Tuesday 22 December 2009

Second Day of Filming

On the 16th December me and my group went on location to St. Giles Church for the second day of the filming for our film opening. Firstly, before we began walking down to the church (which is situated fairly locally from our school), we decided that it would best if I phoned the church parish office too ask for their permission to use their grounds for the filming of our project.

When we got to the church, we spoke to the church parish office again to let them we had arrived. From there we went and searched for a good place to begin filming. After looking around the location, we found a good secluded corner with loads of bush and leaf area which we felt would be a suitable area to use. Once we found our filming area we began to think about what we intended on filming. After discussing a few ideas and referring to the storyboards that I had written, we decided to add an extra scene to the storyboard I intially written. When I wrote the storyboards for the opening, I origninally decided that there would be no diologue and the opening itself would be of a sequence of events that would come in short flashes, almost like a vision that you may see in a horror or sci-fi film. However, another member of the group suggested that we should add a scene where we see the characters are actually preparing to record the documentary, so the audience would get more of a firm understanding of what the films about. Then, when the characters begin recording, they see the muderer and from there the sequences of flashes that I had written in storyline would begin. Once we all decided that this idea would be an effective input to our opening ,we did a few rehearsals of the scene, so that the members of the group who are actually in the opening would know the structure of the scene and what they are going to say. Recording this particular scene was more difficult than our first filming session because we didn't really have much to work by because we decided to add this scene at the last minute and we had not written no script. However in the end we came out with a good and effective recording.

Once we had recorded this scene we thought that it would be a good idea if did a shot from the point of view of the muderer creeping up behind the characters while they are preparing and recording the documentary, so we did a hand held shot from the view of the murder. When we begin editing our footage we will be able to alter it so that the view point the audience sees can be switched between the characters in the documentary and murderers the hand held shot.

The next scene that we began recording was another hand held shot scene where the characters are running through the graveyard trying to get away from the murder that they had just encountered. For this scene all we had to decide on was the character who would hold the camera while running and where the characters will start running and where they would finish. The person holding the camera had to make sure that he was breathing heavily in order to add to the fast paced and paniking atmosphere of the scene. For this scene we did two takes so we could have a choice of two recordings that we could use when it comes too editing all of our filming. The two recording of these scenes came out very well and looked very effective in their purpose. It also looked similar to my intial ideas of how I wanted this scene too look like while I was writing the storyboards.

First Day of Filming

On the 14th December we began our first day of filming for our film opening. Prior to this lesson we decided that we would begin filming scenes that are on the school grounds first, as they are more accessible and would be easier to film. For this project I have taken on the role of director. I felt that I would be good in this role because I can naturally take on the leadership role in my group when I need to. Also, because I wrote the plot and the storyboards for the opening, I wanted to have a greater control on how the scenes looked and how in line they were with my initial vision for how I intended for them to look while I was writing them, rather than actually being in the opening myself.

The first scene we decided to film was the scene where the main characters are running away from the murder that they came across while filming a documentary at the graveyard in St Giles Church. Once we found a good corridor where we were less likely going to be distracted, we started thinking about what we were actually going to do in this scene. After thinking about it, we decided that we would do a continuity shot, where the characters would run through the corridor and then we would record them running through the door of corridor and then turning around the corner. Then the next shot we would record would be of the characters running round the corner again then running through another set of doors which would lead to another set of locked doors that would take them outside. We did a few practises of both shots first, in order to see if they would look right and so the people in my group who were acting in the opening knew what they were doing so there would less likely be any mistakes when we actually begin recording. Overall the final recordings that we came out with looked very effective. However I felt that because of the lack of focus of some in the group, these scenes which are fairly simple took much longer to do than needed and we could've got much more done in the time that we had.

Viewing our location (late post!)

