Week 9 W/C 23.05.16

This week was mainly based on doing my post production and evaluation, I finished off the final changes to my edit at the very start of the week to make sure that I could spend most of my time focusing on my evaluation.

At the start of the week I wanted to make sure that the edit was done and completed, me and the crew looked through the feedback again (that we got from last week.) Doing this helped me make a few slight changes to the edit, I made sure that each shot was perfectly in time with the music, I deleted a few shots and moved others around to make sure that the shots that were left weren’t being repeated and weren’t near similar shots, I also went through with my cinematographer and made sure that the colour correction in each shot looked nice and not over saturated etc. I did all of these small tweaks to make sure that I did act upon the feedback we got, from doing this I think that it has made my film look better overall and appeal more to the target audience. The final film edit was then finished at the start of the week and I was happy with how it looked.

After I finished my edit completely I then knew that I could start my evaluation. On Tuesday I started my evaluation, the first thing that I started writing about was the introduction to the unit: I wrote about the client brief, the aim of the film, how long we had for the project and who was in my crew. I went on to talk about the research that I conducted throughout the unit, how it helped me and why it was important, the research was one of the most important parts of the unit so reflecting upon my work has helped me realised the large amount of research that I did conduct and what else I would’ve done to help me in my project. The next section was about reflective journals, I spoke about how they have helped me reflect upon my work each week and how they have helped me look at the strengths and weaknesses in my work and make improvements on them. I then spoke about my actual product, I went into detail about what I like most about my final film, improvements that I want to make or would make if I had more time/another chance to do the unit again. I talked about what codes and conventions I used in my film and how it met the client brief and why I chose to use rhythmic editing. I also spoke about the script that I had to write for my voiceover and why this was a big part of the film, if I didn’t write a script for the voiceover, the voiceover wouldn’t fit the video and would seem very rushed, this would also probably ruin the rest of the video too. I then put in screenshots from the feedback that the class gave us on our video, I wrote about the changes we made after being given this feedback and how it has made the final edit look a lot more professional than what it did before. At the end of my evaluation I made comments as to what I would choose to do if I had to do the unit again and how I would improve on my skills throughout.

I didn’t really have any problems with my evaluation, I knew exactly what needed to go into each section and I think that with a bit more detail, my evaluation will be up to a high standard. We did however have a couple of problems occur with the editing, we had to delete a few clips that were similar and moved a few around as this is one of the things that people were commenting on to improve, when doing this it messed up the order of when the sound faded and peaked so my sound designer needed to go through the sound again and sort it out to fit the film again. This was only a small problem so it was sorted really quickly by the sound designer, once this was sorted the final edit was finished and the crew was happy with the final outcome.

In the spare time that I had in the week I made sure that the rest of my work was detailed and added more detail if it was lacking. I made sure that all of my work was at the highest level I could make it and was all organised clearly. This week I made sure that my final video was perfect and all of the crew were happy with the final edit. I am really happy with how our film looks and I have had a quick looking into the type of film festivals that my film could be entered into.

I have learnt a lot this week, writing my evaluation has helped me realise the strengths and weaknesses in my work and how I could improve upon my projects in the future. 

Next week I will add in more detail to my evaluation to make sure that it is the best it can be and I will make sure to check through all my work and make sure that it is clearly organised and easy to find.

Evaluation

Introduction
Our client brief was to create an adventure film that promotes adventure and encourages people to take park in activities within the National Park. For the project we needed to put all the skills we have developed so far into the film to produce what would’ve been an entry into SHAFF. The main idea was to have the film set in the Peak District because the film was to promote the peaks and the adventure activities within the Peaks. We started the introduction on the 14/03 and we then had until 16/05 to finish the project and do the post-production, the final deadline for the project to be complete is on the 10th of June. I made sure that I kept up with the work and didn’t fall behind with any of the deadlines, this helped me stay organised throughout. After pitching my idea to a panel my idea was picked and I was put into a group with Giz Emin and Georgia Trueman, we were each given the following roles: Georgia- Cinematographer, Giz- Sound Designer, Me (Hannah Walker)- Director.

Planning
I think the proposal went well, in the rationale I was able to talk more about the reasons and purposes that I wanted to create my film. I also spoke about what skills I have developed throughout this year and how I will use these skills to help me in my film, I then  went onto talk about there being a gap in the market for my film and why my film should exist. The project concept I was able to talk about what my film was actually about and what my aims were for my film. I think that I was able to do this clearly and I got my point across well. After going into detail in my proposal and presenting my idea, my idea was picked to be made.

Doing the proposal helped me develop my initial ideas, it helped me think about more details and exactly how I want my film to go. I thought more about the plot an order of the film and shots that I wanted to collect. I also thought more about whether or not I was going to be the main character in my film. After writing my proposal I decided that I was going to be the main character in the film and I decided exactly how I wanted my film to go.

I think that my proposal helped me a lot with this because I was able to easily communicate my idea to the class and I was really happy with how my pitch went. If I were to complete my proposal again I would probably add in some screenshots of images and shots to give a better example of the sort of shots I wanted to put into my film. I did a lot of planing for my project and I think that it was effective because I did meet the deadline for this with some time to spare too. Throughout the unit I think that I would’ve managed my time better by making sure that the schedule that I created was more accurate rather than a rough version, this would’ve helped me become  more organised to make sure that certain parts were finished by a certain date. I didn’t really face any problems with my planning other than when we first started the project I was stuck for an idea, to solve this I watched a range of adventure films and looked at what I could add into my film.

Research
I conducted a lot of research: analysed 2 video, looked more into SHAFF, did my own interview outside, looked into 3 existing adventure films and commented on codes and conventions in each, textual analysis, researched more about what a genre was, typical codes and conventions in adventure films, researched adventure film companies (3), created a mood board, I did 2 questionnaires (audience research), I looked into 3 Peak District websites, watched and commented on a short adventure film from you tube, I conducted some book research, I took a few images myself and commented as to why and I researched walks and places that I could go, on the trip. Most of the research I conducted was online however I did do some book research to make it more varied. I think that my research was effective as it helped my production run a lot more smoothly, I had a better idea of what I was working with and what I needed to do and look into before I started my production. With the research that I found, I made sure that I commented on each and stated as to why this would help me and my production. There were only a couple of problems that came up with my research, most websites etc were easily assessable and I was able to find out a lot of information easily. The first problems occurred when we did our own interviews outside, we had a lot of background noise so we did have to move around quite a bit to sort that out, to sort it out we did change were we were and also changed the audio levels so that the backing noise didn’t affect the sound of the speech in the interviews. The only other problems were that I didn’t get a lot of responses when I did the questionnaires and because the responses were limited the results weren’t as accurate however to overcome this I made sure that I did more that one questionnaire to make sure that I got a range of answers. I think that I would’ve made my research more effectively by making a list of what I needed to research before I started my production, I think that this would’ve helped me become more organised and know exactly what I would’ve needed to do rather than just finding certain things that I would need research and then researching them. I think that I did a lot of good research with a big range of different sources, gathering both qualitative and quantitative data- this helped me gain more accurate results throughout. I think that doing this amount of research did benefit me and my production as I found out a lot about adventure films and other things that I needed to know before filming. During production I did conduct some research about SHAFF just to get to know more about what SHAFF actually was, this helped me think more about whether or not I wanted to submit my film into the festival or not. The range of research methods I chose really helped me with finding a lot more information about the production and how I could make mine to a professional standard. It allowed me to gather a lot of accurate information from a range of sources. A few examples of my findings from conducting my research are: I found out what the typical adventure film codes and conventions are and how I could add these into my own film, I found out that there is a range of different types of adventure films and I also found out more about my target audience for my film.

Reflective Journal
I wrote a reflective journal each week to help me reflect upon what went well each week and what I could improve. The journals helped me a lot with planning out my work as I needed to think about what I would do the week after each blog and write a small summary at the end of each journal to keep track of my progress throughout the project. It also helped me with my research and actual production work, with the research I reflected on what research I had already conducted and what other research I could do. With the production it helped the reflect on what I could change and then I made changes to improve my work and develop my ideas further. Overall the reflective journals helped me a lot with organising my work and helping me make positive changes to my project to improve it throughout so I think that the reflective journals were very important for me to reflect upon how each week went for me and how I could improve on the following weeks. 

The Product
I think that my production is fit for purpose it meets the client brief and it also includes appropriate codes and conventions for example: the main colours are green, blue, oranges, typical colours to expect in an adventure film, we also used fast paced rhythmic editing to the beat of the music, which is also expected in an adventure film to make it more interesting, and we also used a wide range of shots, we made sure that each shot was slightly different and we used a lot of different angles etc to create different shots. To improve the fitness for purpose I think that I would’ve shown more of the walks and the people who do that walks around the Peaks, maybe adding in a couple of interviews of people who go to the Peaks a lot, would’ve worked too. My role was director because my project was picked to be made, to fulfil this I made sure that everything was organised throughout the project and the crew members knew exactly what was happening and were prepared throughout planning and also when creating the project.

