Change

Our coursework has deviated vastly from our initial idea and our animatics. This is due to a variety of different reasons. Firstly when on set we started to come up with new ideas, this lead to a slight shift in the openings perspective in the sense that we where trying to put to much into it. We then changed our idea to be a little more interesting and less obvious. Secondly our teachers gave feedback and told us that we were using too many locations; personally I agreed with them as i thought what we had was a montage of shots and locations that didnt link very well. We decided to create a dual narrative, and establish two locations.

We got a new actress pretty late in the day at this stage as we had restructered our opening. It took one day to shoot the new scenes we needed.
We then had an ILP day dedicated to sorting out our media coursework, as a group we spent the majority of the day editing. As well as this we began to brainstorm further to enhance what we want our core finished product to look and sound like as well as voicing what we think we have come up with.

Second Shoot

The second shoot went really well, this time we stuck directly to our storyboard and in result the filming experience went really well. I had found a suitable location in Denham for the scene, the police scouting for the lost child. We managed to arrive at the location in good time - our actor George Grant, playing the policeman searching; was great as he was enthusiastic and willing to incorporate my dog in the scene.
Haydn Morgans brought the props and I set the scene up with props whilst Daniel Parslow directed the actors and how the scene would play out. As a group I think we worked really succesfully as we managed to take up individual roles to help it play out smoothly. I also set up the camera angles and shot distance, whilst Haydn suggested a slight tilt which we decided gave the shot a very powerful and realistic feeling to it.
On location our first shooting was to test the light and how the shot would look. The first shooting at roughly 4:45 turned out to be too bright and the sunlight reflected in the lense resulting in a overly bright shot. I had to wait and continously test the shots to get the perfect light blend between light enough to see clearly and dark enough to reflect our gloomy scene. We ended up with a time frame of roughly 10 minutes to film during 5:15-5:25.
Overall I believe this film shoot was a lot more succesfull than the first and the quality of shot was really effective. One good point from this is too make sure the lighting is perfect and at the right time as we struggle to create artificial quality lighting.

First Shoots

We did our first attempt at filming for our rough cut yesterday, the experience was different to how I expected it to be. We managed to get together at our first location and found that the camera wasnt properly charged, this meant we had to spend valuable time charging the battery. Nevertheless we mapped out what we do and how we would film each scene. Unfortunately it got a bit too dark to film effectively but we managed to shoot the first two scenes. In short, yesterday was a good learning curve for the group and for me to also understand that filming requires alot of time management and organisation to do effectively.
On location I feel that new ideas and thoughts tend to occur, so during the filming process we tended to change and shoot differently to how we had planned. However this resulted in some confusion in continuity and how things would look. The footage we shot really did not cut it enough, due to the light being so low/dark we were unable to use it because the image was too grainy. For future filming we need to make sure we have the best time period so that the light will give HD quality and reflect what we want.
Our tripod was quite effective in maintaining a steady shot however I found it hard at first to maintain a steady pan/tilt. The sensitivity of the holdings were to loose which resulted in a slight juddering effect. On location I found that by taking various opinions and ideas from the group we can bring together a good variety of shots and filming styles. This meant we had some interesting ideas such as the POV shot of the abductor following the child. I believe this could make the sequence a lot more interesting.

Shotlist, Locations and Actors

Shotlist:
-Doorway/letterbox scene: 16-17th Jan - Iver
-Walking Home/Abduction: 16-17th Jan - Iver
-Interrogation: 18-20th Jan - Chalfont
-Police Search: 23-24th Jan - Denham
-Broken Family/dinnertable: 23-24th Jan - Denham
-falling ipod: 18-20th Jan - Iver

Continuity Task

The continuity task is something I had to create to show that I can film and edit video in a continuous way. Basically the footage needs to be compiled and edited so that it flows smoothly and is easy to watch and follow.

My first attempt at a continuity task was really bad, I hadnt storyboarded and the camera I was using didnt have a tripod - so the footage was jumpy and unsteady. I had picked a poor location as there was unwanted background noise and the lighting was dark.

