Millie Stone - 5317
My group blog is - http://ascvhsmediapmy.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Monday, 21 March 2011
Filming Our Openings
In these lessons and in my own time this is where me and my group filmed our film and here is how I thought it went.
Saturday 12th March - On Saturday this was when we filmed the voice over of the little girl (Lucy), we didn't actually have to film her in person we just needed her voice so this part of the filming was fairly straight forward. We were very prepared and had all our script ready so we didn't waste time, Lucy (who's voice we are using for our film) is only young so it was quite difficult for her to read the long paragraphs of writing we had set for her, this was a problem but we soon over came it. We split the paragraphs up into just small sentences so Lucy would find it easier to do and she did, once we had shortened them it took a lot less time. Lucy's voice is very young and sweet which is what we needed for our film, we needed innocence. Some of the lines Lucy said, we needed to make her say it a few more times because she either said the line to happy to sad or to slow or fast but in the end we got what we needed so this day of filming went smoothly.
Tuesday 15th March - This day was going to be the hardest day filming because we were going to film the most complicated scene (which was the bedroom scene), we had a problem before we even started filming though which was we only had one camera when we really needed two because they needed to be set up at different parts of the room. We only had one camera so had to try our best and make do with what we had. Before we filmed we wanted to have a run through to make sure things ran smoothly, we then had another problem because our female actor Ellie, really wasn't putting in as much emotion as she should of. She needed to portray the mum in a very destroyed way because she has just lost her daugther. We then had to direct her into how she could become this very emotional and upset character. Because we only had one camera we first filmed the back of Ellie (showing an over the shoulder shot), we had to film this numerous times because something kept going wrong every time, either the actor forgot her line, or there was traffic outside making noise, or the camera wasn't straight. We then went on to film the front of Ellie's face so we could show her emotions, we ran it through without filming and it went fine and then we filmed it and there was a dew problems, first the lighting went very very dark on the camera so we had to figure out how to make the room lighter even though it was day light! Then the second problem was Ellie's hair was covering part of her face so you couldn't see all of her emotions. We then re-filmed where you could see Ellie's face but the lighting still wasn't perfect but we just had to get on with it. When our Male actor had to come in and say his line "what are you doing", we got this bit done fairly quickly, It took a few takes though. We also then just had a shot of Olly walking in and saying his line, without Ellie being in the shot, we thought we could fit this shot in with the editing to show the variety of shots we used.
We finally got the bedroom scene done and then we had some more time left to film so we went to do the birthday scene, we had to change to a completely different location to do this. We though the bedroom scene was going to be quite simply because we only needed one camera to do it as the camera was going to stay in exactly the same place. It took longer here setting up than it did actually filming, this was because we had to turn a kitchen into a birthday party, so we set up banners, presents, balloons and even a cake so the setting would look spot on. Once we had set it up we then started to film and we didn't really have any problems, we obviously had to film the scene a few times because it never comes out perfect the first time you film it. The birthday scene was very simple to do and we got it done without having any major problems.
Wednesday 16th March - This day we were going to film the park scene and the home videos. We started filming the park scene and we knew this was going to be difficult to do because it is in a public place, when we first got to the park there was people in it but we wouldn't be allowed to tell them to get out of it because it's a public place so we waited for a bit and then they finally went. We first had to film a tracking shot of the park but we wanted to have the round about and the swing both moving, and this was very difficult because they were at opposite ends of the park. One of us had to film while the other one had to quickly move the round about and then the swing with out getting in the shot, this took a lot of shots but in the end we finally got it. We then came up with the idea of having a close up of the swing swinging with no one on it and then the roundabout moving with no one on it, these 2 shots were very easy to do and they were going to work really well in our film. We then needed to film Ellie in the park and we didn't stick to the storyboard or shot list here, we came up with a completely different idea, but it was much better than our original. Instead of just filming Ellie in the park walking along for the positive side, we filmed Ellie pushing the round about like her Daugher is actually there and she is smiling and being very happy, we then put the camera high on the climbing frame and face it downwards to Ellie holding her arms up, like the camera is it's child. She then said "come on, come down to mummy", we thought this idea was much better than just having the mum walking through the park.
