Jay - PL

WEEK BEGINNING:  03/04/17

In this week, I had begun to finish my evaluation questions and worked on the soundtrack for our opening. I then started to implement it into the opening itself which was difficult. Simultaneously, the group gather around and watched videos on how to colour grade and make our opening look more professional or more “movie-like”.

WEEK BEGINNING:   27/03/17

The title cut was completed this week and had the title as well as the bills we researched earlier. Sneha branched off and worked on the promotional material for our movie and made several posters for buses, billboard and so on. This gave us an insight into how a movie is marketed and also had us incorporate our knowledge from the other sections of our course to properly market our movie. Another feedback task was done to further develop our opening.

WEEK BEGINNING:    20/03/17

Kanaiya edited a group evaluation question which mimicked “The Apprentice” and it’s style. Kanaiya played Lord Sugar and Sneha and I played Karen and Claude. Sneha edited the second evaluation question which was a lego stop motion where we voiced characters who would explain the question. I edited the title cut and worked on the feedback for the bills which helped us plan it out.

WEEK BEGINNING:   13/03/17

After working on our transition cut for a week, it was finally completed, however it went past the 2 minute mark and was almost 4 minutes (not including the idents. Because of this we had to work on two transition cuts, where the latter cut would be a shorter version. We did this by speeding things up which also fit our fast paced action/crime genre. Once again, we gather audience feedback to help us move on to the title cut. I also began working on my individual evaluation questions and planned out how i could illustrate them. At the same time i was working on the soundtrack for the opening.

WEEK BEGINNING:    06/03/17

In this week, the rough cut was completed and published online. This was particularly difficult as we realised that some shots weren’t the best but still had to be used as we weren't able to reshoot. Feedback on the rough cut was gathered and used to develop the rough cut into the transition cut. Also, during class we all looked at the different evaluation questions and begun discussing the ways that we wanted to portray our work. We had to choose two questions to do as a group and the rest we would do individually. We chose to do questions 2 and 5 together and while trying to be as creative as possible.

WEEK BEGINNING:    27/02/17

This week was the week of watching through all of our recordings and judging each one of them. It was pretty painful. We had made an edit decision list to aid us and mark which ones were useful and which ones were to blurry, or unusable. Kanaiya worked on typography for our title while Sneha and I worked on the rough cut using our recently sorted footage.

WEEK BEGINNING:    20/02/17

For this week we created the final billing order that will be used for the actual opening and worked on foley sounds. We decided to use foley as we had some particularly dangerous stunts like a shattering mug which had to be controlled to minimise injuries. We worked on dubs, as some lines were inaudible or needed some revision.

WEEK BEGINNING:    13/02/17

In this week, the group gather at our locations alongside our actor to work on test shoots and rehearsals to ensure that the actual filming day goes to plan. We followed our production schedule to give us an idea of how filming actually worked. The shot list was also used and helped us keep organised and logical. However, we soon realised that some shots wouldn’t work due to the nature of our location and thus they had to be changed. We found this to be hard as we were essential on a race against time as we need natural light. Our film is set during night but required the right conditions for it to look both dark but still visible and good quality. The actual filming was also done this week, and building up on our rehearsals and test shoots, we managed to get through it. However, lighting was still an issue.

WEEK BEGINNING:    06/02/17

A shooting script was devised and consisted of all the shots that were needed with all props. This would be with us at all times when filming as served as a checklist to make sure that we film everything we need. We also scouted our locations and commented on each, giving our personal opinions on the advantages and disadvantages. We had three locations: a house, a park and a supermarket. We decided to base our final decision on convenience as we were filming with natural light and could not afford for the lighting to change drastically due to long travel times. Sneha had also written up the release forms which was essentially contracts for the actors and locations used. She emailed the necessary people in order to film at the respective locations.  

