Production Progress 6

Today we worked on perfecting the cuts and watching it over and over to check that we were happy with the clip. We had Marissa watch over the clip and we realised it was really really long. It was about 5 minutes and our target was 2 minutes, this meant that we had a lot of work to do and we had to cut more than half and as we were already happy with what we had we did not know what to cut. Also at this point we had more footage that we had to gather as well so we were in quite a dilemma.

However we found that some clips were unnecessarily long and would not change the narrative it we had cut some off it down. This was a really long process and it took ages to cut at least a few seconds of most clips. We successfully were able to cut it down to about 3-4 minutes by the end of the lesson and decided that we would carry on cutting next lesson before we started to fix the fonts on our titles and the finalised position.

Marissa also suggested that we cross cut before the night scenes and the day scenes, we thought this to be a pretty good idea that help make the production look better. This also helped our narrative to show the contrast between our main characters day life and night life.

Next lesson we plan to carry on cutting and fix up our titles a little bit all ready for our Rough Cut. We still have a long way to go but we are certainly excited to be in the direction which we are headed.

Production Progress 5

Although according to our production schedule we were supposed to be filming in this session we were unable to as Andres was not in costume and this would have messed with continuity. However we decided that after having a filming session during the holidays we should watch through all the clips we had gather to see what we had to work with and what else we needed to film. As we already started placing our clips in Final Cut, we watched through what we already had and then started to add the rest of the clips we had. This created the initial outline for the opening sequence. Inorder to have every member of our group involved and have them doing something, Andres and Nahida focused on the editing while Lashay and Aneeka carried out more music research to find the perfect song to match our opening.

 

Progress post (3)

As of today the filming of our opening sequence is still in process, although majority of our shots have been filmed in our main locations we will be discussing any other decisions to finalise the film, whether it is a 5 second clip of a scenary or a dialogue shot being filmed of our main character with another person.
18/2/2014 was the last filiming session that took place as Nahida kindly decided to take it upon herself to film 16 shots of London which will be seen as 'flash shots' alongside the title sequences.
However, as Nahida decided to come up with this idea last minute it was unfortunate for myself and the other group members to be unable attend as the original filming date was planned on 17/2/2014. Although we did successfully film on this day, in future as a group we need to work on planning ideas in advance in order for everybody to have participation.

As I review, 'Production progress 4' it seems as if the filming session was succesful and I hoped to be content with the footage I see in tomorrows media lesson.
As a group we will be continuing with filming tomorrow and combine any ideas that may advance this project further.

Progress post (2)

Production Progress 4

Part of our idea was to get shots of London specifically at night, however today most of the group had other priorities so i took it upon myself to help push our progress further by traveling around London and getting shots.

I came up with this idea of playing 4 videos of different locations as the titles appeared this would altogether lead to 16 clips. At first my plan was to get shots of tourists attractions (16 different ones) that make up London however after some research i found that i needed permission to do this...

This put me in a dilemma and caused me to think of alternative ways in which i can achieve this idea. After talking the idea over with my sister, she suggested that I could get someone to drive me around London while I recorded different landscapes. I also thought of changing it into 4 locations and getting then from different shots. 

From here we ended up having a mixture of both so then I will be able to choose from a variety when it comes to editing. So in the morning I headed out with my little cousin (who's only 5 and still managed to help me get some amazing shots so thank you to Sami) and we took shots of Tower Bridge, The Shard, City Hall and the Gherkin as well as the Thames and they are all viewable from outside my house, luckily. After i headed to East India (Docklands) with my sister and got shots of the O2 and Cable Cars. Then at night i asked my dad if he would be able to drive me around while I recorded some shots, we travelled to Isle of Dogs, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, Bricklane, Aldgate and crossed Tower Bridge and I got some good shots which I am happy with. So a massive thank you to my sister and my dad for helping and supporting me, I hope to make you proud with the final product.

As I was driving around I thought of an idea of how I can edit all this in and not deviate from the storyboard too much. I came up with the idea of these night shots playing as the opening titles appeared and then have flash shots which would be the shots I took during the day and then have the film title and the head straight on into the film. Hopefully it will be a success in the end.

Now all there is left is to get 2/3  more shots of Andres on his phone, at the bus stop and possibly entering a bus as it drives off, which we will get once college starts up and then it's all perfecting editing. 

