Thursday 26th February - 1 more day!

So this was our last lesson before the deadline was passed. We came in and began adding our credits into our piece. At around 10am, we discovered another classroom had become available so Pebbles and I went into the other classroom to make our soundtrack whilst Sevda and Topaz focussed on the video editing. It was definitely fun making the soundtrack. Me and Pebbles found the sounds we liked and waited for the video to be finished so that we could put the sounds together. We added SFX like bird noises, buses, and cars starting to the opening shot to give the video an atmosphere. We put sound over the whole video, but i cut some of the original video sounds like Topaz's footsteps and put them into the soundtrack so that the sound was more realistic. Once the editing was done, we imported it into soundtrack and began layering the sound to make it more interesting. We found a typewriter sound for the beginning of our film and we found that the film looked very good. However, we needed to do some tweaking but had run out of time. Topaz and I came back after the lesson for the workshop session and decided to finish the editing. Once we had done the credits and made sure everything was correctly in place with the soundtrack, we imported it back into Final Cut Pro and we were finished. After watching it back about four times we were pleased with our final product and pleased that after originally being a week behind we were a day ahead of most groups!

Monday 23rd February..

Today was our first day back at college. We had until the end of this week to do our thriller task as Friday was the deadline. I was very happy that Sevda and Topaz had come in to college on Monday and had logged and captured and put some of the footage into a basic order for us. Me and Pebbles were very pleased with the shots and how they had come out, it was a big morale boost for all of us. Although we were behind still, we were in a better position to catch up, and we all were focussed on doing work. We began by watching what Topaz and Sevda had done, and me and Pebbles gave an opinion on what could be improved. With all four of us focused and dedicated to a plan that we believed in, we began working very quickly and by the end of the 1 hour 40 minute lesson we had achieved a sequence that we were all very happy with. We decided that on Thursday we would tweak, add credits, improve our editing and our soundtrack. We still had alot to do, but we were all becoming happier and happier with our work and we were getting closer to catching up to the rest of the groups doing their thrillers.

12th Feb.. Fresh Idea.. Fresh Start.

Today was the day to film our new footage in my house. Today was the day to get our filming done and being on the way to getting back on track. Pebbles came first, most likely because she lived closest to me, and because she had the camera we decided to film the establishing shots. Topaz and Sevda were not too far behind and we got them to finish the basement whilst me and Pebbles finished the establishing shots. Then we decided to film a tilt shot down onto Topaz walking down a flight of stairs into my basement. I feel that we gave this filming our best effort and we were more confident in what we had to achieve.

Once this was done, we concentrated on filming the match cut of Topaz walking in through the door of the basement. We decided the best thing to do was to film a sequence of movements multiple times, which when it came to editing, would allow us to have a greater selection of shots to film from. We did the same inside the basement, and we hoped that we got everything we needed to edit. My main concern was that it was quite dark in the basement but as it was morning times we hoped it would all be ok. When we finished the filming, we were all overjoyed and excited to log and capture and edit next lesson.

12th Feb.. Fresh Idea.. Fresh Start.

We Pitch.. Again! (9th Feb)

There was more snow on Monday, so despite our decision to try and film again this lesson, we were not able to and had to seriously sit down with Mary and discuss how much time we had. Because our deadline was fast approaching we were becomin more and more frustrated with the weather that was affecting our progress. Realizing that we had to change our idea, we sat down and discussed possible ideas even thouh we were now a week and a half behind schedule.

We decided to go with an idea that Topaz had previously come up with but didn't use. We had opted against it because we didn't feel it was an effective idea and felt we couldn't portray it effectively. This time around I offered to use my basement as it was recently refurbished and was a location that was not dependant on the weather. We began drawing out initial storyboard ideas, and preparing our pitch for Mary to hear and hopefully approve. We all were happy with the new idea, location, time and who was to pick up the equipment.

Our idea was of a woman who is obsessed with fires and arson attacks. We decided that Topaz would play this character. We came up with the idea of using my basement as her private place where she houses her obsession for arsons and plans her next arson attacks. We decided that we would have to allocate different things to each of us to ensure we didnt waste time on Thursday for filming. I had to prepare my basement, and try to create the mise - en - scene that would be in a typical thriller, Pebbles was responsible for getting the equipment, Sevda had to help bring items that would enhance the mise - en - scene, and Topaz had to bring candles and lamps for the area as well as her character.

With all of this in place we were ready to pitch our idea to Mary. Mary was approving of our idea, and was very supportive as she knew we were behind. However, she told us we would have to work extra hard to catch up.

