Audience Responses

At some point over the week we are going to show the finished product to some school pupils that fit under the age category of our film (which is a 15) just to see what they think. If there is a problem or point that they make, which is expressed widely or seems 'wrong' then we will get the chance to quickly go back and change it, but other than that, we have to stick with what we have got.

As I had to stay behind a little to wait for the disc to burn, I had to take the final copy home, due to doing so, I showed the film to my parents on separate occasions, and I received two different opinions, both which will contribute well to my evaluation.

I think the whole team is very pleased with the final product, although it may have came across that Richard and I were 'taking charge' as such. Well, this wasn't the intended case, I think that we were mutually worried that the deadline wasn't going to be met, so we just got our heads down and plowed through the work that had to be done. 

Obviously, when hearing this from the rest of our team, I know that I definitely would try and make sure everyone had something substantial to do so this problem wouldn't occur, as the last people a member wants to fall out with is the others in their group.

Luckily all issues were forgotten when we all saw the finished result, as I think we were almost relieved in a sense, because we had met the deadline, even though we let's say... cut it rather fine.   

finshed

Today was our last lesson on our film production coursework. Tom finished off burning our video on to the disk, while the rest of us started working on our evaluations. We are all finished now apart from our evaluations of our piece, that we will soon be uploading onto the blog.

Finished

We added DVD menu credits and have burned the film to a disc. Everything is complete other than the evaluation, which we get a bit of extra time for.

The final Product

Today we completed the editing. We also added credits and a piece of music to the film. The song we chose was "Feeling Good" by Muse, a cover of the original Nina Simone hit. We felt that this song fitted in well with the piece and added to the overall tension, making the film seem a lot more professional. We wanted the song to come in quite loudly in time with the slow-motion kicking the ball shot, and the tune worked very well for this.

Tomorrow, all that needs to be done is exporting the file into a disc friendly format, burn onto a DVD and add in some title page options for the disc menu. Then we have an extra couple of weeks to test our film onto the target age group, which in this case is 15 years and above. Hopefully they will enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it!!! 

Editing: Piecing it all together.

On Thursday after school Richard and I spent about 2 hours editing all the shots that we had into one bit of film. We didn't realise how long this really was going to take and we were surprised at the lack of material we had at the end of the 2 hours. We managed to add some effects to a couple of the shots and had a dabble with some transitions. After Thursday evening, we had around 50 seconds of film, which is nowhere near the set length of 2 minutes. We were slightly worried but did know that we still had some corporate building shots to film and edit.

On Friday I spent some more time on my own editing the film. I also filmed some of the buildings in and around Newport School, using a range of many different angles. The was also some panning, some zooming and some tracking. After capturing these onto Final Cut Express I edited them into one sequence, using fade transitions and slowing the speed to make the general feel of the film more dreamy, which definately added to the overall feel in the mise en scene. I also used a blur filter on all of the forest scene shots, as well as reducing the speed to about 80%, this really did make these shots seem like a flashback and there was the added perk of added duration. After all of this editing, the film came to about 1:40. This isn't bang on 2 minutes but with some more editing and some credits at the beginning and end it should be fairly suitable.

There is one day left to finish the film and hand it in. On that day all I need to do is add music to the film (which will be easy as the group has already decided on a suitable track) and to add credits, including the title of the film. Some of the ideas the group passed around were: "Flashback", "Chegwin Forest" and "The Lost and Found".

After the final hand in, we then have a week to complete our evaluation, and when that is handed in, everything is finished. I have enjoyed this task immensely, if there was anything I would have wanted to do better would be to have started filming earlier, and maybe choosing locations that weren't so near to where the classes took place (i.e. the office scene was a small classroom down the hall that we re-arranged). Other than that I think that the group has worked well together, even though at times it did seem like some members were doing a fair bit more than others, especially in situations like blog postings and arranging times for things to be done.

filimg

During our 4th free period yesterday our group managed to film the forest scene for the last piece of filming for our media studies coursework. i managed to collect and use my nan's dog, so that went to plan. we didn't use a tri-pod for the filming, so we are hoping that it will all fit together nicely after the editing is done.

The forest scene.

We finished the forest scene today. It went well. We filmed the scene from many different angles to make editing slightly more enjoyable. Lorena managed to borrow her Grandma's dog, so the whole scene went smoothly and according to plan. All we need to worry about now is editing... 

There is always more to do!

Forest scene recce

Today 11.03.09 a couple of hours before filming the forest scene we went down to the location to have a look at possible shots for the later filming.

This was a non filmed run through of the scene, we thought this would be important as then we could deal with the lighting and sound. Where we went was perfect as it was quiet and the lighting was ideal.

Later on in the day we shall do the final shooting sequence, then all we need to do is edit.

corporate buildings

At the weekend I went to Cambridge to look at some possible corporate buildings for the establishing shots, i have decided that I could not find a suitable building in cambridge. We have decided to take some shots of a building in Bishops Stortford. 

The Office Scene

On Friday, we finished filming the office scene. Richard played the part as the "bent cop" ringing up someone who could fix the crime scene so it was all forgotten. Previously on other days we had tried filming, but the vibe wasn't completely right. 

All we need to do to complete this scene, is get the audio of the "fixer" on the other end of the line. When it comes to editing, we can cut between all the different angles we shot the scene in, and also alter the sound of the "fixer" so it does sound like a realistic telephone line.

This coming wednesday the group has arranged a few hours to film the forest scene. We were initially going to use a forest, but we are now going to shoot the scene along a pathway next to Newport Forest.

Hopefully, leaving us enough time for editing, it should all come together quite nicely.

Practice

Enough practice. You need to get into some actual practical filming urgently or you are going to run into problems with the deadline. The absentees need to stay in touch with the project and pull their weight in the group; remember that this is a joint effort and you have a responsibility to other group members as well as yourselves.

and more practice...

Backing up Richard's previous point... alpha team is really getting to the point where filming really needs to be undertaken as soon as possible. The last thing that we all want is to fall behind, but with only 2 of the group present at quite a lot of the lessons, it is hard to be motivated or to feel like we are making progress. I personally think that once the group has arranged a date to film then we can relax a bit and just worry about editing after that. 

Richard and I spent the last two lessons having an experiment with final cut express. We worked out things like how to modify the speed of shots, how to alter the exposure levels and generally change what the picture looks like on the screen. We also became fairly proficient at cutting and editing the length of the audio and visual using the toolbar on the side. Hopefully, after this, we can get straight onto editing after our filming process is over without any hassle.

Practise, Practise, Practise!

Today 2/3/09, only half of our group turned up. This meant that we are unable to make real progress yet again. If others in our group are too tide up once more then the simple answer is to kindly ask others to fill in as their role, as we simply do not have enough time to wait around for others.

In light of this me and Tom were able to make a short film in the classroom. This film was very basic but the reason being is so that we could practise editing it on the computers. We gained many new skills and have grown more confident with different transitions and effects and the simple moving around of scenes. The new infomation can be passed onto to the rest of our group and this will hopefully help with the final result.

The Current Situation

At the moment, the group is trying to find, and make time to undergo the filming process. We have all of these great ideas buzzing around and we really need to put it on tape. Richard has provided us with the perfect locations, we just really need to film soon otherwise we will be against the clock to edit it and add in the credits before the deadline.