First Group Meeting

This is our first meeting in which we gave each other roles. We figured that it would help us in drawing the storyboards if we could see the actors faces and knew their mannerisms. The 'Plan of opening sequence' is where all the storyboards derived from.

Film Research

Georgia's Research

Luke's Research

Daniels Research; (specifically focusing on narrative and music)

Alice's Research

Mrs Thrasher was kind enough to lend us many films with voice overs, specifically gangster films; as we had a meeting where we decided we'd like to combine a "Gangster styled" piece with a shock horror. 

We Individually looked through various films, and collaborated out ideas in a meeting. We decided that we definitely needed some music played over the background, and that music should be something that originates from major cities of America, which is where a stereotypical gangster would exist. We decided to tribute the  stereotypical american gangster with a jazzy/blues track which played in the background. However we also decided that this is as far as we would go in stepping into a stereotype. Therefore the accents are our own accents, and we don't try to imitate a particular style. We instead invent our own.  As I play blues guitar, and know various forms of jazz on piano, i quickly wrote a track ready to be recorded for our film. We also revised the voice over idea and wrote a script.

Edit

Yesterday, we all went to Daniel's studio to edit and review our roughly finished film opening. After the showcase we now knew what to cut from our film so continued to edit based on our feedback from miss and our class. We were instructed to change the length of the film as we were told it 'dragged on' and made it less interesting. In the 4-5 hours we spent in the studio we managed to cut down a reasonable amount, and now we have become happy with the length, as it flows smoother, and gets to the point.

One thing we hadn't included in the film was a production name and logo, however yesterday we spent a long time creating one. We decided to call our production name 'Phantom productions'. We all decided to call it this because this was the power source Daniel was electrocuted by was Fantom powered, and as a group we thought it was a nice little pun and something which we thought that was fitting for the film. The word phantom also means a ghostly figure and relates to out genre of it being a horror.

Another thing we needed to change was a few transitions and to create a music soundtrack, and yesterday we were able to do both. In Daniel's studio we used the piano and a music software program to create a jazzy riff, which we were able to make fit well with the film.

We will be going to the studio as a group one day this week to make our final changes to the film, and make sure everything is converted and ready to hand in.

Filming Production

Our first day of filming was very productive as we knew what we needed to film and we done this quickly.  We decided to film at Dan's house on sunday as it was a day we were all free and was easiest location to travel to.

 First of all we filmed the shaving scene in the bathroom, we used extreme close ups as when filming we noticed It was clearer to see the cut on his face, whereas originally we planned to do a close up. This scene took the longest as we had to make sure It looked effective. We continued with Dan doing his morning routine which included him looking into the mirror and putting his tie on. First of all we planned to do a straight cut from shaving to putting his tie on. This seemed confusing as It jumped from one location to another so we decided to do a handheld tracking shot. This followed Dan from the bathroom to the mirror and made the scene clearer and also established the location, this worked better.

 Next we filmed Dan shouting goodbye to me when I was upstairs. Originally my face was going to be included when I lean over the banister to wave goodbye but once filming my face wouldn't be in view of the shot. By doing this It made the Dans character seem more mysterious as the audience wont see his 'girlfriend'.

On the day we decided a high angle shot would be better when Dan's character pulls out from the drive way. It made It seem as though the 'girlfriend' was watching him from the upstairs window which created a more mysterious feeling as to why she watched him.

The next scene was the car scene with Georgia and Dan we stayed to our original ideas with the angles of the camera. We decided to use a long shot of Dan getting out of the car and then used a tracking shot of him going to open the boot where Georgia was. We found this worked so his movement is clear and the audience understand the location and what's going on. The end shot is from Georgia's point of view of Dan shouting the boot down after filming It and looking at the shot we though it would be more effective if georgia screams when the boot slams down and then fades to black. This worked better as was from the characters point of view so makes the audience feel included.

I thought the filming day went well  this is because we knew what we needed and wanted to film. This helped us all know what was needed and we could all put in more input in dialogue and shots. By doing this we filmed everything we aimed to and meant we didn't need to film on another day.

Piano Score, First Draft

This is the first draft of what I intend to record over my piece. Its inspired from Dave Brubecks 'Blue Rondo A La Turk' which features a large improvisation in the middle section. I intend to take the chords and improvise around them, which will make it an origional piece.

Diary of our Group

Wednesday 5th January 


Our first meeting we discussed each of our ideas. We explained how we would do create each opening sequence of our idea. We then went home and created each of our own short storyboards to decide the following lesson which idea to expand on.


Thursday 6th January 


The next lesson we watched different opening sequences of other films and students that had made opening sequences before to get an idea of what ours would have to be like.


Friday 7th January


We decided to expand on the idea of a young girl in a boot, however we changed the setting  to an industrial estate as it become more convent as Dan lived nearby where we got permission and we also was doing our filming at his house.

Wednesday 12th January 

After deciding on what our story board was going to be based on we decided to talk about the acting that would be needed and who would play each character we chose Dan to be the male character and Georgia to be  the young girl in the boot, we also decided to have Alice as the 'girlfriend' of the male character who would not be shown just speak in one part  to give the audience the idea that the girlfriend was unaware what the male character was doing.

Thursday 13th January

This lesson was a teaching lesson of the different ways of using the camera in a quick demonstration.
1. PANNING SHOT
2. TRACKING SHOT
3. WHIP PAN
4. REVERSE TRACK
5. CRASH ZOOM
6. CRANE/BIRDS EYE VIEW/AERIAL
7. WORM'S EYE VIEW
8. LOW ANGLE of any of the above


Friday 13th January


This lesson we had to practice using a camera and different ways of  using camera actions which we had previously learned about.  We spent 2 hours on learning the different features and then filmed a shot of Alice and Dan arguing which we was then going to edit calling our primarily sequence to practise editing.

Wednesday 19th January

On this day we watched as a class different opening sequences e.g. The mummy, Legally blonde, Children of men and Seven.

Thursday 20th January

On this lesson we analyzed 'Children of men ' to help us see what features go into an opening sequence to intrigue the audience using mes en scene

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp1cXTJSVf0&tracker=False

Props List

Male Character 
Long black coat
Ordinary work clothes- Trousers, Shirt
Hair- Neat


Female Character 
Ordinary clothing 
Black tired eyes
Messy hair
Gag in mouth
Hands tied back