Directions Unit - Crew

From doing last units project I learned that I needed to have more people on set to help me, so when it came to doing this unit and project getting a crew was one of my top priorities. With this unit my task is to direct a short film and I wanted to make that my main priority, instead of worrying about filming and checking the sound at the same time.

I asked a couple of people from from class to help out with my filming, they all gladly said that they would help out. I asked Helen, Roxanne, Sophie and Ren. I felt that I didn't need to ask anyone else as there weren't many other jobs to do.

My Crew:

Me - Director
Helen - Camera woman
Roxanne - Sound
Sophie - Sound Assistant
Ren - My Assistant (to help with scenes, props, etc.)

I'm glad i've got more people helping out this time, I definitely think I will be able to get filming done better and quicker. I'm happy that i'm working with other people in my class and can't wait to get started on this project!!

Directions Unit - 4 minute Drama Ideas

A couple of week into starting the Directions Unit, I had a couple ideas that I could use for my 4-minute dramatic film. Now as I chose loneliness I wanted to create a storyline that brought that theme out. Here are my ideas that I came up with.

Idea One

A young woman around 22 years old, lost her family a couple of years ago to a car accident. She meets up with a friend of the family to collect a package from them. The package ends up being a small box full of family photos that she thought was lost.
This idea was an obvious way of showing loneliness as this character feels lonely for not having her family there anymore. I do like how this story had a touch at the end, like a sense of happiness.

Idea Two

A guy is depressed and meets up with a stranger to collect a package from them. The package ends up being a gun and the guy happens to decide whether to commit suicide or not.
This idea wasn't one I was fully of doing as there were one particular part that would be hard to film. The hard part would be the gun scene, I don't own a fake or real gun nor does anyone I know, so I would find a hard time finding one. Also when using a gun in filming, depending if its outside or not you have to let certain people know otherwise people could get the wrong idea and think that its for real reasons and not filming purpose. I wasn't a 100% sure with this idea, but did like the fact that the depression was the thing that was making him seclude himself and be alone.

Idea Three

A young woman, 22 years old and has diabetes. She asks to meet her best friend and takes a package from her, which happens to be her diabetic medication. When she gets home she has a whole packets of pills in her hand and decides whether or not to end her life.
This idea was the one I was drawn to out of the three, so I decided I would explore into this story.

In class we were put into our themed groups to help each other with our ideas. In my group there is Andy, Lex, Ren and Sei-Kai. I decided to talk about my third idea as that was the one I preferred the most. When I got to talking about my idea the group were very helpful. Ren mentioned that instead of my character having diabetes that she could have depression and thats what leads to her loneliness as she secludes herself from everyone. I feel that Ren made a great point and it would actually make sense if my character suffered with depression as it helps with her back story as well.

Final Idea

A young woman, 22 years old is suffering with depression. She had the perfect life, until she got sacked from her job a couple of months ago. Since then she had been diagnosed with depression. She meets up with her best friend and collects a package off her, the package happens to be her prescription depression medication. When she gets home she grabs a hand full of medication and decides whether to end her life or not.

I'm quite happy with my final idea and feel that I will be able to make this happen. I have a rough idea on how I want the characters to look like and have a rough back story for them. I've decided that i'm going to audition people for the two main characters, as well as auditioning for extras. Now I need to look into my characters more and then I can start putting castings up.

Directors Unit - Ophelia Research

Gregory Crewdson's image of 'Ophelia' is very powerful and detailed, which is one of the reasons I chose to create a story for this image. There were many aspects of this image that stood out to me, them being the 'dead woman', the lamps (that happen to still be on even though the room is flooded), the windows, the bookcase and photos on the wall by the staircase. I like how there are bright colours in this image and the reflection in the water, but also how every time you look around the room your eyes go straight back to the woman. This could be because the white of her night gown matches the paleness of her skin which makes her look more luminous. I find that the light that comes into this image from the windows, etc. is happy and gentle which is ironic because the image shows a 'dead' woman which is normally something that we would think is morbid and depressing

Gregory's image 'Ophelia' is a re-creation/inspiration of the painting by John Everett Millais.

