18/12/09

In this lesson we started to edit our footage. After importing our footage to Final Cut Pro Sara explained to us how important it is to set a scratch disc in order to keep our footage and progress safe. The program we were using was Final Cut Pro, at first this was extremely daunting and looked difficult but after being explained a few basics it became easier and easier with more practice. I found I picked up techniques and shortcuts quite well, such as pressing apple+i on the keyboard and apple+o to select the part of the clip you need. I began by doing a rough cut of my film putting the clips in the correct order very roughly, choosing clips out of each shot to create a storyline similar to the storyboard, this was fairly easy but it was obvious there was a lot of work to do as there was ‘cut’, ‘action’ or ‘rolling on’ being shouted prematurely over the top of useful footage. By looking at the overall footage we had captured everything we aimed to in terms of sticking to the storyboard, but seemed we had slipped slightly from the brief in terms of showing a gothic side of Bath. The shots of Bath we did get I believe are good but I would try to get more if we did this again. I think we did quite a good job but may have got carried away with excitement of making a film and using equipment rather than keeping the brief fresh in our minds.

11/12/09

Evaluation so far
I think the work we have done as a group so far is quite good. I think if I did this again I would make sure especially that we got more footage in each location as I feel we got too much of what we didn’t need to focus on. I enjoyed being an actor in the film although I would like to get involved with using equipment more. I think the organisation was very good with communication between contacts regular and effective. I am looking forward to editing the film now and getting a final product

4/12/09

Today was the first lesson we would be filming the majority of our film. We collected the equipment we needed and headed off to our locations with the permission slips we needed. We had originally chosen to film in a spooky dark track near Jayke’s Grandfather’s house but this wasn’t possible as we couldn’t get an exact address to get permission, to solve this problem we found a spotted a location by the Weir in Bath and we had a man named Chris from suited and Booted with us who said as long as we didn’t disturb the public it would be ok to film there. As it was fairly quiet we decided to fill in some gaps than would be missing on the storyboard such as parts linking scenes to other scenes. We tried out a couple of spooky techniques such as filming the same shot twice with actors missing in one so that once edited it showed an actor disappearing into thin air. The filming in this location I feel was the most successful and achieved some really good effects which, after editing, would add to the eerie atmosphere of our film. Chris was very helpful and even willing to get involved in our film I found his help encourages us to look at things differently and try out different techniques.
The next location we were filming at was Widcombe Cemetery. Around halfway there we discovered problems with the equipment being quite heavy and awkward to carry, we passed a small church called St. Micheal's church with a graveyard and discussed the option of changing our location. After enquiring within the church to get permission and informing the tutor of our change of plans we commenced filming there. This filming went very well we did a few takes to ensure we had enough to work with. At one point a problem was that some kids were kicking a football around and getting it in shot. To avoid this we were going to mover the tripod with the camera but they went away.
To get to our next location we had to get a taxi as it was quite far away, we did more filming here than what was expected and included a lot of the storyboard in this part of the day. I was in a few of the shots and as it was the opening shot it was fairly important. We tried different camera angles and various compositions of the shot, we also thought about make-up as I had to look dead. I think this went quite well and we got some really effective shots relevant to our theme and storyline. While I was not in shot I took charge of directing as by this time our director had left the course. I made sure the shots were kept relevant to the storyboard and I also wanted to watch and learn what was going on with the camera.

27/11/09

This was our last lesson before we started so we decided to make a planner which would help us when we were filming and keep us on track of the shots we needed to get. Before filming the suited and booted company ran through some camera functions and set up. We looked at lighting and exposure settings and gaining a certain light setting using the menu. They also showed us how to use colour bars and why we should use them between takes to help us when editing our movie later. We also looked at manual zoom and focus, this is useful for using instead of automatic settings which may give you a light setting you don’t want. Before we went filming we needed to familiarise ourselves with the camera's so we were sent into the corridor with the task of three different shots. We were experimenting with pan and zoom effects to get some experience with the camera's, this helped us find out what was effective and linked some shots to our storyboard which we thought were relevant to the type of shots we were shooting. We set out to begin filming our movie, starting at the roman baths.
We had Tom to help us film in the Roman Baths, we made our way up there as a group and after handing in the health and safety form and being shown around we found an ideal setting which matched our storyboard and began filming. We worked quite well as a team and took a few takes to make sure we had enough to chose from and work with. Kris was very good as a director and we were missing one team member but this didn't affect the shooting to much. As an actor I found my role fairly easy as I had a minimal amount of acting to do, I tried to get involved with filming and directing when I wasn't needed to act. I think this session of filming went fairly well although if we did it again I would have filmed a lot more as we didn't have enough to work with as I would have liked.

