When I first thought of the word dirt, there weren’t many things that came to mind which would be seen as beautiful but that was the challenge of being given this word. My initial idea was to create a film which was based around the idea that people in homes waste food so much in Britain. I was going to do a time lapse of a full fridge, then every day there is a shot of all of the food gradually becoming mouldy but humans constantly reject those items. I decided against the idea, as I didn’t want to risk wrecking the camera by putting it in the fridge, as well as the fact that I’m sure my housemates would have eaten the props to the film. Sticking with the idea of food I began looking at cooking programmes to see if I could insert the theme of dirt in any of them.
When I came across the programme ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’, this gave me an idea following on from the fridge idea that contestants on the show had to make a meal out of the contents of their freezer, showing a message of not to waste food. Unfortunately I decided against the idea as I felt that I wouldn’t get my point across.
I went to my friends’ house and noticed that it was really dirty, bearing in mind that they are students (without sounding like I am generalising), I wasn’t surprised at the state. This gave me the idea of wanting to represent the fact that students are actually quite dirty, once again, I know it sounds like I am generalising but they actually are!
See below for photo evidence.
After watching episodes of Come Dine With Me, once again this developed my idea of representing students as dirty as it stuck with the theme of dirt and I wanted it to be a fun piece.
When researching and watching the programme I decided to play on the words of the title to call it ‘Come Grime With me’. This fitted with the theme of dirt as I was going to make the show filthy and disgusting, even though it didn’t show beauty, it would generate laughter, which I feel is a very beautiful thing.
After watching many episodes of Come Dine With Me I decided that I wanted to only create the opening titles of the episode, as this was a preview to the show, meaning that I could include many different images and storylines, showing what the programme would include.
These are the sort of shots which are in the opening titles of Come Dine With Me. I took the visuals to create them into a theme of dirt. I brainstormed different shots which I would add the the opening title which are below.
Rat running across the table.
Close up of contestants scoring each other.
Close up of people’s faces looking disgusted.
Medium shots of table that they are dining on.
Close up of disgusting food which has been cooked.
Shot of someone being sick to show that they have been poisoned.
Shot of someone dropping food on the floor then picking it up and serving the contestants.
Here of some of the final shots used in Come Grime With Me. I wanted to make it disgusting but humourous so it was entertaining. I also made sure that I made the shots get to the point so they could flash on and off like it does in the titles.
After sorting out all of the shots, based on the idea of the characters that I was going to use who are my friends, I arranged a day to film them. I booked out a Z1 to film the piece on. I also contacted my friend who is a composer to create the audio soundtracks for the piece. Like the original I asked him to create a ‘grimey’ version of the theme tune which he did sucessfully however I didn’t use it in the edit, due to the fact that I cut the piece off before the titles began to role. I also got my friend to create ‘Girls Aloud- Love Machine’ , in a grimey version. This would be the backing track to the whole introduction of the programme.
Filming
On the day of filming I made sure that it was night time, as they have dinner parties in the night on the programme. I decided that the first thing I would film was an establishing shot of all of the contestants at the dinner table. I set up the scene but putting all of the rubbish on the table to make it extra messy, even though it was extremly messy already. I filmed the shot at different angles so I got a selection of shots to choose from. For one shot I tied a mouse on some string and pulled it across the table as if it had ran across and got the contestants to react to it.
For the next shot I filmed a contestant eating a rat, I thought this would be humourous as everyone had previously screamed about it running across the table and now the contestant was eating it.
To show that it was a preview show, I filmed different types of shots in different locations. I took the idea from the show, as it showed different shots at the start such as medium close ups of people’s opinions. Due to the fact that the theme of the programme I was creating was dirt and it was supposed to be disgusting, I filmed some shocking shots such as someone puking in the toilet and two contestants rubbing chocolate all over their faces.
When I completed all of my shots I edited them and chose the best ones to select for the introduction to the programme. I made sure that the shots weren’t too long as I had to cram a lot to show what the programme was going to be about. Whilst editing I realised that a lot of my shots were extremely dark, even though I wanted it to look grimey, I should of white balanced it better. I tried to colour correct it but felt that it didn’t look right so I left the video clips how they were. When I put my shots together, I noted down what shots I have used and the order that they were in, so I could create a voice over for them.
I contacted my friend and gave him the list of shots as well as the voice over script which I had created. After watching lots of Come Dine With Me programmes, I realised that the voice over was humourous and cracked a lot of jokes so I tried to make it funny, sticking to the theme of dirty students.
The voice over was sucessful and fitted well with the clips. I then contacted my friend who had made the music for the video and put it over the top. Finally my video was finished.
Overall I think that my film was a sucess I mastered what I was trying to achieve and had loads of fun making it. However one thing I would of changed was the colour of it as mentioned before it was too dark. I also think that some of the clips were too disgusting, like when the contestant was sick all over herself. When I got feedback from my video it was mentioned that I was generalizing students, however I disagree because students are messy! THEY ARE MESSSSSY. I think if I was to re shoot I would also use a tripod as I didn’t which was quite a big mistake. I would also make sure the music at the end was quietened, as it was said that the contestant couldn’t be heard. If Iwas to make this again I would also create the opening titles, in graphics, as I tried to make these but they didn’t look very good so I didn’t include them.
