In today's lesson, me and my group went to a nearby park to take pictures for our storyboard. As none of us are particularly good at drawing either, taking pictures with the digital camera would also portray the shots as clear as possible. As this was our shorter lesson and it was only our storyboard, all we needed was rough yet accurate enough shots in a location that was suitable. One of the other pupils in the class, informed us that there was a nearby park we could use, so we got a digital camera and began.
We took shots from different angles and distances which were relevant to the scene, however we all felt as a group that there wasn't enough shots taken. When we went back to the classroom, we caught a glimpse of another group filming with their props and this dis-heartened me and another member of the group, as we both felt that maybe our storyline needed changing. We talked it over with one of the technicians and she encouraged us not to dwell on other groups' work because that's where we will go wrong. She continued on to say that our storyline was too complicated and it needn't be and advised us to keep an eerie feel to the scene by using crows in the background. This caused us to change our storyline once more as we have decided to scrap having a girl dreaming, and instead just focus on her walking while at the same time switch to the titles. We are also going to include voices of people tormenting her with verbal abuse, which will represent as to why she is killing herself.
The character is still going to wear a white gown and white plimsolls and her hair will still be down and covering her face.
Our teacher said we are a bit behind and if we don't begin filming by Friday then we will really be far behind. Hopefully, if everything goes to plan, we will be filming tomorrow afternoon.
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Monday 26 January 2009
Lesson 23/1/09 (The Pitch)
In today's lesson, we had to pitch our thriller idea to our teacher and the two of the other media technicians. We had previously come up with the idea of having a chase between two characters like in a clip that we saw earlier on in the year from the drama series Torchwood.
However when we got to the classroom to prepare, a member of te group came up with two other good ideas.
One was called "Walk to Death" which was about a girl who was walking towards a tree with a rope that was hanging from it. We planned to shoot the scene from different angles yet without showing her face. The girl was then going to tie the rope round her neck and then we would film over the shoulder of another person who is just watching her. The scene ends without knowing whether or not the other person will stop the girl from killing herself.
The other idea was called simply “Downloaded” and it was similar to a clip that we were shown earlier by one of the technicians . It was simple as it involved someone downloading files onto a computer with a lot of close-ups of their face and then a scene where the same character does a very slick switch with brief cases with another person.
We were torn between the “Chase” and “Walk to Death” so we asked our teacher what he thought and he liked the “Chase” because he said it would be good to do a fast-paced chase scene, however we didn’t have the facilities to make this work successfully. And also, we couldn’t have just a scene with a chase, as having a storyline to why there was a chase going, on took too much time- of which we didn’t have. We got another opinion from a technician who said that the “Walk to Death” was a better choice yet it sounded similar to a horror, so he helped us move it along a bit and develop it so that it wasn’t so gory. We changed the storyline to a girl tossing and turning in her sleep then we would fade into her dream and then see her walking towards the rope, yet not seeing her face, and then having her feet dangling to represent what happened. We would then show her face to show it is the girl dreaming of killing herself.
She is going to wear a long, white dressing gown and her hair is going to be out and messy, obviously showing that she doesn't care about her appearence in this moment in time; she is solely focusing on what she came to do.
When delivering the pitch, we were all happy with the storyline but we still haven’t found a location for us to film the tree scene in. However when it comes to sound, lighting and editing we were all quite confident that the scene will be a success. We are not going to start filming on Tuesday, but instead on the Friday, when our next lesson takes place, on Tuesday's lesson we will be planning each shot perfectly.
However when we got to the classroom to prepare, a member of te group came up with two other good ideas.
One was called "Walk to Death" which was about a girl who was walking towards a tree with a rope that was hanging from it. We planned to shoot the scene from different angles yet without showing her face. The girl was then going to tie the rope round her neck and then we would film over the shoulder of another person who is just watching her. The scene ends without knowing whether or not the other person will stop the girl from killing herself.
The other idea was called simply “Downloaded” and it was similar to a clip that we were shown earlier by one of the technicians . It was simple as it involved someone downloading files onto a computer with a lot of close-ups of their face and then a scene where the same character does a very slick switch with brief cases with another person.
We were torn between the “Chase” and “Walk to Death” so we asked our teacher what he thought and he liked the “Chase” because he said it would be good to do a fast-paced chase scene, however we didn’t have the facilities to make this work successfully. And also, we couldn’t have just a scene with a chase, as having a storyline to why there was a chase going, on took too much time- of which we didn’t have. We got another opinion from a technician who said that the “Walk to Death” was a better choice yet it sounded similar to a horror, so he helped us move it along a bit and develop it so that it wasn’t so gory. We changed the storyline to a girl tossing and turning in her sleep then we would fade into her dream and then see her walking towards the rope, yet not seeing her face, and then having her feet dangling to represent what happened. We would then show her face to show it is the girl dreaming of killing herself.
She is going to wear a long, white dressing gown and her hair is going to be out and messy, obviously showing that she doesn't care about her appearence in this moment in time; she is solely focusing on what she came to do.
