Evaluation ~ Consience

Survey For Our Evaluation!

We set up a survey so we could get feedback for the evaluation of our opening. Here is the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DG7NVMC

We made this so that we can get an effective and helpful responses to our opening. If we made a paper based copy most people would not fill it out, as well as the fact that it would prolong the process of the working out the results. The questions that we have included in the survey we we came up with in a group and these are what we believe will give us the most relevant feedback that we need. We will then analyse the results once a good amount of people have watched our opening and stated their opinion of it, these responses will also help us answer the evaluation questions.

Credit To Katy Ward, Reworded By Me.

On Set Vlogs!

 These are the video blogs we made while on set and throughout the editing process. In them we talk through the problems we faced and how we overcame them, along with how some shots were made and other behind the scenes footage.
The video is so long because it was filmed every set and editing day.

Final Cut Of Our War Film Opening - Conscience

Full Credits

Crew
Director -  George Turner
Editor - George Turner
Cinematographer - Mariella Devoil
Producer - Mariella Devoil
Assistant Director - Mariella Devoil
Production Manager - Katy Ward
Art Director - Katy Ward

Hair & Makeup - Mariella Devoil & Melissa Askew
Costume - Katy Ward
Props - Mariella Devoil
Soundtrack & Sound Effects - George Turner
Researcher - Katy Ward
Location Scout - Katy Ward
Location Help - Donald & Sheila Turner
Catering - Sheila Turner

Runners / Assistants -
Louise Thomas
Katherine Packer
Shawnean Milton

Special Thanks - Simon Ford & Kate Brown & The Post Man

Cast 
Old Man - Frazer Camp
Young Soldier - George Turner
Stunt Man - Ed Cummings

Changes To The Storyline & Title

Through talks with our teacher examining the rough cuts of our opening we found that our original storyline didn't really hold. The old and young man didn't look similar enough for them to conceivably be the same person. This changed the whole of our original  premise. However we discussed what was feasible considering the opening is 95% done and came up with the idea that the young soldier is the old man's best friend who died in the war. This would explain the PTSD and the flashbacks he was having, and would explain away how different the characters looked. Because of this we wouldn't keep the names we were playing around with as they all centred around the idea that the two characters were the same person (e.g. a war on two fronts). We came up with a couple of names to fit the bill including - Memory, Trapped Memory, Trama, Black & White, Corrupted Conscience, Broken Connections, Corrupted Connection, Broken Conscience. But eventually through lots of group discussions settled on 'Conscience'. We like this title as it incorporates the guilt, and flashbacks and eludes and creates suspicion in regards to the rest of the film.

Forth Rough Cut Of Our Opening & Improvements To Be Made

• Text change to white not green
• 'Producer and Cinematographer - Mariella Devoil'
• Change titel
• Make up production companies -> Copyright issues
• Smaller/ Subteler names
• Consistant placement of names in the bottom left hand corner
• more of a match on action on Frazer on the water scene
• Include the bucket shot?
• 'Set team' take this out  - too ammeter
• Names don't need to be true
• Include surnames
• Aspect Ratio change?

Third Rough Cut Of Our Opening & Improvements To Be Made

• Shot of Frazer looking out the window is still too long
• Sound compression is off, sound effects too loud, backing track too quiet
• At the beginning the gun sound effects should start quiet, and one loud explosion should trigger him waking up

Second Rough Cut Of Our Opening & Improvements To Be Made

• Production companies at the beginning
• Better pacing at the beginning
• No shot variety- of Frazer waking up
• More intercutting - so the audience know right away that it is PTSD 
• No Soundtrack
• POV shot of washing the hands
• Motivation of movement
• Need actual titles
• Hold the flashback and forward shots for an extra second each - the audience is too confused - the cutting is too quick
• Frazers reaction to the flashback in the mirror 
• Inc a shot of the house not exploded
• Inc a sound that makes Frazer want to look out of the window
• Frazer looks out of the window for 3 seconds too long - more consistency in lengths of shots
• The pacing lacks any consistency 
• More high / low / canted / distance - more shot variation
• Maybe needs something at the very beginning  
• Needs more engagement of the charecter 

