Friday, 23 April 2010

Final Evaluation - Main Exercise

The process of planning and producing our film has been a stressful yet enjoyable experience. I feel that with my new group I have been able to become more involved and enjoy the whole process alot more because they have made me feel so welcome. Our Chick Flick/Musical film 'Becoming Bella Bright' is mainly aimed at an audience age range of around 13-19 years of age of a prodominantly femal audience we found this out whilst researching films of the same genre ie, 'Hairspray,' 'camp rock.'

When researching films of the musical/chick flick genre, we discoverd that the majority of films we watched had a similar outline to the film. A morning, Mid Day and Finnally the film ending usually with something happening in the evening, even though the film may be happening over a period of days even weeks it gives the structure of it all happening in a day. We decided we wanted to stick to these guide lines which is why our opening sequence is our character getting up and getting ready for the big day a head of her, this allows our target audience to relate to the character as the way we have edited it is the stages of a typical girl getting ready for school or work. We decided that we wanted to keep our character mystery yet through the opening sequence we get to know the character quite intimately, the shots are close up and personal allowing our audience to become close to the character and get to know what she is like. We believe that the short opening sequence says quite alot about our main character which is exactly what we wanted, you can see she is very over the top and very confident.

When casting the main role we knew exactly the sort of girl we wanted, we wanted to stick with the typical cliche of a blonde female as the stereotypes of a blonde in modern day society would fit our film perfectly. When deciding the name for our film we wanted to use alliteration to make the title snappy and memorable, at first we were just going to call it 'Bella Bright' But then decided it would be better if we called it 'Becoming Bella Bright' as becoming suggests a journey of becoming something and the idea of the film is that the overly confident main character is learning not just about becoming the character of Bella Bright but learning about herself in the process., which like most chick flick films leaves an underlying message for young girls to think about.

We looked at all the different codes and convensions of the same genre films and how the littlest things such as the posters on the characters walls in their bedrooms, for example we especially brought in posters of 'JLS' 'Twilight' etc.. to put up on our set to show her age range and what sort of a character she is allowing the audience to immediatley connect with the character. We wanted the characters clothes to show her personality so we thought naturally an over-the-top costume would show an over-the-top personality. We were origionally going to use a shot of the characters big bright red stilettos walking in contrast with all the plain looking pumps that are the 'norm' but we decided that sticking with keeping the mystery of our characters face we would film the back of our character walking towards the door with the 'AUDITION' sign on it and added another character in ordinary clothes walking out showing the contrast in that way.

We decided that we wanted our music for our film to be very upbeat and energetic. We wanted our audience to get a positive feel from the film as that will set them up for the 'feel good film' that we wanted it to be from the start and I feel that the music does exactly what we wanted it to do.

Copyrite Information,
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AeaGYaKC8LbvZGRqd2Y2ODdfOW1kOHh4ZmY0&hl=en

Overall I am very happy with how our film has turned out, I personally feel that our group worked really well together and worked hard to make this film a success. Obviously absence has been a problem on my point but I have attended a lot more lessons and really really tried to be there as much as I could. I feel as though I could of done a little more written research, but other than that I have really enjoyed the whole process.

The Editing Process


Editing this time, unlike my last experience of editing was alot more difficult. Whereas last time for the preliminary exercise we used 'windows movie maker' as our editing programme, this time as we had encountered a few problems when looking back over our film such as some of the shots being filmed in widescreen, Lee suggested it would be better if we used Adobe Premier. If I'm being really honest I really didn't want to take his advice as I knew where I was with Windows Movie Maker and I really didn't want to let my group down by messing up the editing, but I decided that if this film was going to be a success and beleviable then I would have to just go for it.
After a tutorial from Lee, I became more comfortable with the programme. But it was coming towards the end of the lesson which was also the last day of term so we organised that we would meet in the half term holidays at college so I could complete the editing and the rest of my group would be there to give their imput we arranged to meet at the college April 12th at 11.

Getting started wasn't as easy as we hoped it would be, there was alot of trouble with the computer, it didn't recognise Adobe and kept freezing and losing our work. But when it finally worked we had trouble with the sound, I personally started to panic, as I didn't think we were ever going to get it edited! We got the first part edited and a couple of the group members had to go so we decided to rap up and we'd get it completley finished on our first lesson back.

Adobe Premier wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I feel overal it has made our film look more professional as we had more control over what we wanted our film exactly to be like!
When we came back refreshed after the half term I was ready to get stuck in and complete the editing! It all ran very smoothly apart from one of the scenes that we had filmed, we really needed that scene as it made the film flow but the problem was, most of our shots are fast cutting shots but this one particular shot really dragged on, I got the rest of the groups advice on what we shoud do. Cutting it our completley wasn't an option so we had to quickly think of a way around it. Hayley then came up with the idea that we could cut the shot in two and move one of the credits from a previous part in the film to inbetween that shot. Luckily that worked fabulously! When fully edited we played the film through and we were extreamly happy with the outcome apart from one part, we felt that the way we had filmed the credits made our film look slightly unprofessional so decided that we would replace them with credits that were done on the computer.

Overal I am happy with the outcome of the editing as I have never been comfortable on a computer so it was a challenge and I feel that I have learned lots, and thanks to the support of my group we worked together to make it as best as we could.

