BLOG CLOSED

THIS IS MY FINAL POST, THIS BLOG IS NOW CLOSED. 

Last vlog

Overview

Now that our 2 minute opening is finished and we have finished our evaluations, I think I should write a bit about the whole experience.

Since our prelim task, my group has come a long way. We have learnt how to do new shots such as tracking, establishing shots, high angles, low angles and close-ups. We have used these shots for certain reasons as well, for example our establishing shot shows where our film is based and gives the audience an insight into what kind of genre our film is. Our close-ups shots gave our main character feelings and shows detail. It created tension and that is exactly what our group were aiming for with our 2 minute opening.

We also have learnt a lot with the use of mise-en-scene. We chose to dress our main character in basic clothing, making her look rough and all natural. This gave our 2 minute opening an uncomfortable feel. We made Leanne keep her make-up off and hair natural so that we could stress the idea that she was in a crisis.

Our editing has come such a long way and I cant believe how much time we spent editing! We have learnt how to edit in music, how to add ambient sound, how to crop shots and put it all together so it runs smoothly. We have had a lot of difficulties with editing, such as the time-lapse taking up 2 minutes! However, we learnt a way to get around this problem; by uploading it to youtube and then uploading the youtube clip back on to imovie allowing us to speed the clip up even more.

We have had such a great year in media, I feel that my group has especially come a long way from our prelim as we have really experimented with our shots and editing. Our ideas just weren't put on paper but actually filmed and created!

Evaluation 6 & 7

Evaluations 6 and 7:

Evaluation 4 & 5

Our evaluation for questions 4 and 5:

Evaluation 1, 2 & 3

Here is our evaluation questions answered.
Questions 1, 2 and 3:

Costume

Leanne's costume was picked out to stereo-typically represent a gang member.
Her shoes, plain white to represent her innocence that she once had. Her shoes are trainer like, representing her as 'street'.  

Her plain black leggings to represent her trying to fit in and not stand out. Also to represent the darkness that is now in her. 

A plain black t-shirt to keep her hidden and basic. 

Finally, a light coloured hoody. Stereotypical related to the youth and gangs. Keeps her identity hidden and emphasis's the idea that she is hiding something, causing trouble. 

This basic clothing shows that her appearance is not her main priority and that our character is trying to hide instead of being noticed.

Title

The reason for our chosen font for our film title is that it has an urban feel to it. It is also broken, representing the broken pieces our main charatcer Leanne is in. It also is font that you may see used for graffiti on walls. We edited the title so that it comes in crossing over the screen. This has been done to highlight the idea of being double-crossed by someone.

Certificate

 As a group we decided to certificate our film 15 as we believe it would be most appropriate for our audience.
The reasons why our film will be a 15 is because it will include:

• Frequent use of strong language can be permitted, although very strong language needs to be restricted and would have to be seen as reasonable in the context. Frequent usage of very strong language would be seldom allowed. 
• Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not promote or encourage drug misuse. Promotion of drugs which are easy to obtain are unlikely to be allowed. 
• Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised. 
• Dangerous behavior (for example, hanging, suicide and self-harming) can be allowed provided the detail of such is low so that it can not create too much of an impression of the viewer. Abuse of weapons which are easily obtained will not be tolerated.

Evaluation Questions

Here are the evaluation questions that me and Leanne will be answering. 

•  In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? 
•   How does your film opening represent particular social groups? 
•  What kind of media institution might distribute your film opening and why? 
•  Who would be the audience for your film opening? 
•  How did you attract/address your audience? 
•  What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this film opening? 
•  Looking back at your prelim task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final film opening?

I am comfortable with the questions as I have a lot to say about our film.

Evaluation Time

Now our final 2 minute opening has finally finished it is time to start our evaluations.
We have decided to work in pairs, Leanne and myself will be working together.
We have been planning out our evaluation, researching and making notes. We have also been looking at other evaluations from the past years to see which techniques we will be using.
I will be posting up our evaluation questions soon!

Believe it or not...

Our final 2 minute opening is complete! I can't believe we have finally done it, after all that stress it is finished. I must say I am very proud of our film, I think it looks great! I hope you enjoy watching it!

Time is finally up

Can you believe our 2 minute film deadline is in less than 24 hours now! Nervous but excited. We decided to check through our film today, making sure the music and ambient sound was all timed right. It took some time moving around the music but we did it and it is now all finished! Can't wait for everyone to see it.

Nearly finished

As we have nearly completely finished our 2 minute opening, I thought I'd show a sneak preview of our title sequence. We spent hours and hours trying to decide on the font, placement, size, colour and order. However I think we have all agreed on our final sequence. The font really goes well with our gang culture genre. The title 'double cross' came about from research. Leanne had doubled crossed her friend in our film so we thought this title was extremely suitable.

