Pre Production
FMP
2
I need to start early in this phase of the project since we are pitching this film to a production company who could potentially produce this film and manage a full scale production process. CADS is the local company in discussion; I've been associated with them for many years of my life, with my family getting involved in a lot of their productions over the years. I feel the opportunity is open to me due to this reason.
Tommy and I have been preparing a pitch for a meeting with the standing Chair of the CADS committee. It's been a tough process, however, we haven't been sure as to what to include in our pitch. Rob recommended a video giving advice on how to pitch a film idea to Netflix/Amazon. In theory this video would've helped except it doesn't exactly match our situation. Contextually, I'm familiar with this company since I've worked with them before, and creatively they aren't looking for a 'new story to tell' but rather wanting to know what we are asking of them. In summary, the video's advice was to make yourself standout over other project: What make you unique? Whilst this video was quite helpful for my general learning, it didn't provide enough useful information to help us craft a pitch specific for this project.
However, because of this reflective thinking, I decided to start writing a pitch comprised of a list including different job roles that we'd need for the project. If we simply show Michael (Chair of CADS) exactly what we'd need from CADS then we'd be able to get a clear answer without needing to dissect the project and break down every critical element of the story. It's a different approach. I hope it works. Here is part of the email chain that I sent to Michael to organise this meeting:
*email chain screengrabs*
Tommy and I have begun work on the pitch, we're going over the specific roles we need filling to reach the films overall scope. We thought we'd also suggest alternative providers as to not apply too much pressure on CADS.
We also included a short breakdown of the story and given a small amount of context for the story.
Location Scouting
Part of this film's ambitious scope is made up by the amount of locations we visit in such a short space of time. We jump between hospitals, to rugby clubs, to schools, to a family home, and we explore everything that goes on internally. I understand that some locations will be easier to contract than others; for the home, we can ask around members of the cast or crew to volunteer their house if it roughly follows the ideal layout (and considering the number of crew on board, we'll probably find something quickly). I'm guessing the hardest part of this process will be finding a school, hospital and rugby club.
The rugby club is an integral piece of this film which can't be fabricated, it needs to be authentic. My thoughts are to contact the Royston rugby and football club in order to access their pitch, and uniform when filming later in the year. I assume there won't be much resistance but I will still prepare for this. My back up is to use the Therfield Heath's rugby posts which are free to the public to use, but it is in an open field so it won't completely match the location I'd want for the story. The school is a simple location to find, in theory, it's just a matter of the caretakers of the building let us use a site that could be heavily populated with children. Luckily (for us), the King James Academy site is currently closed to students due to flooding, but offices and certain classrooms are open for access to teachers. With the freedom of little-to-no students on the site, and access to the reception, and two offices, we could use the KJAR site for the majority of the complex locations in the film, therefore removing the reliance on multiple locations at once. Whilst this is all ideal, we first would need permission to use the site, and film there. Last year, I asked a local cafe is we could film on their site, they did give us permission, but we only had one day, this led to us rushing the shoot and we could barely use any of the footage we got from that location forcing us to cut the scene. If we do work with KJAR, we'd need to be decisive, and push for a lenient number if shooting days on the premise to allow for us to get all the footage we need. Another problem we could encounter when working with the school, is the uncertain return date for the students. As far as I'm aware, all student from the Meridian site are working from home because of the construction the school is currently undergoing; I don't know how long that will go on for, so student may return quite soon. Because of this, we may need to film at that site earlier than most of the other filming dates, which may also apply pressure to the progress of pre-production over the next few weeks.
Story Boarding
I was looking forward to this stage of pre-production, for me, it maps out the visual motive of the project so the sooner you do it, the more you'll understand which areas you need to research. I prefer to let the storyboard influence your researching decisions rather than letting your research influence your storyboard. I feel that a storyboard is a rough draft of your initial ideas laid out for you and others to grasp a quick understanding of what you're going for. My drawing skills aren't anything to write home about, but as long as the key frames, and blocking are accurately translated, then the quality of the artistry is simply redundant.
I believe I found a location which best matches the desired description of the rugby pitch, the Therfield Heath houses two open rugby pitches and both had their advantages and disadvantages. Both the southern and northern pitches fulfill the correct aesthetic I want the pitch to have in the film. I want the pitch to in an open, park-like area, absent from any advanced technology or anything resembling a stadium. I want the pitch to have a sense grittiness resembling the game itself; the terrain was bumpy, blotchy and everything that matches that desired description. The differences between the two: the northern pitch is closer to the road, this will certainly interfere with any dialogue and/or sound we will want to record (I had this problem in my last FMP, the nearby road made most of the audio unusable). On the upper hand, the northern pitch has vintage stadium lights which would make for good ambient lighting if we choose to use it. From our storyboard, we agreed that the opening shot of the film would be an establishing, watching the sun rise from behind the hill beaming through the fog and onto the posts; unfortunately, the sun would rise from behind a set of houses which we didn't like open first thoughts. The southern pitch was deeper into the expanse which meant for quieter conditions, however was missing the floodlights, these aren't necessarily a mandatory part of the scene, just an addition which may work in our favor. The sun would rise from behind a low hill, which would actually allow us to capture the desired shot. Both locations have their benefits but purely because of the needed audio quality, we are more confident in the potential southern pitch.
A problem which we discovered from this recce was the weather conditions.; throughout the entire day, it was pouring it down with rain. This created the uneven terrain to become boggy and incredibly slippery, on multiple occasions, Tommy and I nearly fell over. This would be a large risk which we may need to accommodate for on the day of filming, for starters, if I wore the appropriate footwear, then I would've reduced my chances of slipping and hurting myself. Because of the foggy rain, the temperature was brutally cold, Tommy and mine's hands were struggling to take pictures with our phones; and we generally lost a lot of mobility in our hands and legs. We may have to film in these conditions when filming on this pitch, which is why I'm glad we went on a day like this; we discovered what hardships we could face on the day. To prepare, we now know what to include in our risk assessments, we will advise bringing appropriate clothes, such as raincoats, jumpers, hats, gloves etc. as well as footwear such as walking boots. As for the players and actors which will be filmed, we will need to bring blankets and coats which actors can wear between takes in case of the cool temperatures. Tommy noticed that our phone batteries were dying quicker in the cold as well, because of this, we may need to bring more batteries and power for all of our equipment to make sure we make the most of the days we spend there. To protect the equipment, we'd probably need bags and blankets to shelter the cameras and lights from getting damaged, either from the cold or the rain. Because we completed this specific recce earlier than the others, we now know more on what to prepare for.
We also wanted to scout out a potential location for the school front yard, one of the only other exteriors we see in the film. What makes this location so tricky, is how we can't fabricate our own school exterior, classrooms, and doctor's offices can be designed by hand, but exteriors would really need to be filmed practically using a real school. There are many different possibilities in Royston, and we managed to explore one on this same shoot. Tannery Drift Primary School has a stereotypically school-like appearance, it has a large, blue gate, which perimeters a playground and ground level expanse, an ideal look which wouldn't need any change. When we went there however, the paths outside the gate were too narrow, not big enough to house a cast and crew during shoots. After considering the amount of hazards this factor could cause, we decided against using Tannery Drift as a potential location.
This is the storyboard template which we've created, so far, over the past five lessons. Tommy and I worked closely to discuss ideas and make initial judgement's on how we want each scene to be filmed. The first thing we wanted to establish, was the use of aspect ratios within our planning. Tommy and I have previously discussed the use of different aspect ratios throughout this film, we think the inclusion of them in this planning stage will help us visually prepare for filming with them in mind rather than waiting until post to finalize our agreement. We notably switch between different aspect ratios depending on what we feel the scene needs; while on the rugby pitch, I want to feel a sense of grandeur, achieved through a 'cinematic' look using the traditional 2:1 aspect ratio (as seen in SC1 of S1 below). Tommy has a personal preference for the 4:3 aspect ratio which he wanted to use for the closer, dialogue driven scenes. Throughout the story board, we have stated where we want the changes and what the framing for each change should look like; when we then use these documents as reference when filming, we'll be able to make adjustments to the framing to meet the look we'd like.
