Final film!

We have finally completed our film today, adding the soundtracks, and credits. It took a while to complete the film, when adding the soundtrack because we experimented with a lot of unusual and abnormal sounds, which at the end fitted with our film. We used effects like FX, DJ, percussion, piano and many more. Plus we decided not to use Columbia pictures because we couldn’t add their signature opening into our film because it was copy righted, which we are not allowed to use.

So we decided to use our logo as the production company which is a colorful star with our initials in each side of the star. Today we faced many difficulties, like at the last minute of editing we could not find our film, which we thought we lost, we started to panic but we found it at the end because we realized that we renamed the film to something else. Overall I think my group worked really hard to complete the film today and I am very happy with the work we have produced. :)

Last Day of Editing Thriller

Today we were adding beats to our soundtrack for the thriller, to help create tension towards the film. In order for this to happen, we tried to make it sound as chilling as possible by using certain types of sound effects appropriate for our storyline such as percussion, DJ scratching, etc. Instead of repeating the same beat continuously throughout the whole of the sequence, we used different types of sound effects for different clips. At first we started experimenting the sound effects until, we ourselves felt tension. We worked well together and each came up with good ideas to help gain those marks.

As a group, we chose to add tapping sound effects for when the killer blinks twice or when the negative effects appear. We then had to produce a beat suitable for the scene where the victim is listening to music on her ipod. During the soundtrack making, we found out that we were not allowed to use the Columbia Pictures because its film copying, which is not allowed so we decided to add our logo instead. Finally, we managed to complete the soundtrack. It taken us the whole lesson to finish off, but it was worthwhile.

Monday's Lesson

On Monday, we continued editing our film adding more titles and features, plus a Production Company. Out of all of the companies, we preferred the Colombia Pictures one and added it to our film. We then created a logo which looked like a wavy shaped star. Whilst making the logo, we decided to add a production name called J.A.D.S Inc, the first initial of our names because we all wanted to be apart of this logo as a group. So far, our editing is going well so hopefully we will manage to finish off the whole of our opening scene in the next lesson.

Closed on Wednesdays

We had all finally decided on when we should start filming and where, we had everything sorted out and in order. We had planned to go to the library and film the parts that we needed for the begging of our film opening. We wanted to use the library ( south library a public library in essex road ) because we thought that the dark and old look of this library in particular would look the part in our film opening and also that it would fit the kind of theme and atmosphere that we was trying to create. But once we go there we found out that the library was CLOSED !

So we had to think of something else to do instead of what we was going to do. We hanged around for a bit trying to think about what we could do instead of what we had planned to do. We started to walk around the library after deciding that we should just do some filming out side the library while we was doing this we found a small park like path that we could use as a location for our outside scenes.

This small path/park that we had found looked appealing to us. So we decided to walk all the way down to the bottom of the path to see if there was more settings that we could use. We walked down to the bottom and found that there was a couple of flats that looked interesting. So I suggested that we had a look at them too see if the main doors would open for us to use them as a location that our main character comes out from, then later on to the path that we had just walked down on.

After we stood around for a bit, talking about how we should shoot our new and totally unplanned sequence of, our victim walking from her flat to wards the path and then through the path. Once we started to shoot our first shot I decided that, it would be best if we done at least 4 takes for each shot, this way when we come to editing we would have enough material to work with. while we was filming what we had quickly planned, we tried different camera angles and effects that we could create by playing about with the lens. We thought that by doing this we might come across more instresting ways to shoot our shots and make them look intresting as well. So you could say that we experimented a lot with our camera angles and shots.

Although our day dident go to as planned, we was still able to replan and shoot a whole proper sequence. This whole process has taught me that I can work under pressure, I can be resorcefull and good at solving problems. Also that im willing to expirement with the camera.

developing and planning

We started to develop our idea for our short film, we made the story more simple and understandable for the audience to follow. To do this we tried to make the story get to the point of what the film is going to be about with out revealing all of what is going to happen or all of what happened before. This way we will be able to keep the attention of the audience and make our film opening interesting to watch. 

The idea we had to work with was about a killer and a victim, the back story behind these two characters will make up most of the story. Which is that the killer has had a hard time growing up with out a mother to care for her, her mother was killed by a random serial killer who just decided to pick the killers mother. Ever since then the killer as a teenager growing up had always wanted to get revenge back on the killer some how who was now in prison serving a life sentence. this fact is not enough for the character who is later on going to be a killer her self, she cant feel that justice has been done the way it should be. This character was brought up to believe that the way to deal with unfair and evil situation was to go by the eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth methodology. ( the name of our film is,eye for an eye .)  I chose this because it made more sense to write the whole back story this way, it also gave a good enough reason for the killer to try and find a way to get back at the killer who killed her mother. The killer is going to get back at the original killer by killing the killers wife .

I think over all even though how i have written out the whole story plot is a bit hard to understand, once our film opening is done it will make much more sense to the audience as well as the teachers. 

