Tuesday, 5 May 2015
Friday, 1 May 2015
Evaluation Question 4
How did you use new technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?
In this evaluation I will be going into detail about what technologies I used during the construction, research and planning stages of my A2 Media portfolio. I will evaluate every stage with advantages and disadvantages to the technologies in association with the creation of my media project.
Research and planning
Technologies used in the research and planning stage of our media include;
The Internet
YouTube
In the first stages of our A2 Media portfolio YouTube was used to find and watch other short movie products ranging from low/no budget home made shorts to high budget shorts created by Pixar and Disney this was mainly for inspiration and to see for ourselves the conventions of a Short film. This was a big advantage in the research and planning as we could embed videos we had found to give examples in our work and evaluate them. YouTube was also helpful in watching tutorials about how to use the new Cannon DSLR 600D cameras for different qualities of film; my team and I researched a few of these tutorials in preparation for filming our product to familarise ourselves more with the camera and techniques.
The Drawbacks although of YouTube is having to sift through hundreds of videos trying to find the right one that would be helpful to us particularly and consequently a lot of time was spent on YouTube trying to find the right videos. YouTube is still a helpful place to get visual tutorials and is still a new ever expanding site, that wasn't a given advantage years ago.
The Drawbacks although of YouTube is having to sift through hundreds of videos trying to find the right one that would be helpful to us particularly and consequently a lot of time was spent on YouTube trying to find the right videos. YouTube is still a helpful place to get visual tutorials and is still a new ever expanding site, that wasn't a given advantage years ago.
Google was used extensively as a search engine for all our queries, ideas and needs; Google not only supports our programme blogger (which we blog with ) but brings up lots of results for a variety of information we may or may not need to know. Google was used to find movies, magazine reviews and film posters with similarities to our ideas this was so we could deconstruct, study and implement certain aspects of these existing products or theories into our own short film products.Google was used in the research and planning mostly as we were meant to plan out everything before constructing but for our ancillary tasks further research was needed.
Just like with YouTube the drawback of Google is finding what you're looking for. Because what we were looking for was very specific it took us sometime to find movie products that matched and had posters and a magazine review for us to deconstruct and study as well. This therefore took up a healthy part of everyone's time and energy and it was definitely not easy finding movies that resembled ours.IMDB
Imdb was also used for finding a movie similar in genre and plot, a lot of hours were loged trying to find one similar to ours in a way this was good because it meant that our movie idea was unique but for comparison, guidance and deconstructions it was not helpful, but after hours of searching we did eventually find a couple similar to ours.
Scribd
Scribd was used to upload our script, storyboard and other documents that we needed to put on to blogger, this was advantageous as it was the best way to put hand dawn documents or signed documents online and they were of eligible quality unlike a picture of the documents would be. Once the documents were converted to PDF format it was easy to upload the file to scribd and then embed the document from scribd to Blogger aswell.
Blogger
Blogger is the main technology we used through out the whole of our A2 Media Portfolio uploading our research, plans, construction process, evidence, evaluations and products, blogger is a perfect place to upload and show case our work for our peers and teacher to see and evaluate.
Construction Stage
Firstly we had to create our short film, this required a lot of different technologies through out the process, the first stage we required technologies such as;
A camera;- Canon 600D DSLR
Exterior sound Recording kit.
A camera;- Canon 600D DSLR
This camera was new to us this year, for our AS year we had learnt to use a different camera a Sony MX 2000D, so handling this new camera was foreign for the first few times. We created a short documentary first about litter to help get used to the camera and having to do more than one thing on it like our old cameras this broadened our minds and gave us access to different styles of filming. This camera also came with changeable lenses for different depths of field which allowed us to be able to do focus pulls and other cool things which we couldn't on our old cameras this was advantageous to us as our Media product for this year was a 5 minute long movie instead of a 2 minute one, this time allowed for a variety of shots.
The biggest advantage would have to be the size and weight of it last year filming shots took a lot of energy alone with just holding the camera and carrying it around as it was not light and as easily portable, this year the smaller, lighter and enhanced camera allowed us to film for hours on end without arm ache or such shakey shots from exertion. The light weight of the camera also allowed us to tilt is sideways, trap it round around neck and place it on surfaces the bigger camera would not have fit on to get the shot we wanted.
The drawback of using this camera is the focus is very sensitive and can be off easily and is easily missed on the small display screen at the back of the camera, an external monitor wasn't able to be hooked up to it either so the focus of some shots we had filmed were off marginally and were only spotted when put on a mac screen. This mean times was then spent refilming shots instead of pushing forward, but after sometime and use with the camera focusing became easier slightly.
Exterior sound Recording kit.
The sound recording kit was used in the filming stage and after it for filler Foley sounds.This was the same technology that we used last year so we were familiar with this piece of equipment.This was especially advantageous as the new camera didn't have a high quality mic to pic up the actors clearly like our old cameras used to. background sounds such as a door closing or footsteps giving background life to the film without the hassle of having to find generated sounds on the computer to fill small sounds that aren't usually picked up.
The advantage to using this piece of technology would be that it is lightweight and portable and only has to be manned by one crew member, another advantage would be that once the sound is recorded it is easily connected to the imac and the sound files are then exported off the recording kit. This is a big step in technology to be able to record clearly and with ease actors or background sounds AND be able to walk around with the technology. An annoyance about the recorder is that when you go to export the files off of it, it's time consuming as the kit is a shared device and therefore contains other peoples recordings which you have to go through in order to find your own.
The advantage to using this piece of technology would be that it is lightweight and portable and only has to be manned by one crew member, another advantage would be that once the sound is recorded it is easily connected to the imac and the sound files are then exported off the recording kit. This is a big step in technology to be able to record clearly and with ease actors or background sounds AND be able to walk around with the technology. An annoyance about the recorder is that when you go to export the files off of it, it's time consuming as the kit is a shared device and therefore contains other peoples recordings which you have to go through in order to find your own.