Second Actor Profile

Name: George Turner
Age: 17
Occupation: A level Drama/ Media Student
Previous Experience: School Productions/ Multiple Short Films

Firstly, in the beginning we decided to pick Ed Cummings to be the younger actor, however his free periods and time did not match up to when we wanted to film. If we were to continue with him as our actor it would have prolonged our filming time dramatically. Therefore, we decided we would have George as the younger persona due to him having to be there as he is part of our group anyway resulting in no timing problems. However, as George was our camera man and was also becoming our actor, I took turns with him with the camera, once he was needed on screen. Overall this was the best possible way we could of dealt with the actor problem and we are happy with our outcome of the shots and filming experience.

Credit To Katy Ward, Reworded By Me.

Locations - External

1. Wall - Needed for the drowning flashback. We used this location because it looked grimy and had a drain near to it so that when we inevitably poured water everywhere it would clean itself up.

2. Field - Needed for the old man to walk through and the young solider to go battle on. We needed a field close to the school for filming convenience, one with a good backdrop, yet still a deep depth for the compression. 

Improving 'N' Painting Our Props

Yesterday during our single lesson we brought the spray paint as well as the props in as we wanted to make sure they looked authentic and fitted in with the theme and time period of our film. Therefore Katy and I used a hammer and made dents into the bucket so that it would look old/used. Then I then sprayed the bucket with primer/silver spray paint, to cover up the markings that were previously on it. After that I added a little black spray paint to add effect to the look, and as the paint was drying she used other materials to scratch/ mess up the pain to make the bucket look dirty and used.


Then to go into the transformation of the gun, it started off as orange however George decided that he wanted parts to look like more realistic, e.g wood and black metal, so we decided to cover the wood bits up with marking tape as Katy sprayed it. Katy painted the gun and after it was sprayed George added some silver bits of acrylic paint which we mixed up with black to make it darker to make it look even more authentic, this was are final outcome and process.





The last prop we improved was the sack to possibly go over our stunt actors head (undecided due to safety hazards). First I cut it in half as it would be too big on top of his head otherwise, and then I added black and green, in both light and dark shades, to make it look as if it was worn and used giving it more authenticity and a rustic effect.

Test Shots - Scene 2

Our test shots were purely to test our camera, location and our actor. Our actor was now able to experience the character on set for the first time after we had run through what we wanted. We discovered that our shots that involved camera movement would take a lot longer because we didn't have access to a dolly track or any stabilization equipment. This then lead to us having to use the tripod as fly cam tool. The problem with this is that it takes a lot of body movement to bring the camera down from the light, which creates the shaky camera. However the tracking shot from behind (mimicking a dolly shot) surprisingly worked well except for the framing where the head is cut off. Our lighting was poor in these shots due to us not having our lighting equipment.

Credit George Turner

Location - The Old Mans House

The location for our protagonists house was originally George's house, as it is near to the school, for ease when shooting. However we soon came to realise that the house, although old was filled with lots of modern technology that someone from the older generation wouldn't stereo-typically have. To overcome this we researched various care home instead. However we thought that it would take to long to get into contact with them and would be inconvenient for shooting within school hours, and if we needed to reshoot at short notice for any reason.

To overcome this we decided that instead of the care home we looked at other houses belonging to the older generation (grandparents) of our group members. The decision we made was that our group would film in George's grandparent's living room and guest room and change the setting of our scene so that our character would go downstairs, as the guest room didn't fill all of our requirements for the second half of the scene.

The reason we chose this location is because it's a genuine elderly persons home, which keeps up the realism and verisimilitude. Allowing the film opening to become more real and believable for the audience.

