An example of an opinion was shaped by either pre/post-viewing conditions or the conditions of viewing reception. Estimate how much these factors affected what you thought of the movie.
Kick-Ass.
When I watched Kick Ass for the first time, it was at my place, and my friend had brought the film over for us to watch as I had mentioned that I had never seen it before. However, he decided that it would be a good idea to give a (boring) running commentary of the entire film whilst my mother cut the grass outside whilst the windows were open. Because of this, I found the film extremely uninteresting and boring. Most likely because I couldn't even hear what was being said on the screen, and my friend was making all these silly and stupid comments throughout the film. This exact thing also happened with Avengers (with the same friend too, actually).
28 Days Later.
Before watching this film, my mother had previously seen it, and described it as 'boring, and all it's about is a guy wandering around a deserted London on his own.' Therefore, when I watched it for the first time, I was thirteen. Because my mother had commented how ridiculous it was, I decided to watch it on my own, in the dark on a portable DVD player at about 2am around five years ago. The result was me being absolutely terrified, and needing to turn the lights on and turning the volume all the way down so that it didn't affect me so much. The film now, however, is one of my all time favourites, and I think that because I wasn't expecting so much before I actually watched the film, I found it far, far more exciting and interesting.
Monday 6 October 2014
Monday 22 September 2014
Repo! The Genetic Opera Merchandise.
Looking up merchandise for the film, 'Repo! The Genetic Opera', there's not much official merchandise out there for it. The majority of it is T-shirts, posters, badges and fridge magnets, with the occasional tote bag, notebook and pyjama set.
When it comes to ideas for other pieces of possible merchandise for Repo!, we could look at merchandise for other similar films, such as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or SAW for inspiration. A few ideas I came up with were an apron which looks like the Repo Men's outfits, a mask that looks like Pavi's face and/or a Repo Man mask, a car sticker with quotes from the film, or other things, like perhaps even a comic book telling the story of the film, using the comic book panels that were used in the film.
A necklace shaped like a little glass vial with blue liquid inside could even be an idea, as it would represent the Zydrate vials in the film, and be a must for a fan to have. A Repo Man sew-on patch would also be an idea, like the ones on the outfits of the Repo Men in the film. Speaking of outfits, a Halloween outfit of a Repo Man costume could also be interesting. Contact lenses that make peoples' eyes look like Blind Mag's would be an idea, too.
A necklace shaped like a little glass vial with blue liquid inside could even be an idea, as it would represent the Zydrate vials in the film, and be a must for a fan to have. A Repo Man sew-on patch would also be an idea, like the ones on the outfits of the Repo Men in the film. Speaking of outfits, a Halloween outfit of a Repo Man costume could also be interesting. Contact lenses that make peoples' eyes look like Blind Mag's would be an idea, too.
Thursday 12 June 2014
Investment Plan.
Here is the link to my investment plan for the college:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BP1frb3GGySAZvhesuQ2kyVB5CvOlbarbzptT3R8pKk/edit?usp=sharing
Because some of the text is slightly difficult to read, I'll copy the reasons behind my choices onto this blog post below.
Equipment:
Aluminium Tripod.
The tripods that the college use now are large, heavy and are difficult to move around. If we had cameras that were lighter and could fold up smaller, it would save people a lot of time and effort when it comes to moving their equipment, setting up and filming. Buying this in the first year would me an improvement as it would also free up the tech office, and allow there to be more room for storing different equipment instead of a large majority of it being taken up by tripods and their casings.
Canon 6D.
Canon 600Ds are quickly being outplaced by the 700D and the 6D, which are all improving greatly. The quality, weight, size and features are all quickly improving and outdoing the Canon 600D in many different ways, which means that the quality of films shot on college cameras would decrease over the years and look less and less professional, so getting a Canon 6D in two years would mean that although there will have been a newer camera than the 6D out by then, the price of the 6D will have dropped slightly by then, but would still be good quality.
RØDE Stereo VideoMic Pro On-Camera Microphone.
The stereo videomics for the DSLR cameras will soon go out of date, and be replaced by better videomics that have a higher quality of sound recording, as well as cheaper, lighter and generally work better with the newer cameras. Because the camera equipment that the college uses will have been upgraded by this point, the microphone equipment will also need to be replaced otherwise the camera work will greatly outdo the sound recordings when it comes to students work.
Sony CX280 Full HD Handycam.
By the fifth year, the handycams that the college uses will be extremely outdated and bad quality compared to what's out on the market today. These would then therefore need to be replaced with something that is of much higher quality, so a camera that is similar to today's Sony CX280 would be a good choice because it is reasonably priced with good, high quality features and would work well with student's films.
Software:
Final Cut X.
Final Cut 7 is quickly being replaced and is no longer being sold, so the college will soon need to upgrade to Final Cut X to keep up with the software that the industry uses. Although there's not a huge change in the software with the exception of the layout and compatibility to other Final Cut programs, students would need to get used to it more than Final Cut 7 if they wanted to pursue a career in editing as that is what is being used in the profession.
Celtx Studio.
An upgrade to Celtx Studios would be a huge improvement to the college, and help students with their screenplays. It offers many more features that the free version cannot give, and would allow students to access their screenplay and notes from anywhere with the cloud feature on Celtx Studios. It offers storyboarding, shot lists, character profiles, production files etc. etc. which would help many students with the writing aspects of their productions and allow them to keep things in more of an organised order.
Screen-Recording Software.
The college doesn't particuarly have a decent screen-recording software. Although we can use Quicktime, it's not amazing, and could easily be updated by buying a screen-recording software from the Apple store. They are cheap, good quality and offer a lot of features, and would be very useful to students when doing presentations, as it would allow them to record the screen as they speak and present it.
Microsoft Office 2016.
By this point, Office 2011 will be out of date by a number of years, and to keep up with new software that's being used, the college should upgrade to Microsoft Office 2016 - as it would be 2017 by this point, and instead of spending lots of money on buying the newest version, it would be just as useful and money saving to buy the one from the year before, as it shouldn't have changed drastically compared to the huge differences between Office 2011 and 2016.
Viven.
With this software, student would be able to accurately draw their own floor plans, as well as design sets in large detail. Lighting and camera arrangements can also be decided on and worked out on this software, and it would also allow us to have a virtual view of our sets - which we can render to be able to use during explanations of how things will be filmed in a clear and precise way. It's a software that we don't yet have, but would be extremely useful to us as it would allow us to create these things digitally instead of on paper, and give us more control with our ideas and pre-production planning.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BP1frb3GGySAZvhesuQ2kyVB5CvOlbarbzptT3R8pKk/edit?usp=sharing
Because some of the text is slightly difficult to read, I'll copy the reasons behind my choices onto this blog post below.
Equipment:
Aluminium Tripod.
The tripods that the college use now are large, heavy and are difficult to move around. If we had cameras that were lighter and could fold up smaller, it would save people a lot of time and effort when it comes to moving their equipment, setting up and filming. Buying this in the first year would me an improvement as it would also free up the tech office, and allow there to be more room for storing different equipment instead of a large majority of it being taken up by tripods and their casings.
Canon 6D.
Canon 600Ds are quickly being outplaced by the 700D and the 6D, which are all improving greatly. The quality, weight, size and features are all quickly improving and outdoing the Canon 600D in many different ways, which means that the quality of films shot on college cameras would decrease over the years and look less and less professional, so getting a Canon 6D in two years would mean that although there will have been a newer camera than the 6D out by then, the price of the 6D will have dropped slightly by then, but would still be good quality.
RØDE Stereo VideoMic Pro On-Camera Microphone.
The stereo videomics for the DSLR cameras will soon go out of date, and be replaced by better videomics that have a higher quality of sound recording, as well as cheaper, lighter and generally work better with the newer cameras. Because the camera equipment that the college uses will have been upgraded by this point, the microphone equipment will also need to be replaced otherwise the camera work will greatly outdo the sound recordings when it comes to students work.
Sony CX280 Full HD Handycam.
By the fifth year, the handycams that the college uses will be extremely outdated and bad quality compared to what's out on the market today. These would then therefore need to be replaced with something that is of much higher quality, so a camera that is similar to today's Sony CX280 would be a good choice because it is reasonably priced with good, high quality features and would work well with student's films.
Software:
Final Cut X.
Final Cut 7 is quickly being replaced and is no longer being sold, so the college will soon need to upgrade to Final Cut X to keep up with the software that the industry uses. Although there's not a huge change in the software with the exception of the layout and compatibility to other Final Cut programs, students would need to get used to it more than Final Cut 7 if they wanted to pursue a career in editing as that is what is being used in the profession.
Celtx Studio.
An upgrade to Celtx Studios would be a huge improvement to the college, and help students with their screenplays. It offers many more features that the free version cannot give, and would allow students to access their screenplay and notes from anywhere with the cloud feature on Celtx Studios. It offers storyboarding, shot lists, character profiles, production files etc. etc. which would help many students with the writing aspects of their productions and allow them to keep things in more of an organised order.
Screen-Recording Software.
The college doesn't particuarly have a decent screen-recording software. Although we can use Quicktime, it's not amazing, and could easily be updated by buying a screen-recording software from the Apple store. They are cheap, good quality and offer a lot of features, and would be very useful to students when doing presentations, as it would allow them to record the screen as they speak and present it.
Microsoft Office 2016.
By this point, Office 2011 will be out of date by a number of years, and to keep up with new software that's being used, the college should upgrade to Microsoft Office 2016 - as it would be 2017 by this point, and instead of spending lots of money on buying the newest version, it would be just as useful and money saving to buy the one from the year before, as it shouldn't have changed drastically compared to the huge differences between Office 2011 and 2016.
Viven.
With this software, student would be able to accurately draw their own floor plans, as well as design sets in large detail. Lighting and camera arrangements can also be decided on and worked out on this software, and it would also allow us to have a virtual view of our sets - which we can render to be able to use during explanations of how things will be filmed in a clear and precise way. It's a software that we don't yet have, but would be extremely useful to us as it would allow us to create these things digitally instead of on paper, and give us more control with our ideas and pre-production planning.
Multi-Camera and Research.
Research.
Primary research is information that is collected by yourself. You could do this by emailing/writing to people, conducting interviews, sending out surveys and questionnaires, for example. It's information that you have worked on to retrieve instead of trusting and using information that was gathered elsewhere by a different person.
Secondary research can be found in things like news articles, television shows and books, for example. It is information that was not collected by you, and was found at a different location and date by different people, and may not be completely related to the information that you want because you were not the one to find it.
News programmes - such as the news - use primary research. They have someone, or a group of people, who check all the information and conduct research into the news reports that they are going to show before they are broadcast to make sure that the information that they are giving is accurate and reliable. Because they are something that the majority of the public trust and believe, to pass on inaccurate information would be extremely bad and could not be allowed to happen. When I was conducting research for my VT clip about the sled dog racing for the news programme in college, I actually went and interviewed people on location. I recorded these interviews so I could refer back to them, and also emailed a number of people who actually ran the event so that I could get accurate information about the event.
Documentaries, on the other hand, tend to use both primary and secondary research. Although they go out to interview people and research into the topic of the documentary on the location of filming, they also use information that could be found in books and online to add to the film. Because a lot of documentaries are based on things that have happened in the past, they can obviously not travel back in time to be there on the date that the event happened, and so have to use secondary research - for example, news reports and police statements released around the time of the events. Like in 'Bowling For Columbine', for example. They interview people as primary research, but they also refer back to events that have happened in the past, and are recorded in books/on the internet as secondary. They also use secondary information about the amount of gun crime in the USA and Canada, as this was information found out by the government, and not the filmmakers. During my research for my VT clip for my college news production, I researched online to find people's views on sled dog racing, and other, similar secondary research to add information to my VT clip that would be something I could not find out myself.
Research is extremely important when it comes to a factual documentaries or news programme. Because the media has an extremely large reach, and most people believe and trust the information they are given, anything that is false, or incorrect could have bad consequences because it would break the trust that they have with the public, and could cause a panic/uproar if details are wrong. People that work on news shows always conduct research into news stories before they are broadcast, and often there are a team of people that then check again afterwards to make sure that the people conducting the research haven't made a mistake, and that everything they have found out is accurate for sure.
When I researched my VT clip for the news show in college, I used a number of different methods or research. Before I actually went to film, I emailed the people in charge of running and organising the sled dog racing event so I could ask them a number of questions and find out details about the day. I then conducted secondary research by looking at news articles about sled dog races online, and also surveys and sites that include people's opinions of sled dog racing. This allowed me to be clued up on the day, and know exactly what I would need to find out from the people there, so when it came to collecting more primary research - like interviewing racers, organisers and spectators on the day to get information that I could not get through secondary research. It also allowed me to be more confident with the information that I had found, as it is something that I have found out, and don't have to trust that the secondary information found online and in books is accurate as it may not be, and might also not be closely related to the topic that I was choosing to cover in my VT clip. I found out that a lot of people tend to think that sled dog racing is cruel and that they think the dogs are forced into it, but I also discovered that the dogs actually extremely enjoy the sport. It allows them to use up the mass amounts of energy that they cannot burn in other ways, and gets them out and about for the weekend, exploring new places and meeting other dogs/people. I also found out that the sport of sled dog racing isn't that common in England as it is in some countries; such as Canada, but it still exists and there is a close-knit community of racers that are more like a family with each other.
Multi-Camera.
A multi-camera production is completely different from a multi-angle production. With multi-camera films, a few cameras - normally three - are set up to record the exact same scene from different angles. It's typically used in news shows, or on reality television shows such as Jeremy Kyle or Big Brother.
This then allowed the scene to only need to take place once. With shows that are supposed to be reality, this is useful as then the people involved would not need to keep re-doing something to change the camera angles, because in reality TV, it is not supposed to be rehearsed or fake so it would be impossible to keep re-doing the scene. Instead, having a number of cameras located in different places allows the events to only need to take place once, and the angles can be changed by switching between the many different cameras that were set up to capture all the action.
It also saves time. If a talk show has a special guest that has very limited time to actually appear on the show, they would not need to keep repeating a phrase/conversation to get the different angles, and things would only need to be said once. The editing can be done live in a vision mixing studio, or edited at a later date, using all the camera angles that were recorded at the same time.
During my news show that was created for my college course, the following picture is the layout of the studio, where we used a multi-camera layout to record the programme.
If we use this episode of the Andrew Marr Show, however, starting at 1:00 minute, we can see that the programme was filmed multi-camera. The camera at first, is aimed directly at Andrew Marr as he is speaking, but half way through, it cuts to the two guests sitting on the sofa as they are mentioned. He continues to speak over this shot however, and it soon cuts back to him talking which proves that this was filmed multi-camera, as they are able to simply cut back and forth between the different cameras whilst it is being broadcast live.
Later on in the show, at 7:25, we can see even more proof that this was filmed multi-camera. The camera is at first a medium shot of Marr as he speaks, but soon cuts to a camera over his shoulder, pointing down towards the newspapers on a table that he is speaking about at the time. Cutting back to a wide shot of him, we can see him moving the papers on the table - as he was doing in the previous shot, but the sound hasn't changed at all. There were no cuts between what he was saying at all, and clearly it was filmed using more than one camera to achieve this effect. It does this a number of times as he continues to speak about the news headlines on the papers. As he introduces the two guest once again, it cuts to a moving wide shot shot of the three of them sitting at the sofas. As the conversation progresses, the camera cuts between shots of the two guests, Marr and the wide shot of all three of them. Through making my news show in college, I know that this would be extremely easy to do within a vision mixing studio, and save both time and money. Because they are having a discussion, it should be natural, and for it to be natural it cannot be stopped continuously to re-frame a shot. This would take up too much time to do, cannot be done live, and would also mean that the three would need to keep repeating and rehearsing the discussion which is not what people expect from a discussion/news show.
Primary research is information that is collected by yourself. You could do this by emailing/writing to people, conducting interviews, sending out surveys and questionnaires, for example. It's information that you have worked on to retrieve instead of trusting and using information that was gathered elsewhere by a different person.
Secondary research can be found in things like news articles, television shows and books, for example. It is information that was not collected by you, and was found at a different location and date by different people, and may not be completely related to the information that you want because you were not the one to find it.
News programmes - such as the news - use primary research. They have someone, or a group of people, who check all the information and conduct research into the news reports that they are going to show before they are broadcast to make sure that the information that they are giving is accurate and reliable. Because they are something that the majority of the public trust and believe, to pass on inaccurate information would be extremely bad and could not be allowed to happen. When I was conducting research for my VT clip about the sled dog racing for the news programme in college, I actually went and interviewed people on location. I recorded these interviews so I could refer back to them, and also emailed a number of people who actually ran the event so that I could get accurate information about the event.
