Music

First of all i would like to say that i know the music i have used is copyrighted and that if i was going to send this film to a competition i would have to change the music, or get rights for the music by contacting the person that owns the rights. I did originally look for un-copyrighted music but i couldn't find any that suited my film.
After deciding that i was going to use copyrighted music I looked through my ITunes and on YouTube for music that carried the right sort of feel and also had a similar narrative to that part of my film. This took a lot longer than i had originally thought it would take!

Evaluation Of Film

Overall i am very happy with the success of my first ever film! Obviously there are things i am not completely happy with and if i were to do it again i would change. Firstly I put a radio sound throughout the first scene to try and add atmosphere to it but i am not sure how much it sounds like a radio, that is actually in the room. I have shown a few people and they have said it does but i am not convinced!
The next problem i had was also in the first scene, which was the fact that at certain points the continuity is not exactly right and so it makes a certain part of it very jumpy. If I had of had more time and costs to get my actors to me more often i would have like to of re-shot this scene.
The next problem came from the quick shots of the boys practicing pickpocketing as i said earlier people didn't get that this was meant to be them practicing. I tried to do a voice-over Garry using my voice (for the same reason as before about getting the actors back over to me), as my lecturer Jules said that if you show Garry and put a voice over the audience will most likely presume it is the actors voice. I tired this and i couldn't make my voice anything like the actors and so it sounded awful!!

Press Release

Dubock Productions
274 Alfreton Road,
Nottingham,
NG7 5LS,
07786064126
christopher_dubock@hotmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Find Your Self “Leaving Home”

Nottingham, UK – 22 May 2009-04-24

Await the opening of the heart warming story Leaving Home. Dave and Garry are brothers forced to leave home after constant domestic violence. Their eyes are opened into the criminal lifestyle of living on the street and what must be done. Until one event happens that changes their life forever and reunites a failing family. To be released after 6 months in the making, at Nottingham Trent Uni. on the 22nd May 2009. This film is aimed to raise awareness about the harshness of living on the street and the serious problems brought from alcohol.

I am Chris Dubock the director, to get any further information contact me on: +44 (0) 7786 064 126 or at Christopher_dubock@hotmail.com

Directed, produced and edited by the young and upcoming Nottingham Trent University Student Chris Dubock.

Chris Dubock has travelled around a lot for his young age, taking in a lot of inspiration from different cultures. Such as part of the inspiration for this film from visiting a street kid home in Tanzania. After living in Switzerland for 6 years he moved back to England to go to University in Nottingham. After deciding computer game design (what he originally had planned to do) wasn’t what he wanted to do and undertook Audiovisual which got him to where he is now.

This is Dubock Productions first film and Chris Dubock has only part taken in one other piece of audiovisual work which was a four minute documentary on whether graffiti is an art form or a crime from the perspective of a graffiti artist in which he took the editors role.

Final Film

Here is the final film, i couldn't sort out everything everyone said about but tried my best to make it a coherent, interesting and easy to follow film, i hope you like it!

Promotional Stills

I did something very stupid and didn't take any specific promotional stills this meant i had to use photos i had already got and export stills from premier pro and so this didn't turn out very well! (i then put them in a small slideshow to put on my DVD)

Class Feedback

We showed our films and what we had so far in class and i got the following feedback:

• The cuts in the opening sequence didn't completly work
• What is the mum journey
• I asked if they understood what was happening during the scene where the kids were meant to be practicing pickpocketing, and they didn't so i had to try and change this around some how.

Trailer 4

Here is the most uptodate version of the trailer:

Trailer 3

Here is a slightly tweeked and slightly changed version of the trailer:

I am not sure which one i prefer yet as they both need work done to them and i may end up doing a slightly differnt idea that i have been thinking about.

Trailer 2

Here is the first edit of my trailer:



I am quite happy with it as a first edit but i think some of the timings are slightly wrong.

Trailer

After fixing Premier Pro i decided to try and sort a trailer out. Before starting i looked at a few trailers on youtube to get an idea for how i may like to do mine, including a few Shane Meadow films, Thundercats the movie, slumdog millionare, into the wild, Pineapple Express and SCUM, I alos looked at a variety of amateur film trailers. I quite liked ones with not too much talking in and took this into my trailer. All the amateur film trailers used writing poping up mixed with shots from the film, and think i will follow the trend.

I also searched for some music that i thought would be fitting and came up with three songs:

• Chase and Status - Running
• The Offspring - Gone Away
• Trashmonkeys - Leaving Home

I chose these taking in the style of music and what the lyrics were saying and wheather it would fit with my movie style and narrative or not.

Debs Feedback 2

I got feedback from debs again in the seminar this week, which was the following:

• Cut back daves first lines so he almost interupts the mum in the argument.
• Take out the "static" shots during the first scene.
• Overlay sounds during the argument such as a radio (which i still hadnt done but planned to)
• Get more shots for the last shot in scene 1, such as a few differnt shots of when she lights the cigarette.
• When the boys leave the house the shot is too blue so change the colour (more red)
• Take out the first person going to pickpocket the mum
• Leve mum on longer right after the boys pickpocket her
• Does the zoom out at the graveyard from the mum work?

Editing Issues

The first problems came the other day with editing which was a pretty major issue. My Premier Pro stopped working the other day and as it is CS4 i can not work on my saved files at uni. It kept cumming up with an error message and wouldn't let me reinstall it. A few days later after calling Adobe's technical support a few times and being on hold for over an hour i managed to get it fixed and so moved on!

Editing 2

I have been working on cutting down the 10 minute film and got it to 6 minutes 45. I have noticed that i am missing some key shots in it though and have organised for my actors to come back down for a re-shoot. Here is the latest edit:

Again I didn't have any problems whilst editing and am quite happy with how the edits are coming along. I haven't tweaked with the audio or put music to it yet as until i have got the video to 6 minutes i don't know what will be where.

I took this video into Uni and showed it to Debs in a seminar and got the following feedback:

• Do i need music in the first scene, or could i just use sounds to build atmosphere
• The shot of the boys leaving home is too long
• After the argument use less sound to show the tension
• Change the practice pickpocket scene to make them a bit more interesting
• Hold the first shot of the mum at the graveyard for longer
• Fade in some music as the boys go to the graveyard
• Take out a second when the boys walk away from the drinks fridge in the shop
• Show more excitment when the boys whin the lottery
• Don't zoom in on the AA Meeting peice of paper when the boys come home

Editing 1

I have been editing now for about ........ weeks and have produced quite a few draft edits starting at 8 minutes long, let me know what you think:



I didn't have any problems whilst editing this which was a nice surprise after the amount of crashes and issues I had editing the documentarys 2 terms ago. I am quite happy with how it is unraveling but have notticed a few shots i haven't taken and some that need to be re-shot.