Actor Change

On Tuesday 16th December, we had planned to do a second shoot of the scene we had already done, however Travis did not come so we have now replaced him with Ryan and once Callum is back after Christmas he will return to his role of Hugo.

Throwing A Punch and make up research

For my short film there are not any special effects needed as all of the murders in the short film are done without seeing the person getting murdered, for example when Deluca kills Hugo you see the back of Hugo so you don't see where he gets hit with the rock so this means that really I only need to research into how to throw a punch for the murder/fight scene to look real.

As the short film includes a fight scene I thought it would be suitable to do some research into fight scenes and how to throw a punch. Below is a video, which guided me while doing my research as it told me about how the camera angles make big differences when throwing a punch. The video also showed how to throw a punch, which will also help when trying to make the fight in the film seem realistic.

 For my short film I also needed to look at make up conventions for a psychological thriller however  I found for a psychological thriller both genders don't really wear make up, apart from girls may wear a little eye liner. Nothing special, unlike if I was doing a horror, as this  would have meant I needed to research more into this as horror involve a lot more make up. In the psychological thrillers I have looked at females are mainly just putting on eye liner which is a simple technique which is  shown  in the video below.  

Filming our first scene

After filming the first scene for the short film  I have come up with the following  conclusions of what went well and what I could improve on.

What went well

• Camera shots were perfect.
• Majority of the shots had enough light, however one thing to improve on is how we blocked out the light in some clips, so when looking at the video the lighting sometimes dramatically changes. 
• Actors acting was professional and to a high standard.
• Everyone had there role in the film,  Alex was director of photography, Dan as script supervisor and my self as the lighting technician we may have not followed the crew list, however I don't see this as a problem as we all found places where we were better suited.

What we could improve

• After asking for actors to come in casual clothing they turned up in school uniform, so that meant they ended up borrowing  clothing, so for the next stage of filming we will need to remember the same clothing.
• Actors did not know all the lines so filming  took longer than should have, so we need to tell them in advance when  filming will commence  so they can practice their lines.

Actor Change

Actor Change
Due to an accident at ruby we have sadly had to replace Callum Starr as he will be off school for  three weeks, so for this reason we have had to find a replacement for Callum and luckily we found a replacement before we did our scene rehearsal. In conclusion Callum has now been replaced by Ryan Heanre.

Casting

For this short film we needed three actors one female and two males.  As a group we chose to have Travis Brown as Edward/Peter, Rose Harris as Sarah and Callum Starr as Hugo. Below is a video of  Rose and Travis running through a scene together, however Callum was unavailable at the time so we only ran through a scene involving the characters Sarah and Edward.

Props List

Props List

Costumes (such as the white dress  Sarah wears)

Large Rock

An Apple

Fake Blood

Mobile Phone

Lighting

Lighting Research

In film making there is one main lighting technique, which is could three point lighting which is technique which uses three different types of light which are:

 

Key Light

This is when there’s one light, which is the most powerful and placed to the side of the camera or subject so that part of the image is well lit and the other side of the subject has a shadow.

Fill Light

This is when you use the key light set up and then you have a second light which makes it a softer light and fills the space the shadow is so there is no shadow.

Back Light

This is when you have the fill light set however you also have a light behind the subject this is so the subject is better highlighted and becomes more of the main focus of the image. This type of set up is not very good for my film because it will involve allot of moving around and having so many lights will mean little space to move around and even in the none moving scenes I will want to get servile different angles meaning even when not in a moving scene this lighting set up will not be very good.

Looking at this different types of light techniques  I will mainly be using Key and Fill light this is because they are the most convent when film as Back lighting is very over crowed and hard to use when you doing a action. The back light set up is also not good when you are filming because it limits you as you don't want the light in shot so by having three light out there are only several angles of shots you can get.

Poster and Double Page Flat Plans

Below are my three film poster flats plans. I decided to go with the third design as it is the most unique and more people liked it when I did a surveymonkey on it and asked my audience what they thought. 