Credit to George Turner

What is Copyright and Why is is Important?

Copyright is a legal right made by the government as part of the law to the country. It benefits the creator of any original work with exclusive rights in which that they have the control over the work by use and distribution with all intentions of enabling the creator of whatever work is specified for normally a limited amount of time. It is property ownership in intellectual form applicable to any sort of original work. It is most seen to be used within multiple authors which each of them hold set of rights to use or license the work in which ever they wish to do so, these people are use referred to as the "rightholders". The rights in which they have access to is repoduction, distribution, public performance and moral rights such as attribution.

Credit to Katy Ward

Things To Buy

• Top half of soldier costume :)
• Gun prop :)
• Bucket :)
• Spray Paint :)
• Sack :)
• Fish wire :)

:) = bought 

BFI Film Academy

I have another blog, one documenting my time at Pinewood film studios as part of the BFI film academy. I have to run this blog as part of my NCFE Level 2 Award in Preparing to Work in the Film Industry. I thought I would link it as it has help me greatly in the development of our war thriller opening.

http://mariellasbfiacademy2015.blogspot.co.uk/

Searching For Props!

After talking to Mr. Ford about our props the other day we decided to see what school resources we could use in our short film. The first prop in which we decided to search for was the wheel chair, therefore we went to the medical room and asked the nurse if it would be possible for us to borrow the schools one. She agree to let us borrow it, as long as she knows where we are with the wheelchair,  in the case of an emergency and she needs it back immediately. Due to the wheelchair being a success we moved to our next prop of the World War II helmet which we decided we would search for up in the art department. We went into the cupboard where all the ornaments are kept and asked The art technician if it was okay for us to borrow the helmet which she responded to agree as well as we saw an old fashioned bucket with she also allowed us to take when needed. However as the hat had minor adjustments made to it by other student we then asked if it was okay to fix the helmet back to how it was for this we had to ask for an art teachers permission so we asked Miss Crow Stewart who was more than happy for us to reconstruct it back to how it was. Therefore I then mixed up some paint until it nearly matched the colour it was and painted over the top of what was already on the helmet, we took some pictures in the process and this was our outcome. 

Credit to Katy Ward

Names For Our Opening

Brainstorm of Initial Ideas

• Jitter
• Backdrop
• Backstory
• Flashback
• Internal war
• Lost Identity
• Front Flash
• Front Lines
• Mind Stuck
• FLAWED
• A War On Two Fronts
• Internal war
• Paranormal Past
• D.S.T.P.
• Dead Or Alive
• It Never Ends
• Inpost
• Superstitious Past
• Figment Of A Disillusion
• Was It Just A Mirage
• Conception Of The Mind
• System Of The Corrupted
• Figment Of The Past
• Misleading Mirage

These are the names we have created for what we wanted our film to be called. As of yet we haven't decided on a name but I have highlighted our favourite names. These names either are ones we like or ones that we like the concept of. When creating names we wanted it to link to both the physical war that our protagonist experienced and the psychological war inside him.

First Actor Profile

Name: Fraser Camp
Age: 16
Occupation: A level Drama Student
Previous Experience: School Productions





We have chosen our friend Fraser to be our actor in our film opening. He will have to play the parts of both the old and young man. We chose him because he has acting experience and his friendship with members in our production team. The reason behind our choice in Frazer being in our actor for our film is for the reason in which that he has experience within drama, therefore acting due to him starring in many past school productions as well as drama exams. The role in which we have set him for our movie-tailed is having him to play both the part of the older man and younger man, so that both our persona's will look the same as they should be and not have too much differences. As well as it would be hard to schedule with two actors as they both may not be able to have the same free time as one another, therefore we have more reliability than hiring an old man. This then leads onto why we chose him specifically as we chose him for his bone structure as odd as it may seem we can imagine our actor as an older character such as our persona. This was highly important to us as we need to sell the illusion of him being an older character to the audience, that he was older within the modern world and a younger persona within the time our war is set- World War II. To show that our actor had the potential to be an older character as well as a younger persona, we made him face the sun so that he would squint therefore making him to seem older than he is. As a group we are highly pleased with our actor and are confident that he will pull the role off perfectly.