Millais image was painted during 1851-1852 and is based on the fictional character Ophelia from William Shakespeare's play 'Hamlet'. Ophelia character was going to marry Prince Hamlet, Ophelia's death is talked about in a speech by the Queen Gertrude. It is mentioned that the death of Ophelia was highly praised for being one of the most poetically written death scenes in literature.

Ophelia supposedly had fallen into the river from hanging over a tree, while gathering flowers. Her clothes got caught and trapped with, which temporarily kept her afloat. Eventually her garments began to fill with water, pulling her in to drown to a muddy death.

I can't wait to get started with this project as I feel it will be something more challenging for me to do. I have many ideas for this image but there is one idea that sticks out the most, i've just got to research more into it to find the sound effects I need to see if it will work.

Directors Unit - Gregory Crewdson

As part of our project this term we have to create a sound story for one of Gregory Crewdson's images. There were five to choose from. All of Gregory Crewdson's images looked amazing, they looked more like painting than images. In each image there is a variety of detail to them, from the main person in the picture to the surroundings.

Gregory was born in 1962 in New York City, where he still lives and continues to do his work. He's an American photographer and is best known for creating staged scenes of American homes and neighbourhoods. There are several books out at the moment which include images that he has taken over the years, they have been published between 1985 - 2005. His work has been exhibited all over the world. Recently he was the subject of a feature documentary film 'Gregory Crewdson: Brief encounters', which shows how he sets up his sets for the images as well as talking about how he started photography.

"My pictures must first be beautiful, but that beauty is not enough. I strive to convert an underlying edge of anxiety, of isolation, of fear."

Out of the five images we were given I was stuck between two 'Ophelia' and 'Woman at the Vanity'. After a hard decision I decided to go with 'Ophelia' as I wanted to challenge myself with creating a story for this image.

Directions Unit - Sound task

On Monday we was given the task to get into small groups of either, pairs or threes and come up with soundscapes for the following scenes.

I grouped up with Aquila and Sei-Kai. We went straight into the first scene and decided that this person is a man who lives out in the countryside and has a dog.

Scene 1 - Night

You can hear the hum of the countryside as well as crickets and rustling of leaves in the background. The dogs collar jingles as he walks down the stairs. He starts barking now and then. Cuts to person in bed breathing, he yawns stretching, moving the bed sheets. Banging his hand onto the side table trying to find his clock, presses the button on the clock. He huffs as he realises what the time is. The dog become more aggressive barking louder and growling. Paws thudding and scratching up against the back door, making the blinds rattle. Footsteps of person against carpet as he walks downstairs. Rattles the door handle and opens it back door, dog rushes straight out barking still. Sound of crickets become louder. The sound of the dog barking cuts off.

That's all we got up to, we spent so much time on the detail that we didn't have time to finish scene one let alone start on scene 2. We wanted to make it seem like someone killed the dog and that this 'person' was after the man, as we thought that would connect well to the theme of this scene, 'thriller'.

I feel that by doing this task it helped me realise how many different sounds there are, especially if its silent you can still hear other noises like planes, cars, people walking, TV etc. in the background. It's also given me an idea on how i'm going to incorporate sound in my sound design project for this unit.

Storytelling Unit - 'The Meeting' Final Draft

Here is my final draft that I handed in for marking a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully I have made the changes that were pointed out by Simon on my marking sheet for my first draft.

The Meeting FINAL Draft 2

Directions Unit - Loneliness Research

When I chose to do loneliness as a theme for my 4 minute dramatic film, I definitely wanted to look more into it to see how loneliness was used in different movies and books. First I wanted to get the basic outline on the meaning of Loneliness.

Meaning:

Loneliness: Sadness because one has no friends or company or the quality of being lonely and remote: isolation.
In depth meaning: Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship. Loneliness typically includes anxious feel ins about a lack of connectedness or communality with other beings, both in the present and extending into the future.

