The Brief
When given our brief in our second week in college, this project was bit different. We were given instructions to Recreate a scene from any chosen movie, but we must make it identical to the original scene we would choose. This made it very difficult as when choosing a scene, we must examine every shot, prop, action and the characters. We used the skill we previously learnt in one lesson – Mise-en-scene and applied it. This then made it much easier to examine, and evaluate the possibilities of achieving the final product. We got put into groups of four based on our own personal choosing of a scene we would like to recreate, I got accompanied by Josh, Kyle and Charlie. We then on the day of being introduced to the new project, shared our scenes we would like to make, and then later deciding together on which scene to make as a group – it was concluded to recreate Reservoir Dogs directed by Quentin Tarantino.
The scene we were Recreating
About Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. His father, Tony Tarantino, is an Italian-American actor and musician from New York, and his mother, Connie (McHugh), is a nurse from Tennessee. Quentin moved with his mother to Torrance, California, when he was four years old.
In January of 1992, first-time writer-director Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) appeared at the Sundance Film Festival. The film garnered critical acclaim and the director became a legend immediately. Two years later, he followed up Dogs success with Pulp Fiction (1994) which premiered at the Cannes film festival, winning the coveted Palme D’Or Award. At the 1995 Academy Awards, it was nominated for the best picture, best director and best original screenplay. Tarantino and writing partner Roger Avary came away with the award only for best original screenplay. In 1995, Tarantino directed one fourth of the anthology Four Rooms (1995) with friends and fellow auteurs Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Allison Anders. The film opened December 25 in the United States to very weak reviews. Tarantino’s next film was From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), a vampire/crime story which he wrote and co-starred with George Clooney. The film did fairly well theatrically.
Since then, Tarantino has helmed several critically and financially successful films, including Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and Django Unchained (2012).
FILMOGRAPHY
Pre Production
Today we went for a team meeting and planned who is doing what during the day at college. I informed the team to let them know that I would like to make the storyboard for the Reservoir Dogs scene that we are recreating. Everyone was happy with me doing that as I did a thorough job and drew very detailed drawings that enhanced the amount of shots and things we must capture in production.
Currently on the 28th of September, I can finally say that I have completed my allocated job – making the Storyboard. It took quite a substantial amount of time and many replays on YouTube watching the torture scene that we as a group are re creating.
Here are the documents:
Storyboard – By Nathanael Dalton
Screenplay
Prop List – By Joshua Powell Morris
Shot List – By Charlie Voysey
Recce sheet – By Nathanael Dalton
Final Product
Evaluation
This task was really fun to do,because everyone my group had the same interest in the style of film as well as directors – we enjoyed Mafia-like, gruesome and action scenes as well as genres which we could endlessly talk about if given the chance. At first we thought that picking reservoir dogs, wouldn’t be so hard to make, but then we didn’t realise we were wrong until we actually got to shooting the scene.
We worked together as we negotiated who would do what role in pre -production. I personally would of loved to be camera man but Kyle insisted he would do it therefore I stepped down and went on to doing the storyboard. The storyboard took me a long time to do as I was putting as much detail in the drawings, descriptions and audio in each and every shot. When completed, the rest of the group had finished the screenplay, propslist and shotlist -as well as any other documents we needed to finalise. After that we all came to a decision on who will be playing who in the scene. I was given Mr.Orange – The man on the floor that appears to be dead. Charlie was given The Cop and Joshua playing as Mr.Blonde. Meanwhile I was trying to sort out the location and get permission to use a warehouse once I had found one. 
After looking around on the Yellow Pages, and calling multiple people to see if their warehouse was available to film in, I came across one that seemed best fitting for the setting in the scene where the torture is happening. I then arranged to have a look at the premises and took a few pictures for the team to see – I also used the pictures to complete the Recce sheet. The group liked the location therefore I got permission from the owner of the warehouse. The warehouse also was empty due to it being for let – which was a big bonus for us.
On filming day, we came into college to check out with out tutor. Kyle and Josh then told me that we were missing props on the day of filming. I wasnt too happy because I couldnt believe it was all left to last minute. Due to not having the props we needed. We went all around town looking for duct tape, a fake gun, a foldable chair and a gas canister – this took up to an hour with Charlie still waiting to be picked up by us. Eventually we arrived at the Location that we were filming an hour late as scheduled. Upon arrival I picked up the keys from the manager and we let ourselves in.
We then got into our outfits, and began to film – It took around 5 hours to shoot. During those 5 hours Charlie was tied to a chair and eventually wet through. I was covered in blood and helping out with referring to the scene I had downloaded onto my phone. The first few shots took time to perfect but then I felt like Kyle was rushing things for no reason and wanted to go home as soon as possible. When half way through, Kyle’s camera ran out of battery and he had no other battery packs with him because he forgot to prepare for the day. I then mentioned that I had brought my camera and Microphone mount with extra batteries – I had a feeling someone would forget something important. Kyle then went on to using my camera instead . When it was time to shoot the final shot of me killing Mr.Blonde, he rushed it and then proceeded to packing up ready to leave. I felt as if there wasn’t much teamwork from Kyle or Josh when it came to Production or Post-production. Charlie worked really well and I made sure he was comfortable with the Duct tape around him as well as on his face.
Post production was my job as I have a lot more experience in it than the rest of the group. It took around 3-4 days to finish. The problems I came across was that the shots that Kyle took were very shaky and all over the place as well as one shot was missing from the sequence. Meanwhile being left alone to do editing, the group went on to working on their blogs despite me telling them that I needed Foley and Dialogue doing because the dialogue recorded when shooting was very echoic due to it being in a warehouse. It got to the point where I had work to do on top of editing and it became an Issue. Eventually, they decided to book the radio station through Greig and recorded the dialogue in 2 hours. The day after, I had put all the dialogue and added the Foley as well as some sounds from the movie. It was hard work putting in the special effects and dialogue in sync to actions and mouth movements but eventually got it done. I think after this project, I wish to work Individually and work with people who do not rush and have as much as a drive for media as I do myself.
Nathanael Dalton 