Thursday 17th March - When we looked over all our filming we realised there was some major mistakes with the bedroom scene, the emotion of the character wasn't there and the camera angles we used were rubbish! We had used an over the shoulder shot of the mum looking through the photos of her child but it also showed the rest of the room and the setting but we then thought, the camera isn't focusing on anything in particular so we needed to re-film this! We also needed to re-film the bedroom scene because we needed more shots of Ellie and more of a variety because our camera shots were limited. We wasn't planning to re-film but we had no choice, we were able to use our female character (Ellie) but then we had a big problem (Olly) our male character was unavailable so we had to figure out to what we had to do. We tried to get someone to fill in but we had no one so we then decided to just go ahead and film Ellie and we would fit Olly in where we needed to when we were editing. We were much more prepared filming the bedroom scene this time, we had both cameras set up on two places of the room, one was focusing on Ellie's face and her emotions and the over was a clear over the shoulder shot of Ellie looking through the photo's, this only took a short while to film because it went smoothly (the only reason we had had to re-film was if there noise outside from the traffic) so it went well. We thought we would film the bedroom scene again changing the shots so when we came to editing we would have a lot of choice, we did an extreme close-up of Ellie's face because we thought it would really portray her emotional character. Lastly we came up with the idea of doing a birds eye view of all the photo's spread out on the bed and Ellie's hands searching through, this looked really good on the camera so we hope we can fit this shot into our film.
Saturday 12th March - On Saturday this was when we filmed the voice over of the little girl (Lucy), we didn't actually have to film her in person we just needed her voice so this part of the filming was fairly straight forward. We were very prepared and had all our script ready so we didn't waste time, Lucy (who's voice we are using for our film) is only young so it was quite difficult for her to read the long paragraphs of writing we had set for her, this was a problem but we soon over came it. We split the paragraphs up into just small sentences so Lucy would find it easier to do and she did, once we had shortened them it took a lot less time. Lucy's voice is very young and sweet which is what we needed for our film, we needed innocence. Some of the lines Lucy said, we needed to make her say it a few more times because she either said the line to happy to sad or to slow or fast but in the end we got what we needed so this day of filming went smoothly.
Tuesday 15th March - This day was going to be the hardest day filming because we were going to film the most complicated scene (which was the bedroom scene), we had a problem before we even started filming though which was we only had one camera when we really needed two because they needed to be set up at different parts of the room. We only had one camera so had to try our best and make do with what we had. Before we filmed we wanted to have a run through to make sure things ran smoothly, we then had another problem because our female actor Ellie, really wasn't putting in as much emotion as she should of. She needed to portray the mum in a very destroyed way because she has just lost her daugther. We then had to direct her into how she could become this very emotional and upset character. Because we only had one camera we first filmed the back of Ellie (showing an over the shoulder shot), we had to film this numerous times because something kept going wrong every time, either the actor forgot her line, or there was traffic outside making noise, or the camera wasn't straight. We then went on to film the front of Ellie's face so we could show her emotions, we ran it through without filming and it went fine and then we filmed it and there was a dew problems, first the lighting went very very dark on the camera so we had to figure out how to make the room lighter even though it was day light! Then the second problem was Ellie's hair was covering part of her face so you couldn't see all of her emotions. We then re-filmed where you could see Ellie's face but the lighting still wasn't perfect but we just had to get on with it. When our Male actor had to come in and say his line "what are you doing", we got this bit done fairly quickly, It took a few takes though. We also then just had a shot of Olly walking in and saying his line, without Ellie being in the shot, we thought we could fit this shot in with the editing to show the variety of shots we used.
