Question 7 on Prezi
Wednesday 9 May 2012
Tuesday 27 March 2012
Evaluation
This is my media evaluation presentation on a Wix website. Here you will see seven evaluation question presented in many different multimeda forms. In contribution to this are pictures and extracts from my opening sequence-Chroniker. Click on the link below to see my evaluation.
Here is a direct link Madihah WIX Evaluation
Here is a direct link Madihah WIX Evaluation
Monday 19 March 2012
Final Film
Our Final Film
Finally we finished our opening sequence after 2 months of planning and researching, 8 hours of shooting and 2 months of editing. I have had the best and most stressful time whilst making this opening sequence. I am happy to say I got to work with great people; thanks to Ella Baker, Sam Haines, Tom Malins and our actors Matt, Jack and Patrick. Its been amazing making an idea a some what reality.
Enjoy :)
Finally we finished our opening sequence after 2 months of planning and researching, 8 hours of shooting and 2 months of editing. I have had the best and most stressful time whilst making this opening sequence. I am happy to say I got to work with great people; thanks to Ella Baker, Sam Haines, Tom Malins and our actors Matt, Jack and Patrick. Its been amazing making an idea a some what reality.
Enjoy :)
Sunday 18 March 2012
Changes to the Sound
- We decided to choose a sound that would be consistent throughout the whole video. This is as many opening sequences have one particular sound that doesn't change very frequently. unlike the sample soundtrack. This consistent sound is an underlining tone which we could overlay different sound upon with different shots, such as the clock ticking, the change in location and events taking place; where the narrative begins.
- Along with amending the sound we also thought that we should incorporate some main feature credits when the voiceover occured. We felt that the screen was blank for along duration of time; although we were inspired by the 'Children of Men' opening sequence. We thought this would be effective as it would be a subtle way of getting the audiences attention to continue to watch further.
Saturday 17 March 2012
The Sound
This is the soundtrack that we had sampled to see what the feel of the sequence would be. I like the sense of Si-Fi within the sound/noises. I feel that it is very repetitive and the sounds start to get to the point where you want the sound to change as they become slightly irritating to hear.
This is the sequence with the sampled soundtrack:
As we had tested this soundtrack we decided to change the sound to something less techno/electric to a sound of mystery, which would intrigue our audience more.
This is the sequence with the sampled soundtrack:
As we had tested this soundtrack we decided to change the sound to something less techno/electric to a sound of mystery, which would intrigue our audience more.
Friday 16 March 2012
Week 10 12th-16th March
Editing 7
After having a big beak through last week with getting a lot of thing done and the progression of our sequence is finally starting to feel as though it will be finished.
Voice over
We had done a voice over this week where we used the voice of a Matt. We thought he would be most suitable for doing this voice over as he was very clear and aliterate and his voice contrasted the appearance of the tramp, which we really liked as the tramp had more depth to him than realised. We had recorded Matt's voice of him reading the script, we had previously written, on Garage Band. We then used a software that we didn't not know of called Audiocity. This was a good software as we could change different things within Matt's voice but we had liked the way it was initially recorded. The process of the voice over was much simpler than i thought because it was importing and exporting the sound extract, which we needed to only change the file type of.
Now having the voice over as a sound file and imported into Final Cut all we had done was create a black screen as, which the voice over would go on top. We then placed the voice over on the time line and al that was left was to place and perfect the timing of the voice on the screen.
Sound
The sound for the sequence was one of the last thing that we needed to do to make the sequence complete. This was a bit hard as our genre of film didn't require any particular sound. We had done the sound on Garage Band, as we were not able to copyright any music. We had selected a few sounds that we thought were best suited to our sequences. These were mainly an intense continuous beat and note. This became boring and we were told by our teachers opinions that this would make our opening seem boring although that wasn't the case. We didn't want to footage to be long and dragged out neither with the sound. We had then with the soundswe had selected combine a few to make the rhythm of the each split screen different. We had chosen the sounds, it was now a matter of putting them to the right timing of the visual footage. This took a little while but the sound was the finishing touch on this long process of finishing our sequence.
Our opening sequence to Chroniker was finally FINISHED!
After having a big beak through last week with getting a lot of thing done and the progression of our sequence is finally starting to feel as though it will be finished.
Voice over
We had done a voice over this week where we used the voice of a Matt. We thought he would be most suitable for doing this voice over as he was very clear and aliterate and his voice contrasted the appearance of the tramp, which we really liked as the tramp had more depth to him than realised. We had recorded Matt's voice of him reading the script, we had previously written, on Garage Band. We then used a software that we didn't not know of called Audiocity. This was a good software as we could change different things within Matt's voice but we had liked the way it was initially recorded. The process of the voice over was much simpler than i thought because it was importing and exporting the sound extract, which we needed to only change the file type of.
Now having the voice over as a sound file and imported into Final Cut all we had done was create a black screen as, which the voice over would go on top. We then placed the voice over on the time line and al that was left was to place and perfect the timing of the voice on the screen.
Whilst having done this we also imported our production title sequence at the beginning of the opening.
Sound
The sound for the sequence was one of the last thing that we needed to do to make the sequence complete. This was a bit hard as our genre of film didn't require any particular sound. We had done the sound on Garage Band, as we were not able to copyright any music. We had selected a few sounds that we thought were best suited to our sequences. These were mainly an intense continuous beat and note. This became boring and we were told by our teachers opinions that this would make our opening seem boring although that wasn't the case. We didn't want to footage to be long and dragged out neither with the sound. We had then with the soundswe had selected combine a few to make the rhythm of the each split screen different. We had chosen the sounds, it was now a matter of putting them to the right timing of the visual footage. This took a little while but the sound was the finishing touch on this long process of finishing our sequence.
Our opening sequence to Chroniker was finally FINISHED!
Tuesday 13 March 2012
Audience Feedback
This week we had the first show case of our opening sequence to students in our class. This was an interesting experience as we were showing what we had done so far to people that didn't know anything about our story.
The only opinions that we had gotten so far was from our teachers.
Through doing this exercise we realised that the feedback we got consisted of a majority of people not really understanding the storyline. This was predicted as the opening sequence was not finished and the vital part of the story was not seen as of yet. Anna commented on the fact that the split screen had a really good effect and was interesting but by then end, of what she had seen not he end of the sequence, it had gotten slightly boring. This was something that I really took on board as we didn't want our sequence to be boring although we now we have a lot of the same action.
The positive outcome of this was that a majority of people complemented us on the editing of the split screen. I think that our sequence relies on the split screening so the fact that the audience liked it and thought it was unique and interesting was really good. Lucy commented on the fact that what we shot could have been boring but the way in which we had edited it made it more interesting. This was a comment that i was pleased about because the main thing we didn't want to do was to bore our audience because it is a lot of the same action of a Tramp walking through London. She had also mentioned that she was able to clearly see who our main character was, this was another one of our objectives.We also had a few comments on the continuity which they thought was good. A lot of people came back writing that there was a good use of location. Eva also illustrated that the costume and mise-en-scene was nice and complemented our story, even though she was unclear of what it was.
As mentioned before it was interesting getting everyones feedback to what they had thought so far. I think some of the comments we would really concentrate on as we have now realised were the person was coming from and saw certain aspects of shots differently.
The only opinions that we had gotten so far was from our teachers.
Through doing this exercise we realised that the feedback we got consisted of a majority of people not really understanding the storyline. This was predicted as the opening sequence was not finished and the vital part of the story was not seen as of yet. Anna commented on the fact that the split screen had a really good effect and was interesting but by then end, of what she had seen not he end of the sequence, it had gotten slightly boring. This was something that I really took on board as we didn't want our sequence to be boring although we now we have a lot of the same action.
The positive outcome of this was that a majority of people complemented us on the editing of the split screen. I think that our sequence relies on the split screening so the fact that the audience liked it and thought it was unique and interesting was really good. Lucy commented on the fact that what we shot could have been boring but the way in which we had edited it made it more interesting. This was a comment that i was pleased about because the main thing we didn't want to do was to bore our audience because it is a lot of the same action of a Tramp walking through London. She had also mentioned that she was able to clearly see who our main character was, this was another one of our objectives.We also had a few comments on the continuity which they thought was good. A lot of people came back writing that there was a good use of location. Eva also illustrated that the costume and mise-en-scene was nice and complemented our story, even though she was unclear of what it was.
As mentioned before it was interesting getting everyones feedback to what they had thought so far. I think some of the comments we would really concentrate on as we have now realised were the person was coming from and saw certain aspects of shots differently.
Sunday 11 March 2012
Week 9 5th-9th March
Editing 6
This week has been extremely productive as we have done a variety of things. As we had Academic Mentoring Day during the week it enables us spend a whole day editing and progressing more with finishing our sequence.
After a long and frustrating battle with the map we had gotten them all PhotoShoped and ready to put on our opening sequence. Besides from getting the pictures onto the map this was another area were problem occurred. The map would appear on screen in which the way we wanted it to. This made it difficult for us to try and think of an alternative. We had chosen to use a zoom setting to make our map appear on screen.
In our initial idea we wanted to have a voice over at the beginning of the sequence, this was an idea that we al still liked as wi thought there was something missing at the beginning of the story. On this day we all realised the exact aim of the story which inspired us to write the script of the voice over, which made the complex story easier to understand. As well as writing a script and making a clear outline of our story we had also come up with a name for our film, which we had all struggled with doing in the past. After many unusual suggestions and chats we had concluded with 'Chroniker' which relates back to our story.
Within this day we also had established that the map was not as well constructed as we had hoped> when planning we all had an idea of what the map would look like. Once having achieved the closes alternatives to what the map looked like in our sequence we all concluded that we didn't like how it looked as t was very quick and unclear of what was happening. After contemplating we had chosen to scrap the map and only use one aspect of it. This meant that some of the time we spent editing and PhotoShoping the map was useful but we did spend a large amount of time trying to figure out how to do the map.
Once having made this decision it felt as though we had made a major step in finishing our opening sequence. From the beginning when planning we had always wanted our credits to be a bit different and funky so we still tried to intend to do so. Making the credits was slightly longer than I thought but i think this was due to us doing something a bit more complex than usual credits. It was slightly easier to do the credits as Tom had previously made a list of names needed. We had done our credits on Final Cut because they were incorporated with the different frames and shots.
I felt very excited after this week as I feel as though we are now coming close to finishing our sequence and a lot of our the hard decisions had been made and many of the problems we have had for a while have been resolved.
This week has been extremely productive as we have done a variety of things. As we had Academic Mentoring Day during the week it enables us spend a whole day editing and progressing more with finishing our sequence.
After a long and frustrating battle with the map we had gotten them all PhotoShoped and ready to put on our opening sequence. Besides from getting the pictures onto the map this was another area were problem occurred. The map would appear on screen in which the way we wanted it to. This made it difficult for us to try and think of an alternative. We had chosen to use a zoom setting to make our map appear on screen.
In our initial idea we wanted to have a voice over at the beginning of the sequence, this was an idea that we al still liked as wi thought there was something missing at the beginning of the story. On this day we all realised the exact aim of the story which inspired us to write the script of the voice over, which made the complex story easier to understand. As well as writing a script and making a clear outline of our story we had also come up with a name for our film, which we had all struggled with doing in the past. After many unusual suggestions and chats we had concluded with 'Chroniker' which relates back to our story.
Within this day we also had established that the map was not as well constructed as we had hoped> when planning we all had an idea of what the map would look like. Once having achieved the closes alternatives to what the map looked like in our sequence we all concluded that we didn't like how it looked as t was very quick and unclear of what was happening. After contemplating we had chosen to scrap the map and only use one aspect of it. This meant that some of the time we spent editing and PhotoShoping the map was useful but we did spend a large amount of time trying to figure out how to do the map.
