Showcase thumbnail

Here is the screenshot we have chosen to use as a thumbnail for the media showcase posters; the showcase evening is on Monday 16th March - we're really excited!

Continuity error!

Today, we were putting the final touches on our opening, when we spotted a continuity error!

Plastic container not on the windowsill

☹

We're all really shocked, as we've only noticed this a day before the deadline (thanks to Rhianne's impeccable eye for detail!) The error is very subtle but we didn't want to take the risk of leaving it in there.
We spent ages trying to figure out how to cut the box out of the frame, as the shot of Hannah taking the pills is vital - we played around in iMovie, Photoshop and even Adobe Premiere, but in the end we decided to sacrifice the panning shot beforehand; we then resynchronized the music, adjusted the titles, and put in the final touches.

Director's credit update

After today's editing session, we finally managed to get our title on the pill bottle!
It was quite a long process, and we used many different types of online photo editing software...

Here is a screenshot of one of the many online photo editors -  fotor.com we were planning to use, however we were unable to crop this properly in iMovie; the title came out too small and we couldn't rotate it. 

We then decided to use photoshop, which allowed us to freely rotate the textbox to the position we desired. We spent ages trying to figure out why the background of the text was not transparent, only to find out we had exported it as JPEG instead of PNG... 

We finally imported this into iMovie as a 'picture in picture' as it now appears on the bottle, yay!

Third film draft

Here is our third draft! We have added in the voice over with the background music and we have decided on the font for our titles, which we said we would do by today!

However, after hearing the feedback from our class, the A2 media class and Miss Foster, we have decided to take the advice on board, change the order of our shots, and cut a few bits out. We think this new order  might work a bit better, because our film title currently comes in at 1:53 which is really late, and our new order works to have our title come in at around 1:00.We are also trying to get as close to 2 minutes as possible, so cutting a few bits out is probably necessary.

After today we have to change the order of our shots, resynchronize and alter the music, make the name titles bigger, and cut a few bits out. We remain hopeful that this wont take too long!

Here is a picture of some rough notes, detailing what we picked up from our feedback:

Finishing off our background music

We have 3 days left until our deadline, and we're working very tightly to finalize our opening. Today, we managed to finish creating our background music. Here is a picture of the project in audacity:

To match the titles to our sound effects we had to use a split screen as this was done on a laptop, and we had to watch closely, for the duration and timing of each title to match it to our audio:

All we have left to do is correct the font of our titles and add in our voice over, which will hopefully be done in tomorrow's editing session. We also have the whole of Thursday to add the finishing touches to our opening - we aim to be done before our deadline!

Recording our voice over

This morning we recorded our voice over. We used a dictaphone, as our previous attempt to record on the Mac meant our sound was quite muffled. We used our actress, Hannah C's, own voice and this worked really well because she of course knows the character better than anyone else! We asked her to speak in a slow, monotonous tone as she narrates her disarranged lifestyle, which shows her change in personality under the influence of drugs. We also considered the fact that it was a voice over to the film opening, so we chose to keep it fairly simple and not give too much away - we tried to maintain a sense of detachment as the voice upholds the status of our character, who appears professional to others in her working environment.
Here is a picture of the script, with bits and bobs which Miss Foster helped us change:

We are really happy with how our voice over sounds and we have just imported into iMovie - it works quite well on top of the background music.

Extra filming day/ correcting continuity errors

This evening, Mac 5 went back to the surgery to get a shot of Hannah walking out of the surgery door, and to correct our continuity error. We also managed to get a cut of Hannah C's itching hands to Hannah F's itching hands which we hope will show the similarities between our main character and her patient. We were originally going to use this as a match cut, however we think it might be more effective like this as it compliments what is said in our narrative voice over.