We finally got the bedroom scene done and then we had some more time left to film so we went to do the birthday scene, we had to change to a completely different location to do this. We though the bedroom scene was going to be quite simply because we only needed one camera to do it as the camera was going to stay in exactly the same place. It took longer here setting up than it did actually filming, this was because we had to turn a kitchen into a birthday party, so we set up banners, presents, balloons and even a cake so the setting would look spot on. Once we had set it up we then started to film and we didn't really have any problems, we obviously had to film the scene a few times because it never comes out perfect the first time you film it. The birthday scene was very simple to do and we got it done without having any major problems.
Wednesday 16th March - This day we were going to film the park scene and the home videos. We started filming the park scene and we knew this was going to be difficult to do because it is in a public place, when we first got to the park there was people in it but we wouldn't be allowed to tell them to get out of it because it's a public place so we waited for a bit and then they finally went. We first had to film a tracking shot of the park but we wanted to have the round about and the swing both moving, and this was very difficult because they were at opposite ends of the park. One of us had to film while the other one had to quickly move the round about and then the swing with out getting in the shot, this took a lot of shots but in the end we finally got it. We then came up with the idea of having a close up of the swing swinging with no one on it and then the roundabout moving with no one on it, these 2 shots were very easy to do and they were going to work really well in our film. We then needed to film Ellie in the park and we didn't stick to the storyboard or shot list here, we came up with a completely different idea, but it was much better than our original. Instead of just filming Ellie in the park walking along for the positive side, we filmed Ellie pushing the round about like her Daugher is actually there and she is smiling and being very happy, we then put the camera high on the climbing frame and face it downwards to Ellie holding her arms up, like the camera is it's child. She then said "come on, come down to mummy", we thought this idea was much better than just having the mum walking through the park.
Thursday 17th March - When we looked over all our filming we realised there was some major mistakes with the bedroom scene, the emotion of the character wasn't there and the camera angles we used were rubbish! We had used an over the shoulder shot of the mum looking through the photos of her child but it also showed the rest of the room and the setting but we then thought, the camera isn't focusing on anything in particular so we needed to re-film this! We also needed to re-film the bedroom scene because we needed more shots of Ellie and more of a variety because our camera shots were limited. We wasn't planning to re-film but we had no choice, we were able to use our female character (Ellie) but then we had a big problem (Olly) our male character was unavailable so we had to figure out to what we had to do. We tried to get someone to fill in but we had no one so we then decided to just go ahead and film Ellie and we would fit Olly in where we needed to when we were editing. We were much more prepared filming the bedroom scene this time, we had both cameras set up on two places of the room, one was focusing on Ellie's face and her emotions and the over was a clear over the shoulder shot of Ellie looking through the photo's, this only took a short while to film because it went smoothly (the only reason we had had to re-film was if there noise outside from the traffic) so it went well. We thought we would film the bedroom scene again changing the shots so when we came to editing we would have a lot of choice, we did an extreme close-up of Ellie's face because we thought it would really portray her emotional character. Lastly we came up with the idea of doing a birds eye view of all the photo's spread out on the bed and Ellie's hands searching through, this looked really good on the camera so we hope we can fit this shot into our film.
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Shotlist.
In this lesson I started doing my groups first initial shotlist, we will need this when filming because it will make things very organised for us and also will be a lot easier to film because we know exactly what we are doing.
This is what I needed to cover in my groups shotlist:
The date we will be filming thisshot
The time we will be filming this shot
What scene number the shot is
What shot number the shot it
What camera angle the shot is
The duration of the shot
A description of the shot
The location of the shot
The filming equipment needed for the shot
The actors needed in the shot
The titles that are in the shot
The sound that is in the shot
The setting of the shot
The props needed in the shot
The costume the actors are wearing in the shot
The lighting of the shot
Although this seems like a lot, I have put it in a table so it is very easy and simple to read and when my group come to start filming it will be very straight forward because we know exactly what he have to film so we won't get confused or muddle the shots up.
This is what I needed to cover in my groups shotlist:
The date we will be filming thisshot
The time we will be filming this shot
What scene number the shot is
What shot number the shot it
What camera angle the shot is
The duration of the shot
A description of the shot
The location of the shot
The filming equipment needed for the shot
The actors needed in the shot
The titles that are in the shot
The sound that is in the shot
The setting of the shot
The props needed in the shot
The costume the actors are wearing in the shot
The lighting of the shot
Although this seems like a lot, I have put it in a table so it is very easy and simple to read and when my group come to start filming it will be very straight forward because we know exactly what he have to film so we won't get confused or muddle the shots up.
Monday, 21 February 2011
Comparing our film opening to other current films.
In this lesson I compared my tragic drama film opening idea with other current tragic films out in the industry today.
Our films both involve a whole family who are involved in the situation and also there are deaths in both films although in My sisters keeper the death is at the end of the film where as in ours it has already happened.
Discussing the openings there is big similarities, both our films start with the little girl talking now in My sisters keeper the girl is talking about why she was born and in ours the little girl is talking about her memories so they are two different things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS55xHZWzEo
Lastly in the opening we both see clips and images of the family together which is another similarity.
I think that my groups film compared the most with "My sisters keeper" and there are many reasons why.
Firstly I think that normally tragic drama films are independent but My sisters keeper wasn't as it appealed to a mainstream audience, was shown in the cinema and was hugely successful and this is what we want our film to be like.
Also both our films have completely different story lines (My sisters keeper is about a young girl fighting her battle through cancer however our film is about a little girl who has already died and we see the relationship between the girl and father were far from perfect, something isn't right).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS55xHZWzEo
Lastly in the opening we both see clips and images of the family together which is another similarity.
Although there are lots of similarities with our film and My sisters keeper, the whole storyline is completely different we just have similar aspects that you can compare the films with.
Institutional Name & Logo.
In this lesson me and my group had to come up with our institutional name and logo for our film.
We also came up with a second production name as we felt we needed another one which defined our group. We came up with different ideas of what this could be called and all agreed that the kind of name we wanted to go for was something that was quite innocent and child like. We then thought of different toys and objects associated with childhood and decided whether they worked or not. we came up with institution names such as; Finger puppet productions, Roundabout productions, The Music Box and Happy Bean productions.
In the end we decided we were keen on on Happy Bean as we felt this was the most original idea but also was not sure whether the audience would get the wrong impression before our film started and that they may think it was a film aimed at children.
We then decided that The Music Box was something that could fit into our film really well. We decided that the music made from the logo could be a light instrumental tune that could carry onto the beginning of our film.
For our main institution we decided the name that we most preferred was the one we were originally given which was Pink Productions. We decided to stick with this name as it fitted in with our style of film but also was the kind of name which could easily relate to a lot of ideas.
We also came up with a second production name as we felt we needed another one which defined our group. We came up with different ideas of what this could be called and all agreed that the kind of name we wanted to go for was something that was quite innocent and child like. We then thought of different toys and objects associated with childhood and decided whether they worked or not. we came up with institution names such as; Finger puppet productions, Roundabout productions, The Music Box and Happy Bean productions. In the end we decided we were keen on on Happy Bean as we felt this was the most original idea but also was not sure whether the audience would get the wrong impression before our film started and that they may think it was a film aimed at children.
We then decided that The Music Box was something that could fit into our film really well. We decided that the music made from the logo could be a light instrumental tune that could carry onto the beginning of our film.
Planning our film & what we need to consider.
In this lesson me and my group started planning on the things we need to consider in our opening, we discussed actors, location and costume.
Actors - For our opening we will need the voice of a little girl which we will be allowed to do because we are only filming her voice and not actually her physical appearance. We need to find someone to play the Mum, this person needs to be middle aged, they also need to come across distraught and emotional because of there daugthers death, they don't really care about anything else. Lastly we need a Dad, now he is going to be the antagonist in our opening, you see the bad side of him as he didn't care for his daughter, he comes across quite cruel and intimidating.