Post-Production Phase
Final Cut Pro X;-
Once the filming of our product was finished we had to then edit it using a software technology called Final Cut Pro X this is new to what we used last year this version allows you to edit the sound as well as the movie in the same place, we used this to our advantage as we were slightly behind on our work flow but by being able to edit sound and the clips in the same place it brought us up to speed quickly.
Final Cut Pro X is a neater more technical software to last years, it includes new features like effects, sound editing, a more sophisticated filing arrangement and colour grading. This is all helpful in making a high spec movie but the draw back is the time it would take learning how to use all these new features, time we did not have the pleasure to do. We did however use the special effects on our product to resemble a flash back, this would contrast nicely with the 'present' scenes in which they would stand out in high quality.
Free SFX:
Free SFX and Audio network offer a range of soundtracks and sounds a lot of which were styled well to match the Thriller genre, we used this last year in AS for our 2 minute movie opening and it has been handy this year for our short movie.
An advantage of this website would have to be that it's free of charge to download soundtracks and foley effects, the sounds are not copyrighted either so the use of them is completely allowed without consequence. This website saved us a lot of time with Foley effect sounds and creating a soundtrack, if this website was not about it would have meant we would have had to create these from scratch which is valuable time lost.
A drawback of these free sounds would be that the quality of some of them isn't up to par with the tracks you'd buy off other sites, but these are the prices you pay when using free audio sites. If you do include some poor quality soundtracks in your work though it could affect the overall grade of your work so you have to be careful when picking tracks to include in your film.
Film Poster
A white back drop isn't specifically a new technology but it was a new technique we used to photograph our actors for our movie poster, this was something new we hadn't used before but it helped get the perfect crisp shots without loud backgrounds that we wanted.
An advantage of the white back drop was that when the pictures were put into Photoshop the background was all one colour making it easier to remove the background from what we wanted to keep. Another advantage of the backdrop is that it looks more professional and nothing else if catching the viewers eye if we wanted to keep the white background in.
The drawback of such a white background would be that if the lighting isn't right it casts shadows on the back and the dark patches are harder to edit out in Photoshop, it also detracts from the professional feel as the shadows contrast exceedingly.
3 Key lights
The key lights were used to light our actors up correctly so they weren't shadowed unless we wanted them to be. We did however want our actors to be shadowed contrastingly so we used the lights to cast shadows across their faces while keeping the backdrop still shadow free.
An advantage to these lights is that we could manipulate the light on our actors faces for the perfect effect we were looking for and eliminate unwanted shadows. These lights are perfect for lighting up big sets too and if we were filming a different genre these lights would have been useful to us. The only draw back with these lights however is that they are heavy and not easy to transport, they blind your actors and they become very hot after little use and therefore can't be left on too long and can't be left unattended.
Technologies used to communicate
Mobiles
Our most used mode of contact was mobile phones, all of my group had one and therefore it was easy to call or send texts to get in touch with each other this was an advantage when we didn't see each other over the weekend or in school and needed to arrange filming days or editing days with each other.
The only drawback to this method is not all of us are on contracts so one or two members wouldn't be able to contact the group as they would have not credit.
.jpg)
when one or more members of our group didn't have credit to text or call, email was our second mode of contact between each other, this was also a good way to transfer documents to one another that we all needed to have a copy of. An advantage to this is that it's a free way to contact each other easily and transfer work and it saves print outs of documents that could be easily lost.
The drawback however is not every one checks their email regularly so instant contact and response isn't always achieved.
Evaluation Question 3
What have you learned from you audience feedback?
In this evaluation i have created a presentation for my answer and evaluation, covering all the important feedback which affected parts of my A2 media coursework journey, what we did with the feedback received and how it improved our work.
In this evaluation i have created a presentation for my answer and evaluation, covering all the important feedback which affected parts of my A2 media coursework journey, what we did with the feedback received and how it improved our work.
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
Evaluation Question 2
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?
In this section I shall be talking about how effective the combination of my main product and ancillary tasks are in promoting my film to my target audience. My last ancillary task must be taken into account though because if this were a real media product I would not have control over what the review reads or what it displays in its layout and pictures, so i will be evaluating the last as if it wasn't my own piece of work and how it promotes the movie.
Main Product: How effective was our film?
When we started creating our film we already had our aims in mind of what we wanted to achieve, we wanted it to evoke questions with the audience, we wanted it thrill them, we wanted the audience to feel empathy for the protagonist 'Alice' and we wanted a plot twist that leaves the audience saying 'oh i didn't see that coming'. So the question is how effectively did we follow our aims and how well did our ancillary tasks support our movie?
The conventions of a thriller movie involves plot twists, scenes of suspense and tension to thrill and typically a protagonist and an antagonist. These are the basics to a thriller movie which i feel we covered completely, we received positive feedback about our movie from peers in our class and outside of our class from people who didn't know the long process we had to go through to create our 5 minute movie, we therefore received unbiased feedback from outside to support our opinion of its effectiveness. I feel the most effective scene in our product was the ending because it ended with a plot twist that was very much unexpected to the audience, the short 'Behind Closed Doors' ends with the Antagonist killing his colleague and questionable love affair by strangling her with his dead girlfriend's necklace. We had purposefully made the relationship between the Antagonist (Richard) and his colleague (Stacey) to seem normal and slightly romantic so the audience would predict that Richard would end up being with Stacey now, after the death of his girlfriend and not predict our plot to have him kill her in a bid for revenge.
