|
The world of non-commercial film and A-V |
Events Diary | Search | ||
| The Film and Video Institute | 
Join us on Facebook
| ||||
The making of Sidewinder
At BIAFF 2010 Phil Martin won 5-Stars with
Sidewinder and a prize from Carlin Music. The film is one of those representing Britain at UNICA 2010.
Two boys are sent packing when they try to swim in the lake so return to their game of make-believe fighter pilots. Suddenly reality intrudes and they have access to deadly force! |
 This film was conceived
as light relief after shooting In the National Interest and
Secrets - and it proved to be great fun. The treatment and
scripting took about 6 months over the winter of 2008/9 and were completed
last May - just in time to form a Summer Project for half a dozen Members
of Reading Film & Video Club.
First, there were the small matters of finding actors and locations. It turned out that Francis Crossley (the Producer) had a grandson, Hamish, who was keen on acting and attended a weekly drama class with his friend Anthony. But blood ties were not enough - our filming rose above nepotism; we auditioned them - but, thankfully, they really could act. The original script set the story among sand dunes on the South coast but Geoff Addis seemed slightly reluctant to take his EX1 to the seaside. Moreover, the logistics of getting a film crew, actors, model aircraft, missile and jet-ski down to Wittering were rather daunting. So we approached a couple of local watersport parks and struck gold when one not only agreed to the filming but lent us a jet-ski villain in the shape of Alan, a gentle man with a fierce Ulster accent. In return we made them a promotional video, but that's a different film altogether. |
 Then there were the props. With
the kind permission of the site manager, we rescued a load of waste wood
and shuttering that was destined for the bonfire at a local building site.
My skill as a carpenter precisely matched the brief, of creating a plane
that looked as if it had been made by two 11 year-olds. The AIM Sidewinder
is the most effective air-to-air missile ever made, having brought down 270
aircraft to date. It was used successfully by the RAF during the Falkland
War. Rather surprisingly, the technical specification of a sidewinder missile
can be downloaded from the internet - just type "sidewinder missile spec"
into Google and get down on the floor when the SAS come swinging through
the windows wearing balaclavas. The actual missile is 10 feet long and 5
inches in diameter. All I had was 4 inch soil vent pipe, so we made do with
an 80% model. Francis again came up trumps when he persuaded the
Museum
of Berkshire Aviation to part with a box of broken instruments
and a couple of flying helmets. . A couple of forays on e-bay and several
trips to the dump provided wheels for the plane and a "gun carriage" for
the launch of the missile from under the plane wing. |
 Finally (before the actual filming
began) we needed some footage of real fighter aircraft taxiing, taking off
and in the air. My original intention was to draw on the huge amount of footage
available from the "fighter flings" filmed by the different US fighter squadrons.
(That's why the boys' model aircraft was built to look like an F15 Tomcat
- think of Top Gun). However, most of this footage was rather
poor quality. So, being a shareholder, I approached MOD for some RAF
film. They were really helpful - offering a 3 year licence for a mere £12
per second. With a minimum clip length of 30 seconds and needing at least
9 clips, we could take our pick of their superb footage for a mere £2000
or so. Not wanting to prolong the war in Afghanistan by the two seconds that
this would pay for, I approached British Aerospace, who happily agreed
to make up a mini-DV tape of the type of shots we needed - and they didn't
even charge for the tape. Nor did they ask for an acknowledgement. So I'm
pleased to have this opportunity to record our thanks. |
 At last we were set for a day's
filming at the jet-ski park in the Chilterns with a further two days shooting
the aircraft scenes at the bottom of my garden. But before then there was
the log rolling. This was filmed at Turville in Buckinghamshire, not because
we particularly wanted to follow in the footsteps of Went the Day Well?
and The Vicar of Dibley. It just had the steepest hill
we could find. "Camera 1?". "Rolling". "Camera 2?".
