Sonia's Television Blog

Today was a very exciting day, we got the opportunity to speak to Farren Blackburn an amazing British director who has worked on 'Daredevil' and 'Luther'. He taught us so many things we need to take into consideration, he worked so hard to where he is today. He kept trying and even though he got people who turned him down he did not give up, he worked with BBC and made many short films which helped him and his creativity. He really inspired me to never give up, some people may not like my work even most people but as Farren has said there is always someone that will; and that someone will help me turn my work into something even bigger. What i also loved is that Farren always carries mood-boards with him wherever he goes. He said if you have mood-boards it will explain your story a whole lot better, your clients will understand your vision and will love it 10x more. I think Farren works so hard and makes absolute brilliant pieces of work. I absolutely love his work on...

What is Sound Design? Sound helps create atmosphere, it creates a lot of tension. Sound Design sets a mood for the audience, in film and television is essentially describes the process of capturing, layering and mixing of individual sound elements to create one single soundtrack. Just as we shoot and edit the image part of the project, you also shoot and edit the sound part too. Sound design occurs at all stages of a production, but it is essentially a post-production phase. The process is also called Sound Edit. Originally all of the sound editing of a film was complete by a sound editor or a team of sound editors, it was a very complicated process before the 1960s. In 1970s there was a demand for increasingly complex sound-tracks. The first film to credit someone with this new role was Apocalypse Now was Walter Murch.  He was really taking the sound design on a whole different level. The job of the sound designer is to assemble a number of layers or tracks of...

I am so excited to re-direct a short scene from my favourite movie but of course i have to do it in my own way, so these are the changes i will be making; 1. David Fincher uses Edward Norton to narrate Tyler Durdens entire life throughout the movie, even though this creates a lot of drama and tension i decided to cut that part of the movie out. I would like to replace the narration with the characters emotion within the scene and also none diegetic music. I feel like the narration is very David Fincher and i did not want to copy that aspect of the film. 2. I will also be removing the part where Edward Norton comes into the bar at the beginning of my scene and starts to listen to the kitchen workers talking. I feel like that part could be changed into cinematography where we have a closer look of where Edward Norton actually is and what the place looks like so the audience really feels engaged within the scene. This scene i have always wanted to change due to me finding it very u...

Planning My Locations Planning my locations was harder than i thought, the most important scene is filmed in a hotel room. I had searched for a willing hotel to allow me to film inside but there was no luck until someone had helped me who works at Oakwood House Hotel. I then got in contact with the receptionist she assured me that there would be no problem in filming in this hotel as long as we finish by 1PM, which was a perfect time for me anyhow. I was originally going to film in Hilton hotel in dartford but that fell through due to the manager not wanting me to film, it made it harder for me as i had to rush to find another willing hotel. And after Oakwood House confirmed i was beyond happy, the last location that took a little bit longer to find was the bar. My partner works for a restaurant here in Maidstone and i was lucky enough to contact the manager and was able to have the restaurant just to myself and my crew to film the last scene. Since most of my scenes will be f...

The first ever lighting workshop was very interesting we were practicing our 3 point lighting which was very helpful to our own projects, especially during the directions unit where lighting is key to create visuals.  The Key light is used to light all the key features of a subject. The Fill light is used to get rid of any harsh shadows that are created by the key light, usually to soften the look. The Back Light is placed always behind the subject and is never placed directly on the subject to highlight features to separate the subject from the background. Tungsten  - Very hot light, with warm, red colour temperature. Normally used as a key light. Fresnel  - This light can be shaped and focused, to become harder or softer. This light is usually used as a fill light. LED  - These lights are very easy to use and they are very portable which makes them popular. You can move them however you would like.

I am slowely starting to plan out my shoot and this call sheet is really helping me organise my shoot day. I have finally hired my main actors for this project and just need to find 2 more extras which shouldn't be too hard, they did ask me themselves if i would be producing a Call Sheet since it would help them out a lot. This really pushed me to create one as soon as possible so they had a brief idea of what will happen on the day, it is still a little bit early for me to plan the call sheet fully but it is really helping me plan my locations and also gives me a rough idea if i am able to finish this shoot in one day. Finding my perfect actors took a few weeks but i got there in the end, i started the search on casting call pro but did not find the actors that fitted my project well enough. I then started asking around on 'Drama' Facebook pages and found 2 of   This actress will be playing 'Marla Singer' who is played by Helena Carter in 'Fight Club...

David Fincher David Fincher is a 54 year old American Film Director, and also a Film Producer. He is well known for his work on 'Fight Club' (1999) and also know for being instrumental in the creation of the U.S television series of House of Card. David was born in Denver, and moved to California at a young age. When he turned 18 he went to work for John Korty at the Korty Films in Mill Valley. From then on he went to directing TV commercials and music videos after signing with N. Lee Lacy. He then moved on to big productions at an older age. Not a lot of directors have done as much for the art of a title sequence as David Fincher. The Filmmaker's work really helped kickstart the title design of the 1990s. From the doom of Alien 3 and the electrical inner workings of Fight Club, and also the very majestic imposition of Panic Room, the director's title sequences are as distinct from one another as they are distinctly the works of Fincher. This is one of the ...