I was responsible for writing the script as director so I needed to make sure that the script got wrote properly to how I wanted my voiceover to go . I couldn’t write my script before the trip because the voice over was about how I felt on the trip and what I could see etc so after we came back from our trip, I wrote a script for my voice over. This was a very important part of my film, the audio was used to bring the clips together and tell the story to the audience. The script was important to communicate to my audience on a personal level so I needed to make sure that what I wrote made sense and worked well with the clips in the edit.  Writing this script helped when recording audio, I was organised because I knew what I was going to say. I knew that the script that I wrote would match the video because I did a few run through’s reading my script out to the time of the video. I changed a few words and added a couple of sentences here and there to match the video better and to make it sound more interesting, for example I could’ve added more emphasis on each on each location’s names such as: Mam Tor. I think that the voice over worked well with my video because it linked to each part of the film but I also I liked the way my voice sounded the audio mix was done really well by the sound designer (biz) so it sounded really clear and crisp in the final edit.

I really like the final film and I am proud of me and my crew from how our edit has turned out, this was down to good communication. I think that the start of the film is really good, the name of our short film is aesthete and at the start there is a small opening about what the film is called and a small definition about what that word means which I think works really well, the transition from the start opening (text) to the first clip works really well too because it is very subtle but looks nice too. The go pro footage in my opinion looks really good, it gives the audience a personal link to the film and helps them feel connected to me (the character) throughout the journey. Some of the footage that we captured looks amazing and we collected a range of shots including: close-ups, wide shots, over the shoulder shots, establishing shot, pan etc. Having a range of shots helped a lot with editing because it really helped show off the Peaks from many different views. I have a few favourite shots, my first favourite shot is the go pro footage from when I was on Mam Tor, I believe that the footage looks really nice because you can see the real heights and the landscape behind me, the colours look really bright and eye-catching and I think that it also shows the feelings really well too because I was smiling and my body language showed that I was enjoying my time at the Peaks. This shot also linked to my voiceover at this point well too as I was talking about the views that were at the top of Mam Tor, and that is exactly what you could see in this shot, this provides anchorage. Another part I think works well is when you see me walking to the edge of Mam Tor and there is cuts in-between the walking, I think that it fits to the beat of the music really well and I think that the music complimented this part really well. The clips building up the beat worked well because the clips were matching in time to the beat of the music but also I think that when the beat dropped and the clip changed it looked really good. One of my favourite shots out of them all is the shot of Padley Gorge with the camera filter on, the pull focus makes it look really interesting whilst the filter makes the colours and the overall shot look really eye-catching and pretty. I really like the ending of the film because I think that it just works really well with the journey of me going to a from the Peaks, the clips show me leaving and walking back from Padley Gorge and then it shows a small part of the car journey through the go pros point of view. At the start of the film we used go pro shots of the car journey there and on the way back we used the same type of style using the go pro so I think that the ending concludes the film really well.  Overall I think that the colour correction looks really good, the colours through out look bright and all of the same colour match for example the greens are all the same type of green with not really noticeable changes to the colour as it flows throughout. I am really happy with the music, the shots match the music really well as it is cut to the beat but I also think that the voiceover sounds good too. Personally I think that the film we created looks really professional and me and the crew have worked really hard on this film and I think it has paid off, we are all happy with how the film looks overall.

I think that the only thing I would change about the whole film would be the voice over because I think that I could emphasise a few words better when talking and I could also add in more emotion to my voice. I think that this would’ve improved my film for my target audience. Changing my voice over would have made the film work better overall however I am happy with how the film is now and if I do get time to re-record audio then hopefully I would be able to change this.

I think that the final film turned out really well and I am really happy with what we achieved. The film did fit the points made in the client brief and overall worked well to fit the brief too. The only thing that I would change about this production if I could would maybe be the type of music that we used I think we would’ve used a softer type of music rather than a loud upbeat tune. I think that the main things that I learnt was based on the physical part of the production, when shooting the project I learnt more about the effects that camera filters have and how to use a range of lenses to create a better shot. I also learnt a lot more about editing shots together as I was looking through what my cinematographer did and making changes with Georgia and also I had to do the same with the sound designer Giz so I learnt more about how to edit the sound to fit the music. There were no issues between the members of my team, we were good friends before the production so I was really happy to work with my crew on this production. I think that my film does appeal to the target audience because it is upbeat and catchy which appeals to the younger ages and the main character (me) is a young teenage girl (me) who goes on an adventure in the peaks so it fits the client brief well too. I did conduct some audience research by creating 2 questionnaires, the first questionnaire was mainly to find out more about my target audience and what they expect to see in an adventure film, this questionnaire gave me an idea as to what I could add into my film for example: camera shot types. The second questionnaire was mainly to find out what to put into my film for example one of the questions was “would interviews work well in an adventure film?”. This audience research has helped me a lot with generating more ideas for my film that will suit my target audience.