Here are some different type of genre of movies that I picked that expressed Loneliness.

Loneliness Movies:

I am Legend (2007)

Years after a plague kills most of humanity 

and transforms the rest into monsters, its up 

to the sole survivor in New York City to find 

a cure.

127 Hours (2010)

A mountain climber becomes trapped under

a boulder while canyoneering along near Moab, 

utah and resorts to desperate measures in order 

to survive.

Wall-E (2008)

In the distant future, a small waste-collecting 

robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey 

that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind. 

                       

Castaway (2000)

A FedEx executive must transform 

himself physically and emotionally to 

survive a crash landing on a deserted island.

I am Legend is based around an immune survivor to a virus that has turned people into creatures like zombies. This apocalyptic film explains loneliness in a survival way, instead of someone isolating them self. Wall-E is from an animated character from disney and is very loved and favourited by people who have watched the film. He is a sweet character that wants to find friendship and when a surprise visitor arrives he is able to get the friend he always wanted. This was a great film to study the transition from loneliness to not being lonely anymore. Castaway is a great example of how loneliness can effect you, i.e. he ends up drawing a face on a volleyball, naming it and starts to speak to it often. This film shows the psychological way on how loneliness can effect you as a human but also gives you an idea on what it would actually be like if you was stuck on a deserted island.

Loneliness in books:

Here are some books that I found that were useful for loneliness, especially isolation.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (Published 1937)

This story is George Milton and Lennie Small, 

who are two displaced migrant ranch workers, 

who move from place to place in search of new 

job opportunities during the Great Depression in 

California, USA.

The Perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (Published 1999)

Charlie is a freshman and while he's not the 

biggest geek in the school, he is by no means 

popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond 

his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, 

caught between trying to live his life and trying 

to run from it.

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (Published 1837-1839 three volumes)

The story is about an orphan, Oliver Twist, who 

endures a miserable existence in a workhouse 

and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes 

and travels to London where he meets the Artful 

Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets, 

naively unaware of their unlawful activities.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Published 1818)

Frankenstein tells the story of a committed science student 

Victor Frankenstein. Obsessed with discovering the cause 

of generation and life and bestowing animation upon lifeless 

matter, Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body 

parts but; upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the 

creature's hideousness. Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the 

once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign 

of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein has a lot of isolation and loneliness to the story, especially to the monster character. Charles Dickens wrote many books that  quite depressing and contained a lot of isolated characters within them. I feel that Dickens novels would help me quite a lot with this task. Of mice and men is a book that I studied for in secondary school and has a great story, it shows the isolation of two outsiders that go place to place to find work. I feel this is the most subtle way of portraying loneliness in a story and is definitely something I would study into again for help.

By looking into these films and books I feel that I have more of an understanding on how to use loneliness in my script. Reading up on the meaning of loneliness in depth helped me create a mental image on a couple ideas that I could use to create characters and the outline of a story.

Work experience - Take Me Out

A couple of weeks ago we had a meeting with the Hannah and Louis who are part of the production team.
They explained to us about 'Take Me Out' and what work experiences were available for the next week or so. At the end of the meeting I went up to them offering to help be a stand in whenever the opportunity starts.

The next day me and Sei-Kai received an email from Simon asking if we was able to make it to the studios that afternoon. I was so happy and nervous at the same time, it had not even been 24hrs since we had the meeting and we got asked to help.

Me and a few others in the class were asked to be stand ins, this meant that we had to pretend to be one of the girls behind the buzzers and help out on the boys rehearsal. In the boys rehearsal Paddy McGuinness the presenter of 'Take Me Out' rehearsed as well. It was great to see rehearsal face to face. Paddy was funny in rehearsals.
I knew that I was going to have a great time but also have a chance to speak to people who work in the television industry on set.

I met so many lovely crew members from the set and I was surprised on how they didn't mind talking about their jobs.

After the first day, when I walked in I felt part of the crew.

