End of Editing

Yesterday, we finished editing our sequence and I'm really happy with the results, however we did have to change Laura's dialogue and our production name.
The production name has changed from 'Kadam' to 'Perspective', as 'Kadam' was boring and was not reflective of what our company is about.
Our company, 'Perspective' would make films to reflect different lives and cultures, for example, different ethnicities, people with mental illness, homeless people etc, and the name 'Perspective' reflects this. The company also reflects us as a group, as as a group we are all different ethnicities and have different interests, which would all be reflected in the films our company would make.

Audience Feedback
We've had a lot of feedback during the project from other media students and teachers, but we need to get feedback from our target audience., mainly people who are not media students. This will be extremely useful in knowing whether we have actually attracted our target audience. We plan to do this by doing a film screening which will take place on Wednesday 21st. We will ask the T.A to fill out questionnaires and will also ask a few to stay behind so that we can have a more in depth discussion with them about the sequence. We drafted the questions at lunch and I will type them up and post them on group blog. We hope to create a group on facebook to advertise the screening, and Alice will also tell people about the screening in the common room. We will each also hold a screening at home with close friends/family. Doing this will ensure that we get the best possible feedback from our T.A. (young adults interested in thrillers). On the day, I will be in charge of the technical side of things, which is basically ensuring everything is ready and pressing 'play', Alice will brief everyone before we play the sequence and Aarti will welcome everyone and ensure they know where they're going.

Editing This Week

This week was our first week back from the holidays and we've got so much done.
As shown on our group blog we've had lots of feedback and have used it to ensure our sequence is the best it can be. I was lucky to have loads of free periods on Thursday, which meant I had around 6 hours to work on the sequence, including the 2+ hours that Aarti and Alice were also editing with me. We got as much feedback we could from both the teachers and other students. We worked on the feedback we received and tried to make our sequence look as good as possible, including trying to sort out lighting issues we had.
On Friday we worked on tighting up the sequence and also got more feedback. This meant we were working on the feedback we received until our screening, when we received even more feedback. This was really useful as seeing our sequence on a big screen made us notice things we hadn't in the editing suite. It also meant that we got lots of feedback from people who hadn't seen the sequence before. As we've seen the sequence so many times, its hard to notice small issues that we've gotten used to so it's been really helpful to get lots of feedback from teachers and other students.

Reflections On Editing So Far

Our sequence is now on its way to being completed although we still have some way to go. Yesterday we got feedback and advice from Miss Thrasher and other media students. Miss Thrasher suggested many small changes that will make the sequence look a lot better, which we will do after the christmas holidays, while Selina suggested fading in from black at the beginning and Nick gave us advice on how to reduce camera sound, which is a big problem on the sequence. When we get back after the holidays we also need to rerecord the second line of Barney's dialogue.

Reflections On The Shoots - Fri 5th and Sat 13th

On Friday, we only had a shoot with Laura, as unfortunately Barney was unwell. We filmed her in the shower and I didn't get a chance to see the shots until today as I've been unwell, however I think they work really really well. Also we shot her walking down the stairs and into the kitchen with more interesting lighting. We added some contrast with candles in the hallway and I think this worked well, as it makes the shot less flat. We also reshot her walking round the table and picking up the knife, and her dropping the towel, all with more interesting lighting. I think this worked really well, and I especially love the shot of her dropping the towel as I think the lighting looks really good. We also retook the last shot due to issues with lighting.
On Saturday we had our final shoot. Once again, we ended up shooting on a rainy and cold day, but despite this we managed to shoot Barney's outdoor shots. These included a pan of him leaving the park, his conversation from different angles and shots of him at the door, ringing the bell, and waiting at the door. The sound was bad again because of the rain, so we recorded the dialogue in the house. Alice also went outside and recorded some atmospheric outdoor sound, as the rain hitting the umbrella sounded really bad and you can really hear it on camera. We also re-recorded the clocks to 5.00 rather than 7.00.

