On Monday’s lesson we started our filming for our practical work. We stated our filming with our establishing shot, which was of the college. We used various shot types including extreme long shots, long shots and medium shots of specific features of the college such as the sign and entrance. We did this to ensure we had a range of shots for the opening so that when it came to editing we had enough versions of the beginning to choose from.
We then went on to filming out character (Claudio) going through the barriers of the college into the college premises. In this case we also had different shot types/ angles but mostly close ups as in our plan we agreed that close-ups would be the best way to create curiosity and suspense as the character is not revealed.
Once this part was done we tried out recording our charter through reflections we found such as mirror and a puddle reflection. I found these shots effective as the reflection gave a full images of the character but at the same time due to the light rays made the figure slightly distorted and hence not well identifiable of the features of the character.
After that we went on to doing an over the shoulder shot, hand held shot of our character walking into the college. We then did a medium shot of our character walking through the reception and being greeted by the security guard. I found that this shot was very good as it shows to the audience that the character not trespassing of any sought and is actual a member of the college. I believe that this shot will bring further curiosity as we are filming the character that will make the audience prejudice against him and his motives but then being welcomed by a authorise figure (security guard) shows that he is not in the wrong place.
We then went onto filming our CCTV clips. The beginning of the CCTV showing him walk into the premises was easily produced as we were in range with each other when it came to instructing Claudio to perform. However on the other hand doing the CCTV shot of the lift scene was a lot more difficult and was a lot more time consuming. This was due to the CCTV room and the lift being at locations far apart from each other. This was a problem as it was difficult to communicate to each other on when to start filming and when to act. This problem was then solved due to Suzie’s and Claudio using their mobile phones to communicate with each other, although it did take a couple of takes to do so.
We ended our day of filming by having close ups and medium shots of the character pushing the lift calling button and opening the door to his room. Also we had a hand held, point of view shot of the character walking to the lift.
Our first day of shooting overall went pretty well as we managed to cover our hole scene involving out side the class room scene. also i believe we used a range of shot types and angles which will be essential and beneficial for us when it comes to editing. The only obstacles that were a nuisance were other students getting in the way and making noises, but now this problem will not effect us now we i believe we have finished our outside shooting and our class room scenes will be carried out in a empty class room so there should not be a disruptions.
Tuesday, 27 January 2009
Filming Day 1
Yesterday we started filming our thriller opening. Daniel wasn’t there because he wasn’t feeling well, so it was just me Nimrol and Claudio. Daniel’s absence didn’t affect us to much because Daniel’s character doesn’t come in the end. We took many establishing shots outside our college. In the middle of doing so we then realised that it made sense if we used the centre for applied sciences building next to it. We filmed short shots of the rods around the college and the close ups of the big old clock next to the college so that we cold add to the location and time which the thriller was beginning.Claudio brought in a shirt and couldn’t find any other smart clothes so Nimrol borrowed him his bag and jacket.Surprisingly we don’t see Claudio’s face in any shots so far, due to the may shots we took of his reflection instead of him and also the way the angle of the camera at times, which is pleasing.Film the cctv camera which were in the reception, we filmed when Claudio walks in to the building, and when he walks to the lift. The lift part took very long because the indication had to be given by phone, and Claudio wasn’t to sure what to do and many other problems, but we did it in the end. :) However we haven’t done filming of the lift going up yet. We did some filming with Claudio walking up to classroom but this may not be used. The reason for this is because Daniel was going get us a classroom to use but his teacher said no so our Media teacher is going ask the head of science to allow us to us a lab on Wednesday.Overall I think the filming yesterday went very well because we got a lot done, filmed at many angles and also different types of shot. And we also improved on original ideas that we had. On Wednesday we hope to finish the filming of the entrance and start filming in the classroom :)!
Sunday, 25 January 2009
The pitch to the judges
In this Wednesday’s lesson we were given the task to provide a presentation regarding our opening to a thriller. In this presentation we had to include:
· The plot and a story board of the events.
· Shot types/angles.
· Lighting.
· Music.
· Target audience.
· Icons/ props.
· Location.
We spent the 1st half of the lesson preparing our presentation. This activity was beneficial to us as it allowed our groups to delve deeper into our initial plot to construct the basis of our actual plot. Furthermore it allowed us to take into consideration other aspects of the thriller such as shot types and audience so that when we go out to shoot we have enough research to make it effective/ realistic and also to make it appealing to the target audience we had selected.