WEEK BEGINNING:    30/01/17

We had all worked on one storyboard that outlined the different shot types and movements that would be used and also the general plot points in each scene. We also took this time to complete missing tasks and uploaded them. Kanaiya and Sneha devised a prop list for the items needed based on her script-breakdown. This gave us an insight into how actual movie making was done as we had to look around for the specific props that we needed, as well as budget control. Sneha also worked on casting for Aaron.

WEEK BEGINNING:    23/01/17

For this week, we worked on our script breakdowns. This involved the three of us analysing the script separately within our individual roles so we understand when things would occur specifically. Kanaiya worked on cinematography and detailed which shots would come up at different times. Sneha worked on production designed and worked out which props were needed in all the scenes, while I handled the editing and sound aspects for the whole script. This involved me putting in the different transitions that would be used, as well as the music. At this point the second draft was ready and thus a read through was also recorded. I had edited this video and once again, we developed our script based on this and more audience feedback.

WEEK BEGINNING:    16/01/17

For this week, I used what we had learnt about script a few weeks ago to produce the first draft of our movie opening titled “Change”. We had also recorded a script read through as a group, which helped us understand what the script would be like when visualising it and how it sounded. Sneha edited this recording while I developed the draft based on our script read through as well as feedback from our target audience.

WEEK BEGINNING:    09/01/17

Within this week we were preparing and readying ourselves for our green-light meeting which was a pitch (similar to our previous pitch to the class) to convince our distributors to give us the “green-light” and fund our movie. Our pitch consisted of the overall plot, how we entice our audience, our marketing campaign, as well as a developed head-on which was edited by both Sneha and Kanaiya. A one-sheet was also prepared and contained the necessary information such as a summarised plot and key points. This was handed out to our class.

WEEK BEGINNING: 19/12/16

Within this week, we had formulated out pitches which involved us selling the stories that we made up for our movie opening. This pitch consisted of a logline, a full plot (start to finish) and a head on. This was to be recorded. The class as a whole voted on which story they were most fond of, and gave individual feedback. We had used Socrative to do so. I felt that this was helpful as our classmates were able to give us personalised feedback on our stories by telling us what they felt was good and what was weak about it. This thus gave us an idea about what people wanted to see in a movie opening of our genre, and which one we should choose to develop into the actual thing. After that we then edited our own pitches with Adobe Premiere. In the next lesson, we began working on scripts and learnt about the many aspects that were to be expected. We analysed a script and watched its on screen adaption to determine whether the script was effective, and if it translated well. After this, we had our holiday. Happy New Year.

WEEK BEGINNING: 12/12/16

In this week, we had conducted target audience research which was in the form of a vox pop which we filmed by all three of us but was by Sneha. We had gathered people who would typically suit our target audience to help determine what they wanted to see in an action/crime movie as well as an opening and any iconic action/crime movies they can think of. This would then give us an idea as to what we can do within our opening to intrigue them and gave us several references to help us.

Furthermore, we had also discussed as a group the roles that we would be when producing the movie opening. It was decided that I would overlook editing, work on sound design and operate the camera. Kanaiya would deal with cinematography as well as production and Sneha would be the director and production designer. Despite these roles being given, we decided that we would all still pitch in ideas in different roles/sectors. We had also played the random story game which tested our ability to think and develop plots under pressure. The game consisted of us being given a random movie title, location and prop, and then constructing the story around these three things. We had to do this within a set time which proved difficult as we wanted to create a realistic and (relatively) good story but the items/locations made it impossible to do so. I felt that this helped significantly as it aided us in developing and adapting our makeshift plots to suit the situation. 

WEEK BEGINNING: 05/12/16

This week, we had created billing orders for movies in our genre to gain insight into what sequence and order the names of important companies and people should appear. Nightcrawler was the movie I had analysed and featured a fairly typical billing order, with some added features. Sneha and I had also developed target audience profiles. We had done this by creating pages on social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram to give and idea of what a typical audience member for our movie would like and how they are as a person. We had also chosen directors to look into and research. We wanted to find out about their key movie producing traits and habits, their style and how they created their movies. This linked back to the autuer theory that the creator implements his style into his creation. I studied Quentin Tarantino who is quite a peculiar but amazing director. Penultimately, we had discussed the significance of typography in our genre and as well as its connotative effects. Last of all, we produced a slideshow that detailed the theories within story and narrative as well as representations in which i had contributed to writing about Barthes narrative codes, ethnicity, culture and events.