After speaking to some people it has made me realise that there are so many jobs that I didn't know about that you could do. One of the things I really wanted to do even though it would have probably been a no, was to sit and watch the producers and see what they did as thats one of the paths I wouldn't mind going towards.

Here are a couple of people I met on set.

Mark - Floor manager
Nick and Sarah - Assistant Floor managers
Hannah and Louis - Casting producers
Adam Searle - Head rigger
Toby Tee - Rigger
Martin - Lightning technician
Pete - Automation programmer automater (controlled the 'love lift')
Paul Brice - Sound operator
Freya Taylor - Art department
Paul Birchard - Crane technician
James - Set builder
Hayley - Camera woman
Mark barratt - Cameraman

Here's a schedule for one of the day's at the studios for the crew

Paul the sound guy was able to give me a Sei-Kai a copy of a cameraman's shot list. It was interesting to see a list that is actually used in production to film. The cameramen also explained what to do for each section.

While me a Sei-Kai were nosing around we met Archie Tigere, a producer, who is going to produce Take me out in South Africa. He was telling us that when they have finished filming Take me out at the end of this week that he will be taking the set pieces with him to South Africa to use over there.

On my fourth day at the studios I was finally picked TWICE to be at the bottom two. I lost both rounds, the first round with a really bad answer and the the second time round I couldn't think of an answer quick enough so they moved onto the next person. Even though I wasn't quick witted enough I did have a laugh, just a bit gutted that I didn't have a chance to go to Fernando's. It made me think if the girl's get the questions beforehand so that they have a chance to get a good answer or if they are put on the spot like we were. Either way it is really hard to think of a really good answer.

I was able to get four days work experience, I was going to continue until the production had finished, but after speaking to Simon during the week I realised that I had to put my studies first and focus on an essay that was due to be handed in soon. I was so grateful to at least get four days to help out.

Directions Unit - Intro

On Monday we was given our new unit which was Directions.

I'm kind of excited about going into detail about what directors do except for the obvious, directing orders. Directing is definitely something that was in my second and third choice in this industry.

The one that stood out to me the most was 'Loneliness'.

As soon we was given the script I read the first page and definitely thought I could adapt it to loneliness. The only thing with loneliness is that it is quite similar to sorrow so this is definitely going to be a challenge.

The other two tasks we are asked to do for this unit is choose an image from... and use sound to create a story. I've kind of done something like this in college but that was a sound story. I've picked an image and i've roughly got an idea on how i'm going to tell a story. For our 4 min dramatic film we have to hand in a director's statement. This is a written document where we note down production design, performance, style, tone, etc of our video.

I'm actually really looking forward to get into this unit and I have already planned out one of my main characters and have asked people from my class to help out with my filming. This time round i'm going to try and be more prepared.

Storytelling Unit - Video Feedback

Yesterday we watched everyone's completed videos, they were either the first two minutes of their script or a trailer. All the videos were great!! You could see everyone put a lot of work towards their videos and they should all be proud!

When it came to showing my video I made sure that I had my notebook with me so I could take down my feedback to help me with future projects.

After watching my video Simon asked me what I thought about it, there were a couple of things that I noticed.

1. There were a couple of shots that could have had a couple of frames taken away from them.

2. I have a bit of music when my 'production company name' comes up at the beginning. I felt that it wasn't really needed as its only there for a couple of seconds and then goes into nothing as the rest of my video has no music.

Other than that the rest of the feedback I got from people was really positive.

Simon said that my video had a great tone, you get a sense of the story, it was very tightly edited and that when it came to the end it made him want to keep watching more to see what the boy does next. He also mentioned that this video showed that I put a lot of time and effort into it.

Chris said that filming in one location for quite some time can be quite boring but because I had different shots it made that 2 minutes quite interesting.

Ren said that she loved the editing and shots, but there was one little critique where some of the shots could have been darkened more, which I knew as some of the shots were overexposed.

Aimee added that my video worked with having no music and that it was nice to have certain sounds pop up like the ripping of the paper, etc.

