SIT TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
The first thing that I helped to produce, was a series of three television commercials that promoted three different courses offered at SIT - Bachelor of Digital Media, Bachelor of Audio Production and Bachelor of Applied Media Arts. I was resposible for working out the budget and being in charge of the spending of the money, helping to gain permission for filming locations, working out logistics, helping to source things needed for filming and just the general organisation of everything. Adam Browne (another third year Bachelor of Digital Media student) was the Director for these television commercials and he bought me in on this project. I enjoyed the experience of producing these television commercials.
HIRED
Hired is a comedic short film about two hit men that are given an assignment to kill a man who is responsible for stealing a mob boss's prized pet - his cat. Unfortunately, it all goes wrong and they end up shooting the cat as well as the person who stole the cat. After a meeting with a very unhappy mob boss, the pair decide that they will not be bullied by him and decide to turn the tables on the mob boss.
This short film was created by Vincent Bowes-Onions who is a third year Bachelor of Digital Media student but he is majoring in film. He asked me if I could help to produce this film with only a small amount of time to go before he started shooting. I sorted out locations for his film as well as organising the crew to arrive on time and the logistics of the film.
One of the locations was a park called Seaward Bush, which I had to get permission to use from the local Parks and Reserves office. I also had to notify the police (national and local) that we would be filming with fake/replica guns in case somebody from the public thought that they were real guns and called the police. If the police are called with a complaint and nobody is aware that it is actually a film set, then the armed offenders squad are dispatched to the location. If this happens and the police find out that it was only a film, then the police end up very angry with us. We managed to film in this location with no mishaps.
This short film was created by Vincent Bowes-Onions who is a third year Bachelor of Digital Media student but he is majoring in film. He asked me if I could help to produce this film with only a small amount of time to go before he started shooting. I sorted out locations for his film as well as organising the crew to arrive on time and the logistics of the film.
One of the locations was a park called Seaward Bush, which I had to get permission to use from the local Parks and Reserves office. I also had to notify the police (national and local) that we would be filming with fake/replica guns in case somebody from the public thought that they were real guns and called the police. If the police are called with a complaint and nobody is aware that it is actually a film set, then the armed offenders squad are dispatched to the location. If this happens and the police find out that it was only a film, then the police end up very angry with us. We managed to film in this location with no mishaps.
Crew and cast filming at Seaward Bush, Invercargill.
We also filmed at Marco's Cafe on Tay Street in Invercargill, at SIT and at Vincent's house. There were some shots filmed that require visual effects done to them including some shots on the greenscreen that will require the backgrounds composited into the shots.
This shoot had a few hurdles and hiccups along the way, including two actors pulling out on the day and the day before they were required for filming. This caused some headaches but I was able to solve this by finding replacement actors at late notice. It was definitely a hard film shoot but filming was completed and it was definitely a learning curve for me as a Producer.
TIME LOST EMPIRES
Title made for television series - Artist: Bex Stanley.
I had a one day rest before the next film shoot was due to start. Steven Moseley, a Graduate Diploma in Film student, has created an idea for a television series called Time Lost Empires. It is a fantasy, victorian esk, steam punkish style series. Steven decided to make the first episode as his end of year personal project.
Amaranthine is a city protected by a time wall that the guardian Epoch erected to keep his people safe while thousands died, around the rest of the world. A catastrophic event has happened and all the magic that kept the world united harmoniously, has been shattered and has changed the world as it was known. The world is filled with magic and secrets. There are some people in this world that have magical powers or "gifts" as they are more fondly known as. Princess Aranna has a "gift" and has been kidnapped from Amaranthine. Unless she can be saved, Amaranthine may fall to the chaos that has consumed the rest of the world.
This project required me to find and gain permission for filming locations, contacting crew and cast for meetings and rehearsals. I helped Steven with his casting auditions as well as helping to get costumes sorted for cast members. I spent every day on set helping where ever I was required which included preparing food for catering, being a runner and just an all round extra set of hands. We had a location drop out on us at the last minute but I was succesfully able to find another location.