Moving onto the double page spread, below are my three flat plans. I have chosen to use design two because I think the layout looks better as it follows more of the conventions that I have seen on existing  double page film articles. I also think it is the more visual pleasing design due to the wide range of images which are used in it. The images seem to break up the text which also makes all of the text a lot less scary and less off putting for the reader.

Institution Research (Magazine)

For my short film I have already looked at institutions but I now need to think about who would publish my film magazine. There are two main magazine institution that dominate the industry and could publish a new film magazine they are, Bauer and IPC.

After looking at the two companies I would approach Bauer because they publish more magazines worldwide and do not have a magazine like mine.

Editing Research

Editing

When look at editing techniques I could use on my film I came across an article by the BBC, which just gives you some nice tips for editing. The link to the article is below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/oneminutemovies/howto/edit.shtml

One of there tips is be organised which I think is very important because if your organised it will just make the own editing process a lot easier. There next tip then goes onto say how don’t make your video seem like its from MTV were they endlessly keep flickering between scenes instead take your time this links to what the expert tip from Oscar winning editor Anne V Coates which said; "I don't like when it's so quick you don't see what's happening. What's the point in having the shot?" This pretty simply means cut your shot but don’t over cut and trust your shots.  One other there other tips I like is experiment I like this because with experimenting you can go wrong but sometime you can just make something which does not follow your story board but is a lot better.

Below is another link to a second site I found which gives me 12 tips for editing however I have quoted the ones most relative to my film below.

https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/12-tips-for-better-film-editing/

“Cut tight – The best editing approach is to cut tight scenes without becoming too “cutty”. This means taking out unnecessary pauses between actors’ delivery of dialogue lines.”

As the film is only going to be 5 minutes this is a very important tip because  you don’t want to waste time and that’s just what unnecessary pauses are.

“Don’t cut back to the exact same angle – If you have a choice of several camera angles, don’t automatically cut back to the same camera angle or take that you just used in the previous shot. This is, of course, unavoidable in a dialogue scene with only two angles and one take of each; but, if the director shot different takes with different framing, try to use a little of all of them. Don’t get stuck in a cutting rut, like master/single/reverse, master/single/reverse, etc. Mix it up.”

This technique is something I will need to considered because with a physiological thriller it is very boring if you stay with one shot which I have found in servile films in this genre and by doing more shots but at different angles will just make my short film more appealing.

In terms of edit I have four main options: IMovie, Final Cut, After Effect & Premium Pro.

IMovie

With IMovie I know how it works but it does not give a professional finished product and for this reason when it comes to the editing of the film I will not be using it.

Final Cut

Final cut is good software to use for film editing however it sometimes struggles to handle HD footage and takes a lot of rendering. Also it is being discontinued so maybe it is not the best choice as it is not as effective as some of the over software I have seen.

After Effects

After Effects is a good program to use for making original titles and creating CGI special effects, we will probably use this for our title and logos and maybe some CGI in the animation scene. 

Premium Pro

Premium Pro is similar to Final Cut but does not have as many as the issues as Final Cut. I think this is the program I need to focus on learning for our film editing as at the moment I do not know enough about how to use it.

Special effects and make up

For the short film there will not be many special effects of make up needed however, we will need to get some fake blood for the murder scenes and the bible animation scene.

We also need to get some petrol and a safe location sorted out for the scene where the bible catches on fire. To do this we will book a science room.

Crew List

Crew List

Below is list of the roles and who are doing them. All of the roles I have put below I found on the BBC website which includes all of the different crew members. The link to the website is below

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/production/cast-and-crew#roles

Director- Alex

Producer- Myself

Line Producer- Myself

Director of Photography (DOP)- Dan

Production Designer/ Art Director- Alex and Dan

Gaffer- Myself

1^st Assistant Director- Dan

Editor- Myself

Production Manger- Alex

Sound Recordists- Dan

Additional Crew Members

Focus puller- Myself

Clapper Loader- Dan

Location Manager- Alex

Grip- Myself

Continuity or Script supervisor- Dan

Sparks- Dan

Costume Designer and Hair and Make up – Dan

Storyboard artist- Alex

Still Photographer- Dan and Myself when needed

We will also have two more crew members when filming who will be on cameras and help with the moving of equipment.