18th December 09- loading and editing film on the macs

Today we started to think about editing our films. Firstly we had to load our films onto final cut pro and saving them onto our own scratch disks. We then started by putting the films into the correct sequence that we wanted them in. Following this i decided to edit each section of the film using the colour corrector to give a good colour balance and also adjust the brightness and contrast so that the dark areas were more visible and the lighter areas were not to light.

After this i decided to experiment with a few transitions i only added a couple where necessary because if there were too many it would have become messy and looked like rushed and bad editing. I decided to use transitions that faded into the next scene because they're subtle transitions. Following this i also experimented with other effects to give the film a more gothic effect where needed.

After this i started to introduce sound to my film, i started by deciding i didn't want a particular soundtrack to my film but instead adding lots of sound effects that relate to things that are happening in my film such as where Harriet is running past the abbey i introduced the sound of a clock bell which then fades into the next scene along with a fading transition. i got all of my sound effects from the college sound library.

11th december 2009

Today we went out filming again, it was really cold and no one wanted to go filming in Widecombe cemetery so we improvised and went to St Micheal's church at the bottom of Widecombe instead of at the top of the hill. It was easier than last week as we got to know the cameras more quickly so therefore were able to start filming straight away. We filmed about 15-20 shots and managed to complete filming in under an hour.

We didn't originally have the permissions to film in the graveyard of the church but asked the owner hoping she would let us film and she did. We should have rang up first in case we were left without a location but it all worked out well in the end. Overall i was pleased with the way things went today as everyone knew exactly what they were doing and we got on with our work straight away and managed to complete it.

4th december: Filming day!

Today we started filming, we started off with a tutorial on how to use the cameras as we had never used them before . We learned how to change the shutter speed, aperture and depth of filed and also how to change the white balance, how to change the lighting to fit indoor or outdoor filming. We also learned how to use correct filming terms whilst we were in or teams which helped us communicate more when filming.

I found the filming a struggle at first as it was very cold and busy walking through the town as the Christmas market was on and carrying the camera through crowds was difficult. The rain also mad it a challenge as we had to use the umbrellas to shield the cameras whist filming.

In my opinion it would have been useful if we did more planning at home and communicated more as a group as we were quite unprepared when it came to arranging the order in which we were filming each scene. We spent about half an hour in town deciding on the right locations also which wasted a lot of time. I did however enjoy using the cameras to film with. Our group chose to not use a tripod to add to the suspense and tension of the film and give it more of a hand held effect. Our group took it in turns to direct, co-direct, act and film. I liked filming as I learned a lot from it and got good feedback after my first attempt of filming with those cameras.

Overall I think we needed more organization and to have completed more detailed filming but I really enjoyed working with my group and filming and think the day went well and we got all we needed to have done in the end.

27th september 2009

Today we are finishing off our film treatments for the Bath Film Office. We completed risk assessment, health and safety and are starting our storyboard again. We also rang people up about filming in widcombe cemetary because we got an e-mail saying we weren't allowed to film in the Bath Abbey. so we are nearly ready to film!

20th september 2009... continuing film treatments

This week we continued with our film treatments i filled out the content and story line, if found this difficult as we don't have much organization in our group. we also emailed the Bath Film Office about some of our locations. We also attempted a story board but didn't type up the writing first and have to do it again. I can't write much for this blog as i wasn't here for some of the session because i went to have photo's aken for the paper for college.

Production Diary: Writing film treatments, locations scouting session.

This week we are starting to plan our film in more detail. We are using a film treatment template on word to fill out the film title, who it's produced by, the roles of everyone in our group, the film concept, storyline and content. During this task i felt it would have been easier working individually as we got more distracted working as a group. Although this was a problem we did manage to fill out most of the form.

We also went out in to Bath to choose our locations and make short films of them to edit next week in final cut for practice. The only problem we had with filming today was the weather as it was raining and quite difficult to try and keep the camera dry. However, we did manage to film our preferred locations successfully and achieved the Gothic atmosphere we needed.