Even though we managed to film most of this project, there are still a few shots left for Steven to film. Unfortunately. he will be pushing it for time, as everybody else is filming now and we are nearing the end of the academic year. I also will be unable to be on set for these last shots as I have to focus solely on my own project.
Amaranthine is a city protected by a time wall that the guardian Epoch erected to keep his people safe while thousands died, around the rest of the world. A catastrophic event has happened and all the magic that kept the world united harmoniously, has been shattered and has changed the world as it was known. The world is filled with magic and secrets. There are some people in this world that have magical powers or "gifts" as they are more fondly known as. Princess Aranna has a "gift" and has been kidnapped from Amaranthine. Unless she can be saved, Amaranthine may fall to the chaos that has consumed the rest of the world.
Concept art of King Leodrick - Artist: Bex Stanley.
This project required me to find and gain permission for filming locations, contacting crew and cast for meetings and rehearsals. I helped Steven with his casting auditions as well as helping to get costumes sorted for cast members. I spent every day on set helping where ever I was required which included preparing food for catering, being a runner and just an all round extra set of hands. We had a location drop out on us at the last minute but I was succesfully able to find another location.
Even though we managed to film most of this project, there are still a few shots left for Steven to film. Unfortunately. he will be pushing it for time, as everybody else is filming now and we are nearing the end of the academic year. I also will be unable to be on set for these last shots as I have to focus solely on my own project.
STILL IS THE NIGHT
Still frame from the short film "Still Is The Night".
"Still Is The Night" is a short film about three young men that live in a town similar to Invercargill. This town is not going forward and is stuck in a time warp as it has been struck down by the economic depression that is currently happening. It is almost a ghost town and the people there never progress and just get stuck there with no hope of getting out. The three young men, decide to rob the local petrol station as they seem to think this will be their ticket to bigger and better things. Unfortunately, the robbery goes terribly wrong when one of the men shoots the petrol attendant.
Adam Joseph Browne is the Director of "Still is The Night". I have worked on three different projects this year with Adam as the Director. Late last semester, Adam and I applied for funding for this film from the New Zealand Film Commission. We applied for the short film funding called the Fresh30 fund which gives the succesful applicants $30,000. It was an ambitious amount to apply for on our first attempt but we tried and unfortunately were unsucesful.
We decided we would make the film in spite of not getting the funding. Adam wrote this film and asked me if I would like to produce it. We have been organising and talking about his film for quite a few months now, so out of all three student projects that I produced, this one was by far the best organised, the easiest and the least stressful project to work on.
Adam and I started scouting locations and asking for permission for filming about two months before his shoot commencement date. The week leading up to the film shoot, both Adam and I were on set helping steven with Time Lost Empires but we managed to do the last few things that needed to be sorted which to be honest was not very much and took approximately an hour all together to get done.
On this shoot, Adam kept me off set, so that I could get some work done on my own personal project. I only spent one day on shoot and in actual fact it was a night shoot that started at 3pm and finished at 11pm. This was the night that we had to film the robbery scene in the petrol station. Tramway road Motors was the petrol station that we used in the robbery scene. It is in a residential area and because we were using fake weapons that looked real, I had to notify the police, so that the armed offenders squad was not sent to our location. Adam asked me to be there for this shoot, as the police had my contact details if they needed to speak to somebody about what we were doing. The police came once (mainly to be nosey) and this was because a resident called and said there was a huge light set up, someone taking photos and young people suspiciously moving road cones around at the petrol station. This shoot went off without a hitch or a bad incident involving the armed offenders squad.
Actor Taylor Barrett inside car - still frame taken from "Still Is The Night".
The next step for "Still Is The Night" after all the post production work is completed on it, is that Adam and I would like to send it to as many film festivals as we can. We will be working on this after our academic year is completed.
I have discovered after producing all of these projects that not one project is the same and each project comes with its own set of problems, twists and turns. A lot of the work a Producer does (aside from budgets, logistics, permissions and sourcing) is problem solving and on your feet problem solving at that. Some people think that I am crazy for loving producing and I don't know why I love it, I just do! I can't wait to get out into the industry and be doing it all the time!
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