Filming Blog: A Change in Plans

          Our plans to film on Wednesday were followed through. Every member of our group, including my neighbor, Nick, was able to show up and participate. We all went to my house together straight after school so it was extremely convenient. Upon entering my house, we realized that we didn't have someone to play the role of the old lady in our film. So, we started brainstorming a way to maintain the same conventions included in our genre with only two actors. We also changed the setting of our film. Instead of filming at my house, we are now filming at Nick's. We believed this will be easier for us since his house is bigger and is always illuminated by natural light. Although this meant that we had to re-film our first two scenes, it was ultimately worth it. This is because it would make our film better in the long run.
          Overall, we filmed about six scenes. Although they weren't all done chronologically, we made sure they were shot well enough to edit them together. Some shots we made sure we included were over the shoulder shots, a two-shot, a couple close ups, and a point of view shot. The over the shoulder shots and the the two shot were mainly used to illustrate conversation between Nick and I. The close ups and point of view shots were used to reveal specific characters as well as the setting of the film (Nick's house). Some shots and editing features that we need to include are an action match and an establishing shot. We plan to make the establishing shot at Nick's house. We also planned to create our action match in another way. Instead of pursuing the cup to knock idea, we decided to slightly change the ending of our film. Instead of the mom being dead, she is still alive which intensifies the dramatic irony asserted in our movie. We are going to use the action match to transition into the scene where we tell the audience she is still alive.

Filming Blog: Opening Scene

          Unfortunately, Amelia was unable to attend our first filming meeting as a group. This hindered how many scenes we could actually film (because we didn't have enough actors) and forced us to only be able to film the opening scene of our movie. Because we are now on a time crunch, we are planning to meet after school on Wednesday to finish filming. Hopefully all group members will be able to attend. Not only this, but we did not have a tripod or camera when we filmed on Saturday. This made it harder to incorporate some of the shots we wanted. However, we still made progress. For example, to film the point of view shot of our main character walking up to his grandmother's house, we wrapped two rubber bands around Thomas' phone and my head. Even though it was slightly difficult to get the phone situated at first, we were able to get the shots we needed. This was probably the hardest thing we did that day.
          To go more in depth about what happened on Saturday, it is important to note that Maya and Thomas were helping one another film while I was acting. I played the role of our movie's main character, Alex. Unfortunately, there were only two scenes that Alex played by himself in. Therefore, we were only able to complete a couple of scenes. In fact, because Amelia was not there, we asked my neighbor to take her place and play the uncle (instead of the aunt) of Alex. Considering these accommodations we made, I believe we were quite productive. We will also still be using my neighbor as an actor in our film. All we need to figure out now is who will be playing the grandma/old lady in our film. We are considering using my neighbor's mom or Thomas' grandma. We will have to further discuss this collectively to agree upon a median.

Filming Blog: My House

          Unfortunately, my group and I have yet to film. However, we are planning to film on Saturday at my house. Therefore, I am going to dedicate this blog to what my group and I are planning to do that day. This will include angles we would like to incorporate, back-up plans, and most importantly, the shots for specific scenes. I believe that even though we haven’t started filming, our final product will still come out how we want it. This is because I think we have prepared ourselves enough for this moment. I also think that we all have a good, general grasp of what we want our movie to look like. This is good because it will allow us to critique each other during the filming process. This will thus make less room for silly errors or mistakes in our final product. It will also speed up our re-filming process because we will already know what we need to make better or improve.
          To start, my and group and I will be splitting up our filming times. This is significant because this means we will not be filming everything this Saturday. We will only be filming the first five scenes. These five scene require all of us to be there. While Maya is going to be directing, Thomas, Amelia, and I will play the roles of the characters in our movie. To be honest, we don’t really have set acting roles because we made out actors flexible (based on gender, race, etc). Therefore, it doesn’t matter who plays who because we all know what is required of us if we are forced to play a character we don’t necessarily like or enjoy being. On the other hand, we don’t really have to worry about a set mis-en-scene or any unexpected obstacles. This is because we are filming at my house which will provide us with all the props, costumes, and lighting needed to effectively create our film. This in-house setting will also prevent any unplanned weather patterns to get in the way of our filming time.  I strongly believe our filming process with go smoothly because of all these factors.

Even if the weather channel is right and it rains on Saturday, this will not effect us because we will be filming inside anyway.

Planning: Storyboard

This is our storyboard for our final project. This year in AICE media studies was the first time our group was introduced to storyboarding. We have learned all about why they are important to a film. Storyboards help us plan our film ahead of time. Not only does it help with the planing aspect but the visual too. By having to draw every scene we think ahead. This helps us eliminate any issues we might run into for filming. This also helps our group work together. If one person visualizes a scene one way and everyone else is thinking something different then it could cause issues during filming. This way all of our group members are on the same page and we are ready to film.

Planning: Title Design

This is our title design for our final project. We decided to make a powerpoint and break up different aspect of our title design sequence to make it more organized. While allowing us to be more organized this also helps us plan ahead. By planning ahead we eliminate any mistakes we could have at the last minute and not be able to fix. We separated our design into font, color, spacing, and transitions. Using google slides also allows our plan to be easily shared with our group members. By using google slides we can also easily embed our slide into our blogs. We have easy access to our information and won’t lose our hard work. We did run into some problems while doing our title design powerpoint. But now those problems are resolved and my group has an idea and plan for what we will be doing for our final task.

Planning

This is the planning for the final project. In this power point my group and I go over the planning aspect to our final project. The power-point goes over; the locations that we will use. The music that will be playing and making sure that it cannot be copyrighted. The participants are labeled, positions such as the director, actors, filmer, and editors. It also covers health and safety in the film. Things such as how to prevent injuries and in the event of an injury what we should do. Our schedule is also detailed in the power-point. It is important for a schedule because of all the extra curricular that my group is involved in we need to organizer. That is what we discussed in the power-point.

Planning Blog: Sound Script

This is the sound script for final project.We separated our opening sequence by scene and indicated exactly what the audience will be hearing in each scene. We included the dialogue, voice over, any diegetic or non diegetic sound and the music heard in each scene. The importance of making a sound script is to ensure a smooth filming and editing experience. If we neglected this step in the planning process it would almost certainly result in error and many circumstances in which we would need to reshoot or re-edit. Due to a short time frame and a busy schedule we do not have the luxury of filming an abundance of reshoots or much time to re-edit. Another reason we do this is to organize our thoughts. Writing out the script for our opening sequence allows us to discuss wether we feel these sounds make sense in our movie and if the dialogue is clear and understandable for the audience. The sound is a major component in guiding the viewer in how to feel and portraying the emotions of the characters. For these reasons we found it necessary to write out our sound script before starting the filming process.

Planning Blog: Shooting Script

This is the shooting script for our project. This can also be used as the “directors script”. We created the shooting script as somewhat of a written form of our storyboard. We separated our opening sequence by scene and did a breakdown of what we will film. We included the camera angles, camera movement, shots, and a brief description of what the characters will be doing in each scene. The importance of making a shooting script is to ensure a smooth filming experience. If we neglected this step in the planning process it would almost certainly result in error and many circumstances in which we would need to reshoot. Due to a short time frame and a busy schedule we do not have the luxury of filming an abundance of reshoots. Another reason we do this is to organize our thoughts. Writing out the script for our opening sequence allows us to visualize what the opening sequence and make edits if we feel necessary.