Refilming and the problems we faced

When comparing our final piece to when we first began filming it displays explicit examples of how we improved significantly over tie course of filming and editing. Our first footage we found was very bad quality and there was minimal advanced shots, so didn't show that we could explore a variety of shots etc. Additionally, our first bit of footage we found took a lot longer then expected, this therefore meant our continuity wouldn't be correct because on the day we filmed it was dark and rainy, then when we came to film the footage outside of school the weather had changed. Our opportunity to first film was rushed, but gave us a number of things to improve, as we were able to bring in footage to our teachers and then receive feedback on areas to improve.

Our second time filming was a lot more successful. Before organising to film we listed all the things we needed to improve and adapt to ensure our filming would run smoothly. So, when listing things we first of all had to ensure the lighting was correct, and as our opening was meant to be in the morning we had to ensure that it looked as believable as possible. To do so we organised to film at around 7pm to begin with as it ensured the lighting would be correct, and also allowed us to have more time to then film other parts. We tried a variety of shots in the bedroom scene such as close ups and over the head shots, this showed that we could include a number of shots but also made it that little bit more interesting to watch from the audiences point of view because it wasn't long tracking or pan shots.

Whilst filming, one of the parts which took the longest was the living room scene, this was essentially because it was one of the more important scenes, it meant casting a 'mum' for the girl and making it look believable that she was a drunk bad mum. To aid ensuring the characters looked as believable as possible it was essential to make the mise-en-scene appropriate and believable. One of our struggles was making the scene not look too set up, so on each occasion we had to film which was on different days we changed what we included in the mise-en-scene. For example,little extras such as adding dirty plates and clothes hanging on the radiator suggested that the mum was careless and so therefore made our final piece more realistic.

Technology and how it was mastered

iMovie

We used iMovie to edit our media product. iMovie is an Apple editing software which is very user-friendly and easy to learn. iMovie has a helpful interface meaning that it is easy to navigate and teach yourself how to edit film. iMovie also allows films to be shared and published on facebook, youtube and vimeo- this was helpful as I posted our film on facebook to gather feedback to make changes.

However we have faced difficulties with iMovie such as importing the videos took a lot of time and often some were lost in the process of uploading therefore I had to upload them twice. Also the storage space on my MacBook Air is very limited and the whole editing process (having to add a lot of shots and save large files) took up a lot of space and meant that when we finalised our project we had to go through and delete videos we hadn't used so that we could create space to save the final piece.

Here you can see the iMovie window. In the top left hand corner is our project split into individual shots with the sound effects/voiceover bars underneath (also shown on the right)

On the top right hand corner is the viewer pane so when we play an event or project this is where the video plays. In the bottom-right hand corner of this screenshot you can see the buttons used to add music, stills, text, change the theme or add a map/background/animatic.

This toolbar allows you to(from left to right) import from camera (live capture), swap events and projects, zoom, add selected video to project, mark selected video as favourite, unmark selected video, reject selected video, record a voiceover, crop/rotate/Ken Burns (pan/scan effect notably used by director Ken Burns), and inspect fine adjustments to a clip's video and audio tracks.

This is the event library pane (located bottom-left hand corner) here you can see your events gathered together by imports and you can see iPhoto videos. 




Below is the event browser pane any clips uploaded to iMovie appear here. You can preview clips by hovering over with your mouse and it will display in the viewer pane. The orange lines under some of the clips represent that that part of that particular clip has been used in the project.

Camera: Canon PowerShot SX50 HS Compact Camera

We used a Canon PowerShot Compact Camera with 50X ultra zoom. We already had this camera and therefore used it as it was easiest to access. The camera creates steady film and 1080p films (full hd) allowing us to create good quality film. As I had already had this camera for 2+ years i knew how to work it quite well and this gave us an advantage as we didn't have to work it how to use it therefore could start filming straight away.