When we had finished our plan for the presentation, we discussed who will be presenting what aspect of the presentation (which we had written up). I was given the task of presenting the technical aspects of the presentation such as shot types/angles, lighting and music. Daniel was handed the location, and target audience. Suzie presented the introduction to out thriller film (dead-u- cation) and the icons/props and Claudio presented the story board. Then in the second half of the lesson we went on to present our pitch. We were the first group to present our pitch to some of the staff of the media department which included two of the technicians plus out two media teachers.
As a groups we had concluded that the main features to our shot types/ angle would be close ups and over the shoulder shot. We came up with this as we want our main charters identity to be secret so with close ups the audience are never given a full picture of the character identity, but instead flashes of specific facial features of the character. Also with the over the shoulder shots you only ever see the characters back of the head so no identity would be exposed. With these specific shot types we hope to build curiosity amongst the audience and also an element of uncertainty to the purpose of the character. This level of hidden identity will further be emphasised with a slightly dimmer lighting in the shots, this is also to highlight the uncertainty of the characters activities and to somewhat create an instant impression of the character being “bad”. We intend to use a calm soft music in the back ground which will progress to become more and more up beat and sinister until it reaches a high pitch climax when the audience find out the characters incentives.
Our thriller is located in college and in a class room as it correlates to the theme of a psycho teacher. Furthermore the location also correlates with our target audience who we classified as 15-25 year olds. This correlates with them as they would either be in education or at a stage where they have just left education and by having it based about a college would make it more appealing.
Are main icons/props where items that relate to a college atmosphere such as ID – card, science lab coat, etc this are to inform the audience of normality as the props show that he is in the right environment and not in a secret location. The element of the crocodile clips and the reports on the computer highlights the character of being an electronics teacher.
When we had completed our presentation we received positive feed back form 3 of the 4 judges as one (mike) believed that we are telling too much about the story. This comment by mike sparked an argument between the other 3 judges as they believed that the plot was good. In the end it concluded that our plot was well thought of and presented however, that we should focus more to what occurs inside the class room in our thriller.
We took this advice into account and are now thinking of slight justification to our planned thriller. We all thought that we can go on with what we already have but just make the clips shorter to leave more time in the class room.
We then went onto listening to the pitches of the remainder of the groups in our class.
· The plot and a story board of the events.
· Shot types/angles.
· Lighting.
· Music.
· Target audience.
· Icons/ props.
· Location.
We spent the 1st half of the lesson preparing our presentation. This activity was beneficial to us as it allowed our groups to delve deeper into our initial plot to construct the basis of our actual plot. Furthermore it allowed us to take into consideration other aspects of the thriller such as shot types and audience so that when we go out to shoot we have enough research to make it effective/ realistic and also to make it appealing to the target audience we had selected.
When we had finished our plan for the presentation, we discussed who will be presenting what aspect of the presentation (which we had written up). I was given the task of presenting the technical aspects of the presentation such as shot types/angles, lighting and music. Daniel was handed the location, and target audience. Suzie presented the introduction to out thriller film (dead-u- cation) and the icons/props and Claudio presented the story board. Then in the second half of the lesson we went on to present our pitch. We were the first group to present our pitch to some of the staff of the media department which included two of the technicians plus out two media teachers.
As a groups we had concluded that the main features to our shot types/ angle would be close ups and over the shoulder shot. We came up with this as we want our main charters identity to be secret so with close ups the audience are never given a full picture of the character identity, but instead flashes of specific facial features of the character. Also with the over the shoulder shots you only ever see the characters back of the head so no identity would be exposed. With these specific shot types we hope to build curiosity amongst the audience and also an element of uncertainty to the purpose of the character. This level of hidden identity will further be emphasised with a slightly dimmer lighting in the shots, this is also to highlight the uncertainty of the characters activities and to somewhat create an instant impression of the character being “bad”. We intend to use a calm soft music in the back ground which will progress to become more and more up beat and sinister until it reaches a high pitch climax when the audience find out the characters incentives.
Our thriller is located in college and in a class room as it correlates to the theme of a psycho teacher. Furthermore the location also correlates with our target audience who we classified as 15-25 year olds. This correlates with them as they would either be in education or at a stage where they have just left education and by having it based about a college would make it more appealing.
Are main icons/props where items that relate to a college atmosphere such as ID – card, science lab coat, etc this are to inform the audience of normality as the props show that he is in the right environment and not in a secret location. The element of the crocodile clips and the reports on the computer highlights the character of being an electronics teacher.
When we had completed our presentation we received positive feed back form 3 of the 4 judges as one (mike) believed that we are telling too much about the story. This comment by mike sparked an argument between the other 3 judges as they believed that the plot was good. In the end it concluded that our plot was well thought of and presented however, that we should focus more to what occurs inside the class room in our thriller.
