Hallf Term Work -Action Plan

I did not have internet access over half term so now i will now enter everything from then.

   Action Plan

Week 4
In week four i will have the script completed by Tuesday. The questionaires will be completed by Tuesday also and we will aim to each have 4 filled out by Saturday.
The logo will be completed by this Wednesday but the animated version will take slightly longer. Adam has not yet given us an ETA on that.
We will have our risk assessment forms all filled out by Monday next week and will be doing individual ones to then look over together and finally do our walk through before next Wednesday.

Week 5

We will begin filming in week 5 and gathering costume ideas.

Week 6

We will aim to have the filming completed and start editing in this week.

Week 7

We will have editing completed and begin our evaluations in week 7.

 

Week three

Choosing a location
   We have decided that we will all individually think of places we can film our video at, carry out a risk assessment and feed back to the other members of the team. As next week is the half term we have decided to meet up on Monday and Wednesday to work on our video planning. On Monday we will try to visit all of the suggested locations and evaluate them as a group as to which would be best suited to our task.
   We are also individually creating a storyboard of a plan of what we think we should film to then again, feed back and choose the best parts of each storyboard and create one together that we will follow for our final video.

I was allocated the job of creating the risk assessment form:

Where is the location?
_________________________________________

Is the location inside or outside?
____________________

Are there any electrical hazzards?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

If so, where are they and how can they, if at all, be solved?______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Are there any weather hazzards?
______________________________

If so, where are they and how can they, if at all, be solved?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Are there any other hazzards?
______________________________

If so, where are they and how can they, if at all, be solved?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Is the location well ventilated?
______________________

Other notes
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Voki (Week three)

Week three

Reserach into the detective genre.
   I decided to look at different film openings from different times. This video is 'Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour (1931)'. Also, i've been looking at the type face and font colour from the different detective openings for ideas for the colour and font of the text we'll be using for our logo and opening credits.

                                          
In this film opening it begins with the opening credits which is very typical of the films from the early 1900's. The font is white and softer than some fonts like Arial. For our film opening we will most likely use a white rounded font.

   The first camera shot shows a pitch black room with what looks like two identical lights side by side from a wondow. As we cannot see what else is in the room or what type of room we are looking at which leaves the audience asking what's about to happen and why it's so dark which adds to the element of surprise and mystery.

   When a door is opens it reveals man lit by the light coming from the doorway.

   Two men are then in the room but you cannot see their identities which also adds to the mysteriuos atmosphere. They begin to fight but you cannot see this becasuse they're fighting in the dark space and you can only hear the exaggerated sounds of the men punching each other when one mans hat rolls into the window light.

   The hat looks like a police hat which may suggest foul play, a 'dirty cop' being 'disposed' of or a police man coming to investigate something and a man beats him up.

   A man then falls into the light and appears to be hurt as you can hear him coughing and spluttering. The technique of having the identity of the man on the floor a secret is a good one in detective films and we will most probably use this technique in our video.

   As the bad guy leaves the room he is lit my the door opening . The scene then changes to a game of cards with alcohol glasses on the table when the camera pans upwards revealing a man. As the man has not been named he seems mysterious as the audience wonders who this man is, why he has been the first character whose face has been shown to the audience and whether he was the man who beat up the supposed policeman.

  The second video is 'Appointment with death part 1- Agatha Christie's poirot'(1988). I also looked at this video to see how the open credits were used, music backing and font.

   The film starts with the man brushing something buried in the ground seems mysterious as you don’t know what’s about to happen. The music is ethnic for want of a better world. Southern Asia sounding.

   The man running creates tensions and suggests urgency which leaves the audience wondering why he’s running and where or who is he running to. As you cannot see the running man’s face creates a sense of mystery.

   The change in music when the running man shouts to the man who had the brush also builds tensions and even though you most likely cannot understand the language the men are shouting in, the tone of the music suggests something key to the movie is going to happen.

