After making the adjustments, here is our final film. TAKE 2.
Tuesday 23 February 2010
Final Changes to Video
Posted by Lisa Mitchell ;-
Annabell were given advice as to how to improve our video by our teachers. This is how we changed all of these faults:
- The running foot shot is a little bit too dodgy.
We removed the shot of Kims feet. We had originally sped up the clip as the filming of this was a bit too slow. We understand that it did look a little weird and it looks better without the clip.
- The sound editing is clumsy.
We have fixed the sound and tried to make it flow more throughout the film. We have also added in another song.
- The meaning at start is unclear.
To reinforce out storyline, we added a different clip of speech at the beginning which we hope will make the storyline a little bit more clear, but not give away too much.
- The music choice at killing is very 1980’s.
The new song that we have added has been split to an appropriate place, in which it relates to the killing shot in a better way and no longer sounds very 1980's. We did not want this, so we cropped our original song at the part that we didn't like, and used another one.
Annabell were given advice as to how to improve our video by our teachers. This is how we changed all of these faults:
- The running foot shot is a little bit too dodgy.
We removed the shot of Kims feet. We had originally sped up the clip as the filming of this was a bit too slow. We understand that it did look a little weird and it looks better without the clip.
- The sound editing is clumsy.
We have fixed the sound and tried to make it flow more throughout the film. We have also added in another song.
- The meaning at start is unclear.
To reinforce out storyline, we added a different clip of speech at the beginning which we hope will make the storyline a little bit more clear, but not give away too much.
- The music choice at killing is very 1980’s.
The new song that we have added has been split to an appropriate place, in which it relates to the killing shot in a better way and no longer sounds very 1980's. We did not want this, so we cropped our original song at the part that we didn't like, and used another one.
Thursday 18 February 2010
posted by Annabell:
Mrs. Black and Mrs. Downes gave us some things which we have to improve.
these things are:
- the running foot shot is a little bit to dodgy
- the sound editing is clumsy
- the meaning at start is unclear
- the music choice at killing is very 1980’s
And now we are working again on the film, to improve these things.
Hopefully we could change the things into something better.
Mrs. Black and Mrs. Downes gave us some things which we have to improve.
these things are:
- the running foot shot is a little bit to dodgy
- the sound editing is clumsy
- the meaning at start is unclear
- the music choice at killing is very 1980’s
And now we are working again on the film, to improve these things.
Hopefully we could change the things into something better.
Monday 8 February 2010
Evaluation Questions 2.
1. How did you manage the group dynamics, equipment and resources, interim deadlines and the necessary collaborative nature of film making?
The group dynamic wasn’t all the time so easy, because of Annabell’s sickness and sometimes, because both in the group had different views of some situations or decisions. But we managed it to have the same decision at the end of the each lesson. The equipment was easy to manage, we both share all the editing, filming and all of the wanted deadlines. We worked together as a team and we have been always together for all things we have done. And we finished all tasks together as a team.
2. What health and safety and logistical problems did you solve?
We followed all the rules from the school and haven’t done some special stunds or high angle shots. We kept the filming and the action simple but very effective. We worked with a knife and used it responsibly. Also we always had the right basic for each situation, where we needed anything. We managed it, to become the right level in our film.
3. How did you organise your human resources – the people involved in the production?
We used two characters who named Henry Yueksel and Kim Paxton. They both are in our media studies class so it was much easyier to organise all the filming stuff and the right times, were we can go to film all the film. We also always managed it to work with them in a constructive and organised way. They always had they costumes and they where reliable all the time. Two very authentic persons. That has done our film production much easyer.
4. How did you manage actors, locations, costumes and props? Remember that deciding NOT to use a particular strategy [e.g. not to use any props] is also a creative decision.
We picked a girl and a boy to play the main roles of our characters to follow our story in the right way and with a good structure. We picked two different locations on the plot from the Gordonstoun School. A field and and Gordonstoun house. We have chosen the field because it is absolutely empty and you can’t see anyone walking and also you can’t see any cars or other not useful stuff. Also because there is absolutely much space for filming a girl who is running away from her bad thoughts and her angriness. And we chosen Gordonstoun house because we wanted to have a location who is empty, clear and with no stuff in it. And also we wanted to have a long way, where the character could walk very good, without seeing, what is behind his back.
We chosen the knife because it is the weapton for murder scene.
5. How did storyboarding and creating a shooting script work in practice? Did you make creative decisions to depart from the original plan? For what reasons and with what outcomes?
Our storyboard was at the beginning absolutely to short and uninteresting. So we put in some more special shots and interesting scenes and special effects. We also needed to add more reaction shots and shorter clips to make the film more interesting and special for the people who watch it and also for ourselves. We made a lot of creative decisions and we even add an estra scene, because our film was to short.
6. Although time management may seem a less exciting aspect of the creative media practice, it is possibly the most important – how did you manage your time, and with what success?
It was difficult to manage time to filming ect, because Annabell was sick for 2 weeks at the end of the first term. But during this time period all the film we had done prevestly was all edited when she came back to the lessons. So we both didn’t get behind with all the work, we both worked in different ways, Lisa has done more of the filming and the editing and Annabell has done more of the costume design and the production and the planning of the acting in the film. Also we have always spoken about the situations we have decide to do, because that don’t bring someone to have big arguments. We finished everything together as a group and that always by the right time.
The group dynamic wasn’t all the time so easy, because of Annabell’s sickness and sometimes, because both in the group had different views of some situations or decisions. But we managed it to have the same decision at the end of the each lesson. The equipment was easy to manage, we both share all the editing, filming and all of the wanted deadlines. We worked together as a team and we have been always together for all things we have done. And we finished all tasks together as a team.
2. What health and safety and logistical problems did you solve?
We followed all the rules from the school and haven’t done some special stunds or high angle shots. We kept the filming and the action simple but very effective. We worked with a knife and used it responsibly. Also we always had the right basic for each situation, where we needed anything. We managed it, to become the right level in our film.
3. How did you organise your human resources – the people involved in the production?
We used two characters who named Henry Yueksel and Kim Paxton. They both are in our media studies class so it was much easyier to organise all the filming stuff and the right times, were we can go to film all the film. We also always managed it to work with them in a constructive and organised way. They always had they costumes and they where reliable all the time. Two very authentic persons. That has done our film production much easyer.
4. How did you manage actors, locations, costumes and props? Remember that deciding NOT to use a particular strategy [e.g. not to use any props] is also a creative decision.
We picked a girl and a boy to play the main roles of our characters to follow our story in the right way and with a good structure. We picked two different locations on the plot from the Gordonstoun School. A field and and Gordonstoun house. We have chosen the field because it is absolutely empty and you can’t see anyone walking and also you can’t see any cars or other not useful stuff. Also because there is absolutely much space for filming a girl who is running away from her bad thoughts and her angriness. And we chosen Gordonstoun house because we wanted to have a location who is empty, clear and with no stuff in it. And also we wanted to have a long way, where the character could walk very good, without seeing, what is behind his back.
We chosen the knife because it is the weapton for murder scene.
5. How did storyboarding and creating a shooting script work in practice? Did you make creative decisions to depart from the original plan? For what reasons and with what outcomes?
Our storyboard was at the beginning absolutely to short and uninteresting. So we put in some more special shots and interesting scenes and special effects. We also needed to add more reaction shots and shorter clips to make the film more interesting and special for the people who watch it and also for ourselves. We made a lot of creative decisions and we even add an estra scene, because our film was to short.
6. Although time management may seem a less exciting aspect of the creative media practice, it is possibly the most important – how did you manage your time, and with what success?
It was difficult to manage time to filming ect, because Annabell was sick for 2 weeks at the end of the first term. But during this time period all the film we had done prevestly was all edited when she came back to the lessons. So we both didn’t get behind with all the work, we both worked in different ways, Lisa has done more of the filming and the editing and Annabell has done more of the costume design and the production and the planning of the acting in the film. Also we have always spoken about the situations we have decide to do, because that don’t bring someone to have big arguments. We finished everything together as a group and that always by the right time.
Evaluation Questions 1.
1. At a micro, technical level, how well did you observe the conventions of continuity, the language of film and the grammar of the edit?
Before filming our major task, we started with a preliminary task to practice using cameras for the first time and to help us understand the importance of continuity in a short film. Bringing this knowledge to our major task we were able to make it look as if everything was set according to our storyboard and was on the same day.
Using many different angles and camera shots we explored many aspects of the different areas of film. We used props, effective accompaniment and were able to create our characters through dialogue and costume.
We were able to experiment with different editing skills which we used in our film. Effects such as ‘Fast Blur’, ‘Black and White’ and ‘Ghosting’ were shown in our editing.
2. How many mistakes did you make, and did you improve in the main task having made errors in the preliminary exercise?
In our preliminary task we didn’t have enough footage which resulted in us re-shooting on different days which was bad for our continuity element as it was obviously not shot on the same day. We had used zoom-ins on some of our shots which made it look bad and also a lot of free-hand camera which resulted in shaky shots.
Lack of lighting ruined some of our preliminary shots and the fade in and out of music was very bad.
In our main task, music and sound effects fading in and out was much more effective and our continuity was a lot better. We still needed to re-shoot some of our shots but they don’t look as if they were shot on different days as we kept all aspects of the original shots the same as in the re-shoots (e.g. props, costumes, location).
To reduce shaky shots, we used a tripod so that the camera was still whilst filming. Our lighting was much more effective in our main task as you could always see the character clearly.
3. At a more symbolic, macro level, how does your fiction film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre or type you are working in? Will it fulfil the ‘contractual’ nature of film genre or will it subvert expectations deliberately?
