Photograph/Video Evidence of Planning

Evidence of Planning

This picture shows me and Pip planning and creating the storyboard.

Film Opening Pitch

Film Opening Pitch

Past Student Video Evaluations

Student film openings

In this post I am watching and marking previous film openings so I can use this as ideas for my film opening I will be doing.

Level 3 36–47 marks 
There is evidence of proficiency in the creative use of many of the following technical skills:
• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; 
• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; 
• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;
• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; 
• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.
Level 4 48–60 marks:
There is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
• material appropriate for the target audience and task;
• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;
• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;
• shooting material appropriate to the task set;including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;
• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.

Michael: 

I would give this film opening Level 4. This is because for the reasons as it is very creative and shows originality in the storyline. It also has very good acting and the students show professionalism in their roles and play the characters very well. Another reason for there high score is the filming as the camera quality is at a high standard and also the sound is very clear and crisp which can be heard very well and clearly for the audience. The different variety of shots also gives it a professional look with the titles in the right order and in the same font with the same timings.

Finished Preliminary Task

Completed Preliminary Task

Preliminary Production

Preliminary Task

Today we have been given our prelim task groups and we chose the genre of horror.

Production Diary 1
Task
Our idea for our prelim task revolves around the haunt from a freaky follower. The first shot would be of Sophie and Leah during our lunch date and during this event a boy will walk over and ask for our names and numbers which will link into the film further on. After the lunch scene has finished and the boy has finished his lines there will  be a quick short time lapse of Sophie and Leah at lunch completing their work, with the unknown follower in the background behind the window. This shows the audience that there is a follower there but no one knows who they are, especially the main characters.
From this point Sophie and Leah part and walk home. Whilst Sophie walks off she receives a text saying "don't dream for too long" from an unknown number and starts to look around but no one is to be seen. Sophie then carries out other events that isn't filmed which explains the different outfit. She walks home walks through the door and sits down trying to complete her university work. In the meantime she receives another call from an unknown number which speaks "sleep tight". When I finally fall asleep I start to dream, which is what the whole film revolves around, the dream.
Within the dream a series of short events happen such as the follower walking behind the girls down the halls in their university (Sophie and Leah). During this chase chaos that is caused by the follower, there are many different shots that need to be involved which are demonstrated mainly in the dream, which will take up the majority of the film. After the dream of events occur it is an instant switch to me erratically waking up from my dream and then I don't expect what is to come. The last few shots will then be of a shot of the man standing over Leah's dead body then a quick close up shot with my head in my hands, screaming.

Cast
Leah- Luna
Sophie- Stacey
Ale- The Follower

Locations
Great Baddow High School
-Common Room Diner / Tables
-Drama Studio Rooms

Title
Don't Dream

Music

Script

LUNCH SCENE

Luna and Stacey walk into the common room casually chatting and walking to a table in the ‘café’

Leah: So.. how has your weekend been?

Sophie: It’s been good, got a lot of work to do for university though which is stressing me out and making me feel weird recently.

Leah: How strange, well I hope you feel better soon, maybe this lunch will help you clear your mind a bit.

Boy walk into shot casually.

Boy: Alright girls, no dramas but can I have your numbers.

Leah: sorry I don't give my number to random people.

Boy: how about you? (talking to Sophie)

Sophie: alright 07814 709745

Sophie and Leah chat for ages with music over the top and a time lapse, eating and drinking.

Sophie and Leah walk home separate ways.

Quick shot change from walking home to getting into bed.

Sophie receives a text saying “don’t dream for too long” then falls asleep and it goes into the dream..

DREAM SCENE

Leah and Sophie are followed by the follower.

Sophie wakes up after the dream scene.

Production Diary 2

This was the first day of us filming and we decided to film the last shot as it was the quickest because we had to create the make up idea and incorporate this correctly with the film. We filmed this shot several of times because we needed to get the lighting right over different shots. Instead of using stage lights in the main drama studio, we resulted too moving into another room and we used a phone torch. This was because we only wanted light on the places that we was filming and we had to work with what we had at that specific time. This shot took a while because we needed to get a good position from all three of us for the camera to pan smoothly but look jiggered at the same time for effect towards the audience. We watched back our footage and chose the one shot we wanted to use for the ending of the prelim.

