event every week for over 55's, and 'young cinema' for children and families. I think its great the way the showroom offers opportunities to educate as well, for example the BFI course, and 'film Studies', and the way they show such a variety educates so many people, as they would probably have never even heard of the film before they went to the cinema. But then its great that they also show mainstream blockbusters for everyone, so you can still go and see new releases.
Over the 3 months being part of the BFI academy I've learnt quite a lot about the Showroom and the opportunities it offers. It's made me quite interested in Doc/fest as id never really thought much about it until we were spoken to about it on one of the workshop days. its such a brilliant opportunity for young people to volunteer and organize a film event.
One of my favorite events the showroom hosts is 'Showroom shorts' where short films are shown weekly which are individual and made by very talented directors, this is also a chance for people to network and critically discuss film together. It will also give some people the chance to have their short film shown in the cinema as its very rare that happens across the country, but most importantly its an exciting new way to educate by watching something new and interesting every week. 

Unit 1: Section C - Fairbarn Review

A couple of my friends are part of a band called Fairbarn and I went along to a gig they had at the O2 Academy 2. Fairbarn are a four piece indie alternative band from Sheffield who are currently trying to discover their own sound. This gig was their first headlining gig at a large venue, as they'd only supported there before and played small ish venues such as pubs and small family events beforehand.They named themselves after a street three of the members live on! They currently have 6 songs of their own but cover multiple other songs by artists such as The Fratellis, Oasis, The Courteeners and Circa waves. 
the place was definitely pretty full which was amazing for a first time headlining gig! so there was a lot of excitement across the room as the supporting acts wrapped up. i had to arrive a little later so I didn't quite catch all of the supporting groups, although they must have been good as there was a lot of energy in the room after they had finished! with the crowd hyped up and ready to go the boys hit the stage, with lead singer George announcing their first cover, 'Henrietta' by the Fratelllis, which is an incredibly well known song and got everybody jumping and singing. The lead singer also has such brilliant stage presence which adds so much to a performance as its vital for a crowd to feel the connection. There's nothing worse than watching a performance where the whole band is quite reserved and shy as it puts a down on the whole mood.you could clearly see they all enjoy what they do even by the first 10 seconds as they entered the stage.
 After their first song George (The lead singer and Guitar) introduced the other members of the band, by first shouting to Brad on his right and then to charlie on his left. But it was incredibly funny because he forgot about Chris (The drummer) and because quite a lot of the crowd were good friends and family everybody had a good laugh. They then continued to play a couple of their own songs which were done so well, even though nobody really knew them very well, the group still managed to keep the energy going.
 A few covers were played again after that, one of those being 'T-Shirt' Weather by Circa Waves which send the crowd crazy! one of the main reasons being it was performed so well! everybody sand along and danced together and it was brilliant! I was pretty much at the very front so I could see everything and everyone on stage which was a bonus as the venue is slightly enclosed as the stage isn't raised too much which as a pain as it means quite small people (Like myself!) cant see too well from in the middle.
Next they played one of the first songs they wrote which George gave a short speech about because it means a lot to them. this then lead onto a speech about how this was a huge deal for them and they thanked a lot of people, usually this would be the part where people want to go home as they've had enough, its late, the last thing they want is constant talking about things they don't care about! But because we know the people in the group so well it meant a lot to everyone in the room as well as you could tell by how much passion went into the set that they are clearly incredibly grateful for the opportunity of performing in a professional gig venue, rather than a back garden at a siblings 18th birthday! or a small local pub! So the crowd cheered and whistled before they played one final song and said goodnight! 
Overall it was an absolutely fantastic night and it would be incredibly difficult to find faults. I think all four of the members did such a wonderful job and I think the rest of the crowd did aswell!

Unit 1 :Section B -Set Design/Production design

For my Arts Award challenge I'm going to look at Set Decoration/production Design. I will look at styles of production design and then choose a concept to style myself.

Production Design creates the mood, atmosphere and context of a film through the expressive use of space, objects, forms and colour. The Production Designer interprets the written word for the screen, bringing all the visual elements together to create a story world. They must realize a design style for sets, locations, graphics, props, lighting, camera angles and costumes, while working closely with the director and producer. The set Designer works with the production designer to bring a concept/theme to life.
The designing of a set has multiple stages that go from sketching to producing small scale models before creating the real thing on the correct scale.


Dan Hennah is the production designer/set decorator for the hobbit and the lord of the rings movies. I especially like the way he presented the contrast of the different elven kingdoms and their grounds. how colour was used especially to change the whole mood of the scene. The halls of the woodland realm (The hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) are magnificent as they were designed so well. I think this is also down to the fact that he knew so much about the characters and the story but also the history of the characters.
Alan lee is an illustrator and movie conceptual designer that worked with Dan Hennah to design the initial look, The production designer works incredibly closely on some production with an Illustrator as its important when creating abstract content that cant be initially put together using a few props.
some of the designs below are by Alan lee and John Howe.

Sarah greenwood
Sarah Greenwood is a production designer. She has been nominated four times for an Academy Award, in 2006 for Pride & Prejudice, in 2008 for Atonement, in 2010 for Sherlock Holmes and in 2012 for Anna Karenina.
She's known for creating such magical sets and creating beautiful ideas.She's also quite famous for her work on period style productions so she works on a grande scale with grande designs for some quite magnificent sets.
http://www.pushing-pixels.org/2012/11/15/the-art-and-craft-of-production-design-conversation-with-sarah-greenwood.html  - here is an interview with Sarah greenwood which explains a lot of what she does in her role on a film set, it helped me understand things a lot.
some shots from Sarah Greenwoods's work:

I've decided to take a few lines from the book of the hobbit to create some concept art ideas own and use my research of the way Lee and Howe work to create their designs.