Location - We started planning where we were going to film and the following locations/settings we will need are:
- A Park
- Kitchen for birthday decorations
- Study room
- Bedroom
All these settings are very easy to get we just need to make sure they look right and consider the mise en scene.
Costume (colour, connotations) - We started thinking about what our characters could wear and this is what we came up with.
Mum - We want the mum to be dressed very casually, in comfy baggy clothes and this is because it shows she doesn't want to make an effort, her daughter has died so she doesn't care what she looks like, she just needs to feel relaxed. I think she should be wearing neutral colours, to show her innocence and portray her as the protagonist.
Dad - We want the dad to wear a black suit, the suit shows him as a buisnessman who cares alot about his work and maybe more than his family, and the black shows him as dark and evil and shows him as the antagonist.
Actors - For our opening we will need the voice of a little girl which we will be allowed to do because we are only filming her voice and not actually her physical appearance. We need to find someone to play the Mum, this person needs to be middle aged, they also need to come across distraught and emotional because of there daugthers death, they don't really care about anything else. Lastly we need a Dad, now he is going to be the antagonist in our opening, you see the bad side of him as he didn't care for his daughter, he comes across quite cruel and intimidating.
Location - We started planning where we were going to film and the following locations/settings we will need are:
- A Park
- Kitchen for birthday decorations
- Study room
- Bedroom
All these settings are very easy to get we just need to make sure they look right and consider the mise en scene.
Costume (colour, connotations) - We started thinking about what our characters could wear and this is what we came up with.
Mum - We want the mum to be dressed very casually, in comfy baggy clothes and this is because it shows she doesn't want to make an effort, her daughter has died so she doesn't care what she looks like, she just needs to feel relaxed. I think she should be wearing neutral colours, to show her innocence and portray her as the protagonist.
Dad - We want the dad to wear a black suit, the suit shows him as a buisnessman who cares alot about his work and maybe more than his family, and the black shows him as dark and evil and shows him as the antagonist.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
Initial Storyboard & Script.
I worked with my group to produce our first initial storyboard and script.
Script - For our script the main thing in the opening is the voice over of the little girl, we thought a opening doesn't have a lot of conversation dialogue because it's just introducing you to the film. The little girl is going to explain whats going on with her family to introduce us to the film, we wanted to make her sound very innocent. We didn't want to the script to be to complicated as an opening is quite simple and we want our opening to end with the dad and the mum just beginning to have a conversation.
At first the script was quite hard to do but once we got going on what the little girl was going to see we started working really well and was very happy with our first version of our script.
Storyboard - I found the storyboard very easy to do, this was because me and my group knew exactly what was going to happen because we had already planned the setting the acting and the titles so it all went together really well. When we finally completed our storyboard we were very pleased with it the only improvement we could make though was to maybe make it a bit more basic because I think its a bit too complicated for an opening but its our first initial storyboard so we can still make a lot of changes if we feel it's necessary.
To see my groups first story board and script you can go onto my group blog - http://ascvhsmediapmy.blogspot.com/
Script - For our script the main thing in the opening is the voice over of the little girl, we thought a opening doesn't have a lot of conversation dialogue because it's just introducing you to the film. The little girl is going to explain whats going on with her family to introduce us to the film, we wanted to make her sound very innocent. We didn't want to the script to be to complicated as an opening is quite simple and we want our opening to end with the dad and the mum just beginning to have a conversation.
At first the script was quite hard to do but once we got going on what the little girl was going to see we started working really well and was very happy with our first version of our script.
Storyboard - I found the storyboard very easy to do, this was because me and my group knew exactly what was going to happen because we had already planned the setting the acting and the titles so it all went together really well. When we finally completed our storyboard we were very pleased with it the only improvement we could make though was to maybe make it a bit more basic because I think its a bit too complicated for an opening but its our first initial storyboard so we can still make a lot of changes if we feel it's necessary.
To see my groups first story board and script you can go onto my group blog - http://ascvhsmediapmy.blogspot.com/
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