When shown to an exterior audience the ending received many gasps and open mouths and looks of confusion which is what we wanted to achieve, the film effectively thrilled the audience and left them with questions, meaning it wasn't the ending they expected.
How effective was our poster at portraying our movie?
The purpose behind our movie poster for behind closed doors is to help promote the film and give our target audience a taster of what the movie will be like which will promote people to go watch it. It was important that the poster gave a sense of the movie and was eye catching but didn't give too much away. We started toying around with ideas on way to make the poster alluring so the audience wanted to see more but not revealing to the best bits of the product. We needed essentially for the poster to compliment the movie but not overshadow it so much that the audience wouldn't want to see the movie.
The movie poster promotes our thriller movie by displaying dark shadowed images of two women, one looking vulnerable while the other looks calm and confident, the use of the males hands in the middle adds mystery which will entice the audience into watching our movie, the poster displays aspects which are in the movie but gives not much away to the actual storyline unless you're a very good artistic interpreter. The poster its self compliments the movie with the use of shadows dark shadows, deep colours like red and props like the necklace which if you have watched the movie is an important prob in the film as it starts out as Alice's necklace and ends up as a murder weapon. If you look closely you will see a minor detail on the antagonist's hand, it is dried blood. A keen eye will see this detail and someone who has surely watched the movie would pick up on this subliminal detail and appreciate the intricacy that we have gone into with the poster it self.
How does the movie review compliment the main product?
Our review we created wouldn't be made by us if it was a real media product, a real magazine company would review our work and choose the picture they wanted, this review compliments the main product nicely though because if this were a real review 4 stars would promote our movie and the review containing phrases like "Oscar worthy performance" would promote it as a "must see" movie. The Reason we gave a good review was to promote our movie (and give ourselves a backwards form of praise for our hard work) and practice our reviewing technique.
The language used in the review is strong emotive language making the reader want to go see the movie and the description provided is vague and doesn't give much away to the plot, in the main body of the review the reviewer 'Jack Day' comments on the non-chronological order of the film adding an intriguing twist to the movie which prompts the audience to go see it aswell.
In this section I shall be talking about how effective the combination of my main product and ancillary tasks are in promoting my film to my target audience. My last ancillary task must be taken into account though because if this were a real media product I would not have control over what the review reads or what it displays in its layout and pictures, so i will be evaluating the last as if it wasn't my own piece of work and how it promotes the movie.
Main Product: How effective was our film?
When we started creating our film we already had our aims in mind of what we wanted to achieve, we wanted it to evoke questions with the audience, we wanted it thrill them, we wanted the audience to feel empathy for the protagonist 'Alice' and we wanted a plot twist that leaves the audience saying 'oh i didn't see that coming'. So the question is how effectively did we follow our aims and how well did our ancillary tasks support our movie?
The conventions of a thriller movie involves plot twists, scenes of suspense and tension to thrill and typically a protagonist and an antagonist. These are the basics to a thriller movie which i feel we covered completely, we received positive feedback about our movie from peers in our class and outside of our class from people who didn't know the long process we had to go through to create our 5 minute movie, we therefore received unbiased feedback from outside to support our opinion of its effectiveness. I feel the most effective scene in our product was the ending because it ended with a plot twist that was very much unexpected to the audience, the short 'Behind Closed Doors' ends with the Antagonist killing his colleague and questionable love affair by strangling her with his dead girlfriend's necklace. We had purposefully made the relationship between the Antagonist (Richard) and his colleague (Stacey) to seem normal and slightly romantic so the audience would predict that Richard would end up being with Stacey now, after the death of his girlfriend and not predict our plot to have him kill her in a bid for revenge.
When shown to an exterior audience the ending received many gasps and open mouths and looks of confusion which is what we wanted to achieve, the film effectively thrilled the audience and left them with questions, meaning it wasn't the ending they expected.
How effective was our poster at portraying our movie?
The purpose behind our movie poster for behind closed doors is to help promote the film and give our target audience a taster of what the movie will be like which will promote people to go watch it. It was important that the poster gave a sense of the movie and was eye catching but didn't give too much away. We started toying around with ideas on way to make the poster alluring so the audience wanted to see more but not revealing to the best bits of the product. We needed essentially for the poster to compliment the movie but not overshadow it so much that the audience wouldn't want to see the movie.
The movie poster promotes our thriller movie by displaying dark shadowed images of two women, one looking vulnerable while the other looks calm and confident, the use of the males hands in the middle adds mystery which will entice the audience into watching our movie, the poster displays aspects which are in the movie but gives not much away to the actual storyline unless you're a very good artistic interpreter. The poster its self compliments the movie with the use of shadows dark shadows, deep colours like red and props like the necklace which if you have watched the movie is an important prob in the film as it starts out as Alice's necklace and ends up as a murder weapon. If you look closely you will see a minor detail on the antagonist's hand, it is dried blood. A keen eye will see this detail and someone who has surely watched the movie would pick up on this subliminal detail and appreciate the intricacy that we have gone into with the poster it self.
How does the movie review compliment the main product?
Our review we created wouldn't be made by us if it was a real media product, a real magazine company would review our work and choose the picture they wanted, this review compliments the main product nicely though because if this were a real review 4 stars would promote our movie and the review containing phrases like "Oscar worthy performance" would promote it as a "must see" movie. The Reason we gave a good review was to promote our movie (and give ourselves a backwards form of praise for our hard work) and practice our reviewing technique.
The language used in the review is strong emotive language making the reader want to go see the movie and the description provided is vague and doesn't give much away to the plot, in the main body of the review the reviewer 'Jack Day' comments on the non-chronological order of the film adding an intriguing twist to the movie which prompts the audience to go see it aswell.
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
Evaluation Question 1
In What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Genre explanation: A thriller usually consists of a battle between the protagonist and the antagonist character which then leads on to a chain of bad happenings to build tension and suspense before the initial climax and ending.
