Today I uploaded our film onto the blog.
I am impressed with the final result of our film, but feel it could have been longer and contained better scenes if we hadnt had as many disruptions.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Evaluation
Creative Process
For my Film Project I chose to create a short film in the style of a post apocalyptic thriller.
The creative process of the film took a lot longer than initially planned, with lots of problems and disruptions to our schedules. Although this made it hard to film within our time constraints, it was beneficial to our film, as we had time to change our narrative and improve on it.
The first step to creating our film was Genre Research, our genre was the Post-Apocalyptic Thriller, this was a great help to our creative project as it gave me a greater understanding into how the film should be made to fit the genre, and how the narrative should flow within the film.
Within my group consisting of Myself and Benjamin Underwood, we thought for a considerable amount of time about which features of the post apocalyptic genre would appeal to our audience.
With the Aims & Context created it gave me a clearer idea of how the film needed too look, with lots of long eerie shots, close ups and eerie music, and we needed to give the impression that our character was alone in the world, which was a very difficult task, with only specific times in which we were able to film without being interrupted. Although it was a difficult task we managed to achieve our task of a convincing film with only one character. Another useful addition to our creative process was our storyboard, as it showed Ben & myself what the project would look like in a film context. We then turned the Storyboard into an Animatic, this involves taking photos of your proposed scene, and describing timings and character actions, this was very helpful as it helped establish what the film would look like in motion and helped to narrow out any scenes that would not fit well with our narrative.
Within the creative process we encountered a number of issues, firstly, our only actor had a noticeable hair cut, which meant we had to start production again, from the very beginning, this was a major set back as some of our initial shots were ideal, but we overcame this when we shot the second set of scenes the following week, this added a lot more variation to our shots and made a vast improvement on the film. The second problem we encountered was that we found some of the shots impossible to achieve and very time consuming, and with a change to the storyboard we found that the shots we altered we’re still as good as the originally planned shots.
After our film was complete, we uploaded the film onto Adobe Premiere editing suites and began to edit all of our shots together, the editing was the most important part of the process, as the way a film is edited gives it a distinct impression on how it should be perceived.
The techniques used in our film are used in such a way to give off the impression that our character is alone in the world, the first of these techniques is the House scene, in which our character is seen in various locations around his house, interacting with his family members which the audience knows are dead, but he does not, this is almost ironic as the soundtrack at the beginning of the film is very happy and gives off a false impression of the film. We used many close up shots in the house scene, this gave a sense of isolation, and the fact the house was deathly quiet added to this mood.
For the next scene, The College scene, we was finding it difficult to film the travel process without seeing people in the background, so we used a fade-in fade-out technique showing the college is desolate and empty, with an eerie soundtrack to go along.
We tried to make the college look as empty and creepy as possible by using cantered angle shots, high angle shots and long tracking shots to emphasise the isolation of our protagonist.
The rate stretch tool came in very handy towards the end of our project, with the final scene in slow motion, in which our protagonist finally realises what has happened and has the flashbacks. I believe the slow motion gives a sense of realisation and was the best way to portray this.
My role as director was a crucial role, I set up the shots, picked out locations and for the second half of the process, when Ben was unavailable, edited the sequences. I believe my role as Director was successful and the camerawork and acting were both worthy efforts due to my input as director and obviously Bens camerawork.
I believe my target audience will view this as a post apocalyptic film, who prefer a more thoughtful, intelligent film rather than a high octane action film. The narrative involves you emotionally in the film and we are able to empaphise with the protagonist. My aim was to use what I learned in my first year of Film Studies and bring it into this year to make a successful short film extract, which I believe has been achieve through mine and bens efforts.
There are however a few things which I would change if I was to do this film again. Firstly, plan ahead. Although our planning was good at first, it fell apart when problems arose, so planning is definitely crucial when trying to film, and it is also crucial to stick to your planning.
Secondly, I would use an experienced actor, although my actors skills weren’t terrible, his lack of emotion and stage presence were a definite hindrance whilst trying to film.
Thirdly, the lack of communication between myself, Ben and my actor was the greatest problem we had, with our actor having 2 haircuts in the process of filming.
In conclusion, I do believe my film has succeeded in what we set out to achieve, and is definitely convincing as a Post Apocalyptic Thriller.
For my Film Project I chose to create a short film in the style of a post apocalyptic thriller.
