Re-shooting and Re-Editing Process

So now we have had our classes feedback on our rough cut, it is time to do improvements on our film to get a much better final cut. This is done through re-shooting shots and re-editing footage and sounds.
 However, for us it was simply just re=-editing our rough cut because when we went to re-shoot 3 of the shots that needed doing (such as the shot where Millie looks directly at the camera), our actor never turned up to film, which left us in a really bad position as we had no more time to do the re-filming because we also had a lot to re-edit. SO we have had to leave re-shooting any improvements and simply do extremely well in improving our film through the editing instead.

Re-Editing Process

Adding our ident onto the front of our film

The first bit of improving that we did was to add on the ident that Charlotte had created in Motion to the front of our film. It was originally 10 seconds long (roughly) which we knew was far too long, and at the same time there was no noise to compliment the flames that were flickering, so we have cut it shorter so that it near enough straight away explodes and 'Volcanic Productions' appears out of the smoke. This was to symbolise a volcanic eruption and the fact our films have a big impact.
At

Altering the sound effects and sound tracks

After this we spent most of our time making sure the soundtrack was perfect and the sound effects (foley) were correct been as in the feedback we had, a few people in the classroom noticed that one of the effects was the wrong one and didn't fit the footage. This had been because we couldn't find the original and had't the chance to record another, however we managed to hunt it down through the many sounds of the sound recorder till we found it.

At 00:51 we needed to dub in the sound of a man crying and all of the on-line sound effects were really bad, so instead we got a friend to cry over the sound recorder. At 01:28 we needed to change the sound of the briefcase being placed down so we had to record more foley to replace it. There was a lot of volume adjusting as well to do, like at 01:32 the sound was a bit to loud so needed decreasing. Some of the soundtracks needed heightening or lessening at certain points of the film to add to the affect on the viewer: for example at the slap scene (01:58)  the soundtrack needed to be built up. 

Changing the font and style of our film title

Once the soundtracks and sound effects were all completed, we moved onto altering the style and font of our film's title "Behind Closed Doors". It was said to be a little boring and standard and needed to be changed so we looked through the font styles and adapted how it looked like and the size of it. We were advised to perhaps put the title at the start of our film, but we liked how we had positioned the title at the end and the symbolism behind it so we chose to live it where it was.

Adding on the credits to the end of our film

Once the titles were sorted out, it was time to move onto the other improvement, which was to add in the credits. We researched different production team roles that would have had something to do with our film and added them onto the credits in order before finally altering the font and style to look more professional and less simple. 

We also acknowledged the feedback about the paper-boy at the end of the film by doing what was recommended, which was to get rid of the shots. In replacement we were able to put longer credits which were more in depth as we decided to put more of the production team roles on it instead of just a few. 

We have also made our film under 5 minutes long without the credits on!! Whereas before, without the credits and ident, our film had been 5 minutes and 13 seconds long.

Rough Cut Feedback and Evaluation

Yesterday was the day that myself and my team presented out finished rough cut to the class and got peer assessment from them and Mr Hood. The video below shows the class stopping the video and commenting on both negative and positive aspects of our films and telling us how to improve our film.

'Behind Closed Doors' Feedback

Overall, our rough cut wasn't a complete fail (although I couldn't stop cringing throughout the entire time of watching it) and we got higher scores on each category then I had originally expected. There were obviously room for improvements but there was also positive comments that occurred.

Positive Comments
One part of our film that the class liked was the soundtrack. They felt that it worked to build up the tension in certain areas or mellow the mood in others and went well with the film. Others, outside of my class, also agreed that the soundtrack was one of our films redeeming features - which we were pleased about been as it took a while to edit together properly.

Second part of our film that was positively commented on was the creative use of the camera and the way that it was filmed. An example of this is the mirror shots where Rebecca (Alice) is in the bathroom, staring at her own reflection. They really liked how we quickly panned the camera as Rebecca turned her head to look at the door to make the audience see what she was looking at, without making the shot a point-of-view and the extreme close up of Rebecca's eyes in the mirror's reflection which really looked like she had been crying and was scared.

They also liked the way we had edited the scenes together, particularly the quick editing at the beginning of Scene 2, where we cut together the shots of Rebecca blowing out the candles and Alex (Richard) walking in through the door and placing keys and briefcase down quickly to build up tension.

We were also complimented on the fact that our choice of cast members made the relationship between Richard and Stacey believable, despite the fact that the boy is in college and the girl is only in year 7.

