Finished News Intro

We have just finished our news intro for our short film. For the intro, we downloaded and converted an old BBC news intro so we were able to edit it on Final Cut Pro. We changed the colours from reds and yellows to our blue and white colour scheme using the colourize video filter. We then added our CBB logo over the top of the BBC logo in a different layer. Finally, we removed the sound and then found a news jingle in Garageband. The final news intro is below:

Finished Filming!!!!!

HURRAH!!!
We have finally finished filming everything. We may need to film again in the future if we find we absolutely have to, but hopefully we wont.

We both took turns with filming the footage and we will also equally share the footage out so we both get to edit the final film! We have already started editing the news report scene and the rioting scenes and so far we are very happy with our progress!

Hooray!!!!!

Actor Interview

Before we filmed, we interviewed one of the potential actors for our film to find out when they are free and if they would be suitable for our film. 

Granny Shoot

On monday the 17th of December we are going to be doing our final and most important shoot. This is the plan for what we are going to film:

• Hob shots - light on, match struck, match lit, pan down
• Walking stick shots - bottom of walking stick along floor, feet and walking stick, walking stick being dropped, birds eye view of walking stick 
• TV track in and out 
• News correspondance scenes - against wall, in the same position etc 
• News report - refilm as one whole shot 
• Granny reveal - behind sofa, infront of sofa pan right
• Grannies holding objects- front/back views and walking from behind
• Grannies placing objects on table, still obscured 
• Grannies against green screen spray painting, rob a pedestrian, both handheld
• Eye against green screen ECU 

The Grannies Reveal Scene

As this is the conclusion and the twist to the film this needs careful consideration to assure it gives the correct representation of the characters at the end and that it fits with the rest of the footage we have already shot.

In our original idea the 3 elderly characters in our film were all female. Since then we have had problems with finding 3 elderly female actresses and we have also shot most of teh riot scenes with 2 males and only 1 female. Because of this we will be using 2 males and 1 female for the 'reveal.'

On Monday night I went to see two of our then potential actors to find out if they would be free to feature in our film from Friday 14th to Monday 17th of December. We decided that the best suitable time for all of us would be Monday afternoon/ evening so we settled on Monday 17th of December after 4pm.

I then asked the actors if they would be able to call another elderly friend that would be happy to film at that time on the Monday. I recieved a phone call later that evening confirming the 3rd actor. 

We will now start writing the script for the characters and plan their scene in  more detail.

Our actors are as follows:

• Paul Welch
• Sue Welch
• (Friend)

We thought very hard about our acting choices and decided that these would be the best candidates as they enjoy taking part in productions and act in various plays and productions during the year. Other options were Shannen's Nan and Mum however they both look too young for the characters we are trying to portray and would need extensive makeup and hair before filming which we don't have time for.




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By Colette

To Do List- Getting Organised!

As outlined in Shannen's previous post (see below) we have come across a wide variety of different problems with our footage. This is partly down to us being disorganised and improvising when we get to film instead of planning every single shot. As a result of this our shots are confusing and nowhere near the standard we want. We want our film to be absolutely perfect so we are prepared to film as many times as possible until we reach a standard of work that we are happy with. To help us get organised and to make sure we use our lesson time wisely as the deadline draws closer I have created a to do list: 

Planning:(done in lesson time)

• Plan and storyboard the 'Grannies Reveal Scene.'
• Write dialogue for 'Grannies Reveal Scene.' 
• Plan and storyboard 'News Correspondent Scene.' 
• Write dialogue for 'News Correspondent Scene.' 
• Plan and storyboard for Riot Scene (with elderly actors).

Filming:(done outside College)

• Film 'Grannies Reveal Scene.'
• Film 'News Correspondent Scene.' 
• Re-Film Riot Scene
• Re-Film Hob Cross Cut Scene
• Film 'Walking Stick Cross Cut' Scene

After we have completed these tasks we should be ready to edit all our footage together, edit the green screen footage and add sound on Garage Band. All our filming should be done by Monday night ready for uploading in our double lesson on Tuesday morning.  

At this stage we should also researching into similar film posters to what we want to achieve and posting our own detailed analysis on the blog, as well as planning our own film poster. 

By Colette 

Problems!

So we have come across various problems whilst filming, and whilst editing footage.