Documentaries, on the other hand, tend to use both primary and secondary research. Although they go out to interview people and research into the topic of the documentary on the location of filming, they also use information that could be found in books and online to add to the film. Because a lot of documentaries are based on things that have happened in the past, they can obviously not travel back in time to be there on the date that the event happened, and so have to use secondary research - for example, news reports and police statements released around the time of the events. Like in 'Bowling For Columbine', for example. They interview people as primary research, but they also refer back to events that have happened in the past, and are recorded in books/on the internet as secondary. They also use secondary information about the amount of gun crime in the USA and Canada, as this was information found out by the government, and not the filmmakers. During my research for my VT clip for my college news production, I researched online to find people's views on sled dog racing, and other, similar secondary research to add information to my VT clip that would be something I could not find out myself.
Research is extremely important when it comes to a factual documentaries or news programme. Because the media has an extremely large reach, and most people believe and trust the information they are given, anything that is false, or incorrect could have bad consequences because it would break the trust that they have with the public, and could cause a panic/uproar if details are wrong. People that work on news shows always conduct research into news stories before they are broadcast, and often there are a team of people that then check again afterwards to make sure that the people conducting the research haven't made a mistake, and that everything they have found out is accurate for sure.
When I researched my VT clip for the news show in college, I used a number of different methods or research. Before I actually went to film, I emailed the people in charge of running and organising the sled dog racing event so I could ask them a number of questions and find out details about the day. I then conducted secondary research by looking at news articles about sled dog races online, and also surveys and sites that include people's opinions of sled dog racing. This allowed me to be clued up on the day, and know exactly what I would need to find out from the people there, so when it came to collecting more primary research - like interviewing racers, organisers and spectators on the day to get information that I could not get through secondary research. It also allowed me to be more confident with the information that I had found, as it is something that I have found out, and don't have to trust that the secondary information found online and in books is accurate as it may not be, and might also not be closely related to the topic that I was choosing to cover in my VT clip. I found out that a lot of people tend to think that sled dog racing is cruel and that they think the dogs are forced into it, but I also discovered that the dogs actually extremely enjoy the sport. It allows them to use up the mass amounts of energy that they cannot burn in other ways, and gets them out and about for the weekend, exploring new places and meeting other dogs/people. I also found out that the sport of sled dog racing isn't that common in England as it is in some countries; such as Canada, but it still exists and there is a close-knit community of racers that are more like a family with each other.
Multi-Camera.
A multi-camera production is completely different from a multi-angle production. With multi-camera films, a few cameras - normally three - are set up to record the exact same scene from different angles. It's typically used in news shows, or on reality television shows such as Jeremy Kyle or Big Brother.
This then allowed the scene to only need to take place once. With shows that are supposed to be reality, this is useful as then the people involved would not need to keep re-doing something to change the camera angles, because in reality TV, it is not supposed to be rehearsed or fake so it would be impossible to keep re-doing the scene. Instead, having a number of cameras located in different places allows the events to only need to take place once, and the angles can be changed by switching between the many different cameras that were set up to capture all the action.
It also saves time. If a talk show has a special guest that has very limited time to actually appear on the show, they would not need to keep repeating a phrase/conversation to get the different angles, and things would only need to be said once. The editing can be done live in a vision mixing studio, or edited at a later date, using all the camera angles that were recorded at the same time.
During my news show that was created for my college course, the following picture is the layout of the studio, where we used a multi-camera layout to record the programme.
As you can see, we used three different cameras so that we could simply edit the show live in the vision mixing room, and cut back and forth between the different cameras instead of needing to constantly stop the production to re-film different parts of the programme. It also saved time to do this, and allowed us to complete the show in a more professional manner.
If we use this episode of the Andrew Marr Show, however, starting at 1:00 minute, we can see that the programme was filmed multi-camera. The camera at first, is aimed directly at Andrew Marr as he is speaking, but half way through, it cuts to the two guests sitting on the sofa as they are mentioned. He continues to speak over this shot however, and it soon cuts back to him talking which proves that this was filmed multi-camera, as they are able to simply cut back and forth between the different cameras whilst it is being broadcast live.
Later on in the show, at 7:25, we can see even more proof that this was filmed multi-camera. The camera is at first a medium shot of Marr as he speaks, but soon cuts to a camera over his shoulder, pointing down towards the newspapers on a table that he is speaking about at the time. Cutting back to a wide shot of him, we can see him moving the papers on the table - as he was doing in the previous shot, but the sound hasn't changed at all. There were no cuts between what he was saying at all, and clearly it was filmed using more than one camera to achieve this effect. It does this a number of times as he continues to speak about the news headlines on the papers. As he introduces the two guest once again, it cuts to a moving wide shot shot of the three of them sitting at the sofas. As the conversation progresses, the camera cuts between shots of the two guests, Marr and the wide shot of all three of them. Through making my news show in college, I know that this would be extremely easy to do within a vision mixing studio, and save both time and money. Because they are having a discussion, it should be natural, and for it to be natural it cannot be stopped continuously to re-frame a shot. This would take up too much time to do, cannot be done live, and would also mean that the three would need to keep repeating and rehearsing the discussion which is not what people expect from a discussion/news show.
Saturday 7 June 2014
Hope Dies Last Short Film Final Submission.