Ways of Improvements
There was one shot that we went a little out of focus as the camera tilted up from Rebecca lying on the floor to Alex sitting on the stairs. A few times things went out of the camera frame; like Millie's head in scene 3 while the class also picked up on the fact in the same shot she looked directly at the camera! There was also a slight shadow on her arm which was pointed out.

There was also some shots that had two sets of effects on them which caused them to be far to bright while others had no affect on them at all - we hadn't noticed this in the editing phase and it was only till we presented the rough cut that we noticed them.

When Rebecca (Alice) hit's her head off the banister, we have the screen cut to black and the sound of somebody falling down the stairs and the 'One Week Later' appearing straight after. We were told to lengthen the black screen between the text and the hitting of her head.

The end scene after scene 3 which was the part with the paper-boy walking up and putting a newspaper into the letter box was commented on and found a little out of place and adding nothing to the film apart from confusion for the viewer. It made the film look unfinished, so the class recommended that we simply took those shots out of the film. However, others from out of our class after the first watch of our rough cut, instantly knew what we were trying to achieve by putting it there = which was to show how nobody knows what is happening behind closed doors and that life still carries on. This was the moral (in a way) of our film.

One person did advice us to perhaps move our title from the end of our film to the start, so that it would introduce the film straight away however we all felt that we liked the title at the end because it held it away from the audience and didn't give anything away. We wanted the title's meaning to be clear so that when the viewer so it at the end they knew why the film was called it.

Scores/Levels:

Each rough cut was assessed by the class on 7 different things:
1) Controlled use of the camera
2) Close attention to framing
3) A variety of shot sizes used
4) Close attention to mise-en-scene
5) The film is edited so that meaning is clear to the audience
6) The soundtrack is appropriate; it supports the visual images
7) The soundtrack mix is well-balanced

With these in mind, the class watched out rough cuts and then gave us an estimated assessment based on the following levels and marks:
- Level 1 = (0-14)
- Level 2 = (15-23)
- Level 3 = (24-31)
- Level 4 = (32-40)

What we got:
1) Mostly level 4s and a couple of level 3s
2)  Level 4s across the board
3) Level 4s across the board
4) Level 4s across the board
5) Mostly level 3s with a couple of level 4s
6 +7) Mostly 3s with one level 4

'Behind Closed Doors' Rough Cut

After long hours (literally) of filming and editing our film we FINALLY got our rough cut finished!! Watching the film through, we have noticed sum major things that need altering: like the clip presented on the start of the film below: it has two effects on it, which has made it incredibly bright and some of the soundtrack didn't fit very well. However we are rather happy with our rough cut - it turned out better than we hoped.

Behind Closed Doors

Now it's time to show it to the class and get it peer assessed. :)

Editing Day 6

Final day of editing!! 

 Soundtrack editing and making sure everything is correct

Daniel set about straight away, with the headphones on, putting scene 3's soundtracks (that was Indus and Sonic Germination) into the timeline and editing them. He had a clear vision of how he wanted the sound to go. Cameron and myself sat around him and gave ideas and helped out and Daniel often gave us the head phones to allow us to hear the soundtrack and give comments back to say whether it sounded better or worse. I placed Scene 3's music into the exact place I felt they should appear which then allowed Daniel to work around it and adjust volumes and timing to make sure it all flowed beautifully. Cameron also did some of the sound editing, helping to shift the video footage to match the sound or detaching the sound from the videos to allow Daniel to edit it easily. 

Once this was done, we shared our film onto YouTube, this took almost an hour and a half to finish, and then quickly posted it on our blogs to present our rough cut to the class straight afterwards.

While this was being done, Charlotte was continuing on with the script and making sure that that was done ready to be put on the blog.  She also double checked to make sure that the ident she had created on 'Modify' (a programme she had used in her AS film to do the same thing) was just the way we wanted it. She did have another look for fire sounds to put over the ident, however with little success at finding any good ones.

Next up will be getting feedback from our peers and then working on the improvements to make our film better and hopefully gain higher marks. :)

Editing Day 5

Sound Editing - applying soundtracks

So yesterday during editing we were finishing up the editing process, clearing up dialogue and adding in further sound effects for the parts we had missed and just edited. Today it was a quick glance over what we had already done and then applying soundtracks to our film. Because our film was 5 minutes long, we didn't just want two soundtracks running through the inter film - the music needed to help 'tell the story'. 