Before presenting our video to the class we created a questionnaire for everyone to fill in to give us feedback after watching the film. Here are the results we got from our questionnaire:

I am really happy with the results we got from the first question, we asked what everyone thought our target audience age range was and everyone who answered picked the correct age. This showed me that our film targets our audience age range well and its very clear who our film is aimed at.


We took into account all of the feedback that each person gave us in this section and it gave me a good idea of which parts appeal to my audience the most and which parts are the most appealing. Looking at this feedback also gave me an honest opinion of the overall audio that the sound designer Giz was in-charge of but also how the cinematographer did too.

After looking at all these comments with the crew we all took on board what they all said and made a couple of changes to the final edit. We made sure that the clips were cut to the beat more precisely, we changed the order of a few shots around so that there weren’t any similar shots that were close together and we also got rid of some clips that people said didn’t look too good. We went through the colour correction and made sure that it flowed throughout and didn’t look too harsh. The only thing that we didn’t have time to do was to change the voice over. If I had more time to do this I would’ve liked to have re-recorded the voice over to give it more emotion.

Every comment from this question was exactly what I wanted people to feel like after watching the film, all of the answers were positive and helped me know that the film we have created works well and effects my audience how I wanted it to.
Over half of the people who answered the questionnaire liked the song choice and even thought we only got 6 responses it gave me a good idea of what people thought about the song we chose to put into our film. I really liked the music choice and I think that the answers from this question proved that the music worked well with the shots in the film.
I am so happy with the answers from this question, we got equal amounts of answers for both “7” and “8”, personally I think that these scores are really good for our film. I am pleased with what our film looks like and getting high scores out of 10 from all 6 respondents makes me even more confident about our final film.

I think that the feedback we received from our class was really helpful, we got a lot of constructive criticism which has helped me and the crew make positive changes to our film to make it even better, I think that overall the feedback was very truthful as the class did tell us what they thought didn’t work well and what we could change to make it better. Overall the class thought that our final film was a 7/8 out of 10 which I am so pleased about as my crew worked really hard on our project.

I didn’t  get feedback from an industry practitioner however this may have been useful for me to have feedback from someone who knows more about what a professional adventure film looks like, I would’ve contacted Matt Heason from SHAFF. The final film does adhere the media law and ethical guidelines I made sure that me and my crew did follow professional standards when creating our production, we made sure that the music we used in our film was copyright free and we made sure that we were allowed to use it in our production before we put it into our edit.

Conclusion

If I were to do the unit again I would improve my skills by:

To make improvements on my research I think that I would’ve put my questionnaires on more social media websites online to help me get more accurate results, overall I would use a wider range of sources: more books, more articles, newspapers/magazines etc.Personally I think that my planning skills were really good throughout the project however if I were to make improvements I would make sure that everything had more of a schedule and was more accurate to help me become more organised. I think that if I did the project again I would improve on my creativity by asking more people for ideas rather than staying stuck on an idea for a while, this happened a few times in my project when I was unsure on how I wanted a certain shot to be etc so I would defiantly ask for more opinions from other peers. I am really happy with how my final product however if I had more time to work on the project or if I had another chance to do it again, I would probably change the music that we had in the final edit: I like the song we chose however I would’ve chosen a less party type of song and more of a slow lighter song. I would also have chosen to edit my clips to the beat of a slower song so that the cuts from each shot weren’t as quick. Throughout the project there were a few problems that came up, however I think that they were sorted out pretty well, I made sure that the problems that did occur were sorted out quickly and safely. If I were to improve upon my problem solving skills I think that I could be more open-minded and not get too stressed out by problems the come up. I think that my communication skills throughout the project were very clear and straight forward, however to improve upon my communication skills (if I did this unit again) I would be more assertive with my crew and make sure they know exactly what we would be doing and make sure that they understand my ideas thoroughly.

 

Week 8 W/C 16.05.16

This week was very important for me and the crew to get the edit done for our film so at the start of the week I made sure that my crew knew what we needed to do for the rest of the week.

From last week we already had a rough cut/edit so this week was about perfecting our film, so one of the few things left to do was to finish off the script that I started last week. I finished my script at the start of the week to make sure that me and my sound designer were able to record the voice over. On Tuesday morning I perfected my script and did a few run through’s with my sound designer to make sure that what I was saying made sense and match what is happening in the video. After practising a few times I then went into the audio booth that we booked out and recorded the voice over. We had a few problems with the merantz kit, we got given headphones that weren’t working properly and so this delayed us slightly as we couldn’t hear whether or not the audio was recording properly, so we then had to get another pair of headphones to use. Once we adjusted the audio levels and practised getting the sound perfect, everything else ran smoothly and we got the voice over recorded really quickly and it sounded good too. We then took the recordings and put them on to Final Cut Pro to edit.