Shooting schedule

Date	Time Of Day	Who	Results Of Our Filming
9/02/16	Afternoon	Simone	This was our first time filming we took few shots and didn’t use may different camera angles. This resulted in our filming not be as successful as we wanted.  However this enabled us to identify our setbacks and therefore act upon this and improve them
16/02/16	Afternoon	Simone and Debbie	We started by filming Simone’s part in the bedroom. We took various shots from multiple and angles to allow us to get the best shots possible. We then film Debbie’s part, as the drunk mum, this did not to go to plan as Debbie was uncomfortable playing the role of the mum and couldn’t make it to our filming dates therefore we changed the role of the actress to Amanda.
23/02/16	Afternoon	Simone	The majority of our filming was dine on a Tuesday as this was the day when our shooting location (House) was free  which made shooting a lot easier. By this shooting session we had planned what we wanted to film on what day, and how long it should take, this help our filming flow better.
27/02/16	Morning	Simone	We filmed in the morning be around 8:00 am as it helped when we filmed the scene in the bedroom of Simone waking up, as it looked more realistic using the natural light instead of filming after school where the lighting didn’t fit the shot. We had to re-film some of the outside shots again as Simone was wearing different shoes than in previous shots.
01/03/16	Afternoon	Simone and Amanda	This time filming we used Amanda our new actress to play the role of the drunken mum, we filmed the scene in the living room where we needed both Simone and Amanda in the same scene. This took us around an hour and a half which was only and extra 15 minutes over what we had planned it would take us. However when looking over our footage the next day we realised we had missed certain shots out and some shots we were not happy with how they looked  so we decided to re film them again next week.
07/03/16	Free Period during school	Simone	In this week’s filming session we filmed the scene where Simone walks to school, we did this during a free period as there would not be many people around and would be easier to film in our free than after school when there was people coming in and out of school etc. However this took us the whole free as get from one filming place to the other took time, as well as this it took us a while to film a shot where Simone drops a cigarette butt on the floor and treads on it and walks off. This is because we cut the shot so we needed to use continuity and getting her feet in the exact same place and the cigarette butt proved to be very difficult.
08/03/16	Afternoon	Simone and Amanda	On this day we re-filmed the shots from last week that we wasn’t happy with, some shots we tried with the tripod and others without, however we decided as a group the shots with the tripod looked better as the shots were more stable and accurate.
12/03/16	After School	Olivia	After school Olivia took the camera and filmed multiple establishing shots in various locations, e.g. the park, train tracks and houses. We then   were going to incorporate them into our final film opening.
22/03/16	Afternoon	Simone and Amanda	This was our last time filming in the house and were decided to over shoot specific parts and from different angles so we had a variety to choose from when it came to editing and we could chose the one that looked the3 best.
15/04/16	Free Period at school	Simone	Our last time filming took us around twenty minutes and was shot outside the school gate of her about to enter the school, but she then receives a text from an unknown number. We decided to film this scene from various angles before deciding to film it from behind the gate so Simone is seen looking into the school which we felt made Simone look isolated which was a significant part in adding to portrayal of Simone’s  vulnerable character.

Development of cast members

The process of filming has been prolonged significantly due to our constant changing in recasting, however this encouraged us to ensure we were thinking thoughtfully about who we decided to cast for our final opening.

The first person we casted was Simone.

Simone Dean

We felt as if she was a vital person as she was going to be the one acting the most throughout, it was important that we chose someone who we felt comfortable guiding and giving instructions to, to ensure we got the best outcome. Simone ensured that she was able to film on the days we suggested to her and was committed in giving up her spare time to film our opening with us. Due to Simone previously doing drama GCSE it made it easier for us to decide on someone to act as she had previous experience which she could include when acting.

Amanda Robertson

Debby Dean

Secondly, the person we had to cast as the 'drunk' mum was also someone who was available when we needed them to be. This became difficult as to begin with we decided on Amanda Robertson, again being a family member allowed for us to give firm instructions on how we wanted things to be. The problem with this came where we had to refilm small clips of our opening because of multiple reasons such as the continuity or lighting not being how we wanted. By having to refilm meant that Amanda was unfortunately not always able to film on the days which we required her to. Due to our forthcoming deadline and the shortage of time it meant we had to decide to cast another person to play as the drunk mum. We chose Debby Dean, who is also a close mum, who we were able to instruct as we pleased, however it was still fairly difficult to direct her but due to Amanda being away we had to try our best to guide Debby in order to better our final piece. An extension in our deadline meant that we had more filming time available, this worked in our favour because it meant that we could use Amanda who we had originally planned on using.

Jake Clifton

Lastly, our last casting issue was having a male actor to participate. Due to our changing storyline meant that in the end it turned out that we didn't need a male actor, just a male voiceover to be included. This helped us as again difficulties came to finding the right time to film. When casting, we had to make the decision based on who would best be able to perform and be in character, for this we chose Jake clifton, this was because he participated in drama throughout GCSE and currently does for A-Level this therefore meant that his acting would be as we expected and he was confident within his role which improved our piece massively. Due to deadlines in other subjects meant that Jake also had to prioritise his work which meant we had to find another actor because from teachers feedback there was more filming needed and shots to be included. To fix this problem we decided to use Sam Baggarley, it was more difficult in ways as he didn't have as much of a natural confidence about him as he didn't have as much experience as Jake. Regardless of this we still managed to instruct him through our piece and managed to re film as we wanted.