When delivering the pitch, we were all happy with the storyline but we still haven’t found a location for us to film the tree scene in. However when it comes to sound, lighting and editing we were all quite confident that the scene will be a success. We are not going to start filming on Tuesday, but instead on the Friday, when our next lesson takes place, on Tuesday's lesson we will be planning each shot perfectly.
Sunday 25 January 2009
Lesson - 21/1/09
In today's lesson, my group finished our preliminary film and we all agreed that our second practice was much more successful than the first one. We included all the shots that were asked for in the brief that we were given.
I have learnt several things between my first and second practice films. One is to keep to the 180 degree rule so that the scene looks realistic and consistant. Another thing is to use a match cut - this is especially useful when trying to draw the audience's attention to a particular object. I also learnt that if you plan each shot carefully your less likely to go wrong and you will stick to the deadline that you were given. However, I'm aware that sometimes due to uncontrollable factors, like the weather, filiming could also be delayed so therefore back-up altenatives need to bee considered.
We followed the advice of one of our teachers who said that when we are filming a shot, for example when one of the characters walk in and switch off the light, because we wanted a close-up, we had to film him walking in and doing the same process twice. One was from far and one was up close. This made everything look continous.
One member of my group went back to the editing room at lunch time to put the shots together and done a really good job on it. We were all surprised by how well he had edited it and this gave us time to add sound to the film. There were so many to choose from and because we didn't realise this, we ended up using one beat throughout, but i think it gave the film a monotomous feel to it.
As our film is only a few minutes long, we obviously couldnt resemble a full-length film identically. However, we used several aspects to create tension in the film. We had a character looking confident and quite smug and the other laid-back and reserved. The first character who was cocky, thought he was getting the better end of the deal but was fatally wrong. In the meantime, the other character who was quiet actually ended up having the last laugh. I liked the twist at the end as, hopefully, no one saw it coming and if you look at the scene again, you will notice the remote is always on the table.
During filiming there was a bit more dialogue but during editing, it was evident that the more that dialogue was used the less the tension was on sceen - less dialogue = more tension.
Overall I was happy about the film and it's made the whole group confident in making our thriller.
I have learnt several things between my first and second practice films. One is to keep to the 180 degree rule so that the scene looks realistic and consistant. Another thing is to use a match cut - this is especially useful when trying to draw the audience's attention to a particular object. I also learnt that if you plan each shot carefully your less likely to go wrong and you will stick to the deadline that you were given. However, I'm aware that sometimes due to uncontrollable factors, like the weather, filiming could also be delayed so therefore back-up altenatives need to bee considered.
We followed the advice of one of our teachers who said that when we are filming a shot, for example when one of the characters walk in and switch off the light, because we wanted a close-up, we had to film him walking in and doing the same process twice. One was from far and one was up close. This made everything look continous.
One member of my group went back to the editing room at lunch time to put the shots together and done a really good job on it. We were all surprised by how well he had edited it and this gave us time to add sound to the film. There were so many to choose from and because we didn't realise this, we ended up using one beat throughout, but i think it gave the film a monotomous feel to it.
As our film is only a few minutes long, we obviously couldnt resemble a full-length film identically. However, we used several aspects to create tension in the film. We had a character looking confident and quite smug and the other laid-back and reserved. The first character who was cocky, thought he was getting the better end of the deal but was fatally wrong. In the meantime, the other character who was quiet actually ended up having the last laugh. I liked the twist at the end as, hopefully, no one saw it coming and if you look at the scene again, you will notice the remote is always on the table.
During filiming there was a bit more dialogue but during editing, it was evident that the more that dialogue was used the less the tension was on sceen - less dialogue = more tension.
Overall I was happy about the film and it's made the whole group confident in making our thriller.
Lesson -16/1/09 (filming preliminary film)
In today's lesson we were filming our preliminary and we used the plan that we had made from the last lesson and got started straight away. Our first few shots were similar to our first 1st practice film, as it had a character walkng down a corridor and opening a door. However, this time it was done so much better as we had remembered our previous mistakes of not planning and not having enough continuity.
We counted in 5 before saying action and cut to give enough time during editing to link the shots together. We had a lot of new ideas as wel, like turning the light off when one of the characters walked in. It took us so long because we had to film the same shot but at different angles (ECU, MCU), which became tedious but it was necessary to ur film.
However as we had so many new ideas, we took longer than the other groups to film. We did finish though and were all happy with the result; we then continued to the editing room.
I didn't realise how many shots we had and putting them together is going to take a while, but I'd prefer having to much of a choice to choose from than not enough. We finished filimin near the end of the lesson so we didn't have enough time to edit, so we will continue with it next lesson.
We counted in 5 before saying action and cut to give enough time during editing to link the shots together. We had a lot of new ideas as wel, like turning the light off when one of the characters walked in. It took us so long because we had to film the same shot but at different angles (ECU, MCU), which became tedious but it was necessary to ur film.
However as we had so many new ideas, we took longer than the other groups to film. We did finish though and were all happy with the result; we then continued to the editing room.
I didn't realise how many shots we had and putting them together is going to take a while, but I'd prefer having to much of a choice to choose from than not enough. We finished filimin near the end of the lesson so we didn't have enough time to edit, so we will continue with it next lesson.
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