A2, Post 10: Filming update

Got back from Northampton and unfortunately did not have time to film the water meadow due to sporadic living arrangements, but i did mange to track a duck across a pond, and although this does not sound like much, its a huge step forwards as I have finally located wildlife, which is by the far the greatest challenge of the brief.

I have also received a tip-off of a fox that hangs around the area near me, so I am now planning on setting up a small temporary hide in the woodland. Other than that, the establishing shots are coming in thick and fast, with almost all types of weather in the shots, from sun to fog and clear to torrential rain.

To sum up, despite a few minor set-backs, filming is well and truly on track...

Film 1: The Expenables (WARNING: Contains spoilers)

The Expendables... Where to begin:

As the poster shows, the cast of this film is enough to turn even the hardened action fan to jelly. And as a result, there was a huge risk of it being nothing but 2 hours of guns and explosions. And although I have never seen so many flying bullets in one film, I have to say; it worked.

Written by Stallone himself, the plot allows each character to have his own moment of glory (resulting in a huge array of explosions and fire fights) which produces a hugely over played 'stormtrooper effect' (trained villains are awful shots and are all killed with minimal effort from the good guys (such as imperial stormtroopers)).

---SPOILER BEGINS HERE---

The plot is centered around a small group of hardy bikers led by Barney Ross (Stallone) that are hired guns in their spare time. When a CIA agent James Munroe (Eric Roberts) defects and sets up a multi-billion dollar drug trafficking operation in South America, they are called to deal with it (if the CIA took out one of their own it would make bad press, and if the mercs die no-one cares, thus 'expendables'). Church (Willis) acts a front to the CIA and attempts to hire the expendables, when Ross initially refuses, Church plays his trump card, which is to bring in trench (Schwarzenegger) after a short but hilarious exchange between the The plot becomes deeper and it turns out that Munroe is actually the puppet master behind a South American dictatorship, therefore having complete control over the countries armed forces.



A small dispute amidst the team



After a 'subtle' recon mission to the island, Barney and Lee (Statham) come across a young woman who turns out to be the dictators daughter, Ross attempts to convince her to leave but she refuses to leave her homeland stating that one day it will be free. She hates her fathers oppression of the people and openly defies the regime before being captured and tortured. Barney and Lee then make an explosion exit filled involving planes, guns, fuel tanks and half the military that alerts Munroe to the fact he is a target. Ross vows to return and free the island (more for the sake of the girl).

 Later Ross returns with the rest of the gang and make a quiet entrance which is succeeded by laying explosive charges upon literally every surface which results in the destruction of the entire imperial palace. During the ensuing chaos each cast member gets their own moment of glory in a series of insanely brutal fight scenes. Finally, Ross tracks down Munroe to find he has taken the girl as a hostage; after a short standoff in which Ross is shot in the shoulder, Munroe is shot 3 times in the chest at the same time as being impaled from behind by Lee. The expendables then leave in time for the rest of the place to go up in flames and everyone lives happily ever after.

---SPOLIER ENDS HERE---

It makes pretty intense viewing and may be over done in places, the point is that it was meant to be action packed and in that respect it did not disappoint.

The film received mixed reviews by critics, some complementing it and others slating it's 'lack of imagination'. However, the point that the critics are missing is simply that the whole point of this film was to bring all of 'action kings' together and face them off and the film achieved this flawlessly. Some films are designed for deep meanings (Inception/Avatar) whereas other are purely meant to be an entertaining few hours that can simply be watched for the sake of being watched, The Expendables is one of the latter and in my opinion there are not enough of these films around anymore.

A2, Post 9...Filming, update

OK, filming is now well and truly in progress! I have acquired my Dad's old camera which is substantially better for what i intend to do than my original equipment as it comes with a torch, infra-red night vision and high def.

So i have gone out an re-filmed all of the previously mentioned shots and have gone on to record some additional footage:
> I took advantage of a heavy fog and recorded eerie footage of the school field, featuring silhouetted trees in the distance shrouded in a vale of fog;
> A 'jaws' shot (zooming out while tracking in), on a cobweb, still needs some tweaking but when finished should successfully play with perspective;

I am heading to Northampton this weekend in order to film a water meadow and hopefully manage to get some water fowl.
I will post an update on that on Monday and hopefully also post a new film review (finally)

A2, Post 8, Filming update

I did manage to get a few shots filmed last week but sadly not as many as anticipated due to adverse weather conditions, today they are even worse so I will spend it researching similar products and planning a rough guide for the ancillary texts.

The shots I did manage were the following:
> A long panning shot of the school field, taking in the tree line in the background;
> A panning shot of a pond that works nicely with the overhanging foliage which creates a sense of wilderness (although it was behind the school);
> I also experimented with a rising spiral shot around the trunk of a tree, I was pleased with the effect and hope to re-produce it to a higher standard in the future.

Due to the weather at the time the shots were less than satisfactory through the poor light, heavy rain and strong winds, having checked the forecast it would seem that the situation will not improve in the near future so I will attempt to do whatever I can despite this.

A2, Post 7, Filming

FINALLY, after 2 months of planning and storyboarding (which is still in the pipeline), filming has officially begun! Beginning with a few preliminary attempts at panning shots and the first phases of the time-lapse piece.

In addition, I have narrowed a range of possible soundtracks to a short list that will be posted shortly (tech permitting).

Ok, that was a short and marginally pointless post but I will leave it there in order to go out for some filming