I was tired. Very tired. I had gone to bed at 3am and thought 'I don't have to start to 11, I'll catch up on having a good sleep up through till half 9, 10ish'. Of course, I wasn't expecting to be wide awake after 3 and a half hours sleep, 6.30 on a Sunday morning and preparing for a 7 and a half hour day of relentless running backwards and forwards and generally being shat on my customers who are not satisfied with some crap.
I stood there thinking about how I regret staying up till that time but also how pessimistic my thoughts were. I usually have horribly pessimistic or bad thoughts because of my OCD but tiredness took it to an all time low. I couldn't help but thinking 'when I sign off from college, my life is going to come to a stagnant halt again'. For some reason, I couldn't get my head around the fact I was going back next year, tiredness clearly wanted to work with my OCD to make ultimate pessimism.
It's safe to say I was having a 'mare of a day, I was stressed because I was tired and I was tired because I was being stupid going to bed so late.
This may seem a little trivial but all of a sudden when my chips were down, I remember how good this year has been to me at college. So the good times took another turn.
FMP night, everyone's final project was to be viewed at the college theatre and my 16 minute film 'Lost Boy' was last on the bill. Once it had gone, I literally couldn't believe the response I got. Some of you may be looking at this as me bragging but truly, it's not. I'm not here to brag about the response I got from everyone. I'm here to simply say that I did and after so much hard work and put my heart and soul into it, I'm surely allowed to revel in all this a little. Facebook statuses, texts, Facebook comments and people coming up on chat praising it and the massive round of applause at the end. Absolutely unreal. Hands down the best thing I've created in my life, so far!
If you are curious to what 'Lost Boy' is, a brief description is that it's dedicated to the Skins writers in series 2 with the Tony Stonem story line of him rebuilding his life. So I created my own version. Not the same story line or anything like that, just a boy who's coming back from a massive head injury and is rebuilding his life and there's a romantic element to it which keeps things quite interesting.
I started the script way before deciding to actually create it for my media work. I get ideas and I just have to put them down, if I don't, I'll probably just explode. So, it was something I was working on and it was coming on nicely before I would of saved it to my hard-drive and never come back to it before moving on to something else.
When the opportunity came up with the chance of being able to create it, I chose the idea and decided to really lock into it. Initially, I was quietly very worried. When writing this script, I saw it in my head as I wrote it. Nicholas Hoult was the lead character with Kathryn Prescott playing the other co-lead character. It sure looked great in my head but with me, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to create this because I thought, 'if this turns out rough and generally crap', it will completely ruin the vision I had in my head of it and would be a constant reminder of how crap the script actually became.
Eventually time was moving on and I realised that I had to run with this idea, it was too late to change idea. I think the fact that I now had to do it, I seem to just go into this zone to what I had to do, it was the weirdest thing in the world because I've always been so self critical about how I'm not very good at anything, especially recently I've been having a bit of a melt down with it in my head.
Anyway, straight away it was getting a cast and crew, getting the right equipment and having a solid script that I could really run by. Straight away, I got Alex Gocher in as a camera man, someone I could trust and could understand my ideas and general ways. So after that, I decided to put myself as the lead character as Josh.
Chloe Solman, was an absolute no brainer for the character of Megan. Acting experience was the key, she was good at acting and with being good at acting, it allowed me and Jade who are far less experienced to bounce off of her performance. Generally had it all; experience, looked right for the part, sexy (as it seems to be one of the most things in films and TV shows these days) and overall, fucking good at what she does.
Next up was having someone to play the role of Jess, Josh's little sister. I had a little trouble deciding who to play the role, I'm very picky with how I want things (typical producer/director) but it turns out the answer was right in front of my eyes; Jade Lloyd. I always kinda see Jade as my little sister in real life anyway, or 'the sister I never had' so with that in mind, it was obvious Jade was who I wanted for the part.
Eric was an interesting character, very much a cameo appearance in the film but vital to the story line. The best friend who never showed up when Josh needed him the most, it turns out it wasn't that he was a bad friend, there was more too it. Eric was a character written into it when writing the script hit a dead point. I was reluctant to add another character because I knew that would involve having to find someone else for the part. Alex Gocher has always kind of struck me as someone who's like Sid in Skins, the way he looks, the way he acts, etc. I asked Gocher who had no acting experience to do the job and he reluctantly agreed and did a very good job in the end.
I won't go into every detail with things that happened on set but what I can say is that when it first started, we were all very nervous with how this was going to pan out. It took a while getting used to each other, being in front of a camera and generally everything. Eventually, the scenes were nailed and we moved onto the next day of filming.
It was such an experience this whole thing. Being on set, acting, directing, etc. Incredible. Eventually things became really comfortable and scenes were being nailed and generally having such a good time but without disrupting the whole thing.
Editing was awesome, seriously, it's usually something I can't stand but it was honestly one of the coolest things I did. Cutting up and piecing it together and making this script and series of shots into the film I had pictured. When it came to an end, I was kind of sad the whole experience was over because I had gotten into it so much and literally loved every single moment with it, I didn't want it to be finished. Of course, the end product certainly wasn't a let down. The fact it looked so good, it had far exceeded what I could even think I could do. Weirdest thing in the world seeing something you could sort of see in your head sitting there right in front of you.
FMP night rolled in and with my film closing the night and the response I got just blew me away with having my cast and crew and family there, and then today, I got told that it was nominated alongside all level 2's (which is me), level 3's and A level students. 'Best Moving Pictures Sequence' is what I'm up for. It's so awesome even to be nominated, if I don't win, I don't win but to even be nominated is incredible. I shall indeed be letting you know what the outcome is and I shall try and get it on the internet somehow.
Pessimism to an all time high of optimism in the space of a week is rad.
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