Evaluation 1st Term

The first term is over. It is the half time of our production, we have to have finished our film opening at the end of next term. We have two more months, which is not such a long time if you think about it.

Where are we? We have build up our own production company, done our Preliminary Task, planned our film opening, we have created a storyboard and filmed all our footage. We have started editing as well, we have the first 30 seconds finished. We have all our titles, we just have to them add them to our movie.

We don't have the music yet, we don't have edited the rest of our movie, we have some sound effects missing and the sound is not perfect as well. If the quality of the sound of our footage is not good enough or if you cannot hear what the actors say we will have to use sound over.

A long way to go but I think that all over all this was a successful first term and we will finish our film in time without big problems.

The team spirit in our company is big, the three of us are really working together as a team and helping out if someone needs help.

Not everything was perfect, we can work on our efficiency and try to use all the time we have. If we achieve this next term I am confident our project will be a success.

(Simon)

Main Task: Filming (5)

Today we finished the last part of filming for our main task. We filmed the last part of the two characters walking from Windmill and Duffus towards the bar and arriving outside. Character 1 and 2 put away their phones and meet outside to wait for the main character who comes out of the bar a moment later.

Filming was very successful today as we planned very well exactly what we were going to do before we went out and filmed. There was a small problem with traffic but that was easily overcome. We tried to keep good continuity throughout the whole of filming and i think we achieved this.

What we have learnt from filming is that if you plan well then it is easier to have a good piece footage. You need to organise yourselves and then you will be able to manoeuvre around any obstacle that comes your way.

This is our work complete for this term and when we come back we will focus on editing and putting in all the titles needed to make our main task look like a real opening of a film.

(James)

Main Task: Filming (4)

Today we filmed the scenes needed for the character walking the last part of the road from Windmill to outside the bar at G House. Filming today was not very successful as we didn't plan what we were going to do before we left the classroom. There were vehicles parked on the street that we realised would not be there tomorrow and this would affect our continuity.

Tomorrow will be better as we have planned what we are going to do and we will complete the final part of the footage needed for our main task.

(James)

Main Task: Music (1)

For our film we want to have music which represents the characters and the storyline. As our film is about three cool myserious guys we want to have upbeat myserious music which will bring the audience closer to understanding what the characters are like and what the storyline is all about.

We also want different genres of music to represent each individual character and the situation they are in. For example the scene of the bar, when the barmaid turns around to watch the man on the phone, we want to have intense music to represent this situation. The audience are not meant to know who she is, but they are supposed to feel intrigued about what she is doing in the bar apart from serving drinks.

I searched different websites to try and find free copyright music for our film that would match the genre we are aiming at. I evetually found a tune called "Three Hilts" whcih I think is great as it fits perfectly with our genre. When asking people in the class what genre are film was based on, they said are you trying to do a sort of Hustle, Oceans theme. This was exactly the sort of thing we are basing ours on. By these comments we are sure we have found the perfect piece of music.

(James)

Main Task: Editing (3)

In the last two double periods I carried on with editing our Main Task. We have finished now the first 30 seconds, but some bits in it are still missing. When I edited, Gabi and James looked for music and sound effects. We need two different sounds for the introduction logos of our companies, United Movies and Art Productions. We are still looking for the right track of music, which represents the genre and gives the right feeling to the viewer. This is very difficult, so we decided that we maybe should do our own music with Apple's Garage Band. This is a Mac based program but it is really easy to work with.

At the bottom there are three pictures of the progress of the editing. The problem is that we have to change the sequences so often, because we aren't completely sure in which order they should come on the screen. This takes a lot of time.

I also made a second Production Company Logo. This company is called United Movies, but they are a completely independent company to Art Productions, they just publish the video so their logo appears at the beginning as well.

(Simon)

Main Task: Titles (3)

Today I practised using Photoshop as I have not used it often and so i am still finding out about all the different things you can to, like using different styles and layers. I also experimented with different colours and fonts to try and find an effect that looked professional and well made.

For our film we want our finished titles to be the best thay can be and so to do this we have taken a lot of time to make them and evaluate them to see how we can make them even better.

(James)

Main Task: Titles (2)

I finished editing of the titles today. We are not sure if we want to have the black title (top picture) or the white one (lower picture). The titles have to be read easily and the feedback we got on them was that some people had problems with the black one, so I made the white one. We will figure out in the next lesson if that works better.

