Things we have to consider

Before we could even plan our film their are some things we need to consider the main thing is location this is our priority before anything else ad we cannot do anything without our location as this is a thriller the most obvious locations would be forests,graveyards,haunted house , old estate etc. As like I said these are the obvious ones my group decided to go with something else as we felt that everyone uses these ideas every year so we decided to go for a field and a office.

Other things we also have to consider are:

•  Lighting 
• Space
• The noise
• Can we get interesting shots
• Can we get a range of shots
• Be creative with it
• Interesting composition

One of the other the other things we have to consider is our safety we do not want to be doing nothing that's going to put us at risks by climbing tall buildings and running acre's train tracks just for a good shot.

Evaluation of our Preliminary Film

To be continued..

Adding sound and titles to our Preliminary film..

This week in Phil's lesson we begun the process of adding sound and titles to our preliminary film.
I really enjoyed this lesson as it gave us a chance to try out new pieces of sound to add to our film, we decided to choose sound which we thought would go perfectly with our film. When choosing the sound to use we wanted the sound to be realistic so we tried getting the right sound for each part in the film, like when Jessica was walking to open the door we tried to get the right footsteps, that matched her shoes. I think we done a good job with the sound but for future refrence i think it would be a good idea to record the sound aswell, when we are filming our real film. When working with sound we used a programme called 'Soundtrack Pro,' just by looking at the name you assume using it is going to be hard, well thats what i thought but in actually fact it is not that hard to use. I actually think it is really easy to use when you get the hang of it.
Add pictures.

Also during this lesson we added titles to our film, I thought this process was really confusing as when adding titles to your film, there is so many things you have to consider;- where do you place the title of the movie. in my opinion i think you should add the title at the end of the film. Another thing you have to consider is where do you place  all the directors and editiors of the film at the beginning or the end of your title sequence. I think you should add the directors and editors of the film in the middle of your title sequence, as i think it is more effective this way. To help us with the process of adding titles to our film we used a programme called 'Livetype.' When deciding how we should design our title sequence, we decided to go with something orginal and plain, as we thought we would spend more time on our real film we come to designing the title sequence.

Thriller Planning!

Today we finally start planning our actual thriller film :D

How exciting is that?

We as a group all decided to do a CRIME THRILLER!!

We got a worksheet and we had to discuss all the main elements in our film.

The storyline we came up with was, we start off with a murder scene, and basically a young girl has been murdered and been found dead in a field. Then two officers are going to open up an investigation to see how and why it happened! We decided that were going to use flashback in out film, to make it more intense!

The flashback idea came from the influence of the beginning of stepfather, we also got a few ideas from the bill && Silent Witness, as it is linked with crime && investigation. :)

We decided to film in a field at Hampstead Heath,, We also need a staffroom to get a setting of an office at a police station.

Props Were Going To Use:

·         Police Tape

·         Costumes; Suits, Black Shoes, Glasses

·         White sheet

·         Notepads

·         Badges

·         Fake Blood

We talked a little about the sound we were thinking about to use, but we didn’t really go into detail. We thought about using a suspenseful soundtrack throughout the whole thing.. But were really not sure yet.. Were definitely going to have dialogue in our film.

Turning our Jelly Babies into a movie...

Last week in Bernard's lesson we was given time to turn our animatic storyboard into a proper film, at first we wasn't sure how we should do it, so we took a little bit of time to plan our shots and polish up our storyline. and where we should film the short film. As we needed somewhere where it was quite and not a lot of people around. So in the end we made the decision to film in the college canteen, as we thought it suited the mood we was trying to show. But after we had filmed our animatic we realised that it would have been better to shoot it in the classroom, so after break we decided to start again, this was really annoying as it didn't give us much time to film. But in the end we made it work, and in my opinion i think filming in the classroom was a much better idea than filming in the canteen.

After we had filmed our short film, we just had enough time to upload the movie on to 'Final Cut' and to start editing. If i am entirely honest i don't really like editing, as i get confused as to what i have to do, but after i asked for help from the media technician Mickey i understood what i had to do. Once we begun to edit our movie we started to notice some mistakes that we had made, but i say that this is a good thing as it shows us what we need to improve on when it comes to making our real thriller film. when editing we decided to edit the movie so that the film will flow together nicely without any interuptions or cuts.

