Production progress

17th November

This date was an inset day for a school. Because of this, we decided to go out and film so more surreal shots as part of the negative feedback we received was that it's not obvious enough that he is not in the real world. The first scene we had planned on doing was where we would film a bunch of leaves falling upwards with the character standing in the fall. This scene proved harder to set up than we had previously predicted.

We had planned on there being a tree weak enough to shake so that leaves would fall down but we couldn't find one in the area near our school. Instead we decided to gather a few massive piles of leaves and do it ourselves. In the carpark near our school, there was a big tree and next to it was some sort of small brick building. James got on top of this and we passed up all of the piles of leaves. I then postioned Ashley so that he and the tree were in shot but the brick building and James were not. Once we were recording, James threw the leaves as high as possible over Ashley. The result was pretty good considering.

Before we left school, we decided there was one more surreal shot we could do. We had once discussed about having really fast cuts of shots of Ashley's face in pain to add to the surrealism. For this, we went right to the back of the school halls stage as it seemed to be the darkest and dullest place in the whole school. was there, we used a proper film set light to light up Ashley's face as he pulled the planned expressions. James even flicked the light on and off to create a horrific looking shot. We were all really pleased with this short piece of footage.

Updated production shedule

Production progress

7th November

Today, we decided to have a group discussion on how we could use our feedback obtained from our teacher to make our production better. If we wish to achieve a higher grade then we will use the feedback given to trim scenes and add new scenes to the music video. The first changes we discussed were to instead of having the main character dying in a hospital (although this will be implied throughout) but instead at the end of the music video you will see the character in an open casket at a funeral. We decided on this as a funeral scene is much easier to set up than a full hospital room and equipment. Another change we decided on was the end scene where our main character enters his house and dies. Our teacher has said in her feedback that this scene is too long and not interesting enough. We have not decided on how to change this, only that we will. Lastly, we have decided to add another scene to suggest that there is something surreal about the world the character is living in, this will be shown by leaves falling from a tree onto the main character but these leaves will be falling upwards.

Another task we carried out during this time was a production schedule update. This was a table like before that clearly showed us what tasks need to be done and by what date.

The pictures below are of our discussions on what changes we will make to our production and on us planning out our new production schedule.

Feedback on first cut

After showing our teacher the rough cut of our production, she had a talk with us about what was good about the production and what could do with some adjustments. Once we had been told what she thought, Miss gave us a feedback sheet that she had filled out with notes on what was good and what needs improving, here are the notes.

Holding a shot steady

The first zoom out on Ashley needs re-doing as it is noticeably jerky. This could also be sorted out by doing a montage of shots, cutting out the jerky bits so it looks like it has been done for a different effect.

Appropriate material

Here a comment suggested we should link the beat at the start with a link to a suitable visual.

The corridor shot needs to be more obviously strange.

Approaching the pump house near the meads needed to be more significant and interesting.

The last shot of approaching Ashley's house was "boring" and needs to be changed.

Selecting mise en scene

Miss had noted she like the noir shadow as Ash leaves his bed.

The surreal pictures were a good idea but aren't very obvious to the viewer.

The last shot is good however Ash could possibly be covered with a sheet for more impact.

Editing for meaning

It has been noted that the music should start after our introduction captions to the examiner.

We should stress the opening of Ashley's eyes more in the opening.

We need to add in our sound effects of the heart rate monitor.

The sitting down at the table needs to be shortened down a little.

The transition to the corridor scene was good but more needs to be done by maybe fading the scene into the piece of paper just before hand.

Varied shot transitions, caption and other FX

We should maybe try out an original idea we had back in pre-production where Ashley is walking in one direction and a passer by is walking in another.

Possibly film so leaves falling off a tree then reverse the footage

Use of sound with images/ editing

Some good ideas

Overall comment

"Good overall idea, but some shots lack impact - go for more strangeness/ weirdness, build uup uncertainty in viewer - can they trust what they are seeing, colour in last shot is good, use spot colour at other points."

Rough cut of production

This is our first cut of our production. This cut is missing a few scenes due to finding the time to do the visual effects

Production progress

31st October

Today, we set out to finish up our first cut of our music video production. Ashley just finished up some of the editing on some rough shots and put the final shots in sepia.

We will now present the first cut to our teacher and another student to gain some feeback on what's good and what needs improving. As this is a rough first cut, not everything that is planned for our final production will be included in this cut as we ran out of time.

Production progress

29th October

On this day I decided to begin doing the visual effects for our music video. It has taken this long to start them as I had a problem converting our video footage to

a .wmv file as that was the only way I could edit it. I think adding visual effects to our video will give the whole thing a more surreal feel which is what we are going for as the character is actually not awake through this video.

The program I used to add visual effects was Adobe After Effects.