In the description of each shot, we try to include every piece of information we think we may need to execute the shot on the day of filming. This includes: Shot size, subject angle (a 3/4, 1/2, 1/1, etc.) the number of people in the shot, the movements of the camera, focus pulls, what the shot is designed to capture, possible transitions, the camera mounts for the shot etc. I found that sometimes more than one thing will happen in the shot, so I labelled the sequence in which the actions would take place in, in terms of firsts, seconds and thirds etc. This does help when processing the story board now, however, I'm concerned that it may not make sense to us later down the line when filming. We will probably need to return to these drafts and specify these areas just to avoid confusion.
We faced our first struggle as we got deeper into the script, when the environments started becoming more complex in design. In the past, Tommy and I have story-boarded pre-location scout, this was challenging for us since we didn't have an exact layout to work with. This project has amplified this problem it seems. There are a variety of locations which this film explores but only much later in the film. We began with a lot of freedom to move our characters around in; a rugby pitch is an open expanse which didn't give us many problems in blocking. The only issue with the first scene was understanding what we want the player to be doing in camera and how we blend the shots together; we figured that this would be an issue best fixed on the day and in the editing room since we can't do anything to fix it now. However, for the living room scenes, we had to design an entire layout of the room to understand our lighting, our character's eyelines and many other technical elements. Shots 5/3 and 5/5 were particularly difficult since they heavily depend on the angle of the room, the space between the doorway and the stairs, all variables which will be subject to change depending on where we choose to film the scene. This massively frustrated me, the shots which suffer from this problem will only be properly visualized once we've chosen a set location roughly based on these conditions.
6/2ABC were 3 variations of the same shot, we spent 2 hours trying to plan the shot since it involved such a technical camera move, which Tommy and I needed to visualize appropriately so that we share the same understanding. Following our completion of the shot, the day finished, and we'd only covered 4 pages of the script. This has left me with much concern, we are only 23% of the way through the script and we only have a week to finish the whole process. During this week, we also need to complete a large phase of our research as well as a location recce before the CADS pitch meeting on the coming Tuesday.
SC7 was arguably the hardest sequence for us to create up to this point, for two reasons. Firstly, we both had a different creative vision for this scene, narratively. Tommy wanted to begin the scene from Noah's perspective while I wanted to continue with Nick's. I set a directive for the both of us when approaching this scene: Transition the films perspective from Nick's to Noah's. Tommy and I had different approaches this, clearly. I initially tried to explain how we begin the scene with a Still, Medium of Nick as Noah exits from the radiology room, Tommy countered my idea with a Tracking OSS following a silhouetted Noah out of the radiology room. This simple decision massively changed the motion of the scene, and since we hadn't visualized anything for the later half, this decision would've completely changed the meaning. Through a respectful discussion, Tommy and I agreed with his idea to begin the scene with Noah (as seen in 7/1). It was a highly technical shot which took a while for us to understand. Whilst I did settle with the idea, in the end, I didn't expect more problems to come from this situation. Because my vision for the scene was taken in a different direction, I felt completely lost in the motivation of this scene. It took us 2 lessons to get to a stopping point, where we eventually ended up leaving the scene alone and take a short break.
Upon returning to the scene, we managed to slowly continue through the sequence. We were able to piece most of it together until the end, when we realized that the layout of the room we'd created in our minds was clashing. We were trying to visualize the scene in our heads but we clearly didn't see eye to eye here. This was a massive problem which was getting in the way of our motivations behind this scene. We decided to fix the problem by mapping out the room in a birds eye view drawing of a possible layout. This ended up helping but was still slightly confusing as to what the shots would look like in-camera. To get around this, we took to Maya and created a 3-D model of the hospital corridor, including character models, where we could then position the camera to imagine exactly how we want the scene to look. This was a really helpful idea which allowed us to finish the scene before the end of the day.
