Tick Tock

Our deadline for everything is nearly here and we are all pulling together to get our work done on time. Chop chop gang!!!  

Filming Timetable

Thursday, 14th January 2016 (Period 6) - Filming in Strood for first shoot of Running Scene - Ellis, Harvey and George.

Thursday, 21st January 2016 (Period 6) - Filming in Strood for second shoot of Running Scene - Ellis, Matt, George and Harvey.

Thursday, 28th January 2016 (Period 6) - Filming in Strood for any improvement on Running Scene - Ellis, Matt, George and Harvey.

Thursday, 4th February 2016 (Period 6) - Filming in Strood IF NEED BE!!!

Ellis and Matthew's Past Experiences in Media

We both did GCSE Media Studies and the task we did is similar to our brief for this year. We had to create the opening two minutes of a thriller film, including the opening credits. Everything was done as a team and doing so made us successful.

We used a variety of shots within our film, referring back to the codes and conventions of thriller films. We used a range of extreme close ups, close ups and long shots. An extreme close up is shown on the pan of the persons legs onto the mirror. A close up is shown when the detective is talking on the phone and a long shot is shown from inside the building, the point of view down the sniper scope, looking onto the detective. Here is our film :-) 

We used a limited amount of transitions. We used mainly fade and dissolve due to aiming for it to fit with the brief. If we used wacky transitions, the film would look silly and wouldn't fit with the codes and conventions of a good thriller film. Also, we used a lot of straight cuts and cross cutting to go from one scene to another. We also used shot-reverse-shot to show the conversation between the detective and HQ.

What has George gained in Media? (Part 3)

Skills Learnt

I’ve learnt several skills whilst working on the set of Hidden Consequences. The first skill I learnt was always be ready to be called because I was needed to recorder half of the films’ sound because the primary came in drunk after a two hour lunch whilst the camera man had to set up the crane so therefore he was fired and I had be the boom mic operator for the interview scene and the teachers office scene. The second skill that I learnt was to be sensible whilst waiting in the green room otherwise the people running the site on that day will kick the whole team out of the building. And finally I learnt to have patience when working as a team because in our film that we are going to make we going to need to have a high level of patience on filming day because we may have one of our actors not being needed and the rest on set and also not to lose temper when we have to make a cut and redo one of the scenes.

Conclusion.

So what did you think of my film? We had several laughs on set and off set such as we had to do several outtakes in the postman delivery scene because I either didn’t know how to be a postman or not know where my positioning is on the set of that scene. I am currently looking to fund raise for the next film with Physical Folk which will be about another serious topic such as Self Harm. At the end of the day I loved working with the Jigsaw Project and I am very pleased to say that Hidden Consequences, as a film, was very successful and I have been given a contract with a local script writer to produce my own work. 

Analysis of George's Past Experiences (Part 2)

So we had several meetings to start off with meeting the director, Lance Phillips and some of the script writing team to discuss ideas and place characters etc. I was given the role of supporting cast and back up boom mic operator and back up camera man. We only had a day of working of set which was plenty of time for a ten minute film. We started at 10am and finished at 7pm. The first couple of hours of filming I wasn’t needed for acting because I wasn’t in the opening scene or boom mic operator because we were outside and the microphone would pick up too much wind.

Two Shots.

 However I did some of the camera work for example I filmed most of the two shots, as you can see below, we used two shots to show conversation (left) and also to show intimidation (right). 

We also filmed a two shot where the speaker is in the background, in this case the middle, which creates focus on the speaker, as seen below, at the time of 0:49 in the film (left) or at 1:51 where the focus is on the victim’s friend, when the she looks worried about the victim (right).

We can use two shots in our film easily. In Hidden Consequences we used a crane for the two shots the reason for this is because we needed to have the shot steady otherwise we might miss the characters’ faces. However we can use a tripod instead because it creates the same level of stability.

Close Ups.

The close ups needed a steady hand for it because we couldn’t use the tripod because we too close to the actors feet and we couldn’t zoom because the camera was in free movement so therefore the camera man took over and used his steady hand. We can use close ups with a tripod because we can make precautions with the actors.

We can use close ups to show emotion in our film like, I did for Hidden Consequences, for the teacher (top right above) she looks quite serious and angry, because at 5:00 she is! She has found out what the bully has done. Close ups can be used on objects to show that the object shows some form of significance for example the phone (middle) is the bully’s.

Over Shoulder Shots.

The over shoulder shots, used in Hidden Consequences, were used for conversation such as in the bulling incident flashback at 7:10 (left) or used to show an actors’ actions such as in the post man delivery scene at 8:04 (right). Both of these shots were used by a crane however we again create the same level of stability by using a tripod.

We can use over shoulder shots to also show an objects’ actions, such as a building being demolished, as well which can be used in our film if we need to. These shots can be implemented easily into our film because over shoulder shots are very easy to re-create because it doesn’t require that much positioning of the camera.

Long shots.

We also a few long shots of a place related to a school such as a main entrance (as seen below). This can be used for multiple effects such as to pass time, fade to black and to change setting. In Hidden Consequences we used a wide shot of the school front entrance to and faded to black to show that the day has ended and the film is moving forward in time.

We can easily use these types of shots for the same effects and others such as fade in from black, non-continuity cross cut etc. in our own film this will show that we can create a scene with only one shot.

What we can use from this film in our own?

We can defiantly use most if not all of these shots that were used to create tension among our audience, show character facial expression, reveal a key part to the plot etc. We can also use school sites such as this school used, Victory Academy, if we can’t travel as far as we intend to since this school is fairly close to ours. We can also use the cuts used to create a sense of time movement I.e. Midday to Midnight, Morning to Afternoon etc. The last thing we can use is the use of filters used in this film for example the flashback scene has a blue filter imported to it to create a sense that the characters don’t remember everything that happened I.e. what they were wearing, what hallway they were in etc. 

George's Past Experience with Media (Part 1)

I have been an actor for many short films in the past. These films are usually talking about serious subjects such as: Disability hat crime, under age sex, being homeless etc. These films usually last for 5-15 minutes. These films are provided through a series of charity movements such as Medway Youth Trust and Physical Folk. However the film that, I thought, I was the most successful in was my latest, Hidden Consequences, which only came out to the public a few days ago on 18.11.2015.

The aim of Hidden Consequences is to raise awareness to young people about disability hate crime this film is to be tour around the schools of Strood, Chatham, Gillingham, Rainham and Rochester. The reason why this film was created was because over the past decade, the Kent police force have seen an increase in the amount of young people committing hate crime in all shapes and forms. So therefore several charity organisations, Kent police and Medway Hospital came together to form the jigsaw project and starting recruiting young to write a script for the new film, act in the film and edit the film. Sadly I wasn’t asked to join the script writing team or the editing team but I was asked to act and help out on set with recording sound, camera work etc. We also had a premiere at the Britannia Theatre, In Dickens World Chatham. 

Research Timetable

To organize our research posts, Ellis put together a timetable on when posts are due to be sent to him. The deadline for the weekly posts is on the Friday of that week during lesson.

Matthew's days for posts are Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Harvey's days for posts are Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday.

George's days for posts are Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Ellis' days for posts are Monday, Tuesday and Sundays. 

Ellis uploads ALL the posts of the week on Friday.