Major Project: The Edit, Getting into it.

Last week Casey and I spent every day in edit mode. Apart from Friday as we both work. We had lunch and dinner at the studios a few nights. I found that my concentration starts flagging around 4pm.

It's great fun doing this edit and we are laughing most of the time because the footage is so funny (to us).

Once we started working separately our work flow really sped up and we now have almost fine cuts for all 15.

I tried to create animated titles on After Effects but couldn't get it to play properly when exported so that is my mission for this coming week as we want to animate all our graphics.

During a flagged concentration time, I decided to give Noodles a clear internet presence and made us a facebook page!
Check us out! : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Noodles/183953368363806?sk=wall

I am also working on our youtube channel.

Major Project: The Edit, Getting started.

Casey and I were both filled with anxiety before starting the edit. We knew it was a big task ahead of us and while we couldn't wait to see our footage all come together, we were aware of how difficult the next couple of weeks would be!

We began the day after we wrapped. After talking with Simon we decided to both work on one episode first and get a feel of how it should be, then work on episodes individually. So we began our landlords episode and did that for the day.

It went well and we had fun.

Major Project: Day 6

On tuesday we chose to use our day off, which we really wanted to spend resting!, to upload our footage and look it over. We also dumped a few clips onto the timeline. After the missing footage last time we wanted to make sure there wasn't anything else we needed to shoot over our last two days in the studio. Luckily we didn't find anything missing! And were pleased with what we had shot!

So Wednesday we headed to the studio and got set up. We hadn't managed to put our set back the night before this time so we did it in the morning and then started pushing on with the shoot. We were eager to get everything done in the one day as we didn't really want to have to do 2 more but we knew we couldn't rush either so we just pushed through everything and worked hard to get it done. We were filming the rest of our action. The most exciting was smashing our gravy boat. Casey took the piece to cam style camera and I sat ready with a side view to catch the smash. We practiced first with a boot to try and get the positioning right.
Then.. SMASH!

In the end we managed to get it all done! So we cancelled our booking for the next day! We moved all our stuff back into our homes and were wrapped!

A big thank you to my brother Robert Dorsett, for being our excellent presenter.

Major Project: Noodles

Here's our logo title thingy!

Courtesy of Simon Beale.

Major Project: Post Production Inspiration

I like how this advert is cut.

Major Project: Day 5, Invading a kitchen

Today we were off to shoot our cooking scenes. Casey's Dad had very kindly allowed us to use his kitchen.

This was a new experience for us both. We have never shot cooking before.

We were a bit lost at first thinking where should we start, so we just got all our kit ready. We had booked out a set of arri lights which is a good thing because they really lifted the environment.

There were some focus issues, because in some cases we couldn't get far enough away with the camera to focus properly, some shots that I thought were focussed through the monitor actually weren't but we couldn't get the shots we wanted any other way. I think it's ok though.

Casey's stepmum wasn't meant to be there but her plans changed and she ended up being there. Which was ok but she felt like she couldn't come into the kitchen and got a bit angry. This is always a potential issue when using someone's house as a location. It also made us feel like we had to rush to finish and get out of the way. However, our footage didn't suffer due to rushing which is good.

When we left the house we went to mine to get a couple of shots we didn't do in that house. We chose not to light it, which in retrospect was a mistake but we were so exhausted from both cooking and shooting all day that we wanted to finished as soon as possible. There was also the fact that the lights are damn heavy and we didn't want to carry them up the stairs to my flat! However, if I were to do it again I would push through the exhaustion and light it anyway to get the best shots possible.

Because we hadn't finished all our studio shots we booked out 2 days for the following week to get it all done.

Major Project: Day 4 in the Studio

Today we could really get into the fun stuff! We had gotten a bit exhausted of just filming piece to camera shots, especially as it had taken longer than we had hoped. So we got stuck in to filming all our action shots.

