Charlie's AS Media Studies Coursework Blog

After consulting with my fellow team mates and also our teacher we agreed that we needed to change our idea and also re shoot as our filming was too dark. We came up with a new shot list and filmed later that day. We obtained some good footage but were unable to complete the shoot as one of our actors had to get to work and i also had a prior engagement. We plan to shoot again early this week. We also agreed that we may need a new music track to reinforce the video we use.

Our new idea for our shoot is to, instead of opening with the antagonist in the other characters house, the antagonist is trying to break into the car of the home owner. He is then stopped by the home owners who is coming out of his house to shout at the antagonist to stop trying to break into his car. The chase then begins and the characters chase into the alley where they continue down to the bottom were the villain attacks the character and the scene ends.

We filmed for our thriller opening down the alley in Chalfont St.. peter, near the leisure centre. Me and mairead were there to film, steven was unable to make the film shoot, and my friends Lewis Brown and James Hall had agreed to act for us. We decided to film at half 5 at night as we thought that it wouldn't be too dark. The idea was to film at a time where the the actors were still visible, but we got our times wrong and it was too dark so it was difficult to see the people in the scene. So to overcome the problem we decided to reshoot and have the 2 actors holding torches which will illuminate the alley way more and also highlight the front runner more. After editing we also decided we needed a lot more footage as what we had was way too short. We have some good shots and angles were i had climbed up into a tree to give the look of a crane shot and some where we had hid in the foliage. This shoot gave us an idea of what we have to do to create a 2 minute film at this pace, it was partly unsuccessful but partly successful as we gained both positive and negative points from it.

After researching the filming style of our thriller we came across a set of rules which are used when shooting fast paced running scenes. The rules were set out by a filming studio called Dogma 95. They shoot many scenes similar to ours and say to use the rules to create an effective scene.

The Vow of Chastity

Earlier in the week a friend and i went to practice our chase scene for our thriller. The scene involves an antagonist being chased by the homeowner down an alley.
After filming and editing we found that the way we held the camera was too shaky and we were unable to see what was happening in the shot. Also the transition from the homeowners point of view and the antagonists point of view was unclear and difficult to see the transition.

This is our first try at filming and editing a short film, this is our continuity task.  For our continuity task we were given a shot list and asked to create our own short film based on the shot list. We decided to base our continuity task around the idea of a student that has started a new section of his school life, and the teacher wants to see how he's getting on.

we presented our continuity task to the group and we were given feedback and targets to improve on for our next filming task.

-music was fitting to piece
- variety of shots and angles
- some of our shots were too shaky and we needed to work on holding our camera still.
- framing was poor.
           >impacted on meaning
                     > couldn't see reactions clearly
- P.O.V not well executed
- good evidence of shot reverse shot.
- effective use of sound. need to master levels though.
- good variety of shots.
- editing was effective.

we were scored 30 / 60 for our piece, which is a level 2
our targets were to focus on
> Framing
> Continuity
> and to practice our camera movement.

This is our first development stage of our thriller opening, it is a basic outline for our opening.

1.  Criminal entering the house 
2.  POV of the criminal looking around
3.  Shot of home owner waking up after hearing a noise downstairs.
4. next shot is of the homeowner walking down the stairs with a weapon, maybe a baseball bat
5. CU of H.O stopping on the stairs with a frightened expression after hearing that someone is in his house. (noises coming from the next room)
   
6. Pan of H.O continuing down the stairs and entering the living room 
7. POV of H.O looking around the room (heavy Breathing, builds tension)
8. long shot of living room showing H.O and criminal seeing each other for the first time. 
9. (shot) CU of criminal, 
10. (Reverse) CU of H.O
11. (shot) CU criminal
12. long shot of criminal running through the living room and past the H.O, pushing him over, and running out the front door.
13. Long shot of front door opening with the criminal running out and the H.O following.
14. POV of criminal running down the road
15. POV of H.O following the crim.
16. Pan of the chase down the road, towards the alley.
    
