FMP Ideas.

Here are a few pictures of what I have written in my notebook for FMP so far.

Editing.

It was time to edit my 'The Conversation' piece. This was a different experience to edit from the first film, because I was less happy than my last footage because of the bad sound quality.
I had to record Jade's voiceover, and it took some work to get the sound to all be of the same level, because the diegetic sound was quite loud and then the voiceover was quiet, so it sounded wrong.
I started off with a title saying the conversation, because I wanted a clear beginning and ending.
I didn't use any other background diegetic sound because I wanted a sense of isolation and realism.

Filming.

Today I began filming 'The Conversation.'

This proved to be a stressful experience because I had never recorded sound, and there were a lot of interfering factors such as people walking, traffic and wind. So even though the shots looked ok, the sound was not that good because it was hard to make the protagonists be heard.
It was also my first time actually using people in it, in the other film I made it was with props only, and a title sequence so this was a lot different.
It was difficult because I had a script for my actors, and had to give them a line each to say and then pretty much cut and let them look at the script again so that they would get it right, as you can imagine they were a lot of outtakes!!!
I was saying 3, 2, 1 as I filmed to give them time to compose themselves and remember lines.
I used a range of shots; an over the shoulder shot of them talking, as the main protagonist is talking about a lake, you could see a body of water past them, and a wide shot of Holden walking and Horowitz catching up to him.

After I filmed my film, I also acted in Jade's.

Recce Notes.

Before I planned to film 'The Conversation' I did a recce of the location that I wanted to use.

Pros;

• It is a nice location, spacious and isolated.

Cons;

• Because I'm actually recording sound, the main road nearby may be a problem.
• The park may be busy, people may disrupt filming or sound quality.
• The weather may not be on our side.

Script.

* Screen is black *

HOLDEN

What made it worse, it was so quiet and lonesome out, even though it was a

Saturday night.

EXT: 7pm. Saturday night, wood area.

[Low angle shot of Holden’s feet, walking past the camera. Long shots of his surroundings to show his isolation.]

HOLDEN

You can hear it for miles. It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed.

[Close ups of Holden zipping up his coat and putting his hands in his pockets, then wide shot of him walking, then someone catching up to him and stopping him to talk.]

HOROWITZ

 Holden? Where’ve you been?!

HOLDEN

 Hey, Horowitz.  

[He suddenly looks deep in thought] 

You ever pass by the lagoon in the park? Where the ducks are, you know?

HOROWITZ

 The what?

HOLDEN

 Well, you know the ducks that swim around in it? In the springtime and

all? Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any

chance?

HOROWITZ

 [curiously]

 Y’know, I haven’t seen you at school so much lately.

HOLDEN

 [Distracted, looking off in other direction]

 What, so do you think that

someone comes around in a truck and takes them away?

HOROWITZ

 You know, rumour has it that you got kicked out, thoughts?

HOLDEN

 [Distractedly]

 Or, wait

 [Turns to look at him]

 don’t they like, fly south or something?

HOLDEN

[Voice over]

 He was a very impatient type, once he gets something in

head that’s it, always yapping on about something or other. He wasn’t

a bad guy though.

HOROWITZ

 [Annoyed]

 How the hell should I know? How the hell should I know a stupid thing like that?!

HOLDEN

 Well, don’t get mad about it.

HOROWITZ

 [Irritated] Who’s mad? No one’s getting mad.

[He walks faster; his body language shows his irritated feelings, Holden stops for a moment and then speeds up to catch up to him.]

HOLDEN

 [Voice over]

 I stopped having the conversation with him then, if he

was going to be so damn touchy about it. But he started it up again

himself.

HOROWITZ

 [Sounding stressed, as if he was talking to someone younger]

Look, if you lived in that lake, Mother Nature’d take care of you,

right? Wouldn’t she? You don’t just think they die do you?

HOLDEN

 No, but…..

HOROWITZ

 You’re goddamn right they don’t.

HOLDEN

 [Voice over]

 And just like that, he was off. Like a bat out of hell, he was

about the touchiest guy I ever met. Everything you said he got mad about.

[Camera fades out with voice over, again showing his internal isolation.]

Character Profiles.

Name: Holden Caulfield.

Gender: Male.

Age: 16.

Appearance: Average looking, brown hair, tall, thin, wearing jeans and a checked shirt.

Employment: School.

Hobbies: Reading.

Traits: Extremely judgmental, everything is ‘phony’ and he criticizes and philosophizes about everyone and everything.

Strengths: He has a brilliant imagination, and an insight into the world not many people would look around him and consider where the ducks would go when the weather is cold.

Weaknesses: He is not great socially, he has difficulty understanding conversations, and social hints such as when to answer specific questions.

Likes: Books and thinking about unusual things.

Dislikes: People who he has not met before, and people he thinks are ‘phony.’

Name: Horowitz.

Gender: Male.

Age: 19.

Appearance: Taller than Holden, looks physically tougher, more intimidating.

Employment: School.

Hobbies: He is into sports, on the school lacrosse team.

Traits: He is a lot more aggressive than Holden, and becomes agitated very quickly when he doesn’t get the answers he wants about not seeing him at school.

Strengths: He is good at intimidating people to get information from people.

Weaknesses: He loses his temper quite frequently.

Likes: He likes to socialise with people, and is not a hermit.

Dislikes: He does not like it when people don’t listen to him, like Holden.

Elements of drama.

Elements of drama;

Ä     Situations- what is the story? Surrounding the main protagonist of The Catcher In The Rye, Holden Caulfield. He is walking around, in his isolation and I am going to translate that through shots of his surroundings and how he acts in the conversation he has. 

Ä     Roles- who is involved? Holden Caulfield and his former classmate before his expulsion Horowitz.

Ä     Responsibilities- how do the characters feel about each other? Holden has a tense relationship with everybody in his life at the moment because of his recent expulsion from his school; he doesn’t want any one to know and so he is being secretive and wants to talk about other things, in this case, when Horowitz asks him about not seeing him at school in a while. He is more interested in asking strange questions, which gives of a more pronounced view of isolation within Holden because he in socially incapable of answering the question, which ends up with Horowitz becoming infuriated and leaving, with Holden still trapped in his pensive state.                 

Ä     Place- where is the setting? The film is going to be set in a woodland, this is because although I considered trying to show isolation in a crowded place, I thought it would be a lot more visually pleasing in an isolated place, where is alone both physically and metaphorically.