SC7/S7 Pre-Viz
Hospital Bird's Eye
I've mentioned previously that this film jumps between many different locations, and most of them are existing properties which cannot be replicated without a budget and are also closed to the public. These 'closed' locations (is what I'm calling them) are typically categorized as sites which need a singular or series of permissions to grant access for a filming team to work there. There are ten total locations this film uses, two of them can be used without public permission, the others will need approval. The school, hospital, coach's office, Dr's office and the family home, are the major closed locations which we'll have to find before filming begins. To begin our search:
The School
Visually one of the most striking environments any UK citizen can notice is the traditional primary school. And in this film, the exterior and interior are firmly established and are necessary to the plot. We knew that we'd needed to use a school site for this film, we just needed to find the right one. After my production meeting with Emma and Joe (documented in the reflective log), the big idea was to use Icknield primary as the site for the film; CADS have worked with them before and their rates are relatively low at £5.80/hr for a classroom (we'd only need the classroom for half a day). The film doesn't have a budget but I was sure we could get one so the monetary requirements didn't phase me too much. I have never had a relationship with Icknield nor have I even been there, this fact deterred me from wanting to use the site since I didn't know if it would have the right look. I wanted to keep thinking.
I did think of my old primary school, Tannery Drift, as a potential site; since I've been there before, I know what it looks like and maybe I might get a favor from the school since I am a former pupil. So I got in contact with their administrator via their website and asked if we could film on their site in a classroom. I hope their response gives some good news, if they even do respond.
Finding Other Locations - (The One's We Couldn't Scout)
They didn't get back to me after nearly two weeks of waiting for a response. So I decided to go onto the site and book an appointment directly to see if that would speed things along. Thankfully, the headteacher was available on short notice and she delighted to see me again and show me around. She was very on-board with the idea of us filming on their site for an evening after school hours. Understandably, she asked for me to supply some documents for us to sign to ensure that all their students and private information stay protected and won't be filmed in any way. I brought this to Emma and Joe and they said they'll handle the documentation, while I organised the shoot.
As far as the location goes, it's perfect and exactly what we needed. The dimensions of the storyboard will need to be flipped but otherwise it's just how we I imagined it in the film. It's a good enough size to fit a camera crew, and it has a large window which overlooks the playground for the school. This location find has taken a lot of stress off of me, as I predicted it would be a hard location to settle on. I'm actually very excited for this shoot now, which will either be an evening on the 23rd of April or the 26th, both of which, the cast/crew can do.
The Hospital
When approaching possible hospital locations, I didn't know where to begin. However, Emma mentioned how she works as a community transport driver for Royston Physiotherapy Hospital (the exact type of hospital that was in the script). She explained how she wanted to get me in contact with them so that we might be able to apply. She chased them for weeks and eventually got a response that allowed for me to fill in an NHS Property Services Filming/Photography application. I signed it and sent it off. Four week later, (5 days before filming began) we got approval for our application allowing us to film on their site for an entire day, without interruptions (as they'd closed it down for that day). I was beyond excited to film in an actual hospital. If I hadn't pushed for the hospital location as early as I did, we wouldn't have had the location in time for filming. I'm glad I prioritized this location, understanding that it would be the hardest one to find.
We also used an office, separated from central hospital, on a different day to act as the Coach's Office. So thanks to hospital, we managed to find two primary locations.
Documentation
Talent Release Forms are an important part of the production process. In all my other projects at college, I haven't necessarily had to produce signed talent release forms, this is because I never had any intention on releasing it to the public. This time, these forms are essential, I actually have professional actors who need to sign these forms for their protection and consent. I typed this form in Word and have asked all the actors to sign it, before I release any of the film to the public.
NHS Filming Application
Here is the NHS application that I filled in to apply for filming on their site. It was quite an easy process (easier than I expected), and once I sent it off, I just needed to wait for an approval. That was my job done.
Thankfully, they approved the application and allowed us to come in for an early scout of the premises and then film for a total of two Sunday's, if we needed them.
Risk Assessments
In any production a risk assessment is required before any filming officially begins, you need to take into consideration all possible risks and hazards (even the ones that seem impossible) and make sure it is all accounted for. Not only do you need to acknowledge these hazards but you need to assess what prevention's will be put in place to counter these risks, minimalizing them all to a low chance of occurrence. One of the biggest safety hazards for this project is the risk of filming with a rugby team. The prevention of injury is difficult when there are so many people to be mindful of, but as long as everyone is briefed before the filming day to be careful around the filming crew, this risk becomes far less harmful. Another issue that we could run into is the use of camera equipment around the chaos, whilst we can be careful around the players for our own safety (by avoiding them), we will need to film a few shots of our where the camera is quite close to the action, this will require the camera to be positioned within the rucks; the tackles, the passes and the kicks, compromising the camera crew's safety. We might need to have someone dedicated to keep the crew safe, by spotting when a ball could come flying toward the camera or a player come knocking down, then this person, can pull Tommy to safety as he's to busy focused the camera.
I also created a risk assessment for the Daintrey's house, which also acted as the interior risk assessment for every internal space that needed it. I found that this was an effective use of my time, rather than creating specific assessments for each location, where only one or two things would be different. I plan to bring these with me on every filming location, and then go through it every time before we start filming, to ensure the safety of others in the team.
I opened Microsoft Excel to create two spreadsheets: A Checklist and an Assessment sheet.
Interior Focused
Exterior/Rugby Focused
This was one of Tommy and mine's early production plans, which we scribbled down in one lesson in late January. We eventually turned it into a better formatted, digital version (seen on top of production page).
Screenplay
Comments
This script has seen a few changes while filming Mascot. I did write this script before the FMP started, but I still redrafted a few scenes from the original for the benefit of the FMP.
I wanted to open the film with a rugby game. That's what this film is about, a family who's passion and drive is for rugby. What makes it so important? Why do Nick and Noah care so much about this game? I opened with this scene to immediately clear these questions up.
It keeps you in your seat and grabs your attention just a few seconds into the film. Dramas tend to start slowly - I wanted this film to feel quick and exciting, just like this opening sequence.
In reality, Woodlet is actually close friends with Nick and Emma from their church. When writing this character, I wanted to give him the conflicting choice of: being a good friend or being a good doctor. He's a very wordy character; so this friend/doctor trait comes through in his words. I wanted his phrasing to appear like a doctor, then to be softened by a close friend. This ideology appears more clearly in a later scene.
What makes this scene so sad, is how persistent Nick is on being a responsible parent - who he thinks he should be. But he ends up being just as reckless as he feared he'd be. He took a risk, and it changed everything for him and his son.
In early iterations of this scene, this was the opposite. Nick was less restrictive and gave Noah what he wanted. I found that this reverted Nick's arc by the end of the film so reworked the scene to show him being more unintentionally reckless.
Because Nick and Woodlet were quite close, in reality, Nick had the luxury of booking radiology appointments with Woodlet whenever he needed them. This nearly caused Noah to have radiation poisoning from the amount of X-Ray's he was getting. When documenting my Uncle Nick's account, he described this experience, and I imagined how guilty he must've felt and how it may have caused him pain over the years of Noah's recovery.
I originally thought I would include this in the film, but in early stages of writing, I decided to leave out this detail in fear it would over complicate Nick's parenting arc.
Nick's faith is tested tremendously throughout the film, his acts of faith cause him to make decisions which otherwise would seem silly. I did have a few concerns, going into production, that Nick's faith would inadvertently be antagonized by his reckless certainty. But after discussing with the actor, a christian as well, he understood what Nick was going through and reassured me that the portrayal would reflect positively on both Nick and his faith.