I am so happy with my feedback and actually feel pretty happy with my video that I have done. I have made some tweaks on it and have taken the music at the beginning off, shortened some of the shots and darkened the shots I thought were brighter than the others.

Here is my improved video.

Storytelling Unit - Editing notes

Editing is a difficult thing for me as I don't really like doing it. From previous projects I've done my videos have ended up looking crap. I guess that was because I haven't really had much experience in editing, so maybe my views will change when doing more projects for my course.

During editing my 2 min intro I was able to look through the effects, luckily there was a black and white. When I dragged this onto my shots it looked too bright for black and white, so I went onto inspector and at the bottom there's composition. On the drop down list I chose darken as it was the effect I wanted to add to my footage. I only darkened my videos a little bit as I didn't want them to look gritty as well as not being able to see the actors face. Composition helped me a lot with my footage and I'm glad I learnt that from the Final Cut Pro workshop I had with Mark.

 BEFORE

I dragged the colour effect onto
the clip I wanted to change the
colour of.

 AFTER

I didn't have a lot of time with my production title, I wasn't able to use Adobe After Effects to make a cool intro. My production company is called 'Daisy Production' and I remembered that the background of my blog there are Daisy's in black and white. I was able to find the picture online again on what I used and imported it onto FCP. Even though my production title doesn't do anything cool, I'm happy that at least it has a pretty background.






I dragged the image I wanted under my text, which helped keep the writing on top of the background.

The picture wasn't big enough for the screen, so I had to 

stretch it out a little using the transform button.

The finished picture background.

Storytelling Unit - Third draft

I got two people from my class to help and see if there was anything I needed to change to my script.

Helen and Vicci were happy to help and read through them. Helen helped a lot with this script and pointed out what words I could make bigger to stand out on the page. There was only one part she thought that I should take out, as it wasn't needed. I'm glad I asked Helen to look at my script, I felt she was very professional and gave honest feedback on it. I think Helen would be great working in the script writing, as it comes very natural to her.

Luckily there are only a few pages I need to go through to change little parts but except from that I'm quite happy with what my final draft has turned out like.

Storytelling Unit - 'The Meeting' 2 min video

    Here is my short video.

This short film shows the opening 2 minutes of my script.

It's about a boy who finds out that his dad is trying to contact him. Will he go and find him or will he continue to live his day to day life?

Hope you enjoy!!

Storytelling Unit - Reflection

I was able to finish editing my video and I'm quite happy with it. I can't believe on how long 2 minutes of filming footage and editing could take. By doing this project it has given me an idea on how long it takes to get a film or tv episode ready. I changed a couple of parts to my video which I thought would make the story better, but for some reason to me I preferred my video before I made these small changes. I felt that my original piece came across more strong in shots and dramatic. Hopefully when our videos are screened tomorrow I won't think the same.

Helen was able to help with my first shoot. We worked together quite well and I wouldn't mind working with her on future projects. Next time I hope to work with more people in the class.

Even though i've had to do a lot for this project, i'm quite happy with the end result. I was able to get the shots I wanted as well as sort out the production title at the beginning (which I did at the last minute). I felt that I was quite professional with the process and didn't rush shoots.

The part I enjoyed doing in this project was writing the story, this is definitely something that interests me and is something that I hope to do as a career. I felt that this was the part I was more focused on and didn't mind re-writing.

Overall this is just our first filming project and the first time I have filmed using a Sony XDCAM and writing a proper script. I think I have done very well on this project and i'm quite proud that I was able to complete this by myself.

Storytelling Unit - Editing Research

There were two books that helped me with filming and editing my footage. They were 'The focal easy guide to Final Cur Pro X' and 'Film directing shot by shot: visualizing from concept to screen'. I found these books to be so helpful and I'm glad I went to the library and took them out.

