Sunday 10 April 2011

Evaluation editing

Once we had filmed our evaluation we loaded up our film onto the computer. We arranged the clips in question order and cutted out all the parts that we dont need. We then uploaded it onto our blog. This was relitavely easy as now we had learnt properly how to use imovie.

Editing

We carried on working on our final sequence. As our film is A thriller we needed to create the perfect atmosphere. On imovie we could adjust the brightness of the clips to create a darker image.

Editing

We are coming to the final lessons of editing now and can see our opening sequence coming together. There is a blackout where we decided to have the noise of the car hitting the girl. We found a noise on youtube that suited this part and converted it and arranged it in the correct position. We created our title and put it where we thought the title should go hwever when we played the film the image we created did not appear. We found it difficult to work imovie andjust found that there seemed to be one problem after the other.

sound editing

During the showcase the group realised that the music that we had actually put on the rough edit didnt suit the mood or go well with the opening sequence at all. wee took out the audio and found better music. We wanted a heartbeat just before the girl gets ruin over to build tension so we found one and added it in in the appropriate time. With the different audio parts we learnt how to adjust the volume so it doesnt cut straight to it. We added all the sound that we wante and put them in the correct position to fit with the clips. We felt happy that we had learnt much more technical skills in this lesson.

Editing

Since Luke has left our group and gone on duke of edingborough the group has begun to start working much more ont he technical side of things. We have been working much more with imovie and testing out different effects on the footage we have . Now we have more footage of the girl to build up her story. Wr loaded this new footage and edited onto the start of the sequence. We experimented with fade in, fade out and ajusting the brightness of the film.

Editing

After the showcase we began working on the things that we were told to improve on. We took out any unnessacary footage that we didnt need and we completly re-edited the sequence just before the girl gets run over. Sophie and Vicky decided to shoot some more to give the girl character more of a story so that the audience can connect witht eh character and sympathise when thecharacter dies.

Show case

We were given the opportunity to showcase our work and what we had done so far. We put together a rough of our final sequence.



We had good feedback from the rest of the people in our class. This was when re lrealised that we would need to work extreamly hard to get a good final outcome form this.
Good points
  • Good and clear lighting
  • Good climax at the end
  • Good and clever credits used on props
Points of improvement
  • Music didn't go properly
  • Too many straight cuts
  • Some pointless shots
  • Couldnt see girl in window at end
  • unclear storyline at points
  • Timing of fast cuts is unusual
  • Bad Title
  • Build up girls character
The feedback has now given our group a chance to work on making our sequence as best as we can make it. We have taken all of the points on board.

Group meeting

We had a group meeting about what names we would need for our production comapny and the name of our actual film.

Filming and shooting

Thursday 7 April 2011

Final idea for plan

Name of film: Hit and Run
Genre: Thriller
Audience: Adults under 40
Story: A girl recieves a message froma boy called James who askes to meet her in person. The girl is with a close friends and leaves to meet the boy. She is on her way when she steps out in front a car without looking. She is hit by a man and the man drives home in a fluster. He tries to act normal and pretend that it hasnt affected things. He gets home and relaxes but he is not alone.

Individual responses to our idea

Sarah : I think our original idea is good and will help us in improving our camera skills. We will all have some input into making the film which is good. Our Storyboards are good but could do with some improvement with more detail. Doing this will help us keep to a more structured plan. I am happy with our idea and feel that it will be good opening that will hopefully make people want to see the rest of the film if they could.

Sophie : At first I was a bit reluctant for this idea but know looking at our storyboards and adjusting them in the appropriate ways I can see that this opening sequence will work well in showing off our media skills. So far I havent explored into using the camera much so hopefully it will allow me to work on using the camera and getting to know how it works and using it to our advantage.

Vicky : I can see this idea having real potential if we work with it in the correct way. The storyboard could be developed more with more detail but overall i think it is a good idea. I think we explored with different genres and i agree that we have concluded with a good idea. During this particular product i want to work much more with technology and editing as i feel this is my biggest weakness so i can learn how to use it.

