Filming and Editing the Main Exercise

We all met up outisde Fleet Building on Wednesday 10th March and Sarah drove us to her house. Once we got there we set the camera up ready for our first shot and put the props in places they needed to be. As i missed the filming of the preliminary exercise i was looking forward to the main exercise filming to see what new things i could learn. Naomi was the camera operator so she filmed all the scenes, even though she was filming we all had our input to say if it didn't look right, we crossed the 18o degree rule or if the actor was to close to the edge of the frame. I think it was good that we all worked as a team and said if something wasn't right because it would make the final outcome stronger.

Once we started editing it all started to come together, the filming we had done looked good. We took a couple of shots for each scene, picked the best one to use and then put it in the right order. We noted down how many shots we took so we could make a paper edit to show how many shots we took and in what order it goes in. We cut the scenes down quite short because we wanted it to be quick and flow right with the other scenes we were going to film. Then we added the music, the song was very upbeat and it fit in really well with the whole 'chick flick' genre. Whilst editing we noticed that our shots with diegetic titiles weren't on the screen long enough to read for our audience, so we decided to take a still of it on 'Windows Movie Maker', saved it then put it back into our whole clip so it stays on the screen for longer and is able to be read.

We met outside Fleet Building again on Wednesday 17th March to film at our second location. Andy wasn't there for our filming, but it didn't affect the rest of the group or the filming. We had abit of trouble with the camera at the start of the first shot, but then got it sorted. When we got back to college we showed Lee our footage and he said it looked a little dark. The lighting wasn't right because in 'girlie' films it's normally bright and colourful, we said that we wanted to show the differences between the two girls though so it wasn't really a problem. We used the same actor because we decided that if the film was carried on they would end up knowing they were twins but very opposite. We also made a paper edit for Wednesday 17th March to see how many shots we took and in what order.

We started to edit but Andy the editor wasn't here so we all helped with it. We cut from the first location to the second location on each scene which looks like two girls getting ready in the morning. We found out later on that we wasn't allowed to use any music because of the copyright. We had music throughout the whole clip so needed it to find someone to do it for us or we was allowed to pay for the song. Naomi knows someone who writes music and she asked him if he would be able to do us a music piece similar to what we had before and he agreed to do it for us. We carried on editing even though the music was an issue. Lee looked at it and said it just needed tightening up so it would flow better. We just need to tighten it now and add text for the title of the film which is going to be 'Matching Opposites' because their twins but don't know it and have very different lives.

Today we found out we could use our original track we decided on from a soundtrack from the library. We had to include track information such as name of producer, name of composer, track number and how much of the track we are using. We had decided to stick to using our track because the lyrics fit really well to our sequence. We tightened up our clip today, we cut the shots down shorter and it flows a lot better now. Tomorrow we just need to add our title of the film to our clip, make sure all our paper work is in our folder and up onto google documents. We couldn't do what we planned to do because the computer system was down. We all decided to do our blogs and finish off what we needed to do in half term or when we came back after half term because we didn't have much more to do.

After we came back after half term all we had to do was add the titles to our film. We used 'Adobe Premiere Pro' which is easier for adding the titles. We put the title at the end of the clip but you couldn't really see it because of the lighting, so we moved it to the start of the clip and we all preferred it there. Whilst Sarah was adding the titles i went and got the music information for our soundtrack and put it up onto Google Documents. The lesson after that we wanted to finalise our film and make sure everything was right. We noticed that the titles didn't go in the right order because the first ones would normally be 'starring' or produced by', but couldn't do anything about it because our titles are diegetic. We showed Lee our film and he said it looked more like a music video because we only had one bit of diegetic sound at the end of the clip, we decided to add more diegetic sound throughout and it was a lot better.

The First Reflective Main Exercise Blog Entry

Last week we got given the brief for the main exercise. It was 'create an opening sequence to a new fiction film'. I was happy to be working with the same people, as we got on well for the preliminary exercise and worked well as a team. At the start i was very confident that our group would produce a successful opening sequence, but since we have been doing pre-production tasks it's been a lot harder than the preliminary exercise. For the main exercise it's basically the same tasks with a lot more detail.

On the first lesson we had to think of initial ideas such as audience and genre. This was really hard because we didn't want to do something to challenging but still make it look really good. We decided to have an audience of 12-24 year old women and a genre which was chick flick/romantic comedy. When we was doing the research it was a lot harder than doing it for the preliminary exercise because we could basically do anything that contained two people sitting opposite each other and exchanges a few lines of dialogue but for this we have had to watch opening sequences, see why it appeals to our audience, see if we could produce something as well as some of the films but at the same time it has to be a new idea. I think the hardest part was choosing an genre and what our sequence was going to be. Finding a location was harder this time because we could do it in college but it wouldn't look very realistic. Sarah said we could use her house but only on a Wednesday afternoon so we all had to make sure we was free then and be ready to film. Andy did some research on genre and the how 'chick flick' is under the category of romantic comedy but is aimed at females but romantic comedy is aimed at both male and female.

We have done our SWOT for the main exercise and i think our 'stumbling' points will be time management as i have already mentioned. We all need to be available for the Wednesday and meet with our group at the time we agree on. Absences could be another risk because i was unwell for the filming of the preliminary exercise and Andy was away for the editing. We wanted it to be nice weather for the day but we obviously can't guarantee that so we will have to organise lighting for the day. Another 'stumbling' point would be the actors not turning up on the day. This happened in the preliminary exercise so we have to make sure the characters will be there on the day or it will be a big issue.

After we decided on our audience and genre we made a pre production schedule to follow each lesson so we're more organised. Once we did this we decided on roles. I said that i wanted to do a different role in the main exercise to get more knowledge and understanding, but we all chose to have the same roles because we knew what we was doing and had practice from the preliminary exercise. Even though we have these roles we all said we would help eachother. We all agreed and said Sarah's house would be the best place to film for our first location, so in the lesson we went to Sarah's and did a rough location recce and took photographs of all the rooms we needed.

When we came back to college we all decided to each do recce of a room to make it more detailed and neater. Me, Naomi and Sarah made a start on the draft script and we decided we was going to have two girls both doing a morning routine and when we edited we would cut back and fourth between each shot. We needed to include the titles in our film so we researched films such as 'The Devil Wears Prada' and 'The Lizzie Mcguire Movie' to help us with how we should include the titles. We decided to do something similar to these successful movies by including the titles on objects such as a hairbrush, mirror, school books ect...

In the next lesson Naomi done the storyboards to show our shots in more detail, after we done the call sheet for our first location which was Sarah's house. Next i done the final script and made sure it was all clear enough to follow whilst filming on the Wednesday. In this lesson we decided to get music from the library to include throughout our opening sequence. We wanted happy and outgoing music. We looked at a few cd's and found a song which fitted with everything. We produced a call sheet and risk assessment for Sarah's house and our risks would be falling from height, impact with objects and self drive car. We needed to find another location to film at and Naomi Said we could use her house if we wanted. We decided to film there on Wednesday 17th March. We produced a call sheet and risk assessment for Naomi's house and the risks came out to be similar.

I want to improve on first of all my input to the filming of the main exercise. I was ill for the filming of the preliminary exercise and this time would like to get involved as i couldn't last time. I would also like to improve on learning how to use 'Windows Movie Maker' to edit. I watched the group members do some editing last time because i didn't know how to use it. As i was watching them i got an idea of how it works and would like to give it a try during the main exercise.