Once having made this decision it felt as though we had made a major step in finishing our opening sequence. From the beginning when planning we had always wanted our credits to be a bit different and funky so we still tried to intend to do so. Making the credits was slightly longer than I thought but i think this was due to us doing something a bit more complex than usual credits. It was slightly easier to do the credits as Tom had previously made a list of names needed. We had done our credits on Final Cut because they were incorporated with the different frames and shots.
I felt very excited after this week as I feel as though we are now coming close to finishing our sequence and a lot of our the hard decisions had been made and many of the problems we have had for a while have been resolved.
Friday 2 March 2012
Week 8 27th Febuary -2nd March
Editing 5
Map
This week Michael had taught us how to PhotoShop pictures onto our map into our opening sequence. This was a very hard long and time consuming process. From this week I now know how to do a variety of things on PhotoShop and I now have gained knowledge on the software. The map is a major part of our storyline as hard as it has been to incorporate it we have tired our hardest to make it look the way we had envisioned it.
Production Title
This week we had started to design our production title that would appear at the beginning of our opening sequence. We already had the name of our production company, which was 'Aftershock Productions'. We now needed a symbol/logo to go with it and some form of a small extract that we could insert at the beginning of our sequence.
We had done our production title on a software called LiveType. This was a software we would possibly used when doing our credits. LiveType was slightly difficult to use as no member in our group had used it before. We used the process of exploring to self teach ourselves how to use it. We had now gotten a background and our production name done and we needed to import our symbol, which is a black lightening bolt onto it.
Split Screen
We continued to split screen al of our shots and all the shots we wanted to be split screened were now done. We had also chosen to only do the shots that would work well to split screen as we didn't want the split screening to look drag along for our audience. We had only done the shots we had thought would either look good and work well as a split screen or the shots that we thought would be boring to look at.
Now we were coming to see our opening sequence starting to finish we thought that we would try to cut down the time of the sequence as it was currently at 3 minutes 40 seconds. Tom was no in the lesson when we had thought of this so Sam, Ella and I had to become ruthless to which shots we were definitely going to keep and which we were going to completely scrap. This was a difficult decision for all of us to make as we all liked different shot but as we came to realise it was about the shots that the audience wouldn't miss out on and the shot that if not there would the audience still understand the story. Once having done this we had cut it down to 2:40. This was still with spaces for the title of the film and where the map was going to be placed.
Alongside doing this, Tom though it would be good start to think about credits. He researched into all the necessary names that would appear on our credits so that when it came to the time of doing our credits we had a list of titles that we need to use. I thought this was useful as when it came to the time when we needed to do our credits we would be very efficient and prepared.
Map
This week Michael had taught us how to PhotoShop pictures onto our map into our opening sequence. This was a very hard long and time consuming process. From this week I now know how to do a variety of things on PhotoShop and I now have gained knowledge on the software. The map is a major part of our storyline as hard as it has been to incorporate it we have tired our hardest to make it look the way we had envisioned it.
Production Title
This week we had started to design our production title that would appear at the beginning of our opening sequence. We already had the name of our production company, which was 'Aftershock Productions'. We now needed a symbol/logo to go with it and some form of a small extract that we could insert at the beginning of our sequence.
We had done our production title on a software called LiveType. This was a software we would possibly used when doing our credits. LiveType was slightly difficult to use as no member in our group had used it before. We used the process of exploring to self teach ourselves how to use it. We had now gotten a background and our production name done and we needed to import our symbol, which is a black lightening bolt onto it.
Split Screen
We continued to split screen al of our shots and all the shots we wanted to be split screened were now done. We had also chosen to only do the shots that would work well to split screen as we didn't want the split screening to look drag along for our audience. We had only done the shots we had thought would either look good and work well as a split screen or the shots that we thought would be boring to look at.
Now we were coming to see our opening sequence starting to finish we thought that we would try to cut down the time of the sequence as it was currently at 3 minutes 40 seconds. Tom was no in the lesson when we had thought of this so Sam, Ella and I had to become ruthless to which shots we were definitely going to keep and which we were going to completely scrap. This was a difficult decision for all of us to make as we all liked different shot but as we came to realise it was about the shots that the audience wouldn't miss out on and the shot that if not there would the audience still understand the story. Once having done this we had cut it down to 2:40. This was still with spaces for the title of the film and where the map was going to be placed.
Alongside doing this, Tom though it would be good start to think about credits. He researched into all the necessary names that would appear on our credits so that when it came to the time of doing our credits we had a list of titles that we need to use. I thought this was useful as when it came to the time when we needed to do our credits we would be very efficient and prepared.
Sunday 26 February 2012
Week 7 20th-24th February
Editing 4
Split Screen
Last week we had hit a slight dead end to new ideas of how to edit our sequence as we had done all the continuity shots. In this week we saw an opening sequence from a foreign french film called Meserine. All of our group were really inspired by this opening as it was simple but yet very effective.
As we had gotten very inspired by this sequence we decided to use the same concept for our opening sequence and put our own spin on it. This was convenient for us as a majority of our sequence was of our main character walking through London which the audience would start to find boring and loose interest in.
We were able to corporate the same effect of shots as we had taken multiple shots of the same action. We came in handy as it was vital for us to achieve the same look as Mesrine. Although we did have more than one shot type for the same action, if we had decided to use the Mesrine style of opening our sequence initially we would have been able to achieve the style better by possibly using more than one camera at the same time when shooting.
Having now officially determined to use this style for opening our sequence. We had got taught how to exactly do the method of split screening, which is the style of the Mesrine. This process was easier than it looked. We had done the split screen on Final Cut so we didn't need to transfer shots we just worked with the current shots on the timeline. I am glad to say that i thought that I thought I took a handle to doing the split screening well. As other members of my group had done and were doing the editing and felt more comfortable doing that instead.
Split Screen
Last week we had hit a slight dead end to new ideas of how to edit our sequence as we had done all the continuity shots. In this week we saw an opening sequence from a foreign french film called Meserine. All of our group were really inspired by this opening as it was simple but yet very effective.
As we had gotten very inspired by this sequence we decided to use the same concept for our opening sequence and put our own spin on it. This was convenient for us as a majority of our sequence was of our main character walking through London which the audience would start to find boring and loose interest in.
We were able to corporate the same effect of shots as we had taken multiple shots of the same action. We came in handy as it was vital for us to achieve the same look as Mesrine. Although we did have more than one shot type for the same action, if we had decided to use the Mesrine style of opening our sequence initially we would have been able to achieve the style better by possibly using more than one camera at the same time when shooting.
Having now officially determined to use this style for opening our sequence. We had got taught how to exactly do the method of split screening, which is the style of the Mesrine. This process was easier than it looked. We had done the split screen on Final Cut so we didn't need to transfer shots we just worked with the current shots on the timeline. I am glad to say that i thought that I thought I took a handle to doing the split screening well. As other members of my group had done and were doing the editing and felt more comfortable doing that instead.
Saturday 11 February 2012
Week 6 February 6th-10th
Editing 3
We have now got all of our shots planned in the right place on the timeline, it was now time to start doing the proper editing.
As we didn't really know where to start our editing as we had so many thought the logical thing that we decided to do was to start at the beginning of the sequence.
We had began with doing the continuity shot first along the sequence. Very early into the editing we hit a problem as we had realised one of the good continuity shot that we had of our character crossing a road had an implication to it. We had realised that in one shot there was a car and in the next when the tramp is crossing the car turns into a bicycle. We had spent a while trying to figure out what we could do to over come this and got teachers opinions. One of the alternatives was that we could have a blackout,with a credit or title name, in the exact moment when the car turn into a bike.
Once we had thought of all the alternatives to this situation we decided to move on to another part of the sequence as we were spending a lot of time on one part when there was still a lot more to still edit. We were going to come back to that problem with a fresh mind and new solution.
As we had shown our teacher what we had done so far, we came across a smaller problem as one of the extras in the sequence looked straight at the camera and we were unable to use that shot. We needed to look at the other alternative shots which we were going to now use.
By the end of the week we had began to get frustrated as we had hit a dead end to where to continue with the editing so we had thought of only editing certain bits of the sequence that we wanted to instead of doing it in a particular order.
HALF TERM
When we get back...
We have now got all of our shots planned in the right place on the timeline, it was now time to start doing the proper editing.
As we didn't really know where to start our editing as we had so many thought the logical thing that we decided to do was to start at the beginning of the sequence.
We had began with doing the continuity shot first along the sequence. Very early into the editing we hit a problem as we had realised one of the good continuity shot that we had of our character crossing a road had an implication to it. We had realised that in one shot there was a car and in the next when the tramp is crossing the car turns into a bicycle. We had spent a while trying to figure out what we could do to over come this and got teachers opinions. One of the alternatives was that we could have a blackout,with a credit or title name, in the exact moment when the car turn into a bike.
Once we had thought of all the alternatives to this situation we decided to move on to another part of the sequence as we were spending a lot of time on one part when there was still a lot more to still edit. We were going to come back to that problem with a fresh mind and new solution.
As we had shown our teacher what we had done so far, we came across a smaller problem as one of the extras in the sequence looked straight at the camera and we were unable to use that shot. We needed to look at the other alternative shots which we were going to now use.
By the end of the week we had began to get frustrated as we had hit a dead end to where to continue with the editing so we had thought of only editing certain bits of the sequence that we wanted to instead of doing it in a particular order.
HALF TERM
When we get back...
Saturday 28 January 2012
Week 4 January 23rd-27th
Editing 1
This was our first week back once having filmed our sequence.
In this week we had uploaded our footage which was just over an hour long, as we had shot multiple versions of each shot.
When uploading our footage we had a few problems as our group was unaware of the fact that the computer we upload our fottage on was the computer that we needed to so everything on such as editing, sound ect. As a result of this we ended up with uploading our footage twice on a different computer that we were able to have easier access to.
Once having our footage on the computer we briefly looked through all of it to refresh our
minds of everything we had shot and to cut out all of the unnessersary fottage that was previously on the tape.We then began to start cutting everything down into each of their shots. This enabled us to move shots around easily.
This was our first week back once having filmed our sequence.
In this week we had uploaded our footage which was just over an hour long, as we had shot multiple versions of each shot.
When uploading our footage we had a few problems as our group was unaware of the fact that the computer we upload our fottage on was the computer that we needed to so everything on such as editing, sound ect. As a result of this we ended up with uploading our footage twice on a different computer that we were able to have easier access to.
Once having our footage on the computer we briefly looked through all of it to refresh our
minds of everything we had shot and to cut out all of the unnessersary fottage that was previously on the tape.We then began to start cutting everything down into each of their shots. This enabled us to move shots around easily.
Thursday 26 January 2012
Sunday 22 January 2012
Weekend January 21st-22nd
Shooting
This weekend we had shot our opening sequence in London. It was good fun but long and tiring to get everything shot in one day.
We started off with meeting at 10am at Morden Station to all travel up together.
The first location that we started with was at the steps outside Waterloo Station. We had started to film here at 11am, this is where we were filming the first shots from our storyboard. When shooting these shots we had to wait for a crowd of people to walk down the steps out of Waterloo so that we could descise our main character within them people. This was very time consuming as the people weren't coming out of the station in consecutive times. When waiting in between the crowds of people walking out we took the opportunity to shoot different angles of the initial shots we had taken.