'The focal easy guide to Final Cur Pro X' tells you about where everything is in the new FCP. It also has seven very helpful chapters on importing media, editing, effects. audio, etc. I used this book or help on effects as that was the main area I was unsure about. I love how this book gives you picture diagrams as well as written information, which I found very helpful as i'm more of a visual person. There was a section in this book which helped me understand one of the points Mark was showing us in the FCP workshop on key framing.

The other book I got out was 'Film directing shot by shot: visualising from concept to screen'. I got this book out because I had to re-do some shots and I thought maybe this will help towards sorting my shots out instead of continuously taking the camera out. This was another great book, there was a page that shots where the different shots are on a  body which I found very helpful.

Both of these books were extremely helpful for this project and will definitely use them again in the future.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress 4

I was able to use this weekend wisely and film my last couple of shots I thought were necessary for my video. Even though this would be the fourth time I have filmed I feel like it still isn't complete.
Maybe when I add these shots into my story the video might flow a bit better. I'm hoping that when my video is finished that it is to my standard as I have spent so long filming shots and also that my classmates understand roughly what my film is about by watching this video. If them two get ticked then I will be very happy!!

After filming again and again and again i've noticed that I got annoyed with re-doing shots. If I didn't get it right I would do it again, I guess thats a good thing to know when a shot is bad even if its your own work but when its just you filming, its easier to give up. Filming can be very frustrating, for you and the actor. I've learnt more by using the camera multiple times and was able to get taught a couple of other things by Helen when helping out on her shoots. I'm hoping to continue building my knowledge about the equipment and shots, etc. Hopefully my mistakes from these shoots will help me for when I do future projects.

Storytelling Unit - Second draft

I looked though my feedback from Simon and I was able to change where the meeting between the boy and the stranger from the end of the story to the middle. I then had to come up with a different ending.
My story has now changed to so that the main character 'Luke' imagines meeting his dad. It has the same kind of concept of The Wizard of Oz where at the beginning and end of the story is in black and white, which is the real world and the colour being the dream, where the boy meets his father.

Simon seemed to be ok with the change of my ending, he just wanted to make sure I played with the dream part so that you can recognise from the real world. He also mentioned to add right at the end that the boys father turns up at the end to his home.

I was able to read through my script a couple of times and get a couple of other people to look over it so that I made sure that my sentences made sense as well as grammar being correct.

All I need to do is make these changes, read through the script again and see if the story still makes sense. The parts I want to focus more at the moment is when the boy meets the stranger and finds out he's his dad and the part where the dad turns up at the door.

Storytelling Unit - Cast

In my script there were a couple of people that I needed for the first two pages I was filming.
The two main people I needed was a young boy called Luke and a middle-aged woman to play Luke's mum, Lorraine. There were two other small roles needed for the second page of boys voices to add to the shot where Luke is playing on his xbox. This part is going to be played by my two cousins. Luckily I was able to ask family members to help out with playing these roles. My younger brother, Jake was to play Luke and my mum to be Lorraine.

Here are the photos of my actors.

Jake

Role: Luke

Main character

Rebecca

Role: Lorraine, Luke's mum

I was lucky enough for my brother and mum to agree to this, but I have found out by using family members in your projects that it isn't always a good path to use more than once. After doing this I have decided to not use family members as a first choice.

Storytelling Unit - Fourth production schedule

After to speaking to Simon about my video I decided to get the camera out one more time and see if I could get these little shots to make my video a bit better.

Fourth Production Schedule

Wednesday 20th November

- Pick up camera

Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd November

- Try to film some shots

Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th November

- Film the shots again if didn't work out first time

Monday 25th November

- Bring back camera

This is definitely the last time I can take the camera out before handing in my video and other pieces of work for the deadline in a couple of days. I want to be able to not take the camera out so many times, a couple is fine but when it gets to the fourth it can get a bit tiring. Hopefully I will be able to organise myself better and plan shoot days in more detail.

Storytelling Unit - Feedback on video

In todays lesson I was able to show Simon the first two minutes that I edited on FCP.
His response was really good. He said that the shots were great as well as the editing.
I was shocked about this as I don't really like editing nor using the camera and to have that type of response was brilliant.