It is quite difficult to find a decent layout which everyone can read. I white text with a black stroke would be quite good probably, but I find that so boring so we decided that we try some other things first.



(Simon)

Main Task: Company Titles

Today as a result of the weather our group was unable to go out filming for our main task. We chose instead to work on editing the footage we've already taken and formulating the titles which we will use throughout the beginning of our film. So that all of our names were included in the titles, we chose certain 'jobs' for each of us to be connected to although everyone in our group has had a chance to perform each job.

The first three titles that show up in our film beginning are:
- Directed by... Gabi Paterson
- Executive Procucer James Grieve
- Created by... Simon Dethleffsen

We also decided that the other titles we will include are the names of the three main actors which appear in our film beginning. These titles will say:
- Vidur Bharatram
- Simon Dethleffsen
- James Grieve

While discussing how the last three titles stating the names of the actors would appear, we decided that when each actor appears on screen, we will edit the footage so that there is a still shot of them. When each still shot is on screen, the actors name will appear.

(Gabi)

Main Task: Editing (2)

Today I continued to edit our film opening. I am quite new to premier elements and so today I carried on editing our footage and also experimented with the different sound and video affects that you can add into the film to give it an overall higher quality.

The scenes I edited where of chatracter 2 walking down towards the bar and answering his phone. I cut in many different shots to make it look more professional and more interesting to the viewer.Editing does take a long time to do as you have to go through the scenes you have filmed and separate the good from the bad footage. You also have to take into acount the background sound and voice of the actors.

So far editing is going well as we filmed plenty of footage. We now need to move on to cutting in the different characters and creating shot reaction shot to show the conversation that is taking place.

(James)

Logo

The last time I worked on our prodution company logo. It has to look serious and the layout of it has to fit with the name of the company. For example you cannot name your company Colour Productions when the logo is just in black and white.

A legitimate logo was very important for us and we were inspired by some other logos.

This logo is very clear. one colour, people can see what it is about, the most important part is printed bold and the star represents the movie genre.

The Celsius films logo appears very legitimate, the picture fits with the name and this logo shows that a black and white logo can look good as well.

We found this logo as well. This looks good, but without the name people dont have an idea what company this logo uses. Also the business in which the company works is not clear to see.

The newest photoshop logo combines simple layout and clear genres. This is the icon of the CS 4 version which inspired the "Art" part of our logo as well.

In this logo there is a line between picture and text, we think this is a nice way of layout and we used this in our logo as well.

This is our final logo. It looks simple and legitimate. We were inspired by many logos but ours is still unique.

Company

Movies are produced by film companies so we decided to make ourselves a company. This makes our film and blog appears more serious and legitimate. For viewers the small graphics of Universal or other companys stand for high quality and we want to achieve the same.
We all work for the company in equal positions, everyone is as important as each other. Our company needs a name. We thought a bit about it and decided that Art Productions would be a good idea. The name sounds serious, the word Art represents creativity as well.
The company also needs a logo. our logo will be on top of our blog and will be in our film opening as well, therefore the viewer can see that averything belongs together. (Recognition value.)

(Simon)

Main Task: Filming (3)

Today we filmed all the shots for our bar scene in G House, which is where the main character is sitting waiting for a phone call. We filmed certain shots like low angle and close ups to show character 1 drinking at the bar and answering his phone, and also to show the suspicion of the barmaid.

We decided to use myself as one of the actors as this made it easier for us to film as i had a good idea about what we wanted to achieve from this scene.

Our filming was much more successful as we planned exactly what we were going to do before we left the classroom. We will only need to film once more of the characters infront of G House to finish our 2 minute opening.

(James)

Main Task: Editing (1)

Today I wanted to start the editing our Footage. We had footage from the first two filming sessions and I imported that to Premier Elements and looked at it. I also looked at the titles I made last week. People can see the titles, but maybe we should make them bigger, so that they can be read more easily.

There wasn't much time left for the editing itself because I had to change the psd-files again which required a lot of time.
I realized that we should finish filming soon, because the editing is a process which takes a lot of time.

(Simon)

Main Task: Filming (2)

Today we filmed the shots needed to create the scene in our main task when one of the characters is approaching the bar from the road out to Windmill. We filmed all of the shots needed to show this character answering his phone while walking to the bar. Other members of the class were busy working on their own coursework so we chose to use Simon as the actor for this character and James and I did the filming.

