09-11-15
In the first planning meeting of our group, we all pitched out individual film ideas. Each of our film pitches had a different genre therefore we knew it was going to be a tough decision to decide as a group, what idea we were going to adapt, develop or extract inspiration from in order to produce a plan for our final film idea. We briefly discussed each film idea in our lessons, and then gave ourselves time to have a further think about each pitch over night in preparation to make an important decision what our final film idea will be.
10-11-15
In our second group meeting, although Lollie was not in the lesson, the rest of the group discussed our final film idea. The discussion got quite heated as the majority of the group felt the psychotic, mental hospital patient was the best idea for our film as it created a lot of opportunities to incorporate enigma codes and create suspense in our opening sequence. However, Rory was passionate about his film pitch therefore we assessed the positive and negative parts of his film and took it into consideration. We came to the conclusion that a ‘Spanish Rom-Com’ would be too time consuming and difficult to replicate in terms of a location that resembles a Spanish community. After a lot of deliberating, we came to a group decision that we were going to adapt Charlotte’s idea of a patient in a hospital and develop it in order to make it more of a group idea rather than just continuing the individual film pitch.
11-11-15
For the third time we met, we put together a brief film pitch as a group in preparation to show to the class the next day. We all added ideas in which we thought would make our film more intriguing for the audience. We started to research other films with a similar genre and analysed the titles regarding what font, colour and order of roles they were shown in. We looked at the film 'American Horror Story'. By researching film openings we also noticed the opening sequences displaying the titles. The group agreed that the most effective and empowering titles were ones with a simple font and a plain colour - are made a decision that we would have a simple font with white letters displaying our titles.
13-11-15
16-11-15
On our 5th meeting the four of us took the lesson to sit and discuss everything that was going to happen in our film, regarding the location, scenes, shots, sounds and individual job roles. We also researched into the props we were going to use and how we was going to place them in out location. We discussed the feedback we got from our peers following the group film pitch and took into account all of the constructive criticism we received and adapted our film plan accordingly. This was a very productive meeting as we all got a clear understanding of what our film was going to potentially turn out like. The group agreed on a strong story line and discussed ways in which we could use Rory's acting skills to make the film come across very serious and professional. In this meeting, we also came up with a brief film script to get a feel for how the scenes are going to go. In the meeting previous to this one we all suggested to each other that we should research film opening sequences so we could begin to plan the titles for our openings. We all agreed that simple yet effective titles in terms of the font and colour was the best way to display the titles in our film opening. Films such as 'The holiday' and 'American Horror Story' were our inspiration for our titles as they are big films and using simple writing for the titles made a big impression as unlike some films that we had researched - they did not overcomplicate them to try and make them look impressive.
17-11-15
In todays lesson our main focus was choosing the right sound track for our film. As a group it took a long time for us to decide on what track was going to feature in our film, as we all imagined a certain sound in our minds. We all wanted to make sure that we definitely had the right track to suit our genre and to portray the theme of our film. As our film focuses on a Mentally scarred and emotionless patient, we found it difficult to choose the right sound that suited our genre appropriately without giving the audience a different idea of our film than we intend. When researching many instrumental sounds, we found that the majority would either make the film sound too sad or it was a suspense builder to make the audience feel like a big event was about to happen, and neither of these was a theme that suited our film as the genre is a drama we wanted subtle music in the background to represent the emptiness and frailness of the patient. We finally came to a joint decision and chose the sound that gave our film the best feel. Also in this meeting, Ella and Rory produced the timeline for the camera shots and researched inspiration for these shots by looking at films and series that they knew to have similar shots and incorporated them into the timeline. Overall this was a successful lesson as we finalised very important decisions.
18-11-15
In todays meeting, the main focus was keeping on top of our work in order to ensure that we do not fall behind. A lot was achieved in this lesson. The mood board was completed, which included lots of pictures in which we got our inspiration from for the camera shots, outfits plans and locations; we also included pictures that represented themes. The title for our film is called 'MANIA' which means the spirit for insanity in Greek Mythology, hence why we included a picture that represented Greek Mythology.
23-11-15
In today's lesson we began to practice our filming in regard to the camera angles and shots. Also in this lesson, we went through our script and editors certain lines. We established the tone of voice and the body language the characters needed at each stage of the scene. The majority of the groups in our media class had started to film properly for the film openings however as our group decided not to film at school, we took the opportunity to practice everything and finalise some decisions such as the structure out location for filming would take in terms of the positioning of each prop. We actually practiced filmed in this lesson and then uploaded our footage to the computer so we could sit down together as a group and analyse them and list things that we need to work on such as the volume of our speech. Overall this lesson was successful as we all started to properly get a vision of what our opening film was going to be like to the audience and we adapted things accordingly.
24-11-15
In today's lesson we took the opportunity to get out of the classroom, which we have spent an will spend a lot of time in over the editing process, and decided to go to one of the proposed locations to take a couple of shots of it and all together to get a vision of what out film will potentially be like. Although at times we took it as a 'selfie' opportunity we still got a feel for the place and saw how we could use it to it's full potential. Rory felt that as an actor it was helpful to visit a location first to familiarise yourself with your surroundings in order to completely free yourself in front of the camera . So for Rory and Lollie, our two actors, this session was a morale boost for the team.
25-11-15
Finally, the day had come to start filming the opening section of our sequence there was a mixture of excitement and nervousness from our actors. After school, we went to Ella's house where our set has been specifically designed including the props for our scenery. We felt it worked quite well and it would allow us to reach Mania's cinematic potential, the location and setting where we filmed was everything we hoped it would be. The first thing to do was for Charlotte to apply the make-up to Rory and Lollie in order to create the image of our characters in our film. Secondly we had to make make those final tweaks to our set and play around with the camera while experimented with different camera angles and shots to decide which would show off our set in the best way possible and make it look the post realistic. The Director went through some things she wanted to see from Rory and Lollie. In the couple hours we did of filming we did we believe we created some good shots in setting the picture for the rest of the film and really created a raw emotive piece which hopefully for the final product can be visible to a wide audience.
