Continuing my movie journal on Footprints...
Part 1
Ricky falls into coma and dreamt about his childhood. He was bullied and upset. He feels that life has no meaning and hope that the car has ran over him.
The scene was shot outside the church and it was during winter. We want to make the Tai Lou (Darren) like terminator with dark glasses, gloves and tight leather suits. His bodyguard, Bao Pei and San Kai has to act fit while loosely dressed, like ‘Gu Wak Zai’. The scene where the body guard came out from Tai Lou was shot countless times because we just can’t stop laughing… and Gary had quite a scare during the car scene.
Casts:
Gary as Ricky
Darren as Tai Lou
James as Bao Pei
Ka Kit as San Kai
For your information,
- The name of the two gangsters, Bao Pei and San Kai was reference to a Hong Kong gangster film.
- Ricky’s last name, Conner, was reference to The Terminator movie’s John Conner.
- Bao Pei and San Kai have to act tough although the weather was cold during shooting time…
- It was my bag that they were throwing around…
- The Renault was Daniel’s car.
Stay tune for part 2 of my movie journal.
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Showing posts with label SCCC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SCCC. Show all posts
Monday, April 6, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
My Movie Journal - Footprints 2004 Director's Cut Prologue
Photo/Video editing is one of my personal hobbies during University years. It was the time where digital camera’s and camcorders started to become relevant and popular. I bought my first digital camera back in 2000. It is a Fujifilm Finepix with 2.1 Megapixels. It was very old fashioned and bulky but at that time it was king. The N73 I’m currently carrying has higher pixels then this.
I bought a Panasonic camcorder 2 years later. It was an analog camcorder using tape, but able to transfer to pc by converting it into digital signal. It wasn’t too much of a hassle trying to upload the videos into your pc, but you have to get ready a bigger hard disk for it…
The direct transfer of 10 minutes video takes a whooping 1 GB off my then only 40 Gb laptop. It takes a lot of trial and error before I could figure out how to choose the video format that gives the best video quality with minimal capacity.
I would normally take video shoots when I’m on vacation or special occasions like church camp and parties. I will then edit it by cutting out the non relevant parts and inserting some music to make it less boring. After that I would burn it into a cd/dvd and store it in my ‘memory lane’.
Never in my entire life would I think of making and directing a movie/ drama. I’ve done some photo editing and video slide shows before, but not to an extend of this.
The idea of a video project came out from Jessie, our Sheffield Chinese Christian Church recreation committee. She had an idea of filming a story about a boy’s life journey towards knowing and accepting Christ. She came out with a script instantaneously. There were 5 to 6 scenes in total, some were taken off, some added in later. The casting was done rather quickly without questions ask, as most of church brothers and sisters are willing to participate.
So the final decision is up to me - whether I am able to direct, film and produce the video.
I was scratching my head on such a long script. First off, I haven’t done such filming and directing in my life before. Second, the current video software I used had a lot of tendency to hang and crash during editing. Third, the editing software wasn’t as flexible to cater for such filming requirements.
Anyway, we started with a ‘one-off’ approach, i.e. film first, edit later. While the filming was ongoing, I was able to test on new and available software. And yes, during the progress, I did manage to find more user-friendly and stable video editing software.
The filming wasn’t easy also, as some of the script was either ‘unfilmable’, or it doesn’t come together well enough. Most of the time, filming session becomes brainstorming session because a lot of suggestions and ideas were proposed last minute.
Nevertheless, we are having a good time doing this project. Although I did make some mistakes, I really appreciate the patience and support given by brothers and sisters, and God up most high.
So why the title Footprints? At start the title is actually ‘no title’. I can’t really remember how it comes about, I think it was a title I saw on a Christian album CD covers. As our story is about a life journey of a boy, guided by God, I think Footprints is very well representing the title of our project.
Prologue
It started off as a prologue stage show before the video comes in. We plan to start and end with a stage performance because it will bring a so call ‘life’ to the show. Here is where Ricky, the main cast was introduced, together with his family and his attempt to commit suicide, and was sent to hospital under coma.