Today our filming was far more successful than last time as we were better organised and it was easier using Simon as an actor because he better understood what we were trying to achieve with each shot.

We decided that because it is hard to film various shots and allow for the camera to pick up the sound of Simon speaking through the phone, we are going to record the voices of the characters and then add the audio into the film.

( Gabi )

Main Task: Titles (1)

In today's lesson I started editing the titles for our film. We want the titles to relate to the genre of our film. If the viewer sees them, he should be able to say. "Oh yes, that looks like an action or crime drama!" This is our aim and we try to reach it. Today I started with a first try, here is a screenshot if it:

At the moment we ware not sure if we want to have the titles on a black screen or if we want to fade them in during the movie. The problem with our first try is that the outer glow looks good on a black screen, but if you put a coloured picture under it, there might be problems to read it. The big "Film Title" will definetely be over a black screen, because with the big type we show that this is the title of our movie. The smaller ones, for example our names and the names of the actors, might be fade in during the film so that we save a bit of our time.

I used to work with Adobe Photoshop before, so I didn't really could improve my knowledge, because the titles are, as you can see, very basic. But I got to know which formates work work with Premier Elements and Photoshop, etc.

(Simon)

Main Task: Inspirations

These images are screen shots of films that have inspired us:

These are some of the screen shots from films that have inspired us. We want the audience to feel a sense of mystery and intrigue when they watch our film opening. We also want to convey that these characters are not just any criminals, that you find on the street, but sophisticated and charming so the audience feels that although they are planning a crime we still like them. They commit the crime so elegantly that almost wish you could do it.







This is a screen shot from 21.These are meant to be the bad guys but because they are doing something bad for the good of other people we see them in a good light.




These are scenes from Ocean's Eleven where they are planning to rob a casino. Although they are committing a crime we like them because they are funny and smart.


They are dressed in expensive looking clothes and jewellery so they look "cool".

(James)

Main Task: Locations

The following are images of the locations which we intend to use for the filming of our main task:

The drive into school from Duffus is the location for one of the main characters to walk down towards the bar from.

The front of Gordonstoun House will be used to show the bar from the outside and the inside of Gordonstoun House will be the location for the scene which occurs inside the bar.

The drive down to school from Windmill will be used to show where the other character approaching the bar will enter from.

(Gabi)

Main Task: Filming (1)

We started filming for our main task in the last lesson before half term. We have had previous experience filming with our preliminary task but we have to spend more time filming for our main task and we have to ensure that we plan the shots we are going to use, the characters and the setting much more carefully. We have to take into account the weather as well as much of our filming takes place outside and we are planning to film on mainly sunny days. We also have to make sure that everyone has a chance at filming so we can all gain experience and improve our knowledge of all the different types of shots and angles.

This first day of filming was not very successful as we didn’t plan carefully enough what we were going to do before we left the classroom. Also it is very hard to coincide one of our lessons with good weather. We did have a story board to show the shots and the positions of the characters but we didn’t consult this very often. Something our group is not very good at and what we have to improve on is the position of our cameras so we can make sure that we don’t capture the other cameras in shots. What is also difficult is filming on a road and I don’t think we expected the amount of traffic that went past. These disruptions meant that we had to keep pausing filming and this resulted in us not having a lot of footage by the end of the lesson.

However we planned the props and actors we were going to use very well and this part of the task was a lot more successful. We are very limited with what we can use because we do not have millions of pounds like the real movies receive but we managed to use what we had at our disposal.

Mostly the first day of filming was unsuccessful but we do have a lot more filming to do and also more time. By the end of the task we will have greatly improved and hopefully this will show in the opening of the film that we have made.

(James)

Main task: Planning Evaluation

In the post below we show some results of the planning of our main task. We started planning in the week before half term. This was a new experience to us. We have done our Preliminary task before, but the planning of the main task is much more extensive. We have to draw a story board, all this stuff. The group has to share the work really carefully to get all things done on time. This is a thing we can improve in our group, that we can work more efficient.

In our brain storming we had lots of different ideas over differnet genres and i personally found it quite difficult to get the right genre and the right story for our main task. We had ideas from a thriller to a romantic story, but the realization of both of them is really hard. We chose the action and crime genre. That doesn't mean that our work will be easy, but the realization is much more realistic, because we can make a pleasant film opening within the bounds of our possibilities.

