Film Opening From Last Year

This film opening taken from Miss Fosters blog which was taken from Petes blog is great! The panning at the beginning is smooth and reveals all the necessary things about the character, a good establishing shot without actually being an establishing shot. I didn't like the music at the beginning but I thought the sounds effects of the bombs in the background were great! Starting off very subtle and getting louder and louder. The Churchill speech was also a great touch. 

The two minute film opening seemed very professional due to the sound effects, camera movement, lighting and also the simplicity of the credits. The darkened lighting towards the end also added to the quality of the opening as the torch lead the eye to see what the character was seeing. The emphasis on the small toy that landed was effective in showing that a child once stayed here and also creates a spooky atmosphere-as any toy clown would. Overall a very good opening but I do think the film could have done without the '60 years later' title. Also really like the echo of the laughter at the end, although it could be seen as an ending to the two minute opening..perhaps..maybe.

Cinematography

Credits to Rachel for this list of shots! We wanted to get a clearer idea of how we can make the final film just that little bit better and of course using various shots could do that for us (the right ones). By writing out a list of different shots we could use it doesn't just give us the chance to see what works and what doesn't but considering our spy theme, it's also useful to create the 'being-spied-on' atmosphere which we have already incorporated into our final film.
However, we do know that by throwing in as many shots as we possibly can we do not instantly increase the quality of our film.

Update

My first individual vlog and first vlog at home!
Vlogging on the process of our film opening, updates on what we have edited for our opening, what we still need to do and some more ideas. 
Overall it's going well!


-ok, so this video was actually uploaded earlier on in the day when I made it but i couldn't seem to find it on youtube. after 8 hours of wracking my brains out i realised i had put it on private...so here it is!

Music Options

The group are still undecided on music we might be using in the film opening but hopefully it shouldn't be too much of our worries as we have yet to get filming in London done (16th Dec). I wanted to have a look at what could be available to us and found a few interesting 'spy-like' ones. Although, i did find that some which fit the genre of the film could be quite cheesy. This could take away from the quality of the film and the seriousness of it, clearly we don't want it to be a comedy spy film. 

Editing, editing and more editing!

Forever editing! Rachel, Sinead and I got more toilet shots today, we're making progress with the final film but I think we've all just realised how much editing needs to be done. The toilet scene has nearly wrapped up, just two more shots to redo! Hopefully we'll get the panning up shots up and edited by next week.

Clips-Update

Our little compilation of shots from the toilet scene. We took loads of different angles so we could have a choice when we got down to editing. the different angles include a dutch tilt, birds eye and high angle. We thought getting loads of different shots could make it seem more spy-like as if the character is being watched. Although we might only be using one of the types of angles, getting different ones helps us to see what we like and what we do not like.

Update Vlog

Today we filmed our update vlog on what's been going on with the making of our final film. We've now got footage of the plane taking off, Heathrow scene and toilet scene.
Next up: Filming in London. Will hopefully be getting shots of me walking past iconic buildings such as House of Parliament, London Eye, MI5 and so on.. 

We all decided to use Sineads mums car instead of a black cab for the 'cab' shots as it makes it seem like a bigger transformation from a student persona travelling by public transport(tube), to a top spy travelling by private hire car perhaps? Excited to get going and see how the car shots turn out. We're all looking forward to filming the new slight changes to some of our scenes.  

Storyboard Update

We made our final (hopefully) storyboard today where we established definite locations, shots and what will be happening in the shot.

Mine and Lucy's Vlog

So here's mine and lucy's vlog.

Se7en

We watched the movie Se7en in wednesdays lesson and i think we all really enjoyed the concept of the film as well as the shots included in it. It was hard to miss the shots when Foster was pointing out every good one to us!

I liked the genre of psychological/crime/mystery thriller which our group were initially thinking of doing. There were some scenes which really got me and Lucy jumping our of our seats, literally! The opening credits were very interesting as it was still telling part of the story. it had a sense of mysteriousness and the close-ups on the fingertips and notebooks were a nice addition as we saw the importance of them towards the end of the film.

Overall, great film! Bit scary for my liking but love a bit of Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt.

Filming

We have now moved onto the next part of our film opening which features me in the 'airport' toilets. We decided to use the school toilets as they look like airport toilets and would be much easier for us. Having the freedom to re-do shots as many times as we want and get as many angles as we want is definitely a plus! So far, the filming in the toilets have gone very well as we all seem to know exactly what we want and we all have the same ideas in mind. 