There were a couple of things he thought could have made the video better. First of all as i'm showing the first two minutes of my script I have to have my 'production' company name at the start of my video. The other thing he mentioned was that I should include more close up shots of the boys face throughout the video as you don't see his face as much but also because it helps create emotion and drama to the story. The last thing he said would be a good touch is to add family noise or the TV in the background when the boy looks out his door.

I'm glad he looked at my video and I hope by making these small changes, that it will make the story much more better.

Storytelling Unit - Shot list

Here is the shot list I used for when I was filming my script. I was able to get all these shots done, but was able to take extra shots when I was actually shooting.

Under framing I shortened on what the different shots were. The abbreviations are:

MCU - Medium close up

CU - Close up

MS - Mid shot

There were the main shots I used in filming. By having this all written down helped when it came to filming, especially with the shots. I felt more organised with this and will definitely continue to do this for future projects.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress 3

Filming the third time round went brilliant.  I wanted to be prepared with these shots as I wasn't as much the second time round and I think that time contributed to me re-doing these shots. I was able to speak to Fergus, our technician, about the my shots.

The only time that was availed as soon as to get the camera out was Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th November. I booked the camera out even though I had a slight problem. My brother who plays Luke in my film has school during the week and as it's coming up to winter it gets dark just after 4.

Two if the shots I needed could be filming in the evening there was one shot I was  worried about. One of the main shots I needed was of my brother sitting on his bed and putting a piece of paper away. The problem with this shot was right behind him is a window.

I spoke to Fergus about whether I could film in the evening and then edit it to be daylight outside. The two different options he gave me were that, Incould use lighting and put a coloured gel onto the light to make the lighting look like its daytime. The only problem with this was, I wouldn't be able to take out any lighting as we haven't had any workshops, also I didn't feel comfortable enough using it anyway as I haven't used lighting in filming before (only natural or lamps, etc).

The second option I had was to use a green screen, and that first did I could create animated lighting to shine through the window to make it look more natural. The only thing Fergus mentioned was that it can be quite tricky using green screen for the first time and that it can take some time to do. I thought about it and decided not to go with this as I wasn't very confident on using this at the moment but also I only had two weeks to completely edit and hand in my work. I thought about it and decided the only way I can work around this situation is to film early in the morning before my brother goes to school and in the evening when he finishes so then I have both shots and then can decide which one looks better.

I filmed both of the shots and the one in the evening was too dark and you could tell that it was dark outside as well. I then filmed it early the next morning, even though it may have been a bit bright it was a much better shot to the evening shot. Hopefully as my first part of my script is in black and white the bright lighting might not show as much, otherwise if will have to see if there's ways of editing it out.

One of the other shots I was having problems with was a close up of a photo. I was struggling with focusing the camera properly when I had it up close to the photo the second time I filmed. Fergus said to me to next time to turn the macro on and then I should be able to have a focused shot. I was able to shoot this shot in two takes, the macro worked really well and I'm glad I was able to figure this problem out for future projects and shoots.

I've learnt that by filming my first film to never to use family members unless you are desperate and they AGREE to do it. Especially if their your sibling as they might take it as a joke and get stressed out more easily with you. Also to sort out the lighting and set before filming and that it's ok if you don't get fantastic shots when you first film.

I definitely know that camerawork is something that I'm not interested in doing at the moment. Maybe in time when I use the camera more I might change my mind. Even though filming is a tiring and stressful job I kind of liked that and felt pretty much in control most of the time and professional. Getting the camera out multiple times and re-shooting happens in the filming industry. I can't wait to get into the profession even though it might take a while to get there.

Storytelling Unit - Research 3

There were a couple of things I wanted to look into when I wrote my first draft of my script. They were just little bits of detail that I wanted to be correct so that I was sure it was as realistic as possible.

1) Rail way officer

In my story there is a part where the thief gets stopped by the stranger and is then held by the rail inform cement officers until further police come. I didn't know if rail officers could control the situation until the police arrived.

