Filming - Day 2

Last week we filmed for the second time, because we decided that lots of things needed to be re filmed for continuity purposes and a lot of our film was quite shaky. We made a list of all the things we need to to re film in order, and checked them off as we went. We met up at Alice's house again, because although she is no longer part of our group she still let us film there. We were about to start filming when we realised that the tripod clip was missing off our tripod (again!). We didn't want to have to postpone the filming because we needed to get on with editing, so I walked back to my house to get my dad's tripod and buy some props that we would need (Special K cereal and milk), which meant we lost about an hour of filming time. We carried on anyway, but it got to about 4:00 and it was starting to get dark, and although all the filming we had left to do was inside, the light in the room we were using was covered by a pink lampshade, which made the light go a funny colour, and we couldn't take it off. We filmed it anyway, but we will probably need to re film that bit again, because it really doesn't look right and the continuity is awful.

Practicing...

As I mentioned in the previous post, as well as the Snorricam shot in 'Wake', we also liked the panning shot. Today I decided to have a trial run to see how it will work. Using my brother's skateboard, the flip and gorilla pod, and my brother, I did a few takes with some rope tied to the skateboard in our conservatory, which has a really flat, smooth floor.



It took a few takes for my brother to take it seriously, but the final take is what we're hoping to achieve. The only problem is that the drive to Alice's house, which is where we are filming it, is very bumpy and won't look good in the final thing, so we're working on things to put underneath. Otherwise this should work well, and hopefully up the marks!

Snorricams

The week before term ended, our group set to work on making a Snorricam - a camera that attaches to the body and creates this effect:



We also quite liked the panning shot of the man's body on the floor, and are thinking of using this for Sam when she's been knocked out by the alarm clock. With the aid of my little brother's skateboard and something flat to roll it on, this could be easily achieved.

We set to work making a cardboard and masking tape prototype (that sounds a lot better than it actually was) and did a few example videos (yet to be edited and put on this post).

THEN during the holidays Andrea's dad made us a brilliant proper one (of which i haven't seen yet, but I've seen proof it works so it must be brilliant) and here are the results:



Yaaaay!

We plan to use this shot for when Kate wakes up, which will show the transition from sleeping to waking or some such nonsense and will give us a few more marks!

Group Update

Before the holidays, Alice and Valentina decided to become a separate group, as they felt they weren't contributing enough compared to me and Andrea. This came as a surprise, but we think it's better that they feel like they're contributing enough.

Meanwhile, me and Andrea are still allowed to use Alice's house as our location for when we re film, so we've been working on a plan for the day. We think it'll take less time this time round, because we know what shots we need and we have a clearer idea of what we want it to look like. Also, after our trip to the BFI we have some good ideas of how to hit the higher marks and set our film apart and make it look really professional.

Finally, we've decided to add my character (the one on the floor) in a bit more, as it's not really explained why she is on their drive, so we've decided my character is the main character's sister. We've also decided to name our characters, the main character's name is Kate and my character's name is Sam. We'll add some dialogue in at the beginning between the two characters so that the relation between the characters is clear. Finally we've named our film (as a working title) 'Special K', in reference to the main character's name and the type of cereal she eats.

Oh, and finally finally we've been thinking of titles and making them look realistic, and as both my parents are graphic designers I'll probably be able to persuade one of them to help us make a realistic production company logo and look at appropriate fonts etc. so watch this space!

BFI

On Thursday 2nd December our Media class visited the BFI for a conference. The people talking included Daniel Kleinman, who talked to us about his work on the James Bond title sequences and some of his adverts, and Colin Goudie, who edited the recent movie Monsters. Also there to talk to us was Pete Fraser, the senior examiner for Media A Level, who showed us a few different levels of AS project and showed us a few useful websites, including his own blog for media and a website called Art of the Title Sequence, which has lots of film introductions on  it and is a very useful source for research about a particular genre of title sequence. One of the sequences he showed us was for Catch Me If You Can:

Obviously, this isn't technology we would easily be able to get hold of, but it's interesting to see. The day was very useful and informative, especially Pete's bit, as it showed us what could go wrong with our movies and how easy it is to overlook important things such as good titles and soundtrack.

Update

When I can embed videos again, you will be able to see our thought process behind our video so far on our day of filming. We have now realised, however, that although there's a lot still to do with the editing, we can't really get the higher marks unless we re-film some things. We'll hopefully be able to do this in the holidays, as we have our own equipment that we can use while the year 13s have the school's. This will definitely be worth it, as we can't really progress with our editing until we do it. We're also planning to spend a lesson experimenting with garageband, as we're not sure whether our music is copyrighted or not, and we don't have a way of finding out. We're also going to think a bit more carefully about our titles, as at the BFI on Friday many of the speakers stressed the importance of sound and titles, two things that are usually neglected when people make their AS films. Hopefully all these changes will ensure we get the highest grades we can and make the best film opening we can.

Our day of filming

This is all our flip footage from our day of filming.