The sound is a bit rough at the moment but for the final cut we will voice over most of the piece. The music works particularly well in this extract. We also wanted to add some more establishing shots and exchange one of them as it's a bit shaky. Some of the piece may have more effects added in, mainly to the audio.
the rough cut is nearly finished, we are just checking it through to see where we can add the new clips that Tim got, at the moment we are converting the new clips
Today's filming was successful, We finished all the shots but unfortunately there was one shot where two of the characters shake hands in which there were some continuity errors such as slight background problems, we may have to cut one of the shots in order for it too look right. However the rest of the filming was fine. I doubt the final film will look as good as it was planned, but this is what we have for now. Any sound will have to be added as a voice over, it will help add surreality to the scene if the male voice over is distorted.
We were able to successfully use our locations, and all of our group showed up, the timing of some members of the group was bad, but this was due to finding the location.
We may have animal noises in the background due to location, but we are going to use external sounds and mute the sounds from the clip.
(The sound of a humming girl can be heard, the camera moves around getting shots of different places and eventually fully showing the main female lead. The screen shows her point of view with an empty view in front of her, it then shows the same shot a few seconds later with a man standing there. He laughs lightly)
Man: Hello rabbit. (girl stares) Are you sad rabbit? (girl looks away) Then follow us rabbit! We can make you happy...
(Girl takes his hand, only to discover there is nobody there.)
The scene has little dialogue and it is quite cyrptic, The girl doesn't say anything.
These are some costume ideas for the female lead. The first one is just simple white, it shows the innocence and purity of the character. It contrasts with the male character whom wears mainly black. The second costume is mainly checkered and is a very strange outfit, this symbolizes her fall into a different world of sorts, and reflects the strangeness of the world that she has landed in. The fact that the costume is black and white shows her changing from the sweet and pure as, as the film goes on, she becomes less innocent and good. The male character would wear black and have a top hat (hat is important!) and a waist coat, like a suit. This costume implies something clever and sophisticated about him but also something strange as he is wearing a suit in an odd situation. The fact that he wears black puts him as like an opposition to the main character.
For this sequence there are no props, costume is the most important thing.
We have sorted out our schedule for this sunday. Our filming will take place on sunday and we will be using a location of Tim's, Most of today has been spent figuring out how to get to there and when. We will be needing actors from outside the class, Lloyd has been in charge of them but if they can't make it Vonnie will attempt to find someone, and if that fails Tim can get someone from his village.
Vonnie has some elements of clothes that will work with anybody so costumes is sorted and Tim has a top hat and waistcoat for the male character. Because the lighting may change we may have some lighting equipment to help. Because Vonnie is the camera person it's her job to bring it on sunday.
The Locations that we have decided to film at have a varied, scenery as well as ideal location types for the sort of film we are doing. These locations are in the village of Harston, five miles South of Long Road.
The animatic at the moment has no sound but we will add sound later, it will start of with the girl humming a tune and then some silence before music comes in, we may add voices also. As can be seen there is alot of use of camera movement in this piece.
1. Black Screen -hear a girl humming a tune title appears 2. close up girl- humming tune profile image of girls face 3. Wide shot slow pan- trees, wind rustling, girl humming 4. Medium shot over shoulder- girl humming, view from behind 5. wide shot- park rides move slowly creaking slightly 6. long shot- hows girl sitting on roof, looks cold, uncaring still humming 7.close up of girls eyes- girl blinks several times 8. POV of girl- shows edge of roof, music starts 9. close up of girls eyes- last blink is distorted, camera moves quickly 10. Long POV shot- man appears at roof edge 11. close up profile shot- expression unchanged, long lasting shot 12. close up of man panning- man smiles, hat covers right eye 13. close up of man -he speaks and face is a bit more visible 14. close up slow pan- girls expression blank but seemingly confused, man speaks 15. Long shot, slow pan- music quiet but gets louder, man speaks 16. close up of girl- she looks away sad, nearly nodding 17. Medium shot, long of man- excited, he speaks, energetic 18. medium shot of man- voice becomes distorted 19. close up of mans hand- quick shot 20.close up of girl- stares at hand for while than gets up 21. close up- hand reaches for his, camera cuts before they touch 22. medium long shot- man disappears, girl moves hand back confused, music loud 23. close up of girls feet- she walks to edge of roof 24. high angle from ground- she looks down 25. long shot from side- as above 26. high angle POV- showing ground 27. close up of feet- jumps 28. extreme face close up- falls 29. close up of girl hitting ground safely- (costume/location change) 30. V. long shot of girl- girl confused looks round
we intend to book the camera for the following dates: 22/01/09 - 25/01/09 Rough cut deadline: Thursday 29th January Final cut deadline: Thursday 5th of February
Because Adam is only able to do any filming outside of school at the weekend we will probably have to do the filming this coming weekend, but that leaves the rest of the week to get everything sorted out for it as it will be much easier if we have everything ready before hand.
