Production diary for my media product

1. Production Diary
Lanre Onifade

2. Entry 1
The brief I have chosen is the film brief. This is because I would
like to learn more about film and what the production aspects of
that are. I have completed the preliminary task which was to
produce a short film. The positive points about what I produced
are that it displayed all of the requirements that the task set for
me; it also had good camera work. However the negative points
are that there was quite a lot of camera shaking and you could
hear the camera click off. I then researched similar products and
analysed them so I could see how they were made. This would
help me with my film as I would have seen how to do different
things from different examples.

3. Entry 2
The week before filming I went to the location I was planning to
shoot. I actually went there multiple times to see what time
would give the best lighting. As I will be filming on a busy street I
also factored in which day would be that there would not be
many cars on the road. I came to the conclusion that Sunday,
5:00 would be the best time to shoot as at 5 the sun would be
setting enough for the light to be were I need it to be. I picked to
shoot on Sunday because I saw how there were less cars on the
road, and because I will be shooting rather late in the day there
will be even less cars.

4. Entry 3
• Last Sunday was the day of filming. To get ready I contacted everyone who
was involved and then I got the camera ready and went over the route
again. However the shoot didn’t go as well as I had hoped as some of the
actors couldn’t make it. So I had to quickly call other people on short
notice to replace them. This hindered the shoot quite a lot because they
didn’t understand what I was trying to do as well. Another thing that
didn’t go to plan was the shoot its self as I had not factored in the terrain.
The pavement was cracked and bumpy so I couldn’t use the Segway as
effectively. The last hindrance was the camera died before I could finish
filming, this meant I had to reschedule the shoot to next Sunday. Overall
the shoot didn’t go well due to a lack of organisation and communication;
two things that I will drastically improve on in the next shoot. However I
did get some somewhat useable footage which I will have to use as I might
not have another chance to film in the location that I filmed previously.

5. Entry 4
• I filmed for the second time last Sunday and it went
much better than last weeks shoot. Firstly there was
more organization; so everyone knew what they were
doing. I also revised my methods on how I filmed the
chase scene, I used a crabbing shot to film part of the
chase scene. Instead of using a Segway I used my bike.
This worked much better as the footage was much
smother. However, it wasn’t as smooth as I would like it
to be and to to that I will need a steadi-cam. There
were one or two shots that were out of focus which I
will need to correct for next time and I will need to
make sure I improve on my timing so I don’t lose the
light.

6. Entry 5
• I’m going to add a voice over to help explain
what is going on in the film. Seeing as on its
own it wont make too much scene what is
going on so I’m going to add a voice over using
a narrator to tell the audience what is going
on. I will also add two phone calls. The phone
calls will support what the narrator has said. I
have wrote a script so I know what is to be
said.

7. Entry 6
• I have been looking for different back tracks to add to
my film so that it will add different layers to it. For
the parts before the chase scene the music will be
very calm and for the chase scene its self the music
will be very intense and fast pace. Before and after
the first and last scene I will have two phone calls
which will explain the story more and add
personality to the characters that have almost no
dialogue.

8. Entry 7
• I recorded some of the voice over for my film.
I got two of my friends to voice two of the
characters. I still need to do the narration and
I still need two more people to voice the other
two characters. Adding a voice over will make
the film make more sense to the audience.

9. Entry 8
• I recorded the next parts of the voice over. I
got two more friends to record their lines. I
added the recording to the film. I am not
going to do the narration because I feel like it
will take away from the film by making it more
comedic than it need to be.

10. Entry 9
• Having reviewed and re-edited some of the
footage I added a letterbox effect to all of the
shots. This effect gives all of the shots I took
borders on the top and bottom of the screen. I
did this to make the film look more like a film.
Normally most films use the aspect ratio 2.35:1
but that took a lot of things out of frame so I used
1.85:1 and increased the border size to 5.0 which
gave it the same film like feel without taking to
much out of the frame.

11. Entry 11
• For the past few days I have been fine tuning
my film. I have been editing my film so that
the long shots are not as long and so that each
cut is to the beat of the music. I’ve also added
transitions which goes with the beat in
between shots to make it flow better.

12. Entry 12
• I have added extra footage at the end of the
film that shows what happens after the main
character got away. It adds more narrative and
makes the whole film clearer. I added sound
effects of background noise (birds chirping
and ambient sounds) to fit in with the scene.

13. Entry 13
• I have spent time editing my film down by
cutting down shots of the chase scene. I have
made the whole film shorter and I have
changed the music for the chase scene I have
also moved the last phone call to play as the
chase is happening. I will add more dialogue
before the trade off scenes to explain why the
characters changed.

14. Entry 14
• I re-shot the shot where the main character
walks through a puddle because the last time I
shot it I didn’t have the camera in focus so I
re-shot it to get better footage of it.