All my pre-production work can be found in the following links and pictures:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yoWw45XqJXsosG21pgAyllk6Ky0hMLqN5t6Ctxucyec/edit?usp=sharing
Evaluation:
Overall, I am happy with the way that my short film turned out, although it was extremely stressful towards the end and there were a lot of things that I would have changed if I had more time, and were to re-make it again.For starters, I left it extremely late to film. The reasons for this were that I had to find a suitable time for all my actors, me, and my other crew members to be able to spend the weekend filming, and this was quite late in the month. I had to book time off work - as did some of my other actors - and I also had to hire out the location and book it for a later date. This only gave me a few days to edit the video, but I think the final product was good for the amount of time I had.
During pre-production, I think I worked well. I managed to get everything done for the production - including proposals, treatments, contracts, schedules, scripts, storyboards and more, which meant that on the day of filming I knew exactly what I wanted to do, when and where. In some ways, this was useful, although nothing really went to this plan when we actually filmed. I managed to hire actors by going down to the first year actors in the college and explaining to them what my film was about. A lot of the class said that they wanted to help out with it, but I'm extremely happy with the actors that I did choose in the end. They worked well together, were enthusiastic, learnt their lines, turned up for rehearsals (and the day of filming) and played their parts extremely well.
I gave the actors the first draft of the script a few weeks before we actually filmed the production, and then that progressed to the second draft of the script as I worked more on the dialogue. During rehearsals, I managed to instruct them to tell them how I wanted certain scenes to play out, and I think it paid off on the day as they knew exactly what they were doing. I also wrote up some character profiles to give the actors more information about their characters so that they could portray them more accurately.
However, on the day of filming, I filmed the same scene a few times from different angles, and as I did this, sometimes the actors would turn in a different direction, or hold out the wrong arm or sit on the wrong knee, etc. etc. This made editing slightly difficult for continuity, and I had to try and work with the clips that I had to the best of my abilities. Also, occasionally the actors would mess up their lines and say the wrong thing that made no sense compared to the rest of the film, so I had to cut to another shot and get them to dub in the right line. Because their face wasn't on camera at the time, however, I think I may have gotten away with it as they did not have to lip sync that small part of their line.
There was also a shot that went missing for some reason, and was quite possibly my favourite shot of the entire shoot. After the brothers knock out/kill the guards outside the bunker, there was an improvised scene where Jack (who plays Jason) throws the cloth at Nathan (who plays Luke) in response to him killing the guard. This would have added a lot to the scene, and I am completely sure that I recorded it as I played it back. When I transferred all the clips onto my portable hard-drive, however, for some reason it did not appear, and went missing completely. During this scene, I also should have made it more clear about what they were doing. The idea was that Jason had planned to simply knock out the two guard with chloroform. However, Luke tosses the cloth aside and breaks the guard's neck instead because his character is more ruthless and brutal, whereas Jason would prefer not to kill the guards as he believes that they have no choice but to work for the government. This just simply adds to the two characters and makes them more believable, however during the scene it's not actually clear that they have chloroform on the cloths, or even what their plan is. I should have added some lines into this part of the scene to clear things up with the audience, however, because it could be slightly confusing.
When it came to the day of shooting, as I stated before, it didn't quite go to plan. I scheduled for us to start filming at 2pm, and finish at 8pm - but we didn't get out of the bunker until around 10pm at night, and then I had to re-film a number of scenes the following day at Priory Park, Southend and also at the college during the week. The reasons for this was that mainly the lighting aspects of things. I hired out lighting equipment on the day, but I never actually used it. The reasons behind this were having to transport them throughout the location, as well as setting it up - although I wasn't really sure how to use it either. I will definitely learn how to use the lighting equipment before my next project, so hopefully I won't have the problem of some shots being extremely grainy, dark and completely unusable. I re-filmed the bad shots on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in both Priory Park and the college campus, and they looked better - although the shots of Cane and Atlanta, the two brothers rescuing her and the shots of Atalanta looking through the door seem slightly strange as it doesn't quite match the locations of the original shoot. I believe I may just be able to get away with using them in the film, however.
The other main issue on the day was the microphone. I borrowed a stereo videomic which plugged straight into the side of my DSLR camera. The issues were that it didn't clip onto the top of my camera properly, and so it kept falling off, and the microphone also didn't actually work properly. Sometimes there was absolutely no audio picked up whatsoever, sometimes it was extremely quiet with hissing noises, and other times the audio was really loud and lots of background noise were very audible. Because of this, nearly all of the audio was completely unusable, and therefore I had to call all my actors back in to record some ADR and get them all to dub the voices once again. Also, every single sound that's heard within the film were audio that I put in myself - mainly from freesound.org because I did not have enough time to record all the audio and sound effects again. I think in the end it sounded decent. Although some of the voices were slightly echoey, and the audio isn't all the same quality but this is mainly because I had huge issues with finding somewhere to film. Wherever I went to try and record the dubbing, there were either noises in the background, or we were asked to move somewhere else. That's the reason that some of the voices sound different from the others, although I tried to even this out through the editing stages to make it sound similar. I also planned to alter Luke and Steph (Cane and Atlanta)'s voices during the opening to make it sound like they were speaking through a radio, but I didn't have enough time to actually do that as it was due in soon.
During the credit sequence of the film, I desperately wanted a song to play, as I thought it would work well. I know a singer-songwriter personally, and one of her songs - 'We Are Slaves' - works extremely well for the film. I asked permission to use it, and she was more than happy to let me, and said that she would even write an entirely new song for me to use in the DVD version of my film, but she would not have time to do it just yet because she had her final exams coming up. The song I used in my credits plays over a little bit of the film too, but quietly, before building up to it as if the film is going to continue on from that point. I think this works well, and adds to the end of the film as it makes the audience want to know what happens left, as I did leave it on a cliffhanger on purpose to interest the audience in possibly me making a sequel to this film at some point in the future.
