Production: Tutorial Notes

Now we are in the edit phase, we have had regular tutorials with Simon and Andrea who have given us feedback on how to improve Young & Famous.  

As the Producer I wrote all the notes down for the editor and helped create a plan to resolve any issues there may be. 

Our first was on the 21st March:

Simon Feedback Tutorial – 21/03/18

• Need to see Marie on scene 1 after the Boss says 'Marie'
• Move to Marie quicker after 'sweets are natural'
• Need to see Dean when Annie says 'are you listening to me?' Scene 3
• Tighter shot of Annie & Dean reading newspaper so it cuts nicer
• Cut straight to Young & Famous. Next bit is too slow
• Cut just before Annie arrives in frame with Bob
• Bring Dean in quicker for 'grow up'
• See more of Bob
• Possibly see what Annie is doing on her iPad
• Need to see Dean's cu when we see Betty's
• See Dean strangle on the CU
• See Dean's cu earlier in hallway with Betty
• Possibly use his reverse when seeing Betty out
• Make more out of the gross cookies
• Annie cu reverse on 'he's away on business'
• See annie's face on 'now or never'
• Need to get the view from the binoculars and the camera in the door
• Back to Marie after last dish comment
• Remove scene 14
• Get to JH in the window quicker
• Get rid of 'come to the door quick' 
• Possibly reshoot scene 17
• Reverse of Annie & Dean when talking to Marie
• On the whole really good stuff
• Reshoot scene 17 & 11

As we needed to reshoot a couple of scenes due to there not being enough of the actor's faces, I started to work on how I would co-ordinate this.  There were many things that needed to be done in order to make the reshoot successful. I needed to work out when our crew might be free as well as our cast.  I needed to work out whether there was enough in the budget to cover all of the travel expenses as well as buying some of the props again because they were perishable, such as food items. I also needed to collaborate with Nisserin as to when we could book out equipment again to film as the other years had projects that needed to be filmed as well.  

Our second tutorial went like this:

Simon Tutorial – 10/04/18

Music beds for cookies scenes

Conference:

• ·      Bring music up more
• ·      Annie dips into Marie's shadow on 'sweets' change shot
• ·      Music across conference into Marie's house

Marie's:

• ·      Feels too much like a drama 
• ·      Flood music into this scene from conference
• ·      Annie's weakest performance
• ·      Jean Paul doesn't work. Come out before 'he wouldn't do such a thing'
• ·      Scene drags a bit
• ·      Cut from newspaper into "We need to become Young & Famous" rather than "You irritate me"
• ·      Get rid of the black before titles

Scene 7 & 8:

• ·      Really good, much tighter works really well.
• ·      Really good editing 

             

Scene 9 & 10:

• ·      Inserts of iPad needed
• ·      Much better, tighter
• ·      Cut around Betty well
• ·      Needs a lot of grading

              

Scene 11:

• ·      It works but recommends needing a reshoot for the backs
• ·      Could get it to 'feel' better with some music beds(Radio?)
• ·      Humour gets a little lost

Scene 12 & 13:

• ·      Seems to be tighter

               

Scene 15 & 16:

• ·      Can't really hear the oven timer

Overall:

• ·      Good,
• ·      Try to speed up those little scenes,
• ·      Try putting temp music in to see if it works,
• ·      Reshoot the ending,
• ·      Viewpoints from iPad needed to make it much better,
• ·      Feels quite flat in places,
• ·      Sit Coms do rely on laughter tracks or music beds to keep the humour. 
• ·      Sound has given it a huge lift.
• ·      Atmosphere tracks in particular for Briar Lodge to give it less of a drama feel. 

By this time, I had confirmed with the actors a date that they are free which was set at April 30th.  Unfortunately our second year crew was unavailable to help us on this date due to other commitments with their own coursework.  As we had planned what we would do to reshoot by running a test, we knew we would be able to manage.  We took the shots of what would stay in the film from what we had previously filmed and designed new ones around this. 

Before we were to re-shoot, we had another tutorial, this time with Andrea and then Simon afterwards: 

Andrea: 17/04/18

• scene 1 needs to have some conversational element and feels a bit flat. could come into it a bit quicker - maybe see it at the cork section?
• Bit too long before their realisation
• need a pause between the iPad going off - needs to be a surprise
• lift betty's volume
• add in more last dish

Simon:

• music into the kitchen after bob
• tighter on Annie scene 15 & dean "cookies" 
• cut little gap between wide and "Jordan hammy here" to tighten
• good sound needed of vom
• take off a few frames between Marie & son of a biscuit
• get the swoosh of the cork sound better
• little pause to remove between embarrass me and annie shot
• want music to dominate scene 3 (marie's house) rather than natural
• binocular shot
• music has lifted it and given it identity

We really liked Andrea's idea of putting more of the last dish into the pilot episode.  We realised that it wasn't necessarily very clear as to what it was actually about.  We decided that when we have our Jordan Hamsey on set for the reshoot we would use the green screen and get him to do a little cameo to put onto the TV screen when Annie is doing her yoga to instantly introduce him to the show.  We also decided that when Dean is baking in scene 11, we would have a Last Dish Recipe book on the counter top somewhere where it could be scene.  By doing this, it once again makes it more obvious as to what kind of show it is. To see more on how the reshoot went, please look at the 'Production: Reshoot' Blog.

Our final tutorial with Simon before showing everyone in a test screening went like this: 

Simon 4^th May

• Hold on Jordan Hamsey’s wide too long, get to his Close Up quicker and then go on wide again maybe?
• iPad insert for “do you see all those likes?”
• Turn music down for the credits
• Freeze the Betty picture?
• Episode One Son of a biscuit
• Marie’s reshoot doesn’t look right, her expression and the weather hasn’t helped

There were fortunately not many improvements needed to be made to the film after this tutorial.  As the Producer I arranged a time with the rest of my team for when we could get an insert for the iPad and then it was down to the screening! 

To conclude, these tutorial meetings have been really helpful in improving Young & Famous because we were able to have some fresh eyes on what we'd created and get different feedback that only enhanced our project.  Without the reshoot and the inserts and the music being added, Young & Famous just wouldn't have been as good as it is now.