Every now and then I felt like I had lost my creativity. And as I was shooting or planning shots with Casey I felt like we could be much more creative and make our shots more exciting but my brain couldn't come up with anything better. So I hope I don't look at the footage and feel that it could have been better. I still think it looks great! I feel like we have been very professional but maybe that need to be professional stinted our creativity? We shall see.

The fourth day went well. We got quite a lot done. We also brought in some people to film some extra scenes, which I definitely felt didn't go as well as I imagined (don't know about Casey). We weren't able to round up as many people as we though. Which did end up being enough actually. But for me, the pressure of not wanting to keep them too long made it feel like we couldn't be as creative. I also always feel strange being directive with my peers. One of the guys kept laughing and joking about it which made it feel a bit awkward. The stop frame of them appearing as the strangers you are going to live with was good. It would have been better with more people but because we had it lit for my brother's piece to cams the lighting would have been off. We were able to place the people in good lighting instead of having to re light it.

Today we used a dolly for the first time! I tell you what, it's not as easy as it looks! We kept kicking the dolly when walking with it and had difficulty tilting and moving it. We got the shot though, not as good as it would have been with practice but we will be using it again!

Major Project: Day 3 in the Studio.

On the Monday Casey went in early to the studio to upload our footage. I then arrived as she left and did a bit of organizing of the footage. Only to find that we had lost almost an entire episode! Truly don't have any idea how that happened. We lost all but 5 clips of our Nightlife piece to cams. And I wasn't planning to look through all the footage so it was a good thing I did! After realising this I went through all the clips and organized them buy episode.

So a bit baffled. We always checked the rec light was on. We had one person in front and one behind the camera so we would have known if it was flashing or beeping.

So arriving on Tuesday morning we got started as soon as possible. I had put all the set back the previous evening to give us a head start after our 4 days away from the studio. We were expecting David Reilly and his camera man to film me "in action". It was strange being on camera. I much prefer being behind it. They filmed us just getting on with it for a while, then we had to stop because of sound issues (a leaf blower) so they then got in some directed shots they wanted and made me say stuff. It took a bit longer than we thought but it was interesting. As soon as they we carried on.

We had a continuity issue on this day. Because we had decided the presenter would have a different tshirt for each episode. And we used my boyfriend's tshirts which I had taken home for him over the weekend. He put them back apart from one! Which we needed. So that's a shame.

We had 5 more piece to cam bits to do then started on our extra bits in the afternoon.

Major Project: Photos (phone)

Our Props and equipment area:




The Set:





Props I made:

Major Project: Day 2 in the studio.

Today we arrived ready to hit the piece to cameras hard. We started filming at 9.30 and got a fair bit done before lunch. We had to stop a few times due to sound issues. While the studio is awesome and has great things in it, it is not built for sound recording. The most annoying thing was the piano in the canteen. Mid Kent students were playing it and I had to ask them to stop. We then had to go back later on when some Mid Kent students were playing music through speakers.

When we ran out of memory. We were prepared though, with the spare SD card I had bought. But it didn't work!!!!!

So we decided to upload at campus and needed a cable. So we asked fergus and he had a cable. But the cameras require the Sony XDCAM Transfer software which campus doesn't have!!!!! SO fergus leant us an SD card! Didn't work.
Alas, we had to take time out of our shoot schedule to head to the studios to upload our footage. As we were stopping for lunch and uploading Fergus came in to say that people were going to use the sound room. This concerned us as we didn't think it would be quiet enough but we were heading off to upload.

But of course! It's the one day Simon's only in in the morning and we arrived later so the cables were locked in the office and we hadn't thought to bring the one from campus. Not surprising as we were in a stressed haze. This however made us more stressed as we thought we would have to waste the remainder of the day being unable to film.

Thank god Dan and Fran were there with their calm and level headedness. They calmly suggested we take the SD card out of the adapter and stick it in the computer. DUH! We could only do it with one as the other is built in. But it was enough! Thank god!
So we allowed the upload to occur and then made a speedy transfer back over to the campus and immediately got stuck into filming again.