During the last scenes where they begin to walk through the tunnel to leave, I play some very quiet music in the background that I think adds extremely well to the scene and increases the tension that the audience would feel. The music is very subtle, but combined with the sound effects, voices and the noise of the siren - which I personally feel should have been slightly quieter - I think the soundtrack works extremely well for these scenes. It drags the audience into the action, and makes them feel more involved as well as making the scene more dramatic and sudden. During the rest of the film - with the exception of the montage at the beginning, and right at the end before the credits - there is no background music, only ambient noise. I didn't feel that the other scenes needed any music as they were involving the audience enough with the sound effects and dialogue, and didn't want to make the scenes too overpowering with the soundtrack.
I spent a lot of money on this film, however it was mostly spent on hiring out the location. I managed to get a student discount of £65 for three hours filming inside the nuclear bunker, but then I also had to pay £7 entry per person to get all my cast and crew inside. There were eleven of us in total, so that was an extra £77. We also had to pay out another £65 because we were there for far longer than three hours, but I think it was a reasonable price for hiring out the location. We filmed parts of the production whilst the bunker was still open to to public, so occasionally we would have to stop filming to let people pass. Also, apparently some of the younger children got slightly scared by my actors - but I was not aware of this until afterwards because I was busy filming. When it was closed to the public, however (5pm), we had the bunker all to ourselves. There were supposed to be a group of paranormal investigators using the bunker from 8pm onwards that day, but they never showed up, so we were allowed to continue using it as late as we wanted to.
The bunker had many different locations that we were able to use. We used many of these places, as it looked like a military headquarters, and outside looked slightly derelict so that worked well too. However, by the time we started filming outside, it was around 9pm, and therefore getting dark. We tried to use phone lights to light the actors up, but when we watched the footage back, it didn't work, so we had to re-film those scenes again the next day.
We were also allowed to borrow the decommissioned guns from the bunker as well as the military outfits for no extra fees. This saved me some money in having to hire them out, and also looked good because they were real decommissioned guns, not simply fake ones. This meant that they were heavy, but my actors chose the guns that they wanted to use for the days so they had ones that they could handle without hurting themselves. However, one of my actors - Nathan - somehow accidentally managed to break a clip on his AK-47 gun that held it together right at the beginning of the shoot, so it kept falling apart during scenes and we kept having to stop filming to fix it. Eventually he tied a hairband around it to stop it from breaking - which worked - but it wasn't noticeable in the film which was good.
I brought other props myself from websites like eBay, however. The masks, the handcuffs and the walkie-talkies were all bought by me to use, and I tried to keep it as cheap as possible because of the amount of money I had already spent on the film. I bought myself a Cannon 700D to film on before starting the project because the last time I used the college cameras, for some reason it would only let me film for several seconds. I wanted to make sure I never had this issue again, so I bought the camera out of my own money. It also means that I can film whenever and wherever now, as I do not have to book out a camera from college. However, when filming, I did borrow a 50mm lens for my camera to make the shots look nicer - as it recorded a lot better than my kit lens did. I will be buying my own microphone for my next project, however, just to eliminate the issues of the sound that I had during this film. I also borrowed a dolly and tracks, as well as a tripod from the college to use on the day. I really like the shot with the dolly and tracks, but because of the size of the rooms that we were filming in, we were only really able to use it for one shot. The tripod was used for most scenes, however, because I have a very unsteady hand when it comes to recording on cameras so I thought that it would look better to use a tripod. During one scene we filmed at the college - the one with Cane and Atlanta talking - I was not able to borrow a tripod, and you can clearly see the camera shaking. I would've greatly preferred to use a tripod during this point, as even with balancing the camera on some railings, it wasn't steady enough for my liking.
Because all the filming wasn't completed at the bunker on Saturday - and some shots were unusable - we all met up on the Sunday at Priory Park to re-film some shots there, as well as working on the montage at the beginning of the film as I did not get the chance to film any of those clips on the Saturday. It was slightly morbid, however, as we brought three wooden crosses with the character names to the park and some people gave us some weird looks. We had people on standby to explain what we were doing, however. One of my actors also brought along his own decommissioned hand gun so that we could film some scenes with them. We made sure to be extremely careful with this and did not film until there was no people around, and kept it out of sight until we needed to use it. Once again, we also had people around to explain and warn people who wanted to pass through the area so that they didn't panic and call the police. The shots filmed in the park came out extremely well, however, but it was a very hot day and that made it difficult to film as everyone was still wearing all their costumes.
The shots filmed at college were extremely rushed because I was running out of time to edit. They were filmed by a fire exit near the nursery, and also in one of the classrooms on the third floor. I personally feel that the contrast between the locations is extremely noticeable, but people who have seen the film tell me that they only noticed after I told them that this was the case, and wouldn't have caught on that it was in another location otherwise. I personally feel that these shots look extremely out of place, however, and probably could have made it look like it matches more by colour correcting the clips, or adjusting the brightness/contrast.
During one scene in the security office with the guard reading the newspaper/watching the security screens, I actually wanted to green screen shots of the location looking normal/the two brothers rescuing Atlanta so that the audience could see what the guard was reacting to. However, the tripod would not fit into the room, so the shots of the screen were extremely shaky and I was not able to use it to green screen in the footage. Also, I did not have enough time to actually be able to put in these effects so I had to simply cut out the shots of the front of the screen, but hopefully it still makes sense to the audience.
