Oscar's Date Crewing

In the middle of the summer holidays a friend of mine said he needed an extra hand crewing on his short film about a boy's first date. I of course jumped at the chance as this would be my first real experience of a professional film set.

Day 1

For a 7am start I was pretty chipper and fortunately I wasn't thrown in at the deep end. My official position was grip assistant which in this instance basically involved making sure that the camera was handled correctly; bashing cables and finding a suitable place for the camera to rest when not in use. However most of the time, thanks to the grip not often needing me, I was simply a general runner and in one instance an extra in one of the shots. This meant I had lots of time to ask people things. I learnt bits and bobs about lenses, lighting, sound recording and most importantly I got a general feel for the feel and logistics of a film set.

Day 2

Today I moved onto being a clapper loader as a result of the old clapper moving in to fill the shoes of the D.I.T (no small task). This job of course involved a lot less waiting/wandering around for the specific reason that I had to be on the ball for every take. After a quick run down of how it all worked I found myself whirring away and got into a rather nice rhythm.

I had a little less to ask people today as most of my questions were answered the day before when I had far less to do but I did end up experiencing the camera department in greater depth. This was because I was on clapper board duty and so I needed to pay close attention to the camera operator. I also of course learnt the ins and outs of the clapper board; scenes, slates, end-boards and all that. Other than that most of my learning was all just experiential as opposed to just learning bits of info, which I of course biltzd on the first day.

Mapping Mentor's Minds

In order to give myself a slightly clearer idea of what traits I want my character to have I've drawn a little mind map of what mentors mean to me, whilst baring in mind my thoughts on the people I've just discussed.

Final Sequence

Here we go, my final sequence is finally done. Quite pleased with the final result I think.

Beautifully Simple

We've just got our second brief for our film and visual effects module and this time we're making a music videos. We have to work on at least two videos as any role that takes our fancy. I'm going to direct and produce one video and then try and edit one or two.

I feel that the best videos are usually the simplest ones, ones that can be summed up in one sentence and this above video is a prime example. I mean all this video involves are bug! I wouldn't be surprised if this hadn't all been shot and edited within a day. Anyway, whilst I'm not sure what my video is going to look like, I certainly know that it is going to be based around one concise and stylish gimmick.

My Mentors

These are characters who are inspirational to me and thus I have pictures of them on my bedroom wall...

Starting from the top left going clockwise...

Jan and Rainy from the film Into the Wild are a hippy couple that the main character runs into on two separate occasions. They don't appear prominently as mentors during the film and it is definitely arguable that they are even mentors at all! For me they symbolize an enlightened way of living. They don't concern themselves with anything that isn't entirely necessary or beautiful all they need is each other, their van, their dog a little money from selling bric a brac for petrol and other supplies and most importantly the sky/trees/open road in general. They are some of the happiest people I have ever come across. Into the wild was based on a true story I have you know and whilst I'm certainly not sure that the real versions of these characters were akin to their film portrayals, I know for a fact that their is a thriving community of these sorts of people throughout California and the rest of the world. I.e there are lots of real life Jan and Raineys.

I first came across Norman Cook when I was about ten when I bought his album "you've come a long long way baby". To this day he still is one of my favourite artists and on top of all that he has a chactacter I can't help but look up to. As well as being a throughly successful yet modest d.j, he has a unique form lovable, child irrevence that is rarely found within anyone who commands any form of respect.

Finally we come to my favourite character of the lot. I certainly by no means watch the O.C any more but Sandy Cohen the philanthropic, surfer lawer originally from the streets of the bronx still holds a special place in my heart-and on my wall. Sandy Cohen is just ethical and not a poncy preachy way either. He always knows what to do and is always right yet perfectly accepting that he could be wrong. Everybody loves him for it whilst he stopps it from going to his head and carries on stopping everyone around him from loosing theirs. He's also a real man on a level deeper than the overly confident, macho apha male type. No surprise that his wife's smoking hot then!

Edgy Mentors

These guys are still mentors in the traditional sense, yet they have a certain edge to them. They are slightly imperfect if you will, as is usually the case with all things edgy.

The character on the top right is the mentor of the protagonist Mathematician in the film Pi. At the start of the film we learn that he was once searching for patterns in the number Pi, however the task became so great he went mad and suffered a stroke. Thankfully he since gave up the search and retired to a life of quiet study. Later on in the film similar misfortunes come his way. In this way we are presented with a highly talented character who is still nevertheless human.

D.J Professor K (bottom right) in the game Jet Set Radio is a different case. He is merely an experienced D.J and general ghetto dog who's seen a lot of things come and go. Whilst the rest of the game's main characters are running around enjoying their youth on roller skates, he is preaching a ghetto gospel in the form of fresh phat beats and pearls of hood related wisdom on his pirate radio station like a really gangster Stephen Fry.

Next we have Morpheus who needs no introduction unless you've been living an a cupboard-if he does need an introduction then I suggest you go find a cupboard, climb in and stay there. Although at the beginning of the Matrix trilogy he seems to be the all knowing man with all the answers he soon becomes a bit of a Maverick and seemingly less and less important and more of a vehicle for ushering in talent rather than actually coaching it. Still, despite his abilities eventually paling in comparison to numerous other characters he still retains a certain level of knowing and value that is of more significance than the overly obvious attributes of his co-evils.

Woody (top left) is a character in This is England who is the leader of a bunch of benign northern skinheads. At the start of the film he meets the film's protagonist-a twelve year old boy-who he cheers up through showing him a few somewhat mischievous yet perfectly innocent ways of coping with growing up in the unlucky half of Thatcher's Britain. Woody is a person who possess similar qualities to traditional mentors yet has aspects about him that make him more human than any of them and thus the viewer can identify with him more easily.

Traditional Mentors

Just been given our game art brief to design a non player, 3D, humanoid, game character archetype using Maya. I thought I would pick a mentor type character so to start off, I'm looking at a few examples, some more obvious than others.

Traditional Mentors

When I hear the word mentor the image of a wise old man is the first image that comes into my head. Usually this man has a beard and usually wise old men with beards are also wizards or Jedi. All these four characters I feel have an immortal quality to them, juxtaposed with their seeming weekness. Yes they may appear to me withered old men but all of the above kick some serious arse and wild more power than any pretty boy protagonist. They also have a huge level of humility within them which is especially prominent considering they possess skills and traits that any normal person would show off and brag about. This I feel goes hand in hand with their underlying calm confidence: not only are they highly skilled and wise but they are so calmly aware of it they only exercise their talents when needed.