In the real bussiness theyhave got the whole script after this step of the production. They get more time to finish it. Usually they thought about everything and don't get bigger problems during their filming. We arent't professionals, so we have to be more independent with our script. We have got it, but if we see that we can't realize all of the things we want to do, we have to be more flexible.

All in all the planning was successfull and we learned how extensive this part of the film production is.

(Simon)

Main Task: Questions

Describe the genre of film opening that your group is going to make.
The genres we have chosen for our film opening are action and crime. We plan to blend these two genres in our storyline because they combine well together. Action films often involve more physical action as opposed to dialogue. Crime films deal with crimes, criminals and their motives and detectives or security services.

Write down the synopsis of your story [3-4 lines]
Our film opening will show a character walking into a bar and ordering a drink. The character then calls two other characters using his mobile introducing them to the audience. The characters all meet out the front of the bar then have a short conversation before leaving the bar together. The audience should assume that they are part of a gang involved in organised crime and that they are going to complete a job of some sort.

Describe the location[s], mise-en-scene[s], actors and props that you will use:
· The locations we plan to use are: The inside of Gordonstoun house to show the bar scene, the road towards Duffus for one of the characters to walk along and the road out to Windmill for another character to walk along.
· The mise en scene in the bar will include a barman dressed in a waiter’s outfit serving drinks, the ‘boss character’ dressed in an expensive looking suit with lots of jewellery on. The scene of the character walking down from Duffus will be on a sunny day and the character will also be dressed in a suit with an expensive looking phone and sunglasses. The scene of the character walking from Windmill will be much the same as the scene from Duffus.
· The three main actors we will use are to be male, quite tall and very suave. They will be dressed in suits throughout the beginning of the film to show their professionalism and that they never lose face and appear less ‘cool’.
· The main props needed for the beginning of our film are; three mobile phones, sunglasses and drinks at the bar.

Mood, look and feel, colour of your film opening – how will it fit your chosen genre? [Use screenshots from real films to help illustrate your answer.]
The mood of our film opening will be quite intense but not very serious. It will be intense because the characters are planning something which the audience doesn’t know about. The characters are not supposed to be mean or bad people and the audience are to like them instead of being intimidated by them. Our entire film opening will be in colour as there is no need to use black and white film and etc in our storyline. It will fit into our chosen genre because crime and action movies although they are fictitious, seem real and possible. In crime movies, the audience usually either sees the story from the side of the criminals or from the detectives who are to solve the crimes. We have chosen for the beginning of our film to be shown through the criminals.

We would like the audience to associate with the characters the same way that they associate with the characters from films like ocean’s 11 and 21. Although they are criminals, we want the audience to like them are want them to succeed.

(Gabi)

Main Task: Storyboard

(James and Simon)

Main Task: Case Studies

Film Openings: Case Study of Firewall


We have researched different genres of films to help us decide what genre our main task is going to be on.

The first film was Firewall. It is a well made high budget thriller, starring Harrison Ford as a banker whose family is threatened when criminals try to rob the bank that he works for. As the title suggests they do this by using high class technology to hack in and steal the money electronically.

The first thought you get from the film is a sense of fear and there is a slightly creepy perspective as well. It starts with a camera following what looks like a family going onto a boat. It freezes on different shots and there is a sound effect of a photo being taken. This shows you that this family is being watched and photographed by someone which definitley adds a certain amount of tension into the opening. The camera is quite shaky and the picture is in black and white and this helps to give the impression that it is a point of view shot of the stalker. The camera keeps cutting back to the titles with the sound affect of computer typing in the background. This gives you an idea that the film has something to do with computers which is backed up by the title of the film. It then goes on to show the stalker following the family around through their day to day lives. Harrison Ford,the father, going to work and the mother and two children at home.

It then goes on to etablish the main characters of the film. It shows the family that are being watched getting ready for a normal week day. The children, a boy Andy and a girl Sarah, are arguing. You can tell that the girl finds her younger brother annoying as he is making alot of noise when she is trying to watch television. This is showed to be just the normal sort of thing for children of this age as the mother smiles and walks out the room. The scene cuts to the wife and husband, Jack, talking and you can tell that they have a great realationship as they joke and kiss and the Jack tells his wife that he dosen't deserve her. You also get a good idea of the realationship between Jack and his daughter Sarah. She calls him Jack instead of Dad but this shows that she is a rebellious teen who wants to grow up quickly.

The opening of the film is well made and keeps the audience intrested with tension and the quick introduction to the main characters. It is cleverly filmed with a great number of different shots and the titles were bold and clear with bright colours on a black background.