Evaluation Of Things That Could Have Gone Wrong

Before the real shoot we thought about things that could go wrong. These things were problems with organisation, communication, technical and group dynamics.
Our organisation was good overall, although I was late for the shoot (we had agreed to meet an hour earlier than the actors) I did let the group know before the time we had agreed to meet that I would be late. Other than that our organisation was good for example, we knew that there was a chance it would rain so we took umbrellas with us on the shoot, we also had a good shooting script that we followed word for word, although our big issue was timing as everything took us longer than we expected and maybe in some cases longer that it should have. In our group both communication and group dynamics are very good as all three of us get on and we make sure we allow everyone to voice their opinions, we also make sure that we do an equal share of the work, although on the day of the shoot when we started to run out of time I did let the group know that I was going to be bossy so that we could get the shoot finished. On the shoot we ensured that the actors were warm and well fed (thanks Alice!). Technically we are also quite good, we considered continuity, sound and lighting during our filming however continuity is going to be an issue for us mainly because the lighting changes a lot in the time it takes for Barney to walk down the street. To rectify this we will either have to rerecord the dialogue and replace what he says so that when he's on the phone he doesn't tell Laura that he's at the end of the road, or we have to cut the conversation on the phone out of the sequence. The fact they are together should come across from the picture on her dressing table but we are going to ask people for feedback on what to do before we make our decision. After watching the footage today we've agreed to retake some shots of Barney, him walking up the drive, him walking along the street from behind and (as Alice suggested on her blog, the shots of him ringing the doorbell), we will have to try and do these in the same light as they were taken in before which may be really difficult but we'll try :-). We also need to retake the establishing shot of the house and of the bathroom window and we will have to retake the shot of outside the door while she's in the shower. We will take these shots on our reshoot on Friday and will plan a shooting script as soon as possible.

First Real Shoot

I've just got back from the first real shoot and I think it went quite well. We did have some major issues at the beginning when it started to rain. It sounded really bad but we recorded some atmospheric sound that we'll replace with the real sound of the shoot. We also had big problems with cars as there seemed to be one on the road for the whole of the outdoor shoot but we did manage to get shots when there were no cars so it worked out ok, although at first I was getting very stressed over it, as although I knew it would happen on our test shoot there seemed to be a lot less cars. After having our lunch break with the two actors, our male actor (Barney) left and we started shooting with our female character (Laura). These shots went a lot better than the outdoor ones did. The lighting was all good and the shots worked exactly as we planned, as we obviously didn't have the issue of the weather. We were also really lucky to have amazing actors who played their parts really well and didn't complain about anything even though we had them standing out in the freezing cold and Barney had to film in the rain for quite a long time without an umbrella. However, all our shots took a lot longer than we thought they would and we ended up leaving Alice's house at 10.15, but I think this was better than leaving the shots for Friday as if they didn't work on Friday we would have had no time to reshoot them.
Overall I think today's shoot went well and hopefully when we watch it all back we wont have too many shots to retake. However, we do still need to record Barney's dialogue and need to record Laura and Barney laughing together, which we will do as soon as we can this week. We also need to check for continuity with their dialogue, the light and her leaving the bathroom. There are pictures on the group blog of the shoot.

In our lesson and meeting we managed to get loads done so we're completely ready for our first real shot.
We:
- Finished the storyboard, and made sure that we got our continuity completely sorted. We're going to put a cross on the floor with masking tape so that Laura knows exactly where to stand each take.
- Completed the shooting script - we did this so we don't have any stress on the day and so that Barney and Laura didn't have to each wait around while we were filming the other.
- We met with the actors to take a picture of them which I will now post on the group blog. We also told them what time to arrive and discussed with them what they should wear (Laura - red nails etc, Barney - Black coat, smart shoes).
- We also decided who's bringing what. I need to remember:
- White towel
- Red Roses
- Red Lipstick
- Photo of the couple
- Red Napkins