Production Diary: Briefing and meeting with suited and booted write up

This week Sara came in from a film company in Bath called suited and booted. We were given our brief for our new film project: We are required to make a short film piece of no more than 3 minutes in length and no less than 90 seconds. We will need to present our films to the client. The presentation should show the creative ideas behind our piece and include any supporting ideas.

Notes: All films will be filmed in Bath, all crew must understand and comply with the film procedures (as set out in the code of filming practice issued by Bath film office) when filming in the area. You will work in small crews.

We are expected to look on the Bath film office website and also the Bath tourism website making reference to the bath movie map and also the bath video and filming guidelines.

After meeting Sara we met two other people from the bath film office who explained what the business deals with and how they can help us during making our films.

This week we were put into groups and had to start to plan our films. We started to plan them by writing our individual ideas on one piece of paper. We then had to present our ideas to Sara who then gave us useful feedback to help improve our ideas. I found this task quite useful in gathering initial ideas however thought we needed more time before we presented our ideas so that we could establish what exactly we wanted our film to be about for certain.

Evaluation for After the storm

The film title "After the storm" was interpreted during the film as the storm being the happenings of the day and the girl finding the bag and the aftermath was the murdering of the girl because she knew what was in the bag, she knew too much.

Our initial idea was to take the title literally and show a natural disaster happening and its aftermath. However I think our film worked quite well in showing this.

We first started gathering ideas in a brainstorm then took the best idea and drew up a storyboard for it. The story board showed our two locations; green park and the river just outside of green park. It also showed detailed sketched, angles and shot types and also a little bit of the actual story was explained in it.

We originally decided to recruit people from MAPA at bath college (Preforming art students). But as none were free at the time we were filming, we improvised using Jenni and Tom as actors in the film. I did the camera work myself. The only problem in acting was in one of the last shots where Jenni got hit and fell over and laughed but other than that everyone worked really well.

The location we used worked out very well as the weather in the park and the darkness created by the surrounded trees created a sense of mystery, tension and suspense. Another thing that created suspense was the idea that no one ever finds out whats in the bag that shocks the girl so badly.

I think that some of our other strengths were the amount of different shot types we used such as, close ups, medium shots, long shots, panning, over the shoulder shots and shots of people running during the chase which I think worked really well as it was unique. We tried to make the audience feel as though they we're part of the chase.

Some of the problems we encountered we're in the location as there were lots of dog walkers around who's dogs kept on coming over and getting in the way of some of our shots. We also could have planned to bring props in before hand. We had to improvise by going to get ketchup to use for blood from Sainsburys (which actually worked quite well) and also having to find sticks around the park to use as weapons. Another problem was getting the bag out of the river aswell because we didn't want to litter but we got it out eventually with a long stick.

Some of the things I have learnt whilst filming were to use more time for planning and that communication within the team is really important. It was also my first time using those specific cameras and using the tripod as well which took a while to work out but was fairly easy. If I could change anything in this project i would have given myself more planning time and worked more closely in that time with my group.

Production of After the storm

For the location of our film we chose Green park and the river by green park in Bath. We chose this location because its quite quiet and there was a great atmosphere created by the darkness of the area because of the amount of trees.

Whilst filming i think our only problem was dog walkers in the park who's dogs kept on getting in the way of some of our shots. Another problem was that we didn't really use our time to plan well. other that that i think everything went quite well.

I think some of our strengths we're the variation of shot types we used for example, close ups, panning, medium shots, long shots, over the shoulder shots and shots of peoples feet at street level for the chase.The weather also created the kind of atmosphere we needed an stayed dry throughout filming, it would have been difficult if it had of rained. Over all our shots we're between 10-20 seconds and the film about 2-3 minutes and i think it worked very well.