We were on a role at this point. It might have been the adrenalin that the stress had caused but Bert was nailing his lines and we were getting the right shots. The guys in the sound room were a bit noisy but Casey went and asked them to be quiet and they were soon leaving anyway.

After we had done a couple of episodes though we realised after trying to format the non-working cards, the camera settings had gone back to default which was different to how we had been shooting! We went back through the footage and it didn't look different through the monitor but we shall see tomorrow when we upload. LUCKILY, it was whole episodes that had different settings, not half of one. So at least those episodes won't suddenly change. We wrapped with 4 or 5 episodes to do still. So it's going much slower than we had hoped but it's easy to book the studio space. The only difficulty will be booking camera equipment if we need extra days. We aren't going to rush as it will make it look bad. We will just edit on the days we aren't shooting and add extra footage to the edit once it's shot.

Question: Will the fact that we were shooting on 1920/ 25p for most of it and then 1920/ 50i when it reverted to default affect our edit?

Major Project: First day in the studio!

We had a slightly later start than planned as we found there were still loads of things we needed to bring in for our set and for our props so we arrived at 9.30 and immediately got to work on the final touches. When we were setting up the previous evening we found that the bed we had sourced was a bit too low to the floor... About a foot high so we had spoken to fergus and there were plinths we could use so in the morning we immediately set that up. It both looks much better and is just about safe to sit on the bed as long as you lower slowly onto. Luckily not many shots require sitting on the bed.

When we had finished with the set my brother arrived to be our presenter and we proceed to light our set and then set up the cameras.

The studio is amazing. We have two sets of arri's and the ceiling rigs have loads of lights too. We can't adjust their position (we think) but we can control how light or dim they are. So we used them plus 3 arris to light from behind and to the side. We also have a dolly and track to use!

So we immediately (at about 10.30) got going on the piece to cameras.

We hadn't scheduled our days because we were going to do it all in order (piece to cams in order then all the extra bits in order of scripts) and we didn't know how long anything would take. All we had decided was to get the piece to cams done in the first day and use the other 3 days to do our extras. Didn't happen.

The piece to cams are taking aaaaaaaaaages! Especially on day 1 one when we were getting used to everything and creating a work flow. So we managed to get 5 done in day 1 I think. It's not that my brother isn't remembering his lines or anything either. I mean there's the odd one that takes him a while to get his tongue around but it's just taking time!

Major Project: Final Preparations

Last week Casey and I finished our scripts. We then got together again on monday to list out everything we need for each episode and to make up our set. We also drew up a shot list. Our shot lists consisted of the shots for our extra skit parts other than piece to cam dialogue. We were going to draw up schedules but then realised we were going to shoot it all in order and had no idea how long it would take. Our only vague schedule was to get all of our piece to cams shot on the first day.

Then on Tuesday I booked out our cameras and kit and then we went prop shopping. We got everything we needed that we didn't already have. I even bought an SD card in case we ran out of memory on our shoot. We then went to Casey's place to pick up what we needed from there, then did the same at mine. It felt like we were moving out!
Then it was off to campus to book out arri lights and start moving into the studio. However, turns out you don't need to book our arri's if you're using the UCA studio. They have 2 sets of their own.

So I went to steve's to borrow a bed and we got our set moved in and set up ready for our shoot to begin in the morning.

Major Project: Scripting

Over the past couple of weeks Casey and I have been working hard and relentlessly to get our scripts refined. After getting everything we wanted written into them we then had to shorten them down and make the dialogue more punchy.

Because we are putting ourselves and our presenter out there as a voice to give advice to students we have to make sure that advice is reliable and accurate so we did some research.

For hangover cures we simply did a google search and took the points that were recurrent in all our findings. Including things like darker drinks get you more drunk (in a bad way) and will worsen your hangover, Drinking fizzy drinks alongside alcohol will worsen your hangover and awful drunkeness because they make the alcohol more easily absorbed. And certain pain killers (for headaches not prescription as you shouldn't drink alcohol when on prescribed painkillers) can have adverse affects. Such as aspirin is a blood thinner, as is alcohol, so can worsen a hangover.