• Firstly, the hob shot has been done badly AGAIN! This time we filmed it too high and the shot therefore looks wrong. Also, we forgot that the overhead wasn't switched on for some of the shots, which means we have to scrap the hob scene so far and redo it. So the video on the last post wont be used, sigh! 
• Secondly, the riot shots. We have filmed a lot of them and we were very happy with all the shots and stuff we got! Then we realised that it's visibly clear that they are young people and not grannies. We can salvage some of this footage by cropping out heads and shoulders, however most of it is unusable. We have already organised with the elderly actors for a shoot on monday, and now we have to hope we have enough time with them to get all of it done! We will need to do these riot shots again - with the elderly actors - as well as the ending reveal scenes etc. 
• The news reporter scenes - the problem with these is they are quite close, and there is shadow on some so it is effecting the green screen. However, we have decided to keep these shots as we like the way the actor is and how the scene is set up. We are going to have to heavily rely on editing to make these shots perfect. 

So, all in all, it's all coming down to our shoot on monday. We're going to need to get a lot done:

1. The extreme close up scenes - hob etc. 
2. The opening and closing shots of the empty room
3. The elderly reveal shots 
4. The looting shots etc - with the new actors
5. The roaming news reporter shots 

Hopefully we will get it all done!

By Shannen

Hob Cross Cut TAKE TWO!

When we first filmed we felt unhappy with our footage so we decided to reshoot most of it. The 'hob cross cut' scene was one of these that we felt needed to be re done as the shots moved slightly when we pressed the record button. 

After experimenting with positioning the camera we found that no matter what we did, the camera would still wobble when we pressed the record button. Because of this we would press record early and wait a few seconds until the camera had stopped moving before we started the actions that we were trying to film. As  a result the shots were a lot less shaky and looked more professional. 

By Colette

*EDIT* We have discussed this and realised that the continuity is bad and the camera angle is too high. We forgot to keep the light on which ruins  the idea of time passing.

CBB News Backdrop

We have been thinking about the design of the backdrop for the news report scene. We have tried  to make it relatively similar to the BBC news opening although we didn't want to copy it. We came up  with this:

We have used a blue colour scheme to distance our backdrop from the BBC version. We have put the news logo in the corner as this is typical of most news reports.

By Colette

Using the Green Screen

On Sunday we used the Green Screen for the first time. As we had never used it before we had to experiment with light positioning to create the effect we wanted. The set up for the shot below is for the news report scene. We had previously shot this before but we had to reshoot as our background didn't look correct.

Equipment used:

• Green Screen 
• 2x Photography Lights
• 1x Standing LED Light with pink filter
• HD Camera

Here is a video of us explaining the test shot!

By Colette 

Second Shoot

This weekend we shot more footage for our short film. We shot for some of the scenes we hadn't done yet, as well as reshooting some shots we weren't happy with before. 

Friday: On friday we filmed some of the shots for the rioting scene however we had limited time available so we didn't get all the shots we needed.

Sunday: We filmed again Sunday afternoon/evening. Our filming was a lot more successful than Friday as we had people to help us hold the green screen up right in the wind. We filmed more of the rioting scene, a mugging scene, refilmed the hob cross cut and refilmed the news report. 

We also managed to contact the actors we want to use as the grannies and they are happy to feature in our short film. Tonight I will be asking my next door neighbour, Paul, to feature in the film as he fits the character we want to portray and he is also an actor.

We are booking out the same equipment this Friday afternoon. This weekend we will be filming:

• Track in/out shots in Living Room
• Grannie's shots
• News correspondence report

Editing Pictures by Colette

I have edited all the photos for the poster in a similar way as we have chosen a very distinct style that we want to stick to. The photos are dark and have a strong contrast which makes the subject seem threatening and domineering. Here's how i did it:

1. Open photo in Photoshop. I went to the 'Image' tab, 'Adjustments,' and clicked on 'Hue/Saturation.' I then brought the saturation of the image right down so there is less colour to the image.

2.  I then went to 'Image,' 'Adjustments,' and to 'Brightness/Contrast.' I brought the contrast of the image up very high, whilst slightly lowering the brightness. This will create a bolder, darker image.

3. The subject's attire seemed too bright for the image and didn't fully reflect the type of character we wanted to portray. I wanted to take some of the colour out of the hoodie- but without taking any more out of the rest of the image. To do this, first I selected the 'Magic Wand' tool from the left sidebar and selected all of the blue in the  image. I then pressed 'Ctrl' and 'M' at the same time which brings up 'Curves.' I then dragged the curves down to a deeper, darker colour.

4. I now needed to take the colour out of the clothing. I went to 'Image,' 'Adjustments,' and again to 'Hue and Saturation.' I then brought the saturation  down until I was happy with the adjusted colour. As you can see on the screen shot below some of the blue colour didn't become selected during the last step so I had to repeat steps 3 and 4 until I was happy with the result.