Typography Practice

As George is main editor in the group he felt that it was important to practice his typography before we had even shot the film so that he could develop his understanding and skill on it. The reason for this is because he want to be able to achieve what ever effect we desired without wasting time learning to edit it. In this final title screen he felt that for a first attempt this was not to bad because it went in time with the non diegetic soundtrack and came in and out without any jump cuts or bad editing. However we think he could've used a variety of texts to make certain words stand out.

To make this he was going to use after effects but the software crashed so instead he used final cut's built in motion software. 
Firstly he cut out the actor on photoshop using a freeze frame from the video.

Then he had to get a text. He spent a time looking through texts because we wanted one that looked right and fitted the tone of the film. Before he chose the text he used I tried western fonts because we thought this title screen could be similar to 'The good the bad and the ugly' because of the use of red. However he decided to go down another root and looked at more modern texts.

To add some depth he used a grunge background to have the freeze frame on. Another thing he added was the smoke. He snatched this from an earlier film poster, which was made for this film.The text had to be made to interact with each other, which took a long time because he had to use lots of key frames. 

Credit to George Turner

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Research

The reason in which we decided into researching Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is for the reason that our persona will be suffering from it. Therefore we did not want to start filming or make assumptions on how they would act without even going into any research. 
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or a shorter term PTSD is an anxiety disorder that is caused due to stressful, frightening or distressing events which have happened within someones past. Events that can lead to a disorder such as this are: 

• Road Accidents.
• Violent, sudden personal assaults such as sexual abuse, mugging or a robbery.
• Consistant sexual abuse, violence or severe neglect.
• Witnessing murders / deaths.
• Military combat.
• Being held hostage.
• Witnessing terrorist attacks such as 911.
• Natural disasters such as earthquakes or tsunamis.

It can be developed immediately after an experiencing an event of such as the above or it can occur weeks, months or years after the event. It develops in about 1 out of 3 people who experience severe trauma which can not be explained why some people experience it and some people can go without it.
People with PTSD their brain has parts involved in emotional processing appear different in brain scans. One part of the brain is responsible for the memory and emotions that us as humans consume which is known as hippocampus. People with PTSD their hippocampus appears smaller in size. It is thought to be that the changes in this part of the brain can be related to fear and anxiety, memory problems and flashbacks. If the hippocampus malfunctions i may prevent flashbacks and nightmares from being properly processed, therefore the anxiety they begin to generate does not reduce over any time period. Treatment of PTSD results in processing their memories so that over time the flashbacks and nightmares will eventually and gradually disappear.