Protagonist: Typically the protagonist is the one trying to restore order and normalcy to the chaos in one way or another, they are usually the vulnerable one being chased after or sort our by the Antagonist, the audience usually creates an empathetic connection with this character because of their innocence or vulnerability.
Antagonist: Usually the antagonist is evil and/or crazy, they conflict with the protagonist and sometimes have strong agenda's for them from the offset.
Conventions:
The real movie product I watched was a thriller movie titled "Enough" about a woman who is in an abusive marriage and can't escape her angry controlling husband. The Woman is the protagonist in this case and the Antagonist is her power mad husband.
The pictures for my 'Behind Closed Doors' Key frame are not in ascending order as they were numbered after arrangement but I will explain and evaluate in ascending order in connection to 'Enough's' key frames.
1) Image 1 of 'Enough' is a still of the protagonist with a background shot of her and the night, it is dark and shadowed this serves its purpose to set the scene and atmosphere, corresponding with that is ours picturing our protagonist sitting at a table, the background is dark and sets a tense atmosphere. A typical thriller convention is the movie has shadows and dark scenes and we picked up on this convention from the movie Enough and integrated this into our work, for further tension we added blurred effects over our "Past" scene of our product making the scene seem more dark and tense.
2) Image 2 of 'Enough' is a shot of the Antagonist in action, the antagonist is typically violent or destructive, in this instance the antagonist is violent as it's a domestic violence thriller, shot 2 of 'Enough' is a picture of the antagonist attacking the protagonist, because this is a tense moment in the movie the scene is dark and the Antagonist is shadowed for effect. We implemented this device in our product when the antagonist attacks our second protagonist at the end of our movie, the first 'attack' was not dark and shadowed as we wanted the audience to question the intentions of the antagonist at the start of weather he did mean to kill his spouse.
3) Image 3 is a change in the angle of shot, usually used to portray a sense of something and put you into the scene more. In 'Enough' the change in angle is used to show the protagonist's vulnerability with the camera looking down on her but off to the side, the audience feels like an active viewer in the scene and therefore captures their attention. Not only does it show vulnerability to the protagonist but it empowers the antagonist the culprit of such events. In our short film we used this angle when the protagonist, Alice dies; this is shot in the point of view of the antagonist though and therefore immerses the audience into his shoes creating questions for them which is also another way to raise suspense.
4) Image 4 is a shot of the protagonist in the mercy of the antagonist; for 'Enough' this is portrayed in a violent way where the antagonist has the protagonist by the hair and is subjecting his dominance and control upon her. Where as in our product the Antagonist is trying to manipulate and soften the protagonist so she will bend to his wishes without the use of violence but with the use of psychological manipulation that the audience will piece together further on in the short.
5) Image 5 is an over the shoulder reaction shot of the protagonist's realisation that their spouse is nasty and an antagonist. These shots were used to show the dawning horror and realisation on both actresses faces to the audience. In 'Enough' this is after the protagonist has first been struck that she realises her spouse is evil, this is also a crucial point for the audience to identify the Antagonist. For our product we replicated this moment but without violence being subjected to her, we have her looking down upset as the antagonist breaks a picture frame of the two of them purposefully and another shot of her a few seconds later in the bathroom crying holding her head in distress, this is a minor hint to the audience that Richard could be an antagonist but it doesn't become a realisation till a little later.
6) Image 6 is a still of the protagonist weak and at the mercy of the antagonist, showing the stereotypical feminine victim side. In 'Enough' she is looking up to the antagonist displaying the power once again and in our short we have her shying away from his violence, with hunched shoulders holding her head in fear.
7) Image 7 is a shot of the protagonist trying to restore the equilibrium and take charge of what is happening to them. This is the turning point in the thriller where the protagonist tries to help there self. image 7 of 'Enough' is a still of the protagonist becoming dominant and fighting back, you can see in facial expression that the innocent wide eyed look is gone and a hardened look has replaced it. We replicated this convention by having our protagonist try and leave the antagonist to restore her equilibrium.
8) Image 8 are stills of the Antagonists, in 'Enough' he wears a business suit to show his power and look more like a man, this makes him seem more threatening than if he was wearing normal everyday clothes so we dressed our antagonist the same for the same threatening powerful effect.
Now that our A2 Products are done and our Media Portfolio is drawing to a close we now must evaluate our work in depth, in this question I will be evaluating how my media product 'Behind Closed Doors' used and developed thriller conventions and plots concerning domestic relationships against real media products I have researched.
First of all what are the codes and conventions of the thriller genre? and what are the stereotypes of characters in a domestic abuse relationship?
Codes and conventions of thrillers:Genre explanation: A thriller usually consists of a battle between the protagonist and the antagonist character which then leads on to a chain of bad happenings to build tension and suspense before the initial climax and ending.
Protagonist: Typically the protagonist is the one trying to restore order and normalcy to the chaos in one way or another, they are usually the vulnerable one being chased after or sort our by the Antagonist, the audience usually creates an empathetic connection with this character because of their innocence or vulnerability.
Antagonist: Usually the antagonist is evil and/or crazy, they conflict with the protagonist and sometimes have strong agenda's for them from the offset.
Conventions:
- Low key Lighting
- Quick Cuts
- Shadows
- Tension Music
- Changes in the angle of shot
- Protagonist is in the mercy of the antagonist
Stereo-typically the victim in a domestic abuse relationship is the female who is portrayed as the weaker of the two, being innocent looking and vulnerable. The domineering abuser is therefore the man who is stronger, bigger and looks rough. The clothing says a lot about the characters and the angles used show where the power is held between the two, often with the camera looking down on the victim or placing the aggressor in the rule of thirds making them a focal point meaning they hold importance. Dominance and weakness is also shown in the characters body language, the female/victim will have hunched shoulders or will typically look down. The male will have drawn back shoulders and will lean into the victim threateningly.
 |
| Key frames from 'Enough' |
 |
| Key Frames from 'Behind Closed Doors' |
The pictures for my 'Behind Closed Doors' Key frame are not in ascending order as they were numbered after arrangement but I will explain and evaluate in ascending order in connection to 'Enough's' key frames.
