 |
In February, three of our members got involved in a small film project being carried out by students from the film school at Newport College. Their final year project involved the creation of a short sci-fi drama, called Fen (at least, that’s the working title) on 16mm film. |
They were looking for a Dame Judy Dench type for one of the leads, and Janet’s pictures of herself as Lady Bracknell, and a demon from Christmas Carol, together with a screen test, got her the role. They also needed some extras, so Kevin Welch and Nigel got dragged along, too.
Janet played Chancellor Nido opposite a professional actor, Simon James Morgan, playing General Tackar. The whole project was very well organised, as you might expect, as the students are planning to earn their livings doing this sort of thing in the future.
| The difference between stage acting and filming was quite startling. Each of the takes was quite short, but the concentration required to remember exactly where you were and how you reacted in the previous take took some doing. And unlike stage performance, the technology really is in-your-face, with a large boom microphone very close to your head, and the ‘audience’ being a large, expensive film camera. As well as that, the lights mean that small rooms get very hot! |
 |
The cost of film compared to reusable videotape is scary, as it not only has to be purchased, but you can’t take it to Boots to process! Hiring a 16mm camera costs around £1400 for seven days, with the dolly and track on top of that. Each reel of film contains 400 feet, and costs (even with educational discount) around £70 a reel. Add to that the cost of processing, and you can see why even George Lucas is starting to use video instead! And it’s no wonder that they were looking to use up every last inch of film to record cutaways and other useful shots.
Chris, Giles, Richard and the rest of the crew worked really hard, and were ploughing in their own money to make this short feature as good as they could make it, even to the extent of allowing themselves to be used for medical experimentation at the college to raise money for the film.
Needless to say, Janet, Kevin and Nigel had a great time doing this, and we’re looking forward to seeing ourselves (but mainly Janet) at the screening in Cardiff in a few weeks time. But most of all we want to thank everyone concerned for giving us the opportunity to be in their project, and we hope that they get all the success their hard work and enthusiasm deserve.
And if you want to see a short video of what happened, click here.
Social pages, click here
Return to Concept Home Page