Production diary

Production diary Date: 16/09/10 Today we got into groups for our coursework (Me, Sarra & Kieran). We shared our work that we did over the summer holidays and from that, we developed our ideas for our final group project. We came up with a lot of ideas and instantly decided on the topic of our film and the message we want to convey. We then, as a group, had to present these ideas to class to gain feedback – this made me think more about our ideas and conclude whether they would work and be as successful as I first thought. The homework I was given was to individually prepare a powerpoint presentation showing the analysis of a short film, ready to present to the class. The aim of this was to get a good understanding of the trends and conventions of a short film, giving us ideas of what to include in our own film. Date: 20/09/10 Today I went to the learning centre to carry on with my short film presentation and started to research numerous other short films. The homework I was given was to continue with and complete my short film presentation. Date: 21/09/10 Today, in class, we had a discussion on magazine reviews and film posters, identifying themes such as layout, colour, font, etc. I took notes on the discussed topics which allowed me to identify recurring styles, giving me ideas for my ancillary tasks. The homework I was given was to continue with short film research and also begin research into magazine reviews, taking notes and gathering ideas and inspiration. Date: 24/09/10 Today I presented my short film analysis presentations to the class. When I had finished, the class gave me feedback, informing me of what I did well and what I could improve on, covering both my presenting skills and the content of my presentation. From carrying out this task, and from the audience feedback, I realised that I need to improve on my presenting skills. A recurring criticism was my lack of eye-contact – this is something that I need to perfect as it is a valuable and vital skill to have at university and in any possible career choice. After college, my group came to my house to complete the magazine review research and analysis – we have already finished the short film research and analysis – we assigned a certain number of reviews to each group member. The homework from today’s lesson was to continue with short film and magazine review research. Date: 27/09/10 Today the rest of the class completed their presentations and I gave audience feedback. Having presented my own in the first session, I understood the value of true and detailed feedback and was therefore able to give constructive criticism on other people’s work, hopefully allowing them to learn and develop their skills. I then had to begin my research into film posters and begin my analysis – we had again assigned a certain number of posters analyses to each group member. The homework from this day was to continue with all research and to complete, ready to upload to blogs for marking. Date: 28/09/10 Today I carried out independent work, completing my poster 7 poster analyses. I then had a one-to-work progress check with Zoe where I was able to receive support if necessary and gather feedback on my independent research – this was very valuable as it allowed me to make changes where necessary and also gather confidence about my progress. Date: 29/09/10 Today was the same kind of lesson as yesterday where we went to the Student Learning Centre and carried out independent work. I went over my 7 short film analyses, 7 magazine review analyses, and 7 poster analyses, making sure that everything was completed. I sent Zoe the details of my blog so she could track my progress. I sent all my research to my group members and received their work back and then uploaded everything on to my blog. Today we were reminded of the deadline for all research to be uploaded on to blogs – Friday 1st October. Date: 04/10/10 Today I was introduced to ‘Audience research’ and was guided with ideas on how I could carry out this part of my coursework. We, as a group, decided that we are going to carry out interviews, questionnaires, and audio interviews as all methods will allow us to gather the relevant information by using different forms of media. We were reminded of the deadline for audience research – Friday 8th October. Our homework was to create a mind map, listing the type of people we are going to interview and make a list of questions we are going to ask. Date: 05/10/10 In class, we were introduced to planning work and we began to think about everything we need to do before we begin filming. We set out a ‘role distribution’ table, listing the tasks each member of the group will carry out. We decided what method each member will use for the audience research (Me – interview, Kieran – questionnaire, Sarra – audio interview). After college we met at Sarra’s house and completed the mind map for audience research and then I completed my interviews. I interviewed my Mum who is 48 years old and my brother who is 22 years old. We were reminded of the deadline for audience research. The homework from today’s lesson was to continue with all planning. Date: 07/10/10 In today’s lesson we began and completed an ideas generation page, developing all of our ideas for our film. The homework from today’s lesson was to carry out a location recce. When I got home, I completed my location recce, taking pictures of all relevant areas of my house and my road (road from left and right, driveway/front of house, living room, dining room). Date: 08/10/10 In today’s lesson I met up with the other group members and compared location recce’s to see which location is the most appropriate for our film – for this we had to think about practicality, accessibility and continuity. We eventually decided that my house would be the most appropriate as it represents the class of the family we are trying to portray and also will be available for shooting. We set ourselves the task of continuing and completing as much as possible of our distributed tasks – I had to complete; short story, shot list and shooting script. Date: 09/10/10 Today I completed the short story and shot list and sent the work to Sarra and Kieran. Date: 10/10/10 Today I completed the shooting script and sent it to Sarra and Kieran. Date: 11/10/10 In today’s lesson I presented my work to Sarra and Kieran, and they presented theirs, and we discussed possible changes or developments that were necessary. We set ourselves the task of making the decided changes or developments. Date: 14/10/10 I made the necessary changes to my work and sent it back to my group members. Date: 18/10/10 In class I made notes on what we need to do for our ancillary tasks, gathering ideas and inspiration for our own poster and magazine review. Date: Over half term I made sure all my work was up to date and everything was sent to Sarra and Kieran – once this was done, I uploaded all the work onto my blog so Zoe could give me feedback. We decided on who was going to act in our film and contacted