1) Image 1 of 'Enough' is a still of the protagonist with a background shot of her and the night, it is dark and shadowed this serves its purpose to set the scene and atmosphere, corresponding with that is ours picturing our protagonist sitting at a table, the background is dark and sets a tense atmosphere. A typical thriller convention is the movie has shadows and dark scenes and we picked up on this convention from the movie Enough and integrated this into our work, for further tension we added blurred effects over our "Past" scene of our product making the scene seem more dark and tense.
2) Image 2 of 'Enough' is a shot of the Antagonist in action, the antagonist is typically violent or destructive, in this instance the antagonist is violent as it's a domestic violence thriller, shot 2 of 'Enough' is a picture of the antagonist attacking the protagonist, because this is a tense moment in the movie the scene is dark and the Antagonist is shadowed for effect. We implemented this device in our product when the antagonist attacks our second protagonist at the end of our movie, the first 'attack' was not dark and shadowed as we wanted the audience to question the intentions of the antagonist at the start of weather he did mean to kill his spouse.
3) Image 3 is a change in the angle of shot, usually used to portray a sense of something and put you into the scene more. In 'Enough' the change in angle is used to show the protagonist's vulnerability with the camera looking down on her but off to the side, the audience feels like an active viewer in the scene and therefore captures their attention. Not only does it show vulnerability to the protagonist but it empowers the antagonist the culprit of such events. In our short film we used this angle when the protagonist, Alice dies; this is shot in the point of view of the antagonist though and therefore immerses the audience into his shoes creating questions for them which is also another way to raise suspense.
4) Image 4 is a shot of the protagonist in the mercy of the antagonist; for 'Enough' this is portrayed in a violent way where the antagonist has the protagonist by the hair and is subjecting his dominance and control upon her. Where as in our product the Antagonist is trying to manipulate and soften the protagonist so she will bend to his wishes without the use of violence but with the use of psychological manipulation that the audience will piece together further on in the short.
5) Image 5 is an over the shoulder reaction shot of the protagonist's realisation that their spouse is nasty and an antagonist. These shots were used to show the dawning horror and realisation on both actresses faces to the audience. In 'Enough' this is after the protagonist has first been struck that she realises her spouse is evil, this is also a crucial point for the audience to identify the Antagonist. For our product we replicated this moment but without violence being subjected to her, we have her looking down upset as the antagonist breaks a picture frame of the two of them purposefully and another shot of her a few seconds later in the bathroom crying holding her head in distress, this is a minor hint to the audience that Richard could be an antagonist but it doesn't become a realisation till a little later.
6) Image 6 is a still of the protagonist weak and at the mercy of the antagonist, showing the stereotypical feminine victim side. In 'Enough' she is looking up to the antagonist displaying the power once again and in our short we have her shying away from his violence, with hunched shoulders holding her head in fear.
7) Image 7 is a shot of the protagonist trying to restore the equilibrium and take charge of what is happening to them. This is the turning point in the thriller where the protagonist tries to help there self. image 7 of 'Enough' is a still of the protagonist becoming dominant and fighting back, you can see in facial expression that the innocent wide eyed look is gone and a hardened look has replaced it. We replicated this convention by having our protagonist try and leave the antagonist to restore her equilibrium.
8) Image 8 are stills of the Antagonists, in 'Enough' he wears a business suit to show his power and look more like a man, this makes him seem more threatening than if he was wearing normal everyday clothes so we dressed our antagonist the same for the same threatening powerful effect.
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Rough Cut Feedback
Behind Closed Doors Feedback
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Behind Closed Doors Rough Cut
Ok so finally after blood, sweat and a few tears our rough cut is done and edited we already know there are flaws in it like sound doesn't match up in some places and there is one shot (the still picture you see on the presented video bellow) that has a different effect colour on it to the rest, we put these minor errors down to lack of sleep but at least its done and we have something to show. Now to show our peers and get it evaluated so we know in which ways they would like us to improve our short film.
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Shooting on Location Day 6
Date: Wednesday 14th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night
Time filming started: 4:00 Pm
Time filming finished: 8:00 Pm
Scene: 2 Shots: 51-58 Interior
Summary
This is a video of our practice and debate for the falling down the stairs shot, the idea of tracking Rebecca in our previous filming, practice shot of a way to film Alex walking up the stairs and generally a behind the scenes of how most of our filming days went, a lot of practice shots and debate:
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night
Time filming started: 4:00 Pm
Time filming finished: 8:00 Pm
Scene: 2 Shots: 51-58 Interior
So today we were filming the shots that took place upstairs when Alice ran up them to escape Richard and went into the bathroom. We started off in the bathroom where Deanna Dribbled water over Rebecca's face and eyes to simulate the look of her crying as she couldn't do it on command, this worked realistically and so to our advantage. A interesting shot we did was a shot of her in the mirror wiping her tears away and panning the camera to the door with her looking at it when it was knocked and then following it back to the mirror. It was pulled off as a very smooth shot and surprisingly we managed to stay out of the background in the mirror! A lot of work had to be done to get this shot nice though as the lighting wasn't the best in the bathroom so Dan had an LED light aimed so it would reflect off the strategically placed reflectors and on to Rebecca to get a nicely illuminated shot.
