Production Diary Student Death Match UoP (2014)

9th January 2014 Group presentations. Class members pitched their individual ideas for their personal project. The unit lecturers were not pleased with the classs effort in regards to the presentations, which was rearranged for the following week.

16th January 2014 2nd attempt at pitching the presentations for the ideas. At the time Staff Death Match was selected amongst the top ideas to be carried through. Formation of groups; . Leon Cheung (Director/Coordinator) . Silvija Stankunaite (Editor/Generalist) . Jack Hart (Producer) . Charlie Coffey (Generalist) Brief was given to all members of the group to write their own individual script, members were to bring their own script for next week to compile the best ideas to formulate the final draft.

20th January 2014 Matt Wells joins the group, he was reminded about the presentation and the aims of the project. He was also given the brief to write his own version of the script for next weeks meeting. I (Leon Cheung) started research in how to build the arena for the production as well as the other sets/props. Rough plans were drawn up. Materials were sourced and a budget of approx. 160 was decided.

21st January 2014 1st official day of construction, materials have just been bought from store. Marked out every separate component for the following day for cutting out manually.

22nd January 2014 2nd day of construction at the Eldon Production Centre, the marked pieces of MDF and chipboard were all separately sawn out manually. Each piece was manually sanded down to perfection, ready for base coat the following day.

23rd January 2014 Group meeting, reviewed everyones individual script. Started formulating the final draft. No other work to be done until final draft has been completed. Further touching up jobs with the fighting arena.

29th January 2014 Inspected personal work to absolute perfection at the E.P.C. Primed and base coated all components of the props/sets, which were left overnight to dry.

4th February 2014 Final draft of Staff Death Match was completed, asked course leader for review and give feedback, but was dismissed because they wanted it to be a surprise. Collected reference footage for character models. (Tony Garth) Group was informed about the finished script. Silvija was assigned to complete character sheets/expression sheets. Started looking for a room to accommodate our props/sets.

6th February 2014 Group members were absent in class. Continued with set construction and painting. Printed out large format of the university logo, which was stuck on. Gave feedback to Silvijas character design sheets. Charlie and Jack were assigned to the storyboard and animatic. Arranged meeting on 10/2/14.

10th February 2014 No one turned up to the meeting. Continued with set construction, started assembly and dry-fitting the separate components with assistance from Silvija. Continued to pursue with finding a room to accommodate our set/props. Collected reference footage. (Meg Bisneer)

13th February 2014 4/5 members were present in class, Jack was informed about the direction and how the storyboard should look like. Charlie was told how to create the crowds for the stands around the arena, this was completed by him on photoshop. The photoshopped crowds were re-formatted to comply with the lasercutting spreadsheets, laser cutting commenced.

14th February 2014 Laser work was inspected, unfortunately the laser cutter had the wrong coordinates and didnt perform the task we set it to do, the work was then redone and left overnight.

18th February 2014 The laser cutted crowds were finally completed, this was a slightly delayed process because of the mistake made at first. Collected reference footage. (Jackie West)

Between the 20th-25th February 2014 Matt Wells was assigned to assemble the crowds individually and he was to prime and paint the 20 sheets of M.D.F. Silvija and Leon finished off the arena. Continued to try and find a room for our production.

27th February 2014 Silvija completed character sheets/expression sheets. Had a response from Ruth, Eldons room coordinator. Reviewed Charlie and Jacks storyboard, gave feedback. Collected reference footage. (Eva Palacios & Matt Garey)

6th March 2014 Began researching for materials to create the characters from Ardplast. Inspected Matts crowd work, very satisfactory and to a very good standard. Still awaiting response from Ruth PENDING* Tony Garth character completed in clay.

12th March 2014 Materials of the characters finally arrived. Ruth allocated a small room for us which we could not use, due to our set not fitting in, was told to wait to find another solution.

15th March 2014 Started with designs to the character construction in how to approach to build them. Meg Bisineer character completed in clay.

18th March 2014 The script was reviewed by members of staff who were featured in the episode, they were unsatisfied and were not happy to be in the production. The rest of the group was told about this immediately, which caused delays to the animatic and storyboard, which was based upon the original idea. Ruth responded and allocated a larger room for us, we moved the entire set and supporting furniture to this new location. Black-out blinds and lights were loaned and installed as well as safety equipment to meet H&S regulations.

19th March 2014 We began working on a new script. Charlie and Jack had to modify the existing storyboard/animatic to adapt with the new idea of Student Death Match. Silvija prepared for the PowerPoint for the upcoming presentation.

20th March 2014 Charlie/Matt/Leon recorded the dialogue for the characters. Silvija was designing the new character/expression sheets. Jack was later emailed the recordings to add into the animatic.

22nd March 2014 The unit lecturer and other members of staff were shown the new script and were happy for us to continue.

25th March 2014

Presentation was given to the year group.

27th March 2014 Charlie and Jack were to finish and perfect the storyboard and animatic over the Easter period. Leon is to finish modeling/constructing the characters with Silvija. Leon/Silvija and Matt are to animate and record the raw footage over the Easter break, possibly edit depending upon time schedule. Charlie and Jack were advised to come and assist with the animating.

29th March 3rd April 2014 Matt Garey/ Charlie Coffey / Leon Cheung characters were completed in clay.

4th April 21st April 2014 ***ANIMATING AND CAPTURING ROAR FOOTAGE.***

21st April 23rd April 2014 Silvija and Leon edited the footage together for the finished film, adding titles, credits and special effects on aftereffects software.

24th April 2014 Production comes to a closure. Work updated and submitted onto our blogs.

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