2nd Draft of Script - Different Ending

INT. SHOWROOM/BATHROOM - NIGHT. 6

Cut to:

Man holding a shower radio up to the woman who is still sitting in the bath, behind the screen door. The radio is playing static, ghost noise.

MAN:

It’s not quite up to the job but 

I’m hoping the gesture still 

counts?

The Woman ignores him. 

MAN: (CONT’D)

Look please don’t take it 

seriously. It was nothing. 

The woman is silent. The man walks over and sits on the 

toilet next to the bath.

MAN: (CONT’D)

Come on, can we just forget I said 

anything? We’ve had a laugh haven’t 

we? 

The woman remains unresponsive.

MAN: (CONT’D)

(Sighing)

Look, I’m trying. Give me 

something! Come on we’ll laugh 

about this one day. What a story 

to tell the kids, eh?

WOMAN:

(Sighs. To self)

We were doing so well. 

MAN:

(Laughs)

What?

The Woman begins to climb out of the bath.

WOMAN:

Oh, it’s such a pity. I had high 

hopes for this one. 

Man laughs awkwardly.

WOMAN: (CONT’D)

I thought he had it all: the looks, 

the charm... But he was just like 

all the rest. Trying to leave me.

MAN:

The fuck are you talking about?

WOMAN:

But he couldn’t, he couldn’t this 

time. Yet he still managed to ruin 

it. Mummy’s going to be so

disappointed. 

The Woman walks past him and, facing away, she pulls a key 

out of her bra.

WOMAN: (CONT’D)

Never mind, there’s always next 

time.

She crosses the showroom and reaches the main door. The Man 

soon follows. The Woman appears to be staring outside. 

Suddenly, the click of the door opening sets off an alarm, 

and the woman steps outside. The Man is confused, and rushes 

towards the door as the Woman locks it. With the alarm still 

ringing, the man is stunned and watches her walk away. 

Cut to black.

THE END.

Redrafting the script

Today we redrafted the script. We believe that this will be an ongoing process throughout, as we want to make the dialogue as believable as possible.

We began by tackling the issue of the theme.

We felt that we needed to make the point that the woman wants to be in a relationship with the man, and so we have edited her dialogue so that she brings the topics of conversation back to the idea of being a couple continually. 

We also wanted to make the imagination sequences more of a recurring feature, and made the decision to only portray these sequences from the woman's point of view, as they would portray an extension of her personality. We decided that we needed to highlight her 'hopeless romantic' nature a bit more explicitly and that this would be the way to do so.

The imagination sequences now include parodies of:

• Bridget Jones' Diary
• Brief Encounter
• I Love Lucy type 1950's sitcom
• Say Anything/General 1980's break up montage

Equally, we have decided that the male character should be more likable and generally nicer, as we didn't feel that it was very believable that she liked him in the previous draft of the script, as he tended to insult her a little too often. We have still depicted him as being a bit cool with her in the early pages of the script -by trying to leave the building/search for his phone- but gradually we portrayed him warming to her. 

For example, during Scene 3, which is set in the kitchen, the woman begins to talk about her parents. She describes how they have been married for over 25 years and wistfully states how sweet it is. She jokingly says "Wonder what you'll do for our 25th?" and instead of appearing mortified, as the man may well have done in the previous script, he playfully pretends to hang himself with a tea towel. The woman laughs, rolls her eyes and continues with "They've had such a happy marriage. You can only dream of it can't you?" and he retorts with "Oh yes. Have done ever since I was a little girl." This asserts his character as more playful and likable, so that the audience are more likely to be rooting for him throughout.

Another big factor we changed was the argument. We felt that the build up to the argument in the previous script was much too fast and that the argument itself was too deep and serious for two people who'd only just met. We have instead made it so that, in an off-the-cuff mark, in a back and forth dialogue of flirtation, the male alludes to the fact that sleeping with the woman was, in fact, a dare. We felt that this would be a better trigger for conflict, as instead of trying to fabricate the conflict from within the time of being in the showroom, it could be something which actually predated their time in the showroom altogether. 