I went hunting on FreeSFX.co.uk and Audio.lgfl.org.uk for the correct soundtracks. It took ages to find them because we wanted a particular type of music for each section of the film. At the beginning we placed a soundtrack called Mary which I got from FreeSFX because it sounded sad and delicate; fitting for scene 1. For Scene 3 we used Indus and Sonic Germinations; both from Audio - mostly because one of them was rather happy sounding, which tricked the audience into thinking nothing bad is going to happen, and then the music once again changes to a sadder soundtrack for the second death scene shortly after Richard puts the ring in the bin. Scene 2 is mostly just Approaching the Hour which I'm pretty sure I got from Audio again, along with different sections of other soundtracks for different effects. 

Daniel managed to sort of scene 1's soundtrack and part of scene 2's but ran out of time to do the rest and scene 3, we will be doing that in tomorrow's editing session. It took a lot of fiddling about to get the music to fit perfectly in with the film, Daniel paid so much attention to getting different notes to synchronise with footsteps and little things like that to give a big impact, that by the time we had finished today's editing there was so much green around the blue video line that you could clearly see how much effort had gone into making sure that the soundtrack presented our film in the best way possible.  

Editing Day 4

Adding in all the sound effects (Foley)

Not only was it adding sound effects day but we also wanted to bring in Rebecca to redo some of the script again for us to replace/dub over the top of the dialogue in the film. She came in after school and sat with us roughly for an hour while Daniel recorder her saying her lines once again, just louder and clearer for us to put on Final Cut Pro if we needed them. 

Daniel also played around with the levels of the sounds and made sure that everything could be heard but had no popping noises or background noise in them. He then began importing the sounds he had recorded on the sound recorder onto the mac and into our project so he could start to overlap them on our video to create better sound effects instead of using the extremely quiet noises off the video footage. 

The editing session went well; we had now problems during the editing like last year for example, when I accidentally turned the computer off without saving the work on Soundtrack Pro. Everything was pretty easy to do due to the new software however we did lose some of our sound effects that we had recorded on the sound recorder - we simply couldn't find them on there, so we improvised with other sounds for now that sounded similar.

So far no soundtracks, this will be done after all of the dialogue and sound effects are in place so that we can hear everything together with the soundtrack before making or choices. 

Editing Day 3

Scene 3 being edited

As you can tell from the photo captain above, today was the editing of scene 3. This scene had no effects on it what so ever, this being because we wanted it to appear present and not a memory or a dream. This meant that during filming we had to hope that every shot was in focus and not grainy like previous shots had been like. 

It was simply just sitting in the media suite editing together more video. Overall our film went over 5 minutes by roughly 13 seconds? We felt that wasn't bad considering how much we had to leave in the film to make sense to the audience. I was forever saying "cut this short" and "cut that shorter" but got told off by Cameron that editing everything too short will also loose effect because it gives effect. I was just more worried about the time, however I did eventually see that what he said was true and allowed certain shots to be left longer - no matter how much it bugged me. ;)

The dialogue in the footage was also altered today by having the background remover applied to them along with the hum removal as well to make sure that when Alex, Rebecca and Millie spoke, the viewer can clearly hear what they say without sudden ambience noises appearing in the background. Sometimes the background remover &/or the hum removal don't actually work that great on certain sounds and dialogue, however we didn't encounter this problem and we managed to get every piece of dialogue cleared.

Editing Day 2

Second day of editing!

We were moving further into scene 2 today as well as beginning to put on sounds from the sound recorder onto Final Cut Pro X so that we could begin adding them in on our film. These shots depicted on the image above had dialogue = which is the first time that myself, Cameron and Daniel have ever used it and Charlotte used only a little in her AS film, so it was a new experience for us. 

Some of the dialogue had really bad ambience sound or static in the background that sounded REALLY bad, so we were able to use background remover which is part of Final Cut Pro X that once ticks, limits the humming and noises in the background of the speech. We did this for every shot that had dialogue in it to make it crisper and clearer for the audience. 

For every shot that Cameron edited together and put into the timeline, I dragged on the effects that went with that shot - so if it was a shot in scene 1 it was cold steel whereas (as I said in the last post) is it was scene 2 it would have been dream and romantic. Once I did this to newly edited shots, Daniel went along adding presets to the shots to make sure they each looked the same level of lighting etc. He also found some scenes where I'd put two effects on, which really made the shot quite bright.

Ident

Charlotte was still working on this. Today she was trying to find an appropriate fire crackling noise for when there is a circle of flames, however she couldn't quite find the perfect one and so she eventually gave up because the sounds were all really bad and didn't fit. Nevertheless, the ident still looks rather cool but it just needs shortening down to prevent us going over time too much, It was roughly 10 seconds, I think, but we are planning on shortening the length to around 5 seconds; on estimate. 