Things that could be sorted out this week: Costume Props Storyboarding Scripting Finding actors Sorting out the location Renting out cameras Music (possibly)
The clip that I chose to look over is the trail for Sin City (2005) I chose this because of the editing factors that are involved in it.
As you can see the Editor Robert Rodriguez has given the film a comic book feel to the footage due to the strong black and white contrasts and also the little hints of color; for example the yellow blood on the fingers this strange blood color explodes out at you compared with the greyscale background.
This style looks like it has been influenced by the Film Noir genre of the 50's; Noir also used deep contrast and a lot of use of lighting and shadows, much the same as Sin City does. Another Film that Robert Rodriguez has worked on as the Editor is the Classic... From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) where Robert also Directed the film.
This was one of his earliest editing jobs having only done 5 main films before that. This is more of a characteristical action genre film with a twist that the real story changes half way through.
The film extract which I have chosen I think shows you a good example of Directing, is from the film "Atonement". The sequence in this film which I have chosen is the 5 minute long camera shot of Dunkirk, where you see the camera panning around the beech, showing the soldiers, waiting for boats to take them of the beech. The main characters do appear in this shot but they are not the main attraction.
The reason why I believe that this clip is a good example of directing is because, it is quite a challenge to do a 5 minute camera shot without any cuts, without getting something wrong, especially as they have hundreds of people to look after making sure that they know exactly what they are doing at any given time. Also when they want to so a retake, they have to set up hundreds of people back to the start of the shot, which would have taken, over an hour to do with the scale of the shot, in fact they did four re shoots in one whole day. It is has good directing, because without it the scene would have looked a shambles and would have not have brought such a great impact to the film.
The begining of the extract zooms in on the man speaking to draw focus but then slowly moves down towards the fire, the fire is representative of chaos and war so it gives a good effect considering the man is speaking about a murderer. Throughout the sequence the only face that can be seen clearly is the hessian horseman in order to show his ferocity, by not showing the faces of the other people in close up it shows how insignifigant they are and that they are not important characters. Unlike in older films, where the convention is to not show the violence and make the viewer think they saw it, the violence is the main part that is shown in fast shots so it is hardly noticed with all the carnage around it. The shots are fast but have little movement during the battle scene, there is some movement in following the movements of the horseman which, again, is effective in giving him focus. The end of the battle scene is a close up showing his sharpened teeth in detail as the man is talking about them. After the battle the shots are longer and slower giving an eery calmness to the scene, and also helps show how the horseman is slowly reaching his end. As the people move through the forest the camera follows them through the trees which helps show that the characters are somewhat lost in this forest as it all looks the same. Despite the intensity of him bieng chased the movement is still quite slow. As the camera spins around the horseman, the audience can see essentially what he sees without a point of view shot, this is effective in showing the two girls as the viewer doesn't see them until he does. Before the flashback cuts away the audience can see the man about to cut of his head which is effective as we can see it but the character can't see it. The way it cuts at the end is effective as it doesn't show his death, in comparison it always showed the death of the others. The final shot of Ichabod shows his cup shaking which shows how scared he really is but when the camera moves up it shows the front he's putting on in pretending not to be afraid.
The first shot moves fluently and shows the drink before showing the man drinking it, this gives us a quick impression of that character. The next shot almost looks like somebody is watching him and shows how empty the bar is. The shot through the mirror is effective, it is an over the shoulder shot so it seems like Jude is facing the man in the mirror. All the shots are quite long and move slowly, if at all, which helps fit with he music which (at this point) is slow. The slow zoom on both of them keeps the focus on the two characters and as Jude is looking away and it zooms towards his head it gives the impression of him thinking. As Jude starts to leave the bar the camera follows his every movement, when he sits up slightly it moves up and when he stands up and leaves it goes with him. As he is packing the camera moves up and the audience starts to see the woman in shot whom that hadn't seen before making her introduction almost a surprise. There are a couple of shots themed around looking down streets that recede far into the distance, this is effective in showing him walking away from his home as the distance seems greater. A particularily good shot is when the camera moves backwards as Jude moves away from the screen making it seem like he travels faster as the music speeds up. With the man drinking the camera moves with his bottle which puts the focus on what he is doing and gives a quick idea of the man. The whole extract contains alot of camera movement all on moving around the character in focus, the man playing the garbage bins, Jude, whoever is important at that point the camera will follow them.