Noah recalled how he was carried to school in a push chair throughout most of his primary school years. He emphasized how uncomfortable it was for him, socially and physically. It stumped his friendships for a while.
What hooked me the most about this detail, however, was how Emma seemed to be missed from this account. As Noah was so young, he wouldn't have thought of how this impacted his mum, who had to go through this daily, alongside him. When I brought it up with her, she mentioned how it was difficult for her to see her son this way.
I liked this different perspective on this story detail. When filming, rather than telling this scene through Noah's eyes, I want to show it through Emma's eyes, as it makes for a less predictable, and interesting spin, on a small story detail.
Coach is the only fictional character in the film (that's why he doesn't have a name).
In most short films, there needs to be a direct conflict (a conflict that can easily be established without much set up) which directly comes against the protagonists. I needed an antagonist who didn't need to appear much in the film, who also stops Nick and Noah from being who they want to be simultaneously. I thought: How ironic would it be if that was a rugby coach?
This scene (10) is my favourite scene in the whole film. It sums up Noah's entire situation in just a few short moments.
When hearing Noah's account, he remembered how much he thought his teachers didn't like him! I'm not surprised. He was always put near the window when all the other kids went out to play. I thought it was so funny (that the teachers were that oblivious) that I thought I'd keep it in the film for a dark humoured laugh. What makes it so funny for me, is that this actually happened!
Nick and Emma mentioned to me in their accounts: every time they collected Noah's X-Ray results, while sitting in the corridor, they prayed continuously. But every time, they were always met with disappointment. This little detail actually gave me the understanding of how long Noah's journey must've felt to them, giving me the idea to include a long sequence of life-passing-by.
This films timeline is left ambiguous for two reasons: Firstly, Noah became the Mascot for the Rugby World Cup 2019 because of this very story, yes; but he was healed 4 years before he was interviewed to be the Mascot - I didn't want to have a sudden time jump to a different, older actor that nobody was familiar with, otherwise the film would've felt too broad for only 20 minutes. Secondly, Noah was 4yrs when he was diagnosed, and 8yrs when he was healed and 12yrs when he went to Japan. That's 3 actors, one of whom being 4 years old, which is probably just as hard to work with as it is to find one! Not to mention the aging parents!
Keeping the timeline short helped this story fit into a short film format. If I ever want to tackle this film at feature length, then I'll look into following the timeline slightly more accurately than I have done with this film.
As you can probably imagine, this isn't how Noah was healed. I wanted this scene to feel just as profound and powerful to non-christian viewers as it would've done for christian viewers as well. Keeping the focus on our characters, rather than their prayers and faith, grounded this scene. There's space for the message of the film, the faith of the characters, and powerful story beats, all in one scene. Through limited dialogue, I could achieve this and allow the audience to interpret what happened for themselves.
'He's not a rugby player.' Is a recurring line with many variations throughout the film. Initially set up Nick's ironic line to Noah; then from Woodlet, (silently the teacher) and now Coach, you can see how the line changes throughout the film. In earlier drafts of the screenplay, Noah begins this chain with 'I wanna be a real rugby player!', but having him say it directly felt liked it undermined what all the other characters, in the film, were saying. Letting Coach say this line here, without Noah even knowing, makes us dislike this character even more. This then made Nick's choice obvious. Rather than feeling bad for Nick and Noah not fulfilling their goals, I wanted to the audience to think at this moment 'Nick should just walk of there right now.' -- and then he does.
In full scope, I wanted Noah to walk out onto the pitch with Alun Wyn Jones. As impossible as that sounded to film, I chose not to go with that ending for different reasons. I felt that that ending on the stadium would detract from Noah's actual story; the crowds in the stadium, on TV etc. would have had no idea how that little kid got onto the pitch, as they had no interest in the story - so why end with them? I felt that the best way to honor Noah's story, was to leave you thinking about what he and his family went through, not where he got to in the end.