(James)

Film Openings: Case Study of The Italian Job


The Italian Job is the remake of the 1969 classic film starring Micheal Caine. The storyline revolves around a group of thieves being betrayed by one of their own when robbing a vast amount of gold in Venice. The leader is shot dead and the others vow to seek revenge for what has happened and steal back the gold.

The film starts off with modern music and establishing shots and mid shots along canals to show that it is set in Venice.The opening titles show a man looking over maps and he is obviously planning something. There is upbeat modern music which adds tension and makes you anticipate what is coming next.

The camera then cuts to a close up of a diamond necklace in a jewellery store which has just been bought. We are then introduced to the man who bought it. He makes a phone call to a young woman who turns out to be his daughter. He says that he is sending her something sparkly and her imediate reaction is to sit up straight and ask if it has a receipt. This hints very strongly that this man is a thief . It then cuts to the man meeting with another someone else to discuss if all the plans are ready and this indicates that they are about to pull off a heist.

The genre of this film is revealed straight away from the beginning and this leaves the viewer in no confusion about what they are watching. There are good uses of different shots to establish the locations and the different characters, and the music and editing makes the film glossy and well made.

(James)

Main Task: Introduction

The task is to make the opening two minutes of a fiction film. We chose the genres action and crime. The task has to be handed in at the end of spring term. In our film there will be 3 characters. The viewer sees them talking on the telephone. They are going to leave the country on the next day, they talk about flights. The plane will bring them to Saudi Arabia, they have got "an operation" there.

(Simon)

Preliminary Task: Evaluation

I came into the group late and i arrived on the day we started filming so i took no part in planning the preliminary task. This was my first time of making a film and it was a very interesting first experience for me. I quickly learned there is much more to filming than just pressing record and pointing the camera at someone.

During the filming for our preliminary task we used match on action, continuity filming, shot/reaction/shot and exchanging dialogues. To show match on action we filmed the actor walking into a building and then sitting down at a desk. To do this we had to have the camera at different positions and different angles. We used a variety of shots to like a tracking shot, mid shot and extreme close up so we could demonstrate our skills with using a camera. We also used shot/reaction/ shot to show the exchange of dialogue between the two actors.

We did make quite a few mistakes during filming. What i found out later when we edited was that you can do alot about it and its too late to go back and make it better. There were a few shots were someone filming got in the way of another camera. This was due to poor organisation before we pressed record. Firstly the one scene where i noticed a big problem is when actor 1 wakes up actor 2. We used shot/reation/shot to film the characters talking. To do this we used two cameras to film the seperate actors speaking, so we could edit it in later. The main problem is the lighting in the room. In one shot the light was very bright and it was easy to see the actor but in the other shot the second actor is harder to see due to the room being in darkness. The continuity in this scene was quite poor because it made it looked like we were filming on different days. Secondly listening back to it the audio could of been better. In certain scenes we can the same sound on top of each other and at one point you can hear one of the persons filming say something to one of the actors. This was due again to poor organisation during before recording and this is something we need to improve on.

After completing the task i have learnt that you can never have too much footage. It is easy to edit if you have a lot too work with and you can cut out the parts that are not very good, however if you do not do much filming then you dont have a lot to work with and when it comes to the editing you have a much harder job to do.

(James)

Preliminary Task: Evaluation

The preliminary task was our first filming exercise we did this year. It was a new experience and we had a lot of fun, although it was hard work as well. We got to know that making a film is not just pressing the record button; it needs a lot of accurate planning.

It’s difficult to find a start for your planning. If you know what you want to do, what the film is about, then it goes a bit faster. But looking for a good topic is really hard. After finding the topic of our dialog, we chose actors and built all the other things (Mise-en-scene, cinematography, etc.) around it.

During producing our video we made a lot of mistakes. The problem of mistakes during producing a film is that you often just realize that you made a mistake during the very last step of the filmmaking, the editing. If you forgot to take a shot, if someone is wearing the wrong costume, if the light is not good, you see your sequences just before the editing. And filming something a second time costs a lot of time. We had the problem that character 1 is not always wearing his glasses correctly. The plan was that he is wearing them when he enters and leaves the room, but sometimes he just forgot to take them of. The second mistake we made was a trickier one. I am talking about the close up shot on character 1 while he is sighing. The problem was that we put the close up in the editing just on the line above the line of the other shot in the timeline. That means we have ha two audio lines as well, which means we had two sighs at the same time, but they were slightly different. We weren’t just able to delete one of the lines, because then the sound would have been asynchronised. We had to figure a way out that we can have two audio lines; we had to mute one of them during a really short period of time.

