I feel that I have progressed a vast amount from the preliminary task to the full product I created. I worked with the same people for the preliminary task and I feel as a group we have achieved and progressed a lot during the course of the year from the preliminary task to the horror sequence.
The main task required far more planning and preparation than the preliminary task. For the preliminary task we had were given a storyboard, dialogue and the set. However, for the main task we had to come up with a concept ourselves, produce two storyboards and plan and prepare the set ourselves. For the preliminary task we had to find two actors the day before the shoot just so they could practice the dialogue. They did not have to be a certain gender, have a certain look or be a certain age. However, for the horror sequence we had to choose a cast member months in advance. they had to be a girl, with pale skin and dark hair, be a certain height a certain age and be available for a whole day rather than an hour for the preliminary task.
We did not have to plan the set for the preliminary task as it was an old classroom with two lights set up at the front of the room. However, the final product required a lot of planning for the set. We had to plan where was most appropriate to shoot the sequence. At first we planed to shoot it in an old barn 10 minutes from school; however we didn't think this was appropriate because it wouldn't look like Elizabeth's secret den so we decided to shoot it in the film studio instead. This was a challenging idea because it meant we had to build the set for our idea which took planning and preparation. We decided we would use the set of another thriller, which was originally the set of a theatre production. This took planning to make sure that it would available for our day of filming.
We didn't have to plan costume and props for the preliminary task. The actors wore their own clothes and the only prop was the camera case made to look like a case of money. However, a lot of planning and preparation was needed to decide what costume and props were
to be used in the film. The main prop was the diary, which was very time consuming to plan and prepare. To plan what it would look like, we looked looked at different photographs on the Internet of people with blood and disturbing drawing around them. This gave us a stimulus for the diary. To prepare the diary, we bought an art book from the schools book shop, then we decided what we wanted to do for each page, what photographs we were going to include and what the running theme throughout the diary. During practical lessons we made the diary and took it home and did a few pages each. We decided that we would have a theme running through the diary, which would be crosses, so all the eyes of the people in the diary would have a cross over them and all the letter i's would be crossed.There were many other props in the film and this took time to plan and prepare as well. We had to decide what else we would track in the scene to make it seem interesting. This was a long and time consuming process because each group member had many conflicting ideas. We first thought we could track scatted the pages of the diary around the room, however we decided against this because it would not be very exciting. We used spider diagrams and discussions to decide our final idea of what we wanted to achieve. So, we decided that we could involve Elizabeth's painful past as well as the hardship of her teenage years. We came up with the idea as a group that we could use dolls, toys and stuffed toy animals to scatter around the room. However, to make it seem as though she is not mentally stable we would cover them in blood and rip them as she would. This took weeks of preparation to do this task, we had to find/buy the toys, separate them evenly within the group and make them look ripped apart. We had to go into the nearest town as a group and visit the charity shops and ask other people from our school to bring in old dolls and toys of their own. The we had to plan what we were going to do with the toys so they didn't all look the same. Then we had to prepare the toys by cutting them, burning them, putting fake blood on them and crossing out their eyes. We then had to plan what photos we would put on the wall. We found portraits of families and people and wrote on them in blood. We had to plan where we would place these on the wall and where we would put the dolls and toys on the floor.
We had to plan where we would put the tracks and we had to prepare the tracks to suit the image we wanted to achieve. to do this I went round the room with the camera, to see where what I wanted to film and then we placed the tracks to suit where we wanted to film.
We also had to plan the costume for Elizabeth and look we wanted to achieve for her. We were not sure whether we were going to show her entire body or just her feet so to be sure we bought a costume for her, did her make-up and her hair. We chose a black smock dress from Peacocks that we had to prepare the week before the shoot day. We then had to prepare the dress my cutting and ripping the bottom of the dress and the sleeves to give it a more emo/horror look. However, for the preliminary task they wore their own clothes.
We also had to cleverly plan the shoot day, to do this we used a shooting schedule which highlighted the exact times we would shoot different parts of the film and how long we would take to set up. This took planning but also organisation because we had to try to stick to the schedule for the shoot day. However, for the preliminary task we didn't have to plan what to do in the hour we had to film because it was all set out in the storyboard of what to film first ect.
