Film Diary
28/11/15: Production company and Film name design
During this in school lesson we were given the task of deciding on a name of a production company, the log for the company as well as the title and how the title would be shown in the opening sequence. After a lot of bouncing of ideas we decided to go for a design that's logo was based on a teacup. We decided on this because we believed it portrays the stereotypical 'britishness' of the gritty realism genre, therefore making our production company very conventional of the genre. Dottie, being the best artist in our group, drew out a number of different shapes and forms of the teacup until we decided on a final logo design and the name 'Cup of Tea Productions'. We also planned a name for our film, coming up with several and innovative ideas that all fitted our theme for the film really well as well as the conventional one word title for the gritty realism genre as we found that in gritty realism films the title is often only one word or a lot of words (for example 'Submarine' in comparison to 'Once Upon A Time in the Midlands').
30/11/15: Filming and Prop Collection
On the thirtieth of November, after school, Lucy and I went into town, which will be our filming location, in order to buy a mirror so we could carry out our plane for the title sequence in our scene. Our plan for the mirror is to smash it and have graphics reading the film title 'Sane' over it. Despite Dottie not being present we used the tripod, as well as experimenting with handheld, to take some expository shots of the hill that overlooks the whole town. We had problems with this because of the dark time of day, however, this is the time and lighting that we want for our initial opening sequence. Furthermore, we filmed so experimentary shots of along the sea front in case there was any that could be used for setting the scene of the film. We also took these shots to evaluate what time in the evening would be best at conveying the mood and atmosphere we want our film to have as well as ensuring it was a time which gave the audience our prefered reading and understanding of the characters and overall feel of the film. By doing this at this point in the filming process we also ensured that we had a full plan of what we were going to do once our actors were available so we wouldn't be wasting their time and could film as quickly as possible.
01/12/15:First filming session
In the evening, Dottie, Lucy and myself met with our two actors, Chris and Pascal, to film along the seafront of our town. We dove straight into filming and started with a few experimental shots and then continuing to stick to our plan and referring to our storyboard. We constantly consulted it to ensure we were staying on task and getting the shots we needed as well as a few others we could add in if we saw it fit and thought it would assist in the flow of the scene. During filming we made it certain that we were avoiding as much traffic noise and lights interfering with our shots as we were filming alongside a main road, we did this to ensure that the shots we got were of best quality visually and sound wise. The filming went really well and we got as many shots as we could in the space of two hours before the cameras battery ran out.
4/12/15: First editing session of the filming
In this lesson we had the opportunity to begin editing the shots that we acquired for our film during the week. Here we decided on the best shots off all the recordings and kept the ones we believed we could use successfully in our film. After we deleted the ones we didn't want or need wie established the first shots that we would use to set the scene for the audience as well as the initial shot of the protagonist. This took a while because we had difficulty trying to settle on which shots we would use as we had the problem of different shots having been filmed at different times of day so eventually had to decide on the shots we had that were at the darkest time of day so the film would flow without confusing the audience.
9/12/15: Logo editing session
In this lesson we decided to focus on editing the production company logo as after simply scanning the hand drawn image in we believed it not to look as professional as we wanted and required in order for the film to be as conventional to the genre as possible. We initially tried to add transparency to the background of the image using Powerpoint, however, we weren't satisfied with the results.
Also on this day Lucy and Dottie attended a session with the music teacher in our school to try and establish a soundtrack to use in our opening sequence. They came up with lyrics for an original song as well as developing the tune and melody for the song, and getting a sample recording of this.
11/12/15: Editing Lesson
After the not complete success of the previous logo editing we decided to instead of this we decided to use the editing software 'Adobe Illustrator'. This ensured us to be able to get the logo looking neat, professional and unobviously pixelated when enlarged, it also meant that it would be easy to edit when making the background transparent and transferring it to the film editing software and adding it into our opening sequence. In this lesson we also tried to edit the logo in photoshop in order to make the background transparent, however, we had little success of this as we were inexperienced with this element of Photoshop.
15/12/15: First draft edit
We finished editing our first draft of the film on this day with just about half the shots we need for the opening sequence filmed. During this hour I spent editing i finalised the editing we had already completed by adding the best of the shots we had that flowed together really well as well as including some action match shots to give dimension to the sequence. I also added in the photoshop edit of the production company logo with no fade in or out, which is something we need to work on.