Thursday 5th Feb

Today there was more snow. The snow had fallen since the start of this week so we decided to log and capture our footage and try and see if we could edit all the parts together. We also discussed whether or not we could wait another week for the snow to clear. We realised that for us to film through the snow would cause major discontinuation in our film. We felt that we may have to come to a decision and change ideas. We were torn because we knew that changing the idea would mean we would be a week behind the other groups, but we didnt want to risk having a lesser mark due to discontinuation in our filming. After checking the footage we had, we realised that the shots we had were not up to the standard that we wanted. Many shots had a dirty lense, shadows of tripod and were shaky. We decided that we liked our idea and would try and shoot on Monday hoping that the snow would pass.

Deadline Day..

Last lesson, my group and I analysed exactly what we had left to finish therefore today we used our time efficiently and got straight to work. Two of our group members worked on the sound track and did a wonderful job whilst Sevda and I worked on the introductory titles. Once we had both finished Miles and I, meshed it all together and found that it worked really well as a psychological thriller which is what we intended. We had finished in time for the deadline and I am proud of myself and my group for what we have achieved.

Filming Session 12/02/09

In this session we focussed on getting all the shots that we needed for our new idea so that we would be at the same point as the other groups. Having previously arranged to meet at Miles' house we were able to get started fairly quickly, before Sevda and Topaz had arrived the establishing shots had already been done so that all we'd have to film was the action. With filming the establishing shots there were some complications these being that to be able to get what we wanted in the shot the tripod had to be placed on a table so it was quite difficult to see if what we were filming was decent because the screen was high up. Also when it came to filming Topaz from a bird's eye view going down the stairs (which I had decided would be good to include after seeing it in a thriller drama on TV, Whitechapel) it was hard to position the tripod in the right place because the tripod would not fit in the corner of the balcony resulting in the filming being shakey.

The first scenes that we started to film when Topaz arrived was the arrival of the woman. We decided that we wanted to film this in many different ways so that we had a wide range of shot types showing the same thing which we could choose from. The first way in which we filmed it was tracking her from behind a gate type fence, we thought that we could show this and then have a match cut to her walking down the stairs. It was whilst we was filming this that I saw Topaz's shadow on the wall and thought that instead of showing her properly we could with hold her identity for a little longer and film her shadow walking towards the stairs instead. To do this we had to get the camera in the right position to make sure that we would not be able to see the shadow of the camera and the rest of us in the shot too. From this we went on to film Topaz walking down the steps and we thought that the best way to do this would be to have a low angle shot from the bottom of the stairs so that you can see her footsteps coming towards the camera and not her face, again this was because we wanted the audience to still be questioning who she is and what she looks like.

After we got the outside shots done we then moved on to the shots in the basement, like when we were filming Topaz walking upto the building we filmed her walking into the basement from many different angles so that we'd have more to play around with when editing. One of these shots that I think is particularly successful is the worms eye view shot of Topaz's feet as she throws a box at the camera.

We managed to film all of the shots that we needed to quite quickly and were very pleased with what we had and could not wait to get to college to start editing.

Editing..

Today, during our lesson we completed the sequence for our thriller, after showing the other group members what we managed to do during last monday's workshop. They were happy with what we had accomplished and gave us comstructive input in deciding what the ending should be like. Currently, i am really looking forward to putting sound into our sequence with a range of different tempo's and volumes to help thrill the audience. We didn't have any problems or disagreements today which i think is a good indication that we are working as group to get our project finished at the best of our ability and on time.

Editing

16th Febuary 2009:

I and topaz came into college in the half term to log and capture. We logged and captured and saw that some of our shots were shaky and we were panicking again. We put a little sequence together and saw that some of our shots were very good and some were very bad. After the half term when all of our group members are together we are going to edit completely make our credits and our sound track which would complete our thriller.

Filming of new pitch

12th febuary 2009:

Today was the big day which we were going to film again. When I and topaz got to Mile’s house Miles and Pebbles had already started to film the establishing shots of the sky and area. We looked around the basement and put out some of the pictures of fires and make the place look a bit messy. We completed filming all the indoor and outdoor filming that we needed to do and we had a variety of really good shots.
We introduced our character outside with sun glasses on which made her look mysterious. She had a couple of parcels in her hands which had large writing that said “DO NOT TOUCH”. We then followed the character inside and that’s were the thrilling begins. Questions are going around minds which keep the audience in suspense.
We are hoping that when we play back our shots we do not come across the same problems as our first attempt. Our editing is very important as the good the edit the better the audience would ant to know more about the film. I and Topaz would be coming in to college on Monday as it is half term to log and capture. We are all looking forward to watching our shots as we are all anxious to see what everything looks like.

Our new pitch

9th Febuary 2009:

Having missed out on two filming sessions because of the poor weather conditions, we couldn’t predict if the weather was going to carry on so we decided to start again. We knew that this meant that we were going to be behind everyone else but we felt that if we didn’t start again then we were going to fail the whole thing.
Our new idea is a bit simpler to our old idea. Our main character is a woman who is obsessed with fire and arson attacks. We decided to film in Mile’s basement which we felt was a good location because we could shoot everything in one session. We set the location in a dark basement as we thought this could be very effective as this space could be a room she takes important packages, makes plans. Mile’s was responsible for preparing the basement and making it a suitable place to film in. topaz was going to be responsible for her costumes and a few lighting equipment, candles & lamps.
I had the job of bringing images that would be suitable for the main character to use e.g. pictures of houses burning and words stuck onto a page saying “BURN”, “DIE” and also matches and lighters. And finally Pebbles had the most important job which was to pick up the equipment the night before as we were going to meet up at Mile’s house at 9o clock on the dot.
We decided for the lighting to be low just to be candles and lamps used to give it a spooky feel to the opening which would create questions and suspense. On walls there would be pictures of previous terror attacks and fires and there would be maps of different areas circled with red rings around the certain locations so the audience can feel that the woman is trying to blow up certain areas.
We will be using a variety of different shot types and angles to make it interesting some would be high angles, P.O.V, over the shoulder shots, low angles and we would also include some extreme close ups and close ups.
We arranged for Miles to come into college after the filming to log and capture as he is free.

Editing

5th Febuary 2009:

Due to the poor weather conditions we decided not to film because the last time we filmed there was sun which would cause a large continuity problem. We decided to log and capture what we have already, which was not much. When we watched our shots we felt like we had some brilliant shots and some were useless and had to be re-shot. The establishing shot was shaky with a bird zooming past. When we watched the bench scene we realised that mine and Pebble’s shadow is visible in the shot as well as the camera and tripod. We were all trying to figure out how we were going to make this work and we tried to edit what we had but it was useless. We then planned what we needed to get done next time we were filming and what needed to be re-shot. We came up with a schedule that we were going to be able to stick to so we do not come across mistakes again.

Hereos Similarities..

I watched a thrilling and very popular series with 14.3 million viewers in the United States alone. It is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring named 'Heroes', I realised that the mise en scene was very low key which allows the veiwer to assume that something bad is going to happen. This creates suspence and the feeling of the unknown. It helped to make me stay interested and keep watching which is what i think occurs in our 2 minute opening sequence which also has the use of low key. Also as a similarity in hereos the characters are never usually introduced straight away which is what we tried to do with the shadow in the beginning of our sequence. The audience knows someone is there but they do not know who or why which sevda and i thought was highly suspencful and thrilling.

Media Workshop..

Today, i attended workshop with one of my group members, the others had previous arrangements and sadly couldn't make it. I arrived first, collected the equiptment from the office and began to panic because i realised how far behind all the other groups we were. I Started to log and capture our footage until Sevda arrived which meant we would both have to work really hard to utilise our time effectivly to get as much work as possible done in time for the deadline. We began to put our sequence together, so we agreed on each shot to use to make the sequence as interesting , effective and thrilling a possible. We did many shots of each action from different angles when filming, which came in handy when deciding which would looks most effective when matched together. This is something i would definatly do again if i had the chance to redo the project because it turnt out to be extremly helpful. A problem that occured was that some of the clips didn't log and capture properly and went offline, which meant that we couldnt use them in our sequence. We overcame that problem by logging and capturing the ones that were crutial again, it did take up valuable time but it was worth it. We still have quite a substantial amount of work to catch up on but i believe we can do it using all the time possible for example our remaining lessons and workshops.

Filming of New idea..

Today was the big day which would decide our fate of either being back on track and heading for the deadline or crashing and burning with no useful footage. luckily, with our combined confidence and determination we are back on track. We achieved this by finishing all the outdoor and indoor filming that we needed to do. We got a variety of really good shots for example establishing shots, over the shoulder shots, low angle shots and extreme close ups.

We began outside in which we introduced the scene and the mysterious main character.
We then follow the character inside and thats where the bulk of thrilling content comes into play, questions arise which keeps the audience in suspence. I think that the editing of our filming will be so crutial to our final outcome because it will be the way it is edited that makes the audience want to find out the answers to the questions. Next lesson we will be logging and capturing the footage once again i am relly looing forward to it because i an anxious to see what each shot looks lik eon the screen.