Editing screen shot,
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AeaGYaKC8LbvZGRqd2Y2ODdfN2ZrdnNnOGNn&hl=en

The Filming Process

Our origional filming date was organised for March 9th, but unfortunatley we were unable to film as our actress would only be able to film for around half an hour due to other college commitments. We decided as a group that, that wouldn't be long enough, so we recheduled to the following Thursday.

Our first location was the Audition Room. It took a while to get started as we had to clear the room of unwanted props and furniture in order to make the room as beleviable as possible. It also took a while rehursing with our actress Lauren as to wear we wanted her to be positioned and where we were going to position the camera in order to fit the script and storyboard.

This was an interesting experience as it was my first time being there when the filming process took place. As soon as we had sorted the room out and Lauren knew exactly what we wanted her to do it all ran very smoothly. The whole of our group chipped in and made comments as to what we think would make the film more beleviable and that is why I'm confident that our peice is successful.
We then drove to our next location (Hayley's House) to film the remainder of the scenes for our film. Unfortunatley we ran out of time and only got a few of the shots that we hoped to filmed.


...

Links.

Initial Ideas,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaNjkxODdhNzQtMjE2OC00MDJiLWI3NWItNWM0Mzk1OWIzMzli&hl=en_GB

Roles, and Ideas,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaMjdjMTFlYTctMDA3My00OTllLWExYjItMWE0MTdiNWM2YjVh&hl=en_GB

Brain Storm,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaNzNkMmRlYTktYTEyNS00MmI2LWE2ZDUtNDJjZmE0YzA2OTEw&hl=en_GB

CD Cover,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaODZjMmE1YzctZjZmYS00YzA1LWEwYjQtMGNjOWZhYWQ1ZjAz&hl=en_GB

Draft Script/Script Ideas,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaMGQ1ZjkwZDktZjJiYi00YjAzLWIyN2QtYTc1OGI5MWQxNjJl&hl=en_GB

Storyboard,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaYjBjOGEwMTQtNTc5YS00OGI2LWEzZDMtM2EyOTJkMjhjZWI4&hl=en_GB

Props,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaOWJiNTE4N2UtNjExOS00YTNhLTlmZTgtYmFhMmVjZmVhOTkx&hl=en_GB

Locations,,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaZGZjMWJjNGUtMjhlZS00NTQ2LThiNjMtNjg0NmE3ZGMzMGIx&hl=en_GB

Risk Assessment,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaNmRhYTBjMjQtMWMwZi00MWRiLWE5M2UtYWM4ZTBiNWJlNTA4&hl=en_GB

Call Sheet and Schedual,
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B67ks5M0yvAaMTFiMjQ3ODEtY2Q1MC00NTc0LWE3ZWMtNDcwM2NhNWE5Mzgx&hl=en_GB

Saturday, 17 April 2010

The First Reflective Main Exercise Blog Entry Thing!

Due to the unfortunate circumstances of the preliminary exercises, Lee thought it would be good for me start a fresh with a new group which after joining, I felt immediately comfortable in as they were so understanding of my absenses. To avoid problems that had occured in the preliminary we exchanged numbers so to prevent poor communication which was a problem with my last group.

In a group discussion we decided that we wanted to do a 'chick flick/musical' opening sequence in which our target audience would be young females. We then researched codes and convensions from well known filsm of this genre such as 'Camp Rock' 'Legually Blonde,' 'lizzie Mcguire,' 'Freaky Friday' and 'Hair Spray.' With my assigned role of being editor again I decided to do early preparation because I felt confident that I had the support of my new group and could successfully achieve a good outcome.



One of the films I personally researched was 'The Lizzie Mcguire Movie.' One of the main idea's we picked up from it was although a slightly different opening to the other films was the use of close ups on specific objects which keeps the audience in suspence as to what is happening for example,


That idea of mystery we agreed would be a good opening for ours maybe not in the exact way but using the close up for when the character was getting ready would be really affective and I think that it went successfully. Another idea we had got from the movie was the use of incorporating the titles in the film, a similar way to how it is done in the Lizzie Mcguire Movie for example,

We tried incorporating the titles in a music book adding our names where the
composer would usually go on top of the page, at the time it looked like it would work but whilst editing we decided that it wasn't up to the standard of the rest of the shots we had got so we decided to electronically do the titles.





In order to acheive a successful and believiable opening sequence we decided on making a brief storyline for the film so that gave us an idea of exactly how we wanted it to go.
Once we got our story line sussed we started to brain storm possible names of what we wanted our film to be called! - Becoming Bella Bright. We used alliteration in the title to make the film memorable and we all agreed it had that 'cheesy' factor that we wanted our film to be.

Sunday, 11 April 2010

Editing and Evaluation of the Preliminary exercise

On the day of the editing I managed to make it into college as I knew that was my role, and because I had missed the filming I was keen to become involved with the group and the exercise asI knew it would prepare me for the main exercise.

The editing process was fairly easy once we had captured and transferred the footage onto the computer. Although supposed to be my role, we decided as a group to all have an input into the editing as I felt as I had missed so many lessons I didn't want to come back and completley take charge of something in which they had done well to acheive with me missing. We used windows movie maker to edit our piece and the whole editing process only took around 40 minutes due to similar views and opinions on how it should be edited.

I feel the only problem we came up against whilst editing was down to what had been captured in the filming process and how that would effect the continuity. I feel the group did well in following the specification from the brief but some factors could be improved such as problems with lighting and cuts withn' the film.


By looking at our final edit of our preliminary exercise it has deffinatley shown me how to look for similar mistakes that can be avoided in my main exercise.