Lighting

Lighting is one of the most important aspects of our production as it sets the mood for the film and also because it is supposed to be happening at night it needed to look dark. the problem with filming in actual darkness is that the camera will not pick up very much and it will be very hard to edit, so we had to find another way,
We needed to find some very bright lights that could be altered in terms of how much light they give off rather than just a simple on off. We located some halogen lights as described in a previous post, that I had in my house and we used two of them  one of which is picture below along with another desk lamp with a blue filter on it.
We quickly discovered that the lighting was not going to be as easy as just turning the lights on as we discovered that it created very big and unwanted shadows that wouldn't be there if it was really in darkness as there would be no light to cause them. This meant that we had to place each lamp carefully around the room with each different shot as each shot required a different angle which create a shadow. the upward facing nature of the lamp was quite useful in over coming this but it did not completely eliminate them. Once we had filmed everything, Joel used After Effects to turn down the brightness and add more blue hues to the piece so as to make it look more like night-time. I think some of the shots were still to dark in the end as they appear hard to see once the blue hues were added. If I was to do it again, i would make it much brighter without fear of making it look to bright as I know the capabilities of the editing software can eliminate it completely.

Storyboarding our main task

Here is our final story board for our main task. We have already made changes to it in order to maintain continuity and also to make it more specific so when it comes to filming, we know exactly how each shot should look.

Production Pitch

This is the production pitch me and my group created and presented to the class.

Production Pitch Media

It contains the information needed to pitch our idea to the class without giving too much away.

Brief and pre-production stage

In the most recent lessons we have been talking about pre-production. We were given our brief on our project so that we can begin planning what we want to do.

The Brief was to make an opening sequence, including titles and soundtrack, for a fictional film. 

We were told we should research different opening sequences to get an idea for what we might do and to see the conventions for each genre.

If you have seen my previous posts you will know that I have linked a great website called  Art of The Title which is perfect for looking at opening sequences and analysing them. For our first production meeting, Me, Joel and Zoe looked at some title sequences and analysed them. The opening
Sequence we analysed was from a film called Coraline which is directed by Henry Selick and is based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. 

Minutes of the meeting

In our Production meeting Me, Zoe and Joel sat down together to discuss our first steps since the production pitch.
The first thing we did was watch some opening sequences that were of a similar genre to our opening sequence in order to learn the norms for this type of opening sequence.
 We used the site Art of the Title to look at opening sequences and we looked at one in particular called The Conjuring. Please watch The Conjuring video and then come back to my blog to read about what I did.

The opening sequence for The conjuring is very eerie and is and is themed on the supernatural which is similar to ours. We made a timeline of the titles to see what titles appear and when so that we could get a rough idea of what titles we should include and when.

Preliminary task

For our Preliminary task we had to find a location, storyboard our shots and then film it.
We decided to try storyboarding a different way by taking pictures with a camera phone instead. For our location we chose the sixth form conservatory because there was a door and chairs and we could use it when we needed to.
We then went to our location and took pictures for the storyboard and they are below the video of our preliminary task.

 We encountered a problem during filming and when we were editing we realised that we needed to re-do a shot. This was quite a problem because Zoe, the female in the storyboard, was not there for us to re-do it and Joel, the male in the storyboard, was wearing different clothing to when we filmed it and realised this would be a big continuity error. We realised we would have to re-do the whole thing with just the two us which proved difficult in the shots we were both in. We managed to finish the task within the deadline even though we were set back through determination.

How to make a video

At the beginning of the lesson we were told we need to keep a record of our group meetings we need to keep a form of diary that includes:

• date
• attendance (who was there)
• focus of the meeting
• duration of the meeting
• action points or accomplished tasks

We watched a DVD about how to make a video. It gave a brief explanation of the major roles and what they do.
brief concept:

• purpose
• intent
• target audience
• limitations (budget and time frame)

Pre production includes:

• scripting
• scene breakdown
• storyboard
• shot list casting
• locations
• equipment
• catering
• transport
• informing people

Shot list/shooting schedule:

• where
• time needed
• different camera angles
• when 
• how long

Production:
Use time well and consider safety issues.

• shooting the project
• time management crucial
• quality control (image, sound, performance)
• potential conflict between producer's limitations (time, budget)
• directors creativity
• requires cool heads to cope with pressure and ability to compromise

Post production:

• all elements are combined in editing
• off-line (rough cut)
• on-line (final edit)
• sound mix
• sound mix of final edit

Transferring footage from camera to computer

In our most recent lesson we were shown how to transfer footage from our cameras to our computers in order to edit them. 

There are two processes: one for a camera that records onto a tape and one for digital camera. For a camera that uses a tape we first made sure that our tapes were wound right to the beginning before plugging it in to the computer, this is so that it doesn't transfer only parts of the footage. We then plugged it into the computer and had to record from the camera. when transferring from a tape, the footage comes out as one long clip whereas a digital camera separates every shot into separate clips to make it easier to find what you are looking for. when uploading from a digital camera all you do is turn the camera on, plug it in and copy the slips across. We used a software called Serif to edit our footage so that we only had the bits that we wanted and could then put them into order using the timeline. 

The use of sound and why it is important

In today's lesson we were learning about sound and how it affects the viewers experience of what they are seeing. It is 80 percent of our experience when watching a film or clip.
Sound is used for different reason like a soundtrack to help the viewer interpret the mood of what they are watching.

There are two types of sound:
- Diegetic sound is within the text and can be things such as dialogue or sounds from something such as the buzzing of an alarm clock.
- Non-diegtic sound is added afterwards and is something that is not from within the text, such as a soundtrack. the characters within the text cannot hear non-diegetic sound.

camera shots

Today we looked at film shots and angles. Different camera shots give different effects to the scene being filmed and are very important in making a convincing film. bad camera shots will break the illusion of what you are watching. Above is a video demonstrating different camera shots.

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/  This website shows pictures of different shots and angles and is useful for helping recognize each shot.

Some great websites for getting started

Last lesson we learnt about some great sites to help us with the course and they are a good resource of information and clips.

The first site im going to talk about is YouTube. Most people are familiar with YouTube, but just incase you're not, I will explain a little bit about it. YouTube is a website where anyone can put up videos or watch other people's videos and it is very easy to use: you simply type what you you would like to watch into the search bar and it will list all related videos.YouTube is useful for looking up other Media students' opening sequences for examples and ideas.

Another useful site is Art of the Title. Because we will be making our own opening sequences, this will be really useful for looking at many different title sequences and helping to find those of a specific genre or watching and trying to determine what kind of film it is and what its about.

Lastly there is the BBFC website that you can visit and learn all about film classification, why they do it, and how they decide on what rating to give a film or trailer.There is also an education resources section which will give you all the information you need to do work on the BBFC or simply get to know it.