Final Film Preparation- Survival

Introduction:
To prepare for my final film piece, and to decide how I want it to look when I'm editing, I need to do a series of plans and brainstorms. I first started off by drawing my ideas and scenes on a basic storyboard, this can help me whilst filming and it will help my actors too. I am going to plan out the dialog, the camera shots and also the music I will use to add an atmosphere.


Storyboards:
























Scripts:
As there is dialog in many different places, I am going to write it out in scenes, just because it will make it easier for myself and my actors to read.


In the woods:


Seth is keeping his girlfriend, Elly safe, as they don't know what to expect next, suddenly they hear Luke (he will be out of view to the audience)


Luke: Seth! Seth I need your help.
Seth: Luke?
Luke: Mate I need your help now! Please come help me.


Seth turns to Elly


Seth: Wait here.


kisses her forehead and runs away.


Elly's disappearing act:


Seth returns from helping Luke,with Luke also by his side to find Elly is gone, he looks frantically behind trees and in bushes, Luke helps too, but she is nowhere to be seen.


Luke: Elly? Elly where are you? Elly? (Searching in bushes and trees) 
Seth: Elly? Elly? Elly? Elly? ELLYYYYYY!?


*Seth is in a state of hysteria by now, worried sick to where his girlfriend has gone, from this, we go into the chase scene*


Before the Chase Scene
Seth (to Luke): Mate, go find somewhere safe, i'll find you when I have found Elly.
Luke: I'm not leaving you by yourself.
Seth: (With a serious look on his face) Just go.


(Luke, debates for a second, but then runs off, Seth then goes in the opposite direction to find Elly)
 
Flashbacks:


During the flashbacks that Seth has when he realizes she is dead, there is a few lines of dialog


Eating ice creams:
Laughter and squeals only.


On the swings:
Elly: I can go higher than you.
Seth: No! I am gonna beat you!
*swinging*
Elly: I'm going higher!


Stealing Seth's Hat:
Elly: *dangling it in front of Seths face, withdrawing it quickly when Seth makes an attempt to get it* you want it back?
Seth: Yes! Give it here!
Elly: Come get it! *She runs away* 


Seth chases after her and finally catches up with her, he grabs her from behind and swings her around until he gets it back. There is laughter.


Production Schedule:


To keep on track and to make sure I meet the deadline, I will prepare a Production Schedule so I can keep on track.


Thursday 18th November: 
2:15-3:00; Storyboards, and other preparation
3:00-3:40; Updating Blog and uploading pictures of Storyboards.


Saturday 20th November:
11:00am- 11:30am; Prepare the actors e.g. get them into costume, go over their lines.
11:30am- 1:00pm; Film the first six scenes.
(Opening running Scene, Seth leaving Elly to save Luke, Elly by herself, Luke and Seth looking for Elly, Luke leaving Seth and the build up to the chase)
1:00pm-1:30pm; Film the Chase Scene and him discovering Elly.
1:30pm-1:35pm: Film the final scene (Seth seeing something) 


1:35pm-2:15pm: Go back to the house, make Elly and Seth look clean and normal.
2:15pm-2:45pm: Go back to the setting and film the flashbacks.
2:45pm-2:50pm: Film the 'Sitting on the Bench' flashback.
2:50pm-2:55pm: Film the 'walking' flashback.
2:55pm-3:00pm: Film the 'Swing' flashback.


Monday 22nd November:
First part of the lesson: Capture all clips needed and drag them into the timeline.
Second part of the lesson: Begin cutting the clips down.


Thursday 25th November:
Carry on cutting down the clips, make sure everything is in order and I have everything I need


Monday 29th November:
Begin to add in Transitions and Video Effects. Also add in a Sound FX. Add in chosen music and cut it down so it fits.


Monday 6th December:
Finalize everything, make sure it flows easily and there is no problems. 





Thursday 16th December: Deadline.


Shot list:
Whilst I am filming my final piece, I need to have a list of what shots I am going to use, and also, what I would like to help me set the atmosphere.


Extreme Closeup&Closeup- I only really used this when I want to capture the actors expressions, also to target the fear that they have, just so it can entice the audience and make it really tense.
Medium Shot- I will probably use this alot, especially in the chase scene and when Seth and Luke are looking for Elly, it will range from a close up to a medium shot.
Birds eye view shot- Finally, I decided the Birds eye view shot for the final scene, as it will capture Seths grief and torment very well. It will also show the cliffhanger before the screen goes black.


Asset List:
- Ice Creams: For the flashback.
-Hat- For the flashback
- A big stick- For the beginning when they are in the makeshift shelter
- Plastic sheet- for the shelter.