5. I then adjusted the 'Brightness/Contrast' and 'Hue/Saturation,' to fit the rest of the image to the new colour of the hoodie until the image fit what I was trying to achieve.

By Colette

Film Poster Development

After Colette edited some of the pictures we took to make them look dark and dingy, I chose the one we thought looked the best and started experimenting with the title text. The picture we chose to experiment futher with is:

Currently, the title of our short film is "Yobs", as it's catchy and bold, however, this could change in the future as it is not yet 100% certain. I took this word and experimented with lots of fonts online on websites such as:

• http://fontriver.com
• http://dafont.com, and
• http://fontshop.co.uk

I found various fonts and used them to look at different ways the title could look. I decided to look at mainly graffiti & urban fonts as this would fit with the picture we chose and the issues presented in our film. Some of the fonts I looked at are below:

 

I decided to take the 2nd font futher as I felt it was the easiest to read and the best looking. I then decided to look at colours. I decided to experiment with firey colours as fire and danger was a key part of the riots, and also most graffiti is multi coloured. To do this I had to experiment with Photoshop and layering. Firstly, I found this rainbow picture to use as the colouring. I used the red/orange/yellow end.

 

I then had to paste the text I wanted to use over the top of this and move the background along until I had the right colours underneath.

Next I had to use the magic pen tool to select and inverse the text.

 

Finally, I went onto the rainbow picture's layer, hid the text layer and pressed delete. This left me with the coloured text I wanted.

I then copied and pasted this onto the picture we decided on, and then used the free transform tool to experiment with size and positioning. Currently it is in the top left hand corner, however this could change in the future.

By Shannen

 



Reviewing current footage and Second Shoot

After watching through the footage we have shot so far we have decided to refilm some of the scenes as they were not up to the high standard that we are aiming for. Some of the shots were wobbly as the tripod moved when we pressed the record button and the camera moved a few centremetres during the cross cutting shots (we wanted all shots to have the exact same background).

Also, we will need to re film the newsreport scene.  At first we used a white background and decided to edit in the background later however we then found out that we were unable to do this because it was such a neutral colour and taking out the background would also take away some of the other details in the shot. Because of this we will be reshooting the scene on sunday but this time we will be using a the green screen which will enable us to add an appropriate background afterwards.

Filming!!

Here are some photos of us in action when we filmed some of our footage on Friday! (Shannen was feeling a bit camera shy!)

Film Poster Ideas- Image

On Monday night we took some photos which we may use for our film poster. We have picked a few that we think may work and we have been experimenting with editing and fonts.  Here are a few before and after photos!

 

 

 

 

 

I have desaturated the image a lot to create a creepy, eerie feel. The hoodie the character was wearing was very bright and not what we wanted so I changed the colour to a darker, more threatening colour. We decided to use one of the rioters for the poster as we don't want to give away the twist about the grannies in the film poster. Shannen is now experimenting with techniques and colours for the font of the title and the rest of the writing on the poster. 

 

By Colette



 

Hob cross cut

Here is another editing experiment. This could be scene 3. Again, we have used short gaps between the shots to make the shots point of view.

Experimenting with sound and editing

After filming some footage yesterday we have been reminding ourselves of all the editing and sound techniques we learned last year. This video is from one of the cross cutting scenes. We have left a short gap between each shot to give the shot a point of view shot.  We will be asking our target audience (teenagers) what they think of the scene and taking their feedback into account.

Editing: Shannen

Sound: Colette 

First Shoot

Yesterday was our first shoot, and, surprisingly, it was very productive!
We managed to shoot 2/3 of the cross cutting scenes and all of the news reporter scenes as well as some other bits and pieces such as an outfit video and some possible poster pictures. We filmed ourselves talking about the days events, as you can watch below:

Context- Ideologies of the Elderly

In our film we also want to challenge the dominant ideologies around the elderly generations. Nowadays the stereotypical elderly woman is seen as 'a cute little old lady.' Obviously, with most stereotypes this isn't the case and we are going to put this across in our film from going from one extreme to another- from 'little old ladies' to 'gangsta grannies.'

We are hoping that the extreme, comedic way that we are portraying them will give a light hearted, funny feel to another ideology that we are challenging. All of the characters in our film are extremely based on stereotypical ideologies of what the person should be like. This will allow the audience to immediately recognise who they are and to make assumptions about them. This will then shock them after the big reveal at the end.

Stereotypical Characters:

• Grannies- old ladies, perms, floral dresses, tea and cake etc
• Young Adults- hoodies, rioting and looting, dangerous
• Newsreader- well learned, speaks in received pronunciation, suit and tie

I have been researching some examples of other media products that have used the idea of turning the ideologies to the other extreme when involving the elderly generation.