The creative process of the film took a lot longer than initially planned, with lots of problems and disruptions to our schedules. Although this made it hard to film within our time constraints, it was beneficial to our film, as we had time to change our narrative and improve on it.
The first step to creating our film was Genre Research, our genre was the Post-Apocalyptic Thriller, this was a great help to our creative project as it gave me a greater understanding into how the film should be made to fit the genre, and how the narrative should flow within the film.
Within my group consisting of Myself and Benjamin Underwood, we thought for a considerable amount of time about which features of the post apocalyptic genre would appeal to our audience.
With the Aims & Context created it gave me a clearer idea of how the film needed too look, with lots of long eerie shots, close ups and eerie music, and we needed to give the impression that our character was alone in the world, which was a very difficult task, with only specific times in which we were able to film without being interrupted. Although it was a difficult task we managed to achieve our task of a convincing film with only one character. Another useful addition to our creative process was our storyboard, as it showed Ben & myself what the project would look like in a film context. We then turned the Storyboard into an Animatic, this involves taking photos of your proposed scene, and describing timings and character actions, this was very helpful as it helped establish what the film would look like in motion and helped to narrow out any scenes that would not fit well with our narrative.
Within the creative process we encountered a number of issues, firstly, our only actor had a noticeable hair cut, which meant we had to start production again, from the very beginning, this was a major set back as some of our initial shots were ideal, but we overcame this when we shot the second set of scenes the following week, this added a lot more variation to our shots and made a vast improvement on the film. The second problem we encountered was that we found some of the shots impossible to achieve and very time consuming, and with a change to the storyboard we found that the shots we altered we’re still as good as the originally planned shots.
After our film was complete, we uploaded the film onto Adobe Premiere editing suites and began to edit all of our shots together, the editing was the most important part of the process, as the way a film is edited gives it a distinct impression on how it should be perceived.
The techniques used in our film are used in such a way to give off the impression that our character is alone in the world, the first of these techniques is the House scene, in which our character is seen in various locations around his house, interacting with his family members which the audience knows are dead, but he does not, this is almost ironic as the soundtrack at the beginning of the film is very happy and gives off a false impression of the film. We used many close up shots in the house scene, this gave a sense of isolation, and the fact the house was deathly quiet added to this mood.
For the next scene, The College scene, we was finding it difficult to film the travel process without seeing people in the background, so we used a fade-in fade-out technique showing the college is desolate and empty, with an eerie soundtrack to go along.
We tried to make the college look as empty and creepy as possible by using cantered angle shots, high angle shots and long tracking shots to emphasise the isolation of our protagonist.
The rate stretch tool came in very handy towards the end of our project, with the final scene in slow motion, in which our protagonist finally realises what has happened and has the flashbacks. I believe the slow motion gives a sense of realisation and was the best way to portray this.
My role as director was a crucial role, I set up the shots, picked out locations and for the second half of the process, when Ben was unavailable, edited the sequences. I believe my role as Director was successful and the camerawork and acting were both worthy efforts due to my input as director and obviously Bens camerawork.
I believe my target audience will view this as a post apocalyptic film, who prefer a more thoughtful, intelligent film rather than a high octane action film. The narrative involves you emotionally in the film and we are able to empaphise with the protagonist. My aim was to use what I learned in my first year of Film Studies and bring it into this year to make a successful short film extract, which I believe has been achieve through mine and bens efforts.
There are however a few things which I would change if I was to do this film again. Firstly, plan ahead. Although our planning was good at first, it fell apart when problems arose, so planning is definitely crucial when trying to film, and it is also crucial to stick to your planning.
Secondly, I would use an experienced actor, although my actors skills weren’t terrible, his lack of emotion and stage presence were a definite hindrance whilst trying to film.
Thirdly, the lack of communication between myself, Ben and my actor was the greatest problem we had, with our actor having 2 haircuts in the process of filming.
In conclusion, I do believe my film has succeeded in what we set out to achieve, and is definitely convincing as a Post Apocalyptic Thriller.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Filming (22.03.2010)
Today we completed some filming of Geordan within the college.
We managed to get a minute worth of film consisting of Geordan walking up the stairs in the Ash
building and walking towards his classroom. To create a tracking shot i came up with the idea of sitting on a wheeled chair with the camera in hand whilst ben pushed me along.
Filming of Geordan making his way into college will be filmed on Wednesday and will be finished and edited for Friday 26th March.
