Opening sequence, session 3

In this session our group had to book the equipment that we were going to be using for filming. We booked a stills camera, a filming camera and a tripod. We each had to think of props we needed for our character whilst filming, I needed some poker chips and a coin.  At the end of each lesson we fill out a production report too show the work we have done after each lesson.

Opening sequence, session 2

In the second session we had to do a opening titles comparison research sheet. This was where we chose an opening sequence from a film and an opening sequence from a tv series. I chose the new film 'The dark knight rises' and 'White chapel'. We had to write down the brief descriptions of each opening sequence such as who directed it and the release date. We then had to write out different things like the narrative structure strengths and weaknesses of each sequence.

Opening sequence, session 1

On the first day of planning our sequence we thought of our character names and what we as the characters were going to be wearing, we had to make a character design sheet in photoshop. I did this by getting a picture of myself and cropping out the body so I was left with the head, I then got clothes off google that I knew I would be wearing and added it to the body. After the clothes were added we had to write about what we were going to be wearing. We then had to add the name of our character and upload it to flickr.
After the character design sheet was competed we wrote out a opening titles overview sheet which was where we put the characters sections in order so we could clearly see what we were going to do.

Snatch production day 1

We were introduced to the opening sequence of 'Snatch'. We needed to watch it to see how the links were made from character to character as we were going to be making one of our own, seeing the sequence helped me think about what I could do. After watching the video we each made up our own link that could be in a sequence. After drawing out the link we got into groups and discussed how each of our links could roll into one another. We then had to make up a name for ourselves because we were going to be featuring in the sequence as the characters. We were given a sheet that we could plan the sequence on. This would help make the build up easier as we would see it all written down.

Production day 12 and 13

We uploaded the rest of the stills pictures onto the laptops. After each laptop had the images our group viewed the trapped short film, we were happy with most of the sequence, however we felt that we needed to re-do some of the shots. The shots we wanted to re-do only had Mel in it so only me and Mel went out to film whilst Josh and Kaylee stayed in to do some other things to help the short film to progress. As well as re-doing some shots, we needed to create some more shots and add them to the short film as some of the shots didn't connect properly. After we had both finished filming, we uploaded the footage and Mel put all of the new shots into the sequence on final cut.

Production day 11

In this session Josh finished the font for the end and the beginning of our 'trapped' sequence. It took him a while to find a font that he was happy with and that he thought fitted well with the genre of our sequence. He also found a picture of a hooded character with a white masc, this picture is relevent as is supposed to be the kidnapper in our short film. I think Josh did really well with the task today.

Production day 10

Today I helped Josh find a heavy breathing sound effect again, most of the sound effects were either too slow or too fast. We thought about recording a member of our group heavy breathing if we didn't find a good sound effect. We found a good sound effect that we thought would work well with our sequence. 

100 Sound Effects Vol 1 - 06 - Heavy Breathing & Heartbeat - Madacy Music Group Inc.

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Production day 9

Each person in the class had to blog about each day during working on their 'trapped' sequence, In total there would be 12 blog posts all together. In this session I deleted all of the blog posts I did about he 'trapped' film as I thought I could write them better. On this day I wrote 7 blog posts about the previous seven days. On this day I also uploaded all of our pictures from the stills camera to put on my blog. The images are of my group filming, setting up equipment and acting.

Production day 8

As we had finished our filming, Our group stayed in the classroom, Mel started the editing with the help of kaylee and me and Josh looked for sound effects needed for the starting clip. We needed a heavy breathing sound effects for when it was the point of view shot of the kidnapper running through the forest. We went on quit a few web sites and couldn't find one that fitted well with the sequence.

Production day 7

Production day 7 was our busiest day yet as we had to re-film a lot of our shots. Kaylee was back so we could successfully re-film some of our shots. After we had finished re shooting our footage we needed to film the parts we hadn't already done. This included the kidnapper attacking the victim and the victim being trapped into a box in the middle of the woods. After we had finished all of the footage we uploaded it to the computer ready for editing.

Production day 6

Our sixth day of working on our trapped film was the day after the strike. One of our group members, Kaylee, was ill and unable to do her acting, so me, Mel and Josh  decided to film our opening clip of the point of view shot of our kidnapper running through the forest. We also decided to film the shots with the kidnapper sneaking behind the victim. The only shots we could do were the ones were we didn't need Kaylee. I thought the camera work on this day was the best of the week so far.

