My Role In Our Production Company

My role on the shoot day was as the assistant director and creative artist. My contribution to the production pack included writing up the contracts, shooting schedule and risk assessment and designing the company logo:

I also secured one of the locations:

and wrote the script for our production:

REVELATION


INT. ORNATE CHURCH – WINTERS EVENING, EARLY DECEMBER

An organ fills the church with the well known Christmas hymn: ‘Silent Night.’
VO:

Silent night, holy night

All is calm, all is bright

Round yon Virgin Mother and Child

Holy Infant so tender and mild

Sleep in heavenly peace

Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night, holy night

Son of Tyrus, fear's pure light

Radiant beams from Thy holy face

With the dawn of condemning grace

Abbadon Lord, at Thy birth

Abbadon Lord, at Thy birth

Silent night, holy night!

Shepherds quake at the sight

Glories stream from hell afar

Hosts of Hades sing Alleluia!

The Anti-Christ is born

The Anti-Christ is born

The church is beautiful with numerous stained glass windows and sculptures. It is essentially Christian. The interior is covered with crucifixes and nativity style objects such as shepherds staves and a manger. There is an old woman at the back of the church playing the organ and singing.

We follow a priest who calmly paces down the church swaying incense from side to side. He is wearing robes and his face remains hidden. He crosses in front of a stained glass window drawing our attention to a wooden nativity set resting on a table which spontaneously bursts into flame.

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INT. DARK BASEMENT – WINTER’S EVENING, EARLY DECEMBER

Extreme close up of lots of photographs of Mary, the main protagonist, with her family and on her own. She looks very happy in all of them. Blood drips onto the table next to the pictures.

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INT. ORNATE CHURCH – WINTERS EVENING, EARLY DECEMBER

The flaming nativity set continues to burn as the figures in it become horribly disfigured beyond recognition.

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INT. DARK BASEMENT – WINTER’S EVENING, EARLY DECEMBER

Extreme close up of satanic images (both photograph and parchment) on a desk. Blood drips onto the table next to the pictures.

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INT. ORNATE CHURCH – WINTERS EVENING, EARLY DECEMBER


Extreme close up of Baby Jesus from the nativity set, who has almost completely turned to ash.

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Fade in text

Revelation

During the day of filming I helped with lighting and operated the camera for part of the day. I felt that through doing these jobs I contributed to the group’s effort well. Both Oli and Millie, the two other members of my production group both worked very hard as Producer and Director and we all performed excellently as a team. As a result of this we managed to acquire all the shots we needed and more far earlier than initially expected.
The tracking shot could have been made better by a few more takes. This became apparent when we watched back our footage and realised that in each take we had either the track jolted slightly or a light became visible. Despite this using various methods in 'Final Cut Pro' we managed to salvage the shot and it ended up looking very effective. The shot which ended up looking the best was probably the Nativity set spontaneously bursting into flame. This was a lot easier to do than expected and looked very effective on camera.

In relation to what I learnt about practical film making, I found out how important lighting is in a shot, it can completely change the mood of a particular setting; we used three-point lighting in our scene. As part of this we discovered the challenges of lighting a scene with relation to space for lights ect. I also learnt that you need to have a lot of patience when filming as some shots take a considerably long time to get. I learnt about how tough casting can be, especially when cost is a constraint; when we were casting we found it very hard to obtain an elderly actor willing to act in our film. When filming in the basement we found space to be a big constraint, especially when we had to take the equipment town a very narrow spiral staircase. As a result of this we learnt to adapt as a team based on the various constraints. For example after we light the church, when doing the tracking/panning shot, alot of the lights were still in view so we had to change the speed and time of the pan to conceal them