Editing Day 1

So now we have finished the shooting part of the filming process, it was time to sit in the media suite and edit the film together and add on our ident and chosen soundtracks. We did this on Final Cut Pro X, as I have said previous in my blog.

The beginning

To start with began with editing together just the video before we moved onto the foley sounds and then the dialogue and finally the soundtrack. Our film has three scenes, and we felt that it was important to edit together scene 2 and scene 1 together first and then add on scene 3 later due to it not being as important. 

Cameron did the majority of the video editing as he knows how the new final cut pro works and is was really good at editing the first part of the video. The screen shot above shows the process of us editing scene 1, where Alice is seen lying at the bottom of the stair, dead.  Next to it is the very basic beginning of scene 2 which we had started editing together but it is still pretty simple and has none of the effects on it so far. 

I hunted through the effects (depicted bottom right on the image) and found the perfect effects for over the top of scene 2 to give it the perfect past/memory look. The effects were called Dream and Romantic. The Dream effect gave the video a nice old looking image while Romantic gave a soft blur in the bottom left corner of the screen which really brought out the fact that peoples memories aren''t always as sharp as they think and parts are missing from our memories or blurred out. I also looked on the internet and found different free soundtracks that we could use; which we are going to wait a few days to put into our film.

Daniel is our sound-editor. Having a current influence from music we thought this would just give him that extra edge for editing together the soundtracks I had chosen. Furthermore, he has the sound recorder during filming and seemed only fair that he was able to carry out that in the editing part. 

The first day of editing went successfully. Everything so far edited together perfectly and we had hardly any problems; which we were dreading because the shots that had the head injury in them we couldn't do again due to the length of time it took for me to get it right as well as the fact I would never be able to get it to look the same again. Ripping tissue paper the same shape every time is pretty much an impossible task!! Luckily it edited together with the others alright, except we found a continuity error of how Alex was holding his position on the stairs: he had changed his hands!!! So we had to go and re-film that particular shot the next day to make sure that there was no sudden jumping hands.

We did have a few arguments on the first day of editing - mostly of us not agreeing where things should go or simply getting irritated, however we did calm down and get on with the film and manage to come to an agreement on how the shots should be edited. A few times I wasn't allowed to look at the screen until Daniel and Cameron had edited some shots together because they wanted to surprise me with how it looked and knew if I was watching I would be picking faults = turns out when they showed me the shots, it was pretty good, so I didn't have to pick faults with the shots. :) Yay!

Ident

While we edited, Charlotte began  on our ident idea. The previous idea of a volcano erupting was proving difficult to find and so she has managed to create something that represents the bird's-eye-view of the opening of a volcano and then making it explode for our production team name to pop up. She will be working on this and tying up the new version of the script during this time. 

8th Day of Filming

Brief Information:

Date: Saturday 17th January

Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: All Day (Day and Night)

Time filming started: 12:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm

Scene: 1 + 3
Shots: 73-84 - Interior & 1/2+10-14 - Interior

Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume
Charlotte Smiths - Lighting and Directing

Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard
Millie Russell - Stacey

Summary of the Day:

Our Production team minus 1 + an actress (Cameron was taking the photo)

Charlotte and myself discussing ring scene

The final day of filming!! Oh my, it was such a rush! We weren't sure whether we would get all of the remaining scenes done in time however, come roughly 9:00pm we finished up all of the filming - both scene 3 and scene 2 which enabled all of us to just breath a sigh of relief. 

Scene 3 was once again Millie's shots in the daylight. We hit of the filming day with a mid shot of Alex walking towards the camera and having only his arm in the shot - everything was cut off - and having Millie in full shot behind him. To do this we put the camera on the side, balanced on a walnut to keep the tilt, and pressed record. We all ran out of the way, counted about 2 seconds and then said action. This shot took roughly 2 takes to do because Alex listened to what he had to do, where he had to stand etc while Millie quickly adapted to her role and both improvised and did as she was told, which we liked because it worked. So for this shot, a walnut is given thanks for the shot because nobody was actually manning the camera at that point. :)

Shortly after, we got onto match-on-actions of Millie walking through the door into the living room from the kitchen. She did this brilliantly almost every time however both myself and Charlotte (she was filming this particular shot while I directed) felt that certain elements weren't right; she wasn't smiling enough, the reaction was too quick or too slow.. etc. It had to be perfect and believable. After a while we got the shot we wanted and then moved on into the living room to get the shot that matched it. Without being told what to do, Millie did exactly the same thing first time, however we then felt it would be even better if she took her coat of as she sat down. Millie did this knew part in 1 take - she just adapted to it so quickly. 