Thriller Audiences

What is the significance of a film being recognised as belonging to the thriller genre?

Audiences - It helps audiences choose the film precisely and if they know that it is a thriller they will come to watch it. Their is a huge audience from thriller so directors making thrillers have a advantage.

Institutions- It targets certain audience , by putting trailers on before other thrillers it will boosted the number of viewers as they have seen advertisement before other films.


Picture








Exhibition/Exchange- It gives a sense of familiarity,it gives the audience a clear idea what to expect.

Thriller audiences

When making a thriller, the audience is very important.


what is the significance of a film being recognised as belonging to the thriller genre?


*Helps audiences to choose films they want to watch 
*If the audience know its a thriller, they will probably want to watch it

The audience watching thrillers tend to like the adrenaline rush when they watch one. 


institutions:
*Targets certain audiences, by putting trailers on before other trailers 
*Aimed at thriller lovers 


exhibition/exchange:
*A sense of familiarity 
*Gives the audience a clear idea of what to expect

Things You Need To Consider Whilst Filming!

• Lighting
• Good Location
• Don't film in a busy/Noisy area
• Location with good amount of filming space
• Interesting shots
• Interesting angles
• Use zoom, when necessary
• Make sure in every shot, there is just one movement
• Try using tripod for most scenes.

Prelim

Hi

Here are some thoughts on your prelim, which I think is very good. Very good but not perfect. Please read these notes carefully, there are some real strengths that you should try to repeat in your final film and also a couple of areas where you could make a few changes that would improve the film. PLease come and find me in the staffroom or mail me to arrange a time if you would like to discuss in more detail.

First off very nice opening. No running around, heads getting sawn off, just an intriguing shot that start sto set up location, character, good. Footstep sound effects are very well matched well done. However when Jessica walks into the building there is a jump cut. And not really a good one in my opinion, given the comment I have made above, being nice and steady and just setting things up, but stuck in the middle of which a very noticeable jump. 

So why does it jump, well three things, the angle is too similar, the shot size is virtually identical, the in point of the second clip is too early and this makes it look as if she has jumped backwards. ***having just watched this again, it is actually slightly across the 180 line as well. If you look closely you will notice that in the first and second shot Jessica is going right to left and then in the third very slightly left to right, it is only slight but actually this is what really throws this edit out and makes it jarring**

Dont worry about this, the prelim is there so that you can have a few slips  and learn from them so your final film will be better. What you need to do when you are out filming is get lots of shots, which you have done, but also gets lots of distinctively different shots, you need different angles and different shot sizes, distinctively different, close up, mid shot, wide shot, different camera angles, high, low, aerial, POV, different camera movements, pan, tilt, tracking etc etc. And try to stay on one side of the action withe the camera. If you get some cutaway shots (clock ticking, passerby reaction shot etc etc) that will help you cover up any continuity errors that you make, such as crossing the line.

I love the physical positioning and timing of the first title (producer, Amy), that is immaculate. You have the perfect dead space on the screen, and the perfect lull in important plot information to fit it in. The match cut on the door handle is great too a nice big close up, fill the screen, that is what we like!

I like the reverse of Sophie at the desk but I think it is cut a bit short. Linger on the wide shot for a bit more time, dont give the audience the close up they want so quickly, hold them back, suspend them!

When we go back to Jessica we have a big problem. All of a sudden she is standing still and then starts walking. Yes this is brief but still not good. It is because you have edited an in point too early, but the main problem is that when you were filming you did not film enough around the bits you wanted to use in the eidt. Before and after every sequence of action you film you should always shoot an extra five seconds of action (actors acting as well as cameras recording) at the beginning and the end.  This will give you an opportunity to pick your exact moment in the edit and get some really fluid match cuts where the action genuinely matches and does not fill stilted. THIS IS MY MOST IMPORTANT TIP FOR YOU.

When you have the shot reverse shot over that bong-y noise, I like that but again if you are going to do it go the whole hog, keep the audience in that uncomfortably close position for longer, it will help build suspense.

The conversation needs more angles and shot sizes and would cut together more effectively.

I like the match cut on the stairs that works very well due I think to the fact that you have carefully recreated the action from two different angles and have therefore made it to look like you were filming with two cameras.

A good start, work hard and pay attention to these comments and I am sure that you will make a very good film!