Here, the girls came up with a brilliant idea on how to achieve an overhead shot;semi-safely. 

Heathrow Success

I think it's clear we're all feeling very much like spies after getting through the Heathrow filming we did last week! After getting over the shock of how cheap it is to get the Heathrow, we got to filming straight away. Terminal 4 was definitely a great filming location.

We started with some shots of me walking into arrivals, then after much discussion over our teas in Costa, we started with a stationary shot of me going down the escalators. I found this particularly hard as there were many people going up and down the escalators at the same time so we had to re-do this shot an awful lot. Eventually realising the Wetherspoons diners were giving me suspicious looks we decided to make my next attempt the last. And succeed we did! phew!

The next shot we decided to do was panning which included a massive 'arrivals' sign in the background. I loved the idea of this shot but actually doing it proved to be harder than i thought. Being the only teenagers there and especially wearing the most brightly coloured clothing i definitely stood out. This is great for our film as you can clearly see the character but it was worrying having to walk past the same people so many times for our different angles!

Here's our journey to the aiport and a little memory!

The beginning!

Here's the official start to the actual filming for our two minute film opening!

Concept Update

Here is our concept update where we discuss and explain our new idea. Now a spy/action film opening and our ideas for shots ect..



Finally managed to get the RIGHT blog up. Thanks Foster :D

Inspiration

Another film inspiration we could use is 'Mr and Mrs Smith' as both characters are spies in disguise. We  decided that our protagonists 'spy-wear' will be similar to Angelina Jolie's character in the scene where she enters her spy office and the other female spies hand her information etc. This makes the character seem more important and much more of a 'top-spy'.

Filming Research

Before filming our shots in heathrow we needed to research which terminal the international arrivals would be so we ended up in the right place! This screenshot from the heathrow website tells us all the information we needed and more! 

Inspiration

So we've changed our idea/concept yet again, still quiet similar to our initial idea of someone on the run. We're now doing a 2 minute opening to an action film which features a character still on the run but not literally running. She will be shot in various iconic landmarks in London each location in which she will lose or gain something physical which adds to the build up of her real persona (a spy). In short, she starts off as a typical travelling student and ends being a top spy.
Also, we would like to add a timer/stopwatch/ effect at the bottom of our final film to add to the effect of creating suspense, mystery and spy-ness.

As we were discussing our new ideas, I thought the concept was quite similar to the film Salt. This helps us as we can get inspiration for music/shots/content from the film.

Pitch

Fridays pitch to Miss Foster went considerably well. Still torn on the subject of the wheelchair but we're thinking of alternative endings, where the film could go,what improvements we can make etc...
We've stuck to our initial thoughts and ideas for the film, just adding a few things such as the take-off footage Rachel has and the change of clothes scene in the public toilets. 
Overall, I think it will be challenging for us to film in the locations we've chosen but hopefully the outcome will be worth it!



 

Story boarding

Our first attempt at story boarding our concept for the final film. Sinead is quite the artist!

Concept Vlog

Our little vlog about our entire meeting, filmed in Starbucks!

Locations

These are the various locations we have thought about including in our film. We decided to take advantage of living in London, clearly.

Heathrow Airport-one/two shots of departures.
Southbank-we're quite fond of the bridges, think we can get a few good shots out of that.
Kings Cross St. Pancras St-great scenery and building. We can also get some shots of the Departures/Arrivals board to give the idea of someone leaving/escaping etc
River Thames-again, good shots.
London Eye-amazing view. At the moment, we're thinking of doing a birds eye view from the London eye of someone running.



These locations will be the flashback in the film and the reality scene will feature just one location. Still undecided, but being a psychiatrists office it needs to look established and a little homely.

Peugeot Advert

We really liked the idea of continuous shots flashing rapidly on the screen which we might use for the beginning of our film. A little like swish pan minus the pan...

Concept Meeting

Just returned from our group concept meeting. It went very well as we now have our general concept, different filming locations, various shot ideas and most of our casting planned out. 
Here are all of our ideas on paper!