Credit To Katy Ward

Shot List For Our Opening

Scene 1
1. extreme close up- shifty eyes
2. medium shot, movement shot - young soldier running
3. medium shot, low angle, still - young soldier running
4. wide angle shot, still- soldier jumping down
5. close up, still - young soldier's face on the ground
Scene 2
6. close up, still, match on action ^ - old mans face
7. wide shot, still/ dolly movement - old man sits up
8. extreme close up, still - water rushing out of a tap
9. extreme close up, still, match on action ^ - water rushing out of an old hose pipe
10. mid shot, still - pipe pouring water in to a rusted bucket
11. close up, high angle, still - old man splashes his face with water
12. close up, still, - [i have no idea whats going on in this shot]
13. close up, still, camera faces vertically upwards, match on action ^ -  young mans face shoved and held in water. N/B camera will need to be in the water
14. close up, still - old mans hand gripping the basin
Scene 3
15. wide shot, dolly movement/still - old man walking his dog
16. medium shot, pan up - old man looks up (camera follows his gaze)
17. medium shot, pan down, match on action ^ - young man looks down (camera follows his gaze)
18. close up, still - barrel of gun, being shot, mussel flash
19. close up, tracking movement, match on action ^- lit match to a candle/ light bulb
Scene 4
20. medium shot, still - old man lights a candle out of shot (if light bulb this shot is not nessesary)
21. medium close up, over shoulder, dolly forward movement - old man looks out of the window
22. close up, still - old man's face curios/ knows somethings wrong
23. wide shot, still - though window you see the house opposite explode
24. mid shot, still - flashes between young and old man being horrified and scared
24. mid shot, still  - flashes between old and young man being horrified and scared
25. mid shot, tracking movement - young man stumbles backwards
26. wide shot, still - back to house, now in smoke and still aflame
27. mid shot, still - old man falls into wheel chair
28. extreme close up, still - belts wrap around the old mans hands and hold him there, struggeling
29. mid shot, low angel tilt, still/ movement - young man in wheel chair freaking out
Scene 5
30. close up, still - belt strap becomes hand of carer
31. wide shot, tracking movement, over the shoulder - over young solider shoulder shows old man with a carer and another person
32. mid shot, still - young solider looking worried, watching
33. wide shot, still, over the shoulder - young soldier moves out of shot, old man's eyes following
34. wide shot, dolly movement (out) -  slowly moving out, young solider walks half into shot and places his hand on the old mans shoulder. "child, its time I told you my story" : old man.
35. Cut to black. Name of film appears, then fades out.


N/B every shot that is of the young man will be shot handheld, and every shot of the old man will be shot on tripod. This is so the audience are part of the young man's battle, therefore they will empathize with him more.

35 shots
5 scenes
2.5 ish mins
150 ish seconds

Animatic Of Our War Opening

We made an animatic showing all the shots within our film. This allowed us to see if our idea actually fitted the marks scheme for example the dedicated time limit. However the time that this animatic is actually is shorter than what we originally wanted. This was due to some of the shots being shorter than original idea because of no dialogue or sound leaving it the animatic with an exsrtention of silence.

The Challenges We Face While Creating Our Opening

Within the making of this film we are going to encounter a lot of problems along the way. One of the best ways we believe to tackle those problems is looking at them early on, this is why we have listed some of our initial problems with the film.
The first problem is a big one... actors. Although we only have about four characters but one splits into a possible two roles their age is a problem. The reason for this is our main protagonist is considerably older than any of the students or teachers at Chalfonts. The reason is because we want someone this age is because they have to look like a World War Two veteran. This is going to be very hard to find someone that age willing to act for free.
Our initial thoughts on this problem was to use grandparents from our families to act in it but this film is going to take up a lot of they're time so we decided that we needed a back up plan. A way around this is using the young actor as the older man as well by using makeup or a mask.
Another problem is to do with location such as the retirement home and the battlefield because these locations are specific and require a lot of aspects that have to be right. The battlefield for example can't have anything modern on  it within the shot because this would take the audience out of the time zone therefore ruining the film. To avoid this we made sure that the war scenes were medium or close up shots so that not much of the background is seen. Another option is to have the flashbacks take place in a kind of cross over time zone where the young character is back in World War Two but this takes place in the current year. This would avoid the problem of the background however we don't believe this would be as gripping as the first idea.
Lastly the visual effects, this isn't as much of a problem as the other two because George has some experience and thinks he can learn how to do them effectively. However we think it would be important to have some test shots for the visual effects and transitions because then we will have practised and have confidence in what we are doing.

Credit To George Turner

How we intend to use Typography

In our opening sequence we have to include certain texts providing information about the people involved within the making of the film. We have started looking at some examples of opening title sequences before but now we believe that it is more important to narrow down the research to the ones that the whole group like. This is important because we origianlly wanted the text to be apart of the opening therefore we have to now look at our storyboard and decide on when and how our text appears on screen.