'far down the river where the bank jutted out, near to the very eastern edge of Mirkwood. There they were collected and tied together and floated back to Lake-town, which stood close to the point where the Forest River flowed into the Long Lake' - Flies and Spiders,The hobbit

the first thing the designers would do is collect their research altogether and decide on which are the best factors/ pieces of information to use. and settle on the mood of the piece. This is why I created a mind map to separate different information. what I learnt from the way Greenwood works is that she tends to create sets that can be used multiple times in the same scene, so the sets are very complicated and detailed but it means a slightly different shot could look like a completely different place. she is also really good at making space look big and grande. with 'The hobbit' Its quite easy to create a fantasy scene of woodland or a kingdom, but it can be much more difficult for a piece of modern drama for example. creating concept art becomes less necessary once you are using a city as a main location.

Unit 2 – Arts leadership challenge

The leadership role I took in the production on our film ‘the drop of’ was the role of the cinematographer. The leadership skill I want to develop from this was confidence and interaction with others. I chose this as usually the roles I would take don’t require very much leading, therefore my confidence isn't as great as I’d like it to be. My leadership role includes being completely involved with the camera which also means working very closely with the sound (that was the producer in our case)  and the director. It also meant that I had to direct the actors  on set so that the shot we wanted could be completed. This meant being confident and speaking clearly to the actors about what we wanted for the shot. Our project of creating the short film was to make sure it was hopefully no more than 2 minutes. Our plot was based around 3 main characters who all meet in an alleyway. Our only location was the alleyway throughout the whole film, which was good in a way as our actors didn't have to be moved around a lot and the props and equipment wouldn't have to be moved very much either. We took a while finding the most suitable location for our project as we needed certain aspects such a roads in the correct place and so it was hidden away at the same time. As we are filming outside all day, a problem we could face is the temperature. If its very cold then we must make sure our actors are kept warm the moment they go off camera and that we provide them with hot drinks/blankets. A problem we also could face being outside is the wind. As I'm on the camera and will be working with the person doing the sound I will have to make sure it doesn't affect the dialogue as the majority of our film is dialogue and the wind could be a major problem especially at this time of year. Another problem we could face ,being outside, is the lighting, as throughout the day it will change, so we need to make sure to film certain scenes at the same time of day so that the change in light won’t affect the shot.

this is the schedule we tried to stick to once we found out that the shoot day was November 28th:
1st November - Final film plot
7th November - First script draft
14th November - Second script draft
18th November - Final script draft
21st November - Completed storyboard
26th November - Acquired our actors and have a shot list
27th November - Prepared our props

We did stick to the plan the majority of the time but when we didn't it wasn't always negative as it turned out that the second draft of our script became the final draft in the end so we didn't need the third deadline date.Our storyboard and shot list were finished by the 22nd of November, but our shot list was quite simplistic and we didn't use it very much on the actual shoot day, it was only a very rough guideline and we weren't entirely sure exactly what we wanted until we were there on the set with the actors.

here's some evidence of us planning our our group chat.

these are some notes and brainstorm we made for initial ideas using things we had learnt from the workshops.





The actual shoot

On the day of the shoot the location worked really well although the temperature was very low which caused us the most problems. It meant that when we took a break we had to pack up all the equipment and walk back to the showroom so that we could buy the actors a hot drink. Hands were also an issue for me on the day as I had to have them out the whole time using the camera, and even with gloves it was still very very cold! I feel like my confidence and leadership skills were improved so much on the day as I released I had a lot more leadership to participate in on the day as I had to decide on more than what we originally planned in the storyboard and the shot list. We added extra shots in as we went along as we had extra time  to shoot.
It was such a helpful experience being on camera all day as i'd never been hands on before with one. I had to control everything on the day with the help of Darren including working with the Gib arm which was really exciting but quite difficult by myself so i had to have help making sure the shot was smooth and the camera didn't stutter. moving the camera on the tripod about on the cobbled floor was quite a challenge but we managed ok as we didn't have to move it too much and if we did it wasn't too far.

We had to work very closely as a team on the day of the  shoot as initially we didn't have enough people to take on all the jobs separately . for example the producer of our group had to also work as the sound. I had to work closely with the sound and I was on the camera and I had the earphones to be able to listen to what was being recorded. this meant that I had to talk closely with the person on sound to make sure it worked ok. we also had the trouble of the weather and the wind on the day which made this task extra difficult as it was quite windy, this ad a major effect on the recording of the sound. I also had to work closely with the director to make sure I was in the correct place to film the correct piece of dialogue and to also help decide what order to shoot in. 

overall I think the shoot went really well as we obtained more than the amount of footage we needed and had a wide selection to choose from in post production. we all worked closely together and it paid off massively. Even in the edit we all worked together to produce the final piece.


this is a group photo of the cast and crew after the shoot, and a photograph taken whilst getting some of the final crane shots.










`Review

I think the whole project went very well and we are all happy with the outcome! we did face a few large problems throughout, like the night before the shoot one of the actors cancelled on us, but fortunately Brandon (the script writer of our group) stood in as hes well practiced in drama, so we can all the characters we needed on the day. it also worked really well as Brandon wrote the character so he would know exactly how he'd want it to be played and also knew exactly what would be happening with shots on the day as well. I think the workshops at the beginning of the BFI Film academy helped us a lot with our planning and understanding of our project. the shoot day has helped my confidence massively. I had to do a lot of controlling on the day and I wasn't expecting to have to take so much control which was a shock but it helped me a lot in the end and i did actually feel confident doing it. I've learnt so much about how each role works on the actual shoot and how they all practically come together. I've also learnt how organised you need to be on the actual