My film making skills were developed from the preliminary task to the horror sequence a great deal. In the preliminary task, the shots we had to perform were on the sheet and the storyboard was drawn for us. However, in our final product we had to produce a working storyboard and a final storyboard. We had to decide the shot types we were going to use to make the the audience interested for two minutes instead of a thirty second clip. We decided that we would use on shot in the horror sequence to show the room that Elizabeth hangs herself in. This was a challenging decision to make because we had to make one shot stay exiting for the audience. Also doing one long tracking shot is much more challenging to perform than a simple sequence of a wide shot then a medium shot ect. In the preliminary task I filmed the shots that were on the storyboard which were medium shots, close ups, wide shots and over the shoulder shots. We then added in a few of our own shots for example, an extreme close up, a bird's eye view shot, a worm's eye shot, a high angle shot and a low angle shot. I found this slightly challenging as it was my first time doing these type of shots, however we could do as many takes as necessary of each individual shot. We did not use tracking in our preliminary task so it was a new skill for me to do when it came to the shoot day. I found it challenging to move the camera in the direction of the tracks and also tilt the camera to cover the walls and floor to show the wall in an exciting way. I had to make sure that I was moving the camera in a slow and steady way to last two minutes but not make the camera jerky and stoppable but keep the motion smooth. I was proud of what I ac hived using the camera on the shoot day because it is very challenging for any one to do that kind of tracking shot and I think the overall camera work was smooth.
The use of storyboards were very different from the preliminary task to the horror sequence. Storyboarding was challenging for the group because it was very time consuming and had to be detailed. In the preliminary task the pictures were drawn for us, however in the horror task we had to draw these ourselves, ink them and scan them into the computer which was very time consuming. We had to write out the shots and input them into the storyboard. Our first idea had many different shot types which meant our storyboard was very long. However, when we changed idea to the one shot the storyboard was not as long, but the process was tedious and long because it was the same shot type and picture for most of the storyboard.
The final product of the horror sequence has developed and improved from the final product of the preliminary task. The transitions of the beginning and the end of the horror sequence were a lot more smooth and professional compared to the sharp, static cuts in the preliminary task. We tried to stick to the 180 degree rule in the preliminary task. Even though we had taken a enough shots in order to make the sequence abide by the 180 degree rule, there were some shots in the sequence that broke it. However, after we realised that we had and changed position in order to make the shot work. In the final media product we did not break the 180 degree rule once. I had learned from the preliminary task how not to break it, and with careful planning and preparation of the rubber tracks we could not break the rule.
Our use of sound has developed during the course of the year from each tasks. In the preliminary task we used simple digetic sound from the dialogue between the two people, the case banging on the floor and the door opening and closing. These were picked up from the small mic on the camera and were not altered during the editing process. Although these sounds were picked up quite clearly, our use of sound had improved in the final thriller sequence. In our final product we used many sources of sound in order to create tension and suspense. We used sound from the room, sourced sound from sound cut pro and a soundtrack. After we had shot the sequence, we recorded sound from our set with a boom mic. This is picks up a clearer sound than that of the normal mic on a camera. We first recorded sound of the room in general, the sound of Petrie walking, the sound of the chair rocking, falling and her feet twitching. On final cut pro we then deleted all the sound on the film and started the sound from scratch to make it more professional and clearer. We used the sound the room we had recorded to make the sound seem realised under a soundtrack we would make. We then sourced sounds from sound cut pro of pages turning, a door opening and closing and a tension building soundtrack. We used these sounds and matched them on final cut pro to the image on the screen. This made the sound seem heightened but still realistic to build up tension and suspense throughout the sequence. We then used a short sound track on sound cut pro and extending it on final cut pro to make it last for the entire sequence. We decided we would not use any digetic dialogue in the sequence. We were going to use a non-digetic voice over of Elizabeth reading out her final page in her diary. However, we decided against both of these ideas because we felt that this wouldn't build as much tension and suspense as what we created. Without any dialogue, the audience would be left questioning what action is happening in the sequence therefore being left in suspense.
I also improved my ability to master final cut pro to edit and add after effects to the sequence. Our product was one long tracking shot so we did not edit the sequence very much as there were no cuts. However, we learned how to make the sequence shot less sharp and more smooth. We faded in the sequence at the beginning at at the end of the product, after the credits. This was to make it more professional and also because the diary appears on the screen slowly it draws the audience's attention to it thus making it seem an important factor in the film. We then faded the film out onto the title of 'Elizabeth's Diary' in final cut pro. We also used after effects in final cut pro; we used a glow tool in order to make the objects on the wall stand out clearer on the wall but keep the lighting low key. We also used final cut pro to make the credits that appear before and after the main sequence. We used a black card to not distract from the main sequence and wrote the credits in white so they stood out. We used two layers of writing so to make the fonts different sizes and make the important text stand out. We used photoshop to make the 'Elizabeth's Diary' text at the end of the film. We found the text we wanted from dafont, which looked as if it was writing in a diary. We then imported it to photoshop and changed the text to negative so it was white. We then included images from the diary by uploading them to photoshop. We then changed them to the multiply level so they became opaque. We then placed them in the text, to give it a more interesting and creepy look.
No comments:
Post a Comment