We were careful not to write the male as being spiteful about saying it, and rather tried to write it as though it'd just slipped out of his mouth without him considering it. Naturally, we decided that the woman would not take this piece of information very well and would storm away from the male. Although this does seem like a slightly cliche idea that is often utilised in romantic comedies, we are making a point of playing on stereotypes and dominant narratives throughout the film, and so we feel that this wouldn't necessarily be a problem, or a bad idea.

Securing the location

Today Abi, Dan and Myself went to "Not Just Kitchen Ideas" in Frimley, Surrey.  We had a meeting with the owner of the showroom, Wendy, which went extremely well. She was very willing to help us out, and offered to let us use the showroom overnight for 3 nights at the beginning of April. She said that she can leave the keys with us and will allow us to lock up after ourselves. She also very kindly agreed to let us use the back of the store as a storage area for our equipment, should we need to leave it there for the next days filming.

Abi had been in contact with Wendy since before Christmas, via email, and we viewed the showroom on the website via a virtual tour. We all decided that it looked suitable for filming but when we saw it in real life we were blown away. It is huge in size and very spacious meaning that maneuvering equipment around should be easy. Also there are numerous spaces and settings to choose from for each scene in our script. For example, one kitchen setting is perfect for our 1950's scene - it even has an exposed beam, adding to the authenticity of the scene. 

We decided that we would arrive at the showroom just before closing and Dan, Abi and team begin setting up equipment, whilst I rehearse with the actors. Wendy merely wants us to mention the company (Not Just Kitchen Ideas) in the credits and perhaps advertise the logo on our films posters, which we are very willing to do.

Different settings in the showroom (Kitchens and Bathrooms) also had false windows built into the background, framing fake landscape scenery, which will add to the comedic element of the film i.e. in the undercutting of audiences expectations (real vs fake) 

Sound

visual illusions through sound effects - value added
regular vs irregular noise
images help to understand sound
sound helps people to understand and to realise images
ANALYSE PERSONA FOOTAGE
Sound code, sound signifiers
Sound has directionality - fowards and backwards. Can reverse image without realising in some cases.
ADR - Additional dialogue recording
point of audition - sound from one persons perspective
timbre dissonance sibilance

Week 2 - Script analysis and working with actors

Today's session was extremely helpful for me as it clearly outlined what I have to do when working with actors (as the director) We started off by looking at Judith Westin's writings on "Result Direction" She makes the following points:

