Soundtrack - Prelimenary Study

THIS IS IT...PRELIMINARY STUDY

As a group we decided that the genre of our Preliminary task was going to be a comedy. So once we had shot we had in mind the types of sounds we wanted to put together to make our soundtrack.
First while the other members of the group finished editing the film we researched the types of soundtracks used in comedy films, watching some on the Internet. We got an idea of how the music helps give the film its genre and it was vital we had all the sounds in perfect time to our film for the music to do its job and give the film a comedy feel.
Next, we opened Garage Band and listened to the sounds that were already there. We took note of those we thought would be useful for our film so it would be easier and quicker for us to find a certain type of sound if needed when putting everything together.
Once all the editing and transitions were done to the film we started by watching the film through and using the sounds we had already picked out began putting the track together. For us timing was everything, from our research we saw how their soundtracks were perfectly timed and how this gave the film a cleaner finish and helped denote the genre.
Getting everything timed perfectly was hard but we kept at it and finally came out with out final soundtrack. We moved the track from Garage Band to final cut, rendered it and added it in. As a group we watched through the whole film and were very pleased with the final outcome, not only for the soundtrack but the editing of the film was also excellent.

Mirror Image - Continuity problems and re-shoot

Shoot 1
We filmed our film early and everything ran smoothly. However, when we uploaded the footage and watched it back we realised we had some continuity errors and that our film ran well over 2 minutes.

The reason for our film exceeding the time limit was because there was too much dialogue. Another problem was that the lighting was bad and the scene was too dark because of the angle we had filmed it at. Also when we got others to watch it back the response was that they didnt feel as though they were watching a thriller. After watching it back and much group discussion we came to the decision to re-shoot and start the whole thing again from scratch.

Time was running out and so we needed to book the camera and shoot ASAP. We needed to be very organised and focused because we couldnt afford to make anymore errors. We had many discussions before hand to see how we could solve previous problems and how we could avoid them for our re-shoot.

The Re-shoot
-To avoid lighting problems we decided to shoot from a different angle of the park.
-To avoid the film over-running we cut out and changed a lot of the dialogue.
-To give the film more of a thriller feeling, we filmed Amber ditching Izzy to go and meet with her boyfriend. This leaves Izzy alone and vunerable in the park oblivious that a hooded figure is watching and filming her.

Filming the park scene took quite a long time but we managed it well and it turned out to be successful as there we no errors. We filmed at disha's house for the location of the "hooded figure's" house. The filming of this scene was very successful and ran smoothly and no errors were made.

As a group we managed the situation very well because even though we messed up first time round it didn't really phase us because we just re-grouped, discussed how to go about the re-shoot and generally just learnt from our mistakes.

Costumes & Props for Preliminary Task

Our preliminary task is a sort of Michael Jackson Tribute. The short film is about two characters, Annie and Billie Jean who are dressed as Michael Jackson. Annie nervously waits for the arrival of Billie Jean who has a package for her. When Billie Jean arrives with the package Annie opens it and is thrilled when she see's what's inside. It is a white glove. She puts it on and both Billy Jean and Annie perform a 20 second dance to Thriller with extras also joining in.

Costumes
Billy Jean & Annie: black shoes, white socks, black trousers, white tee, black jacket, black hat, and a white glove.
Extras: dressed in normal casual clothes.

Props
Cardboard package

Sorting out costumes and props required little time. This is because only two people needed to dress up as Michael Jackson. This was fairly easy to do as we only needed to find black and white clothing. As for props we only needed a cardboard box which we could use as the 'package'.

Preliminary studies - shooting

For the day our shooting the preliminary studies, we needed to be organised as we had limited time and we had to organise alot. We came prepared as we had our music and costumes and the props ready. We spent the first part of the morning teaching the other dancers the dance so that they were able to shoot. Unfortunatly as we had to share the camera out it meant that we were allocated a time slot. But as the other groups took longer with the camera we had to improvise by not having the camcorder. We used a regular camera to record on as that is what was avaliable to us at the time. This is going to help us for when we shoot our overall movie because we will be able to plan our timing better and we will aim to have th camera first and not worry. We will plan with the other groups about timing and having the camera at different times to make it fair. We forgot about the problem that the camera can't shoot vertically, so we had to reshoot that shot which was time consuming.
We used our shot by shot list to make sure that we had every shot for us and the mood boards helped us to be specific and see exactly what was in the shot. The shooting was easy and went smoothly. We didn't encounter many problems, but we changed the setting and the angle which the camera was at because the lighting wasn't right. But we had a back up plan incase the setting didn't go well which went very smoothly. We established that lightning was going to be a problem which means that we will have to plan batter when we finish shooting.

Schedule and Camerawoman

My job for the preliminary task was to plan out the schedules. This enabled us to see what we would need when and what order the sequence would be filmed in. This helped us to be organised and know what we were doing in order to finish and complete our work on time. I made sure I gave us contingency time in case something was to go wrong on the day.

My second job was to film the task. I found this quite challenging at times as I had to take lighting, sound and many other aspects into account. I had the help of my group in order to make the shoot go as smoothly and as successfully as possible. I made sure I had watched through the last filmed task we had in order to learn from the previous mistakes I had made so that I was sure not to make them again.

Shot list

I was in charge of producing the shot list. This was a list of all the different shots and what was going to be seen in all of the single shots. This was important to do so that we were able to plan efficently and able to know exactly what will be happening in each shot. It will help us to understand what we will be seeing from the audiences point of view. Planning out what will happen each shot and what shot will be used. Knowing which shot will be used will be make it easier for us to know what the atmosphere will be like and have a clear understanding what the audience will be feeling.
I was also director. This was just so that the the actors knew exactly what they will be doing and making sure that we had the right effect towards the audience.

Preliminary Task

For this task it was for me to help draw and create the storyboards. With these completed for the day of our shoot we would be able to visualise and go through all the shots of the task. This made it clearer and easier to organise what we would have to shoot and in what order, saving us time which we could use on creating our mise-en-scene.