Here are stills of the two shots we used to draw parallels between our characters:

Here are some other filming stills:

Production company update

In today's lesson, we finished the two logo's for our production companies. We stuck to our original idea 'wildfire productions' but we also added the company 'static entertainment'. We decided to film a television in school to capture some of the fuzz, on which our first production company will appear:

We decided to use one of the fonts we downloaded online for this title, to play with our viewers' eyes:

For wildfire productions, we chose to use an animated fire background which is uncopyrighted on wikimedia:

We used a font on iMovie (which looks similar to wood) and we are currently trying to figure out how to make it burn:

Title sequence update

In today's lesson, we (roughly) finished doing our title sequence, so we are now able to synchronize the background music to each title. Here is a picture of us selecting our title font in the lesson:

We decided against the original fonts we downloaded for the name titles, because they look quite unprofessional, and although they compliment our film title, they don't seem to fit against the visuals on screen. We did however, select one of the downloadable fonts for our film title, which we really like! This is what it looks like...

Here is a quick vlog we did in our lesson about our progress today:

Composing our sound/ website credits

Mac 5 have decided that to avoid any copyright issues, we will piece together our own background music.

However, for our main background music we have used a track, of which all credits go to "Royalty Free Music from Bensound".

This is the track we used...

http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/track/deep-blue.

 Here is proof of our rights to use the track.

We also picked a few sound effects from freeSFX.com to layer over the background music for when the titles appear. This website also has uncopyrighted sound effects, free for download so we avoided any issues...

Proof of our rights to use the sound effects.

Here is what it looks like, mid production...

We used audacity - it is a pretty simple software which we have all used before.

Editing update

So far this week, we have been editing our opening and recording our voice over. Here is a picture of our voice (Janel) which was taken while the voice over was being recorded:

At first, we recorded the voice over using iMovie and Garageband, but it sounded as if it was being echoed so we re recorded it on our camera. We are unsure whether we will use this sound though, and we may need to re record it if it doesn't fit correctly.We are also having a dilemma about the background music, which needs to fit the order of our shots - we may still need to get one or two shots for continuity. We are working really close to our deadline, but we hope that with all our free time spent on editing, we will get it done in time!

Final filming day: location 3

Today was our final day of filming for our actual two minute opening! It took just over an hour, but we think we have all the shots that we need. We followed our storyboard and used the underwater camera, so we now have a wide range of interesting shots to use.

We filmed these final scenes in the school toilets, and so we had to put a sign up, to make sure our filming wasn't disturbed. Poor Nicole just wanted to use the toilet...

Here are a few stills from filming:

Rhianne demonstrating the shot

Hannah following, perfectly!

Look who we found! Some of our peers in media came to watch us film!

All in all, we think today was really successful, and we don't think we will need to re-film. We are currently still in the process of editing, and we have yet to add our sound in, though we hope to have this done by mid-next week. We also have to design our production company logo, which we hope to get done by early next week too, so we can really shift our focus into editing!

Production company research

Last lesson, our group began to think about the name of our production logo, and how it should look. Here is a picture of us in the lesson, comparing all of the possible choices in the thesaurus: 

We have also done some online research into production companies which produce films possibly associated with our genre; we focused on UK production companies as we are producing a British film, after all. Here are the links to some of our useful sources:

BFI Vision Awards 2013-15 list

UK film production companies wiki list

 We gave it a lot of thought and we have come up our own list. We picked names out of a hat, resulting in 'wildfire' as the name of our company and we have a rough idea of how it might look, though we haven't completely decided this yet.

Third filming day: location 2

Today, our group filmed the scenes inside the psychiatrists room and we have now finished filming in 2/3 locations. The wonderful doctor gave us permission to use a proper room! Here is our desk, where most of the scene takes place:

 Here is the rest of the room - we love the vertebrae!

We have one more location in mind which is in school, so we have easy access to it however we are yet to watch our footage back on the Mac so we are unsure if we will need to re-film anything as of yet. 

Here are some other pictures of today's filming:

Second filming day: location 1

Today Mac 5 spent our NYE finishing off the outdoor scenes, as we watched our footage from Monday back and we realized we wanted a few more shots.

Here are some pictures from our filming day:

                                                            (Ruined the cute group picture because I was laughing, as usual)

Here is a quick group vlog that we did about our day: