Over the last few lessons we've been discussing how we can improve our film opening, suggesting ideas on what we will need to re film. We listened to some suggestions from the rest of the class, as Mark Remey believes 'listening' is one of the main ingredients we need in order to create a successful piece of work. He also says that A grades are virtually unachievable without 'organisation' and 'creativity', which I think our group is slowly achieving. Our day of filming was planned very carefully in order to maintain continuity, however there are still some things that we will need to do again despite our efforts. We really tried to be creative all coming up with some nice ideas like for example Valentina's idea of putting the camera in the fridge and my idea of throwing something over the camera to create a black out for a credit or title. Remey says "If I have to watch one more hooded psychopath chasing a victim around college corridors I am going to go mad", which is why we decided to do something a bit different and slightly more challenging.

Here is a video taken on the flip cam showing you our day of filming and our thought process behind certain ideas..

Here is what we've been working on in the last couple of lessons, as well as continuing with editing our film. Unfortunately the actual footage from the Sony camera got deleted which we were all really gutted about, however luckily we still had some footage taken on the flip camera and we managed to put together the clips in order to make a short film. We experimented with effects on imovie, such as using freeze frames, reversing the clips, speeding up and slowing down the clips and also we had a go at playing with the brightness and contrast of the clips, which we did right at the end for the credits.

Here's our second draft.



We spent Monday's lesson piecing together the rest of our film opening. Now that we have most of the shots put together we can start to look at things in more detail like audio and the credits. We are most likely going to have to shoot some more footage perhaps using a snorricam, which will be a good effect to use when I get out of bed, showing that I am still half asleep. As a group we discussed this idea, we would really like to try it, however we are worried about continuity, getting my hair and makeup the same, which will be difficult. Also we have to think about how we would make the snorricam, which we are hoping to do as a class. If I think of any idea's I'll post them on here.

A SnorriCam (also chestcam, bodymount camera, bodycam or bodymount) is a camera device used in film making that is rigged to the body of the actor, facing the actor directly, so when he walks, he does not appear to move, but everything around him does. A SnorriCam presents a dynamic point of view from the actor's perspective, providing an unusual sense of vertigo for the viewer.



Here are some pictures to help us think of ways to build one, although we wont be able to make anything quite as technical.

This one (above) looks quite strange however it is something more along the lines of what we are capable of making.

Friday's Lesson

In this lesson we went to the CLC centre where we learnt how to use the imovie software. Most of what we were shown we already knew like selecting clips and adding in credits. However there where some new tools which we didn't know about that we might like to use in our film opening.

We continued editing our film here is what we have done so far, however it is no where near finished yet.



There is still lots of work to be done. Eventually almost all of the clips will be muted with recorded sounds placed over the top, (like with the alarm clock which we've already done) this will cut out any background noise like the wind. Already our film is over 2 minutes long and this is not including the other filming we have done. We will have to trim a lot of the clips down, like for example the wardrobe shot, which is at the moment quite long. I really like how the music ended at the moment where I walk out of the house, the door closing behind me. This was not planned however we will probably keep this idea as it worked really nicely. We will also have to perhaps re film the very first shot of the alarm clock because the camera seems to be shaky. This is most likely down to the fact that we could not connect the camera to the tripod, due to leaving the attachment clip on the bus. This shouldn't be very difficult though, so we aren't at all worried. 

Monday's Lesson

In this lesson we began piecing together all the different shots we took while filming. We're all starting to get the hang of using imovie now, which is helpful as were able to work a lot quicker. There were still however a few things we were unsure about, for example how to create a freeze frame. Me and Charlotte decided to take a look on YouTube in order to find a tutorial showing us how to do it.


Here is the video we used to help us..

In today's lesson we watched the film Se7en, a crime, drama, mystery  and thriller, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. The film stars Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey.

I thought the film was very cleverly written and I really enjoyed watching it despite the fact that I get scared really easily. As a class we decided that we thought it was much better that the film didn't show much violence or gore, for example at the end it doesn't show the woman's head in the box. There have been debates as to whether this is a good thing or not, however we seemed to have more respect for the film because of this. We felt that there was no need for it, it seemed to have much more effect by keeping us, as viewers, in suspense. We discussed how people's interests in a particular genre always changes. This year it seems that people are more into comedies rather than thriller's or horror's which seemed to be more popular last year.

