Today we started to plan our preliminary projects. We did this by deciding, in our groups, what the story of our short film will be and writing out a storyboard to show how we will make it.
Today I contributed by choosing and describing the appropriate music to go with our film - which will be a very over-dramatic track to add comedy to the film as well as a sense of adventure as the main character runs.
I also contributed by choosing the camera angles that we will use in our film. This was important because we need to make sure that each camera shot compliments the message of the story precisely. I also had to take into account the 180 degree rule, which means that we must make sure that when more than one character is in show, we do not break the 180 degree rule by changing their positions on screen by going over the "axis" with the camera.
Adding To Our Preliminary Storyboard
Today we started adding more details to our preliminary short film's story board. We did this by adding more information to the box describing the camera angles, sound etc. and we started to discuss the editing effects that we will add when the filming is completed.
We also added some camera angles, that we have just learnt, into our storyboard. These included match-on-action, eyeline match and shot/reverse shot.
Our Finished Storyboards
Here are a couple of pictures that show our completed storyboard. as you can see, they include pictures and camera directions that will help us when making our film.
Filming and Editing Our Film
In the past few lessons, we were able to start and complete filming our preliminary short film task. To do this, we went around the school filming various scenes that we planned on our storyboard which we would later edit together.I had the role of camerawoman and this task so was responsible for the working of the camera.
We later edited our clips together and added sound using an apple mac computer.
Our Finished Opening Sequence
Below, is a YouTube link to our finished short film which we have named "The Quest""The Quest" - By Team Timing
Preliminary Report
In this report, I am going to be talking about the short film that we recently produced to show off our media skills. For this preliminary task, our brief was to make a short film, at least 30 seconds long, in which a person must walk through a door, cross a room and exchange a few lines of dialogue with another character, but the rest was up to us. In our group of 4, which included myself, Dom E, Shannon H and Lester L, we quickly decided that we were going to create a film that was both adventurous and comical that would show off the range of camera skills that we have recently learnt. Our final plan for our film came in the form of a storyboard which we all contributed to. The idea was that we create a film about a boy who gets summoned by a Guru thousands of miles away. The boy then runs all the way to the Guru to carry out his wishes, only to be told that all the Guru wants is a pizza. We all really liked this idea because of the way it covered both the adventure and comedy genres, we also believed that we could show a lot of technical skills with the camera while creating this film.
During our film, we were also instructed to include the following 3 shots:
Eyeline Match - When the character looks at something that is out of view from the camera, and then the camera shows what it is that the character is looking at.
Shot/Reverse Shot - Usually used during a conversation, the camera switches from one character to the next and back again.
Match on Action - When the action from one clip is carried through to the next so that it looks as though it was shot in one continuous clip.
During the filming process, it was my job to operate the camera. I really enjoyed this job because it meant that I was able to show off my camera skills and that I was able to see, straight away, what each scene looked like, so that I could suggest improvements that would make the film look better. While filming, it also made it a lot easier to visualise how the scenes would look when edited together later, meaning that I could film sections out of order without getting confused about how they would all come together in the end.
After we had finished filming, it was time to edit the individual clips together. We did this by uploading the clips onto iMovie in the Apple Mac suite. Once uploaded, we were able to put the clips into the right order so that they made sense. We were also able to trim the clips so that they ran fluidly from one to the other without jumping - this is where we were able to make the edits necessary to complete the "Match on Action" shot listed in our criteria.
Once all of the clips were trimmed and in chronological order, we muted the sound on all of the clips that did not include dialogue. This was so that there was no unnecessary background noises in our final film, e.g, wind, footsteps and camera noises.
We then decided that we were going to add some sound effects and music to our film, to make it more dramatic. We did this using the sounds and music available in the iMovies library so that we were not subject to any copyright laws.
We decided to use dramatic music because it built up the idea of the film being an adventure film, which also made it very funny once you realise that the main character had run all that way for nothing. This also makes the viewer feel sympathy for the main character, as they watch him run for so long only for him to be let down at the end.
Once we had finished editing the main film, we decided to add a small funny clip of a boy dancing to the end. This was because we wanted to include a clip that we could scroll credits over, which was also funny (to keep with the comedy theme). We then uploaded our finished film onto YouTube. All in all, I would say that we all contributed equally when it came to editing, because we all took turns in suggesting improvements and we were all involved in the decision making process.
From this preliminary task, I have learnt about how important it is to have a clear plan about what you are going to do before you start. I believe that we did plan very well as our initial idea was very close to being what we ended up producing, we only had to make small adjustments here and there to make the story make sense. When we do our next film though, I think that we should spend a little more time working on a script for dialogue sections of the film, as we spent lot of time thinking about what the characters were going to say while we were filming.
I also learnt about how challenging it can be to manage your time effectively between planning, filming and editing, and I think that when we next come to make a film, we will be a lot more prepared for meeting the deadlines set rather than rushing around at the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment