Making a Video

In class we watched a video made by some Australian production team. The video gave us some useful tips/advice on how to control our filming and production schedule.

It started off by telling us the different roles that are involved when producing a film:

- Executive producer: This person will create the filming schedule/timeline, control the budget and decide who fills what rolls.

- Writer: This person will take all the idea that were discussed and write a script for the production

- Director: This person is in charge of all the movement

- Production manager: This person keeps track of the production and makes sure everything is on track to stay in budget/in the deadline

- Storyboard Artist: This person draws and plans the shots in a cartoon strip style

- Camera operator: This person controls the camera and uses the storyboard as the outline and guide of what to film (this can sometime be the same person as the lighting director)

- Lighting Director: This person is in charge of the lighting on set when they start the filming process

- Sound Technician: This person will add sound to the production at the editing stage and may try and record different sounds on set to add at a later stage

- Talent: The talent will be the actors; these will either be auditioned or asked to partake by the executive producer

- Editor: This person will make sure the continuity etc is correct and produce the finished product.

They then gave us an outline of the three stages of creating a production.

Pre-Production

Scripting

Scene breakdown

Storyboard

Shot list

Casting

Location

Equipment

Catering

Hire of venue

Letting others (around the area) know you're filming

Shot list and shooting schedule:

Where

Time needed

Different camera angles

When

How long

Plan Ahead, Be Prepared!!

Production - The doing stage

Shooting the project

Time management (crucial)

Quality control (image, sound, performance)

Potential conflict between producers (limitations and directors creativity)

Post-Production -The finishing stage

Editing

      -Rough-cute/off-line and final/on-line

Sound technician balances sounds

All elements combined during editing

Sound mix

Opening Sequence Analysis

In class we started the research stage of our opening sequence task. Mr. Buckmaster showed us three different opening sequences and asked us to analyse them. Before showing us the opening sequences he spilt us into 5 groups and gave each group a heading to base our analysis on. The 5 headings were: Genre, Atmosphere, Narrative, Setting and Character.

'Cape Fear'

The first opening sequence we watched was 'Cape Fear' which is an American psychological thriller directed by Martin Scorsese. My group was asked to analyse the character.

I thought the middle-aged (looking) man who appeared in red waves was the main character. I think this because there was a reasonably long focus on him. Also, because the man appears under red waves and then comes out of the water it give the impression that he may have a position of power in the film and that he may be unstoppable as he is able to free himself from under the water. I also got the impression that he may be a murderer in the film bacause of feeling of power and because I felt the red blood may have relected blood, or hell.

The woman at the end, who seemed to be a lecturer or teacher, had an American accent. I thought she seemed quite innocent and vulnerable from her manner and fairy tale like speech. This makes me think that she could be a victim in the film. This is reinforced by her talking about the river being called 'Cape Fear' but her not believing the river should be named 'Fear', luring her into a false sense of secutiry, this could foreshadow something bad happening to her at/in/near the river.

'Hell Boy II: The Golden Army'

The Second opening sequence we watched was 'Hell Boy II: The Golden Army' which is a supernatural superhero film directed by Guillermo del Toro. This time my group was asked to analyse the genre.

I started off by thinking the film may be a detective, crime solving genre. I thought this because they showed many papers, diagrams and drawings including the Vitruvian Man. This gave the impression that someone was trying work something out or solve a mystery in an outdated way.

I also thought it had an element of fantasy because the boy at the beginning was red and had horns, like a devil. This gave it a slightly unrealistic feel and gave the impression that it was going to be a make believe film.

The Soundtrack made me think of war. The rhythmic clunking of metal sounded like it was either a parade of soldiers marching or a battle in action (the clunking being swords and weapons). This made me think that it was going to be an action adventure style film with lots of fighting and drama.

Finally, I think the red and orange fire used in the opening sequence makes it seem like hell, this links in with the title of the films and the first character we see (a devil). I therefore think it has some aspects of death and suffering.

'Forrest Gump'

The third and final opening sequence we watched was 'Forrest Gump' which is a romantic comedy-drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. This time our group was asked to focus on narrative.

The main focus of the opening sequence is a white feather floating through the sky in different directions. The first thing I thought was "what's the significance of the feather?". I thought that it may signify the loss of something as a bird will have lost the feather that is floating. I then though it may signify a journey. The feather floats for quite a long time and floats in many different directions before settling on the floor. This may be a metaphor for the journey Forrest goes on during the film.

The second thing that I thought was "Who is the man and why is he keeping the feather?". Having seen the film I know the man sat on the bench is Forrest Gump however, if it was the first time I had seen the opening sequence I would not have known. The audience may wonder what he is doing and why he is a significant character. I think Forrest putting the feather in his book tells the audience a lot about him straight away. He puts it in a childrens book which is in a brief case that has a lot of 'strange' items this tells me he is slightly childlike and sentimental.

The final question we asked ourselves was 'why were his shoes dirty?' we felt that this may have been a significant part of the film as it was the focus for quite a while. Again, having watched the film i think the dirty shoes signify all the running he has done and that the running is what has got him where he is and helped him to survive/keep safe.

British Film Institution

On the 13th November my media studies class went on a school trip to the British Film Institution (BFI) for a workshop on making film openings. It was a massive help for our AS media coursework as creating an opening sequence and titles will be our task. The day consisted of talks from Pete Fraser and Q&A sessions with Simon Frame and Joe Cornish.

Pete Fraser started the day talking about the investigation and research part of our coursework. He told us about 5 key features we should consider when planning:
- Genre
- Narrative (enigma)
- Character
- Atmosphere
- Setting

He then gave us some tips/steps to use when we start looking into making the film opening.
1. Start general, don't limit yourself to one genre or style of film
2. Then home in on one specific genre and look at other relevant film openings too.
3. Make sure the research you do is focused on your chosen genre and relevant

We watched a few opening sequences to films ('Catch me if you can', 'Dawn of the Dead', and 'Napoleon Dynamite'). Pete Fraser asked us to watch the openings and makes quick notes on the 5 key features. We then discussed it with the people around us and a few students shared their ideas with the rest of us.
Here are my notes on 'Dawn of the Dead':

Genre: Zombie Horror
Narrative:
Character: only an introductory, no central character introduced yet. More about what it is and who it affects. Shows people who are clearly from a different cultural backgrounds to show what's happening is on a global scale.
Atmosphere: quick cut editing so that we can't see exactly what is going on, it doesn't tell the whole story in the opening. Shows news report in the opening, nothing good ever gets on the news, shows something bad has happened. The song used in the opening was 'Rapture' by Johnny Cash, the song juxt opposes the opening as it sounds like a happy song but the clearly isn't going to be a joyful one. The lyrics are about the religious end of the world, this foreshadows the film.
Setting: There was different global settings in the opening, this shows it is a film about the whole world however, it showed the white house many times suggesting it is mainly focussed in America.

Although the Q&A sessions were VERY interesting they weren't completely relevant to us because they were more about the filming as a whole and they were on a much larger scale (bigger budget, more actors, more equipment e.t.c.)

The last session was again run by Pete Fraser. This session was purely about our opening sequences and was very valuable to us. We watched previous work submitted by candidates and Pete gave us a quick analysis on them and told us what level they were and why. He also gave us some helpful tips about our titles:
- The directors name should always go last
- We shouldn't use the word 'starring'
- Don't include our candidate number next to our names
- Try not to show all our title at the same time, spread them through out the opening

He also told us about the 6 most common openings and 6 common problem often sound with openings.

1. Saw (a victim tied up in a shed)
2. Scream (a hooded stalker)
3. Se7en
4. Lock, Stock (gangsters)
5. Waking up
6. Flashbacks or Flash forwards

- Making the opening too much like a trailer or short film
- Not including enough titles
- poor sound or lighting
- poorly directed actors
- Making the storyline too complicated or confusing
- Doing one of the most common openings badly

Finally, Pete gave us details about our opening sequences and the marking, He told us about 9 main steps we need to think about when filming our opening sequences.

Task: To film the opening, with titles, of a new, fiction film.
The sequence should be up to two minutes long. 20 marks will be awarded for research and planning, 60 marks for the construction and 20 marks for the evaluation.

Step 1: Take Stock Build up your skills

• Build up your research
• Build up your planning
• Allow time to shoot and edit
• Keep evidence through out the task

Step 2: Set up a blog

• Post anything you do on your blog

Step 3: Build up skills

• Learn from your preliminary task
• Use a range of camera angles and skills

Step 4: Investigate

• What do film openings look like
• Look at a range of genres
• Look at other students work

Step 5: Brainstorm Ideas

• Pitches
• Mood board treatments
• Feedback
• Be realistic

Step 6: Planning

• The more planning, the less problems
• Experiment
• Examples of props, costumes, shots e.t.c.
• Storyboard (use post it notes)
• Logistics

Step 7: The shoot

• People, places, props, costume
• Rehearsing, directing
• Equipment and jobs on the day
• Keeping a record of the proccess

Step 8: Editting

• Everyone have a go
• Screen grabs
• Audio and titles
• Foley (the art of putting sound in sync with movement)
• rough cut deadline and peer feedback

The big picture before the final details

Step 9: Evaluation

Analysis of "Tell"

For homework Mr Buckmaster asked us to watch three short Youtube videos. The first two were about planning how to film and storyboarding, these linked in with the work we are currently doing as we plan to film our preliminary tasks. The third video was a short film called 'Tell' by Ryan Connolly. He then asked us to write a short comment on his blog bellow the video about a few of our thoughts.

These are the two videos he asked us to look out before viewing the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuP3aBmSdU8 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUIZVzElDzc

Some aspects (such as casting and the budget) were slightly irrelevant because they were on a much larger scale than we will be doing for our course work but I think they were still very interesting worth watching. Other parts of the videos, like the script break down and the shot list/storyboard were more valuable to me when thinking about filming my own preliminary task and opening sequence.

Bellow is the video we had to watch:

The video was made on a £1000 budget and most of the film crew were members of Ryan Connolly’s family or his friends and were trained by him. With this in mind I think it was a VERY good short film! 

The film contains a wide range of different camera angle and shots which help to contribute to the effectiveness of the film. It shows a range of different views of the same thing so the audience can get all angles of the scene. This helps to make the film seem more real and it isn't ruined by silly mistakes, i.e. the shots of the same things from different angle show the actor in the same position or objects in the same place to keep the realism.  Also, the shots were filmed in a very clever way; they built up tension slowly before revealing the drama so that it didn't give away the story too early and made it more dramatic and exciting. 

I think the other significant part of the film that helped to draw in the audience was the sound. The sound helped to build up the tension and created a lot of suspense. On the parts where he wanted the audience to believe something bad was going to happen Connolly added loud 'booming' music to the camera shots. This helped the film to sound dramatic and emphasised the scary parts even more as it went silent as the scary shots came into view. He also ensured that not all the loud bits ended in scary or jumpy shots to lure the audience into a false sense of security. He did a couple of scary bits with normal background sounds or no music to catch the audience off guard and have a bigger impact. 

Finally, he left the film on a bit of a cliff hanger, we don't know what happened to the murderer or if he was a murderer after all as we don't see any confirmation that either victim is dead and we see the victim in the bath tub raise her hand toward the end. Although, some people don't like cliff hangers I think in this case it was good because it meant I was free to conclude the film how I liked. (And I didn't fancy seeing a half dead woman getting out a bath tub). 

To see more opinions on 'Tell' visit Mr Buckamster's blog and read the comments bellow the video 'Tell'.

Filming a Clip Using a Storyboard



In class we got into groups of four and looked at the storyboards people have drawn for homework.  After we had looked at the storyboards we had to choose one of them re create.  We decided to re create Ben's because storyboard because we felt it had a good  range of shots and didn't contain any features that weren't accessible. Bellow is the story board we used.

This was our third attempt with a camera so there are still some faults with our filming. This is our attempt:

Analysis

I don't think our version of the clip gives the full effect of the original. Although we have followed the storyboard closely it is out of context and some of the props we used were an improvisation.  Having said this the task was to test our skills using a storyboard and camera skills so even though ours was hard to understand I think it was a good effort.

Some of