For our mood board we used images that were dark and some that were strange and surreal. There are some pictures of the northern lights as they are a naturally strange occurance. Most of the pictures are characters reminiscent of the mad hatter, as this is a character similar to a character in our film idea, there is a significance of the hat in the film so there were quite a few hats. The girl on the roof is similar to a shot that could be done in a part of the film. There were also some shots from Donnie darko and pans labyrinth (inspirations for the film) and quite a few evil looking women from other films.
The music is slow and meant to be creepy to fit the mood of the film and images.
Journey through the depths of a mysterious wonderland as Olivia struggles with her understanding of reality. Following Black, a strange man with an interesting hat, Olivia's concept of what is real and what isn't unravels as the line between imagination and reality becomes thinner.
- A short pitch for the film, exposing as little of the film as possible but still leaving it interesting enough for people to want to see it.
Possible taglines for the film: What is real? The line between worlds is breaking Do you know what is here? Do you know what is real? Where is reality? Dreams can come true
Possible names: Crack in the line Dream hole Crack in the light Final dreams Last dreams Rabbit Break in the line
Frank the rabbit in this sequence has a strange distorted voice, this is a useful effect in making him seem less real, creepier and is the sort of thing that would be a useful effect in our sequence. The dark lighting and the very still camera makes the whole scene stranger. The still camera makes it seem calm but the voice and the monstrosity of the rabbit contrasts greatly giving a more eery effect to the scene. The way that the character of Donnie doesn't seem bothered by this is also unnerving and shows alot about his character. Narrative wise, the way Donnie follows Franks voice is reminiscent of how the white rabbit in alice in wonderland or the bug in pans labyrinth leads the characters away from home. The following of a voice without seeing where it comes from adds some tension to the scene at wanting to know where it came from.
Initial ideas: The story starts with a young girl with apparent mental health problems. The girl follows a man she thinks she sees in her mind and starts to retreat into this fantasy world more and more, however as the film goes on the line between fantasy and reality becomes thinner until it becomes obvious that there was never fantasy only reality. Because of this the girl turns more insane and ends with her in a prison imagining her family in a normal setting as it once was. The film is focusing on fantasy and reality and how people can never understand what is real and what isn't. The scene that we could do would be the beginning which shows the first switches between reality and fantasy when she goes to wonderland or possibly the end where she is sitting in a prison alone.
The main character: Young and female, between 15 and 20. She lives in an ordinary home. A male character refers to her as 'rabbit'
Inspirations: Donnie Darko - Surreal events Pans labyrinth - strong influence Alice in wonderland - white rabbit type figure, wonderland Kubla khan (poem) - poem that doesn't make sense, creepy
Vonnie camera work. In most projects I have worked in before I have been the camera person and have done story boarding as I do it often in my own time and am a fast drawer. When it comes to camera work and storyboarding I always have a clear idea of what the shot will look like, how to achieve it and what meanings particular shots/props/positioning can convey. Also I have many of my own props and enjoy making them, and have lot's of lighting equipment. I am also learning to design and create costumes as well as already owning quite a few costumes, as I used one in the film swede project. Responsibilities:
Set up, use, looking after equipment.
Shot types/positioning
Following storyboard
movement shots (zoom pan)
Background noise
Costume/props/storyboard
Book out camera
Insurance forms
Tim director. In my role it primarily involves stage directions as well as helping out with other peoples roles as advising and helping everyone understand what they are suposed to do.
In this group of 4 we have, Adam, Lloyd, Vonnie and Tim each of us have a separate role, these are:
Lloyd- Editor
Adam- Sound Executive
Vonnie- Camera Work and Visual Arts
Tim- Director
Lloyd: I want to bring the knowledge that I have picked up over the years, using Final Cut and other programs to this project and also the skills I have used in past projects
Adam: As sound executive, I intend to bring my unique taste in music to this project, I also believe that music is one of the most important features of the film, and hence listen closely to music in films, with this I should be able to look at the film we made and create a piece that fits the scene.
