Shoot and Re Shoot

I was reallly happy with how our shooting went We worked really well as a team all sharing all the roles equally. I did some of the shooting, some of the sound monitoring, and some of the paper work. When we looked at the footage back at school most of it was good but our sequence didn't completely make sense and it wsa quite jumpy. We got some teacher feedback, and they came up witht the idea to have Adam delivering the tape to create establishing shots and make it flow better.
On the re-shoot we worked in the same way as always; sharing all the roles equally. This made the day fun as although this was our third shooting weekend in a row, my job was changing around constantly to keep variety. When looking at these shots back at scholl i was very pleased. The bit with Adam walking up to the house, cut in with shots of Bekah making tea looks really affective. However we've noticed some problems with lighting. Because we changed our lighting slightly for all three shoots, some of our cuts look weird because the lighting will go from being normal to being grainy with a yellow tint. For this reason, and the fact that some of the lines could benefit from being shot again, i definitely think we need another shoot. We've agreed as a group that our ligthing was best at the test shoot so we will try to re-create this as best we can again, and hopefully it will all turn out great!

Ideas - THE TREATMENT

We decided that we would all think of at least one idea for our opening sequence and then we decided on which would be the best to go ahead with. We actually all really liked all of our ideas but the one we have to chosen to go ahead with is my initial idea, that we all built on. We decided on this one because it was the most intersting and original, and hope fully will have the best outcome. Here is the treatment based on my original idea...

1. The action: identify the event your idea is based around; what actually happens (discovery of a body, an illicit meeting, a witness seeing a crime being committed, a criminal act taking place)? Our opening scene is based around a hostage situation. It begins with a hostage video of a girl crying and stating a ransom must be paid for her release. However we soon learn that she is framing her best friend, so that she can get away with the ransom money. And she has murdered her best friend in an attempt to stop people finding out.

2. The theme(s): what should it make the audience think about or feel, what ‘issues’ will it raise (revenge, sexuality, voyeurism, stalking, obsession, greed etc)

It brings up the issues primarily of revenge and betrayal. With key themes also being murder, ransom, madness and greed.

3. The narrative: how is it structured - classic narrative pattern or break with convention, real time or different time zones, flashbacks/forwards, dreams etc. Will there be dialogue? What about diegetic/ non-diegetic sound?

It will be shot mainly in the classic narrative pattern in real time, however there will be a montage towards the end. There will be some dialogue, mainly at the beginning, but not too much as we want the tension and atmosphere to build up from our interesting shot types and music, not just by dialogue. All the sound will be diagetic, except of course for the music.

4. The character(s): who are they, identify their roles, what are their characteristics, including gender, appearance etc?

There are only two characters featured in our opening. Both of which are girls. The first girl named Samantha Harris is played by Bekah Murrell is mixed race. She is in her early 20s and is pretty, quite tall, with dark afro style hair. At first she appears sweet and vulnerable, but soon we find out she is greedy, devious and very clever, betraying those close to her. The second girl called Karen Williams is also in her early 20s and is played by Sian Parkinson. She is also pretty and quite tall. However she is very different in appearance as she has wavy blonde hair and fair skin. She is friendly, kind and trustworthy making her an easy target for crime.

5. The setting and choice of location: where is it set?

The very fist shot is in a living room. However the rest of our opening is set going to be filmed in Danni's garage. We are going to set it up so that it looks like an abandoned house or a basement, somwehre derelict and quite, an ideal location for keeping a hostage.

6. The mise-en-scene: identify colours, lighting, dress codes, the overall visual look

Our opening is going to have a very dark feel to it, and this will come across primarily in the lighting. This is because it will be very low key lighting in both locations. To continue this theme the actors will be wearing very plain clothes. Bekah will be wearing jeans with a plain white/black t-shirt. Her make up will also be minimal; a bit of mascara, and eyeliner that has smudged under her eyes. Sian will be more smartly dressed, wearing a pencil skirt and smart top to show she is a professional woman.

7. The camera work: the style you are aiming for

We wanted to use intersting camera work to give our piece a modern, intersting style. We plan to use zooms, pans and a range of shot distances to achieve this.

8. The editing: edited as a continuous sequence, use of cross cutting, use of montage, or combination?

There won't be cross cutting, but there will be a montage near the end. We wanted to have a shot of a living room with a TV on, we're going to zoom into the TV and when we zoom out again, we will be in the room that was on the television - our vision was to have this as one seamless shot - lets hope it works!

9. Has your idea been ‘tested’ against the key criteria (the 8 questions)?

Yes it has, and we think it answers all of the questions positively.

10. Group responses?

We really love our idea and hope it will work well.

11. Teacher responses?

Our teacher liked our idea, but wants us to keep it simple, and add a bit more dialogue.

What Did I Learn From The Test Shoot?