The first effect I did was to blur the strangers face out. We decided on this as it will definitely show there is something wrong with the world the

character is in and this effect is too surreal to ever see in real life. I did this by motion tracking James's face so I could apply a blur to it. I made James not show any emotion while filming this so it was easier to track. Once it was tracked I added a lens blur to his face to blur out his features. I think I shall use the final look and I am quite happy with how it turned out

The second effect I did on this day was the multiple planes in the sky. When the character is sitting on a bench he looks up as he hears a loud noise and is going to see several planes all crossing each other, something that would never happen in real life.

This took a lot of trial an error. I first tried using some footage i recorded an an airport but this did not turn out how I had hoped due to the colour of the sky, I then decided to try just using an image of a cloud filled sky and add in some places I had cropped in Photos

hop. Once I had added the planes into After Effects I then animated them to move slowly and in a straight line just as a plane would move. This turned out pretty well but the planes look slightly unreal due to the lighting. However, I think this will all turn out looking good as it's going to be put in sepia anyway, so for now i'm going to leave it as it is and test it when I meet with the rest of the group.

Production progress

27th October

This week is half term but as the first cut of the productions deadline was close, we all decided to meet up and go into school to finish it off. Ashley did most of the editing while James helped guide him. During this time to speed things along, I searched the internet for sound effects we can put into the music video. This will give the story and video another level of realism. It took a while but i was successful in finding some sound effects to use for the heart rate monitor we shall include in the video. This music is free and is allowed to be used without having to gain rights for it.

After about an hour and a half we finished our first cut of our music video. This cut does not include the sound effects or visual effects that we shall add in later on but is good enough for a first cut.

Views on production

My views on the production so far

Positives

- Unique story to the music video

- Interesting shots

- Hertford Meads is a unusual location

- The sepia effect

Negatives

- Could include more locations

- Suggestions that the world he is in is not reality could be stronger

- The images in the picture frames of the main characters house are unclear

- The zoom out shot from the main characters bed is slightly unstable

Production progress

17th October

Today I was back from holiday and had a look over eveything the other two did while I was away. I was pleased with the progress they had made over the few days I was away.

Once I had scene what had been done and what needed to be done, we went out and filmed the last shots needed from around the school which were the keys being handed over by a stranger and the few scenes that had already been filmed once and lost.

Here are some images of us filming and editing the last few shots required

Production progress

14th October

I was still away on this date, so Ashley and James went back to the Hertford Meads to film the scenes they couldn't film the first time due to the cameras battery. Once the shots had been successfully filmed they both went back to school and began some editing. It was here where Ashley discovered the sepia look for the video.

Below are the images on location of Ashley and James filming and editing

Production progress

12th October

On this date and another, Ashley and James had to do the filming by their-selves as I had been given a surprise holiday and had only been told last minute. They went out to do their filing at the Hertford Meads but encountered a problem. The camera they were using died on them so they were unsuccessful filing there.

After discovering this, they went back to Ashley's house to film the shots of him getting up and the other few shots needed. This was because they could charge the camera here while filming.

Below are some pictures of them preparing to film before the camera died and actually filming around the characters house.

Production progress

10th October

On this day, we went to view our recently filmed school footage and planned on editing it to see what it would look like with sepia colour correction. When we looked in the folders we had previously uploaded it to, they weren't there. We spent nearly a whole hour searching for our uploaded footage but all attempts to find it were unsuccessful. This was a major problem as we did spend a long time getting our long empty corridor shot. We spent the rest of this lesson talking about where we would film next and the visual effects that were going to be added in after.

1st filming of production

6th October

On this date, we got a video camera and went around our school getting the first few shots required in our production. This went well and we got all the shots for the school scene needed, apart from the basket ball scene as the gym was at the time in use.

The only problem we encountered was filming the shot of Ashley walking down a completely empty corridor. Although this was during lesson time, every time we went to film him a teacher or student would pass the camera as this was a very long and frequently used corridor. Filming this 15second (estimated) shot took around half an hour and many attempts. We eventually got the shot and were happy with its outcome.

Props

Main props used

Keys

This is for the scene where the main character drops his keys and a mysterious man with a blurred face hands them over

Basket ball

This will be for the scene where the main character looks into the school gym and sees a basket ball rolling with nobody around

Pictures and picture frames

This is for the subtle images in the background of the characters house where images suggesting an accident can be seen

Location photos

Monday the 26th september
On this day, me and James ventured out into our town and decided on what locations would best suit our storyboard. Some locations such as the town and the buryfields had already been discussed. However, for the long path way both on the road and in the open were talked about but had to be found while out. I was really pleased with the locations we found, especially the long "dusty road" and the wall next to it that read "lost your way". This graffiti wall was a complete suprise but fits extremely well with our theme.