I also wanted to include a flashing red light as a siren, and maybe adjust the clips to look like there is a flashing red light in the locations that they are walking through. I did not get a chance to do this, however, as we couldn't find a red light that would flash, nor did we have any coloured film to shine a light through. I was then considering doing this in editing instead, but I ran out of time completely to do it.
Because I edited my short film on Final Cut 7 on the college macs - something that I don't have at home - I wasn't able to do any editing whenever I got home. This meant that I was arriving at college at 8am every day of the week and not leaving until 9pm so that I could get it done. When I was at home, however, I edited the credits sequence on a different editing software - Sony Vegas Pro 12. I then rendered this and simply put it into the end of my film to save time, meaning that I didn't have to worry about it when I was at college and could focus on the film completely. However, because I hadn't finished the editing stages, I didn't know what sounds or special effects I would use, so I left it blank. I forgot about this until after I uploaded the project, so the credits for the sound/special effects were completely blank, but I will fix this for the DVD and simply include those credits in the description of the YouTube video for now.
I also wanted to work on adding muzzle flashes and blood for scenes with the gun fire, but because I had to focus so much on the soundtrack, I wasn't able to have time to do this. I will learn how to use Adobe After Effects for the DVD and add these in, however, to make the final, final film look even better than this one that I have had to submit. I also didn't get a chance to really work on colour correction, brightness/contrast, or real editing of the clips in any way except for the beginning montage, however. I would ideally have loved to have done this to make the film look more consistent and fluid, but I ran out of time, and once again this will be worked on for the final DVD version of the film.
I also had an issue where, for some reason, there was 12 minutes of black, silent footage at the end of the film. I can't figure out why it saved like this, but I had no time to change it and simply had to upload it as it was. The film itself is only 12-13 minutes long, including the credits, so the black footage was just simply a glitch when the video rendered, and will be fixed for the DVD.
When I was rendering the project for the film, it was slightly late in the college. Me and another girl - Paige - were trying to save the files but a caretaker came round and asked us to leave. We explained our situation to him and that we couldn't cancel it because it was our FMP and he told us we could stay, but he would be locking the doors soon. My video finished saving, but Paige's was still taking some time so I went to stand in the college reception to make sure that they didn't lock us in. They attempted to pull a false fire alarm on us to try and scare us into leaving, but I heard their conversation before they set the alarm's off and warned Paige to make sure that she didn't panic. However, she asked that I come back upstairs because she was getting a little freaked out, so I did. By the time that her film had rendered though and we went back downstairs, they had locked us - and another teacher - inside the building. We went towards the automatic doors to see if they would open but it only set off the alarms, and the teacher called the estates up to try and unlock the doors. However, I hadn't eaten all day due to constant editing to get the project done so I went through the fire exits and around the back of the college to leave because I desperately needed food and drink. It was an interesting evening, for sure, but next time I would make sure I have somewhere else that I can render the file instead of only relying on the college computers.
Before I put the film on DVD to give it to my actors with all the behind the scenes and outtakes, however, I will try and fix the majority of these problems so that the film runs smoother and looks/sounds nicer for them, as I am not completely happy with it and would like to fix these issues to make the film as good as I possibly can before handing out copies of it.
If I were to make the film again, I would definitely sort all these issues out. I would also leave myself more time to film and edit, and although I will be able to sort most of the problems out for the DVD release of the film, I would have preferred for them to be fixed before the deadline of the project so that the film could look exactly how I pictured it to when I handed it in. Although I am happy with the outcome of my film, I know that I am a perfectionist, and because of this I will always see mistakes and things that I could change to improve it. For a first project, however, and considering I planned the majority of it on my own, I do believe that the outcome was good for an ambitious project such as this, however.
Thursday 29 May 2014
Job Applications and My LinkedIn Profile.
I was asked to find out three job roles that I would be interested in applying for, and so, after looking around online, I came across three that managed to catch my interest.
One of these jobs were a promotion film director for a new marketing agency.
The company already has an actor in mind to star for it, and know what they want this actor to say and do within the short video promotion. However, they are unsure with what locations to use, but know that they want three or four of these locations, and they want it to be set in and around central London, so they want a director to assist with this. They also want the director to portray the right tone and narrative for the short film, but they already have a producer, camera operator and sound operator hired and ready to work.
They need it to be filmed soon, so they are looking for the director to work quickly to help them to complete the pre-production work for the film, and so they can get it shot and edited ASAP. It is a paid job, but not permanent - just for the length of time needed to complete the production.
This job interests me as I would love to be a director at some point in my career, and starting off with smaller films would be a good way to reach that goal. I'd need to have good communication skills if I were to do this job, as I will need to communicate with both the actor, and other members of the crew to make sure we are all trying to reach the same final outcome. I would also need to have confidence, an understanding of the time restrictions to film, experience with location scouting, risk assessments and location recces. Previous experience would probably be best with a job like this, but because I don't have that, and it's up in London which I currently would struggle to get to, this job would be hard for me to apply for.
The application process, however, will involve having to submit a CV and a resumé, so it's just the same as applying for normal, everyday jobs. I would also add in a film reel of work I have previously created, or a video CV too, but that's the general idea for an application for this job.
The second job I came across was a online and offline editor for small, non-profit organisation.
It's a low paid job, with only a compete pay of £600 in total. The job will involve working closely with a director for 5/6 working days over two weeks. To do this job, I would need to be able to edit the grade and complete both an online and offline final edit of the project, but it's something I would be interested in doing because I have had experience with editing for a while now, and I wouldn't mind doing it as a job - even if it is low paid.