Production day 5

We uploaded the footage we had so far of our trapped short film, we vaguely put the clips in order so we could show Steve and to see how well the footage worked so far. As a group we weren't happy with most of the footage, we thought that we could have made the shots better in the way that the camera shots could have been more successful. As a result of this we decided to film pretty much the whole thing again. Because there was a strike on the day after this I was worried that we wouldn't get the filming done in time as we only had two more days to film.

Production day 4

On our forth day of working on our 'trapped' short film we discussed more about what we were going to film now that we had finished the first section of our filming. We needed a opening clip that included the title. We discussed about different ways we could include the 'trapped' title into a opening clip. We decided to do a point of view shot of the kidnapper running in the forest then he jumps over dome logs, the footage then pauses on the title 'trapped' in graved on the pile of logs and then the footage plays again with the kidnapper finishing his jump over the logs.

Production day 3

At the start of our third day of filming we stayed in the classroom for a bit to upload the first bits of our footage to see what it looked like so far, Some of our shots we thought we could do better so we re - filmed some of our bad shots. We also wanted to try some better camera shots that fitted in better with the scenes.

Production day 2

On our second day of filming was pretty much the same as the day before, we finished off filming the start of the film where the group of friends are walking through the forest, we had to cut down some of the script as it was too long for a short film of about 3-4 minutes. The second day of filming was a little harder to film than the first day as the sun was a lot brighter and was shining into the direction of where the camera was pointing, as a result of this it was difficult to see all of the characters because of the glare of the sun, because of this we had to retake quite a few shots because it the sun was effecting the filming. Me and Mel had to go back to the classroom to get some camera equipment that blocks the sun.

Production day 1

For our first session we had a meeting with all of our group members to discuss what part of the film would be best to film first. We discussed our script and what equipment we would need to use. Before we could go out filming we had to fill out a booking form which allowed us to take out the needed equipment. We also needed to write down the date, the time we took the equipment, the time we will bring the equipment back and one of our group members number incase someone needed us. We ordered a stills camera, a tripod and a filming camera. Our first shot we decided to do was to do a long tracking shot of the group of friends walking through the forest finding somewhere to set up their tent. It took a few retakes to get the shot perfect as the sun was pretty bright and effected the picture. Overall our first day was a good start to the filming.

Story Board

In this session our group of four was split into two pairs. In this lesson I was working with Kaylee. Our job was to do the story board. We were give post it notes to draw each key frame. First we drew them in pencil just incase we did it wrong, we then had to go over it in pen so people could see the drawings more clearly. After we finished them, we then had to write down the shot and he action of each key frame. After the whole storyboard was finished we took a picture of both pages on photo booth.

Target audience member

These are the things that I think the target audience that would come to see my film would like. Some of the films include some scary films, I included them because I think if they would see our scary film then they must like horror/thriller genres. I think that the target audience would like the brands of clothes I have chosen as they are very poplar brands and lots of people like them. Also the target audience would like the clothes because the film only has teenagers in it and the most popular clothes brands that teenagers like are the brands I have put on.

'Find your tribe' quiz

In this session we did a 20 page quiz and answered lots of different questions such as picking our favourite television programmes and your favourite drinks. Other pages had lots of shop names on them with love and hate at the bottom of each shop, I then had to choose if i loved of hated them. My 'tribe' turned out to be 'Rah'.

'Trapped' mood board

In this session we had to make a mood board with pictures that are associated with our 'trapped' story. The first picture I used was the tent in a dark forrest, this was the most important image as in the story the group of friends are camping. Other images I added was the phone with no signal and a torch that has run out of battery, theses images were also important for my mood board because without both items the group feel trapped as they have no way of getting hold of anyone.  I also added some hooded figures because it puts across a sense of danger that the group will have to face.

'Trapped' initial planning

In this session we watched a short film called 'desserts' by Jeff Stark. This short film only had one character, Ewan Mcgregor. His character was shown strolling on a deserted beach and then came across a cake that was on the beach floor. He looked around to see if anyone was looking and then he took a bite. The suddenly a hook appeared into his cheek and got dragged into the see. we then got into groups to decide what our idea for the 'trapped' sequence was going to be. We each had a piece of paper which had a beginning section a middle section and a end section so we could easily plan out our ideas. After we had finished our story ideas we each pitched our story's to the group and decided what story line was the best one. We thought the best idea was Kaylee's idea because it had a good story line and we thought it would work well with the title 'trapped' The short story we are using is that a group of friends go camping and in the pitch black the torch goes out and their phones have no signal, they have no source of light or any contacts. The friends start to hear strange sounds the suddenly one of the group members disapears and the group get very scared as they realise that they are trapped in a forest without light or signal.