Animatic

Filming of animatic

Once me and Ashley had finished our groups story board and were happy with how it looks, we planned to film an animatic. For this, we needed a clear, well lighted and quiet room to film it. We decided in using the new at gallery our school has as no one comes in during lesson time and it has a massive glass roof that provides really good lighting. The images below are of us filming our animatic.

26th September - Story boarding

On this date, we carried out two tasks for our pre production stage. Me and Ashley took the task of story boarding our main idea and the type of shots we are thinking about using in our finished production. Our finished story board consisted of 31 drawings and gave us a good plan to follow when filming. James took the task of creating a production schedule so that we know what date the production needs finishing. This was necessary so that we could allocate certain dates for ceratin tasks such as filming, editing etc.

Pitch

Stranger things have happened

View more presentations from callison1318.

Production schedule

Production schedule

View more presentations from callison1318.

Blog feedback from Mrs A 26.09.11

prof prod analysis looks good but lacks some details:

• show institutional knowledge of EMI (size of co. what else they do)


• more refs to music video genre characteristics (lip synch, star performance, intertextuality,


• what makes it successful? what ideas might you take from it?

blog entries missing:

1. Your PP pitch


2. Your production schedule


3. summary of progress week beginning 19th Sept - key decisions?

Analysis of a professional product

The music video I have chosen as a professional product is God Put A Smile Upon Your Face by the british alternative rock band Coldplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9Kcg_8gK30&ob=av2e - Youtube link

The production company involved on the music video was EMI records (see image) and was directed by Jamie Thraves, who had also directed Coldplay's music video The Scientist. In the music video is a now famous british actor Paddy Considine. This was

released in October 2003.

The genre rock and alternative is clearly shown through out by cuts to Coldplay playing their instruments as a band which includes guitar, bass, drums and vocals. This is what you would typically find in a rock/alternative band, as shown below.

The music video starts off with the character walking through some dark and atmospheric tunnel, although nothing bad is happening, the lighting and tempo of music has been done on purpose to un ease the viewer and to show them something bad is obviously to come. As he bashes into the smartly dressed man with no shoes the song seems to start with the guitar coming in as he makes contact with the man. This could show that something has begun also for the character. It is after this, the process if him disappearing begins, starting

first with his hands. He continues the day as normal but is almost embarrassed to tell his friends/work colleges that he is disappearing.

The video features quite a lot of close ups to show the characters reaction to what is happening to him. It also shows a lot of his surroundings to explain that he is some sort of wealthy businessman. The video is entirely in black and white. I think this has been done to show the life the main character is living in is dull and boring, also what happens in the film is rather dark.

Review of skills development

Documentary analysis

While studying documentaries in Media Studies, I looked at:

Micheal Moore's Bowling For Columbine

Man On Wire

Micheal Moore's Farenheit 9/11

Filming interviews - Vox Pops

The Rules

While studying how to carry out vox pops, we learned there are a few key rules you must remember:

- Tell the interviewee to not look directly into the camera

- Use the same question on all people you interview

- Frame the person correctly using the rule of thirds

- Alternate the the people you interview on the camera from left to right

Once we knew the key rules to making a successful vox pop, we went around our school asking students and teachers what they thought about the cost of going to the cinema. Our final cut came out rather well showing all the rules had been taken into account.

Music video analysis

When studying music videos, we looked at several different types of music videos by diferent artists such as:

- Bjork

- Coldplay

- Nine Inch Nails

- Aphex Twin

Studying these music videos, we learnt about what's key to making a professional music video such as using a range of different locations, not staying in one shot for too long, lip syncing, a theme, and a main idea used throughout the video.

For our music video, we shot on a different location than usual as the school is rather limited as to what you can do. We visited a local grounds called Knebworth house. Her we tried about many techniques we could not have done at school such as using a variety of different and interesting locations, and stop motion. Below are some screens from the final cut of our music video.

We did try out a green screen in another music video test and successfully changed the background of the video. However, this proved to be too time consuming as the background had to be manually editing by removing the green colour using the "chroma key" tool.

Film opening evaluation

Film opening evaluation

View more presentations from callison1318.

Props and Locations

Props

- A Cup
- House phone
- Tie
- Large wooden stick

Locations

- The Chauncy School
- Ashley Morris's house

Roles in the group

At the start, there were four of us in the group. However later on, due to creative differences, group member Sam left the group to work on his own. This meant we used the same footage and the same sort of idea, but both have been edited differently and both contain different sounds.

The roles of the group were:

Sam  - Camera man and 'Director'
Ashley - Main actor and was involved in editing
James - Actor and was involved in editing
Jonathan - Actor and was involved in editing

Influences for our film opening

I think the main influence for our film opening was David Fincher's "Se7en". This is because of the murder and mystery that we have included in our film opening. Also the way we have tried to build tension through use of music and lighting, just like in "Se7en"
Another influence for the film was "Let the right one in" due to the way we have made the titles of the film.