Directions Unit: Project Evaluation

In this project we were given instructions to find either a television or film director, and a piece of their work to re-direct in out own, original style. This also meant we had to organise and work with a full cast and crew. In this, we needed to get hold of professional actors.

At the beginning of this project I started looking at Television directors. I have enjoyed the works of many directors but then I wondered what it would be like to re-create an old film. Since a young age I have enjoyed watching old films, with thanks to my Grandfather who introduced me to them. We would watch ones of all different genres from serious films like The Cruel Sea to your classic Ealing comedies like Passport to Pimlico. Once this idea was in my head I was set on it, and I felt as though people would appreciate the humour expressed in some of these films. One of my favourites was Alexander Mackendrick's The LadyKillers. I genuinely wanted to have a go at directing this, and perhaps I was a little ambitious in thinking I could pull it off, after looking a lot deeper into it I found I would need a good location, large cast and a selection of awkward to get hold of props. On top of all this I needed to work out exactly how I am going to re-direct it.

I watched the film for inspiration and to refresh my memory and then tried to decide what scenes I wanted to direct. I kew that I wanted to tell part of the story in my selected scenes. Unfortunately there wasn't a copy of the script online, so rather time consumingly I had to watch the film again, and kept playing/pausing to write the script from scratch.  I then needed to find my location for Mrs. Wilberforce's house, which was difficult but the perfect house came along; it was midway through restoration so had walls with plaster showing and an old kitchen. This was ideal for Mrs Wilberforce's house, and showed how she would struggle to maintain it. I then went onto the task of sorting out my actors. I was required to get 5 males and one elderly female. In my interpretation I wanted to make some of the male cast younger. My reasoning behind this was that I felt someone younger would not have the same kind of respect for Mrs Wilberforce as someone who is more mature would. Their impression of her is a dotty old lady, who they can pull the wool over her eyes. I also wanted to portray them as not being violent thugs, but nymph young people who are trying to find an easy way to get money, but fail dramatically. I sorted actors who wanted to take part as it is something to put on their showreel, and had worked with them before so was pretty confident they will be able to pull the roles off. However, after speaking to Simon, I realised that it is not my job to re-cast. This unit is about directing, not re-writing, so it would make more sense to have an older cast of the ages of those in the original film. The cast I eventually found on Casting Call Pro were brilliant; they genuinely couldn't have been any better, and that is something I am very thankful for. Getting such an expensive cast was a great worry to me, but was relieved when I had them all on board.

During this time, I was also frantically trying to get old of props. Luckily I already has a Record Player that was made 20 or so years later than when the LadyKillers is set, but still a believable  prop nevertheless. Other bits like the money and suitcase I could deal with, but when it came to instruments I was well and truly stuck. There was no way I could possibly have brought a cello and three violins on my budget. I phoned around all local music/theatre groups and music shops to see if they had anything they would be willing to lend me. I was unsurprisingly unsuccessful in all of these. I managed to get hold of one violin for a website called free cycle. Although a start, this wasn't enough to go on. If worst came to worst I would've played it off as a joke, that they truly are ammeter musicians; they have got away with fooling Mrs Wilberforce despite having one instrument between the five of them. This was a fallback option, but I really wanted to make it seem as realistic as possible. I contacted a local school, and asked if they had any of these instruments they could lend me for a student project. I was lucky enough to receive a cello and two violins all not in working order; this didn't matter in the slightest because they aren't actually playing them.

In the project process I needed to figure out how I would shoot and edit my film. I took inspiration from many things, and needed to select two directors and TV dramas. I had taken inspiration from various areas, which are all visible in my final project. Out of all of this inspiration, I feel as though Alfred Hitchcock had inspired me the most. Many details of my film are very Hitchcockian in style, from the constant referral to ticking clock, to having the camera not as the camera, but the suitcase as the camera.

When shooting my project I was able to work closely with my director of photography, Liam to get the shots I wanted. I did accidentally miss a couple of shots due to the nature of the day, being stressful and having so many people to direct.
I am very pleased with the final outcome of the film, but i did encounter problems along the way, some of which have stayed with me to my final film. The first being the quality of footage; for the most of it, but there were several shots which seemed quite 'grainy'. This was when the bedroom was so dark, and when all the men   are confined in the hallway blocking any light out. If I was given the opportunity to do this project again, I would consider lighting more. It was something I had thought about, but I also wanted it to look non artificial, and to have natural looking light. I wanted the upstairs scenes to be quite dark anyway so its not as big of an issue here, but it irritated me the most in the hallway. Another way I could've improved on this film was to get more shots on the face of Mrs Wilberforce when she opens the door to marcus; I intended to do this, but as previously mentioned, I didn't get them due to the nature of the day. I found a way to change the shot and work around it buy having the back of Mrs. Wilberforce when talking to Marcus; this is now no longer an issue as Mackendrick films with Ms Wilberforce's back to the camera in the original film.

From this project, I have gained so much valuable knowledge and experience. I learned the process of being a director and beyond being a director. I was able to work well under pressure, and organise myself well making filming successful and it kept my actors on board; had I lacked organisation it would've stood a chance that they would drop out. I managed to keep everyone happy and at the end received some really positive feedback from my actors, who I would happily work with again.

Overall I feel I was successful in this unit, despite some of  the problems I faced along the way. Its good to see a progression of work and I feel I've topped myself from the last unit. I hope to keep this up in all y work and future projects, and keep improving.