   The opening credits come on in a rounded more than cornered font which seems typical of detective films from my research. The white font colour also seems typical of detective/mystery films.

   At 1 minute and 09 seconds the camera is shot from a low angle which suggests the man in the middle standing (the brush man) is an important character and is of a high status in this scene.

   The shot before showing many workers digging and walking with wheelbarrows is shot from a high angle suggesting their status is the opposite to the brush mans and they are seen as lower than him. 

 When the brush man is being lowered into the hole/cave he shines the torch onto the wall revealing some sort of Arabic-like language. The music playing is now choir-like and fast paced which creates a sense of anticipations as the audience is guessing what the writing means and why it’s significant.

Week three

Creating Logos
   We have been looking at videos in the style of film opening we are going to create and what the conventions a detective film are. Also, we have been looking at other examples of studio logos for example, Dreamworks. Dreamworks logo is dream-like and looks a bit like a fairy tale which reflects the majority of films that Dreamworks makes like Shrek and Monsters vs. Aliens. Looking at the type of sound track played during the Dreamworks logo film before a film plays the music is also quite dream-like and reminiscent of a fantasy film.

   With this in mind, whilst we were brainstorming ideas for studio logos and names that would relate to a detective film.

Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

   We could not decide on a name so we decided to each design a logo for the name we most liked to compare later on in the week and use as our logo.

   I came up with Mirror image productions and thought of the idea for a logo of the word Mirror typed amd then Mirrored to say 'Mirror' backwards. I also came up with Alley Cat productions. My idea for that logo is a dark, narrow alley way with a black cat half way down it walking toward the end of the alley stopped turining around to look at where the camera would be if it was a photograph.

   I'm going to use sumopaint.com to create the logos but with the Alley Cat logo if that is what i'll choose, will be taken with a camera, uploaded onto sumopaint.com and transformed.

Week two

Continuity exercise
   In groups we did our continuity exercise where we had to film one of us walking towards a door, into the room, going to sit down and having a conversation with the person sitting in the other chair. We followed one of our storyboards and on a first try i was filming and the other two members of my group were acting in it.

   Together we decided how we were going to film it, the location and the dialogue before rehearshing the camera angles and the content of the film. We used a combination of camera angle shots e.g. over the shoulder shot and extreme close up to record out film.

  We began to shoot the second half of another persons storyboard where this time i was an actor in the film. We used the same technique as in our first video.

I have added some images of my group and i working on our videos.

Week two

Continuity exercise
   We began to create a storyboard of our up coming video on continuity where we planned each shot we'd be filming in our video.

   I decided what shot i wanted to use e.g. a long shot and what angle i wanted it to me e.g. an over the shoulder shot

Week one

In week one we brainstormed ideas on which genre we were going to choose for our coursework video. Our narrowed down choices were: Thriller or Detective. Due to lack of props we decided to eliminate Thriller and begin thinking of the conventions of a dectective film.
We have made plans to look on the internet for detective film openings to gain inspiration for our opening.

Week two -Preliminary exercise

Here is the video of our continuity exercise before editing:

   I think the exercise went quite well and i was able to appreciate how much work goes into filming and continuity. We tried to need as little editing as possible so make the editing process easier. The actual date is Monday 21st November 2011 and we have been given the clips of our exercise. As both Fehinti and Adam are not in our lesson, i decided to go ahead and edit the films into one film.

   I removed the parts where you could hear me saying 'Action' to make the film as smooth a i could. At roughy 14 seconds, Adam (the actor and member of our group not wearing the blazer) says 'while'. We tried to have him start a sentence and finish it in a different clip (over the other group member's shoulder). This did not really work and it didn't flow with the first part of the sentence and wasn't said in the same ton the beginning of the sentence was said in. I could not fix this in the editing process as it was part of the dialogue that i couldn't cut out.

Here is the finished product:

Not too bad for a first attempt at editing, don't you agree?