Production Progress 3

Today we filmed all the shots we needed of our character traveling to college. All this filming took place in Stoke Newington (Lordship Road/Queen Elizabeth's walk) as we felt this location best suited our character. Also as our initial character was actually based on Andres and he lived in this area we found it was perfectly suited to our teen drama. The plan was to meet at 3pm however there were some difficulties for us to get to the location as we have never been and were unsure of the exact location. But in the end we did manage to get there and still get all the shots we needed.

As Andres put it 

"Today's filming was a success and we did a lot"

Now all we need is the shots of different parts of London, which Nahida will hopefully complete tomorrow and then when we get back to college we will need few more shots of Andres on his phone at the bus stop and a shot of him just getting on a bus as it drives off. After that we have all the shots we want. So editing will be our next step. We will also have time to collect extra shots we may need and redo any shot in case the camera is too shaky and the footage is not useable.

Success is nearby yet so far...

Production Progress 2

Today (13.02.2014) we did not film although our schedule said we would. The reason for this is because Andres was not in costume and again it was a short session and we felt it would not be as productive we had decided to film. Also we felt we didn't have much left to film so it was okay if we left filming out of this session. Instead we used this lesson to plan where we wanted to go from our current position. We watched through all of our footage and were pleased with most but there were a few we may considering re-shooting if we go ahead with actually using them. We started to place some of the clips together to see whether our outcome would be possible and we felt we were making great progress and were happy with where this project was going. We decided that we would definitely be using the half term holiday slot to get the footage we need outside of college such as the traveling to college. We felt that this would be a more useful time as we are able to choose the date and time which we would want to film. This means that we are less likely to have a time limit in which we must have our footage. Our plan now is to get all the footage of Andres traveling to college on 17th February, and also to hopefully get out shots of tourist attractions of London the day after. Hopefully the filming is a success this holiday, so when we return to college we can watch all the footage and record any extra footage within the college which we feel could've been done better. If this all goes to plan then we will be able to start editing earlier then planned and ace our teen drama opening. 

Production Progress 1

                                       

Today (10.02.2014) was our first filming session. Unfortunately we started off to a slightly rough start as half the group failed to turn up on time due to transport issues, however we used this time wisely to think of what we wanted to film and what shots would be best. Also as we found a shortage of shots in our animatic, this time gave us a chance to figure out what extra shots we wanted to add. We decided that we wanted to film all the shots we needed within the college and just around the area in Angel Islington. We didn't want to go to far out as we were unsure of how much we could get done and still be able to get back into college on time to upload our footage onto the hard drive ready for editing later on. This filming session was a success in our opinion as we were able to get all the college shots we wanted and we think we have set off to a great start and are looking forward to our final product.

Progression Blog

I personally feel that since the beginning of the unit I have become more comfortable with blogging and also have more detailed blogs than the very early. I have tried to use various types of ICT in order to make my blogs more attractive and show my development throughout. I have also contributed to group blogs in order for us to all achieve the best grade possible co-operation is needed when doing the group blogs. There are things I could do better to improve my blog which would be; time management (blogging regularly), have more input and more research about teen films to get a better understanding.

Progress Blog

PITCH Feedback

On the 3rd of February we presented our Pitch to the rest of our class and our teachers. We were told that over all we had a really good pitch that included all the details needed if not in depth than the base of it at least. As we carefully worked hard on our pitch and idea together there were not many major changes we have to make but just a few tweaks that could make a difference to our opening.

The Feedback we received;

• Originally the pitch said we would be filming on Lordship Road, however as it is a long road we need to be more specific with the actual location. Therefore we will be filming in Lordship North Estate.
• Our Teacher also told us that our Animatic was quite short so we would need more shots. However as we didn't have time to create our storyboard and animatic we just created the basic outline of what we wanted to show.
• We also need to carry out more research into our target audience. As we stated that in our pitch that are target audience are mostly boys between the ages 15-24, we also found that girls would also be interested in our film as we introduce a love interest of our main character. 

Overall there aren't really any changes that we need to make to our film, however these little tweaks to the background of our opening could make the whole bit of a difference.

Progress Post (1)

PITCH

Animatic

Storyboard

Researching ideas about sound

I found this video through Creative Commons and think that it would nicely fit into the idea which we have. The edgy beats at the beginning could help show the flash shots which we have be thinking about and then when it gets into the music it has this upbeat hip hop feel which builds and creates the whole atmosphere for out Teen Urban Drama.