We managed to get a minute worth of film consisting of Geordan walking up the stairs in the Ash
building and walking towards his classroom. To create a tracking shot i came up with the idea of sitting on a wheeled chair with the camera in hand whilst ben pushed me along.
Filming of Geordan making his way into college will be filmed on Wednesday and will be finished and edited for Friday 26th March.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Aims & Context (Edited-17/3/2010)
An extract from a film drawing inspiration from Post Apocalyptic Thrillers of the last 20 years.
Our extract will be the beginning of the film, in which the protagonist awakes and makes his way to college.
It will appeal to a mainstream audience (16 – 25 years old) who range from A-E in the Social Classification spectrum who prefer to watch a film with an in depth narrative rather than expensive action sequences. My audience will probably be male orientated as woman tend not to be interested in thrillers.
Our film will mainly be influenced by classic Hollywood conventions but will also have elements of French New Wave and Film Noir. The structure of our film will also be heavily influenced by Hollywood
My aim will be to introduce the stylistics and techniques learned in FM1 and show them in as best way possible in our film. The main skills I will be using from last year are how to actually frame our shots, knowing how to use cinematography to show emotions and using our time given effectively.
As I am using the basic outline of a thriller for my film, My stylistic and formal influences came from such films as Mad Max and Video Games like Fallout 3. The basic theme we will be following is that a person has arrived home to find that he is alone.
I intend to interest my audience in the storyline by using techniques such as high angle shot and cantered angles, along with eerie and empty locations. I feel these will show the mood of the film and will allow the audience to recognise that our protagonist is truly alone, and if done correctly, may even be able to empathise with him.
Our extract will be the beginning of the film, in which the protagonist awakes and makes his way to college.
It will appeal to a mainstream audience (16 – 25 years old) who range from A-E in the Social Classification spectrum who prefer to watch a film with an in depth narrative rather than expensive action sequences. My audience will probably be male orientated as woman tend not to be interested in thrillers.
Our film will mainly be influenced by classic Hollywood conventions but will also have elements of French New Wave and Film Noir. The structure of our film will also be heavily influenced by Hollywood
My aim will be to introduce the stylistics and techniques learned in FM1 and show them in as best way possible in our film. The main skills I will be using from last year are how to actually frame our shots, knowing how to use cinematography to show emotions and using our time given effectively.
As I am using the basic outline of a thriller for my film, My stylistic and formal influences came from such films as Mad Max and Video Games like Fallout 3. The basic theme we will be following is that a person has arrived home to find that he is alone.
I intend to interest my audience in the storyline by using techniques such as high angle shot and cantered angles, along with eerie and empty locations. I feel these will show the mood of the film and will allow the audience to recognise that our protagonist is truly alone, and if done correctly, may even be able to empathise with him.
Forsaken Synopsis (Edited-17/03/2010)
Our project is an extract from our film Forsaken, is set in our protagonists house, the streets which our protagonist walks down to reach college and finally Wyke College itself.
The narrative follows the story line of The Quest.
19 year old James Woodlock awakes in his bed one day to find that the human race has been wiped out. With no clue what has happened until he reaches college.
When he reaches college, this is when he finally learns of the virus and the catastrophe it has caused.
James sets out to look for any survivors and to get a deeper insight into the virus.
As he makes his way around town.
The narrative follows the story line of The Quest.
19 year old James Woodlock awakes in his bed one day to find that the human race has been wiped out. With no clue what has happened until he reaches college.
When he reaches college, this is when he finally learns of the virus and the catastrophe it has caused.
James sets out to look for any survivors and to get a deeper insight into the virus.
As he makes his way around town.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Film re-shoot
After an unfortunate series of events (our only character had a haircut) we had to restart our shooting of the filming.
We started our project again, with various changes to the narrative, in the Half Term holidays and had a re-think of the plot and our shots.
As the Director of our project i feel these new shots work better with the storyline and are far better than our previous shots.
Although we now only have 2 weeks too finish the project i have the greatest confidence it can be done, with the first part of our filming already on the Edit Suites.
We started our project again, with various changes to the narrative, in the Half Term holidays and had a re-think of the plot and our shots.
As the Director of our project i feel these new shots work better with the storyline and are far better than our previous shots.
Although we now only have 2 weeks too finish the project i have the greatest confidence it can be done, with the first part of our filming already on the Edit Suites.
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