I won't be able to do this, however, because I would not be able to get time off my permanent job, and this one will only be for two weeks - afterwards, they will no longer need me to work for them. I will also need to get up to London, which I can't afford to do, and would be difficult to do every day so I would need to stay in the city for a little while.
The application process involves emailing the company for more information, and presumably giving them examples of previous work with a CV/resumé. There is not much information about this, however, and it simply states to email them at their address.
The third, and final job that I came across that I would be interested in applying for is a camera operator/editor for a small media company.
At the moment, it's a part time basis, but it could easily become a full time job after a short while, and it is also fully paid - with £65 being paid per day. They produce corporate documentaries, short films and podcasts, but are looking to branch out and extend their range of productions which are broadcast on Sky's digital network.
To do this job, I'd need to be able to both operate camera and edit videos, which I am able to do. I wouldn't be able to apply for this job because I would have to be completely committed to the company, and continue to work for them as they grow and develop. This would be difficult for me to work around college and my current job, and I feel as though I would need previous experience with working in a real company before rather than having just done college projects.
To apply for this job, I would need to submit a CV and a resumé, just like the first job I found, but once again I would include previous work that I have helped to create.
Also, my LinkedIn profile can be found here.
One of these jobs were a promotion film director for a new marketing agency.
The company already has an actor in mind to star for it, and know what they want this actor to say and do within the short video promotion. However, they are unsure with what locations to use, but know that they want three or four of these locations, and they want it to be set in and around central London, so they want a director to assist with this. They also want the director to portray the right tone and narrative for the short film, but they already have a producer, camera operator and sound operator hired and ready to work.
They need it to be filmed soon, so they are looking for the director to work quickly to help them to complete the pre-production work for the film, and so they can get it shot and edited ASAP. It is a paid job, but not permanent - just for the length of time needed to complete the production.
This job interests me as I would love to be a director at some point in my career, and starting off with smaller films would be a good way to reach that goal. I'd need to have good communication skills if I were to do this job, as I will need to communicate with both the actor, and other members of the crew to make sure we are all trying to reach the same final outcome. I would also need to have confidence, an understanding of the time restrictions to film, experience with location scouting, risk assessments and location recces. Previous experience would probably be best with a job like this, but because I don't have that, and it's up in London which I currently would struggle to get to, this job would be hard for me to apply for.
The application process, however, will involve having to submit a CV and a resumé, so it's just the same as applying for normal, everyday jobs. I would also add in a film reel of work I have previously created, or a video CV too, but that's the general idea for an application for this job.
The second job I came across was a online and offline editor for small, non-profit organisation.
It's a low paid job, with only a compete pay of £600 in total. The job will involve working closely with a director for 5/6 working days over two weeks. To do this job, I would need to be able to edit the grade and complete both an online and offline final edit of the project, but it's something I would be interested in doing because I have had experience with editing for a while now, and I wouldn't mind doing it as a job - even if it is low paid.
I won't be able to do this, however, because I would not be able to get time off my permanent job, and this one will only be for two weeks - afterwards, they will no longer need me to work for them. I will also need to get up to London, which I can't afford to do, and would be difficult to do every day so I would need to stay in the city for a little while.
The application process involves emailing the company for more information, and presumably giving them examples of previous work with a CV/resumé. There is not much information about this, however, and it simply states to email them at their address.
The third, and final job that I came across that I would be interested in applying for is a camera operator/editor for a small media company.
At the moment, it's a part time basis, but it could easily become a full time job after a short while, and it is also fully paid - with £65 being paid per day. They produce corporate documentaries, short films and podcasts, but are looking to branch out and extend their range of productions which are broadcast on Sky's digital network.
To do this job, I'd need to be able to both operate camera and edit videos, which I am able to do. I wouldn't be able to apply for this job because I would have to be completely committed to the company, and continue to work for them as they grow and develop. This would be difficult for me to work around college and my current job, and I feel as though I would need previous experience with working in a real company before rather than having just done college projects.
To apply for this job, I would need to submit a CV and a resumé, just like the first job I found, but once again I would include previous work that I have helped to create.
Also, my LinkedIn profile can be found here.
Short Drama Diary Entry (3).
Almost everything for my pre-production work is now done. Actors have their scripts, the location is hired out, the equipment is booked. All that's left to do is to rehearse to make sure that the actors know what they're doing on the day so that hopefully we'll be able to get it done quickly but professionally.
I've budgeted my film, sorted out contracts for the locations and actors, worked out what shots will be filmed, in what order and where so that when we get there on the day we'll know exactly what we are doing. A shooting schedule has been done, I've planned for my soundtrack, and I also have props sorted out for filming on the day.
My actors work well with me and each other, which I think is extremely important, and we're all very excited to film on Saturday the 31st. I've arranged transport for them all, and paid the cost for them to actually get into the bunker, so they don't have to worry about any of that. They just need to bring food/drink or money to buy some on the day, which I've already told them about.
Character Profiles for Hope Dies Last.
I wrote up some detailed character descriptions for my actors and extras to learn more about their characters, to give them more of an accurate, and lifelike portrayal of their characters. This was also something that they requested me to do, and although they're not completely finished, it has given the characters enough information to be able to act as I expect the characters to.
Hope Dies Last Script, Draft 2.
I re-wrote some of the scenes and dialogue in my short film to make it flow and sound better, and so that my actors can finally get down and learn the lines. I know I need to add in more scene detail and character descriptions, but this is done so that my actors can learn what to say and do without worry that I will change much.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9hMqQxEohUBNlRtTGRhMWlISG8/edit?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9hMqQxEohUBNlRtTGRhMWlISG8/edit?usp=sharing
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