WEEK BEGINNING: 28/11/16

After completing the shot by shot remake we then had to analyse. We had done this by recording ourselves giving our opinions on the production. We went over what we thought went well and what we felt we could improve on while also mentioning how we had developed since the preliminary. I had edited this using Adobe Premiere to help me get used to the software that i will be using for the actual movie opening. We then created a presentation that detailed the purpose of a film opening. It went over the different types of film openings used throughout the years, which ones were most used, as well as why they are used and their effect. Furthermore, we had also analysed film openings of different genres to help us decide which one we wanted to go with. We went in depth, going as far as microelements to pick out what things are often featured in different genres.

In the same week, we had also discussed as a group the pros and cons of our proposed genre (action/crime) and considered alternatives. However, we felt that action/crime was the best for us as it fits our creative desires. On top of this, Kanaiya had created a useful poster on film opening conventions which helped us realised and acknowledge what we needed to feature in our own so that it can be realistic.

WEEK BEGINNING: 21/11/16

Building up on the preliminary and how it would help us familiarise ourselves with production and equipment, we were tasked with developing a shot by shot remake of a movie opening. We had decided to replicate “Snatch”. This process was extremely difficult. Kanaiya had created a shot list with timings which helped greatly as it allowed us to know what to do at specific timings. Sneha was behind the camera through a majority as Kanaiya and I were in the remake. Despite this, we still helped set up the initial shot, lighting and background. This was still difficult as we had to try replicate the specific lighting, look and feel of the scene. Although the scene had no dialogue, it was full of actions that we had tried to execute on time but had failed in some areas. I’m still proud though. In place of typical dialogue, the opening had a voice over which was done by Kanaiya, using his phone, as he was the main character. After production we had edited the shot by shot using Adobe Premiere which was a jump from iMovie due to all the features but was still manageable.

WEEK BEGINNING: 14/11/16

We focused on our studio as a whole this week and worked on production company names as well as logos. Several names were up for consideration such as Illuminite, Spotlight and Aperture Productions which were gathered after conducting a focus group. Our group as a whole felt a connection with Aperture Productions, as the words seemed to work well together and was catchy. It also linked back to media and cameras due to apertures. We left school and came back with drawings/sketches from each of us and chose the one that looked best for Aperture, and also thought about creating the ident. After that, Kanaiya had begun creating this page. Sneha and I dealt with accounts that we could use together as one entity (Aperture Productions) on sites such as Scribd, Slideshare, Prezi, Gmail and more.

WEEK BEGINNING: 07/11/16

In the first week of our coursework, we were tasked with creating a preliminary production that had a specific criteria to show what we were capable of. We had to create a piece that included bits of editing such as “shot reverse shot”, “the 180 degree rule” and “match on action”. We also had to include details like a conversation, some form of narrative and more. Kanaiya and I chose to develop the storyboard for our piece, while Sneha dealt with the script. We were brimming with ideas but had to stick with a simple one that involved two individuals stealing from another but it backfired and went horribly wrong. We had some freedom with this and were able to choose the location and chose to split the camera work between the 3 of us. This allowed us to familiarise ourselves with the workings a camera, this would then help us during our actual movie opening. After filming, we all edited our own version using iMovie to get and idea of the editing process. We learnt how to cut, add transitions as well as music. I felt that this task benefited us as it served almost as an intro to the coursework. It tested our skills and made us realise that we can, and will, develop through practice, while also improving our current skills such as communication. It had also taught me  the value of casting and good acting.

After publishing our first piece, we had then analysed them, giving our thoughts on what went well and what could be better. We all had agreed that we definitely needed improvement but were still satisfied.