Next up was the engagement ring scenes. From the second photo above, you can see Charlotte and myself discussing exactly when the ring would appear in the scene and what Richard would do with it. We decided on having him put it in the bin as it would give a dramatic effect because he is, technically speaking, just thrown his love for his dead girlfriend in the bin and shifted to another woman. Charlotte filmed shots 78, 79 and 80 which is all the shots of Richard and the engagement ring. 

Once this was done came the hardest shot we have ever had to do. The timing of this was absolutely crucial to getting the most effective and perfect shot that we could get. All hands were on deck - Alex and Millie were acting, Cameron was filming - he was operating the camera which was on the tracking dolly at the time - and Daniel was pushing the tracking dolly poles back into the hallway (they had been placed over-lapping the door frame to get a closer track) while Charlotte was pulling the poles. This allowed the poles to move twice as quick and helped add to the zooming out potion as Cameron tracked backwards. HOWEVER, that was not all. I was tucked up behind the door in the living room and had to time the shutting of the door with A) the poles being removed from across the threshold and B) with the acting. I needed to begin pushing the door at a relatively slow but smooth pace just as Alex says "Of course we can be together" but not completely shut it until he has partly strangled her; we didn't want the full strangulation on camera. It took SO many takes to get the perfect one and the daylight was leaving us. We had many problems with the shot such as I shut it too quick or the cast members went out of frame or even the tracking dolly hit the side of the door and knocked the camera, causing a jolt. Despite this, we think that the hard work paid of and we have got a creative shot at the end of our film.

After that, once night fell (around half 5) we began to finish scene 1. We had roughly 4 shots to do in total and for one of them I found myself as a human wedge because I offered myself up to sit between the freezer and the washing machine to stop the freezer from sliding across the floor when Alex slid down it and 'cried' :). These shots were pretty easy to do and once we had regained Alex's attention we managed to get them done - however they did take up the time from half 5pm till 9pm which was probably a bit long for 4 shots.

In conclusion, filming this year has had plenty of ups and downs and disasters. It's really been an eye opener and showed us the impact when certain things go wrong in the filming industry; like cast dropping out etc. However it's been a fun experience, like last year, and we have met new people, like Rebecca, and become pretty good friends and we have had a few laughs - and tears and arguments - but it's all paid off and we have FINALLY got something to edit together and then present to the class!

Now it's on to the editing process of our film! The following post will be day 1 of editing.

7th Day of Filming

Brief Information:

Date: Thursday 15th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night

Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm

Scene: 2+1
Shots: 59-60 - Interior and 6-9 Interior

Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist - Stunt Co-ordinator
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume - Stunt Co-ordinator
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Directing

Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the Day:

There were people on the stairs at this point to make sure that Rebecca didn't seriously fall down the stairs. 

Discussing the next shots to do

Today was probably my favourite shooting day of the inter lot. It was the day we had all been waiting for: the day our actress "falls down the stairs" and then gets a gory head injury (as seen above)! The mood was a buzz, everybody had a laugh and enjoyed themselves doing shots 59 and 60, however they took a lot of time to do due to them being figured out, practised by myself and Daniel first to make sure they actually look right before making Rebecca do it herself.

The very first take of shot 59 was brilliant except for her hand being still in shot and Alex not letting go because of instinct. This brought out fits of giggles but ultimately it proved to us that this shot was possible. (For the record, our actress wasn't literally going to fall down the stairs :)) It took roughly 6-7 takes to get the perfect shot, which compared to others we thought was okay.

It took roughly hour and a half/2 hours for me to complete Rebecca's head injury to the level that I wanted with toilet paper, PVA glue, make-up and fake blood, and it took constant topping up to make the blood look fresh however we all felt it came out effectively and successfully as it looks real enough on camera and was much better to get the resources together. I asked the art department for some clay to use to get a mould from the edge of the stairs bannister so I knew precisely what shape the wound would have to be in Rebecca's head.

The finished head injury

After the falling down the stairs shots, we went straight onto scene 1 and filmed all of the shots where Rebecca's head was in shot that had the wound on. This was because we knew we wouldn't have time for me to redo the head injury in the short space of time we had and so once Rebecca washes it off, that's it, so shots 6-9 were all of the shots that we thought there would be a slight possibility that her head would be in shot.