On the 7th December, me and my group went to look at St. Giles Church, one of our film locations in Sheldon, Birmingham. Below are some photo's of the location. We chose this location because we felt that it evocked the solemn and sort of mysterious atmosphere that we were looking for. As you can see in these pictures, there are a lot of trees which shut out some of the daytime light which also helps create the atmosphere that is typical of most horror films e.g. a lot of horror movies have scenes that are dark with little lighting which usually creates mood and tension. The graveyard in general seems to be a very lonely area with little outside sound being heard, which symbolises lonliness or neglect, which would be effective for our opening as we are pretending as if the church is a historical sight that is being filmed for a documentary.






























Sunday 6 December 2009

Storyboards

Since my last blog post, my group had completed the first draft of our storyboards. Once we had completed the storyboards, we showed them too our tearcher (Mr Deen) to see if they were effective in explaining, in detail the chain of events that will take place in our film opening. After looking at them and reading them, our teacher said that they needed to be in more detail. So we decided that we would start again and be as detailed as possible. Firstly, I decided to do the writing aspect of the storyboard, which involved me thinking about the plot of the film and what vision I f had for how the plot would unfolf itself in the opening. After I completed all the written aspects, another member of the group began work on the illustration of the storyboards. We tried our best to make the illustration correspond with the writing as well as we could, but some of the scene were more difficult to draw. Overall, when we finally completed the storyboards we had a good foundation and guidline as to how our opening will unfold, however we may decide to change or add some scenes when we begin filming.

Monday 9 November 2009

Storyboards

For the last two lesson since we've come back from half-term, we have been working on the storyboards for our film openings. After we completed this we then decided to think about the location of our film opening as we have still not come into contact with anybody from St Giles Church, so we decided to think about a different location we could use instead. One of the members of the group said that we could use the field that is round the back of the church, so that we could still have the view of the church and graveyard without actually using the facilities.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Peliminary Task

In todays lesson, we put our peliminary task onto a disc and put it onto youtube. Here is the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YLrsoVoxkc&feature=player_profilepage

Monday 19 October 2009

Questionnaires

In todays lesson, I gave out some of the questionnaires that I had put together as apart of my research into the target audience of my groups film opening. First, I got onto the computer and checked the questionnaire to see if it was good enough to give out to people. Once I had done that I printed off five copies and distributed them to members of my class. I then thought, that in order to get a good variation of results, we will need more people to do the questionnaire, so I decided to print off another five copies. Out of the ten copies that I had printed off, 6 were completed by members of my class. I will give the last four out to people outside of my media class so my results can vary more. Once all the questionnaires have been done, I will use the findings in order to determine what our target audience want from our film and how we can try are best to put these things in.

Editing Peliminary Task

In this lesson we edited our peliminary task. We edited our task using iMovie on a macbook. We found that we didn't need to do that much editing because we had recorded it quite well. All we needed to add was the title and end credits.

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Filming The Peliminary task

Last lesson we filmed our peliminary task. Once we were given the cameras we then went out to find an area where we could film. We decided that the best place for us to film would be the school hall because there was a lot of space and we knew that it would be free for us to use. Once we got into the hall we started thinking about the senario we were going to create for the task. We decided to use the boxes that were already in the hall and pretend that one of the people in our group were making a delivery, which would incorporate the continuity shot through the door. Then another member will instigate a conversation between the other group member as he signs for the delivery. Which incorporates the reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. After we had finished we went back up to our class and decided to edit the task on another lesson.

Preparation For Peliminary Task

In this lesson we took some time out of preparing for our film opening and began preparation for the peliminary task that we have to do. Firstly our teacher breifed us on what we had to do for the task and the shots we had to include (e.g. continuty shot, a reverse shot and the 180 degree rule). He then showed some examples of previous preliminary tasks on youtube in order for us to get an idea of what it should entail. We then went to research what these shots were, below are the links from where we got the information from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_editing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_reverse_shot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_degree_rule

Character and Location preparation

In this lesson our group began to look at the things we need to orgainse in order to start filming our film opening. Firstly we decided to develop on the plot and talk about the characters that we will have in our film opening. We felt that it would look more proffesional and realistic to incorporate adults into our opening, rather than just have people of our age. This because we felt that our film would look more proffessional and realistic than if we just used younger people in the opening. Then some members of the group went and phoned up some people they knew that they felt would be suitable to be included in our opening. We then decided to prepare for the location that we would film our opening. As I said in my previous posts, our group had originally decided that St Giles Church would be a good location to film some of the scenes in the opening so we decided to phone St Giles church to see if it would be possible to first perform a risk assesment of the grounds in order to identify the risks involved in filming that area. Because no one was there to answer the phone, we left a message with the church leaving my details in case they phoned back.

