Premliminary Task

             

Final thoughts

This week we finally finished our two minute film. it hasn't been the easiest time, doing it, but it has taught me alot about future filming.  We managed to hand in the film on time and it was our second attempt doing it. 

The first attempt we did,  had obvious mistakes such as, a non steady camera tripod. There was also a big blue box which would appear in the middle of the film which really confused me, my group and my teacher.  Our teacher sat us down with me and my group and told us that we need to re-shoot in order to get a good grade.  

We sat down as a group and and took certain responisbilites. One of us re wrote the script the other drew the story board and the other person went to the location and wrote down the shot types.

The second time we came to edit we used alot more techniques such as fade in, fade out and disolves. We noticed that we spent alot more time in the editing suite than the first time we did. This is because we know alot more things about final cut pro. We also experimented with final cut pro by playing around with it and working whats what by ourselves. We also used Sound track pro for sound effects. we used the same same effects as last time in our first movie but in our second movie we added more for example we used a sound called atmosphere. which had sounds of wind, trafic works and cars. 

finished

Today we finished our movie. It has been a long and stressful couple of months with the filming, organising and editing.

all together we made two films, but the first one we made turned out not being good enough to hand in. we were told that if we wanted a good grade, we would have to re- shoot. THIS WAS A WEEK AGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this last week has been the most stressful because when we planned to shoot, got the actors and location, the camera was acting up and wouldn't work. This delayed us two days and we shot the film on the saturday. 

on the monday we started the editing process. we had another problem!!! Because the camera was American, we needed to use the camera to upload it onto final cut pro.   this delayed us by another day. 

On tuesday we made subclips and put every thing together.

on wednesday we put sound effects in to it and today we copied it onto the disk by using a programme called IDVD.

Similar films

There were several films we took inspiraion from for our oppening sequence. two of these were kung fu panda and train spotting. kung fu panda for its serious opening which is soon twisted into something unexpected (this being the essence of good comedy) and train spotting for its incredible chase scene in the opening.

Props

there were many props used. computer,dorito's and  keys were all vital to making the scenes appear realistic.

 for instance when the actress appears to wake up she is on an old sofa. further more we placed a laptop directly by her side to make her appear as though she may well have been using it till she fell asleep. 

then we made sure to get a bag of junk food and spread it around her so she appeared to have fallen asleep stuffing herself on cheap snacks. this all added to the sense of patheticness and lonleyness  which helped to make it clash and contrast with the dream sequence and better define them as two different realitys as well as setting up the basis of the charecter nicely. 

the costume used by the actor and actress played a big part in the way we presented these charecters and more importantly made the audience view them in a certain way. 

in the oppening scene the hero wears tight, sleeck black clothing. this makes the audience percive her as being someone who is in control and better ties with her chasing the villian who is dressed in normal dirty and dull clothes. he wears a hoodie, wooly hat and baggy pants. this nicely achieves a cross between someone who appears to possibly be a criminal (which is backed up by him being chased) and someone who looks distincly un-amazing. careful consideration was used when choosing the costume for the out of dream sequence.

 dirty worn and baggy sweat pants were chosen along with a loose fitting and cheap looking T shirt. this was used to contrast from the sleeck cool look in the dream sequence to the charecters pathtic reality. this achieved a clear break between the two realitys without it needing to be explicitaly stated. 

Dubbing- new technique

During the film we needed to dub in words for a brief moment. This is because we were using silent footage when both people's faces were too dark to see. therefore the dubbbing is seemless. 

we used an echo effect to emphasise the fact that the person (this is a first person shot) is hurt and is dazed. we did this by simply filming two people saying the lines then uploading it onto the computer.

 we then deleted the visual elements of the shot and simply put the sound in place of the sound which was under the footage in editing. this was fun to do as it allowed us to do something that was simoultaniosly easy and unusual. To make it really effective we put in a echoo sound which sounded really good becasue, as its a first person, we see that the girl is a bit dizzy and cant hear right. ( then she wakes up from her dream)

Script

 we noticed that everone in the film business conventionally uses Celtext to write their script so we decided to download the software from google and use it to make our script.

1.EXT.STREET.DAY

          from a distance a figure appears as it gets closer we see

          that it is a young woman claire. she is dressed in a long

          overcoat and is running fast. she has piercings in her nose

          and bleach blond hair. soon after another figure appears

          from round the corner. chasing ensues. sharp turns are take

           and eventualy Claire runs offscreen. crashing noise is

          heard implying that she ran into something. 

                              CLAIRE

                    what the heck!

          

          2. INT. APARTMENT. DAY

          Claire sleeping on sofa. alarm wakes her. she gets off the

          sofa removing the junk food wrappers. heads to door and

          opens it. 

          EXT. STREET. DAY.

          Claire walks out door. is confronted by large grey dog.

          locks door before noticing. back to back shot of them and

          dog barks. Claire runs into the distance with dog chasing

          her.

                              THE NERD WHO LOVED ME

          

          

we made sure to achieve this the  best way  we could. 

all scenes were carefully shot with this rule in mind. likewise with all props. we made sure that most all details were covered to help better convey what we wanted to the audience.

 for instance we got junk food and spread it around the seemingly sleeping lead actress. this make the audience view her as someone who is lazy and unhealthy and something completley different from her dream

Train spotting- similar opening scene

As you can see in this video, we tried to do our own version of their chasing scene.  we did manage to do it.

we used low angle views and  we put the camera on the floor. this was a huge improvment from our last film where we didnt even consider putting these shots into action. 