• Don't judge the character: If we are speaking to the actors about how the character is then that distances us from the character. The actor will already have preset ideas about how the character has to be and will act instead of react. They won't be able to feel emotion as the character because they will feel separate from it.
• Don't ask actors "Can you do this?" or "Can you play the character like this?" or "Can you tone it down? or "Can you bring the energy up?": It puts unnecessary pressure and stress on the actors as they are continually worried about how they are being perceived and are therefore highly conscious of their own actions, thus delivering a stilted non-naturalistic depiction of the character.
• Don't tell actors how the character feels or ask them to give you an emotion on cue: Again, this puts pressure on the actor and creates a rift between actor and character, when you want them to be one, essentially.
• Don't tell characters how to read lines, or tell them which word to put emphasis on: For the reasons stated above!
• Highlight the through line of the story, by providing intention and objectives: When actors are more focused on their motivations within the scene, rather than how to act, they are more likely to react and depict the character in a realistic way. They fuse with the character and feel emotions as the character does.
• Use transitive action verbs in order to do this: To portray how the character feels something as opposed to how we superficially see it being felt. Adjectives describe what is happening, whereas action verbs portray what somebody/something does to somebody/something else. There is an active element of DOING, as opposed to consciously thinking and then doing - which is the type of acting which adjective description spawns. There can be many action verbs for each line of dialogue as words and meanings are ambiguous and thus the line could be read and understood by the actor in different ways. THE MORE PHYSICAL THE VERB IS THE BETTER. USE VERBS INSTEAD OF: emotions, attitudes, judgments, perceptions of the character, criticisms of acting etc.
• Use facts, and don't embellish with explanation: When stating a fact it is objective, but when explaining it, it becomes subjective as it is your opinion and point of view. The facts of the story line can reveal much more about the character than explanations. i.e. explanation: she is very attached to her mother vs. fact: She wrote a letter to her mother every day. You can create imaginative back story facts also, to give the actor an idea of what the character does and to try to understand their motives and possible reasoning. You can also use the WHAT IF technique to add to the way an actor plays a character. I.e. in a scene where a teacher scolds a child, you may ask "What if he was subject to violent punishments as a child?" USE FACTS INSTEAD OF: Psychoanalysing character,  embellishing explanations, stating what character is like, judging character, attitudes. With attitudes, you should question the point or objective of a piece of dialogue, instead of merely accepting it as being said in one set way. i.e. the line "I already told you that" is likely to be read exasperatedly, but you shouldn't jump to that conclusion. Rather you should establish that there was a conversation(s) preceding this dialogue and it is up to you to question what was previously said, under what conditions, did character B who is asking character A about the information again, not believe character A? or not listen? or was she/he distracted? Facts and questions provide CIRCUMSTANCES that generate behaviour and imply a point of view.
• Create images by providing sensory (factual) detail: Sensory memories are powerful evokers of emotion and subtext. Actors drawing upon their own memories and emotions will translate well into the film, as they will experience very similar emotions to the character. USE IMAGES INSTEAD OF: Emotions, explanations. USE IMAGES AS: Imaginative adjustments. For example, a way to adjust the acting of someone you want to be more cheerful may be by telling the actor to react to everything the other says as if it's good news. Or use the AS IF technique. For example, you might ask the actors during a love scene to play the scene as if it were a business deal. You might make these AS IF instructions separately, to only one person in the scene so that the other reacts in an interesting realistic way. 
• Outline central Events: The events of the script are most important as they tell its story. They most unfold emotionally and filmically so that they are at once surprising and inevitable. They also tell the audience what the movie is about. The central theme needs to be truly understood by the director; every decision that is made needs to work towards underlining the central theme. EVENTs refer more to emotional events rather than incidences. You don't want to indicate the event, you want to make it happen and let the audience in on it.
• Provide actors with physical tasks: Giving an actor something to do, rather than telling them something to be, helps to allow the actor to concentrate what they are doing and thus essentially be in the moment. Their concentration on the activity could also represent their emotional problem - letting the lines/dialogue come out of the physical task. Concentrating on the lines makes a performance seem stiff, whereas concentration on an imaginative task such as a physical task, verb, fact or image, takes the actor away from the lines and into a created reality.

All of the above points work best as a QUESTION as it puts the onus on them to explore and develop the character. E.g. "Do you think she wants to pick a fight?", "What if you had kissed in the past?", "Do you have any impulse to run away when she says that?"

Cape Fear:

In this youtube video, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Juliette Lewis and others discuss the scene in which Scorsese directs De Niro to put his thumb in Lewis' mouth in the scene- without her knowing. This scene is about a rather sinister older man (De Niro) who has designs for a younger girl (Lewis), and this singular act speaks volumes in portraying that sinister nature. They discuss how Lewis' reaction is highly genuine in the scene because she is shocked and is reacting in reality as well as in character. Scorsese said, preceding the filming of this scene, he rehearsed the scene with the two actors, but encouraged them to improvise away from the script, and then he altered the script with regards to how they acted. I tried to do this within our film, but unfortunately the actors seemed to merely reword the script rather than to provide something more naturalistic. In this short documentary clip, a woman talks about Scorsese's technique for recording improvisation, by placing to cameras - one on each persons face, so that if one is struggling to act realistically, a cut away can be used in the editing process, to the others reaction. I think this is a really good idea to use in our film, and is something which we will have to look into in the future. 

I will also really try to use the styles of directing mentioned above, and will try to avoid the less constructive methods. I especially like the idea of adjusting scenes in the way that was done in Cape Fear, to incite shock and reaction. 