On Wednesday Giz (sound) started editing the sound clips and organised which ones we were able to use and which ones didn’t sound that good etc. She then cut the sound clips to the music and organised them to fit what was shown in the videos. Georgia didn’t really have much involvement at this part of the edit as it wasn’t her job to do so she was mainly focused on research and how she could edit the clips further to make the film look better.

On Thursday Georgia looked through the footage and even further colour corrected the footage that we had, Giz also finished off the audio and organised it further. The video edit was almost finished so me and the crew spoke about what we could improve on to make the film better and made a few slight changes to the film to make it better overall.

We planned to make sure that we finished our edit was roughly finished for Friday. Once we did this we then knew that we could present our film to the class and get feedback from everyone else in the class.

On Friday morning we made a few tweaks (like colour correcting more shots, perfecting audio etc) to make sure that we were ready to present. Once we were finished preparing our video we then presented our edit to the class. We then asked opinions from a few class mates to get an idea of what they each thought about our film. I also created a questionnaire for each person to fill in to make sure that we got a range of feedback to look at which then would help us improve our work.

In the spare time that we had left over we made a few changes to our film edit based on the comments we got from the class. This week I worked a lot with my crew to get the edit of our project perfect, I learnt even more about editing and overall I am happy with how the edit is looking and look forward to improving my edit to a higher standard.

Next week I will finish off the edit by making a few small changes based on the feedback and start post production and my evaluation.

Week 7 W/C 09.05.16

I knew this week was going to be one of the most important weeks for the crew so at the very start of the week I started off my going through the footage with the rest of the crew. We watched all the clips that we collected from our trip to the Peaks, we went through each one deleting ones that we wouldn’t be able to use in our final project. Some clips were out of focus or slightly too short etc and so we couldn’t use them in our final edit, this wasn’t much of a problem because we had recorded a lot of footage and we made sure that we recorded the shots a few times just in case there was a problem with the shot.

Once we sorted which clips we were able to use in our edit, we started by putting all of the clips onto the main storyline, this allowed me to organise the clips further. I put the clips into order by the locations of which we visited first for example the first place we went was Mam Tor and so I put all of the clips from this location together to make it easier to edit them. After talking to my crew about the shots that we each wanted to put into the project we started the edit.

I wanted to edit my film to match the music (rhythmic) so I couldn’t start to edit the clips properly however I did chose my favourite parts from each video that we took. I cropped and cut parts out of the shots to make sure that once we found the correct music we could get straight on with the final edit.

Further on in the week me and Giz (sound designer) talked about the type of music to put in our project. We knew that we needed to find a song that was copyright free and also fit well to what was in our shots. After searching for the right song we found a song that we both liked and it was copyright free too. Once we knew we had found the right song we put it into our project, I then knew that I could start rhythmically start editing my clips.

Me and my cinematographer (Georgia) sat and looked through the clips again to think more about which clips should go where, I then sat and cropped the clips to fit the beat of the music. After cropping the clips I tweaked a few videos to make them fit the music better and also I changed a few clips around the make the order of clips look better and more complimentary.

Our final edit was coming along great, the only thing we need to do with the clips was to colour correct and make the clips look more appealing. Georgia looked at the clips and tweaked a few to make the colour balance better, I then did some further editing after this to make sure that each clip looked perfect and how we all wanted them to look.

At the end of the week I was happy with how my edit was coming along, the only thing left for me to do was to sort of the voice over for my film. I made sure that there was nothing else left for me to edit on each of the clips and then I started writing the script for me to do my voiceover next week. I then finished this off at the weekend in my spare time so that I knew that we could get straight on with recording on Monday/ Tuesday.

This week went pretty smoothly as the crew knew exactly what needed to be done and we al worked together to get the edit done. I have learnt more about editing as I had to look at sound editing with my sound designer and I also looked at the cinematographer work too.

I am happy with how this week has gone, it has been hard work to make sure that the edit gets done and to a good standard however me and the crew are pleased with how the project is looking.

Next week I will record the audio to my voice over and finish the edit.

 

 

 

 

Week 6 W/C 02.05.16

This week was one of the most important weeks for me and the crew.

At the start of the week I started off my adding a few extra things to my pre-production to make sure that it was all easy for my crew to understand and had enough detail in it.