We had set up a tripod at this location as were prepared for when people were due to arrive to come out of the station. As our camera screen was faulty and broken, Ella, our camera person, had to manually take certain shots particularly low angle shots. This was a problem that we had throughout the day.
From here we filmed Jack's journey to the next location. Most of these shots were taken only a few yards away from Waterloo Station steps. we shot his journey of him walking across roads, under a bridge and asking people for money, as a Tramp would.
This then lead us onto our next location which was the stairs leading on to the Millenium Bridge, which was our up coming location. We had set up a tripod at these stairs also as there weren't as many shots we needed to take. By this time 3 hours had past and our actors and crew had frozen, so we decided to take a short break at south bank centre. Whilst we had this break we organised what were doing for the rest of the day.
Mid afternoon and we were at Millennium Bridge. We were at the bridge for quite some time as we were taking lots of different shots and we needed to wait a few times for all the people to pass, as this is one of the busiest areas in London.
We had then taken the train to Piccadilly Circus where we filmed all of the map shots of Jack.
From Piccadilly we had moved to Trafalgar Square where most of our shooting got done as this was the location where most of the action was. It was now that we had used Patrick to be our suspicious man.
Westminster was one of the last places that we were shooting. By this time it was starting to get dark and we were concerned that when editing it wouldn't look as though our character had been walking throughout the day.
Our final location was an underpass by waterloo station. This is where we got to experiment with shots that we took through a mirror reflection on the wall.
Friday 20 January 2012
Week 3 January 16th-20th
This week has been extremely productive as many of the problems from the previous week have been resolved and many ideas have changed.
As we had been contemplating for a while weather to use the shed in our opening sequence.
We all researched into possible locations. The shed was a serious consideration to our story but unfortunately we were unable to find a shed that was suitable. The shed also need to be by an alley so it would have looked as though there was good continuity when we were going to film and edit the footage. Looking at the idea now it does seem to be very unrealistic but at the time we thought that there may possibly been a place that was like the one we had imagined for our opening sequence. As a result of this we decided to also not use the dog in our sequence. As both of these were interlinked with each other in our story.
From everything that has happened this week, we have progressed our plans quickly as now we are going to film our opening sequence this weekend. We had spent many days, lunches and after schools planning what we needed to do to make the plans for shooting organised and efficient. We had made sure our storyboard was correct and with their additional shots, done a shooting schedule, call sheet, props list, a remember list and prompted our actors of time, location and attire. I am very excited as we shifted our idea on post it notes into filming this weekend!!
As we had been contemplating for a while weather to use the shed in our opening sequence.
We all researched into possible locations. The shed was a serious consideration to our story but unfortunately we were unable to find a shed that was suitable. The shed also need to be by an alley so it would have looked as though there was good continuity when we were going to film and edit the footage. Looking at the idea now it does seem to be very unrealistic but at the time we thought that there may possibly been a place that was like the one we had imagined for our opening sequence. As a result of this we decided to also not use the dog in our sequence. As both of these were interlinked with each other in our story.
From everything that has happened this week, we have progressed our plans quickly as now we are going to film our opening sequence this weekend. We had spent many days, lunches and after schools planning what we needed to do to make the plans for shooting organised and efficient. We had made sure our storyboard was correct and with their additional shots, done a shooting schedule, call sheet, props list, a remember list and prompted our actors of time, location and attire. I am very excited as we shifted our idea on post it notes into filming this weekend!!
Wednesday 18 January 2012
Casting
The casting process for our group was slightly easy as we were constantly thinking of people who would suit the character best when storyboarding. The people below are people that we had looked at casting for certain characters and the actual actors that we chosen to play certain roles.
Jack English
16 years old
Jack was a person that we casted for the role of the Tramp. We had chosen Jack because he fitted the criteria that we were looking for within the character and as an actor. Jack was a reliable person that we could use on the day. He was also very easy to obtain, as we were going to be walking around London all day. He was also a person that we were able to direct to do certain things.
Patrick Hunt
16 years old
Patrick is someone that we casted to play the suspicious person in our opening sequence. The reasons that patrick appealed to us as a group was because he was a reliable person that we knew was going to be efficient, on time and easy to co-operate with. Patrick wasn't ideal in the way we looked for us, as he has a happy friendly and approachable face. but his face wasn't going to be shown only the shadow of his body was going to be seen. We will be able to dress patrick in costume that would make him look more suspicious. This was by wearing a hat or hooded top so that his face and eyes were not revealed.
Meggy
Meggy is a dog that we thought we could use when we had our initial idea of the Tram and Dog. Meggy was an extraordinary dog as she was was trained to do a variety of different things. This was the reason that we thought the dog idea would be possible as Meggy was able to track a certain trail and open a door with her nose.
Matt was the person that we were considering to use as a voice over that were we wanted at the beginning of the sequence. Matt was a fitting person for this as he had a neutral voice. He was also very well spoken, which was good for us as this contrasted the look of the sterotypical tramp. His voice would give the character of the Tramp more depth.
Harry Young
16 years old
Harry was one of the people that we wanted to play the Tramp in the story. We thought that Harry would be ideal for this role as he was very confident in playing such a character and walking around London. We also thought that Harry would be easy to dress in a Tramp style as we would be able to deskise his face with his hair and the fact that he is big and broad. We were unable to see if Harry was available when we needed him and if he was reliable to get to places in time and efficiently.
Harry was also a person that we considered to use for the voice over. We were thinking that we could do the stereotypical voice a husky, deep and rugged voice for the Tramp character.
Jack English
16 years old
Jack was a person that we casted for the role of the Tramp. We had chosen Jack because he fitted the criteria that we were looking for within the character and as an actor. Jack was a reliable person that we could use on the day. He was also very easy to obtain, as we were going to be walking around London all day. He was also a person that we were able to direct to do certain things.