During the lunchtime of this day Lucy and I went to the music teacher to try and record the original song we are using within the opening sequence of the film that Lucy and Dottie worked on in a previous session that I was unfortunately not there for. We managed to get a short section of the song done, however, we were interrupted by the school bell signalling the end of lunch meaning that we would have to finish the song another day.
Later in the day we showed the first draft to the rest of our class and a group critique was initiated of each others current work which helped us establish the improvements we needed to make as well as the already existing strengths of the sequences.
First Film Draft
First soundtrack draft
02/01/16 - 03/01/16: Filming with an alternative actor
During this time we re-filmed our entire sequence. We took the opportunity to do this during the Christmas school holidays as our main actor Chris had recently experienced a family bereavement which meant that we were unable to film the week before the holidays as we didn't want our actor to feel pressure to film so soon after the difficulty. Another issue that came up was that when scheduling this filming time during the holidays our actor for 'Chris Mark 2' (Pascal at the time) was unavailable so we had to find a new actor and fast. Luckily we found we could use Alex. In order to have continuity in our sequence we decided to re shoot all of the scenes. As we had already shown our class many of the shots from the first draft of the film we had many criticisms, both pros and cons, of those scenes. This allowed us to develop the sequence and take in to account many of our class's judgement so our we were able to produce the best shots we could.
Chris and Alex worked very well together as they have met each other many times previous to filming. This meant they were completely comfortable with each other, thus allowing them to fully submerge themselves in their roles.
We stayed over at Dottie's house, which was our second location, so that we were able to film early in the morning in order to get one of our final shots. This also guaranteed that all our required scenes were shot in the space of two days, allowing me and Lucy to film the title sequence the next day and have all of our content ready for editing as soon as possible.
04/01/15: Title sequence filming and editing
The morning of the 4th Lucy and I took the mirror we had purchased earlier in the process to a nearby wooded area. We chose this as a location to shoot as it was secluded enough to throw a rock at a mirror without causing damage to the surrounding area or any potential pedestrians. We first etched the words 'SANE' into the mirror using a sharp edged rock we found nearby and then smashed it just once whilst filming. We were careful as to where we filmed it and whether or not there were people around. Additionally, we ensured we were both a safe distance away from the mirror in order to prevent injury to ourselves. After filming the shot we cleared up all loose bits of glass and disposed of them and the broken mirror in the safest way we could. The reason we chose this shot as a way of introducing the title of the film is because we liked the idea of smashing a mirror with the words 'SANE' etched into it , we believed it would represent Chris' frustration with his struggle and attempt with sanity; becoming 'sane'. It also depicts Chris' broken personality due to his mental illness and is a really powerful way of demonstrating this without the use of the narrative.
After this we went into school to edit all of our footage. Lucy spent the first two periods doing the basic editing together (as Dottie and I had lessons). After this Dottie, Lucy and I all worked together on editing the footage and improving it further to create our second draft of the film.
This was also when we came across the difficulty with our current Production company logo at the time.
During the lunchtime was when we filmed the logo sequence and added it into out film after experimenting with adding in the current digital and sketch version, but to no avail. So instead we decided to use a teacup that we had found and right the name of the production company on it in a short sequence. We first had Jeanne, an actor we have used previously throughout the course, however the shots we captured with her did not have our desired effect so we used Dottie instead. We tried a number of different backgrounds for the shot. The first was a messy kitchen background which we believed fitted the gritty realism genre aesthetic well, however, it did not look as professional as it should for a production company sequence. So instead we decided to use a plain black background which was available to us in the school's drama room.
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| Still taken from the footage of the film title sequence |
This was also when we came across the difficulty with our current Production company logo at the time.
During the lunchtime was when we filmed the logo sequence and added it into out film after experimenting with adding in the current digital and sketch version, but to no avail. So instead we decided to use a teacup that we had found and right the name of the production company on it in a short sequence. We first had Jeanne, an actor we have used previously throughout the course, however the shots we captured with her did not have our desired effect so we used Dottie instead. We tried a number of different backgrounds for the shot. The first was a messy kitchen background which we believed fitted the gritty realism genre aesthetic well, however, it did not look as professional as it should for a production company sequence. So instead we decided to use a plain black background which was available to us in the school's drama room.
We then spent the lunchtime editing to create our second draft edit of our complete opening sequence.
Trial with the digital Production company logo
Final Production company logo/introduction.
Our final second draft.
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