Our initial thoughts as a group were to have two different fonts which behaved differently depending on the scene they were in. For example in the scenes with the older protagonist we decided that it wouldn't work to have the 'jittery' text because these scenes are slower and sadder due to the character being overwhelmed with the flashback. In addition the 'jitteryness' wouldn't reflect the loneliness and shock the character is experiencing in these scene and would feel out of place therefore leading to the opening not working as a hole. 

Another option was to keep the titles in just one part, for example just the jittery part of the opening. However this may cause the text to become repetitive and meaningless, because the audience may overlook it. This is why we believe we should and use different fonts that behave differently. 

Examples of openings we liked included: 

• Batman TV series 

• Batman Dark Knight Rises

• Dr. No (James Bond)

• Dexter

• Vertigo 

Credit to George Turner

War Thriller Inspiration - Scenes and Short Films

I looked this this short film because I though it had outstanding props and costume, which I felt is a very important aspect to a war film because it shows the audience the time period and which side your character is on. In addition some of the scenes were shot in a higher frame rate making the action more intense. I would like to adopt this technique because I felt it provided a more intense experience.Another aspect I like was actually in the thumbnail. I loved the black and white tone in this photo and I might suggest that some of the war scenes are black and white because it would contrast to the other shots, which would be in colour.
I also watched the iconic 'Saving Private Ryan' to get and idea of ​​how Spielberg used the camera to create emotions such as fear and anger form the characters. I further looked at props to include in our film such as the guns and the types of visual effects like explosions form mines etc.
Both films shared the same war however it was shown in many different ways maybe because of a difference in storyline and budget. However both films used props well and created an interesting story through war. 

Credit To George Turner

How To Edit Videos

This video was made by (and therefore credit to) George Turner, to explain how he edits videos.

StoryBoard For The War Triller Opening

The Storyboard: As a group we discussed what we wanted from our film and the style we were going for, however we had not yet though about what our shots and transitions were going to look like. The first step was to create a storyboard, this is because a storyboard allows every member of the group to put their ideas forward and then have a visual representation of the film. Before diving in to this I wrote up a brief story that we as a group had already discussed;. explaining briefly what was going to happen in our story Meanwhile Katy gathered locations and costume so that we knew what our characters would look like and the environment they would be placed in and George looked at examples of war thriller short films that could inspire us. 

After those tasks were completed George was given the task of creating a storyboard that would represent our ideas best. To do this he made a storyboard template and printed four sheets so that we could have enough room for every shot. The reason he wanted to put so much work into the storyboard is because he felt that when you have a clearly laid out storyboard it's easier to organise the narrative creatively. 

This task did take him a while because he put a lot of thought into every shot thinking about practicality as well as creativity. An example of this is on the last page shot three because we would of loved to have both characters in the same shot however we would have to use after effects, which in my experience is not very reliable. Therefore we made ​​it an OSS so that we could just have another actor instead of using masks etc. Another aspect he put a lot of time into was transitions because we wanted to make sure that the narrative flowed well to set up the story, which would follow after our opening. 

Our aim overall aim was to upset the equilibrium without killing off any characters or changing the story. To achieve this we used flash backs to World War Two throughout our opening which would keep our audience gripped. 

  In addition to this we also made ​​sure that we had research on 'Waterboarding'  (water torture) because we wanted to make sure that the film was some what accurate to the time period we wanted the film to be set in. 

Lastly when it was done I reminded George that we wanted a first person drowning scene that we added as a side note on page two. Overall I felt we worked well as a team and I think the plan is well thought out and creative. 

Credit to George Turner

What We Are Aiming For

We are aiming, as a group for level 4 in both audio and video, in both the 180 Degree Rule film, and our war thriller opening. 
These extracts from the mark scheme show what we need to include to get these grades. 