On one of our last feedback sessions with our teachers we came to the conclusion to change our idea slightly to take out our male actor and to alter the storyline. This therefore meant we could include some parts of what we had previously filmed but also add some new material. As a whole our final film opening had lots of altercations which made it difficult to keep people we casted consistent, however we managed to overcome these problems to produce our final piece which we are very pleased with. 

Health and safety

Make up and costume

Storyboard

Initial Ideas

Our first fully finished story board had various issues during creation due to the angles of the drawings and the amount of shots we showed. When we first started creating the story board we found it difficult to work out when we needed to start a new frame and often didn't draw enough frames or include every shot, once we had decided that the storyboard wasn't making much sense we realised the frequency of how many frames we had to include and re-drew some. This therefore improved the accuracy and similarity of the storyboard to the opening.

Final Storyboard

This is our final story board with the updated story which progressed greatly since our initial ideas and first story board

Company logo and name

Company Logo and Name

For our company name we wanted a name that indicated 'bright ideas.' for this reason we came up with names such as 'vibrant productions' and ' lucid productions.' Unfortunately, after doing a survey the participants we asked said that these names seemed to optimistically happy. We then had the idea to use the word 'lighthouse' because of the connotation associated with lighthouses. Although lighthouses are typically seen as a beacon of safety and security we thought we could use a stormy sea and a lighthouse keeper to symbolize danger and loneliness, which links to our opening as the lighthouse keeper is trapped in the lighthouse until the storm blows over, much like the girl in our opening is trapped in her situation with no way out. 

Despite the fact we wanted our logo to be related to our film opening we intended for it to be widely applicable to a range of productions. This is in accordance to the idea that production companies produce more than just one film, generally using the same logo for each one; therefore a logo should represent the company not the individual films.

We decided to use the font 'dark half BTN' because it isn't particularly formal and looks almost freehand. We decided this because of how it relates to the social realism genre being a usually low budget genre and includes elements of improvisation to make i

This was our first logo we created. After uploading it onto our opening we decided that the colour was too washed out to be seen properly. 

 This is our final logo; that is on our film opening. We also altered the dimensions of this logo to ensure it was better fitted on our film such as using brighter colours and more prominent outlining which made it look more professional. For our final logo we used more vibrant colours to ensure it was more aesthetically pleasing. 

Lighting

Overcoming obstacles

When starting our initial planning we researched codes and conventions of horror films as this is what we had initially decided on for our genre idea. Different research methods helped us to widen our understanding of the thriller/horror genre, such as creating mood boards and looking further into the history of thriller and how it has changed overtime (see other blog posts).

Mood board:

Continuing deciding ideas for our opening we came across problems, such as not making the idea too generic, and ensuring we apply some of the codes and conventions of the genre. We discussed some ideas as a group and began storyboarding for a thriller/horror genre.

As lessons progressed we found it easier to generate ideas for a different genre, social realism. This was because we could relate real life problems and situations and apply them to the genre and ideas we were thinking of. For our initial idea we had to consider location and this was a problem as it was difficult to find a suitable place that looked realistic, we overcame this by deciding to do a different genre and as a result this worked better and was more fitting.

Our second idea was an improvement as we found the idea more arrangeable and had the facilities and time. Our second idea was about a girl with an abusive boyfriend and who was very troubled. Although we thought this genre would be difficult to include in just a two minute opening, additionally it is fairly generic and we wanted to think of an idea which isn't just like a duplicate of other social realism films and an idea that was original.

With our third and final idea we were a lot more able to storyboard around and think of little ideas which implied our genre, as one the main things is to make our genre apparent to the audience viewing it. The current idea, is about a young teenage girl who struggles with her home-life as her mum is an alcoholic, the short opening demonstrates how this begins to have a knock on affect with regards to her schooling.

We have began filming parts of our opening which was really helpful in allowing us to decide ways we can change to improve and see what adaptations needed to be made and it was a first draft. When filming, we underestimated the amount of time it would take to film as we had assumed we would be able to get most of the filming complete in one evening, which we later found we weren't as it needed to be precise and carefully thought through. Secondly, looking over our first draft, we felt it didn't look very professional nor was the continuity consistent throughout. Although our first time filming wasn't as successful, it was successful in helping us to identify our problems and giving us opportunities to change them to then make our final product the best as possible.