We took this advice into account and are now thinking of slight justification to our planned thriller. We all thought that we can go on with what we already have but just make the clips shorter to leave more time in the class room.
We then went onto listening to the pitches of the remainder of the groups in our class.
Saturday, 24 January 2009
This week!
On Monday the 17th of January after a long discussion we created our idea for our Thriller Opening. Daniel came up with the name (Dead – U – Cation) but I’m not to sure about that. Anyway, we decoded that the thriller is going to be about a psycho electronics college teacher who experiments with torture methods involving electricity, on students who he does not particularly like. We decided that Claudio was going to the teacher because he looks the oldest; I was going to be the other teacher and Daniel was going to the student that was being held hostage by Claudio.
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The PitchOn Wednesday’s lesson we were today that we had to pitch our film to a panel of media teachers. Our pitch had to include who are target audience is (15 – 25), the locations (Classroom and College), Lighting, and Camera work extra. We also had to draw a rough storyboard. We came up with a production name and we called ourselves Flawless production, I suggested it because its one of my nicknames and because I use it as a name of my YouTube channel. Although the team wasn’t too keen on the fact is was basically named after me, they decided to go along because of the meaning of the word flawless, perfect and faultless, and it sounded professional too. 3 out of 4 of the Media teacher liked our pitch. The advice we took from them is that we should concentrate more on what was going on in the classroom where the hostage was than the walking in of the teacher. Listening to all the other groups pitches were interesting and I felt that it was a good lesson.
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The PitchOn Wednesday’s lesson we were today that we had to pitch our film to a panel of media teachers. Our pitch had to include who are target audience is (15 – 25), the locations (Classroom and College), Lighting, and Camera work extra. We also had to draw a rough storyboard. We came up with a production name and we called ourselves Flawless production, I suggested it because its one of my nicknames and because I use it as a name of my YouTube channel. Although the team wasn’t too keen on the fact is was basically named after me, they decided to go along because of the meaning of the word flawless, perfect and faultless, and it sounded professional too. 3 out of 4 of the Media teacher liked our pitch. The advice we took from them is that we should concentrate more on what was going on in the classroom where the hostage was than the walking in of the teacher. Listening to all the other groups pitches were interesting and I felt that it was a good lesson.
Editing!!
Hopefully this will save because ive be trying to pst all week and it hasnt been woring..On Monday the 12th of January we started to edit our short film clip. We found that the fact that we had taken so many clips at different shot angles was a great advantage to us. The shot types made the extremely small kitchen that we were filming in, look like a private meeting room. We didn’t use many transitions because the many precise shots meant we didn’t need any and the audience can follow the story without them. The only effects I can remember us using are the fading out to black at the end and fading out to black some where in the beginning to link the shit of Daniel opening the door. A teacher also taught us how to slow down tracks. We slowed down the shot were Daniel (punches?) Claudio in the face and when the chewing gum is thrown at the bin to make the viewers concentrate more on these quite good shots which wouldn’t be noticed much because of the quickness they were originally shot in. I am the only one that really knows how to use edit so it was allot of work. I hope the rest of team learn how to do more things so there’s not so much pressure on me when it comes to editing, and it would be useful to them also, just in case I come in late or something.
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On Wednesday the 14th of January, in the fist half of the double lesson, the editing was completed. I added a sound track with the help of suggestions from the team. I found this was quite simple and was happy to do it because I had do music technology as part of Music GCSE and it was more or less the same with the absence of a keyboard. The music was used to add tension ad emphasise action suck as the opening of the door and Claudio’s collision with the wall. In the second half of the lesson we watched some more previous coursework. We watched good ones and bad one and from doing so, we gain ideas of thing to do and things not to do. After that we were put into our groups in order to come up with an Idea. Our group came up with ideas which I felt weren’t good enough and I encouraged that every one would think about and idea for the next time we meet.
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On Wednesday the 14th of January, in the fist half of the double lesson, the editing was completed. I added a sound track with the help of suggestions from the team. I found this was quite simple and was happy to do it because I had do music technology as part of Music GCSE and it was more or less the same with the absence of a keyboard. The music was used to add tension ad emphasise action suck as the opening of the door and Claudio’s collision with the wall. In the second half of the lesson we watched some more previous coursework. We watched good ones and bad one and from doing so, we gain ideas of thing to do and things not to do. After that we were put into our groups in order to come up with an Idea. Our group came up with ideas which I felt weren’t good enough and I encouraged that every one would think about and idea for the next time we meet.
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