The second attempt of the task I approached a little more organisation. By creating a quick storyboard of how I want the process to look like onscreen and what will happen I then picked a well lighted location (my house) so that the footage was easily viewed. I used my family to act and filmed a typical scene in my house. I used various different angles to give the footage diversity; I think I achieved adequite continuity throughout. I liked the way that although I had filmed someone walking into a room from the outside then shooting them entering from the inside - editing the clips together makes it seem like a fluid motion. I enjoyed the feeling as I edited the clips that they slotted together quite nicely. Editing on adobe premiere had made this process easier, I imported the clips from the camera to the computer and then directly into Premiere. Then I could select individual clips I had filmed, take them into an editing slot and crop the start and ending to the exact point I needed.

However I had made some errors whilst filming were that I had my mum shut her magazine twice thus breaking continuity of it already being closed, so in the editing process I managed to cut the clip to the point where the book is already closed so it doesnt seem odd. The sound in the task is clear to hear and doesnt jump from different levels of background noise as my first try at continuity.


Final Continuity Task

Animatic

After we had finished the storyboarding process we then began to create our animatic. The animatic is simply the storyboard picture frames put into a video clip and edited on adobe premiere. We added the sound that we wanted, diegetic sound such as footsteps and characters dialog, we also put the non diegetic music in.
All of this was created on adobe premiere - as a group we each took turns at editing the clips together along with keeping the sound parrallel.

Version 1
Our first edit was reviewed by our teacher and we then went on to improve it with the points he gave us:
-Excellent sketches, great Lighting
-Good use of angles/diagetic/distance/good editing but more variety needed. More development, particually during the flashback.
-Effective choice of music.
-Some use of diagetic sound, add alot more.
-Sort out final locations/actors/shooting schedule.

Final Version

Initial Ideas and Final Idea

As a group we started brainstorming ideas toget a general feel for the genre and film opening we want to make. Initially we did find it quite hard to get a good idea that we were all happy about, we didnt want to fall into the typical cliche student type film. We found that our physchological thriller ideas were very predictable. Our first major idea was an action thriller called on "abduction"
the plot was that two teenage girls start walking home from a party and night starts to fall. Through a serious of panning and tracking shots the two are introduced into a dark wooded area, suspense and tension starts to build (key convention to the thriller genre) as the editing pace would increase. Shady characters areseen to be floating through the trees in and out of shot; the two start to panic and begin to run home which then leads to a anti climax where they collide into an ordinary couple as they turn a corner. I think this idea is good as it has thriller conventions of suspense, tension and an anti climax however we didnt all agree that this type of opening is not as creative and original as we want ours to be.

We then spent a lunchtime fleshing out our individual ideas and began to form our 

final idea; we used the concept of being "abducted" an formed a more complex plot with a strong narrative which hopefully will allow the audience to connect and relate to a further degree. The opening would not be fully understood because more of the plot would-be revealed later during the film; I feel that having this deeper story gives more depth to the opening.

The first plot point revolves around the family being "marked" by a pyschopath type figure; with an unhealthly obsession with the family, marked being the possible film title. Our opening starts with the son being abducted/kidnapped by this stealthy, dark figure and then swiftly moves onto a montage of footage showing how this begins to affect the family and their relationships. As a group we had started to put these ideas down into a storyboard where we found our concepts and visualisation of this plot was slightly different individually however this proved a positive as we decided to create the ideas we all agree on and when it comes to our animatic and later production we can evaluate some of the scenes and whether they fit in the opening and present meaning towards the audience. We used some flashbacks in our sequence to demonstrate what has happened and present time shots to portray what is happening currently to the family.
The openings continuity will have to be clear enough for the audience to follow, as the flashbacks may disrupt this.

The sound we decided upon was a musical score soundbridge across all clips introduced first by the sons ipod song, with the music contrasting the onscreen action - we thought that this will create an eerie effect as the music is slightly upbeat but mournful when paired with whats onscreen. Something similar to "Watchmen"'s opening in which upbeat local music is played over a graphic fight scene. As the opening sequence ends the ipod is seen slowly falling to the floor where then the music stops as rain starts to hit the screen, and the light starts to dim. The connotations of this shot is that hope for the son to return home is slowly fading and the music finishes which represents this also.

To evaluate our group I would say that we all played specific roles in this idea creation progress with each member adding constructively. I am happy that we developed our first idea into something we are all more happy about. The idea we have decided on is in my opinion quite original however may be very difficult to get the way we want it.