Monday 21 September 2009

Devolping Ideas

In todays lesson, we began to develop the plot ideas of our film project and also started thinking about the technical aspects of our film e.g. where we are going to film scenes, actors and props etc. Which we would then present to the class. Firstly, our group started on developing the plot outline of our film.

We decided that our film would be about a group of people who are filming a documentary, and unexpectedly discover a creature of some sort while filming the documentary, from there we began thinking about scene locations. We felt that the locations we would use would have to set the atmosphere and tone of our film, we felt that some sort of open grass area with a lot of trees etc. would be a good type of location for the scenes where we are trying to create a documentary environment. We then developed on this idea and came up with concept that some sort of graveyard area (such as the one at St Jiles Church which is only down the the road from the school), would be an even better area for our film because it would link in with the idea of a ghosts and monsters, we could portray the graveyard as the cause or the explanation behind why the ghost or monster is there. We then came up with the idea of combining the school with our film opening and using a part of the school as a scene for our film opening e.g. one of our ideas was that the person filming the documentary could run from the graveyard to the school for refuge. As a whole, we felt that the two locations that we suggested, would be good because they are very local and would be easily accesed. The only problem we would have is asking the owner of St Jiles church for access to the graveyard.

After talking about these ideas, we then presented them to the class, our teacher (Mr. Deen) said we had good ideas, but we had to think more indepthly about our choice of location and how we actually intend on filming our opening. We were then set homework in which we had to discuss with our groups three things we need to do during this week, my three tasks were to update my blog (which I have now completed), come up with ideas for questionaire questions and go on the Hertwood House Media channel on youtube, to look at the film openings they have as a part of our research into similar media texts. Mr Deen also told us that it would be beneficial to look at some of Hertwood Houses work as we could use it as a guideline to see what we needed to do in order to gain the top grades for this project.

Mood Boards

The lesson after we began forming groups and devising our film project ideas, we started work on our mood boards, based on the ideas that we had began developing on the lesson before. On these mood boards we were to put a mixiture images and text that were relevant to what our fim was to be about. Our film, as I stated in my last entry was to be a horror documentary film so three memebers of our group went on the internet in search of images and text, while two of us (me and another group member) sat down and decided how we were going to set out the mood board. Because our film was going to be a horror/documentary film, we put togther images of ghosts, zombies and monsters, some of which were from other films such as the excorsist and the Michael Jackson Thriller video, this showed relevance to the horror aspect of our film. We also put togther images to do with documentaries such as video cameras, sound recording equipment and excert of text explaining the defintion of a documentary, therefore showing relevance to the documentary aspect of our film.

Ideas for film project

At the start of last week, our class decided what groups we would be going into to start our filming project. From there we began deciding what our film, is going to be about. After thinking about it for a while, we came up with the idea of a documentary, but we then realised that our film had to be fiction based. We asked Mr. Deen (our media teacher) who told us we could do a documentary film as long as we incorporated some sort of fiction into it. Using that information as a foundation, we then came up with the idea of doing a horror documetary type of film, where the format of the film would start off as someone filming a documentary, but would unfold to become a horror e.g. the character filming the documentary may see a ghost or a monster etc. We felt that this would be a good idea becuase it was something unique and innovative that other groups in our class are less likely to do, becasue of how unique and different it was. We then presented our idea to the class, and as we thought no one had an idea that was similar to ours.

Wednesday 9 September 2009

Courses Im taking

B' Tec Business
A Level Music Technology