Level 4 48–60 marks (Video)
There is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:• holding a shot steady, where appropriate.• framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate.• using a variety of shot distances as appropriate.• shooting material appropriate to the task set.• selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting.• editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer.• using varied shot transitions and other effects selectively and appropriately for the task set.• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set.• using titles appropriately.


Level 4 48–60 marks (Audio)
There is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:• recording voice(s) clearly in studio/confined setting.• recording voice(s) clearly in location/outdoor interviews/presentations.• accurately using language and register.• integrating recorded material, as appropriate.• editing and mixing sounds appropriately.• editing to create continuity and meaning.• integrating jingles, music, location sounds and sound effects, where appropriate.

We as a group, and individually will be working on each of these things, in turn, in order to get the highest possible grade. 

Sound Terms ~ Theory Revision

Parallel Sound - follows the narrative and links in creating a three dimensional world which draws the audience into the film.
Sound Bridge - This is where any sound is carried over several shots to link the narrative. 
Diegetic - Sound that relates to the scene and that can be seen in the scene. (In the field of vision)
Non Diegetic - Sound that's not visible in the scene which may come in the form of a voice over.
Ambient Sound - Background noise belonging to the scene but not always visible within the mes en scene.
Dialogue - The voices of the characters speaking to each other. This is also when the sound is re-recorded and the actors have to lip sync.
Synchronous Sound- This is sound that is in sync with an object/subject such as a car or a persons mouth.
Asynchronous sound - The sound is deliberately out of sync with the scene.
Sound Effect - This is added to the visual production to further exaggerate or mark a moment in the film. It can also be used to make the film seem more naturalistic by exaggerating everyday sounds like footsteps.
Voice Over - This is where the diegesis provides information usually about the visuals on screen to the audience.

These are important to think about when making our thriller opening as we need to use the right ones to create the tense tone that we want. 

Updated Props List

Once we had completed our story board we realised that we needed to update our props list as parts of our story line had been adapted.

Updated props list and who is getting what

• WW2 Gun - For the main protagonist as a young man [George]

• Modern Tap - For the close ups [location]

• 1940s hose pipe - For boarding [Mariella]

• 1940s bucket (Metal) - For water boarding [George/ Mariella]

• Dog - For old man walking [Katie]

• Dog leed - Old man walking [Katie]

• Match/ lighter - Close ups [George]

• Wheel chair - End scene [George] https://www.wheelfreedom.com/products/adult_wheelchair_hire/lightweight_foldable_wheelchair_hire

• Belt Straps - End scene [George and Mariella]

• Cloth - Waterboarding [Katie]

• Bed [Location]

• helmet [art- will need painting though]

Props Research

One of the props Katy had to research was what type of gun would have been used during World War II. When looking on Google images she found this diagram of all different types of guns that were used and an explanation of what each one would have been used for and its speciality.

The next prop She had to research was a lead for a dog.  So she decided she would type into Google 'old man dog' so that she could get the best representation and example possible for the research. The main images that came up were quite small dogs such as Beagles, Jack Russels and Greyhounds. However we were not happy with this outcome so she decided to look up World War II dogs as the man might have stuck with the same type of dog he had from the memories he is flashing back to. Once she typed this in it became a more refined research as the main dog that came up was a German Shepard, therefore it is likely that our persona will be walking this type of dog.

Credit To Katy Ward

To Do For Our Thriller Opening

To do, (and to blog) for our war time thriller opening, in no particular order:

1. Plot Overview :)
2. Story Board (NB- 180 degree rule storyboard needs to be completed too) :) :)
3. Shot list  :)
4. Copyright Issues (If any) :)
5. Anamatic :)
6. Test shots :)
7. Research of specific things (see previous post for what needs to be/ has been researched) :)
8. Actors Research + chosen :) 
9. Further thought and depth into character :)
10. Research into PTSD :)
11. Decide on the titles part of our sequence :)
12. Acquiring of Costumes :)
13. Acquiring of props :)

:) = Done

And then, obviously, the actual filming, editing, blogging, and evaluating. 