Font Styles:
For the rolling titles, I would like to have something quite blunt, simple but also creates the atomosphere that this is gonna be tragic. I went on the website dafont.com and looked under two categories that related to my film, these were 'Horror' and 'Distorted' I found three possibilities;

I like the second one the best, this is called [ank]* I like it because it looks simple, but at the same time it sets the atmosphere. I also like the first one a lot as well, because it is very bold, which can show the audience the importance of this film.


Required Sound Effects:
The sound effects I need can be easily created, for instance, I need a dramatic atmosphere when Elly is all by herself, this will be the sounds of snapping twigs and shaking leaves when it is not even windy. This can be done by Seth and Luke, as they are off camera at the time.


Music Possibilities:
When my music cuts in, I need it to be dramatic, and have a rhythm that can fit into a chase. I have a possibility for this, one song done by at band who I am in close contact with, so before I decide and use it I will ask for their permission first.


The song is:


1) With a Pinch of Salt part I by After the Ordeal
I am stuck on this song, there are no lyrics, it is just an introduction, but I am pretty sure i am going to use it, as the ending fits perfectly for what i want in my short piece, also, when it drops from guitar into a breakdown, it is a perfect chase song. The beginning of the song is simple guitar riffs but its very slow and quite emotional, so it'll first come in when Seth realizes Elly has disappeared. I will probably cut some of the beginning out as I do not want to make Seth waste time trying to film in time with the song, to save time I will let it run through once maybe twice, then go straight to the breakdown, and then the end of the song should fit in with the film perfectly.

Fiction Film Ideas

Introduction:
For this task, we had to brainstorm a couple of ideas for a Fiction Film Opening, it needs to last for around 2-3 minutes, I have decided to choose a couple of genres, because this would give me more of a range, I have chosen Horror, Comedy and Crime.
After I thought about theses Genres, I thought of some ideas that I know would work.

First Idea; Horror:
My first idea is based around a themed 'Zombie' photoshoot I did during the October Half Term, I plan to recreate this but as a opening scene, so it kind of links to show the story behind my pictures perhaps. The short clip will feature three of the main characters from my photoshoot, but Seth will have most of the cameratime. At the beginning, him and his girlfriend will run into a woods, he will see his friend in need of help, he will then say to Elly, 'Stay here'  he will then go to help save his friend, he succeeds and he will then turn around and realise Elly is gone, but then have to run away from the epidemic himself, I will make this look quite scary and heartracing, to make the viewers want to watch the whole thing. Half way through, he will then see his girlfriend lying on the ground, which will trigger several flashbacks of all the goodtimes they had together. He will then carry on running but eventually he will meet his end. The short film will start from the end and then continue through, if I was to make the whole thing.

The inspiration I got for this whole thing, including my photo shoot, was from several zombie films like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, but the biggest inspiration was from the '28 Days Later' just because it captures the point of my shoot the best and its where I got several of my shot ideas from. Although this doesn't really show in my pictures, it will show in my short piece.

Second Idea; Crime:
My final idea is crime, my basic idea of this, is it set behind garages, someone walking their dog, or just walking home from work, to make it more effective, maybe overlooking a train track, which can help set the atmosphere that something is going to happen. The person will then be confronted by a mugger, and they will exchange a few lines of dialog, an action scene will then take place and it will end with the victim laying on the floor, after being beaten up and mugged. Dramatic music will probably accompany this. I didn't really have an inspiration for this idea, but I think it came from the fact that these things do happen, and I would like to show how this can happen at anytime and anyplace.
The mugger will probably be wearing a hoody, maybe stained jeans or tracksuit bottoms, the victim, if I decide that she is going to be walking home from work, it will probably be smart/casual clothes clutching a handbag for prop use only.

Preliminary Task- Planning

Coursework Preliminary Task

Before we could even begin filming and editing our Preliminary Task, we had to prepare, we did this by writing out our scripts, deciding which shots to use and how we was going to make it run smoothly. We also drew up our Production Schedule, so we knew what to keep to and so that we could make sure we did everything up to date and on time.

Script

Characters: Person A, Person B

Setting

Person B sitting on chair at table, already in the room. Person A opens door walks in and sits opposite Person B at table.

Script

Person A: Why’d you do it?

Person B: Do what?

Person A: You know what you did.

Person B: If you’re talking about the party you’re talking to the wrong person mate.

Person A: I can’t believe you did it. You promised me.

Person B: No I didn’t.

Person A: (Storm out, slams door).