The Mighty Boosh- 'Nanageddon'

Black Adder- 'Hell's Grannies'

The films that I've found that use the concept of 'evil elderly' are both comedy sketch shows. They use the comedy to give the subject matter a light hearted, funny feel to it without seeming offensive and discriminatory.

By Colette

Risk Assessment

 Today the visited the locations we are going to film at and filled in Risk Assessment forms for them. The forms are scanned in below:

Filming in the Living Room will be relatively low risk, we will just need to be careful of furniture and wires around the room. There are facilities for cast and crew and catering facilities.

The Kitchen is a higher risk than the first location- their are lots of dangerous utensils in it and also we need to be careful around the gas hob on the cooker. Again, there are facilities for cast and crew.

Filming in the alleyway will depend on the weather- we will not be able to take the equipment outside in the rain! There is no electricity available. There are no facilities for cast and crew at the location, but there are catering, dressing and waiting facilities next door inside the house. We will have to look out for horses as they are kept at the bottom of the alleyway and also the uneven ground.

Weekend Shoot

As we have booked out equipment for friday-tuesday, we need to plan what we are going to shoot & when. We have previously done the spreadsheet below:

Detailed shoot plan:

Sunday AM

• Scene 3
• Scene 5
• Scene 7

These are all cross cutting scenes and don't need actors. They will probably take an hour in total to complete. We will also be using a voice recorder to experiment with possible foley effects for our film. 

• Scene 1 
• Scene 9 

These are establishing shots which focus on props rather than actors. They will be reasonably quick to do, however we may take quite a few shots of the same shot so we have a lot of footage to choose from. 

Sunday PM

• Scene 6 middle/end

1. Looters doing graffiti on a wall 
2. Fire shots with yobs
3. CCTV shots 

Monday PM

• Scene 2 
• Scene 4 beginning 
• Scene 8 beginning 

These scenes involve the news room so we will have to set this up  and then set up the lighting etc. This will be one of the most complex scenes to film.

Blog Twitter

We have a twitter page set up where we post regular updates on what we're doing on here and whilst filming etc. Please feel free to go on it and follow us!

http://twitter.com/csshortfilm :-)

Character Development

In our film, the majority of the information that the audience finds out about the characters is created from their own opinions. We formulate these opions by designing the characters to be a certain way, look a certain way and sound a certain way.

The news reporter:

The news reporter will be based on how news reporters used to be represented - that they think they are better than everyone else, and look down on the younger generation. He would speak with an opininative tone like you might read in the Daily Mail newspaper. His appearance will also reflect this, as you can see from the costume, hair and makeup designs. When speaking about the news - predominantly the "youth" riots, he will talk with a slight sneer at the younger generation.

A BBC news reporter from 2002


The roaming news reporter:

The roaming news reporter will be your average roaming news reporter -someone who will take any story they can find to work their way up to ladder to the news room. This will be percieved by how the story is delivered - very keen and excitable. He will be dressed roughly and look scruffy - as if he is right in the moment (the riots).

Scruffy news reporter at the riots for Sky News

Looters

The looters/general rioters will represent the general imrpession of young people that is generally delivered in the news - particularly in newspapers such as the Daily Mail. They will be dressed and talk stereotypically - just as the audience would expect them to.

Looters in the London riots

Grannies

The grannies in the film will be very stereotypical. They will look and sound the way that everyone has an impression grannies should be like - but aren't really. E.g, grey curly hair, pink makeup, posh accent, saying things like "Darling that dress looks wonderful" etc. The words they say and their names will also reflect this stereotypical view on grannies - e.g. the name "Mildred". Of course, this will initially be disguised - by the clothing the looters wear - but this will be revealed at the end.

 

A stereotypical granny

 

By Shannen

Context- Ideologies of Young Adults

Here are some interesting links about the context of our film. I feel that, although the riots were extremely wrong, the media played a huge part in creating a new ideology concerning young adults. They spread the attitude that all teenagers are yobs; stealing, fighting and gang wars. This is the main ideology that we want to challenge as it's something we feel very strongly about! Nowadays, most elderly people won't even look at you for fear of being attacked.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/parenting/3754104/How-DO-you-stop-children-brgoing-off-the-rails.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2011/sep/16/uk-social-media-chiefs-questioned-video

The link above is very interesting- social media chiefs were being questioned over the misuse of media during the riots. Social Media has been described as 'a way around complying with the law.) Rioters used their mobile phones to inform their friends and to get them to join the riots.

