Second Shooting Session.

This is a review on my second shooting session that i managed to do in the half term and get a good number of shots for.

Things that didn't go well:

• Lighting; it was way too dark and i didn't expect it to be that way.
• Many clips were lost or not recorded correctly.
• The settings on the camera made an automatic light turn on the front of it.

Half Term Update.

two days ago i managed to get the main shots for my opening sequence shot however for some of these shots i wasn't able to take any many takes as i would of possibly liked to due to camera battery life. I plan on filming the shot that i previously done experimental stills for today then i should be done filming unless i see something that i feel must be filmed again and done better.

Experimental Angles for my Final Scene.

For my final scene i planned on having the character shown in front of the camera and in the mirror. I wasn't sure how this would work so i got my tripod and camera out and tested this shot by taking still images so i could see the placement of everything in the shot. I put together a few of the images i obtained in a quick video.

Misc en scene idea - Costume.

In terms of costuming for my opening sequence, the majority is normal casual wear apart from my seene of Shaq dressed in his superhero outfit. In my research i came to the conclusion that it was ok  and made more sense for his costume to look home made and cheap because most other superhero's at one point did too for exampe Spidermans first costume.

Another hero who is very similar to the one in my project is Kick-Ass who we can see from the picture is wearing timberland boots with his costume which gave me the idea to wear casual vans with mine. As well as the film 'Super' giving me the idea for my hero to wield a weapon due to him having a wrench, Kick-Ass did too with his batons that he holds on his back. This gave me the idea to use a bat (which isn't anything too threatening) and mount it on my back.


Here is the Costume i managed to put together:

First shooting Session.

Due to me not being able to get my schedules scanned in and placed onto my blog they have been delayed however i do plan to get the posted on her as soon as possible. 
I have started filming and today i done my first shooting session for my opening sequence. Here are a few of the clips obtained.

Points about each Take:

Establishing Shot 1 - Once i had panned down the building and got to the window, the camera was shown in the reflection along with myself.

Establishing Shot 2 - The camera was not steady at all.

Establishing Shot 3 - I feel that this edited and slowed down would be the best of all 3 as it was a nice clean pan from top to bottom of the sixth form block. This is the take i plan on using.

Take 1 - The actors had not realised that the camera had started recording which was a fault on behalf of the camera man for not counting down or saying action.

Take 2 - My actors forgot that they were participating in my media project which would be better off without any bad language where not needed.

Take 3 - Kunmi was blocking the cameras vision of me in this shot.

Take 4 -  Students from our school happened to have been walking through the gate at this time and also Fred was cut out of the video in this shot.

Take 5 - I feel this take went very well out of all 5. This is the Take i plan on using.

Due to the likely hood of this scene only being around 10 seconds long, i feel that i may have to add in another scene if it becomes necessary.

Casting Shots !

These slides show the cast of my project.

My Animated Storyboard.

After finally completing my drafts of my storyboard i continued doing research which caused me to edit my ideas and portray these new ideas in this new Animated Storyboard. This took me a while due to having drawn two images per A4 paper and scanning each sheet in to try and be sure it would be in good quality.
Here is an example:

Once I had scanned in each sheet i edited each image to make the lines darker and increase the contrast. This is my Animated Storyboard without sound.

Shooting Schedule.

This is my delayed shooting schedule. This was delayed due to me not having access to a scanner to scan in my piece of paper with my schedule on it.


Im not sure whether my judgement of time is correct as i have only given myself an hour and a half to film ALL of my footage which thinking about it now, is not enough time. I'd say it would take an extra hour on top of the total amount of time i have predicted.


Also my Descriptions were quite vague. In more detail, my first shooting session is of the main character 'Shaq' being called for by his friends, one of them being 'Gerald'. They wanted to know whether he was going out when them that night hence why 'Shaq' was getting phone calls from  Gerald later that day.

Animated Storyboard.

With regards to my animated storyboard, i am in the process of trying to completely redraw some scenes due to a vast majority of scenes and shots being adjusted  in the progress of research. I hope to have my completed animated storyboard up soon.

Music and Audio Ideas.

In terms of music for my opening sequence, i feel that this is where i should be on more of the horror aspect. However, this is difficult due to copyright laws therefore i feel it would be safer to go for instrumentals or musicians i know. An instrumental that came to mind immediately was an old song from a long time ago that i used to find really eerie which i feel should still be quite eerie.

However when checking out this video i read a comment noting that this had already been used in a film which halted my plans of incorporating it in my piece. I covered out the users name to avoid any issues that it may have caused.
Another option of music was a song by an unsigned artist i know who gave me permission to use his song in my media project. The reason i am tempted to use this song is because from my opinion it sounds quite dark and this is also portrayed through his video and the effects it is edited with.

The trailer for 'Super'.

In my previous lesson, sir mentioned to me that there was a film released around a year or two ago called 'Super' with a character who turns himself into a superhero. Watching the trailer made me realise that it was quite similar to my idea in ways such as it was a hybrid of genres due to its gore and comedy, 'hero' having no powers and cliche superhero voice over! Here is the trailer :

At 1:05 of this clip (The 'crack' on the characters head), it presented the idea in my head of adding comic book like features into my project.

 I had read an article on how comic books are written (which isn't completely relevant) but i was using this to increase my knowledge on how comic book textual transitions (captions) are composed. Here is a screenshot of the article and a few examples of captions i have produced that i may put over my opening sequence.

This film has made me think that maybe instead of brute force and use of hands, my character should have a weopen at hand in the same manner that he has a wrench. I also had a look at the opening sequence of this film however it was 100% animation which was of no use to me but here it is anyway.

Screenplay

I wrote out my screenplay of my opening sequence on the application 'Pages'. I added an extra scene to the end of kay in the bathroom to show an interior scene in my opening sequence. 

Storyboard - Second Draft

This is my second draft of my previous storyboard and i have edited my shots and story in minor ways that feel may make a difference to my final piece for example in my first storyboard i had both victim and murderer interacting and dancing together then the victim being killed all in the short space of two minutes which was quite a short time to make such a drastic change in genre (from comical to horror). Although this is the hybrid of genres my film consists of, 2 minutes is too short to convert from one to the other in.