FMP evaluation

My FMP. My Final Major Project. Just hearing the words FINAL and MAJOR should be enough to motivate anyone to shoot for the stars and make the best damn piece of work they possibly can. As this is your Final project. The biggest of the lot. Ideas filter through your mind on what this major project could be as soon as the beginning of the first year, how different will my mind set and skills be and how much more motivated will i  be by the time i start my final major project i asked myself. Ive always found that if you can look back on previous work and cringe, be it that there is a terrible camera mistake or blatant continuity issues, that you are almost destined to improve. before my FMP my crowing achievement was my children's drama 'The Adventures Of Charlie Squibbs' and when i watched it again before starting the FMP i cringed. I then knew i was destined to improve on this and create something better,bigger,slicker and more entertaining which is ultimately what you want to do in this course, make something entertaining.

i started off like everyone else with 10 ideas, 9 of which i didn't really care about and the one i had seemed a little bit too ambitious. I think it is fair to say i wasn't entirely optimistic at first despite how much i bigged up the project in the previous paragraph. I knew this was a bad place to start and i wasn't sure what else i was going to do, my first idea was for a short film about a shopping center heist, which seemed like an interesting enough idea but the further i got into planning the more and more i thought how hard it would be to film. i knew i would have to ask shop owners to film inside their stores which would only be appropriate at certain times, arrange actors, compensate for if we cant film in a particular store, the realization was really getting hold of me and i was stuck. then an epiphany came in the form of Sebastian White, who over heard my idea and suggested and alternative. He told me about an idea he and Tim Oates had a while back about a man who kidnaps his own wife to get the ransom money to pay for an operation, the idea really grasped me and it felt more Do-able. so i did it! I had to make a few adjustments to my journal which was looking pretty slim at the time but that wasn't a problem. I rang up Sam Goodall who is a friend of mine and has been in a lot of short films for this college, i knew straight away i wanted him to play the main character 'Jerry' because i wrote it with him in mind. Sam was really enthusiastic about it when i asked him he said and i quote 'Yeah i'll defiantly do that!' to which i replied 'sweet!'.

After finishing my script the next mission was recruiting fresh faces to populate the world i wanted to create, Sam was in, he said he was but what about the rest? What about Jerry's enigmatic drunk friend 'Vince', who could bring to life a character that will probably be more loved than the main character due to his comedic input. I'll tell you who, Seb White. Obvious really, that took care of the two main characters and i was happy with that as Seb and Sam have good chemistry on screen and they were perfect choices. over the next week i managed to secure the rest of my all star cast with Claudia Hodgson as 'Sarah', which was a complicated role for her as she had to play 'A bitch', Neil Hunt as the doctor, Steve Launay as the boss and Adam Merchant as 'Corey'. there was still one missing however, a small part who would be a friend of the two main characters Jerry and Vince, i only intended this to be a minor part. However i went to a party with Tom White and he stressed that he would like to be in my film and he would play the part but he wanted to expand on it, his idea was both clever and hilarious and so i agreed.