I was able to find a piece of information on Wikipedia and it explained the powers that rail people have.

2) Policeman

There's a part where the stranger (who happens to be a policeman) hears a boy saying a thief stole his iPad, so he chases after him. He is able to catch the thief and hand him over to the rail officers. I wanted to look up to make sure policeman off duty could still cease a person.

Wikipedia again was able to explain how police officers can cease someone when off duty, as long as they show their warrant car to prove who they are. I did find another article online explaining about this, but because it was made commented by someone in the Law enforcement in the US, I didn't really trust the information.

3) Father and son legal rights

As my story is about a son finding his dad and vice versa, I wanted to make sure that it was legal that a dad could meet his son without permission/ court hearings.

I was able to go onto - http://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/fathers-rights-and-law/the-family-courts-residence-and-contact-orders. This website had information on how to contact each other via court, within this information there was a little part that mentioned that if you can independently sort something out you can go through with it.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress 2

After filming the second time, I was still unhappy with three particular shots. This time round it was just me filming my brother. I think because I wasn't able to get certain shots straight away as quickly as I wanted to, my brother then started to get annoyed and tired with re-doing shots. I tried to get as many shots as possible, but when looking through them they still weren't right. Those three shots were getting to me. Even though we are not particularly getting marked on our filming as much as our script and blog work, I still want to make the film as good as possible. I decided to get the camera out one more time and see if I could re-do these shots any better, otherwise just use the ones I have.

Third Production Schedule

Tuesday 12th November

- Pick up camera

- Try to film as many shots

Wednesday 13th November

- Film the shots again in the morning

- Decide on what shots would work better

Thursday 14th November

- Film extra shots if needed

Friday 15th November

- Bring back camera

Storytelling Unit - Editing notes

I've started editing my short film on Final Cut Pro. As a class we were given the opportunity of having Final Cut Pro workshops, there are about 5 lessons. So far were on week four and I'm really enjoying them.

Even though I've had previous experience using mac computers and software like FCP, adobe after effects, photoshop, etc. I have learnt a lot with these workshops and finding them very useful.

Mark Beer who teaches us is very helpful and explains everything thorough without going on too long about the same subject.

These lessons have actually helped me when I started using FCP. I.e. I've learnt that you don't have to trim every section you go through to get rid of a specific part of a clip, that you can just drag in the part, which makes it a lot more easier to edit and wastes less time. I was also unsure with how to change the colour of the film and in one of the lessons, he was able to cover this.

I'm hoping to get the rest of my clips filmed soon so that I can edit my short film properly, but at the moment I've got quite a few clips to work with until I can get the last shots.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress

I was able to look through my footage and edit the first two minutes of my film. I filmed the first two pages of my script and ended up using the footage from my first page. I put the shots in order and looked through them to see if I needed to re-do any shots.

There were about five shots that were either out of focus, had something in the frame, I.e. A tripod and just wasn't in frame. Luckily I was organised and planned out my filming, as it gave me a chance to re-film if I needed to. I was able to get her camera out again within the week to re-shoot.

Being able to critique my own work wasn't hard, as I'm normally quite critical on getting my work right until I'm ok with it.

Second Production Schedule

Friday 8th November

- Pick up camera

Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th November

- Film the shots I need
- And extra shots

Monday 11th November

- Bring back camera

Storytelling Unit - First draft of 'The Meeting'

I received my first draft back from Simon and was kind of unhappy with the results I got back.

Here is my marking sheet and marked first draft.

               

From what I got from my feedback I understand where I went wrong. First of all I added too much information on what the mum was doing in between the story, instead of focusing it on the meeting between the boy and dad. I also made the mistake of having the actual meeting happen at the end of the script instead of the middle. By having the meeting at the end of my story made it have a lot of build up before then.

I need to go through my script make a couple of grammar changes and also take out the parts that are not needed. I then need to look into the story and think about the ending as well as add a bit more and change parts to the meeting of the boy and dad.