Last bit of filming

So we have finally got all of our filming done and our 2 minute opening is looking great! We have had some issues with the sound and timing of the music so hopefully we can get that fully sorted out by Friday! We are all very excited to have our final 2 minute opening completely finished, just a little sad that the filming is all over now!

Title sequence

Today we decided to spend some time on our title sequence. We have added our names into the time-lapse at the beginning of our two minute opening, however we are having some difficulty getting the writing in a certain position. We hope to sort this minor problem out tomorrow.

Time is nearly up!

We don't have long left until our final 2 minute opening has to be finished! We have 10 seconds left of filming to do and a tiny little bit of editing! hopefully we will have this all done by next week! We have also been looking at film names such as Broken, Distorted, Youth and Forced.

Lesson

During today's lesson, we spent our time editing the music into our footage. We also change our music to the deepest shame instead of not giving in. We decided to do this so our 2 minute opening don't look too much like a music video. We also spent some time working out how to muffle the music for when Leanne's headphones get pulled out. I am really pleased with the editing we did today and we can't wait to get our finished 2 minute opening!

The editing begins

So yesterday we started editing all our footage. We put all our film together and started editing the time of them so it could fit the music. We really enjoyed doing this as it got us excited for our final finished opening!

Our Filming

So we went to Forty Hall last Friday to film our final shots.
It was beyond cold and I feel so sorry for Leanne who had to sit around with no coat on for quite some time!
Here are some pictures of our day filming that you may enjoy.



Forty Hall

The river area where we filmed our last shot.

Leanne preparing for filming! Also a shot that our group love.

The slip mark of Taneshia's fall, it was the best.
"that could of killed me!"

The burning of the photo's. The practice one and the real photo.

Camera Crew and Actress Leanne

Britain's next top model. 

Train Station

We plan to go out during the half term to just get our shots of the train station. Its about 10 seconds worth of footage so after half term we would have got every thing we needed and then will spend the rest of the time editing! I am really excited to start editing and putting all the scenes together!

This is the photo we used for our final scene. It is Leanne and Alicia when they were younger. We chose this photograph as it shows Leanne and Alicia at a young age which indicates they have had a long close friendship. There is also a boy in the photograph which leads the audience on to ask who these two other children are and why Leanne is getting rid of the photo.

Final Shots!

So we have checked the weather forecast for tomorrow and have decided to go filming!
Our last few shots are being shot tomorrow and we are all very excited!
We have our equipment ready and we shall update you on how it all goes.

An Idea

Here is an idea of what our title sequence will look like during our time-lapse.
We decided that our names and movie name will appear on the screen when a bus appears in the frame.

I love the shots in this advert, I think they are all lovely!

Leanne

Attempting to get Leanne's facial expression to be a mix of worry, guilt and emotional is going to be a challenge as she tends to crack out a smile and a giggle pretty much every time we film her! We need to get her practicing her facial expressions in order for our ending to the 2 minute opening to be clear of its meaning.

Tomorrow I will be taking a picture of Leanne and Alicia for our final shot in our 2 minute opening.
I am hoping to make them two look like great friends in a happy lighting and nice setting.
Once I have got the picture, I will upload it to my blog to show you all!

How amazing does Les Miserables look?!
Everyone I know who has gone to watch it has said it is brilliant.
I can't wait to go and see it!
Once I have, I will be sure to write up about it!

Our Time-Lapse Idea

After watching our time-lapse again I think I need to explain more on the reasons we chose to do it. It was the first idea that our group came up with, and everyone was a bit unsure on whether we would be able to actually film it! We loved our idea so much and we really think it has been put well with our 2 minute opening. Our time-lapse includes the changes from dark to light, which indicates that she has been sitting in the same spot for a great length of time. It is our opening shot so it shows the destination and surroundings. We thought that by using the time-lapse it would show how the character is alone and no one understands her. The whole world is moving and carrying on however her life is at a stand still and is about to come crashing down on her. It highlights the fact that no one understands her or what she has done. It makes the girl character much more secretive and there is a sense of loss. I am very proud of our groups idea and I think you will enjoy watching it (hopefully) when we post our finally footage!

Name Ideas

We have been thinking and coming up with ideas for our movie name. We like the names Mislead and The Untold. This is because we think these names will fit well into our storyline and gang cultured movie. Other names that I have been looking into are: The Voluntold Different The Sacrifice The Hidden The Misunderstood

Lesson

Today in lesson we looked at our 2 minute opening and decided that we needed to crop a few scenes to allow the shots to run smoothly. Once we have filmed all of the shots and put them together, we will edit them.

Vlog Update

Plans for upcoming weeks

Right, so I thought I would let you know what our plans are for the next few weeks!