shooting schedule

Time of Arrival/ Departure
Location
Shooting Plan
08:30- 09:30 Roman Baths Get some panning shots of the water and dramatic shots of the water. Shoot a close up shot of the water in the Roman Baths coming over the shoulder of Jake seeing Kate’s reflection in the water
10:30- 12:00 Widcombe Cemetery Filming Jake walking around the graveyard and putting a rose on a grave.
13:00- 14:30 Bear Flat- 52 Meare Road Shot of Kate dead in the bath.
Close up and over the shoulder shots of Jake in the bathroom. Movement shot of Jake running down the stairs and out of the door.
Shot of Jake seeing Kate again in the Bathroom and locking himself into his room and taking an overdose.
14:45- 15-45 Bear flat track Frantic action shot of Jake running as if he’s losing his mind.

Before entering the Roman Baths I had a permissions form to fill out on behalf of our team. Basically a signature to say we all understood the rules and that if any filming equipment was broken it was our responsibility.

17/11/09

Today we reviewed our chosen locations and discussed angles of shots, composition and what we wanted to achieve with each shot.
We wanted to film in the Roman Baths as a theme for our film as part of our brief was to show the best bits of bath, the Roman Baths were also a beautiful place with a lot of history behind them. I contacted the Roman Baths via email and got us permission to film there with a date, time and health and safety conditions.
Thinking about other places suitable for us to film we decided on a few locations: Jayke’s Grandfathers’ House, which we decided was good because it was a modern location which fitted in with our storyline, a spooky track near Jake's Grandfathers house which was very atmospheric and a Cemetary in Widcombe. We had to get permission to film in these places by phoning the people in charge of the places involved. I made a phone call to get permission to film in Widcombe cemetery; I talked to Charles Curnock and got permission for us to film there.
We needed to think about the public and having emergency numbers in case of emergencies. To do this we posted letters to the surrounding area in residential areas to ensure the public knew we were filming on that date and time, and exchanged phone numbers with various other staff and students so they could be aware of our whereabouts at all times.
We also filled out a locations planner this was so we could plan the amount of time spent at each location, what we would be doing and so the teachers could keep track of where we would be and for how long. We also filled out a treatment form, which contained information on the members of our group and the roles they will play in the development of our film. After deciding on locations and gaining permission our final step was to fill out a permission form for the Bath Film Office to get permission to film. I did this via email and received an email back with confirmation.
We created a final storyboard we would try to stick to throughout filming.

Locations Planner

Original Location-Roman Baths
Reason that it can’t be used-NA
New Location-NA
Comments- We have been given permission to film here for up to one hour before the roman baths opens to the public but we are not allowed to film an actor in the water.

Original Location-Widcombe Cemetary
Reason that it can’t be used-NA
New locations-NA
Comments-We have been given permission to film here at 10:30 on the 4th December.

Original Location-Bear Flat- 52 Meare Road
Reason that it can’t be used-NA
New Location-NA
Comments-We have handed out letters to the surrounding area so they know to expect to see cameras and hear unexpected noises

Original Location Bear Flat Track
Reason that it can’t be used-We have not yet found a name for this location to get permission to film here
New location-NA
Comments-Need to find a name for this location to get permission to film