Our new location

we decided to choose a new location for our film. when we did our last film the road we choose ended up being too busy. in our new location we choose to film it in a council estate where it was quiet.

 we found a series of council flats with extremely interesting architecture. filled with twists and turns perfect for a chase scene and also the paths were wide enough for the crew to manege all the equipment easily. 

problems with filming

there were many problems faced in filming and these were de to many different things

1. conditions. there were many days when we were unable to film due to poor weather conditions. also the amount of time with the same amount of light in a day is relativley short and if using natural lighting in a movie you must make sure that you keep trak of it. this was a big problem in the first draft of our film when we filmed in the afternoon and it got progresivley darker. 

2. equipment. there were many problems with the equipment. this was the most problematic subject of the entire production. this was not explicitaly something wrong with the equipment themsleves but rather there were times that we were unable to use it due to our own lack of knowlegde though these particular problems only daunted us towards the beggining of the project. lac of a dolly made the chase scene difficult to achieve and camera's themselves must be kept in good conditions and handled carefully. 

3. crew and cast. it is difficult to schedule people at the best of times and when they already have schedules for school (all of which ar different timetables) it becomes extremely unweildy. furthermore there are certain natural human reactions that made filming somewhat diffucult. in a shot where our lead actress runs down some stairs she naturaly reaches for the banister which takes away from the extreme and rushed look we were trying to achieve, though this was remedied by the "try and try again" method. 

4. editing. the fact that we need to transfer the film from one computer to another as one solid clip rather than as numerous small clips that form the movie makes it not so much difficult as it is leignthy to edit the film should we realise during sound editing that there is a poblem we must go back to the original computer to edit it. 

5. filming. the problems with filming were realy a compilation of weater conditions and equipment problems. if one piece of equipment is missing or not working properly it is very hazardous to the film. on one occasion we were unable to secure a tripod and it was clear when uploading the footage just how shaky the camera was. 

6. planning. i have already mentioned the problems of planing with the crew and difficultys with the weather and light but also there were problems with the amount of time allowed access to the schools camera and tripod as well as he computers we required for editing. also storyboards with lackluster imagination were sometimes hacked apart during filming. this it must be admitted actualy lead us to have a better film but that was blind luck more so than anythign else.

Titles

editing in titles is probably the most difficult process in editing. we managed to do some interesting things. first of all we managed to create freeze frames of the actors during mid jump and we placed the titles under there feet. this looks impressive while not itself being an overly difficult thing to do. also it is reminiscent of many chase scenes where a pause is used to introduce a character. this is particularly often used by British film makers. for the actual title itself "the nerd who loved me" it was slightly more difficult. first of all we wanted to do something original. we discovered in our first draft that it was possible to make the words move across the screen and leave an imprint. this looks very flashy and unusual. it was however difficult as two different titles needed to be made and had to overlap on each other. also they needed to be perfectly level with each other. there were some problems with the titles in that sometimes they included a fade in fade out animation without us instructing it but this was all fixed.

Music

in our first film we made we chose a song called `cool for cats` but with our new film we were deciding whether to choose a new song. the song I came up with was called ` one way or another`. I pesonally thought `one way or another` was a better song as the lyrics went with our footage which was a chase scene. 

In the end we choose to do a vote as we were a group and it was only fair. we choose the  song `cool for cats` becauseit had an appropriately fast pace but also was deep enough to not seem peppy and childlike. we chose to only include one song in the final draft rather than two in the first draft as while where we were putting them was appropriate,but, most films only contain the very start with a song or the second scene with a song.

problems with our first movie

once we had filmed and edited our film, we were told that we needed to include more shots. we had only put in a panning shot, medium close up and a close up shot. we were also told that we had put in too much music in our film.

we decided as a group that we wanted to re-film the whole movie with a new location to go with it. we wrote a script, drew up a new story board where our new location would be and we wrote down all the shots we would use.

it taught us a lot about how to make a film and showed us our errors in film making which in turn helped us make the final piece better.  We re-filmed on saturday which left us monday to make sub clips, tuesday to put it all together, wednesday to do the credits and today we put it onto a disk. 

20th Jan 2009

Today we filmed our main task. My group were booked in to film on monday but students who had the camera before hand left their camera at home, which delayed our work. 

The equitment we used for our task was:

• Cam corder
• Digital camera
• Tripod
  
• Microphone
  

At first we found it stressful and our director, Ryder expressed this by throwing his iced coffee onto the floor. Once we had done a couple of shoots we found it much easier to work. 

There were also many distractions like cars and people going pass while we were shooting.

7/01/09

In today's lesson we were told that we have just 3 weeks to complete task, which includes, getting a storyboard, script, filming and editing. 

So far I am in the middle of making a storyboard for the main task. I plan to have this finished by Friday, so by next weekend I will be able to rent the camera so we can film.

About my main task

My genre is: Comedy, action and drama.

There is not alot of time to go until the coursework deadline is needed to be handed in. In the 3 weeks I have left I need to come up with a storyboard, script, locations, props and actors. I then need to have it filmed and edited by using final cut pro. 

I will need to burn my two minute opening scene on to a DVD along with my peliminary task.

Research into Austin Powers, Johnny English and Kung fu Panda

Another example in the genre im studing is In all the Austin Powers movies start with a serious start then goes into the titles with Mike Mires dancing to the Austin powers theme tune. It is produced by New Line Cinema.
The film is a parody of the early James Bond films (particularly those starring Sean Connery) as well as other 1960s spy films.

we used this films opening as inspiration for our plot and especially the dream sequence