Luke : In our group i feel that i am the member of the group that has the most experience witht he technical side. I think that doing this idea will allow me to show off what skills I have with the editing software however i would like to improve on skills that i dont currently have.

Filming Day 3

Props and things needed :
  • Camera
  • Tape
  • Tripod
  • Suitable clothes
  • Lighting props
  • Car

On the 14th we wanted to do our final filming session. To do this we had to be very organised and prepared. The last piece of footage we needed included the car scene which meant we needed our male friend to definitely turn up this time. We made sure at the start of the day that he could come and he said he would definitely be able to make it. The group all turned up at the location being Epping Forest to film. We we had all the equipment, props and costume to make our last filming session was a success.

Filming Day 2

Props and things needed :
  • Camera
  • Tape
  • Tripod
  • Suitable clothes
  • Lighting props
  • fridge
  • Tea bag
  • kettle
  • Milk
  • Newspaper
  • Television and remote
On the 11th of February we decided to film again to film at the location of Sophie's house. This would be for the  second half of our opening. All of the group was very well organised and focused on what we was supposed to be doing. We set up the scene making sure everything was ready to be filmed. everything we very well however we did have a few issues with the lighting and the layout of my house. We could not seem to get the lighting right for the scene especially as we wanted a more obvious bright light on one character. we did finally manage to do this by using a torch but it was difficult. The other issue being the layout of my house was because we all had a certain image in our head to how we wanted the scene to look and we could not rearrange the furniture to suit the angles we wanted to shoot. We did as a group solve the issue and overall it turned out to be a great filming session.

Filming Day 1

Props and things needed :
  • Camera
  • Tape
  • Tripod
  • Suitable clothes
  • Lighting props
On the 7th of February we started to film our opening scene for our film. A scene within our opening includes a car so we asked a male friend who can drive to help us with this scene. The group arrived at the location being up by Epping forest college and waited for our friend to turn up with his car however he wasn't able to make it. This was disapointing although he did manage to film some sections a few times showing different angles of the shot.
Our first filming was quite succesfull as we was very organised and was equipped with everything we needed to film however it was unfortunate that we could not film the car section. 

Final cut for preliminary sequence

Luke decided that he would be the one who would edit our preliminary sequence. He picked out the best shots and clips and arranged them in the way that he though would be the best way to convey meaning. We all watched what he had done on final cut and made some suggestions on how we can improve. Overall we found that the preliminary sequence helped us to learn about the new technology and way of filming to the best we can. We will use this experience when we film again.

Evaluation of Preliminary sequence

Our preliminary Sequence was possibly the second time that we had ever used the camera. We took the camera and tripod and found a quite place to film a conversation. This took a while to get everything right however it helped us to practise with different shots. We each took turns in using the camera. We explored and found different ways of using the camera tha we had never used before. We found that using the tripod as a steady way to pan helped and made the overall sequence proffessional and clear. The actors found it difficult to keep a straight face but the conversation looked good and worked well.

Initial thoughts about our idea

We thought that we had a really good idea to work with and a good structured storyboard as a guideline. We discussed location and decided to film by the forest by Staples Road School. We were unsure about lighting but knew we didnt want the lighting to be to bright because we wanted to create a good amount of tension. We wanted to use a different range of camera angles and make sure we kept to our storyboard as much as possible.

Choosing an idea

At the beggining of the planning process each member of our group created their own storyboard with their own idea of what would be a good opening of a film. Luke came up with the idea of having a western themed opening and creating something different and unusual. His storyboards were clear and well presented. Sophie came up with an idea for a dramtic romance. She wanted to have a nice romantic story but then have the same excitement to get our audience focused. Sarah came up with the idea of having a man who runs over a little girl and then the girl stalks him and drives him to suicide. This idea sounded really good but because it was the opening there didnt need to be that much storyline. In sophie's romance storyboard she showed some great camera angles and ideas to create tension. We combined Sophie's camera angles and some of Sarah's storyline and came up with a whole new idea for our film opening.

Preliminary Sequence