13/11/09

In this lesson we developed our ideas further and decided on roles. We decided Tom would be in charge of filming with Jadine, Jake and I would be acting and Kris directing. We also decided that I would be the contact with Bath film office for location permissions. We walked around Bath looking at and filming possible locations for our film. After looking at Ophelia we decided to have an ongoing theme of water throughout our film so we looked at locations which have water or are related to water. We found some nice canals in Bath and took some short shots of them to review. We also filmed in the Abbey as this is a very big tourist attraction in Bath.
As we were walking around Bath we saw the Roman Baths and considered this as a possible location. We then enquired in the Roman Baths as to see if we are allowed to film in there and they said it was possible, they very kindly put me on the phone to someone in charge and we discussed how this could be made possible, they told me that you could film in the Roman Baths before opening hours but unfortunately were not allowed to enter the water. I also received an information pack about the history of the Roman Baths, times we were allowed to film and the rules about filming, also the reasons you were not allowed to enter the water, one of which was because of health and safety in relation to drowning and diseases in the water. We then went back to the college with our shots and filled out a locations sheet for reference. When reviewing the footage we found some good locations which fitted in with our theme and storyline I was particularly exited about having the opportunity to film in the Roman Baths and thought this would give our film something special and an atmosphere.
Discussing our ideas further we decided on a rough plot for our film and wrote it down for reference, our idea was based around Ophelia and the theme of a love story twisted with suicide and water. To make this idea come alive in a modern day story we decided to use the idea of suicide in a bath, originally I wanted to use the Roman Baths within this but as you are not allowed in the water that idea was made unrealistic. To overcome this and find a way to include the Roman Baths in our film we thought of different things you could associate with water, some ideas from the group were reflections and the idea of mist. I knew there was a lot of steam because the water in the Roman Baths is quite warm so this was perfect.

6/11/09

We met with the Suited and Booted film company to learn about what they do and what they are about, I also looked on some of the websites they suggested to get a background knowledge of their role. I learnt that they help film companies with making and shooting film locations in and around Bath, they handle and deal with small and major companies to allow filming to go on in Bat not only for films, but documentaries and television shows too. We also met with someone from the Bath film company called Sara, she was very helpful and insipring in showing us the opportunity we had to create an individual and expressive film. We were given our film briefs, the idea was to work in groups producing a film 3 minutes long promoting Bath in a gothic way, we had a fairly large scope in what we could choose as subject matter which meant every groups film would be different. We were then split into our groups to mindmap and discuss possible ideas. We came up with quite a few possible ideas these were all gothic related and we wrote these ideas down into a mindmap. We thought of different themes such as Shakespeare, love, romance, and tragedy, there were also ideas like madness and insanity and it was quite challenging to keep in mind how we were going to promote Bath as a city. I wanted to do a love story similar to Romeo and Juliet so I proposed this idea to the group, they agreed this was a good idea but each added there own aspects such as the theme of an overdose, madness and flashbacks. Our favourite idea and the one we decided to go with was a tragic love story set in Bath with ongoing themes of madness, insanity and eventual suicide. We also looked at the character Ophelia by Shakespeare and also a famous painting, this seemed like a good starting point to focus on.

Gothic film report

http://www.zonehorror.tv/clippreview.aspx?clip=8021a273-4fa7-4bcf-ba54-668da3122bdf

