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.