MEST2 Progress Report - 20 January

Work completed since 6 January:
Extended script
Shot list
Shooting schedule
Mise-en-scene
Audience research focus group
BBFC Institution research
Art house film institution research
Existing product research

Any incomplete pre-production tasks:

Storyboard

Next steps/action plan:

Complete storyboard

Filming

Photo shoot pre-planning

Photo shoot

Print off and add research stuff in folder

Date filming will be complete:

08/02/2016*

*depending on weather

Requirements for photo shoot next week:

Choosing correct time for actor

Getting the right costume and props

Preliminary Exercise Evaluation Feedback (Learner Response)

WWW: The strength here is your confident use of media terminology – it really shows your knowledge and passion for film making and technology. You've also honestly highlighted the major weaknesses while also referring to the technical strengths and the fact the production was somewhat rescued from complete disaster.

EBI: Written English is a factor – not so much spelling and grammar but paragraphing and organisation. Most importantly, I think the balance is wrong here – there’s a lot on planning and pre-production but very little on the actual production itself. I know this is somewhat determined by the shortness of the production but it’s still something to address for the real evaluation in March. Hopefully the lessons you have drawn from this process will mean that your actual production is organised and completed much earlier.

LR: I would make sure no technical disasters occur and have everything ready and sorted before hand. 

Focus on the actual production a lot more and add a lot more detail into the production and evaluation.

Organise script, shot list beforehand to film efficiently. 

Preliminary task evaluation

The preliminary exercise involved filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue and demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule. My initial plan was to make a 30 second video which was heavily edited and had significant use of effects. It would’ve only involved one character and they would have the conversation with themselves, I would use a split screen to make that effect more significant. My script wasn’t that long and only had a couple of lines, and then again it was only 30 seconds of videos. I spent a lot of time on the storyboard and it looked a lot more detailed than it should have. I spent approximately half an hour on each drawing and I added a lot of information to the side when it was very unnecessary. The shot-list was the most helpful piece of pre planning and it guided me the most when I was filming my preliminary task. I think all three pieces of pre planning pieces are important but the storyboard is the most important as it gives the director, the writer, the actor and everyone else a clear visual of how the production should look like at the end. In my actual pre-production I will probably focus less on the detail of the storyboard and more on the script because mine was very poor for this preliminary task. My script was not detailed enough and if I work in a group, I would need to learn how to make something that all my team mates would understand. I don’t like to spend too much time on pre-planning, I prefer to just get down and to film impulsively but that doesn’t always work out too well so I do understand why pre-planning is important and I will take it more seriously for my actual coursework. The camera ran out of battery so I had to improvise and use my iPhone to film instead which means that the whole storyboard, shot-list and script was invalid and I had to think of something very quickly. I scrapped out the dialogue and I just did a walking through the door scene. I successfully demonstrated match on action and I successfully applied the 180 degree rule however shot/reverse shot was a failure for me because I didn’t have any dialogue and that couldn’t have been applied. My character did open a door, crossed a corridor instead of a room but didn’t sit in a chair opposite another character. My initial plan was to have the same character talk to themselves but I’d use a split screen effect to ensure that it doesn’t look too confusing. 

The main strength of my production was the heavy use of successful editing and the use of different effects. The cinematography was strong too and it helped the editing look better. The fast stutter edit shots sync to the music very well. The song I used was an instrumental of Justin Bieber’s I’ll Show You. I think it matched the video because it’s slow and quick and the quick parts matched the stutter edit. I also used quick flip reverse shots that also synced with the music very well.

The strongest weakness of my production and it was probably why I failed the task completely was because it was very short and didn’t exactly match the brief, I didn’t have any dialogue or conversations. I should’ve played around with the white balance on Final Cut because the whole production seemed a bit too warm and a bit boring. The immense shortage of footage was mainly due to the camera running out of battery but in my defence I would say that I did improvise very well and I did produce something sort of valid and I did well from an iPhone camera. I managed to find a way where the camera could film in 60 frames per second and that made it a lot smoother.

Preliminary Task

Shot list

1. Time-lapse of Big Ben, Parliament – Establishing

2. Close up on shoes – Close up

3. X puts shoes on – Close up

4. X walks off - Medium shot

5. Bars/gate blurred out, clear garden – Establishing shot

6. Camera movement across – medium shot

7. Inside glass window – medium shot

8. X walks through, face unseen - Medium

9. Back of X also seen - Medium

10. X walks to the chair - Long

11. X takes a seat, face still unseen - Close

12. Blur of leg and clear of other seat - Close/Long

13. Cut from leg to shoulder blur - Close/Long

14. Over the shoulder shot of other person

15. Sudden shot of two people, same person.

16. Close up on X - Dialogue “I was looking for you”

17. Close up on other X – “you looked in the wrong places”

18. Medium shot of other X – You have to wake up”

19. Long shot of X getting up

20. Scene ends with X stamping on the floor.

Film language: Cinematography

The opening scene of Mad Max first starts with an establishing shot of the whole desert that the movie is situated in. We also see a smashed up muscle car and a dark figure standing next to it. The camera is panning downwards so the focus is on the muscle car and the character that we've been shown. As we go lower down, we hit a close up on a rock and a lizard starts making movements towards the main focus. The lizard's movement indicates that the car and the character are extra terrestrial to the place they are in. We then get a close up of the car starting to accelerate and an action/tracking shot of the car going off the cliff. There is another establishing shot of the muscle car driving away from motorcyclists and other vehicles. The muscle car then gets knocked over and we see a medium close up of the character that was saw in the beginning and we automatically feel sympathetic towards him because he was ganged up upon and he is clearly struggling. The next scene is the same character being tied up and around 10 different characters all around him tattooing his back for some peculiar reason. The close up on his face makes the audience feel even more sympathetic towards him because we didn't see why he's being held in an unjust manner and we as the audience automatically believe that that is very unfair. An extreme close up of the tattoos being done on his back is then shown and the reason for that is so us, the audience, read and see in detail what's being done to his body. A lot more sympathy is shown here by us because tattoos are very painful to be done and it's against his will. Another extreme close up of a very hot metal rod with the symbol of what we assume is their gang symbol which is going to be put on his skin to make a mark of some sort. Another set of tracking and action shots are on display as the main character starts to resist and starts showing signs of aggression and starts wrestling all the people holding him hostage and as soon as he does, he makes a run to escape from the place he is. We then see the characters holding him hostage in much more detail as there is light coming down and the camera is moving very quickly which suits the scene because its an escape scene and quick camera movements is key to make it look very dramatic. After the main character is pushed into a little pool of water, he starts hallucinating and seeing this strange looking girl who seems to be talking to him. The extreme close up to her face gives the audience a sense of thrill and fear because she doesn't seem happy and she's very angry at our character. Our main character then starts to wrestle the weird looking people again and we automatically side with him because we want him to escape from this dreadful looking place. He then arrives to the outdoors and we see his facial expression as he's very surprised and then the camera pans to the other side and we see what he's looking at. We finally have a sense of relief as he's finally escaped from the torturous conditions.

Sound presentation feedback

WWW:

• Outstanding choice of music and images
• Song has a strong visual feel - very happy feel to the song
• Pace of editing and choice of parallel images perfect
• Contrapuntal images all work but not sure about the horror images and natural disasters work thematically. One of the other may have been more effective.

EBI:

• Use one type of images for the contrapuntal. Either horror or natural disasters.
• Maybe use more parallel images, use more images of kids.
• Shorten the amount of time, stick to 30 seconds.