The first film I chose to write about came from the Zone Horror website and is called “The Pigeon”. It is only a couple of minutes long but captures a gothic theme in it throughout. The scene is set in a castle, the actual film is very dark and the lighting very low to create a gothic scene. The main character is dressed in Victorian clothing which sets the scene of being either very old or a ghost. The use of a scary castle, dark lighting and old props like candles and cobwebs creates a very eerie mood and ghostly setting. At the very start of the film the use of a wide angle shot to show a dark castle sets the scene of an old and creepy location, the castle looks run down and as if it hasn’t been used for years. The use of thunder at the start of the film creates tension as most people create negative thoughts from thunder and instantly associate it with horror and spooky events. The film is shot at night which is again spooky and the audience will associate this with ghosts or horrific events. The director has used lightening to show the audience short shots of what the castle looks like this is also very random and shocks the audience creating excitement and a sense of foreboding as lightening is also associated with horror. The dialect used in the voiceover is also quite old and the use of poetry creates age and mystery, the actual voice used in the voiceover is very deep and foreboding, this makes the audience sit up and listen you are engaged in the entire film from start to finish. The director has used eerie music throughout the film and chiming of clocks to create a ghostly scene. The table in which the Duke sits at is very old fashioned and gothic and having a character play a duke makes the film more gothic and old fashioned, how the table has be laid also helps create a gothic scene. As we get to the middle of the film the Duke starts to chase to eat it this seems odd to the audience as in modern day people don’t normally eat pigeons (I think). The use of time in this film is very clever and gives a ghostly feel as it never seems to change the time is always nine-thirty. The director changes the scene when the Duke returns and makes it cobwebbed and old as if loads of time has passed but the Duke is stuck in one place. This is very eerie and by this point I was beginning to think he was a ghost, and then the audience is shown a skeleton of the Duke on the floor and find out he is. This is very gothic as skeletons are used a lot in horror. The use of rhyming is very clever and using time to create a ghostly setting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxQcBKUPm8o&feature=PlayList&p=3884EDDEF3E82F35&index=4
The next film I chose I found on YouTube, a Tim Burton short animation. I thought this was a brilliant film and very clever. Although it is animated I still thought it portrayed a gothic theme very well being in black and white helped this. Particular aspects of gothic I picked up on while watching the animation was the use of creatures like bats and cats. It was particularly dark and creepy and the animation made everyday objects like trees seem creepy and dark. I particularly liked the use of font in the film this was very gothic and intricate. The use of poetry also in this film seems to give it an edge in which you are encaptured from the start and watch it until the end, it draws in the audience especially using Vincent as the voiceover. The film is set in a house which is made to switch from normal to gothic throughout the film, the character also continues this theme of switching genres and the audience almost forgets the little boy until he is switched back to himself as the storyline and sub-stories are so enticing. There is a lot of use of lighting in this animation to show switchover from gothic to normality also shadows are used a lot. The theme of zombies comes up in the film also and is set in London which is a good location for gothic horror stories. Church bells are also used in this film, which are used in gothic films to create an eerie atmosphere. There are also many skeletons and skulls which pop up throughout this short film similar to others I have watched, other symbols such as crosses and graves also appear in this film and the character is actually made to like quite thin and pale with shallow sunken eyes which relates to vampires and other gothic films. The theme of insanity and madness also appears in this film which is common to some other gothic films I have watched. The way the film ends is very gothic with a quote from Edgar Allan Poe and a complete back-out with sad music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wug4q-enhkY&feature=PlayList&p=3884EDDEF3E82F35&index=43
Next I chose a really odd film I found on YouTube. It is a stop motion animated short film. . This film is set in a graveyard. It starts with just clips of twigs and graves. Played over these clips are various noises of night time and animal noises you probably would not find scary in the daytime but would at night as it is entering the unknown. It uses very typically scary noises you might associate with ghosts, there is again thunder used in this film which has been an ongoing theme of all the films I have watched. The film uses a technique in which it focuses in and out of certain objects this makes the object more dramatic, for example a gravestone with RIP wrote on it. In this film there is only one character and he has been made out of material so you can only just make out a face which looks quite pale and shallow which is similar to the other films I have watched. He is a really creepy character and has blood on his robes to enhance the horror. He is made to seem magical and is carrying a staff in which he moves things with and creates religious symbols out of twigs. This film is overall very eerie and creepy.

Film "After the storm"

Moving image film after the storm from kate howes on Vimeo.

Evaluation 16/10/09

At the planning stage of this exercise, I think I came up with a few good ideas but could have developed them further to really get a good variety of ideas to choose from. While doing the storyboard we included camera angles and speech for the actors we could have included some more detain on directions. Although we used our initiative and used what we found around us as props we could have thought this out a bit more and brought in some props which might have made the film more realistic. I think everyone accepted and embraced their roles well. Daisy made a good director following the storyboard and picking us up on anything we could improve. Olly made a good cameraman really thinking about angles and effects and taking constructive input from the team to produce an effective film. I think with no experience the acting was pretty dire it was hard to concentrate I think next time research needs to be done on how to act.

Problems within our work were maybe we could have chosen a better location although the college building had everything we needed it may have looked better if we had had more of a run-down building. Another problem was the rooms we chose, we did not check they were free before we used them and interruptions sometimes got in the way or affected the end result. We also didn't think about timings of each shot as much as we should have. We accidentally filmed our first three shots in one go and should have thought about how we were shooting beforehand to prevent this happening. Strengths within our work were the camera angles and shots we achieved. I think these went quite well and improved our end result.

Our work was influenced by the people in the group. We all wanted to achieve suspense in the film an so all input ideas to help this. We were also influenced by events that have happened in our lifetimes and recent films and documentaries. Certainly the twin towers and recent films about extreme world-ending weather came into all our minds during our mind-mapping of the title "after the storm". The purpose of our work I believe is to experiment with all aspects of film making as you do not realise the planning that goes into making a film when you just watch one. It has shown me there is a lot more to film making than I assumed and It's not as easy as you would assume.

I have learnt I need to research a lot and improve research methods to produce a good film. Also I need to structure my time and planning. From doing this project I have learnt how to work with equipment I am not familiar with.