1. Go to Forty Hall and get our final shots
2. Blog 
3. Vlog
4. Go to the train station and get the shots we need to make sure it all makes sense
5. Upload all footage
6. Blog
7. Start putting the pieces together
8. Blog
9. Edit the music in to our film
10. Edit the film 
11. Blog
12. Vlog
13. Make sure we have a title for our film
14. Blog
15. Make the film perfect....
16. Blog and Vlog about it all!

Twilight

This is one of my favorite scenes from Twilight. I think the shots are great. I love the editing and the sound effects really make the scene. Hopefully my group will experiment with our 2 minute opening to get similar editing techniques.

Annoying

We had planned to film this Wednesday but due to the snow we will not be able to which is quite annoying.
We will reschedule and hopefully all the filming will be finished just before February!

On Wednesday during our Media lesson, a group of us decided to watch through some previous AS level media trailers and 2 minute openings. Together we analysed and discussed them.
This trailer was the one that stood out to me. I thought the storyline was pretty good and there are some really good shots in this video. I loved the shot of the forest and trees. I thought that was such a nice shot to have. I also liked the shot of the boys legs running towards the camera.

Advert

What a brilliant advert.
Love the pigs!
I really like the edits with the words coming up on the screen. I think it looks really good.
My group hopefully will be using the same technique with our 2 minute opening.

Music

We have chosen this song for our two minute opening. It fits well with our storyline and shots.

Group Plan

We have decided to go out on the 23rd (depending on to weather) to film our last scenes.
As a group we will be going to Forty Hall, to get some shots of Leanne and some scenery.
We have also decided on a new ending to our original plan. Instead of the two weeks earlier, we have decided to leave our 2 minute opening on a cliff-hanger. We feel that this will leave a larger effect on our audience.
In 3 weeks time we plan to have all our film completely finished and our editing to have begun!
Can't wait!

Recent films

Recently I have watched a few movies in the cinema.
The Hobbit, Gangster Squad and The Impossible, I think that as an media student it is only right to give my opinion on them all..
I love all of them.
They are all absolutely brilliant!
The Hobbit is just amazing. I loved Lord of The Rings so The Hobbit was such great news to me.
The only part I did not enjoy, was the ending! How could they end it like that, I want to see what happens next! Can't wait for the next one! The special effects and graphics are just wicked.
The Impossible may be the saddest film I have ever watched. I was balling my eyes out the whole movie! I just couldn't believe it was a true story. It is truly inspirational and really keeps you biting your nails the whole way through! The only downfall was my makeup. Made me cry so much I had mascara all down my cheeks.
The Gangster Squad is brilliant. The story line is so good. It is a bit bloody but I can deal with that! I don't just love the film because I love Ryan Gosling I swear! But he is God.
Loved all of these movies and I would advise everyone to go and watch them!

Problem solved!

Our time-lapse problem has now disappeared thank god!
We decided to make the clip as fast as we could and then upload it to youtube, convert it and upload it back on to imovie, which allowed us to speed the clip up even more!
We have now put together just over 1 minute of our 2 minute opening!
We have a few more shots to get and a lot more editing to do but we're confident it will all look great in the end.

Advert

Absolutely love this advert!

Research

This clip from Kidulthood really gives our group lots of ideas for our 2 minute opening. The movie Kidulthood is a gang-culture genre and that is the direction we are going in. The shots are also similar to what we are thinking of using!

Problem!

So we began our editing today and we love our time-lapse, we think it looks really great.
Our other shots are good as well as we have used a lot of different types of shots and angles.
All is great, however, we have a slight problem. Our time-lapse is just over 2 minutes long which means our other shots can not be put in to our opening. We are now trying different ways to shorten the time-lapse even more but it is beginning to get very difficult and stressful!
I will keep you updated!

Photo's

Some photo's taken while up London filming our time-lapse..

Guess what?!!!

This is our vlog from Trafalgar Square at around 5 a.m. We did enjoy the filming as it was actually very pretty seeing the dark turn to light and seeing how London filled up with more and more people as the morning went on. We woke up at 4 in the morning and arrange to meet at Oakwood station at 5:45. We then took the train to Leicester Square and walked to Trafalgar, following my instructions from memory! We then spent some time arranging the camera and where we wanted Leanne to be sat. When we finally set up, we began to film. I had previously researched the time of sunrise which was around 8 a.m. so we used this as a guide. We then sat on the cold floor for 2 hours filming for our time-lapse, I feel sorry for Leanne as she didnt even have a coat on! After we finally finished our filming of the time-lapse and getting strange looks from strangers, we went off to McDonald's to gain some energy! We then did some more interesting shots of Leanne's journey on the streets and train! I am very pleased with the filming we got done and we worked so well as a group. However, not impressed by the pictures taken of Leanne and myself sleeping on the train!! We are now very excited to get editing!

Group Vlog

vlog update!