In today's lesson, I continued my search for sound effects and music and was relatively unsuccessful on the internet. I did manage to find a fairly good scream, however, was unable to download it for some reason. I also added in some footage to my film to use when my credits and film title show and started to play around with the title on my film. I am yet to find one that I think will go with my film. Next lesson, we will definitely refilm the final scene again.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
Friday 26 August
Today while I was waiting for my film footage to render in FinalCutPro, I decided to go onto Garage Band and have a listen to some music or sound effects that I could put in my movie. There were so many more sound effects than I had imagined so I ended up spending nearly all lesson just listening to them and jotting down the ones I liked or thought would work well in my film. I managed to find quite a few good pieces of music and sound effects, but I still need some dark thinking music for the desk scenes and a scream for the wildlife park murder scene. We also really need to refilm the final desk scene so that my hair will be the same throughout the film, but were unable to do so today because Gracie was away. We will most likely do it next lesson.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Wednesday 24/8/11
In today's lesson, I continued to edit my film. I played with the colours and brightness on the scenes where the murderer is sitting at the desk and made them have a blue tinge to create an icy, cold, isolated feel. I also made the scene where the murderer looks out the window at her next target the same red colour as the pool and wildlife park murder scenes to make it more obvious that something dangerous is going on. Next lesson I think we will reshoot the desk scene so that our film will have continuity.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Friday 19 August
In today's lesson I started using FinalCutPro to edit my film. At first I found the program a little difficult to use, but I am starting to get used to it now and am making some changes to make the film a little scarier. I gave a red tinge to the pool murder scene and the wildlife park murder scene, which in my opinion, definitely made it scarier and more suspenseful because of the association of red with bloodshed. I also found a picture of a target and layered this over the girl victim at the end (as suggested by Ms Makin) in order to make it clear that she will be the next victim. In the last few minutes of the lesson, I played with the colours for the desk scenes where the murderer is planning her next murder. Based on my experiments, when we reshoot these scenes I will probably give them a cool, isolated feel by making the colour of the scene a bit blue. At the end of the lesson, when I went to eject my portable hard drive, it wouldn't do so safely as FinalCutPro wouldn't quit and the computer wouldn't shut down, so I had to just pull it out. Hopefully this won't affect the file or do too much damage!
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thursday 18 August
Today we got our results and feedback from our rough edits. Although my film was ok, there are a lot of things I still have to think about and fix up. First of all, my group will have to reshoot the scenes where I (the murderer) am sitting at the desk because in some scenes my hair is in a braid and in others it is in a ponytail which means there is a lack of continuity. I also have to do a lot more work on the editing of my film so that it makes sense and make changes, such as making the scenes darker or having a red twinge to them in order to increase the suspense and fear in the film.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Pre-Production/Production Reflection/Evaluation
1. Describe any problems or difficulties your group encountered during the planning. These may include; organizational problems, group related issues, etc.
During the planning, our group did not encounter any major problems or difficulties. We all put forward our ideas and listened to each others and majority of the time we would all come to the same decision. The only minor problem was that there were a few lessons where people were away which slowed the progress of the planning a little.
2. Clarify any time-management issues your group encountered during the planning process and describe the steps you implemented to improve in this area.
I don't think our group really had any time-management issues during the planning process. Whenever we were set a task by Ms Makin, we would just get straight to it and complete it to the best of our ability easily within the designated time. I think this was because every member of my group got on well with each other and were quite comfortable putting forward our ideas and giving our opinions on matters. This enabled us to reach decisions quickly and therefore not have any problems with our time-management.
3. Discuss whether your group made effective use of the provided templates to assist the film-making process.
My group completed all of the provided templates to assist the film-making process, however when we actually came to shooting the film, we completely forgot about these templates and ended up shooting whatever shots we could with the resources we had on the day or whatever we felt like shooting at the time. The weather also dictated what we shot because we couldn't shoot our outdoor wildlife park scene if it was a nice, sunny day - we had to shoot it on a day that was a bit gloomier, which we were unable to put into our planing templates as we couldn't find weather forecasts that far ahead of time.
4. Explain whether the planning process helped your group during filming. In particular, discuss whether the use of devices such as storyboards, shot-lists, and rough edits assisted throughout the filming process.
I think that by creating storyboards and shot-lists, we were able to get a really good idea of what our film would look like and all of the props and sets we would need. It definitely helped when coming to shoot our film because we had a very good idea of what needed to happen in each scene, for example, what camera angles and shot types to use.
5. Describe any problems or difficulties your group encountered during the filming process. These may include; organization problems, unreliable cast members, group related issues, equipment problems, etc.
During the filming process, I think one of the major problems was that different members of our group were away on different days. This made it quite difficult because each member of our group was vital to the filming process as I was always in every scene, Gracie did all of the filming and Alicia was in some of the scenes and was always helping to set up things and give advice on what could look better. Another problem was that Alicia kept forgetting to bring in the clothes she needed to wear for the wildlife park scene which meant that the shooting of this scene kept getting delayed. Another major problem was the shooting of the pool scene. We didn't think that we would be permitted to do it at school, so had to shoot it at one of our houses. Gracie insisted that she would do it at her house, but this was not completed until the weekend before the rough edit was due (which was cutting it a little fine), due to the fact that we were a little disorganised in getting an underwater camera and did not particularly want to jump into the pool at this time of year.
6. After reviewing your footage and completing the rough cut of your film, describe any aspects of your film, which need to be addressed. i.e does your group need to reshoot any scenes; are any additional shots required; are there any scenes which worked better than expected.
