In mid September 2002, I shot three short films for the competition 'Gone in 60 Seconds' which is run by the UK magazine, Camcorder User. The rules of the competition were that the films had to meet the theme of identity and were to be 60 seconds or less in length. Below is a guide to each of those films, together with links to the actual MPEGs so that you can view them for yourself. If you have any feedback, remember to e-mail me and let me know.

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1. The Big I Am
2. Opportunity Knocks
3. Origins

Summary: A blood-stained man is confronted in a cell about his movements from the night before. Writer: Jeff Day Director: Mike Bartlett Man At Table: Douglas Harding 1st Angry Man: Peter Fleming 2nd Angry Man: Philip Bell

This film was shot on the 14 September 2002. It was shot at the Settlement in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, UK. The Settlement is home to the amateur dramatics group The Settlement Players. For this shoot I wanted to try and create the atmosphere of a police interview room. I've never been in trouble with the law, so I had to rely on what I have seen myself on TV.

The room I used had a window on one wall where I laid all my equipment. The other walls were pretty bare apart from a notice board. In order to get the large number of angles that you will see in the film, I decided to rotate the 'set' by 90 degrees. I then cleverly set up my tripod so that any visual cues that could have given away this movement were - to the best of my knowledge - eliminated.

Of all the films, this occupied the most raw footage. About 12 minutes of digital film was captured in total. Paradoxically, this was the quickest to edit - the total edit taking just over 2 hours.

To finish off the film, I enhanced the video by using a gamma control on my non-linear editing system. This darkened down the video, making it appear more film-like and moody. I then took a royalty free sound of thunder and rain and laid it over the top. The difference between a filmmaker and anyone else is that filmmakers know thunderstorms are not simply random meteorological events, and are very much used to drench a scene in atmosphere. In this film, however, I probably should have made the roaring thunder a little quieter. Originally I had intended a soft rainfall in the background. Unfortunaly my camera kept making a buzzing sound (This film was recorded without the boom mic) and so the 'storm' was my way of covering that up.

Summary: A burglar gets more than he bargains for when he is interupted by the pools man. Writer: Jeff Day Director: Mike Bartlett Burglar: Douglas Harding Pools Man: Philip Bell

After shooting The Big I Am, the three actors and myself found a back door at the settlement with a nice little hallway leading up to it. We had already agreed that the internal shots of Opportunity Knocks would be shot at my flat because there wasn't really anything to trash or rummage through. Peter stayed behind the camera with me while Douglas and Philip did their thing.

The thing I learned most from this film is that I should have made a shot list. Because it was only a 60 second film I became over confident about memorising the shots. At one point I nearly packed up to go with one key scene yet to film.

After filming at the Settlement, Douglas journeyed back to my flat to shoot the indoor scenes. He was becoming unwell after not sleeping much the night before, not to mention the incredible humidity of my flat. This worked well, though, because he started perspiring and ended up looking like a real shifty burglar who was stressed, rushed and full of adrenaline. Unfortunately this also caused a continuity error as in scenes 1 and 3 his hair is wet. In scenes 2 and 4 it is dry!

One important point to note is that the script was changed for time and believability reasons. In the script, The burglar looks around for weapons to hit the Pools Man with. He is supposed to find a host of comedic weopons such as a mop and an egg whisk, but can never find a real useful blunt object.

I recorded about 5 minutes of digital footage for this film, but it took about 4 hours to edit. No special sound or audio effects were used, but I did record seperate sound from visuals on the last scene because Douglas is standing very far away from the camera. I then synced the sound and video in the edit phase.

Summary: A look into the Identity Triangle, and the three things that make you who you are. Writer: Mike Bartlett Director: Mike Bartlett Disabled Woman: Michelle Barraclough Husband: Kevin Barraclough Lecturer: Chris Swan

This movie was filmed partially in a friend's house in Gillingham, Kent, UK and partly in a hired Auditorium in Rochester High-Street, Kent, UK on the 22 September 2002. I began by getting a friend of mine (who also acts), Amy Dallas, to round up some of her fellow actor friends and bring them along to the auditorium. About 4 or 5 showed up if my memory serves me correctly. My mum decided to round people up off the street against my will by falsely promising them that the film would be shown at the Cannes and Edinburgh Film Festivals!!!

The scenes of the lecturer in the auditorium were wrapped up well within 15 minutes. This was also the first time I had the opportunity to use my shot-gun mic, which Amy kindly held for me during filming. I actually quite enjoyed recording the audio seperately from the visuals - it gave me more of a challenge in the edit phase.

Amy and her friends sat in the audience with my mum and the extras and Chris Swan - another friend of Amy - did his on screen magic as the lecturer. It turned out that Chris was starting a job the next day as a lecturer! Talk about born to play the part!

After the auditorium scenes were over, I journeyed to the house of my friend, Kevin. Kevin and his wife (who actually uses a wheelchair at present because of a recent injury) played the part of the husband and the disabled wife that we see in the second half of the movie. Kevin kindly made me up some fake blood (He is good at this as for years we dreamed of making zombie movies).

In my original script the photographs that are seen on the walls actually relate directly to the words of the lecturer. This wasn't possible because of the limited photos we had available, so this was changed. Also in my script the disabled person we see at the end is a man and it is his brother who plays the other part. I was quite happy to change this to a husband-wife relationship when we came to shoot, as it didn't distract from the film's point. One last change was that the lecturer's dialogue was cut considerably so we could meet the 60 seconds requirement; hence why he doesn't elaborate much on the three things that can make a person who they are.

I used some great sounds off two different copyright free sound CDs I had to increase the freakiness and impact of the film. A lot of praise was received on this matter. All in all, the film required about 7 minutes of raw footage (some of this was of still photos) and took about 4 hours to edit, off and on.