New Pitch 09/02/09

Having missed out on two filming sessions because of poor weather and more bad weather predicted for the near future my group and I decided that the best thing to do would be to start again. It is quite a drastic decision because it would mean that we are behind everyone else by about two weeks but we felt that it was a necessary one.

The new idea is a very simple one of a woman who is of an obsessive nature and has a unhealthy fascination with previous terrorist and arsonist attacks. We will be filming the whole thing in and around Mile's basement, which we felt would be a good location because first and foremost it is indoors meaning that the weather has no effect on filming sessions and also people who are obsessed with certain events or people usually have a space in which they can work on their ideas that no one else has access too and these are usually basements.

There will be low lighting (candles and lamps) to give an eerie feel to the opening and to suggest that anything or anyone could be lurking around the corner. Over the walls there will also be newspaper cuttings and pictures of previous terrorist attacks and the perpertrators. There will be maps of different areas with red rinfgs around certain locations to give the impression that the woman is trying to find a link between these events and possibly where the next one is going to happen.

We will be using a variety of different shot types and angles to make it visually interesting some of these being low angles, high angles, P.O.V and over the shoulder shots. We will also include some extreme close ups of the woman's hands and newspaper cuttings to show what she is doing and give the audience some kind of idea where the film is going.

Due to us starting again we have had to plan absolutely everything to make sure that we will be able to complete the opening in time for the deadline. We are hoping to get all the filming that we need done in Thursdays session, to make sure that this has a good chance of happening we are going to take out the equipment on Wednesday so that we can all meet at Mile's house at 9.00am on Thursday so that we have a good amount of time to achieve what we need to. We have also allocated each other jobs to do before the filming so that we have everything we need to have, I am bringing the newspaper cuttings, drawing pins and equipment, Sevda is bringing matches and other arsonist type paraphernalia, Miles' getting his basement sorted out and Topaz is bringing the lighting (candles). This will all hopefully make filming on Thursday a lot easier and enable us to get what we need to get done. We have also organised it so that Miles will start logging and capturing when we get back to college because he has a free lesson and me, Topaz and Sevda will come in on half term to start the editing process.

Our new pitch..

Due to more unpredicted bad weather, despite the previous descision to film last lesson, we didn't film yet again and descided to scrap our idea completly. It took alot of consideration but we had no choice because of the deadline that was steadily growing near and the increasinlg bad weather that we unfortunatly depended on. This meant that we would be behind on our schedule however, we are all determind and are willing to work extra hard to get to cacth back up and finish the project on time.

Our new idea was one that i thought of earlier on in the project but wasn't used because of the belief that the other idea would be more effective as a thriller. We started with the initial descisions such as the location which is a member of my groups basement and around it which is good because it isn't dependant on the weather like our old idea. We also decided who would pick up the equiptment and what time to meet at his house which was really early to maximise our time. We began on the storyboards and everthing seemed to fit into place. We are all mutually happy with the decision made and i am looking forward to filming this idea.

The idea is of a fiesty woman, played by myself, that has an obsession with fire and arson attacks. She has a secluded place in which she takes important packages, tries to clear her head and plans her next moves. To make this possible we allocated duties to each member so that we have no reasons why filming will not be successful. Iam responsible for the costumes and lighting (candles and lamps), Miles is reponsible for preparing his basement and making it suitable to film in. Pebbles had the most important job of bringing the equiptment that we needed and sevda had the job of bringing newspapers and images that would imply that the main character was an arsonist or at least had an obsession with arsonist attacks.

Editing 5/02/09

In todays lesson we were meant to go out and do some more filming because we knew how much we still had to get done however due to poor weather conditions, it was snowing, we decided that we wasn't going to film because the last time that we filmed it had been a sunny day and filming today would cause us major continuity problems. So we chose to dedicate this lesson to logging and capturing what we already had, which after watching it back was not that much.
Everyone was quite down in the lesson today because for some reason we felt that we had got some good shots at the time but when we played it back we saw that the establishing shot was shaky at the beginning with an annoying bird zooming past and also when we watched the bench scene we could see mine and Sevda's shadows in the shot as well as the actual camera and tripod. However, after we had come to terms with what we had we did try to make it work and ended up trying to edit what we had but nothing seemed to fit together, so we then sat down and planned what we needed to get done when we next went filming, what needed to still be shot and what needed to be shot again, making sure that we were aware of what we needed to do to prevent some of the mistakes we made from happening again. It was through this process that we actually came up with a schedule that we were realistically going to be able to stick to.