After reviewing our footage and completing the rough cut of my film, it doesn't seem that my group needs to reshoot any scenes at this stage. We had a great deal of footage, and I was able to pick out the best bits for my film and am pretty happy with the way my rough edit turned out. I think the wildlife scene turned out a lot better than I expected. We had a lot of dodgy footage for this scene so I was a bit concerned about how it would look when I put it all together - but I am actually really happy with the way the scene has come together using the bits that I thought would work best.
7. List any skills, techniques or tricks you have discovered during the project.
During the project, I have learnt of the wonderful things you can do with an underwater camera. Gracie filmed the pool scene using one and I absolutely loved the footage she filmed! It is very effective. I have also learnt how to use iMovie.
8. Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look back at your blogs/journals and think about whether it looks like 6 weeks worth of work).
I have done quite a bit of work, especially in the planning stages for our film. I think that I definitely could have posted a bit more about what I was thinking through the planning and filming stages that would have supported my work further. I know that I did write most of the ideas and reflections/improvements that I had down somewhere but must have deleted or thrown them out when I considered them no longer relevant instead of posting them on my blog.
Discuss your feelings about the production task:
9. Are you satisfied with your groups final result?
During the planning, our group did not encounter any major problems or difficulties. We all put forward our ideas and listened to each others and majority of the time we would all come to the same decision. The only minor problem was that there were a few lessons where people were away which slowed the progress of the planning a little.
2. Clarify any time-management issues your group encountered during the planning process and describe the steps you implemented to improve in this area.
I don't think our group really had any time-management issues during the planning process. Whenever we were set a task by Ms Makin, we would just get straight to it and complete it to the best of our ability easily within the designated time. I think this was because every member of my group got on well with each other and were quite comfortable putting forward our ideas and giving our opinions on matters. This enabled us to reach decisions quickly and therefore not have any problems with our time-management.
3. Discuss whether your group made effective use of the provided templates to assist the film-making process.
My group completed all of the provided templates to assist the film-making process, however when we actually came to shooting the film, we completely forgot about these templates and ended up shooting whatever shots we could with the resources we had on the day or whatever we felt like shooting at the time. The weather also dictated what we shot because we couldn't shoot our outdoor wildlife park scene if it was a nice, sunny day - we had to shoot it on a day that was a bit gloomier, which we were unable to put into our planing templates as we couldn't find weather forecasts that far ahead of time.
4. Explain whether the planning process helped your group during filming. In particular, discuss whether the use of devices such as storyboards, shot-lists, and rough edits assisted throughout the filming process.
I think that by creating storyboards and shot-lists, we were able to get a really good idea of what our film would look like and all of the props and sets we would need. It definitely helped when coming to shoot our film because we had a very good idea of what needed to happen in each scene, for example, what camera angles and shot types to use.
5. Describe any problems or difficulties your group encountered during the filming process. These may include; organization problems, unreliable cast members, group related issues, equipment problems, etc.
During the filming process, I think one of the major problems was that different members of our group were away on different days. This made it quite difficult because each member of our group was vital to the filming process as I was always in every scene, Gracie did all of the filming and Alicia was in some of the scenes and was always helping to set up things and give advice on what could look better. Another problem was that Alicia kept forgetting to bring in the clothes she needed to wear for the wildlife park scene which meant that the shooting of this scene kept getting delayed. Another major problem was the shooting of the pool scene. We didn't think that we would be permitted to do it at school, so had to shoot it at one of our houses. Gracie insisted that she would do it at her house, but this was not completed until the weekend before the rough edit was due (which was cutting it a little fine), due to the fact that we were a little disorganised in getting an underwater camera and did not particularly want to jump into the pool at this time of year.
6. After reviewing your footage and completing the rough cut of your film, describe any aspects of your film, which need to be addressed. i.e does your group need to reshoot any scenes; are any additional shots required; are there any scenes which worked better than expected.
After reviewing our footage and completing the rough cut of my film, it doesn't seem that my group needs to reshoot any scenes at this stage. We had a great deal of footage, and I was able to pick out the best bits for my film and am pretty happy with the way my rough edit turned out. I think the wildlife scene turned out a lot better than I expected. We had a lot of dodgy footage for this scene so I was a bit concerned about how it would look when I put it all together - but I am actually really happy with the way the scene has come together using the bits that I thought would work best.
7. List any skills, techniques or tricks you have discovered during the project.
During the project, I have learnt of the wonderful things you can do with an underwater camera. Gracie filmed the pool scene using one and I absolutely loved the footage she filmed! It is very effective. I have also learnt how to use iMovie.
8. Discuss whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Look back at your blogs/journals and think about whether it looks like 6 weeks worth of work).
I have done quite a bit of work, especially in the planning stages for our film. I think that I definitely could have posted a bit more about what I was thinking through the planning and filming stages that would have supported my work further. I know that I did write most of the ideas and reflections/improvements that I had down somewhere but must have deleted or thrown them out when I considered them no longer relevant instead of posting them on my blog.
Discuss your feelings about the production task:
9. Are you satisfied with your groups final result?
I am quite satisfied with my groups final result. I think that by working well together, we were able to overcome some hurdles and end up with some really good footage that will look great once properly edited - it already looks pretty good in our rough edits, in my opinion.
10. Would like to change any aspects of your film?
I'm really happy with my film and think that we have achieved the horror genre without it being too comical. Based on what we have produced so far, and what we could do further, I don't think I would like to change any aspects of my film right now.
11. If you could start the project again what would you do differently?
If I were to start the project again, I would definitely make sure we actually used all of the planning we completed when it came to shooting our film. We went off the planning from memory, however, it would have been a lot more useful and allowed things to run a lot smoother if we followed it exactly. I would also have liked to use better actors in the film. I don't feel like I did a very good job at the acting, so would definitely love to have used someone better.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)