After this shot was perfected we moved on to the hallway to film Alex (Richard's) ascent of the stairs to find Alice and his knock on the bathroom door, we also filmed Alice's running up the stairs shot when the is on her way to the bathroom, Dan recorded this as the tripod was too big to sit on the stairs and the idea of having a hand held recording of it was to make the shot seem more distressed and get the viewer into the chaos of her running away up the stairs. This did however take a few takes to get right as positioning was wrong we either had too much dead space or she went out of shot and out of rule of thirds too much which we needed to keep her in because for the symbolism of the shakey shot and her running to be connotated emotionally to the audience as a distressing time.
We were going to start on our filming of the "falling downstairs" shot but felt it be best to save that till tomorrow when we had more time as we would need to experiment with how this would work and look best. So next entry will most likely entail the review of that day and how we did it :)
This is a video of our practice and debate for the falling down the stairs shot, the idea of tracking Rebecca in our previous filming, practice shot of a way to film Alex walking up the stairs and generally a behind the scenes of how most of our filming days went, a lot of practice shots and debate:
Saturday, 10 January 2015
Shooting on Location Day 5
Date: Saturday 10th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: All Day (Day and Night)
Time filming started: 12:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Scene: 2 & 3 Shots: 62-72 Interior, Exterior 43-50, Interior shot 5
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: All Day (Day and Night)
Time filming started: 12:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Scene: 2 & 3 Shots: 62-72 Interior, Exterior 43-50, Interior shot 5
Summary
Today started relatively early as we needed as much day light as possible to film Millie's (Stacey's) shots as she only had until 5 oclock before she had to leave us, this worked out fine for us as Stacey's shots we're all daylight shots anyway.
For the first half of the day Deanna and I left the boys to get on with the work, referring them to the storyboard for shot composition and explaining how it should look while we got on with changing the script. The reason Deanna and I were changing the end of the script was not only to give Stacey a bigger role but because a whole new ending had been thought up to our film and we really wanted to do that ending instead, so excitedly Deanna and I bounced up stairs to frantically write our ideas down while the boys Cam and Dan started filming shot 62 (a close up of Alex on the stairs playing with Alice's necklacke) and exterior shots of Stacey approaching the house and entering.
When we got to shot 69 Deanna and I had finished writing the script ending and we were back down stairs assisting with the filming. Shot 69 was a lot of shot reverse shots due to the characters having a conversation. We did this by setting up the camera behind Alex to start with and filmed Millie coming in through the door and then running through the complete conversation so that in editing we could cut it accurately. After that, we shifted the camera behind Millie and filmed Alex saying his parts and then walking off into the kitchen (shot 72).
We eventually got all of the day light scenes done and moved on to the night scenes of Alice and Richard, While Alex went to get changed into his costume for scene 2 Deanna did Rebecca's make up and we got the set clear and ready. We were doing the kitchen scene today where Richard smashes the photograph of him and Alice and the argument ends when she runs upstairs our plan was to finish this scene today and we achieved our plan, yay!
Of course it was a major safety issue to have Alex smash the glass, not just for his safety but for ours and Dan's dog's that was liable to step on a stray tiny shard of glass, so we took it outside and smashed it at the bottom of Dan's drive when it was wrapped in kitchen roll, Dan recorded the sound to use in the film and we faked Alex smashing the picture frame by having a non broken version for him to fake smash and changing to a reaction shot of Alice just before the picture connects with the corner of a washer, this will work effectively with the right editing i'm sure Dan and Cam will do an excellent job on it in the editing stage.
Friday, 9 January 2015
Shooting on location Day 4
Date: Friday 9th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Scene: 2 Shots: 31-42
Equipment:
DSLR Camera + Tripod
Tracking Dolly
Sound Recording Kit
Large & Small Reflectors
LED Light
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Scene: 2 Shots: 31-42
Equipment:
DSLR Camera + Tripod
Tracking Dolly
Sound Recording Kit
Large & Small Reflectors
LED Light
Summary of today
Today was an exciting day for us, after setting up the table to its minutest detail we were ready to break the news to the actors that today was "slap day". There was a bit of nervous tension about how we were going to make a slap look realistic and not hurt our actors in the process, so Deanna and I got to work on discussing where best to fit in our actresses slap in the argument, after some talking we decided the script needed to be rewrote and we frantically started crossing out lines and stage directions, while we were redoing the script Cameron and Dan got to work on doing some singular hallway shots so time was not being wasted.
When we finally finished the script, a discussion about how the shot should go commenced and cameron made a good point that it should just be one fluid shot instead of deanna's suggest point of view shot, this way it doesn't detract from the action and you dont loose the momentum and drama of the scene. In agreement this is what we went with and was a very effective set up.
Our second fiddly shot was Richard's (Alex) 'angry reaction'. Originally we were going to have a two shot of Alex knock a chair over in anger, but after not being able to get it right in a few takes we had to stop and change that idea as the chair kept knocking the glass table and we were pushing our luck with it's durability. Instead we changed it to Richard picking up Alice's (Rebecca) book 'Romeo and juliet' and throwing it at/past her against the door for an effective dramatic sound and look, after a couple shots we got this right finally! Daniel's dad wasn't pleased with the row we were making because "what would the neighbors think" about all the banging and shouting our actors were doing, so thank god we got that right and didn't have to reshoot it! poor Dianna was also wedged behind the door to stop it from swinging back and then forth with the impact so she was pretty thankful it didn't take too, I filmed this 2 shot and let Cam have a rest standing as it has been a long day of filming.
Out takes of Alex's 'Angry reaction' A.K.A Shot 38:
When we finally finished the script, a discussion about how the shot should go commenced and cameron made a good point that it should just be one fluid shot instead of deanna's suggest point of view shot, this way it doesn't detract from the action and you dont loose the momentum and drama of the scene. In agreement this is what we went with and was a very effective set up.