Daniel did take over the cinematography for a while today and filmed shot 60 because both myself and him were the stunt co-ordinators and wanted to figure out where the camera would be better. I stayed above Rebecca to make sure she did't fall, however I did shift downstairs to help even more. Cameron remained camera man and filmed shots 6-9 and shared shot 59 with Daniel at times. 

6th Day of Filming

Brief Information:

Date: Wednesday 14th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night

Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 8:00pm

Scene: 2
Shots: 51-58 Interior

Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Directing

Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the Day:

Working out how to do mirror shots (shots 54/56/57)

Yesterday's filming took us all the way up to shot 51, which was where the argument went upstairs. To begin with Daniel, Cameron and I all crammed into the bathroom with Rebecca to film shots 54, 56 & 57. These shots were filmed looking into the mirror at the reflection of Rebecca and needed a lot of practise to get right. It also involved a new form of "water torture" as we all came to call it, as I had to soak a piece of tissue and squeeze it under Rebecca's eyes to make it look she had been crying because she wasn't able to cry on command. 

Because the bathroom was so small, it was incredibly cramped with four people, 2 reflectors and a tripod inside of it however we made it work and came out with some pretty cool shots. We did it by myself sitting on the floor and acting as Alex (doing the knocking on the door to help time Rebecca time her turn in shot 56) and holding the reflector, while Dan balanced on the side of the bath to aim the LED light in the particular area while Cameron did the filming. 

Once we had tackled those shots, it was time to move onto the hallway shots, where the viewer would see Richard walking up the stairs towards the bathroom door as well as the shot from half way up the stairs where Rebecca would run towards the camera and past it to show she is running to somewhere upstairs. It took a few takes to get rid of any dead space and to make sure that everything went align with the rule-of-thirds etc. Daniel did this bit of filming, without the tripod because it was too big to fit on the stairs and we also wanted a lot of hand held camera work to depict the chaos and the violence within the film. Having still camera work didn't seem right when somebody was distressed and running.

Because of the shorter time frame, we only had time to do a few shots so we were thankful that the shots we did actually only took about 2 takes each - which allowed any room for improvements and tea breaks because we managed to get them all done. We had wanted to start on the "falling-down-the-stairs" shot but we felt that doing that would be best for the next filming day because it we knew it would take a lot of co-coordinating and getting it spot on but in a safe way. Overall I, personally, felt today's filming went okay - there were a few reappearing issues that we had to once again deal with, however we got over them and recovered so that we were able to get on with the filming of the rest of the shots.

5th Day of Filming

Brief Information:

Date: Saturday 10th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: All Day (Day and Night)

Time filming started: 12:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm

Scene: 2+3
Shots: 62-72 Interior + Exterior & 43-50 Interior + shot 5

Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Directing

Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard
Millie Russell - Stacey
Daniel Dabbs - Paper-boy

Summary of the Day:

??

Original photo idea for scene 1

Daniel setting up sound recorder

So today started pretty early for all of us; 12:00pm on the dot. Was rather funny been as Daniel didn't get up till practically when we were at his door step, came downstairs looking like a zombie he was that tired ;)

Scene 3 required daylight and we need a relatively large amount of time to cram as many shots in as possible before half 5 which was when Millie went home, it started getting dark and we'd move onto scene 2. We began with shot 62 which was a close up and slow zoom of Alex's hands stroking Alice's necklace. This took concentration and a steady hand to get it effective, and then end result that Cameron managed to get was spot on - it did take about 4 takes however. 

There were exterior shots to do in scene 3. These were about 3 of the Stacey character and 4/5 shots of the Paper-boy. We got out the storyboard and checked to see how each shot would look like as well as what they would be like from a slightly different angle and then sent Cameron and Daniel out with the camera and sound recording kit to do them while myself and Charlotte worked on the script upstairs as the script needed altering for scene 3 because we all decided that Millie was too good an actor for such a small part and the idea that we had come up with needed further depth to it and having Richard murder Stacey meant we needed to change the old script to fit it. 

The daylight shots that included Millie and Alex took all of the day to do because for the first few shots we were doing them from different angles to see which one looked better. When we got to shot 69 it was a lot of shot reverse shots due to the characters having a conversation. We did this by setting up the camera behind Alex to start with and filmed Millie coming in through the door and then running through the complete conversation so that in editing we could cut it accurately. After that, we shifted the camera behind Millie and filmed Alex saying his parts while in the conversation and then walking off into the kitchen (shot 72).