"Rolling". Eat your heart out Spielberg. Tug the rope and away it
went. My God, did it go! At the bottom it dived into the bushes at about
50mph - like a startled rabbit. Thank goodness I'd checked that there was
no one down there. It then turned out that it was the Director's job to retrieve
the log from the briar bush and stagger back up the hill with it on the hottest
day of the summer. I can still hear Geoff's repeated "Just one more take,
Phil." |
  We
arrived at the jet-ski park to find the gate locked. This is not a sport
for early risers. By the time we eventually got started the weather had closed
in, with frequent blustery showers. However, in a very long day and with
stoic fortitude we got the shots that we needed. The filming in the garden
was much easier, although one day was a wash-out. At both locations we tried
to make more use of moving camera and the resulting tracking shots contributed
significantly to the production values of the film. The major problem with
the visuals was that we had used several cameras with very different image
quality. It took a lot of work in post-production to match these as closely
as possible.
The audio presented the greatest problem: wind-cut on the radio mics made the live track unusable. The only option was to dub the dialogue. This entailed playing the sound track to the boys, a phrase at a time, and getting them to repeat their lines 3 or 4 times to match the delivery. The best of the re-takes was then lip-synced and used to replace the original sound. After that the sounds of the wind, footsteps etc. were added back using foley sound. This took at least a week in front of a computer and, while the lip-sync was good (thanks mainly to the diligence of the boys) we were again dogged by the weather. Having driven 50 miles to the boys' home to spend a day on the re-recording we had to go ahead, even though it was raining. This meant that we were unable to record outside as planned, with the result that the new audio had the wrong sound quality. Doubtless we could, and should, have tried to correct this in post-post-production but eventually you have to stop making a film and, having listened to the sound track probably a hundred times, I had lost the will to do more. |
  The
special effects were much more fun. I started by suspending the missile
horizontally using fishing line so that I could film it rotating slowly.
After masking out the background in After Effects, I had a footage of the
missile from any perspective to be superimposed on any background. All I
needed to do was to chose a shot with the right change in perspective, scale
and move it across the background. The rocket flame was created in much the
same way as the rocket itself - by filming a blow-lamp rotating in the dark
and luma-keying to remove the black background. This was then "pinned" to
the rocket tail. Finally, all we needed was some "smoke" from a programme
called
ParticleIllusion
(free 30 day unrestricted trial) and explosions from a brilliant site called
www.detonationfilms.com
run by Bob Forward an American amateur. Another 100 hours in front of a computer
and it was a wrap. |
| So what did we learn? I believe that the worth of a fiction film is
determined by the quality of the story, script and acting - poor filming,
editing etc. can wreck a good film but all the technical expertise in the
world cannot compensate for a failing in these fundamentals. In the case
of Sidewinder, it was a lightweight idea but quite enough to
carry a fun little film. The script worked fairly well but took too long
to cut to the chase. (I had decided to try to establish the relationship
between the two boys through a nonsensical dialogue as they walked. This
did not work for two reasons. First, in a 20 minute film there is simply
not time to establish the characters. Secondly, the dialogue sounded as if
it had been written by an adult and its play on the theory of evolution was
too clever by half). Fortunately, the acting was good. So we scored about
2½ out of 3 for the fundamentals.
Last year I was disappointed to receive three stars for Secrets. This year I am surprised to have won five for Sidewinder. Like most film makers I seriously doubt whether judges have any idea what they're doing. However, having judged both last year's North West Film Festival and SERIAC 2010, I should make clear that this view applies only to other judges and then only when they are assessing my films! - Phil Martin |
Technically, the visuals were fine (and the experimental use
of moving camera proved worthwhile). I was pleased enough with the editing
and effects. The failing was in the audio. Under the circumstances it could
not have been better recorded. We might have done more to rectify it in
post-production but, in retrospect I think we should have cancelled the original
shoot and re-scheduled when the weather was better - or at least not made
the same mistake when re-recording the soundtrack.
Share your passions.
Share your stories.
