CHRISTMAS HOLS

22ndDecember-5th January

Merry Christmas xxx

Shoot - more photos

Here are some photos from our shoot including photos of our cast and crew, behind the scenes, and screen snapshots to help when resetting a scene.

feedback notes continued....

If the girl bit is first the story will make much more sense and create more enigma, because the audience will think that the girl is talking to an agony aunt, which will be anchored by the text on screen of the illusive charcter 'julie' and then they will see that julie is in fact a man. This hopefully will provoke some sort of frightened emotion of shock.

We could show an establishing shot of her house (lauras will do fine) and then show her, so that everything is all happy and nice
and then the shots of his and the bungalow....showing the contrast
or we could have no house at all??

Editing stuff - feedback

i think that would make it clearer, but i suppose what we should do is try it where it shows her talking to "julie" and then show that to random people to get their opinions as to whether or not it makes sense.

About the "F word" - I KNOW!! im very confused, because if it was a certificate 18, then there definitely would be swearing, however, i suppose since it is a school project, the rules are different?

Try some different things, maybe swap the orders of the clips on another timeline or something...

Good luck!

Oh by the way, the film clip looks helpful, i like that film, but what language is it dubbed in?!?! Lol.

Laura

Computer Conversation 2

Something's Gotta Give

The computer conversation in "Something's Gotta Give" shows lots of good techniques like zooming in to the line as it's being typed, and cuts between expression and screen in a realistic way. We could easily try all this.

Feedback Feedback Conversation

Hello ill people, hope you're feeling better.
I agree that it doesn't make sense at the moment...it does look like her boyfriends and there isn't an indication that she thinks he's a woman...But when we do screen shots of typing and show "Julie" on screen won't this make it clearer? I don't know how to change this....if the girl bit is first how will it make it clearer? But we should try it anyway.
Also if we remove the "F word" from the line it sounds stupid - we deffinitely can't have it?? But it's a horror movie that would be an 18!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
More shots of King, yeah we were planning on doing that anyway.
And the briefcase bit we should try differently because it can go anywhere, really.


In this editing session, shall I try some new things? Can you give me some specific things to do and I'll try them? Or shall I just leave it.

Holly x x

BLK Feedback 12/12/08

I showed our media teacher our sequence so far, even though it was not the final order and we still have some things to film/re-shoot
here is what she had to say:

• The girls part must be first-the narrative and story doesn't make sense; it looks like she's talking to her boyfriend. She should be first with an establishing shot of her house
• NO swearing in the scrip - it's not appropriate
• The close ups of the knives should go later, after the men have got her address because the pace of the action is begins to pick up and so it would lead in nicely into the quick montage of the briefcase.
• Also the titles may not be needed to break up the shots in the briefcase; a montage may be enough

She told us that our shots were really good and of a high quality which is good, but when we re-shoot we should get some more shots of King from the angle which you can see him in the mirror, as it is a really creepy shot.

Overall positive comments which is really good, and I feel we are prepared for our re-shoot.

Conversations

Something I've noticed in watching film clips, and TV clips, is that when a conversation is happening, the camera isn't constantly on the person who is talking, it is also on the other person to see their reactions, while the first person is still talking. I think we should do this with ours because it makes it look more natural, and will show off our continuity skills.

Here is a film clip showing a conversation, which we can adapt by using cross-cutting, (shown in the film clip of "The Holiday" which is earlier on in our blog.)

Shooting script for Saturday 13th

Our shoot is scheduled for 10.30am - 4, on Saturday 13th December at my house. We will arrive at 10.30, King will arrive at 11 so that we are all set-up by the time he arrives. We need my Dad for one short scene (walking out of the cellar), so we will bring him downstairs to the cellar when he is needed. We need King, and Amelia, but we will do King's scenes first so that he can go, as Amelia has to be there the whole time anyway.

Location: Cellar

• King's lines from all the different angles (which will be decided on location)
• King retrieving the print out
• The two men leaving together
• Typing on the screen (King)

Location: My Bedroom

• Typing on the screen (Amelia)
• Re-shoot Amelia's OTS shot of her typing as it was on blogger and not our forum
• Shot of forum (can be done anywhere, but bedroom is easier as there is more room)

Hey guys, just thinking, since we need to do a group treatment, I've done an individual one, so what are your thoughts on it so we can make a group one and agree on a final idea? (It's on my blog btw)

X

Male actor number 2

Name: Kingsley Zachariah Ben-Adir

Age: 22

Height: 6ft?

Role: Man 1 (name tbc)

As mentionned before, King is an actual actor, so we are going to use this to our full potential and give him most of the lines.

Shoot 1 - feedback 4/12/08

Here is a summary of the feedback from Ms Thrasher of our first shoot.

1. Good attention to detail
2. Look at titling after you have edited and filmed your whole piece
3. Careful not to get bogged down by minute details
4. Don't run out of time
5. Maintain standard by planning

Overall lots of positive feedback, which makes us feel confident in our next shoot.

"Extremely well done!"

Male Actor number 1

Name: Rick Allen

Age: 53

Height: 6ft

Role: Man 2 (name tbc)

This is my dad, who has graciously stepped in to be one of our male actors, alongside Kingsley Zachariah Ben-Adir (a.k.a King). He won't have to do much as he will just be sharpening the knives and filling the briefcase, with one line of dialogue (as he's not an actor).

Our shoot - photographic evidence

These are some photos we took on our shoot. This is the creepy bungalow, but it was slightly too dark to actually film it, but I thought I'd upload a photo just to give an idea.




So that we could match shots if we needed to re-shoot anything, we took photos of the frames on our camera. Here are some I have included.





We thought this was a great idea as it makes it really easy to make the shot look the same because we have photographic evidence.

Looking forward to our second actual shoot, as we will have our male actors and it should be great!

Reflections of the Shoot

Shoot 1 - Saturday 29th November

What Went Wrong

• Amelia forgot to collect the equipment (tripod and boom pole) from Miss B after her French Oral. Fortunately, she picked it up the next morning and we had it on time for our shoot in the end.
• In our footage, on some shots the microphone picked up mobile signals and this can be heard. We didn't realise this would be recorded - however it is only on some shots that are not too important, and we can just cut them out.
• Planning - we didn't plan our shots out in a storyboard style; instead we just shot from every angle that everyone wanted to and it worked out pretty well. In our sequence we want a range of shots from a lot of angles to give the impression that the girl is being watched, but it was very tedious to shoot the same conversation over and over again! We now realise we need to start drafting storyboards and we are currently doing this in the form of post-it notes on sugar paper, so as to move them around in different orders.
• We couldn't decide whether to film with music from the iPod speakers, as originally agreed, or whether to add it in later. We tried it with various music tracks then disagreed about what song to use - some were too obviously depressing, others too happy. A Radiohead track called "Just" was the best, but after this we decided not to include music as the continuity would be hard to get right. We will deal with it this weekend.

What Went Well

• We managed to film all the shots we wanted for the girl's part, and the footage looks realistic and not too staged.
• We stayed within the time limit we had, even having lunch inbetween!
• All our equipment worked and was used to its full potential - there were no accidents or misplacing of items.
• Costume and make-up looked good. We actually used eyedrops to make Amelia look as though she was crying before every shot, which worked really well.
• Everyone was there on time and left at the same time, and our actor turned up with an open mind.
• We tested the script and found it to be good - it wasn't too cheesey, predictable or over the top.
• We communicated well with each other, and voiced our opinions without needing to be bossy or rude. This came up when talking about the music and everyone was very rational and decisive.
• We always thought of what was best for the group