We Started filming at my house in Gosport, the brilliant Mr.George Woodward gave us a lift,helped with sound and occasionally operated the camera, Also Tom White came along and helped with camera and sound even though he wasn't in any of the scenes we were filming on the day. we filmed a lot of the talking scenes and i was amazed to realize the extent of the excellent Digital SLR cameras and the quality you got from them, it really helped with motivating me to get the best shots i could. we mainly used a steady cam instead of a tripod, mainly because its easier and it gives the film a more gritty look like something in a Guy Richie film which was exactly what i wanted. All the Actors were brilliant, Claudia did a fantastic job of playing a mean character and Sam is just naturally brilliant and funny as an actor, God i was happy with my choice of actors. The next day we filmed 'The Kidnapping scene' outside my sisters house in Gosport, this was the first time for Seb and Tom to film which was exiting as they are the two funnier characters. i wanted a mid shot of Seb in the front seat and Tom in the back so they could talk through the scene whilst both being on camera. In order to control the light from the blaring midday sun i taped the bottom of my jumper to the top of the windscreen of the car and went underneath to get the shot, it worked like a dream. George put a Zoom H1 in the car so we could sync the sound and listen back. Seb and Tom did some hilarious improvising in the car to build up the tension the timing was just spot on, Did i mention i was happy with my choice of actors? Again we used the steady cam more than a tripod as i came to like the look it was giving. Most noticeably  for a running shot which i ran back wards as Seb and Tom ran at the camera i had George behind me with a zoom H1 on a tripod to imitate a boom pole and with his hand on my back to stop me plummeting backwards.
We then spent the next day at College were we filmed all the scenes with Steve, i mentioned to him that there is a line where he drops a very indiscreet F-Bomb and i was curious to whether or not he would even do it, but he held it in until we finished all the bits we needed and then blurted it out in one take. Brilliant. We were aloud to film at the leg care center in 6th form to mimic a doctors surgery where we filmed the scene with Neil Hunt, however the woman were very inquisitive to what we were doing and kept interrupting. It seemed like they could only answer the bloody phone after i shouted 'Action'. Luckily it was only a short scene. we then wrapped up the day by filming the scene with Adam Merchant which was not as solid as i hoped but was good enough as again it was a small scene.
the next scene was the big one, The warehouse scene. I rang in advance to make sure it was okay to film and booked out the Digital SLR early, this was the main scene and it needed to be right. We set out to our biggest location yet Titchfield Festival Theatre and immediately hit an inconvenience, I didn't have enough money for a taxi so we walked on abit so the taxi would be cheaper and I forgot to mention that we needed a 5 seated taxi. So we had to walk a mile and a half. While the walk proved productive as we were all joking around and suggesting ideas for the film, I was feeling a bit foolish because I had not planned the trip well enough and was not 100% sure how filming would go as my confidence had waned. we finally reached the theatre and set up the first shot when disaster, the camera wasn't reading the SD card properly and I could only film for 20 seconds. I needed slightly more than 20 seconds. so I had to get a taxi back to college, run to the studio, change the SD card, ride my moped back and film the scene before we had to leave (we had been told to be out before 6) I was really under pressure. However despite all the mishaps we filmed a pretty kick ass scene and I was so relived to get it all over and done with.
editing went really well, the scenes seemed to work really well with each other and I constantly watched through it and thought to myself how good this is going to be, I mean it plays out like an actual film its great fun. I constantly teased small snippets to people around me to get them exited, this got to the point where I walked into the class one day and saw some of the first year students looking on my computer to catch abit more of the film. this did not amuse me though and I made sure they didn't do it again. I realised I had hyped up this film so much I was in need of a trailer to shut people up, I made one with Eurhythmics 'Sweet Dreams' playing over it, that shut people up for abit. once I had finished I had a 22 minute version of the film, which was way too much but I didn't really mind as I could just have an extended edition. I painfully sliced down my film, which is a soul destroying process to a more acceptable 16 minutes and submitted that as my FMP.

the reaction to the film was brilliant I was so happy to finally show everyone who was involved the finished product, plus to show everyone who had been eager to see it. I was a little bit sad that I couldn't show the full version but I was just really glad that people actually did enjoy it. the most amazing part was when people gave me feed back they mainly mention what they thought the story would be and nothing about the technical aspects. the main problem technically was the sound levels were sometimes too loud but that's easily fixable, also Neil Hunt mentioned some more suggestions to how I could change the story slightly such as if the character who got the job at the end could have been my character 'Ricky'. so all in all the feedback was very positive which I was hugely grateful for.
So there you have it, I did it! I took the step up and made something entertaining, it had been a strange old road to making 'Lets Kidnap My Fiancée' but I have enjoyed every moment. I even had a little look back at my previous legacy 'The Adventure of Charlie Squibbs' and my got it was cringe worthy. I can look at this film and feel satisfied enough that its better than anything I've made on this course. well I did get a distinction so that says it all I suppose.