16 years old
Patrick is someone that we casted to play the suspicious person in our opening sequence. The reasons that patrick appealed to us as a group was because he was a reliable person that we knew was going to be efficient, on time and easy to co-operate with. Patrick wasn't ideal in the way we looked for us, as he has a happy friendly and approachable face. but his face wasn't going to be shown only the shadow of his body was going to be seen. We will be able to dress patrick in costume that would make him look more suspicious. This was by wearing a hat or hooded top so that his face and eyes were not revealed.
Meggy is a dog that we thought we could use when we had our initial idea of the Tram and Dog. Meggy was an extraordinary dog as she was was trained to do a variety of different things. This was the reason that we thought the dog idea would be possible as Meggy was able to track a certain trail and open a door with her nose.
Matthew Britton
16 years old
Matt was the person that we were considering to use as a voice over that were we wanted at the beginning of the sequence. Matt was a fitting person for this as he had a neutral voice. He was also very well spoken, which was good for us as this contrasted the look of the sterotypical tramp. His voice would give the character of the Tramp more depth.
16 years old
Harry was one of the people that we wanted to play the Tramp in the story. We thought that Harry would be ideal for this role as he was very confident in playing such a character and walking around London. We also thought that Harry would be easy to dress in a Tramp style as we would be able to deskise his face with his hair and the fact that he is big and broad. We were unable to see if Harry was available when we needed him and if he was reliable to get to places in time and efficiently.
Harry was also a person that we considered to use for the voice over. We were thinking that we could do the stereotypical voice a husky, deep and rugged voice for the Tramp character.
Monday 16 January 2012
Locations
Filming in London
These are the locations in London which we are going to be shooting at.
These are the locations in London which we are going to be shooting at.
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| Waterloo Station |
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| Millennium Bridge Stairs |
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| Millennium Bridge |
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| Millennium Bridge |
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| Piccadilly Circus |
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| Trafalgar Square |
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| Trafalgar Square Olympic Countdown |
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| Westminster Abbey |
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| Big Ben |
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| Underpass by Waterloo |
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| Tunnel in Underpass |
Sunday 15 January 2012
Week 2 January 9th-13th
Group Meeting 2
This week we continued to storyboard our ideas. A lot of discussion has happened this week about the shed. We have all been contemplating about this as it doesn't seem to be very realistic. Although it was my idea to used the shed I understand that it wonit be possible as we have all been looking at different locations for a shed and aren't able to find many. The only shed we did find was a garden shed which was ideal. I found this discussion hard as I liked the idea but if its not possible it can not be done. We had looked at alternatives of the shed. One of which was to have it written in chalk either on a concrete ground or wall. But to do this we would have had to find a place which is isolated because not everyone would be able to see this futuristic map. Another alternative that was suggested was to have the map drawn on the back of the cardboard that the tramp has as his home. I liked this idea slightly more but again the story of a tramp of finding a map on something he has had for a while seemed unidealistic. This was a problem which we didn't know how to resolve. As this map was a major part of our story.
Someone suggested that the tramp could have a dog. It seemed like a rediculous idea but i really good one. Many tramps have dogs which makes our character seem more authentic and would give our tramp more character. We then thought that this dog could be useful within our story and the tramp would follow his dog who has run from him into a shed which leads on to how the tramp found the map.
I thought that this map, which we have now classified to be called a 'crime map' as no one knew what to call it, could have pictures on it from the future. As we wanted our story to have some element of the future in it. I understood that this could be difficult to do but not impossible. As we also wanted some of our opening to be located in London we thought that the pictures could be set in London. This sparked up many different thoughts on the types of shot we could get.
In this week one of the days Ella was unable to attend the meeting as she was having an exam. We discussed as a group before that we wouldn't storyboard or making any changes without Ella's contribution in this particular meeting. In that lesson we thought that we could create our group blog instead. This took Tom, Sam and I a long time to create as we were responsible for the production name. After many strange and interesting attempts to think of names for our group we resulted in using Google to help us. In the end we ended up with Aftershock! Productions, which than. We then continued to making our blog page and site.
This week we continued to storyboard our ideas. A lot of discussion has happened this week about the shed. We have all been contemplating about this as it doesn't seem to be very realistic. Although it was my idea to used the shed I understand that it wonit be possible as we have all been looking at different locations for a shed and aren't able to find many. The only shed we did find was a garden shed which was ideal. I found this discussion hard as I liked the idea but if its not possible it can not be done. We had looked at alternatives of the shed. One of which was to have it written in chalk either on a concrete ground or wall. But to do this we would have had to find a place which is isolated because not everyone would be able to see this futuristic map. Another alternative that was suggested was to have the map drawn on the back of the cardboard that the tramp has as his home. I liked this idea slightly more but again the story of a tramp of finding a map on something he has had for a while seemed unidealistic. This was a problem which we didn't know how to resolve. As this map was a major part of our story.
Someone suggested that the tramp could have a dog. It seemed like a rediculous idea but i really good one. Many tramps have dogs which makes our character seem more authentic and would give our tramp more character. We then thought that this dog could be useful within our story and the tramp would follow his dog who has run from him into a shed which leads on to how the tramp found the map.
I thought that this map, which we have now classified to be called a 'crime map' as no one knew what to call it, could have pictures on it from the future. As we wanted our story to have some element of the future in it. I understood that this could be difficult to do but not impossible. As we also wanted some of our opening to be located in London we thought that the pictures could be set in London. This sparked up many different thoughts on the types of shot we could get.
In this week one of the days Ella was unable to attend the meeting as she was having an exam. We discussed as a group before that we wouldn't storyboard or making any changes without Ella's contribution in this particular meeting. In that lesson we thought that we could create our group blog instead. This took Tom, Sam and I a long time to create as we were responsible for the production name. After many strange and interesting attempts to think of names for our group we resulted in using Google to help us. In the end we ended up with Aftershock! Productions, which than. We then continued to making our blog page and site.