Pitching our ideas

pitching our ideas, this was going to be a task for me because I'm not really good at explaining things. But when it got to our groups turn I had to do most of the talking, over all I think that our pitching session went well I got to tell our teachers my idea and explain what we was trying to aim for with different types of shots that we was going to use in our short film. I found that convincing the teachers about how my ideas would work and turn out was a bit hard, but as I carried on explain my idea properly they eventually sort of agreed with what I had in mind. They gave me a few suggestions to what I could do instead which was helpful.

 After we had finished pitching our idea the other groups where up, while they were pitching I was thinking on how our film could be better and alternative solutions to our problem areas that had just been spotted by the teachers. I also wanted to change our story a bit more to make it more interesting and make it look like there was a point to our film 

First lesson back from half term!!

Today we continued to edit our film, adding titles, features and a Production Company.As well as creating a logo for our production name, we decided to use Columbia Pictures Company as our production company.Also creating a logo for J.A.D.S Inc production, we decided to call it this because we wanted include each member of the group in our the production title, so by taking the first initial of our names, we came up with J.A.D.S Inc. In addition we created a star logo for J.A.D.S, we used a funky star as our logo. Today we have finished editing and adding the titles and next lesson we plan to make a soundtrack for our film and hopefully finish the whole production. 

Half term Monday

Our group had to come in today to try and finish our editing.

So we started off by adding more shots from the other lesson, also more effects, we did this for few hours. After finishing the editing we found out we only had 16 second of film and we was shocked because we had spent hours editing and we only came up with 16 seconds of a clip.
So we called Micky and asked him what we can do, so he played around with it by trying to add more shots to what we already had, this took about half an hour and he decided that it wasn’t going to work, so he called Rebecca, Mary and another media teacher, to look at our first sequence, they all thought that our first sequence was good however it was too short.

So after they had deliberated, Mary told us that the only way we can make our sequence longer, is too use the first sequence as the title and add the normal shots after, as the first bit of the actual film. So the teachers left us to do that, spending an hour adding shots, we called Micky to see what we had done to it, he was happy with what we got, he then told us to add the title and the features, we gave it ago by playing around with the writing, we found several writings for the title which we found suitable for our sequence. We then decided to leave it for when we come back because we had spent 7 hours editing.

Filming for the 2nd time-11.02.2009

Our group decided that we didn’t need the library to film the shots we wanted of Aiko, so instead we used one of the media rooms where they had black curtains and a computer where we can film. So we had set the room and the cameras and light as we wanted to and took several takes of the mystery person (Aiko) on a computer searching important information of the victim (Dominique).

While we were filming Andrew had played around with shots by adding effects and other short shots, after he had done this he called me and Dominique to see what he had produced. He came up with a good idea, I liked the effects he added and the pace of it became faster. He then took of the things he added and told us to add shots and effects to our story line, so we gave it ago adding shorter shots to what we already have and it looked good.
After that we went back to class room where Shanice and Aiko was filming and continued to film.

Editing-9.2.09

In this lesson we went to the library to shoot Aiko scene where she is searching information about Dominique who is the victim of this story. When we arrived in the library, it didn’t look as old as it did outside, and it was too bright which change the mood. So as a group we decided not to film out in library and stick with the stuff we got.

We headed back to college and explained to tony what we thought, so he advised us to edit the shots we already have and see what we can film to add to the shots we got. so we put a couple of shots together and left it for the next lesson.

Back to lesson after snow days- 4.2.09

We missed Monday’s lesson because of the weather. It was snowing pretty badly so the college decided to close it for two days.

In this lesson we decided to stay in college to upload the shots we took when we filmed the week before, in the computer/ editing room. When we uploaded the shots we had over 40 shots of the day, I think this is because we took 4 takes for every shot to give us more options when choosing in the editing process.
After Uploading each shot we watched through them to see what ones where good. It was also funny watching what we had filmed because you could tell that everyone was tired towards the end by looking at their facial expression, especially Dominique who had to shoot 4 takes for every shot.
The second half of the lesson we decided to go to Essex road to take pictures of the outside, to show Tony how it looked, and hopefully we could film inside next lesson. After taking the pictures we headed back to college and it was time for lunch.

First day of filming-28.1.09

Today was our first time to film; the weather was terrible, it was raining all day. As I got to college Dominique and Shanice had collected the camera and tripods for the day. So we made our way to Essex road to film in the library, the weather was of putting we wanted to head back to college but we decided not to.

When we arrived at Essex road, the library was shut and we didn’t know this, I was angry and disappointed that the library was shut and on top of that the weather was helping. But I put my feeling behind me because I wanted to get things done because we planned to film in previous lesson. So we decided to walk around and we found a park, and it lightened everyone’s face because the park had this atmospheric mood, from the trees, to the rocks and the gardening done to it, plus the weather had helped bring a spooky mood. So we walked through the park and found a long pathway which led to Kids Park and houses. For that reason we didn’t film to plan and used our initiative to film outside because believed we would have got something out of the location.