For our main task we have learned that every shot needs to have some seconds just before the scene and after it has finished. If you have a long time before something happens, you can cut some frames out. But if you don’t have enough frames, you can’t just add them. In addition to that we will plan our main task more carefully, that we don’t have any of the “sunglass problems”, because we won’t have time to film our sequences again.

(Simon)

Preliminary Task: Film

Preliminary Task: Evaluation

At a micro, technical level, how well did you film the tasks required – match on action, continuity filming, shot/reaction/shot and exchanging dialogue?
During the filming of our preliminary task we effectively filmed all of the shots required to create match on action, shot/reaction shot, exchanging dialogue and to demonstrate continuity filming. The filming used to create match on action required us to film many different shots of character one approaching the class room block from outside, going through the door and walking along the corridors towards the classroom. We used both cameras to take various close up shots, mid shots, and tracking shots so that we could edit them together to effectively show character one approaching the classroom using match on action.

To create shot/reaction shot during our film we had to film both actors at separate times saying the dialogue so that it could be edited to appear as a conversation between the two characters. We used both cameras to film shots from different angles and then used various pieces of film to create the conversation.

The short film we created runs quite smoothly and all of the mise en scene is the same throughout the film to demonstrate good continuity. Although, because some of the camerawork is filmed from different angles, the lighting in some shots appears different to others which unfortunately makes the audience aware of the editing in these parts. It is hard to avoid this happening without proper lighting of the scene and editing.

How many mistakes did you make, and what have you learnt about filming?
We made many mistakes while we were doing our filming mainly because of organisation. We were later than other groups to start filming as Simon was away on STV during the planning and James was late to join our group. As we had to be quick with our filming to get all of the shots required in one lesson, we would just begin filming without thinking of the position of the characters and of other members of the group. This meant that we ended up with a lot of footage which was from a bad angle or where other members of the group accidently appeared in the shot.

One scene where we kept making mistakes is the scene where character one gets up to leave. We wanted this acted a certain way so that he put his glasses on first before getting up to leave. We filmed this shot many times and repeatedly did it incorrectly although eventually we got it right and the final shot which we used was done correctly.

I have learnt a lot about filming through this task especially about where the cameras need to be positioned to create the scene how we want it to be. I also learnt that a tripod should be used as often as possible to film as it keeps the camera steady creating a smoother shot.

If you had to do this task again, what would you do differently?
If given this task again, I would definitely make sure that all members of the group were present for the lessons and the organisation was completed earlier. This would mean that our group would have more time to organise filming and to complete the editing of our film and the posts required on this blog.

I also think that over the lesson, our group filmed far more shots than we require which made editing quite tedious as we had to go through every shot that had been filmed to find the ones which we were able to use. If doing this task again, I would make sure that each shot was filmed correctly so that we weren’t left with an excessive amount of film that we couldn’t use.

Describe how you edited the footage, and any problems you encountered.
We edited the footage together to show each of the things that were required to include in our preliminary task: match on action, shot reaction shot, exchanging dialogue and continuity. Creating match on action required us to edit together the many different shots that we had filmed so that character one was shown walking all the way to the classroom. Shot reaction shot and the exchanging of dialogue required us to edit together each piece of the conversation that happens between character one and character two so that it flowed smoothly.

Continuity was the hardest thing for us to show as many of the shots had character one either sitting down or standing up at the wrong time or wearing his glasses when he hadn’t been in the previous shot. This was the main problem we had during editing – trying to keep the continuity going throughout the film. This required us to not use many of the shots as they were different in some way to the previous shot which would be noticeable for an audience watching our film.

(Gabi)

Preliminary Task: Filming

On Thursday the 1st of October, our group completed all of the filming required for our preliminary task. We filmed many shots so that we can edit them to demonstrate that we have an understanding of match on action, shot/reaction shot and continuity. We used a range of different shots for example; a mid shot, tracking shot, close-up and a high angle shot. The filming was very successful and each of us got a chance to use the cameras with and without a tripod to test our skills.

