Week 1
In the first week of media our teacher was telling the class what our project was for the next few weeks would be. He put us into groups of 3/4; I was in a group of 3 with Yashna and Zabi. Our preliminary task was to make a short clip with a small amount of dialogue which had to include specific types of shots for example; shot reverse shot and match on action, also we were not allowed to break the 180° rule. Our teacher showed us the previous years' work to give us an idea on what to do. We only had 45 minutes to film and edit our clip. We all came up with the ideas and the dialogue for our short clip, after we did this we made a storyboard to show our task. I decided to film as the other two members in my group were acting, we actually didn't have to film that many times to get the shot right apart from match on action as I wasn't aware on how to film that exactly also we had to get the positioning of the character right. After we finished filming we started to editing, we all participated in editing the clip and we had to make sure all the shots accurate. Last year when I edited my production in media we used the old version of Final Cut Pro which I was familiar with however this year Final Cut Pro had a newer version which was actually easier to use but first I had to learn where all the tools were for example: blade.
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Week 2
In the beginning of week two, we finished of our
preliminary task and moved on to our next task. Our next task was to make a
opening of a new fiction film for two minutes which had to be our own original
idea. We started to look at variety of different opening scenes from different
movies and analysed them to get an idea on how to do our film opening. We saw
different techniques used in each film, for example we look at the pace of the
film Trainspotting and we saw that the chase scene was fast pace. We also
looked at voice overs in films and saw that every word chosen had to be
effective and the voice used had to sound professional. We also looked at
montage sequence - this is a technique in film editing in which a series of
short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information.
After we looked at different film openings we had to think about our
storyline. In our groups we started to think about the genre and we wanted to
do something with spies and agents. Our two main inspirations came from Salt
and The Tourist.
Next week's goal:
- Make sure I have a rough idea for the film opening including genre/main plot/characters
Next week's goal:
- Make sure I have a rough idea for the film opening including genre/main plot/characters
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Week 3
In week three we started looking at similar products and we had to think of 4 films similar to our idea. After thinking of the four films we took screenshots of selected scenes to analyse. I analysed two films called The Enemy of the State and The Tourist. I spoke about the screenshots and how they could give ideas for our film opening and how we could portray something similar in our own production. The other two people in my group; Yashna and Zabi analysed one film each so we had four films overall.
Next lesson we started to think about questions for our survey that we would hand out to people so we can find out information such as: who is our main target audience, what do they prefer to see and so on. When I got home I put everything onto me Weebly site and added some more description and changed some analysis made to the screenshots to make them more detailed. Yashna and I started to think of 10 questions related to our film opening.
Next week's goal:
- Make a survey which can be handed out to 30 people
- Collect the results and make graphs to represent the results
- Analyse the results
Next lesson we started to think about questions for our survey that we would hand out to people so we can find out information such as: who is our main target audience, what do they prefer to see and so on. When I got home I put everything onto me Weebly site and added some more description and changed some analysis made to the screenshots to make them more detailed. Yashna and I started to think of 10 questions related to our film opening.
Next week's goal:
- Make a survey which can be handed out to 30 people
- Collect the results and make graphs to represent the results
- Analyse the results
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Week 4
In week four, I made a questionnaire for people to fill
out which would also help us with our film opening ideas. Once we collected the
results and I made graphs to illustrate our results and wrote paragraphs
underneath each graph explaining them
and how they could help us in our own film opening. After looking at our results our ideas started
changing as we thought of new ways to improve our opening. Next lesson we had
to make sure our ideas for our film opening were in place so we could present our
work to our class to get feedback from them. We were given allocated roles within our group;
my role was start and plan the storyboard. At the end of the week I had to make
sure everything was on our planning page and that is was completed and made
sure our questionnaire was uploaded with the results and the analysis.
Next week's goal:
- Think of costume and props
- Do a storyboard, draft
Next week's goal:
- Think of costume and props
- Do a storyboard, draft
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Week 5
In week five, I started to plan and think about the
costumes and setting/location. I started to plan what the costumes would be
worn throughout the opening and I analysed them to show why I chose those
specific items and clothing, I also had to do the props and say why these were
the props used, this had to be completed as we decided to film next week as we
had half term. Afterwards I was
looking at places to film and I chose Vauxhall as it had the S.I.S building and
Hyde Park which would be useful in our production. Last week I attempted our draft storyboard
but as we slightly adjusted our ideas I had to change bits on the draft
storyboard and make sure it was drawn by the end of the lesson and had a small
paragraph below each shot to describe what's happening there.