Our second fiddly shot was Richard's (Alex) 'angry reaction'. Originally we were going to have a two shot of Alex knock a chair over in anger, but after not being able to get it right in a few takes we had to stop and change that idea as the chair kept knocking the glass table and we were pushing our luck with it's durability. Instead we changed it to Richard picking up Alice's (Rebecca) book 'Romeo and juliet' and throwing it at/past her against the door for an effective dramatic sound and look, after a couple shots we got this right finally! Daniel's dad wasn't pleased with the row we were making because "what would the neighbors think" about all the banging and shouting our actors were doing, so thank god we got that right and didn't have to reshoot it! poor Dianna was also wedged behind the door to stop it from swinging back and then forth with the impact so she was pretty thankful it didn't take too, I filmed this 2 shot and let Cam have a rest standing as it has been a long day of filming.
Out takes of Alex's 'Angry reaction' A.K.A Shot 38:
Thursday, 8 January 2015
Shooting on location Day 3
Date: Thursday 8th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Scene: 2 Shots: 25-30
All Cast and Crew Present.
Today's filming went well, our plan for today was to get all the hallway shots done and progress to the living room so there was more space for new camera angles and better lighting as Daniel's hallway is very dark and enclosed making movement hard.
we started filming our dialogue shots today so the actors had to rehearse their lines, this took a lot more time than we expected it to take but we made use of the time they were rehearsing to conference about how we as a team shall go about shooting this scene, how long we wanted it to take and how we were going to fit in a Dinner break as some crew members were complaining about hunger pains (we're growing teens after all).
Alex did very good reaction shots to Rebecca's anger which was exactly what we needed, it only took a few takes to get it right thankfully, I filmed towards the end of today as my lack of height was advantageous for a perfect panning 2 shot of Rebecca and Alex.
Today went well today over all, hopefully we stay on this course of good fortune and manage to get all filming done in a few shots.
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Scene: 2 Shots: 25-30
All Cast and Crew Present.
Today's filming went well, our plan for today was to get all the hallway shots done and progress to the living room so there was more space for new camera angles and better lighting as Daniel's hallway is very dark and enclosed making movement hard.
we started filming our dialogue shots today so the actors had to rehearse their lines, this took a lot more time than we expected it to take but we made use of the time they were rehearsing to conference about how we as a team shall go about shooting this scene, how long we wanted it to take and how we were going to fit in a Dinner break as some crew members were complaining about hunger pains (we're growing teens after all).
Alex did very good reaction shots to Rebecca's anger which was exactly what we needed, it only took a few takes to get it right thankfully, I filmed towards the end of today as my lack of height was advantageous for a perfect panning 2 shot of Rebecca and Alex.
Today went well today over all, hopefully we stay on this course of good fortune and manage to get all filming done in a few shots.
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Shooting on location Day 2
Date: Wednesday 7th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night
Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Crew Present: Deanna Hopps, Cameron Hargreaves, Daniel Springthorpe, Charlotte Smith (Me)
Cast Present: Rebecca Chapman - Alice, Alex Marks - Richard
Scene: 2 Shots: 16-24 - Interior
Equipment:
DSLR Camera + Tripod
Tracking Dolly
Sound Recording Kit
Large & Small Reflectors
LED Light
Transportation for today
Our own two feet were our mode of transport today! The equipment was of course drove to Daniel's house as stated from the last shooting day it is simply just too much to carry and too awkward!
Before I progress, if you haven't noticed in the cast listing there's a change in male actors. We decided with reluctance to change actors, this is because of a lot of reasons but the main one being that they are too young to be staying with us everyday after school until after 9 on the evening so in consideration we changed the main male character.
Okay so with that being said we started our second but realistically first shooting day with the new actor on set. While Deanna did Rebecca's make-up Alex changed into his costume and Cameron and Daniel set up the set and camera, while I cleaned the location of anything that would be moved in Dan's house from day to day so as not to create any continuity errors while filming.
After helping Alex through what we wanted him to do for our shots we were ready to go, because we were redoing shots 16-24 Rebecca already knew what she was doing so it was easy to redo her shots our main problem was still the lighting though which LED's couldnt fix without distorting the colour of the set, after a little playing around with the exposure we managed to sort our lighting problem at least, it took a bit more time to get Alex into the swing of things and remembering his lines but Dan helped him through this first day and we eventually got there in the end. On a bad note though, Alex is also a full time student meaning filming will have to be done after 4 everyday until late and we can see ourselves having to book in some weekend time with the equipment to do some weekend filming later on.
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night
Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm
Crew Present: Deanna Hopps, Cameron Hargreaves, Daniel Springthorpe, Charlotte Smith (Me)
Cast Present: Rebecca Chapman - Alice, Alex Marks - Richard
Scene: 2 Shots: 16-24 - Interior
Equipment:
DSLR Camera + Tripod
Tracking Dolly
Sound Recording Kit
Large & Small Reflectors
LED Light
 |
| Deanna arranging the set |
Transportation for today
Our own two feet were our mode of transport today! The equipment was of course drove to Daniel's house as stated from the last shooting day it is simply just too much to carry and too awkward!
Before I progress, if you haven't noticed in the cast listing there's a change in male actors. We decided with reluctance to change actors, this is because of a lot of reasons but the main one being that they are too young to be staying with us everyday after school until after 9 on the evening so in consideration we changed the main male character.
Okay so with that being said we started our second but realistically first shooting day with the new actor on set. While Deanna did Rebecca's make-up Alex changed into his costume and Cameron and Daniel set up the set and camera, while I cleaned the location of anything that would be moved in Dan's house from day to day so as not to create any continuity errors while filming.
