Little Clown

Clowns, Juggling, face paints & Kids...

We found out that instead of shooting two or three short films for our end of year assessment we would be filming just one short film as an entire class. I think this is a good decision because on our last shoots we had two great scripts but perhaps not enough crew members, resulting in people having to mix roles (and this is never a good plan!)

'Little Clown' was commissioned to be made as our end of year film, hopefully to see how far we've progressed over the past year.
We split into departments and started the uphill struggle that is 'Pre-production'...
I had started a rough moodboard for Little Clown when I was writing the script, Richard showed us one of his and explained that it can be useful when writing to keep a visual reference. Like most of Richard's advise I found it very useful as I'm much more comfortable with pictures than words.
The Little Clown script was 'a hell of a job' for the production team, Gavin, Galina & Murdo had to deal with juggling actors, face paint, fantasy sequences, a kid for the main role (who could also juggle) the list goes on...and on!
We had auditions to find three actors for the roles of Father Clown, Sylvia & Beau. I loved the auditioning process.
On Thursday evening we had the auditions for Beau, we had scouted a number of kids for weekend classes at the Citz, Dramaworks & various casting agencies. We had five kids to audition. We did the auditions in a slightly unusual way, we kept all the kids together and played many games and activities that allowed us to see their ability to act, show facial expression and juggling. I thought this was a very good way of auditioning the kids for this particular script because I felt that within 5mins the kids forgot they were in an audition and this allowed me to observe their personality and nature. Adam had given me good advice for working with child actors and how to draw from their real character and bring that onto screen rather than trying to get them be something else entirely.The Little Clown script has very little dialogue and I needed to find actors who were great performers and could convey a lot of feeling with expressions rather than only words. I was looking in particular for their personality and nature. This often made the final decision quite tricky as each choice would give us an entirely different short film. I was extremely happy with my three main actors.
I was extremely lucky to have the help of Phil at the auditions, well when I say help, Phil sang songs at the piano for the children waiting to begin! Any particular skill that I wanted to see in the kids I would mention to Phil and within seconds he'd have devised some games that did exactly that, it was quite amazing! I could tell that all the kids really enjoyed themselves because he managed to keep up the same enthusiasm and energy for the whole session. Half way through we had a break for juice and biscuits, all the kids were trying to tell us stories from Britain's Got Talent! And did we know that Susan Boyle was going to sing infront of Barack Obama?!
I found the Beau auditions to be the hardest part of pre-production so far, unlike Father Clown and Sylvia were I was choosing between two people, with Beau I had loved all five of the kids and there wasn't one that couldn't have done the part. It was equally heart braking that the kid who I'd always wanted to play Beau was the most hyperactive child in the world and wouldn't have been able to sit still for more than 5 seconds. This choice not to cast him was actually quite dificult for me, if I had been making Little Clown with my own budget I would definitely have risked this, however when I thought about everything at stake I decided to make a sensible descision, which trust me I never do!-So I will always remember that time at the RSAMD when I, Charlotte Carden made an entirely sensible decision. (I hope it doesn't happen again for a while)

We could not have asked for more dedicated producers, I sometimes wondered wether Galina, Gavin & Murdo ever slept! Everything I expressed was important to me for Little Clown was sourced and found within hours. And may I add not in a wreck-less way, which is exactly what you need as a director. If I had got everything I'd asked for then further down the line we would have had no budget for something I REALLY wanted, I found they were very good at saying no when it was necessary. The budget was extremely well managed and I think their producing talents really show for how far they managed to stretch the £1000. There was a perfect working relationship, and they couldn't have done more, same goes for Paul Forest who, as usual did far more than his job entailed!-now that's commitment.I have really enjoyed working closely with John as my DOP. He has a really nice eye for composition in the frame. We had a very similar ideas in terms of lighting and colour temperature. I really like hand held camera, I could tell by many of the camera crew's faces that they thought I was crazy! However they did what I wanted which I was grateful for. I think nowadays all these fancy camera maneuvers have become popular with the increase of lazy filmmakers who don't have anything exciting enough happening inside the frame?