Next week's goal:
- Do neat storyboard
- Make a script
- Start filming
Next week's goal:
- Do neat storyboard
- Make a script
- Start filming
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Week 6
In week six,
we decided to film as it was half term. We decided to meet up and film on
Monday and Tuesday and go to London. We went to Hyde Park however, when we got
there it wasn't as busy as we expected it to be plus there was a lot of
construction work going on. We started to walk around London looking for a new
location and we found the Victoria Memorial monument outside Buckingham palace which
was suitable for our film opening as it was a busy area, nearby there was a
park called Green Park which we could use instead; this park was effective as
there was a station two minutes away and as Buckingham palace and the Victoria
Memorial monument is a tourist attraction it was very busy. We started to
change our ideas due to the difficulties we had. Later that day we finally got
our idea for our film opening sorted and
I started to draw the draft storyboard. Later I drew an overview of the film to
give us a rough idea on what we will be filming this also routed out where we
will be filming before we go and film. We went on Tuesday to Green Park
and started to film, we all had our own roles, for example: Yashna was the
suspect, Zabi was one of the agents and I was filming and directing. We got majority
of our shots done and all we had to do was wait till we get back to school so
we could look at them and see if we had to film again.
Next week's goals:
- Look at the clips and see which ones we like
- Start editing the clips
Next week's goals:
- Look at the clips and see which ones we like
- Start editing the clips
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Week 7
In week seven, we got back to school and we started to look
at the clips we had taken and looked at the ones we liked and didn't like. Looking at the
clips took a while as we had filmed a lot over the half term. We started to put the clips in order so
we could see how they looked together, this helped us realise what didn't look
right and what shots we have to re-do. Yashna and I were doing this whilst
Zabi was looking for a suitable soundtrack for our film opening. Next lesson we
carried on doing what we did the previous day. Yashna and I then realised we
had to go re-film the Green Park scene as we weren't too happy with it, we all
sat down and came up with a plan for next week on exactly what we were going to
be doing when we would go and film and what exact shots had to be re-done.
Next week's goal:
- Do voice overs
- Find soundtrack
- Edit more of the film opening
Next week's goal:
- Do voice overs
- Find soundtrack
- Edit more of the film opening
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Week 8
In week eight, we carried on editing the first minute of our opening, however we all had our full attention on the script and the voice overs. We did a first attempt on the voice overs to see how they would fit into our film opening and how they looked, me and Yashna put the voice overs into Final Cut Pro and we liked the voice-over as it gave the opening a different atmosphere. Zabi was looking for soundtracks for our film, it was very difficult as we only had a selection of CD's as we had to make sure the soundtrack we used was copyright free, we all started to look for soundtracks as we all couldn't agree on one. We thought about going to film next week as we were all free, this time we had a benefit as we knew what to film and also last time we didn't have a tripod but this week we did; this was an advantage as our shots would be steadier nevertheless the shots we took without the tripod were still effective.
Next week's goals:
- Film
- Draw neat storyboard and upload it
Next week's goals:
- Film
- Draw neat storyboard and upload it
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Week 9
In week nine, we uploaded the clips that we re-filmed and we replaced them with the original scenes that we had done over the weekend, however we didn't have access to the camcorder that we used originally so we had to use a different one, there was a slight problem with this as the footage taken on this camcorder wouldn't open on Final Cut Pro, this took ages as weren't able to change the file directly - this wasted about two lessons as the footage wasn't being recognised onto the Macs. Finally after this problem we got the clips onto the Macs and looked at all the scenes, we then watched the clips and put them together with the previous work to see how it looks. The disadvantage we had from uploading our video gave us limited time to edit the clips. Once we started to look at the film opening we realised the opening looked very repetitive with each character walking so we decided next lesson to change up and shorten the opening. The only problem with this was editing takes ages and the deadline is under two weeks.
Next week's goals:
- Edit clips
- Do voice overs again
Next week's goals:
- Edit clips
- Do voice overs again
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Week 10
In week ten, we had limited amount of time as we didn't have a lesson due to review day at school. This made us work harder in the lessons as we only had two lessons that week and only two the following week until our deadline. We started to stay after school to finish of the work we did in class. On Mondays lesson our teacher made everyone watch each groups film opening and say what we likes about it and what we could do to improve it; as we had slight difficulties with the camcorder we were slightly behind so when other groups watched our opening our main feedback was that the clips didn't flow also we got told the beginning of our film was good but the soundtrack should get faster earlier on within the opening rather near the end. We had to film one more scene as we weren't happy with the way the scene cut from one another, we added more of the Green Park scene where the agent is looking for the suspect. The following lesson after taking the advice from other groups we changed the soundtrack so it would get faster earlier on. However our task for this week was to do voice over but we didn't have enough time so we decided to move it to next week.
Next week's goals:
- Record voice overs
- Finish of editing
Next week's goals:
- Record voice overs
- Finish of editing
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Week 11
In week 11, we only had two lessons left to finish off our film opening. We were really stressed as we still didn't do our final voiceovers. In our first lesson we finished of recording the voice overs and put them into place as we changed our script because when we put the voiceovers in last week there were too many characters talking which made the opening a bit confusing for the audiences. That same lesson we carried on editing our opening and sorted out the soundtrack. Before the end of the lesson, we watched over our opening from the beginning to see if there was anything to be done, we also asked a few people including our teacher to watch our video and see if there was anything to be done. The following and final lesson we were just making sure everything was perfect and that the soundtrack pace increased without having a jump in the sound. Once everything was completed we were making sure that our Weebly sites were up to date then we were able to upload our film opening to Youtube then we put it up onto our websites.
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