PRODUCTION

Production practical skills(the Product): Exploration, adaptation and application of skills in film

Production Report
Shoot 1
The first shoot which was at Fleet, Holbeach never happened due to the isolation of the location against where my actors lived meaning they couldn't get to and from the location. This location was intended for Movie Night which was the name of my film before it had to be changed due to this location being unavailable. What i learned from this shoot was that locations cant be too far if your actors have to find their own way there.

Shoot 2
This Shoot took place in C004 in the creative studios at the College of West Anglia. This shoot went to plan with myself arriving at location at 7:45 allowing myself an 1:45 hour window which i wanted so i could gather kit and place it all within the location so as soon as my actors got in we could begin shooting. All agreed to be there by 9:00 but one of my actors was late so it became 10:00 instead. We began shooting 10:15. The plan was to film the fight scene first so that way we could film all exterior shots during lessons in the afternoon. We filmed the beginning of the second scene, when we was on the third shot we recieved complaints about the noise which was coming from the room. When this was brought to our attention we stopped shooting and this shoot ended as the scene we were shooting involved alot of movement making alot of noise. I decided to organize another shoot for the following week but this time i spoke to those who complained saying what were doing and asking for permission since the property owner said it was okay with their permission. They agreed to let us film.

Shoot 3
This was the shoot which worked, I arrived early same as last and double checked with the property owner if we were okay to film to which we were given the green light. I then worked on gathering the kit i was going to use. The lighting in this room was poor but since it was a sunny day we only used natural light for the shoot and limited light from the portable lights and reflectors. The next job to was to build the camera rig. I used a canon 1300d as this camera was the one i was most familiar with. I then used a shoulder rig to ensure that all the footage i got that was handheld(Which was majority of the shots) were stable enough to layer over the graphics i was going to use. I then began preparing the room to be changed in to my set which was very complex as it was just moving a couple of tables and chairs. Whilst i was doing this i had my zoom H4 recorder loading up, the reason for this being done so early was because the Zoom audio recorder has to look over all the files that are on the card which takes a while when the SD card is 32GB which i found out during my technical testing from Shoot 2.

All my actors were here by this point so i could begin filming. I began working through the shot list which was i mainly used to make the piece my storyboard wasn't very accurate since there a lot of one shots in the beginning. We finished the filming of the first scene around 10:30 which was ahead of schedule so we had a 30 minute break before moving onto the first scene since that was going to to be the scene which was going to be filmed outside and in the communal area.

When the clock turned 11:00 We began filming the first scene which is the Intro and this took around 10 minutes to film since it is 3 shots two of which are long one shots with lots of movement from the cameras perspective. These shots went smoothly but when ran into some problems when it came to communicating from outside to those inside, the way we worked around this was by having a phone call between outside and inside acting as a radio.

We then filmed the final scene which is the encounter between Dylan and Corbyn. I filmed this in program order to make sure i got all the shots needed for the final cut. During this shoot we didn't run into many problems besides people walking through the set which was expected. Another problem i ran into was light conditions from outside to inside. So i changed the shot i was going to do, i changed from a long shot to two shot which i can change the F stop for so i can get a clear image. After this shoot i had finished shooting and got all i need to begin the edit.

Problems i ran into when filming was with the audio i captured, I ran into problems with the recorder i was given had problem with phantom power so the mic would record which was a minor set back which wasn't a problem due to me coming in early in the morning. Another problem i encountered was with the audio i recorded. What i found was that the audio was too quite which was okay but allowed room for lots of white noise in the background which doesn't make the blend seamlessly the way it would before which i am going to have to correct in post using Foley and even possibly ADR.

Overall i think the shoot for my piece failed as i had two shoot that failed and the last shoot was too close to the deadline to be able to make a acceptable edit. Where i believe the problem occurred was in my scheduling as the kit and myself were ready but some of the cast could not make it. Going forward i know what i must do which is check multiple times to find out when the cast can and cant shoot. When planning this shoot i got confirmation saying they were available but i did remind them of the shoot day until it was too late. This had become the problem for the rest of the project since my idea had to be adjusted to meet a new location, with a knew style, this is production is not acceptable as the implementation of theory becomes skewed.

Post-Production Report
When beginning my edit i had imported all the footage i was going to use. I then placed all the footage into a bin which would give me file organisation during the edit. The reason for the footage to be separated into bins is i can clearly see what shots have been used and which haven't. When i work on larger projects i use bins for each scene as there is a lot of footage but it in this case since there isn't a lot of footage i was able to place it all within one bin.

I then imported the song i was going to use. This song would also be placed within its own bin for organisational purposes.

I then gathered all the audio i had from the shoot which was recorded on a Zoom H4 audio recorder. This audio was imported and placed within a bin.

I began by creating 6 timelines, the reason for this being that there are five scenes in the film which i will be editing separately as it will reduce the amount of footage that needed to be on the timeline at a time.

The sixth timeline was for stitching the five together to make the final piece.

Now that all the footage is cut together its time to add a title graphic.

I began working on the way the footage looked. I did a basic color grade which i checked against all shots since i didn't want to have shots that didn't match.

Graphics
The graphics that i wanted to implement into my film i couldn't do due to time constraints. Since my shoots were pushed back too late i only had enough time to add any complex graphics. What i was going to add where gun shots and bullet wounds to my actors for all the gunshots in the piece. I was also going to add a lightening effect to Ralph when he attack Chris. I was also going to parallax my actors faces onto the movie posters of their characters favorite films. The Graphic I did add was a simple title. 

Now that all the footage is cut together its time to add a title graphic. Originally i wanted to animate a title graphic from scratch but with the time constraints i am going to make the graphic using premier pro. I began by using the text tool and righting the name of the title, Movie Club. Once i had this i added a stroke to the text with gave the text motion. I changed the font to something that fits the feel for the piece. I chose a custom font called "Good Times". Now that i had the text i found the background was too jarring so i blurred the background which gave a nice effect. i made this effect slowly transition so it blended together nicely.