Our chosen genre is horror, and we tried to find as many ways to represent this by using props and the way we filmed our shots.
We researched other scary movies and saw what was recurrent in each one, and we used this to help the planning of our own horror movie opening. We saw that lots of people in horror movies die, so we created our storyline reflect this aspect or horror.
Something twisted happens with our storyline, like in most horror films. They want to intrigue the audience. This is typically horror genre; we set our film in flashbacks, as in a bad event happened in the past but karma is catching up with the present.
4. Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you ‘play’ with the genre’s codes and history? Are there any intertextual moments where you hint at a reference to another film?
A pastiche is something borrowed for one or more other sources, and a parody is a humorous imitation of a literature piece e.g. black adder.
Our film has neither a pastiche nor parody. We decided not to play around with the genre’s codes and history and stuck to the basics of typical horror genre.
We thought that the storyline we had decided on would be a lot more effective if it was done seriously without humour or something borrowed from different sources.
We kept ours original and made up our own ideas for everything, including sound effects, captions, shots and storyboard.
5. What kinds of audience pleasure are you trying to provide, and how confident are you that you have delivered on this promise?
Mine and Annabells’ film was set as a horror. Our plan was to create something chilling and I think that this was quite successful for our first film. After taking things from typical horror movies into consideration, we were able to construct our own murder scene, build a climax with our running scene and build up tension throughout the two minutes with rock music as the accompaniment and a scream to add to our sound effects.
We tried to keep our shots as interesting as possible and also gripping to watch. We want it to be aesthetically pleasing to all audiences.
Before filming our major task, we started with a preliminary task to practice using cameras for the first time and to help us understand the importance of continuity in a short film. Bringing this knowledge to our major task we were able to make it look as if everything was set according to our storyboard and was on the same day.
Using many different angles and camera shots we explored many aspects of the different areas of film. We used props, effective accompaniment and were able to create our characters through dialogue and costume.
We were able to experiment with different editing skills which we used in our film. Effects such as ‘Fast Blur’, ‘Black and White’ and ‘Ghosting’ were shown in our editing.
2. How many mistakes did you make, and did you improve in the main task having made errors in the preliminary exercise?
In our preliminary task we didn’t have enough footage which resulted in us re-shooting on different days which was bad for our continuity element as it was obviously not shot on the same day. We had used zoom-ins on some of our shots which made it look bad and also a lot of free-hand camera which resulted in shaky shots.
Lack of lighting ruined some of our preliminary shots and the fade in and out of music was very bad.
In our main task, music and sound effects fading in and out was much more effective and our continuity was a lot better. We still needed to re-shoot some of our shots but they don’t look as if they were shot on different days as we kept all aspects of the original shots the same as in the re-shoots (e.g. props, costumes, location).
To reduce shaky shots, we used a tripod so that the camera was still whilst filming. Our lighting was much more effective in our main task as you could always see the character clearly.
3. At a more symbolic, macro level, how does your fiction film reflect or challenge the conventions of the genre or type you are working in? Will it fulfil the ‘contractual’ nature of film genre or will it subvert expectations deliberately?
Our chosen genre is horror, and we tried to find as many ways to represent this by using props and the way we filmed our shots.
We researched other scary movies and saw what was recurrent in each one, and we used this to help the planning of our own horror movie opening. We saw that lots of people in horror movies die, so we created our storyline reflect this aspect or horror.
Something twisted happens with our storyline, like in most horror films. They want to intrigue the audience. This is typically horror genre; we set our film in flashbacks, as in a bad event happened in the past but karma is catching up with the present.
4. Are there any elements of deliberate pastiche or parody, where you ‘play’ with the genre’s codes and history? Are there any intertextual moments where you hint at a reference to another film?
A pastiche is something borrowed for one or more other sources, and a parody is a humorous imitation of a literature piece e.g. black adder.
Our film has neither a pastiche nor parody. We decided not to play around with the genre’s codes and history and stuck to the basics of typical horror genre.
We thought that the storyline we had decided on would be a lot more effective if it was done seriously without humour or something borrowed from different sources.
We kept ours original and made up our own ideas for everything, including sound effects, captions, shots and storyboard.
5. What kinds of audience pleasure are you trying to provide, and how confident are you that you have delivered on this promise?
Mine and Annabells’ film was set as a horror. Our plan was to create something chilling and I think that this was quite successful for our first film. After taking things from typical horror movies into consideration, we were able to construct our own murder scene, build a climax with our running scene and build up tension throughout the two minutes with rock music as the accompaniment and a scream to add to our sound effects.
We tried to keep our shots as interesting as possible and also gripping to watch. We want it to be aesthetically pleasing to all audiences.
Monday 1 February 2010
Final Video
Posted by Lisa ;- After a lot of hard work finding music, re-shooting some of our shots, we eventually completed our film. Here it is;
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