Shooting Schedule

Now we have finished all our pre production planning we can start filming our short film. As we are using a variety of different shots and actors we will need to plan when we are filming and who with. To help us to stay organised and on top of what we need to do we have created an Excel Document with the information of the scene, props needed and actors needed.

Filming

We have just booked out the following equipment for friday the 30th november - tuesday the 4th of december. We will be doing some filming on the sunday and monday between these dates.
The equipment we have booked out is the following:

• 1 x HD camera 
• 2 x standing LED lights
• 1 x dolly
• 1 x tripod 
• 1 x voice recorder

Shot List

1. Long shot of old fashioned living room with TV, Low key lighting, Slowly track into tv
2. Medium shot of tv showing interference
3. ECU of TV as the interference begins to stop and news report trailer starts 
4. Full screen opening credits of the news report 
5. Medium shot of the news reporter in the studio whilst interference is still there and the news credits are just finishing
6. Medium shot of news reporter reporting the news
7. MS of the hob
8. ECU of the hob
9. ECU of matches being struck
10. ECU of hob being lit with the match
11. ECU of pot being slammed onto lit hob 
12. CU of news reporter in news room
13. MS of roaming reporter 
14. LS of looters 
15. LS of looters (different location)
16. ECU of a looters' eye & fire
17. LS of youth pulling offensive gesture (shot from CCTV)
18. CCTV close up of offensive gesture & youth
19. Stock footage from the riots
20. ECU of looters' legs 
21. ECU of chopping board being slammed down on a counter
22. ECU of knife being thrown into chopping board so it stays upright
23. ECU of knife chopping & blood dripping 
24. ECU of blood dripping off chopping board 
25. MS of roaming reporter
26. LS of a store 
27. Handheld footage of looters around a corner (MS)
28. CU of looters' hand and items being stolen 
29. Handheld footage of looting (LS)
30. ECU of walking stick being banged on the floor 
31. CU of feet
32. ECU of feet and walking stick
33. ECU of walking stick banging on the floor and feet walking away
34. Birds eye view of walking stick on the floor 
35. CU of end of news credits with interference becoming strong again
36. CU of TV & interference 
37. MS of TV & interference
38. Track out of TV & interference 
39. LS of TV & den 
40. CU of 3 looters' feet walking, pan up
41. CU of looters' upper bodies (still panning up until CU of backs of heads)
42. CU of looter 1's back holding an obscured object
43. CU of cake they are holding
44. CU of looter 2's back holding an obscured object
45. CU of looter 2's object 
46. CU of looter 3's back holding an obscured object
47. CU of looter 3's object
48. LS of den with looters beginning to walk through the door & into the room
49. LS of looters walking into room (from different place in room)
50. MS of looters sat on sofa from behind
51. MS of looters sat on sofa (front view), faces obscured
52. CU of looters revealing identities, pan right 
53. MS of looters' true identities
54. LS of den 

By Shannen

Equipment

Now we have all of our ideas we need to decide on the equipment we want to use to create the best possible film.

HD Camera: Using this instead of a standard film camera will enable us to create a film of the highest possible quality. We used this last year and really liked the sharp, clear effect it gives.

Sound Recorder: To create folie effects. We have used this already to record one of our discussions HERE.

Dolly: To create moving shots and allow us to be more creative with the camera. Good for fast moving shots.

Tripod: To stop the camera shaking and to enable perfect framing. Also, for use with the dolly

Lights: To create low key lighting in the grannies' den and for high key lighting in the news studio. We will not be using artificial lighting outside as we want the scene to look as real as possible

Mobile Phone: We will be using handheld footage for the shop raid scene. Depending on the quality of the film we may film this scene on an iPhone to give a believable feel that someone is recording the action. We will also film this scene on the HD camera as we will need backup footage for if the iPhone footage doesn't work out thev way we want.

By Colette

Hair and Makeup

To plan the characters accurately, I have designed the hair and makeup of the character types. These are below:

Looters/gangsters:

Grannies:

News Reporters:

By Shannen

Props

Props will play a huge part in creating the correct mise en scene for our film. Below are the props that we will need.



Grannies' Lair:

• Old fashioned sofa and chairs
• Coffee table
• Tea Cups
• Old TV
• Cake
• Walking Stick
• Matches
• Knife
• Chopping Board
• Cherries

News Room:

• Large 'news' table
• Papers (for desk)
• Coffee Cup
• Laptop
• Chair
• Screen
• Fake cameras/lights

News Report (outside)

• Fake cameras
• Boom
• Microphone

By Colette