Following on from the analysis of Westin's text we carried out an exercise in which we took a section of the script "Training Day" and went through each piece of dialogue, adding action verbs to them. We soon realised, when we regrouped, that we all had a mix of similar, yet different ways that each piece of dialogue could be acted/said/read. We then watched the actual clip of the scene that we had analysed and noticed that it was highly different to the ways in which we had collectively imagined it to be. In the scene two police officers are in a car together. One is new to the force, and the other is his superior. Within the scene, the superior cop pressurizes the other into smoking the drugs that they just took off of some teenagers. We soon find out that the superior police officer is a "bent cop". In this scene we portrayed the superior character as very sinister throughout, and the other as highly defensive, but in the film clip the superior officer began as being quite laid-back and humorous, and the other character seemed to feel at ease with him, until the scene progressed to the climactic part in which the superior pulls a gun on the other. This created a higher sense of juxtaposition, shock and tension in the scene and was arguably a much better way of depicting it. What was also highlighted more so, was the trainee cop "tripping out", as this is only mildly referenced in the script. This gave us a real insight into how scripts can be developed into film in a number of different ways.

Week 1 - Spring Term

In our first week back we went through our individual trailers and discussed the process of making them, in terms of what went well/what could have gone better, etc. Our tutor suggested that perhaps we work on the sound of the piece as it wasn't quite filmic enough. We agreed and also discussed the fact that the space of the showroom was slightly small and felt a bit samey when the shots continually portrayed the same locations. We explained that we are in the process of securing a larger showroom and in this lesson Abi emailed the woman, who owns the show room, once more in order to organise a date for us to meet and discuss. In this lesson we also discussed the acting and agreed that it'd be better to get the actors to become more familiar with their characters and to react rather than act. This will be my responsibility. 

We also discussed the possibility of fund raising. Our group decided that we would offer to make short advertisement videos for the showrooms that we intend to use. So far we have allocated £150 from this. We also are looking into the idea of a club night and are in talks with a club as it stands. 

I also went round to Dan and Abi's this week, to discuss our film and the script in particular. We have begun redrafting our script, to make the dialogue more succinct and cohesive. We want to cut out a lot of the dialogue that doesn't necessarily progress the story line, in order for us to factor more imagination sequences into the script and make them more prominent and thematic. We also felt that the characters personalities weren't coming out enough in the script and so we have made their objectives and aims clearer, scene by scene. 

Editing the trailer and the finished product

Dan, Abi and myself have edited for the last two days. It was a slow process to begin with as we all had different idea's of what to do with the footage. Dan and Abi completed the Edit Sheets beforehand together, and had matched up the sound from the Marantz with the camera shots.

We agreed that we wanted the trailer to be edited at a fast pace and didn't want to give away too much of the story line - but at the same time we wanted to make sure that the audience had some idea of what the film will be about. We went off track slightly as we began focusing on trying to convey the whole narrative within the trailer. 

Problems we faced in filming/editing processes.

Unrealistic Acting
It quite frustrating to see that the actors hadn't delivered the lines quite as believably as I would have liked, which only served to make the editing process harder as we attempted to cut out the dialogue that seemed slightly stilted. I take full responsibility for this; being the Director. It was unfortunately something that couldn't have been helped given that the actress only responded to tell us that she could be part of the film two days before filming. Unfortunately every hour that I was free to rehearse, she was busy and so Dan and Abi had to briefly rehearse with the actor and actress the day before, whereas if I'd had that time I could maybe have gotten to know them better, described the characters to them in more detail, so that they could fully understand them, and could have seen them rehearsing, and given them some tips during that rehearsal, rather than on-set when there was more pressure to film immediately and stick to a schedule. 

Continuity Errors
Another problem that we came across in the editing process was that of syncing shots together. We'd filmed scenes from a number of different angles with one camera. This meant in each scene there was something slightly different, continuity wise. For example, in one shot the actress would be wearing a cowboy hat, and in the next shot she wasn't. We did try to keep on top of this during filming but things got slightly confused. This is something we'll concentrate on more in future filming. Another thing we may like to do is hire another camera and find a second camera person, as then scene's would not have to be repeated merely for the benefit of a camera position. Another problem with continuity was that some shots were script based and some were improvised, but towards the end the actors often merged improvisation into the supposedly scripted shots. This wasn't a major deal, but sometimes it made editing dialogue together slightly harder.