Once Millie left for home it was time to get Alex out of his scene 3 costume and into his scene 2 costume, while Rebecca had her make-up done. The nights schedule was to finish all of the kitchen shots, which was when the photo is smashed. Obviously we weren't going to get our actor, Alex, to smash the photo when he 'hit' it off the corner because its a potential health and safety risk and we also needed it doing right - plus having only two photo frames meant we only had two getting the shot correct. We got around this by a) Using 1 photo frame as the one that was not smashed and the other as the smashed that was presented in shot 5 on the floor in scene 1. To smash the glass we took it to the bottom of the drive outside, wrapped it in kitchen roll and took a hammer to it. Then we gathered up all of the pieces of glass for later use.

Before we did the shots with the photo frame in we needed to quickly take a photo of our cast members to put into the frame (Daniel had a printer at home with photo paper). First of all we took the photo above, which presented both Stacey (Millie) and Alice (Rebecca) with Richard in the centre of them. We believed this looked good until we realised that Alice wouldn't really get as upset if her boyfriend ripped up a photo with another women in (especially the women she hates). She would get more upset about her boyfriend ripping up a photo of them together with some happy memories, so we took another photo of just Alex and Rebecca outside and used that instead. 

4th Day of Filming

Brief Information:

Date: Friday 9th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night

Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm

Scene: 2
Shots:  31-42- Interior

Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Directing

Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the Day:

Sorting out the props

Today was another successful day as we got a large amount of filming completed, despite a few hick-ups along the way like the usual lighting issues that we had when filming in the living room.  The plan for today was to complete the living room shots and move the scene into the kitchen - preferably start on the kitchen shots (starting shot 43) if possible. 

Again we had to set up all of the props on the table - not a day has gone by that we haven't had to set it all up; the amount of juice we went through... ahh! We were extremely fussy about where everything went, right from the candles being turned the right way to the place mats being the correct ones and the right way up.

We were all pretty tense and excited about filming this part of our film due to a few certain aspects of it. The first one was the slapping-of-Alex's-face shot (shot 35) as we were unsure whether we could get the perfect camera angle to enable the slap to look real while it actually wasn't. Myself and Charlotte adjusted the script a little at this point as we thought the original script was a bit unrealistic and simple, so we wanted to spice things up and make it flow better with the new shot ideas. A point-of-view shot from Richard's eyes was considered to start with to show Rebecca (Alice) slapping Alex (Richard) however Cameron thought that it wasn't going to be as effective as actually seeing the slap, so we replaced the POV shot with shot reverse shots and match-on-actions to show the slap from different angles; just to add an edge to it instead of showing a boring still shot. Cameron the Camera-Man was correct on changing our minds. :)

The other shot that we were tense about was shot 38. This was were Richard (played by Alex) lost his temper at his girlfriend, Alice, shouted "Shut up" and slammed down the chair from the side of the table. Although we thought this would be incredibly affective, and when we tried it once we believed it to have worked, we felt that the action was far to vigorous to keep redoing to get the perfect shot for fear it would break the glass table and flimsy chair SO instead we replaced the chair with the Romeo and Juliet book that had been placed upon the table, just where Richard could pick it up and throw at the door. This took a few takes to get right - including myself sandwiched behind the door to stop it from swinging into the wall as the book hit it with some force. Alex really managed to portray good anger in this shot - so much so that the camera doesn't actually give him justice because we all freaked out when he first shouted; it was rather scary.

 

Charlotte and myself shared the role of director throughout today - mostly because we had sat down and rewrote the script together in depth and figured out how each line should be said and had a rough idea of how each line should be filmed to suit how the character would be acting. Cameron was once again the camera man, offering solutions to dilemmas that were occurring: such as where to place the camera within the living room as to not keep repeating the same shot type twice; we liked to experiment with where to put the camera: for example the shot that had the wine glass closer to the camera screen with Richard and Alice (shot 40) We felt it drove a wedge between the two, almost like a wall, as well as showing 'this is what they would have been doing' type feel to the film. Daniel did sound recorder - he recorded the sound of the slap perfectly, whilst also starting on voice recording some of what the cast members were saying.. He also took on the role of PA once again and was forever making cup of teas and cokes for everybody. 

Altogether, I think that today was successful, 

Video Footage of the book and chair scenes:

3rd Day of Filming

Brief Information:

Date: Thursday 8th January
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night

Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm

Scene: 2
Shots: 25-30 - Interior

Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematographer

Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the Day:

Cameron setting up the equipment to start filming

Today's goal was to finish off the hallway shots that followed on from yesterday's shots. This involved the first part of dialogue in our film, so Daniel was needed quite a lot at this point. The size of the hallway was limiting; everybody was cramped up trying to get into position and/or checking shots etc... so we sometimes had to alter where we placed the camera and the camera movement to make sure that we got the most out of the location. 