Sunday 8 January 2012
Week 1 January 4th-6th
Group Meeting 1
Once having been put into our group we all shared our initial ideas from the storyboards we all had done individually. This enabled us a starting point to get ideas from. The first decision we made after this was on the genre of our opening sequence. As a whole we all had the same thought of having a genre that wasn't very common or had been done before by a previous group. This lead onto us listing all the genres we could think of and using the process of elimination to narrow down our options. We ended up with crime and sci-fi (futuristic). From having these two genres we got inspiration from the opening sequence of 'Children of Men' a futuristic film that we were all familiar with. This concluded us to have sci-fi as our genre. This was a very hard genre to identify for us as we all had thought of different storylines which we didn't know fitted into to any particular genre.
We all liked to include certain things within our opening sequence so we wrote a few of them down. These included, a voiceover, which Ella suggested as she got the inspiration from Gone Baby Gone. This was an idea that I really liked as I think that voiceovers can be really effective and its a way that we could introduce our main character. As our genre is going to be sci-fi and we got the inspiration from Children of Men, we started to think of stories which could have some sense of the the future in it. This got us thinking of all the different techniques that we could use the make our opening sequence look realistic. We then realised that this might not be very practical or doable for us. We thought that we could include the future into our opening sequence in a subtler way. Ella thought of an idea from a previous group that we had seen using some sort of map, which was very well done in their film and looked very good. The group really liked this idea and thought it would be an idea we could use. The map could possibly be a way we could create our credits.
Our main idea now is this map, which we imagined to be like one that you could get at the police station for investigations which has string, pins and pictures which looks quite complex. At this point we still don't know what is to be on the map. Moving away from the map we decided to think about our characters. We thought that someone could discover this map somewhere and use the information on it to their advantage. This is now the main bases of our story. Sam suggested that our main character, who we decided to be male, to be a tramp to make the story more interesting. The group loved this idea as it gave our story more depth, interest and certainly enigma. As we now have the main character we all started to think of the different actors that we new would be suited for this role and would be able to be confident enough and fearless to play this role. We all discussed a few people that we all new and noted them down for later. This struck many new ideas, Tom thought of the man being in an alley at the start. I didn't like this idea at first as I thought it didn't seem very interesting but as we started to plan some shots, the idea of an alley was good because our story seemed to be complicated so to have a simplistic location was better. Sam had suggested a sound bridge which is also in Children of Men which was also a good idea for the stories we were thinking of.
As we now had many ideas that we were all in agreement of using in our opening sequence we started to storyboard. We had done our storyboard on pos-it notes as it was easier for all of us to rearrange and adjust any shots and it was clearer to see all the shots laid out on the table. When we were first writing ideas we thought that one of the locations of our opening sequence could possibly in London.
I think for a first meeting we got a lot of things done even though at the start it took us a while to think of our genre. but i feel vey confident within our group that we will get things done efficiently. Now having had the first meeting I know my group a little more, so I know how well we all co-operate with each other and how we all voice our opinions in different ways.
Once having been put into our group we all shared our initial ideas from the storyboards we all had done individually. This enabled us a starting point to get ideas from. The first decision we made after this was on the genre of our opening sequence. As a whole we all had the same thought of having a genre that wasn't very common or had been done before by a previous group. This lead onto us listing all the genres we could think of and using the process of elimination to narrow down our options. We ended up with crime and sci-fi (futuristic). From having these two genres we got inspiration from the opening sequence of 'Children of Men' a futuristic film that we were all familiar with. This concluded us to have sci-fi as our genre. This was a very hard genre to identify for us as we all had thought of different storylines which we didn't know fitted into to any particular genre.
We all liked to include certain things within our opening sequence so we wrote a few of them down. These included, a voiceover, which Ella suggested as she got the inspiration from Gone Baby Gone. This was an idea that I really liked as I think that voiceovers can be really effective and its a way that we could introduce our main character. As our genre is going to be sci-fi and we got the inspiration from Children of Men, we started to think of stories which could have some sense of the the future in it. This got us thinking of all the different techniques that we could use the make our opening sequence look realistic. We then realised that this might not be very practical or doable for us. We thought that we could include the future into our opening sequence in a subtler way. Ella thought of an idea from a previous group that we had seen using some sort of map, which was very well done in their film and looked very good. The group really liked this idea and thought it would be an idea we could use. The map could possibly be a way we could create our credits.
Our main idea now is this map, which we imagined to be like one that you could get at the police station for investigations which has string, pins and pictures which looks quite complex. At this point we still don't know what is to be on the map. Moving away from the map we decided to think about our characters. We thought that someone could discover this map somewhere and use the information on it to their advantage. This is now the main bases of our story. Sam suggested that our main character, who we decided to be male, to be a tramp to make the story more interesting. The group loved this idea as it gave our story more depth, interest and certainly enigma. As we now have the main character we all started to think of the different actors that we new would be suited for this role and would be able to be confident enough and fearless to play this role. We all discussed a few people that we all new and noted them down for later. This struck many new ideas, Tom thought of the man being in an alley at the start. I didn't like this idea at first as I thought it didn't seem very interesting but as we started to plan some shots, the idea of an alley was good because our story seemed to be complicated so to have a simplistic location was better. Sam had suggested a sound bridge which is also in Children of Men which was also a good idea for the stories we were thinking of.
I think for a first meeting we got a lot of things done even though at the start it took us a while to think of our genre. but i feel vey confident within our group that we will get things done efficiently. Now having had the first meeting I know my group a little more, so I know how well we all co-operate with each other and how we all voice our opinions in different ways.
Saturday 7 January 2012
Preliminary Task Evaluation
Areas that were were proud of in our Camera exercise;
The areas that I was particularly proud of in the exercise were the close ups of the cards that were being played. This is because of the angles and good use of lighting. I also like the combination of whip pan shots as I thought the length of them were just right. Lastly I was proud of the reverse angle of the teacher walking in the room as the timing in the editing was perfect.