For saftey on a night out we had a look at the advice on Police websites. They recommended always making sure you organize a way home before you go out. They also recommended keeping your valubles spread out across your body. Phone in pocket, purse in bag, money in bra or pants etc so if your bag is snatched or lost, you haven't lost everything. There were also the normal things like watch your drinks and don't walk home alone or wander off.

We managed to get our scripts to a point where we are really happy and now really looking forward to getting on with the shoot.

The Shoot: Day Four

The Shoot: Day Three

Major Project/ Media World: Text in film

I am posting this whole video because of the text at the beginning. I reckon it was easy to do but I love how he walks in front of it. And it would have had to have been framed so that the text could be in the centre and have it work so well.

Don't bother watching the whole thing, it's pretty boring but the song's pretty I guess.

Major Project: A Productive Week

This week Casey and I have been spending a lot of time on our scripts. After the slow progress of us both working on our first script we decided to get together and each work on a separate scripts, relaying our ideas back to eachother. We have done all our scripts and just need to go back over them fine tuning and considering our visuals more in some places.

We will then go through them working out exactly what we will need to include in our set and how we will source it. And also whether we will have to film any VTs.

We have also branched out our casting feelers. And had a response from one of the castingcallpro people about the auditions tomorrow... a bit confused as I said her audition is at 11am and she said she will be there for 6pm so hoping she will get back to me after having corrected her saying it was a typo!

We also went to central stores to find out how far in advance we could book out the lights. We also sought out more information about the studio, Fergus wasn't around so we found Lydia instead who let us in to see it (it's wayy bigger than we remembered). It's perfect for what we need though a bit echoey, but Lydia said Fergus can help us with any issues and might even be able to help us set up on the day if he doesn't have a class to teach. We emailed Fergus later on to find out specifics and let him know a bit more about what we need.

Major Project: Studio Space

Casey and I had always imagined this being set in a studio and we had Studio 3 in mind. However, the invasion of Take Me Out occurs just as we need the space. Simon very kindly managed to swindle us a couple of days and even got a third day (depending how long we would need) but we decided that because Casey can only do short days on mondays and the third day might have to be shortened in studio 3, we decided that the studio at UCA might be best.

Inadvertantly through Lydia's after effects workshops I managed to come across the studio booking form and there are some days available around our shoot time so I applied for 4 days. 2 days in one week and 2 days in the next. This means we can make the most of each day. (I don't know how much freedom of hours we have with the UCA studio so I booked 4 days for safety). Just waiting to hear back from them with confirmation.

Casey and I went to see if we could have a look at the studio today but couldn't find anyone to let us in!

Major Project: Casting

Last week I went around uni putting up posters advertising for a presenter for our series. Most got taken down from the course boards and such (I only put them there because Luke Frost told me to) and after returning, the ones that were left had been covered by other posters so I uncovered them but we haven't had any results from that.

I also posted ads on Castingcallpro.com and Mandy. We had a few responses. Some we knew immediately weren't suitable. I contacted around 10 people to come for auditions this thursday and reiterated that we had no budget and couldn't pay expenses. One person said they can't do it because they can't afford their own expenses. But others couldn't come because of other arrangements. Only one definitely couldn't but others who could have come ended up being unable. And we are down to 1 confirmed audition! One lady has offered to send a video audition so I will be sending her a script and a brief summary of we would like to see. I might do that with some of the others if we think they are too good lose.

We have two who we really liked from Mandy but we haven't heard back from them so hopefully we will have them coming to see us on thursday.

Due to the small amount of success we have had from these sites, Casey and I decided to look closer to home, considering people we know or know of who would be suitable. Most of the people we thought have disappeared to uni in far off places but the people nearer to home we will be auditioning.
We also might try and flog our idea at lunch tomorrow to see if anyone is interested.

Why is casting always so difficult?!

Major Project: Camera Workshop (Stop Frame)