17. (track of the chase down the road).
18. long shot of the alley opening, with the criminal entering, followed by the H.O
19. POV of Crim. running down the alley
20. POV of H.O chasing the crim. down the alley 
21. back to POV of crim. 
22. POV of H.O
23. actors turn the corner and the crim. is gone. cuts to black with the title on screen.
    

In class we were given a list of shots in which we had to collect our selves around school using HD videos cameras. we were also given tripods to stabilize our shots so the camera doesn't shake. in our groups, mine is me Steven and Mairead, we all had to use each other as actors to each collect the list of shots.

The BBFC are the British Board of Film Classification, they decide what certificate movies and some video games should be. they often create up roar is some believe their classification is inappropriate.
They take many factors into concideration when classifying a film. They look at Discrimination, Drugs, Horror, Imitable behaviour, Language, Nudity, Sex, Theme and Violence
For a 15 they classify using the following list.
"Discrimination
The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory
language or behaviour.
Drugs
Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must not
promote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easily
accessible and highly dangerous substances (for example,
aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.
Horror
Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic
or sexualised.
Imitable behaviour
Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and
self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be
copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.
Language
There may be frequent use of strong language (for example,
‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be
acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeated
use of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.
Nudity
Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but without
strong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a
non-sexual or educational context.
Sex
Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail.
There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour,
but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptable
unless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is
sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.
Theme
No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is
appropriate for 15 year olds.
Violence
Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction
of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to
be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also
unlikely to be acceptable.
There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence
but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and
have a strong contextual justification."

For an 18 movie the criteria is the same as the 15 criteria but there are additions involving sexual acts.
"Sex education at ‘18’
Where sex material genuinely seeks to inform and
educate in matters such as human sexuality, safer
sex and health, explicit images of sexual activity may
be permitted.
Sex works at ‘18’
Sex works are works whose primary purpose is sexual
arousal or stimulation. Sex works containing only material
which may be simulated are generally passed ‘18’. Sex
works containing clear images of real sex, strong fetish
material, sexually explicit animated images, or other
very strong sexual images will be confined to the ‘R18’
category. Material which is unacceptable in a sex work
at ‘R18’ is also unacceptable in a sex work at ‘18’. "

The R18 certification is for most pornographic material.

The above information was collected form the BBFC's Classification guideline publication which can be found online when you go to bbfc.co.uk and select the classification guidelines in the navigational bar on the left.

Recently my group and i have started to begin to experiment with Adobe Premier Pro, we can use premier pro to edit our clips lengths and their look and also add components to the shots like titles. i have previously used remier pro in my digital art and PVA lessons so some of the tasks we had to do were relativly easy for me as i already knew how to use it.

we were asked to perform several diferent task in premier pro, we had to
1. Import the clips
2. Order and re-name them
3. Edit them
4. Add transitions.
5. Add titles.
6. Add effects and animate, in which we had to look at positioning and setting key frames
7. And adding sound effects and overlaying.

Our task was to edit a series of clips to look like a previous groups finished movie. we had to edit the clips so they replicated the other film.  I found this easy as i have had previous experience with premier pro

 Throughout the opening titles of The Birds the camera's position doesn"t change, neither does its angle. The names of the production crew and the cast appear on screen in  front of the audience in the centre of the screen. Also in the shot are a swarm of scared or frustrated birds frantically flapping and flying across the screen in all directions. It seems as if the birds are trying to escape something or they are hunting, or casing a prey. the birds are silhouetted causing binary opposition against the white background, connoting good, white background, against evil or bad, the dark, black birds. once the cast has been introduced the shot cuts to a long shot of the character surrounded by tall, overpowering buildings. This enforces the vulnerability of the character, so insignificant in a location of such overpowering and dominant surroundings.
    The sound used in the opening sequence is non-diegetic and parallel to the action on screen. the sound helps to understand how distressed the birds are in their surrounding. the squawking and the flapping of the wings reinforces the action on screen. when the titles cut to the city scene there is alot of ambient sound added. this non-diegetic sounds helps to create the ambience of the busy city life again reinforcing how tiny and insignificance of the main character in the city.
The titles use a blue, serif font. the colour of the font is a cold blue connoting harshness of the birds, like a harsh, ice, cold winter morning.