Areas that needed improvement
The areas that I thought we could improve on were the shots of the teacher. I thought the Mise-en-Sence could have been better and I thought that we could have used more shots of the teacher and a few more interesting angle shots.
In the Preliminary task we were proud of;
In the Preliminary task there were certain areas that u was particularly proud of, these are areas such as; some of the shots that I took (close ups of door lock, steady tracking). I was also proud of certain fragments in the task where I felt the continuity editing were very god as, the transition from one shot to another was un-noticeable, which was the ultimate goal that my group had.
Areas that needed some improvements for the Foundation exercise
The areas which I think we could improve on in the Foundation exercise would be the clearness of the dialogue as it was very windy and difficult to hear. The transition from a few of the shots were unintentionally jumpy and could be smoother. to make sure all shots are 100% in focus. If we were to have more time to ass sound to the extract.
The areas that I was particularly proud of in the exercise were the close ups of the cards that were being played. This is because of the angles and good use of lighting. I also like the combination of whip pan shots as I thought the length of them were just right. Lastly I was proud of the reverse angle of the teacher walking in the room as the timing in the editing was perfect.
Areas that needed improvement
The areas that I thought we could improve on were the shots of the teacher. I thought the Mise-en-Sence could have been better and I thought that we could have used more shots of the teacher and a few more interesting angle shots.
In the Preliminary task we were proud of;
In the Preliminary task there were certain areas that u was particularly proud of, these are areas such as; some of the shots that I took (close ups of door lock, steady tracking). I was also proud of certain fragments in the task where I felt the continuity editing were very god as, the transition from one shot to another was un-noticeable, which was the ultimate goal that my group had.
Areas that needed some improvements for the Foundation exercise
The areas which I think we could improve on in the Foundation exercise would be the clearness of the dialogue as it was very windy and difficult to hear. The transition from a few of the shots were unintentionally jumpy and could be smoother. to make sure all shots are 100% in focus. If we were to have more time to ass sound to the extract.
'Have you fed the fish?'
The Preliminary task of 'Have you fed the fish?' was a very good experience for me, personally, as someone who hasn't done media before. I got to work in a group of 4 which included Anna Wylde, Lucy Findlater and Catherine Haggerty and myself.
Our group took the title 'Have you fed the fish?' and turned it into our individual idea of something that would seem like a drug deal. As we now had the core of our story this then lead us onto the actors, Mise En Sene and location. The actors were played by our very own Lucy Findlater, Person A or in our storyline the drug dealer and Anna Wylde, Person B, the innocent looking messenger. Whilst we were planning our story our thoughts on location were different but when it came to filming the location that we had originally thought of was not open on a Sunday. This was our only major issue that arose when filming so we then quickly came up with an alternative location. The location that we did film at was on the roof and in the warehouse of Tudor Williams (a department store) in New Malden. We thought that not only would this be a good isolated place for the story but a great place that we could get particular shots.
I was the person who was shooting this task which enabled me to do new things such as tracking, low angle shots and close ups. When shooting our initial idea was to use an elevator as a way Person B was going to meet Person A on the roof. When we got to the location we realised that may be a bit to complicated. Alternatively we got great shots of Anna walking into the building and coming up the stairs. Filming on the roof was a very significant as I think it was the main part of what made our task good. As we were at an excellent location we took advantage of it, by adding a few additional shots to the script we were given. These are shots such as the close ups of the door and a pan of the view on the roof overlooking New Malden. The only issues we had when filming on the roof was that it was windy. So the actor's voice was very hard to hear but nevertheless the audience could hear it enough to understand what was being said. Another issue that arose was that the camera battery which we were filming on died but luckily our group came prepared and had two other camera's available for back up.
The editing process took just as long as the shooting did, which was to be expected. The editing was a combination of all four of our work, thoughts and opinions. It was the first time I had formally edited. I found it very enjoyable as its what makes the task. When editing we were able to manipulate shots to specific timing, speeds and lighting. When filming we did the same shots a few times to enable us to get the best shot and I think this really helped us in editing because we were able to clearly see which shots were better than others and were able to used.
The best bits of the Preliminary task was firstly working with the group that I was with. This was because we all had the same vision in mind so were all able to put in a lot of effort to make this task good as we could make it. Also everyone contributed so everyone was able to put their opinions forward. Secondly, the shots that I really like within the task was the close up of door lock when Anna is entering the building. I really like this shot as the door lock is the only part of the shot that is in sharply in focus. Because the framing was so compact in this shot its only when you see Anna opening the door you realise what it is. I also think the timing of the editing was perfect in that particular shot.
The improvements that I would make to this task would be to check if the location that we wanted to film at is readily available and open. I would have liked to make some of the cuts between each shot a smoother transition as it seems sometimes slightly jumpy.
Overall I felt that as a group we worked very hard and put in a lot of effort with finding an unusual location. I think our effort have been reflected in this task and as a first attempt of shooting an extract I think ours was very good.
Response to Group choice
This week we got put into our groups and I was very pleased with the group i had been put with as they were all people I wanted to work with- my group consists of Ella Baker, Tom Malins and Sam Haines. I know that they all have very good and interesting ideas and aren't afraid to share them. This was one of the many reasons that I chose these three people. I look forward to planning and filming the opening sequence with them.
Wednesday 4 January 2012
Introduction to Project
My name is Madihah Culasy, I am currently studying A Level Media Studies at Coombe Sixth Form. I did not take Media Studies for GCSE and this is my first experience of being in media and I am already really enjoying it.
Through this blog you will be able to see and track all of the research, planning and editing. You will be able to see my comments and opinions throughout the process of making my opening sequence. I look forward to shooting and making an idea come to life. I hope you enjoy.
Through this blog you will be able to see and track all of the research, planning and editing. You will be able to see my comments and opinions throughout the process of making my opening sequence. I look forward to shooting and making an idea come to life. I hope you enjoy.
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