26-11-15
Today we began the process of eating in which Rory took the lead. We started by uploading all the clips that we had recorded the previous day and went through them seeing whether they had potential to make the first draft or whether we would need to re-film anything. Looking through the clips we all saw a lot of potential specifically in the shots where it is all stripped back and is allowed to give almost a tour of the institution. The position of each prop was well placed and effective, the prop we felt had the most effect was the wooden toy that moved in a seesaw motion as it gave a creepy feeling. We wanted to capture an essence of a journey through this room and we felt that this has been done effectively with the multiple changes in direction of shot. Whilst Rory was editing he was doing his best to ensure that all the transitions were as soft and as natural as possible. When Rory began to insert the titles into the opening sequence he made them appear as the beat of the music was sat its peak, it gave the impression that a title appearing was a result of the beat dropping which is very effective. Rory asked for the opinion of students who have done the task in a previous area and was pleased to get there seal of approval in the early stages of editing as it let the group know that the editing was moving in the right direction.
27-11-15
In today's lesson Rory showed the group what he done in regards to editing and asked for suggestions for improvements. In this lesson we also made a group decision to change elements of our film opening, for example we were going to feature a flash black. After getting an insight into film and reviewing our footage, we felt that the scene we all had envisioned would be too difficult to create in order to get us good marks, if we tried to over complicate it, it would disregard the hard work we, as a group, had put in to create the simple but effective feel of our film. The very opening scene of our film is very slow and detailed and therefore trying to cramp too much into it would not give it a professional and realistic feel.
30-11-15
In today's lesson while Rory continued to edit whilst Lollie and Ella researched into sounds effects we could include in our film by using foley such as doors slamming, people screaming and the clock ticking. Charlotte continued to update the production diary and also update the blog regarding the progress we had made. As a group, we further discussed the sound and transitions of the editing part of our film opening, and each made encouraging suggestions as to what to add into the sequence in terms of transitions.
1-12-15
The main focus of today's lesson mainly consisted of keeping up to date with the blog and production diary. We reviewed the footage we had got from filming on the 25th November and gathered the scenes that we were not going to use as they had not worked out due to bad camera angles or actors laughing etc and began to make a 'bloopers' film to show at the end of our opening sequence so that our viewers could have an insight into our group on the set when filming 'MANIA'. We arranged another time to film some more footage to get the extra shots we needed which would be the afternoon of the 2nd of December. In this meeting we also discussed the particular shots that we wanted to include as Lollie, Charlotte and Ella felt very strongly about including an array of shots in order to achieve the top grades. These shots will include a match on action shot, tracking shots, and point of view shots.
2-12-15
Today was a very different day compared to all the other days we have been editing and filming for our film 'MANIA'. When filming the group had a disagreement and resulted in our main actor Rory deciding that he no longer wanted to feature in our film opening, obviously this delayed the process massively for the group as we then had to decide what we was going to do next and who was going to play out main character, as we had already filmed a fair amount of footage this set us back and made the rest of the group feel stressed and rushed i regard to finishing our first draft for the deadline. Charlotte, Lollie and Ella decided that Charlotte was going to take over the role as the main character ad Ella was the designated camera women, and Lollie already had an acting role within our film, and as director, the group felt that it would be easier for charlotte to take on the role even though she was an inexperienced actor. The girls did not mess around when it came to re-filming the scenes for the film, we all took this difficult situation in our stride and done our best to make the film as good as we possibly could. This filming session ended up being very productive as we managed to film the majority of our scenes, and were satisfied of the outcome and as a team were proud of what the girls had achieved in relation to the circumstances. Although we had managed to resolve the filming situation, Rory deciding that he did not want to feature as our main character meant that we had to edit some of out blog as it revolved around him being the main character.
3-12-15
Although we didnt have a lesson today Charlotte, Lollie and Ella went back to the filming location do film the final shots we needed for our film opening. The shots were successful and we really began to get an idea as to why our final film would turn out like, we discussed the sound effects we could put in the background of our film in order to resemble the genre and theme of the film. Overall, the girls had worked hard to make our film as good as we could considering the circumstances.
4-12-15
In this lesson, the whole group sat down with Mrs Brooks to discuss what had happened within our group, and what our plan was to resolve the situation. We explained how even if the situation was resolved, Charlotte will continue to be the actor of the patient in the mental hospital as we had filmed all of our footage and we was not prepared to waste the time and effort we had put in to getting our film back on track. After our discussion, Lollie and Ella went to the green room to record some voice overs for Lollies character of the visitor, while Charlotte reviewed the footage that we had films previously. After Lollie and Ella had finished, the girls sat down and began to insert and replace the old footage with the new footage, and also add in the new scenes that we had filmed. The film was coming together nicely and we had added a few effects like the transitions etc, and also we had finished our title sequence. Today was the deadline for our first drafts to be handed, so we gave our draft to our teacher although there were a few things missing like sound effects and foley which we intended to add in when the group next met and begin to make the final amendments for our final film opening which would get marked.
7-12-15
In todays lesson, we reviewed every groups first drafts from each of the both classes, after viewing each one, as a class we all said what we thought went well throughout the film and also gave some constructive criticism as to what the group could change or adapt in order to score higher marks. Some of the feedback we gave ranged from lighting of some shots, shaky camera shots and also music in the background. We briefly analysed every film we watched as a class in preparation to individually evaluate every film the next day in great detail.