them to inform them of the task and what they would have to do. We then contacted each other to confirm the actors (James = Murrie – Sarra’s boyfriend, Ben = Jak – Sarra’s brother, Carol = Holly – my friend, police officers = Kieran and I). Date: 01/11/10 In lesson today, my group and I decided on shooting dates – this proved quite hard as all 3 of us have commitments we had to work around. We eventually decided on; Wednesday at 5:00pm (dolly shot around the table and outside shots at night time) and Saturday at 9:30 (walking scene and approaching the house). We contacted the necessary actors and organise the details. Date: 04/11/10 We signed out a camera and a tripod, ready for filming. After college, we all went to Sarra’s house to pick up Jak, and then headed to my house. We set up the dining room to make it suitable for shooting and set up the camera and tripod, ready for the first shot. Kieran, Sarra and Jak went to town to buy the pizza that Carol and Ben would be eating and I went to pick up Holly from her house. We then all met up at my house and began filming. The dolly shot around the table proved to be much harder than expected. We decided that in order to gain a flowing, steady shot, I would sit on a chair on wheels with the camera, whilst Sarra pushes me around the table to get the perfect shot. However, it was difficult to keep the chair steady and at the right place as well as aiming the camera at the right angle and position. The next obstacle was in the same move, getting Jak to disappear from the table at exactly the point when the camera is not aimed at him but also for all his cutlery, cup and plate to disappear too. Kieran took on the role of removing Jak’s stuff while Jak got himself out of the way. Holly also had to change her action and expression by the time the camera was back on her – to successfully achieve all of this, we decided that it would work much better if we made the dolly slower and also zoomed in a little bit when neither characters are in shot – this proved to be successful. Date: 05/11/10 Today I went to the local joke shop and bought the police uniform needed for tomorrow’s filming – male and female police hats for me and Kieran, a police badge for Kieran, and a tie for me – the rest of the uniform we supplied ourselves. Date: 06/11/10 We met at my house at 9:30AM and had to keep to a deadline of 11:30 because Kieran had work and my Mum had to work at home. This was actually quite easy to keep to; we finished our shooting in plenty of time. For this shoot, we needed Holly, Jak, Me, Kieran, and Sarra – everyone made their way to my house by 9:30 and we began filming the walking scene, including the close up shots of the feet, and the tracking shots from behind. We then completed the shots of inside the house, whilst taking behind-the-scenes shots. Date: 07/11/10 Today we all met at my house to resume and complete filming. The actors we required for today’s shooting were Jak and Murrie. Sarra and I carried out the filming and also my brother, Gavin, who is a slow motion camera operator, allowed us to borrow his Phantom HD camera to film the collision in slow motion – this added extra effect and technique to our film. We shot the collision and all the driving scenes whilst taking behind-the-scenes shots. Date: 08/11/10 In today’s lesson, I took part in a group discussion about the ancillary tasks – we came up with and shared our ideas for our magazine reviews and posters and then developed and combined the best ideas. We also went through our rushes and the shooting script to see if there was anything we weren’t happy with and wanted to reshoot. We came up with a few filler shots we wanted to include and a few shots we wanted to reshoot – we then added these to the developed shooting script, shot list, and storyboard. Date: 9/11/10 Today we all got together and began editing – this took place at my house because I have Final Cut Pro on my computer. We all took it in turns to edit certain bits and all contributed with our ideas on how the scene should be put together. We had completed all the editing with the footage we already had and made notes on where the footage we gather in the reshoot will go – this was all put in the edit decision list. Sarra has already carried out the sound research, gathering ideas from Nelly Furtado – All Good Things Come To An End, and The Fray – How To Save A Life, but having seen the edited footage, we decided that this was not really fitting music after all – so I developed the sound research, coming up with music we all thought was more appropriate. This included Eric Clapton – Tears in Heaven, and Jay-Z ft Mr Hudson – Young Forever. We decided that we wouldn’t add the music onto the edited footage until we had completed the reshoot. Date: 11/11/10 Today after college, Sarra and I met up at her house to discuss the shooting script and shot list to make sure they both fit with each other and the storyboard, and are correct. We then decided on dates for the reshoot and then contacted Murrie who was the only actor we needed, and the date we decided on was the 13th November at 3:00PM. Date: 13/11/10 Today, Murrie, Sarra and I met up at my house to complete the reshoot – this included a few driving scenes. They arrived at 3:00PM and we had successfully completed the reshoot by 4:30PM. Date: 14/11/10 Today I carried out some more research for the title of the film; we narrowed it down to ‘Consequence’, ‘Forever Young’ or ‘Tears in Heaven’ – together we decided ‘Forever Young’ would be the best title as it is instantly relevant to the film and has a link to the music used. We all got together at my house to complete the editing as we now we have all the shots necessary. We added the music in the right places and edited it to fit the scenes. After editing was completed, we put the final film onto DVDs for each of us to have copy. We then began our ideas generation for the poster ancillary task. Date: 16/11/10 Today we showed our film to Zoe to gather feedback and fix any problems there was with the film. From this, we discovered that; Holly, who plays the mother, looks too young and therefore is not very believable as her role, we have to include in our evaluation about the fact that there isn’t a car in the background of one of the scenes where there should be, we need to add the title sequence at the beginning of the film, and also to make it a bit longer by adding relevant statistics at the end. We then realised that we have to remove the apron from Carol’s costume on the props & costume list. Date: 22/11/10 Today we met at my house to complete any unfinished work and to send all pieces of work to each other so we all have the same up-to-date versions of the documents. We then wrote up a list of the order everything should be uploaded to our blogs. We also added the title sequence and statistics to the film. We then completed the evaluation, finished the edit decision list, and completed both ancillary tasks.

Production diary

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