Filming 29/02/09

In the previous lesson that we spent preparing for our filming session we had decided that me and Sevda were going to collect the equipment and meet Miles and Topaz at the park at ten 'o' clock because we felt that it was pointless us all getting the equipment when some people lived closer to the location so could just make their way straight there. We chose to meet at ten because it would give us at least two hours to get the majority of the shots we needed to film done. Once all of us were there we walked to the bridge that we had decided to use for our establishing shot. Me and Sevda managed to shoot two tilts of the sky and a pan going from right to left, we chose to do the pan as well as the tilt so that we would have more options when it came to editing. We then filmed Topaz walking towards the camera and then filmed Miles in the same way. At this point it was easily -100 degrees and we were close to being frozen but never the less we moved on and found a bench that we thought would be perfect for Topaz to sit on and have different shots of Miles at different places on the bench so that when it came to editing we could do some quick cuts showing the change of position and hopefully indicate to the audience that he is a ghost. This turned out to be the last thing we filmed because both batteries ran out and we had no use of our fingers due to the extreme cold, however we felt that we got a good amount of filming done and that we could watch it back and then see if we were going to have to reshoot a few shots and what shots we still had to do.

Editing original footage..

Today, because of bad weather, we decided it would be more productive to log and capture the footage that we had so far. We decided this because the bad weather was attually a thick layer of snow which would have caused major dis-continuation in our sequence so rather than risk loosing marks we came to that descision as a team. Although, we didnt finish filming the whole of our storyboard we had some very impressive shots such as establishing shots, long shots,even slow zooms, and paning but, whilst watching what we had filmed we realised some were unusable because of the lense being dirty, a bird flying across the sky at a fast pace, shadows of the camera and tripod and in the shots and some of the shots being shakey despite the use of the tripod. I felt as if our work was going down hill even after all the planning that we did so i spoke to my group about the matter and it turns out that our feelings were mutual. This was a problem that we fixed by making a list of what needed re-shooting and what still needed to be done. We decided that we would be filming next lesson.

First day of Filming overall task

We had previously arranged for two of our group members to collect the equipment that we needed as they lived closer to college. My other group member and I met them at the park in with the clothing that we needed for the scenes. We began by referring to the storyboards from our previous lesson and setting up the equipment. Miles and I both changed clothes and we began shooting. Many people were unexpectedly in the park but we were very patient and worked with it because we thought it would be more realistic. As I played the role of tiffany I’m not too sure about many of the difficulties that may of occurred when filming however, once I spoke to my group members they said that they couldn’t keep the camera in the same position, which is what we planned to do, because of zooming in and out. Two problems that I experienced was the weather, because it was so cold and the batteries running out. We didn’t finish filming but we made a joint decision to continue filming next week Thursday after watching our current footage on Monday.

Storyboards

We completed some boards by taking pictures of the park and planning which shots would be taken at which parts of the park. We also planned the angles. By this time our ideas were beginning to flourish.

Plan of pitch and pitch

Today was crunch time for us all to reveal our ideas, put them together and then come to an equal agreement of what our overall task of a two minute opening for a thriller film would be. It took a while for us to think of the most suitable idea but once we found it, we pitched it to the rest of the class and our teachers. We received some positive feedback which boosted my confidence. Our final idea:
Location: Downs Park
Characters: Female- Tiffany
Male- Nathan
Props: The swings and other playground facilities.
Sound: Non-diagetic – Childrens laughter, footsteps, creeking from swing ect.
Diagetic- Our own soundtrack

Filming preliminary task

Today, we filmed and edited our preliminary tasks.
We started our task by collecting the necessary tools such as the camera and tripod. Soon after we went and set up the equipment at our chosen location, which we decided on from our previous lesson. The storage cupboard was slightly messy so we quickly moved a few boxes so that we could have the required amount of space to film. Our filming was successful because everyone was focused and much more confident with how to use the equipment. We knew the shot types and angles that we had to do because of our very detailed planning from our previous lesson. I’ve learnt that planning is highly important to the extent of how well the task turns out, for example we planned to make our preliminary romantic through the body language and conversation between the characters and it went successful because our group was the only one to think outside of the box which is different compared to other groups. In editing we didn’t have any problems because we all helped when choosing the perfect clips to put together and make the match cuts and shot reverse shots.

This film was very fun for the whole group and has made us much more anxious and excited to start planning and filming our overall task of two minutes to the opening of a thriller film.