What does the word tempted mean to you? Desire of something you can't have? A present, a dream holiday, even something as small as a cake? Tempted has multiple meanings to each individual person, and I wanted to explore the one definition it meant to me the most.
Temptation is constantly around us - in my instance, it's with being lazy and eating food...lots of it. But I had to change for the sake of my health, and to make myself feel better. So I plucked up the courage and cut the calories, picked up a set of weights, and lost 2 and half stone in just 6 months.
Although my story is mainly a success, it wasn't without it's many trials and fails, and a lot of perseverance. But what if I hadn't lost weight? What if I had given in at the first hurdle, and carried on eating doughnuts and cake on regular basis? Well, my film is an experimental exploration into what could have happened.
My actor, above, is Andrew Downs. He played the character of David Hart - a lazy, disobedient man that lives surrounded by rubbish in an old fashioned house. His outlook on life is dull, but takes an unexpected turn into the optimistic views of life when he is burdened with the knowledge of his health. But obviously, it's not just as easy as saying you'll lose weight.
Andrew was a brilliant addition to my cast - his beautiful portrayal of my main character was perfectly reflected in the cinematography, and I believe he plays the death scene well.
So, how was my first experience at being a director of my very first drama? Terrifying. I was admittedly, petrified. However, due to my obsessive organisation, I managed to have enough work in my production folder to hand it over to my Assistant Director, Amanda Fox. So after coming up with on-the-spot solutions and mentally calming myself down, I focused on keeping the actors happy, and let Amanda take over the shoot. The shoot, after the initial scare, was a complete success! And after crewing for third year shoots, I found that handing my shoot over to my AD was exactly what I was supposed to do - hoorah! I learnt on the spot, that as the Director, I should focus on the actors and keeping them nourished, happy and informed, and I should let my AD take control of the shoot. You really do learn the most through experience.
One of the best assets of my footage, was filming the credits. Inspired by Bunny and the Bull, I used the set design of my film to adapt my credits - for example, I used a plate of rotten alphabet spaghetti to display the name of my AD, and chips to spell out my Camera Operator's name.
The editing process for my film was possibly the most intense part of it all: for one, I purposely filmed specific shots in order to edit them in post-production. Secondly, I decided to explore editing techniques by working frame by frame, then cutting them together to make fast, intense montages. Personally, I am proud of the amount of editing that went into my film - I was in the edit suites everyday, 9am-8pm, refining my edit in both the visuals and sound design. Each element of the finished film have had endless hours of refinement and development.
So. Here's the finished film. It's 4 minutes 20 seconds long, and available to see on vimeo by clicking here. But for the people that would rather just see it here, I will embed the film below in the next few weeks. Any and all feedback is appreciated, good or bad!
To end this post, here's a photo of me and my actor on set for my film, Tempted. Thanks for reading!