Horror stills sequence

In the horror stills project our group consisted of me, Josh, Mel and Cassie. We each had an individual role throughout the project. I was given the task of taking all of the pictures that were used in the sequence. We started the project by designing a storyboard. After doing the story board we went out and took the pictures, after this we were no longer working in our groups. I uploaded the pictures to Photoshop and edited some to make them look effective. I then chose a scary soundtrack to go wth the sequence then added the title and the credits.
This was the final outcome:



L2 BETH HORROR STILLS FINAL (GRP01) from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Horror moodboard

We each made a moodboard to progress our ideas towards our projects.I made the moodbaord in Photoshop and each seperate image had a new layer so I could rotate or move the image around. I then searched and downloaded a scary looking font to go onto my moodboard. I didnt really concentrate my moodboard around any certain theme like death or monsters I wanted a wide range of ideas to make my project the best it could be.

Rosie Ball

In this lesson, Rosie Ball, a former long road media student came in and spoke to the class about her computer art and design degree and her BAFTA nominated iPad game. Rosie Graduated from Norwich university college of the arts studying games art. She is now focusing on making games that are different and combine digital elements. Rosie entered a compition to design a game, three groups out of hundreds could win and her group was on of those three that won. Her game has now been nominated for a BAFTA award. When Rosie came in, she also let as play her game, it was fun but some of the harder levels were difficult to do.

Final New York sequence

We uploaded our New York video onto Final cut, then also uploaded the garageband music. We then had a list of names we needed to add to the New York sequence such as ' Nicholas Cage (cast/star)'. To make the names appear more professional/interesting we made them fade in and out and made them move from side to side. We also had to make sure that the music we had made was just the right length so it stopped when the video stopped.

L2 Beth's New York Sequence from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

New York garageband soundtrack

In this session we put our final cut videos on garageband and made a soundtrack to go with the New York sequence. I made quite a cheerful upbeat sound. I had alot of fun doing in this session.

New York final cut

In the New York fianl cut session we had to make a short video with short clips in New York.  My favourite bit of my new york clip was the start when I had merged two clips together so a plane flew over the statue of liberty. I used Fade in and fade out alot as I like the effect it gave. I enjoyed this session but also found it quit hard.

Logo Ident

After we had researched different logo's it was time to make one of our own. First I found an image of a star that I liked, then thought of a name that was appropriate for the star and came up with 'star productions'. Then  decided to make the star turn around and  put a sound with it.

http://www.vimeo.com/album/1698550/video/29311697

Logo research session

In our third session we had to choose two logo's to draw and research. The first logo I decided to do was the BMW logo as I liked the style of it. I then decided to research a totally different logo which was the fanta logo. I wanted to do very different logo's to widen the range of what I was researching. So I chose a dull, smart logo and a bright colourful logo.

Club Flyer Task

In this session we learned how to make a club flyer. Ths envolved designing the overall look of the flyer, making up a name for the club we were promoting and putting the needed information on. First I opened an A5 sheet and had to turn it 90* and made it landscape. Then I went on Flickr and chose two images that  thought would look merge well together, I chose a picture ofgreen lazers and a picture of peoples hands up in the air. After I was happy with the two pictures I copied both pictures by doing 'cmd-shift-4'. Pressing cmd-shft-4 will make a small icon appear, then I just dragged the icon from the top left corner down to the bottom rght hand corner and it copied. Then I opened both images in photoshop, merged the two together so it looked like they were one picture. Then I needed to put text onto the flyer by clicking the 'T'. I then put the club logo and the nformation onto the flyer and I was done.

                                                         Earth and eye photoshop task

This was our frst lesson of using photoshop. We were all put into pairs and had to make the earth the iris. First, we opened photoshop and made the sheet we were working on A5 and then turned it around to make it landscape. We then when on Flikcr and found a the picture of the eye and the picture of the earth. To copy and paste both pictures into photoshop, you press cmd - shift - 4. When copied into photoshop you layer both pictures.

Then we cropped the earths background so just the earth was left. Then taking not of how big the iris was, we made the earth exactly the same size to make it look effective. We used the blending tool which made the earth blend in with the iris, e.g. the it made the earth fainter so you could still see the pupil. Then me and my partner made the skin around the eye black and white and made the iris a bluse colour, mainly so the iris could really stand out.