Production Diary 3

This was a different period however the same day. After the result of having an incident with the make up due to current affairs with the clown scares, we had to improvise and change the way in which the follower was going to be known as or viewed. We had to remove the makeup from Ale's face and decide on what and where to film. We decided then to work in chronological order and film the first shots, the lunch scene. The shot we had filmed first we got other people to help us. Sophie and Leah were filmed in the diner with two boys as the original act. We filmed the whole lunch scene from different angles and different heights to analyse them at the end to see what type of shots we preferred. After watching them back, we had realized the audio was awful and the actors could not be heard in any of the scenes as there was a lot of background noise that counteracted our voices. So we learnt that next time we had to chose a different location to film and ensure that there was as little background noise as possible. We also got Lollie to help us shoot the phone message scene. We got her to send a text too Sophie's phone under an unknown number and show the audience what the text message was. However, when we watched this footage back Ale's filming of the phone wasn't very precise but could vaguely be read. We thought this could be quickly filmed again and compared to the first scenes. 

Production Diary 4

As a result of our footage not being up to the standards of which we required, we wanted to re film some of the scenes to ensure that the film would look good. On this day we decided to re film the lunch scene again due to the previous audio problems. However, we once again had another problem, we got someone else that is not a media student to help us film and we again had two different extras. The problem that occurred was that when we started to act the person behind the camera pressed stop instead of play and when we said stop she pressed play so when we watched all the footage back, there was no film footage, just footage of us preparing and saying go. After this we thought we would either have to use the first lot of footage, or try to film it again. Although, we was all running out of time. 

Production Diary 5

We had had many problems and errors with our filming so we decided as time was running out we wanted to complete at least another scene which was the dream scene. This is when we decided to film the dream scene. Most of the filming throughout this was on a tripod so we could get various angles and know that our acting was being recorded. We had to use a tripod as all three of us had to be in the shot with Sophie and Leah being followed by Ale. Some of the footage Sophie filmed free hand which helped with the film being from the audiences different point of views. This dream scene then had to be merged in with the end scene as it all has to link together even though they are different scenes. 

Production Diary 6

This was our last day that we could film and we managed to film the whole start of the film again. We filmed the lunch scene although there was still another problem but we thought we can just write about in our evaluation and what we have learnt from it. We was in different clothes and didn't have enough time to re-film all of the mini clips that we had previously filmed with the rest of the first set of footage. We watched back our final pieces of footage and we was all merely happy with how it all turned out. We had too order all of our footage and put it in a folder ready to be edited for our next lesson.

Production Diary 7 

Finally, all of our footage that we produce we was substantially happy with so we had to import all of our footage onto premiere and we started to edit. Sophie and Leah took it in turns to edit different aspects of the footage and as Leah was away one day, Sophie finished off the final edit of the film with all the transitions and music.

Final Edit Prelim Task

Juno

Juno - film and editing Task

Storyboard

This was the first 8 scenes of my filming. On the storyboard i sketched each scene and said how long each scene last for. I also wrote down the different shots and what locations I would need to use for each scene. 

This was the second part of my storyboard. This showed 5 scenes I would be doing. as in the first part I also wrote down the different shots and what locations I would need to use for each scene.

Video and editing

Props:

Red T-shirt

Black wig
Orange Juice carton

Evaluation

In this task I copied the opening to the film 'Juno' to practice my editing of video and so therefore could use different editing effects and to enhance my skills for the main film task in the future. One skill I used was the cartoon effect of the video. I used this by changing the visual effects. I used visual effects then changed the contrast to make it look like a cartoon affect. I also felt that the camera angles we used and different shots all worked well together and was in sync with the real video. What also went well was the transactions we used when necessary from scene to scene and also it as a whole flowed nicely and was a success.
One aspect we struggled on is the part when two shots are in one (with the legs carrying on walking in the background carrying over to the next shot). This didn't work as we couldn't have two shots into one. We also struggled at first for the changeover from normal to cartoon effect. But however, we managed to get as close to it as we could be having it jump to the cartoon effect after the character walked past the tree.

Film Budget Big/Small

Mainstream vs Independent

Mainstream

Mainstream films have a huge budget and target a broad range as audience.These are packed with the highest quality actors, Special effects, location and sets. The have a lot of money to produce the film and 'the big six' are the companies who normally produce and distribute the film resulting in the film attracted huge audiences and receiving huge amounts of money in return.

for example: 

James Bond - Spectre (2015)

Production Company: Eon Productions

Distribution Company: Sony

Budget: $245-250 million

Box Office: $880.7 million

Running Time: 148 minutes

Independent

Independent films, on the other hand, have a small budget compared to mainstream films. They included, mostly, unknown and low-key actors and use minimal special effects. They are normally produced and distrivuted by local and small companies that are mostly unheard of to the mainstream cinematic world.

for example:

The Battery (2012)
Production Company: O. Hannah Films
Distribution Company: Shout! Factory
Budget: $6,000
Box Office: n/a
Running Time: 101 minutes