Watching the film seemed to be inspiration for us despite our genre being completely different. I found myself really looking at the camera angles and different shots. I particularly liked the scene where the officers eventually find where the killer lives and they see him with his groceries at the end of the corridor. The long shot of him down the corridor was really effective as when he pulls out the gun and shoots, it looks as though he is shooting at us, it certainly made me jump!

I also really liked the use of non-diegetic sound- the music. It created a very intense atmosphere especially when the music builds up, you automatically expect something scary or jumpy to happen.

Overall I really liked watching the film, particularly because it starred two of my favourite actors, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. Although the ending was really sad and quite disturbing I still thought it was a clever twist, it wasn't one of those annoying endings that has no conclusion or an anticlimax, it was written really well. I feel as though it will help me and my group with creating our film opening especially with the editing process.

Here are some pictures from the film, some more gory than others.

  

I thought that it was quite symbolic having the barrier in front of both the killers face and also sometimes in front of Brad Pitt's. However the barrier was never shown on Morgan Freeman's face. Perhaps this was done to show that the killer and brad pit will have more of a connection further on the film, which they did.

Monday's Lesson

In this lesson we imported all of our filming work off of the camera onto the apple mac computers so that we can begin to edit. We managed to watch through all of the clips, which made us feel a whole lot more confident about our work. We also came across some slight problems, for example why would there be a random person on someone's drive early in the morning. Charlotte was suppose to be my sister, however we didn't make this very clear when filming. We will have to perhaps record a voice over saying something like 'mum said don't forget to hang out the washing' to try and make it clearer. We could even add something into the credits perhaps saying..Starring Charlotte Earny playing sister. This could appear on the screen whilst the shot of her lying next to the cereal is playing. This will have to be something that we experiment with when editing.

Our day of filming over the half term..

Our day of filming was extremely long and tiring. We found continuity quite difficult and complicated. We decided not to film our opening in order because we knew some shots would need more time than others. We also wanted to wait for some sunshine for the outdoor shots which we luckily managed to get. Another reason was because for the shot when I wake up in the morning I'm suppose to have back-combed hair and smudged make up, therefore we left this till last in order to avoid wasting time trying to re-do my makeup and fix my hair.

Picture of me in my pyjamas, big messy hair and smudged mascara under my eyes..this was my costume for one of our shots..

We had some difficult shots to do for example the shot of the alarm clock flying out of the window. Obviously the only way to do this was by actually throwing it out of the window, however we had to avoid it getting broken so Valentina and Alice stood outside with a blanket ready to catch it, while Charlotte threw it and I filmed it.

Here is a video me and Charlotte made on imovie showing us practicing throwing lots of  different objects out of the window before attempting doing it with the clock.

Also the shot of Charlotte lying outside on the ground after being hit with the alarm clock was difficult as we had to make sure that she stayed in the same position for the sake of continuity. This meant that we had to film all the shots of her on the ground in one go leaving her lying in the same position for around 15 minutes.

As a group we made some unexpected decisions on the spot, for example at one point we asked a dustbin man to be in one of our shots. Luckily he was quite happy to join in and take part..thank you dustbin man! As a group whilst filming, lots of different ideas seemed to just come to us. We even at one point decided to put the camera into the fridge to film my hand accidentally taking out the orange juice instead of the milk. We liked the fact that there was darkness when eventually the fridge door closed, perhaps a space for us to put the title of our film opening or some credits.

Filming on the bus was also challenging. Unfortunately we were unable to use Valentina's dads bus meaning that the bus driver wasn't as nice as we'd hoped. However we still managed to do what we had to do, as luckily there were no passengers seated on the top floor of the bus. Keeping the camera steady was very difficult to do on the bus and so we decided to use the small gorilla tripod which we wrapped around the bar of one of the seats. This meant that the camera movement went with the suspension of the bus, which we thought added to the realism of the film. Acting wise, it was very difficult to keep a straight face for one of our last shots, however after a whole journey from Enfield Town to Brimsdown we managed to get at least one good shot. Also for one of our long distant shots we filmed from across the road, the bus driver thought it would be funny to wave at the camera and so this ruined our shot. Hopefully we'll be able to somehow edit the shot cropping that bit out.

We used lots of different types of shots, over head, under head, close ups, long distant shots etc. Although it was a very long day, filming from 10 am to 6pm, it was still really fun and a great experience. I think we worked really well as a group despite some slight disasters (leaving the tripod clip that connects the camera to the tripod on the bus). Considering we've never done anything like this before I think overall we did amazingly well.

After a hard days work..