Pistachio Films # 6, Plop, Director's Notes

Director's notes, the making of "Plop!" (2002) Pistachio Films #6

By

Martainn Russell

Hello there, fellow filmmaker, and welcome to the director's notes for my second film "Plop". I hope you enjoy them.

THE IDEA

This idea actually came from another one that I was playing around with for a long time, namely where a guy goes for a piss and slowly disappears as he's doing it. Unfortunately that would have involved a lot of SFX which are way out of a league. So a man trying to take a shit and disappearing into the void was born. Don't ask me where these ideas come from, they just pop into my head. Anyway, it was a simple plot, very do-able and (I think anyway) funny as fuck.

WRITING THE SCRIPT

Truth be told, I wrote the script for this in five minutes. I just wrote down what I wanted to see in shot one then shot two. That easy. Then when I typed it out, I fleshed it out. I decided where the camera would go, what sounds etc would play over each shot. This made the actual filming of the movie really easy, which leads us nicely on to...

SHOOTING THE FILM

To put it bluntly I was shitting myself (how ironic considering what the film was about). I shouldn't have worried so much, the shoot went fine. I decided to film everything in sequence (it just seemed like the right thing to do). More often than not, the first take was fine. Due to the cramped conditions in the bathroom, some of the camera angles I had hoped for were screwed. And the way they were filmed meant that feet appeared in some shots and the framing is way off in some shots (but in low budget film-making you got to go with what you got).

The thing was, it was an easy and stress free shoot, no interference and no one complaining. Perfect conditions for making a movie.

EDITING THE MOVIE

The editing went pretty smoothly as well, mainly due to filming in sequence and coz it was all first takes, I didn't have to wade through loads of footage. So it didn't take long (a few hours in fact) to find each shot, trim out the beginning and end and slot it into place. I'm still learning how to use the editing program, so that added some time to the editing process, but all in all, it was a good nights work.

THE SOUND EFFECTS

The "help me" voice was my own recorded on the Microsoft Sound Recorder which comes with your PC. It was then speeded up (obviously) and echoed. Simple and pretty effective.

The climactic "plop" was (I think) a sound effect from the editing program that we shortened and played around with. It does the job, but I would have rather had a proper "plop"!!!

The ominous music at the start of the movie and the drip drip sounds at the end are all from the sound files that come with the editing program. Cool free stuff that you can use as much as you like.

Doh! I spoke just as the toilet seat fell so we had to try and capture the sound of the thud, without my voice, and then put that over the soundtrack and hide my voice. Got that? Good. It maybe a nanosecond out but it does the job

THE SPECIAL EFFECTS?

Well, not that special I guess, but what the hell. Me disappearing into the ether was the old jump cut trick (like you didn't already know). As usual, very simple but it works a treat.

THE BUDGET

Absolutely fuck all, unless you include the price of the Daily Sport, which is what 30- 40pence? There you go then, a film that cost the price of a daily newspaper. Hollywood should be beating my door down

FINAL THOUGHTS

I am really pleased with how this one turned out. It looks like how I imagined it and I can watch it over and over without cringing. It is also a vast improvement over my debut, it gives me hope that my next endeavour will be even better.

See you next time
Martainn Russell

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