After finishing and adding to my pre-production I made sure that my crew were happy with what they were doing with their research. I also made sure that it was clear and my crew were happy with what we were doing on each production day.

Day 1 of production:
The first place we visited was Mam Tor. We collected a lot of scenic shots from this location and quite a few of me in the shots too, we used a range of shots and angles, and also used various camera lens’ to create a range of shots. The weather at this location on the day was very windy and quite cold, even though we expected and prepared for this, it made the experience not as pleasurable as the rest. If I had more time at this location I would’ve liked to have a got a few more shots of the scenery as we didn’t get as many as planned and also use the drone in this location, even though we used the Go Pro at Mam Tor I didn’t get a chance to get shots with the drone.
From Mam Tor we then went to Lady Bower. At this location we got a range of shots which I am very happy with, the weather was good so we were able to collect a lot of scenic shots. We collected a range of shots from the reservoir, we got shots of me and also the waterfalls etc in the area. We had planned to go on the Lady Bower bridge to collect a shot of me walking across the bridge however we decided not to get this shot because the road was quite busy and it would’ve meant the crew being split- increasing risks. If I had more time at this location I would’ve wanted to collect the shot from the bridge (if the road wasn’t busy and it was safe enough for the crew to cross.)
We had planned to visit a third location on this day however we decided to not go to Bamford Edge, we did this because we were visiting Curbar Edge on the second day and we had already been to Mam Tor. All of these places would’ve given us similar shots and wouldn’t have been as interesting so we decided to spend more time in the other locations (Mam Tor and Lady Bower) to get a better range of shots for the film.
Overall I am happy with the various shots we got from Day 1.

Day 2 of production:
The first place we visited on day 2 was Curbar Edge. At Curbar Edge we collected some scenic shots, some of which included me. The weather was easy to work with so we got quite a few shots in this location, which I am very pleased about as this made up for the amount that we collected at Mam Tor. If I had more time at Curbar Edge I would’ve got a few more shots for example close-ups of my feet dangling from the edge etc however I am happy with what we collected.
From Curbar Edge we traveled to Padley Gorge. Padley Gorge was a completely different location compared to the others we had been to, it had more forest than any other location, had a stream/lake running around the whole location and also a lot more people were in this location than any of the others. We got a range of shots including close-ups, wide shots, over the shoulder shots etc. This location gave us a lot of different interesting shot that we wouldn’t have been able to capture at any other location, I am very happy with the shots we got and look forward to editing them too. If I had more time in this location I would’ve liked to have tried using the Drone.
Overall I am extremely happy with the range of shots we got from Day 2 and I look forward to editing what we captured.

I think that day 1 went pretty smoothly and we got a lot of shots captured that we wanted to put into our edit, we used a range of lenses so that we had a look of different shots so the first day of shooting went pretty well. I think that if we had more time to spend at the Peaks we would’ve been able to go to a few more locations which would’ve helped us capture shots in a lot of different locations. The weather on the first day made the crew have a little less time at mam tor because of the really high wind speeds, so on the second day we made sure that we got a lot of landscape shots so that it made up for the lost time that we had on day 1. Both days went pretty well and we got a lot of footage to work with so I am really happy with how our trip went.

This week I have learnt a lot about how full on an intense it is to work on a real production, I also learnt that being organised is very important when being director- which has helped me become more organised in general. I also learnt that working as a team is key to creating the perfect production, me and my crew worked well together and I look forward to looking at the footage.

Overall this week was very tiring and exhausting for not only me but the whole crew too, however we are all extremely pleased with the shots we captured and I am looking forward to starting the edit. Next week me and the crew will start editing the shots we collected from this week.

Week 5 W/C 24.04.16

Before starting production it was important for me and my crew to be planned and prepared for our trip. This week I made sure that I started the pre-production for our project, this helped me become more organised and help my crew know more about what will happen and what needs to be done each day.

First of all I started off by looking at possible locations to collect our shots at, I googled various Peak District websites to get a better idea of the most popular places that people visit. I decided on visiting 5 places over the 2 days of shooting: Mam Tor, Lady Bower, Bamford Edge, Curbar Edge and Padley Gorge. Doing this helped me a lot with becoming more organised for the shooting days and also allowed me to inform the crew of where we would be shooting and walking to.

After deciding on locations for my trip I then created some location recces to help me work out which locations were appropriate for my film and which ones will suit me and the crew best. I looked at whether or not there would be sound issues at each location, whether or not I needed permission to record etc. After researching this it has helped me work out which places were suitable and which ones weren’t, also helping me work out where I want my shots to be recorded and how I will do this at each place.

I then created a risk assessment for each location, doing this ensured that I knew how to keep both my crew and the equipment safe whilst on the trip. I commented on the likelihood for each risk, severity, who was at risk and how I could reduce each risk. This helped me when knowing what to do and how to handle certain situations if any risks did occur and knowing how to make sure everyone is safe throughout the 2 days shooting.

I then looked at the weather reports for the locations that we were visiting and what the weather would be like around those days too. This helped me organise the trip better, the crew could then knew more about what to wear and how to prepare for the trip and also allowed us to be able to plan out what times we would visit each place on each day.

After knowing more about where we were going each day and what the weather etc was going to be like I was then able to create a call sheet for each person in my crew. On the call sheet I made sure that I included lots of information about the locations we were visiting, what the crew needed to bring (appropriate clothing and footwear & food and drink), emergency numbers etc and also a map of where we were visiting and the route. Creating a call sheet for the crew allowed them to know exactly what was happening on each day and what they needed to bring along with them to make sure that they were safe but also prepared. This helped me become more organised and prepared for the each day.

I then created a schedule for me and the crew to be able to become more organised when recording and also the pre production and post production too. I made sure that the crew had enough time to do their pre production and also included extra dates for us incase we needed extra days to record or for post/pre production. The dates that I put on the schedule were just planned, rough dates for us to plan our production around, meeting these dates were important to make sure that the film is created and edited in time for the deadline that was set. This helped me and the crew understand how much time we had for each part of the project and know more about what exactly we would be doing on each day.

After doing all of this research I then needed to create a shot list for me and my cinematographer to get a better idea of the type of shots we needed to collect when in each location. I negotiated my ideas with my crew to come up with more and better ideas for my film. I then printed this off for each member of the crew to have on the trip, this will then help us to keep track of which shots we actually get.

Overall this week was very important for me and my crew, it helped me become more organised with all of the planning and also helped me communicate my ideas better with my cinematographer. I am happy with all of the planning and organising from this week, it helped me and my crew a lot.

Next week we will be going to the Peak District to record our films, which I am looking forward to a lot.

Director research

Exiting films and distribution:
I took a look into images and short clips that reflect what I imagine my film to look like. Below are some examples of shots that are similar to ones I want to capture myself. The colours I want to show in my film are going to represent the personal view that I have upon the experience I have at the Peaks for example because my film is about the thoughts and feelings I have whilst at the Peaks. The colours will represent my feelings and thoughts. If I have a great time there and love my experience I will communicate this to my cinematographer so that I can show this in my shots with bright colours etc. In contrast to this if I didn’t enjoy my experience at the Peaks I would use dull colours to show this.

These films have been distributed through many websites, mainly social media for example YouTube. I think that this will be similar to my own film as I will be posting my film on social media so that it is easily accessible for my target audience. Similarly to these clips I want to show my emotion through the editing too, I will edit my shots to a fast pace and also add music to match this- this will also be negotiated with my sound technician as they will have  big impact with this certain part of the project.

How to direct:
“Create a good script. A good script can make even a mediocre director look good, so choose wisely. You can also write a script yourself, if that’s something you enjoy and are good at. Structure is key to a good story. A good script shows rather than tells. You want your audience to guess at what is happening based on body language of the actors, what they’re wearing, what they do, and how they say the lines.” I will make sure that I create a script for my voiceover to make sure that it tells the story of the character well and clearly.

“Give specific instructions. This is for the actors. If you’ve explained the subtext to your actors and your vision for the film, there shouldn’t be too much of a problem of them doing what they need to do in their scenes, but it is important that you give specific instructions. On your shot list write down specific camera critical things you are going to want your actors to do.” I will make sure that I communicate to my crew and give them the clear instructions that they need to be able to understand what is needed to be done within the production.

“Know the different types of shots and camera angles. When you’re directing you’re going to need to know the different kinds of shots and camera angles and camera movements so that you know how to shoot each scene and what you’re trying to get from each scene. Different angles and types of shots change the feel of a scene.” I will make sure that I plan out what angles I am wanting for my film and know exactly what I want to capture, I will then communicate and negotiate with my cinematographer to make sure they understand what will go in the film and for them to come up with their own ideas too.

“Rehearse and set up the shot. For each shot you’ll need to know the focal length, the camera placement, the actors’ marks (where they need to stand, etc), which lenses to use and the movement of the camera. You’ll set up the shot, using all these different considerations, with your cinematographer. Discuss with them the lighting and the camerawork until the shot is ready to be taken.” I will make sure that when shooting we will practice the shots a few times before recording to make sure that the shots are perfect, this will also make it easier when looking back at the footage as there will be fewer mistakes and shots we need to delete.

“Review the take. Reviewing the take on the video monitor right away lets you consider how to make the scene better, how close the scene comes to your original idea. Then you’ll repeat the scene until it holds up to your scrutiny. This is very different from reviewing takes in the editing room later on. There you have the time, clarity, and perspective to see every single thing you could have done to make that scene better.” I will make sure that me and my cinematographer look at each shot after recording each one to make sure that they look good and look exactly how we wanted them too.

http://www.wikihow.com/Direct-a-Movie

Looking at this website has helped me a lot with planning out what I will do to create my film, I will make sure that I talk to my crew about the shots I am wanting to create etc and make sure that they understand what I want to create within my film. As shown above I will create a script for my voice over, after researching this it has helped me become more understanding of what I need to do for my film to run smoothly and be more organised. I will make sure that I communicate with my crew to make sure that they understand the storyline that I am trying to achieve in my film. After doing this research I have learnt that I need to organise and plan out exactly how I want my film and what I want my crew to do to make sure that the film runs how I want it to and turns out the way I want.

How to write a documentary
“You must work backwards. It is the only way to write a documentary script. Once you have collected your research, data, and interviews, only then can you write the script. It would be impossible to conceive what an interviewer is going to say and how that ties into your message. Once you have all of the facts and materials, then you can sit down and write the script and voice-overs.” I will make sure that I plan out my script, I will talk to my crew about what we each want within the film and then I will plan out the whole film and organise schedules etc.

“Be thorough with your writing and voice-overs. Writing and rewriting parts of the script is part of the process as you continue to define your message and refine the story. If you are using a narrator, you may have to readjust to your narrator’s style. Sometimes while you are fact checking, there may be some discrepancies so you want to make there that everything that you are presenting to the viewer is accurate and this is reflected in the rewriting process.” As I will be doing the voice-over I will be reading from the script that I create so I will need to make sure that everything makes sense before we start recording my audio.

“Documentaries aren’t an observation of humanity, but rather an opening door into our nature, into what drives us, what makes us fill with joy and weep with sorrow. Documentaries are real, with real people and dealing with real issues that are powerful and hit us at our core. Let your writing reflect those deep, moving messages and capture your audience emotionally.” I will make sure that I reflect the thoughts and feelings I have when writing the script to be able to communicate this to my audience.

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/how-to-write-a-documentary-script/

Looking at this website has helped me more with understanding how I will write my script to communicate with the audience, it has also made me realise that I need to plan out the script and make sure that the script make sense before doing the voiceover. I will plan out my script in advance to make sure that it is written well and communicates my thoughts and feelings to the audience, how I want it to. Overall this website has helped me think more about how accurate my script needs to be in order for my voice over to turn out well, and how planned out the script needs to be for my film to work well.

Pre Production

Summary
For me to be planned and prepared for my trip I needed to conduct some pre-production including: call sheets, shot list, schedule (s) etc. I firstly created a risk assessment to ensure that any risks that could occur have been assessed to make sure that the crew are safe throughout the trip. After this I created a location recce to help me get a better idea of which places to visit on my trip and which ones will suit my project the best. I created a call sheet for me and my crew- this was to help us become more organised on the day and ensure that we capture the shots we need for my film. Creating a schedule for us helped me plan out my trip and give the crew a good understanding of what we will do each day, deadlines for each day, week etc. I didn’t write a script for my audio as my voice over was about my time at the Peaks, so I will do this after my trip to the Peaks. I created a shot list, I talked to my cinematographer and negotiated on shots and clip to include in my film,  I then wrote about each to help me get a better idea of the shots we need.

Possible locations
I have looked at a range of possible locations for filming my project. The first thing I did was look at how big the Peak District actually was, on Google Maps I looked at the satellite view for the Peaks. Below is what I found out, after looking more into this I realised how big the Peaks was and how many different places there are that I could visit. I didn’t really have an idea of where I could go as there are a range of places and locations I could go to and so after looking at this I then decided to look at possible tourist guides and trails in the Peaks.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Peak+District+National+Park/@53.3903321,-1.9188572,55416m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x487a2ddb7e5f4bfb:0x79a099aa0b1382ea

 

Location recce
I then created a location recce for the places we could visit on our trip to the Peaks.

Weather report
For me and my crew to be well planned and prepared for the trip to the Peaks we need to consider what the weather conditions are likely to be like on our trip. I looked at the whole week to get a better idea of what it could be like on the 4th and 5th. I did this to make sure that the crew knew what type of clothing and footwear was appropriate for our trip and to make sure we were prepared for what the day could bring.

Call sheet

Shot list

Time schedule 

Risk assessment