Pre-production for After the storm

2nd October 2009

This week we were given a brief for our next project. The title we had to work with was called after the storm. This week we had to make story boards and start planning before filming next week. Our first shot is a shocking scene of a girl lying in a pool of blood on the floor dead, she's been murdered. Our film is about a girl who is on a walk in the park and finds a bag. She is so shocked as to what she finds in the bag she throws it in a bush. Then she sits down again and a random man hands her a newspaper then disappears. The girl then reads the paper which has a message in it which reads: "Look what you've done!" she is shocked and scared and throws the paper . She then gets a text with the same message:"Look what you've done!" She is then getting scared and paranoid and grabs the bag and runs out of the park but is being followed by the man who owns the bag, she throws the bag in the river and runs on, we get a shot of the chasers feet chasing her and then him hitting her on the head and murdering her by the river. The final shot is the same as the first shot. The idea for after the storm is that the storm is everything that has gone on on the day and the aftermath is the death of the girl.

Our story boards show the basic idea of the story and also the shot type and location.

Short Fiml analysis

HOIST - horror short film from Promesto on Vimeo.

This is a short 5 minute film called HOIST produced by Promesto. It is filmed in Greenwich foot tunnel under the river Thames in East London. This film creates lot of suspense for the viewer, one the main contributors to this are the location of the tunnel itself.

The tunnel looks like somewhere you would not want to be walking through by yourself especially at night. The darkness and emptiness of the location creates a great sense of tension, so i think they chose a great location for this short film. There is a lot of fast camera movement in this film which is kind of disorientating and confusing but also creates great tension as it makes you feel that your following the character and they themselves are confused and lost in the tunnel. When the camera movement slows down the music also heps to set an eerie mood which is slightly frightening. There are a number of different types of shots used the most effective are close up panning shots which follow the character as he is almost running away from a dark presence. Another thing that i think creates tension is that you never see the characters face it just seems like he is running away from something and it's just like you are watching a chase.

The only thing that disappointed me was the ending as there was great tension created which built up in the start and middle of the film which just lead to a to a confusion of whats going on at the end where a load of people just appear and there is lots of tilting of the camera angles at the end and blood splatters everywhere.

Weather shots write up

18th September 2009

This week we made short films about our given topic the weather. These were all one shot films, in total we did 3: A close up shot, a medium shot and a long shot.

First we had to draw out basic visuals and story boards including the camera framing, angles and movement. These helped with timing of the scene and assists crew members during production for framing the action.

Our first shot included a close up of a man with an umbrella going for a walk in the park on a windy day. As the weather was more calm than windy we improvised by throwing leaves at him whilst he walked and him having to act as if it was windy by acting out a struggle with his umbrella. For our first shot we framed the camera for a close up shot and was on a horizontal angle and showed the characters head and shoulders. We used continuous slow camera movement from right to give the viewer a good feel for the location and mood of the film.

Our second shot was of two people, a man and a woman sunbathing on a bench in the park. As it was a particularly sunny day this was easily done and really portrayed the warmth and welcoming of the sunny weather.This was our medium shot and was a continuous shot starting with a view of the sun behind a tree with its branches waving in the wind which gave a very calm sense. The camera was then slowly moved down on to the people enjoying the warm weather sitting on a bench in the park. The camera was again on a straight horizontal angle for the whole shot. This shot could have been improved by using more slow camera movement as it was slightly rushed and didn't really portray what we wanted it to.

Our third and final shot was a long shot, this included slow continuous camera movement from left to right filming a calm location by the river also including a swan and the cloudy sky. We started filming a cloudy sky at an upright tilted angle and moving down onto filming the whole stretch of the river and a swan swimming past giving the viewer a sense of tranquility and peace.

I think the shot that worked the best was our first shot because the camera movement and angling was done just right and all in time whereas our other two shots we're less focused and some of the camera movement was rushed and filmed to fast, therefore didn't really portray the feeling towards the viewers that we wanted them to.

We had half an hour to film all 3 shots therefore if i could change anything i would have liked more time and to have taken more time in filming, but overall think this was a good try for our first time.