After helping Alex through what we wanted him to do for our shots we were ready to go, because we were redoing shots 16-24 Rebecca already knew what she was doing so it was easy to redo her shots our main problem was still the lighting though which LED's couldnt fix without distorting the colour of the set, after a little playing around with the exposure we managed to sort our lighting problem at least, it took a bit more time to get Alex into the swing of things and remembering his lines but Dan helped him through this first day and we eventually got there in the end. On a bad note though, Alex is also a full time student meaning filming will have to be done after 4 everyday until late and we can see ourselves having to book in some weekend time with the equipment to do some weekend filming later on.
Wednesday, 10 December 2014
Shooting on location Day 1
Date: 10th December
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of day: Evening 4:30pm - 7:30pm
Crew Present: Dan, Deanna, Cameron, Charlotte.
Cast Present: Rebecca Chapman, Ryan Witton, Millie Russel
Equipment:
DSLR Camera + Tripod
Tracking Dolly
Sound Recording Kit
Large & Small Reflectors
LED Light
Summary of the day
We decided to film scene 2 today as this is the bulkiest of all our scenes and the argument/death scene making it the most crucial to film and get correct. By kicking off with this scene we will be setting the expectation of work effort for the rest of our filming. We quickly realised we wouldnt be able to use Ryan as our main male actor as he wasn't ready to commit the effort meaning a lot of reshoots would be needed to perfect shots.
We started filming with Rebecca first at the dining table (shot 22 - 24) Rebecca was perfect and receptive to our needs she had no protests with re-shoots either, which was good considering shot 22 took 3 takes because of disliked camera positioning and lighting and shot 24 took 5 takes because we needed real emotion from Rebecca as this is the shot where 'Richard' makes his entrance from being extremely late home from 'work'.
Crew roles for our first day
Deanna
Deanna was the butter on the bread today, telling us which shots we would be doing and deciding how the girls make-up would best suit their personalities, she helped me when i needed help with the lighting as well and helped direct Cameron for the best cinematic angle on certain shots.
Daniel
Dan was in charge of sound recording ensuring we have clear sound that we can use and diagetic sound that we will need, for example the door slamming. He was also our group nominated PA (private joke) but considering we were in Dan's house we felt it best for him to make the cups of tea and food.
Cameron
Cameron was in charge of the cinematography and shot types as his past experience in AS is more developed than the rest of us, Cameron also managed to master the focus and focus pulls on the new 600D DSLR camera so he was rightfully in charge of most of the camera work.
Myself
As for myself I was in charge of the lighting conditions of the set so it wouldn't affect the camera quality, I also dabbled in filming and advice in directing shot types or actors performance on set to minimise the need for shot retakes.
Overall today while we started off well we have come to the realisation that the storyboard and script will have to be changed if we are to continue filming in our present location.
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of day: Evening 4:30pm - 7:30pm
Crew Present: Dan, Deanna, Cameron, Charlotte.
Cast Present: Rebecca Chapman, Ryan Witton, Millie Russel
Equipment:
DSLR Camera + Tripod
Tracking Dolly
Sound Recording Kit
Large & Small Reflectors
LED Light
Transport
The equipment was transported via car for safety and the fact it was too bulky to carry, myself and my team including cast met at school and walked down to our filming location as conveniently its only 15 minutes down the road.
Summary of the day
 |
| Deanna applying make up to the actress |
 |
| FOCUS PRACTICE |
Today started awkwardly with small talk but eventually the ice broke and we could get down to business with ease, today was very much an eye opener for how the rest of filming will go! and it looks like we're going to be travelling a very bumpy road for a while but we shall manage with a little blood, sweet and tears.
We started off the night with getting our set's ready, this means setting up the "romantic meal' dining table and taking pictures of where the props were as this would stop continuity errors later. The actresses and actor went upstairs to get changed ready for filming while we did this to save time.
We experienced some technical issues with lighting and location size, we quickly realised at this point that our storyboard wouldn't match our finished product for shot type so we shall have to change our story board later on once we have established which shots will need changing.
We decided to film scene 2 today as this is the bulkiest of all our scenes and the argument/death scene making it the most crucial to film and get correct. By kicking off with this scene we will be setting the expectation of work effort for the rest of our filming. We quickly realised we wouldnt be able to use Ryan as our main male actor as he wasn't ready to commit the effort meaning a lot of reshoots would be needed to perfect shots.
We started filming with Rebecca first at the dining table (shot 22 - 24) Rebecca was perfect and receptive to our needs she had no protests with re-shoots either, which was good considering shot 22 took 3 takes because of disliked camera positioning and lighting and shot 24 took 5 takes because we needed real emotion from Rebecca as this is the shot where 'Richard' makes his entrance from being extremely late home from 'work'.
Crew roles for our first day
Deanna
Deanna was the butter on the bread today, telling us which shots we would be doing and deciding how the girls make-up would best suit their personalities, she helped me when i needed help with the lighting as well and helped direct Cameron for the best cinematic angle on certain shots.
Daniel
Dan was in charge of sound recording ensuring we have clear sound that we can use and diagetic sound that we will need, for example the door slamming. He was also our group nominated PA (private joke) but considering we were in Dan's house we felt it best for him to make the cups of tea and food.
Cameron
Cameron was in charge of the cinematography and shot types as his past experience in AS is more developed than the rest of us, Cameron also managed to master the focus and focus pulls on the new 600D DSLR camera so he was rightfully in charge of most of the camera work.
Myself
As for myself I was in charge of the lighting conditions of the set so it wouldn't affect the camera quality, I also dabbled in filming and advice in directing shot types or actors performance on set to minimise the need for shot retakes.
Overall today while we started off well we have come to the realisation that the storyboard and script will have to be changed if we are to continue filming in our present location.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)