I think my team worked well together although our film could have done with more structure as it wasn't as clear as we had hoped. The finished film was alright and we got all the camera angles and shots that we planned. next time we do a film like this I would consider.

Production 09/10/09

We started off by going through our storyboard to see if there were any last minute changes that needed to be made. We filled out a time sheet to say how long we should spend on each shot and where we would be in the building for it. We started in a room which we had knocked over chairs to set the scene. The two actors started lying down and woke up with our first shot being a long-shot. Our first 3 shots were accidentally combined but they were a long shot to set the scene and a mid shot of the actors exploring the room and trying to get out.

In our next few shots we tried to follow the storyboard to include a close up and over the shoulder shot, in the over the shoulder shot running down the stairs the effect created was panic and rushing. These went as planned and I feel we created good suspense. In our last few shots we wanted to achieve a cliff hanger leaving the audience wondering what happened I think this was effective.

Pre-production 25/09/09

In this lesson we had to plan for our film. We had a group discussion and bounced ideas around of possibilities for our film. Some of the ideas we came up with were hypothetically "after the storm" and some were literally. We decided to go with literally after the storm but left what kind of storm it was up to the audience, we wanted to create suspense and get the audience interested so we thought of using a build up and a cliff hangar at the end. We made our storyboards and tried to include detail like speech and camera movements to make shooting easier on the day.

Last Day Dream [HD] from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

How this video creates suspense and tension.
This video uses a series of short clips combined with piano notes. The clips are played quite fast and you have to watch it more than once to notice everything in it. I believe this is done to emphasise the effect of time and how quickly it goes by and things change. This video creates suspense with the content of the shots, there are some moving and shocking images combined with happy and precious images, they are presented almost as memories using a lot of close up shots that involve the audience making them seem a lot more personal. The video creates tension by the speed of the clips and the music beat which gradually gets faster throughout, you are unsure if the sequence of clips is meant to represent old to new or if they are random. I think they are ordered but meant to confuse the audience, this creates tension because there is a lot of information to take in and process in a short amount of time, the clips themselves are not whole. I think the overall effect of the video is supposed to project how short and precious life is.

Location
There are many locations used in this video which emphasise the large span of time captured in a minute long video. The location is different in almost every clip emphasising the lives of the characters.

Characters
There are many characters used in this video, it shows birth, growth and death.

18th September 2009 moving image- weather project

Our task was to create a mid-shot, long-shot and a close up shot, representing the weather in three contrasting shots. Each shot had to be around 5 seconds long and represent the weather with good use of camera angle and movement.

We started by making story boards and writing down ideas we thought would be effective and what would work best with each shot. We decided that because the weather was pretty dull we would create our own with props. We decided for our long shot we would use a character who would act cold and a tree, because it wasn't windy we decided to use somebody to shake the tree giving the effect of wind. We then decided our close up shot should be of rain. It was not raining so we decided to improvise with an umbrella and a bottle of water. For our final shot we decided to portray cold weather in a mid shot using a character to show effects of the cold.

We went out with the camera and decided who would be filming, acting etc. As we started to film the long shot we had to think about camera angle so as not too catch the person shaking the tree in the shot, it took us a couple of attempts but we succeeded and were happy with our shot, we thought about our characters positioning and whether she should walk towards the camera or away from it, we decided that walking towards the camera was more effective because of the facial expressions. We found the shot was quite effective in how we captured both the physical and emotional effect of the weather.

We created a close up rainy scene using props such as an umbrella and water to create rain, keeping the framing close to the umbrella we captured the facial expressions creating a successful close up shot which portrayed the effect of weather on our character. While filming this shot we didn't come across any problems however we seemed to focus more on props and characters rather than camera movement which is something we could improve on in the future.

We then attempted to create a mid-shot of a cold scene, it wasn't actually cold or dark so we thought about location and decided on a place which was in the shade. We used a character and wrapped her up warm to show effects the cold weather has, we briefed her to act cold and shiver which she did very effectively, it was very clear in our shot what we were trying to portray. Setting up the camera to make a mid shot was fairly simple and we framed the scene with the character on the left side with the rest of the frame filled with the area around us to show location, it was also quite effective in showing the discomfort the cold makes you feel.

If we had to redo these shots we would stick with using props for emphasis but also try to think about camera movement. Altogether i think we succeeded in our task and successfully showed the weather using simple but effective techniques.