Silly Mistakes
On the day of filming silly mistakes were made such as a clapperboard being left on set, and thus being in view of the camera, or a boom mic getting into the shot. This didn't happen too frequently but it sometimes made an otherwise good shot, unusable. This is something which we really need to avoid doing when shooting for the final film.


Sound
Other inconsistencies were found in the sound. Some audio, which had been recorded in the same room, sounded largely different. This really affected good pieces of dialogue, so next time we will definitely have to get a boom mic so that it stays in the same position and the sound quality remains the same. We did try to get a boom mic but it wasn't possible on the day. Another reason for the sound changing was the fact that the room wasn't the largest to film in, and so when Dan had to move the camera around to reposition the shot, Abi also had to move out of the way with the boom mic. 


On our first day of editing we didn't really make a lot of progress, and began the same way the next day, but then Dan gradually began to take over as editor when myself and Abi were busy sourcing royalty free, copyright free music. After hours of searching, I found a song that had an upbeat, slightly indie-ish tone to it, that, when played over the top of the edited footage, worked really well. When we'd secured the music, editing became a lot easier for Dan as he could edit to the beat. It was perhaps better to have one sole editor, as when we kept giving our opinion, it was very hard to get something done, whereas when Dan showed us a segment of editing he'd created alone, we'd our give feedback, and he would make slight changes to accommodate that feedback, if needed.

We overcame some of the issues, such as unrealistic sounding dialogue, by fading the music in at certain points, and including fast paced, humorous montage sequences which underlined to romantic and comedic elements of the film. 

Editing Preferences
As previously mentioned we wanted to make the editing fast paced and so we decided to utilise the following editing techniques:

• Jump cuts
• Quick fades,
• Match-on-action edits 
• Increasing speed of footage

Here are some stills from the trailer:

 

I have watched the trailer and have noted some elements which work really well, and ones that could be improved:

Things that work well:

• The very beginning where the whole film is established is filmed and edited very well. The range of shots really add depth to the space and introduce the trailer as professional. It looks highly realistic and believable; the acting is also very subtle and humorous. The lighting also looks showroom-esque and fairly dull as we wanted it to be.
• The next sequence jump-cut edits, and the tracking shot of the man walking out into the showroom are really effective and the actors expression is brilliant in conveying the realisation of being stuck in the showroom.
• The fades into the montage are brilliant at establishing that the mood is going to shift slightly and get more playful. I particularly like the use of fades in the bath montage sequence. They highlight the idea of time passing also.
• During the argument the lyrics of the music sync so well with the context, as the singer sings "They'll be no fighting here tonight, they'll be no fighting here tonight." Also during a playful montage sequence the lyrics are "In my own little world, in my own little world." They are very apt, and the tone of the music is just right because it changes tempo and speed along with the dynamic of our trailer.
• The slider shots work really well, particularly in the sequence when the actress is sitting in the bath, sulking.
• The JIB shot is brilliant - especially when it speeds up, as it builds up with the pace of the music.
• I really like the font of the title at the end as it is simple, and like the bold emphasis on the word "long" in "The Long Night Stand"

Things that could be improved:

• The editing to the music and dialogue when the man enters the showroom is slightly jolted and could be improved. 
• The way that the actress delivers the line "Oh God really." sounds quite fake and insincere. I really did not want this line in but unfortunately we couldn't manage to cut it, given that she says it so soon after the man speaks
• The shift in focus/depth of field when the man has chained the woman to the radiator gets quite confusing to look at as it changes so often. Perhaps less re-focusing would have been better.
• There are some continuity errors during the argument scene between the man and the woman, when she is in the bath. For example, her arms are in different places from shot to shot. 

Overall I think we have done well and that the finished product is entertaining and conveys the idea of the film without giving away too much, however, the editing process has made us realise that we do need to take note on the aspects of filming that we got wrong for future filming and editing purposes.