What Have We Learnt From The Continuity Task?

While filming the 180º Rule task we understood how important it was to have a good storyboard because while filming it we quickly required more guidance than was on our storyboard. This was a problem because we were unsure when filming which lead to the film being slightly shorter than what we wanted to achieve. The reason it's so important to realise this now is because when we undershoot its a lot harder to create a pace as an editor because your very limited to the cuts you can make because certain shots have to be held for a certain amounts of time to create the tension required to grip the audience. To overcome this in the main project we will make sure we have not just a detailed storyboard but also a shot list with an animatic so that we can already have a set plan before our shoot. The animatic allows the pace to be set before the shoot allowing us to already know what the film is going to look like.

Another aspect that we picked up on was that our lighting and location wasn't the best. To make sure this doesn't happen again we are going to make sure we do test shots before the shoot to make sure that the location in mind actually achieves what we want in terms of lighting and sound. This helped us realise the importance of test shots, which we did do but we still think we should of taken notes about it and seen if there was any other options in terms of location.

Lastly we think that we should of practised with the camera because before we used a phone, which was completely different to a DSLR. The reason I think this is important is because I don't think that the group was entirely comfortable with the canon leading to the shots not being the best quality.

Overall I think that we gained loads of knowledge about filming as a group and will be more confident in filming our second project.

Credit to George Turner

180 Degree Rule Reshoot ~ Final Video!

This was the Re-Shoot for out 180º Rule video. The improvements were massive compared to the last shoot because we had better equipment, which allowed us to get more creative shots. When George edited this one he used much less colour correction, he did however did place a luminance mask over the footage to give it a cinematic feel. Although the colour correction was less we feel that this film did a much better job of  building tension compared with the original shoot.We did actually change the last shot on the storyboard because the camera work wasn't stable enough to pull it off. We did try to use a smoothcam on it but it didn't work, so George just gave it a jittery feel (in post) because that's when the rule is broken.

Modern Day Costumes Research

The first outfit Katy had to research was a NHS carer outfit as our main persona that is a past private man of war will be based in a care home, so therefore we will need a carer so she decided to see what nurses/carers wear in this modern day and age. The first image she found was a woman that was wearing the basic plain blue shirt with white lines round the sleeves and collar, overall the outfit is very basic however very symbolic and recognisable.

The next outfit was what our main persona will be wearing the old man, therefore she decided to look up what a old man of our modern day and age stereo-typically wears. What she found out is that they usually they wear some sort of knit wear and they wear very basic trousers or long skirts.

The last part of clothing that she had to research was a bomber jacket as it is symbolic of his younger life, which contrasts to his now lonely and isolated life as an older man. This is the typical bomber jacket of the world war time, it is made out of leather and has fur around the collar, typically a pilot would wear this.

Research credit to Katy Ward

Location Research

The first location she started with was the care home, the first room she looked up was the bedroom as he will be mainly filmed in this room what I found out is that they are very basic and plain, usually with pastel colours. They also usually only have a chair/stool, TV, bed and bed side table, therefore they have a very simplistic way of living.

The next room she looked up was the bathroom, what she found out is that their bathrooms are suited especially for them such as a moving chair to help them in and out of the bath, as well as the shower. They also have pole/holders next to the toilet to help them get up and to sit down.

The last room in the care home that she needed to research was the living room which he would not be filmed much in however needed to be researched. What we found out is that it usually has a TV on the wall and they normally have single sofa chairs surrounding the room so everyone can face each other and talk to one another easily.



Other location she had to research, were the last area of ​​a flat field. It would be easiest for all of us to use a field in Chalfont St Peter, so we decided to research a location that would be close to us for us to use, for convienience. One of the images that came up that was the start of the fields in Chalfont St Giles Chalfont St Peter. This field would be convenient to walk to as it doesnt take very long, and there are plenty of places to film within the space there. 

Credit to Katy Ward