Practice Film

So here it is! The product from all those 'behind the scenes' videos and pictures and the 'in the making' vlogs. It was a much more exciting experience than the prelims mainly because we got to go out and explore (eventhough we stayed on ECS grounds for most of the filming). Enjoyed making this practice film and it does look 10 times better in black and white!

Arc Shot

This is the 'behind the scenes' of our arc shot. Sinead followed the circle on the gym floor to shoot an arc shot of Rachel bouncing the basketball. It turned out pretty well considering it was handheld and our first time!

Waitrose Vlog

Our most interesting location for a vlog so far! Just a little vlog on our filming in Waitrose, where we produced our point of view shot. 

Dolly Shot Evidence

Behind the scenes of our dolly shot!

Editing Vlog

Just a wee vlog on editing our practice film so far. We're all enjoying it and I think everyone in our group likes being on both sides of the camera. 

500 Days of Summer Intro

Found this intro hilarious! Although I didn't quite like the way the whole film was done (the diary-likeness of it) but this intro is clever. It's already comical before the film has even started. 21 seconds in and viewers already get a feel of what they might be expecting in the film. 
Sometimes, a negative thing but I find the comment simple and completely effective in drawing viewers in.

Equipment-receiving day!

We were able to run free today with our very own filming equipment. Must say, it was much more fun than filming the prelims. The spontaneity of it all! Don't worry though, the film-film filming will be very much planned and scheduled thoroughly. Hopefully...

Think we had an overload of ideas today, so the footage we've got is very jumpy jumpy. Quite proud of our suggestions and abilities to work as a group.
Here's our make-shift dolly! We definitely worked as a team to get this shot. Love the outcome though!

Group Prelim Vlog!

Sadly Rachel left us, so the three of us vlogged about our prelim experience and editing and whatnot..
Overall, great starting point to get us familiarised with the equipment and software.

Prelim Outtakes!

Haha..
"is that loud enough?"

Final Prelim!

This is our final prelim film. Very interesting! Great fun to edit..

First Vlog!

Our first vlog about our prelim. Its not the best quality because we couldn't quite find a decent place to film and the media room was occupied. 

Things we missed out:
We were essentially aiming for just a short and sweet film with various shots of Rachel walking through the door and speaking lyrics to Lucy. It was a great experience leading up to filming the actual prelim...you can imagine the looks we got with Rachel bursting through the conference room door screaming Britney Spears lyrics!

Nikon: 'Welcome Home' Radical Face

An amazing advert, with amazing music. It just shows how music plays as much a big part as the actual footage of the film (another great example is John Lewis below 'Never Tear Us Apart' a 1988 single came back into the charts). The music creates the atmosphere and encourages feeling for the viewers. 

Such a simple advert consisting of a few shots of different groups of people with short titles fading in at the centre of the screen. I do believe the more simple they are, the better. The mix of hand, over the shoulder, low and many more shots all convey certain emotions and gives it more of a personal touch to the advert. 

Great advert! Love the song!

John Lewis Advert

The 2012 John Lewis advert. Very simple idea of love, yet such an effective advert in terms of capturing the viewers attention. Brilliantly shown with the split screen. 

"By bringing their two worlds together as one, we show that falling in love, and embarking on a relationship, is a universal story which will keep being replayed throughout time."

Films

Favourite Films: 
'Cradle to the Grave', for the storyline. 
'Inception', for the complex concept and actors.
I generally like action films like 'Avengers Assemble', crime thrillers like 'The Town' and books/films which produce alternative endings to famous fairy tales such as 'Mirror, Mirror.'

Also love these Hitchcock classics:

My favourite ones are 'Vertigo' and 'Psycho.'
















Another new favourite: 

Love Audrey Hepburn in this, strange character but very intriguing. 

Media Studies Course Booklet

Just had a read of the Media Studies Course Booklet and found that it was very helpful with tips on camera composition and general Do's and Don't's in AS Media. 

What I found particularly helpful was-
Do: Compose your shot so that the subject is cut off in between joints. 
Makes sense when you think about it, but I don't think I would have done this if I was behind the camera!

Also had to Google a thing or two, one being 
DON'T: Force tape into mechanism.
it simply means, if your tape gets lodged don't try to open or close it. 
And Mise-en-scene: Stage setting.

Course Booklet

ECS as and A2 Media Studies Course Booklet

First post!

Video embedded from Miss Foster's blog.