Phil

Intertextuality

Intertextuality? yes I'm sure you don't know either.
Even though I didn't learn about this in class I done some research on it and here is what I found:

Intertextuality refers to the linkages across texts or discourse events. The meaning of any text or utterance is shaped by what has come before it, as well as in anticipation of future responses.

The concept of intertextuality was first expressed in the work of Russian philosopher and literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975). The ideas of the Bakhtin Circle came to prominence via the writings of Julia Kristeva.

To sum it up, it basically means to copy! I know right, simple :)  

Final Edit, LiveType And Sound :)

After we finished editing our film, we added sound to it, to make it more interesting and realistic. We learnt how to use a programme called ‘Soundtrack’ which was useful, because it helped when we added sound to our film. We worked as group to add sound, so we could all learn how to use it and get use to it. Plus we all had a say in on which sound to add, so no one felt left out!

In my opinion adding sound to our film was way easier and better than editing :D

The good thing about soundtrack Pro is that it has a wide range of different sounds and their easy to find and use. J

While we were choosing sounds for our film, we made sure they sounded realistic and went well with the film!

After we finished adding sound to our film, we got an introduction on LiveType, which is a programme that allows you to add titles and subtitles to your film.

Preliminary Edit!

 

Preliminary Filming!

 well il get straight to the point, I wont bore you with all the small detail..

Well basically we turned our jellybabies storyboard into reality!

Yes, you guessed right, we got to film once again! And as you probably relised.. I LOVE FILMING!! && I Enjoy It :D

Basically we had literally three hours to turn our jellybabies storyboard from paper into action!

We divided our time so that we would have enough time to film everything and start the editing.. we used the first half of the lesson to plan what we were going to do, we then used 2 hours to film && the last half for editing.

After we finished most of our filming, we as a group changed our mind about our storyboard.. Yes, most of you probabaly think we were out of our minds.. but somehow we managed to change it, refilm and edit all in that same lesson!

We refilmed most of the scenes, but we used the classroom instead of the canteen.. because it was much quieter and less distracting.. we also added in an extra bit at the end, were one of the girl got shot.

We literally had to film proper quick, without making mistakes!

After we finally finished filming all the scenes, we literally had 30mins to edit it.. it was a TIGHT edit!

Evaluation of Prelim film

well last lesson we finally finished editing and adding sound to our prelim film.
it took us quite some time but in the end it came out great.
however there are some things i believe we could have done better.


when we edited or film on final cut pro, we were not able to hear the sound so we tried our best to still do it.
last lesson we had to add sound,and as you can imagine there were some parts of the film which did not go so well as you could hear some things in the scenes which were not supposed to be there. We still tried our best and added some sound which you can watch on the blog (previous post  ) 





We added sound using soundtrack pro of course, as it is the best programme to use.
We added sounds like:
footsteps
scream 
gunshot 


Even though our film did come out pretty good,I do believe that we could have added better and more sounds to it and adjusted it so it fitted in with the film.
We could have added sounds like the door opening, sliding doors etc. 



At the end we had to add some titles such as the producer and the title of the film. Although we could have use livetype to create our amazing titles we chose to use final cut pro as it was better suited at the time.

overall I think we all done a pretty good job at putting the film together and we now have a better idea of what to do for our actual film :) 


please watch our film and i hope you enjoy it 

LifeType And Sound

For our mini movie we had to use this programe to add sound to it. It was really fun to used as we could play around with diffferent types of sounds and they was different catogires which was really helpful to look around the programe.Their were many sounds to coose from that we would be their all day or even all week to go through all of them , we had to watch our film over and over again to see what we acutally needeed so it feels more relistic to the audience that it has not just been put their but we wanted them to feel like it was acutally their. It looks really confusing and it was at first but as we got used to it , it was really fun.

The sound effects we used were

DOOR CLOSING FOOTSTEPS
TEXT MESSAGE
HEAVY BREATHING
TRAFFIC
RINGING PHONE

                

Denotation and Connotation

We learnt about denotation and connotation and looked a number of images to understand what this means.

Denotation:

What an image actually shows and what is immediately  apparent as opposed to the assumptions that an individual reader may make about it.

Connotation:

The meaning of a sign that is arrived at through the culture experience a ready brings to it.

Denotation: or first level of signification

Identification and definition of elements of a text on a basic. The thing is red and is a heart. Denotational readings will be common to a large number of people- the audience will identify it as just a red heart.

Connotation: or a second level of signification

Connotation begins when you link an object

with other signs and meanings - the heart is red which symbolises 

love or lust or even danger it could also represents couple in love

and also valentines day. Connotations are numerous and vary from reader to reader.

                                                                                                                     

Premlin Final

After our jelly babies short story we then got to make the jelly babies come to life by using Jessica and Sophie. We used a classroom in the college to recreate our scene of a coffe shop. We used all of the camera angels we were told to use and it was really fun to watch our idea come to life. It took us a while to film it as we were trying to figure out the best angles for our shots. We used loads of different camers shot close ups to show the emotions of our characters, long shots to show body language and of course match cuts and sot reverse shot which we were told we had to use.

Picture.

After we filmed it we went into the ediditing suit and uploaded all our shots to final cut we played around with them and got them into the order then were ment to be in, when we fianlly done that we went onto a programe called soundtrack and had to put in sound effects we used them for , footsteps and the door closing we were very lucky with the sound as what we needed was already on the film but we had to add a few more sound effects.  When we added the sound effects  we were not sure werever to add a soundtrack but we thought that it sounded better without it.

Prelim final

Animatic Storyboard- With Jelly Babies

In monday's lesson with Phil we had to plan our animaitc storyboard using jelly babies. I know it sounds weird it sounded weird to me aswell we he first told us what we had to do. But in actually fact it was really fun, as it was a different way of storyboarding.

To help give us a rough idea of what we was supposed to do, we was given a short brief telling us what our animatic film had to include: film the following sequence, making sure to use as least one Match Cut, and example of Shot/Reverse and showing your understanding of the 180 Degree Rule (by not breaking it!). The storyboard scenario was:

"A character opena a door, walks into a room, sits down opposite anither character and they share a few lines of dialogue."

Before we could begin filming our short film we had to plan what our film was to be about, we decided to have two characters, who would meet in a local cafe for a coffee, so that they could sort through their problems, as they are no longer friends but things become tense. After we established what our film was going to be about, we got a still camera and started to decorate the jelly babies, we decorated them by making them wear different outfits. I really enjoyed this process of planning our film, as i had never used jelly babies to plan a film before.
Also before we started taking pictures of our jelly babies for our anamatic film, we learnt what all the different shot types meant that we had to include in our film.                                                                                  

Match Cut:-is a cut in film editing between either two different objects, two different spaces, or two different compositions in which an object in the two shots graphically match, often helping to establish a strong continuity of action and linking the two shots metaphorically.

Shot reverse shot: - is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

 

The 180° rule: - is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

Once we had planned our storyline we began to take pictures of our jelly babies whilst in charaters, we had to do this so we could put all the  pictures together to make a short anamation. To put our pictures together to make the anamation we used a programme called 'Final Cut Pro.'

Once we had put our jelly babies pictures on to 'Final Cut Pro' we had to make sure the pictures flowed at a smooth pace. Once we had done this our short jelly babie anamation was ready to be uploaded on to our blog, but to make our clip more effective we decided to add some music to it. We decided to go for a piece of music which suited the storyline, so we searched on Utube to find the perfect piece of music. Finally we all agreeed on using a piece of music which created the theme of tension.

learning about denotation and connotation

The denotation of this example is a red rose with a green stem. The connotation is that is a symbol of passion and love—this is what the rose represents.
The skull represents death.


 Denotation and connotation are very important when you analyse things.


Denotation is the first level of analysis: What the audience can visually see on a page. Denotation often refers to something literal, and avoids being a metaphor.It is usually coupled with connotation, which is the second level of analysis, being what the denotation represents.

Connotation is a subjective cultural and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotative meaning of any specific word or phrase in a language.

introduction to editing :skills

When making a movie an important process that needs to be done is 'Editing'.
This is crucial to make sure that the film runs smoothly and that it looks its best and appeals to the audience. 
A great programme that can help you achieve this is Final Cut Pro.Using a variety of shots such as, close ups , long shots and extreme close ups, can be shown in a great way using this programme.
When i was first taught about it in class i found it so difficult to use as there are so many things you need to know so everything comes out correctly. However, as you carry on and play around with it you learn and at the end its pretty easy to use. Just have fun with it and you can create an amazing movie