It took us a while to get into filming as the cast members had to quickly learn the lines they had to say for roughly the first two-three lines while I spoke with my team to get a rough idea of the routine we were going to do that we enable us to reach our goal, as well as fit in tea time (as our parents were freaking out about us not eating properly), however that took roughly half an hour, including the make-up time and setting up the props etc.

The quality of the shots Cameron filmed we felt were effective and what we wanted, while the cast spoke clearly and really tried to make sure that their relationship was believable. Rebecca was brilliant at displaying her character (Alice)'s angry side. Alex was great at getting the reaction shots right and he played his character (Richard) also brilliantly in these shots. 

Overall we all got on great and had a laugh while we got the filming done, there were a few arguments/misunderstandings between the crew however we overcome them and came to a equal conclusion. We had a laugh over the fact that Alex couldn't get the line "I was stuck at work" correctly, and had invented "I was trapped at work" instead = which we found funny because it sounded like he had been forced to stay at work by an earthquake or something - totally not what we wanted the audience to think. :) I personally think today was successful as we did eventually meet our goal, with rather a few takes per shot to get it exactly right.

The roles of the team have been exactly the same throughout today, however Charlotte took control of the camera for shots 29 and shot 30. As well as having skill in this area, the fact that she was smaller than Cameron enabled us to get the perfect two shot of Alex and Rebecca from on the bottom of the stairs, which was the only place we could put the camera that enabled a smooth pan and resulting in a close up of the characters to show the audience their faces as they spoke to present their emotions a lot more.

2nd Day of Filming

As you know, my team and I have decided to redo our storyboard, treatment, animatic and script because of problems on set with lighting and size issues which has then further allowed us to develop our idea to make it become more interesting and creative. 

Every shooting day after this will be following the new storyboard and ideas.

Brief Information:

Date: Wednesday 7th January 
Location: 57 Ramillies Crescent
Time of Day: Night

Time filming started: 4:00pm
Time filming finished: 9:30pm

Scene: 2
Shots: 16-24 - Interior

Crew Present:
Deanna Hopps - Director and Make-up Artist
Cameron Hargreaves - Cinematographer (Camera) and Set Layout
Daniel Springthorpe - Sound and Costume
Charlotte Smith - Lighting and Cinematographer

Cast Present:
Rebecca Chapman - Alice
Alex Marks - Richard

Summary of the Day:

Making sure every prop is in its correct place

So after sitting down and discussing what we were going to do, we decided to stick with our original plan of starting with scene 2, which is the main plot of our film and we wanted to get this done. Furthermore, because of school days finishing late and our cast members being in full time education (year 10) and a college student we were only able to film at night after school - which meant scene 2 was the appropriate scene to film on these days. 

It started off well; I sat down and did Rebecca's make-up while Cameron set up the camera and adjusted the exposure settings to our location. Daniel got the table ready; making sure each prop was in its correct position and then taking photos for further use. He also went and tided up the location so that we could make sure continuity was minimal to not at all. Charlotte washed up and made sure that the kitchen was clean ready for us to start.

Because Rebecca (Alice) had previously done shots 16-24 before, she was able to go straight into the acting and get it spot on first time, however the lighting was still rather dodgy and we had to fiddle around with the exposure settings to match the dark lighting in the room. We made sure that for every shot that we did, Rebecca repeated her routine again from the start to enable easier editing later on as well as making it easier for Rebecca to remember what she did to decrease the amount of continuity. 

Each person in my production team had an area of strength which allowed us all to fall into the different roles without argument or questions as we all knew who was better at what, however we did take it in turns to help each other and we worked strongly as a team to get the project completed:

 - I was, inevitably, in the role of director, making sure that every shot was filmed to perfection and that everybody was happy with it before we moved onto the next. I felt I was stronger in this position than any of the other positions due to my personality and having a vision of exactly how the film should be like = however I still needed help and advice from my fellow team members. 

Charlotte did mostly the lighting today however she did also help direct and we conferred over certain aspects of the shots we did. Daniel found himself on the other end of the sound recording kit with a set of headphones glued to his head almost permanently while Cameron was once again our main camera-man as he is the most skilled in that area and we felt it made sense we were all doing what we were strongest at. 

Transportation

We had to pick up the equipment we needed once again from media and load them up into the back of the car to drive to our location. We were there till half 9 once more and then got a lift back, however we left the equipment at our location (Daniel's house) as we would be using them the following day and felt it needless to cart everything back for everything to be brought back again so we rebooked the equipment.