(James)

Preliminary Task: Pictures of Filming

Main Task: Research Task 1

The genre of film which I would like to use as inspiration for my coursework is thriller. I chose this genre because it is one that I am interested in and also enjoy watching. This genre appeals to me because I enjoy the feeling of tension when watching films. To me, this is important because when you are affected mentally by a film it makes it far more memorable. The use of scary occurrences and situations which intend to frighten the audience is an easy way to entertain and keep audiences entertained throughout the film. The genre of thriller is also a good genre to use for our coursework because many other genres can be incorporated into it.
The main characteristics of a thriller movie is the use of tension and suspense, a storyline which involves good versus evil or contains a villain and one or more victims and frequent action. They usually contain one main hero who survives throughout the movie when many others don’t or who takes the life of the villain. Thrillers can range from a story about a supernatural being stalking one person or a group of people to a large scale terrorist attack and the fight to prevent it.
This genre is also a good one to use for coursework as it is possible to create a short film in this genre within the confines of school. Thriller films can be represented by the use of fast editing, music and sound effects. Especially when only the beginning two minutes of the film has to be made because the villain isn’t required to appear, only their presence needs to be recognized. This can be easily achieved using different locations for filming, skillful camera work, good actors and through the effective use of the resources that are available to us for our coursework.

(Gabi)

Main Task: Research Task 1

(Prep to 1st October 2009, G321 p.11 q.1)

The science fiction genre is without doubt one of the most challenging genres in the film production scene. For us as students it is even more difficult, to make a science fiction film, we have to confine to our possibilities to work. But the challenge makes it for us even more interesting.

In the big science fiction movies there are lots of animated scenes, for example Star Wars is made nearly without exception made in front of a green screen. The movies takes often place in the future, they are (at our point of time) not realistic; that makes them to science fiction movies. This genre is really interesting. In all science fiction films directors imagine how the world could be, they make their own world. It’s interesting for the viewer to see; eve if of course not all science fiction movies are expectations of the future. In these worlds there are often horror scenarios; these makes the movie exiting. The viewer wants to watch it. There is often a bad guy as well; in this person the viewer sees the horror scenario. Science fiction movies sometimes work with over lighting effects on the sequences, these gives the impression to the viewer that it takes place on a different point of time.

Some of these points can we as students incorporate in our films as well. We can’t use green screen and/or special effects, but this building our own world is a thing we can and have to do, this will be a really important point in our course work. We also can use typical shots of the science fiction films. The editing gives us the possibility to use science fiction typical sound, we also can make the sequences appear in a special light etc.

(Simon)

Preliminary Task: Dialogue

The dialogue we intend to use for our preliminary task is:

Character 1: (Enters the room and wakes up character 2) What are you doing?
Character 2: (Wakes up and laughs) Working really hard on our prep.
Character 1: So what have you done so far? Because I've finished all of my part. (Shows character 2 the work on his laptop)
Character 2: Well done! And I've done this. (Hands character 1 a blank piece of paper)
Character 1: This is useless, you haven't done any of the work, I'm going to speak to Mrs Downes! (Storms out of the classroom)

(Gabi & Simon)

Preliminary Task: Planning

Today we began planning for our preliminary course work task. We decided that our short film would be about two students who are working on a prep task together. Their different view on school is resulting to displeasures. The two characters have a small disagreement because one character has done all of the work and the other was lazy and didn't help.

The actors we plan to use for our film are Charles Lambourne and Henri Yueksel.
1 (Henri): He is the nerdy person. The character wears glasses and his buttons are done up. He works hard for good marks and takes school very seriously.
2 (Charles): He is wearing not correct school uniform, don’t likes school and don’t want to work for it.

The two characters are meeting after school in a classroom to work on their prep together. Character 1 enters and finds character 2 asleep on the desk. He wakes him up and it turns out that character 2 hasn't prepared anything. After a short argument character 1 leaves the room angrily.

Character 1 appears to be smarter and more mature than character 2. That is why we intend to film him using high angle shots and to film character 2 using low angle shots. We plan to film their argument with two cameras, that gives us the possibility to edit it as a shot reaction shot. We will also use tracking shots to film character 1 walking towards the classroom and match on action to show him entering the classroom.

(Simon)

Preliminary Task: Introduction

This blog has been created by Simon Dethleffsen, James Grieve and Gabi Paterson to record our progress on our AS level coursework.

Preliminary Task: The preliminary exercise which we have complete for our coursework is a continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task has to demonstrate our understanding of match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

(Gabi)