I had a really beneficial chat with Andy about directing, I was really grateful for this talk which made me realised that all my concerns about my ability to direct were fairly normal. His advise was extremely helpful on set, I tried out many of Andy's suggestions with the actors and it really worked, so thanks Andy Dougan!
Many of the crew stayed at Benoit's flat for the week. This was a very interesting experience which I think we should do on every shoot for now on. Working and living in such close proximity's was very useful to me for Little Clown, it ment that my mind was never off set. It made us work closer as a crew as we had to manage shot lists peacefully in the same way we had to prioritise shower times in the mornings without falling out. Our teamwork carried right through to cooking at dinner times, with Benoit cooking (this was the best part of the shoot, me & Galina never wanted to leave!) and the rest of us chopping vegetables, drying plates etc. Somehow Benoit still managed to be the latest even though it was his flat!?

These are the poster designs by Michael Maxwell for around the mirror. I think they're lovely and were great on camera.

Every morning we would have a quick meeting, so that everyone knew what to expect from the day. Usually Aileen, our fabulous make-up artsit would arrive first, followed by Bob, Rab and Nikki. There was a really comfortable atmosphere on set, which many of the actors commented on. gavin was always chatting to the cast and making tea's & coffees. This was great because it ment that when we were done with a scene I could take the actors through to Gav, who would make then tea and talk to them, leaving me and galina to organise the next scene. Then all I had to do was pop back through, get the actors from Gav and put them on set maintaining the illusion of peace & tranquility on set!

I loved the tricky job that came with directing, i was quite freaked out until I realised it was just as much rewarding as it was stressful. I thought it was amazing how quickly you pick up the best ways to explain/show/improvise with the actors to get the performance you want from them. I realised quickly that the smallest amount of directing made for a better take, like Andy had explained to me before the shoot, you get a better performance by giving the actor a senario like"walk over like your late for the train" rather than "walk from here to here quickly, stop here for about five seconds..."which all looks very mechanical on camera.-To capture real moments in an unreal setup, to create the illusion that the situation is real? Hmmm I know what I mean!
It was a really enjoyable experience to work with a child actor. They give you so much more because they are so eager to be there and they are not at the stage where they are self consious yet. Robert knew his character very well, gave so much time and effort into his juggling practise at home and was not afraid to suggest actions for his character to do.
Im glad that we had the storyboards, they always help everyone to know quickly what scene we were doing next on set. I could show them to little Robert while I explained his next scene, and like most kids he seemed to respond better to pictures when I tried to explain something.It was nice to see Andy on set for the first day, he didn't interfere but rather observed from afar. We had been expecting Ray or Abigail I think, but neither could make it. This didn't bother me at all as I think visitors get in the way. When we really could have used Ray's help was in pre-production for lighting. We had wanted this TV flicker effect that we just weren't getting. He said he's come out to the location with us, but didn't, leaving us to try every possibility. We eventually gave up on any hope of having help and asked the third years who suggested something with cardboard, we tried it but again it didn't look right. We eventually came up with a mixture of lighting and the actual flicker from the TV which we were happy with.I was really impressed with the on set etiquette that we managed to maintain throughout the shoot, I think we only had one slip-up on the swearing front, no-one lost their temper and we Rab's email said we all were very professional on set. Thanks to Benoit for letting us use his flat and to Galina for being the best & scariest 1st AD ever, she really kept everyone in line which was no easy job. Also everyone wanted to thank the Todd family, who yet again saved the day by being our on set juggle doubles!I have enjoyed this experience so much, I think the best thing I've learnt from this experience is how much I loved having everyones input. I think its common to think, or assume that you can do everything yourself, not in a big headed way but because before you came to the Academy you perhaps had to? If I had tried to make Little Clown alone it would not have had the suggestions and input from the rest of the class, and watching back the rushes I can see that these parts work really well and some of them turned out to be my favorite takes. So I would like to thank everyone for all the hard work and all the creative input. I hope everyone likes rushes as much as I do, and I look forward to seeing the first cut from Mickey & Phil.

I can't wait to get started on our 7min short films after the summer...We'll be 2nd years!