In our lesson today we managed to finish capturing our sequence and we edited a part of it too. It helped us to see that we did have some issues with continuity but those can be easily resolved. It also helped us see which of our shots we like best and meant that at lunch we managed to get started on a final storyboard. We've also cast both parts now, casting of the guy was starting to worry me as both people we had in mind couldn't do it but we've found someone perfect for the role, so now we can give both actors scripts, which me and Alice have done today (see below). We also need to think about what times the actors will arrive for the shoot, which is something Alice reminded me of, so we have to think of that when completing the shooting script which hopefully we can get started on tommorow so that we don't tell the actors too last minute. We also need to take a picture of the actors together, which we will put in a photo frame on her dressing table. We'll post this picture along with a picture of Barney, the actor we cast as the guy, on the group blog as soon as possible.

Script:
Girl: "Darling - you were meant to be here at 8:00. You're two minutes late "
Guy: "Ahh gosh yes I know, Sorry I'll be there soon. I'm just at the bottom of your road."
Girl: "Okay - well ... It's almost time (small pause?) for dinner."
Guy: "Okay I''m on my way - Love you."
(both hang up)

Test Shoot

Our test shoot has really helped me (and I'm guessing Aarti and Alice as well) realise that a test shoot is really important. It made us realise a whole list of things that we didn't think would be a problem, most importantly lighting. After today we decided that the best time to film outside would be 3.30/4 till about 4.30/5. But for the real shoot we really need to plan a lot better. Everything took a lot longer than we expected and for the real shoot we need to make sure that we have an exact plan to follow.
But not everything about the shoot was negative. It was so much fun and we managed to get loads done. We shot almost every shot we wanted to and set up the bedroom, which Alice said she'll leave exactly how it is. We also tried different props and finally got the scene with the candles, right. And we got the dining table set up exactly how we want it which I took a picture of so that we get it exactly the same next time. We also all got a chance to act, direct, shoot, do lighting and be a PA, which we didn't get a chance to do in the preliminary exercise.
All together I think the test shoot went really well, and it's going to be so helpful for the real thing.

Fifth Meeting

After Friday's meeting I feel so much more calm. Now I feel like we actually know what we are going to do on the day of the test shoot and I feel more relaxed about the equipment etc.

Fourth Meeting

I'm glad we've agreed on dates etc. for our filming but the meeting really made me realise that we're going to have really big issues with lighting. We're having another meeting later on today and hopefully once we've sorted out a completed storyboard, shooting script etc I'll feel a bit more relaxed about the test shoot.

In the second part of our meeting we started doing a storyboard and shot list as well as a final treatment. I'm going to think about how we can get the continuity to work in the sequence, as are Alice and Aarti, so hopefully by the end of the day Friday we're completely organised and ready for Monday.

Third Meeting

We've now got a pretty much completed idea, which I really like. I love the idea of having him look nervous, as if he really wants to look good and impress her. And I think having her rushing will work well. I also like the idea of all four of the possible actors, so hopefully we've chosen who we are definately going to cast by the end of this week.

Second Meeting

In our lesson today we were working on planning our sequence. We've decided to film in Alice's house and street as it works best. We've also decided on pretty much the whole sequence now, so we're all going to roughly storyboard parts of it. It's going to be useful because I think we all see parts of it working in different ways so it'll be good to know how we each want the sequence to look.

First Meeting

Me, Alice and Aarti had our first meeting today. We've come up with our idea for the opening, just trying to figure out where we're going to film it, so me and Alice are going to take pictures of our houses/local area etc and in our meeting tommorow we'll try and decide where to film it. We also started thinking about actors to be in it and have come up with two people who we think would be really good but we need to ask them and make sure they don't mind giving up their time to be in it. When we get our group blog, we'll write up our idea, and hopefully by then we would've done auditions and cast the roles.