END

Shot-list

Medium Shot x1

Extreme Close Up x1

Long Shot x2

Over the shoulder x7

Shot Reverse Shot x6

Production Schedule

Filming: Thursday 4^th November 2010

Editing: Monday 8^th November 2010

Evaluation & Blog Upload: Thursday 11^th November 2010


Storyboards

Final Video:



Evaluation


Even though we had a slight setback with our production schedule, we still managed to get it filmed and edited in one double lesson, this meant we had still kept in our time frame and didn't have to use another lesson to finish it.

We started off with preparation, we wrote out the script, production schedule and what shots we was going to use, after this was completed, we moved on to writing our storyboards.

When it came to filming, we found it very easy as we only needed two actors and one room, plus, the piece did not need to be very long, as it is only a Prelim Task. We started off by filming the entering scene, in this, I used an extreme close up, a following shot and a mid shot. When that part was filmed, we began to film the dialog, the actors were very good and remembered their lines, for the most of this conversation, I used the 'Over the Shoulder' shot, as this worked well to capture the emphasis of the argument. When this scene was filmed, the last one we had to do was when Charliiee (Person A) storms out in anger at the end, this was a quick and easy scene to shoot, in this one I used a mid shot.

After we had all of our footage, we came back to the classroom and uploaded it all. To start off we opened Premier Pro, and imported all of our footage, when this was done, we began to capture it all, we did this scene by scene so that we could easily place them all where they needed to go, and so we could organize where all the re-filmed clips had to be placed. After this, for a short time cut the parts that were no use, sorted out the audio and then finally put it all together.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Original Opening Scene.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Opening Scene Remake.

To prepare ourselves for our final media piece, we had to remake the opening scene of a film, Myself and Paul decided to remake the popular british film, 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.'

Seeing that one of us had never seen the film before, we started off by viewing the Opening Scene, a number of times just to recognise ourselves with the Opening Plot. After this, we typed out a script of the dialog in the opening scene, but seeing that we didn't want to give our actors too much to remember, we cut out a lot of the dialog, we also cut out the stairwell scene that is featured in the original. As well as compiling the dialog, we created a storyboard, these were A3 sheets with sticky notes stuck to them we drew out pictures of each scene and underneath wrote how long it run for, what the action the actor performed and what shot was used, this helped us a lot whilst filming as we knew what went where. It also helped our Actors a lot too.

Storyboards:

After all this was done, we began filming, we got our two actors, Charlie who played Bacon and Dan who played Eddie. We started off by shooting the Chase Scene, which is featured at the end of the Opening Scene, this was because it needed less people to shoot, and it was only a short piece that could be out of the way, leaving us room to concentrate on the bigger shots and dialog. It took us a couple of shots to get the last shot right, as they ran past from round the corner, this was because it was a panning shot and I had to switch the zoom quite quickly but we finally got it right in the end.

On the following Monday, we did a lot of filming, this was the dialog scenes and we took many shots as the actors found it hard to remember their lines and how that had to stand.
In total there was four extras, including Paul, they had a few parts but no speaking. Most of our film is the camera mainly focused on Charlie (Bacon) but this is because he had most of the speaking. We use many camera shots on Charlie, but the most popular was close up, just to focus the attention on him.
After a long day of filming, we brought our tape back to the classroom and began editing.

After we had uploaded our recordings, we had to capture it all, this was because some of it was not in order,  we captured it scene by scene so that we could just drag and drop the clips where they needed to be. After all the capturing was done, we put it all in order, so that knew what went where and so that is was easier to cut, this way we could see if we was cutting out any of the other dialog.
We had to cut a lot out, as we did shoot many scenes more than once because the actors either got their lines wrong, I didn't have the camera shot right. After all this was cut down, we added the titles.
    All the way through the opening scene, the titles have the same theme, black background, Typewriter font in white, so this was easy to recreate. The hardest title to do was the last one, as this one has an added Transition, it looked like a type writer was presenting the letters on screen. We found an almost identical Transition for this on Adobe After Effects.

This shows some of our footage, also, it shows the timeline of our clips.













This is a screenshot of our final title. We used an effect from Adobe After Effects.












This is shows how we created our titles. Using this, we could edit the font, size and colour. Also, we could arrange where we wanted it on the page.








Finally, we added the music, this was an easy task to complete as we just got it from the original opening scene and just separated it from the dialog. As ours was a more condensed version, we had to cut the first 5 seconds off of when the music comes in, this is because the Original Actors voices were still on it. But after doing this it worked really well and it certainly gives off the effect we wanted for the ending chase scene.

Analyzing Opening Scenes.

Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events Clip:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2007/12/21/lemony-snicket/

This was the first clip I looked at, as it starts off, its very dark and mysterious, then a cartoon begins to play, rolling titles then appear on the screen, telling you what its based on, Production Designers etc, but the cartoon rolls on. The audio is repetitive, sounds dark, but gives off a sort of Journey feel, it ties in with the film very well as the Children are often stopped in their tracks. This Opening Scene doesn't really have a theme, it symbolises feelings like Misery and Confusion if anything. There aren't any Transitions but even for an animation, it has got several different camera angles, there are a few Close ups, to capture that this will be a dark film, they do this by showing the Children's expressions but most of them are Extreme Wideshot and Wideshot, I think this is because there is a lot going on in the background of the Animation.
This Opening Scene sums up a lot of the film, I suppose to give the audience a taste of what the film is about, from this Opening, you can tell it is going to be a dark and miserable film, well I think the biggest clue is in the title.

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2009/03/23/william-shakespeares-romeo-juliet/

This Opening Scene starts off by the incorporation of Shakespeare's Prologue, which runs through the whole of the Scene, but I think this works well, as it draws you in and makes you want to see the film, as it starts, all you see is a television screen with a news presenter quoting the Prologue, this shows the Director trying to modernize this 18th Century Play. They slow this part down by using a 'Dolly Shot' this is when a camera is pushed along the ground, this is what happens in this clip, when the camera is focused on the TV screen. The whole set out of this Opening, with a series of clips shows that the film will be a tragedy, they use a montage of clips to prove this, half way through, it fastens, but fits in with the audio, which is "Requiem" this is a good song for the Opening as it shows the urgency and Irony of the film. When the Opening does fasten up, the clips which are from the film itself, fit in with the bridge of the song, I think this helps attract the audience to the film, the clips have also been shortened down with maybe a razor tool, and the Motion Control has definitely been edited during this sequence as they run so fast, I think only one transition was used, which is at the end when the Title 'Romeo + Juliet' Appears, a 'Wipe' Transition is used so it flows more smoothly into the film itself.

True Blood- Television Programme Opening Credits:
http://www.artofthetitle.com/2008/11/21/true-blood/

With this Opening, I decided to go off the film track and look into a Television Programme's opening credits, I decided on this one as it has many aspects to look at.
The concept behind it is very irregular, and quite disturbing, but at the same time makes it look different to every other Opening Scene of a Popular TV Series. In a One minute opening Credit, they compare  Black & White Religions, compared to Slutty, Mysterious Gothic Vampire ways, which in the series is an on going debate. Many Camera angles are used, as it opens a 'Crane Shot' is used, this is used for the first two shots, the changes to a slight 'Dolly Shot' and then a Wide Shot, from then on in, the Opening Credits are Video clips, incorporated with the TV Programme, no Transitions are used, they just go from one to the other. The Audio fits in well with this Opening Credit, Its a medium sort of pace, but when you hear the lyrics, they are quite dark and suit the credits well.

CityScape- Premier Pro Practice

To help us get used to Adobe Premier Pro, I created a thirty second piece with short clips of London City.
To start off, we imported all the clips, audio and Visual into Premier Pro, we then selected the video clips we wanted to use, after this we put them in order with the accompanying sounds in the one below, titled "Audio 1"

Once the clips were in place, I introduced myself to the 'razor tool' this tool is very handy, as you can cut out pieces of video that you do not want, I also edited the motion controls, depending whether I wanted to slow it down or speed it up, in my case, I slowed down the opening shot of the city, I also slowed down the shot of the gherkin, because I felt like it rushed into the other clips to fast. I sped up several clips, like the taxi shot, the crowd scene, also, the café shot, even though it was already fast, I made it slightly faster.
I enlarged all the clips, as they were quite small, to make the clips flow better as if to be a mini opening scene, I put in some transitions.

So my clip didn't sound too quiet, I added an audio sound, when it came to choosing the one I wanted, I wanted it to fit in with my clip. In the end, after browsing through my selection, I chose an audio called 'Continued On' from a Royalty Free Source. The Song was long enough to cover my whole clip, so after my video had finished, I used the razor tool to cut the last remaining bit off. I played my video through, and it seemed like it ended too quickly with the music, so I used the "Audio Effects" tool, to slow the end of the song so it gradually slowed and then stopped, instead of coming to an abrupt end.

Lastly, I added a title into the beginning of my video, using these title tools, I could choose where I wanted the title to be, the size of it, colours, and font, after I designed it, I simply dragged it into the 'Video 2' box, and made sure it was right at the beginning line, I put it in 'Video 2' to make the title overlap the video, so you could see both at the same time. To finish it, I added Transitions to make my title fade out instead of just disappearing.

I enjoyed doing this task, and I learnt a lot about Premier Pro and the tools to use and how I use them.