Casts:
Gary as Ricky
Algene as Ricky’s Sister
Ruth as Ricky’s Mother
Yichuan as Ricky’s Father
Sam as Doctor Sam
For your information,
- The ‘Sleeping Pill’ is actually Fish Oil supplements.
- The doctor is really a doctor, and a humorous one.
- Beep sound was actually Nokia hand phone message beep, repeat at countless time.
- They forgot to remove their name tags…
Stay tune for part 2 of my movie journal.
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I bought a Panasonic camcorder 2 years later. It was an analog camcorder using tape, but able to transfer to pc by converting it into digital signal. It wasn’t too much of a hassle trying to upload the videos into your pc, but you have to get ready a bigger hard disk for it…
The direct transfer of 10 minutes video takes a whooping 1 GB off my then only 40 Gb laptop. It takes a lot of trial and error before I could figure out how to choose the video format that gives the best video quality with minimal capacity.
I would normally take video shoots when I’m on vacation or special occasions like church camp and parties. I will then edit it by cutting out the non relevant parts and inserting some music to make it less boring. After that I would burn it into a cd/dvd and store it in my ‘memory lane’.
Never in my entire life would I think of making and directing a movie/ drama. I’ve done some photo editing and video slide shows before, but not to an extend of this.
The idea of a video project came out from Jessie, our Sheffield Chinese Christian Church recreation committee. She had an idea of filming a story about a boy’s life journey towards knowing and accepting Christ. She came out with a script instantaneously. There were 5 to 6 scenes in total, some were taken off, some added in later. The casting was done rather quickly without questions ask, as most of church brothers and sisters are willing to participate.
So the final decision is up to me - whether I am able to direct, film and produce the video.
I was scratching my head on such a long script. First off, I haven’t done such filming and directing in my life before. Second, the current video software I used had a lot of tendency to hang and crash during editing. Third, the editing software wasn’t as flexible to cater for such filming requirements.
Anyway, we started with a ‘one-off’ approach, i.e. film first, edit later. While the filming was ongoing, I was able to test on new and available software. And yes, during the progress, I did manage to find more user-friendly and stable video editing software.
The filming wasn’t easy also, as some of the script was either ‘unfilmable’, or it doesn’t come together well enough. Most of the time, filming session becomes brainstorming session because a lot of suggestions and ideas were proposed last minute.
Nevertheless, we are having a good time doing this project. Although I did make some mistakes, I really appreciate the patience and support given by brothers and sisters, and God up most high.
So why the title Footprints? At start the title is actually ‘no title’. I can’t really remember how it comes about, I think it was a title I saw on a Christian album CD covers. As our story is about a life journey of a boy, guided by God, I think Footprints is very well representing the title of our project.
Prologue
It started off as a prologue stage show before the video comes in. We plan to start and end with a stage performance because it will bring a so call ‘life’ to the show. Here is where Ricky, the main cast was introduced, together with his family and his attempt to commit suicide, and was sent to hospital under coma.
Casts:
Gary as Ricky
Algene as Ricky’s Sister
Ruth as Ricky’s Mother
Yichuan as Ricky’s Father
Sam as Doctor Sam
For your information,
- The ‘Sleeping Pill’ is actually Fish Oil supplements.
- The doctor is really a doctor, and a humorous one.
- Beep sound was actually Nokia hand phone message beep, repeat at countless time.
- They forgot to remove their name tags…
Stay tune for part 2 of my movie journal.
Technorati Profile
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Footprints - Part 1 & 2
To all bro and sis from SCCC, still remember the days when we made this video? It took us 6 months to create. Thanks for all the hard work that made this video possible. I've uploaded part 1 & part 2 so far, did some re harsh to it by adding subtitles and lighting adjustment. Will upload the rest soon. In the mean time, enjoy!
Friday, November 30, 2007
SCCC Baptism Ceremony 2003
Another Baptism Ceremony way back on May 2003. Organized by the Sheffield Chinese Christian Church which is held in one of the England Church, can't remember which church is it. Can anyone enlighten me?
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
SCCC Baptism Ceremony 2004
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Memories in Sheffield
My first video created using Windows Movie Maker. The video was made for the TAR College Farewell Dinner in the Sheffield Chinese Christian Church.
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