The first thing we filmed was of Dominique coming out of her house, we used several shots like long shot of her walking out, mid shot and many more. After this we came up with different shots of her walking out the house, from a back view of her walking to a shot of her through the fence. We also used panned while she was walking. During the filming we captured interesting shots through the park, using different angles, also using the things around us, like the rocks and the bushes.
Towards the end it got really tiring because we filmed for 3 hours nonstop and it was raining throughout the times we were filming. On top of that people kept delaying our filming because they wanted to know what we were filming for, also walking pass the camera while we was filming. Overall the whole day was fun and the end of it we looked a mess which was pretty funny.

Production sheet

On the following Monday we decided to stay in and do a production sheet, where we had to plan and decide the days we were filming and the roles for each member of the group. For example we decided to book the cameras for Wednesday’s lesson, so we could film. Also decided to make Dominique the main character and her role was the victim. We weren’t sure who would take the role as the attacker and decided to wait until Wednesday lesson.

Pitching our ideas 21.01.09

In Andrew lesson we carried on planning our thriller openings. As a group we pitched more ideas, coming up with fresh storylines, however some of the ideas did not work because it was to complex and others which we could produce because of the location. For example an idea that we came up with was bed scene with two characters, we all agreed to do this but as a group we did not have access to a bed so we could not do it. We tried to think of public location where we can do the scenes like IKEA but it was a bad idea.

In the second half of the lesson Andrew told the class that we had to pitch our final idea in front of Marissa, Micky, tony and Andrew, who were going to judge and give each groups feedbacks on their idea. We had to present our storyline in front of the class and the judges, also presenting the location, characters, and the shots. After we presented our ideas the judges gave us feedbacks, good and bad feedbacks. For example all the judges liked our storyline; however they thought that we should film in the library instead of the two locations which walking scenes were outside and an indoor scene. They thought that we should find an old library to give an atmospheric mood to our story line.

After listening to all the feedbacks, we gave ourselves homework until the next lesson, and that is to research old library’s in the city.

Ideas 19.1.09

In this lesson we watched past exam thrillers, done by AS students. We watched several clips which gave the class ideas on what they can do for their thriller opening. As we watched the opening of the thrillers we annotated the good and bad points we saw in the clips, also discussing it with the class.
After watching the thriller clips, Tony asked each group to brainstorm a story ling of an opening for a thriller. As well as brainstorming the mise -en -scene, costumes, location, characters and planning the days we wanted to film. As a group we found it difficult to think of ideas because everything we thought of has been produced by past students. So began to think of existing opening like a chase or a murder scene, and change it into our own ideas.
At the end of the day we came up with 3 good ideas which we could use for our opening, and one of them was based on a couple, where the girlfriend dreams of her boyfriend leaving her and as she tries to get him back, in her dream she doesn’t know in reality she is harming him and at the end we see her boyfriend dead on the bed. We thought this we would leave the thinking that she had killed him.

Half Term Monday

Today we as a group had to come in to finish off our editing. Shortly after that, we found out that our film lasted 16 seconds. We were so surprised because it looked as if it lasted for 1 minute and a half at least, plus it took us quite a while to get the clips all together. From there we asked what to do as it was such a good clip so Marisa told us to extend it a little by adding a few more of our original shots that we’ve filmed which hasn’t been revealed, onto it.

Luckily after a few hours, we managed to add in the clips in without any problems and made it last from around 2 minutes. This time we added the features suitable for the title to create a chilling effect for the film and decided to leave the rest of the editing for the next lesson.

Last Wednesday's Lesson (11.02.2009)

On last Wednesday's lesson we decided to film the computer scene in the class room but in the dark with dim lighting used and black curtains to help darken up the room. This is called a black out. The props used were the chair and the computer to search valuable information on the victim. For this scene we had made repeated shots four times. One of them was a low angle shot of the killer sitting on the chair, searching the information on the computer. Another was a close up shot of the killer’s eyes looking at the computer.

Shortly after that, we put our clips onto the computer then trimmed a bit of the unwanted parts of the shots and added it to our editing, in between certain clips to create quick flashbacks in the film.

Last Monday's Lesson (09.02.2009)

Last Monday we had to go to the library to film the scene were Aiko's character is searching Dominique's character on the computer. As soon as we arrived we decided to change the environment of the scene as it didn't make sense to what we was filming plus we didn't think it through properly as a group and so we went back to class and finished off our editing from what we filmed in the last lesson, whilst deciding where to film the computer scene for the next lesson.

First Day Back After Snow Attack!!

Today we had to go to the computer room to watch our video in which we took last lesson, when we were filming the killing scene, and then separated the film into clips. We had around twenty clips in total. This was because for most of the clips, we had done five or more takes each, so that we could decide on which clip looks better or which one doesn’t have the noise of a van driving, etc. It was funny to watch.

After that we had to walk all the way to the library that we wanted to go to last time (whilst there was snow on the pavement) and took pictures, since it was closed again. For the next lesson we are planning on filming the library scene so hopefully we will be allowed to film it in there.