The test shoot was really useful to do as it helped to give us an idea of how our sequence is goingto look, as well high-lighting any key issues we need to consider and enabling us to have the time to learn from any mistakes made, and i learnt a lot;
* Plan plan plan - if you know exactley what you are doing then it is SOO much more time efficient, and its gives you extra time at the end to experiment
* Things always take longer than you think they will
* Getting the lighting perfect is hard and can be very time consuming- but it's worth it!
* I learnt the art of fake blood making, and bruising people with eye shadow
* Juat because you're indoors, doesn't mean you don't have to worry about sound (ie-builders next door)
* ...and i learnt never to believe Danni when she says its only a "short walk" :P

TEST SHOOT

Yesturday we had the test shoot, and i was really happy with how it went. We went to Danni's house to shoot and did 8 hours in total, from 10am - 6pm. The first 4 hours it was just me, Danni and Tom. We set up our location (which took longer than expected, because in order to block out all the light coming into the shed we had to tape black towels to the outside of the windows), we played around with different fake blood recipes, we completed our storyboard and shooting script, filmed the first scene that we didn't need actors for and just about had time left for lunch.
Once the actors had arrived they got into costume, and we did their make up. Throughout the shoot we all had a go at doing everything; directing, sound technition, and production assistant, as we felt this was the fairest way to do it, and it was the most fun because it meant we weren't doing the same thing all day.
I was so impressed with the actors we used, and think that they were a really good choice. I am really looking forward to seeing the footage, and finding out what we need to change to make our sequence even more amazing!

GROUPS!

We have now been given our groups. I am going to be working with Tom Deason and Danni Andrean. I am really happy about this, as i get on well with both of them and i know we can work effectivly as a team. We have come up with lots of ideas already, and are really keen to get started and begin filming. It's going to be so fun! Have a look at our group blog to see how we're coming along :)

Preliminary Exercise - Sonny Jim

Preliminary Exercise - Evaluation Questions

Preliminary Exercise
1) Who did you work with and how did you manage the tasks between you?
In my group was Ben, Selina, Mel, Daniel and me. We all partook in the planning which worked well, however when it came to the filming we all stuck to our individual jobs. This is so that there was no confusion in changing around after every shot and it also made us quicker and more efficient as a team. I was the production assistant, Selina directed, Mel was the sound technician and Ben and Daniel acted. When it came to the editing Ben was physically doing it however we were all telling him what to do, and what to pout where - so we all had a fair input into how it turned out.

2) How did you plan your sequence? What process did you use?
We tried to keep our idea straightforward right from the start as we knew we had little time. We soon decided it would be a simple conversation between a teacher and a pupil. We then talked about location and realised we needed somewhere quiet where we wouldn’t be bothered by the other classes in the school, consequently we decided on the media block because it would be only our class in there and the other groups would be away filming therefore we wouldn’t be disturbed. When drawing up a story board and we decided that in it there should be a range on shot distances and types so its not just boring MS shot-reverse-shot over and over. Therefore we included BCUs, POV shots and different angles. After this Ben worked on the script, while we worked on the shooting script making sure that we filmed the shots in the most sensible order i.e. shooting all the corridor shots first, all of Ben’s CUs together etc.

3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?
To film our sequence we used a cannon HV30 camcorder, a tripod, and a microphone. We also used a white board in the place as a clapper board, to keep use organised and aware of how many takes we'd done and what shot we were up to. To edit it we used Adobe premier pro. The shots were all captured before hand for us. We mostly used the razor tool which allowed us to cut and move the clips we wanted easily.

4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?
We had 1 hour to plan, 1 hour to shoot and 1 hour to edit - the a big factor that we need to consider and monitor was time. When planning, we made sure we took into account the brief, as we needed to make sure we fulfilled it as best we could. We knew we had to keep it simple, because of the time limit, but we still wanted it to be interesting and enjoyable to watch. Therefore we used a wide range of shot distance and types - but still tried to keep the flow and smoothness of it all the way through. Additionally we needed to consider the location, because we didn't want people disturbing us, or work in the same room as another group. Therefore we did a location recce, and did a walk through when we were there. When shooting there was also a lot to consider in addition to the time. This is because shots don't always turn out how you imagine them and so we changed the some of the shots, including the master shot, so the camera was in a slightly different position to where we originally planned in the storyboard -to make our piece look better. Also more than one group wanted to use the corridor. Luckily we got to use it first - but when we were filming in the room, the other groups were filming in the corridor, and they were making a lot of noise so we kept having to stop and ask them to be quiet. When editing we decided the best way to do it would be to separate all our different shots first to make it all more organised and clearer, this took longer than we thought, but once it was done it felt more ordered and less of a daunting task. It was very hard to get the match on action right, though I think we managed to in the end. The other thing that was challenging was getting the dialogue to flow still. We didn't just want all of our shots to be over-the-shoulder shots, because we thought it would be boring so we had POV and reaction shot, but this did make our job a bit harder when editing.

5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?
I do think that our sequence was pretty successful and I personally was very happy with how it turned out. We demonstrated that we could successfully complete some of the expected criteria such as match on action, and we did the whole sequence without breaking the 180 degree rule. It is an interesting and original sequence where one character enters a room, walks over to another character and exchanges a few lines of dialogue. Nevertheless our sequence was not perfect. We did not manage to achieve shot-reverse-shot very successfully. We had a lot of footage from different angles, but when editing it together it didn't work. If we were going to do this again we would have Ben's character sitting down when he came into the room. This would mean that both characters would be at the same level, making it far easier to shoot and achieve shot-reverse-shot.

6) What have you learnt from completing the task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?
I definitely learnt a lot from doing this preliminary task. I learnt about sound and how eliminating background noise is so important. Additionally I learnt about directing, and I am glad we faced a few problems in this shoot and it didn't turn out perfectly because I can keep them in mind when shooting our actual sequence, so as not to make these mistakes when it really matters. Additionally as I hadn't used the editing equipment for over a year, I was pleased to be reminded to how it all works. This now means that I can work quicker and more efficiently on editing for our real piece. I will remember the extra knowledge I have gained from this task when making the real thing, as I'm sure it will come in useful, so I am really glad we got the chance to do this.